Sales Funnel Radio 6re2m

Boom, what's up guys? This is Steve Larsen, and this is Sales Funnel Radio.   Today we're gonna talk about why selling is emotional, and how you can take advantage of that ethically in your own business.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up guys?   Hey, I'm excited for this, okay. This episode comes to you today... Okay, the next two or three episodes that I've done are things that I've been ripping from other places, and I think you're really gonna enjoy it.   This one's a Facebook Live that I did. There are a few people - really, really sad... I don't know if they're sad or mad, or they're fighting me, for whatever reason, on the fact that selling is emotional.   What I want you to understand is that there are three different phases in the sale cycle. There's the marketing phase. There's the selling phase, and there is the closing phase.   If you are not getting the cash you want to, but you're still closing people, it's 'cause you don't know how to close.   I'm gonna walk through and share with you guys why selling is emotional and what you're doing in the brain.   I don't know how you can get good at marketing, selling, or being a salesman without learning about psychology - actually learning about the brain and what happens there.   We are all different people, yes, but we still have a brain that very much comes from the same kind of area -  we have the same kind of tendencies, okay?   And so, what's cool about that is as soon as you learn the patterns of how to actually go out and be influential to your people and your customers, prospective customers, you actually can get them to do a lot of great things that will benefit them, that will benefit you, and help you be more persuasive in life.   So, what this episode is specifically about is ... First of all, I gotta teach you what's happening in the brain. I've never taught this before, ever!   I'm in this area right now where I've kinda been lookin' back, and be like "Hey, why did that work? Why did that work? Why did that work? Holy crap, look at that pattern." And so, what I'm tryin' to do is I'm tryin' to teach you guys the patterns that I was going through, seeing and doing, not always on purpose, okay?   And so, I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna teach you about chemicals in the brain, and I'm gonna teach you about what's going on in the brain psychologically when people start to hear about your pitch.   I'm gonna teach you how to actually go in and get around those things. I'm gonna teach you what you're actually pitching when you actually pitch somebody. What part of the brain are you actually pitching, okay? All those answers are gonna be inside this Facebook Live.   Again, I think this was like a 15-minute thing, but anyway, I'm a little fiery in it - just so you know - which I know is hard to imagine. I'm a little intense. I'm excited to be able to do this and actually get this out to you guys.   So anyways guys, thank you so much for watching this.   Please, I actually encourage you to take notes on this one. I don't necessarily always go very tactical inside this podcast, but this one, THIS has had a direct influence on my wallet, and I mean that in all seriousness. It has had a direct influence on my wallet, meaning getting much fatter.   It was when I learned what was actually happening in the noggin', and this comes from me studying a lot of different books, listening to a lotta gurus, going through a lotta courses, and a lot of my own personal experience.   There's really like two or three things specifically I'm gonna walk you guys through in this episode. So, honestly, I would grab a piece of paper for this episode...  And if you like it, please share it.   All right guys, thanks so much and please enjoy the lessons in this. They have been life changing for me and I'm excited. If it changes your life also, please, please...   Or if there's any piece into it that makes you go you go, "My gosh, I had no idea!" Please, please reach out and tell me. It means a lot.   You could even consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks, guys, bye.   Oh, what's up? How's everyone doin'? Hey, guys, I just finished a webinar. I am all sorts of hopped up on Goof Balls. My left eye's got the twitch which means this is gonna be good, all right!   Hey, real quick, I just wanna do a drop this thing, oh, I actually dropped my phone while I dropped it in. I just wanna drop this in the group, okay. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna do some edumacation!   When I was in college, I wanted to make sure that I knew how to sell, so I explicitly went and started selling...   Steve Comments to the FB Audience: (I'm driving, the cars vibrating the steering wheel which is making this thing. I'm trying to make this thing stick and stay right there. Yeah, yeah, okay, all right. I know Facebook is still telling you guys that I'm live and I'm here, okay.)   ...I went and I started selling door-to-door and started doing telemarketing for the explicit reason of learning how to sell. I wanted to learn how to sell. I had no idea how much went into it. It was nerve-racking.   I the first time I walked into my first door for door-to-door sales. It was one of the freakiest things I've ever done in my entire life.   I walked up and I knock on the door and I forgot the script, everything left my brain. I did not what I was saying and, it was an awkward conversation. I just was looking for reasons to get off the door. They didn't have to kick me off. I turned around, and I walked away. I got off the door.   It was a terrible experience, and I was like, "This sucks," and I immediately was like, "Why am I gonna do this? Why on earth am I doing this door-to-door sales thing?" And, it became a challenging thing for me.   So, what I did is I started trying to learn more about why sales psychology is the way that it is. I started learning about different chemicals in the brain. I don't know how you can get good at sales without learning a little bit about the brain?  You gotta learn a little bit about that noggin and what drives people, what drives human interaction.   Steve Comments to the FB Audience: (And, I was trying to get this thing to stay inside my steering wheel. It's not gonna do it, so I'm just gonna hold it.)   Okay, this is what's interesting. This is what was fascinating about the whole door-to-door thing and about selling:   There's an emotional part, and there's a logical part to selling. Funnily enough, we think it's logical, and it's actually still emotional.   I know that I've talked about this before, but I just wanna drop this in here real quick.   So think about this, just follow me here, okay, 'cause I wanna talk about why, I wanna talk about why selling is emotional, and I wanna talk about what to do about it, and how it actually plays to your advantage when you understand how it works.   So, if any new thing pops into your brain - bam, the brain starts sending all these little warning flags.  It's looking for reasons, it actively seeks reasons to throw a red flag. Is this a red flag? Is this a red flag?  It actively looks for reasons to throw red flags at you.   This all happens subconsciously, and this is where fight, flight, freeze comes from.   This is where we say, "Oh my gosh, am I gonna be bored?"If I'm gonna be bored - if this is boring - that's a threat to my brain. It's a threat to my enjoyment, and I am not going to be part of it - therefore I will run.   If I think this could hurt me, there's a whole bunch of things that start runnin' through the noggin to see if it's a threat. Maybe it's not even physical, maybe it's just a mental threat, "This might be boring," okay?   What you're actually pitching in the first half of a webinar, during the story section, you're actually pitching that part of the brain.   You are trying to get beyond, you're tryin' to get around, you're trying to get beside, you're trying to get above, you're trying to blast through that part of the brain so that when people see your actual offer, you have actually ed that part of the brain.   You are byin' the hippocampus. You're tryin' to get back to the part where the decision making of the noggin is logical. You gotta understand what's actually happening when you start pitching somebody.   I don't care if you are an actual salesman, I don't care if you're just learning how to do a webinar script, I don't care if you're just actually doing a script, and you're recording it and you're gonna put it inside of a phone...   That's what's happening in sales every time.   So, think about this with me, though.   The first part, the story based part of any script is the emotional part of the actual pitch. As we transition into the logical brain, we start getting more logical - that's where the actual sale is happening. There are three phases in the sales cycle.   The first phase is marketing, and that's the emotional part. That's the storytelling part.   The second phase is selling, and that's where you're actually presenting the offer. That's where we start to transition into more logical things.   The third phase in a sales cycle is actually closing. Closing is that last piece, and it's the piece that most people do not do. Guys, cash is in the close, right. Cash is for closers, right!   How many of you guys have sold something to somebody, and they're like "Man, I really wanna do that," but you never actually collect the cash? It means you did phase number one, phase number two, but not phase number three, the closing, okay?   So, there's the marketing which is the rebuild, I do not mean logos, I don't mean colors, I don't mean anything like that. I don't mean freakin' slogans or business cards.   When I say marketing I mean: "marketing's the act of changing people's beliefs with the intent of a purchase." It's my own definition, but hopefully, it's cool? I'm gonna change someone's beliefs with the intent of a purchase.   Phase number two, I'm gonna get him into the actual sale itself. It's me going through the offer. I'm gonna go through my stacks, okay? I'm gonna go through the actual offer, okay?   Phase number three, that's the close. The close is the logical reasons to act now. That's what closing is. Selling and closing are not the same thing. Just like marketing and selling are not the same thing. There are three different phases.   The first time I realized this I was riding my bike home from campus. We had no money, so I was riding a bike. We had one car, we couldn't afford another car, and I was like, "I feel like I'm studying like crazy, I'm learning a lot. Why am I learning so much? I know how I build my business in this scenario. I know what I would do in that guy's business. I know what I would do, but why am I still broke?" That was the question that I had in my head. "Why am I still broke if I feel like I'm learning so much?"    Steve Comments to the FB Audience: Yeah right, Shawn exactly, cash is for closers, right.   But I still didn't understand the difference between marketing, selling, and closing. Those are the three things to study. Those are the three of the highest leverage activities you could ever marry. Those are three of the highest leverage skills you could ever go learn.   #1:Marketing - Storytelling for the sake of a purchase coming up.   #2: Selling - How do I create an offer, right? I call 'em purple offers. How do I create an offer for the intent to fill the promise that my story's made, right.   #3:  Closing - How do I actually get the cash now? "Is that debit or credit? Hey, when you purchase right now go get it right now, we're actually gonna throw in X, Y, and Z for free."   There are logical reasons to act now. It's still emotional, but people think it's logical.   It's called the theory of cognitive dissonance.  I don't wanna get too deep in this. I don't wanna dig too deep in it, but you need to understand 'cause you're doin' this to your customers.   I want you to understand why you may or may not be selling people well, okay? It's great to have success. It's freaky if you don't know WHY you had success.   And so, let's say you go into the grocery store and I'm sure no one's done this, I'm sure I'm the only one, but you go into the grocery store to get some eggs and you walk out with milk, bread, three movies from the $5 bin you weren't plannin' on buyin' and a whole bunch of other stuff, right, a t-shirt, right. How many of you guys have done that?   What's happened is all emotional. The 'threat' walls went down, I can see that I don't need to fight, flight or freeze. I don't need to do any of those things and, I went through marketing to make me desire those products. There's an emotional piece to me.   Secondly, I start seeing this offer, and I think "Oh, it's only $5 and I'm here." That's a close, though. I'm closing myself, okay? Those are logical reasons to actually get me to acting now.   Then what ends up happening is as I leave the store, after  I make the purchase the emotional part stops in my brain... (I think it's the right brain.) The right brain stops overriding the left which is the logical part of the brain.   The right brain starts to die down, and then the left brain logically starts turning on and asking, "Why did I buy that shirt?"   And this is where the theory of cognitive dissonance comes in.   The logical part of the brain doesn't want to think that it may have allowed you to spend too much money, or buy things that you don't need, so what ends up happening is that the left brain starts to take over and begins to logically see how what I purchased actually is my identity.   "I bought that shirt because it represents me. I bought those eggs because I'm a smart buyer. I was already here, so buying it was smart it saved me time. I'm gonna buy it because it saves me money."   Your brain tries to increase the attractiveness of what you've chosen - so that you feel that you've made a good decision.   When you think of buying a product, the right brain begins to override the left and emotion takes over. You start to get a rush of chemicals inside the brain which make you feel good causing you to want to buy.   After the purchase is made - when you've gone through stories. You've gone through presenting the offer. You've gone through actual closes - the reasons to act now - what ends up happening is the right brain starts to shut down again. Logic and reason start to turn back on, and you think, "CRAP!"   And this is  where buyer's remorse can step in:   "Crap. I just bought a shirt, I didn't even need it, and it's $50!" But the logical part of your brain doesn't like this feeling so it starts to counteract with reasons why you made a good choice.   You start to see the ways in which the shirt represents your identity: "That was a good choice. You are so smart. Look how much money you saved. You'll look great in that shirt. Cool people wear those shirts. I'm glad we didn't miss that deal - that would have been dumb."   That's how your customers start to justify buying products from you.   It's the reason you are a Funnel Hacker. Why'd you buy that product? "Because you are a Funnel Hacker." It's logically justified.   The emotional part of the brain turned down, the chemical rush that goes on in this side of the brain shuts off, and the logical side starts to say, "Holy crap, what just happened?".   Okay, check this out. What are the chemicals going on in this side of the brain? You have to understand this:   On the right side of the brain there are chemicals going on. You must know what these are. There's four of them. You all know what they are?   There's dopamine, there's endorphins, there's serotonin, and there's oxytocin. You can think DOSE = dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, okay?   Let's walk through 'em real quick, so you know what's going on and what you're doing to people. You must activate these chemicals in the brain in order if you want the emotional right side of the brain to override logic and desire your product.   Now be careful, 'cause what I am talking about right here you could easily go, and you could actually take advantage of people. Please don't do that.   What I am saying is that you can make more sales if you get people to have that buyer's rush. They want a rush, meaning they want the endorphins. They want to be able to feel the thrill of buying. People like to buy crap. So give 'em the rush, don't take away the rush.   Now, think about this:   D is for dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical of distraction. Every time your phone pings, ping, every time you look at a text, every time someone sends you a message or gives you a phone call, and every time that you go and you smoke a cigarette. Every time you go and you drink, you do drugs, look at porn, okay, anything like that...   What the brain is seeking is a distraction from current pain. That's what's happening. You wanna have more control in your life? See and figure out where you're seeking a dopamine hit, okay?   There's a reason why it's hard to get a hold of me. I am hard to get a hold of because I control technology, technology does not control me. I don't seek my dopamine hits from my phone. Does that make sense? I'm very purposeful on that, and that's the reason why, okay.   Dopamine is the chemical of distraction. Now, dopamine is also the easiest of the four chemicals to get.   When  I want a dopamine hit it's very easy to get it, right? You can get that hit in multiple places, homemade, directly from your own brain. Bam, feel good, right! It's the easiest one to get. It's also the most addictive.   I'm gonna go and do some behavior that may be good or may be bad, and it's what's gonna cause that addiction to happen. Now, you have to understand, your customers want a distraction. I'm not telling you to become addictive, but you can do this.   Be careful with what I'm telling you. This is real stuff, okay. This is why I sell so much. I know why I do. I know why I'm fun to watch on stage. I know why my podcasts get people "rrrrr," I know why. I know why. It's because I'm playing with four chemicals in your brain, and I know the levers to pull on each one of them.   So let's keep goin', okay.?   Let's go to endorphins. Endorphins and dopamine are the easiest two to get. Endorphins actually require a little bit of work on the individual's part...   I'm gonna feel endorphins after I work out, or in the middle of it. I'm workin' hard, my body releases endorphins - it's actually is a chemical that takes a little bit of work in order to get. It's literally, you know, a carrot and stick rewards system back and forth.   When I have a customer, for example, walk down a success path... Let's say they buy, and I'm like "Cool, the first thing I want you to do is today, just go set up your and X, Y, and Z."   If they do it, BAM, they're probably gonna get an endorphin hit because they checked a box.   Those who got straight A's in school, they're very familiar with endorphins.   They put work in, they followed the system, they got the checks. People want that. They wanna check the box. I wanna check the box on life. I wanna check the box on the products. BAM.   How many of people have you sold who have never done anything with your product? That is a check the box driven individual. They love endorphins…   They solved the problem with the product emotionally - they checked the box with endorphins inside their head. BAM, they feel great, that's all they wanted. They wanted the hit.   Let's go to serotonin.   Serotonin is the chemical of status. Status. Status. Status is easy to give somebody when you're sellin' a product.  When you give them a new identity, that's one of the easiest ways to do it:   "Hey, what's up, Funnel Hackers? What's up, 2 Comma X people? What's up?” I call a lotta people “my mavericks,” and what I'm doing is I'm giving them a boost in status.   What are we doin' when we give a 3 Comma Club Award to somebody? Bam, serotonin! That is a status increase. "Look at me."   Why do we show pictures of ourselves with famous people? I took a picture with Tony. I took a picture with Russell. I took a picture with this guy... because it gives us a status increase and a serotonin boost. We literally are giving ourselves a hit of chemicals in our brain. Boom!    "Ahhh, yes! You see, you see me, and you see you, yeah you see me, you see you, you see me" Right, that's what's goin' on -  we're givin' ourselves a hit, and that's very, very important to understand.   Now, weave that into your sales message.   That's why when I get on the web, and I just did a webinar for Funnel Builder Secrets for Russell, that's why I say, "Guys, I'm gonna invite you to BECOME, (keyword), I'm gonna invite you to BECOME (shed identity, claim new identity, serotonin) Funnel Hackers later today on this presentation."   I'm literally setting the stage so they can get serotonin when they purchase.   #New identity. #Dopamine hit, #?istraction, "Thank you for the webinar, Stephen. I did a little bit of work, put my credit card in. I feel great, #endorphins, I did some work on my side. I've had three of the four chemical hits going on in my brain."   Let's talk about the last chemical. It's the hardest to get. It's oxytocin. Oxytocin's very, very powerful, and it is actually the one that we seek the most.   Without oxytocin a lotta these other chemicals, they feel like, you know, they're not all distractions, dopamine's the distraction one, but we're not totally satiated without the fourth one, #oxytocin.   Oxytocin is the chemical of connection. It is the one that we seek the most.   Oxytocin makes us do lots of crazy things. It's the one where we're madly in love,  or, the one where we are ing a community. We feel a lotta connection with an individual or a group.   Right now, if I were to tell you a story, I know I'd have you in a position where I could get you feeling oxytocin with me. It's the reason we have you tell an origin story.   It's the reason why Secret One has a story. Secret Two, Secret Three - they are developing oxytocin. It's a very hard to get chemical. The connection is with you, not your product. You understand?   To sell a product, you go in; you've broken and rebuilt belief patterns, you've given 'em four hits of chemicals in their brain.   Now I'm tellin' you there's a lotta ways to take advantage of people with this kind of information. Do you understand this stuff?   So, let's recap:   The first half of the webinar is highly emotional.   There are three phases of a sales cycle.   The first phase of the sales cycle is marketing. That's where I'm tellin' 'em all my stories. It's where I'm gettin' a whole bunch of oxytocin into their noggins. It's where I'm giving them a distraction, a lotta dopamine. I'm givin' 'em a lot of endorphins, if they do little things with me, "Come over to the chat box real quick. Tell me how you're doin? Where you're from?" That's gonna help them. "Whew, I did it!" - Little, tiny endorphin hit, bam!   Later on, I'm gonna invite you to BECOME, shed your old identity, BECOME a funnel hacker, #serotonin. I'm tryin' to weave these things inside each one of, each phase of the sales sequence.   Okay, so first phase right, in the sales cycle, marketing, the act of telling stories with the intent of changing beliefs for a purchase to happen. That's marketing.   Sales. When I'm sellin' somebody I'm presenting them an offer. I'm going through, and I'm showing 'em, "bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, here's my offer."   I'm still tryin' to lace in each one of those four drugs inside of the noggin, okay?   Third phase is closes. Cash is for closers. How many people have you sold where they actually didn't actually end up paying you? That happens all the time. It's because you're not good at closing yet.   You get good at closing, study closing! You gotta understand that, okay?   And again, to recap:   When we go in, and when that purchase happens we enter an emotional phase. I'm seeking four chemicals on the right side of my brain. I want the emotional part. I want the creative part. I wanna go feed the noggin. I want the hit. I want the distraction. I want the status. I want the connection.   The right side of the brain begins to hijack the left side, and you get into a phase of emotional buying: "I was just here for eggs, but I really want that shirt. I was just here for bread, but I really want this. Wow, I really like that balloon. Oh, it's attached to a car. Maybe we should get a new car."   Emotional, emotional, emotional, emotional, #dopamine hit, #dopamine hit, #dopamine hit. Does that make sense? Lots of hits.   As we leave the actual sales process, when a sale has actually happened, when you've closed, and there's effectively cash in your hand the theory of cognitive dissonance means that the emotional part of the brain starts to die down - those four chemicals start to go away, and the actual logical part of the brain comes back and says, "Crap, I just spent money I was not planning on spending," and it freaks out. The only way to prevent your customer from having buyer's remorse is for you to get as many of those four chemicals, #dopamine, #oxytocin, #serotonin, #endorphins, fired inside of their noggin so that afterwards they literally apply the product to their identity:   " Well yeah, I bought the shirt because I'm a smart buyer."   Does that make sense? I am now basing my ability to be successful on me, and my actual worth, my actual self, my actual self worth, my actual identity, my essence. We all do this:   “I'm gonna go into the store and I'm gonna buy a bunch of crap I did not mean to buy.” Afterwards I'm gonna logically justify it, so I'm like, "Crap, wait, should I have bought that?" Logical, logical, logical. "Ahhh, here's all the other reasons. Here's all these pre-stoked reasons that Stephen gave me at the end of his presentation why I should have bought. Oh, because it was 50% off, so I'm smart. Oh, because if I bought now it included X, Y, and Z. Oh, because if I got this I also got one, two and three. Oh, because of this, this, this."   These start to hit all these logical part of the brains: "plus I'm a smart buyer, plus I'm a funnel hacker, plus..." Does that make sense? This is FREAKIN' HUGE!   You need understand what you're actually doing to your customers in the brain.   It's the reason we have you tell so many stories. It's the reason I beg you to become a storyteller.  And it's the reason why I have you guys focus so much on your offer. It's the reason I have you guys go and say "Look, here's your closes."   It's not enough for you to just be a good storyteller. Sure you are gonna make more money than if you're not, but being a good storyteller, makin' a great offer, but not knowin' how to close.... You're NOT gonna get paid, right?   So, these parts of the noggin you have to understand:   We got those three phases happen. Next, the fear of cognitive dissonance happens when I leave the purchase. After that I begin to logically justify why the product represents my identity.   The right part of the brain after I've gotten the four drug hits, start to die out, and the logical part of the brain comes back and says, "This is me. That's why I did it, because I'm a smart buyer, because I'm a funnel hacker."   I have shifted their identity, okay.! Huge, massive, monstrous lesson.   So, anyway I started this just like seething and goin' nuts, but anyways, I just hope you're doin' well. I'm excited for every one of you guys. I'm excited for Q and A's tomorrow with you guys, but anyway, keep on the path.   Understand what you're doin'. Understand this is literally the power of mind control in the real sense.   Is it like telekinesis, aka X- Men crap? No, I'm not sayin' that at all. But, I am sayin' that when you understand the levers that cause humans to act  - this is super powerful stuff, man. This is like super intense.   Every time you're on with me, I’m tryin’ to give you a dopamine hit. It an easy one for me to give you. It's a chemical distraction.   An oxytocin hit, that's the hardest one to get - it's the chemical of connection - and so, I'm gonna tell a lotta personal stories to break your walls with me.   A serotonin hit, that's the one of status: "You are freakin' awesome. I think entrepreneurs changed the world," BAM,I just gave you a serotonin hit - especially if I attach that to a story.   I'm gonna try and give you an endorphin hit too. If I can get you to interact in this, "Right, go ahead right now and start giving me some hearts if you could. Give me some hearts if you guys have liked anything I said here at all.  It's been amazing, give me some hearts."  Okay, oh my gosh, that was crazy. I realize now why it's so powerful. Bam, I just gave you some freakin' endorphins.   That's the chemical that you have to actually participate in to get. When I weave all four of those chemicals in, I have a very strong chance of my customers being able to emotional sell themselves, and logically sell themselves - and once the four chemicals have died off, post purchase. “BAM. See you on the freakin' Two Comedy Club stage baby. Whew!”   Whoa, thanks for listening. Gang, please to a rate and subscribe.   Hey, you want me to speak at your next event or Mastermind? Let me know what I can share that would be most valuable by going to stevejlarsen.com and book my time now.  

Boom what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen.   This is Sales Funnel Radio, and today we're gonna talk about the difference between good cash and bad cash from your business and why you should never accept bad cash.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up, guys.   Hey, I actually, I love funnel building live in front of a lot of people and for some reason. I don't know why, but usually eight hours into it I start...   I don't know if I get a little chip on the shoulder attitude, or if I get a little, I don't know what it is, but for me, that's where I usually have the most prolific things coming out my brain. Luckily, I screen record all of them.   I want to share with you guys my strategy for when to take on cash and when to not.   I know right now how to go make 100 grand in the next month. Even far more than that, that's not a hard thing for me to do anymore, that's an easy thing for me to do now. That's not to showboat, but the reason why I don't go grab it is the thing I want to explain to you guys in this episode.   Now that might sound crazy to you. I know I'm gonna get some backlash for this episode, but you need to understand the difference between good cash and bad cash. My business works for me, okay. I don't work for my business, you understand.   Now obviously, I go set stuff up, I go put things together, but as quickly as humanly possible my whole goal is to set up systems that replace me as the operator in my company.   So what I'm gonna do is I wanna be able to walk through and share with you guys why...   Okay, one of the major reasons I'm doing this right now is because several times in the last two or three months,  I've been offered a lot of money to go and do a funnel for somebody, and I've said no. It's gotten out that I said no, and  I wanna address that.   I want you to know why I said no to certain scenarios. I want you to know why I say no to certain cash even though it's easy cash, even though I know, and they're like begging, but I still say no.   We're gonna flip over here in just a moment, and this is the fifth segment of a seven-part series that I did I think about a month ago where I went through, and I was building a funnel live. Not just the funnel though, literally from the ground up. I designed and wrote the actual sales message, I actually wrote the actual message live, screen recorded in front of like 75 people, okay.   What you're seeing in this next piece, I'm building out, and I'm finishing the last few pieces of the funnel, and I'm building what I call, I don't know anyone else who's made it, I call it a waiting list funnel. It's literally its own funnel on the side when someone doesn't take action.   Somebody is asking me, "Steven why do you have a waiting list funnel and why do you remove the option for somebody even to purchase?"   That might sound crazy, but please listen to my answer here. This might be a little bit of a longer episode, but I think it's gonna really, really help you as you see what I see as I do this.   I brought 1800 people through this process now. Paying people, okay you understand? Who paid to specifically learn that thing. That's just not like episode listeners, okay. They specifically came for that, and what I want you to see is...   I got a unique position looking down and seeing all these different funnels that are out there. Which ones make and which ones don't, okay. And I want you to understand how powerful of a concept this is.   If you're like, "Oh my gosh, Stephen, there's so much opportunity out there," I completely get it. Please know this is how I handle that, and how I don't get distracted. The answer to all that is in this next episode. I'm very excited for you guys to be here.   So again guys, thank you so much. This is good cash, bad cash, please keep that in your mind when you have opportunities come to you. They will only increase as you increase in your success.   You have got to get good at identifying good cash versus bad cash. Cash that is progressive versus cash that is a distraction to you.   Anyway, this is gonna help you see how I go through that process, and how I know whether or not I should accept cash from this opportunity or from that opportunity.   If I should say no to it,  how should I say no to it, and why and what things, you know what I wish I could say yes to - but what should I do to get my business ready for it? All those answers are inside this episode.   Guys thank you so much for listening. If you like this, please, please like and share and subscribe to this. It really means a lot to me. I have a ton of fun reading reviews, they keep me motivated. You pump me up, and I really wanna keep doing that.   So anyways let go over the episode, and please enjoy.   Comment to Steve on FB: "Your waiting list is just filtering BS and creates agony or something?"   Steve Speaking:  Yeah, quite literally. The two tools that you have, two tools that you have as a marketer, you've got scarcity and urgency, right.   So I know my product's amazing and you guys all know your products are amazing, so what keeps people from acting? What keeps people from acting and actually buying even though you know your product's amazing and you know that it can help them?   What keeps people from buying is that people don't close. So I'm trying to close them;" buy it, buy it, buy it," you know what I mean? I'm trying to close them. If I don't close them, my system literally cookies their IP address, not their email, does that make sense?   They can't just even go get in with another email address. They will not get there. It actually auto forces the entire session to go the waiting list. It says:   "Sorry, I work with action takers. Get on the waiting list. We open up to people in my own list anywhere from... Sometimes, it's twice a year, usually once a year, so pay attention to your email. I'll let you know when a few seats open up."   How long do I make them wait, depends. I mean sometimes I literally do make them wait six months to a year, man. Like I'm serious. If I'm gonna have scarcity and urgency, it's gonna be real scarcity and urgency. I don't pull fake scarcity and urgency on people.   I'm like if it's open, then it's open. If it is closed, they cannot purchase. I don't even care if they want to. I make it that way because I'm training my buyers. I'm training my audience and when I say it's time to jump...   And this part, you gotta understand:   I know exactly how to pull another 100 grand. I know exactly how to pull even much more than that, but my business works for me. Does that make sense?   These are all little things that I do to make the business work for me. I do not work for the business, does that make sense? It fits my lifestyle.   So my job then is not constantly just, like I'm closing. I'm closing all the time, I'm bringing people in, but I'm mostly building systems that close. I'm building systems that bring people in. I'm building.   If I'm the only one 24/7 bringing in cash, if I'm the only one 24/7 that's going in and servicing and doing the fulfillment, my business dies when I do - or my business dies on the Saturday I decide not to work. That's not a business.   A business is a series of systems in place that works when you don't.   So it is not my job to constantly be bringing people in just because it's there. Not all business is good business. In fact, I'd say the majority of business is bad business for your business. There's bad cash, I don't want bad cash.   So I go in, and I grab cash that is good when I am good and ready to grab it and when they are good and ready to pay for it. The scarcity and urgency are real. I make them real. They cannot buy, it's not a fake thing.   I have had people reach out and tell me, "Crap I waited too long." "Yep - that's the answer. Watch your freaking email." That's the answer, so it is real because my business works for me. Does that make sense? I have done the game many times though, many times where it's been the other way, and I'm like, you end up...   Here comes a little, where's a freaking soapbox. This is where I'm gonna drop some gold here. I dropped it. Check this out...   Many times I have equated deals with value - meaning look at all these deals I have; therefore I must be of value. That's crap, it's garbage, it is not true. Do not believe it.   "The number of deals I have coming in, I must be so valuable, I have all this cash coming in." It feels good, and it strokes your ego a little bit, but man it is not true!   Deals don't equal cash, deals don't equal value, and deals do not equal lifestyle.   After lots of experience, years of sprinting my face off, sleeping a few hours a night... I swear I've trained my body to have energy, I think that's part of it.   Years, years and years and years and years of being in the army, married, have kids, full time in school and doing all this, but like aggressively. Years of actively taking every single little deal that came my way, "Oh my gosh, you have cash to give me. Okay, I'll take it."  It ends up making me a slave to my business. That is not why I'm doing this.   My role, it is the reason I don't study ad spend.  I study the stuff that is the highest leverage activities. What are the things, what are the systems I can build? Funnels that I can build in place of me? So that when I'm not there, it's still going on.   You know it's so cool to see how many sales came in yesterday while I was talking to you.   I didn't close them, the systems did. I didn't fulfill on them, the systems did.   There's been some people that are like, "Steven you built almost one funnel a day at click funnels! How come you've only built a few on your own?"   Well, I don't have a giant team like Russell does, that's fine. He's got deep, multi-million dollar pockets that just like "bam, bam!" He does not waste money at all, but he can activate this crazy amount of team around the world. He's got all this stuff.   The foolish thing for me to do is to compare myself to someone like Russell. The foolish thing for you to do is to compare me to Russell. I am not him, I am Steven Larson. I do not have the assets he has. I do not have the backing he has, and that's fine.   I've studied my face off, I've gotten where I have, you know. It's been awesome, but you gotta understand, what I'm building, it's from a different sphere than what he's doing, it's from a different...   That's why I'm publishing so much so you can follow me while I take a leap which is frankly, it was a little bit ludicrous.  But I want to show you how I knew it'd be safe, and take you on the journey while I do this.   Systems are businesses, people are not businesses.   People can be in parts of the system, but they are still not the business. So when I go through, and I build a system, that's all a business is. If I'm the only one operating it, I don't have a business.   If I can't match numbers, if I can't look at numbers and be like: I know my conversion rates,  I know this, I know this, I know this, that's not a business. If I don't KNOW my numbers, I have no business.   That's one of my quotes on my wall. It's "know": K-N-O-W. It's, " If you KNOW your numbers then you KNOW business." If you have N-O, if you have no numbers, you have no business.   Here's the issue, every ticket that came into me for a while, I handled it differently. That's not a business. Every fulfillment, I handled it differently. Every close, I handled it differently. Every deal, I handled it differently. That is not a business. It is a terrible way to run into extreme burnout very quickly.   That's like the fastest way I see entrepreneurs get depressed. Just like "There's so much opportunity out there."   There's been multiple times I've had to catch myself, I'm like "There's so much opportunity out there." Yeah, there is. There's tons of it, but not all of it is the best fit for number one my business, and not all of it is the best fit for the systems I've built.   Maybe that means I need to go build more systems to handle the opportunities coming in, that's great. That's great, that's a good place to be, but not all of it is a good fit for my lifestyle.   I am not here to die in my chair behind a desk.   My goal is to build systems and processes so that every one of my leads, every one of my closes, every one of my sales, the fulfillment, every piece is systemized so that I know exactly what is broken, I know exactly where to tweak stuff, and I know exactly where I can look at it.  so I can emotionally say, "Let's go on a vacation, the system will deal with it."   There was a time in college, this is a good rant...   There was in college... In one of the semesters, you don't do anything but run a business. You start a business. It's one of the cool things that  I actually really did like about where I went to college.   There's only three programs like it in the country, at that time anyway. I don't know if more people do it, but one semester you do nothing... You don't have any classes, you do nothing but run a business from scratch.   They put you with a group of random people, and they give you an assignment. They put me in the food business. Guys, I am not a cook, they put me in the food business.   We went on a three-day retreat, and at the end of it you're supposed to have a business, and then you gotta build it for real, and actually go collect cash from people.   We were doing two to three grand a week selling to poor college students. I got voted to be the first CEO, and I was excited about it, it was really cool. I've always been a bit aggressive, I think they saw that. So I got voted to be CEO and it was super cool. Now, this is what I did.   I created a marketing department, which was slightly foolish... I think everyone's in marketing, but anyways. So it was a marketing department which at the time I still thought meant logos and crap.   I created a finance team because we needed to measure the numbers - that's the lifeblood of the business, so always know the numbers.   I created a supply chain because we were in a supply chain intensive business. We were selling empanadas.   We did a bunch of research, and we found out what people wanted. We literally created what they wanted. They told us what they wanted to give us money for. It's actually really fascinating, anyway, different lesson.   So there were three branches; here's how the business worked for a while. You don't build one this way, you don't build a funnel this way, I don't care if you're working on your own.   So anyway the first thing that I did is, the first way I handled everything:   We went, and we launched. We started doing one and a half to two grand a week. I was like okay this is not bad. Selling to poor college kids on campus - that wasn't bad.   They told us what they wanted us to make. I didn't even know what an empanada was. They told us what they wanted the price to be, things like that. It was fascinating, it was very, very fascinating. The issue was every single decision that had to be made came to me. I was literally the bottleneck of every decision, every single thing inside of my business.   There was no aspect of it where autonomy was for those individuals, there was no piece where they could actually go and actually make decisions on their own - which meant I was 24/7 on the phone, 24/7 on call, 24/7, "What do you want? What do you want? Okay yeah, do that. Okay yes, do that. Marketing, okay, you do this. Okay, supply chain, do this. Finance, do this. Okay, bam, bam, bam, bam bam bam, bam, bam, bam."   There was no, absolutely zero autonomy for anybody else.   I didn't mean to do it that way, but that's how most entrepreneurs operate. And so instead, I I was thinking one night....   In fact, I've got the journal entry. They made us journal every day about what we were learning.  I've got the journal entry right down there actually.   I realized that, so okay let's make a head of marketing, and 80% of decisions are gonna flow to that person in charge of marketing. Which now I believe should be the actual entrepreneur, the actual CEO.   80% of decisions flowed to the person now in charge of finance, 80% of decisions that had to do with supply chain flowed to that person, and they just came to me once a week and said: "Here's the other 20%, what should we do. What do you wanna do?"   When I actually built those systems and put them in place our revenue increased. Isn't that funny?! We actually started selling more when I was no longer the bottleneck of my own company.   The second thing that I did, once I had those systems in place, the second thing that I did is I went, and I started, right, we started fine-tuning:   Okay, that's that system, boom that's that system, boom that's that system. I put systems in place which meant, "Whoa I can  take a break."   So what I started doing is I started stressing the system, and this is gonna ludicrous and kinda nuts, but I purposely started disappearing in the middle of the busiest parts of the day. I would just disappear because I was watching them. I wanted to see what they would do. Will they follow the system, right? Are the people still the system or have we created an external thing that they follow?   If the people are still the system, they're not gonna follow it because we got emotions. You gotta take emotion out of system building. It should be emotionless - that's why we do Trello so much, that's why we teach so much about systems in 2 Comma Club X.   Ah, I can feel a rant!   So I started purposefully disappearing, to stress the system. And they'd be like, "Where did you go? We needed to make this decision." I'd be like, "Oh, what happened?"   Sometimes, I'd be like hiding, and I'd still be watching them. And they'd be having all these customers coming in, all these customers coming in. I'd be like, "What are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing? what are they doing?"   I'd see them running back and forth, they're cooking these empanadas, supply chains going nuts. Finance is like, "Ahhh" - they're freaking out. "Do we have enough money to get that supply?" I would watch them.   There was quite a few of us, there's a lot of us. So I was watching them, I was watching everybody. And I would just disappear. And then I would stress the system. I'd be like "oh!" And what I was mentally doing, what I was actually doing, is I was trying to see where the holes were in the system I've built. And I go back, and I patch it up, and I was there for a while, maybe I was the bottleneck again, to just get everyone back on their feet and train them back to the system. Train them back to the system, train them back to the system. And I would disappear again.   I would do that over, and over, and over again. Until finally, the thing freaking ran on its own. And that's when they rotated the CEOs, and that's when I finally got kicked out. And they're like, "Okay hey that's awesome." I set up the whole business and then left. That's like, crap! Anyway, just a lot of fun.   The reason this is important is because about the same time I was starting building funnels for this company in Florida. Very fascinating thing happened here. Very fascinating, as soon as this rant is over, I promise we'll get back to this, okay. We've got 44 of us on, thank you so much for being here.   Anyway, so about the same time I started building these funnels for this company in Florida. I purposefully chose a company that was, they had a mid-tiered product, because I only needed to sell an extra few a month, to make me look like a rockstar, to make the funnel numbers work really, really well.   Which is why I tell everybody, start with a mid-tier product, don't start with something that's cheap, start with something that's like a grand. Way easier, way easier to make it work.   Anyway, I chose a product, a company that had a product that was already existing. I hate working with startups. Meaning, I'll consult with them, but I don't build for them anymore, because they don't have a business yet. They don't any of those systems.   So when the funnel has issues, because I said "when" not "if", when the funnel has issues, right. They're gonna be like, "oh, it's the funnel's fault." And I'm like, "No, you don't have a business. You're treating every ticket different. You're treating every fulfillment you ship differently, for every single person. There is no consistency in the way you sell. There's no script, you have no consistent script. You don't have a business." That was the problem with working with startups for so long. They didn't have those things.   Anyway, so I looked purposefully for a company who had a mid-tiered ticket product. I looked for a company that was already existing, who had a buyer's list. I looked for something where there was a potential for repeat purchases. And those are some of the criteria. So I went, and I found a company.   They had no idea what funnels were. But I told them, "Hey I'm gonna build you a funnel. For free, I know you don't know what it is. But if it works, let's talk about me getting paid, does that sound good?" And they said, sure! They said, "Sure!" And I said, "Cool!" So I went, and I started building it.   I ran an ask campaign to their existing buyers and learned some interesting things, it was really emotional. It was in the health industry, and these people were like, "Hey, I'm sitting next to my dying spouse, we just really want a product that will help X, Y, and Z." I was like, "Whoa."   I got 157 responses. It took me three sessions to read them all, because these were like emotionally dripping responses from these people. And it taught me exactly what it was that these people were wanting. And how to craft the message for the product we already had. Does that make sense? How do I craft a message for the products I already have.   That's why we do session one as session one. That's what I mean by design marketing. Has nothing to do with freaking colors or logos. Has everything to do with storytelling, and the message and the sales message behind it. It's fascinating.   So I went through, and I ran the ask campaign, found what they wanted, built the funnel and launched it. And made them an extra, there was like 50-ish grand that came into that in like six weeks. With just launching to their own list. And I was like, crap that's freaking cool!  Let's turn it up!"   Shortly after, they started calling me. I was in Idaho, still going to college, they were in Florida. They started calling me, "Dude turn it off!" I was like, "What are you talking about? We're selling like hotcakes. "They're like, "I know!" "So why would I turn it off, that's a good thing, right? You got a bunch of sales coming in, this is awesome." Sale, sale, sale, sale, sale, sale, sale! They're like, "No turn it off!"  I was like, "Ah, whatever," and I stopped answering their calls for a little while. Til finally the CEO came to me, and he was like, "Dude, turn off the funnel!"   I was like, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "You are going to bankrupt us." I said... "What?" He said, "It's selling too fast. You're gonna kill my business."   I had never considered until that moment, that the funnel was not the business.   Funnels aren't businesses you guys. Here is the funnel, here is the business. They are two separate things.   Once you have an idea and the market has voted with their wallets that it's a good idea, it is not enough to just go scale a funnel. You gotta scale the business at the same time, or you kill the business. You have to. Otherwise, you literally outpace the business.   It's the reason why, in my own business, at the beginning of this year, man we brought in like 200 grand real fast, bam! And I was like, I can't keep up with the revenue. And I realized that I was a victim of my very own teachings; I did not have... There was no ticketing system. The fulfillment was different every time. There was a lot of consistency in the way things sold, because I'm a funnel builder, right. But there were some things in the way that I was handling some objections, and I was like, "Crap I gotta... " So I literally, and you guys might've seen the podcast episode where I talked about this.   My revenue was like whoosh! My business was like, "eh! I gotta slow it down." So I slowed the revenue down on purpose to build the business, build the systems, get consistency, that frees up your mental shelf space. So that you can operate.   Otherwise, by default, if you have revenue up here, and your business is right here. You have to work in your business, rather than on your business. And that's what I started finding myself doing.   So I slowed the revenue down so I could build the business. I needed to stop working in my business and start working on the business again - and build both together. That's exactly what I'm doing.   So, side rant, I know that's a huge, crazy side rant. Dimitrios, what you're asking. But... if they don't buy in that closing time, I do not sell them. Even if they're willing to give me their cash. Because I am building a system, I'm building a business. I'm not just trying to collect cash. There's a system that I've got in place to handle that stuff.   I know you guys have seen the posts on Facebook, where someone's like, "He said no to Tony Robbins. That's freaking..." Why? That's not my business to do that right now.   I pitched to Tony Robbins. I constantly ask myself, "What can I do to have larger cajones?" If I'm in some scenario, and I'm talking to some major influencer, I'm like, "What can I do to have large cajones in this very moment? Oh, I can pitch them, yeah!" And so I pitched Tony, and we're talking face to face, and he's wearing this brand of hat. That's why I'm wearing this hat, it's a nice hat. I like the hat anyway. But it's Tony's team, so yeah, come on.   And I was like," hey," and he said "yes." But I don't have a system in place. I didn't have systems at the time, I do now. I didn't have systems enough in place at that time, to handle all the other aspects that were going on. All the other revenue streams that were going on in my business. So it would've killed those other businesses for me to take on someone like Tony. Does that make sense?   Multiple people have asked me, I have been offered obscene amounts of cash to build funnels for people. But if you don't have systems in place, you will literally kill your existing revenue streams. It means you are the business, you are working in your own company, which is a huge mistake,. There's not enough autonomy in the systems you've built to handle the flexibility.   Case in point, okay. I don't just love the book, The 4-Hour Workweek. I love how he wrote it. There's one lesson inside The 4-Hour Workweek that was very, very key. He said:   For the first month or two, after launching a product he said, I personally handle every ticket on my own. Which I was doing. And I do it for the explicit reason of writing down every single question they're asking. And logging every single answer I'm giving.   And when I do that for 30 to 60 days, I literally am creating a training manual. And I duplicate me. So then I can bring somebody in for 15 bucks an hour, and say, hey, if they got questions, 99% of the questions they've asked, are already gonna be right here. And here's your copy/paste answer to that individual. Bam... system!   When there wasn't a question to answer that he had already documented, what he would do, is he started giving them authority to make decisions in his name, up to a certain dollar amount.   So he would say, “hey you have decisions to make.” Because he'd start to get questions like, “hey the customer said it didn't show up, do I have authority to reship blank, blank, blank? It's gonna cost the company this much money.”   And enough of those would start coming in, or enough scenarios like that, and he'd be like, why do I even, yeah, we're gonna do it anyway, we're gonna take care of the customer.   Customer's not always right, but I do take care of the customer. Customer's not always right. But I do take care of the customer.   I hate whoever said "customer's always right." That is freaking crap. That is the worst garbage on the planet. That's terrible. That person got straight A's in school and never ran a business.   Anyway, so he said, I'm gonna give autonomy to my system to make decisions in my name up to a certain dollar amount.   So once a week, he would go and see all the emails back from this team on all the decisions he needed to make, and within two hours he would say, yes, no, good, bad, do this, do that, tweak this. Don't do that at all. And after a while, the majority of those questions coming in had to do with this certain area. So he was like, well let's just add to the system.   Hey, everyone, you may now make decisions in my name up to a dollar amount of $50. Killed 80% of the tickets back to him from his own system. He just buffed it up.   Anyway, so hopefully you guys understand more about what this really is.   The funnels, you are creating are a system to bring in, that's why I do my sales script, my webinar script, the same every time. That's the reason I write it out on every single slide. Because if it's not consistent, I don't know what to switch. If it's not consistent, it means it's not a system. These, that's a consistent sales system. That's what a funnel is. That's all it is. But it's not a business.   You still gotta go, probably have and fulfillment. Those are probably the two areas, right. The two spots you probably gotta build. You got those two, you got a sales machine, you can step away for a minute? That's a business, okay.   Nothing is sellable at all, meaning the company itself, nothing in the company's sellable until you got that anyway.   For the first year, if Russell was to leave Clickfunnels, Clickfunnels would've probably dwindled to nothing. But he set up so many internal processes now.   When I left, they created an internal agency to replace what Russell and I were doing. Because we realized... duplication is not in finding another expert who replaces you. Duplication is in creating a system that replaces you.   When you go in, and you wanna start removing yourself from the business, right. That's exactly what you're doing, is you go bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And you can start building out the stuff like that. And remove yourself from it.   It's not that you're trying to remove yourself from the customer. I still over deliver, I know I do. I still go and I do Q&As, I still do all that stuff. But when it comes to the purchasing process, fulfilling on what they bought. It's an exchange.   I'm gonna exchange the product for their money, it's gonna be worth their time, but I'm also going to over deliver through several other things. But I'm also going to make sure that it's, like 99% of the time, the exact same scenario for every fulfillment, every buy, every . Everything. Anything in supply chain, everything.   The easiest way to build those systems, and put them in place, which is what I'm doing. Which you guys have watched me do, that's really what I'm doing. Mentally, in my head, that's what I'm doing.   I did not go build a second revenue funnel, without having the , and the fulfillment in place. To it.   The first funnel, I didn't care about any of that. I just cared about revenue. That's all you should care about, too. And that's all I still care about. But in the order of launching a business like this:   I made sure I did, is first of all:   Who freaking cares about fulfillment or if you can't fund it?   So I don't care about those systems for a while. I just need to go make sure that that sells. That my script sells, that the funnels awesome.   As soon as revenue's coming in, and I know I start to document, personally, all the tickets coming in. What are things that people are having questions with? Is this a question about the product? Is it something about fulfillment? Is there a shipment that they didn't get that they should've? Okay, let's go put that in that category. Is this question about the actual product itself? Maybe I don't have enough things in it, right?   This game's about being a detective, not about being a prolific genius, "Waah! I gotta be this crazy creative to be successful." That's crap. Don't believe that, that's garbage.   So when you think through, and you start actually going in, and you start building this stuff, you have to understand. First, revenue, revenue's always first. But I don't think about , or fulfillment, until I know that revenue thing is consistent, and it just churns, baby.   Then I go and I build the to handle it. But I do it in a way that outperforms the revenue. So then I can go start putting on another funnel. That's when I go build a second revenue funnel, okay. Which is what I'm doing. Why? Because I've got the systems in place with .   We got the systems in place, right. And we're still building those things out. And we will always be building them out. But the 80%,, oh my gosh, takes so much mental shelf space. That's gone. Which means I now have mental capital to go invest in something like a brand new revenue stream.   It's the reason why I don't take on more revenue than I can handle. Because I've done that multiple times, and suddenly, you can't think about anything else.   That's why I hate the agency models. I take the money, and I still have all this work to do. Whereas with products, I do... I do the work and then when they pay me the work's done.   Anyway, hopefully... Man, that was a rant. I'm probably gonna rip that and make that a podcast, that was good.   But anyways, hopefully that makes sense though.   That's why I'm so forceful on what I said before. This is a 48-hour funnel, if they do not buy, I do not allow them to buy. It pushes them over to a waiting list. Sometimes it's within a week, I might open it up for them again. Sometimes it's when, six months to a year. I know that might sound nuts.   I'm building a business for me, I'm not for the business. And it's because of the systems in place.   Boom, if you're just starting out, you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies, right. That's also good. But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right.   That's also what I struggled with for a while, until I learned the formula. So I created a special mastermind, called The Offermind, to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly, the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it. Wanna come?   The small groups I'm purposefully gonna answer your direct questions, in person, for two straight days. You can hold your spot by going to offermind.com. Again, that's offermind.com.

Ho, oh, boom! What's up, guys? This is Steve Larsen. This is Sales Funnel Radio. Today we're gonna talk about my four favorite traffic methods.   I spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my nine-to-five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without V.C. funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up guys?   Hey! I know it's already right on the whiteboard right here... (for those guys who are listening, obviously I'm going to explain everything as well.)   I wanna walk through this here real fast. It's a question I've been getting more and more frequently, and if you guys don't know, I actually don't like driving paid ads.   Now, please understand what I'm saying, we drive paid ads. But I don't want to learn how to do them.   When launched one of my first products I went and I put it out there, and I was super excited, super stoked. I was like, "Look! I birthed this amazing thing, World! Hey, this is incredible, it's amazing!"  I was so proud of myself because after a year it had done 60 grand with no ads spend. It was a little over a year, but I was like, "Oh my gosh, check this out!" I feeling really excited about that.   I was like, "I am the freakin' man, everyone bow to me!"  I wasn't saying that but, in my mind, I was like, "I finally did it" I finally made something work.  It was after a lot of tries. A ton of tries... and finally something worked, and I was proud of it. I was really proud of it.   I feeling so proud that I hadn't spent any ad spend, and it was still doing that well.   I don't who I was listening too, I think it was a Joe Polish thing, and some of Russell Brunson's stuff. Anyway, all of a sudden I had this epiphany: "Shame on you, Shame on you, you're not spending money on ads, right? I  started realizing that a real marketer would wanna be able to spend as much money as possible to acquire a customer, right?   If you think about those massive marketing phrases: "Whoever can spend the most money to acquire a customer wins." Those are like, laws of marketing. And I was like, "I'm not even spending any money. Crap! That means I'm not actually a marketer... I kinda accidentally came into that cash." I was like, "I need to be able to spend as much money as possible  in order to actually acquire customers." So it changed everything for me.   I started going through, and instead, I started building out funnels where not only the price point allowed me to dump cash back into it, but I started structuring to remove my ad cost.   But I was like, "Wait I don't actually wanna learn how to do this ad game." And I know that might sound crazy, but I really wanna just stay on just the funnel-building offer creation peak.  I wanna stay on top of that peak.   I used to climb a lot of mountains we did a lot of backpacking growing up. I grew up in Colorado. I loved it, absolutely loved it. Time with nature. Super cool. Teaches you a lot of stuff. But I never once, funnily enough, climbed two peaks at the same time. It's a weakness of mine to try and do lots of things. But I started looking at what I was focusing on in the same way as climbing mountain peaks.   Now I don't want to be a renaissance man. Renaissance men don't get paid anything. Obsessers get paid. So, I'm gonna stay on my obsessing peak of just being the offer creation guy, and teaching people how to build inside of a funnel. That's really what I do. And that's what I'm really freaking good at. So I'm gonna stay there.   If I go and learn something like ads, that's gonna distract from my peak. That's gonna require me to come off my peak and try to climb another one high enough to make the other one successful. That doesn't make sense.   I know many times I've dropped the fact that I'm going to interview my amazing team. There's one specific thing I've been waiting for in order to do it, and I'm so excited for it. It's gonna be really, really cool. Soon as it happens I will get my team in here and I will interview them.   I found an amazing ads-driving individual, and she's incredible. She's absolutely amazing. I'm like, oh my gosh, blows me away. Very, very good...   I personally like to obsess. She obsesses over the act of driving Facebook ads to the degree that I obsess over building funnels. I wanted someone like that, and you should find someone like that.   If someone's like, "I don't know... Hmmm, I can do it." Don't hire 'em. Hire someone who's ridiculously obsessed. Somebody who, it's not logical how obsessed they are. That's the kinda person that you want. It took me a long time to find, a long time to find her, but I found her. She's amazing.   But what do I obsess over traffic-wise? I know you guys can see right here, but I'm gonna walk through real fast these four things to show you guys how I actually get traffic.   These are my four favorite methods of getting traffic. These are my four favorite methods of getting sales, specifically. I don't like to obsess just on the act of getting traffic, I obsess over how to get sales. That's a different question. Now, traffic is money, but I don't just wanna get eyeballs.   I actually started out as a traffic driver - you guys might not know that? I was driving traffic for Paul Mitchell. It was right about the time I started learning what a funnel was. I was like, "This is really interesting, huh."   My buddy and I, (I actually I think it was Colton, he's sitting right over there) we were driving traffic to the first funnel that we ever built. That's how we got Clickfunnels.   It was called Fixed Insurance and it was for smartphones. It was smartphone insurance, and it's literally what we used to get our Clickfunnels paid for. It was really, really cool. We didn't make any money, but we broke even, kinda. Anyways, it was good.   I started experimenting with different traffic methods and I once I got 53,000 people to a website in two days. And I was like, "This is awesome! I must be really good at this!"  I could get a lot of eyeballs, guys. But then I started thinking: "Wait, how come I didn't get 53,000 sales?" And I started learning about conversion, and squeeze pages, order pages, and opt-ins.   Anyways, that's one of the ways I got into it. So yes, traffic is money but only if you have a good funnel.   So I like to obsess over the sales methods, not just traffic methods. So please look at what I'm sharing today with that in mind.   All these methods will get you eyeballs on what whatever funnel or event, or whatever thing you're doing. But there are specific ones I like to use that I know will give me sales. And that's the reason that these are the four that I use. I've been very methodical about this for years and I want you to see why I do what I do here.   .... And I'm gonna shove this down your throat again and tell you, you all need to publish!   Publishing is by far the easiest, the best, the greatest, the most beautiful, the most evergreen way to get traffic and sales you will ever have. Ever!   I have never put a dollar of my own into my business. That means I've had to grow it a little bit slow here and there but, man, that was great when I was working a nine-to-five. How did I do it? Publishing Publishing.   I produced value for the marketplace. I was just trying to talk to people who knew who I was. I was trying to solve problems for the marketplace. That's why Sales Funnel Radio exists. That's the reason why my podcast does so well and there are other sales funnel podcasts that are out there that don't.   If you have a product out there, and it's not doing amazing,  you're probably focusing on how to get sales more than trying to figure out how to solve problems for your audience.   Just figure out how to solve more problems, and cash always follows. Okay, rant over on that one.   So number one, go figure out how to publish. Figure out some way you're gonna publish. And the cost to publish (that's what the C is right here.) The cost of publishing, frankly, is time. That's it. Which is why publishing is great if you're just starting out. Time, that's it. Time is the cost of publishing.   It'll take me half a day to get my episodes out For an entire month's worth of content, maybe a full day. It depends if it's a video or not. The video episodes are more challenging than the normal podcasts. Anyways, I digress...   The money potential with publishing is very high leverage. Your sales look like this...   A lot of this comes from the Hollywood model.   How well do you think sales would do on movies if the first time you heard about the movie was the day it came out? Not that good, right?  It actually could be quite bad, right? The sales would probably plummet.   Think about it, how come we know what the box ticket prices are on these movies when they launch out there so well? It's because they build up all this pressure forever. then they're like, "Wow! In two weeks, thirty million dollars! That's crazy!" They're building pressure. That's one of the major, major benefits of continuous publishing.   Right here, is what my sales from publishing look like;  Big spike as I build up a lot of pressure, and as I release the pressure for the sale, a lot. It's usually short-lived, but it can be a lot of cash. It never really goes down to zero, though. Because people continue to find things that you're publishing.   They find the videos. They find the podcasts They find blogs, whatever. And that content lives on the internet for your life. That's the other reason I publish. I'm literally creating a high-leverage asset that is here for the remainder of my life and my kid's life. Which means the call-to-action, all the stuff I say inside of it, it doesn't go away. It's there forever.   So it looks like this, and it'll drop down but it never really goes to zero. It'll kinda stay consistent for whatever it is you're selling. This isn't a scenario of selling just one product.   Now the next traffic method that I really, really like a lot... I'd say kinda both on the same tier, is s and Dream 100. So let's talk about s first, though.   What's the cost of having s? Well if you have Clickfunnels, it's nothing, right? But there is the cost of time, 'kay?   It's time and training. Time and training. I'll say T and T there, 'kay? Time and training.   I've never been able to have a very successful campaign without teaching people how to actually use my link, right? So that's the reason why I create programs like Outrage. (Which by the time this is out should be out.) We had to wait a little bit because of a few things, but if you wanna know how I train my people, there's a 30-day program teaching you exactly how to be an . You can use it for anyone's products, but I'm subtly hoping you'll promote mine, 'kay? Which makes sense.   I interviewed 15 experts, and they came in, and they talked about how to go in and use the platform they're an expert in to sell other people's products. You get all that inside of there and pre-built funnels. It's awesome.   The cost of me building out an army is a little bit intense. Building an army cost me time, it's a lot of time.  My gosh, lots of time - and some training to set up an program.   The training is what takes the time. It doesn't take a lot of time to set up an actual link, that's easy in Clickfunnels.   What do my sales look like with s? Let's say I'm not doing something like an contest... Isn't it funny, I said these are my favorite traffic methods, but what I'm really tracking here is sales. Who cares about eyeballs if they don't buy anything?   I'm tryin' help you guys see money potential, the cost to get that traffic method, and the potential amount of cash that I typically see from each method.   Now, I know someone's probably gonna fight me on that... please understand that these are very, very plain-flavored, very blank kinda general statements on this stuff, 'kay?   Generally, my sales from s, without an contest or any no incentive behind it are...   We do have a cool incentive; we just found a way to give people new iMacs without having to sell that much stuff. Ha, ha! Really cool. But typically, without incentives,  sales start out low and kinda steadily increases - especially as you get people to put your link in things that they're building. Especially when you get people to put your link in things that they're publishing or promoting or stuff that stays out there evergreen, forever, right?   I'm not talking about people who only drive traffic. That's a good method, but typically for how I use s, I can expect there to be a kinda evergreen, steady, slow increase in the cash that's coming in.   Let's look at Dream 100, 'kay?   Dream 100; what the cost of Dream 100? There's really two costs for the way I use it - which are a little bit more time and money.   Colton's my manager slash Dream 100 manager. He's studying our Dream 100 people and teaching me about them. Helping me understand who they are and what they like.  We're learning together about these individuals and creating relationships, right? That takes time. Holy crap, that takes time.   Dana Derrick's has a great book about the Dream 100. The first position he encourages you to hire is an manager. It's what Russell encouraged me to do too.  An manager, that's your first hire. Not . Not an assistant. You need to get a revenue-generating position filled.   So the first cost for Dream 100, is time. We'll start to send out little funny things. We've got the rubber fish thing over there. We have a bunch of stuff. We have little flash drives we send out that look like those message in bottle things. We got cool coins that we send out to 'em. It's not that expensive.   I was on stage teaching one of the final FAT events, and Dave Woodward came up. He manages a lot of the same things for Russell, or he did that the time. Anyway, I asked him how much do you spend on your Dream 100 packages to invite people to promote"Expert Secrets," and he said about 25 dollars. 25 to 35 dollars, something like that.   I asked: "Can you measure how much cash comes in for each package?" And he said: "No, it's like thousands of dollars."  Huh, I've never seen an investment do that well. 25 bucks for a package, thousands of dollars back out. Like that's amazing, right?   So anyways the cost of Dream 100 is, time and some money. But it doesn't need to be a lot of money.   I like to send out packages, but you don't need to do that, you could get a relationship with somebody by just solving a problem they have. Bam! You've done Dream 100.   Dream 100 does not just mean packages, 'kay? It doesn't. It means relationships.   Anyway, what the money potential of a Dream 100 kind of strategy?   Well, you might take some time to build up some of these relationships, so typically, not always, but typically it looks kinda more like this: No sales for a while -  a few sales - no sales again for a while - a few more sales. And then suddenly one of these Dream 100 relationships pays off, and you get this big massive win. Boom! This huge amount of cash comes in, right? These are the big wins.   You get all these tiny wins and boom! So it kinda looks like a stair-stepping kinda graph, right? Where it's like, "Hey, cash!" And then nothin'. Lots of cash! And then nothin'. Big cash! And nothin'.   Does that make sense?   So that's what you kinda typically expect the way I use Dream 100. That's what I expect for it to happen. So, there's no cash for a little while but man, you start settin' up, someone agrees, "You know what, yeah. "Let's do a t venture together. "Promote your thing to my audience. Cool!" And I'm like, "yeah! I'll give you 50 percent for that" I do that for anyone who has an audience. If you guys are interested, reach out to Colton.   So anyways, that's what I do. I give you 50 percent - that's kinda how the cash kinda works. See, how these are all kinda working together?   Let's go onto the next one.   Ads! What's the cost of ads? It's the exact opposite of how I handle Dream 100. It's a little time, but it can cost a good chunk of cash. Now the key for me here, in fact, lemme erase this quick here, Check this o-out. ? Yee-hee ?   By the way, while I'm doing this, ? thanks guys for being a listener. Really means a lot to me.   Okay, but think about this; the Dream 100  is the exact opposite. It can be a lot of time, and the cost is typically just a little cash. Anyway, so it's the exact opposite of ads.   Now I'm not gonna go and learn how to do ads, right? So that's something that I outsource. I outsource the Dream 100 stuff too. I like to do the s thing 'cause I like to do the training, and I do the publishing because I'm the attractive character of my products. That's the guru biz, right? I hate being called that, but anyway. I digress...   The cost though of getting the ads out is a little bit of time, 'cause someone else is mostly handling that, right? It can be more expensive when you start spending ads.   Think with me for a second, if I've gone through and I've been publishing, and I do kind of the model that Hollywood follows...   I'm not saying you start publishing six months in advance before you launch your product. I'm not saying you put that kinda timestamp out there but let's say that you're like, "You know what, I'm gonna get my stuff together, get my crap together, and I'm gonna start testing sales messages, I'm gonna give myself two months. In two months, I'm gonna have my product out and my first sale in my hands." That's plenty of time to start publishing, 'kay?   You could even do a month. Start publishing, publishing, daily, daily publishing. I'm talking, Facebook Lives, or  YouTube or whatever. Just be consistent with whatever the platform is. Just marry the platform, right?   Now you've launched in and boom, you get an influx of cash.  Do not take profit. I did not pay myself for the first three months of this year. We lived on savings. I took all that cash and dumped it right back into the business. Where? Ads. My customers paid for my ads.   I built pressure ahead of time; then I went into the ads game.   s.  I've got a cool program. It's epic. You should all promote it... That was subtle. We've got cool rewards. A training program that's like no other on the planet on Earth.   s bring a steady slow increase of cash into the business.  And as people win, other people start to see like, "Yeah, I wanna keep promoting." Unless there's an contest, it's slow and steady.   I started as an , so I have some I have some affinity for s. And that kinda how it typically works. The cash kinda grows, "oh look!" and it's slow, steady growth. That's how it works with my business.   So now ads. Ads typically for me, are very methodical in the beginning. It's not like this huge, big thing. Don't we go test with like a grand, 'kay? We test with like five bucks. Five bucks, ten bucks, then fifteen, then twenty, right? And we keep the ads spend small and see what the markets' reaction is.   There were some people I built funnels for in the past, and they're like, "Hey we got this funnel, it's not quite converting." I asked: "Okay, how much are you spending on ads ?"  "Well, we went, and we borrowed a quarter million dollars and put it into ads." I was like, "A quarter million bucks! How fast did you spend that?"   I don't if that was the exact number, but it was monstrous. And they wasted all of it and made hardly any cash. I don't know that much about ad spend. But I do know that is the wrong way to scale 'em though. Terrible, terrible. That's trying to run the Boston Marathon after deciding to do it the day before. That's CRAZY- that's ridiculous. You're not prepared. You're not scaled, you're not figured out, your body has no idea how to handle it, 'kay? The exact same thing here with ads.   So with ads, typically what I see is little, tiny cash. Little, tiny cash. No buys. Then scaling. Then scaling. Then scaling. And they're getting bigger. And they gettin' bigger, right? And it kinda looks like those like stair-steppers, right?  It's increasing at a stair-stepping rate with sale, sale, sale, sale, sale, sale, sale, sale! The frequency of sales increases. The pressure increases as you kinda open up, woosh!   So, look at each of these graphs together.   I've got money potential; the amount of potential of cash for publishing. Now, this is just promoting one product.  I'm gonna go in and do other events, so I'll get definitely influxes of cash. Let's say this is a 60 day period here:   Not that many sales for Dream 100 for a while, right? And then bam! Nice win, right? Bam, nice win!   Now so, s again. Kinda slow, slow cash comin' on out so I always start with publishing so that people start gain affinity for the product prior to me selling to them -they just don't know that. Then I go in and I love to do things, I like to do s and  Dream 100 kinda in tandem. This is not necessarily the order, 'kay?   Publishing is always first. But these other three, that's not necessarily the order that I do them in.   I typically go publishing, take that cash, go directly to back into ads, and then start getting relationships with Dream 100, then I figure out s. Which I probably should've numbered them the other way. It's exactly what I've done for my own business.   So look here, kinda combine these in your mind's eye. What gives you the huge wins? Usually, Dream 100. What kinda keeps the doors open? After, after publishing, what kinda keeps the doors open? Ad spend and s. They kinda scale slow at the same time.   We're gonna do things like contests, events, big giveaways, and huge rewards to create pressure. We literally have a sweet event coming up soon. We'll teach you how to actually promote with Outrage. Then we're gonna do an contest, and then we have an event for the top 20 people to come and just hang out with me for two days. I'll help them and look at their stuff - which is ridiculous. I charge 30 grand a day for my consulting.  So it's huge value to them, but it's a huge thank you from me as well. Back and forth, it scratches both our backs. It's awesome. Right, so that's what we're gonna do. I'm really excited about it.   We've gotta mixture of slow steady cash coming in, and big wins coming every so often with the Dream 100, Bam! Bam! Bam!   Ever increasing ad spend as you profitably... ooh, I love that word, "profitably" increase ad spend and "profitably" spend ad money.  It's not your own money. You took that initial profit and dumped it back in.   So anyways that's my traffic strategies. So when someone's like, "How do you get traffic to this? I'm like, "Well, are you willing to be the attractive character?" If they're like, "No, I won't publish." I'm like, "Alright, well, are you willing to spend some time to figure this out?" They're like, "No, I won't." Well, okay. "Are you gonna spend some money?" "Well, I don't have any money." "Okay,  then your funnel's dead. Alright? Case closed. Well, see you later." And that's true!   You gotta buy your customers somehow. If it's not with money then it's gonna be with time. If you're not willing to spend time, like, be willing to go door-to-door. That sucks. 'Cause there's really three costs. There are three ways to buy a customer. )And I'll end with this here, 'cause this has been a cool episode, and hopefully, you guys got some cool stuff from this.)   Three costs are this: You could buy a customer with money like ad spend. You could buy a customer with time, but there are two kinds of time. There are two kinds of time, and I'm very careful to spend one and not the other. Here they are:   The first kind of time that you can spend is what I was doing when I was a door-to-door salesman. I memorized the pitch, which is great, You all should all be pitching everyone the exact same way, by the way. and making tweaks based on what the market says.   If your pitch is different every time, your funnel is already dying. I don't care, anyway. It's a different topic, different rant, I gotta hold myself in here.   Anyway, two different kinds of time. First, kinda time is the kinda time where I personally go out and pitch. Woov! I will never get that time back. And that person, if they weren't listening, might need me to say the pitch again. I hate spending that kinda time. I hate it! That's why I'm not a telemarketer anymore, even though I was kinda good at it.   That's why I don't do door-to-door sales even though it was an amazing, amazing training ground for me. It was kinda like sales boot camp for me, you know, honestly.   The kind of time I like to spend and the reason why I don't go learn other kinds of traffic besides really these three (and why I outsource everything that has to do with ad spend) is because I want to leverage my time by creating a training program, that doesn't go away when I'm done, right?   They're literally carbon copies of my time, over, and over, and over, and over again.   Making this episode, I know I'm selling some of you guys right now. You might be like, "Hey, let's get him out for consulting, and I'm gonna go get his funnel stash. He's got a book comin' out, sweet! Oh, lemme go to his MasterMind. Lemme do this..."  And I get that, and it's one of the purposes of publishing. I think a lot of you guys know you do that. A lot of you guys reach out and ask that. Which is great. I'm giving value, and you want some back, that's awesome. That's one of the purposes of publishing; I'm solving problems, and you're gonna solve other problems for me. I need cash flow. You need answers. Boom! That's business. That's great. That's marketing. I'm getting too technical on my definitions here. But it's awesome!   I don't need to turn back around though and record this episode again tomorrow for the thousand people that are gonna this tomorrow, right? I don't! That's my favorite kind of time to spend when I don't want to spend money. It's the other reason why I tell you guys to freakin' publish so much.   If you're like, "oh, I don't wanna publish." Okay, then make a sick course for people go through and teach 'em how to promote your stuff. That course stays there forever. Unless you take it down, which I don't know why you would.   Your Dream 100 are relationships. I don't like to burn relationships. I'm very strategic about who I hang out with now, and that's great. That's awesome like I'm gonna go create cool, strategic relationships with people that would go and promote it and guess what? Next time something cool comes out, or next time they're putting something out, I might promote for them, they might promote for me again. That relationship's still there, it's time well spent because the value compounds, it doesn't leave.   The reason I don't spend a lot of time on ads, and if you love ads, that's great. Stay in your zone, right? That's your zone of genius, stay there. It's just not my zone. I like to look for ways to leverage my time. I know that you guys might be like, "Well, it works well 'cause I season pixels."  I get that. That's awesome, and it totally works. I just don't want to climb two peaks at the same time.   My peak is funnel-building and offer-creation. Bam! That's it. That's where I stay. The reason why is because if I go and I spend money which I should. If you are not spending cash, it is my firm belief you are not a real marketer. Sorry. I gotta go to the identity spot there. But it's true. If you're like, "Man, I'm getting all this cash. I'm not having to spend any money on it." Argh... okay. Different topic. Different rant. I gotta reign myself back here.   I use these methods so that I can spend a butt-ton of money over here in the ad place. I don't wanna learn that part of it; I'm gonna go spend my time in places where it's evergreen, where it stays, where the value compounds, where it's gonna be there for the rest of my life and beyond.   This is literally one way I am developing the asset for my kids. That's the way I look at it. That's the reason why I do this. It's the reason I'm so protective about my time. I'm a Nazi when it comes to me gettin' crap done. I push really freakin' hard and I know that and you guys know that about me too.  I hope that you do and you learn that trait. It's a learned trait. It's not that I'm born with it. I was frigging lazy as a high-schooler. It's a learned trait. Learn the trait! It's work! It's awesome! Super fun. Best endorphins and dopamine you'll ever have in your entire life.   that episode I did about that? So, please know that that's why I publish. I do s too, but I do training courses about it 'cause my time is re-created. My time is re-created when I Dream 100. Ads, not so much. I might go spend some cash and they're like, "Oh, this is cool." And they click away and, ahh. That's kind of it. That's fine, though as long as I've got these other things.   If you take these graphs and you lay them on top of each other, you can see how the cash continues to come in at increasing rates. Then I'll do another cool thing...   One of the things I like to do to get another peak of cash here in the publishing game is to go to testimonial interviews of the people who bought this first round. I make sure they're successful. I make sure everyone is. If they're willing to do the work. If they just do what I tell them they are. Then I go and I interview 'em. Bam! And that gets another influx of cash comin' in as people hear the testimonials, right?   You guys will see me do that soon. I'm just letting you guys know so when you see me do it you know what I'm doing.   Same with the stuff, ever increasing. And if I go out like, we got an contest comin' in Bam! This big influxes, but it's still got, Bam! Still kind of increases at increasing rates. You lace those things on top of each other. What really keeps the doors open in between the downtimes when someone's not bought for a little while, is ads. After you've done your publishing, after you open cart.   This has been a long episode, but I just want you to know why I do what I do and why these four traffic/sales methods are my favorite strategies. I'm actually very methodical about this, and that why I launch in the way I do I do.   I go out and I hit the lists, I go to my hot audience, and you can kinda see how this goes from hot to cold even right on this whiteboard, right? Publishing, hot traffic. That's totally hot traffic. 'Cause they your list, they get little freebies from you, and you're starting to build pressure. "Hey, it's comin' out. "It's comin' out. "Two days left, get on the waiting list, beta list only." Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam! Open! Boosh! All these people buy, wow oh my gosh, look at this cash comin' in.   Then I go dump directly back into ads, which goes definitely more kinda like the warm kinda traffic area. s. That's definitely like the warm-hot, people who're gonna promote for me. They are the people who really like what I do. And I know that. And that's great. I'm gonna enable them, I'm gonna give them, I'm gonna try to solve every problem for them. I want to make it really freakin' easy for them to go spend money, to promote my stuff, to drop to their own lists to promote my stuff.   Dream 100s with them. That's definitely more of a hot traffic strategy. So that's kinda how it's laced out though.  I hit each one of the hot-warm-cold traffic areas, but not all at the same time, and I don't use my own money.   I make sure that I'm methodical in the way that I drop it out there so that my customers are paying for more customers which is really awesome.   I just want you guys to see how I've been doing this and I'm really, really excited. If you guys like this kinda stuff, I'm gonna go through a little bit more how I actually do this for what we call a pre-funnel. The pre-funnel is very powerful. It's important, it's amazing, and it's what I'm going to speak out at Funnel Hacking Live 2019 - baby, in Tennesee, woo! It's live, guys. Go get tickets, I think you guys'll really enjoy it.   It's five thousand people this time. Oh my gosh, it's so freaking cool. I cannot wait.   I wanna go through on and teach you guys everything I do before I actually open something like Clickfunnels. It's everything pre-funnel. There's a checklist I go through. I developed it, I thought through it, I was like "Huh, this is actually what I do, "huh, oh, wait that's what Russell does, "oh interesting, does anyone know this? "I don't know!" And as I started building funnels in that way, it's like almost guaranteed success every time and great amounts of cash because of everything I do pre-checklist. So anyways, go ahead and go get Funnel Hacking Live Tickets.   Funnelhackinglive.com We're excited to have you guys. I'm saying we as if I work there, still. I don't but man, I bleed them. I bleed Clickfunnels. I'm even wearing their shirt right now, again. And I just absolutely love it. I love, it's amazing what it's done.   So, anyways guys, those are my four favorite traffic strategies, again. Figure out which one you wanna go do. Figure out what peak you're trying to climb. Stop trying to climb others. And then figure out ways to pull off these others. If you're like, "Hey, I don't wanna do that" That's fine, I'm not telling you that the one I would tell you that everyone should do is publishing.   If you're like, "I don't wanna do an thing" that's fine. Find someone else's, they can teach your people.   If you're like, "I don't wanna do Dream 100." That's fine. Find someone, find a Colton, alright. Go figure out how to actually go and make that position filled.   If you're like, "I don't wanna do ads," I don't either. Go find someone to do the ads piece.   The publishing one, that's why I shove it down everyone's face so much. I'm like, look, you've got to figure out that. It's is the most ridiculous long-term asset. It's amazing power. Especially in a world today where it's not just the information age, it's actually the attention age. That's how you get attention.   Alright guys, thanks so much. Hopefully you've enjoyed this. Please, please, please. Sorry for the little glitches in the camera here and there. Stupid camera, freaking battery died.   Anyways, if you guys enjoyed this please rate it on iTunes and I really appreciate every guys listening. Means a lot and I'll talk to you guys later. Bye. Boom!   If you're just starting out you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies also, right? That's also good. But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right? That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula so I created a special MasterMind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer and more importantly, the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it. Wanna come?   They're small groups so I can answer your questions in person for two straight days. You can hold your spot by going to offermind.com Again that's offermind.com

Haha, what's up, guys? This is Steve Larsen.   This is Sales Funnel Radio, and before we cue the intro here, I want you to know, this episode for me was really special.   I interview an incredible entrepreneur. Her name is Natalie Hodson. She's fantastic. I love learning and studying from her.   She's gonna talk about some things that went on kinda crazy in her life, and how to leverage the crazy things inside of your life for your audience - particularly around the subject of vulnerability.   So this is how to be vulnerable without looking like you're weak, right? And for a lot of guys, that's super important.   For a lot of selling in general, that's super important - the purpose is not to look like you're weak.   So anyways, let's cue the intro here. I hope you guys enjoy it, and if you have liked this, please reach out to her and say thank you. She puts some really amazing things out.   Thanks, guys, so much, and see you on the episode.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million-dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's going on, everyone?   Hey, it's Steve Larsen, and I'm really excited to have you here today.   Stephen: I have someone that I've been trying to get on the podcast for a very long time - because I just think the world of her. It's been super amazing to get to know this person. Anyways, I'm excited about it.   The first time that I got to hear this story,  it was heart-wrenching for me to see, not just everything that had happened, but the inspiration that it's causing in other people's lives.   The way it's changing other people's lives is a huge deal.   It was fascinating for me to see that this is real, you know, this is a big deal.   I already knew that, but just to continue to watch it in application... I was like, "Gosh, the thousands and thousands and thousands of lives that it's changed."   It's my incredible honor and privilege to have you on the show. Guys, I wanna welcome Natalie Hodson. How are you doing?   Natalie - Hey, thank you so much, Stephen. That was an amazing intro.   Stephen - I mean it.   Natalie -  I'm so excited to be here too. I've watched your stuff, and I've binge listened to all your podcasts. Your advice has helped me so much, so it's like a win-win. I'm excited - you're excited. It's awesome.   Stephen - Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.  I know a lot of people may not know about you yet, and frankly, it's just a matter of time... I think everyone's gonna know who you are.   Natalie - Aw, thank you.   Stephen - Could you tell us a little bit about your story, and kind of the background, 'cause it's inspiring, and...   Natalie - Yeah.   Stephen - There's obviously funnels in there, but that's a vehicle for this whole thing. You're changing people's lives, and I'd love you to grace my audience with that... that'd be great.   Natalie - Totally. Well, there's a long version and a short version. I'll try to keep it towards the short version, but I tend to be long-winded.   So at any point, if you're like, "Natalie, take it this direction," you know...   Stephen - We have happy ears.   Natalie - So I'm in the fitness space. But I always say that I accidentally fell into the fitness industry because I was a history major in school. I didn't know:   #1: That there even was a fitness industry   #2: That I ever wanted to be a part of it.   After I had my son, I gained 70 pounds when I was pregnant with him. I was like big, out here. He was a 10-pound baby.   Stephen - 70 pounds?   Natalie - Yeah, I was really big. And after I had him, I feeling lost. I looking in the mirror and feeling like, "I don't even recognize myself... I just wanted to feel like myself again," and it wasn't even so much about the weight. I just didn't feel like me.   So I started a blog, and honestly, it was like an online journal - just as a way to keep me able for my fitness stuff.   I didn't tell a single person that I knew in real life, because I was embarrassed.  I didn't want the people I knew to know what I was struggling.   This was when Pinterest very first got started, about eight years ago.  I just started sharing...   I like to cook, so I started sharing healthy recipes, and I started putting them on Pinterest.   And honestly, if you look at my first pins back then, they were taken with a flip phone, just awful photos, but luckily for me, now people are taking gorgeous pictures for me.   So I started to get a lot of traffic to my website.   Stephen - You were just kinda documenting what you were doing?   Natalie - I was just documenting what I was doing and sharing.   This was right when Facebook groups weren't even a thing, and I started a Facebook group with this training program I was doing. I started sharing my ups and my downs, just because I felt like it was a safe space.   I was really vulnerable and telling, you know, my struggles; like I got called out of the gym daycare again - just like real struggles, you know?   I was struggling with all this stuff. And so, I did that 12-week program, and had awesome results, and got some recognition from bodybuilding.com.   I was getting a lot of traffic to my site. So I was like, man, if I'm getting traffic, I might as well monetize it. So I got certified as a personal trainer and started writing - I wrote a couple of ebooks.  I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't how to write an ebook. I just kind of figured it out as I went.   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - And then, I started recognizing, basically, like, long story short, what happened is one day...   I was at an event, and this girl came up to me. And she's like, "I love following your stuff! I could never do what you do, because I have stretched skin after I had my babies, and I could never look like you."   I got really confused in the moment, 'cause I was like, "What are you talking about? I have tons of stretched skin."   And then I started realizing that, I don't share that. I have all these beautiful professional photos where I stand up straight, and I angle myself just right so you can't see it, right?   Stephen - Right, yeah.   Natalie - Posture and perfect looking. I started realizing, like, "Holy crap," in my head, I look down, and I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I have stretched skin, whatever," but I wasn't like, showing that to anybody else.   And so, that night, I pulled out my camera, and I filmed this video,  just saying to people, "Look, I recognize that I've never shown you... this is what that looks like."   People talk about that a lot, but this was six years ago, and really, nobody was talking about it.   I the first time I posted that video, my hand was shaking. I thought I was gonna lose every follower I had. But I was like, "I know that if I'm struggling with this, other people are too."   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - And I posted it, and I shut my computer down. I wouldn't look at it, 'cause I was like, "everybody's gonna hate this."   When I opened it up an hour later, there were just thousands of comments, and that video went kind of viral.   Then I started realizing that the more I talked about things that felt scary or uncomfortable, it was actually more of like a magnet. People started to feel like, "Whoa, she gets me. Whoa, she's talking about things that I think in my head, but nobody's really talking about."   And then what happened is it started to  heal broken parts of me too - because I started to realize that those fears and insecurities weren't even real. It was just the story that I was telling myself.   So the more I talked about my story, the less power it had over me.   And so, total side note here, fast forward to right now... 'cause this was years ago... but I feel like I worked through all that body image stuff kind of on accident.   Stephen - Sure.   Natalie - I was being vulnerable, and it's crazy, 'cause right now, I'm going through a very similar process. I'm trying to do a lot of self-work. Learning to be perfectly imperfect with the body stuff - I feel like I did that, and I'm okay with it.   Stephen - “Perfectly imperfect” - that's cool.   Natalie - Yeah, and now it's like, "Okay, how can I...?" I've always struggled with this idea of perfection, and now with relationships, I'm trying to recognize that it's okay to not be perfect in relationships. That when you work through the hard stuff, when you talk about the hard stuff, it actually...   So anyways, I'll turn back now. I skipped a big chunk in there, but...   Stephen - No, that's fascinating what you just said... We will come back to that.   Natalie - Okay.   Stephen - Keep going, 'cause there's this whole spot... I'm like, "This is so cool."   Natalie -  I might not have the right words for it, because I'm just starting to figure it out. It's what I was talking to my friend Yara about last night.   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - So, anyways, I built this big audience, all organically. I had about 400,000 followers, but I wasn't really monetizing it.   I was selling ebooks and making decent, good money, probably  around six figures as a stay at home mom - so it was good. Like, it was awesome, and I was enjoying it. I was writing.   And then I went through a divorce. And then it got really scary, because I was like, "All right, I don't have child , I don't have alimony.  I have to figure this out."   Stephen - Right.   Natalie - And it just so happened... like, you know, I swear, a lot of times, things fall in place when they're supposed to, or you meet people when you're supposed to.   Stephen - Right.   Natalie - It just so happened that... I don't know actually what happened. I don't know if my name got thrown around in a mastermind or something, but all of a sudden, I got emails or phone calls from eight different people wanting to build a funnel for me in ClickFunnels, and all this stuff.   I was like, "What? what is a funnel? What is this?" And so, I started researching and googling, and I kept seeing this name, Russell Brunson.   It's so embarrassing now 'cause I know what a good, honest, genuine hard-working guy Russell is... but honestly, at first, I was like, "Is this a scam? Why are people promising me the world, and like telling me they can..."   Usually, if somebody tells you something that's too good to be true - it is, right?     ...And they're like, "With that audience, you can make all this money." And I was so skeptical.   But the embarrassing part is, Russell wrestled in college with my cousin, and we live like just right down the street from each other. So we had all these mutual friends.   Stephen - Right.   Natalie - I messaged him on Facebook, and basically just... I mean, I didn't say, "Is your company a scam?"... but that's basically... I mean it was rude!   And now that I know who Russell is, I'm like so embarrassed, and I'm so grateful he didn't just say, "See ya, I'm never talking to you again."   So I started finding out about ClickFunnels, and then I read his DotCom Secrets book, and I was like, "What?"   'Cause  I'd built this big audience, but never in my life had I even spent a dime on Facebook ads.   So, I started reading his book, and I was like, "What? These are real secrets. Why is he sharing this?"   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - Look, this is my original notepad.   Stephen - What?   Natalie - That's crazy. I was organizing my office, and it happened to be sitting here.   So what I did, this was cool. I pulled out this notepad, and as I went through the book, I started saying, "How can I apply that to my business?" Like, five variables of successful campaigns:   Step one, who are your competitors? And I started writing down who are my actual competitors? This is cool. Blast from the past.   Stephen - That's so cool. I just found mine the other day.   Natalie - No way!   Stephen - Yeah, it's just right over here - the exact same thing. I was just showing it to somebody else. But, yeah, I found mine. It's like going way back.  "I the first time I realized this!" This is a huge deal.   Natalie -  I was mind-blown, and I was like, "What?" And so, I started implementing it, and I was like, "This works!"   I brought somebody on to help me with building the funnel at the beginning. Now we've since split ways...   So we launched the funnel. So, okay,  this story's getting very long, so we'll wrap it up, but...   Stephen - No, it's awesome. Super valuable.   Natalie - Okay, so, basically, at that point, I was like, "Hey, my back's against the wall. I need to figure out, how am I gonna monetize what I have here?"   So what I did was, I looked at my Google Analytics on my website.  I was like, my audience is telling me what they're interested in through my analytics, right? So, I took my five most popular blog posts, and I said, okay, I'm gonna make an offer around each of these.   Stephen - Wow.   Natalie - So the first one was this weird word called Diastasis Recti. Which is basically ab separation.   When you're pregnant, your abs can separate to make room for the baby, and in about two-thirds of women, they don't always come back together the right way. So it can cause you to look pregnant, even if you're eating right or exercising. It can cause you to have like just core weakness.   The other post was this thing called Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, which in layman's means like, if you laugh, cough, sneeze, jump on a trampoline, exercise too hard, a lot of times, women, after they have babies, will pee their pants a little bit.   Stephen - Right.   Natalie - And so it just so happened that one of my good friends from college had just gotten her Ph.D. in this specific area.   So, I reached out to her, and I was like, "Hey, Monique, I am getting a massive amount of traffic to this blog post. Do you think we could do something together?"   And that's when she told me. She's like, "Oh my gosh, Natalie, the peeing your pants stuff doesn't have to happen! Just 'cause it's common, and happens to so many women it doesn't mean that it's normal or healthy. It can be improved."   And I was really skeptical again at first. I was like, "Yeah, right!" I was like, "Yeah, I've had two 10-pound babies." I got kind of defensive.   Stephen - Your kids were 10 pounds?   Natalie - Yeah, both of 'em. Isn't that crazy?   Stephen - Oh my gosh. Our first two were five and a half.   Natalie - Oh, wow.   Stephen - We have little kids.   Natalie - Yeah, and I had 'em at home too, with midwives, yeah.   Stephen - Oh my gosh.   Natalie - It was crazy. So crazy.   Stephen - Amazing.   Natalie - So, long story short, last year, it was November of last year,  I talked to her. It was that first conversation. And it's funny, 'cause we have the Facebook messages still with the date.   And I said, "Hey, do you think we can write a program helping women?"   Because she put me through a program, and it totally worked.  I knew that if I'm struggling with this, other women must be too.     We started talking about it on Thanksgiving. We began writing it at Christmas. We launched on January 31st.   It was like, a month, a month, a month.   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - And we launched it through ClickFunnels, and within four months, we'd sold a million dollars of this $37 ebook.   Stephen - Do the math on that, people.   Natalie - Yeah.   Stephen - How many people? That's crazy.   Natalie - Yeah, it was really crazy. We don't sell the physical version, but this is the physical version, and it's just an ebook. I mean, there's nothing super fancy about it. It's kind of text, parts of it are kind of textbooky.   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - I partnered with the doctor to write that. I'm glad I did because she has the credibility, and I have the connection, so it's kind of like a one-two punch.   Stephen - I love that, yeah.   Natalie - I don't think I could have created that program 100% on my own, because when you're talking about the body and anatomy - there are so many things that I wasn't qualified to talk about, but anyways.   So then, it was this whirlwind of like, "Holy crap." Before this, it was just me in front of my computer answering emails.   Then all of a sudden, it's like, "whoa," we have this big company and this big machine, and I need to learn how to hire people and scale and be a CEO of a company instead of just like, a little solopreneur.   Last year was a real whirlwind of a year. I had to learn how to be tough with business. I had to learn the value and the importance of contracts and of not let people take advantage of you.   I had to grow and scale - and create value. I mean, just everything was...   Conceptually, I knew what I needed to do, but applying it was kind of a whirlwind.   I still feel like we're still... we'll always be working on our businesses, but...   So, that was the world's longest answer to "How you got started," but that's how I got involved in the ClickFunnels community.   The one thing I will say is; if anybody is watching this and is skeptical, "I understand," 'cause I felt the exact same way.   But if you just do what Stephen teaches, what Russell teaches it works. It really, really works! It's not scammy.   If you have a good product and a good message to give to the world, follow the system and don't try to change it, and it will work. That's all I did.   I didn't do anything fancy, other than I came up with the idea and the program...  I just did what you guys say to do, and it worked.   Stephen - That's so cool. That's so awesome.   Natalie - Yeah.   Stephen - That's so awesome. Yeah, sometimes people look at it. I had a buddy who looked at it once, and he's like, "That looks like it's scammy," - you know, the same kind of thing. I'm like, "Ah, no, we actually end up delivering more value than if you don't do it this way."   Natalie - Yes, 100% agreed.   Stephen - Fascinating.   Natalie - Yeah.   Stephen - You gave a speech at Funnel Hacking Live which was incredible.  I was so excited. I think we were sitting in the front row, or something like that, I was pumped.   I was like, "Yeah, Natalie's next!" You gave a speech about vulnerability. And you talked about some of the ways you build in vulnerability - and this isn't a weakness.   Natalie - Yeah.   Stephen - Right, but how do you find the strength to be vulnerable?   I guess, first of all, can you tell us what it means to be vulnerable?   You're such an... I don't know if you wanna call it vulnerability secrets, vulnerability expert, or hacks? Whatever, like, but you're really good at doing this in a way that doesn't come across, you know...   It seems like most people are like, "I'm not gonna be vulnerable 'cause it means I'm weak."   Natalie - No, it's not.  I get that, 'cause I felt that way for a long, long time.   So first off, I think a lot of times, especially if you're talking to guys, they will hear the word vulnerable, and they'll be like, "I'm a man. I am not vulnerable," right? And I get that.   So, another way of saying "be vulnerable" is just "be real," right?   Look at Russell. He shares the ups and the downs, and because he shares the downs, you wanna champion and root for him on the ups.   If somebody only shares the good times, then you don't connect as much.   It's almost like we naturally, as humans, have a tendency to...   If you think somebody is only always doing good, it's harder to wanna cheer for them and root for them, you know?   Stephen - "Yeah, the cards are always in that guy's favor... are you kidding?"   Natalie - Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, when it comes to being vulnerable, it's not about crying all the time, and it's not even about being vulnerable all the time.   If you look at my content, 80 to 90% of it is just really good quality content, and then occasionally, I'll add some real honest truth or raw moments into what I share. And what it does is it brings, this isn't my phrase... it from an author named Brene Brown, her books changed my life.   *Natalie looks for books* I don't have them here, but "Daring Greatly" and "Rising Strong" literally, personally and professionally, changed my life.   Brenee is a shame and vulnerability researcher. She teaches that vulnerability is the ultimate human connector because vulnerability and shame cannot survive together.   And so the more vulnerable you are, the less shame can survive, and the less power that story has over you.   And so, you know, we all have moments that we feel embarrassed to talk about, or we think that people will judge us, or we feel ashamed, and what's crazy.   I've found that the more you talk about the hard stuff:   #1: The less shame you feel talking about it, and you start to feel more comfortable with it   #2: People start to open up to you and say, "oh my gosh, me too. I didn't think anybody experienced that."   And so what happens is it creates a different level of trust with your audience.   However, there's a fine line between being vulnerable to get sales and actually being vulnerable, right? That's kind of hard to teach. And so, you know, I didn't start this off saying, "I'm gonna be vulnerable so I can build a big audience and make all this money."   I genuinely have a heart to help people, and selfishly, it helped me along the way, too, because it made me feel less insecure about these things.   People always say, "Okay I get it in theory, it makes sense to be vulnerable, but how do you actually do that without coming across as that crazy person on Facebook that puts all their drama there?"   Stephen - Always crying, the person like, "Oh, crap, unfollow."   Natalie - Yeah, and you're just like, Where's the popcorn. Let's watch their drama unfold." And so I kind of have this four-step system that I didn't mean to create. It's just how I naturally write, but it works really well.   The first thing that I do is #1, that you don't always have to share your vulnerable moments in the moment.   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - So, if you haven't worked through something and you're still feeling very fragile about it - it's okay to wait to share. Because, I've made that mistake before.   If you get criticism back and you haven't really worked through it yet, that criticism can be shattering to your confidence.   And so, one of the tricks that I have...   For a long time, I struggled, 'cause when you're going through the vulnerable stage when you're really sad or excited or happy or embarrassed or feeling ashamed when you're in the moment, the feelings feel very real...   But sometimes it's hard to sit in front of your computer later and the real emotion that you felt during that moment.   So one of the things that I do now, a trick that I have, is I'll pull out my phone and pull up the notes section when I'm in that moment feeling, you know, small or hurt or scared or whatever the feeling is, right? It can be good or bad.   And I'll just shorthand write out the raw feelings. Not like full paragraphs, but, now I have this big catalog of feelings, so if I want to tell a story that relates to this, that relates to body image, or that relates to whatever,  I have all these raw emotions to draw on.   I'm not faking vulnerability. It's my real stuff.  It's my real moments that I can draw from and turn into actual stories.   Another tip: A little family joke is that I'm really bad at analogies, and my family calls them "Natalogies" because a lot of times, like, you know...   The whole crux of expert secrets, is you have to be able to do epiphany bridges and analogies. And my analogies do not make sense half of the time.   I'll say them, and people are like, "that didn't make sense?" I'm just not good at them.   I hope someday, I can learn to be better at analogies. So what I try to do instead is just pull on these stories that I have - and kind of weave it together instead - 'cause my "it's kind of likes" never actually make sense.   So that's like my trick, you know how Russell talks about in the soap opera sequences, to start with the drama - to start with the most dramatic point, and then you tell the back story...   In my posts, a lot of times, I do that.   I start with like the hurt, the pain. Whatever you're feeling, the run moment, start with that, 'cause then people will automatically be like, "Whoa. She's talking about something nobody talks about."   And then what I do is I, and this is just my style. Everybody will find their own style.   But my step number two is to show myself some grace. Remind myself "perfectly imperfect, it's okay," or,  just show yourself some grace, and in some words, type that out.   Then the third step is to try to remind myself of a time when this has happened before and I worked through it -  or when somebody else has gone through something like this and worked through it.   Stephen - Right.   Natalie - And then the fourth step is; I always finish up on a positive note.   So like, either how I worked through it - if this is a past experience, or if I don't know how to work through it, I share what my plan is to try to work through it, even if you fail trying, right?   So what it does is it puts people, like, when you're, when you start with the raw stuff, it makes people feel like, “whoa, like, that could be me, because I've felt that exact same way.”   And then you're giving yourself grace, and you're teaching other people how to show, how to give themselves grace if they're in the same shoes, and then when you talk about how you work through it.   It's like, somebody else could look at you, look at your situation and say, “Whoa, I'm in that situation too, and if she can work through it, I probably can, too.”   And so, I think that's why a lot of my content has gone really viral, is because I make it relatable by sharing, it's not fake. I mean, they're the real moments, and then I come up with like a positive, and it's not.   Stephen - End with hope at the end.   Natalie - It ends with hope, yeah, but it's not like, talking down to somebody.   It's not like, you have to do x, y, and z, or I'm so perfect on my high horse here.   It's more like, we're in this together. We're all in the arena, and we've all fallen down. Let's dust off our knees, and this is how I'm gonna try to stand up. I might get knocked back again, but like, this is what I'm trying.   I don't know if that makes sense at all, but I think that's why... there's an underlying subtleness of talking down to somebody or being on the same playing field and championing everybody to come up together.   I don't know if I have the language to always describe how I do it, but that's kind of the feeling behind it.   I have written and deleted and written and deleted, 'cause I'm like,“This feels like I know everything,” or you know, I'm like talking down, and I never want that to come across that way.   Stephen - Right. Absolutely, and you know, you know what it reminded me of is so like, you know, we always tell people, like, start publishing before you have a big following.   Natalie - Mmhmm.   Stephen - So that you can bring them with you and you become the expert in front of them.   Natalie - Exactly.   Stephen - Rather than become an expert and then start publishing, 'cause it's so less believable.   You've done the same thing with the vulnerability, which is fascinating. Like, yes, start it. Don't be afraid to talk about the low moments, not that it always needs to be low, and it probably shouldn't always be, but you know...   Natalie - Totally.   Stephen - But being open about what's actually going on and doing it in front of 'em rises everyone together. That's fascinating.   Natalie - Well, and what's crazy is that it never gets... well, it's always a process, right?   So, what's weird is that eight years ago, for me to talk about the body image stuff, it was so hard for me, 'cause that's where I was. I was in that phase of my life where I was really struggling with that, right?   And so, I did the work, and I went through the process unintentionally.   I didn't know I was doing the work at the time. I was just being vulnerable. I was sharing.   So what's cool is that, fast forward to now, I don't really have all of those body image insecurities that I had then, and I think it's honestly because I was willing to talk about it in the moment.   Now, fast forward to today, and the issues that I'm struggling with are different.   I'm a different person than I was eight years ago, right?   So when I built my audience with talking about the body image stuff, now, it's like, "okay, I don't feel like I have to talk about that as much, 'cause I've not grown past it," - that's not the right word, but  it's not my main focus anymore. And now it's...   Like, okay, you know, I went through a divorce, and I haven't really talked about that very much publicly.   But now it's like, "Okay, now I'm sitting in this moment where  I'm at a crossroads." Am I gonna do what has worked for me in the past and be vulnerable and open up and share these things that feel uncomfortable to me again, right?   It's not the body image stuff anymore. Now it's personal development and relationships and the struggles that I've had with my business.   Like, it's always changing.   So vulnerability is never like, you just learn how to be vulnerable and you've got it. Like, it's always easy.   It is easier for me to be vulnerable on the body image stuff, but now it's shifted to "how can I grow?"   And the only hope I have is that I know that it worked with the body stuff. So  I'm hoping that five years down the road, I can look back and say, "Okay, I was scared to be vulnerable.  I was scared to talk about these things, but it got me into this confident, comfortable zone because I shared."   Stephen - No, totally, totally. Like, I went through a lot of the exact same, you know, it's funny because I feel like it's the emotion that binds people.   While I haven't gone through a divorce, there are other times where I felt really vulnerable as well. And so whilst that person may not have gone through a divorce, if we didn't have the same experiences, we did have the same emotions, and being able to expose the emotion, I feel like, is what binds people. I think it's interesting what you said.   Anyway, quirks, the little quirks that you have or the little vulnerabilities you have, that's your superpower. That's the reason people follow you. They don't follow you because of pure perfection 24/7. That actually annoys people after a while. But you actually get personal healing along the way. Like that's so, that's so amazing.   Could you tell us a little bit... I mean, this is Sales Funnel Radio, and you're talking about your sales funnel. Like, what does this have to do with sales funnels? Why does it matter? 'Cause it totally does, but just for everyone else, you know.   Natalie - Well, it 100% matters because the thing that I've learned is although I'm not the best trainer in the world. Like, I will be the first to it that. Yes, I'm a personal trainer, but like, people don't buy my programs because....   I mean there are probably people that can talk science better than I can. I stumble over my words. I have mild dyslexia, and I mix up scientific all the time. But the reason people follow me and the reason people buy my programs, the reason we were able to sell so many of this book, is because of the connection.   I owned a company called Dollar Workout Club a couple of years ago, and we would film our workouts, and we never cut the cameras. And we would always be joking and be like, "guys, if you're at home you can relate to the doorbell ringing or whatever, right?" And it was very relatable.   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - Well, in one of the workouts, I happened to be wearing gray shorts, and Drew, the only guy, the other trainer, wrote the workout, and it was all jumping exercises, right?   So, we're doing the jumping, and I'm like, "Oh, crap." I could tell I was like, peeing my pants a little bit, right?   It was so embarrassing.  I'm wearing gray shorts and you can see this little tiny spot, then by the end, my whole butt was just... it was so gross. It's just covered in pee. At the end, I'm trying to stretch and turn sideways so you can't see.   Anyways, I could have never shared that, and I didn't for a while. I was really embarrassed about it. But we have that footage. So then when I went to go create this program, I could take screenshots from that video. I could take the actual video and put it in my funnel.   So what happened is people were like, "Whoa, this woman actually peed her pants." Like, this is embarrassing. I mean, truth be told, this program almost didn't come out, 'cause I had to have a heart-to-heart with myself really, and say, "okay, Natalie, are you willing to tell the whole world that you used to pee your pants," you know?   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - But what happens is then you can put those real stories in your funnel. You can put the photos. And it's kind of like instead of social proof this is your real story and your real-life proof.   "Whoa, this woman understands me and this woman gets me." Because the truth is that real change, like, I can give you the best meal plan and the best workout program in the whole world, but it's not gonna have a lasting, long-term effect until you make that internal change and have that belief in yourself.   I feel like that is my gift, is helping people see their value and their power. And so, you know...   Stephen - People kind of have an identity shift with the vulnerability that you have, almost. That's fascinating.   Natalie - 100%. And so that's the psychology behind it.  I think that when you are willing to be real vulnerable, not fake vulnerable... If you're willing to be real vulnerable, people can relate to that. And once people relate to it, they begin to trust you, and then once they trust you, they'll buy from you.   My biggest fear is that when people listen to me talk about this, they're gonna be like, "Oh, I see dollar signs. I'm just gonna like, figure out how I can be vulnerable." But the truth is, people are smart. Your customers are smart, and they will smell out fake vulnerability.   Stephen - Right.   Natalie - And so.   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - The biggest thing... If you're sitting there and you're thinking, "There's no way I could ever talk about this," then you're on the right path. That's how you know it's real vulnerability.   If you seriously feel nervous to share it and talk about it, and you think: “Everybody will think I'm a fraud. Everybody will think I'm a bad parent." Everybody will think I'm a bad husband or wife. Nobody's gonna find me attractive."   All of these things, these stories that we tell ourselves that you feel if you start talking about, people are gonna think you're terrible... Guess what? That's the real good stuff that you need to be talking about and sharing if you wanna create real connection and live a wholehearted life.   Stephen - Totally believe that yeah. 'Cause I struggled. Anyway, when you got up, and you were speaking about that on stage, I was like, "Man, I know, I feel ya, holy crap."   I had like, zero confidence. So rather than choose not to be active and do this game, I just called out my fear publicly, and that became a theme for a little bit.   It was like, "Look, guys, I don't really wanna be doing this, although I got something cool to show you, all right?"   And for a while, that was the theme of it. And then as I grew up and healed, (I like how you said that) I ed certain things in front of the audience.   Then it was like, "Whoa, I've gotta wait for this new episode," or "what's he doing now?" And it was crazy, crazy. That was worth more than me putting hundreds of episodes out of just the best content ever.   Natalie - Yeah.   Stephen - It was crazy, crazy what that did.   So, what would you say is, like...   So you tell people, go ahead and start recording down things that are going on in the moment. Don't feel the pressure to go ahead and say it in the moment, which I totally agree with. I don't know if I can handle that.   Natalie - Well, and it can be whatever platform you like the most, right? Mine happened to be Facebook, but some people are better at YouTube, or some people are better at podcasting or Instagram.   There's not one that's better or worse. Just find what feels the easiest for you and start there.   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - I will say too...   So, one of the downsides of being vulnerable is, and I don't let this scare you from being vulnerable, but it does happen. It still happens to me.   So when you're open and transparent about your life, for some reason, and I get it. We're that way with celebrities, right?   You're like, "I wanna know why they broke up." And both sides of the story; people feel like they know every aspect of your life. And I do share a lot, but I don't share everything.   And so what can happen is that you get harsh people on the internet. And we all get that anyways. Even just last night.   I get mean from people messages every day pretty much.   Luckily, I have my team now to kind of shield me from it, just 'cause it's like silly.   Stephen - I have to do the same, yeah.   Natalie - Yeah, just 'cause it's hard for me to continue to be vulnerable if I'm always reading the negative messages.   Stephen - Yeah, I'm the same.   Natalie - But one woman was like, "You are so different from how you used to be. You used to share your progress photos, and now you just talk about your life."   The truth is, we all change and grow as people, right? And so for me, posting an ab selfie now, I don't get validation or fulfillment. I don't need that like I did six years ago. So, yeah, if you look at my feed, I don't post as much like, like, body image stuff, because I'm kind of like in a different space.   And so what will happen is that as you're transparently sharing what you're focused on in your life, sometimes, you will get people that you don't attract anymore.   Like, they're still in a different area, and they want to follow people that are in that area, and that's okay.   What I've had to learn is that the number-one thing when you get mean people on the internet, and it took me a long time to figure this out, is that it's so much more about them and what they're personally struggling with than it is about you, you know?   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - Okay, so, for example, my peach tree. So we had a big wind storm. I'm sure you saw it 'cause we live in the same town.   So, this tree that I've nurtured for two years, finally had some fruit coming off of it, well the storm completely broke the tree, and I was really sad. I posted about it on my Insta Story, and she wrote back, and she was calling me all these mean names, and she's like, "To think that your biggest worry right now is that your peach tree died. My mom just died, and my brother is sick."     And I realize she's hurting because of that, and she's lashing out at me, right?   So it's a reflection of her. It's not a reflection of me. And so that was the hardest thing I had to learn, being open and vulnerable in the online space, is that you will get critics.   I always say it's like the people in the peanut gallery out there who aren't, like...   I'll listen to criticism from people who are in the arena with me, right, people who are battling and fighting and trying and working hard, but if it's just a critic out in the peanut gallery that isn't there fighting along with me, then their opinion doesn't matter.   It's probably more about them than me.   Stephen - You're better than I am, then. There are times I just, I don't know.   Natalie - Well, I did block her.   Stephen - I like to fight with 'em sometimes. And I shouldn't, and I'm growing past that, and there's me being vulnerable. I like to stir the pot sometimes when it's already brewing.   Natalie - You should talk about that, Stephen. So you should talk about it-  not just like the fun, "I said this, and he said that" but the real issues, "why did that trigger you?" And what's the story behind that insecurity?   Those are the things that people love. Not just the story, but going deeper into the feeling or the "why" behind it - you know?   Stephen - Yeah.   Natalie - I don't know.   Stephen - I told you, yeah, some of it's going on right now still with some other people. Like, it comes in waves. I don't know if that happens for you too.   Natalie - Yes.   Stephen - It's like the criticism goes down, whoa, and then it goes away, and you're like, everything rocks, and then you try something big again, and everyone's like, "whoa!" Not everyone, but there's like, anyway, the talking heads, as I call them, come on out. It's the armchair quarterbacks.   Natalie - Uh-huh, 100%.   Stephen - Yeah, I told you, and I've been planning on doing that. Funny you say that. I just haven't quite formulated how to do it yet, so.   Natalie - Yeah.   Stephen - It's top of mind.   I wanna thank you for being on here with everyone, and guys, Sales Funnel Radio, we're talking about vulnerability.   This is everything, especially if you are the attractive character in your own business - which I hope that you are, and you choose to be.   This is not a tiny subject. It's something that you will not have the choice to go around. You will address it whether it's through haters or your own personal growth. You're gonna get it.   So, please, please go follow Natalie. Natalie, where should people go to follow you?   Natalie - My website is nataliehodson.com, or Facebook is Natalie Hodson Official. Instagram is nataliehodson1   Stephen - Cool.   Natalie - If anybody has any questions, you know, you can leave 'em, and I'll keep checking 'em. I'll answer them and stuff.   The books that I talked about are Brene Brown's Daring Greatly and Rising Strong.  I think they're books every single human being on this planet should listen to.   I call the books magic, 'cause I've listened to them probably six times now, and every time, I need to hear a different piece. I gain something different from them every time, you know? They're good books.   Stephen - I wrote it down. I'm excited. I'm gonna go get them right after this.   Natalie - Cool.   Stephen - That's awesome. Everyone, guys, thank you so much.   Please reach out to Natalie and say thank you and go follow her, and watch her practice what she preaches on this stuff. It's fantastic and amazing - and that lets her audience open up as well.   So Natalie, thank you so much for being on, and it's been a pleasure.   Natalie - Yeah, you're so welcome.   Stephen - Woohoo, hey, thanks for listening.   Hey, many don't know that I actually made my first money online as an marketer.   If you wanna know how I funded my entire company without using any of my own money ever, you can learn to do the same for free at outrage.com.

Boom. What's going on everyone, this is Steve Larsen. This is Sales Funnel Radio - and today we are going to talk about Jenney.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine-to-five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up guys.   Okay, first off this is probably one of my favorite case studies ever that I've read. This is from a Harvard one that I read, and it's really, really fascinating stuff.   First of all, I would not consider myself a clothing connoisseur. But this is a very fascinating case study.   I am not gonna be able to say dates or even names correctly, it's the lesson though. I when I read this the first time, I was sitting in a very tiny room, listening to 400 words a minute, reading through and going through…   I was like, oh my gosh, this is a great lesson, right. And it completely applies to everything that's going on here. So here's the story…   The story goes that the guy who... You know when Apple first started making their Genius Bar in the Apple Stores, right.   There was a guy, right, that went through and he started thinking through this amazing Genius Bar and this amazing experience when you walk in and the design of it, the layout, the look of it, right.   When you walk into an Apple Store, you know you're in an Apple Store, right?   And, again, I can't his name, so if anyone re, awesome. I don't right now off the top of my head. But the guy, what he did is he went and created this Genius Bar and he created this awesome feel when you walk in there. It's very feel when you walk in.   The Apple Store was launched, right, very small, and then they started replicating, replicating just, and blast them all over the place when they got the base test correct, right. Well, they started thinking to themselves, so why don't I keep building this out and put this around other areas. Other department stores started seeing what Apple is doing. It's about this time Jenney came along and said, Hey what's up guy, do you wanna leave Apple, come on over here and design our stores instead?   And so he left deg these Apple Stores, with the Genius Bars and that feel when you walk in, he left doing that and what he did instead was he came and he started doing deg and doing very similar for Jenney.   He moved into the Jenney and he gutted tons and tons of stuff inside of there. Gutted it.   He got rid of this and that - the normal shirt racks and the rings, things like that. I mean he got rid of, it literally looked like an Apple Store but with Jenney clothing inside of it:   #1: He completely redesigned the entire feel   #2: He got rid of mailers   He started saying things like, “Hey look, people know that we mark this up and then when they come in with a coupon they're actually buying it at the normal price it was anyways. Well instead, we know that customers are smart. We know the customers are smart. Why don't we just not do that? And instead of, right, let's say they get a shirt in, and it's 40 bucks they mark it up to, I don't know, 60, 70 dollars and then send out a coupon that brings it back down to 40 bucks, right.” That's like the classic Kohl's model; that's why there's always a deal going on, always clearance right now - there's always this going on. That's how they run all those department stores.   So instead of sending mailers - they didn't send anything. He started telling the customers, and his message to the market was, “Look, customers, we know, you know what's going on. We know that you know that these mailers we send out are not really an extra 50% off, or 40% off or 30% off.”   What, oh my gosh! Right.   All they did was they marked it up like crazy - so then it seems like this huge discount.   It's kinda like, my favorite thing, I went and I just grabbed a quick pair of like, swim shorts at Kohl's the other day and they're like, “You saved $97!” when I go and check out.   They don't tell you how much you spent, they tell you how much you saved.   That's very clever and I'm starting to do that in some of my sales funnels; right on the thank you page, “You saved blank, blank, blank” - instead of you spent this much.   Like you still say that, but the message is, “You saved this, this, this.” And I was looking at them kinda funny. I'm like “I bought a pair of socks and a shirt, you're telling me I saved $147 today?” And I always kinda look at them and smile, and they know and they're like, “Thank you. Congratulations.” But it's the psychology behind what they're doing, right?   Anyways, so this guy said, “Hey we're not gonna do that, we're not gonna send out these mailers.” Instead, if a shirt is $20 we're not gonna say it's $19.97 - we’ll just say it's 20 bucks.  We're not gonna mark it up and then give you a coupon. We know you're a smart customer.   A very interesting thing happened…   Their stock price dropped, it like, I think it was uh, like a full fourth. I mean they lost so much value - it may even have been more that. It dropped a gigantic level in a matter of two months - I mean really really fast.   All their foot traffic stopped in the stores, no one showed up anymore… There was no reason to show up, right?   Eventually, they ended up getting rid of the apple guy, getting back their old model. And then suddenly, you know, it's no longer that tight. Jenney lived and moved on.   What's the lesson there? Guys, even if people know…   Okay, we do this thing when we do webinars called the stack. The stack in the webinar is beautiful, it's amazing, it's brilliant, it’s incredible. The stack is a way to structure your offers and then present the offers.   However, it can feel a little bit weird to the person who's doing it, right? Cause you're like, “First, you get this…” This is totally like an infomercial. This is why they do it, this is called the stack. It's inside an infomercial, right?   First, you're gonna get this, and that's valued at this price, but wait, if you act now I'm gonna give you two for the price of one. But wait, if you act now we're actually gonna give you a third for absolutely free, but wait, if you act now we'll give you this, and this, and this, and this, and this - that's a total value of blank   And they stack this value up and then do a massive price drop. People know what they're doing, right? You know what they're doing, right?   Go open up your mailbox next time the mail comes in, I guarantee there's some kind of mailer in there. And you know what people are doing, right? But buyers love the game!   It doesn't mean you don't play the game just because like, “Oh they're gonna know what I'm doing.”  Great, good, then they know that you're asking for their money soon, right?   It's pretty common, especially for a funnel builder, to be like, “Well, I don't know if I want to put like the whole like price slash thing. I don't know if I wanna put like a countdown clock, I don't know if I wanna put like.... You know, all these little scarcity urgency things..”   All these little scarcity urgency things we used to get someone to push over the edge, they're there for a reason! Don't feel awkward about it. Don't feel weird about it. People want an excuse to act now.   The coupon mailers that go out - that’s a reason for people to get off of their butt and buy now.   Could they buy the same shirt probably the next day for the same amount of money? Yes. But the mailer is the lever that you have, right?   It's the ad. It's the scarcity and urgency, specifically that gets them to get off of their butt and take action immediately rather than wait.   If they wanna buy, give them a reason to now.   That's why I love this case study so much. Jenney literally took away the deal. It took away the endorphin rush that I'm going to get knowing that I saved $147 today on socks from Kohls.   I did not save $140, I spent $20. But it's the way that you say it that makes it an offer. And you can do that with your copy, not just what you're selling. You can do that with your scarcity and your urgency.   This is a huge lesson. Let people play the game. Buying is a game.   What's funny is, if you look at the sales process psychology from beginning to end, there's a game that gets played inside of there.   There's an endorphin rush that happens that people get to feel when they purchase. It's an actual endorphin rush. They want to feel it. Let them feel it.   When you take away the deal, they don't feel it. And even though they've got the same product, they are less satisfied with it. Does that make sense?   You can give the exact same product away and not play some of these games… Not play some of these scarcity and urgency moves. Not give them a reason to act now. And you will literally kill the fun of them purchasing. They know. They're still buying, they're still responsible purchasers (most of the time, right?)   What you want to do is find ways to get - so that's my challenge, that's literally the entire point of this entire episode....   This might be a little bit short. But that's the whole point of the episode, okay? Figure out what it is people want to purchase.   There's this weird thing that happens, guys…   Anything that I sell, the 80/20 rule always applies. 20 percent of my people are going to run forward after they purchase. Which is true for any product.   When I was doing Two Comma Club coaching for Clickfunnels, a year ago, I still am, but a year ago I started looking at the numbers.   There were several hundred people who were inside the course, and when I looked at how many people were actually active, it was literally 20 percent.   The other people who were in the course would still get what they needed, the 20% were just the hardcore people who stuck. You know, the hardcore believers that were with me like crazy. They're the true believers. They were about 20 percent.   It's the exact same rule when you're actually selling this stuff. If you think through the actual buyer psychology; they want to feel the warm fuzzies of them purchasing.   I did an episode about this a little bit ago, about the pre-purchase. This is one of the easiest ways to have a pre-purchase. Don't take away the deal. Don't take away the warm fuzzies. Don't take away the fun of buying, right?   People want to purchase. When you show something cool, they already want to buy.  People want to buy. They want to buy things. There's a consumption instinct. (There’s a great book called the consuming instinct.)   We want to consume things. And that's not a bad thing. But sometimes you, the entrepreneur, get in the way with your own emotions of what you feel awkward over. Don't do that!   If something is proven to help you sell a product, then you stay the course and use it to sell the product - as long as it's ethical and moral. I think that goes without saying, but maybe it doesn't, so let me go ahead and just say it. As long as it's ethical and moral, okay?   So, figure out what those mechanisms are.   One of the easiest ways for you to go ahead and do that is to start looking at what other products your customers are buying to get the same solution.   Like if they wanna get money, and let's say they buy your product here and they buy someone else's and buy somebody else's and buy somebody else's.   Go look at not just like the funnel, but also what scarcity and urgency, what thrills of purchase thay have laced into their product.   There's a thrill of purchase. Give them the thrill of purchasing. That’s exactly what Jenney lost when they brought that other guy in.   They're sending all these mailers out to all these women who wanted to buy, then they took away the thrill of purchase because they didn't save.   My mom's awesome, but she would spend tons of time clipping coupons. She would go gather coupons from all over the place.   She would end up getting money from the store and two carts of groceries for free. It's like crazy, right? Amazing. But mentality it’s very different... so to take away part the thrill of the savings…   It's kind of like when you go on a vacation, right? I said this a few episodes ago, the vacation itself has been shown to have the same amount of fun and excitement, as the expectation leading up to the vacation.   When you see a movie preview come out six months in advance and you put the time on the calendar. You get the babysitter set up, you're planning everything so that you go, that's the exact same thing.   It's the reason you open carts and close carts. It's the reason you do scarcity and urgency. It's the reason you have a countdown clock. It's the reason you do price slashes and price drops - little things like that.   Does the customer know what you're doing? 99 percent of the time, the answer is yes, but that does not mean you don't do it?   The customer wants to play the game. It is a courtship, it is a dance that they're playing with you.   And when you look at it that way, it is a lot of fun.   So anyways, that is the whole point of this episode… Keep the fun, keep the thrill of purchasing for your customers.   Make sure you've got these little things laced inside there, so they like to buy. Make it so it's easy for them to buy. Make it so it's fun.   One of the easiest ways, have success paths. Little cultural things.   We have a product we just launched called My Funnel Stache, as in a mustache. My Funnel Stache is ALL the top end funnels that I built while at Clickfunnels for Russell and his clients.   I rebuilt them in front of a live audience and you could buy them and use them. So like the top of the top, the freakin' awesome, okay? But with My Funnel Stache, I send out they're Clickfunnels sunglasses - one lens is red, one lens is blue - they're 3D glasses, but they look like the Clickfunnels colors.   Then I send you out a Clickfunnels mustache, it's not Clickfunnels, but it's a fake adhesive mustache. Why? Because it's fun. That's the only reason. It builds CULTure - it's the thrill of the purchase that we're lacing inside there.   We got another cool little few tools we've been using lately.   When somebody goes in and they buy from me, I'll just flip my phone open and send them a video real fast and say thank you to them personally with their name. “Hey, what's up, thanks so much,” and I'll crack stupid jokes. I don't care if they're stupid.   That's not the point. I'm keeping the thrill of the purchase laced inside of the buying process.   Don't be boring to buy from - don't be boring in general ;-) - but don't be boring in the actual order process.   Anyway, there's a lot of tiny little things we've been doing like that lately. It’s even laced inside of my copy:   “All right, if you don't get this now, are you ever going to be successful doing this stuff? Absolutely not!”   I'll say things like that just as a joke, and they know that. I’m lacing in my personality. I’m lacing in scarcity and urgency. The courtship of the purchasing experience is so important.   Don't take away the fuel from their sales. They already wanna buy from you - just give them reasons to do it now.   So that's what I've got for you guys today. the Jenney rule, and the time you go get your mail from your mailbox, and you're leafing through your crap and you're like, “that's junk, that's real, that's junk, that's real,” I guarantee you guys all do that - so do I. But I like to read them...   Every once in a while you get one of those coupons, and you're like, “Sweet. You know what, we should go do this.” What did they give you? Their numbers work at the discounted rate - they just marked it up most of the time to get you in.   They gave you a reason to act now - that's a close.   Coupons are a close. It's not even marketing anymore, we're in the sales, especially the close area. They're closing you, “Come on in,” let's get that foot traffic up and rocking.   So anyway, keep the thrill of the purchase going.   Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you guys liked it, please rate and review in iTunes and share it. I have a lot of fun making these for you guys.   If you guys want to check out My Funnel Stache, literally go to myfunnelstache.com and you can watch how I built that whole thing and the marketing behind it.   I built the funnel live in front of an audience, built the marketing itself, designed the funnel. Built the script live in front of the audience. The entire thing was really fun.   It includes the application funnels, webinar funnels, event funnels, e-com funnels, supplement funnels, B2B - all the top ones that are built out of Clickfunnels. These aren't your grandma's funnels - these are awesome funnels. That's my Funnel Stash.   I decided it would be cool if it was “stache,” so we got 500 fake mustaches right behind the camera right now, and we're shipping them out!   All right guys, thanks so much, and talk to you later. Bye.   Boom! Just try to tell me you didn't like that!   Hey, whoever controls content controls the game. Want to interview me or get interviewed yourself? Grab a time now at SteveJLarsen.com!

Boom, what's up, it's Steve Larsen. This is Sales Funnel Radio, and today we're gonna talk about how to sell other people's products that you do not control. (Stephen is wearing a chicken suit)   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   All right, that was a little weird, and it was crazy hot. So anyways, I was gonna wear it for the entire episode, but I'm gonna take it off.   Hey, so what's with the chicken suit?   A little while ago Dana Derricks, if you do not know who he is, he is a copywriting master, he's a complete rockstar! Dana was brought in by Russell to help figure out other ways to sell Clickfunnels based on the different audiences that they had.   Think about how cool that is! Okay, let me just go full circle...   When he showed up, he gave me that chicken suit I ended up riding it home on my motorcycle. If you want to watch, it's on Funnel Hacker TV -  it's pretty funny. That thing is hot though!   Anyway, think about what Dana Derricks had to do? I digress, we're back to this "serious marketing" - you guys know me ;-)   Okay, let’s think about what Dana Derricks had to do. He had to come in, and he had to figure out how to sell a product that was not his, okay?   Now, why does this matter?  It matters if you're in marketing, it matters in general...   I really believe that you gotta be amazing at doing this as a whole - because if you can figure out how your competitors are selling their products, and figure out how you would sell their product better, you're already gonna get more customers than they have.   So follow me here for a second, okay?   I have had the incredible honor of being asked by Clickfunnels, by Russell, by Dave Woodward, to come in and do the Funnel Builder Secrets webinar.   If you guys know the 90 minute $3 million session that Russell did, it was with the Funnel Builder Secrets webinar, and they've asked me to come in and be the pitch guy for it now - which is really, really exciting.   I think I'm safe to announce that? They were puttin' it out on the group for Clickfunnels a bit ago, so I think I can say it? If not let me know and I'll take it down... I'm really, really excited about it.   The reason I bring this up is, if you think through what Dana Derricks had to go through to write a script for a product that was not his own, right? How powerful that really is. Now follow me with this...   The pattern that he has to go through is pretty fascinating, he has to put himself in the shoes of Russell. “How would I sell this if it was mine to sell? How would I sell this if it was something that I bled for to create and bring to life?”   We all love our products, we love our businesses, and we'll stay with them for a long time...   I got my whiteboard here 'cause I wanna share with you guys a few things 'cause it's the same thing I've had to go through this past little bit here.   Funnel Builder Secrets is not my product, but I have to write a script. They're letting me rewrite the script with my stories and my things in it to help sell an offer that is not mine... and so I have to think it through.   It's easy to do this when you are selling your own product because your stories tie into certain elements inside of the product; this story relates into why this product's in there, and this story ties into why that product's in there, all right? ...   For example; "It was this full amount, price drop, get it today for this amount." - It makes more sense.   I don't know if you guys have been watching, but Kaelin Poulin just went, and she rewrote some of the Funnel Hacks webinar doing this exact same thing with her audience. I'm going through this as well, right now.   This is a fascinating thing to think through. If you guys have a product, by the way, I wouldn't begin in this manner.   So two things here:   Let's think about the timeline that Russell Brunson has gone through, along with other massive sellers on the internet, to get to this kind of space now, okay?   #1: They figure out the one audience,   I got a whiteboard here, they figure out the one audience, the Red Ocean, that would love to see their product.  And they're like, "Sweet check it out! Here's Clickfunnels or whatever, here's this product or that product,” right?   They have to write the script for that one singular Red Ocean.   Most the time when people write a sales message, or they write anything that has to do with trying' to sell any product, one of the easiest ways to screw it up is to write it for multiple audiences.   "Well, you know who could buy it? This person could buy it, and these people could buy it these people could buy it, these people could, could, could, could, could."   That's not what you guys have to answer first. The first thing to answer when you're writing a sales script is "Who should buy it? Who is willing and able to spend cash on this? Who is my dream, dream customer?"   Not, "this person could" and "these people could" and "that audience over there, they could?"   That's the fastest way to, number one, not sell, and number two, to make somewhat of a hellish scenario where you service people that you don't want to - Speaking from experience here, all right? Four or five years ago I totally did that.   There's like flakes of chicken all over the place around me, little chicken hairs all over the place. Anyway, so number one, you gotta think through who the best purchaser for your product is? So think through right now. Clickfunnels has done that. I've done that with my products. I know the best purchaser for my products. Russell knows the best purchaser for his products.   For Funnel Builder Secrets, Russell knows the best people for that thing.   Let's say we're selling Funnel Builder Secrets - which is what I'm gonna be selling - what I'm doing' for the next few days is just workin' that script, workin' that script, workin' that script, rewriting it.   But think about the pathway that Russell went through, the timeline as far as the script goes, the maturity of the script...   And I know I'm getting deep here. It's a little deeper than I normally get on this, but think through this with me and follow me for a moment, okay?   If I'm gonna sell Funnel Builder Secrets to people to people in the Red Ocean...   The first time the script was created, Russell went through, and he figured out the best audience the best fit of buyers for the Funnel Builder Secrets webinar.   One of the easiest things we can do now is figure out other "Sub Red Oceans" - that's what I call them. They're Sub Red Oceans - SROs.   Sub Red Oceans are people who could accept the script as well.   Take the ClickFunnels example; when Russell's selling ClickFunnels on a webinar, (if you guys haven't seen it, it's called Funnel Hacks, you guys can go get free funnels from ClickFunnels at salesfunnelbroker.com and  click on Free Funnels up on the top right - it's an link of mine, but it gives you a two-week trial and a preview of funnels for your stuff.)   Okay, so think about this; if you go to Funnel Hacks and watch the script -  what it's doing is targeting people who are using websites.   he threw those rocks at websites: "Websites are dying, websites are crap, you spend ad money on websites, and it's the fastest way not to get any return," right?   He is throwing rocks; websites are the Red Ocean.   As the script progresses, he knows that's the correct pitch for these people, then he'll start bringing' in other audiences.   People are like, "oh you know what, it makes sense, but I don't have a website, but oh man, I'm, I don't know, I'm a coach, I don't know if this works for me in coaching?"And Russell's like, "it works for you, it works for you."   Just follow me for a second, I know this is kind of all over the place, just, and we'll go full circle here, you're gonna be like, whoa! I'm hopin' you have like the big whoa moment, okay? Follow me for a second, okay...   He's like, "Check it out, it is for coaches." And people are like, "oh, ClickFunnels is really cool, but I don't know if it works for me, I don't know if it works for me, I don't have a website, and I'm not a coach - so I don't know if I can use it? I'm actually in retail." And Russell's like, "oh crap, wait!  It works for retail." And then he goes and he adds that in the script, right?   Then he'll add B2B in the script, then, the next thing, and the next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing... Info, MLM, ecom, supplements, bam bam bam. “It works for here, it works here.”   Here's the fascinating thing about this; now who told Russell which audiences should be in that script?  The market did - the market told him.   It's not like Clickfunnels is over here on the side doin' things like, "hey check it out! This person could, they could, they could, they could, they could."   Now the market's going, "oh I'm not gonna buy it because I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not." And we're like, "but it works for you, wait a second, it works, it works, it works."   You let the market tell you what Red Oceans, what markets, what little pockets and Sub Red Oceans of people are great to include inside of the script.   Think about what I'm doin' with Funnel Builder Secrets... This is a little bit of a different-style episode, I just think it'd be kind of cool and valuable to do with you guys, okay?   Now that he's got this script completely nailed down for the audiences that keep coming to him and we're like, no it does work for you, that does work, I would use it like this for that, no, you know, and he's got that down now, right? Now that that's down, okay, that has helped create two things here:   We know "WHO" we're selling to and we know "WHAT."   We know "WHAT" the offer should be. It has been proven, it has been vetted, the market has spoken and said, "Yes, we will give cash for that."   So my role is to I come in and be the pitch guy for Funnel Builder Secrets. I don't really change the "What." I actually don't even really change the "Who."   I don't change the "What" - I don't change the offer.   What I'm doing is I'm changing the stories. I'm not gonna go in and tell potato gun stories. I'm not gonna go in and tell the stories that Russell would normally tell.   The audience doesn't know who I am, right? As far as sales psychology goes, there's really two intros in any script.   Guys, again, follow me here, I know this is not a normal Sales Funnel Radio episode but stick with me for a moment, okay?   There are two intros inside of any sales script. And people screw this up all the time...   In the first intro, you gotta answer the question, "What is this? What is Funnel Builder Secrets?"  It's this knee-jerk reaction that people are gonna have to keep them safe. It's a reaction from the part of the brain that keeps people safe, okay? You know, the "croc brain."   If you guys ever read the book Pitch Anything, it's a fantastic book to go read - one of my favorites...   But first thing we're gonna do is we're going to intro, I gotta intro Funnel Builder Secrets itself, okay?   The second thing, (and this is the reason I can't go tell Russell Brunson's stories even though it's Russell Brunson's product), I gotta tell my stories.   The second intro is an intro to me. "Okay, okay, you've made me feel safe, you've made me feel okay, I know what Funnel Builder Secrets is now, okay, I have the expectations for what the rest of the script is gonna be." They're not gonna say that, but they're feeling those good, warm fuzzies.... "But who are you?"   That's like the second thing they're gonna start feeling  - so I have to intro that.   So we're still targeting the same "Whos,"  the market has spoken, the market has said, you know what, I'm a good fit for this. And we're like, "oh cool, we didn't think about that. We'll add that to the script." And so we have a big list of what all these WHOs. "Oh, I'm in retail, B2B, info, supplement, ecom, MLM, Coaching, info product, physical products." Tons of lead gen.   Anyway, we know what all the "Whos" are, and the market keeps telling us who the best fit is. Very key.   We also know what the best "Whats" are. "First you're gonna get this, and then you're gonna get this, and you're gonna get this, and you're gonna get this."   There's a portion of that offer that comes from the market telling us, "You know what? I would buy this main thing up here, I would buy the main product that you're talkin' about, but I just don't how I can X, Y, and Z?"  And we're like, "Oh, cool, okay, let's go add another product they'll get for free that will answer that when they buy the main product." Crazy cool, right?   So we have the right "Whats." We got the right "Whos."The thing that I am switching is the stories, okay?   I'm still introing the webinar the same kind of way that Russell does it, but  I have to introduce me - so they know who the heck they're listening to -'cause the sales psychology's gonna stop if I don't do that.   But I gotta go come up with my new stories. I gotta come up with a story for secret number one, a story for secret number two, a story for secret number three.   (If this is completely Greek, if you have no idea what I'm talkin' about, then you have got to go read the book Expert Secrets   Those are free sources guys, they're worth more than my entire marketing degree. That's not a joke...   I've learned more from those books and more from those resources than my entire degree - which took five years - and I don't use any of it.  I use everything that has to do with those books though, okay? )   Anyways, I have to come up with the stories for me - even though it's not my product.   One more major point here, and hopefully I haven't spoken too much and gone too crazy here?   I I was riding my bike home one day from college classes - we didn't have enough money for another car - and frankly, my pride was on the line a little bit.     I had tried at least 10 businesses on my own, and they'd all failed or barely broke even.   It was a nice summer day - usually, it was freezing, and I was beating myself up with phrases like "Man, you've been studying this for years, Stephen, what's wrong with you?  It's gotta be you, Stephen, 'cause all these other guys are doin' it - what's wrong with you?"   Don't do that beat yourself up - it doesn’t help.   … But that day, I was beating' myself up. I was like, "Man, I've been studying like crazy, I know what I'd do in this scenario, I see that guy's business in that scenario, I know what I'd do over there, I know what I'd do over there." And I was like, "but why am I still poor?"   It was a big question for me, and I that there was this idea that came flying' into my head...   First of all, I was like, "Well shoot, I'm not even asking for anybody's cash anywhere, you can't even give me cash anywhere online, so that's dumb, why am I complaining?  There's not even an ability for somebody to be able to pay me."   Number two, (and some of you might laugh at this, and some of you guys are gonna be like, "what?") I had never considered that there was a huge, stark difference between marketing and sales.   Sales is not marketing. Marketing is not sales. They have very specific different roles - they have very different functions.   I had been doing door-to-door sales and telemarketing for the explicit reason of learning sales. That's actually why I did it. I wanted to learn like consciously, that's the reason I chose the door-to-door.   I was like, "you know what, I know this is gonna be terrible, it's gonna be hell sometimes, I'm gonna get the door slammed in my face like crazy, I'm gonna go make door-to-door sales," and that's one of the reasons I did it.   But riding home that day, I realized, "Crap, marketing isn't sales. I've been studying sales, what the heck is marketing? Like dang, it!”   So to just sum it up real fast here, and not make this like a course:   Sales are what happens face-to-face. That's what I was doin' door-to-door, that's what I was doin' over the phone, I wasn't face-to-face but you know what I mean, I was with the customer, right?   Sales are what happens face-to-face, but marketing is how you get them to your face.   This is an area that a lot of people don't study ever.   And so, if you think about what I'm doing with the Funnel Builder Secrets webinar right now, you think about how this whole thing works…   What I am doing is I am affecting the marketing of Russell Brunson's Funnel Builder Secrets script, but I'm not affecting the sales of Russell Brunson's Funnel Builder Secrets script, okay?   Again, one more time, follow me here, let me draw this on the whiteboard.   A script, any sales script-  not just a webinar - at the beginning of any script, it’s very marketing driven.     Another way to define marketing is "the act of changing somebody's beliefs for the intent of a purchase to happen." You're just changing somebody's beliefs. You're changing the way they see the world, all right?   You're educating with the intent to change beliefs in hopes that it leads to a purchase. That's really what marketing is.   Sales, sales is just reasons to act now, okay? "Here's what you're gonna get - 50% off - Price goes up at midnight."Countdown clocks here!” Those are all sales tactics, but they're not necessarily marketing tactics.   A marketing tactic has everything to do with the actual stories that you tell, it's the way that you break and you build someone's belief patterns.   So my task for this webinar, which I've been incredibly honored to do...   I'm excited guys, I get to do it with these massive people in their audiences and close them, right, and do the webinar for that person in Russell's name, right?   I'm hopin' in the future it turns into some traveling and doin' it on stages, that would be really fun, anyway, that'd be really cool - 'cause Russell is the CEO of a major company so he can't really do all the stuff anymore, right?   So think about this, any sales script is really broken into two major pieces... there are more pieces, but there are two major pieces... The biggest thing that's happening at the beginning is marketing.   I'm tellin' stories with the intent to change your beliefs,  and the way you see the world, to help you understand that you're not seeing the world the way it really is.   For example:   "Oh man, don't use a website. Last time I used a website blah blah blah blah blah blah..., and it was a terrible result, and this guy said the same blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah."   I start changing' the way you see the world:   "Oh, I always thought websites were the bee's knees, and the cat's meow - baby, like websites are everything."   And suddenly, they're like, "Oh crap, this guy says they're not, what's the answer?" Then Sales swoops in... Does that make sense?   So I'm gonna tell marketing stories, and that's what's gonna happen at the beginning of the script for the first half or maybe more - when you think about the timeline of a script going' on the first half is marketing.   Then somewhere down the road, we flip into sales mode. Then I start talkin' about the offer.   I start talking about logical reasons to purchase now. I start talkin' about what you're gonna get when you act now.  I start talkin' about what will happen if you don't buy now.   I begin answering objections. "I don't have money." Well I'm gonna answer that objection. "I don't have this." Well I'm gonna answer this objection. At the end, I'm using some closes, "Go buy - Go to this URL - Open up in the tab - Go here!"   I feel like I keep saying this over and over in all these other subgroups I'm in, but I've never mentioned it on my podcast - that's why we're diving' into this.   I know it's a little bit deeper, and a little bit more tactical than I usually go on this show, but I just hope it helps.   When I look at a script, there are two major phases, so what my role in this webinar is,  I'm not actually adapting or changing Russell's offer at all, right?   Dana Derricks didn't change Russell's offer at all - it's still Clickfunnels, right? However, the lever that you can change, the lever that you can adapt when you are not in control of the actual product is marketing. You can control the stories. Those are levers you can pull.   The actual offer is over on this side, all right? I'm not touching it, I'm not gonna change it.   I'm not gonna pull out the different products or put them back in. Why would I change that? It's an amazing offer. I can't even compete with the things that are in that offer - it's incredible, absolutely incredible! Why would I ever touch it? That's not what I'm touching.   The thing that a lot of s do, and even JVs, is they'll be like, "But what uh, uh???" and they stress out, they're like, "How do I sell this offer?"   Don't worry about the offer! The offer's already sexy. It's up to its creator to make the offer amazing, absolutely attractive and absolutely incredible.   The place that you go and you spend all of your time in is this marketing. What are the stories that you can tell that will break and rebuild beliefs?   What's the stance you can take? What attractive character attributes can you take on?   The stance I'm taking is very much that of a reporter. It's Funnel Builder Secrets and I was the lead funnel builder at ClickFunnels for a little while, right? I was Russell's funnel builder, and that means I should probably be able to sell Funnel Builder Secrets quite well.   I'm gonna go through and adapt the stories. It's gonna be fascinating.   There's not gonna be a potato gun story in one of his scripts - so that’s gonna be really weird ;-)   Anyways I'm really, really excited!   So just know when you don't control the offer, it's more about the stories you're gonna tell in the beginning.   It's more about the pre-frames, before they see the offer.   You're not gonna touch the offer, don't try and, don't even worry about the offer.   If someone's like, will you promote my thing, and their offer is not drop dead sexy, don't spend the time comin' up with the stories.   Your job is to break and rebuild the beliefs that they have about what's possible so that when they see the offer, they're like, "Oh my gosh, that's a new vehicle. That's a new opportunity for the desire I have. That's a new way for me to get what I've been goin' for all along."   What bridges that gap is the stories that you tell.   So I'm going in and creating all the stories that could break beliefs. I'm pre-thinking the beliefs that I'm gonna be breaking - so I can match my stories to them, and tell them in a way that causes the epiphany in their head - "Wow, I gotta get this offer!"   So anyways, I just thought that'd be kind of a neat episode.   I know this is a little bit different style, and it made me think of Dana Derricks with the chicken suit. I was like, "Oh yeah, it's like the time Dana came in, and he was selling' Clickfunnels."   Clickfunnels isn't his, but he was still adapting and helping to write the scripts. Fascinating!   So, anyways, we got a chicken suit on auction... if you guys want it, bids start at a million buck.     All right guys, we'll talk to you later.   If you guys have enjoyed this please, please, please share this, please, please, please go tell iTunes Zeros & Ones with the review, how awesome this has been.   Please go review it, it really means a lot to me, and I've spent a lot of time putting these things together for you and I just hope that it helps break and rebuild your beliefs on how you can build a successful sales funnel.   Guys thanks so much, talk to you later, bye. Oh, thanks for listening. Hey please to rate and subscribe.   Hey you want me to speak at your next event or mastermind? Let me know what I can share, that would be most valuable, by going to stevejlarsen.com and book my time now.

What's going on everyone? It's Steve Larson, and this is Sales Funnel Radio! And today, we are gonna talk about webinars.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larson and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up guys, hey, okay first of all... I know I got a rubber fish in my hand. We'll get to that in a second... this is called a hook ;-)   Hey, I’m tired of the question, and I think this has been a bit of scare that has happened across the internet, as you guys know, (or if you haven't known), Google Chrome no longer allows auto-playing videos on page load.   What that means is that for everyone who's like, "Hey are auto webinars dead?" I wanna address that question today, 'cause I'm getting it from a lot of my personal students, for coaching that I get from other people that I fulfill on - I get it a lot of places. I even see other gurus saying things like "Hey, webinars might be dying."   Let's talk about this, okay...   So two things here:   #1: the answer's "no!"   #2: I actually wanna drop in and I screenshotted my stats from our webinar over the last month. I grabbed it from the last month - simply so you can see what's been going on for us because the Chrome update has been out longer than a month.   So what I'm gonna do is share with you guys.   We just barely turned on ads for this funnel, we re-turned them on three weeks ago.   Now if you don't know, I have several strategies for how I get traffic inside that funnel:   The first way I get traffic is, I do a lot of Dream 100 stuff and that's actually where this fish is coming in - we've got 100 of these, it's a full-size fish, a full-size trout and we're shipping them out to people in the next two weeks or three weeks.   What we're gonna do is we're inviting them to “fish-slap the crap out of the old ways!” Ha-ha get it? It's talkable, it's not expensive. Please do Dream 100. Anyway, so Dream 100, that's the first way.   The second way is with s. I treat Dream 100 and stuff in two separate strategies - they are not the same strategies.   With Dream 100, they're existing influencers, they have big lists already, right.  I go in, and I'm like "let's do a t venture together, I'll split 50/50 with you."   With s, they may not have a big list yet, but they're willing to go promote, they're willing to push it out there, right, and I give them a percentage for going out and selling.   To get the thing off the ground, I launched a program recently called outrage. It is a free program that teaches people how to make money as an , selling anybody's products, but all the examples I use in the training are for my products - so hopefully inadvertently they actually go and start promoting my products.   I had about 15 or 16 other massive, massive experts come in and teach courses that were for free -  normally you'd have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for this.   For our Dream 100 strategy and we had like 20 or 30 people reach out to us a few weeks back and we've got our JVs setting up. We're doing all that now - it's a lot of fun.   We also have the traffic, that's coming in.   The third way I do it is publishing; I have a podcast show dedicated to my major products.   So there's a podcast show for this very webinar funnel that I'm gonna share with you guys right now.   Then number four is ads.   Do you see how many things I went through before I got to ads!   Ads are usually the thing that people run into first. I'm not saying not to - I'm just saying there are other ways to do it, okay.   So what I'm gonna do is go in and show you guys exactly what we've been doing - and when I say "show," I mean I'm gonna talk about it.   For those of you guys who are in iTunes right now, just know that I'm holding a 12-inch massive rubber fish!   For those of you guys on youtube, you guys can see it.   Anyway, awesome stuff okay.   I have my phone here, I just took a picture of my screen about three minutes ago before I started this, and these are the actual live stats. Here's the thing you have to understand about webinars right now; "yes, chrome shut down the auto video playing thing," but did they really?   The answer is "no," okay! That's gonna be maybe controversial depending on who you ask, but the reason for my answer is:   In Clickfunnels there is a feature in the native video element where I can still have the video autoplay - I just can't have the sound autoplay.  So the page can load and start playing the video - all they did was put a film over top of it that says, "Turns On The Sound."   So I still have audio playing videos in my webinar funnel. My auto webinar funnel is still autoplaying - you just click "Yes" when it asks "Would you like to autoplay?" If you block pause - the video starts playing on page load -   they can't pause it.   However, what we've done is change the text on the film they've put on top of the video. The film is kind of dark and slightly transparent, so they can see the video playing in the background, but I have the text say, "Click to live session in progress."   When they click- the sound turns on and the film goes away, and it picks up right from where it is right there. So if they don't click, they're not seeing it from the beginning of the webinar - which is awesome.   I've actually been using it to my advantage; I put things on the actual page that say, "Hurry! Click above to session in progress."  I have an arrow down below saying the exact same thing. I pre-frame.   You can also pre-frame in the confirmation email, you can pre-frame them in the actual page ahead of time by saying, "look, you're gonna a session that's actually going live, you're gonna a session that's starting right in the next few minutes - it will autoplay."   I don't know what the big scare has been about because we're still doing it and it's been awesome.   So let me share with you guys actual stats, that sound good?   I might offend a few people when I say that sort of thing, 'cause they're like "Ah, but it's not true autoplay." WHATEVER! I actually like it. It's a micro-engagement before they actually go and actually watch it. It's been amazing actually.   I've actually really enjoyed this whole feature. We're actually using it to our advantage. I'm not gonna fight it, "let's just go with the flow and use it to our advantage." Instead of fighting it, there are these little micro-engagements before the page loads.   I'm like, "Hey, once you get in there make sure you click soon because it will be playing and you wanna be able to turn your sound on and make sure everything's set up."   It's just one extra step of micro-engagement, and we seem to have more attentive attendees.   Alright so I got my stats here. I'm gonna walk through my stats real quick. This is from June 21st through July 23rd, 2018, so just over a month starting from today just about a month in the history.   We have about $3.35 earnings per click. Not bad! that we turned ads back on about three weeks ago.   Let me run through our page in the last month:   The registration page has 1798  unique page views. 1800 people have seen that page uniquely in the last month.   63% have opted in. A 63% opt-in rate on an auto webinar funnel, you guys, I can barely even get that on a live webinar funnel!   Usually, when you go from live webinars to auto webinars, you get a drop in conversion rates. Mine went up!   We also are selling it harder, we've put a whole bunch of testimonials on it recently, and it's just really boosted a bunch of stuff.   Anyway, so 63% opt in rate, that's pretty huge.   So 1100 people have opted in. For those of you guys again who are listening I'm looking on my phone right now. So we're just reading the stats right here.   A 63% opt-in rate, that's ridiculous! From that, we have on the auto webinar funnel - I get about an 8% purchase rate.   So from those who actually , there's a drop off from those who . Right after they , they get sent to a self-liquidating offer, and that's actually selling quite well.   Only 10% of people actually see it. It's a little over 10%, maybe like 15%, about 15% of the people actually see the self-liquidating offer, actually click over to the actual order page, but it's a 35% purchase rate.   It's pretty crazy, so overall when compared with the other, it's maybe more like 10% purchase rate from the actual traffic coming on in, which is pretty great for a self-liquidating offer.   If you guys don't know what that is, it's self-liquidating, meaning, we have spent about $2000 in ads, just testing stuff - we're turning things back on slowly.   We spent about two grand in ads in the last month, we have made about $1700 in sales on that self-liquidating offer. So we are literally right now just about breaking even on all of our ads spent for that funnel. That's crazy, okay, that's crazy.   We don't have all of the targeting ads turned on. We haven't even really started making new ads. I mean these are all great signs of a fantastic webinar, it's been awesome, and we had great successes with them too.   I've loaded just tons of awesome case studies and testimonials from that product just in the last like three weeks, and that's really helped a lot as well, anyway.   So again, we only turned ads on about three weeks ago, so this is over the last, so for about a week there, there was not much going on in that funnel for I don't know, like a month.   There was lots of other stuff that was going on;  I was building, putting things together.   We had 17 sales from $2000 in ad spend, but that ad spend was also liquidated; so we're putting a dollar in ads, guys, and we're getting three or four back out. It's more like, the four, yeah, about four dollars back out, but we're also liquidating on the dollar, almost. Isn't that crazy!   we're keeping it tiny, this is not like huge, overall, the funnel's done about 19 grand in sales. And the average cart value is...   We're getting another $114 per purchase because of the self-liquidating offer. Which means for about every two people who buy the self-liquidating offer, one of those people, or the third one, is buying the actual full program. That's nuts!   Anyway, so are webinars dead?   Oh my gosh, let me just take this fish and just help you guys. "No! They are not dead, let me fish slap the crap out of that belief."   People are like, "Webinars are dead, they're dying, "do you think it's gonna happen?" No I don't, I don't think they're gonna die. I think you're gonna have to adapt.   I think you'll have to add one extra little step here and there, but I actually think it gets a better purchaser.   What I've been noticing is that the people coming in are buying. They've taken one extra little micro-commitment before they actually see the webinar, and they're actually better buyers, and it's been awesome. So none of this has been a detriment to us.   At first I was freaking out too, I was right along with everyone else. I was like, "but you know what, maybe..." And so we started looking at it, and so yes, we have auto webinars running to Facebook ads.   Again we got the Dream 100 stuff going, which we're about to do a ton of t venture webinars with people on this product.   outrage, that's going awesome, and that really hasn't even started turning on yet, as the time of me filming. Meaning, about the first week of that program, I just teach people how to set stuff up and kinda get things running inside their s to get things going, and then we get into actual promo strategies.   So as the time of me filming, that part has not actually turned on yet, so 's not even touching it yet.   I also publish like an animal which has helped tremendously - a lot of buyers come from that.   And then we have the ads we've got running.   Those are like my four major traffic strategies that I just always fill slots in for them.   So hopefully that's helpful, so that's some of our stats. So we're still doing great on the opt-ins, still doing great on the purchases.   On a live webinar funnel, you're doing pretty good if you get a 25% show up rate to the webinar.   On an auto webinar funnel, because it's starting in the next ten minutes, right, the actual show up rate is significantly higher. We have about a 50% show up rate, which is awesome.   And then several people come back in for the actual webinar replay, and that's where a lot of purchases come through as well, so anyway we're doing a lot of little cool things like that.   I just wanted to show you guys and walk through that a little bit, and answer that question 'cause my strong opinion is absolutely not, they're actually not dying, but it does mean that you as a marketer, just add one extra little step in there.   It's already native to Clickfunnels. Just go turn on the button, okay. That's all you gotta do. Maybe go inside the actual email or the first page, registration page and say, "make sure you check your sound, click to turn on your sound so you can actually hear the session in progress," you know stuff like that, that's totally fine.   Another thing that's really helped a lot; we just put in this really cool chat element so people can chat with cool people that are in there. We're adding in live closers to the thing. Things that we'd do anyway, regardless if Chrome stopped it or not.   So it's my strong opinion that the answer to this question is, "Absolutely Not! Webinars are NOT dying!"   If you think they are, at least take the webinar script and use it in other places.   We're taking that webinar script, one of the things we're gonna be doing here in the next month is grab the webinar script and repurpose it.   I don't always wanna buy through a webinar. Personally, I don't like always buying through webinars. I actually like buying through a product launch funnel - that's one of my favorite ways to purchase something on the internet... or I just go to the order page and buy it.   If I know it's a great product, I'm just gonna buy it. I've done that many times. Some of you guys have done that with my stuff as well.   So webinar, right that's one way, product launch funnel, same script, different delivery.   I can take that same script, and I can go and make it a blog post.   I can make that same script into an audio program and have people listen to it.   Dean Holland actually takes his webinar script, and he turns it into a free plus shipping book. That script is gold!   So if someone's like, "ah, webinars, they're dying!" First of all, "no, I don't agree with that at all."   Number two, figure out other ways to deliver that exact same script - it doesn't have to go through a funnel. The funnel isn't the script. Does that make sense?   The funnel's not the reason that they do the buying. The funnel does the closing on the actual internet. So just deliver the same material differently. That's one of the things we're doing.   I'm very cognizant of the fact that there's a lot of people who will buy through webinar, but then you take the same script and just repurpose that crap.   Go around and put it in other places. Understand that there are other ways people prefer to purchase.   So, are webinars dying? No! First of all, number two, just take the same thing and blast it all over the place. I am super ionate about this. “Whoa, Papa Larsen's coming out a little bit here!”   You can take the webinar script on stage. Every time I've done that thing on stage we make money, and we close fantastically well - usually like, anywhere 20-30% of the room, which is pretty average, depending on the room, 'cause some people in the room are kinda crazy.   But most of the time I can usually close 20-35, 25-30%, it's in that range whenever I get on stage with it.   Russell Brunson usually does 40-50%! He closes half that room, baby. We'll get there soon.   So those are my answers to that:   #1: Webinars are not dying #2: If you really feel that way, just start taking the same script and deliver it in different ways.   Don’t blame Google Chrome.   Google Chrome is not gonna stand in the way of me delivering my sales message to people who do actually want to purchase my products. So take that thing and just repurpose it.   Hey guys, hopefully that's helpful. Again this is my invitation to “fish slap the crap out of that question and move forward with confidence.”   It’s my opinion from my own results on just one of our webinars. We have a second one launching here soon for another product.   They're doing fantastic, so I don't know what the big scare has been.   So anyway, that's my answer. Maybe it's a little spicy for some people, but whatever ... Those are our stats - those are our numbers. We've been making money.   Alright guys, thanks so much, I'll talk to you guys later.   If you guys have enjoyed this, please share it, comment, tell me if you agree, and I'll see you guys in the next episode, bye.   Aw yeah! Hey, wish you could geek out with other real funnel builders, and even ask questions while I build funnels live?   Wish granted! Watch and learn funnel building as I document my process in my funnel strategy group. It's FREE - just go to thescienceofselling.online and

 Boom! What's going on everyone? It's Steve Larsen.   This is Sales Funnel Radio, and today we're going to talk about some easy add-ons you can put to your products.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine-to-five to take the plunge and build my million-dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me, and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up, guys? Hey, I don't know if you're like me, but my favorite part of going to movies a lot of times is the previews ahead of time.   I we were driving to a movie, and I didn't want to go to it anymore because I knew we would just get there in time for the movie. This might be a little bit weird, but I love watching the previews. I love being sold. I love being sold. Being sold is so fun.   There's a guy who came, and he walked through our front door, and he said, "Hey, I wanna give you some pest control ... or carpet cleaning... or this or that." I love the sales process. It's so fun. It's really really cool to see in action.   Infomercials, oh my gosh. I can watch infomercials... matter of fact, I have done that many times. I just watch the infomercial for the sake of the infomercial because I don't want to watch whatever show is on. I've done that multiple times. I love the act of selling.   In infomercials, though, you guys have seen, back, I don't know, several years ago, I would watch (definitely like six, seven, even eight years ago), I would watch these infomercials, and even just in general, you'd see these products that people would come out with. And you'd see these infomercial guys like, "You're gonna get this... and it's the CD set."   And it's all these CDs. It's this course laid out in all these CDs, like 12 CDs. Now, spacing-wise, it could easily fit on one CD, but they know it looks bigger if it's on 12 so, "You're gonna get this 12-CD set!"   And you're like, "Wow, that's crazy cool!" "You're also gonna get this workbook over here." "Wow, that's cool." "You're also gonna get the personal book "from the author as well, from the creator of the course. "They've also authored a book. "We're gonna give you that book." "Wow, that's cool!" "You're also gonna get this checklist." "Wow, that's cool." Right, and they're masters at creating offers.   And even when it's like the ShamWow guy, right, I don't his name. ShamWow guy, right, "If you act in the next 15 minutes, "we're gonna give you two ShamWows for the price of one." What! "We're also gonna throw in four mini ones "in case you're ever in the car." What!   Right, they're building an offer. That's an offer. The infomercial people are experts at creating these offers, and that's exactly what we do on the internet. We create these offers and put them all together.   Well, my perception of what it took to create a product was like way up here. I mean, it was so big because I would see these guys. You know, and I'd see these guys, and they'd be creating, "You're gonna get this CD set. "You're gonna get the workbook. "You're gonna get the transcriptions. "You're gonna get this and this and this." And it was like, "Wow! "Gurus are telling me to go and actually create."   (My phone's going off over there. No, alright. Sorry about that.)... But it was my perception that I would have to go and create these massive massive products. And it ended up becoming a block to me, right.   I'd be like, "Man, these gurus, "they're saying the only way for me to get out there and actually go create success with this stuff" is for me to go and make, "I gotta have this CD course set. I gotta have the workbook. I gotta have this, I gotta have this, I gotta have this or this."   If I'm doing some supplement, "I gotta be able to give this away. "And a workbook from," let's say it's a weight loss thing. "I gotta go interview these people, "and I gotta become an expert on weight loss. "And give them that workbook as well. "Plus the supplements, plus the formulator, "plus put together the packaging and the branding "and how much it's gonna fulfill. "And the shipping, right."   My perception of what it took to actually create a product, and especially an add-on, was through the roof. It was crazy. It was through the roof. It was so challenging because these guys were so good at it that it actually ended up becoming a barrier, and I started believing that I needed to do it like that in order for me to actually become successful and build my own product. And so for the first few products that I put out, it was like that.   I would go months, guys, months and months of time putting little info products together, then like a little CD, and a free plus shipping thing with something physical. And that's how I would build out these products. And I still do that, but there's some hacks to it.   I wanna let you know that that's not always the case though. If you go look at what these guys are experts at, they're experts at creating offers and products.   So what I wanted to go through with you guys today, (I've got my phone here which is why my computer rang. I've got my phone here. And I'm putting it on airplane mode so nothing else pops in.) I started writing down a list of really easy ways for you to create add-ons, okay?   So let's say that your main product, let's say you got a supplement. And you might put a little add-on on there. Maybe you can use it as an upsell or, "Hey, it just comes with it naturally anyway." And these are things that you could do to increase the perceived value of the product without you spending inordinate amounts of time going out and building out literally an entire additional product. Does that make sense?   Okay, what we're doing here is we're toying with the perceived value of offers of products by tossing in a few of these really simple ways.   Now, for those of you that are in the Two Comma Club X Program, there are huge lists of ways to create products quickly in there, right, which is awesome. Product Secrets is amazing. But I want to be able to share just a few of the things that I personally do, that are on that list also, that I like to use to very quickly increase the perceived value of the primary thing I'm trying to sell.   For example, I have a product that I launched the beginning of this year called Secret MLM Hacks, right? And it sells in the MLM space, and it's doing awesome. It's amazing. But there are a few things I added in there that I knew would increase perceived value. I added in a workbook...   Here's the issue with info products. I love info products. You guys know why I'm in the info product game. The issue with it, though, is that people know as the perception like even though it took this guy for freaking ever to create this thing, for him to fulfill it to me he literally does nothing, you know what I mean? Meaning there's an email with the link. Even though there's a lot of time that went into that. The perceived value of info products can a lot of times be low for that very reason.   The perceived value of something that's physical is a lot higher. You don't have a lot of sales copy next to Amazon products.   If you look on Amazon, what's the sales copy on an Amazon product? There's no sales copy. There's like bullet points. Here's what it is. Here's how much it is. Here are the questions people ask. There are the answers. Boom, buy it.   There's not a sales letter. There's hardly even testimonials on things like Amazon products. Why? It's because I'm gonna be able to feel it. I can future pace myself of what it's gonna be like when that thing shows up.   It's in the box. It's coming to my house. Think of the day, imagine the day. It's coming straight to the front door. I'm gonna run to that front door. I'm gonna grab that box, open it on up, bam, wow. I get to hold it, right? All that future pacing goes on post-purchase. There's not a lot of future pacing that goes on in like an info product. So what I do is then combine them?   So a few of these strategies I'm gonna share with you are:   #1: The info product, which I love 'cause of the high margins, combined with something physical.   #2: Events, there's high perceived value in events. I'm gonna book time out of my schedule. I'm gonna set up flights and a hotel and what I'm gonna eat. I'm gonna check with loved ones and friends and family. I'm gonna let them know, "Look, I'm gone, I'm gone." There's a lot of high perceived value inside of an event because of the mere time it takes to put together the event and just you attending.   What I am trying to do is I want to show you guys a few cool ways and things to do that'll help you increase perceived value of whatever it is that you're selling out there, okay?   So think about this, say I've got my product here, a really cool strategy is, let's say you're selling a book, or you've got, again, a supplement or something like that. Let's say you're gonna do a little event, an afternoon event or a weekend event or something like that, a free ticket to that event included in the product before it, massive value added, massive value.   Let's say there's gonna be a $200 little mastermind you're gonna toss or something like that. Putting in a free ticket to that is huge.   Filling events is hard. That's like probably one of the hardest things to do. Filling events, that's not easy. People that can put 3000 people in a room, that is not easy to do.   You think of Click Funnels, their last event Funnel Hacking Live was like 3500 people or something like that. They have 60 thousand s, and 3000 people came. Isn't that interesting?   60 thousand active monthly s, and that number's going up all the time. At the time of recording this, though, it's like 65 ish or something, alright? And 3500 came. Like, get real on how hard it is to fill up events.   So a good way to start filling up that event where people can see your upsells, people can see and start hearing more about you is by merely tossing in a ticket in that product ahead of time. That's one way.   Let me get back to my notes here.   #3: One of my favorite strategies which was barely tossed out, was the course on how I made the very thing that they're buying. Anyway, just super cool.   Think about this: so if you're an author, back to the author thing, how cool would it be if you were to share as you're actually making the book, as you're writing the book, or putting together the notes or whatever, like the actual notes that you're using, the original outline.   "This is when I wrote this piece. "This is when I wrote this piece. "This is why that piece comes before that part. "This is why this piece comes before that part." Like, crazy. The value-add that is inside of the book is crazy. "Oh, by the way, here's the book, "but also here's how I wrote the book."   "Here's the supplement, "but here's how I created the supplement "and why it has what it has in it." I don't know half the crap that's in a supplement. It would be awesome if someone was to tell me that. I don't know what someone went through to create a software. That would be awesome. And all it does is help create more true believers for your actual product itself...   Since you're already doing it, just document it. It's a very easy way for you to add a lot of perceived value to the thing.   #4: One of my favorites is to just get a whole bunch of experts. Again, back to the book thing. Let's say you have a book that's in a topic of how to lay bricks. I would go, and I'd find the top masons. The top people who are masonry's, I mean. And I would go out, and I would grab the top people who are the top bricklayers on the planet, and I would go in and I would interview those guys. And I would include that series inside of my book called, How to Lay a Brick. Crazy example, just trying to go crazy so you understand just how easy this is.   It doesn't matter what you're selling. It's the principle behind it.   If you're gonna go in, you're making a supplement, and it's about weight loss, man, go interview a whole crapload of people. It doesn't take a lot of time. It really doesn't. Make it 20-minute interviews.   Go list out 10 people. Get that, and package it all together. Give that away for free with the actual supplement. That's crazy. Really easy add-on. You're not making it. They're saying the stuff. You're literally just compiling, which is pretty awesome.   #5:  One of the other ways, (I currently do this in several of my products,) I like to create welcome packages.   So if I'm selling something that's info, a welcome package could include something like a manifesto. It could include some stickers. It could include a workbook. It could include my personal notes, like as if I'm going through the course myself, me writing it out in the workbook. So a copy of how I would fill out the workbook. Anyway, does that make sense? A t-shirt, getting their shirt size and sending that with them. A welcome package with stuff like that. Those are super easy add-ons you can toss in as well.   #6: Next one here, let's say that you a not an expert in what you do yet, or you wouldn't consider yourself to be. Let's say the market doesn't consider you to be an expert. That's totally fine. What's very easy to do, and actually it's one of the things, on my very very very first info product.   I read the book, Dot Com Secrets by Russell. And I went through and I watched a few more videos and trainings that he did on that stuff, and then I literally got a whole bunch of people together and I taught what I learned for like two or three hours and recorded it. And that became my first info product.   #7: A checklist on how to do what the guru is teaching about, super easy to do as well. If you're already a geek about what it is that you're selling, that's really easy to do. You're gonna find some person who you geek-out about and go to that person's audience and say, "Hey, that person's audience, "you want a checklist on how to apply "what you're learning from this guy?" Huge value-add. Huge value-add. And you couple that with something you're already selling, that's a massive way to do it as well.   #8: Compiling other people's content. What's cool about YouTube, guys, YouTube is public domain. It means there's been times where one of my Live Funnel Builds, one of the cool hip area strategies I like to use.   Let's say that you have a product. Let's say you're selling fishing rods. I'm just trying to use random crap so that you know how easy it is to do this.   Let's say you sell fishing rods. You're a fly fisherman. You sell fishing rods…   The fear that people have when I say, "Get into an info product kind of thing," is they think, "That means I have to get a camera. And I've gotta get some weird backdrop. And what am I gonna say? And do I know how to talk that long?"   There's all this fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. "Heck no, heck no there's absolutely "no way I'm gonna do that." And they start backpedaling like, "No, I'm not gonna do that!"   Here's an easy fix for it:   When you put something on YouTube, and it's marked as Public, don't do this for unlisted videos 'cause that's stealing. But when you press Public, and you push that thing out there, that's public domain. I have grabbed the URLs. So I would go out, and let's say I'm a fly fisherman, and I sell fishing rods and fishing equipment, I would go find content that some person with a massive audience, multiple people, people with huge audiences inside the fishing space, I would go in and I would grab a lot of their stuff off of YouTube.   I wouldn't it. I would literally just take the URL and put it in a area. "Hey, with this book, with the fishing rod… with this fishing rod, we're gonna send it out to you, we're also gonna give you a FREE to the area that's gonna have the experts teach you how to use it correctly."   You didn't make the content. You just compiled content from existing experts. Does that make sense? Super easy value-add. Content's already existing.   That's part of what I'm trying to help people understand with this. Most of the time the content is already out there.   If it's marked as Public, don't steal it, but if it's marked as Public and it's on YouTube, grab that URL, put it inside a member's area, and give away a free . It already was free. Give away a free . They're still gonna get the views on their thing. And that's a fantastic strategy. That works super well.   #9: One of my favorites is to give away group coaching sessions.   So let's say that I'm gonna do, let's say I'm selling events. Or let's say that my primary business is masterminds. I'm going to give away a free group coaching session after the event to make sure you apply what it is that you learned. That's a huge value-add, right? There's a lot of value associated with time. And if I'm giving away my time, now, I would not give away one on one time. That's why I do a group coaching session. I'm gonna do a group coaching session, and I've tossed that inside of my offers many times. Actually in that very scenario, for masterminds.   If I'm selling a product at a mastermind, a group coaching session, that's an awesome way to add more value into what you're doing. Anyway, that's a huge one. Or let's say you do an info product, "Guys, I don't want you to be lost on the info product. "If you have any questions or whatever, "I do a coaching session two times a month, "on this day and on this day. "Here you go. Come on in, and sign on in, and this'll get you off the ground. We want to get your questions answered."   People want that hand-holding feeling. They want the blanket of security. "Everything's going to be okay."   Anyway, so that's my small little list. And I made that really really fast. And the principle that I'm trying to put in people's brains here is check that all the ways you can increase perceived value with easy add-ons.   RECAP:   > So like, an event ticket, does that cost you anything else to fulfill? No, you're gonna do the event anyway. So if you are doing an event anyway, just put in a free ticket for that person, and it's way easier to fill up that event.   And in events, you change the selling environment, so usually that's where a lot of upsells happen too.   > A course on how you made the thing. It literally is just you recording you doing your thing and including it in the product. The very thing that you're making. That's huge. I sell a lot of stuff that way.   > Doing expert seminar, kind of, interviews. Going in and grabbing a whole bunch of experts if you're not an expert yet and compiling that. That's very easy.   > Welcome package, that's a fantastic one. I use that one right now also. Manifestos, t-shirts, workbooks, all that stuff, so that's something physical paired with info. That works super well for retail and B2B. That's awesome.   > Checklists to use, like, "Hey, here's how to apply what that expert was teaching." That's a great strategy.   > Compiling things from YouTube and public domain, that's super easy. Go in and literally type in your keyword plus public domain. You'll find a whole bunch of free content on the internet. It's public domain, meaning you can grab it. That's what public domain means. That's an awesome one. That's an awesome one.   > Group coaching, that's awesome. I would not do one on one, but group coaching.   Anyway, so hopefully this has been a cool episode for you. I just want to walk through a few ways to do it.   And that's the principle. If you spend a ton of time and energy getting in and actually building the cool thing but really easy ways to increase perceived value so you're not competing on price is by coupling in a few add-ons like this. It's not hard.   Most of them you can just automate and do one time. And then you can sell at what it's really worth rather than competing on price.   Alright guys, hopefully this has been helpful to you. If it has been, please go to iTunes and rate and review it. That would mean a lot to me.   I'll see you guys in the next episode.   Bye Hey, thanks for listening. Please to rate and subscribe. Gotta question you want answered live on the show? Head over to salesfunnelradio.com, and ask your question now.

Boom, what's going on everyone. It's Steve Larsen - This is Sales Funnel Radio...   And today we're gonna talk about how to acquire a mass of qualified customers.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up, guys? Hey, today, I'm actually going to toss in another recording from the Science of Selling Online Facebook group.   I was reading from a book, showing them strategies from these various books.   Not only how to acquire a mass of qualified customers, but when to acquire them.  At what stage in your business it's important to do so and when is it not.   When's the best time to actually go try and get a huge amount of customers? There is a time to do that and a time not to.   You might be thinking, "Stephen that's stupid, why would you not just want tons of customers?"   There's a lot of reasons why you should and why you shouldn't do that.   In this episode, I'm actually gonna cut straight over to a Facebook live, but watch carefully because I'm using the very same strategy inside my business right now.   I've created the main product for my business, so now that it's there, what front ends do I create to amass a huge list of qualified buyers, not just random people?   Anyways hope you enjoy this, we'll cut over to the episode now. Talk to you guys later, bye...   What's up. How's it going, everybody? Hope everyone is doing fantastic! I need to be asleep right now but... you know, some nights I just can't get relaxed.   Yes, I wear glasses. I've had glasses and s since second grade. My eyes are terrible.   I barely made it into the army - my eyes are so bad that I'm only a few points away from not being allowed to ... like isn't that funny?   So anyway, yes I'm wearing my glasses right now. And I have been jumping on my tramp right there and listening to music and thinking a lot.   I don't know why, but every once in a while, I just get in these zones where I just walk around, and I can tell that to everyone I kinda seem like a zombie - you know what I mean?  My head's just spinning going through tons and tons of scenarios; it's fun. I absolutely love it. It’s like a Beautiful Mind, "vroo, vroo" all over the place.   I wanted to share a lesson with you guys real quick - because it's actually something that I'm doing right now. It's something that I taught a solid six-seven months ago. And it's interesting; what's happened.   *REPLYING TO FB COMMENTS* “What's up guys, how's it going Ross? "Like your glasses, the real you." "Yeah, yeah, right. I cannot wait to get LASIK...   I was at the eye doctor a little while ago, and he told me that I have clinically large eyeballs. I was like, "Oh. It's not like I can do anything about it. Thanks for making me self-conscious for the rest of my life!"   I want to share with you guys something that you need to understand.   We talk all the time about going at the core of the value ladder, right! That is the place where you start your products.   You start your business at the core of the actual value ladder. The reason why is because everything else kind of spiders out from there. What I want to do is - I want to tell you why. I wanna tell you why everything spiders away from the core of the value ladder... it doesn't have to do with creating the back ends.   The market's gonna tell you what to do, all that because yes, yes, yes, yes, but another big reason has to do with one of the principals from the book, Ready, Fire, Aim.   I was flying back home from speaking at an event in January, and I ended up doing a few Facebook lives in the airport, and one of them was about this very principal right here. It has more to do with the way the cash actually moves inside of the business.   A little while ago, a customer was frustrated, and she came up to me, and she said "Hey, do I really need to go create products? Do I really need to go make..." Anyway, she was being whiny.   And what I said to her was "Look, a customer is purchased regardless. You will buy a customer whether or not you want to. There's a cost to it."   Most of the time when we think of average cart value and cost to acquire,  those are the only two numbers that we really care about in a marketing funnel.   However, cost to acquire we typically always assume means money. It actually can mean time as well.   So what I want to do real quick is, I want to talk real fast about the realities of what it actually means to acquire a customer. And when it's best to go and... Let me step back.   There's a thought; I keep trying to get it out for you guys, so you understand what I'm trying to go for...   Somebody was probing me, they're like "Stephen, why has your funnel not hit ed a million bucks already?" And I said, "It's because it's not scalable yet." And they're like, "What do you mean?"   There is a podcast episode coming out about this soon. I "out-revenued" the systems in my business. Does that make sense? My revenue was growing faster than the business.   This has happened multiple times; I would build a freaking awesome funnel, then we put it out there, we'd launch it:   Day #1: They're excited. They're like, "Oh my gosh, this is so cool. Look at all these sales coming in!"   Day #2: They're like, "Wow, that's a lot of sales!"   Day #3: They're like, "Turn it off, turn it off, you're going to bankrupt us!"   I the first time that ever happened to me, it was well before I ever worked for ClickFunnels. And this company, I almost bankrupted them.   And I was like, "What? That doesn't make any sense?  I've never met anyone ever who wants fewer sales!" I didn't understand what happened until later on when I was working for ClickFunnels.   I was sitting next to Russell, doing all this stuff. He and I were building a funnel for FiberFix, and the exact same thing happened. We basically, two and a half, 3x-ed their revenue in a couple days. It was like "BAM!" Really fast. Same story:   Day #1: "Wow!"   Day #2: "Whoa!"   Day #3: "Stop, turn it off, or you were gonna bankrupt us!"   I was like that's so weird. And I don't know why but until that time.... I mean, I knew that funnels weren't businesses. A funnel is NOT a business, right? Funnels are not businesses. A funnel is a way to sell stuff, right?   I am a master at the funnel building side, however, I know I'm not a master at the building the business side. I've had to learn that stuff as I go along - because my revenue was outpacing my business.   So let's go back. Let's think about this; when we think about "cost to acquire," there are multiple costs to acquire:   #1: There's a cost to acquire as far as money goes.   #2: There's a cost to acquire as far as time goes.   If you're not willing to pay ads to acquire a customer, you're gonna pay with your time, right?   I'll go do that with my podcasts, right? That's one way I'm purchasing a customer with my time.   I don't like doing methods where I have to do the same strategy over and over and over again; meaning, I'm not good as the guy who's like gonna spend time doing the same pitch to tons of people. I'd rather do the pitch one time, and automate it through a funnel to leverage my time that way.   #3: There's also a cost to acquire as far as your business goes and the stress that causes on the actual structure that you've built.   If you don't have a structure  - if every single ticket is different - If you handle a ticket differently every single time...   If you handle a customer complaint differently each time...   If every time somebody purchases from you, it's a different scenario every single time...   YOU'RE GONNA DIE!   That's part of the stuff that I was running into the first three months of this year.   I was selling, selling, selling, selling, selling.   I did over 200 grand real fast, bam, real quick.  I was kinda the sole operator, and everything slowed down. I was like,"What's happening? Holy crap, a lot more people still want this thing, how come I can't push it forward even harder? How come I can't... "   I had to step back.   And while I'm a funnels guy, I needed to become a business systems guy too.   And so what I've been doing a lot lately; I’ve been setting up systems that allow my funnel and my revenue to become scalable.   We're just about hitting that point right now.   We just tested this SLO, it's doing really well. It's converted, last I checked,  around 15%, which is great. That's great for a self-liquidating offer for a webinar. It's good enough anyway - at least to take the edge off. It's going good, going really, really well.   What I wanna do real quick is I want to, first of all, put my glasses on, 'cause I really can't see you guys. My vision is that bad. What I wanna do real quick though, is I wanna read to you why this happens.   I'm at this phase right now... I wanna show you guys one thing real quick here. I do not regret building it the way I have. I don't believe you're an entrepreneur if you don't go actually create something of value.   Like, alright there are business owners, and then there are entrepreneurs. They're not necessarily the same thing.   A business owner comes out of college, "Hey, I'm gonna go build a business." They get VC funding to fund the structure that they're putting together. Rather than go create value first to make money to build the structure. Right?   I believe an entrepreneur goes and makes value. They get paid for it, and then they use that cash to build the system to let them go sell more. That's what I've been doing.   And so, what I'm trying to get at here, what I'm trying to share with you and show, is this phase that I'm entering. I'm really excited.   There are a lot of phases all over the place, but the ones I'm talking about today are:   #1: Does the market even want what I'm freaking selling? Do they want it?   Answer: "Yes" I'm making cash from it. We don't even have ads running right now, and there's still sales - which is awesome. It means it's selling by word of mouth which means there are ravenous buyers and ravenous evangelists. Which is awesome.     So is it selling?  "Yes." Is the market telling me they want it? Yes, they are. Okay. Next phase...   #2: Let's turn it up. Boom! "Oh my gosh, my business structure can't handle it."   Too many tickets   Too many things coming in   I'm the sole operator, "Oh my gosh, I am drowning." I'm now working "in" the business instead of "on it."     I need to turn down my revenue and turn up my systems.     Does that make sense? 'Cause that's what I've been doing. But now that I'm about to enter this other phase, and it's part of the reason why I'm doing Outrage.   I wanna share with you why I'm steering the ship the way that I am.   Is this cool? First of all, I hope this is cool? That's what I mean when I invited you guys to this group... "the deep dark secrets of Stephen's mind."   This is the stuff that just rocks through my brain. And I'm just connection, connection, connection...   I'm linking together several different books right now, and what I wanna do is read a section here to you guys from Ready, Fire, Aim, and tell you why I'm doing what I'm doing:   Anyway, you guys ready? Here come the glasses. I think my vision is like negative 6.5 or something like that. I mean it's REALLY bad. I think it's 7.5 was like the army cut off, and I barely made it. I cannot wait to get LASIK. I will be a life changing event. I mean, I'm serious, I'm so blind.   My hand is in focus finally, when it's about right here. Barely, isn't that nuts? Anyway, I'm actually quite blind. And no it's not because of all the computer screens. I started when I was in second grade.   This is a section, this is a chapter here from Ready, Fire, Aim. This is on page 118. Fantastic book! If you've not read it, I recommend it completely.   The first section is dedicated to the systems on the marketing side and even on the business side that you need to put in place to go from zero to a million.   The second part of the book is one to ten million.   The next part of the book is ten to a hundred million or fifty million - and then goes beyond that.   I've only read the first part, 'cause that's all I care about with this funnel right now. And while I have a 2 Comma Club award, it was with Russell, and I want my own. So that's why I'm documenting my journey along the way.   Check this out, pg 118, this is how I read books, and this is the reason why it takes me like three months to read a book if I'm being active about it.   Alright, so here it is.  Check this out. Right, where my thumb is”   "So although your primary focus should always be on customer service, your quantifiable goal at this stage of an entrepreneur should be to acquire as fast as possible what we call a critical mass of qualified customers.   The number of loyal customers you need in order to make all or most all of your subsequent selling transactions profitable."   English, what does that mean?   Let me read it again real quick, and then we're gonna dive into this.   "Although your primary focus should be customer service, you need to acquire as fast as possible a critical mass of qualified customers.   The number of people in order to make all of your transactions profitable."   Let me keep going here.   "Once you have a good number of qualified customers, you'll be in a really good position where almost every new product you come out with will be successful because so many of your existing customers will buy it."   Does this make sense? Follow me here. Let me keep going, one more part here.   "You need to understand the dynamics of generating long-term profits through the development of large circulation, low-cost products, sold at a loss on marketing by upselling high-end products to this larger base."   This is a lotta crap, right, this is a lotta crap. Follow me though. Now, let's go through and let's read my squiggles.   Let me flip this around here again, real quick. Here's my squiggles...   If you think about this, what this is saying is:   #1:  Acquire as many customers as fast as you can. As fast as possible acquire a critical mass of qualified customers.   #2:  Once you have a lot of them; every single subsequent transaction will be profitable because so many of the existing customers will buy your upsells. That's saying use freaking funnels.   #3:  The way to do that is by producing large circulation, low-cost products that you sell at a loss.   Does Russell Brunson actually make that much money by selling his book alone? No, he doesn't. What actually makes it profitable? All the upsells in the back.   Here, let me go full circle. Follow me here ...   Think about where I am in my business. I know the market wants my product.   I've actually completely shifted who I'm selling to.   Just recently, in the last two weeks, I realized I'm selling to the wrong person. So I'm redoing a lot of stuff, I'm changing the vernacular, I'm changing ads, I'm changing a lot of stuff, and I'm readjusting and realigning for the right person. "Oh, my gosh, you were here all along."   Markets are discovered, they're not created. New markets, blue oceans, purple oceans are discovered.   You don't set out and go, "I'm gonna create a brand new niche." It doesn't exist! How can you measure it? You discover niches.   I have been discovering this new niche because I'm actively selling inside of it, and the market is telling me how to move.   Now that I know that the market wants me to sell it, that product, and I'm like, "oh my gosh, my revenue is outpacing my actual business." so I stopped for a while and fixed the business, and now I'm turning the ads back on. The engines are turning back on again.   What I'm really doing now is exactly what Ready, Fire, Aim is teaching. Which is I am creating low cost, low price, high circulation products. Does that make sense? Those are the qualifiers.   When you figure out the core of the business, which is what I've done now, the core of the actual business that you have, your role, right,   I've gotta a sweet back end product that we're gonna go create here soon, I want my own event. I think it'd be super cool, and I really think it can help a lotta people. So that'd be a lotta fun. The cool back-end product for me is events and consulting.   Front-end though, low cost, low priced. So they're low cost to you, they're low priced to the consumer, but they are high circulation.   Do you guys know that when somebody buys a book, on average, it gets ed around up to nine times? Nine times! So when you sell a book to somebody, there's a high potential that it actually gets read by nine people.   That's the reason why we sell so many books. It's the reason why we do so many FREE + shipping things. So the FREE + shipping CDs, info, information, right? Little knick-knacks here and there, funnel graffiti - stuff like that.   It's not to make money, it is to acquire a critical mass of qualified customers. Precisely what Ready, Fire, Aim is talking about. Does that make sense?   But the problem is is that most people, before they know what the core of the business is, they start with low cost, low price, high circulation products. That's why I don't usually recommend going into things like e-com right out the get-go.   You can do e-com by bundling it with info, and then suddenly you're margins go really high again.   So if I now have a critical mass of qualified customers, they're buying everything... The second "yes" is easy, once the first “yes” happens - they're buying a lot of my subsequent products - everything you're coming out with your existing customer base is buying it.   A low price, low cost to acquire equals a big customer base for your back-end products. Those are the three categories though. Low cost, low price, high circulation potential. That's really what you're going for at those phases.   If I go and I create a critical mass of qualified customers in the middle of my value ladder...   I was drawing a value ladder; I was on an airplane, listening to dubstep,  there was caffeine in my system, and I was at 30,000 feet, which usually is when I have all these epiphanies. I need to take more flights ;-)   I have a critical mass of qualified customers right there in the middle, so I was looking at this, and I was looking at some of my different numbers. And what I figured out is that for me to hit a thousand buyers at $1,000, right, that's a million bucks, I was working backward...   If I have a 15% close rate on live webinars, let's say that's high though, right? I would need to spend somewhere around $166,000 to make a million.   Now, my product is worth way more than $1,000. So what I'm doing is I am actually gonna double the price of it, I'm really excited.   Actually, no, no, no. It's a different product I'm doubling.   I'm gonna raise it $500. And it's because one of the issues that I've been finding is as I narrow it down on what it is I'm actually doing is selling to the wrong person. And the wrong person was coming to me.   They would say things like, "What's a funnel?" And I was like "Psh.. oh my gosh, I am probably not your guy to start out with if you don't know what a funnel is, right? Go read some books, go read Dotcom Secrets, Expert Secrets and then come back to me." In fact, that's my recommendation to everyone. Go read:   Launch   Dotcom Secrets   Expert Secrets   Ready, Fire, Aim,   These are my go-to books always. They're always on my shelf. Actually they're not on my shelf, they're all around the room, 'cause I reference them so much.   Trying to what the others are? I just reorganized everything, which means I can't find anything anymore. You guys know what I'm talking about? Anyway, Ask, that's an awesome book.   *STEPHEN ANSWERING FB COMMENTS*   "Terran, yes. Yep, I am referring to that. MLM Hacks, that's my main webinar right now.   I have a second insanely awesome product I just finished building it today. Oh my gosh. Right, 'cause not everyone's an MLM. And I totally get it. And if you don't wanna be, and I still have sick funnels for you. So how do I go serve you guys then? So anyway, so I'm super pumped about it."   So that's the whole lesson... 'cause I know one of the things that happens to a lot of entrepreneurs is what I'm talking about right now.   They're going out, and they're saying things like, "I'm selling like crazy and then all of a sudden, the sales kinda seem like they slowed down."   #1: You probably have ad fatigue.   #2:  Did you just sell to your hot market, and the warm really isn't that attracted to it?   And I had to figure out a little bit who my real customer was. But then I voluntarily slowed my revenue down. Hard. Hawd, HAWD.   Way back, I turned it off - I didn't slow it down - I turned it off. It's been off for a while. And it's because I'm doing this massive overhaul.   Here check it out. Alright, check this out. Wrong side, okay, this side of the whiteboard right here. Right, I've been redoing all that. It's a freaking huge funnel now. I didn't start that way. You don't need to start that way. But this is what I've been building.   I've just finished the SLO, it's converting like crazy, it's doing fantastic.   Next I'll be building out a product launch funnel inside the replay sequence.   Then I'll be going in like this awesome, insanely amazing success path, it's 30 days, it's 30 videos showing them after they buy, how to be successful with their purchase.   Very key, it's not enough to just sell 'em, you gotta show 'em how to use it and be successful with it, or you're dead in the water. And so, that's how we do it.   When I realized like, "Oh my gosh, it's all working," then finally I was like okay, this makes total sense for me to go and let's try and acquire as fast as possible even more qualified customers and buyers. And so what I've been doing.   That's one of the major reasons, (cat's outta the bag), for Outrage. Now there's nothing paid in there, upfront. But it leads to paid things.   All it's doing is widening the net - and it's being really, really open. It's teaching anyone how to be an for any product.   “You guys want the rest of the strategy? ? Yeah ? Everyone say... ? Yeah ? You gotta give me the... ? Yeah ? Like that.”   Everyone was making fun of me on the 2 Comma Club coaching stage, 'cause I guess I do a lot of sound effects. I didn't know that.   You guys ready for it? 'Kay, check this out, alright. If you listen to my podcast, you know that the only two things on my calendar. The only things on my calendar are events and launch dates.   I've got Outrage; then I've laced together like six different campaigns that I've seen make that really fast, usually.   Who's got my money, hey, Love Grant Cardone. ? Who's got my money ? So anyway, I laced together six different campaigns and I'm going one by one by one through all of them. So just watch carefully to what I'm doing here because now that I know the market wants what I'm selling, "oh baby, now we get to open the freaking floodgates."   I feel like the other thing that happens too; a lot of the times in this community, people spend so much time building the funnel. That's just the first piece of the pie. Next, you get to go do a lotta cool things like Dream 100 stuff.   We've been reaching out to massive people, and they've been reaching out back. And excited to promote it.   *FACEBOOK COMMENTS*   "What do you think of Sam Oven's 20 million dollar webinar funnel?"   "I think it's awesome, and I think it's proving the exact point I'm talking about, Kenny. When you actually know what the heck you're selling, ] when we actually know, then man, stop messing with the funnel and start figuring out cool ways to just put traffic into that thing. And that's what these campaigns are. Campaigns are not ads."   Anyway, so how about that for a rant? That was a late night rant. I was jamming out, I have a playlist called Pre-Stage, it's my pump up mix.   That's the lesson tonight, guys. Go figure out how - after you know the core after the market actually said that they want what you're selling - go figure out little tiny things that bring in the low cost to you, low price for them, high circulation potential. And then just open up those floodgates.   Honestly, is super fun. It's the reason why we have so many awesome front-ends at Clickfunnels.   *FACEBOOK COMMENTS*   "What do you say to someone who is getting great front end conversions but leads are not buying? Referring to .”   “What do I say to that? Terran, that's a great question, great question. If you look in Dot Com Secrets... I don't think the funnel is complete. If you look on page, I think it's 93, I don't , I'm not gonna take the time.   Anyways, one of the seven phases of a funnel is, it sounds like you're qualifying the subscriber, which you need to, but you also need to qualify the buyer. That's the very next step.   That's step number four of the seven steps, I think. And so, sounds like an incomplete funnel.   So it's not to say that lead funnels are not complete funnels, but if you're trying to make sure there's an up, like they're actual... If you know you're gonna lead them to something that's expensive in the back, or even buy something later on, the funnel isn't done, in my mind, until there's cash in your pocket.   So that might mean that the funnel goes offline. That might mean the funnel goes on the phone. That might mean going and saying 'Hey, we gotta meet in person, or come to an event.'   So the lead might be captured on the internet, but you might be capturing and actually closing and actually getting cash in your pocket, offline or different places. I know there's different scenarios for that. But you're talking about marketing. So what do I say to someone who's getting great front end conversions?   What usually is happening is some confusion. There's a disconnect... Here's the story:   John Parks was talking to this guy...  he was critiquing his ads, and this guy had great conversions on his ads, and all these people were clicking on this ad. But no one was buying. And this guy goes to John Parks,  (who is Russell's traffic guy), and says "Hey, can you look at my numbers, look at my ad, what's going on here?"   John was like "Wow, you're getting a lot of clicks on this thing, how come nobody's buying?"   And he goes in, and he starts looking at the numbers, the conversions, and he had like a 15% click-through rate on that ad, that Facebook ad. And John was like, "Whoa, like that's really high."   Then he looked at the numbers for the next page, and there were no conversions on that page. There were no purchases at all. And he's like, "What's going on here?" He hadn't looked at the ad yet, when he looked at the ad, he knew why immediately!   The ad was a picture of this incredibly sensual woman just dripping sensuality.  And sure enough, it's guys that have been clicking on the ad.   He clicks on the ad and goes to the next page, and the very next thing people see on this ad is this middle-aged, overweight white guy saying, "Hey do you wanna opt-in for X, Y, and Z?"   That's not why they were clicking on your ad, buddy. Like right! So weird example right? But that's typically in some form what's usually going on.   There's some disparity between what's actually going on from the ad, and to the actual page.   One of the things that I like to do is to make the headline on the ad the exact same as the headline on the page they'll see. That way there's not a new concept that they have to accept. And it brings them straight on in.   *NEW QUESTION*   "If we are building webinars, three things to focus on?"   "Yep, only thing you should focus on, and only worry about ever, for a long time, is just your story, the actual sales message itself. Don't worry about anything else.   Once you know people are trying to give you money, then put together an actual offer. And then once you have a story, or sales message, I call them one in the same, you've got a sweet offer, then go obsess about the funnel.   I mean there's a reason why I haven't gone in depth on thing yet at all. Like my funnel is limping along on one leg. It's broken. My funnel's broken, I know it's broken. And I haven't cared.   It's like trying to fix a leak all the way down a pipe when there's actually a leak further upstream on that pipe. Does that make sense?   It doesn't matter you fixed that other leak, you gotta go fix the one in the beginning, right?   I don't know if that makes any sense at all. But like, anyway, that's how I think of it that way."   *NEW FB COMMENT*   "Thanks for all the value."   "Love the geek out over this. Awesome stuff. "   Anyways, hey guys, hope that was helpful to you. I'm sorry that was a long Facebook Live there. Actually I'm not sorry, that's freaking awesome! I'm gonna that.   Anyway, so hopefully that's helpful to you though.   So just recap from the book real quick here, real fast, all you're gonna try and do is   #1: "Acquire a critical mass of customers."   The existing customers buy every subsequent product you ever come out with which is why you just acquire as fast as you can.   #2:  You're gonna make low cost, low price, high circulation products, which is why I am doing things like Outrage.   We got a ton of front ends that I'm gonna come out with here shortly. Salesfunnelbroker.com as it currently is, like oh my gosh, it needs to be completely different.   salesfunnelradio.com, oh baby!  I've built so many funnels for so many other people, it's fun to like turn back around and finally do my own for a while.   Awesome guys, talk to you later, have a good night.   If you like this, please let me know. Keep inviting your friends to this page. I am trying to pull over people who like really freaking love why funnels work and who really geek out about this stuff.   Alright guys, talk to you later. Go crush it.   Ah yeah! Hey, wish you could geek out with other real funnel builders, and even ask questions while I build funnels live?   Uh-oh, wish granted.   Watch and learn funnel building as I document my process in my funnel strategy group. It's free, just go to thescienceofselling.online and .

Boom what's up guys it's Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio, and today we're going to talk about how to roll out products. This is my favorite rollout strategy.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my 9 to 5 to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch. This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up, guys? Hey, I'm excited for today; I'm excited to be able to share with you some neat things that, frankly, I don't see many people doing.   The first product I ever launched and put out the door was an utter failure - the thing was terrible, okay? But I didn't know that at the time.   I spent inordinate amounts of time putting together the product. I thought my product was the best product ever -I was so excited! I was running towards it.   In my mind, I was like this thing's going to change everything - this is going to be incredible. I was excited, and people would be like, "What are you doing? What do you spend all this time doing?"   I'd be feeling a little smug about it like, "You don't know - just you wait and see!" There'd be people coming up to me and saying things like, "Larsen, what's up now? You doing that thing again? Alright, good luck with that..."   I was actively seeking what I called, "My Shut Up Check." My shut up check"was something that I sought as fast as I could when I was launching.   This was four years ago, and I hadn't perfected the rollout strategy that I want to talk with you guys about today... But what was interesting was I'd go build these things, I was looking for my shut up check.   The shut up check was a concept I learned from a guy I was listening to six or seven years ago. The shut up check is the first check you get from your business.   So when someone says, "Oh, you doing that thing again? Is that even gonna work?" You can pull it out that check and be like "Shut Up! It is working, here's the money."  That's your shut up check.   I hope that you've gotten your shut up check to throw in the naysayers faces a little bit? Not that we would ever do that... BUT TOTALLY DO IT ;-)   What I wanna do real quick is share with you guys how I roll out my products.   What ended up happening with that first one is, I spent eight months building it... and then when I finally launched it, and I put it out there... nobody bought it. And it's because nobody knew about it.   It took three or four months before cash actually started coming on in, and I kind of abandoned it. Until I figured out better ways for traffic - and then I started making more money. But I don't want you to go through that, okay?   I was in the middle of college, I was doing stuff with the Army, I was super busy. So for me to spend eight months of my time - we're talking late nights, early mornings - time I could have been with my family... And then, to not have it work - that was so mentally tasking it was ridiculous. I don't want you to go through that.   So instead, I wanna share with you how I roll out my stuff.   I have marketing books in bookshelves all over the place. I was reading this book, Positioning (It's written by Al Ries and Jake Trout) ... just kind of thumbing through it.   Frankly, instead of reading front to cover, I'll thumb through and find chapters that look interesting, and I'll go learn something specific from it.   Anyway, it's kind of cool, they say, “When you make a new product you must by default, position against the old product.” I thought “Hey, that's super cool.” I totally get it, when you're making an opportunity... and he's saying a whole bunch of other great stuff.   I really like what they say at the beginning. They say that, “we live in a communication-saturated environment.” There's so much communication; you're listening to me, you're listening to other people ... Don't listen to other people, just listen to me ;-) There are so many people speaking.   Back in the day, not enough communication was the issue.  Inside of organizations, not enough communication was really the issue. Maybe even customer to business, or business to the customer - not enough communication. Those are serious issues for sure.   However, there are also massive tendencies to over-communicate now. I believe in consuming a very information very low information diet - as Tim Ferriss teaches and talks about in 4 Hour Work Week.   I'm very careful who I choose to listen to and very careful about what I consume. If I'm not learning for intent, then why am I learning? It's just noise. I ranted about that on a previous podcast.  I really like what Tim Ferriss says about the subject.   In Positioning they say, “Today, communication itself is a problem. We've become the world's first over-communicated society. Every year we send more and receive less.” Now as an entrepreneur, as a marketer, that is a terrible terrible place for you to be.   It has to do with something that was mentioned in the beginning of the book. There's a point that I really like ... (There are a few points that I disagree with too - sorry. Actually - not sorry - I believe it. Just from my own experience of rolling out products)   This is the point; “For years, all of us in the marketing area have taught to our students to build a marketing plan around ‘The 4 P's’.” If you guys don't know the 4 P's; the 4 P's are like the Bible, they're like gospel. Especially in corporate marketing.   The 4 P's are: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. What's the product - what's the price of it?  Where you gonna place it? How you gonna promote it? Now that makes sense, but he makes a great point. There's some areas here that I agree with and some that I won't here, and I wanna share with you why - and it has to do with my rollout strategy.   The next point is; “I began to realize some years ago, that some important steps needed to precede the 4 P's. All good marketing planning must start with research before any of the P's can even be set.   Research reveals (among other things) that customers differ greatly in their needs, perceptions, and preferences. Therefore customers must be classified into segments.”   Research, get them into segments. You can't serve all segments. I agree with that. I wanna walk you through how I do this without getting technical. So, I'm gonna put the book down.   The scariest thing ever, is for you, as a marketer, or Sales Funnel builder, to go out and launch a product that nobody has ever heard of. Scary, scary crap! That's so freaky.   I I was watching a lot of gurus launch their products, and these gurus would go launch their products, and a lot of times the product wasn't even built when they were selling it. I had this moral com conflict inside of me, "Is that right? Is this ethical?" I was like, "that's kind of weird," and I had a hard time with it for a while.   Every time I teach this strategy, someone says, "Is that right? Is that real? Is that okay?"   Let me explain what's really is going on behind the scenes: They're doing the four Ps, they're doing research and segmenting, they're doing all these other things inside there. They're positioning the new product against the old one. This positioning game heavily affects what makes a good marketer.   The stories you tell, all that stuff that stuff matters tremendously. The reason I'm talking about this is that I'm doing it right now for two products.   If you guys are part of my group The Science of Selling Online, I just built ' Outrage' live, in front of the group. I designed the marketing message, drew out the funnel,  and then I built the funnel live.   Now, I'm doing it again with another product in front of that group -  for FREE - anyone can watch it. I go through, and I say, "There's a need right here, right everybody?" And they're like, "Yeah, there is a need right there." "Okay, what kind of thing would you wish was inside that product? Awesome, cool. You know what, I'm actually go through in front of you, I'm going to design the marketing messages. I'm going to go through, let's brainstorm together what false beliefs there are about the product I'm gonna put out there." They're like, "Well if it's about funnels - I'm not a techie!" I'm like, "Oh, that's a good one community, thank you for saying that. Community, this is how I would combat that?" I go around and show them, "Well, that's a bad belief because of x, y, and z," and I retell them another story. Then I'm like, "Oh man, community, what are some of the stories you would expect somebody to be believing some of the experiences that they've gone through that's made them think they need to be a techie?" They're like well, "I saw this guy and he was an awesome funnel builder a great person online, and he was a coder. All these people were coders." I'm like "Oh that's great, that's great. Okay let me write that down, I need to break that story, I need to put a new story.” Does that make sense?   I'm going in, and I'm using the very people who are buying the product to help create the marketing message, and I'm doing it live in front of them. What does that do?   So I just did this for Outrage - it's a free program. I took the time to go do it because I wanted to, number one, go through and show... there's a there's a sense of... I'm trying to display that I know what the heck I'm talking about. How do you say that word, I don't know what that word is?   ...But I'm trying to say "Look, I'm not a fake. Watch me do it live. Watch me build and construct the thing in front of you."   I did for   Outrage, and now I'm doing for another paid product. I'm literally building in front of the very people that I hope will buy it. That's the strategy - and I hope you all use it in your businesses.   The strategy is if you are selling an info product or you're writing a book or you are in retail or if you're in B2B. Take those products and deconstruct them in front of a customer, and put it back together, and say, "Here you go." That increases your sales like crazy.   Six months into working at ClickFunnels, Russell Voxed me, and he said, "Hey, dude, we're going to start a show called Funnel Fridays." "Like cool, what's that?"   A lot of you guys know me from Funnel Fridays. Every Friday, Russell gets on with Jim Edwards, fantastic copywriting expert, and Russell, obviously a funnel building expert... They take somebody's product, whether it's somebody from the audience or something else that they're doing at that time, and they build an entire funnel live in front of people in 30 minutes.   Now, do they always finish? No, hardly ever, that's not the point though. What that does... think about it... Russell CEO of Click Funnels and Jim Edwards creator, the seller of Funnel Scripts coming together and using the product in front of the customer. Doing exactly what their product sells - using the products in the live build.   Sometimes there'd be two, three, 400 people live watching live, giving and asking questions. "Why did you do it this way... why did you do it that way?" Guys that's selling!   Does it feel like a sales script? “No!” The whole point I'm trying to make here is that if you are going, "Hey, I want to go build this product..." do everything you can to, number one, roll it out in front of your audience. Include them in your rollout strategy. Include them in the build. You'll create these true believers.   Let's say you're building software; your potential customers will the story of you going through and teaching them why this button exists. They'll everything that went on to create that feature.  Now they’ll have an affinity for that feature. Whereas before it was just a crappy little feature.   When you're building the little pieces inside of your product, you're putting things together, it's incredibly important for you to document the journey of its creation. That's the point of today's episode.   If you document the journey of the creation of your product - what you end up doing is pre-selling people for the day that you open the doors.   That is what I did not understand when I launched my first info product.  I did not understand for quite some time.   It's kind of like Hollywood right? Hollywood goes out six months before a movie goes out, they start getting people ready. They start creating curiosity, they start building pressure.   A marketer builds pressure over time towards an event - a purchasing event. That's really what a campaign is. It's building pressure towards a purchasing event.   There's a campaign and they're building, building, building, building, building pressure. They're building pressure - six months out - or even a year sometimes, right?   There's a preview for a movie -it's only two minutes long - but it's a teaser. Six months out there's another one, three months out there's another one. A week ahead of time, "Holy crap, oh my gosh, this is the launch date. Get your premiere tickets; pay extra to see the first showing of it in your area." Does that make sense?  They make an event out of the rollout of the product.   The issue that I find, more often than not, is that there's been no pressure, no talk, nothing about a product before it launches.   The problem with that is that you're gonna rely on ads and influencer name drops. And that's fine; I would use those strategies. I do those strategies myself. However, if you're not building the pressure ahead of time...   There are really two ways that you can build the pressure:   #1 Build the pressure ahead of the product launch     #2 Then you can build pressure after the product launch by doing things like ads, closing the cart strategically, doing lots of stuff like that.   So anyway, I hope that this has made sense? I kind of dove deep with it a little bit. I agree with what the book Positioning was talking about, but not just from a positioning standpoint, but from a rollout strategy. That's very very huge.   For you to think through how to actually put your product out the door. So if you want to see an example of that in action, go to thescienceofselling.online.   I'm saving the live product and funnel builds in that group so you guys can go back and watch them. It's been really cool.   If you wanna see the Outrage one in there, you'll see how I designed the marketing, meaning the actual messaging, the sales message. There's a format, there's a template I used for that. Going out and then choosing the funnel to build. There's a format there's a template. 90% of this is just a big 'ol formula. People just convolute it.   Then when I'm actually building the funnel, there's a format, there's a formula that I follow to get that out the door quickly.  As I'm doing it live, I'm showing my prospective customers how I'm gonna be selling 'em. There's nothing wrong with that; this is a huge extra value add. Now they're like, "Oh man, I didn't know this is why you did that. I didn't realize Stephen that this belief I have is actually a false belief. Oh cool, you're going to put that feature in. Huh, Interesting."   What's beautiful beautiful beautiful about this whole thing is I'm going out and I'm showing them what they're getting without them getting it. So that makes the curiosity higher. When they've invested that amount of time with me on the internet, (they're engaging for free), if they don't get the product, the itch is not scratched entirely. So they have a massive incentive to buy.   Anyway, I just hope that you take that seriously. What I've been doing the last little bit here, is re-creating certain parts of the product after products are rolled out. I'll re-create certain parts of that product live in order to push more people in. The first time the product goes out, I'll make a whole bunch of it in front of the people. Sometimes not all of it, but key parts I know they'll be really interested in. Anyway, lots of fun stuff.   The whole point is to take the customer with you on the creation of the product (or certain parts of it.) It will create a massive affinity which leads to true believers.   Rather than go and find true believers, you create true believers - which is very powerful.   Alright guys, hopefully, this has been a helpful episode for you today! Thank you so much to all of you who've been reviewing the podcast on iTunes, it means a lot to me. Please keep doing that, and I'll see you guys on the next episode. Bye.   Boom. Just try to tell me you didn't like that. Hey, whoever controls content, controls the game. Wanna interview me or get interviewed yourself? Grab a time now at stevejlarsen.com

Boom, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen. This is Sales Funnel Radio, and today I'm gonna talk about my greatest asset and my college transcript.   What's up, guys? Hey, today's a little bit different.   First off, I wanna apologize. The last few episodes that went out, we found out the mic on the camera was busted, and so that's kinda why they sounded a little bit weird.   Thankfully my super-ninja sound dude was able to take out a lot of the stuff, but we apologize for that. He's the man. You guys'll all get to meet him another time when we all feature our content team again.   But, what I wanted to do, this episode's a little bit different, and you'll notice it's a little bit longer, but what I wanted to do is...    I did a Facebook Live to my group, and it's a little long but the lessons are huge, and it frankly is how I went from completely failing out of college; I had no idea how to learn. Did not know, right? I really didn't know how to learn. Even into my early 20s, I had to figure out how to learn.   In fact, the first thing I show you is my college transcript  - you'll see the huge difference between when I learned how to learn, and when I had no idea how to learn. And how that's blessed me in my life and frankly, everything else that I do.   Anyway, so it's a little bit of a different episode. We're going to cut over to it now. It's the recording from me in my group The Science of Selling Online. And so, we're going to cut straight over to that.   If you have any questions or whatever, please reach out.   The group itself had a great discussion about it afterward, and by the time I was done over 900 people had already watched it. And then a few hours later it was 1500.  It's been really, really cool.   There's some real talk, please go in with some thick skin. If you are easily offended, maybe don't watch this one. But anyway, let's cut over to it now and I'll see you in that episode.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now, I've left my nine-to-five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is: How will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   Hey, I just want to share with you guys probably one of the most important assets that I've ever created. It's something that took me, probably, two years to develop. Um, of actively trying to do it, okay? And I want to show you this real quick though, hold on, let me; just pulling it up right here so you guys can see it.   I want to walk you through what I've done and why it means so much to me. And frankly, I know it's one of the major reasons why I am where I am right now. And it's because the lesson was so painful, okay? So let me share this with you guys...   Alright. Okay, check this out. I went through, and I found my college transcript. It's not like anyone has asked me for it, ever. Russell certainly didn't care. But I'm glad for what it taught me.   I'll never, ever regret going to college. Although, I you don't learn how to learn. You don't learn how to make money in college, right? But I'm glad I went.   Check this out. I'm gonna show you my transcript, okay? And I'm going to show you something. This is funny...   I graduated from college when I was 28. Right, and it's because I did like a two-year mission for my church; I took, frankly, a year and a half off. This was before I knew what I wanted to do. Before I tried enough things to know what I wanted to do. Right?   I took a couple of semesters for army stuff. You know, going to basic training and a whole bunch of things.  So it was a long time, okay? Much longer than normal people usually take to get through college, but I mean I had a family. We had kids; we had a different scenario and everything.   Anyway, check this out. Okay, I'm going to show you my transcript. No one laugh, but totally feel free to because I'm going to.   Let me make sure you guys can see this. Look at that first semester right there. D plus, A, F, F, F, F. That's the first semester. Okay, check that out.   I got an A in Apartment Leadership because it was a two-hour thing. I just sat down and did it one day, when I realized how screwed I was at the end of the semester. My GPA was literally .00017, okay?   I had no idea how to learn. I actually got kicked out of college. I got kicked out - and frankly, you have to go to class to stay in it. That's kinda funny.  I kinda stopped going to class about halfway through. But the issue was; I didn't know how to learn. Okay?   I had no idea how to learn, I didn't know the process it. I  barely graduated high school, okay. I'm not just saying that; I got straight D's in science every semester; in math, every semester; in English. I certainly did in foreign languages. Spanish, straight Ds.  And half of it was just because I didn't know how to learn. Right?   I was always interested, and at parent-teacher conferences, it would be like, "Your son seems really, really interested in this, he just hasn't applied himself." And that's what they said every freaking parent-teacher conference - from when I was in the fourth grade all the way through! Until I finally went to college and removed my parents from the notifications list for the school. I didn't know how to learn.   The thing that I went and I figured out was, "how to learn." So  I thought it would be kinda cool to share my process for learning with you. Cause there's a process, and it's active.   Let me share with you guys the difference though... So I ended up having to apply for college again four years later. Okay, four years later, I went and said, "let's go finish this thing; I gotta figure out how to do this."   I did not learn how to make money in college. I did not learn how to be a marketer, even though I have a marketing degree - which is really funny. I didn't learn how to do any of that stuff in college. It was all my own side hustles going on, you know. I had actual clients going on, on the side.   But anyways, let me show you this. Okay, check this out. Alright, so that's the semester that I got kicked out, okay?   Then check out that row right there. A, B, A, A, A, A, A, A, B. A, A, A, A, A, A. B, B, B, A, A, A, A, A. A, A, A, A, A. I didn't get a single C the rest of the four and a half years that I was in college. Straight A's, a few B's here and there. Ended up with a 3.83.818, okay? That's crazy, that's crazy. And the difference was that I learned how to learn.   This was such a powerful lesson to me.  I where I was. I was over on the east coast, living in North Carolina.  I was on a mission, and I started learning how to learn.   I completely believe that God had every bit to do with it, okay? For some reason, kinda opened and expanded my noggin. But this is what I learned. This is the process that I learned. This is literally what I go through to learn.   It's no different, no different than what made me able to sit next to Russell in Build Funnels forum. It's no different, the exact same process.   In fact, even when I was sitting next to Russell, and he'd say, "Steven, go figure out how to hook up deadline funnel. Steven, go figure out how to do this. You got two hours to learn this whole software and integrate it into this funnel, go." Same process, okay, same process.   In fact, most of the time when I am coaching - I've brought 1600 people through this process now. Many of them became millionaires. Many became hundred-thousandaires, and lots of people made money for the first time in their entire life. It was by applying this process.   If I was sitting in Quantitative Marketing Research; blah, blah, right? I hate that, like; oh my gosh, that's terrible, right? I hated that stuff. ing!!! If you guys like that stuff, that's great. I don't, I'm not good at that.   In fact, my first major was CIT, blah. Coding? I'm not good at that, I hate coding okay? I do not know how to do it, I understand pieces of it, but my brain doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. And so, I had to learn how to learn.   The stats all say that every CEO is reading a book a week, at least, right. You gotta learn how to learn. And you gotta do it at speed, right? And that, if you guys go to; I'm not promoting or anything, but if you go to doublemyreading.com - it's the worlds fastest reader...   Every year Russell goes and does a promo with him.  He's got a course, it'll more than double your reading speed. If it only doubles, he gets mad about it.   I got to meet him. He read Expert's Secrets in five minutes. It was the craziest thing, I sat right in front of him, and I watched him. And then he had an in-depth conversation for an hour with Russell about all the details inside.   There's so much information around, the first thing you can do is be really picky on what you consume.   Stop listening to every podcast show that's out there. Choose the top two or three guys and go deep with them.   Stop reading every book. Choose the one or two topics that you want to get really good at in your lifetime, and that's it. Only do those things. Don't worry about the others, you're not going to get good at them anyway.   The first thing you can do is do what Tim Ferris teaches, and have a low-information diet, okay? And then you go deep on that thing.   I prided myself for a long time for being a Renaissance man. I could do ad copy, I could do the actual ad. I could do the actual funnel, I could set up the integrations. I could do the actual video, I could do sound editing. I could do all of it! And I was a one-man show and, frankly, for a while before you build a team, that's a great way to go so you know at least who to hire and who's good.   But after a while, stop learning everything. Okay? Cut it out. It's what's killing you. You just dive deep on just one or two experts that you really, really like. And you study 'em for years. That's the reason why Clickfunnels is literally three miles away in that direction, right over there. It's three miles away. Even though I was next to The Man that long, he is the silo that I have determined to learn and study from long term. I'm never not going to study deeply from him.   When I find out there's something that he is just freaking out about, and is super excited about. I read the same book. When I find out there's something; I still do it! Even though I had a massive brain dump just sitting next to the guy.   Anyways, what I want to do real quick is; I wanted to share with you the process...   The very first step, if I needed to go learn something that I didn't want to learn; I had to find a way to become curious about it. I had to become curious. I had to seek information, okay?   I looked at all the guys who were in my marketing classes, who were in my entrepreneurial class. Pretty much 99% of them were not doing a dang thing outside that class to learn on their own.   They literally surrendered all, all learning, All Learning, ALL LEARNING - to the teacher! That's crap! Don't do that! Okay, don't do that! You should be going and just getting extra little pieces done by that teacher.   If I'm coaching somebody (or somebody is in some program of mine), and they leave every single step up to me, I know they will fail. I'm that strong about it. If they have no drive,  if they do not learn on their own, if they've never opened up freaking Google or YouTube and typed in, "how do I _____ ____? I know they're not going to make it. Bar none! Done, right there - gone. Will not make it. Will not make money because they have zero drive.   Look, all these things that we're teaching you guys. Everything that we do is a formula. It will get you to the 90%. Okay? It will shortcut, save years of your life, Tens of thousands of dollars of you testing on your own. But that last 10% is up to the athlete. Right? It's up to you, right?   It's up to you; "Hey, this is how you do an econ funnel." Sweet, but I'm not going to go make an econ funnel specific to your exact product. So there's gonna be that last little 10%.   You'll make money during the 90%. You'll figure out how to be successful doing the 90%, or get leads doing that 90%, but it's that last 10%!   For the guys who can't stay up a few extra hours; who can't get up a few extra hours -  who can't and won't do it on their own... They surrender all of their learning to another person and say well, "But Steven didn't teach me how to do it with my product." Bullcrap! Not my fault. Not my fault, okay!   I realized when I sat down in college that people were literally leaving all responsibility for learning up to the teacher. That's when I realized; oh crap, it's actually freaking easy for me to be apart from everybody else.   That's the beauty of it guys. Study for an hour on your own. No one telling you to do it.  I'm preaching to the choir for a lot of guys on here right now. I know I am, but let me keep ranting, okay?   If you do just a little bit extra; in only a year's time... Six months guys! Six months from the time I built my first successful funnel was when I met Russell and got a job offer from him. Six months! It's because I dove deep.   Step number one, you've got to be self-sustaining. You've got to be diving deep, you have to be curious.   If there was something that I needed to go learn, I found a way to be curious about it. You must be curious. You must learn for the sake of wanting to do so. Reading is not enough, okay? Which leads me to step two.   As I was learning,  (and this was weird, okay), but I did this actively in college...   When there was a subject that I did not want to learn, you can see, I almost got straight A's. I got a 3.18 the rest of college after that. From straight F's? Right? I just showed my transcript to ya. What did I do?   One of my tricks was that I always "learned for two." That's the phrase I always say inside my head." I'm gonna learn for two, I'm gonna learn for two, I'm gonna learn for two." Meaning: As I'm learning something, one of the easiest ways for it to sink inside of my head; whether it has to do with funnels, right; or a script strategy...   Right now,  I am actually in funnel script.  I'm building out the webinar for funnel builder secrets to go do with all these cool JV's with Russell. Super cool, cool stuff. So anyways, that's what I'm doing right now. But, I'm learning for two...   Every time I watched Russell - even before I met him in person; before he ever knew who I was - I always learned for two.   Let's say there was some topic which I didn't want to learn it. I would sit back, and I would go: "How would I teach this to somebody else?"   I'm 100% convinced the reason I have this status right now is because of that principle.   It was weird guys; I would sit back, and I would say to myself: How would I teach this to somebody else?  For some reason I always imagined myself teaching it onstage. I don't know why but I always did.   I felt a little weird, little conceited even, doing that. And this became the basis for me to begin to publish - even though I didn't want to. Because in my head I'd future-paced myself enough times. Id think, "How would I say this onstage?" If I was gonna teach this; how would I simplify it? How would I draw in a picture so they can understand?   I'm not trying to sound super smart. I'm trying to sound "simple" - because it's actionable.   One of my favorite quotes... You know I'm starting my quote wall again, which I'm really excited about. I think it's that one right there. It says, "The purposeful destruction of information is the essence of intelligence." Okay?   I'm not trying to sound all smart and crap. I'm a "geek out," guys. We go some deep concepts for marketing, right? The different psychology and ask, "what's actually going on in the noggin?" If you guys followed me in outrage, then you saw me do that a little bit while I've been building it.   So step number one is; be curious, seek. You've got to be able to deep-dive without anybody telling you to do so. Freak out over it, obsess over it. Be unreasonable over the amount of information you're consuming on it, okay?   I have mastered this to such a level that I feel like already that I could teach a master class on any subject if you gave me two weeks. I just dive, dive, dive, dive, dive.  You will be ahead of so many people, it's ridiculous.   So that's step number one, okay. You have got to deep dive. Find a way to be interested. Find a way to be curious. Seek, seek, seek, seek, seek actively.   Number two is, "learn for two." And more specifically, you need to learn how to document what you're learning, okay? Write it down, I don't always write stuff down.   I used to write a lot of stuff down, which is why I showed you guys my funnel journal. Which is a previous Facebook Live.   If you haven't seen that one. I showed you my funnel journal and everything I was learning. I just showed Russell like two days ago, and he's freaking out about it. Which is awesome. It'll be on a Funnel Hacker TV episode soon, which is cool, cause he was really impressed by it. But that's how I used to do it.   Other ways I would document, though;  let's say there was a subject I didn't want to go learn. I actively would find somebody after class, I didn't care who it was. There were strangers I did this to many times.   I would walk up to 'em, and we'd be getting on an elevator or something like that. And I'd be like, "Hey, this is gonna be weird, but can I just tell you what I learned in this last class?" And they'd be like, "Yeah, I guess." And I'd be like, "Cool! This is what I learned, isn't that interesting?" They'd be like, "Yeah, that is interesting."   I would go back home, and I would teach my wife for that purpose, guys. It was an active thing that I would be doing. I would take that piece back, and I would go and tell it. I would teach it to my wife so that it sank in my brain. If you can teach it, you know it.   Those are really the two steps, okay?   Now the way you teach it matters. You know what's funny is with Sales Funnel Radio; do you guys watch Sales Funnel Radio at all? I don't know if you guys watch it at all. Sales Funnel Radio is freaking amazing. Love the group. Hey thanks, Adam, I love the group too. Sales Funnel Radio is epic.   What's interesting about Sales Funnel Radio is everybody just wants the nuggets. Okay, they want the nuggets. It's funny cause I was totally surveying people and this is what they say.  It's funny, they'll tell me things like, "Steven this is a really good point, I wish you just got straight to the lesson though." And I'll be like, "Oh, interesting!"   So at the beginning, when I was first doing Sales Funnel Radio, you can hear a few episodes where I did that.  It was pretty straight tactics. Straight to the point, right to the nugget. And you know what's funny about that? Nobody ever ed it. No one ed the nugget. Nobody applied it. It didn't mean anything to them. After two episodes, I stopped. I was like, crap, that didn't work.   They want the nugget, but if I go straight to the nugget, no one re it. And frankly, you won't it either. And so you have to wrap your nuggets in stories. Okay? You have to wrap the golden nuggets in stories. That's how people learn, it's how what sticks in the brain.   It's what also assigns the value to the nugget. Alright? It's what gets people to go, "Oh my gosh, that was so cool!" It only happens when I wrap things in story. When I do 80% story, 20% nugget. So watch what I'm doing in those episodes. Okay, and again; 80% story, 20% nugget. When I do it that way, they're like, "Oh my gosh, that was such a sick episode!"   When I go straight tactical, and it truly is stuff that I would charge a grand for at an event to go teach. They're like, "Hey, that was cool!" And then I never hear about it again. When there is a story though, there's an emotional response that people will forever. So what does this have to do with anything?   So again, here are the steps. Number one: you've gotta be able to dive deep and be a self-solver when it comes to your education.   I hate it, hate it when people reach out to me and they're like, "How do I add a new funnel?" I'm like, "Freaking A! Did you even google it?!" I get so mad about it. Are you serious? Google it!! Right!   Did you do anything on your own to solve that question on your own? No! Therefore, I'm not even gonna help! That's my response to it, and I get pretty animated about it, which you just saw.   When people reach out, and they're like, "Oh my gosh, Steven, how do I write a Seinfeld series?" "Did you even google it?!" Right? "Did you look at Dot Com Secrets? Did you read the scripts? Did you even YouTube?" Someone already has the answer.   I have a YouTube education. No one taught me how to do what I'm doing. No one taught me, okay? My very first education was a YouTube education.   For a long time, I would go, and I would get these people to say yes to me.  I would turn around, I'd say, "Look, I know you don't know what these funnels are, and in fact, I actually don't know how to build half the stuff myself." I wouldn't say that. I'd say, "Do you want me to go rebuild your website?" And they'd say, "Sure."   All I knew was that there was a guy out there, somewhere in the ether, who had some little tutorial on how to build a website in WordPress. And I would say, "Sweet!" And I would dedicate two days; guys, I'm not joking.  I would say, "Yes, I'll go do it!" What I was really saying was: "Let me go figure it out."   I would grab whatever asset I found on YouTube; I would go grab 'how to build a website' and I'd have that on one screen. I'd do it in the library, guys. I didn't even have a computer sometimes.   One of the things that I would do is I'd say "yes" to people. And I would be like, oh man, I just said yes to filming that guy's thing; I don't even have filming software. You know, editing software. Oh cool, libraries do. And I would go edit everything in a library.   Or I'd say,  "You want me to come to your event and film a thing? Yeah, I could totally do that!"   I didn't know what I was doing for a while. I was in my age of exploration. I was just learning crap, okay? I was doing it on purpose. Just saying yes to stuff and figuring it out as I went.   Build a parachute as you're falling. Funny enough, the ground never comes, okay.   So I went out, and I would go, and I would say things like, "Hey, let me say yes to you on that and then let me deliver it to you in about two weeks." And I would literally just go and grab, I would just go and grab a tutorial and press play for 15 seconds and do what the dude did over on WordPress before Clickfunnels existed.   When Clickfunnels came out, I did the exact same thing in Clickfunnels. Guys, I probably read every document that they ever had out. It's not a joke.   Two to three times a day, I would be reaching out to asking questions. I was "THAT GUY!"  I knew that, and I was fine with that. But I was that 'oh crap, it's this guy again.'   That's how they knew who I was when I actually showed up to a Funnel Hacking Live event. That's why I got five job offers by the time I actually got there. They knew who I was because I was dedicated to educating myself. I was a self-solver.   This topic for me drives me nuts. I absolutely hate it. When people come, and they say things like, "But Steven, I just don't know how to find a product to sell." Google it! Right? It's like right there! There's so much information! Google it! Right! Are ya feeling me?   I know I'm totally preaching to the choir here. You guys are all; you're in a group called Science of Selling Online, right? This is like me going deep in innermost thoughts of my noggin, okay? But I'm trying to help everyone see like, nothing is stopping you!   It is not a matter of "how do I?" anymore. How does this happen? How do I do that? Is this what-- Is this how this works? Is this how I do this over here? It's not a matter of that anymore! Freaking YouTube and Google are amazing! Just go there! And do it! That's why I get so frustrated about it.   When I'm in a course for someone. Or there's like this little tiny contingency that only matters for the smallest little deep, darkest corner of their very scenario -that happens on a Tuesday, after a full moon... And I'm like, oh are you kidding? Just go google it.   I'm freaking just yelling right now. And I know, and I totally get that. But it's because it's a ionate thing for me. I just showed you my college transcript. I failed my entire first semester. They kicked me out, I literally had to reapply for college. What I learned in that scenario, was how to learn.   How to learn is never on anybody else's shoulder. If you don't know how to do anything it is nobody else's fault; it's no one else's fault - BECAUSE Google exists! YouTube exists! Guys like me, who are willing to teach you, exist! The 80 20 principle totally applies.   When I was doing 2 Comma Club coaching, and I was the only coach, there were 600 students. I was the only coach for a full year. How did I do it? You wanna know the honest truth? It's because the 80 20 rule still applied, and 20% of the 600 weren't even doing anything. Okay? You getting info is not what gets you results.   If you go out and you start saying things like... (I know you guys don't do this, okay), this is my rant to the world as if everyone can hear it. I should stand on my roof and yell, "Do crap! Just look it up! The answer is already there."   It has nothing to do with 'how do I?' anymore! How do I "X"? How do I "Z"? (I forgot "Y") How do I "X" ?; How do I "Y"? How do I "Z"?  "How do I one, two and three?" That's no longer the issue. The issue is always: Have you taken the freaking time to answer it on your own? Are you in a group? Are you in a course? Did you pay the dude who's taken a lot of time of his life to learn it some money so that he can show you how to short-cut it? Have you done those things?   If you do that, and you actually get in those courses. And you do it, and you apply it; that's like half the freaking battle. Just being where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there.   In the army, there was a phrase; "You guys wanna know how you're not gonna get jacked up in this life? And you wanna know how you're gonna stay the course? It's simple; Be where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there, in the uniform you're supposed to be in." And that's all they would say.   If you're supposed to be up at a certain time studying your craft, be up! If you're supposed to stay up late; be up! If you're like, "I don't know how to do this," make it your number one thing that day to figure it out. That is why I sat next to Russell Brunson. I am a self-solver, I am a self-teacher. God had everything to do with it.   When I asked him, "Will you please help me learn this because I'm kind of an idiot right now." Right, and I failed out that first semester of college, he helped, okay? And when I went out, and I said, "Look, I'm going to try and be curious about this." Rather than my attitude of like, "ugh I've got to learn freaking dream 100 again?," (Which is what I know people say), I was like, "Cool. How can I be curious about this? How can I seek the knowledge? How can I seek information and how can I get myself results? How can I self-solve and self-teach?"   There's no one else who's to blame except for myself if I don't learn this. Even the expert, even the guy teaching it. It's not his fault, it's always mine, okay? For my successes and my failures, never the expert's fault.   Number two, what I was saying is that you have to build a document somehow. I always follow the adage of "learn for two." Meaning, how am I going to go teach it? Either on a podcast or by writing somewhere? Am I gonna teach some random person on the street? Which I was doing to a hair-cut lady the other day as she was cutting my hair. She had a really terrible attitude about trying new things in life. Okay, anyway... You feeling me?   I don't care if the internet was to blow up; I'd be totally fine. Because I've learned how to learn. Does that make sense?   There's been a few times in my life;  a few projects that I've been on... This was true if it was a school project or a business project... Where if something changed the way we were running the business. And somebody started getting, "Ah, who moved my cheese? Ah, wait, am I gonna be taken along in that ride? Where am I gonna get mine?" It was always because they weren't a self-solver.   They always had the attitude of like, "Is, is this guy gonna ; am I gonna be ed? I'm gonna die in a gutter, blahhh!" And they would start saying that kinda crap, and you could see it. Their attitude would go that way, and they'd get a little more cut-throat. And we'd be like, "Dude, relax! We're still like fleshing out this thing. First of all, yes; you're still gonna be cut in this thing, it's okay."   I'm not gonna name a very specific project I'm thinking of, but it was always because someone didn't know how to learn on their own. They had no idea how to learn on their own. They had no idea how to self-solve. They had no idea.   There was a challenge that I used to run in the 2 Comma Club group called "The Self-solver Challenge." It's funny that I called it The Self-solver Challenge - all they had to do was just do the things I was teaching them. It was so ridiculous how many people wouldn't even do that. I'm like, "Are you committed to this?"   It's almost like Bourne Supremacy, you the Bourne movies, the Bourne Supremacy? "Will you commit to this program?",  Maybe a vague movie reference, I don't know? But I'm obsessed with Bourne movies. That's all I was asking for; "just freaking commit to it." And if they went and did what they were supposed to do in the program, I would go and do this special critique with them, or something like that.   There are two lies with this game. Especially in the info-product game. The first lie is that most of us start to confuse action with achievement...   Sorry, my hands shaky, I'm yelling too much...     If you're learning things, that's great. But if you're not learning with the intent to solve a problem, that's a distraction, right? It's the reason why I have so many books on my shelves that I haven't read. I have no reason to learn what's in those books right now.   People are like, "But you're supposed to read a book a week." Alright, maybe the equivalent of that I'm learning through listening to a ton of podcasts and a few other things that I do. I'm still learning like an animal. But I'm learning with intent.   This is how the game works...  I don't see beginning to end, and it's the reason why most people don't get started. What happens is they sit back, and they go, "Steven, I see how this funnel game could work," right? And some of you guys have said that "I get it, I get it."   These are like the two lies, okay. This is the first lie; the lie is that someone says, "I must see from beginning to end to get started in this game," but this is always a false belief.   I know this by taking 1600 people through this process. 1600, okay, I think it's more than that now. I think we're nearing 1700. The door is about to open for more, I'm really excited...   See, I teach people how to do for themselves the very things I'm teaching them how to do to their customers. I say, "What are your false beliefs about this very process I'm about to take you through?" And I, one of those beliefs is always, "Steven, I can't see the whole path."   Engineers and designers are always the worst because they want to see beginning to end before they ever start a project. They're always the worst.   Every time I'm gonna go teach on stage, I always look and see who the engineers are. If I know who the engineer is, I'm like, "Crap, there's the logic person who needs to see every step before they'll do anything." There's nothing wrong with that, it's a different skill set, just be aware of it   I'll sit back, and I'll say, "Okay, wait a second, that's not how it works. We see the peak! I always see the peak. I know exactly where I want to drive the ship. You all do, too. I want this kind of thing; I want this success. I want this kind of outcome; I want this kind of life. This kind of revenue or profit or whatever it is. We all know, right, you guys know what your peak is.   The reason I found that most people don't get started, and the reason that I found that most people who were taking time was because they could see the two or three steps in front of them but there was this area that was totally dark. No lights on, completely black. And they're like, "Ugh, okay, I see how to build the funnel, but I don't know how to get traffic?' And I'm like, "What!?" Month two hasn't even happened! Right? That's not how the game works! That's not how the game works!   There's as much faith in it as in anything else. You sit down, you say, "I'm going for that peak." You look down, and you say, "I see the one step in front of me, and number two, number three. I don't even really see number four." I don't even see number four in my own business. I see the peak, and I know the major milestones to get there, but in-between it's completely, completely dark. It's totally black, I have no idea what's there. No idea, no idea.   If you're nervous about solving problems in entrepreneurship, like get used to it, or learn to love it because that's all it is. So all you have to focus on is step number one.   Don't worry about step number three until you've taken step number two. So many people are trying to put every little asset, every little thing in place. All these little pieces; "I'm not gonna be a good speaker. I'm not good at the funnel building. How does the offer go? How does this happen?" And they're like, "Oh my gosh."   Just start moving, and take step one. Don't worry about step two until it's completely there. You take it slow, and your speed increases over time. But you put that foot out, right there. You just put the foot out, and you place your foot as perfectly as your foot can be placed. Then you start to put a little weight on it. Lift up that back foot and get ready for step number two. And you hold it above, and you place that step as perfectly as it can be placed. And then the next one, and the next one. And you know what's funny is when you take the first step, a new third step always appears and begins to become visible.   The issue happens when people get distracted by it. "But how do I bill an product?" Man, you don't even have a product, who cares? And, "What's my program gonna be? I haven't set up backpack yet." You're not even selling your normal products on your own anyway, who cares?   Don't even worry about it until you get there. Don't even worry about it. Right, boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. That's like the first lie of the info-product, actually entrepreneurship game in general. Well, the first lie that people believe is, "Oh my gosh, I gotta know all these steps, I gotta know all these things. I'm not gonna be successful unless I do. I'm don't see from beginning to end." Okay, no one does, nobody does.   You guys know when we actually started the funnel for this book? Two days before the launch. Okay, that's some scary crap. I would not encourage you to do that. Okay, it's some scary crap, and we had a very pro team pulling it off, okay? But what I'm saying is execution is what matters. Done is the new perfect. Stop needing to see beginning to end, stop needing to be perfect.   Most of the time it's just a pride thing that the person is experiencing. "I'm gonna look like an idiot if this fails!" You mean when. When it fails - it will. Just get over it. When it fails, okay.   But because so many people are so scared to take action, if you just take a little, you're already ahead of 80% of humanity. Okay, that's why I can stay ahead. That's why I'm doing it the way I am. I already know it's not gonna be perfect. Right?   That's the way I started treating my learning. I didn't need to learn every little piece of detail.  I dove deep with it, right, I dove deep with it. I found step number one, just as I was talking about. Step number one. How can I be curious about what I'm learning? How can I dive deeply?   Then number two: How can I teach for two? I mean: How can I learn for two - so I can turn around and teach it to somebody else? Somehow document it. Somehow go around and turn around and be like, "Check it out, this is how it happens!"   Okay, anyway. There's some real talk there. Oh, that was lie number one. Lie number two is that "when I purchase something the problem is solved." That's the other lie that people believe.   How many you guys bought a treill and never used it? That's a perfect example. We've all done that. I'm not poking fingers. We've all done that, every one of us. That's fine, okay? But you have to buy with intent.   I buy stuff to funnel-hack it or to use it. There are times where stuff sits around. I'm totally guilty of that as well. That's the second lie of this game that people believe. When I go purchase something, it scratches the itch. And therefore I'll be successful, and we begin to confuse action with achievement.   So just to recap, cause I just said a butt-load of stuff and that was way longer than expected and I went into things that I wasn't planning to. That was gonna be like a five-minute little thing.   Number one, right? I showed you my college transcript. I literally failed out of college. I had to learn how to learn. I had to literally reapply, they kicked me out. Like, for real, okay?   Four years later, I went back in, I learned how to learn. Got pretty much straight A's, graduated with a 3.8 the rest of college. And then, then what I started learning, right.   The big difference between a straight A's and me failing out of college, which totally applied to me everything funnel-building-wise. And which is why I am completely convinced is why I'm doing what I'm doing now, right. In college, I learned how to learn, okay? I asked God for help, I learned how to learn.   I turned around, and I figured out how to get curious about things that I needed to learn but didn't want to. "How can I get curious about this? How can I seek, how can I ask for help? Who has the biggest cheese? Who can I go run after? Who's that person who that'll take me in to shortcut as much of the process as possible?"   Number two, I always learned with the intent to teach somebody else. I learned for two; learn for two; "learn for two, learn for two." It's like this constant thing that's going on in my head.  There have been awkward moments where I walk up to random people and say, "Look, I know you don't know who I am, this is gonna be weird, but I want to teach you what I just learned, so I it, is that cool?" Sometimes I would just tell them anyway. That was weird, a few times. But it worked   When I started funnel building  - the exact same thing, right!   The fastest time I ever built a funnel was in 11 minutes. I walked out of a 2 Comma Club coaching event.  Russell goes, "Dude, oh my gosh, good! You're out. This thing's launching in 11 minutes. Can you put it out?" I was like, "What?! Oh my gosh!" Right, whew! Right, say 'yes,' build the parachute while you're falling, funny enough the ground doesn't even come.   And then the two lies, right? Lie number one is that when I start anything, I believe I need to see beginning and end to be successful. That is a lie. That is not true. Nobody ever does. Get used to it.   Step two should never even be thought about until you've put a step in step one. I'm not talking about thoughtful planning. I'm talking about just executing and getting crap done.   The other lie is that when we purchase something we believe that the problem is solved. Like buying a treill and it just sits there, or buying into a member's area; we never do anything with.   The 80 20 principle sadly applies to everything that I've ever sold, ever. 20% of people do stuff with it. The other 80% will not. Some of them will come in, and they do stuff, and they get what they need from it. Or they'll funnel hack me, which is fine, too.   Guys, hopefully, this has been helpful. That was a lot, you guys commented like crazy. I haven't even read any of them. But that's my greatest asset. That's why I believe if something was to go to crap, it'd be fine. Because; let's say the internet exploded. I'm probably going to go into real estate, and I'm going to spend two weeks learning all the strategies and who has the biggest cheese, right? Who has the biggest cheese? Sausage number one, in the real estate game! And then I would go, and I would dive deep with them and do exactly what they said, right.   I'd find a Mr. Miyagi, which is why I have this thing. "Little Mr. Miyagi bobble-head," I gave one to Russell. I was like, "Dude, you're my Mr. Miyagi." You tell me to do things I don't want to do a lot of times, but when I do, money comes in. So that's why I do it.   It's not about what you think. Sometimes you think too much, sometimes you feel way too much.   (COMMENT FROM PEOPLE WATCHING STEPHEN LIVE ON FACEBOOK:)   Javier said, "Did you get kicked out for partying too much?" No, I literally just stopped going to class.  I didn't know how to learn. I'd go to class, I wouldn't know how to do anything afterward. I literally had no idea how to learn.   Anyway, hopefully, it's helpful. It's kinda some real talk, I guess if you want to call it that.   The YouTube education thing is huge, absolutely Billy. It's Tuesday, roar.   That's right, John. Google that crap, learn from my kids. Exactly.   Actually, funny, I used to use this as an insult and um, please take it as a learning thing if I ever do it to you, or do this in the group...   But if you're like, "Stephen, how do I make funnels?" Or how do I do this, how do I do this? Man, there's a site called let me google that for you dot com - It's the acronym for it though. Let me google that for you dot com, you type in lmgtfy.com   Anyway, what's funny about it is that you can go in and  I could type in 'how do I build a funnel. And it creates a little video gif, and you can-- It pops out a link. And you can send it.   In fact, I'll do it, I'll do it after this, okay? I'm gonna go drop it in so you guys can see what I'm talking about. And anytime that someone needed to ask me a question that was frankly stupid, or I could tell them, or I could tell that they had done no thought to think about the answer on their own, alright? This is what I would do.   As soon as the video is over, I'm gonna drop one for you. So you guys can see what I'm talking about. And it's not me saying, "Hey, I won't coach. Hey, I won't help," it's not me saying that at all. What I'm saying is; let's solve the greater issue.   If the person doesn't know how to learn. If they're not a self-solver - they literally have no responsibility for their own education. And they're putting it on everyone else? It doesn't matter if I even answer it, cause they're gonna come back with the next question, right?   This game is a series of questions. So I'll answer that one, and they'll be like, "Cool, I built a funnel! How do I change button color?" Are you kidding me?!   You know what I mean, oh my gosh! Like, you know what I mean? And so I want to solve the greater issue. I want you to be self-solvers.   Anyway, 100% responsible. 100% real talk.   FB COMMENT: "Stop yelling, you're scaring me." Good! It must be the Tony Robbins hat that's getting me kinda, hopped up on goofballs.   You guys are awesome. Good watching you as always.   "Great to see another veteran smashing it." Hey, thanks, Nathan.   Leslie, ha I just did it, fun stuff.   Awesome, cool guys. Hey, I'm gonna drop an LMGTFY for you, so you know what I'm talking about.   Please, please, please keep sharing the group. It means a lot. I know there's a lot of voices out there, and having built a lot of funnels; I think besides Russell, I think it's okay to say: no one else has built as many funnels in the world as I have. I mean, really.   People clone them, or stuff like that. But, and um... it feels weird to say that... I'm not trying to showboat. But it is a reality.   I'm trying to be a voice of clarity in the funnel world - and teach you how to sell crap on the internet, where you're not having to compete on price. I hate that. I don't compete on price, I sell for full-value. In fact, I mostly sell for values. And I'm trying to teach people how to do the same.   So if you guys like the group, it's my goal to go live in here daily. And it means a lot to keep sharing it. We screamed to over a thousand people so fast. I can't even believe that.  It means a lot.   So anyways, thanks so much for your involvement. I appreciate you guys being in the group and it means a lot.   Hey guys, I'll talk to ya later. Bye Ah, yeah.   Hey, wish you could geek out with other funnel builders and even ask question while I build funnels live.  Wish granted! Watch and learn funnel building as I document my process in my funnel strategy group. It's free, just go to thescienceofselling.online and .

Boom what's up guys? This is Steve Larsen, and this is Sales Funnel Radio!   We're gonna talk about training wheels - and, “Is this a real gun?”   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up, guys?   Hey, first off this is not a real gun okay just so you know, it's an airsoft gun but is a replication of a few others.   Hey I know I give a lot of military examples, but I wanna give one for you right now, just 'cause it was a part of my life for a while, okay?   So, this lesson, if I can get you to understand how this relates to sales funnels... it has everything to do with sales funnels... follow me for a moment.   Okay, when we were shooting; we would shoot, and we'd shoot, and we'd shoot, and we'd shoot.   Before we ever shot a bullet; guys, for weeks and weeks and weeks - all we would do is we would lay prone on concrete. We'd sit down, and they would make us hit our elbows on the ground "bam, bam, bam," right on the concrete to make our elbows stronger.   It hurt like crazy for the first few days, but we started getting tougher and tougher and tougher so we could lay in the prone longer.   Anyone else who's in the service, you know you guys have been through this as well -  you know exactly what I'm talking about.   For like two or three days we did that - and each night in the barracks we laid down just" bam, bam, bam, bam," smacking on the ground trying to get my elbows stronger and tougher.   Then eventually we could lay prone for a long time, and it wouldn't hurt your elbows anymore - you wouldn't need little elbow pads - you didn't need any of that kind of stuff.   The other thing we would do is for a long time, we would just sit there in a prone, and we'd take a full canteen,  and we would hook it on the end of the barrel (so there's all that weight), and we'd just stay there.   There'd be no bullet, and all we would do was practice cycling the weapon. That was it, "bam cycle the weapon, bam cycle the weapon."   The next thing they would have us do is we would... (again I know a lot of you guys who have been in you know the service, you guys have done this as well okay, and you know exactly what I'm talking about). We would lay down there and we'd take a dime and sit it on the end of the barrel, and then we'd shoot...   There'd be no round, and there'd be no bullet; we'd take a shot right, and then we would recharge the weapon while keeping balance.  The dime, and even sometimes a canteen would be hanging off the end.   If we could cycle the weapon multiple times without dropping that dime and leaving belts you know without rotating back and forth, then we were successful.   We would do that over and over and over and over again; point, shoot, point, shoot - over and over and over and over.   We did this for weeks and weeks and weeks before we ever even put a live round inside of a weapon.   There were these guys that would show up, and they were like, Man I'm gonna be a sniper, and they expect to be this high-fluent guy - but they can even sit in the prone for like five minutes without hurting themselves - they were way way ahead of where they are, right!   One of the things I wanted to talk about with you guys real quick is this whole idea of funnel building.   A lot of people wanna be snipers when they can't even cycle a weapon in, right! A lot of people wanna build sales funnels that are successful when they haven't even figured out what copy is. They think, "Oh, it's not about copy, it's not about copy."   However, they don't even know the actual psychology of what's happening in the brain. They don't know the difference between marketing and sales. They have not done the things inside of their life, right and there's no pattern in their life to actually know how funnels work, or what a funnel is.   For a little bit, I used to think, "Oh, a funnel is pages." A funnel isn't pages -it's a way to do a funnel, okay?   Anyway, what I wanted to do real quick is - I wanted to show you guys a notebook, and how much I've dedicated my life to this topic, okay?   I wanna show you a notebook; this is the original notebook where I first heard about Russell Brunson and his very first course  - the first course that I went through of his was called "DotCom Secrets X."   Check this okay, I just wanna show you guys these pages. Here let me make sure you guys can see it. Check these pages out! They are chock full.   I stayed up till 3 AM for three months in a row, I mean look at that, studying funnelology. Studying.   Alright, this is all ads the beginning of it... This is all ad strategy - ad strategy, ad strategy. I mean look at that guys; this is one notebook!   I just found a whole bunch of 'em over there, and I've been kinda walking through memory lane. I probably spent too much time today doing that, but I was reminded like, "Oh, man, I really have spent a significant portion of time in this game," okay.   When I was in college, I would stay up till three AM studying Russell's first course, and this is the way I did it; I would press play, and I would pause after about five seconds, and I would write down what he said.   Okay, and I would press play, and I would press pause after five seconds then I would write down what he said. Look at this (Stephen flicking through pages of his notes), "Finding good sites," "These are the best tools," "This is the best way to buy banner ads," "This is the best way for media growth and traffic."The Online Traffic Blueprint:  this is how actual sales process happens part two of three, three of three, right! This is "Facebook strategies." I mean tons and tons of stuff, right... "How to take advantage of the lifeline of your leads," how to... I mean this is so rich, oh my gosh I can't even believe...   In fact, I was reminded of a few things that I'm gonna start doing differently!   I started calling this my "Indiana Jones journal." I wrote them down in my diary so I wouldn't have to , right? It's the exact same thing from Indiana Jones.   What I want you to know and understand is that if you're just starting out, or you've only been doing this for maybe like a month or two, and you're like, "It doesn't work,"  understand that's a false belief, it's not true! Get real with yourself and realize that when you're looking at other guys... don't compare yourself to where other people are!   Use it as leverage, use it as motivation - but don't compare yourself, or put your self-worth on somebody else.   That's the fastest way to go down.   Think dime drills, okay? Think you're laying down practicing...   This is like training wheels, okay? This is like Rocky; the first Rocky, and he's just breaking ribs pounding the meat in that freezer...   A lot of you guys haven't even done that yet, and you're expecting to go to an octagon, okay? Understand that this is a dedicated thing for you to get into.   If you're like,  "I don't know if I wanna get into this game?"  If that's a scary place for you to go, okay? I the day I was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, and I looked at myself;  I had done real estate, I had sold eBooks on the internet, I tried to through Amazon, I had done door-to-door sales, I was a telemarketer, diamonds, literally...traffic driving and that kinda...   I started seeing this funnel game, and I started getting into that.  I'd tried, I think it was definitely 17 businesses I think that I tried before one of 'em actually took off and was successful. It was easily like 9 or 10 industries.   I obsessed until I found the one.     If you're asking yourself like, "Stephen, I don't know what I want to do?' Here's simple fix, "Try More Stuff," okay?   I started doing real estate, and I started doing stocks and options; I mean I obsessed. We go spend a lot of money to learn from the best person at just this one thing; just this one thing, or just this one thing, right?   I dove in as if it was what I was gonna do for the rest of my life.  I committed right, but after about three, four, five, six months, I was like, "You know what, I just don't feel like I've found 'the thing' yet? I don't know if this is what I want?" Then I'd go to the next thing, and I'd dive in as if my life depended on it.   I called it an "Age of Exploration.'  I actively entered an age of exploration. I actively wanted to know, "is this what I want to do?"   And then number two, once I find it, I sink my teeth into it. Does this industry, or is this thing that I'm doing... do I have the capacity to obsess?   I wanna look ridiculous to people that are outside of the industry. If they don't know what I do, I want them to look at me and be like, "Dude, that guy is crazy about what he does!"   If you don't see that you have that capacity in what you're doing right now... If you don't have a capacity to obsess; I mean insatiably, inconsolably...   Are you able to "obsess, obsess, obsess" and become one of the best, if not the best at what you do, right?   Am I the best funnel builder? No, but I'm probably up there. I don't know of any other person, besides Russell, that's built so many funnels as I have - which is interesting, right? You think about that...    I was looking at some goals that I wrote three years ago, and one of my goals before I ever met Russell; one the goals I wrote down was, "I wanna hang out with Russell."  I just sent it to him, and I was like, "Dude, that happened. That's crazy!" However, it's part of it was part of the obsession.   When you obsess and declare what it is you want - it's funny how many things in the world start to conspire for you.   If you feel like things right now are conspiring against you - most of the time,  it's because you haven't declared what you want, right?   Things want to align up for your benefit, but if you've not declared - no one knows what you want. No one can help you. There are things that can't come together.   I'm not saying like, "the power of the universe." I believe in God, okay? However, I believe that God can't help me "do the thing" until I say, "This is what I wanna do."   So when those things came into alignment, and I said, "Boom, I wanna be the best funnel builder in the world," when I said that, things started coming together.   I saw that I had the ability; that this was an area where I was able to obsess.I saw it was an area and ability where I was able to try and become the best in the world. Where there was capacity and room.   If you're like, "Oh, I don't know what I want to do yet?' Well, start exploring with intent. Figure out, "Is this the thing I'm gonna sink my teeth in?" Are you just gonna be known for just this one thing?   What's funny is, when I actually got really really far down into the funnel game, suddenly this whole area's opened up where I can really obsess over; it's offer creation. So I've kinda become the offer creation guy. I was like, "Okay I'm gonna put blinders on." You know those horses with the blinders? "I'm not gonna look at real estate anymore." If you're doing that, "great," I'm just saying I'm not gonna look at real estate anymore. "I'm gonna stops selling eBooks." I was really into that kinda stuff for a while. "I'm gonna stop looking into doing diamonds, stocks and options too." I'm not gonna look at that anymore. Instead, I got real focused.   I put down every book that had nothing to do with funnels.  Even though all sales have to do with funnels... I mean specifically funnel building, and on the internet. I put  everything away, and I was like, "Who is the best person to learn from?"   I was walking out of the event room at Clickfunnels one day (this wasn't long ago, I think this was like last fall), I was walking out, and Russell was walking out of one of the other offices, and we were walking back to his office, he goes, "What's up man?" I said, "Oh just recorded this sweet video." He goes "Dude, you know what I figured out about you?" I go, "What?" He goes, "You live by a principal, it's kind of interesting I wish more people lived by it..."  I was like, "Oh yeah, this is interesting! What is it dude?" and he goes, "You live by the principal of following whoever has the biggest cheese." I was like, "That's kind of an interesting way to say that." and he goes, "If you wanna go and learn how to do this thing, you don't go learn from like a sea-level person, you see who has the biggest cheese in that thing and you learn right at their feet." And he pointed out all these places I'd done that.   I was like, "yeah that's right, yeah I've done that." And he's like, "Think about funnels and me." I'm like, "Yeah you certainly have the largest cheese on the funnel game there Russell."   However, first of all, just figure out where you are and then just declare it. Decide and then declare, "This is what I want. This is where I'm going."  Then be willing to put the training wheels on. Do the freaking dime drills. Take time to hit your elbows on the concrete. Do what you're supposed to. Don't shortcut the actual process - fall in love with the process. That's the easiest way to stay in love with what you're doing.   I'm really really ionate about this topic because man, I growing up, I would have conversations with my parents -  you know kinda complaining like, "I don't know what I'm good at?" Like I'm not really that "crazy for sports guy," although I like it. I was really physical; still I wasn't really into sports.  I didn't know what I do?   I'm so ionate about this because after a while - when I accepted the fact that I hadn't just tried enough stuff yet - I tried stuff, tried stuff, tried stuff tried, stuff - and then suddenly I was like "Boom!" I declared right. I decided and I declared publicly.   It's the reason I always give you guys my goals at the beginning of each year. It's the scariest thing I do.  January first comes along, "Alright, guys, here's how I financially did last year. Here's how financially I'm going to do this next year." Do I hit it? Not usually, but I usually come close. And it's because I'm declaring intent.   Because I have the intent, I  find the person who has right the biggest cheese. Boom! This is a Mr. Miyagi scenario. Too many guys are fearing looking stupid while you're painting the fence and sanding the floor, right? "Oh that has nothing to do with what I'm going to go do, I don't wanna look like an idiot."   Man be willing to look like an idiot, you're gonna be. You're not gonna know anything about the industry for a while - so who cares?   You're not gonna have any following  - so who cares?   No one's really watching you for a while anyway, okay?   If you're gonna go and you're gonna choose, be willing to find your Mr. Miyagi, "the biggest cheese." Then when he says, "Sand the floor, paint the fence, put a water bottle on the end of your gun," be willing to do it.   What ended up happening with that shooting thing is; I dedicated so much of my time,( not that you have a lot of time in basic training) but in the evenings, I would lay down in the prone I would keep hitting my elbows. I would keep cycling like visualize my sight picture like crazy. I would do everything I was supposed to do over and over and over.   I became pretty obsessed over it in basic training, and I was one of two guys out of 200 to win a phone call home because of how well I shot.   I only missed a few rounds, and they're like "dang."  It was super cool these off iron sights; you know really really far sho - it was really fun. I obsessed over it, and it was those kind of experiences though and realizing fascinating.   It's the training regiment that gives you success once you actually find the thing and you declare that that's the thing you want just everywhere, to the market to whoever, to God, yourself, spouse, whoever when you declare it.   Then you put blinders on, and you're willing to find the guy with the biggest cheese and do as he says; it's the dedication to the training regiment, it's pressing play and stopping after three seconds - that's what ends up giving you success inside of whatever you're deciding to do. Anything, right anything that you do.   In fact, the way I started learning how to do sales videos was actually pretty interesting. I went, and I found this guy's sales training, and it was really cool.   I wanted to do it, but I didn't know how to write sales copy - so what I started doing was, I would find these different sales videos, and this was a serious pain in the butt, but it taught me like crazy...   I would sit down for  2 hours and be like, "Okay, I'm going to do nothing but this."  I would press play for about 5-seconds and listen to what the guy was saying in the sales video, and then I'd press pause, and I would write down what he said. There were five videos I transcribed; it took me 6 weeks to do that.  I was in classes and doing other things as well, but every day, I would dedicate several hours to doing this.   Then I'd go back and read 'em I'd be like, "Oh patterns,  patterns everywhere."   Then I'd do it again to the next video, I'd see what he was doing, and what he changed from the last one, right. (This is a guy in a different industry - it wasn't sales funnel industry.) Then I did it again, and I did it again, and I did it again.   In fact, Russell's told me this story; he's got a big stack of sales letters behind his desk it's a huge stack, big old stack of swipe files. Back in the day, what they used to do is they would go to events, (I don't even know if there's still events like this - there might be though). But he's like, "If you wanna learn how to be like a copywriter, a sales copywriter, what you do is you go to these events, and they'd hand you like the top converting top performing sales letters from multiple industries. You would spend 3 days rewriting the entire sales letter by hand.”   That's all the event was - because writing it and thinking through got you to learn the process.   Learn the process, learn the process. I guarantee whoever has the biggest cheese; number one: they're clearly masters, but what they really have is a process.   I have a process for funnel building. I have a process for pumping funnels out of the door.   Just like there was a process for the shooting; there's a process for me going through and learning that stuff - there's a process for me.   I got third in my first sprint triathlon - which is really cool. It was a while ago - it was like five years, six years ago. There was a process I was going through... the process is the success, okay? What's funny is, if you wanna shortcut it; first, set the sight and declare. Go find the guy with the biggest cheese and learn that person's process. When you do that, it's the process, it's the training regiment that gives you the success.   Anyways, this feels like it's all over the place.   I just want you to know I know why I am where I am. I know exactly why, and it's because of these little realizations that I've had along the way.   It's kind of like if you guys the movie Titans? Great movie, right, great move. in that training camp, and they're doing all these things that might seem kind of trite, right? The coach knew what was up; he knew exactly what things would cause what outputs.   So when you find that person; you find that Mr. Miyagi, and you're doing "wax on, wax off." You're doing all these things - you're doing dime drills.   The equivalent of that is you're pressing play and pause every 3- 5 five seconds.   Those are the things that make you a master. You do those things - don't watch the clock. Throw, shoot your clock. Okay get rid of it, don't watch the clock, and you'll realize that within like a year of you doing that kinda thing you're gonna be an expert. Meaning, more so than 80% percent of the population you keep doing that stuff.  You're gonna go 90% alright 91, 92 and you're gonna get without that much time - you're gonna get a lot of progress. You're gonna be able to remove those training wheels and suddenly you'll be training others.   You have to understand that most of the time when someone asks me, "What should I go do?"  I'm like, "Man you haven't tried enough stuff. Go try stuff and then declare what you want. Go find someone with the biggest cheese and learn from them - learn their process they've somehow formulated their process, learn their process."   In that training regiment, there's virtually guaranteed success. Then you turn around you start teaching others that solidifies what you've learned. That's the model that I use, and it's literally why I do this podcast.   If I can turn around and I can teach you guys what I'm learning at the same time, it serves me just as much as it serves you. I'm living the exact process I'm trying to teach you guys.   Anyways hopefully it's been helpful? My urge to you is to keep the training wheels on unless you feel like you can turn around and train somebody else.  Keep the training wheels on and find the person with the "biggest cheese." Go find the person with the process who's so good.   I have an offer creation process, so people come to learn offer creation process from me. I obsess over it, and it's become my thing. Offer creation - right, the actual sales message creation, the actual market message creation, that's my thing.  I think about that like 24/7 -I obsess.   If there's no capacity for you to obsess over the thing that you do , then you're probably in the wrong thing.   Alright guys hopefully this has been a helpful episode to you if you have liked this at all please go review it and rate it inside of iTunes - that means the world to me, and I do read them. I'll turn back around, "Oh check it out - a new review, and I go back, and I read it.  It means a lot to me, and I do see who does it. It means a lot.   Hey guys thanks so much and I'll see you in the next episode, bye. Oh yeah!   Hey wish you could geek out with other real funnel builders and even ask questions while I build funnels live? Wish granted, watch and learn funnel building as I document my process in my funnel strategy group. It's free just go to thescienceofselling.online and ..  

My focus is shifting from, "what should I have customers do post-purchase" to "what should they do pre-purchase?"   Cue drum roll, cue lights; it's time to grab that tux and dig out that little black dress because - TODAY, your product is about to get the Hollywood Treatment.   I'm about to drop some gold here - so settle down and take notes ;-) WHEN OVER-DELIVERING IS A BAD MOVE   Recently I've been focusing on the small tweaks that you can make in your customer onboarding that create BIG effects.   There this time that I built  86 funnels (x2) for a promotion that Russell was doing for one of Stu McLaren’s products called Tribe.   When somebody purchases Tribe, they are given a step by step path to help them go through the program without overwhelm.   Let’s think about that for a moment…   Have you ever bought an online course and been so overwhelmed by the amount of content that you didn’t know where to start... or even worse, decided to ask for a refund?   Providing a massive amount of content often makes us feel great because we feel like we're over-delivering. However, bombarding a customer with too much information can actually freak them out - causing them to utter the dreaded “refund” word. (*gasp*)   Your customer is not looking to be overwhelmed; they're looking for a solution.   Since I launched my product, I've been thinking a lot about the concept of onboarding and success paths. I've been trying to figure out the most effective ways to hand-hold your customers into being successful.   There was a hip area that I built. It was by far the best area I've ever created in my entire life. The problem was that it contained 200 hours of content.  It was packed with value, but it was just too much for most people to handle.   People were coming up to me saying: “I gotta quit my job to watch this! I'll never get through it." It was way too much stuff.   People felt so stressed that they started asking for refunds. If they didn't have time to consume all the content - they wouldn't get the result - so they asked for their money back. Not good, right?   So I started to create success paths that show customers exactly where they should start and what they should do if they want to achieve a certain result.   Your kind of giving your customer permission to focus on just one thing and holding their hand along the journey.   Creating a Success Path is a super effective way to increase customer satisfaction and reduce refund requests   We’ve just talked about the importance of a post-purchase success path for your customers… but what about before they purchase? What happens there?   Is it possible to create a pre-purchase success path to help you increase sales? The answer is a definite YES!   PRE-PURCHASE THE HOLLYWOOD WAY   Think about how Hollywood releases previews way before the movie gets released.   Can imagine what would happen if Hollywood didn't release previews? I mean, think about that. Our brains wouldn’t be pre-framed and loaded with anticipation. We wouldn’t look forward to the release dates and arrange to go to the movies with friends. A movie release would just slip out without much of an event.   It's like being really excited to go to a party or vacation. Sometimes, the most exciting bit is the anticipation and planning beforehand. THE BEST PART OF YOUR VACATION ISN’T WHAT YOU THINK   A 2010 study published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life, found that planning or anticipating your holiday often makes you happier than actually taking it. The happiest part of your vacation actually happens before you even begin your holiday   How does this work? I have a favorite story that explains what’s going on in our brains when this happens, so let me share it with you quickly… THE WARM/ COLD EXPERIMENT   There was a college class who were told that they would have a substitute teacher for the day.   Right before the substitute teacher came in to teach, the students were handed a biography of the teacher. However, there were two versions of the biography.   Both versions were completely identical except for one word.   One version said that, most students found the new teacher to be a very “warm” person,” The second version said that, most people him to be a very “cold” person.   The biographies where split equally between the students - Half the students were pre-framed to expect the teacher to be warm and friendly, while the other half expected him to be cold and aloof.   What happened next was fascinating...   At the end of  the class, they surveyed the students to see if the professor should continue teaching.   The students who were pre-framed with the “warm” biography said that he was incredible and that they enjoyed the class.   Conversely, the students who were given the “cold” biography  answered that they didn’t enjoy the class and didn’t want the professor to continue to teach.   It was exactly the same person teaching exactly the same lecture - but students the responses were wildly different depending on how they’d been pre-framed!   That’s nuts, right? It was exactly the same person teaching exactly the same lecture. On the surface, the students were in the same room having the exact same experience, but how positively they responded depended on the pre-frame that existed in their head.   Isn’t that fascinating?   As a marketer, I started to ask the question:   What can I put in place to pre-frame and  build positive anticipation for the purchase of my product?   I started to look for a way to boost levels of anticipation and to create “an event” around the purchase of my product?   So here’s what I’ve been doing…   CREATING A PRE-PURCHASE EVENT   Before people attend my webinar, I have a product that they can purchase which helps me to recoup my ad cost.     As soon as somebody buys that mini product - I have a system set up that sends a message to my phone telling me who it is and I send them a quick personalized message.   Bloop. It sends straight back over to their email, and they get a personal message from me inviting them to come and watch the webinar. It's super effective.   We have a program on my funnel called “Deadline Funnel” and when somebody doesn't purchase within a certain window of time, it removes their ability to buy   Next we ask them if, “they want to the waiting list?”   The people who the waiting list are super pre-framed to buy the next time the purchase window opens because they don’t know when they’ll get another opportunity. BAM! It’s sooo effective.   What I'm trying to illustrate is that the way a customer is pre-sold your product drastically affects the likelihood of them buying the program - and their success once they purchase.   So start focusing on the question:   How can I pre-frame my customers brain to create a purchase, and to make the purchasing experience better? TAKING THE EASY PATH   There are a group of people who purchased one of my main products who did not go through a success path. It's the same product, and yet they are having a different experience.   Nothing has changed in the product. However, the way they were pre-framed and what happened after they purchased was different.   You guys know how to create  value, but if the lead up to the purchase doesn’t create enough anticipation and the post-purchase success path doesn’t do the right amount of hand-holding afterwards; then you are making your life (and the experience of your customers) harder than it needs to be.   With some great pre-framing and an effective success path - the same product can produce a vastly different experience for your customer.   Start thinking about, how you can create a positive pre-purchase experience and an ive success path post-purchase.   For a long time, I was only thinking about post-purchase, but once I started thinking about pre-purchase too my results went wild.   Getting people excited to buy, then finding ways to reduce overwhelm post purchase is one of the keys things that you can do .   Most people spend too much time running around asking, “Is my product good enough?” The answer is “Yeah, it usually is.”   There’s just not enough of a pre-frame. You’re literally sending your potential customers straight to an order page or a sales message.   You need to put something in place that will actually get them in the mood to buy. Start thinking of how you can create an event for someone who is thinking of buying your product - think of it as a Hollywood preview that builds anticipation for your product.   Ask  yourself: How can I create a Red Carpet experience for my customers?   Answering that question will pay you back tenfold.   Until next time - Keep Crushing It!   Got a question you want answered live on the show? Head over to salesfunnelradio.com and ask your question now.

A common funnel error is targeting the wrong persona in the red ocean…   Do you have a great product that you know could change someone's life, but you’re not getting the sales you want?  Well, stick with me, because you might just be selling to the wrong people.   In this blog, it's my mission to help you discover the customers who are ready, willing and able to buy your product. In fact, these people are so eager to buy - that you can even be a C-level copywriter - and still make loads of cash. Intrigued? You should be ;-) MY PERFECT PITCH   A few years ago, I got a job as a door to door salesman. I'd walk around knocking doors, "What's up, pest control!"   As the summer went on, I developed a bit of a theory.   I started to notice that when I went to areas that were less affluent - smaller houses, not as much cash - I could get a ton of sales fast.   I was killing it!      Two to three sales a day was good in the pest control business, but I was regularly making six. I'd collect the cash, and we'd spray the houses... I thought everything was amazing. I felt like “The Man."   Every so often, we’d rotate our areas and visit different cities with more affluent neighborhoods where people had bigger houses and more money.   When I'd knocked doors in these wealthier neighborhoods and gave them my pitch, I was shocked to find that I got a lot of rejections.   It was rejection after rejection; I couldn't figure out what was going on. So I decided to go back to those old neighborhoods where the people didn't have as much money - 'cause I knew I could sell them.   Well, at the end of the summer, at least half of my s failed. Lots of my contracts refunded or didn’t renew because the people I’d pitched were not able to keep up the payment - even though they “wanted” the product.   I realized that I’d perfected my pitch to sell to people with less cash.   In the meantime, all my buddies who had spent time learning how to pitch to rich people made a lot of cash.   They had fewer cancellations and sold higher value contracts - so by the time the summer was over they were still getting paid on their s.   Not only were their customers not leaving, but they were also putting more money in their pockets. I realized that even though I’d been making lots of sales, in reality, I’d been selling to people who didn't have the money for continuity -  which made them far more likely to refund or cancel; leaving me broke and fed up.   Sure, I'd get a lot of s, but none of them would stick very long.   I was like, “Crap! How can I NOT ever do that again?” It was  a huge lesson for me. WHO ARE YOU SELLING TO?   Now it probably won't surprise you to you to learn that since my pest control days, one question I’ve obsessed over is “How do I sell expensive things to people who have cash?”   Most of the time when I consult with businesses they have a great product, it’s simply that they're  selling it to the wrong “type” of person.   We know that it's best go sell in places that are competitive (i.e, the red ocean) - because there's security there.   Personally, I combine elements of the red ocean with elements of the prolific and the blue ocean to create a purple ocean offer that’s extremely attractive to your customers.   If you want to learn how I create purple ocean offers, you can find out here. However, If you want to avoid making the same mistakes that I made when I sold pest control, it’s vital that you understand the 3 personas inside of the red ocean…   So let me grab my whiteboard and show you what I’ve figured out!     YOUR “NO DUH” PROMISE   The first thing I look at on any funnel that I work on is its promise.   There are 3 “no duh” areas that people spend money in, and these are HEALTH, WEALTH & RELATIONSHIPS.   So the question that you need to answer is: “Does my product promise results in either Health, Wealth, or Relationships?”   These are the “no duh” places for people to spend money in. They are the basic that everyone wants - they’re like milk or eggs (or maybe tofu if you’re vegan). There's no salesperson next to eggs, right? It's a “no duh” buying experience.   I'm not saying, “go get in the eggs business.” But it's best to choose industries where there’s a “no duh” purchasing experience because this will make selling your product so much easier.   People will spend money on:   Improving Relationships   Improving Health   Growing businesses, investments, and wealth THE 3 PERSONAS OF THE RED OCEAN   In every red ocean and every single industry, not all buyers are created equal - that probably goes without saying, right?   So let’s look at why I made such a big mistake as a door to door salesman.   Let’s look at the 3 types of buyer who exist in the red ocean (i.e.,the proven market) and what motivates the to buy.     THE “DIE-HARDS”   The “die-hards’ are deeply seated inside of their red ocean product.   If you come to a die-hard person and say, “Hey, I got this cool thing for you.”  There not going to be interested. They’ve had success with the product that they use - they’re a fan.   I'm wearing my funnel hacker shirt right now. I'm a die-hard. For me to move away from ClickFunnels - well, it isn’t going to happen.   For me to shift from using ClickFunnels, I would need an identity shift. I would literally need change how I see myself. It’s about so much more than price and value for a die-hard.   If someone starts bad-mouthing ClickFunnels, I get a little hot and bothered about it. I'm like, “Are you kidding me? ClickFunnels changed my life! I'm a product of that product! No. I will never change.”   If you ask a die-hard to switch products - it's a personal insult. THE “BREAK-EVENS”   Let’s use a relationship example here:   Let's say someone goes to Tony Robbins kind of event and that person is someone who's considering suicide or divorce and then Tony flips them around - those people are the die-hards. They’re never not going to love Tony Robbins. They’re never not going to buy his next program coming out. For them to change to someone else would mean an identity shift. It is not likely.   However, a person who goes to a Tony Robbins type event, and as a result, they feel better about themselves - but they don’t experience a massive transformation - they’re a “break-even.”   They’ve not had a massive transformation like the die-hard. They’ve  had a little bit of a, “Oh my gosh, this is super super cool.’ They're probably gonna keep purchasing the products. They won’t be looking for anyone else for relationship advice.   They've had a taste of success, but they don't necessarily “love, love, love” the product like a die-hard would.   For the break-evens, it’s the pain of disconnect that they want to avoid.  They don’t want to go through the struggle of switching services or finding something new.     However, for the break-evens, price and value do have a role to play. If they become aware of a better product that offers more value, if the incentive is enough they will be willing to shift their allegiance. THE “NO OTHER OPTIONS”   Now, let's get to the number ones - the “no other options.”   I’m going to use a health example here:   Have you guys ever had pea protein powder? It’s like whey protein powder, but made from peas. It tastes terrible and the texture is horrible... oh my gosh! But I know it's the best one.   I was read loads of reviews and found out that pea protein is awesome for protein synthesis. I was excited to get some. When it arrived in the mail, I took a scoop, put it in water.   I have a strong stomach. I'm not the kind of guy who throws up or anything, but honestly, “That’s some nasty crap!” I’ve spent 6 months trying to find ways to mask the texture of that crap.   I’m a number one pea protein drinker. I drink that stuff simply because I know it's the best, but I HATE it. I hate that it's the vehicle. I have no customer loyalty that brand at all.   If you can offer me “a super sweet protein powder - that works as well as mine but tastes waaay better - How easy do you think it would be to sell me on that? Super easy, right?   On the other hand, if someone has a protein powder that they love and it’s helped them lose 50 lbs -  How likely is it that they are going to switch? They’re a die-hard - so your chance of getting them to switch is practically zero.   The break-even person who's had some success with that protein, but doesn’t “love it” - well, they may be willing to try it.   For number twos, it's all about price and value; it's not an identity shift. IDENTIFYING YOUR TARGET MARKET   Now let’s go back to my pest control fiasco!   When I was selling pest control, who was I selling to? I was selling to a lot of “break- even” and “no other option” people. There weren't that many die-hards.   I was selling to the people inside the red ocean who wanted to get rid of the bugs. I was selling to a lot of ones and twos, but it was the wrong kind of ones and twos because they didn’t have the resources.   So within the three different personas, you also have then you have levels of different resources. You need to identify “Who has money?” and as who, as Russell Brunson says, …“is willing and able?”   The reason why I want to talk about this issue is that 80% of the time, when I’m looking at somebody's headlines, or doing some consulting - I see that the people creating their messaging to try and convince with facts, figures, and features, and maybe with some benefits…   BUT they're trying to convince the die-hards to come and buy their product.   That's the wrong person to write your copy for... It's the wrong person to write your headlines for... It’s the wrong person to build your product for...   You are not trying to sell to the die-hards!   Your target market should be the people who are willing to hear your message… the people who have no customer loyalty to the brand that they already use.   You need to design your message to sell to the break-evens and the no other options; the guys that are just using a product 'cause they don't know of anything better.   These people just need to hear a new story. They need to hear a new sales message.   That’s the thing I didn't figure out when I was doing pest control until it was too late.   When I started building my first info product, I did the same thing again. I spent eight months building it, and when I tossed it out there, I was selling it to the die-hards.   The people who were like, “Don't you dare make fun of my products and the things I use.” It was an insult to their identity - I was offending them by merely suggesting an alternative.   Once I changed my messaging to hit the people who “hated the vehicle” and “hated the products they were using,” things changed. I made my messages for those people. I helped them throw rocks their old products and showed them a better way.   All they needed was an excuse to switch, and they bought my product.   So if your product is not selling the way you want it to, or you’re deg your sales message, to run it through the 3 personas I’ve talked about and check it for fit.   I'm trying to help you guys identify the people “no other option” people because it's not hard to sell to these people.   If they also have the resources, you can be a C- level copywriter, and still sell to these people easily.   They're just looking for something that’s that's different and better to save them from their current vehicle - which mean more money in your pocket.   Anyway. Hopefully, this has been helpful. You can check out the episode on  iTunes, please rate and review. If not, subscribe to my YouTube channel as well, that'd be very very helpful.   If you’d like to see some live funnel building, (a lot of times I'll build whatever project I'm doing, live), go to the science of selling.online, and it'll forward to my Facebook group, it's free.   You guys can me there and watch as I document what I'm building and why I'm doing what I'm doing.   Until next time - Keep Crushing It!   Hey, want me to speak at your next event or mastermind? Let me know what I can share that would be most valuable by going to stevejlarsen.com and book my time now.  

I have a FaceBook group called The Science of Selling Online -  I hang out there daily (it’s a FREE group).  I do live funnel builds - and walkthroughs of my latest projects where sharing the reasons for what I'm doing. You can ask me questions, and I’ll answer them live.   One of my latest projects is a program called Outrage. It's an amazing course. The cherry on the top is that I’ve managed to pull together some outstanding experts to share their skills in each module.   Last week, during one of my live funnel builds in The Science of Selling Online, someone asked me, "Steve, how did you build a product and get so many experts to contribute to it...  How do you crowd-create a product?”   So in this blog, I'm going to answer that question and reveal a skill that I see many Entrepreneurs utilize - that you may not be aware of.   I'm also going to share some of the secret self-improvement skills that have influenced me profoundly over the last few years. Stay with me; this is going to be juicy!   DODGEBALL - AND BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR   There was this one time in my life, where every Monday for months; a group of us would show up turn tables over in a gym and hurl tennis balls at each other as hard as we could.   There was about 30 of us, all in our late teens and early twenties - playing dodgeball and using tables as barriers.   People got hurt -  this was hardcore.   I one particular time - I was super excited to play that week. I tried to get everyone to start.  Man, I wanted to play so bad. I kept trying to get people ready, but nobody was taking any notice of me.   After about 10 - 15 minutes, I got frustrated and went over to this other guy.  He goes, "Oh, you're trying to start?" Then he lifts his head, and says, "Hey, guys, we're getting ready to start."   With that one sentence, everyone turned their heads, stopped their conversations, and started listening.   I watched the room in dismay. I couldn’t believe it, "Are you kidding me? - I've been trying ‘forever’ to get these people to do what I want!"   I right there, at that moment, I realized that I didn't need to be good at everything - in fact, it was better if I wasn’t.     I realized that it was better for me to be an orchestrator rather than try to learn how to play every instrument...   That an entrepreneur is someone who has a vision and brings is to life.  An entrepreneur is a maestro. MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK   For years, I kept a little black book in my pocket. Every time I had a business idea or an insight, I would write it down in that black book. It was chock full ideas - some great, and some dumb - but I carried it around with me at all times.   When I realized that I didn’t need to be “good at everything” to be an entrepreneur, I wrote it down in that book.   Even though I was in my early 20’s when I wrote that thought down - it was one of the hardest lessons for me to learn as an entrepreneur.   When I was at ClickFunnels, Russell drilled this lesson into me for eight solid months before it finally sunk in   Multiple times, I'd be, "Dude, I'm gonna go learn more CSS." Russell would look at me and say "Why? We have someone for that." He'd be dead serious.   I’d say, “Well, my major before marketing was CIT. I know I could understand it.” Again, Russell would look at me and say, "Oh, yeah, but who cares? We’ve got someone for that. Don't  learn that."   I struggled to take it on board because I’m curious and I like to know how thing work. However, when it finally sunk in, it was one of the best lessons EVER!   If you’re like me, it may not be an easy lesson to learn, but please learn it. Here it is:   Just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you should do it   Sure, I can pop open Photoshop, use Illustrator, do my video editing, write copy, film videos, build funnels. However, to scale and get the highest leverage for my business - I need to concentrate on doing the things that only I can do. It's hard, I get it - but it’s soooo worth it DON’T BE A RENAISSANCE (WO)MAN   The reason I started marketing was to get the cash so that I could hire people to do all the things that I shouldn't be doing. I also learned to develop another skill that I see many successful entrepreneurs use get stuff done.   About 3 months ago, I had a brilliant person tell me,"Figure out how to hire people you can't afford." It's changed everything in my business!   If you’re reading this, then you’re an A-player - a weird breed of person with both vision and ability    You can bring your vision to life. However, the worst mistake you can make is to be a renaissance man or woman and do “all the things” yourself. It’ll slow you down and burn you out.   So what do you do instead? SHARING YOUR VISION   There’s one skill that I alluded to at the start of this article. A skill that I see so many successful entrepreneurs use to their advantage. A skill that can help you stay focused on your highest value tasks and get results at the same time. That skill is Influence.   If you have a vision and the ability to share that vision in a way that connects with people on an emotional level, then people will follow you and you - even when the path is rocky or unchartered.   Let’s face it, as an entrepreneur; it’s likely that you’ll be laying a path rather than following one. So it’s vital that you can communicate your vision and tell your story effectively so that people will follow you.   USING INFLUENCE   Influence is what I’ve used to help bring my incredible content machine together. The caliber of people on my team would normally cost me 40 or 50 grand a month, but because they believe in the vision of where I'm taking the ship, it's way less than that. It's only 30 grand a month!   Granted, it's still 30 grand a month - but in hindsight, I'm getting a huge discount because everyone involved believes in what I'm doing.   Yes, I know, 30 grand a month is still a shed load of money, but if you don't have the cash, don’t panic…   You still have a story.   A great story is one of your most valuable assets.   If you get good at telling stories, your vision will help you hire the people that you can't afford.   It’ll stop you from getting stuck trying to learn everything. It’ll help you bring in the experts you need to grow your business. I see way to many entrepreneurs stunting their growth because they try to do EVERYTHING.   The highest leverage thing you can ever to learn is marketing, and how to change belief   If you want to change someone's belief - tell them a great story. Get REAL good at telling stories that connect emotionally with people. If you can tell amazing stories, it will negate 99% of your need to learn scripts. Just tell a story and then make an offer.   When I started approaching all these experts - calling them in to help me, that's exactly what I was practicing - communicating my vision with a story.   Show people how coming along with your mission will benefit their business too, and you’re on to a winner.   I used this strategy to create my content machine - and to get all the amazing experts to contribute to Outrage - which is where this blog post started…   However, before I round up this blog, I want to say a few words about “Vision and Purpose.” Along with trying to “learn all the things,” - the other place I see people getting stuck is on trying to find their “vision and purpose.”   THE PURPOSE QUESTION   Recently, I was hanging out at an Inner Circle member's house with Russell. We were chatting away when he asks me, "How's it going, man? What are you struggling with? Gimme the deets, brutha."   I thought for a minute, and then I replied, "Dude, I'm trying "to figure out what my purpose is."  Immediately Russell starts laughing. Myron Golden was standing next to us, and laughing, Russell interrupts Myron:   Dude, Stephen just asked the purpose question. He's trying to figure out what his purpose is."   Myron laughed, "Man, are you kiddin' me? I just found out my purpose 3 months ago."   Russell grinned and said, "Dude, I only found my purpose 3 years ago when I started ClickFunnels, and this whole thing blew up."   Right there I decided, "Alright, I'm not gonna freak out my purpose anymore."  Russell said, "Yeah, don't worry about it… Just  help people make money, it'll be great." So, that's my purpose for now.   You don’t need to have a grand vision or purpose for things to workout - Just make some money, solve problems for people and your purpose will develop in its own time   My vision right now is to develop something that's freakin' cool. I want to help a whole bunch of people who probably haven’t made their first dollar online yet. I want to teach people how to do what I've done. TAKE ACTION   If you want a following, publish. Get over the fear of it! I was scared to death. It took me 30 episodes before I was comfortable publishing   You want people to come and follow you? Make a product. If you don't want to make a product (or don't know how to), sell someone else's. Outrage, and I’ll show you how to do it   Launching. Don't worry about the details. Just figure out all the things that you’ve got to do to get off the ground. Don’t wait… you’ll turn around and 3 months will have ed - and you’ll have no cash or results to show for your time.   Figure out your BIG purpose as you go along. I've talked about my revenue outpacing my business, and that's true. However, the secondary thing that was going on was the psychological game I was playing with myself; “What's my purpose, what should I be doing? What do people want from me?”   THE OBSTACLE IS THE WAY   I have this coin on my desk. It reminds me to lean into any challenge I have. I'm sending these coins out with a lot of my new products because I freakin' love this concept.   On one side it says: “The Obstacle is the Way.” On the other side it has the message:   The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way"   At the last Funnel Hacking Live, the countdown clock for the Two Comma Club coaching program is dropping down. There are 4 minutes to go, and someone comes to me and says: Hey, we're gonna go get in the program, but we figured if we split the program, it'll be half the cost -  and we'll take turns going to the events."   My answer was, “ Well, you could do that… but I believe that if you seek a discount, you will find a discount. If you ask how can I afford this program, and you really believe you can do it, you will answer that question instead.”   Questions invite revelation - so it crucial to pick your questions carefully.   Don't worry if you don't have a solid vision yet. Be fine with the fact that you have unanswered questions. Just be careful of what your questions are.   For example: When I asked the question, “How do I become a Russell Brunson?” One of the answers I got was,  “Publish your journey along the way.” That's why I publish like an animal. It's because I'm NOT a Russell Brunson yet. Most people use their lack of status as an excuse not to publish.   Don't worry that you don't have any followers yet. No one's listening for a while.   As you start publishing, you’ll begin to create an attractive character, and you start gaining expertise. You’ll become a figure.   If you wait to begin publishing until you're “a figure,” no one's gonna believe you. People only believe you when they see the trail you’ve left - when they can see your history.   I asked a much more useful question than asking “How to get a discount.” That question has brought me to a much cooler place than finding out how to get a discount ever could.   ADVICE TO MY PAST SELF   If there's any advice I could give myself looking back, it would be to ask different questions   For a long time, until I became cognizant of the principle that “questions invite revelation,”  I asked some stupid questions, and it slowed me down - A LOT.   So if you take anything away from the blog, I hope it’s a commitment to ask better questions.   So let’s round up, and finish of with the steps I took to “crowd create” my products. They are so powerful, that you can use them to move forward with any project you’re working on… Here we go: HOW TO CROWD CREATE A PRODUCT   These are the step I’d follow:   Have a Vision - it doesn’t have to be your grand life purpose   Don’t try and be a Renaissance man/ woman - don’t try do it all yourself - Find experts   Share your vision - master storytelling to help bring in experts from different fields to you   Don’t be put off by challenges - , “the obstacle is the way.”   Ask better questions and get better solutions - questions invite revelation   Until next time - Go CRUSH IT -  and, Keep Upgrading Those Questions!   Hey, wish you could geek out with other real funnel builders and even ask questions while I build funnels live? Wish granted!   Watch and learn funnel building as I document my process in my funnel strategy group. It's free! Just go to my FaceBook Group, The Science of Selling Online and .  

What's going on everyone, this is Steve Larson, and this is Sales Funnel Radio.   Today we are gonna talk about how to create your own army.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my 9 to 5 to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch.   This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up guys?   Hey, so one thing I wanna get out of the way real quick is in the last few episodes I know I've talked a lot about things that I was doing at Clickfunnels when I first started working there. And the reason why is because what you'll notice that I'm doing, is I'm actually modeling the very things that I was doing over there, in my own business. Why? Because they work.   I had a hand in creating a lot of those things, and I've done it before so, why not just do it again for my own company, right? And so to tell the story, real quick:   I was just starting at ClickFunnels; I'd been working there like three months, and I noticed Russell started doing this weird thing...   He grabbed an iPad, and he sat figuring out how to mirror his iPad to his computer. I was like that's kind of weird. He would record his computer. And he was sitting there, he was writing out the script…   I think I was working on Biohacking Secrets at the time, or something like that. Feels like about the right timeline I think.   Anyway, so he was writing those things out, and I would kinda notice him, you know just over my shoulder, just watching what he was doing. And I was building stuff, putting things together   He did this really cool presentation where he showed how to be an , and the power of being an . Right, and if you guys know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about when we created bootcamp.com.   And then something magical happened. This was one of the things that was a catalyst for me - that gave me confidence to actually teach the things that I was doing.   He turned around and he said “Hey, do you wanna make the videos for this?”  I was like, “Are you serious? Yeah!”   On the outside I was like, “Yeah,” but on the inside, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is crazy, right? Holy crap. Oh it's Russell Brunson.” I was pretty sure lightning would strike me if I didn't do a good job.   Right, that's what was going through my head...  but I didn't want him to know that. So I sat there and we started going through the different topics, coming up with different topics and different ideas for what Bootcamp training was going to be.   Now I knew bootcamp.com, he had used that in previous businesses, but the current version of it right now, at the recording of this video, I created.   I I stayed up super late multiple nights filming and re-filming. I don't know if he knows that I did that, but I did that so many time because I was so scared that it wasn't gonna be amazing.   And so I'd film, and I'd re-film, back and forth, back and forth…   They were only 15 minute videos teaching a single really cool strategy that was very powerful, but I wanted to deliver it well. So I stayed up super late.   I Russell went out of town once and the project was due soon. I was probably over obsessing, but just 'cause I wanted to do a really good job.   So I was there really, really late. This was well over two years ago now - I was there super late, telling my wife, “Babe I gotta finish this thing... I'm doing the videos.” And she's like, “Whoa, that's crazy!”  So anyway, I was super excited about it.   I filmed a bunch of these strategies and taught a lot of cool stuff. And then I showed some of my own stuff that I had be doing to get s at that time too.   And that's what a... You know then Jon Parks came in with this amazing amazing job, right, teaching incredible Facebook strategies. Right, and it was really fascinating the way it all came about, and a lot of people ed Clickfunnels because of that.   So yesterday what I did... I was going through and I have a Facebook group, if you guys don't know…. It's where I dump a lot of my strategy sessions. It's where I bring up a lot of things that I'm thinking of throughout the day. These podcast episodes are a little bit more... I think through them heavily, and I make sure that they all are like... It feels a little bit more permanent, right?   The Facebook group though, that's what I'm doing on a daily basis. It's called The Science of Selling Online, go check it out - it's free.   Anyway, yesterday, I did a deep dive with my group about creating an army. It was funny because half the people on the Facebook live told me that they were in Clickfunnels because of those original videos I did for Russell…   They're were like, “It was after seeing that strategy, that I decided to come and ClickFunnels.” I was like, “No way,” it was a ton of people. Lots of 'em on the Facebook live that said that.  It was crazy.   So, I wanna show you how to get your own army. I also wanna show you more of the strategy of why you should want your own army. It's a little bit like where to start…   My brain's all over the place on this one. I'm excited to go through this:   Number one, we need to talk about the Dream 100. And funny enough, I feel like there's this, almost like a... It's almost like when I mention the Dream 100, people are like, Oh yeah... the Dream 100....” There’s this attitude around  it... “Freakin' do it - it works!”   We shipped out a whole bunch of packages yesterday to our Dream 100 - AGAIN. It's gone really, really well. It's super fun... really neat stuff.   You have to know that I treat Dream 100 and s different... While I might do a t venture, I’m not necessarily looking to do a t venture with an . However, I am seeking to do a t venture with a Dream 100. Does that make sense? It's one of the major differences between the two.   People can go out and they can promote my product, but they might not have a much of a following yet. It's not worth me doing a specific webinar with that person,right?     A Dream 100 person is an influencer. They're a ‘river owner,’ right? They own traffic. They own eyeballs. I can do a t venture with them, but that's different to most s. Does that make sense?   For example; when we were getting the Expert Secrets book out of the door, we spent a significant amount of time... Dave Woodward did an amazing job putting together this cool campaign inviting people to promote the Expert Secrets book.   Who made that list? Influencers. A and B list influencers, maybe even some C list. People who owned traffic, people who already had a list. That's Dream 100s style strategy.   All I wanna do with influencers is get them on a t venture. Maybe a webinar we can do together, or something like that. s, though, are different…   What I do with s is, I go and I create assets for the s. I want to make it as painless as possible for them to promote my product. What do I mean?   If you guys to your ClickFunnels ... If you don't have one, you're crazy…. You can get your free trial s at salesfunnelbroker.com - you get free funnels too. Yes, it's an link, okay? - go get it though. It’s awesome.   If you go inside the back area in your ClickFunnels (when you get a Clickfunnels , you're automatically an for Clickfunnels) … Let's say you want to promote the “Expert Secrets’ book; if you go into your CF , there's a bunch of assets in there.   You’ll find a unique link that you can send people to - so you get an commission. Scroll down and you’ll see pre-written emails, image assets and pre-done videos that you can use. There’s lots and lots and lots of pre-done assets just to promote Expert Secrets.   That way, all the has to do is grab an asset, and put their link under it, and press go - or turn on the ad. It's super, super painless.   I don't wanna offend anybody when I say this, but stereotypically, s are very lazy people... meaning they have their own projects going on, right?   For me to get them to actually promote my thing, I have to do a lot of work to remove the pain that they'll feel when they start to promote my product. Does that make sense?   So, just understand that I'm talking about how to create your own army - I'm not talking about the Dream 100. That's a different strategy. I'm gonna go different things with them. I'm gonna treat them differently, I'm gonna massage court and date them very differently than an .   For s, it's a great way for them to make a whole bunch of cash quickly without a whole lotta fulfillment time. So just know that that there's the difference.   Now that we've established the difference - there's a huge difference in the way you treat them.   One has a following, one doesn't. One has an existing success that's happened, one usually doesn't, and that's fine.   Some people just wanna be full time s, and that's great.   A little while ago, I was standing in front of Russell in his office there with him and I was talking about some cool things I wanna go toss together. I was talking about campaigns, and I said one of the campaigns I wanna run is my own Bootcamp. And he was smiling and he said, “yeah that's a super cool thing to do,”  because you train people how to sell for you.   Right, think with me real quick on this….   In Bootcamp, when I'm going through and teaching how to promote and actually get cash as an , (which a lot of you have - which is amazing. Super cool)...  Every example that I'm giving is actually a ClickFunnels product. So it's free training showing you how to promote ClickFunnels.   Mine will be completely free as well. It will be what I drive ads to. I will definitely get money back and those ads are definitely gonna be profitable ads.   Every example that I give will be my own product. I'm pseudo teaching how to promote me, alright? And that's cool, it’s totally fine.   So I started thinking through, like okay right, Bootcamp goes through things like YouTube, it goes through things like podcasts. It goes through things like how to use other people's content and blogs. And while I'll still go through some of those strategies, I wanna add in some of those new things as well.   So here's my plan, here's my strategy. This is me being completely open, completely vulnerable. I'm excited to invite you you guys - it's gonna be totally sick. It's amazing, oh my gosh.   In my training, I wanna to show you how to use Chatbots for commissions... 'Cause there's a way and there's a FREE way. How to use things like offerwalls. How do you use things like the strategy Todd Brown was talking about, along with Instagram and Facebook groups.   I want to show you how to use strategies that have come into play more heavily in the last two years. I mean obviously Facebook groups were there. But how do you use the most up to date strategies as well?   I have a habit of going really deep with stuff... sometimes it's kind of a negative... But this is gonna be amazing. I was thinking to myself, “Self, why don't I have other people who are already experts teach those things?”     A lot of the people who are doing my YouTube, my Instagram, my Facebook groups, my blogs, my podcast stuff… The people I'm spending a lot of money for on a monthly basis to have around... What if I asked them to be the ones who do the training?   They'll just spend 10 -15 minutes teaching the strategy, how to promote, and how to actually be an . You could use it for any product, but we'll use our product strategically as the examples in there. It's teaching people how to be s for me. Right, does that make sense?   Russell was really excited about it. It's gonna drip out to you over 30 days. You can obviously speed up and go a lot faster if you want... but we're putting together now. It's planned for the end of June. So I'm really, really, really, really excited about it.   There's a beta list and you can jump on the training and do it kind of live with us. That's the plan so far anyways. Go to outrage.com and get on the waiting list.   There's a cool monkey there, it's like a gorilla, and he's got glasses on, and they're the Clickfunnels colors.   What I wanna do is, train my own army. Create my own strategy and teach people how to promote my stuff, 'cause it's freakin' awesome.   Right, and one of the campaigns I'm putting together is I wanna show people… I have watched multiple people become wealthy with just one campaign. One! When I say campaign, I don't mean Facebook ads. Facebook ads, YouTube ads, Google ads, those platforms are destroying the term campaign. They're destroying it. That term is being lost.   Campaigns are not ads. A campaign might include ads, but it's not a campaign. Does that make sense? I know it doesn't make sense yet, follow me…   Doing something like a seven day launch. That's a campaign. Ads are included as part of that. But an ad is not a campaign.   So what I started doing a little while ago, is I started thinking through all the strategies that I've either been a part of, or I've seen people pull off - where just the one campaign has made their product a lot of sales and cash.   So I thought well, what if I got a whole bunch of campaigns, and did all of them? Right? If one's not amazing - six are, right!   So what I did is I went through, and I started putting together six different very unique campaigns… (Watch what I'm doing closely from about June through the end of October.)   This has been in the works for quite a while... But it is campaign strategies, not just ads. We're gonna scale ads, ads are gonna go crazy. But there's six different campaign strategies that I'm using - that I've seen, been a part of, or done in other areas where it's made a lot of cash.   This 2 Comma Club award right there - that's the result of one campaign. That's one campaign!  So I wanna go through and show you guys how I've pulled all this stuff off. How I've actually done it.   Watch what I'm doing. I'm gonna make my own army, and then I'm gonna do an contest…   Then the top ten s, I want you guys to fly out for a day or two. We'll just do whatever you want. We'll work on funnels together. I'll help build your businesses, I'll help you do whatever. That's part of the gift I'm gonna give.   But where I did I learn that? Ah, the Expert Secrets book, right? That was part of the campaign of that launch. There was a Dream 100 campaign, but there was also an campaign.   Campaigns are events, they're not ads. It drives me nuts, I'm starting to get all itchy about it.... Campaigns are not ads! Campaigns are EVENTS.   They're succinct events that are happening inside of a period of time. They're things that you're doing to create pressure, and then release pressure towards your sales page, or towards your order page, right?   Anyway, I am excited for all this stuff. So watch what I'm doing here… I'm creating an army by teaching them how to be s for anybody. I don't care if they don't promote my stuff. They're on my list, right, and I'm gonna show them why promoting my stuff is really freakin' profitable.   I give amazing commissions, and at the same time, I'm not gonna be the one to put it all together, I'm gonna crowd create it…   I'm gonna grab some of my most trusted people on my team, and have them go in these incredible skill sets that have taken them a long time to go master...  I'm gonna have them do little pieces of the training. What does that do? That scratches their back and mine at the same time, I'm totally cool with that... why would I not be?   I'm not a genius at YouTube. I love it, but I'm not a genius at it. Why would I teach that? Let's go have the person who is a genius teach that.   Right, why don't I teach Instagram? I love Instagram... Instagram's blowing up. And it's really, really cool. (We're at 11 and a half thousand followers now, which is really, really fun. And... Anyway, gosh, super cool.) But I'm not gonna teach Instagram because I’m not an expert.   There was a principle that I learned when I was 20. Actually I was 21... I where I was standing when I realized that successful people are not necessarily renaissance men. They don't act like a renaissance men. They act like an orchestrator.   They stand up  and they put the pieces together. That's it!  They're contractors basically. Just be better at it than most contractors are. Anyway, I hope that that's helpful to you.   to watch the campaigns that I'm going to start launching and putting out... use them, follow them, right.   We're gonna do a seven day launch. We're gonna do all sorts of stuff. We've got a really cool summit that we're gonna do that's coming up as well. It's to promote the same product, but from different angles - because some people are like’ “I don't wanna be an ... but man, I'll check out that summit…”   “I don't wanna do this... but man, I'll come to a two day event.” You know, a little masterminding...   Does that make sense? I've laced these all together, so watch very closely what's gonna happen. It's one of the reasons why I know it's gonna do really well.... And 'cause the product is selling well, the offer's amazing, the story's incredible, the funnel's fantastic. So now it's just time to promote.   Let's scale those ads - we're doing right now. And it's working. Our SLO is selling, and it's liquidating ads costs. It's exciting guys.   Anyway, thanks for following the journey, and where I'm taking the ship. Again go to outrage.com if you wanna be on that list, and watch that training - it's free. Watch how I'm unrolling it, it's very methodical.   Anyway, we're gonna talk about a lotta cool stuff with that, but if you have anything that you wish was in that training, man let me know, okay, let me know…   Comment on the YouTube version of this video. Put on there what you would love to have inside that training.   We're gonna go through Facebook ads, we're gonna go through different groups. We're gonna talk about Instagram. We'll talk about all tons of different traffic platforms and how to use that to gain commissions for whatever you're promoting.   My hope is that you choose to promote my stuff, 'cause it's really good. It's not all the plan, but it's a snapshot, okay. I’ll document even more along the way and you guys can follow it as we move forward.   So anyways, hope that's been helpful to you, as you start to think through  which campaigns you’re using to promote yourself?   If it's just ads...man, do a campaign. Do something big, right? Do something real big, make an event out of it. A seven day launch, that's another great version of it. I don't wanna give all the secrets away. Okay, I'm not going to…   Anyway, I'm excited about it though. I'm excited for what's gonna happen here with this. Watch what I'm doing, and feel free to follow along @ outrage.com I'm having a lot of really incredible experts come on - who are frankly really expensive to get - to teach some cool stuff to you guys.   So anyways, thanks so much and I'll talk to you guys later. Bye.   Many of you don't know that I actually made my first money online as an marketer. If you wanna know how I funded my entire company without using any of my own money ever, you can learn to do the same for free @ outrage.com

- What's going on everyone, this is Steve Larson, and this is Sales Funnel Radio.   Today I'm going to talk to you about why I chose the info business over the others.   I spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my 9-5 to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it, without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch. This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   I wanna deep dive into some of the reasons that I sell info now. I started and walked through several other models and markets over the years, but I've planted in Info for a few specific reasons. Here's why...   What's up guys, hey, first off please know that I know there are far more types of business than just the ones I have on the board right here. But generically I find that a lot of them fit kind of in this category as far as the way that we market them. The four categories that I’m using are: Ecomm/ Agency/ / Info   Service is kind of the same way as Agency. We might market Ecomm in similar way to retail.   Anyway, so I went through and I started looking through different ways.   I did this a while ago and I was very methodical about the way that I entered the business space and which market I actually went into.   I'm not saying that one is not better than the other, and I'm not saying that these are all of them...  please know that I’m going to talk in massive stereotypes.   There are lots of different businesses out there. The kind of people that are solopreneurs, I typically see them going into one of these categorizes - until they get to a certain level, then they'll scale and blow it up and get to other places as well.   I might put supplements under Ecomm. They’re very similar - the funnels are different -  but there are some similar aspects to them.   Services and Agency are kind of the same.   / Salesman/ MLMers/ are all very similar   Then there’s Info products…   Anyway, what I want to do is I just want to show you guys real quick why I chose what I do and first of all I want you to know that this is, I actually sell info products now, right? I did not start that way at all though.   Info products is kind of interesting the way that it plays out because to sell info products, it helps to have a little bit of authority in the space that you're selling it to. Obviously, it helps, it's true for anything. But especially with info.   I didn't start with info. If you want to you can tackle it right away. Awesome, go for it.   I actually was just trying to prove that this whole internet game worked. I the first time I was sitting in college in a class and for this particular class, it was Quantitative Marketing Research. That was the name of the course. And we went through and we had a live client, and it was actually Paul Mitchell.   It was a Paul Mitchell school that was nearby. And what they were having us do was we would go collect a whole bunch of survey data and we were going to try and consult Paul Mitchell on what they should do with this actual real life scenario in business. And it was really really interesting.   Well the assignment was for us to go talk to 10 people each as a class, then collectively we have a whole bunch of, we have a lot of data to work from. Well, sitting there with one of my buddies, we were like, "I do not want to go ask people, even ten, "I don't wanna ask ten people how to do the survey."   And so what we did, we were like "What if we go, "and let's just actually put the survey on a Google form "and we will drive ads to it." Something very simple, but we did Facebook ads and we drove to it.   And what was interesting is we actually went and we had we collected more surveys than the rest of the class combined. And it went really really well.   Well that's how I started working for Paul Mitchell. Because Paul Mitchell came back like, "Hey, we don't have to do any of this internet stuff, "professors, like college teachers, do you guys "know how to do this stuff?" And they were like, "No, but these two psychos over here "seem to be doing something crazy, talk to them."   And we got a handoff from the professors and we started building funnels, we didn't know they were funnels.We were building sites, in WordPress, we were driving traffic, and it was really really interesting how that happened.   Well, right before all of that happened, I was like "Does this internet game even work? "Is it all a scam?" And so what I did was I started studying a lot of, if you guys know, High Traffic Academy from Vick Strizheus, I'm sorry I'm probably butchering your name man, Vick.   Anyway, I started studying that and I started learning, "What if I was to just put a squeeze page in front "of a clickbank product and drive traffic to it? "Oh my gosh, let's try that." It seemed so simple.   And I looked at my internet marketing teacher, and I said, "I don't want to come back." It was like the first or second day of that class. And I said, "I don't want to come back." And I drew a funnel, I didn't know that's what I was drawing, but I drew a funnel. I drew a funnel, and I drew an email follow up sequence, and I drew, and I said, "I want to go build this." And shockingly he looked at me and he goes, "Okay." And he left, he said, "You don't need to come back "the rest of the semester, but just give me some "kind of cool deliverable at the end of the semester." So I was like, "Cool."   So me, and this other guy, we went and we started, we started, trying to make and literally we held class everyday just trying to make as much money online as possible. That's what our task was. Today, let's make as much money as we physically can on the internet.   And so one of the very first products we did, was what I was just saying. We went and grabbed the squeeze page, it was a template software, we didn't know what we were doing. And we grabbed the template and we just changed the headlines and we grabbed a video from YouTube of someone else talking about that product, and then we put our link at the bottom.   When they clicked submit, the page collected their email and it redirected over to the Clickbank page, and I that night we put, it was a ton of money at that time, we put $50 in in ads, and we woke up the next morning, and I was anxious... this was like the 100th business I had tried. You know what I mean.   I opened up my computer and I was like, "Crap, "there's cash in here, what?" And I called my buddy real fast and we put $50 in, we got $50 back out, and we got 17 people on our list.   And one person was the buyer and bought the up sale and we liquidated. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is crazy. "That sucks we only made 50 bucks."   And at the time, I didn't understand how cool a deal that was. On our very, that's the very very first real funnel that I ever built. And we liquidated because 17 people on the list, and I thought it was a failure because we didn't make any money. How stupid is that. I should have kept it going, would of got a massive list quickly with that. Anyway, lessons learned. And we kept doing stuff like that.   I started in the area, as far as the internet business goes, I started here. This is actually where I started. Like, I'm not joking, a few weeks later that's when we start doing these cool things and we start getting involved with Paul Mitchell. And I start building these, we start building these things, and at that time, my buddy graduated, and I was like, "There's something to, what's this funnel thing. "There's something about this funnel game. "What's with this funnel game thing?"   And I went and I decided that I would start studying the funnel game more. I was like, "Who is this Russell Brunson guy, he looks like he's 13." Alright, what? And I was like, "Who is this guy?"   And I started deep diving guys, I mean I obsessed, I still do, right hardcore on what he was teaching, I was like, "Yeah, that's totally how it works. "Yeah, he's right, it doesn't work that way. "Whoa, look at that." And I started learning all these lessons.   I took “Dot Com Secrets X”, and I filled an entire notebook, page by page, you know those Steno notebooks with the lines, the graph notebooks. I filled it from front to back from notes just from that one course.   I mean, it took me three months to go through that one course. because I played it for 15 seconds, and then I stopped and I thought about it and I wrote down what I had just learned. And then I would press play, and guys I did that for a year.   And when I say I hid in the box office seats in campus, I did. And that's what I was doing for a year and a half, was studying and learning, and I started applying and doing all those little things   And I got to a place here where I was like, "I'm gonna start proving that I know this stuff." And I started going out and I wrote down, I started building all these funnels, and I did it with a lot of startup companies for a while. And the problem with startups was there business wasn't proven out and if the funnel didn't work they thought it was my fault, and I was like "No, you don't have like a product yet. "You don't have a business. "I have to train you on all this stuff before you even accept me."   Anyway, startups were really really hard to work with for many reasons. Then I was like, "Ah man, I should "change who I'm actually pitching." I was like, "Oh sweet, I'm gonna go for successful people "who already have a list, who already have a successful "product, who have testimonials, with a mid-range product."   And I shotgun blasted out this invite to tons of people and I said, "Hey, I know you don't know what a funnel is, I will build one for free "just to show you that it works. "If it works, let's talk about me getting paid. "If it doesn't work, no harm no foul, I'll walk."   And I had several people bite, like alright, bring it on. And I went and I kind of, I started building funnels for several different people. I kind of went Agency, it was service style. And this is really where I started making actual real money, on my own, in college, ever.   First was, I started doing a whole bunch of stuff. But number two though, I went over, I actually, oh you can barely see that , okay cool. Anyway, number two though I started doing a whole bunch of service stuff and just putting my name out there, being like, "Look, I understand how this works now. "Am I perfect? "No, I'm not. "But let me just learn under your business wing, right, "let me go build this funnel and I'll keep getting better "and if it's working then let's talk about me getting paid "Don't pay me before hand though." And that's what I did and started getting these huge success stories.   Well, around that time is when Funnel Hacking Live was coming up, and I was like, "I wanna go. I'm getting "successes for a lot of these guys yet, but still "didn't feel like enough cash to spend money "on a Funnel Hacking Life ticket." And I started trading even, building even more funnels for plane tickets, and hotel nights, and things like that.   And I was like, "Oh, what's up Russell. "Then I got hired by Russell, right?" And that's really where I started building a lot of Ecomm funnels. Right, some of the biggest projects we were doing together were like, Fiber Fix, and a lot of products for Marcus Lemonis, for that TV show, The Profit, on CNBC. It was a lot of Ecomm style funnels that was going on there.   And it went really really well, it was awesome. I mean, we were blowing these guys up, sometimes too fast and they'd be like, "Turn it off, you're going "to bankrupt us." And I was like, "Oh my gosh," that's the model for Ecomm does really really well.   Whenever Russell's like "Dude, we need an Ecomm funnel, kinda like this funnel this funnel, this backend versus that back." I was like, "Sweet, I got it," and I'd go build it real fast. So I got really good at that model.   However, I've always known that this is kind of one of the Holy Grails. Info products are, I wanna go through this real fast, and then I want to show you something and this is the only reason why, but info products, it's one of, it's one of the hard categories to get into, but it's also one of the Holy Grails.   If you look at what Dan Henry did, well, it's episode, it's one of the earlier episodes of Sales Funnel Radio, but I interviewed when he had only made 200 grand with his current offer, that he'd blow up with.   His Facebook ads for entrepreneurs He'd only done like barely $200,000 at that time. And he was talking about it and if you have listened to that episode, what he was saying, was for his info product, he spent a solid like five, six months taking a beta group through and seeing what they were doing and how they were reacting to what he was teaching.   Okay, I told you to build the Facebook ad this way, but turns out you all thought I meant this. Okay, let's clarify. Then okay, now do this step. Oh man, you're all screwed up here, let's do it right. And he was spot checking and he was making a system.   And he spent a lot of time proving out his info product before he ever sold it. I've done the exact same thing with mine.   Alex and Leila Hormozi, at Funnel Hacking Live, this last one, they were talking about for a full year, before they ever, they just got, they just made 10 million dollars since last April. But they didn't just start doing that.   For a full year before they ever started really scaling and selling hard, for a full year, they were living in crazy areas, doing crazy things, just so they could prove the process that they were going to bring people though.   That is really one of the gateways, it's one of the key gates of getting really good and awesome at Info. Your crap's gotta be amazing. It's gotta get results for people. And the best way to do it is to just spend a lot of time with your prospective customers. With people who represent your prospective customers. And make them successful, make them successful, and get, and when you do, it's in my mind, it's one of the Holy Grails.   I love selling info products, okay. I love it. And here's why, let's walk through this now real quick.   Here's a good reason why, just so you know, that's been kind of my journey I've gone through it, I kind of did a little more Ecomm stuff then I jumped over here to the Info side where I will reside as long as I can. I absolutely love it, and it's super cool. It takes a little finesse to get into a lot of times.   I'm not saying you can't go interview a bunch of people and toss out that interview series as an info product. You could totally do that. Now, I'm not saying you can't, there's a lot of ways to create an info product really quickly. But I'm saying, like you as a brand, you as an educator, you as an idea and a vehicle that has potential for two commas, like info wise, it's gotta be really good. It's gotta be really good, okay. So let's walk through this real quick here.   With Ecomm, let's say over here on this side, we're going to go through Ecomm and for each one of these we're going to look at the profit margin potential.   Again, massive stereotypes... I understand that there are people out there who have figured out how to game the system, but they are not typical.   I'm talking typical, stereotypical, kind of result in each one of these categories. How much profit, how much margin potential is there? How much money for you after all the expenses are done? How much earning potential is there for you, typically, in that category and how much time does it take to actually do the business, actually fulfill on the thing that you're selling? I'm gonna walkthrough really fast.   This is why I've chosen what I have and I've been methodical about it. I'm going to say that #1 equals a little, #2 equals kind of medium, and then #3 equals a lot.   Let's go with Ecomm. And I know that some of you guys want to reach out to me, and kind of fight me on these things. I understand. I'm talking just straight atypical general person that goes through this think, okay.   What is the earning, at the very end of the day, the profit potential of the Ecomm category? What is it? It's not, it's not actually that high.   A lot of people get in two comma clubs in Ecomm, but they don't actually keep that much money, they actually don't have that much cash to their name themselves.   I understand the coolness of the award, and you certainly can scream to it real fast by doing something like Ecomm really quickly. But there's not typically that much profit margin inside of Ecomm. Especially when people don't do my freaking offer creation strategy in this.   If they do, they can make a lot of cash. It's like, I don't know why, a lot of Ecomm people don't believe me. Like even though that's what we do, and it works. Anyway, but the actual earning potential, actual profit margin on the actual business itself, is a little bit tiny. I'm gonna say, we'll say a two here. A one to a two. It's kind of a little, especially if you're doing something like drop shipping, that's obviously a one.   If you own the product, you're going to get more of a 2. But let's talk about time to fulfill. Even if you got a shipping fulfillment house doing your work for you, or if it's in house, you're typically sourcing products like crazy. You're spending a lot of time finding the next product, testing the next thing. I'm not saying you gotta sell the Ecomm product for a couple bucks like a lot of Ecomm people do. You can sell really really expensive, but you're usually in a game of trying to figure out the next thing to go sell really really quickly.   Info, the way I write info, is a little bit different, ok? I'm gonna say a 2, because you can spend a butt load of time actually on the phone. Right, that's one of the things that Trey Lewellen was having a hard time with, with his, which you can't blame him, with his credit card knife. The dude's the man, absolutely amazing. Spent a lot of time though fulfilling, and it's easy to run into troubles that way.   Ecomm, I was like Ecomm's cool but like, ah man, I'm about that ROI. How can I get the highest leverage, ok? Which in Ecomm comes in later.   this, ok? I'm going to come back to this and show you how I use this now. But you sell info. Wait, do I?   Agency's freaking awesome too, there's a lot of cash that usually comes in the business. The thing that I don't like about Agency is when you get paid, is when the work starts. I don't like that. It's where I proved that I knew what I was doing. It's services, services/Agency. It's where I, it's a really fast way as well. I love the path that I personally took. I learned how to sell other people's products, which is awesome, we'll get there in a second.   But then I went over to the service and Agency side and it was really cool because you get paid a lot of cash but you're also, even if you have an amazing team Agency wise, you're still managing the team, you're still closing deals typically. I'm not saying you're, anyway, there are exceptions to the rule, but usually, there's a lot of time to fulfill on Agency model.   After the sale is made, is usually, that's when it starts; I'm going to say a three and then a two here.   Let's talk here about . Now typically with s, the profit margin, usually small, right? You got the crazies out there like Russell Brunson giving 40% every single month of his check to you for getting an person it. That's amazing, that's incredible. Usually not the case though. So I'm going to say a one. But what's interesting, but actually 1.5, let's say 1.5. Depending on the product, depending on the , there's a lot of variables with every one of these categories and I totally get that. But just generally, usually 1, 1.5.   How much time does it take for you to fulfill after the sales made. No time, no time at all. Oh my gosh, great place to go. And this is actually how I built my entire company and business without ever spending a dollar of my own. I've never spent a dollar of my own, I don't think so, in my own business. And it's because I started with s.   That generated cash so I could do cool things like hire VAs in service/Agency and that brought in even more cash, and I was like, "Well this is awesome, but I want to free "up my time a little bit." Let's jump over to info, and that's what I went in to next.   Let's talk about info. What's the earning/profit margin potential on an info product? Guys, my margins right now on my main product is like 94%. Obviously there's a business margin, but I'm saying the actual product margin is like 94%, it's ridiculous. It's like no cost to fulfill on it at all. I think it's actually like 98.8. It's really, it's ridiculous. Three, definitely a three.   Time to fulfill, like virtually nothing. The cost of an email with access to a area or something like that. Now, there's a caveat to this. If I go through and there's an info product, people know, there's this inherent understanding that the info product is already made. It's like the subconscious know, the little thing that they know that it's not going to take you anything to fulfill on that. Because of that, the perceived value, the perceived value, so it's a lot of value to me, but the perceived value of info, is usually kind of low. It is, right.   Let's take Ecomm for example, though. Ecomm something physical, something I'm gonna get in the mail. I got these stupid crows that are flying all over the place around the office and they just, they're messing with me, they'll like, so anyways, I've got a BB gun coming, you can guess what's happening, right, but the perceived value, perceived value of an Ecomm product is really high.   Perfect example, go think about Amazon. There's not sales copy on Amazon, there's like bullet point descriptions, this is what it is. Bam, here's the button, put it in your order and just go get it. The perceived value, perceived value, of Ecomm is high, but the value to the entrepreneur is typically a little lower. So what I do is I combine them.   In my offers with info, the reason why info does so well for me now, is yes, you get the info thing, but I also ship a lot of amazing, incredible things to the person when they purchase. I combine info with Ecomm and it's one of the reasons why my stuff does so well and one of the reasons why the perceived value of my offers is so high, cause the value is high.   They're getting something in the mail, they're getting, it's not just like something, they're crazy cool things, they're getting those and they're getting access to all this crazy stuff: funnel builds, incredible things. Things that people pay a lot of money for me to go do normally. They're getting those things in there and that's the reason why I chose and landed on info, and I will stay there, stay there, stay there.   The category that I want to move into eventually though is software. I think I don't know what it's going to be, but it's because it's almost like the benefits of Ecomm, high perceived value, software, right, software is high perceived value. With really high margins on the product itself, the business margin on software is a little bit hard, because you have a lot of usually, that's a higher.   But the time to fulfill is like virtually nothing which means the entrepreneurs can spend, as long as they get great , usually in software the entrepreneurs can spend little time doing any kind of fulfillment, instead they do a lot of time selling.   Russell stays in the act of selling like, 24/7. He can do that because of the software game, because he's in the info game, because he combines a lot of Ecomm inside of it. Does that make sense?   So he tosses off a lot of the benefits to his s by giving them the ability, "Hey look, you don't have to fulfill anything, "I ain't going to pay you for it." Sweet. And he teaches a lot of people, look, if you need cash and a lot of it pretty quick, go service/Agency style.   You'll get a lot of cash quickly but eventually that's why I landed in what I do, and that's why I stay in info, and I will always stay info. I love it. The time to fulfill is tiny, which lets me stay in the zone, where I get to create more things for the same product. Toss in more cool things. Make the value of the offer even bigger. Create amazing things for people, and the profit margins are big enough that it allows me to do that.   I'm not having to sell thousands of little knick knacks. And take away a thousand dollars to go put that in something else from the source of knick knacks, that's really really rough in Ecomm.   But a thousand dollars, coming from the source of an info product? It's really really easy, it's not that crazy hard, at all. SO this is why I do what I do. This is the reason that I've structured it the way I have. So I hope that helps.   If you guys are thinking through how to actually sell the stuff that you are, and what you're trying to get into. I started as an and it's a great way to go.   And frankly, when I started Sales Funnel Radio, I kept this thing going by giving away share funnels. And now I've got a bunch of people on ClickFunnels s.   At the beginning when I was working at ClickFunnels, at a 9-5 job, I had this extra cash that was coming in, and because of that, while I was doing my 9-5, which was way more than that but while I was working over there, during the same day, there would be doing VAs in different places that were getting projects and cool things done for me. Not from my own pocket, because I was doing stuff like crazy. Really easy to fulfill, got some cash from it.   Still to this day, it's significant. I think we've ed, we're well ed thirty grand in commissions in the last like year-and-a-half, I mean that's good. It's been the cash that I've needed to do all the stuff on the side and prep the groundwork so I could launch into the info space.   So anyway, I just hope that that helps. It helps you guys work through and think through where you're heading.   If you're like "I'm trying to do info." Okay, does anyone know who you are? Have you proved out the process yet? Can you, if someone actually follows the process, can you virtually guarantee that people are going to be successful at it. If you can't, it can be to sell that at scale.   If someone follows my process, they get results, I know they do. I have the best product in the category I'm selling in in the entire market, and I know I do, and I'm fine with that, and I'm fine saying that because I know it's true.   Because that's what happens, when people do it, they get results. It's happening life, like right now. It took me like two years, honestly, to really get to a spot where my info product could do that for people, so if you're knowing that, if you're like, "I want to do info," Awesome. Or if you're like, "I want to stick in Ecomm." That's great, that's great. Just figure out the little tricks to make the margins huge and make that two into a three. That's super super cool.   Just be cognizant of what that industry is typically like and the cost associated with that. Like supplements, supplements takes a lot of cash to sell someone into the supplements.   Continuity, and software, take a lot of cash to sell. Continuity is expensive to sell. So don't sell continuity outright. Attach it to other things. Funnel Hacks, like Russel does. Isn't it amazing. When you do it that way, oh my gosh, so much easier.   Same thing with supplements over here, supplements cost a lot of cash to drop in, but if you have an info product that you're coupling it with, they buy the info product, that's what's self-liquidating, your ad cross and now in the backend go toss them to your supplements.   Awesome, or your Ecomm, or whatever. Does that make sense? This is one of the reasons I've structured the way I have - I'm very methodical about it. It's turned out really really well.   So I hope that it's helpful to you?   If you're stuck or you're like, "Oh gosh, I don't know "how this is going to work? I don't know if this is going "to be successful here or there?" Man, just go figure out how you can get cash now. And some of the easiest places to do it, . Probably next, probably the Agency. I know a lot of Ecomm people will probably fight me on that and that's fine, that's totally fine. We all have our own opinions and that's perfect.   The model I'm following and I just wanted to walk you guys through why I do what I do. And what my logic has been behind each one of them is... profit margin potential out of the gate, not tricks, not little tips. Profit margin potential out of the gate - what is it?   I'll do the little tips and tricks and stuff like that, and I do and it goes even higher, but I don't want to bank on those. That's why I didn't run into Ecomm. I almost ran into Ecomm... I just about did Ecomm, but that's the reason I didn't right out the gate.   Again, not telling you not to, but that's the reason I didn't was ‘time to fulfill.’ I was like, "Man I just want to "do revenue generating activities, but what I'm constantly managing a product for someone else. I’d collected the cash already but I can't "actually do anything with it cause my hands "are tied, my time is tied because I can't actually "go do, I have to fulfill.   I don't know if I want to marry the Agency/service model. It was a great place for me to go for quite a while honestly, to vet out and prove who I was and what I was doing and that I could do it, which the market obviously needed to see, why would they not?   I got my testimonials from there, I got, that's what launched me in to being able to work next to Russell. In fact, that's one of the first things he asked when I sat down face to face with him.   Actually before I even got there, he's like, "Have you "been building funnels?" I said, "Yeah." He's like, "What are the URLs?" Boom, blasted over like 20 URLs over to him. Look at all these funnels I've done, look at all the stats here we go, boom, and when I sat down, he was like sick, okay, cool. He didn't say sick. He was like, "Okay, cool, awesome." You've actually done this. I didn't start from ground 0. But it's because I actively was trying to prove that I could do it. So anyway, that's the path I took, hopefully it helps?   Sit back, figure out where you're trying to go and those are some of the, when you're just talking about generating cash flow, I'm not talking about change the world products, I'm talking about you making money, for you. Change your own life before you go trying to change the world. It’s way easier, do it that way.   I want to change the world and I plan to. I don't know how yet. But first I'm changing my world so that I have the ability and power to change the world afterwards.   So this is the path I took with that intent in mind and it's been working really well. And we haven't had a negative month yet and I don't think we will. Anyway, things have been going great. I really appreciate it .   Thanks for listening, please rate and review the podcast. Please share it, we'd love to have more people on. For those of you guys who are on iTunes, I do film these now, if you want to see the graph I just drew, go to my YouTube channel if you want to see - it’s just ‘Steven Larson’, that's the name of my YouTube channel.   If you're on You Tube and you're like, "Hey, I would rather just listen to these," go to iTunes. A lot of you guys on Instagram, I know these get pushed to you as well.   Bloggers, what's up. You guys can come out to any of these platforms as well. We push out now to, it's over, it's like 25 different platforms. Just know that the others exist and excited to have you guys. Thanks so much, talk to you later. Bye!

Boom, what's goin' on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and this Sales Funnel Radio.   Today we are gonna talk about how to pay for expensive things with your business.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   All right, guys, hey, I'm excited for this episode. This has been kind of a long time in the making. This is gonna be one of those episodes that have kinda been on my mind for a long time as something that I wanna  share with you guys and teach you something really interesting.   I wanna tell you a story, okay? We were planning Funnel Hacking Live 2017. I being on cloud nine, I could not even believe that I was in the planning sessions for Funnel Hacking. I was freakin' out about it, I was super excited. I was with Melanie, Dave, and Brent. It was just fun to be in the room. Russell's like, “Dude, what if we ask Tony Robbins to come?”  We're like, “Oh my gosh, that's crazy.” So they started doing some research and reaching out to his team.   Tony's team reached back out and said, it's gonna cost about this much. I am not privy to say the amount... I'm not even gonna allude to it... but I will tell you that it was a lot of cash. It was a butt ton of money. It was so cool to watch how Russell handled it…There is a lesson that I picked up... I was watching him like a hawk. I always do.   First of all he goes, “Oh my gosh”, with this face. “Huh, oh my gosh, huh, oh god, I feel sick, huh.” What was interesting was what he did next...   There was a moment where he freaked out, and that's appropriate and everyone can feel free to do that when you wanna buy something expensive. But then, he just said “Yes.”   Then he was very careful to structure the FHL event in a way that would pay for Tony. Isn't that interesting? The event literally liquidated the cost of Tony Robbins.   If you go look at any time he's ever had someone really big on - that's how he structures it. That's really fascinating.   We started doin' some pretty interesting things that were very expensive. Things like the Harmon Brothers.The Harmon Brothers, they're the ones who did the viral video...   Hopefully you guys are cool with me telling all these stories? I wanna link it back to what I'm doin' right now and hopefully you'll take something cool from this.   The Harmon Brothers, it's public knowledge, so I'm just gonna say it... they charge half a million dollars to do a video. One video! A three, four, five minute video. Half a million bucks. They're expensive, but they get results. They're really cool, so they can charge that money.   Instead of Russell going, “Gah, are you kidding? Half a million dollars?” Which was appropriate (and we all did that at first)... what he did was start figuring out a way to liquidate the cost with some kind of campaign, event, or product.   So that at the end, he is left with both the asset and with his own cash in hand. Meaning he doesn't let his own cash out, he created something else to pay for the expense. Does that make sense? This is the smarter VC funding way.   You guys know I'm pretty against things like VC funding, but it's because of this very principle right here.   Think about a free plus shipping book funnel. A free plus shipping book funnel or even a webinar funnel... A lot of times in a webinar funnel there’s a self-liquidating offer before somebody even gets to the webinar.   There’s a product to purchase even before someone gets to the webinar - that way, an average of 10%  - 15% purchase the product, then it liquidates most of the ad cost. So everyone who comes and buys during the main product during webinar is actually pure profit. Does that make sense?   That's how it works in a funnel, and the same principle can apply your business and the way you run it. This is the principle that I’ve been  applying to my business.   I told you guys about the story at this last Funnel Hacking Live, someone was like, “oh man, maybe I can get a discount on the 2 Comma Club X Program. Maybe I can split it with a few other people!” and I was like, “No, wrong question!’  Questions invite revelation...  So you need to change the question.   Instead of asking “How do I get a discount?” ask the question: “How can I afford the most expensive things in life?”   Solve that problem, not the question: “How can I get a discount?” You'll solve either question... but most people don't ask questions with intent.   So what I said to him was: “Look, go figure out how to pay for the most impressive, most expensive things in life, and at the end of it, you'll be left with the thing that you wanted that's very expensive, and you'll be left with a paying asset.”   If  you just go out and say: “Oh man, I guess maybe we'll have to get someone cheaper” or “I guess we have to take this cheaper option over here.” What ends up happening is you get a much cheaper experience and there's no asset!   Usually you end up paying out of pocket. Does that make sense?   So start thinking about how to liquidate costs... this is something most entrepreneurs end up getting pretty good at as they go down the road.   I would watch Russell, and it's  an active theme. He goes and figures out what he wants to do and then figures out what he can create to pay for it.   And so I started applying this strategy too.   About two years ago I launched a funnel explicitly to do this. What eventually started happening was I started making more money off that funnel than I was getting paid at my job.   In essence, I replaced my income with this funnel that was running on the side while I was working at Clickfunnels. Isn't that interesting? I'm always looking for some kind of asset to do that. When I finally left ClickFunnels, I didn't take a paycheck from my business for almost three months. We were living on savings through March. It wasn't until April that I got paid. It was fine - we had cash, it was just I wanted to make sure the funnel was awesome. I wanted to make sure the business had enough cash flow. So I was like, well, “How do I remove the cost of me?”   I launched my funnel, I got it off the ground. Things are doin' awesome. It did a lot of money.   Grant Cardone says “Cash is King.” But in reality CASH FLOW is king. Cash flow is king. Cash is NOT king, Cash Flow is King.   If you think through your business and you think about how much do you pay yourself right now?  Or do you have a business you're actually paying yourself from? I make it a consistent amount so I can count on it. And then I ask the question, “How can I replace that cost?”   I pay myself eight grand a month before taxes, before costs - and I have people that work for me, I have a team, then I need to liquidate those costs.   At the beginning I asked: “How do I remove eight grand a month?” Boom, I'm gonna start a coaching program. I went and launched the coaching program and that removed the cost of me taking money from my main product. Does that make sense?   All I want  is for my main product to scream it to a million bucks. Structurally, the way that I'm doing this is that instead of me getting paid out of the profits from my main product, I take money from this entirely separate thing over here - from coaching or something else.   Then the product can just roll on itself. We can spend a crap ton of money on ads and get a lot of people in there fast. Is this making sense so far? This is how I've structured it from a money standpoint. From a cash flow standpoint I can pay for expensive things like my content team this way.   In the last episode I talked about my content team which is 26 grand a month in hard costs before I even think about ad spend. “26 grand, oh my gosh,”  right?     Back in the day, I made 18 grand during my first year of marriage... only $18,000.  And it was loans - so I wasn't even making it! We were living on students loans, guys.     So I’ve gone from $18,000 my first year of marriage to 26 grand a month on hard costs that are not direct cash flowing things! It blows me up... that's a lot of money!  $26,000 a month on the team as an ongoing cost.   So I was like: “Okay, okay, how do I remove that cost from my main product?” My main product could pay that cost... but I don't want it to. So what I did is I upped my coaching. I increased my coaching availability. I increased my consulting. A lot of people have reached out lately and asked: “Will you fly out for a day? Just come in and work through our offers with us, work through our funnels with us. We're not asking you to build 'em. We just want you to come double-check, look over the top of it...  How much is that?”   I'm like, “Sweet, well, 10 grand a day... Fly me out and we'll do that... I'll dive deeply through your stuff with you. I'll teach you. I'll show you what to do and how to put it together. I’ll critique and tweak, or build it straight from the ground up and design your marketing with you.”   So that's what I've been doing. I’ve been going through and figuring out different opportunities to remove the cost of the team, my salary, the hard costs that I have. I want to completely remove them and liquidate them from my main product.   With my main product, we've kept the ads tiny because I've been testing stuff.  As of yesterday... I'm actually really excited, it’s the first full day that our self-liquidating offer was up on the webinar. It's doin' well.   It has an 8% purchase rate right now, which is okay... I'll keep tweakin' it and making it better and better. But it's a good starting place, right? It tells me at least that there's need for it. That it’s actually working…   I'm liquidating my ad costs, so now everything in that webinar purchasing process is pure profit.   The whole principle of this entire episode, what I'm trying to say (and I know I've said a lot of things, and hopefully you've followed it), is that you need to find a way to liquidate ‘your costs’ from your main product so that you can keep enough cash flow to scale your product fast.   I was talkin' to somebody and they're like, “I'm gonna go get off the ground here, I'm just gonna quit my job immediately.” And I was like, “Duh, don't do that.”   I had active cash flowing funnels... I had active cash coming in from another source before I ever did that. We had savings and security - you know what I mean? The waters were well tested.   I'm a risk taker, but I'm a calculated risk taker. It took a lot of time to actually put that stuff together and get things rockin' off the ground.   I’ve got an SLO in my funnel. It’s liquidating the ad costs. Awesome! If it's not always break even at least it's always like nothin' now. So when it's all said and done, the cost is really, really tiny to acquire a paying customer.   Then the business side, I'm like, “Sweet, how do I remove myself from the books of that product specifically?” I don't wanna get paid from the profits of that product. So I remove myself from the books with coaching consulting and speaking. I'm speaking in loads of different places recently. It's been a ton of fun and I’m liquidating all the costs of the business which means I can get a sweet content team together and publish way more.   I’ve liquidated the cost of my content team, my salary, the people workin' for me without taking any money out of my business.   Don’t ask, “Uh, how do I get a discount on stuff?” It's a bad question! You'll answer it… You just don't want to answer that question. It's the wrong question.   So the next thing I want is a super ninja team.  If you guys didn't listen to my deep dive on webinars... it's in two parts…  it's a few episodes ago. It's probably 10 episodes ago... It's worth listening to.   One of the things that I've been seeing other guys do on webinars is have live . So now I want to toss in on my automated webinars too...  This represents a new cost coming in.   Watch how I'm gonna handle it. We already have awesome , but I want 24/7 . I want three people in eight hour shifts. Sheesh. A good person, you can typically get good ones, maybe I won't say numbers, but it's not gonna be cheap. So how do I replace that cost?   So I thought, okay, what if I do this? If my webinar is what the main revenue generator is right now, it's like the big product that I'm pushin' out the door… how do I make it so that it further replaces the person cost?   I wanna beef up and I wanna get a full-time assistant. Those are the two positions that I'm looking at right now. So how do I remove that cost and not bankrupt the company, which we're not close to at all, but like, right? How do I make it so that I don't have a negative month?   I don't wanna have my first negative month - I wanna keep goin' up. How do I do that? So this is what I'm thinkin'... Follow me on this…   On the broadcast page for my webinars, the replay pages, right underneath, I have a cool chat box, but now I wanna have live on the page while they’re watching.   If someone's has a question, who's gonna fulfill those tickets? . Who's gonna fulfill that live chat when they're on the webinar? .   A lot of people just have a last question or two before they actually purchase something from you. If they don't get it answered they won't buy it. It's that important to them, even if, in hindsight, it's a really small question…   This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna add in a live chat box element - so  that when they click it opens up Facebook Messenger right there. Then they can chat with one of my three people tight there on their profile.   If a person closes that person, number one, it brings in more cash... Number two, I'll give that person some commission. That way they’re motivated to close people when they do write in. Isn't this interesting?   If answer a few extra questions and bring in the cash, it will probably liquidate the cost of my team. Will it actually make extra cash? Probably not, but it will probably remove the cost of the person. Does that make sense?   Anyways, that's what I'm doin'. Maybe this is a little bit too crazy for me to go into on a actual podcast episode... but that's what I've been doin' lately, which is kinda interesting.   What if the question is not: “How do I do this?”... but: “Who knows how to do this?” Go listen to that podcast episode from Russell if you haven't…   Maybe the question is not, for example:“How do I build a funnel?” … but “Who knows how to build a funnel?”   If you don't know how to build funnels, you could go learn... or you could find someone who already knows how to do it. Go find the right “who” with the know how and your speed increases. And that's I've been focusing on lately.   Going from six to seven figures is not a matter of more hours in the day spent in the office, it is a matter of leverage. And so that's what I've been figuring out.   I've been getting this team, and I've been putting people together. I'm getting these people, and it's been awesome, you guys. All of its been awesome. I've been able to liquidate the cost of my team through the coaching and other stuff.   Next episode, stay tuned, I wanna show you the other way that I'm gonna replace them again with more revenue. I'm very, very excited to go through and share that thing with you.   Anyways, I'm excited. Hopefully this episode made sense to you? It's just a recap. I know I kind of went deep with all this stuff…   Just the same as I would create an SLO or some kind of self-liquidating offer that pays for ads in a funnel… I’m doing the exact same thing in my business now.   I've removed “me” completely from the cost of my main funnel profits. I've removed my team completely from my main funnel profits. The more people I put in, instead of figuring out: “Can the business handle it?” (The answer's yes, but I don't wanna ever go negative on my revenue or my cash flow)... Instead, I ask: “How can I remove that cost from my business?”   I'm getting a few more people and I'm just plugging them into the closing process. So I'm getting people, a little bit more aggressive people... People who know how to close a little bit.   people who know just even the smallest amount of closing techniques, so they can come in and answer and close people. People who can answer questions and tickets when they come in, but who can answer any kind of closing questions too.   That's kinda the thing I wanna go build team-wise. I wanna to put that together. I'm really, really pumped about it. I hope it makes sense.   What's funny is that when you start asking and answering these sort of  question, your speed's gonna increase like crazy.   I've never met anyone who made a ton of money just on their own. It always takes a team. Everyone benefits as the entrepreneur and the business move together.   So just start answering these questions: “How do I attract the right ‘who’?” - “How do I liquidate the cost of the right ‘who’?”   Russell was a  room with a lot of brilliant people... I think it was at the Genius Network, but I'm not sure. Anyway, someone said:   “Don't figure out how do I do this, how do I do that.. That route takes you forever... Yes, you'll become a renaissance man - which means you're really gettin' good at nothing.”   Instead of asking, “How do I do this?, ask, Who knows how to do this?”   I was on a coaching call, I'll end it with this…   I was on a coaching call with another amazing mentor of mine and he was telling me, the one question that I should start learning how to answer is: “How do I hire people that I can't afford?” And if I can answer that question, everything blows up.   He asked me to start thinking about that probably about six weeks, eight weeks ago, and I've been answering that question. It's the reason why my team and my business is accelerating is because I have learned how to hire people and bring people in that I can't afford.   How do I do it? I do it by creating a liquidating asset that covers that cost.   I still have one funnel. I still have one thing that I'm doing, that's it. My focus is there, is absolute. However, on the cost of the actual business itself, to start really leveraging the speed of the team, I need to go create something else that pulls in and liquidates the cost of that person. That's the question I wanna pose to you: “How can you hire people that you can't afford?” And when you start doing that, oh my gosh, it's crazy. There's so much expertise that will get brought into your company and your business, it's ridiculous.   I don't even know all the stuff that my team do for me - it’s insane. It's really cool. Problems get solved that I didn't even know existed. And they get solved in an expert way rather than a just good enough way.   All right guys, hopefully this was helpful to you, and I will see you on the next episode.   Please get a chance to rate and subscribe and review this podcast. And please share it.   I would love to be able to share my message with people who are kinda just starting out and haven't quite made it yet. Or people who have made cash, and they're trying to figure out how to scale. That's where my expertise is - in offer creation and the storytelling.   Anyways guys, thanks so much. Have a good one, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye-bye.   Hey, thanks for listening. Please to rate and subscribe. Got a question you want answered live on the show? Head over to salesfunnelradio.com and ask your question now.

- Boom, what's going on everyone. This is Steve Larsen, and this is Sales Funnel Radio.   Today, we’re gonna talk about my content machine and how I'm pulling it off.   I've spent the last four years learning form the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up guys?   Hey, I am excited to share this with you. You know when I first started listening to gurus on the internet, when I first started consuming their content, when I first started going through and reading it - I was grateful for the content. But... I don't know if you're like me?... I didn’t ever want to do any kind of publishing ever, ever.   I when I first went to my first Funnel Hacking Live. It was 2016. I this very clearly... I think I might have shared this with you before....   I was biking around the bay at San Diego because what cash we had, I didn't want to spend on a cab. So I was biking around on a hired bike and I thinking to myself, “I will do whatever Russell tells me to do, except I will not publish.” That was my actual thought.   Fast forward a week, and I'm working next to Russell Brunson, and this is what I see him doing. He's sitting there and he's on camera going, “What's up guys, this is Russell Brunson!” Then he's over on his podcast, “What's up guys, this is Russell Brunson!”  And then he's over on his blog... “What's up guys, this is Russell Brunson.” And I was like, there's something to this. This is really interesting.   Funnily enough, on the very first day at Funnel Hacking Live, he said, “Everyone needs to start publishing.” And I was like, “there's no way I'm not gonna do it. I will build the funnels. I'll do whatever you want me to do Russell. My life's already changed. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. But I will never, ever, Mr. Russell Brunson, ever be one of those podcasters.” And that was my thought.   Well, “What's up, how you doing?” I'm podcasting!   We've crossed over 160,000 s between the two shows that I have - which is awesome. It's gone really, really well. I after watching Russell publish…. We didn't do anything unless there was a camera around a lot of times, right. We’d go grab a camera...   One day it was like 4:00 a.m. and he voxed me; he goes, “Dude, I got this sick idea man - swing down to the office as soon as you can. I'm really, really pumped about this. I'm gonna make you famous.” I was like, what does that mean? And then he goes, “Dude, we're gonna start a reality TV show man!” And that's when we started Funnel Hacker TV.   So we had a visual show... and then a podcast so people could listen... then there were blogs so people could read. Dominating everywhere! I mean, to be completely honest with you, can you consume all of the content that ClickFunnels puts out? No, nobody can. But that's not the point. He's trying to dominate the conversation.   I about six weeks into working at CF,  I decided to get a handle on this whole content creation thing. There was no way to do this without actually publishing.   I know I'm gonna suck at first. Like I'm gonna be terrible. I'm gonna be awful. And I was awful. I was super bad. I really was not good. If you guys go listen to the first few episodes of Sales Funnel Radio - the content is good. What I'm talking about is great. But the delivery is terrible. I knew that. And I came to grips with the fact. I just needed to gut it out a little bit -  just start moving forward.   When I first started publishing, I was the only person in my content team. I was watching a lot of  major entrepreneurs, and they were never the only one doing the content. They had a content team.   I was like, “Oh my gosh, I'm not gonna be able to afford something like that… and how do you even put a team like that together.”   The whole point of this episode is to show with you guys the journey through my content team - because even though I have a team now - it didn’t start that way.   When I started, I was just using Libsyn. That's Liberated Syndication dot com. Libsyn.com. It's L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. It's amazing, okay. It was like five bucks a month for me to start.   And what it allowed me to do was... I wanted to be able to push out on iTunes obviously.... But I knew that a lot of people want to read, but I didn't want to write a blog.   I like writing about this kind of stuff. But I'm not gonna take the time to write a blog for every podcast episode.   So what I did was rip the audio and get it transcribed at Rev.com. Then I took that transcription, and it became the blog post. So now I have an blog for every episode. That's all I did. I just took the transcription, I put it on WordPress, and pressed go. I believe in using tools for the intent they were created. ClickFunnels is not meant to be a blogging platform. So I don't blog on it.   I use WordPress because WordPress was built to be a blogging platform.   Some people do some weird things with WordPress and turn it into a sales platform. But it's not a sales funnel. So I don't use WordPress to sell things. I use WordPress to publish things. Does that make sense?   You could make a lot of things turn into a lot of other things with weird connections and stuff. I just don't.   It's kind of like going to a sushi place and  ordering a hamburger. I'm sure they could make it for you, but that's not their thing. You know what I mean?   I look at software the same way. Whatever the software was intended to do, that's what I use it for. And that's why I still use several different platforms and I'll tie them together.   ClickFunnels is built to sell crap. So I use it to sell my crap.   When I first started out, it was just me; it  took me about two hours per episode to get it out of the door. I would wake up at about 5:00 a.m -  I'd be at ClickFunnel's HQ at about 6:00 a.m - and I would take Russell's microphone 'cause I didn't have money to go get a microphone at that  time… I would unplug the microphone from his computer and I'd go over and plug it into mine. Then I'd record the episode 'cause I knew his mic was good.   And I was like, well crap. I gotta figure out how to use Adobe Audition, or some kind of software for editing, or something like that. I went through and I created my intros. And I make all my intros and outros by the way. I really like doing it.   I've been a sound junky and editor since I was like 12. And I would make a lot of music on a lot of different platforms. I spent a lot of Saturdays just making music. It was a bunch of fun. So I did my own sound editing. I would go to Fiverr and have somebody do a voiceover.   The way I wrote my intro, just so you guys know, is I went and I actually listened to all the top rated podcasts in the business category on iTunes.   I listened to all their intros, and transcribed them. I found all the similarities and grabbed some of those - and then I threw a few other things in as well.   Then I went to beat.com and ed a cool song I liked. Had a voiceover guy from Fiverr just say it. And then I just put 'em together. That's how I made the original Sales Funnel Radio intro and outro.  Guys I freakin' bootstrapped, okay. That's the whole point.   Before I was at ClickFunnels, I started putting together videos - I didn't have video editing software. So I thought, who does? I was like, ahh libraries. So I did all my video editing in libraries for like a year before working at ClickFunnels. I didn’t have a camera. So I went back to libraries and I would rent their cameras.   Entrepreneurs would hire me to get on planes film their events, and film them doing sales videos. Then I'd go back and edit them in libraries, and give the camera back that I didn't own.   I’d take those videos and put them up on the funnels that I was building, which I was just hacking from what Russell and other successful people were doing. The whole way is bootstrapping. All of it's been bootstrapping.  And it's been super fun.   My content has been no different. I bootstrapped it.  I didn't have a mic, so I just borrowed Russell’s really early in the morning. That's like how I did the first 50 episodes of Sales Funnel Radio. I got to CF HQ way before everyone else - so I was completely alone in the office - and grab Russell's mic.  My job required that I had the Adobe Suite - so I’d use Adobe Audition (because it came with it) to do all my sound editing on.   I didn't know which settings to use. So I went to YouTube and I googled, podcast sound editing. I didn't know what they meant. I have no idea what all those letters mean on the sound editing stuff. I just took them and pasted them in... and it's one of the reasons that my podcast sounds so good today. So many of you have complimented me on that. I don't know what the settings mean,  I just know it does really awesome stuff when I push the button and apply those settings.   I have literally bootstrapped the entire way. The obstacle is the way. Just follow  your questions - and the answer's on the other side usually.   So for a while, I was the producer, and the recorder, the attractive character, and the content creator. For  the first 40 episodes, it took me about two hours per episode to take the transcription, put it into WordPress, and make it look amazing.   Then I'd go in Libsyn and press the publish button - and blast out to 16 different platforms. Boosh!   I hate Twitter. I don't know why it's there. But I publish there 'cause people like it, right. I did it for a lot of different platforms. Pushed to YouTube, pushed to Facebook, pushed to the blog, pushed to iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify. Boosh, all over the place. Libsyn did all that. It really helped my time.   Around episode 40, I went and I hired my first VA. And it was my sister. A lot of you guys know who she is. She was in a position where she was interested in this kind of stuff.   I said look, “I'll train you how to do it all.”  I showed her exactly what I was doing, right. I would get the episode transcribed, and then I would just hand off the transcription and the episode, and she would do everything else. She put it in WordPress. She did SEO optimization on it with some cool plugins we had...   And that's what I did for quite a while from like episode 40 up until like episode 140. For the last few episodes, I’ve been doing something different. I'm just going through this so you guys see the content journey. Those of you who went to Funnel Hacking Live and saw Peng Joon’s presentation on how he does his content might  think that you need to start with a gigantic content machine, right?   I never started with that. Number one, because of the cost, right. I'm spending $26,000 in hard costs a month right now on my content generation process. My content machine costs me that much. But I would never have started that way.  There's no way. That's dumb. But I knew content was important.   If I could get my voice more out there and share  what I was learning as I was watching these gurus...  If I could document my journey (which I'm still doing)... You guys are watching me do it all the time… If I could just do that...   I know that whoever controls content in an industry controls the industry. If no one hears you speak, then no one knows you exist in your industry, okay.   That's why this whole content thing is so important and so powerful. If no one knows you're talking, you don't exist, okay.   One of my first mentors was the CMO of Denny's and also Pizza Hut. I spent a lot of one on one time with him. He was actually a professor of mine. And he and I got a friendship. I would ask him a lot of questions and I talked a lot with him. He invented stuffed crust pizza. Whoa, right. He's the man…   I I was sitting in his office with him once and I was talking with him. At the time we were in this semester of college where we don't do anything but run a business. That's it…   You start a business from scratch. They give you virtually no help. You start it....   Well I was voted the first CEO of this company.  We ended up making two to three grand a week during that semester, which was awesome. With no help, we built it up, and it was awesome.   I though, I was talking about marketing with him. It was at a time in my life where I had not yet totally decided to go into just marketing alone. I was like man, should I go do supply chain? Should I go do finance? Should I go do this, should I go do that?   Anyway, he and I were chatting. And I was like, “I feel like I'm yelling at people about our company... like hey, we're here, we're here. Come buy our thing.”  And he said, “You know what's funny about marketing? The moment that you feel like you are being annoying is the moment that people are just starting to realize you even exist.”   You're gonna get tired of your message. You're gonna get tired of your stories way before the market will - Far before. You are not yelling as loud as you might think you are. You're not, okay.   Now I'm pushing content around all over the place, and that's what I want to talk about real quick.  I want to show you how I've evolved. It's interesting to see the journey that it's taken…   Whoever controls content controls beliefs and ideas.   If you're barely talking, or if you're not even talking,  people just don't know you exist for the longest time.They really don't.   You're gonna have the core people who follow you, who love you, who do the crazy things, who are the fanatics over what your business does. But most people don't really know you that well. They know of maybe your podcast. They know maybe of your business. They don't know what it is. It just feels like you're yelling at them because to you, it feels like you're yelling. You're not, okay.   So get used to speaking or at least communicating in some way. If you don't want to do a podcast, don't, okay. If you want to do video, sweet. If you want to just blog, awesome. Neil Patel blew up that way, right.   Whatever medium you're comfortable doing most frequently, just marry it. Okay, marry it, right.   We just did the episode a little bit ago about the attractive character. It is the vehicle for your attractive character to explode on. Okay, that's why it's so important for you to do this stuff.   I at Funnel Hacking Live feeling that my content machine was good - even though it was just me handing it off to one person. However, I realized that I could do a lot more.   I was like, you know what, I've worked my butt off. I'm gonna go try and blow up some of these platforms a little bit better.   I love YouTube, okay. Facebook and I still have a love hate relationship - but I use it. Instagram, loving it...   At  Funnel Hacking Live, Russell stood up and he said... It was like his first presentation. He stood up and he goes, “Where's Stephen?” And I was like “Woo!”... 'cause that's what I do, I yell. And he's like there he is. “Stephen's one of my favorite people on the planet. But he does not know what's on Instagram. He does not ever get on it.” Then he proceeded to pseudo make fun of me. Huh, I know you're watching man. Okay, proceeded to pseudo make fun of me for not using Instagram. I felt the stance of shame. Here's the stance of shame. That's the stance of shame. The very next day during a lunch break in Funnel Hacking Live, Colton and I went over to an Apple store and we grabbed myself an iPhone, a new one, and I have been Instagramming my face off. I started putting these different pieces together.   When I saw Peng Joon talk about how he does his content machine - I was like, you know what, with a few tweaks, I'm actually close to what he's doing.   So that's what I've been focusing on. It’s part of the reason why some of my other business has slowed down just a little bit - because my focus has been on this content machine. Setting up systems, setting up the business, getting my processes in place.   We've kept the ads small on my main product - but we're still very profitable. And I’ve been building up this content machine and the business. Like we have this crazy accelerant now guys. We got this insane power. And it's been really, really cool.   So here is my new content machine. I'm not gonna name names because they are my people, and it took me a while to find them, and I'm spending a lot of money to get them. So I'm  just gonna let you know what the roles are, okay. These are the roles that I filled and I really wanted to go hit, okay.   If you read Dotcom Secrets. These books are never really that far from me. Here they are. If you read Dotcom Secrets, one of the things that Dotcom Secrets talks about very early on is it talks about this whole concept of old media versus new media.   Old media, if you think about old media….That's things like newspapers, right, a lot of direct mail, the radio. It's still consumed, it's just that there's all these new media that you also need to be cognizant of and speak on.   If you look at the new media versus the old media you can see that podcasts are the new radio. What is the new TV? Kind of YouTube, right. YouTube and Facebook Lives, things like that. What's the new newspaper? Blogs, right.   If you go study guys like Ryan Holiday who's obsessed with the ideas of content creation... He's very good at placing ideas in places. Right, if you go look at what he's doing, he's just using different media sources against itself, right. Anyway, really, really fascinating okay.   So what I did is I said: I want to be on YouTube. I want to be on blogs. I want to be on Instagram. I want to be on Facebook groups. I want to be on…  And I started thinking through all these different platforms that I wanted to be seen on, even though that's not the format I was gonna publish on, okay.   I was like, well that causes a really interesting scenario because you need to match the content to the platform, right. Each platform has a context. You don't go on podcasts and listen to these podcasts typically while just standing in a room. You know, usually you're doing something else.   So on podcasters, I know I'm usually talking to like active individuals who are running around. They're getting something else done, typically.   If I want to get on Facebook... what's the intent of Facebook? People go on Facebook to get distracted usually, right. So I’ve gotta make sure that it's somewhat entertaining when my same content piece hits that platform.   People get on YouTube to either get distracted, entertained, or it's like a how to video … generally, it’s more instructional than Facebook's intent - I'm talking stereotypes here.   Why do people read blogs? There's not tons of story usually in blogs. I know it depends. Like in the space that I'm in, there's usually not tons of stories. It's usually a lot of how to stuff, right.   So that became the challenge; how do I just do a podcast and then repurpose the content for the different platform's context?   I believe that questions invite revelation. So that's been the question on my mind... How do I solve that problem? And cool enough, I solved it.   That's what happens when you ask the right questions. Questions aren't threatening. You'll answer the question, no matter what you're asking. If  you ask, “Oh, why am I broke?” You'll get the answer. Instead ask, “How can I make more money?’ and you'll start finding that answer. Isn't that funny. Total side note and rabbit hole.   So…   Here's my content machine:   The first thing I do is I have a video podcast now, right. I primarily do this on a video camera. This is the same camera type that we use for Funnel Hacker TV that Russell uses. And I like it. It's big though…. meaning the camera file is big. The camera itself is small. It's a 4K camera.   I film, and by the time this episode's over, it's gonna probably be like 10 gigs, no joke.   Then I go rip the audio from it and send it to my audio guy -he's the man. He adds whatever intro and outro I said I want to the episode (he already has those). He then adds on the settings that I like. He puts all those settings in there. And then he goes through and matches the volume loudness.   Have you guys ever wondered why my intro and my outro all sound the same volume as the actual episode?  It's because of some cool things he does in the background with post editing.   Up until this point, I’d  been adding the settings myself - but I had to remove myself from this process.   So he goes through and he does a whole bunch of cool sound editing, and he re-s it to our Google Drive folder that we use as a team.   Then the Trello card, yes we're using Trello to track this, gets assigned to the next person, right. And that person goes out and does crazy, amazing things on YouTube with it.   She takes the video that's been recorded - she's amazing - and she figures out really cool ways that I should be competing with different keywords on SEO to rank me in YouTube. Then she creates these cool, 15 second clips of neat things that I said and takes them out. And that's what gets ed into our assets folder again for future use for Instagram, right.   Next, she creates a thumbnail video... She does a whole bunch of other stuff. She's absolutely amazing.   The card then gets ed off to my incredible blog writer. She grabs the actual transcription from Rev when it comes in and writes a blog post.   So it's no longer just a transcription. She actually takes this, (which you guys reading right now) and turns it into a blog.   So now, you guys know what I'm doing with this after I stop recording... It's going through his machine that we've created with these amazing, brilliant, specialized people.   They're not cheap. They're incredible, okay. I wanted good people. And I found out a lot of them have their own agencies behind them too, which is another reason why they're so good.   It's taken me a long time to get to this stage - so don't feel like you have to do this when you start out. You don’t need to. This is something you will graduate to eventually.   And it'll keep blowing up from here I'm sure and we'll keep adding processes and cool things to it, but this is the core of what it is.   So anyway, after the writer s the blog post back to our individual episode asset in Google Drive, then the next person goes in and takes it.   She goes in and puts the blog post into WordPress, and makes it awesome....   We're gonna do a massive overhaul of the blog that's actually associated with this. It’s gonna be a massive overhaul of the look, the feel, the layout, everything! I want it to be cleaner, neater... everything...   Anyway, she goes in and she makes the blog look visually amazing inside of WordPress. This is the sixth episode that we've launched doing this process. Really cool.   Then the next person goes in and  launches everything on Libsyn. He does all the cool checks so that it can blast out to tons of platforms at one time.   Then the next person comes in... He goes in and puts it up on Instagram, on Facebook groups. I think he does a Twitter blast . He does a Chatbot blast. It's nuts guys… that whole team, that whole process.   What's cool about it is the deadline for the episode at the exact same for every platform. So everyone publishes at the exact same time. So at the exact same time (give or take maybe a few seconds), all this content is hitting the internet at the same time. Boom, from different platforms.   The same content, repurposed to suit the intent and context of each individual platform.   So because of this, there's over a week lag time in the preparation. So after I record, there's usually about a week and a half, or two weeks, while everyone's doing their role.   Anyways, it's freakin' awesome. It's super cool. That's my content machine.   I call it a machine, because I wanted to find a way to hit those all platforms in a systematized way.   I had to find people and pay them what they want to get paid, and what they're worth. They're worth a lot of money, okay.   If you go out and you start putting those people together. It's pretty interesting what happens... But for the love; if you're just starting out, do not try to build that from the get-go.   Like, good, great… eventually!  But be gentle with yourself until you can put 26 grand out on a team just for content's sake. It certainly, certainly pays me back more than that - but you can build up gradually, like I did.   So that's the content machine that I've got going on. I just wanted to give you guys an update.   Episode 60 and 61 of this podcast go through in depth on how I put my actual content together for the podcast. It dives more deeply through some of my tech setup, and the systems that I use as well. They're great ones to listen to if you are trying to build your own content machine, whether it's blog, or podcast, or video, whatever.   But with this episode, I wanted show the updated of what I've been doing here.   So anyways, you guys are awesome. You're rock stars, appreciate it. Keep at it.   I’d love if you could please, please, I know I keep asking... but what I'm putting out here, a lot of people charge a lot of money for. And I do it for free a lot of times. I really, really, really would love if you wouldn't mind, please go rate this podcast, review it on iTunes. It proves to iTunes that I'm not a schmuck and that this is all really good stuff.   It's been fun for me document my journey along the way. I am still telling you guys what I'm doing along the way so you can avoid pitfalls.   So, if that is worth anything to you and you've gotten any value from this, please go to iTunes.   Someone reached out once and they said, “I don't know how to leave a review on iTunes.”  Just go to iTunes, open it up, type in “Sales Funnel Radio”. I will show up. When you click on the show, right at the top there, it says ratings and reviews. Click there and it'll say write a review. Click write a review. I’d appreciate that. Thank you so much. It does mean a lot to me.   I want to keep showing funnel builders and entrepreneurs who are starting out and crushing it, the pitfalls to avoid, and some cool tactics along the way too.   All right guys, thanks so much, and I'll talk to you later, bye. Boom, thanks for listening.   Hey, please to rate and and subscribe. Hey, you want me to speak at your next event or Mastermind? Let me know what I can share that would be most valuable by going to stevejlarsen.com and book my time now.

What's going on everyone, this is Steve Larsen and this is Sales Funnel Radio. Today we are going to talk about what to do when your revenue outgrows your business.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine-to-five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch. This podcast is here to give you the answer.   me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up guys, hey, I am very excited for this episode. So, when I officially left my job, just like the intro to this podcast says, January first, it's been five months. Five solid months now, five and a half-ish by the time this episode goes out, and five and half.. it's been fascinating to watch what's happened. So follow me here, this is what happened.   Okay, so I left, right, and I had this awesome idea, I vetted it, I knew it'd be successful and what I did is I went and I started launching, launching, launching, launching, launching and what started happening was over on this side was the sales. Sales, sales, sales, sales, revenue, revenue, revenue, revenue. Lots of money started coming in.   I was like "Whoa! This is crazy, "I've never had this much cash coming. "Whoa, my gosh, whoa!" And all this cash started dumping on in. And we did about 100 grand the first month and then it just continued.   Now it's 50 grand a month and that's where it's been for a while because I slowed it down ..   You guys might be like, "Hey, that's kinda funny, why would you slow it down?" I actually slowed it down because here's what happened; January, February, March was like sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, and I'm selling, and we're making cash, and it's coming in, and we're at a 100 grand. You know, 100 grand, right... Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, we're making... A lot of cash coming in...   What I started realizing was the actual, my actual business wasn't able to handle what was going on. I was like, "Crap, I never ever thought this would ever happen to me." And I say that because when I started building funnels for companies while I was in college and it always happened the same way…   The funnels that we build, they sell things very, very, very well. I don't think people understand how well the funnels work, and that actually creates a business problem NOT a funnel problem.   Here's what I mean:   I was building all these funnels for people in college and there's this guy I was building a funnel for…  I did the research, I ran ASK campaigns, and I figured out exactly what his customers needed. Then I went put those things together, and created funnels. When we launched them, boom! He made a lot of cash real fast.   He made 50 grand really quick. 50 grand in the first month, it something like that. I can't exactly, it was a long time ago now. But there was a lot of cash coming in and then it kept going, and going, and going.   It’s funny because Day #1 after launching the funnel, the business owner always comes and they're like, "Oh my gosh, look at all this cash coming in! "That's amazing, these funnels are so cool!"   Then Day #2, they reach back out and they're like, "Wow, this is really awesome. "Holy crap, that's still a lot of sales."   Then Day #3, they're always like, "Turn it off! Turn it off! "You're gonna bankrupt us, turn it off!"   I I was kind of laughing when they said that, I thought they were joking. I was like, "Why would I ever turn off this... " Why would I turn off this funnel? Who wants less sales? I've never heard anyone say that in my life ever and at the time, I was making fun of it... I just didn't know any better. I was like, "Aw, that's stupid, why would you ever want less sales?"   However, he’d run into a situation where the revenue was outpacing his business!   Funnels are not businesses, they're not. A funnel is a revenue arm. A funnel is a very effective way to sell stuff. A business, though, that's completely different.   A business is a series of systems - that's really all it is. It's a series of systems that fulfills on the funnel, that's really it. Okay, that's the way I define it anyway, okay?   If you don't have enough systems in place, it means that every person who purchases from you is being fulfilled on differently.   It means that every person who's coming in, right, and has a question, you're treating it differently every single time.   It means for every single, you know, package that needs to get shipped out there's not a process in place.   It's literally different every time, and what's hard about that is that it makes it very challenging to scale.  Especially if you’re just starting out and you’re kind of a solo guy for a while. If you're a solo, individual person for a while and you're kind of running on your own, that's great. That's a great place to be, but eventually you're gonna get to a place where your revenue starts to outpace your ability to fulfill well, and that's what happened to me.   Funnily enough, right after, I graduated college and started working at ClickFunnels, we did the exact same thing to so many other people:   Day #1, we launch an amazing funnel. They're like, "Oh, my gosh, look at all the sales!"   Day #2,  they're like, "Wow, that is "still a lot of sales, oh my gosh."   Day #3, they're like, "Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, there's no way... "Oh, my gosh, we're gonna die, you're literally gonna bankrupt us, we're not gonna be able to fulfill on all this stuff"   I the second time it happened it was for a funnel we’d built for... I don't know if I should say the name, but anyway…   Russell and I built this sweet e-comm funnel. It was amazing, they had tons of revenue coming in, and they spent the next two or three months simply upgrading, building, solidifying and putting in place systems inside of their company so that it actually could handle the revenue coming in. Isn't that funny?   For some reason I had never, ever considered that for such a long time, and so I ran into the same thing. Part of my first role as ClickFunnels was to build funnels for Russell's personal clients. I built a lot of funnels for ClickFunnels itself, but (especially when I first got there there) I built funnels for his personal clients - building them, putting them together…   I have a marketing degree. In the business marketing degree that I got they do a lot on teaching ‘the business.’ The actual systems and the structure. They do hardly anything on teaching sales, right? Which is so funny.   It makes sense of why everyone goes and gets VC funding... because they build the team and there's no cash to freaking it. You're like, "That seems backwards."   Anyway, so I started going through this very same thing. I started recognizing it coming up... I launched all my stuff and I was like... It was like, "Money, Money, Money, Money," and I was like, "Holy crap."  I was still the sole operator of my business. I was like, "Huh, this is interesting."   I knew what happened next; pretty soon it becomes so high, the tower gets so tall that eventually there's not enough foundation and it starts to crumble and you start getting refunds and people start saying bad things about you.   And I was like, "Crap, I don't want to hit that," and so I purposefully had my amazing ads person, (I will interview her one day and put her on here because she's incredible), but I had my amazing ads individual go and turn the ads down. We kept the ads tiny because I didn’t have the power to fulfill at the rate I was able to sell at.   Most businesses are the exact opposite. They’ve  got the sweet structure and they don't know how to get new cash in. “Well, I'm a funnel builder, baby. The cash part's not the hard part…” It's this other way around.   So, I guess I've been feeling the need to... You know, it's June now, to ,  to let you guys know what's been happening, and so for the first, like, three months there's been a lot of cash that came in. I was like, "Oh, my gosh, that's nuts. "Crap, I'm like the only guy!" I was pulling my hair out - stressed 24/7.     I I was talking to... This wasn't an Inner Circle meeting, but I was talking to a lot of the . We were hanging out at someone's house and they were asking, “What's going on?” and I was telling them, and someone said, “You know, you're probably gonna have to put the brake on just a little bit to go build this stuff up and then you'll be able to handle more cash coming in.”   I didn’t want that to be the answer. I really didn’t want him to say that. I was like, "sell, "sell, sell, sell, sell," but...   This year, I've been doing a lot of stuff. I'm one of the coaches for Two Comma Club Coaching X, the new 2CCX program, and it's going freaking incredible. I've gotten my own processes down and in place there now. I’m helping them fulfill; helping them do amazing stuff, helping everyone make money and put their funnels together. So, I've been doing that as well as actually my webinar  So, I've been selling, selling, selling, selling.   It's been tons of fun. Now I’ve backed off on the selling a little bit. I’ve put together a lot of systems - a lot of them.  I always thought that it was kind of like a drag, but I know now why.   Because without huge cash coming in why on earth am I building the system, right? That's what my mentality is like. I'm like, "What's the ROI of me building a system when there's not buttloads of cash to match it with?”   So, that's all I would encourage you guys to do.  If you’re selling and you've got cash coming in and you're like, "Hey, this is going really, "really well, it's going incredible,"  but you're having a hard time blowing up, I want to tell you one thing that Russell told me...   Actually, I was sitting next to him, I’d only been working there for a little bit and I was keeping notes. I mean, I was sitting next to the dude, right? Would you not take notes? So I did.   I had a Trello board called "Brunsonisms" and "Russell Lessons" and I would write down things that I heard him say - things that were really profound. I was already fanatic about his content, but like, really profound things, and this is what he said... He was talking to one of his Inner Circle people and he goes, "Scaling from six to seven figures... " I'm gonna botch the quote, but this is the lesson. He said, "Scaling from six to seven figures is NOT a matter of MORE hours in the office.... Scaling from six to seven figures is about leverage."   So if you've got a product, right...  that’s done, like, 300 grand, something like that… What I've noticed is that you probably have a leverage problem.   You need to  put systems in place that let you expand, that lets you fulfill, that lets you, right, go grab another funnel out there, put something out there that brings more cash in, so things like that.   But specifically, right, it's a leverage problem. It's not typically a cash problem.   You guys will all notice and you'll all see, if you haven't already, which I know a lot of you guys are already rockstars and you're selling. You're making a boatload of cash already, right, but for those of you guys who are, like, just starting out, you'll see really quickly, right, it's typically...   When you go and you start, right, you're building, you're building, you're getting the revenue coming in. Awesome, and you should do that. Prove to the market that it's awesome. You’ll find that when you have an amazing product, right... Like, my product right now is so freaking awesome. (I keep adding some amazing... Oh, my gosh. I just added this really cool thing to it.) Another time, another episode, but oh, my gosh. And the success rate is just, like, skyrocketing because of it.   Anyway, when you actually figure out something really awesome, the path to a million bucks is not actually that hard.   I I was walking out, I think it was my last day at ClickFunnels, and Russell was like, "So, what's the goal, man?" And I was like, "A million bucks," and he goes, "You're gonna find out real fast that's not that hard," and I was like, "Oh, hahaha."   It's not that hard, let me just tell you right now. It's not that hard, oh, my gosh.  The funnel that I tossed out it was really, really quick, and revenue came in real fast. I was like, "Crap, I need systems to handle it," I don't want to become so systemized that the systems start outpacing the revenue…   I can feel it. I have an organization now. There's eight people on my team now. I have a full-time employee. I'm getting full-time , full-time assistant. I'm setting up the structure so that I can go back to the funnel and be like, "Blow it up, baby, yeah, go, we're going to three." Does that make sense?   If you watch all these other Two Comma Club winners, they've gone through a very similar pattern. While we often study the funnel, which is great…  we study their marketing, which is great. , though, to actually study their business and the structure of it.   When you're funnel hacking- you're not just hacking funnels, you're also funnel hacking the way they fulfilled on what the funnel was selling.   That's been part of what I've been doing heavily this last little bit. I mean, I've been studying my face off. I’ve got notes and papers all over the place, all over my desk right now. Because now I’ve got the revenue coming in,  I can build the actual systems and the processes to even more revenue.   My structure as of two months ago couldn’t have handled much more. My structure now, though, it's getting a lot cleaner. I know that soon I'm gonna be able to just, like, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale.   What I've learned and what I've seen a lot of people do, is... If you look at the pattern of a lot of Two Comma Club winners, you'll notice that usually with a team of three to five people they'll run to a three million real quick.     It’s different for every business, every industry, but the actual structure, the business structure allows them to get to that kind of place, usually pretty quickly with not many people on the team.   It doesn't take a huge team to do these things. Brandon and Kaelin Poulin, they just crossed 10 million dollars. They just had their first three million dollar month - crazy!  They've got 40 people on their team. However, it doesn't take these gigantic teams to make a significant amount of cash for your pocket.   So, real quick I'll tell you the roles and then my camera's gonna die…   Okay, so what I'm going for is, right, I am the main marketer, funnel builder, CEO, right. That's the position that I'm in.   I also have an manager. Right, that's my first full-time employee. Not , right, not assistant. I want other cash generating people, right. That's all I want, right, where there's still structure. He's going out and he's my manager.   He's going out and he's creating relationships. We're doing another huge Dream 100 package drop. That's actually where he is right now. That's why he's not sitting there right now. He's at the post office, we're doing another big Dream 100 drop, and we got a lot of people excited to promote. He’s bringing in new blood. New blood as far as relationships goes.   Okay, so it's me as the funnel builder and marketer and attractive character. Right, that's the roles I'm trying to take on.   The next one, though, right, manager, and that actually was told to me by Russell. He said, "The next employee I would get, 100 percent man, go grab an manager and then grab an assistant, and then a person."  Really that's it.   If you're, like, shipping stuff out you might need a fulfillment person too. I'll probably maybe grab two people so that they're almost around the clock.. That’s all I really need, right, as far as full-time people go.   've got six content people and I do have a bookkeeper, but those are like VA positions, they're not full-time on my books. They're on my books every month, but they're not W-2 employees. They’re 1099s.   As far as full-time W-2 employees that are actually like here with me I’ve got the manager and I’m  definitely gonna have a full-time assistant, and definitely gonna have full-time . Because right now we're doing the piece. He mostly is doing and stuff, and that's kind of it. Those are the roles, it's really four roles that I'm going for for the business model that I love and am modeling. It's going great and everything's running how it should.   So, anyways guys, hopefully that was helpful to you? I just wanted to do a little bit of ing so that you see where you are.   If you're feeling stuck, start  asking: "Is my funnel revenue outpacing my business?" - because they're not the same, right?   Or if you're like, "Hey, I've got this "sweet business and these cool systems "and structures and processes, but not enough revenue." Then go build a funnel. There’s kind of this balance between one and the other. They're gonna have a hard time outpacing each other.   After a while the structure will get too weighty, you're not gonna have the cash to hold the system so the system will need to get leaner.   I don't like to build the business past the revenue. That's called debt and I personally am not a huge fan. I own my stuff. I don't want anyone else to own it. All right, hopefully this was helpful?   Just so you guys know what's going on with my team and how I'm actually building it out and actually putting it together....   My content team, they're freaking rockstars. I'm definitely gonna interview them so you guys all know who they are. Then over here on the W-2 side where I'm actually building out a full-time team, I backwards plan my structure.  I figure out how much money is that person gonna want a month? My hard costs right now are like 25 grand a month for my salary and my team’s salary. So hard costs right now, for the content team, for everything else, 25 grand a month.That's not bad at all. All right, sweet, done-zo.   So I've backed way off, built up the structures, got the systems in place- we're just vetting them right now. That's really all we're doing. Yesterday I talked to my amazing ads person and we're gonna go scale these ads like crazy and get them off the ground.   So, anyways, I just thought it would be kind of cool to show a little of the ing so that you guys know what I've been doing, because my structure could not handle much more.   So, anyway, awesome stuff. The next road mark I fully expect we'll probably do the... This is me calling my shot, okay. Probably I think we're gonna hit the million by October at the latest.  I think we'll go to maybe 1.4, 1.5 by the end of the year.   That's me looking at where we are combined with the campaigns that we're putting in place, where I've seen them go before, where I've put them before. Anyway, we'll see what happens, but that's where I am right now.   It's kind of a different episode. I never realized that I would be in the role that I am as far as a systems builder, you know what I mean? I'm a funnel builder, but  now by necessity I'm also a systems builder - which has been great.   I'll talk to you guys later, please rate this podcast and review it, that helps me like crazy. I think that my podcast is one of the foremost podcasts on funnels, which is why I'm trying to push it hard and prove to iTunes that it matters.   So, please, please leave a review and share. That means the world to me, and I'll talk to you all in the next episode, bye. Hey, thanks for listening, please to rate and subscribe. Want today's best opt-in funnels for free? Get your free opt-in funnel pack by going to SalesFunnelBroker.com/FreeFunnels to kick start your opt-ins today.