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Sales Funnel Radio

My first 5 years in entrepreneurship was 34 painful product failures in a row (you heard me). Finally, on #35 it clicked, and for the next 4 years, 55 NEW offers made over $11m. I’ve learned enough to see a few flaws in my baby business… So, as entrepreneurs do, I built it up, just to burn it ALL down; deleting 50 products, and starting fresh. We’re a group of capitalist pig-loving entrepreneurs who are actively trying to get rich and give back. Be sure to download Season 1: From $0 to $5m for free at https://salesfunnelradio.com I’m your host, Steve J Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio Season 2: Journey $100M
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Now displaying: 2017
Dec 31, 2017

iTunes

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I use funnels to sell AND manage…

ClickFunnels

What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best Internet sales funnels.

And now, here's your host: Steve Larsen.

Hey, guys. I can't believe that we are almost to episode 100. That's crazy. That's ridiculous. Seems like we just passed 80,000 downloads, and we're almost at 85,000 already, which is kind of crazy.

Anyway, thanks to all you guys who are listeners out there. Hopefully, the holidays went well. I know that's the political way to say it, but whatever. I'm Christian, so I'll just say it: Merry Christmas! 

Happy to have all of you guys here on the show. Really appreciate every one of you. Hopefully, whatever's goin gon for you right now, you're enjoying it.

It is the day after Christmas, here. I'm not going to lie: after three days of vacation, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday, technically, I have today off. What is it? It's 5:00. I have spent almost 10 hours building funnels today.

Yes, for fun. 

That's what I do.

I had a hard time. Even yesterday, at the end of the day, I was like "I got to get back to work." You know what I mean? I don't know if that's a problem or an issue or whatever.

ChristmasThere's snow all over the place, which is very fun. We had snow Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. It's snow all over the place.

I grew up in Littleton, Colorado. Denver area. Kind of a suburb of Denver, right up against the mountains. The elevation's pretty high there. There's a lot of really high mountains and snows like crazy.

There was one year that there was a five-foot snow storm. I always laugh. Here, in Boise, Idaho, where we live now, last year they called it Snowmageddon. "There's so much snow! It's Snowmageddon! Oh, my gosh!"

There was, like, maybe six inches on the ground. It wasn't that much snow. I was laughing at how big of a deal everyone made it. But there's actually a good amount on the ground here.

Anyway, growing up there was this golf course that we grew up on. We grew up on the back nine, on fairway 16. It was a public golf course. Not super fancy schmancy or anything like that.

It was kind of fun, though, because every time it snowed super, super hard, even just a foot or two, which is pretty frequent in the winter, we would jump the fence. Yes, I know. I'm confessing right here on the podcast.

We would jump the fence, though. We would go out onto the fairway of the golf course. Obviously, there's no golfers out or anything, so it was this massive snow playground. We would build these huge snow forts. We'd build two of them. The other one would be 20 paces away from the other one.

What we'd do is we would go grab bottle rockets and roman candles, and all sorts of fireworks and paraphernalia, and we would load up two different teams and we'd shoot back and forth at each other, between the two snow forts.

We had very minimal injuries, doing this, but it was a lot of fun.

Every time I see snow, in any kind of accumulation, I always remember that experience for some reason. A whole bunch of others as well, but, specifically, that one.

Anyway, hopefully, it's been good. Hopefully, you had time to spend time with family, and you remember the reason you got into this business in the first place.

"Steve, what have you been building today?" Funny you should ask. I've been building a lot of management funnels.

You're like, "What? Oh, my gosh! Steven, what is this? Holy crap!" (laughs)

Anytime that there's a process, internally, that I have to do over and over and over and over again, that drives me crazy. I'm not an efficiency snob, but I do love variety enough that I hate doing the same thing over and over and over again.

I will go automate it. I will go automate as much of it as I can. I'll go automate every piece, every little nook and cranny, as much as possible, so that there is enough variety in my own business life.

It's almost a move, for me, of self-preservation. Funny enough.

Some people are like, "You're efficiency snob!" Not really. It's kind of a mess, where I am right now. I've got parts of guns around me, as I've been toying around, tweaking some stuff with some guns. I've got packages, things I got to finish shipping.

I'm not necessarily a neat freak. I'm not necessarily an efficiency snob. It's the other way around. I love variety so much that, if I have to do the same task over and over and over again... Whether you are an efficiency snob, or whether or not you're like me and you crave variety constantly, whatever it is, you can use funnels not just for sales, but for the actual automation of things.

What I've been doing... I do this a lot. I've done this a lot.

Who's that I was talking to? I think it was Miles! Miles Clifford! Shout out to you buddy!

A few days ago he was asking, "Is Zapier the tool that seems to be really underutilized? That really opens up the rest of ClickFunnels?"

I said, "Yes! Absolutely!"

If you've never used Zapier, especially when it comes to the management funnels and the management funnel topic. Zapier is like the ring from Lord of the Rings. It's the ring of power. That's how I look at it because I'm not a coder! I have no idea how to code.

Click FunnelsWhat I will do a lot of times is, automatically, anytime anyone buys, or anytime anyone becomes a lead, I will pass that data on to Google Sheets. Whether it's a VA, and I don't want to give them access to my ClickFunnels account, or whether it's somebody... I will go and I will automate those different things, so that, A, no one else has access to my ClickFunnels account, then, B, everything's automated.

Steve Larsen: I can say, "Anytime a contact hits this sheet, go ahead and follow up with them about X, Y, and Z, and do the one, two, and three. That's exactly what I've been doing.

I've wanted to build this for a while. I've wanted to build this for quite a while. I don't like automating stuff right off the bat, when there's no need. You know what I mean? I like to look where the biggest pain point is.

I started looking at all these different articles of when to automate, when to do X, Y, and Z. Stuff like that. And, quite honestly, people get really intense with it, which is great. It's not exactly my huge thing. But I love management funnels. That's why I call them.

These are like internal processes. A lot of people don't know that, before I worked for ClickFunnels, my job was to go around and to create internal processes so that the company could run better, rather it was shipping or automating tasks to support agents. All these internal processes. That's what I was doing. Very heavily, very strongly.

I was very good with Infusionsoft, plus ClickFunnel's integrations. The integration back and forth between them. That's what I was doing.

There's a side of me that loves setting up that structure. I don't like to run it. It's not my personality to run it, but I love setting it up.

So I've been doing that same kind of stuff to my own business. What I've been doing is thinking through "What are the pain points? What are the things that I've wanted to go fix and get done?" This is something that I've wanted to do for quite some time. That is to automate, or far better manage, the interview process that I have.

Episodes 60 and 61 of this podcast go through and talk about how I podcast. All the systems I use, all the little things that I put together. I've got my own systems for this. After 100 episodes I've got a pattern, and it's on purpose.

A lot of the stuff is things I'm going to do when I do an episode of my own. But what if I want to go interview somebody else? What if somebody wants to interview me?

It is literally handled different every single time that happens, that scenario, and it's driving me crazy. I have a huge list of people that I want to interview. There's a huge list of people that are trying to get me interviewed on their show or their YouTube thing or their Facebook. Whatever it is.

I'm flattered by it. It's awesome. I would love to do it, of course. But every single individual situation is being handled differently right now.

So I thought, "There's got to be a better way to do this."

What I did is I came up with... It's a blend between an opt-in funnel meets application funnel meets Zapier. I found out some cool ways to not have to use things like Wufoo or Typeform or anything like that. I just use the generic input form straight off of ClickFunnels. I do some cool things with them, so that's all I use now.

Oh, my gosh, you guys. This is way too technical of a podcast already. I can feel it. I can feel it.

We're craving a story here. We need some story, here, wrapped in this. Otherwise, people are going to start drawing out, here, and I get it. I feel it. You probably are too.

What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to help you realize there's five steps that I use to automate internal processes. They're very simple. A lot of them are "no-duhs." Like, "Duh. Why would I not do that?"

But, honestly, if you can do this, it saves you so much time! It is ridiculous how much it saved me.

When we launched the 2 Comma Club coaching program, the Funnel Hackathon event... It's an event for three days. Russel and I go on stage. Him for a while, me for a while, both of us side-by-side for a while. It's a lot of fun. I really enjoy it.

But there was tons of these little, internal processes that the ClickFunnel support team was having to handle, just off these one-offs. Someone would come in. He was, "It's driving me nuts."

So I came in, added these cool little, internal processes that made support talk better with the [inaudible 00:10:26], which made it talk better with me, and it's all automated.

Obviously, if you don't have a business yet, this is not going to matter. If you do have a brand new business, I wouldn't worry about this stuff, either. The moment when it's best to start thinking about internal management, funnels or internal management processes, whatever you want to call them... They're not sales funnel. To increase efficiency, is really after you've been in business a while. Not a while, but enough time to see where the pain points are.

I'm a huge advocate of Tim Ferriss, in The 4-Hour Workweek, when he said that you should be the support agent for the first... He even recommends a month. So you take note of all the support that comes in, all of your answers back, because now you know exactly what to do when you go hire somebody else.

You can hand them this sheet of all the different pieces that you get asked about most frequently. All the pre-canned responses that you've handed out. And you are literally duplicating your position.

That's the time when you start figuring out internal processes and management funnels and things like that. Not for a while, though.

I always kind of laugh when someone's like, "It's a brand new funnel. Then we're going to automate this and automate this and automate this and automate this."

I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. That's so many things. That's so many pieces that, if something was to break, you may not know what's actually broken because there's too much automation." I'm not an automation fanatic, but I am definitely a practicality fanatic. I do not want to marry certain aspects of the business. Does that make sense?

I'm not a good support person, as an individual, but I'm great at setting up the processes. I'm great at training another person. I'm great at putting those kind of people to replicate me. To replicate the processes. To keep doing over and over and over again. That's all I'm trying to say: take a step back.

For me, personally, it's really one of two things: is there a ton of repetition, and I can automate it?

And number two, is there just a huge pain point that I hate doing anyway?

What I do is I take a step back and start looking at those things. I start saying, "Okay. How do I duplicate me? How do I free up my time?"

I step back and that's literally what I do. That's the question that I ask. The answer to that question, this time, was "Your interview funnels, Steven. Interview funnels, interview funnels."

Or interview applications, or whatever you want to call them. They're not necessarily funnels. They kind of are. They're mostly just internal processes. I guess, the way I'm using them, they're still kind of funnels, though. It's leading to this specific place, so that makes sense.

In the past, someone would say, "Hey. Can I interview you, Stephen?"

I'd be like, "Sure."

It's literally the same questions that they're typically asking. It's usually the same questions that I'm typically asking. With both, I'm sure, giving the same kind of answers, and it's driving me nuts.

So what I did is automated the whole thing. Like I was saying before, step number one is I look for wherever the repetition of the pain point is. Or, if there needs to be more automated communication in general.

Number two, I don't care how many funnels you've ever built. Please know that Russel and I both draw the funnel before we build it. Every time. I don't care how many times I build... When I have not followed that rule, I'm usually more lost, number one. Number two, it takes me way longer to build it. I don't know why. I don't get it.

PaperSometime about me putting it out on paper, and drawing it, helps me work out in my head all the kinks. It literally helps create the map of each page, what each page is going to look like, as I draw it.

Literally, they're boxes. I'm drawing boxes with very high-level detail, with little squiggly lines back and forth, piece to piece, side to side. Does that make sense?

I'm just drawing a high-level, 30,000 foot view funnel. Anytime I skip that... I don't know what it is. It really slows it down.

Anyways, step number one, find the repetition/pain point. Step number two, draw the funnel. You've got to draw the funnel.

I had to go buy another whiteboard. It's a free-standing one in the middle of the room, with two sides on it, which is kind of nice. It's chock-full of four different funnels that I built. I built three funnels today. The four was kind of inter-working with the other three.

These three funnels that I built today, I drew it out. Then I go build it. I usually will work off of the design of the main funnel that I've been building off of.

Step number one, like I said, repetition. Step number two, draw. Step number three is building it. Number four is test it like crazy.

Number five is really key: I release it slowly. I phase it in.

That's not always true, but most of the time it is. Going in and automating something that... I know you've tested it. It's actually more important to phase it in if you're working with other people. If you're still a solopreneur, it doesn't matter as much.

At the end of this, at the end of today, when I stopped building all three of these funnels, what I did is I turned back around and I created a seven minute video, with just my phone, talking to an assistant that I have. She's amazing. She's going to be the one who's managing all this. She knew it was coming up. I walked her through the entire process so she knows how it works.

Then, I showed her the two things she has to worry about. That's it. Now she knows how to do it all.

So when someone wants to interview me, they fill out the little form so I know what it's about. I know when they want to do it. I know the topics they want me to deliver, if there's a value bomb they want me to drop. Does that make sense?

I know what those things are. They give me the Skype ID. Facebook ID. Stuff like that. And it's all automated. Shoots that data over to a Google Sheet, then automatically notifies the assistant, so that they can go in and check it out. Vet the person. (laughs)

They go through and check out the person. Then, there's Calendly link that's totally set up so that she just drops it over once the person's vetted. That's the only manual part.

The rest of it takes care of itself. We get hooked up whenever the interview happens.

Does that make sense? I went through and I pre-selected the times that I want to be available for interviews or interviewing. That's pretty much it.

SI have two podcasts. This is one of them, obviously. I have a second one. The third category, I did, is off of stevejlarsen.com. They're very similar, but there are very subtle tweaks between all of three of them that I built.

The first one is for stevejlarsen.com. That's if someone wants to interview me. I get that request like crazy. I know there's some podcasting agencies out there, and they keep trying to put tons of people on their podcast. I'm very protective of you as an audience. (laughs)

I don't want just anyone coming in. I'm fine if people want to interview me. If they want to interview me over different places, yeah. That's great. That's awesome. I just want a process. I want something in place that I can send people to.

So stevejlarsen.com, what I did is I added... You can check it out if you want. Or, if you are asking to interview me, that's fine too. But, stevejlarsen.com, up at the top it says "Interview Me." You click Interview Me at the top, and, basically, what I did... This is super clever. (laughs)

I created a whole bunch of show/hide elements. Show/hide rows. So it looks like you're going from one page to the other, and you're not.

It's actually one page, where things are getting swapped in and out. At the very last button, the whole form, all the forms, submit at once. It's pretty cool.

Then that data gets sent over to Google Sheet, notifies the person, sends over the confirmation email, saying "Hey. We got you."

On the "thank you" page, I took the concept of an "offer wall." I put it there on the thank you page. It says, "Hey, look. You want to come check out the talent directory? Do you want to put your talents in one of my podcasts?"

It pushes itself, anyway. It's pretty cool. It pushes all over the place. Really awesome stuff. Three different places so that the loop doesn't close in the head. That's all I'm trying to say: the loop doesn't close. On the last page, it is not a dead end. I push them to other places.

If a person is in momentum, I want to keep them in momentum. I give them three other places they can go that are literally the beginnings of three other funnels. That's it.

Does that make sense? This a lot more technical babble styled stuff. I'm sorry if this is boring. I'm sorry if this is not as interesting. I usually try and tell more stories on this podcast. I just wanted you to know what I pulled off because it's really, really awesome. (laughs)

It's pretty cool. That was the first one.

The second one is for Sales Funnel Radio. The first one is if someone wants to interview me, but if someone goes to salesfunnelradio.com... I need to redo that entire thing. But if they go to salesfunnelradio.com, up at the top it says "Get Interviewed." Those are for the people who are trying to get on the podcast, to get interviewed.

I am very protective. I vet those people very, very heavily. So there's an application process. It's kind of an application funnel, kind of. Kind of a blend of them.

But, on that first page there, they go fill out somewhat of an application process. On the second page, it says "Hey, look. Here's the plan. The VAs"... My assistant. Not really VA. Kind of VA, kind of. "Goes through and vets it out. We talk about it. We look through the content. We look at the kinds of things you want to pull on there and talk about and stuff. I do believe heavily in interviews.

Then, we send out a specific Calendly for that, with specific times that I'd love to be able to do those kinds of interviews. That's it!

I did the same thing for my second podcast show. Does that make sense?

I did this because I know that you guys... There's so many rock stars out there. I am not trying to be the guy who puts his own voice, only, on here. You know what I mean? (laughs)

How should I say this?

How should I say this?

I put this episode out a while ago. It said "publishing get haters," which is good. If you don't, something's wrong. (laughs)

I always laugh at the people who take the time to complain to me that I'm publishing. If that's your thing, stop listening.

Okay. I'm going to move on. Moving on!

I want to be able to get other people on the show. I want to be able to get other people onto... I love that. And I know that you guys love that.

It's list hacking, for me. It's value adding, for me and you. It helps show other awesome people in the industry and what they do in their talents. I want to interview people. I love interviewing people. There's so many who are asking to, though, that I needed a process.

I did that for both podcast shows that I have. Then, I also... (laughs)

There's about to be a third podcast show. Oh, man. 

PodcastI'm a gluttony for punishment, I guess. It takes, like, an hour per episode. Just so you guys know. To be able to put these out.

Then, I also wanted to give people a way if they want to interview me, which I also love and I'm far more lenient on getting on anyone's. stevejlarsen.com.

There's a lot that's going to change with stevejlaren.com, coming up soon, also.

I'm kind of talking in circles now, but that's pretty much it. Management style funnels: you can use them for tons of things. Here's another example of one: when somebody bought Secrets Master Class. When we were selling it a little more a la carte. It's not so much that way anymore.

When somebody bought it, as part of the offer, we were shipping out to them a physical thing. A book. A physical book.

Think about this for every one of your offers. When somebody buys one of your offers, is there something physical that's getting shipped out?

What I did is I thought how cool would it be if, number one, let's send that data again, over to Google Sheets. But, number two, there was a lot that happened ....I can remember... Guys, learn Zapier. It's not hard.

There's tons of tutorials. If not, you could probably figure it out on your own, anyway. It's pretty self-explanatory. It's a whole bunch of "if this, than that" statements. That's it.

What I did, though, is I automated a Trello card, being created with the customers address, all the data that a fulfillment person needed. It created a Trello card automatically for a specific individual, and pinged them and gave them a notification, so that they knew to go ship the specific thing.

It was very specific. It was super, super cool.

Calendly, you can automate stuff to slack... There's so much stuff, and I feel like a lot of people miss the boat on it.

Yes, ClickFunnels is amazing, but we know it is not necessarily for a CRM. It's not necessarily for management-style stuff. You can do it. You can build it like that. I do it a lot. But it pretty much always does require a small Zapier integration, which is not hard to pull off. And, if you do have to pay for it, is extremely cheap.

If anything, you can just use the free plan for a while, anyway.

This is not a Zapier promo.

I just wanted to tell you guys more about that.

Guys, the thing is that I want all my time, all my attention, all my focus, all of my brain power and mental shelf space, focused on selling. That's it.

If there is something in my business that I am doing over and over and over again, I'm doing myself and my customers a disservice. It's the reason I set these things up. I don't do it immediately because I'm not sure what the pain points are yet, but they come quickly, and I am able to see pretty quickly.

They'll start to pop out of the woodwork, and I'll go: "Oh, my gosh. I have to automate X, Y, and Z. One, two, and three. Let's go through and let's create that."

I follow the same steps. Number one, where's the repetition/pain point? Number two, draw it in depth! Explain it to somebody else. It will make the build, which is step number three, so much faster. Then, step number four, test it like crazy. Go through and fill the form out. Put it in test mode or whatever it is. Do whatever. Fill out.

Then, run through a few test runs with your own VA or assistant or someone on your team... What it is, and start to phase it into your processes.

Pretty soon you can step back and let go and, maybe, check it again in a month. Everything should fire pretty correctly. I never had too many issues with Zapier, to be honest. They're awesome. (laughs)

That's pretty much it, though. It is with the intent that I can continue to sell, and focus on selling and create offers, that I made these three funnels today. That's pretty much it, guys. Go back, figure out what it is that you need to automate. Whatever your pain points are.

If your time and your attention has not been on selling, ask yourself what it has been on. Then, ask yourself how you can get back to that. It's the only thing that matters, especially from the zero to seven-figure range. It's the only thing that matters.

Don't worry about your desks. Don't worry about renting an office. Don't worry about your freaking logos.

Only thing that matters is selling! That's all. That's it.

You don't even have to have the product done.

Sales Funnel RadioAnyway, getting ahead of myself, and getting on to another topic, so better end this one.

All right, guys. I'll talk to you later.

Merry Christmas.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback.

Want to get one of today's best Internet Sales Funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel, today.

 

Dec 29, 2017

iTunes

Click above to listen in iTunes..

Untold ideas are already dying....

ClickFunnels

Hey, guys. I am very excited for this episode...

I've actually had this episode on my mind for, I don't know, it's been a while. I've had a hard time trying to figure out how to actually present it. I want to walk you through a little bit of, I don't know.

About four years ago I decided that I would create, every January 1st, I would go and I would create a video that would basically publicly declare my financial goal for the next year, and it's the scariest thing that I do pretty much every single year.

It's interesting what has happened though because of those videos. They're on YouTube. If you go to my YouTube channel, you can check it out.

About four years ago, it's me, I'm in the army, I've got a shaved head, and I'm like, gosh, you know what guys, if I could just make an extra $1,000 a month that would change my life. That's where I was.

I was like, hey, and here's my plan. That was the video for that year.

Then three years ago I was like, "Hey, if I could just do $3,000 a month that would be crazy. Oh my gosh, that would change my life." It's crazy, because what I do then as I go through each one of the months and I say, hey, here's what I did, here's how I did.

Then the year before this one, I was like, "hey, I just want to do $30,000 a month". That's excluding salary income, excluding any other income on the side. Just my own stuff.

I'm pleased that I hit that several times this last year, which is awesome. I want you to know that that's on the side, working for somebody else more than full-time doing ... Still have a family, two kids, a wife. You know what I mean?

This is not meant to be that video, but about four-ish years ago. Let me check actually. About three-ish years ago, I so badly wanted to be able to just start being around other people who shared my common interests. I was in college at the time.

It was 2015. It was wrapping up the year, and I just wanted to be around other people. I felt like I was very alone, funny enough, even in my marketing degree, my marketing classes, which I love school for the environment it gave me to learn, but I didn't actually learn that much stuff that I use now, hardly at all, which is true for pretty much any education now.

That's fine.

I had been following Russell for quite some time at that time, and I knew that Russell was really into things like masterminds, and he had this Inner Circle and stuff like that.

Honestly, before Russell, before I ever knew who Russell Brunson was, I thought masterminds ... I'm just going to be open and honest with you. Because I had no other expectations at all, I thought masterminds were a way to get more money from people.

I didn't know what they were.

I had no idea if there was any kind of value or anything like that. My perception was just that it was a high-ticket experience to hang ... It was a reason to hang out with people who paid you a whole bunch of money to hang out with them. You know what I mean? That's what I thought it was.

Then when I saw that Russell was doing masterminds and he came out with his Inner Circle, I was like, huh, that's kind of ... Pre-Russell my attitude towards masterminds was very like, "Meh. You're just trying to take my money," or something like that. You know what I mean? That was my attitude. It's more of a scarcity mentality as well by then. This is like three, four years ago now. A lot's changed since then.

MastermindAfter figuring out who Russell was though, and after seeing more of what he was doing with his Inner Circle and more what he was doing with that, it became very apparent to me very quickly that this was not a normal thing, that this was an extremely rare opportunity to learn in some really, really high-speed ways.

I was seeing the results that some of these people were coming out and saying like, "Hey, I've got these results, X, Y, and Z." And be like, "Holy crap. That's awesome. You get that from the mastermind?" I had to change my mentality. I had to change the way I was looking at it. I found myself really wanting to go attend one of these masterminds. Granted, they're not all the same. The only thing I knew of Russell at the time was his DotComSecrets X product, DotComSecrets book was out, and I had read that definitely by this time. I believe so, anyway. I really just wanted to learn more from him, and I really, really wanted to get into his Inner Circle.

I knew I did not have 25 grand though at the time to be able to do something like that.

Fascinating, right? Fascinating experience. Fascinating predicament. I know if you're listening to this podcast right now, you've probably been in the same boat before. You've probably experienced it before, be like, "Hey, I wish I could be a part of this program. I wish I could do this or that." The FAT event and funnel hackathon event, secrets masterclass, 2 Comma Club Coaching, he has few different names for it. That's 15 to 25 grand, and for very, very specific reasons.

I understood the reasons. I understood why he was charging that much, but I was in college and I still wanted to be a part of that. One day Russell sent out this email, and in fact I can tell you it was December 14th, 2015 at 5:44 p.m. I remember it.

I remember this moment. This was a huge moment for me. I went and I actually found the email. I found the email, and Russell said, "Hey, look, there's 74 out of 100 spots taken. As you probably know, I have a small group of entrepreneurs that I personally coach and I call them my Inner Circle. For the past two years, I've had dozens, and dozens of success stories come from this group, in fact."

Anyway, he went through and he started talking about it, saying, "Look, this is a new development. I'm going to say that when we're at 100 spots I'm going to end it." I was devastated. I was so devastated. I remember exactly where I was. I was in the campus basically rec center. There was a pool in that room or in that building.

I was standing in the hallway and I was walking down in the stadium steps, the basketball stadium steps. Smell of chlorine from the pool from several rooms over was in the air. It was quiet. I was one of the only ones in that room standing in the middle or almost in the middle of the basketball stadium. It was quiet, and I remember reading this email, and I remember out loud actually saying, "No! No! Crap. No!"

I was pissed that he was closing down his Inner Circle at 100 people because I knew I would make it somehow, but I knew I couldn't make it at the speed he was filling it. I just knew that I couldn't make it. I was like, "Oh my gosh. No." I remember I sent a message to my wife, and I was like, "He's closing it down."

She didn't really know what it was at the time still, or what I was really doing or what I was into and stuff like that. She said like, "Oh, that's too bad." I was like, "No." I remember at that exact moment though, I mean I was crushed. I was shattered over it. I so bad wanted to be a part of that group. Again, this is December 14th, 2015, three years ago. That's crazy. Is that two years ago? What's the year? What's the year? '16, '17. Wait, this was only four months before I got hired. Holy crap. I thought this was longer ago. That wasn't actually. This is only two years ago. Never mind. It's December 28th right now. This is only two years ago.

I remember I was pissed. I was so sad that I wasn't going to be able to be in that group, because he had already been changing my life so much, and I had a successful funnel building agency at the time and I was making money for other people, and I was making money for myself finally. Now that I know more of the timeline of where all this was happening. I remember standing in that room. It was silent, but you know like when you're in a huge room and there's really, really high fans, so you can hear the light hum in the air, and there was a little bit of the smell of the chlorine in the air from the sport unit, from the lap pool that was over. The racketball courts were near, and I could hear them ping ponging around. For the most part it was pretty silent.

I was standing there, and it was one of those moments that was just like, "I'm going to get in that group. I don't know how, but I'm going to get in it." I stood right there, as soon as I read Russell's email, and I actually wrote him one back. I just clicked reply. I was right on my phone, and I wrote an email back to him immediately on the spot. This is what I said. I know, because I found it.

I said, "Dang it. This just breaks me apart. I'm in college and working to get in, and I'm trying to become your dream client, because I know I'm not yet.

Thank you for everything you've given me. I can't express how much you've changed my life, but you don't even know me. I feel like I know you because I've gone through so much of your material for years. You're a blessing to me and my family, and I sincerely thank you for all you've sacrificed and given to make sure others are successful. You're one of my very real inspirations and I thank you, Steven Larsen."
Then I put in parentheses: "See you at Funnel Hacking live event. Woo!"

 

At that time, that's when I was bootstrapping my way to the funnel hacking live event, because I still didn't have any money, so I was exchanging funnels for the event tickets, funnel for the flight, funnels for the hotel nights, and that's how I got there. Which was literally what, like three months later?

Then I sent this email over. No one replied. I didn't expect them to, but I kept sending stuff like this. I sent tons of stuff like this, and what was funny, what was interesting is three months later I was at his event. I applied on a Saturday. I think it was a Saturday, because that's when the event was over. I think that's when it was, on a Saturday.

I got a call on Monday to come get an interview, so two days later, two days later. The next day, Tuesday, so this is three days after the event was over, I was in Boise doing the interview. Actually, I think it was on Wednesday, so four days later. I was in Boise in the middle of my finals week and I got the job. I was in Russell's office working full-time within, I think, eight days after funnel hacking live 2016 ended, within like eight days. What was crazy is within a month he had his first Inner Circle, not first, but first since I had been there working for him, a mastermind come up for his Inner Circle.

Guys, before I recorded this episode I was trying to find the Voxer that Russell sent me inviting me to come to the Inner Circle meetings. I was blown away. I was like, "Are you kidding me? Oh my gosh."

I went berserk. I think I almost killed Voxer, which seems like it's dying anyway. I literally spent, because it took so long for everything to load, plus I was reading all of our old conversations over the last two years. Anyway, it took 30 minutes, and I was one month away from going back to where the messages were, where he invited me and then my response. I was going to take those excerpts of him inviting me and then my response back and put them in the episode.

Voxer wouldn't load anymore messages. Said there was no more messages left. There was messages left. I think I just broke it. Super-sad, honestly, that I didn't do that. I went nuts though, I went crazy. I got into the mastermind. I was freaking out.

I got there early. I sat down. I was like didn't know if I should talk to anybody. I was like, "Oh my gosh. This is Russell's Inner Circle." I was like, "Oh my gosh." I was kind of slinking around the sides of the room, because I didn't feel like I was qualified to be in there. Just four months, five months earlier I was telling Russell how much I wanted to be a part of it, didn't know how I would, and I ended up now working for him in the same room with him. Like crazy. It's ridiculous. The turn of events, that's insane. That's pure insanity how that all worked out. I sat in there, and holy crap, it was fantastic. Everyone was following the same format in this mastermind, and it was better than I thought it would be.

Everyone stood up and they shared something amazing. We're not talking about like little tiny tips and tricks. I got almost straight A's in college in my marketing degree, and I was also that kid who was like fighting with the teachers actively and didn't really get along with a lot of the other students in there, because none of them were doing it. They were all freaking studying about it. No one was actually starting businesses.

No one had been doing it. I had been doing it for years by the time I got there. You know what I mean? I was that weird kid who was kind of on the side fighting what everyone thought, or was just taking as face-value truth. I was like, "No, that's no. No, and it's not true because of X, Y, and Z."

With that backdrop, the stuff that people were just getting up and openly sharing was ridiculous. What I did is I actually opened up Trello while I was in that mastermind, and just sitting on the side listening and taking notes, I mean ferocious notes. I was going back through reading some of these, and I was like, "Holy crap." It's not like some of the stuff was like, "It only works right now. You got to do it now, because the trick is going to end soon." It's like, no, like the stuff that I'm reading that I learned from that mastermind is still stuff that I both teach and use and apply to this day. That was a year and a half ago, which is crazy, which is crazy. I can't believe, I cannot believe that I got to go do that. Then I got invited to the next one, and to the next one, and to the next one.

It was like over and over and over, and drinking deeply with that group, just listening, taking notes. Very super-observant, like just writing it all down. It's nuts to me, absolutely nuts to me the amount of personal progress that came to me because of those masterminds. I'm frankly a little bit ashamed that I ever thought something like a mastermind wouldn't be valuable. Then as time progressed and I started getting invited to go speak places and present in different masterminds, several of them, which has been so much fun, and come be a keynote in some masterminds, and things like that. It's been interesting to see how much I've learned to just flat-out adore them, and not even learn to. It's really easy to love them because they're amazing.

I'm very anti-meeting. Meetings freak me out. My first perception was that, hey, I'm going to have to go sit in this meeting and it's going to be boring. I'm going to sit there all day. It's like no, like it is fun. They are high-paced. They are high-energy, and if you've never been a part of one, I want you to have that experience. Want you to be able to know that is. Since I'm leaving ClickFunnels, there are two questions that have been popping up very, very frequently. Very frequently. The first one is, "Steven, will you coach me?" That question has been asked to me like crazy. Is there any kind of coaching package? No. Not yet. I'm sure there will be at some point, and when I decide to do that. I'll tell you why I'm not doing it right now, also. For right now, no.

I do 30 minute consultations on people's phones before they go launch them. That's fun. That's awesome, but I don't do active coaching yet. Then the second question that people have been asking me like crazy, I finally have a support team, awesome support system, a ticketing system finally. I finally have structure underneath me that I've been building ferociously in the evenings; it's 1:30 in the morning right now, as I am literally in two days going to be unemployed. What would you do if you knew you were going to be out of a job with like four or five months advance notice?

Russell and I both knew way before I ever told anybody. You know what I mean? What would you do? You'd do the same thing I'm doing. It's not exactly relaxing. I almost feel like it might have been easier to just have the whole two weeks notice thing, but instead ... Anyway.

The second question I get like crazy is, hey Steven, is there any kind of mastermind or event you're going to be doing? The answer to that one is yes, because I am such a proponent of them. I cannot believe how much growth has come to me because of them. There's 100 people in Russell's Inner Circle. That's four different mastermind sessions twice a year. That's eight mastermind sessions per year, and I've got to sit in a huge portion of them and learn like crazy, I mean from ... Just brilliant. Brilliant. Even the ones that aren't Russell's that I've been able to go like, people are like, "Have you really done much? Have you accomplished much?" Sometimes one of the fears people will have, I've noticed, is they'll be like, "Well, I haven't accomplished these great things, therefore I can't attend because there's nothing to contribute."

No. That's not how it works at all. This is very much like a huge synergy situation, where you just put multiple minds together who are trying to go towards a common goal, and it is ridiculous. I don't care what kind of background you have. It's fun to watch just different experiences and backgrounds and stories that people bring to a room and go like, "Oh, yeah. Do this, or X, Y, and Z, or this is my feedback for this." The amount of decision making, the time that it takes to make the kinds of decisions that people need to make in order to be successful, the timeline decreases. The clarity of the path that people go down afterwards is amazing. Clarity not just on the marketing, or clarity on the offer, or clarity on this, but how they actually operate and conduct themselves outside of the mastermind in order to get their goal.

I wish I could just dive in and start telling you all of them. I am shamed to say that I have not taken notes in every single one of them. I should have. I don't know why I didn't for a lot of them. Some of it was because I was building funnels on the side. Actually, a lot of it was because I was building funnels on the side, so I'd be listening and when there'd be some massive thing, I'd come over and write it down.

I've got this huge, massive, Trello column of just huge. On one side it's direct quotes from Russell from all the lessons of me sitting next to him and hearing him as he's talking to other people on those podcasts. The other one has all these ones that he hasn't actually explicitly told me, but I've learned from him, or gleaned from him either in a mastermind or directly from his desk, or whatever it is.

I mean it just blows my mind. I couldn't have gone and got a master's degree, even PhD in marketing or internet marketing or whatever it is, and I still would not have learned even a fraction of this stuff. I know that. I know that, because these are the people who are doing it. These are the people who are out actually proving what's actually happening, what's actually working right now. You know what's funny, like I was saying before, of course it matters who all is in the mastermind.

Obviously, if you're more experienced, overall it's going to be awesome, even more awesome. Even if you're not crazy-experienced and you have the chance to go to one, you should do it because it's crazy to see how much actually comes from it. Anyway.

I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again now, and I apologize for doing so. It's just if there was one thing that I could do the rest of my life, if there was one activity that I would go do the rest of my life and never read another book again, and never take another course again, if there was one thing that would replace it all and I would still feel like I would be able to stay on the edge, the peak, the cutting edge place of the markets, whatever I'm trying to do, it would be masterminds. The mastermind would replace. Now, that's personal preference.

Obviously, I've quite a bit of experience in the funnel building world, a lot of it. It's true though. I would put down all these books. I've tons of books all around me. Lots of bookshelves, bookcases and stuff. I love them and they're awesome. It's gold, amazing stuff.

The one thing in my mind that has actual potential to replace the huge amount of knowledge in books that's sitting around me or on courses, or whatever it is, is masterminds. It's masterminds. For whatever reason that kind of synergy that comes from people who are truly trying to dive into and dump amazing information in and get amazing things back out, I mean it's amazing what happens. There's this really interesting study that happened actually, and I'll end this episode soon, because I know I've been going for a bit here. There's a really interesting study that happened, I heard the results from anyways, where some people went through and they watched those who contributed the most. Here was the rule. This is what they found out.

Those who contribute the most in masterminds, those who contribute the most in masterminds almost always are also the top earners in the room. That wouldn't shock you. That wouldn't shock you at all.

Think about that. When you get into a mastermind, and you see people who are just giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving, it is very much the antithesis of what most people treat wealth creation and secrets and, "I got to keep all my products to myself, and no one's going to know what they are. If I say anything, someone's going to steal it." It doesn't really happen that way. Guys, I tell you everything that I do and there's maybe like one or two people who have attempted and kind of done the stuff that I say, kind of done. Why?

It's because I'm a different person with a different background, different frame of mind. Even if they did take the same idea and they did try and go, they still would execute it differently than I did.

Ideas when they are shared grow. Ideas when they are shared actually turn into better ideas. You get up, and you stand up, and you actually start sharing all of your best stuff with the room, and you'll be shocked, shocked, completely floored, completely floored at what ends up happening to your idea, things you would never, ever, ever have thought of or it would have taken you a very long time to think of. Time is money.

Anyways, I have a mastermind. It's not necessarily a Steve Larsen mastermind yet. I am having fun partnering with a lot of my friends at the moment, but no matter what, you can always find whatever mastermind I'm doing or running or pulling off, or whatever, at SteveJLarsen.com, and just click mastermind up at the top. It's in the top header. Click mastermind up at the top, and you'll be able to go to whatever mastermind is currently going on that I'm doing.

Would love to have you guys. There are different prices, different price points, different things that you can go check out, whatever it is. I just got to bring up one other thing, one other thing. As I've been preparing to leave my job, as I've been preparing to leave ClickFunnels, I've surrounded myself with a lot of coaches, just to make sure that I keep the edge.

One of the pieces of feedback that I've received is actually from Mandy Keene who's actually the Inner Circle coach who's amazing and has totally changed my life in ways that I still have a hard time expressing to her. I'm very thankful for her.

What she taught me and actually what Russell personally taught me also, he and I were chatting and we were talking, and we were talking about the purpose of Inner Circle and the purpose of masterminds. Mandy separately was also talking about this, also. Russell has his own mastermind for many purposes. One of them is so that he can stay up to date with all the other industries and what's going on and all those things, so he knows how funnels will work in those different areas, things like that. That totally makes sense.

The money, yeah, I mean the money's nice, but that's not really the real, real reason. The real, real reason is to keep him sharp. Then he'll attend these extremely high-ticket masterminds, these 100K masterminds in order to attend. $100,000 just to go to the mastermind, with these extremely high, A players. You can imagine the kind of goodies that go into there.

The only thing I'm bringing this up for is so that you understand that if you're not collaborating actively and you're not actively your ideas, the idea is already on the way to dying. In my opinion, going to masterminds and being active in them and contributing your face off, it's one of the fastest, best accelerants I have ever, ever, ever seen, or ever witness ever.

I think I could say ever a few more times. Ever, ever, ever, ever...

It's because of all those things, not just the personal growth of the person explodes. Obviously the business does. The connections do. Hey, I know a guy who can hook you up with X, Y, and Z over here. The connections in the room, the ideas in the room for both your offer, or the marketing message, or the litmus test of the people who are sitting in there.

People who are offering their connections. People are offering things that they've taken time and money to build on their own in order to contribute because they all understand the law. The law is if you give the ideas away, yours explode and expand in ways you could have never done on your own. People know that when they're regular, habitual mastermind attenders.

I invite you to come. If it's not mine, I don't care. Choose one.

I would love it if you came to mine, but my gosh, choose. Just attend. Go to one. You will be shocked by what happens. If you're like, "I don't know which ones exist out there."

Just start looking around or come to mine, or go to someone's. I guarantee if you go to Google and start looking around, or any guru, gosh, just start asking around, and you'll find one.

Anyway, hey, so if you want to do whatever one I'm currently running or putting on or about to go to or whatever it is, I'm just going to be putting at SteveJLarsen.com, and you can click mastermind up on the top. The next one is Sales Funnel Radioactually here in just a few weeks, which I'm very excited about. Anyways, guys, appreciate it. Go collaborate like crazy. Share, share, share, and give your ideas away, and you'll be shocked at how much, A, they grow but B, no one steals them, because no one can truly replicate you. Anyway, talk to you later. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnels for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Dec 28, 2017

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WHO Is The Best At XYZ?...

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What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and I've got a bit of a treat for you guys today. I think you're gonna like it a lot, here on Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host Steve Larsen.

All right, you guys. Hey, so as I have been moving along the entrepreneurial path, as I've been putting things today. One of the things that I've noticed that I need more, and more, and more is people; like just straight up talent.
The longer I've been doing this stuff I've realized ... Here's an example, okay, I'm sitting at my desk and I was working, I was getting some things done, and I sat up and I looked across the room and I was like "Man, Russell dude, I want to go ... I would be so nice if I understood more Java Script. I'd love to be able to code out a few pieces just here and there, things that I wish that I knew how to do."

renaissanceHe looked at me, he goes, "Why would you want to know how to do that?" And I was like, "'cause it would be so cool, like, look at all the things I could go do." And he goes, "Dude, you don't need to know how to do that, we have people for that."

And I was like, "yeah, but like I ... It might be faster if I go learn."
He's like, "No. It would be faster at first, it might ... It's gonna take you all to go learn it, you get distracted, and now you become like slightly renaissance man." He said something like that, I can't remember what exactly. But, that was the point, is don't be a renaissance man. And I was like, "Huh, all right that makes sense. That make sense."

You sitting there listening might be like, "Well, yeah, it does Stephen." But, to me from where I sit, most people are like, "I got to learn this next thing in order to be successful. I can learn this next piece, I can learn this next piece."

Over the last 18 months working there ... Guess it's been 20 now, but he ... There's been repeated times ... It's funny how it's been like a topic, and it finally ... It sunk in now enough that it's not just something I know, it's something I'm applying that you don't ... You don't just go learn crap for the sake of learning it, you learn it because you need it in the exact moment.

It's kind of what I call that Learning Cycle. The Learning Cycle for me is very heavy as soon as I'm about to enter an industry, 'cause I go learn as much as I can then I stop. Actually, I put the books down, I stop learning on purpose.
Then, I only learn for the problem that sit directly in front of me. How do I solve the exact problem that's in front of me? What he was telling me though, and what he's told me repeatedly over and over again is like, "Stop obsessing over learning all the little nitty gritties."

He's like, "Dude, no, we got a guy for that." I was like, "[Cabe 00:02:38], it'd be fun to go learn that." He's like, "No, go ... Dude, we have a guy for that too." He's like, "Dude, just because you can learn something doesn't mean you should." I was like, "Aah man, that's massive, that's a huge ... Wow, okay. Yeah, that's right. That's right."

Conceptually I understood that, I understood it before but I hadn't been applying that at the time. So, I've got a bit of a gift for you guys, I was looking at some people's websites, and I was looking at some of their funnels and things like that. I came across a persons' site and ... I know a lot of people do this, but it was a directory of all the valuable internet marketing apps.

All the valuable internet marketing software, and I was thinking like, "This is kinda cool. It's kinda cool." I mean, I visited the page once, maybe twice but that's about it. The problem I had with it is that most of those apps, most of those pieces of software, I'm like, "Hey, I got to find an email platform." Or like, "Hey ..."
I mean, these [inaudible 00:03:27] but ... Or "Hey, I wanna find ... Where can I find anything, any piece of tool that I'm looking for, the first place I'd go is Google. Or I'd ask a few buddies and see what they're using, and then I'd go to Google.

Honestly, YouTube see what the best reviews are, maybe a blog or two see what the best reviews are there.

Those are kind of easy to find, so I was like ... I was thinking through I was like, "Okay, I wanna ... How do I combine this concept that Russell just talked to me about versus ... And combine it with this whole directory kind of model?"
So, I've got kind of a gift for you guys. So, I wanna take a step back and I realized that the first four minutes of this episode might feel like it's all over the place; let me kind of bring it all together.

I want you to know what's going on inside my head. So, let me take a step back from the episode and where we're currently are right now. I am in a place right now where I am realizing ... Not realizing, but I'm applying all the stuff that I have been learning from the man himself.

Honestly, I've been ... I started honestly doing that at least two years ago, and I was hiring out tons of people, and I was ... I'm a huge fan of freelancer.com, I'm all about getting things done through other people who would rather do them.
I could go figure out how to code stuff, but frankly, the guy over there is begging to do, and he wants to do, and he loves doing it. He loves doing it more ... as much as I love building funnels, so let's let that guy do it 'cause he's gonna be ... He's gonna throw passion behind it, whereas I'll just throw an objective behind it.
So, I like hiring people to go do these things, I don't want to be a Solopreneur.

Most of the time when I see a Solopreneur usually they don't go very far, because you can't do it on your own for very long. Or you can't do very long and you actually go that far. It requires other people, it requires a team.

So, I was think like, "Where do I find like the best of the best of everything. Where do I find the best of this topic over here? The best of this topic over here? The best of these different skill sets around?

I was thinking, "How cool ..." I don't actually remember where I got the idea, I think it was a couple mon ... Maybe two months ago-ish almost, and I was sitting there I was like, "What if I made a Talent Directory."

A Talent Directory, so, it's not so much about like ... It's not so much about like, "Hey, here's the best softwares if you're trying to this. Or here's the best companies if you're trying to do that." People, who is the best individual that does JavaScript? Who's the best individual to get for this? Who's the best individual for this?

So, what I was thinking was like, "How can I ..." 'cause I believe I'm a huge proponent you guys of pumping as much value into the marketplace as I possibly can, so that when it comes time, anytime I come ... Excuse me, anytime I come back and I'm like, "Hey, market please pay me for said product."

There's so much reciprocity that I've created, and there's such a relationship that I've gone through and actually put together. That the market is like, "Sure, here you go." You know what I mean? It's easy for me to sell that way, obviously it takes a little time.

I've had this entire podcast, and I've been doing this stuff for ... I've be doing this podcast now for 18 months and then the ... I've been doing funnel building for 5 years 'cause I was doing a word press before, which is ... Was terrible and I didn't know honestly it was a funnel, but that's what I was doing.

So, anyway, guys I've created a Talent Directory and anyone can apply to put their name on it. Anyone can ... And their talent, so, I'm gonna ... On stevejlarsen.com, stevejlarsen.com, I'm gonna go rebuild the whole thing I don't really like what it is right now.

But stevejlarsen.com, I'm gonna go rebuild it and if on the tab on the top I'm gonna put something in there that says Talent Directory; top or bottom okay. There's a part ... Anyway, it's in the top and I wanna make sure I probably add it to the bottom too for the footer.

talentBut, if you go there it's in the header/footer, click on Talent Directory. What it is, it's a page of all the different things that I see are needed in order to get a successful funnel off the ground; images, video, funnel building, this, that, copyrighting. You see what I'm saying, design, traffic, fulfillment, all the stuff in the backend; a coder front end developer, a back end developer.

I want ... All those things I want to have, I want a big bank of those kinds of talents. I want to know who those people are, I want to know ... So, again, let's take a step back and I want you to know why I'm doing this, because I want a huge list of that.

I know if I ... As a marketer if I increase the status of the individual who's willing to put their name on that list, I can in turn put it out there into the market and use it of my own benefit at the same time. Does that make sense?

That's why I'm doing it. So, I'm putting ... It's a living document, it's a Talent Directory but it's a living document. Meaning if you get on the list, for the people that are on the list or whatever, I want to be able to showcase each person.

I want to be able to showcase each individual and show like, "Hey, look this person is awesome at this and here's their contact information." It's all gonna be free.

I will probably require an opt-in of you to see it, why? Because I'm a marketer you guys of course I'm gonna ask you to opt-in; Duh, that's what I'm gonna do. But, how cool to be able to show and showcase tons and tons of people for free. All the individuals, and all the Talent Directory like, "Who's the best of this? Who's the best of that."

Guys, I have sat in an amazing place for the last two years, I know who a lot of the best people are, and I know exactly the people to hook others up with. I can't by name actually suggest certain things to you. So, if I can't ... If I can't tell you, "Hey this is the one to do this. Hey, this is the one to do this." I can at least make it user generated. Does that make sense?

In some things my hands are tied simply because it's a need-to-know basis, and that's a trade secrets' kinda thing. Anyway ... You know what I mean, but ... So, if you wanna know who like the best ...

So, it's gonna be by application basis where someone comes in and they're like, "Hey, I wanna get on the directory."

Well, if you go to ... If you click on the Talent; I'm gonna call it The Talent. It's Talent Directory currently but I think that's too long, so it'll be like The Talent, or Finding Talent, or Find Talent. Maybe that's what ... Find Talent. So, it's Find Talent, I'll change it to that.

Find Talent, you click on that up in the top and it'll ask you to opt-in. But, it's gonna push you over to the list that I've got where it's like, "Hey, here's the best writer, here's the best this, here's the best that, here's the best sales guy, here's the best ..."

I don't wanna say The Best, but I'll give a list, I'll give several different option. Why? It'll showcase like crazy all these amazing people, but it also let me get a relationship with those individuals so that when I want to go higher the best fulfillment guy, or the best this, or the best that. I also have places to go to, okay.
So, that's what I'm trying to tell you guys is that I had this problem. I've got a current team they kick butt, they take names, I want to be able to interview all of them so you know who they are, and what their roles really are.

Some went here shortly, and I wanna showcase each one of them also on https://stevejlarsen.com/download

However, I don't feel like it's time yet for that, I think in the next two or three months it will be for a few specific reasons, which I'm not ready to put out yet. But, I wanna showcase each one of them, which would be really cool 'cause I'm fully aware that this is not just ... I know I'm not a one band stand, I do not drink my own Kool-Aid, and hopefully ... Why? Because usually ... Number one, I think that it's kind of wrong.

Not wrong but, I mean, come on it's not really that ethical sometimes and whatever. I'm sure I offended some people but whatever.

But, B) It's bad juju like, "Holy crap, anytime I ever seen any marketer started to drink their own Kool-Aid, and think they're all that they literally separate themselves from their own market, which is stupid. Why would you ever do that?"

Anyway, I don't drink my own Kool-Aid and I know that it's more than just me. So, I'm constantly looking for the coolest, awesome, most kick butt people to be able to hire. So, the Talent Directory that I'm gonna go put up or that is there ... I got to edit it, I got to change stuff, it's in ... By the time this episode is up it will be done, just so you know that's how I launch stuff. Just like I talked about in the last episode.

So, by the time this episode is up it will be ready to rock. But, you can go in and if you want to get on the directory, there will be a button there too you can click, and it'll have you go through and tell me why you should get on it. Believe me you are selling me, you are trying to tell me why you're a kick butt and should be able to be on there.

What I want it to be though is for the rest of the community, so they can jump on and be like, "Holy crap, this is freaking awesome." This would be a huge Lead Gen for tons of people that I want to think that ... I want them to think that I'm cool, that's why. As a marketer I'm trying to figure that out, I'm trying to make sure that I'm staying in the forefront of what is awesome, of what's good, of what's ... Does that make sense?

So, I want you ... Start thinking like that when you're like, "aah gosh, I wish I knew who the best person for this was. I wish I knew who the best person ... Or I've got this problem in my business." Instead of ... don't let it ... I'm not saying it does bring you down but don't ... Instead of letting it be too big of a barrier, think through how you could answer that and put value into the market.

If you treat every single problem in your business that way what's gonna end up happening is, you will put tons of value into the market in a way that lets you create a relationship with everybody. People will know who you are because you scratch their back without you asking anything in return.

Does that make sense?

QuestionSo, I'm being open and honest, and I'm being completely transparent to show you that is the reason why I'm doing it. I want to be able to help everyone be able to progress, be able to go forward, and push forward, and it's gonna be awesome.
But, at the same time I wanna know who those people are too so that I can hire them. So I can use them so I know the best person who that is.

Or here's three options for that problem or three option for this skillset. Does that make sense? So, that's why I'm doing it.

So, if you want to; number one, see who that is. Go to stevejlarsen.com, click on Find Talent up in the top header; Find Talent. It'll ask you to opt-in, duh, just know that. I was getting nervous if somebody's gonna be like, "Well, you ask me to opt-in." Like, "Yeah, I'm putting the list together, it's the value that I'm giving. But, of course I'm gonna ask you to opt-in. Why would I not Lead Gen from it, right?"

So, you think through like, "How would you do it?" Find out maybe there's some other kind of directory that would work well for your industry. It doesn't need to be a Talent Directory, or a directory of all the software, or a directory of this, or that, or whatever.

But, this is a huge opportunity. You guys, you know this episode ... I'm sorry, you this podcast like I'm only pumping out usually two, sometimes three a week of these things usually. They get three to 500 downloads a day, which I know isn't massive, massive but it felt completely organic you guys.

I think you'll spend ads on it maybe one time a year ago and that's it. I understand that and I get it, but we just screened pass 80,000 downloads and it's doing awesome guys really, really exciting. There's a lot of you out there that are listening to this just so you know, the community is big, and it's growing, and it's actually growing really quickly.

Anyway, so, number one; if you wanna know who those people are go to stevejlarsen.com, click on Find Talent up at the top [inaudible 00:14:53] 'cause the guy that wanted Stevelarsen.com, the guy wanted 40 grand, I talked him down to 20, and I was like "It's not worth it, come on. I'm not gonna do it." Anyways, it's Steve J. Larsen, my full name is Stephen Joseph Larsen.

So, stevejlarsen.com....

Then, number two though, if you want to get on the directory please do not PM me on Facebook.

I get way too many messages it will get lost. I know notice a lot of people sometimes they get frustrating with me like, "You haven't answered yet." I was like, "You got to get in my shoes and understand that logistically I will spend the entire day answering messages, if I go answer every single message." It's not to be rude it's to protect, and sustain my own momentum. You know what I mean?

So, number two, if you want to get on the directory go to, again, stevejlarsen.com, click on Find Talent. Then there's gonna be a button there that says ... probably like the top right or something like that, probably make a subheader menu bar where it's like, "Get on the directory, or apply to get on it." It is an application funnel.

On the backend I'll put an application funnel; a watered down version of one. But, you are definitely selling me on why you should get on it, because I wanna make sure that it's awesome people. I don't mind to have several people in a certain topic that's totally fine with me. I just want to make sure that you're awesome because you are on my ... Literally my page.

I mean, I'm gonna manage the thing, if I find out someones being shady, or dumb, or whatever I'm gonna delete you. It's not worth it to me and everything I've worked hard to build. Anyway, so just know that it is being watched like a hawk and because those are the people that I wanna go to, I wanna hire, I wanna get relationships with.

So, I don't care what it is that you do as long as you're good. I don't care if it's fulfillment, I don't care if you are good at like back office style management, a phone sales guy. I don't care if it has to do with sales, or if its more about management, or if you're like HR, I don't care what it is.

Whatever you are if you're great at it I wanna know, I would love to be able to meet you, and say hi to you, and start pulling together rock stars like that.
Then, be able to help showcase you so that everyone else can also benefit. I think it's gonna help the community as a whole because one of the biggest questions I get over, and over, and over again, which is why I'm responding to the market That's the other reason why I got the idea 'cause I was like, "Man, everyone's asking me, like, who do you hire to do this? Who do you hire to do that?" And I was like, "Ugh, I don't wanna ..."

In some cases, I can't tell you because my hands are tied because I work at ClickFunnels and it's a conflict of interest, and we got to protect ourselves too. And I was like, "Ugh ..." But, if it's user generated, if it's user created that's totally different. You know what I mean?

So, I was getting the question all the time like, "Dude, who'd you hire for this? Who'd ..." And it's like I can't tell you that. Literally, that's me showing favoritism and I work ClickFunnels not for too much longer obviously but ... Anyway, so, if there's not a ton of people on there right now when you go to it, just know that it's a living, breathing thing and you should be able to get on their quickly.
So, here's how the funnels gonna go though. Funnel, what? You use funnels for managing things, what? Yes, they're not just for selling things, I use them to manage all the time. There's more to come of that, which is why I'm podcasting this so you know about it.

ClickFunnelsSo, first if you go to that page it'll have you opt-in, now, think through the funnel. Number two, you're gonna see the page. Number three though, if you wanna get on the list, people will go through and they'll apply.

Well, one of the last steps of the first page will say, "Hey, let me know why you should be on here?" If you have a one sentence bio of what you've done, and a one sentence credentials thing of what you are good at, or something like that; what are those things? Write them down. This is almost like a resume, I feel like resumes are crap but the traditional sense resume.

This is a way better form to have a resume though, you know what I mean. But, anyway, so you'll be able to go through and you actually toss in stuff that I'll put directly on the page; probably not a picture I'm just thinking space wise. 'cause it's gonna be like a phone book, the text is gonna be slightly tiny eventually maybe not first. 'cause I wanna keep adding to it or removing from it if something happens, you know what I mean?

Then, the next page it's gonna say, "Awesome, thanks so much ... Appreciate the application we'll reach out if we put you on there." Then, what I want each person to go do ... Okay, think about this. Think about what I'm doing, what I want you to go do if you wanna get on the directory and get all these sweet leads is, we got the make sure that there's eyeballs that get to it.

Please share this link and post about it to your profile. Some people are gonna be like, Stephen, I can't believe you just publish that that's what you're asking people to do. That's really what you're going on. Oh my gosh, what ..."
Guys, it's Lead Gen that's why I'm doing it, I'm amassing a list. I'm amassing huge ... Oh my gosh, huge value. You know what I eventually wanna do is I wanna interview on the podcast each one of the people who truly are rock stars in each one of those areas.

I don't care if you're not involved directly at Sales Funnels, it's all part of the sales process and management in the back end in order to get the sale. Does that make sense?

This is like ... So, I'm to farm out the best, of the best, of the best, of the best, and of course I'm gonna interview them I wanna be ... If I can, I probably can't get anybody but like The A player, The Rock Star for each thing. I wanna interview them on the podcast.

Then, I'd love to be able to go and have them drop the link for that same directory to their own people. This is how a marketer thinks through this kind of stuff. How can I solve the problem but leverage it? In a positive way that scratches everyone's back, that solves legitimate problems, this is solving a legitimate issue.

There's a lot of people that ask me who to hire for X, Y, and Z and I can't answer them. But, if it's user generated, if I know you're awesome, if you're a rock star holy crap, why wouldn't I do that? Why would I not create a directory?

valueAnyways, I felt like it's more valuable than the software directories that are out there because you can't Google that stuff.

I mean, it's not ... But, it's harder to find good people, it's harder to find individuals. I have wasted thousands and thousands of dollars on really bad VA's, really, really bad freelancers. Really, really bad people who said that they can do the did, and technically they did it but it was so crappy. You know what I mean?

I wanna know who the actual A players, and rock stars are out there so that's why I'm making this. Again, if you want to; A) see it. Go to stevejlarsen.com, click on Find Talent. If you wanna be on the list, same thing, go there click on Find Talent and I wanna showcase rock stars.

You can apply to be on there and yeah that's pretty much it guys. I'm super excited for this. I've actually been planning this for a long time because it's just a serious issue that's out there. Anyways, if you ... I invite you to apply regard ... How should I say this? If you're like, "I'm pretty good a what I do but I don't know." Just do it anyway, you know what I mean.

Gives us a chance to say hi and pull on in. So, anyway, there's a funnel for this and that's the funnel ... If you wanna see the funnel, if you wanna go through the process anything like that, that's how you do that.

Anyway, so, I gotta do some tricky stuff on stevejlarsen.com, the homepage in order to pull this off because there's gonna be multiple exits. It's not actually a funnel, that first page is more like a website. By definition if there was more than one exit then it's no longer a squeeze page, so, there's gonna be multiple exits and multiple things all over the place.

Anyway, it will be fun, I'm excited. I got to think through some stuff for the ... Okay. Yeah, that'll be cool though I got to go map it out and draw it out. I got another white board I'm super pumped about it, so I'm gonna go draw out the whole thing and I'll go build it. By the time this thing is launched you guys it will be ready.

So, anyways, you're all awesome and this is a chance to show others that you are too. There's a cool quote I saw it said, "You're already a rock star, we're just here Sales Funnel Radioto help others know it." So, I guess this maybe the title of this or something. All right, guys talk to you later. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels, to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Dec 23, 2017

iTunes

There Are Two Things On MY Calendar. Events, And Product Launches...

ClickFunnels

Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to an early morning Sales Funnel Radio

 Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

I am literally about to go downstairs into my garage. In my third car garage, I've got a full gym, got the squat rack, the dumbbells, the barbells, the bench, the pull-up bars. I love it, I love it. That's always been a part of my life. When I first graduated from college, it's only been about two years ago, I actually stopped all those things and I have missed them greatly. So I've loved diving back into it all in the last month and a half, two months here. I'm excited.


I was about to go downstairs and get going. The hard part is that I know that outside right now it is 29°, so I was bundled up. I was like, "Uh. Right now it sounds more fun for me to do a podcast," actually for something that's been on my mind for quite a while. It’s cool that ... Okay. I'll tell you the story.

Russell BrunsonTwo or three days ago, I was standing next to Russell and he said something that summed up something that I have been wanting to say for a while. I was standing there, I was in his office, and he goes, "Yeah, check out my calendar. My life is run by deadlines."


I was like, "Hm, That’s a good phrase right there. My life is run by deadlines." It's true. If you look at his calendar, and mine actually, the one that's right next to me on my left right here on that wall, it’s run by deadlines. I have a huge full calendar. I'm sorry, massive calendar on my wall, and I circle dates.

Now, some of the dates are events that I’m going to, that I'm going to speak to, or I've already been asked to speak at like eight different events next year, which I'm very excited about. Then, so one category is an event. The other category, though, that’s on here though is a product launch, something that I’m actually going to be putting out into the market.


You know what’s funny about that, and what’s funny about the pattern that we would work by, you guys have got to know that since I'm leaving ClickFunnels, what I've been trying to do is I'm trying to extract every lesson that I can that I learned there and I’m trying to publish it, not just so that you guys can know what it is but also that it sticks in my head. What I've been doing is I'm going and just trying to nitpick and pull out all the little things here.

So some of these last episodes, especially episodes 90 to 100, know that that's what the goal really is. I've got more and more of those coming...


I did that episode called 11 Brunsonisms, but I keep trying to pull out some of the best and biggest lessons, and you need to know how we operated there and how I'm going to continue to attempt to operate on my own come January 1st when I’m totally solo. Just know this is how we did it, is we would set a ... Okay. Please note that the reason I want to go through this is because I see people launching stuff really slowly. I understand there's a full team at ClickFunnels, Russell and I working in tandem, but a designer, traffic guy. There’s all these different elements, videographers, copywriters, email person, this person, and I get that. I understand that.


There's a full team there, but still, I think it goes to say, I think you need to know why we launch so fast, why and how. I want to go through both of those things real quick, so if you look at his calendar, like I said, there's really two different types of things on his calendar. One is product launches and the other one is events that he’s traveling and speaking at, and things like that. It gets full really fast for the full year every single time, and we never want to erase it because it’s almost like a ... I don't even know what to call it. It’s cool, it's awesome to look at it.


You're like, "This is what I did this year," and that's what we call them, funnel years. Anyway, so the way we launch stuff and the way I launch stuff is, the way I'm going to keep doing it, is we will set the date for when we want to put something out. Too often ... I'm sorry, it's like five 5 AM right now and I'm trying to wake up still so let me get this out there. Too often, what I’ve noticed is that somebody will ... In fact, here’s a good example. The other day I was on a coaching call and I was coaching somebody. I said, "Hey. When are you going to launch this thing?"


The individual was like, "Oh, you know what? I think I'll launch it on, maybe I'll do it on Thursday." I was like, "No, no, no. When are you going to launch it?" The person goes, "You know what? Maybe I'll launch it on ... Maybe I'll do like Thursday or Friday or Saturday." I said, "No. When are you going to launch it?" I had to get forward about it, and the person was like, "You know what? Maybe Saturday." I was like, "You're not understanding what I'm telling you. When are you going to launch it? Choose the freaking date. Choose the time and the date right now and you hold your own feet to the fire on it."


The person was like, "Okay. I'm going to do it this day." I was like, "Cool, what time?" The person was like, "I'm going to do it at this time," and I was like, "Cool. Awesome. Now you have the time. Now the trick is to hold your own feet to the fire. What mechanism can you put in place to hold your own feet to the fire?" Guys, that’s one of the keys of what I’m trying to teach you right here. When you set a launch date for product or a funnel that you're putting out, or anything at all, one the biggest keys is to ask yourself, "What is the mechanism, to hold your own feet to the fire."


One of the easiest ways to do it, one of the ways that we do it, one of the ways I’ve done it is to be public about the launch date. It’s real easy to let that launch date come and pass if you’ve told nobody. It’s one of the reasons why I've told a ton of people about a product that I’ve been ... I'm putting out on January 4th. It’s not totally done yet, and the reason why is because it’s public so I have to finish it. Does that make sense? That’s how we ran everything at ClickFunnels. That's why we put everything out there. We literally ... You know the Expert Secrets book funnel, guys we started that funnel two days before the actual launch. That was the freakiest thing.


I don't recommend that. That's a full team of fanatic experts to pull off in two days. We did not sleep for ... Oh my gosh, that was ridiculous, but you get the point though? You get the point. I hope you get the point. What’s the mechanism of you being able to just ... That’s one of the reasons you launch as fast as you can. Just set the date, set the date, set the date, and get as much stuff as you can done before the actual launch.

You're being public about what isn’t done. In the sales picture, telling people, "Look, you're part of this first group. I'm going to take you through it personally, and we're going to finish building out this thing together," or "Look, this first time I want to take a big group of people through it together and you’re going to get more one-on-one help from me than anybody else."


This first group, does that make sense? Module one is going to launch in two weeks, module two is going to launch in three weeks. That make sense? You're being open about it, and this is the way you're releasing. You're unraveling it, rather than having it be done all in one big package and you waste a ton of time and not get paid for it. What you’re doing is like the snowball unraveling, unrolling kind of a thing. Does that make sense? It's like you're unraveling a map that's rolled up like a scroll. You know what I mean?


That’s how you do it. Otherwise, what ends up happening is you never launch anything because you think it has to be perfect when you launch it, and that’s not how things work. You don’t know, we don’t know what people want all the time. What’s funny is if I go create a course or if I go create a product or if I go create something to my own specs, I usually overshoot the ball way past what the market actually wanted. Does that make sense?

Schedule Or needed or is expecting, or would be good enough, and so I would go and I'd create ... I've done that so many times personally where I'll go create something and it’s good and it’s so beyond what the person was wanting or expecting or beyond the current spot where they were needing, or whatever it was, that it almost overshoots expectations and creates overwhelm.


So you create it with then the first round out, which should take pressure off of your back because the market is helping you make the product. You are not there doing it on your own. Does that make sense? Okay. So you unscroll it. You unravel it. Unravel the product, and that's how you put it out there. The first thing I'm trying to put across here is, number one, what's the mechanism that you use to hold your own feet to the fire once you set a launch date? Really, if you think about that, what you’re doing this first round, the first thing, because the market will be making the product with you, what you’re really doing before the launch is trying to perfect the sales message itself.


You've got to think about the product and the sales message as two separate things. They’re not the same thing at all, and when people screw up, most of the time I see that they think the product is a thing that sells. If they've never sold anything before, you're like, "No. The product never sells itself." Rarely does a product ever sell itself, like the iPhone. The iPhone sold itself. As soon as people saw it, they're like, "Holy crap. I gotta have that." It sold itself a little bit, but that kind of product is not very often, and I wouldn't hold your breath for it.

Instead, go perfect this awesome sales message that breaks and rebuilds the belief patterns around a single big idea...


That’s what ... The product is facilitating the big idea. I’m going off on the side, though. The first thing, though, create the launch date and then a mechanism to hold your own feet to the fire. Yes, even Russell has to do that. The way that we did it was to be public. That’s one of the ways, be public about the actual launch date. When you’re public about the actual launch date, now you have to make it because hundreds and thousands of people are watching you now. They’re watching you, and it puts you in this area where you know what?

There’s potential to be really uncomfortable. You might have to stay up really late. You might have to get things done, whatever it is, but it’s cool because 99% of time it gets done because now it’s public. It’s public knowledge.


If you never told anybody your idea, that’s the wrong approach. That’s it. That’s a really bad approach. Anyway, terrible. That's a bad approach. Tell everybody about your idea. I’ve never had anybody steal an idea from me ever, and I try to tell ... Guys, this podcast for me, I try to tell all of my ideas on it, all of it. There's some products I haven't told you guys about because they're slightly in a different market, but anyway, I've got a few episodes coming up where I tell everything though. I'm trying to put all ... and you should too. One of the reasons why is because it holds my feet to the fire. I no longer have a choice. I've got to get it done. I’ve got to get these things done.


It’s one of those letter gold moments that Russell always talks about too. It’s the plot to a [inaudible 00:12:25]. Am I going to actually pull off and do this thing that now others are also holding me accountable to? So what’s the mechanism? One of the mechanisms, like I said, is to go and be public about it. It takes the pressure off of you knowing that the first group is going to create it with you. Follow me as ... These are all, they're all intertwined. All these reasons are intertwined.

Another mechanism, though, that you can use is like an accountability partner.
So what I’ve been doing, what one of my buddies and I are doing is we are doing ... Have you guys ever heard the thousand dollar check thing? I don't know if you guys have before, but anyway, this is what it is. I messaged my buddy and I said, "Look, dude. I'm about to go solo. I’m excited about it, but I want to make sure that I hold my feet to the fire as far as being ferocious in the business place," being ferocious. You know what I mean. That’s how we are every single day. That's how Russell is every day at ClickFunnels, because we got accountability from the public where we've got all these launch dates going on, but one of the methods that I love, so awesome, from one of his earlier podcasts was that he would write $1000 check to somebody else.


They wouldn’t cash it. The other person would write $1000 check back to him also, and what you do is at the beginning of the week, you tell each other, "Hey. This is what I'm going to get done this week," and at the end of the week you report. Real fast. This doesn’t take long. These are not full, massive, huge meetings. You're just reporting. If you do not get all those things done in that week, the other person cashes your check. Does that make sense? That’s what I'm doing. So my buddy Ben and I, I've talked about him many times on here, Ben's the man, but what I’ve been doing, what we’re doing is this thousand dollar check swap.


Right now, he and I are rigging our checks together and I'm sending mine, $1000 to him. He sent $1000 to me, and if we don’t get those things done, we get to cash each other's checks, which is awesome. That's another mechanism. Does that make sense? That's another way. There's a lot of ways to do it, as you go back and do it. So hold yourself accountable. Run your life by deadlines, not by, "For a while, I'm just going to focus on the product. I'm just going to get the product done." No. It sucks so bad to actually have created an entire amazing product that (a) the market may not have wanted and was overshooting it, and (b) quite honestly you didn’t get paid to create it.


You know what I mean? In fact, okay, my brain ... There's another squirrel that just popped up in my head. I'm going to follow it for a second here. I was just reading this morning from a book called, The Innovator’s Dilemma, and it is fantastic. It’s by Clayton Christensen. This guy is a genius. He teaches at Harvard Business School. Absolutely amazing hero. Another book called How We Measure Life. Anyway, he's the man. If you've never studied any of his stuff before, it’s like deep stuff though. I have to read it ... It's the kind of book where I've got to read the paragraph two or three times to get it. I'm like, "Holy crap, that was so deep. That was so good." Anyway, it’s awesome stuff, but here’s one of the reasons why you want to create the product with your people that first round.


As you are unraveling a product, as you’re putting it out there, and this goes to support the fact that I was saying before that many times you’ll create something that’s overshooting what the market even wanted. Let me read this. It's from a chapter called Discovering New and Emerging Markets. In Expert Secrets, the book tells you to create a market, so I was like, "That's a cool supporting chapter for this entire thing." I actually immediately flipped to that and this is the first paragraph that I read. I was like, "Holy crap. This sums up the entire thing that I’m saying right here."


What Expert Secrets tells you to do, don’t choose the freaking niche. You go create it, but with this in the backdrop. This is it. Markets that do not exist cannot be analyzed. Suppliers and customers must discover them together. Not only are the market applications for disruptive technologies unknown at the time of their development, they are unknowable. Let me say that one more time. Think about this. Think about this. Markets that do not exist cannot be analyzed. Suppliers and customers must discover them together.


How can you analyze? How can you go create a market that is not even created? If it's not created, you can't analyze it. It’s the same thing with the new niche that you’re trying to create. You have to take your best guess through the formulas of books like Expert Secrets and throw it against the wall. Then that first group that you’re selling to unravels it with you as you sell it to them.

Funny, it's a different way to think about it guys, but funny enough, it actually is a huge alleviating thing to realize. Whether it’s an info product, a piece of technology, I don't care if you've got to code something, I don't care if it’s this first group, and if you can’t sell it to make money with, then you go get a beta group...


Those are the two different launch strategies that I personally. Either I set the ... I always set the date so everyone knows about it, but I’ll sell it, get paid to create it and make it with them, or I will go get a beta group and I will unravel it with them as well.

I never ... Guys, don’t do it on your own...

Do not create the product on your own. That’s what I’m trying to say here, and you use launch dates as a tool and all these mechanisms to hold your feet to the fire. You're like, "Launch, launch, launch, launch, launch." Launch this product. A couple weeks to sustain it and get on its feet. Then you have your next product launch, then the next product launch and the next product launch.


Now, I know I say focus on one funnel at a time, and it’s so true, but also know that sometimes one funnel has a whole bunch of different products in it. They don't all have to be created in order to launch it in the funnel. "Stephen, that’s going to be crazy. There's all these things to juggle the first round." Yeah, I know. There's a lot of stuff, but it helps you get it up so quickly. You don’t have to actually have it done before you launch it, and I beg you to not have it done before you launch it because of this principle.

Not only are the market applications for disruptive technologies unknown at the time of their development, you're trying to create a disruptive technology, a brand-new opportunity...


It's something like that. It's something disruptive in general. A brand-new opportunity, what you’re trying ... You’re trying to go in with the brand, the niche that you're trying to create and you’re trying to say to every other person in the sub-market, "Look guys, the old vehicle is wrong." That’s the reason why you don't have to sell it as hard. That's why you don't need all these hard-core sales tactics or anything because it’s a brand-new opportunity. "Hey, check this out. Instead of painting your car, I've got this brand-new one over here for you, and it does all these things that have never been done before." Cool. It doesn’t take much of a sales pitch. You know what I'm saying?


Not only are the market applications for the disruptive technologies unknown at the time their development, they are unknowable. You take the best guess you can, you throw it against the wall. Using the formulas of Expert Secrets and how to create that niche, you throw it up against the wall and then you say, "Okay market, now it's your time to come help me create the rest of it," and that’s how literally ... That’s how we launch stuff. Anyway, oh man. Quite honestly, I was just looking for a cool paragraph that would help support what I’m saying, and now that I've picked this book, I'm like, "Crap, that was freaking awesome." That was one paragraph. I should probably finish reading that book.


Anyway, I hope that makes sense though. So my buddy and I, Ben and I, he lives in Utah, I’m here in Idaho, and we chat pretty much every day, almost every day, but we're doing that now. He’s solo, he’s been running solo for a while. I'm about to go solo, and I want to make sure that I still stick to this style of launch because it's very different than any other kind of business I've ever worked in. When I saw the way my dad worked and stuff like that, I know that those companies don’t work like this either. It’s a very fascinating way to approach your business, to launch in this kind of way, to have your calendar be full of events and the stuff that you ...

Guys, it’s like, there's good and bad to literally everything in life and this is using the positive parts of procrastination.


That’s what people would call it. With that, when you set the date and you're starting to create the message, just like a few weeks before or if you’re starting to be really good at this, maybe a few days before, I wouldn't recommend that though until you have really done this several times a lot, but it’s the good parts of procrastination. You’re going and you’re creating a scenario where you have to come up with something awesome because you don't have time to mess around. You get it out there, you sling it together, and in a way where you’re focusing on what sells it, not the product itself.


Then with the market, with the market, with the people you've sold or with a beta group or with the ... Whatever the point ... Whoever it is, the point is it's not by yourself. They are creating it with you, and then they go through, and what's nice about that is, like I said before, it takes that pressure off as the public is doing it with you.

That's one of the ... They're unraveling what this new opportunity is with you, because you’re not going to be able to guess what that is, which is what that book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, was saying. It’s like, "Look, it's unknowable. You can’t know what it is because no one’s been there before. You can’t analyze that market because it doesn’t exist yet. You're trying to create a new opportunity that has never been there before. You’re creating a niche."
If you're like, "I'm going to do what this guy does because it’s already out there," then you’re not creating a niche.

Anyway, think about that though...

Has ClickFunnels had all these products ready to launch at the time that they actually went to market? No. They're still creating tons of stuff all the time, and it’s awesome. That’s how fast they move with it. You're like, "Oh man, that’s really intense." It is intense, but it is so much less risky. Funny enough, then trying to make all those things before they're ready to launch, anyway. So I'm doing that, holding my feet to the fire. I'm trying to have an accountability partner, which I'm super stoked about to help hold my feet to the fire, and hold true to the launch date or hold to my calendar that I’m creating.


My calendar is full of events and launch deadlines. That’s really it, and then I backwards plan on getting each of those things done a couple weeks in advance. I start putting together the sales script. I put together the funnel to sell the thing. I'll create the first model that I think is the coolest one but then really after that, the rest of them, it’s all ask campaigns inside of each individual module, or if it's a software, each feature has its own little ask campaign. You know what I mean? You can use it any way you want, but this style, get used to it and let it sink in and be like, "Huh. When is my launch date?"

That's the first thing to figure out. When is the date? Set the date and the time that you're going to launch it.


Now start telling people about it and you're going to start crating these cool mechanisms where people create it with you, which takes the pressure off your head, and number two, find someone else to be accountable to with it. So anyways, I feel like I said the same thing over and over again, and I’m actually trying to. I'm trying to say the same thing in several different ways so that it clicks. I hope you get it and you're like, "Oh my gosh. That's how. That’s how the launch is done. That’s how you put it out there and be successful on such a regular recurring basis and launch things as quickly as you're able to."


What’s fun is that when you actually have the thing up and ready and done, you have that first round of people that have gone through and you’ve created the product with them, oh my gosh that’s such a good feeling because then you just focus on selling it, which is the funnest part in my opinion. Maybe people come back after a while and say, "You know what? We should have added an extra training here," or "I wish there was an extra feature in the software here," or "I wish that there was some other ... " and that’s great.

Then you go do a little spot check module there, a spot check training here, a spot check feature there, but besides that, guys the core of it's done and you’ve created something that’s amazing that’s tailored to what the people wanted and you've thrown in some extra things that the market has never seen before.


Then you've got yourself a sweet product that you got paid to create, and something that they wanted. Does that make sense? Too many times I've created something and it's like an overshoot of what people are expecting. They're like, "Oh my gosh. That was way too deep." That was a problem with my first MLM product that I put out there to the market a year and a half ago. It was too intense. You had to be a funnel freak like myself in order to actually pull it off. I was like, "Uh, crap. I did the overshoot thing." I had to pull it down, and rework the entire thing.


I was like, "Gosh dang it." It took me eight months to put it all together, and I was like, "Man, I did it wrong. I shouldn't have done it that way," so this time it’s totally different and it’s awesome. Oh my gosh, it’s so cool. It's a billion times better, which I didn't think was possible at the time, but the market is making it with me and that’s why. There's been a beta group for months and it’s been awesome. So anyways, I’m practicing what I'm preaching. I hope you guys are getting out there. Choose an accountability partner if you want to.

I’m excited to do the thousand dollar check thing. We're setting that stuff up right now and I’m getting ready to sprint again, which quite honestly I'm kind of addicted to.


If you don't have a massive wall calendar, I do suggest it also.

It gives a cool macro view of your day, and then usually the day before each day, the day before I do my micro planning to pull off and do my backwards planning to actually pull off what’s going on there. Anyways, that's more about how launching is done in the ClickFunnels and guru world. Pretty much anyone I've ever seen actually is launching stuff, and especially the internet marketing space, and honestly any space in general where there’s actually hustlers and things like Sales Funnel Radiothat, that’s how I watch them do it, sitting in the seat that I did at ClickFunnels. All right, guys. Hope you're doing great. I will talk to you later. Go launch stuff.

 Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Dec 23, 2017

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What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best Internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

How are you guys doing? Hope everyone's doing great. It is barely 5:00 AM here. I set the alarm for 4:00 AM, but I slept in a little bit. Anyway, it's a Saturday, though, and a lot of you guys will be like, "What the heck are you doing up so early, Steven?" Well, number one, my brain works too fast. Sometimes I can't sleep, so I just get up. Number two, the real reason is because today, I'm not sure totally if I'm supposed to talk about this, but I'm actually really, really excited. Today, what's going to happen is one of my buddies ... You guys all know him.

James SmileyI actually interviewed him probably several dozen episodes ago. His name's James Smiley. He's the man.

James Smiley was kind enough to send his own videographer, who's totally awesome, up to Boise, and today, Saturday, we are spending the entire day filming Gary V. styled videos, which is kind of cool. I'm getting up early so I can lift, honestly, and so that I can start prepping the different storylines.

They want to film at least 12 different storylines, 12 different videos, that they can turn into those fast-paced, cool, Gary V. styled little snippets, those little vignettes that he puts out all the time on Instagram.

Quite honestly, I don't really get on Instagram too much, but I am excited to get my own series of videos filmed like that. It's kind of cool. It's very exciting. I'm going through my podcast, and guess what I'm doing? I'm hacking my own self. Which means I'm going through my podcast, looking at all the stats, seeing which ones resonated with people the most. Those are the ones that will be turned into awesome videos. Just so you know, that's the process. They're like, "What's 12 cool things you could talk about?" I think everything that I put out is cool, and that's why I talked about it, but what did everyone else think was cool?

So let's go look at the stats. Let's look at what people liked and shared and things like that.

So I'm going through my show. I use a software called Libsyn, which I talked about in episode 1661, if you want to learn more about how I podcast. I'm going through all the stats, and I'm looking at basically seeing which 12 are the coolest ones. Then, I've got a whole bunch of thoughts on my own that I'll have to go add, as well. I'm excited, though.

I'm supposed to bring a whole bunch of different changes of clothes as we continue to move around Boise to different locations that are undisclosed. I have no idea where we're going today. I have no idea, really, what we're doing. I'm just pumped. I'm excited about it. I'm extremely honored to be able to do it. It's going to be fun. It'll be cool. I'm just kind of swinging with it, honestly. To have 12 different videos and stuff like that ... The thing that I have a hard time with is I am so anti ... Not professionalism.

There's certainly an awesome thing that comes with trying to be professional. It's when it makes you put so much starch in your shirt that you can't be your own personality. You know what I mean? Like I'm trying to wake up right now. I'm not going to lie. I probably should not have started podcasting. I don't want to come across in these videos in a way that it's like, "Hey, Steven is getting pre-framed and pitched and framed as if he's this pro guy." I don't look at myself like that. I don't look at myself like that. I don't look at myself as this ... I don't know. It's weird.

I feel like drinking your own Kool-Aid can really kill you. You know what I mean? It's something that I've seen many times, especially with where my job has been over the last two years, sitting next to Russell Brunson. It's something that we'll see, not from him, ever, but we'll see other people in different communities and things like that start to drink their own Kool-Aid. The moment you start doing that, you start to try to distance yourself from your own audience. When you start to distance yourself from your own audience, guess what happens?

They leave you. Why would I try and act like I'm someone I'm not? Anyway, that's actually my biggest fear with this. I'm excited. It'll be awesome.

Hey, the whole purpose of this podcast today, though, is something interesting that was brought up. I was at ClickFunnels' HQ. I don't think anyone really touches the ground there. Everyone just kind of floats and glides around. I can't remember what I was doing. I think I was grabbing a drink from the conference room or something like that or the event room. I was walking back in, and Russell was talking to someone else, too, and he and I ended up walking at the same time back to his office.

He goes, "Everyone needs to be more like Steven." I was like, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "You follow ... " What did he say? You follow the biggest pile of cash rule, biggest pile of gold rule. I was like, "What's that, man?" He goes, "It's the biggest pile of gold rule. Whoever has the biggest pile of cash, that's the person you go and follow." I was like, "That's kind of interesting." He was like, "Everyone should be more like that." He's like, "That's super cool that you're ... " He's like, "You're naturally like that, man."

It felt a little bit from left field, the comment did, but he must have been talking about it from somebody else. What I did is I went online and ... You guys got to understand that when I met my wife, i was 6% body fat. I was working out at least once a day, a lot of times twice a did. I did a couple three days. It was all self-driven. I really like it. I'm very aggressive as an individual physically. I like to push my body. As I have been married and in school and college and the pressures of everything, I'm not going to lie, I gained a little weight.

I want to change that. About six weeks ago, I got on YouTube with the intent of finding a buff dude that I could hire. What I did is I went on YouTube and literally found the most shredded guy I could, the guy who has to walk sideways through doors. You know what I mean? I wanted to find the guy that could kill me in a single flex. Not punch, flex. So I went and I found this guy. He's massive. He won all these fitness competitions.

I just messaged him totally out of the blue. I didn't know if he did any coaching at all. I was like, "Hey, man, I really want to get ripped. How can I hire you?" I was like, "I've been disciplined to do it before on my own. I want help with the meal plan. I'd like help with the X, Y, and Z. The lifting part is easy. I want help with the meal plan. Please help me with that." He was like, "Sure, man, sounds good." He's been working with me for the last six weeks. I have no idea where he lives. It's all been remote. I am not, by any means, shredded yet, but my whole goal is to be more buff looking than Russell is by Funnel Hacking Live.

So a lot of the office right now is in this competition, trying to get swol. Swol patrol, baby, woo! Anyway, Russell, he was laughing. He was like, "You follow the biggest cash rule. This dude's ripped, so that's why you hired him. You came here, you learned marketing. Biggest pile of cash rule. You follow that all the time. I wish that more people learned that."

I was like, that's interesting. I was thinking through just my life. Kind of subconsciously, that's kind of how I've done it for a long time. I explicitly did door-to-door sales because I knew it would be one of the most emotionally challenging sales environments that I could conjure up. That's why I did door-to-door sales.

Honestly, I did door-to-door sales voluntarily, knowing that it was going to suck. That's why. I did it for two summers. Then, after that, I guess I didn't get enough of it. I went and did telemarketing, because I knew that I hated talking on the phone. I knew that I would learn how to sell. Those are the reasons why I did it, so that I could get better and put myself in an uncomfortable scenario. Fascinating. I took two or three minutes just to think through the list. I was like, that was kind of like a biggest pile of cash rule.

Then, I went to the next one, the next one, the next one. I was trying to speak at different events and things like that, years ago.

A lot of you guys may not know this, but I sang for a long time, since fourth grade. I had a lead role in several musicals. I was in the top choirs. I sang in a band. I played drums for, like, six years. What was funny is that when I was doing singing, at first, I was so shy that no one could ever hear me, so I just kept practicing, practicing, practicing until finally ... I mean, I got a lot better. I put myself in really challenging scenarios on purpose. You know what I mean? Stage scenarios. What's funny is how much I'm on stage now, and I had no idea those two should coincide. Army.

I legitimately went into the Army because I wanted to get my butt kicked. I didn't need to go into the ... There were other ways, okay? I wanted to do it because I wanted to go into those extreme stressful environments where it's physically demanding, where it's all you can do to just keep it together. You know what I mean? I wanted that, which was so funny.

It sounds like a problem, but when Russell pointed it out just a few weeks ago, I was like, huh, maybe he's right. Is this a problem? You know what I mean? He's like, "Think about that. You came to learn marketing here. The buff guy, you went and you hired that guy." I'm leaving my job, not because I have a bigger pile of cash than Russell. Please never think that. I think that everyone already knows that. That goes without saying, probably. Because I think that there's things I need to learn that a job can't teach me. You know what I mean? There's some stress that comes with it. Good stress.

I'm not freaking out or anything. I'm actually really, really pumped. It'll be awesome. All I wanted to do is I wanted to help you understand the biggest pile of cash rule, as coined and termed by Mr. Russell Brunson himself. Trademarked, register mark. Put a huge thing of disclaimers in right there.

Honestly, I don't know where it stems back from, but definitely early on in my childhood, some things that I started doing ... I think, honestly, in my early teens or mid-teens. I don't know what clicked or what it was, but I kind of liked putting myself in stressful environments on purpose, because of what would happen to myself after I was done with them.

Honestly, I may not have even understood that consciously, that that's what I was doing, but I did seek out slightly stressful environments kind of on purpose. Probably first as just kind of an adrenaline high. I was a bit of an adrenaline junkie growing up. I would go long board down ... I was a big long boarder guy. I loved to long board. It's like a skateboard, but it's long. It's long board. I had a speed board, and I would go 45 miles an hour. My brother would clock my in a car behind, barefoot down hills. That's stupid. Who does that crap? That's stupid. I've always been a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, so I don't know if I can blame it on, yeah, I consciously knew that was the biggest pile of cash rule as coined by Russell.

That's slightly been the outcome from it, though, is that putting myself in scenarios where not all the pieces are quite figured out, where not everything is quite laid out in front of me, where I can't really see the middle, I just kind of know where the end is and where I'm trying to get. I know that it'll work out on the other side. Long boarding barefoot, that's stupid, okay? Don't do that. That was a dumb example.

That was an example of what not to do. I think it comes down to some lessons that Perry Belcher talked about. There's a great course. I just heard that DigitalMarketer ... This is, honestly, the best course that I think DigitalMarketer's come out with. It's a course called secret selling system. It's like 18 hours long, by Perry Belcher. It is fantastic. It is one of the best funnel training courses I've ever listened to ever. A fair warning, though, there's a fair amount of swearing in it. Anyway, I wouldn't listen to it around kids, just to let you know. Perry Belcher's a bit vulgar, if you know anything about him.

There's a few different levels. I think he named seven. I'm just going to go through three of them here. Seven different belief phases. These are different phases that an individual has to go through in order to make a sale. You think about what you're doing to yourself, too, as you start to follow, if you want to, the biggest pile of cash rule. I was thinking through that's interesting, because it really is following that same thing.

Instead, I'm just selling myself, which is why I go through those scenarios on purpose. Pre-thought out, whatever that term is. One of the very first phases of this is that a person needs to go through and ask themselves, okay, this guy's got this cool product. Is this possible at all? Meaning not for anybody, but can I see this product working at all, for anybody? If the answer to that question is yes, they can kind of move on to the next question, which is if it's possible for other people, in general, is it possible for me?

There's a whole bunch of in-between steps. I cannot remember all of them. This is the basic premise, though, and honestly, the same effect comes from these three, in my opinion. These are the three, also.

Number one, is this possible at all? Is it possible in general that this product could get the change that this guy says it is? That's the first phase of belief. The second one is is it possible for me? Can I pull this off? Is this something where I could actually go off and be successful with it?

Which kind of leads me, honestly, to the third thing. Honestly, the place that you want to stay if you're going to follow the biggest pile of cash rule, meaning whoever has the biggest pile of cash, whether that's money or some kind of result or whatever it is, those are the people you go learn from. If you're going to try and learn funnel building, go find a freaking awesome funnel builder who's built a ton of them. Right? This is Sales Funnel Radio.

That's why you're listening to me...

ClickFunnelsI've built a lot of funnels for a lot of people in a lot of scenarios. You're following the biggest pile of cash rule already right now. I've had a ton of you guys reach out and ask me if I'm going to have a mastermind after I leave ClickFunnels or coaching or something like that. I was like, hm, that's interesting. That's probably the market telling me that that's what it wants. I haven't thought of that. Maybe I should do that.

Anyway, you want to stay kind of in this third phase if you're going to follow the biggest pile of cash rule. This is something I identified for me, anyways, where if I can get past a belief that ... Let's take this lifting example, this example of me trying to ... I want to go get buff again. I was doing sprint triathlons. Guys, I was killing it. I was the fastest dude out of, like, 50 guys that I would run with. Oh, man, I so miss that. It's such a huge physical rush. I like pushing my body to those uncomfortable places. That's awesome. Maybe it's a little bit of an issue. It goes back to the adrenaline long board barefoot issue, maybe.

Let's take this as an example. Is it possible at all? Is there any belief that I have that it is possible for anyone in all of humanity to get ripped and buff? Yeah, I do believe that it's possible. Okay, that lets me go on to the second phase.

Obviously, in tandem, think through this, also, with money making. So let's go to the second phase. Is it possible, then, for me? Do I believe that I have the capacity to be able to do this? Yeah. Yeah, I have. Not just because I've done it before and was that way for a while, until I kind of focused on making money, which makes sense. I was trying to follow my fatherly roles and husbandly roles of providing. That leads me to my third phase, the third one here, and this is honestly kind of a personal one.

The third one is since it's possible, if this is possible ... How should I say this? Since it's possible, I'll just figure it out and start walking. That's kind of what I'm going to name the phase. Meaning I never, hardly ever, have all of the steps planned out. I have a very rough, 30,000-foot view plan of what I'm actually trying to do. I've noticed that it's the same way with how I build funnels. That's always that way. We never have all the details, all the plan.

This is what it's going to look like. This is what it's going to be like. This is what this page is going to say. This is what this email's going to pop ... No.

What we do is we set a very rough flag out on a hill. We say, "That's where we're going. Take the hill." We just start walking towards it. As we encounter the hill, there's a random boulder that comes up or there's a cliff that appears and we didn't know it was there. Or there's a huge chasm or a massive river or a rope bridge where it's barely working. You know what I mean? Then, we just deal with that problem at that time only. I think sometimes one of the reasons people will not progress, and something that I see ... There's hundreds of people I've coached through the coaching program now, hundreds that have come to the FAT event, the Funnel Hackathon event.

There's hundreds, you guys. One of the things I think people ... There's really two different personality types that I see, as far as it comes to action-taking, happens all the time.

The first one is the one where it's like I have got to have everything planned out in front of me so that I know it's safe for me to jump, so that I can handle every single contingency that's ever possible. I'm like, gosh, that contingency right there rue asking me about, the probably of it is so tiny.

Are you kidding me? Deal with it when it comes, which is the second personality. The second personality that I see comes through ... It's funny, because when I'm saying it on stage and I'm seeing all these people ask questions and I see them progressing, I can see who's getting it. I can also see who's already implementing it in the event. They haven't waited to leave or go home. They're doing it there. The second personality is the one who goes, "Ah, I get it. I see the vision. Not all the steps. I see the vision. I see where you're trying to take us.

Therefore, I will fill in all the gaps that I personally can, because I know that my success is not on your shoulders, Steven." Does that make sense?

What I've seen, too, is when someone hasn't taken action but they've got everything filled out ... They've got all the pieces. They've got all these pieces together. They've got all the little parts. A lot of times, what ends up happening is they're looking for another thing that they think they need in order to distract themselves from getting started.

They're looking for excuses to not buy into the process. I am begging you to not fall into that trap. If you're going to follow the biggest pile of cash rule, you can't fall into that trap, because you will not have all the answers, and you never will.

Entrepreneurship is one big answering game after another. Another question, another question, every day you wake up.

Guys, I cannot tell you how many times I sit down for my own personal business, and I'm like, crap, I don't even know what to build next. Or I don't even know what to build next or what's the next step here. No one's giving me a to-do list. No one's giving Russell a to-do list.

No one's sitting down and going, "Okay, what do I got to do today? All right, who's got that list for me?" He's sitting down and saying, "Huh, what's hurting right now? Is there something I need to go fix? Is there something we should go increase revenue on or optimize?" Does that make sense? There's no such thing as entrepreneurship where all the answers are given to you, and I am all about entrepreneurship. I know you guys are all in here, too, who are.

If you are trying to become one, please understand that it is a biggest pile of cash game. Go learn from the best people.

There's a reason Russell has his own inner circle. 100 people come in from pretty much every industry you can imagine, and then he has his own personal growth-styled masterminds, also. Then he goes and he hangs out with these massive guys that are also on his level and even higher so that he can continue to grow. Does that make sense? It's the same thing. It's the exact same thing. You will not have all the answers. You sit there and go, "Yeah, I know. No duh." If you've been waiting to launch something for quite a while, you're not following the rule, then. Does that make sense?

It is a game of jumping out of the plane and building the parachute while you fall, not before you jump. Funny enough, the first time I ever built an info product, I did it wrong. I did it so wrong. I did it terribly. I spent eight months building it, building the product. I was convinced that the product was the thing that made the sale. Products rarely make sales. A sales message makes sales. They're not the same thing. It's the whole reason why we'll go out and we sell stuff before we ever make it.

Anyway, I'm totally getting on a soap box here, because I'm noticing that a lot of people haven't started because they think that the product needs to be done or has to be perfect. It's not going to be perfect. It's coming from your own head, when the market is the thing that needs to tell you what you should be building. You don't have the creativity inside of you to be successful and make a million dollars.

That's why this game is more like a game of detective. It's like a detective game, where you're going to go through and you're going to discover what the market wants. You're going to toss things out there. Nope, that wasn't it. Let's take these three things out. Let's adjust that. Now, let's relaunch. Oh, cool, all but one of them stuck. Okay, let's go back. Relaunch, relaunch, relaunch, relaunch.

Interaction, iteration, iteration, iteration. It's part of this biggest pile of cash rule, too, where what you're really trying to do is you're trying to help just get your own self in motion. Action creates action. Motion creates motion. Success creates success. One of the easiest ways to follow the biggest pile of cash rule that I've noticed in my own life is that I try to have personal, small wins every single day. I try to get at least ... Guys, I work full-time for somebody else, and it's way more than full-time. Way more than a 9:00 to 5:00 job. It's fun, because in the last two months here, Russell's like, "Dude, can we just do a normal 9:00 to 5:00 schedule?"

I was like, "Yeah, we've never done that. That actually sounds really nice. It's the holidays coming up." I mean, we're just killing ourselves. You know what I mean?

You're not going to have any success at all if you have to have all the pieces together. That's basically what I'm trying to say. If you're trying to follow the biggest pile of cash rule, one of the easiest things that you can do is go just try and do three ... That's what I was trying to say before. Sorry, I totally lost my train of thought, because I was thinking through ... I totally have the squirrel brain. Squirrel! Squirrel! Which is nice for brainstorming scenarios, and I'm totally doing it right now. I was trying to wrap up with this, and I got distracted. I'm sorry. This is me being vulnerable and just real.

What I was trying to say, though, is one of the easiest ways to follow the biggest pile of cash rule is just try and make three moves a day if you're working for somebody else. It's going to be way more than that for me when I am completely solo January 1st, which I'm very excited about. Just make three moves a day, and that's all I try and do. Sometimes I don't get a full three, and sometimes I just get two.

Meaning I try and get two to three big things done ... What's three? I try and get three things done each day that just move the ball forward. I don't even know always where the ball is going. I just try to move the thing. Motion creates motion. Action creates action. I kind of thought that was a cliché, okay, that's nice kind of thing five years ago, and it is so true, though. Just be in motion. Guys, I got an email from someone this morning that was ridiculous. It was so cool. It was an invitation to go hang out with some incredibly huge people that have helped massive celebrities we all know become very successful.

I was like, what? What? That's crazy. Why? Motion. Moving. I hate coaching people who are not already in motion. It's one of my things. If I can tell an individual is not already moving, looking for their pile of cash, just moving towards that ... If they're not already actively learning, I hate coaching those individuals. Or they're not actively already trying to make money. Not thinking about it. Not thinking about how nice of a goal it is. Not planning it out. Actually trying to make sales.

I hate coaching those kinds of people, because I've got to teach them the biggest pile of cash rule. They've had no practice following it, where you're going out and you're learning from the best people. You're trying. You're already doing it. Nobody's motivating you. You're motivating yourself. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I try not to put too many ideas in a single podcast, and I tend to string them all together, so I should probably stop this here, just so you guys know. What I'm trying to say here is now that Russell brought it out and I realize, oh my gosh, I do follow that rule.

That is why I'm actually leaving my job. Huh, that's why I called that dude and said, "Hey, make me buff," and why I've been reaching out to all these ... That's fascinating. So follow the pile of biggest cash rule. Who is it that has actually done it? Not talked about it. Not written books about it. Who's actually done it? Who's actually done the thing? Who's actually doing the thing? Who can you follow? Follow those people. Those are the people to go follow, okay?

A lot of times, what's funny is the people who have the biggest pile of cash are not the ones that are talking. Sometimes they're the ones who don't want to talk. They don't want to let out their secrets. It's been funny to watch this whole fill your funnel process, because sometimes people don't want to reveal the traffic secrets that they're using, because they're proprietary. They're the ones that are the cutting edge.

Usually, the ones that you're hearing in courses are not the ones that are the most cutting edge ones. You know what I mean?

That's like hearing the news say, "Hey, this is the best stock to go get right now." It's like, yeah, well, like yesterday. The opportunity's already passed. You know what I mean? Same kind of thing. Sometimes when those biggest pile of cash people come into your life, you've got to find ways to convince them that you are coaching worthy. Just like I just said, I've got things that turn me off as far as someone when they want me to coach them. It's the same thing.

You've got to go convince those people that you're coachable, that you're worthy to be coached. It is the most unattractive thing on the planet when someone's asking me to coach them and I can tell they haven't even started. They're waiting for permission to start. Cut that crap out. Just start. No one's going to give you permission or a to-do list, and it's going to be all one massive, big, continuous Sales Funnel Radioproblem-solving exercise. It's very fun. It's kind of a liberating thing, actually. It's fun to have that kind of control. Anyways, guys, probably said too much there. Just think through that, though. What is the thing you're trying to go for? Find the person with the biggest pile of cash, and keep yourself in the phase where all you need to know is enough, not all of it. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best Internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroke.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

Dec 20, 2017

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Here's the Pattern I've Noticed 'the Greats' Following...

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What's going on everyone. This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Announcer: Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Steve Larsen: Hey, you guys, super excited for this episode here. I've got somewhat of a treat here. This is a little bit different. One of my buddies, Ben Willson, totally the man, been friends forever with him, actually made my first dollar online with him, while I was in college. He's the man. Anyway, he and I chat all the time, super good friends, and he had a question about content creation strategies and how to go about doing it in a way where it doesn't suck up your entire life. What I wanted to do is drop in a Vox conversation that we had about that very topic.

So what I'm going to do is I'm actually ... I have the Voxers right here, and I'm just going to drop them in right here, so you guys can hear them. It is a little bit long, but I think the strategies that I say in here should connect a lot of dots for people and help people understand more about how we can produce so much content in such a little amount of time. This is literally how I am doing it. There's more of this that I'm implementing personally, as well, my own processes.

Honestly, when you start looking at about how all the gurus actually create so much stuff, most of them are doing variations of this, if not this exact same thing. So let me go ahead and go over to the episode here, and please let me know if you enjoyed this, and give a shout out to Ben Willson for asking the question and sucking this information out of me, because sometimes I don't realize some of the things I'm doing. I'm just doing them. You know what I mean? So this was helpful.

Ben Wilson: What am I doing? What am I doing? How should I say this. I spent eight months creating my first info product before I ever sold any of it. You know that I mean? Eight months, and it sucked, and I thought I was doing it the right way, but it was the total wrong way, because I still had not hung around Russell to realize what he actually was doing. Now, though, I know exactly how he does it, which is awesome.

The way he pumps out so many freaking products ... because he has a hold. I mean, granted he's got a graphics guy. He's got a video guy. He's got a Facebook guy. He's got this. He's got this, whatever, but he's still the main creative, you know? He is. He's still the main innovator of products there.

What I've noticed, watching him, is that ... so I spent eight months creating that first product, and no one bought it for months after it was done. Instead, and this is the scariest thing on the planet, but it is ... How should I say this? Dude, he sells stuff before he ever, ever starts creating it, and it's the way he rolls it out, and he pre-frames it with everybody, so they know that it's not ready.

He says, "Hey, look," two weeks from the time that it starts ... I'm sure that, I've talked about this on my podcast before, so you're probably like... That's how, though, like "Hey, it starts in two weeks. Part of the early bird pricing is we're going to give a little price drop as a thank you. It's $9.97 to join."

Then one week out, "Hey, it's one week away, $9.97 to join, early bird pricing." Then on the actual day, "Hey, guess what? It's actually, opened today, but we're still accepting the early bird pricing deal," right? Then a week after you've opened the cart. "Hey, good news. You guys don't have to wait like everyone else did. You can get started right now, for just $9.97."

Same thing two weeks in. "You don't need to start. There's already two modules that are already done in there for you." But really, what you're doing is, so that's the surface level that everybody sees but what you're actually doing and this is how I build Secrets Masterclass what you're actually doing is you put an ask campaign onto every single module, so you know at least what the models are gonna be but they're not created yet.

So on every single module you have an ask campaign. So let's say the first module was about how to drive Facebook ads and module number two is about how to talk to people on the phone, I don't know I'm just making stuff up. Let's say module number three is about whatever. You would go and you would say, "Okay, I'm so excited for this module with you guys." Sorry, "So excited for this module with you guys." Module number one's going to be all about Facebook ads just so I make sure I've got the content correctly, addressing your needs. What is your number one question or challenge about Facebook ads right now?

And they're, when they go through and answer it they're giving the freaking content that they're asking you to create. It's funny because I usually go way past what they're expecting, way overboard. I have totally done that on this [inaudible 00:05:17] products thing. 100%, you know what I mean? Because I'm building stuff that they didn't even know existed, which is fine 'cause I'm going to use it in other areas, but I won't probably sell it like this in the future. Anyway, so that's one way as far as rolling out courses and you probably, I mean you probably know that, I'm sure.

Here's another way, I'm just going off the top of my head, like here's several ways of repurposing content like an absolute beast. So we'll have, do you know the difference between, this is also one of the major keys, it's the difference between an opportunity switch and an opportunity stack. If you, I know you've read "Extra Secrets" but, when it's an opportunity stack, those are way easier than opportunity switches, with an opportunity stack and we're just doing like one off sales when they're, "Hey we should sell this," but it's not like a continuity, it's not like easily continuity based thing like, Funnel Immersion, do you remember that?
I don't know if you ever saw that but Funnel Immersion was like the back archives of all the treatings he had done for his inner circle. So like 300 bucks. It was amazing.

And on day two it was like $400 for the same content. On the third day it was $500 for the exact same content because on the fourth day it closed out and you still can't buy it. If you go to Funnelimmersion.com you still can't buy it but what it did is it let us create a product. Sorry. It let us create a product and get paid for the creation of the product. Okay he doesn't like to create content without getting paid for it.

So he always sells it first and then he goes out and he creates the content second. So it's the same kind of thing so all he did was he had these pre-created things and all I did was I aggregated them and we sold it, it made 300 grand in like three days it was ridiculous and we closed it out but now what we know is that that offers awesome. So it becomes a very easy upsell in other funnels. So, I can't remember which funnels I'm part of right now, but you can't buy it on the open web, which is awesome because it's let us say in the pitch now, on the first OTO, "Hey this is literally not available on the internet."

You know the back archives of X, Y, and Z is $300 and we know it converts well because it sold so well so he'll take these one off products and make them the upsells inside other funnels where it makes sense to have that thing. And I'm trying to think what other ninja strategies or content tips.

The repurposing thing that is totally, I'm sure that's kind of self, I'm sure you've done that before too. That's why I like [inaudible 00:08:20] so freaking much, oh my gosh, I just create one podcast episode and it blasts all over the place on youtube and video platforms and also, tons of social medias and the blog and, it just gets repurposed like a beast.

It's kind of cool because if you can get your own content strategy down it lets you feel to the rest of the world your like, a hundred guys. When your just like one or two.

Here's another cool strategy that I'm actually gonna start implementing it, especially as I go solo. Dude, I know you've noticed content creation takes for freaking ever and it's a huge pain in the butt so I'm gonna start doing what I've seen a lot of other inner circle people do and actually I've actually already been doing it to a smaller degree. And that is a lot of these guys will bash their content in a serious way. Sorry, dude I'm yawning like crazy, I gotta go to sleep soon. [inaudible 00:09:24]at like 2 AM I gotta go to bed now but anyways so what they'll do is this. They will find themselves a graphics guy and like a general social media manager person. Kay, and what they do is and this is what [John Lee Dumas 00:09:44] does, JLD, entrepreneur on fire, I got to listen to him, got to talk with him, he's a cool guy.

They will schedule all of their interviews for their podcasts for all of their content creation or every video they're gonna shoot for that, for the next while, you know, three months even and his team gets it transcribed, takes a picture from it to turn it into a meme, they turn it into a podcast, they turn it into a blog post, into an Instagram thing.

Anyway they repurpose it into every platform that you can even conceive in a week's time. So first of all it gets passed to this person and they create a meme out of it. And then they hand it off to the next person and they get the next one and they create it out of the meme out of that one and they hand it off to the next person and this next person what they do is, and this is these ridiculous content generating machines that they put together. Yeah, they don't have to spend all the time creating all this stuff. They spend several days at the beginning of each month.

John Lee Dumas, I know he does, he told us that he does his interviews the first two days of every month. So they'll only be one hour interviews but they'll be back to back to back to back. He's like they're killer days. They're good days but they're killer. He's like, "I'm totally rocked by the end of it, but then I hand it off to my team they do the editing, then they put it all together, and then they drip it out. Every single day for the next ever." I mean he podcasts literally every day that's like JLD's thing but that's how though, that's how he does it.
Stu McLaren, for his membership sites. Dude that dude makes $627,000,000 a year on membership sites that he only actually spends two weeks a year creating. Most people don't know that. Isn't that crazy?

So what he does is his membership sites are heavily based on interviewing experts and each month they get a new expert interview, they get a blog post, they get a behind the scenes thing. A lot of cool stuff and the persons paying them $27 a month or something like that and it could be about recipes. Whatever. What he does is he'll fly in twelve different experts and he interviews them all in a single day and he creates all the content and all the models, all the courses, everything over the next week or two and then it's constantly, it's dripped out, so it's evergreen for each person that comes in and he's set for literally a full freaking year and ... it's behind the scenes of all these guys doing all their content in course generating that has been, it really opened my eyes.

To think through, like so I'm gonna start doing that because I got a business to freaking run man. But I got to talk to my audience. I try to podcast at least twice a week that's what I want to do though. Dude publishing has changed my life for that one so I can't not publish.

Ben Wilson: Not publishing feels like I'm taking away future of thousands of thousands of dollar per day for my self. Because if I publish and I just make a-

Steve Larsen: I'll text her to...

Ben Wilson: A following out of it like, I think publishing is as powerful of a skill as... because if you can get publishing down, dude some of the worst YouTubers out there have no idea what they're doing at all but they have these gigantic followings. They don't know how to build funnels, they have no idea how to monetize anything, but they get these massive, massive followings, really, really quickly because they figured out how to publish and be an attractive character and tell stories, which is mostly what it is, it's just story telling. And ... anyway that's seriously what that is though.

But that's what I've, anyways that's what I've learned.
Here's another cool little tidbit, when these guys go and create courses, so they'll go, they'll go usually whatever easiest to create the actual content that's the medium that they'll go for so like, I do podcasting cause it's really freakin' easy for me to repurpose that stuff and... and turns it into a video for me as it's getting publish, which is awesome so I don't have to make a video.

So Russel will film an entire module or even an entire course in a single sitting sometimes. He's got so much backlogged content that he doesn't totally need to do that anymore so well I'll just take and pick and grab different things and repurpose from other courses and, you know what I mean like, I do that all the time. That's what Secrets Masterclass is. And then we filmed a single intro video for each module in just a single shot but what these guys will do though for their courses, they call it thud factor.

Okay thud factor is if you were to take a book and drop it on a table from a foot high, like what kind of thud does it get so this is an actual thing called thud factor. I think this comes from Danny Kennedy or something like that. But what they do is this, is when they go and create these courses that put things together, it's the same reason ... Anyway let me tell you the thing and then tell you how I'm doing it. Cause I totally have been, which is awesome.

But what they'll do is, they'll go film the whole course, they'll take that, they'll get it transcribed and turn it into a workbook, or a news letter or transcriptions, they'll take the videos, they'll put it into a member's area but they'll also take the videos and put 'em into, they'll put it into 12 thumb drives, it could easily fit on one thumb drive but that takes away thud factor. Kay, in the workbook it would make fiscal sense to print double-sided. They don't. They print single-sided because it's thicker and you have more thud factor.

So when you get these boxed sets from these people. You open it up and we all consume content in different ways. I never read blogs, I'm shocked when people read mine, I know it's good to have so I do it. Right? Cause there are people that will read it so someone will each out and say, "Hey, I was reading your blog," and I was like, "Wow I forgot I had one." It's all part of the system I put up. And, "This sounds awesome, X, Y, and Z," but like they've never heard my podcast. They're just reading transcriptions from it.

Anyways it's fascinating stuff. Russel has all these box sets, all over his book shelves and what they are is their swipe files to him, meaning it's some guy who had awesome thud factor so they went out and it's this right there's a, first there's an actual iPad that has the course pre-loaded on it or you could listen to it on your computer and there's twelve thumb drives with all the courses spread throughout there. Or if you want there's a notepad where all of it has been transcribed and you get a huge massive, three ring binder and it honestly it could have fit on a two inch three-ring binder but it looks so much better it's on a four to six inch reading binder, you know what I mean?

And so you get this box that's huge because what they're trying to create inside the person's mind is finality. If there's finality in the brain, right that gives the warm fuzzies to a buyer that they have found a solution, that they've arrived, they come home, that there's no more reason to look anymore cause I found home. So that's how they're doing that. That's just a whole bunch of different content generating strategies man, when it's all said and done it's all about batching it and especially if you're regularly publishing, it's about batching it. If you're course creating it's usually about selling it first so you know it actually sells and then creating one module at a time with them.

So that first group that comes in with you is creating a content with you so that everyone that follows up afterwards and is buying afterwards you know that its awesome content because it was basically user created, they just don't know that.

Anyways that's pretty much it though. And then they look for ways to duplicate themselves so live QnA calls are amazing, group QnA not one on one. One on one QnA calls to be sold at for a higher ticket price, higher up in the valley ladder. The group coaching QNA calls are awesome because you can record those, get them transcribed, you can give the audio, you can turn it into a video and make a youtube series out of it. You can take that and get it transcribed and put it into a monthly news letter with, "Hey this is the groups'-" dude, tons of people do that kind of stuff and I used to think it was kind of a joke honestly but it is ridiculous how powerful it is. And like there's tons of people who won't ever get on the QnA calls but they will listen to every single replay.

You know what I mean?

'Cause that's how they consume content. I don't ever read blogs, I watch youtube videos and I listen to podcasts. That's how I consume content.

I don't ever answer my phone and that's ... it's all about this concept that Russel talking long a Vox man sorry about this. I hope this is okay but it all revolves around a concept called conversation domination, I can't remember who first said that but, we wanna dominate every single channel, dominate every single conversation. Gary V taught that back in the 1950s there were like three different channels. NBC, ABC, and whatever alright there weren't that many and the reason Tony Robbins is Tony Robbins is because back when there was only three channels in the TV, he had ads on every single one of them. That's like how he blew up. Right, I mean that's why he's so big.

He dominate, I know it wasn't the 50s but 60s or 70s or something like that. That's why he's Tony Robbins because he dominated those channels and so Gary V teaches that the phone is like the TV of the 70s.

Click FunnelsThere's only three or four channels you got YouTube, there's Facebook, Periscope, you know, if anyone gets on it anymore, Instagram. Those are the channels. It's all about conversation domination so you make sure you are auto publishing to every single one of those platforms as frequently as you can because you'll dominate conversation, there's no other room for someone to even think about something else because you are literally dominating all conversation inside of it so that's why Russel publishes so freaking much. It's way more than a single person or follower or lover of ClickFunnels can ever consume and it's actually on purpose.

Anyway, I'm probably preaching to the choir on a lot of stuff. I just, I love this topic because, it's a huge deal. It's a big deal. And it blows my freaking mind when somebody does not take publishing seriously because if they actually want to have a successful business, especially in the social media world, and they're not publishing, they're kidding themselves. I kind of scoff at it honestly, it's like okay. Like cool, this is just a wish for you then, it's not a real thing yet. You know what I mean like that's why I wanna, that's the kind of attitude I have towards people when they're like, "Well I don't know that I wanna be publishing," I was like, "Well, get ready to not make money then."

You have to and anyway doesn't have to be crazy either, those are, a lot of those are extreme ways, the way I do it is I literally batch, I'll usually record three episodes at a time in my podcast of each one. I go send it, I get it all transcribed on one shot and I send it over to somebody and she turned it into a blog post and she uses this cool tool called SE Oppressor, which mimics Google algorithm so she can see how my blog will rank before we actually publish it, which is kind of cool. It fully works too, it's why Google Click Funnel my stuff starts popping up all over the place. It's totally worked. Just good, that was what I was going for.
And then I give her a schedule to release it all on.

That's kind of it. But because of... and how she's pushing it out it blasts to like 18 channels or something so. Anyway those are some long freaking Voxes man but anyway helpfully.

Steve Larsen: It's Steven holy crap you that, just pieced it together. You just straight pieced it together. So I've heard a lot of the stuff before but in snippets and in little bits and everything like that. What you just packaged in the, those two boxes, that was mind blowing ... I feel like I owe you lots of money for those two Voxes because that was nuts.

I actually, I legitimately I think I'm gonna transcribe what you just said and dude straight up, I would, you should easily just make that a podcast, I wouldn't even change it. Dude thank you for seriously taking the time to answer that question. I was literally what I was looking for and to the depth that I needed it 'cause like I said there's a lot of the information that's been said before but you connected the dots to a lot of things as to how you repurpose the contents and then how you go about creating the content and then repurposing it and dude you're a freaking Sales Funnel Radiorock star.

That was a lot I literally have to listen to 'em again.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Wanna get one of today's best internet sales funnels for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-build sales funnel today.

Dec 19, 2017

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I STOLE from Russell Brunson when I was poor (one of his favorite stories), but here is what I learned from it....

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What's going on everyone, this is Steve Larsen, you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels, and now here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Steve Larsen: Alright guys hey, real quick I just want to let you know about the time that I stole. Okay, I do not condone this behavior, I have since gone to these people and said sorry, and actually this is one of Russell's favorite stories, 'cause I actually stole from Russell.

I stole from Russell when I was in college and we had nothing, we had like hardly any money, and I knew that if I just could get my hands on one of his courses that I would be able to be successful with the thing that I was going forward with. It was true, and I was, and it was great, but I got a copy of his course from a bootlegger and I don't totally know how, I think I was poking around on YouTube trying to find versions of it and things like that. I was like I've just got to, if I could just do this one piece I know I'd be successful with it.

I went and I, there was some guy in the description who was telling everybody, hey if you need copies of X, Y and Z go ahead and reach out to me. So I was like sweet, oh awesome, and I feel bad, like don't do this okay. This was a stupid thing, it was a very bad decision and I don't know what else I can say because I mean it's not right and I do take that seriously. You know what's funny is so I got the course and I learned a lot from it, it was great, it was awesome. It was actually Dot Com Secrets X, you know one of the earlier courses.

I shouldn't say earlier, I mean he had been having lots of courses out there and stuff. But this one was a three month course, it was awesome, I went through it. It was fantastic, it actually was very life changing for me, it was very life changing. Changed what I was doing, and I mean it was awesome. I was laughing that I ended up getting hired by Russell, and one day I was like I've got to tell Russell this story.

For the sake of number one apologizing and you know I obviously offered to pay for it, I offered to pay the price for the course and everything, you know I felt bad. I mean it's wrong, and it's not something that I'm honestly proud of that I did, but I often would sit back ... The reason I bring this up is because I would often sit back and I would think to myself, like why would this marketer, why would this guru, why would this individual not give his course away to me for cheaper? It was a question that would go through my head a lot, not that I was mad, I wasn't mad at all, but I was just like gosh like why can't I get this?

I would love to go through this course, I would love to learn what this guys teaching, maybe it could change my life. I knew that I would take it seriously, if I could just have the content, if I could just have the stuff, right?

What's funny about the whole thing is that, okay so I ended up going and I got the course and I went through it and I applied it and it was great. A lot of times what would happen was there were these pieces of jealousy that I would kind of go through, this is kind of early on in my endeavors on the Internet anyway. I'd kind of get jealous and a little bit mad and be like come on, like give this to me cheaper, I would love to have this thing. I was excited when I finally got Russell's, but I was ... I just wanted the discount, you know, and you may have gone through this before, I just wanted to know. I just wanted the discount, I just wanted to be able to go through the content.

There was, I think I was in the gym, I think so anyways, I'm recalling a lot of memories right here. But I was listening to a podcast of Russell's, okay keep in mind I had just stolen a course from him.

I had stolen the course and what I learned from the whole thing was that he basically said that like look I don't discount prices, pretty much ever, because if you can't afford this thing it means you actually need it even more. I know it's kind of a weird way to say that, but think about it this way, if I ... Let's say I was in like high school okay, in a high school when I was going through these different classes, or even in college when I was going through these different classes. Actually college is probably a better example, you don't start at the senior level classes, right? You don't, what happens?

You'd go into the senior level classes, obviously there's like some crazy person out there who probably did, and did great at it or whatever. But you don't start at the senior level classes, you start at freshman level, and you start with basic stuff, and you start with foundational things and you hustle through a little bit of Mr Miyagi type of things out there. Like why am I doing this? Paint the fence and the floor, you know stuff like that.

It's good that an individual wants to be able to go and get the course, that they'll go and they want to pay coaching, to get coaching from the guy. They want to be able to spend time doing the thing, you know what I mean? What I realized though is that a lot of personal development happens inside of business because prices are set as they are.

Meaning, when I couldn't get to Funnel Hacking live, I had to do a ton of stuff, a lot of experimenting, a lot of soul searching. A lot of grinding, a lot of problem solving on my own that I would not have had to have gone through if I had just been able to just buy the tickets outright. I had to get creative, I was trading tickets for funnels. Back and forth, and back and forth. What's funny is when I learned that, when I realized that, that's what was going on, and that was the lesson I realized that I actually fell in love with the fact that I didn't have money for it.

Now not the fact that I didn't have money, but I started learning to love the problem. The problem being that I did not have money to get the thing. When I knew that what a guru was offering was a good thing, when I knew that the product they were offering was amazing, when I knew that it would change my life. If I had to work that much harder than the other guy just to have the money to buy it, I knew that I would actually do it, I knew I'd actually apply it.

How many times have you bought a course and you've never actually done anything with it? Okay, how many books are sitting on your bookshelf that you've actually never read? It's the exact same thing, and obviously I believe in learning with purpose and you guys all know that. I don't just learn anything for the sake of it, if I need to solve the problem in front of me then I'll go read the related books and take the related courses, but I don't just read just willy-nilly. I don't go anywhere, like whatever.

Russell BrunsonBut what I'm saying is I don't discount prices, and it's for that exact same reason, I don't discount prices. Russell didn't discount prices, when I finally left college and I had learned that lesson, and I fell in love with the purification that comes with trying to just solve the problem. I was so enamored by it, I wanted all the other students, and all my friends, and all the teachers I was with to learn the stuff that I had been learning. So I left college and I went and I grabbed basically 30 books, and 30 Dot com Secrets books, 'cause I was not working at ClickFunnels.

I started shipping out all these books all over the place, tons of them. I'd ship out books to these friends and all these people kept asking me, like how are you doing what you're doing? Dude are you kidding me that's crazy, how are you doing this? How you are doing this? I kept telling them like, just wait dude I'm sending you something, you got to read it. Okay. What's funny is I sent out 30 of these books and you know how many people actually read the book?

None of them. Not a single person. Why? It's 'cause they didn't, there was no actual sacrifice that they gave on their part to actually take part in the course. To take part in the learning, to take part in the development that they were looking for. They had done nothing except think about it, one time. Oh it'd be so nice to have that, they're not in love with the thing, they're in love with the idea of the thing. Does that make sense?

So I don't discount prices. Any time anyone of my buddies, or anyone in my past, or even any current customers or people who listen to this podcast, whatever it is. Anytime anyone comes to me and they say, Steven please will you look at my funnel? My answer is yes, here is my coaching link where you can buy my time. Why? It's not to throw the finger at the people who are asking that, it's not to go and rub it in peoples faces. It's because if I actually do it for free I rob them, they won't do anything with it. You know how many times I've done stuff for free for people, I have built so many funnels for free on the hopes and the promises that it would be worth tons in the future. Hey Steven please build this funnel, we got this great opportunity, if you build the funnel we'll give you 50% of the revenue for the rest of your life.

That's a dumb deal, that's a bad deal, very stupid deal, right? I'm going go do all the work and then they take half the money for it.

First of all it's crazy, second of all when I learned, when I figured out that nobody that I was building these funnels for were actually doing anything with them afterwards, I got ticked. I got so mad, I realized that, that was honestly only like a year and a half ago, a year ago.

So I stopped building funnels for free for people, and I stopped giving my products for free, unless it was strategic, like a front end or something like that. I stopped giving me, I stopped giving my stuff for free. I'm unapologetic about it now, and it's like it is this price, number one because it's worth that much, I make great offers. I know there's amazing value in them, but number two I literally know that you will not do a darn thing with it unless I have you give a little sacrifice and put a little skin in the game.

You know what's funny about sales funnel broker coaching, it's no different than anything else, right? 80/20 rules still applies, 20% of them do anything, it's true for any event. It's true for ... I had worked so hard to get to Russell's first Funnel Hacking live event, by boot strapping my way there. I took 52 pages of notes at that event, I stayed up, I did everything that I could. I was drinking deeply, if they said we're doing this, I participated, full in both feet in the whole time. I was baffled at how many people didn't even bring their note books home with them. That they had left out on the chairs for all of us, with all the slides and all the speaker notes. Like are you kidding me?

Do you not know what they just gave us? But it didn't mean the same thing to those people, they hadn't actually given anything of their self away.

What I'm trying to tell you is number one I don't discount on price and you shouldn't either. Unless there's something in there, but usually the first thing people go to, okay lets say that you're going to sell something to me or to a buddy. You go to the buddy and you say, hey here's a thing, and it's a $1000, and someone goes oh will it do this?

A lot of times the knee jerk reaction to any rejection is a price decrease. I mean that happens all the time. A price decrease, someone literally decreases the price, immediately as soon as there is an objection to your product. Oh don't worry it's 30% off today. If you're doing that it means your offer isn't good enough yet. If the offer is amazing you don't have to compete on price, it's the exact same thing for what I build, for what Russell builds, for all the things that I put out, for what Russell puts out. I know their good, I know their good and I do not, I am not apologetic and I'm not embarrassed. I had a hard time ... I'm just being open with you guys.

I had a hard time charging money for my stuff for a while, and I know it's actually quite a common concern. Where conceptually you understand the marketing stuff, you understand the business, you know the automation pieces but you're not actually doing it 'cause you don't have a product because you're too afraid to charge something. You're too afraid to ask for someones credit card number. I know in a lot of cases I'm preaching to the choir here, like you guys get that, but there's a lot more cases out there than I ever realized until I started coaching people how to do this stuff inside sales funnel broker coaching. I did not realize how big of an issue it was mentally for people to have to overcome that.
I know I've talked a little bit in the past about ways to get around that, you know go buy a product for $1000 to give yourself emotional permission to go sell stuff for $1000. If you feel like you can't charge $10,000 for something, you should probably go pay $10,000 for something.

SalesFunnelBrokerThere's a lot of ways to get around that emotionally, and get through that barrier but what I'm trying to tell you is like stop, don't apologize for charging people. You actually do a disservice when you give it for free. You do a disservice if you deliver in any other way.

Don't be afraid to charge money, and don't be afraid to charge more money than the competitor. Don't be afraid to charge more money than other people around you. If you walk out to ...

Let's say you go to a car lot, okay a brand new car lot, brand new Lamborghini car lot and you walk out to the car lot and you say, hey I would like to look at this Lamborghini and they say great come on with me sir. You're walking, and let's say you even wore a suit, because you might go buy a Lamborghini, and you have the cash for it and you're super stoked. You've saved up and it's been on your dream wall, and you know the exact model and color.

You know everything about it and you walk up and you see the car and you know it is. It's beautiful, I'm not even that much of a car guy, I'm just saying. You walk up to this car and it's beautiful and you're like, this is the one, I have waited so long for this car, how much is this? The sales guy looks over at you, and the sales guy looks right at you and he starts to smile and he goes, you know what I can tell you really like this car, just for you this brand new Lamborghini, it's only five grand.

What would you do? You would sit back and be like, what's the first knee jerk reaction that you would have to that? You would ask what's wrong with it. What's wrong with the car? Why is it only five grand? I'm expecting to pay like a hundred times more than that, I don't know how much a Lamborghini is, I'm not really a car guy like I said. But you'd expect to pay a lot more money, right?

A lot more money, it's the same thing with your offers, what ends up happening when somebody goes out and you start price decreasing right out of the gate, it immediately starts to plant these little seeds of doubt inside of the perspective customer. It starts to put inside their head questions like, what's wrong with it? Oh so it is okay, and you need to keep reassuring them. Well does it have these other features? They may not even care, they might not even use them, like the billion settings on your car stereo, how many of them you actually use? Like three, the on button and a few others, you know what I mean?

I'm like features don't really sell very well, it's all about benefits, you know what I mean? But that's what I'm trying to say, so I am unapologetic about the pricing that I place there. You know what's funny about that is I typically get a higher quality customer with higher prices. When I was selling a lot of $100 funnels and $100 products and things like that, and since I've taken a lot of them off the market, I don't want to sell that. I know this is stereotypical and it was not true in every case, but $100 product brought a very different customer to me than I wanted to work with.

Again it's not at all me being selfish, it is very much me deciding who I want to work with, and realizing that the individual who is scraping to get $100 probably is working on a different problem set in their life than let me start a business. They might be still solving the problems of hey how do I pay bills every month? Or how do I keep a steady job?

I'm not trying to judge, I'm not trying, like I get it, it's totally fine. I've been there. You all know I've been there. There was a time like I couldn't afford that stuff, sadly I stole over it, but what I'm trying to tell you though is like there are a hundred reasons. There's tons of reasons why you should never discount price and in fact let the price bring the right customer to you. I'm not telling you not to do this either, but like this is such a powerful concept guys, you could literally take two of the exact same product, charge more, double for one of them and you'll get a higher quality customer, someone who's more status driven. Again, use that for good or bad, you know what I mean?

Like use, it for good, but what I'm saying just know that, that's the power of this thing, that status is very much involved in an element of this.

Working with someone who's figured out a lot of the basic problem sets of life, self care and things like that. They're going to be more attracted to higher prices, or I'm sorry, they're going to be more attracted to the lower prices. Again, I'm not telling you not to sell low, I'm not telling you not to sell high, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to tell you that you don't need to compete on price. That it is okay to charge higher, that it's okay to unapologetic about it and that you are doing a disservice to somebody else when you do not charge enough money or when you give it to them for free.

Just going to wrap the whole thing up here, I ended up telling Russell this whole story of me stealing the thing. He was laughing so hard, he's like, are you kidding me? I was like, I'm sorry man, like I will pay you right now, I have the money obviously and I will. He just started laughing, he's like, nah, that course brought you to me so whatever. So it's all good. I was like alright, as long as you feel like that's okay, but I just need my conscience clear about it 'cause it was wrong and I feel bad and I'm not a thief.

MoneyAnyway yeah, so charge money and charge good money, and understand that if you feel like you can't charge money it really might be that your offer might not be good enough yet. So go back and look at it, keep tweaking it, keep tweaking it. But have price dropping be like your very last go to thing, when you're actually selling it. Don't decrease price, you decrease bonuses okay?

You remove bonuses, you remove certain elements, little goodies and things like that, that you're going to go with it. That way the value that they're getting is less for the money you're charging. It's still worth it, they're just getting less stuff, does that make sense? You'll still get a better customer by keeping the price high and then just tweaking, and removing and playing around with it, and doing scarcity and urgency with bonuses rather than dropping price.

Anyway that's it guys, be unapologetic about the price, hope you guys are doing Sales Funnel Radiogreat and I'll talk to you later.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio, please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best Internet sales funnel for free? Go to Salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre built sales funnel today.

Dec 15, 2017


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Here is how I have mitigated risk as I prepare to leave my job...

ClickFunnels

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host Steve Larsen.

 Hey, so the last few days have been pretty intense, not in a bad way. There's good intense and bad intense. You know what I mean? But the pressure has been increasing. My wife came to me the other day. I think it was yesterday or two days ago. She walked up to me. It was morning time. You know, everyone's kind of getting up. She walks in and she's like, "I had a really bad dream last night." I was like, "Really? What was it?"

She goes, "I had a dream that you were upstairs ..." I have a home office here upstairs, kind of in the corner of the house, which is kind of nice to have. I've got sound panels all over the place. I totally made a man cave. I love sitting in this room and creating stuff. I got whiteboards all over the place. Quotes on the wall. Three bookshelves totally full.

Anyway, I love it. Sound equipment all over the place. Film stuff. I've got a sheet over on the wall over here, top to bottom. It's a black sheet that I stand in front of and film a bunch of 4K videos with, which looks awesome, super cool, and actually pretty pro. It looks pretty awesome. Anyway, I like video a lot.
Anyway, back to the story. She goes, "I had a dream that you came down from the office. That you had left ClickFunnels. This was later on in the future, in January. You came down and you just said, 'Alyssa, is there a check in the mail?'" She was like, "I said back to you, 'No. Why would there be a check in the mail?'"

I'm like, "I don't know," or, "Who it'd be from?" "I don't know. I'm just wondering if there's a check in the mail. We only have a thousand dollars in our bank account." This is all in the dream. My wife was like, "What? Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? There's no money in the bank account?" Like, "What have you been doing?" I was like, "Ah, I haven't started selling anything yet." She's like, "Well, go start selling crap." Like, "What are you waiting for?"


Anyway, the pressure is here, okay? The pressure is turned up. I'm excited. It was never my intention to be an employee. But I am super thankful that I've had this experience. I would never regret the fact that I've gone through this and that I've worked for somebody else and that it's Russell Brunson. I mean, come on. Holy crap. This is like a dream job which seems all the more ludicrous that I would leave ClickFunnels. What's funny about it is that there's a lot of people ... I don't know if some of you guys who listen to this that still think that I'm crazy about them. It's hilarious to me how many people have reached out, giving me their opinion on the fact that I should not leave. I go, "Okay. You have no idea what I'm going to go do."

Some person messaged me and they're like, "Hey. Awesome. You're going to go do ..." I'm won't say exactly what they said, but it's just hilarious like ... It reminds me of the quote like if you're not marketing hard enough or if you don't offend someone by noon, you're not marketing hard enough.


It's funny, guys. As you develop your own attractive character, be prepared to have a lot of naysayers that pop out. I actually kind of look forward to it now. If I don't get enough naysayers, I feel like I'm not taking as aggressive of moves as I should be, so bring it on. I like hearing the other side too, but man, every once in a while it's like, "Gosh." I wrote something back to a certain individual like three times, and I just ended up deleting it. I was like, "It's not even worth it. Just, ugh, whatever." It's funny. It's funny, but the pressure is on. So what do you do ... I know a lot of you guys are thinking like what do you do when you know that you're about to lose your job? I shouldn't say lose my job, I'm leaving. But most people they either lose their immediately because they got fired or they're leaving this other job with a two weeks notice.


I've known for a very long time you guys, way before it was ever announced. Way before Russell every announced it before, everybody start talking about it. We have both known that I was going to leave ClickFunnels for a long time. What's funny about it is it's almost like ... I'm trying to think of an example, but you know like when you put something off and there's more ... I forgot the name of it. There's an actual theory behind this.

ClickFunnelsIt's when there's an ... Like if you have three months to get something done, because you have three months, there is added stress and pressure because you have three months of stress and pressure rather than it being needed to be done in three days because you know that it's three days.

You know what I mean? It's been fumy because that's exactly what's happened. I've totally had sleepless nights. I've thought through ... I'm just being open about this, okay? I'm being open and I'm being real. I'm letting you guys know where I am.


What's funny is I'm not nervous about creating revenue on my own. Obviously, I would not leave ClickFunnels without that being a very solid plan, which it is. I'm grabbing a little ownership and a few other things that I haven't quite announced yet.

There's a lot going on behind the scenes in the world of Steve Larsen. But what I wanted to talk about real quick today was if you ... Okay, quick story. Russell has got this cool story he was telling me about the other day. I can't remember who, but he had this thing called like the 30 day challenge or something like that. I actually can't remember what it was called. But basically, the premise was this guy went around to all these gurus and he started saying things like, "Hey, let's say you lost everything. You lost your reputation or you don't have one. You're starting literally from scratch.

What would you do to be back on your feet in 30 days?" It's a pretty powerful question when you think about that.


Think about where you are right now and go ground zero in your own head, ground zero. No assets, nothing. No money, no reputation, no following, nothing. No list, anything, nothing at all. You have a ClickFunnels account and your rent on your internet has been pre paid for a month or something like that. What would you do? Right? What would you do? Someone messaged me the other day. They're like, "How can we not sleep anymore?" and stuff like that. What would you do if you knew you don't have a job in a few weeks? Come on. Tell me how would you handle it.

I worked my butt off which I've been doing.

We are more than fine. I made like 10 grand last week on this one event funnel, I'm sorry, application funnel. That's not to be cocky. I'm letting you guys know I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to just jump ship from something without any plan. It's a very solid plan. It's been there for a long time. It's amazing and extremely lucrative, and it's awesome. I'm excited to talk more about it once I'm no longer part of ClickFunnels, anyway, and tell you guys a little bit more about those things you guys can follow and totally funnel hack, which is awesome.


Anyway, but what would you do? What would you think about? So I want you to know the process that I've gone through in my head to make sure that I'm ready to make the leap because I know a lot of you guys are trying to do that because you message me about it. A lot of you message me. I don't think you guys realize how many of the rest of you are also messaging me besides a lot of the rest of you also. There's a lot of messages that I get. It's fun and it's awesome. Please don't get offended if I can't answer every single one of them. It's logistically impossible now. But anyway, what would you do though? You think about that. What would you actually do? Then what I invite you to do is as I go through like two or three things here to let you know what I've done. I've already tested it.

It's already making great money. It's already like this, you know, which is why I can leave, which is why I can go jump off and do that stuff. I want you to think through in your head your own checklist. What is it that you would do? Then I invite you to actually do it. Create that actual environment in your head and just get it done.


You know what's funny about building funnels? It's really easy. I know some of you guys are laughing when I say that, but it is. Click drag, drop, click buttons, choose some colors, right? I mean, if you can send email, you can use the ClickFunnels editor, right? What most people screw up on and the reason why it gets hard for them is because they suck at making offers, okay? Funnel building is more about offer creation than it is putting a few pages together, okay?

Any monkey can put a few pages together. They're even pre-done for you in templates where you literally would just have to change the copy on the page, okay? There's templates over the place. So then what is it really? Let's think about it. What actually is the reason why the funnel isn't working? It's because you suck at offer creation. If that stings a little, that's okay. It's medicine.


Think through, "Wow. Do I actually know how to create offers?" Wherever you are in the world right now, I want you to raise your hand. I'm not trying to get on a side tangent here, but I want you to realize how I've been able to secure my landing as I jump from ClickFunnels, because I know how. I know exactly why. I want you to be the same.

You've got to know why your stuff's working or why it isn't. If you don't know, that's the scariest thing ever. So I'm trying to shed some light on usually the number one reason why a funnel doesn't convert. Raise your hand right now and say, "I will not sell products anymore." What? "Oh, Mylanta. Steve Larsen, what are you telling me to do?" Okay, "I will not sell products or services anymore." Now you raise your other hand and you say, "I will now sell offers. I only sell offers now."


Now think about that. The point ... I was getting kind of ticked off when someone's like, "The book Expert Secrets is only about info products." Bullcrap. It's not true at all. "The book Expert Secrets is only about webinars." No, you missed the whole point if you think that. Go back and read it again, okay? Webinars is just an example of what to do. It's an example of how to pull off what the book teaches. Expert Secrets is such a good book because it's about offer creation. It's not about webinars. It's not about info products.

Those are just two examples of how to pull off what's it's really teaching you to do. If you missed it, go back, especially to the third section there what's called your moral obligation to sell. But honestly, the whole thing though, okay.


The reason why I am totally at peace about this decision, there's some few butterflies here and there, but honestly, I'm very excited and I'm totally at peace about it. There's some freakout moments. I'm not going to lie, okay? It has nothing to do with whether or not my ability to make money. It has everything to do ... My biggest freakout has everything to do with not being around other marketers, okay? Sitting in isolation in my home office, that freaks the crap out of me. Not because I'm a chatty guy, I'm actually not.

In public, I'm actually kind of shy. I am. I don't know what to say a lot of times. Whenever like after I finish speaking at an event or something like that, whatever it is, I'm actually pretty shy about it, okay?


Anyway, it actually scares me more to just be alone and not be connected to the marketing nucleus that ClickFunnels is. You know what I mean? That actually scares me to death. So I have a few things coming out, a few things to help mitigate that. Things that I've watched and things that Russell has taught me one on one. As I sat back and I asked specific questions and realized like, "Oh, that's why you do this. That has nothing to do with you needing money over there is it?" He's like, "No. No, no, no, no."

I was like, "That has everything to do with you staying connected and making sure that you've got the best of the best of the best." He's like, "Yeah." "Oh, man. Well, I'm going to do that." So just watch closely over the next few months because I am a funnel hacker. Anyway, so here's the reason why. It's because of offer creation. I've learned how to create offers.

I'm actually using the same process that I teach as the Two Comma Club coach, the Secrets Master Class coach. This is not something where it's like I've read about it and now I feel like I can teach it. It's actually not that at all.


I've been doing this for a long time and on my own before I worked at ClickFunnels, doing it for other people, doing it for their clients, doing it for their businesses, their customers, their product lines, and doing it for my own, right? Took a total hiatus, dropped pretty much everything except this podcast and a few other things as I started working for ClickFunnels.

I will tell you that the two things that really made the jump, that it is making the jump more easy for me is that I've gotten much better at selling products. I'm sorry, selling offers rather than products. Then number two, I am far better at marketing and not just selling, okay? Those are the two major differences there.

It's about two and a half, three years ago when I really learned the difference between marketing and selling, and then selling products versus offers, okay? When I sell offers, awesome. When I sell products, bad. I have to compete in price. When I do marketing, awesome. When I just do sales and no marketing, it's like starving leads kind of salesmen. It's not a fun place to be in at all. It's a terrible spot to be in.


Anyway, so here's what I've done though, so I want you to know ... That's a long freaking intro. I'm so sorry. But anyway, here's what I've done, okay? What I did is I sat back and I thought, "What is the core of my business?" Now you think about what the core of your business is. Let's think about it. I think it's a ... Gosh, what book is it? I think it's Rework. Yeah, Rework. At a hotdog stand, can you sell hotdogs without relish? Yeah, you could, right? You could do that. Could you sell hotdogs, I mean, could you have a successful hotdog stand without having mustard? Yeah. What about buns? Technically, yeah, sure, you could.

Could you have a successful hotdog stand without hotdogs?

No, okay. At every single business and in every single value letter, there is a core aspect to the business. You got to figure out what that is, okay? If you don't know what that is, it's scary because you treat every product like the core and you shouldn't. That's where a lot of you will start getting in trouble and they start to ... they confuse offers and it causes a little schizophrenia inside of their customers because they don't know what the core of the offer is. They don't know what the core of the business is and what it's actually offering, okay?


What I did is I figured out what the core of my business is and I placed it inside of a thousand dollar webinar which just kind of fits in the middle of the Value Ladder, okay? When I knew what the core was, I now could start testing it. First though, I wanted to make sure there would be traffic, ample traffic, ridiculous traffic, traffic in a way that I knew I would never have to worry about it again. So I started creating cool little free front-end products, and then I put them out there for free or I just put places over here or small little free plus shipping things or things ... You know what's funny? It exploded. It exploded. It made so much money on just this little dinky free crap where like barely any money kind of stuff. I was like, "What the heck?" We went on a cruise.

We did all sorts of stuff. Anyway, it made almost matching my beginning salary with ClickFunnels for a very long time, which is hilarious. I couldn't believe it. I'm like, "Oh my gosh. There's something to this." It took me a solid two and a half, three years to really clarify the core and the niche, and find the niche and create it.

Then what I did is I wanted to make sure that I would have an easy ascension. I know in past episodes I've said, "Hey, start at the core of the business and only sell that," which I did and I've done, but I have gone out and I've made sure there is an easy ascension. I've made sure that there's easy traffic in the front-end. I've made sure ... There's different strategies and ways to pull this thing off, okay? I've tested the core offer like crazy. It's not like I was skipping that step. I did not skip it at all.


But anyway, so if you're going to jump ship, or if you're just trying to get your first thing off the ground, or if you're just trying to make a little extra money, I remember like my first goal was just to make an extra thousand dollars a month. If I could do that, I thought that I would die and be in heaven because I would be able to cover some bills.

That was my goal four years ago, okay? It's crazy that how tiny that is. You can do that, okay? If you're trying to figure that out, number one, you've got to figure out your Value Ladder, okay? What I mean is figure out the core of the business, figure out a price point around a thousand dollars. Do not go cheaper, okay? And go start testing it. Go sell it like crazy. That's what I did.

Then when I knew it could sell, I went in and found an additional traffic source, I proved out that traffic source, and that was a really easy very soft landing for me to land on as I jumped from ClickFunnels, okay?


That Value Ladder, guys, is stronger than the majority of the business models I learned in my marketing degree. I feel like it gets misunderstood a lot of times. I'd go back and I read DotCom Secrets again if you don't quite understand that or whatever. Anyway, but that's how, that's why. I've got at least jitters. I've got all these, I mean, guys, I'm nervous. I am nervous, but there's complete safety in my head. Not just in my head, I've tested it.

The fact that I've tested these things, there's a Value Ladder and I only am focusing on one step of the Value Ladder at a time. I've built up the front-ends. I've built up the back ends. I'm finishing up the core right now, and then I just got to turn the machine on. Everything else has been tested. I know it's literally about me just clicking a few buttons now which is great.


If you're trying to figure out what to do next or if you're waking up and you're like, "Oh my gosh. Steven, there's so much data out there. There's so many things out there that I could go be doing right now. There's so much noise." What I'm telling you to do is go nail that Value Ladder. Figure out a core thousand dollar product or at least 500 bucks to two grand. Somewhere in there because then you don't need that many to actually change your life. Figure that out. If you don't know what it is yet, fine, don't let your brain leave that problem sitting still.

That's where your head needs to settle. Be okay with the fact that it's unanswered still and just let it sit there, let it marinate, let it marinate, let it marinate. You sit there and you figure it out. Then you just focus on that one thing, go test it. It could be life changing. It was life changing for us.


How crazy that that little tiny test that I did, guys, that had the complete ability to pay for the down payment on our house. We don't have a huge house, but it's not a tiny house. You know what I mean? It's because of that. Again, not showboating, I'm just telling you. I'm trying to illustrate the power of what it is that ... Anyway, so I totally have the jitters, okay? I'm nervous. I'm scared. There's a solid plan. I have I think eight different revenue sources identified. I'm just turning them on one by one now. They've been working great.

Anyway, it's exciting...


So what's cool about this, guys, is that from the ... This podcast is going to continue as I move past ClickFunnels, but what I really want to do is I'm trying to continue to podcast. I want to get to episode 100 before the end of the year. I don't think that's going to happen, but I'm not sure yet. But the reason why is because I want zero to 100 to be my journey with ClickFunnels. Then I want 101 beyond, I want to document my journey.

I want to document what's going on, the process that I'm going through, being super transparent, letting you know like, "Hey, this Value Ladder worked really well over here. This one did terrible over here. This one and this one ..." You know what I mean? And just being super open so you guys can see like, "Look, Steven is hitting the freaking ground running, and he's on his own. This is how he's doing, and this is how he's doing it." You know what I mean?

I feel like that would be crazy valuable, so I'm excited. I'm excited to keep doing these things, and I'm excited to keep pushing out. But I mean, there's totally been fear with it. I'm just trying to be true to myself so and it's going to be awesome so ...
Anyway, I'd still be contracted as the Two Comma Club coach for Secrets Master Class which I'm very excited about. I'll still be very involved at ClickFunnels, actually, from that aspect. But I probably will never be an employee again in my life which is crazy. If you want that and you're still an employee or even if you're not, like get more clear in that Value Ladder, it's totally the key to blowing this thing up.

We've noticed, especially people inside the inner circle, I've noticed other people ... Anyway, when someone has a clear Value Ladder, when they know what the core of their business is, when they know how they're actually making money ... What's funny is a lot of people don't know how they're making money, or it's haphazard, or they're like they think that the value is over here but really the market's giving them all the money in this area over here or whatever it is.


Dot Com SecretsWhat's funny about that whole thing is every time someone gets super clear on their Value Ladder, I'm going to give this free thing. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go read the book DotCom Secrets, okay? That would give you context for the whole thing, of everything I'm talking about right now, but it is. When I read that and I was laying in the dirt with my M16 in my right hand and DotCom Secrets in my left hand, no kidding, when I read that and I was laying on the security line reading that book, my brain was exploding because now I had a map. I wasn't making it up anymore.

Suddenly, there was this logical progression that went from this product to that product to that product. Oh, sorry. That product doesn't fit, so I can't do it. There was so much clarity in my head. It made so much more sense. It actually was calming to me on what the path was that my business needed to take.


So it's the same thing. If you got noise just like screaming in your head right now, you probably don't know where you're going, okay? That's probably it. You probably have no idea where you're going. I know exactly where I'm going as I leave ClickFunnels. I have known for a long time, okay? At least six months, very, very clearly. About a year and a half, kind of fuzzy.

But especially in the last month, the clarity is ridiculous. So if you got the noise in your head, you have no idea where you're going, it's time to get back to the Value Ladder and think through what am I actually trying to sell, what is my offer, and then what funnel matches that offer

. Go build that funnel type, okay? You stay on that funnel till it's profitable, and the whole game will get so much more clear in your head. You might actually have fun with that again, okay?

Hopefully, you still are, but that's exactly what I'm trying to tell you is that this is it's a very fun game.


It is a game. I look at it as a game. I have a lot of fun with it, but it doesn't need to be this super confusing thing. I was confused out of my butt in my entrepreneurship classes in college. I took a lot of them because I really wanted to be one. All except one that they offered. I did really well in every one of them. I was always that weird kid that has actually doing entrepreneurial things, and actually had businesses, and was actually making money versus all the other students that were just trying to get A's reading books and writing reports.

What I can tell you is that there's a lot of information out there, but it's as vital as for you to learn a ton of stuff as it is for you to shield yourself from a lot of crap and noise out there...

The way I've done it is through the Value Ladder. That's the entire way that I'm able to go do what I'm about to do in January. So anyways, guys, excited for the journey to continue. I'm excited to have you guys with me as I keep doing it. I'm excited to keep pushing forward as I take this huge next step, it's a big step. All right, guys. Talk to you later, bye.

Sales Funnel RadioThanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

Dec 11, 2017

iTunes

This is one of the biggest lessons I've taken right from the desk of Russell Brunson

ClickFunnels

Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now here's your host Steve Larsen.

Steve Larsen: What's up, guys? Hey, I'm thinking here that I'm going to change up the intro music to this thing at some point. I'm excited. I can't believe that we're going to hit episode 100 in a few episodes here. That's ridiculous to me. I can't believe how fast that time has gone first of all or that I've had a hundred things to say. I just hope that you guys look back at each one of these episodes and you might think, "Hey, those were great episodes." I'm sure there's one or two where maybe something was weird or whatever, but I just appreciate the loyal following this show has. Just a big shout out to all of you guys.

It's Christmas time and I'm not sure what faith you are and that's obviously not the purpose of this podcast, but we celebrate Christmas.

We're putting up Christmas lights. It's getting cold outside. Been with my little girls and my little one just turned four and I have another two year old, and then my wife is three months pregnant as well.

Super excited for the new arrival...

Anyways, I always love this time of year. It's been a lot of fun. A little more focused on family time and things like that. It's been a whole lot of fun. Tonight we're putting together a gingerbread house and it was just one of those like cheap kits from Walmart. The thing totally collapsed like five minutes in. We ended up just trying to make this massive pile of sugar and candy and nastiness. It's actually a whole lot of fun. Anyway, it was a lot of fun.

My little ones just whenever my back was turned kept like sneaking over and grabbing like big old handfuls of icing and like just stuffing it in their face. That is so nasty. Oh man. Anyway, it's a lot of fun. Hey, this has been an awesome last few days. Obviously not just family wise, but also with you guys. Big shout out to those of you who joined me on my last live funnel build. I've been doing those pretty regularly. For the next while, it's going to be pretty much every Saturday.

As I build out whatever funnels I actually need, I just might as well flip the camera on and you guys can watch and ask questions while I'm actually building it. It's been a lot of fun. The last funnel that I just built was an application funnel.
Honestly, the application funnel is probably one of my favorite ones to build besides the webinar funnel, free plus shopping funnel, eCom funnel. I like them all. Membership areas. I like them all.

Honestly, what's cool about the application style funnel is how much it actually has an effect on your business. I think it was Frank Kern that said that there's really three things that every business needs ... Actually I think I've sent this list before as well, but whatever. He said, "Number one, you need to be having ... Just charge higher prices." He said, "Number one, you need to have higher prices. Just charge higher prices." If you just raised your prices by 10%, I doubt that anyone's going to leave just because of that.

MoneyIf they do, so what? You lose one or two, but the raised price of everybody else more than covers what they left with. You know what I mean? Most people are not going to bat an eye at all. You know what I mean? Prices go up. Everyone kind of expects that. Same thing with yours. They should go up.

You should just charge more money. Figure out how to charge more money...

That was his number one. Number two what he said was that you've got to have somebody in the backend calling all of your current customers to sell them a high ticket thing in the back, whatever that is, a five grand, 10 grand, 15, 25 grand thing, whatever it is in the backend.

Whatever you're selling on the front, all those customer who are buying, just have somebody calling and selling those big things in the backend. A lot of the Inner Circle from Russell Brunson is always shocked at how fast that doubles their business. It's fun for me to read and hear about a lot of the comments because they'll be sending messages to Russell and whatever and be like, "Oh my gosh. Why aren't more people just selling something high ticket on the backend? It will double everything." I know. Those messages come pretty frequently as we tell people to do that kind of stuff. Figure out what you can sell that's high ticket in the backend and then the third thing he says is that figure out how you can sell things not on the internet.

In reality, I mean the internet is fantastic. It's really, really cool, but when it comes to big sales, the internet's really not that effective for it. You got to change the selling environment, whether that's on the phone with those high tickets sales in the backend or direct mail or whatever it is. Somehow figure out how to sell not just online. It's funny because a lot of the data that's out there that we've seen shows that. That those who have both online elements and offline elements to their funnels actually make more money, rather than those who just stay online.

Anyway, kind of fascinating. It was probably about two and a half years ago. I was getting ready to become an officer in the Army.

I was in the ROTC program. I had already gone through basic training and gone to that fondness and actually really enjoyed that. Well, we wanted to do like a cool little charity run. What we did is we got together and we decided that we would do this 5K warrior mud run. This mud run was ... I mean it was awesome. It was totally legit. Anyway, it was awesome. We had literally like flame throwers actually. We had all sorts of like these dummy M16s laying all over the place. They had to run and sprint around with this stuff and climb these massive walls and jump through stuff. I mean it was really fun. It was legitimately quite a massive operation to pull off.

Well, I was getting good enough with ClickFunnels at the time and ClickFunnels had been out for a little while at that time now. I guess this was ... No, this was about ... Holy crap. Yeah, that was about two and a half years ago. That's crazy. ClickFunnels had been out for a little bit at that time. I was getting good enough with it and I already had paying clients and I was traveling all over the place filming gurus in their events. Then I would go edit the video and then make a funnel for the video. That's kind of what I was doing at that time. It was before working for ClickFunnels or anything. I decided like how cool would it be if I built an event funnel for this mud run?

What I did is I went and I put together this funnel and I kind of thought okay, on this very first page, there's a point to all this of course, on this very first page, we'll sell the ticket. We'll them what it's about. It was for a charity cause that would connect wounded soldiers. It would reconnect wounded soldiers with their families whatever hospital they were being kept in. It was a really awesome charity that we did it for. I mean it was so fun. It was so fun.

The first page is sold the ticket. The second page told them more about information, things like that. When it was all said and done, I flipped basically the entire event funnel and we raffled off like rifles, like M16s and stuff, right, or 15s.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Really, really enjoyed the whole thing. You know what's interesting is we had 650 people, 650 people show up. Three new stations. I got on TV because I was one of the main guys running it. I was in charge of huge portions of the program. It was over like 70 people and then another like 50, 60 over my actual unit. I mean I was super busy at the time, but it took me 30 hours, 40 hours to really polish it up, make it look awesome, but I built this sweet event funnel. 650 people. We raised a lot of money. We gave a lot to charity and it was just an awesome time.

It would not have been possible without ClickFunnels. Now again that was before I worked for ClickFunnels and that was before all of that happened.

What's funny is when the mud run ended, a lot of you guys know that story that I was really poor. I didn't have money to go to events. I didn't have money to do that stuff. I was trading tickets for funnels, right? I was trading airline tickets. I was trading event tickets for funnels. I was just bootstrapping. I was just finding a way. I knew that I needed to get there.

What's funny because like two days after that whole event funnel ended, after that mud run ended, I went to San Diego on another person's dime because I was building funnels for him, and I went to the first funnels hacking live event. It was literally five days ... From the time that event was over, the mud run was over, I was hired at ClickFunnels like a week and a half later.

I mean it was really, really fast. The whole thing was crazy fast. Maybe two weeks later, maybe. Anyway, it all went really, really quick. What's been interesting is I have always had ... What I'm trying to get to here is I'm trying to portray a lesson that has always been ... It's never been illicitly stated while sitting next to Russell, but is certainly a strong lesson. He might have said it once or twice. I can't remember, but like I had always thought ... Now think about the Frank Kern quote, right? Number three, how can you sell besides online, right? I went to Russell's event and he gets on stage and he's got the sweet event funnel obviously that he sold Funnel Hacking Live 2016 with.

I go and I stand and I'm watching this stuff and I'm like, "Oh my gosh. This is so cool." I see him pitch certification and I was like, "I've got to get in this." I didn't know how, but I was like calling my bank. I was trying to get loans. I knew I would be better off ... Again this was like a few days before I got hired, certainly a day or two before I put the application in. Anyway, it all happened so quick. It's crazy, crazy fast. All of it. Anyway, Russell was selling at his event. Lo and behold, right? Not online. He found another way to sell besides online that he was selling at his own event obviously. Of course, he would.

As I've progressed sitting next to him, what I have learned and noticed and we have implemented and put in place and I've done myself in many other places and especially in another industry really strongly, even in this one, is I have learned that everything you do as a marketer revolves around events. Your ability to create events. What is a webinar funnel, right? You're creating an event online through a webinar funnel, right? You're putting together an event online, right? It's the same thing. Auto webinar funnel.

Now you're mimicking one. You're trying to make them feel like it's a live event, right? Now anytime that you are putting anything out online ... Russell's book launch. That was certainly an event, right?

We built an event around it. When we had the Viral Video launch, we literally said, "Okay. We could just make this video and we'll just put it out there." We're like, "How can we make this more awesome. Oh my gosh. What if we actually rented the Boise State Stadium? Yeah. All right. Cool. What else can we do? Let's get Gary V. there. Oh my gosh." They're like, "Oh, let's get all these influencers there. Let's send out these really, really cool invites to get them there also. Oh, let's do bubble soccer." You know what I mean? We created an event around the launch. Okay? Every single time we have ever launched anything big or one of those big players like that, every time we've always put an event around it.

What I've learned and what I've implemented on my own and a lot of you guys know I'm heavy in MLM, in the MLM industry and in other places as well, I have done that very thing and it's ridiculous what it does when you start putting all those kinds of events.

Literally the only reason for this episode is what I'm trying to tell you to do is like figure out ways to create events around your marketing. Put these events around your marketing, whatever you're launching, any funnel you're putting out there. If you've already launched something, it's not that you can't create an event either.

Again even though it's already launched or put out there, toss another bonus or two in there and call it something special as they buy the original product that get the other two with it. You know what I mean?

You can figure out how to do that, but just have an eye for it...

The whole thing is about you creating events. Okay? Sorry. There's two other places I'm trying to take this here. I was in Dallas two or three weeks ago. Holy crap. That was like three weeks ago. Time's moving. Oh my gosh. Anyway, I was in Dallas a few weeks ago and I was sitting down with ... He's the guy who created I believe ... Don't quote me on this, but I believe he created the company Travelocity. Huge guy, right? I mean extremely successful, right?

Another guy who had done half of a billion dollars in sales. Another guy that runs all of the events for The ONE Thing. I can't tell anymore than that. [inaudible 00:13:29] Crap. Whatever. Anyway, but it's interesting. I was sitting there will all these guys and it was interesting listening to all of them. I could not believe how fortunate I was to spend an entire day with these individuals. I was sitting in Dallas. It was the day after I spoke. I happened to be there and I thought I might as well stay there and listen to what they had to say.

I was sitting there and I was listening. There was this basically the equivalent of an event funnel that they had put together to help launch a certain product that they have coming out.

They showed me the video and I'm being tender with this, okay, as I say that. I'm not trying to make fun of it or anything like that, but I lost so much interest after 30 seconds. I couldn't believe it. I could not believe how bored I got. It was like an awkward kind where I was uncomfortable to be sitting there continuing to watch this six minute video or whatever it was. I was like, "Ah-ah." It was the kind of video where I was like, "Oh man."

There was like a billion things in red flags screaming through my head on what is wrong with this event video. Again not trying to throw rocks here. I'm just going by comparison. Okay? Here's another example. Have you ever seen the event funnel video that T&C puts out for their event?

It is so boring. Oh my gosh. Again I'm not throwing rocks to the dude, but there's an art to this thing. Okay? All it is is Ryan Deiss standing up saying, "All right, guys. It's that time of the year again. We're going to have T&C and there's going to be this many people and this is what we're going to talk about." Okay. Now contrast that experience with the videos that Russell puts out about his event. Okay? If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to funnelhackinglive.com and watch the video from this last year and you can even watch the previous two years also on that very first page up on the header. I know because I was heavily involved in the construction of it. Up in the header, up at the top there.

You can watch it and just pay attention to your emotions. How do you feel as you're watching those videos? I'm filled with hope when I watch them. Huge hope. I'm filled with this enabling power. I feel like I can go take on the world when I watch those videos. I am not kidding. You guys will laugh at it, but Russell and I literally will play that video on ... We have listened to that over and over and over and over while we're sitting in the office working. We love the video that much, which might sound kind of weird.

Anyway, that's what I'm trying to say with this whole thing is that think and feel your emotions while you're watching your own sales videos, while you're watching your own event funnel videos, while you're watching any of the videos that you put out there. It's all about emotion.

You know what's funny about this podcast and what I've noticed about it, when I first started this podcast, the structure for each episode was very different than it is now. Well, not very different, but it's evolved. I would tell story for like 60% of the time and then I would give like some kind of tip or content piece the other 40%. What was funny about the whole thing is people kept saying, "Please give us more tips."

I think people kept trying to tell me like, "Stop doing 60-40. Do like 20% story, 80% tips and tricks." I think I did that for an episode or two and it just felt weird. There was no story behind it to help it actually sink in. Funny enough, whenever I would do the heavy tips and tricks type of episodes, everyone forgot that crap anyway. Unless you wrap your marketing messages in stories, unless you wrap your events in stories, unless you are publishing stories, no one's going to remember what you're saying anyway.

Story is what drives emotion straight into the heart where we remember the tip or the fact or whatever it is. Just that one little golden nugget.
What I did when I was in Dallas is I said, "Okay." I'll try to say it nicely. I was like," Hey, great job on the video. Can I just show you this other one by contrast?" I pulled up Russell's video and we watched it. At the end of it, they were like, "Oh my gosh." I was like, "I know. What did you notice?" He's like, "Well, Russell's not talking about the event himself." Right?

ClickFunnelsHe's not talking about the event itself. It's a ton of testimonials. It's a ton of people talking about how much ClickFunnels has changed their life. It's a ton of people telling many stories and many epiphany bridges all over the place for this one overarching epiphany bridge story. That's it.

What I'm trying to say here and what I'm trying to invite you guys to do is that I'm going to be building an event funnel this next Saturday. You guys should get this episode by the end. If not, that's totally fine too.

Just know that I'm building a lot of funnels over the next two Saturdays especially as I prepare to leave ClickFunnels, which I'm super sad about still, which might confuse a lot of people for me to say that. I am quite sad about it.

I've had many freak out moments. If you want to watch me build my next event funnel, go ahead and you can to salesfunnelbroker.com/live. Salesfunnelbroker.com/live. That's going to be kind of my HubSpot place for any funnels that I'm building live in the future.

You can keep checking back there. If something's already gone through, there might be bit and pieces of replays, things like that. Anyway, there'll be stuff on there for you to go check out.

Anyway, that's all I was trying to say with this is that when you think about the three things that Frank Kern says, right, just charge more money, have someone calling people in the backend and find a way to sell in other environments, well, one of those ways is events. I can tell you from personal experience, I've got a lot of people, 650 people, to my first event ever doing that. That's crazy. Now granted obviously I didn't do it on my own. I had a team. I can't take full credit for that, nor would I try to. However, we've built a lot of event funnels and events is marketing.

Events is marketing. All right. Go think through the next event that you're going to put out. It doesn't have to necessarily be something physical. It can be totally virtual. It could be online. It could be whatever, but create events. Events naturally create urgency. They naturally create scarcity because it'll never happen again, which is like the biggest two tools that you have as a marketer. All right? If you want to come join me on the next funnel build that I do, go to salesfunnelbroker.com/live. Guys, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Appreciate the involvement. I batch record pretty much all these episodes. For me, I feel like I haven't put an episode for a while, but I know they've been dripping out to you pretty consistently, which is great.

Sales Funnel RadioI have an awesome assistant for that and I will be interviewing her shortly, so that you guys can find out who she is. She does an awesome job with my podcast. Anyways, guys, you're all awesome. Appreciate you and get out there and crush it.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Dec 6, 2017

iTunes

Routinely, these are the most common ways we'll increase the perceived value of our offers...

ClickFunnels

Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larson and you're listening to Sales of Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you will learn marketing strategies to grow your on-line business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host, Steve Larson.

What's going on everyone? I am a kid at heart. What can I say? I'm going to be that way on purpose till I die. Do not make me into an adult. Hey, all right it's like 10:00. I've got three nights left before I'm going to go fly to Dallas, which I am super excited about. I am going to speak at Danny Vega's and James Smiley's B2B Mastermind, which, I am super excited about. It will be awesome.

But I am up tonight and I am thinking through like the different things I am going to give and offer there and I am pumped about it. Ultimately I am going to do the same to you guys ... You know, if you want it. It's almost sad, I am putting the slides together, I'm putting together what I am going to deliver and put up there. It will be a three hour presentation, which I am really excited about, be fun.

Click FunnelsAnyway, I am thinking through a lot of the different funnels that I have built over the last little while. I am way past 300 funnels built in the last year and half. I have no idea how many it is now. I mean, it's huge. Anyway, I lost count.

I know that, like there is one project once that was 82 funnels alone. I mean so honestly it could be in the 400's. I have no idea. I know that it is a crap ton. I was thinking through all the funnels. It was actually a lot of fun. Anyway, I think it was two weeks ago, I built a membership funnel live.

A lot of people don't know you can build member areas inside Click Funnels that are amazing and frankly I still think that it's the best even out of Kajabi even out of all the other member area places, I still think that the Click Funnels ones are the best because it is still geared toward you continuing to be able to sell more and more and more. There is a lot of stuff that you can do inside member areas to increase your revenue even inside the member area that I don't know that you can do inside of other places.

Anyway, lot of fun stuff. Went great. So I build the member's area live. It was, we had about 35-ish people watch the entire four and half hours while I built it live. And it was really fun because they could get there and they could interact with me. I did that for a live webinar funnel probably about a month ago and I just built out the entire thing live again, which, is a lot of fun.

And I am going to do it again. I thought I would invite you guys to come along and join if you want to. It's one of the things that I will be giving and offering over to this mastermind too, in Dallas, which I am really pumped about. The pressure is on though. Man, got three days. It will be awesome. Just want to make it awesome, so ...

December 2nd, what I am going to be doing is I am going to be building an application funnel. A high ticket coaching application funnel. Could be a coaching funnel. Could be some kind of application funnel. Could be high ticket product funnel. Could be whatever, whatever it is where someone has got to send or submit in an application.

I am going to be building that funnel type. I'll show you three different strategies I have used as well. It has been kind of fun. I launched one of these of my own about a week ago in a different industry and it's going really, really well. I was able to pioneer a few different things that I am going to show you guys and it's working. It's been so cool to see it work. Oh, my gosh. Stuff I've never seen and even know what to do before.

Anyway, if you guys want to go and watch it live and participate and things like that. It'll be at SalesFunnelBroker.com/live.

SalesFunnelBroker.com/live...

That is where you can register. I set it up just like a webinar on Zoom, but you guys can be on there, live with me and actually ask questions as we go through the whole thing and it's a lot of fun.

Last group, anyway I know they learned a lot. I learned a lot. It was a lot of fun. I build from literally the ground up. Start from absolutely scratch and just show a lot of my different design principles and strategies. Things that are really fast. I build the whole thing together usually ahead of time. Try to have some assets together so that I'm not just filling in the blanks with dummy texts and things like that. It's great.

Anyway, so plan on about four hours if you guys want to come watch, it's Saturday morning usually starting about 8:00 in the morning. 8:00 or 9:00 something like that Mountain Standard Time. You guys can jump on and watch.

If you are listening to this episode and it is past December 2nd, for you and I guess for everyone else. I am going to be restructuring Sales Funnel Broker as I've, as I've ... It's great. I've tried to make it as a cool resource, a place that people could just download cool funnels. Some of them for free, some of them for paid. Show some of my other resources I use as I, you know that I used to funnel build with, but I need to revamp it.

You know. I launched that before I even started podcasting so, I mean it's been out there for like a year and half. There is a lot of stuff I got to go update. I've got some cool ideas for it. I'm going to be selling some more ... Okay, just think about this for a second.

I have built a ton of sales funnels in the last year and a half alright and I built funnels well before working for Russell on WordPress, which is terrible in different ways. On my own with Click Funnels during and it's been awesome.

But, there are repeatedly the same funnels that I build over and over and over again that just kill it. Some of them in no matter what industry and some of them in very specific industries. What I was thinking is I've been listing out this huge list of funnels that I build over and over and over again.

Why would I not build them from ground up with you guys so you can see how to do it and then at the end I will sell the share funnels as well as the recording with it. As well as, I always make these really in depth PDF maps so you can see what is going on, on each page. Why I do what I do, where it's hooking into.

The automation behind it. Is there any third party stuff. Am I hooking stuff up with Zappy or how do I? I mean all the stuff that I am doing. And I want to be able to do and deep dive those things with you guys so that you've got even more power behind you on building these things.

Anyway that's what's been going on this last little bit. It's been a whole lot of fun. I have been building. I just built an application style funnel. That one took me a couple of weeks 'cause I had to go film stuff and anyway it's been, but it was a lot of fun. There is a new take on the application itself funnel that I haven't really put out there before and it's been awesome. I kind of made it up. It's been working and it's in a different industry. It's been awesome but, anyway, been cool.

Anyway, bit of a plug there...

Whatever it's blatant and I hope you guys join.

Hey, so, what I want to talk through real quick is the application style funnel. All right and real quick, so I don't know wherever you are or whatever but if you want to draw a value ladder. Right. At the bottom of a value ladder, and if you guys have never drawn before or this is your first time on the episode, or whatever it is at the very bottom of, like, lets, so the very lowest step.

Let's say if you drew three steps of some stairs. On the very first step there that's typically where we have like a lot of free shipping stuff there. Free stuff in general. Free, free, free, free, free. Like lots of free stuff. Somewhere, usually between the first and the second stair step, personally that's where I draw. Like I call it the money barrier. When you break the money barrier, that's when you actually start to sift out actual customers versus freeloaders. Okay? It's super important.

Something you always want to do. I put out lots of content for free. But eventually I sift you guys out. Who is it that is actually willing to pay to play? Who is actually willing to pay to learn and actually run fast with the people who are sprinting into certain industries. You know what I mean?

Like, you've got to do the same thing. Pump tons of free content out there or whatever it is and then eventually you've got to have this barrier where you charge someone some money. Right? Then typically in the middle of the value ladder what I do is have a $1000 to $2000 product. Somewhere in that area. Right? That kind of becomes the core of the business.

Value LadderThat's actually where I start. I start. When I start at, I only have you know. I'm doing my best to have one value ladder at a time. I know I did an episode a little while ago on that, but I try and do one value ladder where I start in the middle of the value ladder. I actually don't start at the bottom. I don't start by giving away free plus shipping things or the little tiny front end products or the little tiny.

I'll start by giving out free lots of content and publishing. But I actually don't start selling stuff, you know, I start with the $1000 to $2000 range in any business. Because, you know when I am consulting or my own self or whatever it is, because it does not take many $1000 to $2000 sales to make a dent in the wall. It does not take many $1000 to $2000 sales to give you awesome profit to dump back into ads.

How many $7 products do you got to sale to actually make a profit? A ton. Right? I would rather the market tell me what to create on those front end products. I don't want to guess. That's super risky. Seen a lot of people waste a lot of time on lower front end products. They don't work. It's a huge shame. I mean cause you just wasted all that time.

You know so, what I do is start with the middle of the value ladder and then what I do is I typically also. Number one, start in the middle. Number two I go to a high ticket product in the back end. I don't go to the front end yet. This is the order in which, what should I call it. This is the order to create products on the value ladder. This is the order to do it.

That I've seen work the best that I've done many times. Number one I start in the middle. Number two, I go back to the high end stuff. At least $5000. Right? $10,000, $15,000, 25 grand, in that range. You know, at least 5k though. Okay I guarantee, I mean if you've got any value at all you've pumped into the market place you could charge five grand for an event and get a few people to come in.

That's actually how Russell started by selling those events. It actually started in events. He did that. He sold an event for $5000 and got two people to pay and was like, "What the heck? That's so cool."

Number one, start with the core, number two you do kind of the back end. Number three, that's when I start creating front end products. That's when you start creating your little $7 things. Your $27 things, your $50 your $100 things, maybe even up to $300 things.

If you start by, you know it's funny when you read the book Dotcom Secrets a lot of times what it makes you think is that you need to start the creation for your business the order is to create them is that you start with those front end things and that's just not how you do it.

If you do it that way you are guessing. It's a lot of volume you've got to go through to actually make that thing convert before you've got to keep tweaking it before it actually. I mean even Russell himself when we launched those when we launched our own funnels. Most of the time round one they are not usually not successful out of the gate.

Okay. It's usually when we make the second tweak. The first tweak the second tweak that's when they get wildly profitable. And Russell is Russell Brunson. He's I ... Second to him I have probably built more funnels than anyone I know. Any guru I know. Anyone. Like period, but he's number one though.

He's done it, way, more than I have. Does that make sense? Like that's crazy. Even for him. Okay. If you look at how click funnels did stuff as well. Click funnels started by selling $1000 product called Funnel Hacks. Then it went into events and higher ticket things in the background. And then started creating things like Dotcom Secrets and front end things and Funnel Swag and Frontal U and Frontal Graffiti and all these front end products that all lead into the same thing. Does that make sense?

For whatever reason it gets like it's sexy in someones head to do it the other way around or we start there. Don't start there. Do that last. Do that last when, when ... 'Cause here's what is going to happen. When, you start selling $1000 product, when, you start selling something that is thousand bucks, right? Or $2000 or whatever it is. The core of your business. I'm not saying it has to be that. But it's got to be enough money where it doesn't take many of them to really make a dent. Right? ... Where, you can dump huge profits back into ads. Right?

QuestionWhen you start doing that you are going to get feedback in the form of complaints. It's just part of it. I remember the first time that ever happened for me. I was like why the heck are you complaining about this? "I wish you did X, Y, and Z. I wish you did this. Blah. Wipe my butt." You know and I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Are you serious?"

What's going to happen is you are going to start to get feedback in the form of complaints.

Now it is your job as the entrepreneur to sift the complaints and you want to sift them into two different groups. You are going to sift the complaints number one into feedback for how to tweak your existing offer. Okay. You might be getting these complaints and you're like, "Crap".

Wait they are right. I should change X, Y, and Z. I need to tweak this thing. All right. That is what Russell is doing. That is what he and I are doing.

Typically, when we launch something and we've got to tweak it the first round or two we are listening to our customer feedback and we're like "Crap. Let's sift these things. Okay? Let's go and et's tweak the offer. Let's make it even better." Right? The second thing though.

The second category you gotta look for is, is when you can sift these customer feedback items and their telling you what to go and create on the front or back end of your value ladder.

They are letting you know. The market is telling what it is that you need to go and create. Okay? These front end products are being created by the customer who bought your middle tier product. That make sense? Let me say it again. Your front end products, typically the most successful ones I've ever seen.

Typically, the ones, their being created third. The customer is telling you what they want you to create. They don't know they are doing that but that is what their doing. We're taking all those pieces of feedback and we're saying you know what? People wish they had shirts with our logo on it. Let's make Frontal Swag.

You know what? People are telling us that they wish that they had something to help them write their copy. Front End Scripts. Right? We didn't start with front end products like that. We started with the mid and I personally do that as well. I start with the middle area of the value ladder at least $1000. When I get that core down when I get it converting. "Psssh."

You've got yourself an ATM machine. You've got a cash machine...

Then you make an application style form on the back end selling your one-on-one coaching, you're done for your stuff, your implementation styled products. Right? Don't put implementation styled products. Don't put coaching. Don't put one-on-one stuff in the core area. Don't put yourself in the fulfillment of the core of the value area. You put that in the back end. That is why I am going to build an application stype funnel with you guys. That's why I am doing that.

If you want to come join me and watch me do it. Right. Get your questions answered then come watch. SalesFunnelBroker.com/live. You can watch the whole thing. I'll do the whole thing. You can watch for free. You know and follow along. You can do whatever you want anyway, but then I am also going to have for sale the actual funnel themselves as well as the training as well as a whole bunch of other stuff. It's just going to be awesome. Action sequences, a whole of bunch of other cool things I am going to toss in there for you.

MoneyThen what I do is I build front end products. Front end funnels. Front end things that can with the only intent. You're not trying to make money on them. The only intent is to recoup ad costs and get customers for free so that anything they do on the middle of the value ladder and on the back of the value ladder is pure profit.

Does that make sense?

This is like value ladder strategy and it always irks me just a little bit when I see someone. I'm like no. Don't start with the front end product. I'm not telling you, you can't make money but, you gotta sale a crap load of those things to make a difference in your wallet. I got so animated I just threw my pen. Oh, almost landed in the trash can.

Anyway, so hopefully that helps. That is all I am trying to say with this whole thing. I've built a live webinar funnel, live. I built the membership area funnel, live and a lot of cool strategies that showed how to use them in affiliate areas too, which is crazy cool. Then I am going to do an application style funnel as well. All of these are going to be available shortly on SalesFunnelBroker.com. If you want it, go check it out.

I've got three requests in a single hour to build someones funnel. There is no way I can handle it out. There is no way I am going to try to. Honestly, it would be a disservice if I did try to. It'd be a disservice to all the people that I said. You know that I would say yes to.

The way that I am getting around it is still building the kick butt totally rockin' funnels that I do know how to build but do it live with you guys in a template where can go do the same thing you are trying to do with it. You know what I mean? That's why I am trying to do these things live.

For a while, I've got a huge list of funnels guys. You guys have join me for a while. I'm. If you want to keep going back to SalesFunnelBroker.com/live periodically, I'm just going to be building funnels live for quite a while. You guys can still come in. You can still grab them. I am going to be updating a lot of cool stuff and sharing things. It's the latest and greatest. Things that.

Stuff that I know no one else is doing. Because we either pioneered it or I made it up or I figured it out or we made it up. Or whatever it is.

Anyway, I'm excited. If you want to join you can. Please adhere to funnel strategy that we know works the best. Or I should say value ladder strategy. This is the order to build products on a value ladder. Number one mid tier, not front end. Mid tier, mid product, mid priced at least thousand bucks.

Number two, go towards the back of the value ladder. Go at least $5000 on something. Coaching and event. Some kind of done for you application. Some kind of implementation. That is where we do that, higher up on the value ladder not towards the bottom. Number three, then we do the actual market driven front end products. Not from us with the sole intent to recoup ad costs.

Anyway, I feel like the last few episodes for me have been a lot of techno babbled styled stuff. But I feel like ... Anyway, I hope you guys feel and sense that I am just trying to drop gold. These are the things that I do.

Things that we know. Things that I have been doing for a long time and I just. Anyway, it blows me away when someones like "Oh yeah, I've got all these front end products and they are doing well, but, I'm not making any money." It's like, "Duh."

'Cause you're not supposed to make money with that stuff. That's supposed to give your customers for free. What's your actual business? What's the core? What's the mid tier product? What's the back end?

Anyway, so hopefully this has been helpful. Hopefully these episodes have been great. I've kind of done some funnel deep dives lately. I've got some cool plans for this podcast coming as well. I am excited for you guys to be part of it and. Anyway if you've gotten any value at all. I love hearing that. It kind of keeps me going. Keeps me juiced.

Because each one of these episodes honestly takes me in full after creating it, after putting it all together about an hour and half to two hours per episode. It's nice to hear ever once in a while, like a little shout out. I love it. Super nice. If you guys want to go to iTunes. Please rate the podcast. Give a rating. A love the written reviews. That helps me like crazy. That helps everyone else trying to find this kind of information as well. Anyway, it has been great. Last little shout out.

If you guys want to join with me and dive into this whole thing. Even if you don't have a Click Funnels account, you can still watch. It's just a Zoom link so you can do live Q & A with me with everyone else and we'll build this whole thingSales Funnel Radio together.

And it's going to be awesome and I'm going to keep doing that for a while. Mostly 'cause I love building funnels. Some of them are funnels I need to build anyway, personally. I just thought I would include you in the journey. Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/live and you can check that on out. Anyway you guys are all awesome and I will talk to you later. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get on of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Nov 29, 2017

iTunes

Heres some of the best business lessons I've learned while sitting next to Russell Brunson for 20 months...

ClickFunnels

Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Oh, yeah.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

I'm still such a dork. Hey, I want to, so just real quick, I know I talked about in an episode ago, my voice is just rocked right now. I want you guys to know a really cool success I just had. It's good that we all ... Your successes, too. I want to hear about them. Don't shun your successes.

Everyone, you got to go embrace your successes. Here's one of mine. I used to call them brag moments. When I was in the army, we'd be doing push ups. There was a time when I was commanding 150 people, and I was pretty good at push ups. I've got, honestly, longer arms than most people so they were a little bit harder for me, but I wanted to be good at them.

I'd be doing these push ups, and I'd look up in the eyes of all the guys looking at me while I was doing it, and I'd be like yelling at them, getting them going. We were all fired up. You know, we were trying to keep each other motivated. It was a lot of fun.

I used to have these brag moments to distract them while we were in those painful episodes, right? I would say, "Hey, Johnson. Brag to me, man? What's sweet in your life? What are you doing right now that's just kicking butt? Don't be humble. You tell me what's awesome in your life. What are you doing awesome at?" He would tell me. "Well, I did great at this," or, "There's a test I killed it at at this," or, "I did this over here. I did this." He would tell me that stuff, and it was cool how much confidence that brought the individual.

I wasn't planning on saying this at all, but be cognizant of those things. Whenever you have a win, take time to win. You know, I'm not saying you've got to stop your whole operation and throw a party every time, but take time to acknowledge it, and be like, "Yeah, I'm the freaking man."

Not in a cocky way, you know, but take pride in what it is your own personal progression. Be in competition with you, and get excited about those successes. Those are the successes to get braggy about. The ones where you're in competition with yourself and go kill it.

Anyways, here's a cool one for me. I was asked to speak at a B2B Mastermind last weekend. It was a ton of fun. There was a FHAT event, though, two weeks ago, and I was solely focused on that. By the time the Funnel Hack-a-thon, the FHAT event, was done, I only had one week ... Actually, it was like five days. Only like five days to create an entire three hour presentation.

Okay, I've done a lot of four hour presentations without stopping. I've done a lot of 15 hour ones at the FHAT event, too, but three hours, that's still a long time to prepare for, when it's a new material the whole time. You know what I mean? Meaning I had to reorganize and restructure it.

I was spending all the evenings, I was thinking through strategy, I was talking to all my buddies, I was trying to figure out all the pieces in place. I was like, "You know, let me know what you think." I was trying to get a heartbeat on the industry, trying to figure out where people are.

You know, what are the false beliefs of all the people who are going to be in the room? Literally doing the same strategy of creating a new product that I would anywhere else. I went through, I was like, "What are the false beliefs of the people in the room? What are they going to be thinking? What are they going to falsely believe about my ..."

It was cool because I got to pitch. This was my first time ever pitching from stage, so I wanted to do a good job.

I went, and I was flying over there, and I've got longer arms than the average bear, like I said before, so anytime I'm trying to do work on a computer in an airplane, it is not easy. My hand is contorted into the weirdest positions just for me to ... It doesn't work. Anyways, it's like a five hour flight with one stop and all that stuff over there. I'm getting stuff done, and it's like 10 o'clock in the evening. Wait, no. When did I land?

It was 11. I landed at 11, got to the hotel at midnight, and I'm presenting this thing in eight hours. I was like, "I have barely even started the slides on this thing. I've barely made a dent in them. Oh my gosh. Okay, well, buckle up. When in Rome. Let's just get this done."

I sat down in the hotel room, and I just put on tons of awesome music. I was listening to the Foo Fighters, and Muse, and Incubus, and all my favorite bands, and I was jamming out. I was just cranking out these slides, and I was working the formula, and I was putting the pieces together. All the things that we know, do the best. I put those pieces together, and I look up, and it's 3:30 in the morning. I was like, "Crap. I'm only going to sleep a few hours.

Ah, whatever, let's make this sweet." Then I went back through, and I was making things, and I was fixing it. I was like, "When in Rome, baby. Let's go, get this done."

I went through and I was writing the script, and putting all the pieces together, and about four o'clock ... I only lasted another half hour after that, but about four o'clock, I fell asleep, and I finished, and it reminded me of all these other hack-a-thons that I'd done with Russel, where we're like just dying, but we have a deadline, you know? It's letter gold. Are you going to get it done, or are you not? You know, just do it. Time's not going to wait for you, just get it done. I was like, "All right, well, I'm going to get it done."

Anyways, I went to bed at four a.m., and I was on stage talking and teaching at 8:30 a.m. I only slept four hours, got up, didn't eat, didn't nothing else, I just dressed and showered real quick, and I got downstairs, and I started teaching. It was a lot of fun. There is a rush. If you guys have never done a webinar, I beg you to, because it's like the fastest way to cash we've ever seen. Myself, personally, as well as with Russell, and all the two comma club coaching students that I have, but especially though from stage.

There is a huge endorphin rush from stage. I love it. I didn't feel like I only slept four hours. I felt like I had a full night's rest. I was on fire. It was awesome. I actually got the recordings back, which is awesome. I was teaching B2B people how to make new opportunities from their offers, and a whole bunch of other stuff, which is really a whole lot of fun.

My first session ended, there was a bit of a break, and I hadn't even made order forms yet, so I run to the back with my buddy James Smiley, shout out to you, buddy. Hey, a little side note, actually.

You guys know when I did that six part series where I interviewed someone from the six different industries that we know are using click funnels? James Smiley is still the guy who represents the B2B industry for me. He is killing it. He's doing awesome. From that one podcast episode, and the things that he's created from that, only two, three months ago, they've done huge numbers. I'm not allowed to say how much, but a lot of money, and it's been awesome.

Very, very proud of what he's created. Super pumped for him. Anyway, he's been a friend to me for a long time.

Anyways, he was there. It's his Mastermind. Him and Danny Veiga. They were both there, obviously. I was there with them, and after my first session, I realized that we didn't have order forms done, so James Smiley's running over to the back, and he's writing these order forms, and he's putting those things together.

I don't think anyone in there knew. I started feeling like crap, so I took some more caffeine. "Let's take some vitamin C, baby, some caffeine. Let's get this thing rocking."

I did my first ever stage pitch. I've taught in the whole perfect webinar format many times, but I take out the last part where there's the actual offer, and this time I didn't stop it. I'm really excited, you guys. I closed 28% of the room on my very first time ever pitching from stage.

By comparison to other stage presenters, that's actually quite good. I'm very excited, you guys. That's my brag moment for this episode, and I'm super, super stoked about it.

Well, what I wanted to go through real quick with you guys is, there's two different directions I could take this episode. I've pre-written out a lot of stuff, a lot of ideas. There's two different things, okay? Anyway, so what I was going to tell you, though, is that was Friday, and I went to bed at like midnight, and got up early again, and I had a full day of meetings with another group of people that was over there in Dallas, and then I went to bed again at four a.m. that next night.

It's Monday, and my throat is on fire. I'm actually going to stop here, shortly.

Principle number one, just get it done, just do it, okay? You set the goal. It's like when I would buy tickets to triathlons. The first triathlon I did, I just bought the ticket before I was in shape, because I knew now I had to get in shape. You know, same thing. All right, set the date, start sending traffic to your registration page. Just get it out there, and you will figure out a way because you have to. You hold your own feet to the fire, feel a little pain over it.

I dare you to feel a little pain over it, but you'll find out actually really quickly that it's the secret to getting a crap ton of stuff done and actually your goals much faster.

I've got to get some water. Just a second. There you go. This is live. Unedited. Raw. Steve Larsen, raw. That means different things in different places.

All right. Hey, so what I wanted to go through really quick was, it reminded me of this, is I was thinking through a lot of the lessons I've learned, because I was teaching a lot of cool stuff at the B2B Mastermind, and super stoked I get to speak again in January, probably in February. In March, I will be, as well. I'm kind of off to the races. I'm going to speak a lot next year, so I'm kind of warming up baby.

I'm excited. Hopefully I'll sleep more next time...

Anyway, guys, as I was starting thinking through the different lessons that I've learned while at ClickFunnels, things that I could share at the B2B Mastermind, I was reminded of a list that I kept for a long time when I first got hired at ClickFunnels.

I first thought to myself, "Oh my gosh. I get to sit next to, in my opinion, the most brilliant marketer that is alive, Russell Bronson." I was like, "How on Earth am I going to be able to capitalize on this? You know, how am I going to learn the most? How am I going to take away the most I can from this?" What I did is I keep a list of "Brunson-isms", okay? These are "Brunson-isms." These are 12 "Brunson-isms" that I've kept over the years. Well, I shouldn't say years.

It's been almost two years. It feels like years, though, guys. We've been hauling cojones for a long time. I feel like I just have not stopped. I'm in a whirlwind.

Anyway, but I call them "Brunson-isms." These are the things that I have written down while sitting next to him. When I say that I don't mean in like the same building, I literally mean arm's length away. As he'll be on coaching calls, as he'll be coaching in a circle, as he'll be talking to someone on a podcast interview, as he'll be launching this or that, or creating this video, or making this podcast episode of this own. You know what I mean? This is just 12, okay?

I sifted out a lot of stuff. I didn't want to talk specifically about funnel building strategy. I wanted to talk more about how you act as an individual, as an entrepreneur.

Anyways, these are 12 "Brunson-isms." I won't dive too deeply into these, simply because some of these, the lesson just kind of speaks for itself, but guys, one of these lessons alone has changed my life, in my personal business, I mean. Anyways, I'm excited to go through these. I realize it's 12 of them.

Usually, it's easier if I say like, the three things, the two things, the one thing, maybe five, but there's 12, okay? I wanted to get them all done in one episode, so that you guys could hear what they are. These are the 12 "Brunson-isms" that have had probably the most impact on my life. My life, not just my business. I sifted out those. This is my life, okay?

Number one "Brunson-ism," and these aren't ranked. They're not ranked. I wrote them down. I was actually in a Trello card, and this is just a running thing that I've had for a long time. Number one is don't create stuff. Document and sell instead, okay? Huge lesson. I did a whole episode about this a few episodes ago. It changed everything, okay? Anyway, it's crazy you guys.

Review, document, and sell what you're doing instead of take the time to create it...

I spent eight months making my first info product, and no one bought it for the first few months because I hadn't spent any time creating any market pressure, creating any interest. I didn't know what I was doing, okay? You can go spend a ton of time figuring out the actual like, "Let me go make the whole thing first." No, no, no. Flip it. Sell it first, then document it and create it as you go. Sorry, document and sell as you go. All right. That's number one.

Number two, and I'll do like a review, just I'll read all of them real fast at the end, too. All right, so that's number one. Number two, design doesn't sell stuff. Okay, design doesn't sell stuff. As sad as that is to a lot of designers that are out there. If you look at Frank Kern's funnels, he's got a completely white background, and all he has is a headline, a video, and a button.

That's pretty much it...

The more I've been doing this game, the more subtle my design's become. I do think that design will help with follow-up sales, but it's still not the thing that sells. If you're getting hung up, like, "What should my funnel look like? What should this look like?"

Scrap that attitude...

Russell BrunsonScrap that mindset, and know instead that it's the copy that sells, it's your offer that sells. Okay, that's it.

If you're going to spend a lot of time on the funnel, the place to spend the time most on, after an offer, after all that stuff, is on your video. I don't mean like making it all professional, and stuff like that. I mean the script. I mean actually what are you going to say in that thing, and how are you going to come across as human rather than it being scripted? The actual words on the page, that's what does the converting.

As much as we sometimes want to trick ourselves and think that it's the colors, and how good it looks, and things like that. That'll help you for a little bit, but there's no longevity with it. Anyways, that's number two. Design does not sell stuff, copy does.

All right, number three. This is a big one. A little bit ago, Russell talked about, we realized that one of the reasons why Russell is where he is is because ... and honestly a lot of the other people that I know who are wealthy that have become wealthy quickly on the internet, is because they stopped selling one to one, okay? Bear with me a little bit, okay?

Understand where I'm taking this...

I'm not saying not to have call centers or people doing outbound or inbound calls, or taking inbound calls. I'm not saying not to do that stuff. What Russell, as the main entrepreneur, the entrepreneur of the company, has learned to do is sell not one to one, he's learned to sell one to many. Think of the scenarios where that applies most, okay? One to many.

One to one, that's when I was like doing door to door sells, right? That's when I was a telemarketer, right? I was good at those things, but it's still only one person hearing the pitch, right? 28% of the people I closed in that room before, let's think through that, though. 28% of the people.

That means I've got to talk to a lot of people one on one conversations. I've got to do that pitch a ton of times to really make a dent in my wallet. Well, what Russell's learned to do is get a lot of people in a room, or a lot of people in a webinar, or whatever it is, and pitch one to many. If you can learn to do that, wealth is easier to be yours, okay?

All right, that's number three...

Number four, this whole thing has been all about movement. There have been many times both personally and with Russell in the office there, where we'll look around, and we'll be like, "I don't know what to do next." Personally, in my own business, I've run into this many times, and you probably have, too, where you're like, "I don't know what to do next. What am I supposed to do next to actually be successful with whatever I'm trying to do?"

You've got to come up with that plan. One of the biggest lessons I've learned from Russell is that this is all about movement, all of it. All about movement. Just move, okay?

Think about a river, okay? There was this river I was rafting down once. We went on this 36 mile kayak trip, and it was a lot of fun. 36 miles, that's long, it's not like crazy long, but it's pretty long. It wasn't supposed to be that long, because the river was supposed to be moving, but what's funny is like the first 12 miles it was moving. It was fast. It was a lot of fun.

Going through, I'm an adventuresome kind of guy. The last 24 miles, though, the river stopped moving. We literally paddled 24 freaking miles. We were so sunburnt, because we were planning to be out there like four hours. We were out there 12 hours. 12 hours, no sunscreen, like none of that stuff. Barely enough water. Actually, we pretty much were all incredibly dehydrated.

We were so sunburnt that we couldn't stand for like two weeks. We actually got hurt over it, okay?

Eventually, you've got to steer the ship in the right direction, but if the thing isn't moving in the first place, then who cares? If you don't know what to do, just move. Think to yourself, "I don't know. What should I do next? I think that." Like, cool. Move forward. If you really have no idea, just do something, okay? Don't worry about placing your foot in the most perfect place before you start going, or having all the steps planned out. It doesn't work like that. Hardly ever does. Never has for us. Never has for me personally either.

Just about movement. Some people are like, "Well, that means you're going to do like 13 things you didn't need to do." It's like, yeah, but I found the three that made a ton of money, and you still haven't done anything yet.

Anyway, this is number five. Number five is a big one. One of the first things Russell said to me when I sat down next to him, is he turned around and he looked over at me, and he goes, "Hey Steven, I want you to know why you're here." I was like, "Cool, I would love to know that, too, because you chose me out of a bunch of people. Why am I sitting next to you?" He's like, "Someone told me early on," I don't remember who told him this. He's like, "Someone told me early on, though, that there are starters and there are finishers."

He goes, "Steven, I think that you are a finisher. I'm a starter." What's funny is that's true for me as far as funnels go, but it's part of the reasons I'm leaving ClickFunnels, is because I'm actually a starter. I know how to finish, but I'm actually a starter, and I can't not start stuff, and I've been doing that the whole time since I've been there.

Anyway, just know, though. Usually, most of us have a predominate side. Are you a starter or are you a finisher? Sometimes one of the reasons people aren't being successful is because they're a finisher and they're trying to do all these starting things. Go find a starter. Attach yourself. Same thing as the opposite.

If you know you can start a ton of stuff, but you take forever to finish things, find a finisher and connect yourself to them. Russell told me early on that's one of the reasons he's hired who he has, is because he's like, "I'm a huge ridiculous starter," which is true. You guys will see all the things that he does. He moves fast. He goes to sprints quickly, but he said, "I have tried to hire as many finishers as I possibly can." Anyways, huge sage advice.

All right, number six. Russell's a delegation master. One of the "Brunson-isms" that I've learned probably most from him is, I'll make comments like, "Oh man, I wish I knew JavaScript better." Or, "Oh man, I wish I knew CSS better." He'll be like, "Why? We've got a guy for that." I was like, "Yeah, but then I'll be able to do X, Y, Z." He's like, "No, no, no. We have a guy for that." I

was like, "Yeah, but I'm interested. It would be cool to know that." He was like, "That doesn't matter, dude. It's not what makes the money." He's done that to me many times. I like video editing. I like sound editing. I geek out over the process. I like geek out over the process of doing the thing that I do. It's a lot of fun. All of the pieces of it, all of the aspects of it, but one of the things he's helped me realize is like, "Man, you just delegate like a beast."

That's exactly what he does. He's a visionary, he moves forward, he's a mover, he's a shaker, he figures those things out, and what he's very good at doing is figuring out what he shouldn't be doing. Not what he can't do, but what he shouldn't do.

There are many things that he could do that he's not, because he shouldn't be doing those things...

He should be focusing on the other parts of the business. Does that make sense? One of the biggest lessons I learned from him. It's not that I didn't know it before, but seeing it in action. It's insane, you guys. It's how he gets so much done. He doesn't do it all on his own. He doesn't try to.

Sometimes, a lot of us, especially for brand new, for kind of a solopreneur, I actually have a team. I haven't told you guys much about them. I will interview them shortly. I want you guys to know who they are and how I found them. Specifically how I found them, so that you guys can do and start to replicate yourself as well, but I have my own team for my own stuff. I have for a long time, for this exact same reason.

I delegate like a beast...

I've got all sorts of stuff going on. I've got software being created, I've got an app being made right now, I've got tons of stuff that I do that I juggle on the side of working at ClickFunnels, which is kind of ridiculous, but it's because of this principle that I can do that. I'm not doing it all on my own, and neither is Russell. Anyways, delegate like a beast, you guys.

Okay, next one. Moving on. Selling is all about status. Okay, if I'm trying to sell stuff, you guys got to understand that if you're selling things to people, in the person's mind, this is what's really happening. "If I buy this dude's thing and I fail at it, I'm going to look like an idiot." That's one of the biggest hang ups. That's one of the biggest reasons people don't buy from you. One of the things that he's taught me a lot of is that, "Look, selling's all about status."

Okay, that's why there's a guarantee. It has less to do with them being able to recoup their money. It has more to do with them being able to protect their status, so that when they go to their spouse who didn't know they bought the thing, and they go and something breaks, they can say, you're giving them the excuse, you're giving them an out, you're giving them the ability to say something like, "Oh, don't worry. It's under warranty. Total crap. I shouldn't have done that, but I got the money back."

It protects their status. It's all about status. You're trying to increase their status and protect them from losing it at the exact same time.

Anyway, next thing. Biggest thing I see from Russell, also, he's a huge planner. Big massive wall calendar. Since seeing that, I got one last year, and I just got my one for next year, also. It's for macro level planning.

We really don't do that much micro level planning, but we almost always have what we're going to do the next day totally planned out before we get there. Meaning, I know what I'm doing tomorrow. I know what I'm doing the next day. I know what those things are, but we've got a macro level view on these big massive wall calendars. "Okay, we've got this event this day. We've got these things this day. We've got that that day. We've got these pieces here. We've got that there."

What's cool about it is that it actually really ... In my juvenile years, I used to think that planning would cause some kind of stress, because I had to think through details that I didn't need to know yet, and there's an element to that, but if I keep it macro, it actually takes more off my head. I actually increase my shelf space, my mental shelf space, when I use a macro level planner. Then I'll have a micro level one on just a legal pad. Russell does the same thing.

He actually types it, he prints it, but I like to write mine on a legal pad. Anyway, plan the day the day before.

All right, there's a few other delegation points here, so I guess some of these could have been combined.

When you hire people, your only focus is to hire those people to do business stuff, to tend to the actual business, so that you can do what your role is. As the entrepreneur, your only role, the only thing you need to worry about is selling. That's it. Stop worrying about your dang logo, okay? I know it's cliché, I say it all the time, but it's true. Stop worrying about your logo. It doesn't matter, okay? For a long time, it does not matter.

What you're trying to do, is it's proof of concept that you're looking for. Just sell it. Sell stuff, and know that at the beginning, you know what? You'll probably have some refunds because you didn't sell it right. So what? You're moving.

Anyway, so when you hire people, you hire people explicitly to handle business stuff, right, so that you can do your job, which is to sell, sell, sell. Basically, if something doesn't make you money, you shouldn't be doing it, okay? Yeah.

Okay, another huge thing that I see Russell do, which you guys actually have also been a part of, you may not have known it though, is that do your best to include your customers in the creation of your business, or at least your product. I mean, how many things does Russell publish?

A lot of stuff...

How many secrets does he keep? He doesn't keep any secrets. Everything that he tells you is everything that I get, too. Everything that he publishes, all the pieces that are out there, he tells it all. What's funny, is it's contrary to what most people think. "I've got this idea, and if I tell anyone my idea, they're going to steal it."

Okay, I've told everyone my ideas for such a long time. I can tell you that's not true. You'll have one percent of people who try to pull it off, but even if they do, they're not going to pull it off the same way you will, so stop hiding your ideas. Start telling them. Get feedback, okay? Include your customers in the creation of your thing.

All right, next one is whenever we're about to go on stage ... He taught me this early on, also. I thought I'd pass this on, because this has been a huge piece. Whenever we're about to go on stage ... What's funny is that at first it was just him, and then I've started doing it, too, but now we do it together, especially when we're about to collaborate on stage together.

Like at the last FHAT event, I was on stage for a while, he was on stage for a while, and then back and forth, and then for a while also, we were on stage together, which was really awesome. Actually, it was a lot of fun.

Anyway, he taught me this. My voice is going, guys. I've got to end this thing quickly. I've been going for 26 minutes, too. I've got to end it soon, anyways. You guys are probably like, "Shut up, Steven." Here's the last one, and then I'll recap real fast. All right, the frame work is what saves you. That's what it is. Now let me explain it. Whenever we're about to go on stage, we drop pictures, okay?

You know all those little graphs inside Expert Secrets and DotCom Secrets book? Those were once stage presentation images. Okay, so when we're trying to figure out what to teach, a lot of times what we'll do is we'll use that opportunity to test stuff, to test concepts, to test things that we know we're on the brink of that we haven't quite been able to formulate yet, though.

It's not that when we get on stage it's always polished. We obviously present it very polishedly, but if there's a concept, or there's this technique, or there's something like that that we want to make sure that we can test or whatever, we actually will draw it in pictures, which is why we have so many pictures. We draw it on a legal pad or a piece of paper.

That's the thing that we take on stage with us. I do the same thing, and then when I'm teaching, and when Russell's teaching, we can just look real fast at that picture, and it represents that entire idea, okay? Rather than write out all these bullet points, which we'll do sometimes, which I'll do sometimes also, but mostly it's just this big, big thing of pictures, because if you can explain something in a hand drawn picture with a stick figure, it means you've probably dumbed itRussell Brunsondown enough that anyone can understand it.

Not that the people are dumb, but that you've put it and an area, and in a concept, and in a way that can be grasped and digested quickly. Hence lots of pictures formulate cool book, okay, that's the formula.

Anyway, so that's actually 11. I thought there were 12. It's actually 11. 11 "Brunson-isms".

Number one, document and sell. Document and sell rather than create.

Number two, design doesn't sell stuff.

Number three, learn to sell one to many instead of one to one.

Number four, it's all about movement. Just move. Just do stuff.

Number five, are you a starter or a finisher? Whatever your answer is, hire the other.

Number six, be a delegation master, okay? Just delegate like crazy, you guys. It's funny because there's a lot of personalities out there that are begging for that kind of thing. They want to be led. They want to know what they're supposed to be doing. So tell them.All right, what is this?

Number seven? Selling is all about status.

Number eight, plan your day the day before.

Number nine, hire people to do the business stuff so you can focus on just selling. If something doesn't have to do with selling, you should not be doing it. What is this?

Number 10? Hold on. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Yeah, 10. Include customers in the creation of your thing.

Number 11, the frame work of what you create is what saves you. That's what saves you on stage. That's what saves you in tons of areas. Guys, my voice is going like crazy, and it actually is killing, but I hope that that helps.

There's an episode I did a little while ago called My Black Book of Business. All I would do is write down business ideas and lessons. I beg you to start tracking those things for yourself. If you keep track ... Just something to writing stuff down that frankly drives me nuts, because sometimes I don't like to write stuff down, but I know if I do, it'll be there. Just write down the thing. Keep a list.

I don't care if it's on Trello or whatever it is, but start writing down the lessons you're learning, and they'll stick longer, you can teach them, you'll actually end up doing them, you'll remember them, you'll actually get them digested and start applying this stuff.

Anyway, so that's kind of what I've been doing this last little bit, and I just wanted to share that list with you. That's my 11 "Brunson-isms." Remember to have your brag moments. Remember to have your lessons written down. This is a long Sales Funnel Radioepisode, guys. Sorry about that, but I thought it'd be worth it to go through some of the biggest lessons I've learned from Russell Brunson. Thank you guys.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/FreeFunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Nov 24, 2017

 

iTunes

...sadly, it's time...

ClickFunnels

Hey. What's going on everyone. This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

All right. My voice is a little bit shot. There's another story to that, another time. I have not slept that much in the last few days and I just wanted to get this episode out to you guys, because of something that has happened very recently. I've actually known about it quite a while, but it's not been let out of the bag for quite some time now, and that is that I'm leaving ClickFunnels. I know. I know. I just heard your gasp during the recording of this. You gotta understand.

I'm not leaving ClickFunnels, like the software. I am not longer going to be employed there. The first time I ever said that, the other ...

Anyway. I should tell you some of the story, so you guys have a little context with this, then I've got somewhat of a treat for you. It is a huge bittersweet for me, a huge bittersweet. When I first got hired at ClickFunnels I was driving. I was at Rexburg, Idaho and I was driving over to Boise, Idaho.

I'd never been to Boise, you know, this is where we are now. I was driving over there, and after I was driving away after the interview, the interview went great. I think I've told you guys about that before, but the interview went great.

As I was leaving, the moment I got on the highway, they called me and they said, "Hey. We want to hire you." I said, "Oh. What? That's so cool." They're like, "Yeah, but I don't think you get it yet." They say, "We wanna hire you, but we want you to be Russell's actual funnel building assistant. We want you to sit next to him and help him build his funnels all day. Are you willing to do that?" I was like, "You're gonna pay me to do that? Uh. Yes."

The moment that I hung up with them, I first screamed like crazy, and I pretty much lost my voice in the four hour car ride home. I couldn't believe it. I mean it's like winning the lottery, even better than that. Yeah. Actually that's a stupid, stupid analogy. It's way better than winning the lottery.

I went and I called my wife immediately afterwards. I told her ... I was like, "Babe. You gotta understand that, first of all I just got hired, and ..." She was going nuts. I was like, "Babe, what you gotta understand is that like, our life just changed." Okay? It was one of those moments where I just knew the course of it had just shifted. It's a big deal, you know. I hope that you're starting to identify those moments in your life.

For me, one of the biggest first shifts, professionally, is when I first got my ClickFunnels account. Another was when I first read DotCom secrets. I had been trying to do this stuff for a long time. Someone recently said, "Steven you're so lucky. You got to sit down and Russell taught you how to build funnels." No. No, no, no, no, no, no. I was already building well before I worked there. Okay. I had my own clients. I was making money for other people. I was making money myself.

I definitely was ... I was doing it. I was in it. I was running. I was already in motion, and obviously I learned a lot, from Russell like crazy. You know, we geek out together all the time about it, but anyway ... I've had another one of those moments. Anyway, maybe I'll tell you guys the whole story sometime.

Guys, I'm an entrepreneur. Okay? I don't make a good employee, and I know that. It's my fault that I'm leaving. You know, it's not like I'm being fired. I'm not being fired at all. It's kind of a mutual agreement actually. Actually, in fact, Russell kind of suggested it that I go leave for a bit.

Gonna go pursue some of my own stuff, frankly because I keep doing my own stuff on the side as an employee there, and...

Russell BrunsonAnyway, I just so love ClickFunnels and Russell, and I can tell you from being there almost two years, that ... Man, like, guys there's not another place on the planet like that. It's not that I'm just, you know, drinking the cool aid, or indoctrinated, or whatever it is, but I can tell you that everyone who's there, truly wants to change the world. It's not like it's this accidental thing.

We are actively trying to actually change the world...

I mean it's something that is intentional. That's kind of one of the main point of this whole podcast, is that I'm leaving ClickFunnels. There's a whole bunch of stuff I've been doing and selling on the side, stuff that you guys don't know about, stuff that a lot of people don't that a ...

You know, I've been scratching my own itches, you know. Selling stuff like crazy, doing things in here and there. I mean, I've never really stopped, and ... Anyway, what made me actually, kind of just push it over the edge, cause it's been on my mind for a while, really since like, June-ish, July-ish, somewhere around there. Maybe around August-ish.

Somewhere around there, like mid-summer, late summer, somewhere around there.

What really pushed me over the edge was ... I was talking to a mentor, a different mentor. I've got several mentors, which I recommend you all do, if you don't. I was talking to a mentor and he asked me ... He said, "Hey Steven. What's your five year goal?" I think I've talked to you guys about this before. I said, "I don't know." He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I have no idea. I have no idea. I am focused solely. I never plan past six months, because I'm trying to stay focused."

He goes, "Okay. I understand your point, but you gotta understand that you could be running in a completely different direction you actually wanna go, because you're not asking the actual hard question. What do you want to be doing in five years?" I was like, "Ah. I don't know." It stressed me out. It actually freaked me out.

He's like, "Okay, well, what's your 10 year goal?" I was like, "I have no idea. I've never thought of that question before. I don't know. I'm just focused on what I'm doing right now and being the best in the world at it." I'm trying ... Am I? No, but I know I'm close. You know, I work really, really, really hard.

Besides Russell, I don't know anyone else who's built as many funnels as I have in as many industries, like I just don't. I mean, I've worked super hard to get where I am. There's no shortcut to it. You can fluff it. Okay? This isn't some crappy thing that you ... You know, it's not a get rich quick thing.

I hope it is some day. You know what I mean? Whoever said, "Don't worry. It's not a get rich quick scheme." He's like, "Oh dang it. Really? Darn it." I understand what they're saying. I hope I get rich with it. You know what I mean. Anyway, that was always my come back when they ever said that.

The point is that, it freaked me out. I didn't know the answer to it. I did not understand what I actually wanted. That question haunted me. What's funny is that most of the time, whenever there's something that new that pops up ... Whenever, there's something that pops up that ... I'm good under that kind of pressure.

I actually perform quite well under pressure. It's one of my skills.

I like pressure, good pressure...

You know there's bad pressure too, but there's good pressure. Good stress. I love it. I love being under that kind of stress, cause it's very growing. It's very uncomfortable, and at the end, I always pop out the other side with more confidence, more skill, a better know how. You know what I mean? And so, I look forward to those things.

This guy's asking me, "What do you want to be doing?" It actually scared me. I went home and I started talking to my wife about it. I was like, what do I actually want? I didn't have an answer for a while, which scared me, because I was kind of tricking myself, cause I really did know what the answer was.

The answer was ... I kept asking myself that you guys. I mean, an obsessive question. It's not like me to do that. I like the stress. I like the questions that come, because I get to tackle 'em, challenge 'em, move forward. Tackle 'em, challenge 'em, answer it, move forward. I couldn't answer this one. It was like I was wrestling something that wouldn't go to the ground. I was like ... It's not like me.

You know, I try and just have a very aggressive attitude and it comes to my profession, cause I'm dealing with my family finances, you know? I'm not being a pansy about it. You know what I mean, I'm trying to ... I'm not trying to accidentally make money. I am trying to make money. You know what I mean?

Funny enough, I think some entrepreneurs, you know, will get themselves kind of in that rut, where they're like, "What? I don't want to feel greedy, so I'm not trying to make money. I'm making it for those peop ... I'm making it for that like ... No. I mean, you can make it for yourself, you know, with good intentions. You know, anyway. Different subject. It scared me. For honestly, probably several days at least, which in my brain is a few years, I just couldn't answer the question.

Finally, one day ... This is probably three months ago. Yeah. It was probably three months ago, maybe three and a half-ish. Anyway, one day I was sitting there and I was like ... I asked myself again. I was like, fine. I'm just gonna be totally honest. I'm gonna get to this place of vulnerability with myself. I was like, Steven. What do you want? I immediately just blurted out, "I want to run my own company. I want to run ... I've always wanted that, which is ludicrous to leave what I've been in. I get that.

You have got to stare at yourself in the mirror and answer that question at some point, you know. Maybe it's that you are scared to death and you really think you may not be able to make it as an entrepreneur. I mean, challenge that, you know. Is it something you want? Then don't back down. You know, whatever it is that you're really trying to do. I was like, "Gosh. Dang it. I don't want to leave ClickFunnels. I don't wanna leave ClickFunnels." I still don't want to leave ClickFunnels.

Most people leave their job, because they hate it, or because they finally beat the nine to five, or whatever. I could legitimately say I love Russell like a brother.

I would do anything for him. I have got to scratch this itch. The answer freaked me out. And so, after a lot of conversations, a lot of long conversations, honestly a lot of ...

I'll be open about it. I totally broke down in the bathroom at work, several times. I am not excited to leave ClickFunnels, for the sake of leaving ClickFunnels. I want to be there, but I'm trying to follow the answer and actually, the answer that I've given myself, and I've actually kind of been uncovering, which is that I wanna run my own company. I think I'll do a great job at it. In fact, I think I'll do a very good job at it. I'm cut out for that kind of thing.

You know, my brain works that way. I'm excited, which is, I think is one of the reasons I've been a good assistant for Russell, you know, cause ... It's not like I'm managing just to funnel. There are parts of things where I'll manage, like whole aspects of what we're doing. You know what I mean? I'm excited to do it.

Please understand. I'm not trying to showboat or be like, oh, Steven this, X that. You know, you're showboating. You're being whatever.

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that, you have got to stand with full confidence in the thing that you're trying to do, and stop apologizing to others, but especially yourself for what your goals really are. Pause for effect. Okay? Think about that.

For a long time, I'm know that, that's what I want to do. I've known that since high school really. It's always been a part of me. You guys remember a few episodes ago, I went and I actually talked about the ... I called myself the seven year overnight success story.

I talked about the 17 businesses that I can remember, that I failed at beforehand. I mean, a ton of stuff. It's my not first rodeo at this stuff. It's not my first time making money on my own. It's not my first time failing on my own. It's not my first time creating awesome stuff on my own. I'm excited to go do it again, but I'm very excited.

I've had several of you guys reach out, as kind of the news spread out there a little bit. This podcast will definitely continue. This is not affiliated ... Technically it's not affiliated with ClickFunnels. I just am obsessed with it, and what I know the mission of ClickFunnels is, and what they're trying to do. I talk about it a lot. Okay?

Sorry. My voice is like shot you guys. I'll tell you what's happened in a little bit also.

Anyway. That's what the lesson of this whole show is. This episode anyway, is that ... Get honest. Okay? When Garrett White stood up, a few lives ago, he stood up and he said, "You've gotta stop lying." Okay. He said a lot of expletives. He said, "You gotta stop lying. Stop lying. Stop lying. Stop lying. Stop lying to yourself. Stop lying to your family. Stop lying about your goals. Stop lying on what you really want.

Stop lying about any desires you really have, things that freak you out.

Whatever it is, you gotta get to this place of ultimate vulnerability and it's not easy to do." What's funny is that most people don't think that, that's honestly what it does take to be an entrepreneur. You've got to do those things, just like Robert Kiyosaki said. Any venture you start in any business, funny enough, it's your character flaws, a lot of times that blow up in your face and keep you from moving on. Not other stuff. Yeah, you gotta have an opportunity.

ClickFunnelsYes, all those other pieces get in there. All of those other ... Like that stuff matters.

Awkwardly enough, until you address some very critical, key character flaws, you won't move forward, not at a quick pace, and not at a pace that you're hoping to actually make money at. That's what this whole things been about for me is just ... I'm just trying to be real. Steven, what that have to do with building funnels? Everything. Okay? Everything, has everything to do with it. Just get real about it.

I was watching a post from someone the other day. They were saying how they're trying to build several funnels a week, or even like, one a day, or something ridiculous like that. I was like, "That's not the point. That's not the point." I know some people have used that strategy before, but some people use it as a distraction, where it's like this goal. It's this badge. "Oh, I built a new funnel every week for the last six months." Cool. And you're still not making money. Okay. You missed the whole point.

Just choose one. Get good at that one. ClickFunnels comes with hundreds of funnels that you can go build. Truly, you need one funnel to actually kill it. You know what I mean? I mean, there's a lot of stuff you can do the other's for as well. Focus on one. You know, obsess with the one. Get real with yourself about what one thing you're actually trying to do. That's my challenge to you.

A lot of you guys have asked. A lot of you guys have reached out. Steven, why on earth would you leave something like ClickFunnels? I get it. It does sound absurd, but I actually never in my life thought that I would go into the MLM industry, but I am. The reason why is cause, I'm frankly a little bit ticked off at that industry. Russell and I were looking at a definition of entrepreneur the other day.

I actually really like it. The definition was that, an entrepreneur is somebody who takes responsibility for problem that is not their own. I was like, interesting. I have been obsessed, actually, silently ...

For a lot of you guys, you don't know this, but for the last three years, I've been obsessed with trying to help fix the MLM industry, meaning, I think it's stupid that you gotta go talk to your family members and friends. I think that, just like in any other business on planet earth, if you sell the same thing, like in any MLM, or in any industry, or in anything else. If you sell the same thing as every other person out there, with the same script, the same everything, you're gonna really struggle in business, for some reason, all these MLM'ers think that it's gonna be different for them. That's not.

Uplines don't teach that crap. Corporates don't teach it, because they don't know.

I'm super fired up, really passionate about it. There's a lot of things I'm doing in the industry already that a lot of people don't know about. That's what I'm leaving to go do for a while. I've got a piece of software that I've been creating, that'll be done, honestly probably in about two months, that's killer, it's amazing. I've got a whole bunch of auto-recruiting funnels.

Got all these cool ..

Anyways, I've been building on the side for a long time. I've launched the beta of it about a year and half ago. Went great. I learned what was wrong with it, learned what was great with it. I've got a whole beta group that's been running for months. There's a lot of stuff going on, a whole podcast has been created out of this, which is killing it, so anyway, that's why. I'm very passionate about it.

I'm passionate enough about it to leave the insane, insane, amazing, incredible, other synonyms, cool job that I had at ClickFunnels.

If you compare what I'm leaving to what I'm gonna go do, it must be pretty freakin amazing. That's all I'm saying to it. I hope you get that, that I understand very much, what I'm doing and the pain is huge, which must mean that the potential for pleasure in what I'm trying to actually go do, must be even bigger, and it is, and it's stuff that no one's ever done before in that industry. I just wanna go help it. It drives me a little bit crazy.

Anyway, it's not a pitch anyone. A lot of people have been asking and I thought I'd just answer it here. Anyway, I hope you guys get real. Get real is what it is that you are trying to do in your life. If you are not doing it, I beg you to get real with yourself, and figure out exactly what it you're trying to go do, and be willing to jump out without your parachute being built yet. Don't worry.

You'll build it on the way down, cause the fear of hitting the ground's gonna be too strong. That's just how it works. That's just how it works. This game has so much less to do with being perfect before you do something, as it does with just taking action, and just doing stuff.

You know what's funny? 80% of people out there, which I'm is much more than that, are just freaked out about life in general. If you're one of the other 20% that just does, something, you're already ahead of everybody else. Just do something. That's really what's been on my mind past little bit. It's like, man. Just get out and do it. Whatever it is that you've waiting for. "I just gotta have this membership site done," or, "I've gotta just, get this last piece together," or, "I gotta get this contract done," or, "I gotta meet with my lawyers."

No you don't. "I gotta get my logo done." I hate that one. It's not true at all. "I gotta finish my website." Barf. No you don't. Okay.

The only thing you need to worry about is selling. That's it. If you've never sold your thing, but you think it's gonna be the thing that saves you and gets you out of your thing, wake up. Okay? Papa Larsen's getting real with you, okay? Wake up. Quit hanging onto that false dream.

It's not a real dream...

What you do is you get real with yourself, and you get to a place of vulnerability, which is gonna take you, learning how to trust you, and a different level you've never gone before, and you say, "Oh my gosh. This is where I actually want to go." Then you have the cohunes to get out there and try and sell it for the first time. If people are buying it, ah, awesome. Now you're getting into a spot where the possibility of you leaving your job or changing your business, or whatever you're trying to do, actually can become real. Before that, you're just lying to yourself.

Anyway, sorry my voice sounds weird. I pretty much didn't sleep over the weekend. I think I'm getting sick. I'm trying not to. I don't want to admit it, cause I feel like that's part of me getting sick. I don't know if that's true at all. I really don't want to get sick.

Anyway, so I'm leaving ClickFunnels you guys and I'm really bummed about it, but it's because I've gotta go cut my own path. I'm just being true to myself. I'm stoked to do it. I'm extremely passionate about it, but there is a level of Steve Larson that the world has not experienced yet.

I've done a lot of stuff in a nine to five setting, with Russell, which is, it's way more than nine to five, but you know, normal job. Oh Mylanta. I come back and I get all this other stuff done in the evenings, on the outside of my job there. A lot of people are like, "How do you do all that?" You haven't seen anything yet baby. Here comes Steve Larsen. Okay?

I'm super excited. I'm just gonna come out of the gate just running and I excited to do it. I'm excited to be more a part of it, the entrepreneur world. I'm gonna figure it out. I got no doubt in my mind about that. I've already done a lot of testing a lot of the way. I've already made a lot of money along the way with my testing. It's been great.

Anyway, Honestly I was planning on taking this episode an entirely different direction, but that's what was from the heart. Not necessarily about funnel strategy, but very much having to do with where you're trying to drive your ship. Some of you guys are running super hard, but in a weird direction. You just gotta get real with where you're trying to go, and not confuse, like I said before. Don't confuse your movement with achievement. It's not the same thing. If something doesn't have to do with selling your thing, quit doing it.

You know, if you're not doing the stuff that you ultimately want to be doing in the next five years, change it. Get to it.

Anyway guys. You're all awesome. I love this community by the way. I absolutely love all the guys. I love everyone who listens to this show, not just cause you're listening to it, but because I know that you guys are fighters. I was tired for years, of being around people who are just trying to just get by. "Well, I'm just trying to get by." It's like, really? "Oh Gosh. I have to work today?" I'm like, "Oh you kidding me? I get to work today." You know what I mean?

I know this podcast brings those kinds of people around. I am intentionally trying to change the world, and I hope that you are as well. I hope you're bold enough to talk about that. It'll feel weird at first. It was weird for me for quite a while. It was not comfortable for me to say those kinds of things. I'm comfortable with it now. I've developed enough now.

I'm in my own journey, in my own progression. I'm telling you right now. ISales Funnel Radiowanna change the world. Not exactly sure how, but that picture is coming more clear. Me leaving ClickFunnels is a big piece of me trying to get that picture in focus. Anyway, guys, talk to you later.

Have some cohunes about your own future, and I'll talk to you later. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Wanna get one of today's best internet sale funnel for free?

Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels, to download your sales funnel today.

Nov 18, 2017

iTunes

The good and the bad of my very first info product...

ClickFunnels

 

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to the best podcast on planet earth in my opinion and in reality of course. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Hey, you guys...

Hey, I'm excited for this episode. This is something that's been on my mind for probably four weeks now. I've just not ... I don't know. I haven't had the time to actually make it, but I've been making this list and I've been writing this list for a while.

I keep walking into my office, my home office, and I look over to the right and I've got whiteboards all over the place and quotes stapled to my wall. A huge black sheet stapled from the top of the ceiling down to the bottom of the floor. I've got big flood lights and film equipment.

I've got a whole set up in here. I got a whole studio, but all over on the side of the wall over there, I've been writing this big list down. Weird as it, whatever it is in the morning, my brain turns on real fast.

What's been on my mind for the last sort of while is kind of lessons from my first info product. When I first started coming up with this product idea, my little girl was about to turn four years old. Super excited. She's a cutie, a lot of fun. Love hanging out with her. It's fun though.

As she gets older and older, it's not that she wasn't fun before, but even now we can have like more conversations, which is crazy. She's only four almost, which is nuts. When I look at her too, I also remember weirdly enough this first info product that I launched is around the same time when we found out that she ... That my wife was pregnant with her.

My wife came running out of the bathroom one day and we were excited...

We were trying to have a kid. She ran out and she was like, "Oh my gosh. We're pregnant. Ha, ha." I was like, "Wow. Yeah. I'm so pumped." We were so excited. We're so excited. I have, how should I say this, almost the bitter taste in my mouth also during that moment. It has nothing to do with my excitement for the kid. I was so excited for my little girl, so excited for her to come, had nothing to do with that. What the bitter taste comes from still is that I mean we were just broke. I mean broke, broke.

I didn't know how to pay for the birth. I don't know how I pay for those. I mean it's one of the reasons I joined the army. I mean I always wanted to anyways, but it is one of the root reasons.

It was like, "Crap. I had not figured out how to sell stuff," despite the fact that I have been constantly trying. Up until that point I had been doing real estate, both commercial and residential, door to door sales. At that time I was getting into like eBooks and I was writing a lot of stuff, which I never launched one of them by the way. It'd be kind of cool to show and actually finish that one one day.

It's cool how on point I was four years ago when I was writing that thing. It's like right on point. All of it's still valid. I was like, "Oh my gosh." Anyway, different subject. It was hard because like I really just didn't know how we were going to live, how are we going to eat. I was trying to be fiscally responsible....

We didn't have expensive habits. Thankfully neither my wife or I we really had like super expensive taste. It's not that we didn't want to, but we were okay with the fact that we didn't have the money to...

Neither of us have really ever been concerned about the other spending a whole bunch of money randomly. You know what I mean? That's not ever been us, but at the same time, we just didn't have any money. I was in school. I did great in school. After a while when I learned how to learn that I started getting straight A's every semester almost, which is awesome. I was deep into school. I was trying to learn. I was trying to outdo my other peers. I'm very competitive on purpose. I was trying to beat them on everything.

I was trying to beat my professors even, my marketing teachers. I was trying to show them that they were wrong on a few things. I mean it's just my personality. I run. I'm a sprinter. I know that. Anyway, this product idea though came at a moment when I was really needing something the most money wise. Not almost the most. There was one more intense time than that. I remember I was sitting on the couch at 2:00 AM and it was freezing.

IdahoI was in our cold apartment. This is in Eastern Idaho, Southeastern Idaho, which if you don't know in the wintertime and even during the summer, like the wind just always blows there. I don't know what is going on over there, but it always blows wind.

I'm from Denver. My wife and I are both from Denver. It doesn't blow like that over there. Anyway, I had this idea and it's not like it hit me all at once. The core of it did, but it continued to develop over the course of several weeks. The idea was to create this info product that I could not find anyone else in this particularly industry creating. No one else had done it. No one else understood ClickFunnels enough to pull it off as far as I could tell.

ClickFunnels was pretty new. I'm sorry. Let's see. Yeah, okay. This was about three and a half years ago right after ... Timeline wise, ClickFunnels had just opened up, so not quite four years ago then. It's amazing how much has happened in that amount of time.

That's crazy. Holy crap. Anyway, I had this idea and I was excited and I didn't totally know what I was doing, but I figured that I needed to go create this product and then start to sell it because it was a blue ocean. No one else had really done it.

There was enough people that I could go funnel hack to get kind of an idea of the thing that I should create, like what would be accepted content wise, but I was going to deliver it up in a completely different way than that market had ever experienced before.

I was like sweet. Cool. I mapped the whole thing out many times. I wrote out the value ladders. I literally went page by page through Russell's DotComSecrets Ignite program.

It was a workbook that he gave for free. After the DotComSecrets book on the thank you page there, he was like, "Hey, I don't want you to sit around, wait around just being bored, so here's three days of this event and the workbook with it." I was like what? Oh my gosh. I took the workbook. I printed it out. It was like a hundred pages.

I got it spiral bound and I started hiding in the basketball ... On campus, the basketball stadium box office seats because you could jump through the front window and it was kind of like dark, really fast internet up there. No one would bother me. I would just kind of dodge security when no one was looking and I'd jumped through the window. That's literally how I learned this stuff you guys.

That's how I did it. I was just hustling my brains out. It hasn't really stopped. I just haven't stopped since then. I learned it around this entire product. This product was how I learned funnels. That's why it was so near and dear to me. Now I had created stuff before, but not like this. I promise I'll get to the good stuff here in just a moment.

Here's the back story with the whole thing, okay?

I went and I created the product and it took me eight months, eight months to make the thing, right? I was in school. At that time we had our kid. I had family life with a kid that had just started. I had started with the army. I went away for six months to basics training and all this other stuff and other trainings, pieces like that.

Six months I was gone. Anyway, in total, actually creation, took me eight months to make the thing and I launched it and I was so proud. I was so proud. No one else really understood what I was doing, but I was so excited to just have ... It was my first info product to really put out there and it was good.

I knew it was good. Nobody else was doing what I was doing and I knew that. I was very proud of the full thing, but the problem was a lot of stuff. There was just so many things. Oh my gosh. If I could go back and just like shake my three and a half year old ago self, I would. What's been on my mind the last few weeks here and now has been lessons from that first product launch.

I think the reason it's been popping back up is because I'm about to launch another info product here early January and I know there's another soul in planet that's doing what I'm doing. I know that there's no other one who's even pulling it off closely or even remotely similar to how I'm doing it.

I know it's a blue ocean. I have tested the crap out of it for the last year and a half to two years. There's on one else. I'm excited. Very similar scenario as that first info product I launched. When I launched that very first info product though, nobody bought it. I had not even thought about traffic. Looking back, so juvenile and now I'd be like, "Why on earth would I not think about that now?"

I just didn't know. I had no idea. It ended up making me like 50 grand just through like one or two traffic sources and it was awesome. It was great. Really, really cool. Well, now I'm about launch a second one and I'm so excited about it, but I wanted to go through a list of kind of some of the ... I wrote them all down here and I'm sure that there are others, but these are like the most stark lessons that I have gathered from that first info product launch and it's totally different this time. 100% different.

Like completely day and night different the way I've been handling this thing. Anyway, you know what's funny is I actually go through these with two comical coaching students as well and definitely did this with the latest fad event as well.

Went through a few different strategy on how you could pull off. Here's the number one lesson from the whole list. There's about five or six things. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to go through them real quick and I'll explain them as I go. I want to go through these because I need you to understand that if you're about to launch an info product and you feel stuck, I almost guarantee that it is because of one of these reasons.

Here's number one, lesson number one is create the revenue before you make the product. This is huge and it's totally counterintuitive to anything else you would ever expect. All right?

Even in my marketing classes, like even some of the early mentors I had, they were always like, "Look, go create something brand new. Create this cool thing and then go try and sell it." I was like no. It's totally the opposite. First, you sell it and then you create it. You're like, "Steven, that makes zero sense."

Let me tell you how to do it...

Online MarketingThe reason why is because I spent eight months creating this thing that was amazing, but I did not get paid a dime for it forever. Luckily I created something that was cool enough people could pay me for eventually. I mean that was straight luck. I guessed my whole way to profits. Here's how you do it though. Let's say that you're selling an info product or even a physical product.

You can start selling the thing. I mean think about Kickstarter. That's exactly what that thing is. You are buying something that may not even be done yet. What does that tell the entrepreneur? It tells the entrepreneur it's a good idea, right? You currently as the entrepreneur do not create the creativity. You do not create the ideas. You do not have them inside of you. You do not have inside of your own being right now what it takes to make a million dollars from the market.

None of us do and I wish I had understood that ahead of time. What you do is you create the product with the first buyers. You create it with them. What I've been doing is I've been spending all my time. I mean I've created cool stuff.

I've created workbooks. I mean I've created lots of stuff that goes with it, but I still have not created or filmed the actual thing yet. It's because I am waiting all my time, all my attention, all my focus is on creating pressure, the actual sales message before I start to sell it. I'm not creating the actual thing first. Now if you see the way that Russell rolls things out, if you see the way Russell Brunson and ClickFunnels in general roll products out, a lot of times the way we do it is we sell the thing, we prove that it was good and then we start to ask campaign the buyers.

We prep them ahead of time, so it's not like a bait-and-switch. You know what I mean? There's certainly room where you could be really shady with that and we're not.

What we do is we say, "Hey look, classes start in two weeks. Buy now for your early bird ticket to get in cheaper," right? Then on the very first module or the very first training, you could do this for physical products too, whatever it is, then we start saying things like, "Hey, what's the number one question or challenge you have with X, Y and Z," and that's just for module one. Well, now we know what to create.

They told us what to make. Does that make sense? What's going to blow a lot of people's minds is when you realize that the product rarely sells itself. Rarely ever do you have a product that's so good that it sells itself without any sales copy, without you even trying, where their word of mouth is so strong that you don't need any sales message.

What's funny though is when people focus all their time on creating the product and no time creating the sales message, right? They think the product alone is what sells the product. That's not true at all. I have watched Russell sell products he doesn't even know what the product is. It's because he knows persuasive. He knows how to sell. He knows how to create offers.

He knows how to stack things. He knows how to create new opportunities. He knows how to invoke that kind of emotion from an individual, right? It's because he's gone through and he creates the actual new opportunity. He creates the sales message. It does not matter really what the product is. It does obviously. It can't be crap.

It's got to be amazing. It's got to deliver. It's got to be the coolest thing on the planet earth. You know what I mean? You're creating a brand new opportunity. It better deliver. It better be awesome. Do not deliver junk. That is not my culture. It should not be yours. Okay? What I'm telling you is that you can sell and make money before you actually start creating the product. Then what you do is you create the product with them.

You create it as you go. That's all we do. That's all I've done...

I have created so many freaking member areas in the last like year. It is ridiculous. My role at ClickFunnels has somewhat shifted. I'm not so much of a front end funnel builder anymore. We're not creating them any front end funnels anymore.

My role has shifted. I'm more like a members area, content creating, fulfillment guy now. I don't know why it's totally shifted, but I think that's why is just because we don't create that many front end funnels anymore. It's all about delivering these massive awesome members area. It's all built in ClickFunnels. I mean everything I do and everything I build is in ClickFunnels, but anyway. That's the first lesson is that oh my gosh, biggest thing, why did I wait eight months to collect any check?

Honestly, it took a while for word to get out because I hadn't thought about traffic, so really it was like a year. That was rough. Why did I do that? Don't do that. I'm begging you not to do that.

Anyway, number one, please know that you should spend most of your time on actually creating the sales message. Focus on getting paid before you make the product as much as you possibly can.

SalesFunnelBrokerThen what you do is that first round through, that first group through who bought your thing, you create the product with them and you say, "Hey, guess what? It's all going to start in two weeks. Go ahead and get your ticket. Go ahead and buy now, so you can get the early bird pricing. It starts in two weeks. When you get in there, very first module, there's a little stop in there, go ahead and answer that questionnaire so that we know we are covering the things that you need most."

It's just an ask campaign...

Then when we're one week out, "Guess what guys? It starts in one week. Go ahead and get your ticket or go and buy. Then the very first module, get in there, make sure ... Guess what guys? It's starting today. It means you don't have to wait like the people who wait had to wait two weeks ago. Go ahead and get in. I'm going to extend the early bird pricing. You can go ahead.

In the very first module, you can go through and make sure you fill out the survey so we can make we're answering it and filling the products to your needs so we can make sure we're helping you the most. Guess what guys? It only started a week ago. That means you don't have to wait. That means you don't have to wait.

You can get in there and you can start right now, but go ahead and go to module two and to let us know what is it you're most struggling with. That way we know we can make sure we tailor the product to ..." You know what I mean? It's that same thing. "Guess what? It started two weeks go. Guess what? It started three weeks ago." Then whatever it is, let's say you have six modules and something, that first group through, they're creating it with you. You're making money.

You're seeing what works and what doesn't and you're no longer just guessing, creating an entire product, spending all this time and actually wasting a lot of time and frankly probably money that you could have been getting that you didn't.

Does that make sense? This is like one of like six lessons and I'm spending a ton of time on it because I just want you to know that. For the love, sell the stuff. Do a great job fulfilling on it. Don't be shady. Let them know that they're the first ones through.

You know what I mean?...

Let them know that they're going to be creating with you and then a really easy thing to do is let's say you go create module one. At the end of module one, let's say it's on a Saturday. Let's say you released module one on a Monday. Friday do a live Q and A call with everybody. Put the recordings back into the members area. That becomes a value-add. You can toss that in at the end of your stack. That lets you know what holes you didn't fill.

That lets you know where the people are not able to understand or follow what it is you're actually doing. Does that make sense? Anyway, what is that? 18 minutes for number one?

Let me go a little bit faster here, but I hope that makes sense though, okay? That's one of the biggest lessons I ever learned. Number two, here's the second lesson, let's say that you're hiring out support. Let's say you have a support person or you've got support people or whatever it is.

Let's say it's someone who's not totally vested in what it is you're doing. Let's say it is and they just don't understand what your product is. One of the worst things that can happen is when someone starts to ask a front line support person about your product because they may not know about it.

What I try to do, what I'm trying to do now is I'm trying to separate support where they are mostly transactional style questions, "Hey, I can't find my login. Hey, I didn't get my receipt. Hey, does this include this?" Right? It's more factual and transactional. I'm trying to leave support to do that stuff while I handle the question on my live Q and As about the actual products and how to use it and how to get the most out of it and how to go crush it.

You know what I mean? I'm trying to create that split right there and there's really a few things that I've been doing. I got this awesome guy. I want to interview him so you guys can all meet him sometime. He's so cool. He's awesome.

He's been going through and he's been taking a lot of the Q and A questions that I get, support questions that I get and he's making a knowledge base with the most common questions. I think we're using Freshdesk. He's creating a knowledge base with like the most questions and it's not a perfect process yet and it's not a perfect system.

I know that and I apologize if some people have gotten confused or frustrated if there's something that's been weird in there. We're still making it better. It'll be awesome. Anyway, that's where the knowledge base is sitting and a lot of transactional questions, a lot of like what things come with what questions.

All that stuff is I'm trying to separate that and put that to support and I'm trying to take the other questions about the product and how to use it, how to actually be successful with it. I'm trying to put those in a live Q and A that I'm going to be doing with this new info product starting January. I'm going to be doing that every single week live with a group of people.

I'll share my screen and we'll go through stuff. I'll take those things and I'll put them back into the members area so that people know what's going on with there. You know what I mean? That's the plan. The reason why is because there's been a few times where much earlier support people who were with me ... This new guy I have is amazing.

His name is Luke. Shout out to you, buddy. I want to introduce him to everybody sometime. He's been amazing. Anyway, very much earlier support people, they weren't as passionate about my stuff as I am, which you can expect. That's totally fine. They might make customers a little bit mad or whatever it is because they may not understand a strategy.

That should be something that I handle, not the support person. Anyway, okay, that's kind of a long answer there. Here's another lesson, well, I was originally funnels on SalesFunnelBroker.com for $100. I think they're still out there right now, but that's been changed. I just want you to know that.

When I originally was selling that stuff, there's a lot more stuff I had on there for sale for a hundred bucks also. When I was selling funnels, when I'm selling share funnels, things like that, and even with this other info product, when I was selling stuff for a hundred bucks, I did not like the customer that brought. That was way too intense of a product.

A whole share funnel and how to set it up, that's way too intense to be selling for only a hundred bucks. That's holy crap. This is lesson number three. Lesson number three is more money equals a better customer. Now I can understand having smaller physical products on the front end of your value ladder.

That's a lot cheaper. It's because it doesn't take as much to fulfill on that...

Not nearly at all. It does not take nearly that much to fulfill on it. That's a hard thing to screw up. You know what I mean? Like a book or something where it's cheaper and smaller and it's self-explanatory. That's way easier for a customer, any kind of customer, to come through and actually understand. When I was selling stuff that was cheaper that should have frankly been more expensive, that brought a kind of customer that was a little bit more needy.

Not that it's a bad thing, but there's a level of self-solverness. They are people who solve a lot of issues or problems on their own. Entrepreneurship is a self-solver kind of a game, right? If you're not in love with solving problems, you're probably not going to make a great entrepreneur.

Does that make sense? It's a big deal. All this game is going from one problem set to the next problem set, to the next problem set. The reason why Russell Brunson sometimes doesn't listen to a lot of stuff or go to a lot of other events anymore, he doesn't go to a lot of other people's things anymore, he doesn't read a lot of other people's books, the reason why is because he's on a much higher level problem set, right? He's not trying to figure out how to go from zero to a million or 1 to 10 or even 10 to 100 anymore.

He's trying to figure out how to go to a billion dollars. That really ups the kind of person he's trying to learn from. It's the exact same thing with this whole ... Look, more money you charge equals a better customer.

I could dive into that a lot deeper for other things too and show some other examples, but I'm going to move on. First lesson, make money first and make the product with the customer. That's huge. Massive value bomb right there. Number two, the live Q and As should be ... Anyway, I wish I had been doing live Q and As about how the product works rather than leaving that to support. That was a dumb decision on my move. Support should be more transactional stuff and creating a knowledge base.

Number three, when you charge more money, you get a better customer typically. Number four, I wish that I had first funnel hacked a really hot market and then created a new niche out of that hot market.

A lot of times it gets confusing for people...

Hey, go funnel hack someone...

Model them totally. Then hacks for secrets comes out which says, "Hey, create a brand new opportunity. Totally new niche. Something that's never been created before." You're like, "Wait a second. What? Where does funnel hacking come in and where does creating a new niche come in?" Right? Luckily, I guessed right on my first product.

Number one, you go find a really ridiculously bloody, bloody red ocean, right? Something where tons and tons of money is being spent. You find out what they're all doing, then you create a new niche out of one step out of that really hot market. That's one of the easiest ways to ensure a big win. I wish I had done that the first round I've been more purposeful with that, but I frankly wasn't.

I just didn't know. Next lesson, nevermind. That one doesn't make sense. Here's the next one, this is going to sound self-explanatory as I say this, but I just didn't understand this either. I wish I had created traffic sources prior to launching my first info product. I didn't even test anything.

Nothing...

I talk a lot about Tim Ferriss' book The 4-Hour Workweek and it's simply because it's really good, but if you know the story of how he actually wrote that book and put it out there, it took him like a year of planning and preparation and writing. He would drip out a little bit of it here and drip out a little bit there and write little pieces here and there. He did it over the course of like a year.

When he came up with the title, The 4-Hour Workweek, what he did is he brainstormed a ton of book title headlines, lots of ideas, a lot of book title ideas and he created an ad for each one of them and he threw them all out to the marketplace and he looked at which one had the highest click-through rate, which was The 4-Hour Workweek, and that's why he chose the title The 4-Hour Workweek.

That's why that book is called that. He tested like crazy. He PR'd himself like crazy before he ever, ever launched the thing. He primed the pump way before he ever put it out there, which is awesome. I love how the product Software Secrets was launched. If you hadn't seen the Software Secrets launched, it's amazing.

They made tons of money. It's amazing product. I personally use it. I personally bought it. I absolutely love Software Secrets. I think it's so cool, but what's cool about Software Secrets is that for almost a full year, in fact it might have been a full year, they had this podcast where all they did was document the creation of the product.

They included their customer in the actual creation of the product. Now when there was this new feature that popped out, they said, "Oh yeah. You guys remember the story behind this feature?" Then they talk about it, right?

That's cool because when they actually launched the thing, now they know the stories behind how hard it was to create this thing and the trial and challenge behind this one over here.

It's cool because they brought us on the journey. They basically were selling everybody before they actually sold the thing and that's why they did it. That's how they did it. I wished that I had done that before. I wished that I had created pressure and traffic sources prior to actually launching the product.

Oh my gosh...

Guys, if you can make the event of you launching the product feel like an event, it's like one of the easiest ways to ensure success with this whole thing. Anyway, I have been talking like crazy and I know this is kind of a long podcast. The last few have been kind of long, but I'm just excited to share a with you guys a few of these things that have been going on my head.

Anyways, if you're making a product, you're making something that's good, that's ... It could be the first one. It could be something that's also maybe not even your first one. Maybe it could be whatever it is you're about to launch something or you've already launched it, think through ... Okay. I'm just going to recap these lessons real quick. There's one, two, three, four, about five things here. Number one, figure out again how you can actually make money before you start creating your thing.

That's going to ease your pain like crazy because the guess work's not going to be on you. The market will tell you what it wants you to create, right? I just went over that. You don't have that inside of you of really knowing what it is to create.

You got to ask the market. You might as well get paid while you do it and you can. Start selling before it's ready. That's number one. Number two, separate what support's roles are with your roles. Your role is to sell the thing, make it awesome, help people learn how to use it, help people learn how to consume it. Support's roles in my opinion is more transactional. You know what I mean? It's more let's make a knowledge base.

Let's do the things. Let's answer the questions you're answering all the time, Steven. Let's answer all the questions. You know what I mean? It's that kind of stuff and again I'm going to introduce you to a cool guy here shortly. Stuff starts to roll out with this thing. The third thing, charge more money.

More money equals a better customer typically. More money typically equals someone who's willing to take more action. If someone spends more money, usually they're willing to do what you say rather than blame random stupid crap on you that it's not your fault, rather than just their own fault for not actually taking action. You know what I mean?

Anyway, more money usually equals a better customer. Fourth lesson, find the hot product where lots of money is, then take one step out of that as you create a new niche, right? Don't just create something new willy-nilly. Find out what's actually selling before and go create something new from it. Then the fifth and final thing is create some pressure before you start to sell something.

Find the traffic sources...

Do some testing. Figure out what is actually selling. Your job is to sell. Just sell. Don't worry about stupid stuff like business cards or office space. That stuff doesn't matter. Sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. Sell for a while and prove what the market wants, then we can kind of automate stuff because the market told you what it wants.

Anyway, I've been talking a long time. That was a freaking 30 minute podcast and I'm sorry that it went that long, but honestly, I just hope that you understand more of like ... Gosh, like so many headaches. I can't even tell you how many headaches would have been relieved if I had just done this. I mean this is over the course of like two years of me learning that.

Okay? I hope that that 30 minutes cut down two years of you learning how to do this stuff. You might even be amazing at selling that stuff and I hope that you and you probably are, but just the way you structure stuff with your support, with all the different things, all the different pieces, just know that like is ...

Those are for me the five huge lessons when launching an info product or products in general. When it comes to selling it, just ... It eases the pain like crazy. I kind of jumped into a lot of that stuff too with our last fad event and it went really great, but anyway. I'm excited to launch this thing. I think it'd be great.

I've got a lot more structure in place this time as far as the business wise goes, which usually I don't care as much about, but I'm trying to take you to a lot of the lessons I learned for the first info product.

I'm excited to launch it. It'll be early January. Anyway, it's going to be awesome. Anyways, get out there. Launch stuff. Just sell stuff and I'm excited for you and what you're launching. It's cool to hear all the stories. I love when you guys reach out and share with me what you guys got from these things too. It's really fun. Anyway, you guys are all awesome.

Get out there...

Create products...

Sales Funnel RadioPut stuff out there...

Time is a ticking...

Don't waste it. I'll talk to you later. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnels today.

Nov 14, 2017

iTunes

Routinely, these are the most common ways we'll increase the perceived value of our offers...

ClickFunnels

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

How you guys doing? Hey, just right off the bat, I want you to know if I'm talking fast or a little bit jittery, it's because I am a little bit jittery. Okay, so a few weeks ago, about three weeks ago I was like, "Crap!" When I first met my wife, I was six per cent body fat. I was running ... I was doing sprint triathlons like crazy, I was ... I'm not gonna lie, you know twisted steel and sex appeal. I mean, I was like ... I was looking really good.

I had veins all over me, it was awesome. And then this thing called like work and college came along, and married life and responsibility and that kind of stuff and I was like, "Man, I'm not gonna lie, I feel a little bit big."

So I went online and I went to YouTube and I found this guy that was just like shredded, right? I went on YouTube with the explicit purpose of finding some person who just looked totally jacked and huge and swole and looked like he could kill me in a single flex. And I found someone. And I got on there and I was like, "Hey man, do you do like, you know, do like customized meal plans?" I got no problem with the actual workout part, but I want like help with the meal plan part. So anyway, he's been ... I've been on this super, super strict like ... I mean it's literally like chicken and veggies and some healthy fats, like that's it.

That's what I've been eating for the last two weeks and I feel so much better. It's amazing! How restricting actually makes me feel more enabled, think about how many lessons that applies to.

But anyway, it's been interesting and right now, I was about to go do a workout and I've just been pounding some caffeine before I go and do my workout. And it's starting to hit me right now. So, if I sound kind of jumbled and all over the place, that is exactly why. And anyway, I'm excited. In fact, a few days ago, I was talking to Russell, I was like, "Dude, I feel so good, like oh my gosh, I've had no caffeine. I've had like ... I'm eating super clean." And he's like, "Really? Like that's awesome man. Like oh that's so cool."

And I went back home and I was started looking at what it was he was having me take, and I've been taking 275 milligrams of caffeine in the morning. And I was like, "No wonder I feel like I'm on freaking cloud nine, my head is like buzzing, I'm going like crazy." And anyway, he's laughing, he's like, "Dude, that's like the equivalent of 12 Ignites, that's like so much caffeine." Anyway, so it's just been kind of funny.

Hey, so we just barely finished a Funnel Hackathon event. Now, if you never heard of that, what happens is people come in for three days and day one, we go through their sales message. Now, well that's really day two. Day one what we do is a lot of foundational work, okay. What's your new opportunity?

Who you selling to? You know, have you actually created a new niche? What's your message? You know, describe more of the target? It's more stuff like that. What are the false beliefs of the individuals? What stories do you have in your life that we can start crafting around it? And we do a lot of like, it kinda feels like you bouncing around a lot, but in day two, a lot of stuff starts to come back together.

Okay, so the first day is like a normal nine to five kinda day, the second day though is ... We start at about eight thirty in the morning and we go til about midnight. And the entire three day event, it's not like we take breaks, there's no official breaks, there's no ... I mean, it's intense, it's very intense as a participant.

It is extremely intense as the person running it, you know what I mean? It's kinda fun 'cause day one Russell and I, we're on stage, sometimes separate, sometimes together, sometimes we're kinda ping ponging back and forth, teaching this and it was just a ton of fun.

I know a lot of you guys listen to this podcast, shout out to you guys, I know that. We've had hundreds and hundreds of you guys come through it now, it's been great. Day two though, it's just ... It's mostly just me and we go from sun up to way past sundown.

And we build out the entire webinar slide presentation. All of it. From top to bottom. Then Russell comes in, the very last thing of the day, usually like nine or 10 in the evening and he does this actual stack presentation and just breaks it down and shows what he's actually doing and why it works. It's really cool.

And then the third day, we jump through a whole bunch of funnels and one of the things I like to do, and I promise this is going somewhere, one of the things I like to do is on day three, I like to stand up at the front on the stage and just ask ... Okay, we've gone through the actual message, we've gone through how to deliver it, we're gonna go through some funnels here in a little bit.

And I open up ClickFunnels with them. And we start to go through ClickFunnels itself and it's a lot of fun and I help them get the webinar ready to rock. But I always like to ask, "What ..." You gotta understand it, like Russell Brunson and ClickFunnels and Expert Secrets and DotCom Secrets and all this ... I mean, I have a marketing degree, I have no idea what it really did for me, besides create an environment for me to learn all this other stuff. I don't ...

There's nothing content wise in college, except like two or three lessons from a single semester that I really even use, you know, from college.

And so, what's funny is that, this is the best material, right? It's the best stuff, it's the best tools, it's the best everything and they're in the room. Each one of them paid like 15 grand a seat, just to be there, right? There was like over 60 people in this room, it's a ton of fun. I mean, I absolutely loved it.

Everyone else always does love it. It's .... There's no other place on the planet where I know you can get that kind of stuff. And so, I always like to make the point, "Look, you've got the best stuff, you're in the best scenario, you're in the best environment, you're in a room with people that frankly you probably will not find in many other places, right? You're all A players, you're all here to run, you're all here to go."

But it is incredibly baffling to me to sit and realize that like 20 per cent of them aren't gonna do anything. What? Are you kidding? You know what I mean? I never had an event like that, I never had any kind of ... I had DotCom Secrets, that was it. Expert Secrets wasn't even out, right? ClickFunnels was kind of just barely getting started, there were still a lot of things they were fixing, a lot of bugs.

Expert Secrets SecretsLike why on earth would you not just go take action? So what if no one sees your Facebook Lives when you're just starting? No one knows who you are anyway. Like there's nothing to lose. And so, I always like to, on that third day, sit back and write. Okay, what are the real barriers? What is the thing that is actually gonna keep you from going? What is it? I wanna know what those things are.

And one of things I always like to bring up is a ... It's a section ... So everyone's using the Stack slide, we're creating brand new offers, we're all creating brand new opportunities in brand new niches 'cause they're creating the niche, not choosing a niche, if you choose the niche, you lose.

You create the niche, okay? If you choose the niche, it means you're in a proven based offer already, out of the gate. Don't be that, right? I know I'm saying a lot of technobabble right now, but it was kinda interesting because I had the thought hit to me, like, there are some things that we constantly do to help increase the perceived value of the offers that we sell, right? The perceived idea ... I mean this is huge, massive gold mines going on here, okay?

Or goldnugget, whatever you wanna call them. Okay.

And so, what I said is like, "Let me show you guys some of the things that we do and the things that we use to increase the perceived value of the offers that we sell." Let's think about this real quick, okay? If you are selling just a straight info product, what is it cost you to fulfill on that? Like nothing, right? You're gonna send an email with an email link in there and they're gonna go jump into the members area or they're gonna go download your stuff or something like that, right?

The amount of work that it takes to fulfill on an info product, very small.

Now that's awesome for the business owner, right? But as a consumer, there usually needs to be more sales copy, you gotta convince me that it's actually worth it, right? That the information itself is actually worth it, okay? Now let's think about this. How much sales copy is on an Amazon E-commerce page? Not that much, right? There's not that much sales copy that actually goes onto, I don't know ... Whatever ...

Let's say you buying a CD player, whatever, an MP3 player, something like that. Let's say you're buying whatever it is off of Amazon, how much sales copy actually goes on that? Like not much. We're talking bullet points, right? Another additional paragraph talking about the features. A little section that might be frequently asked questions from people that have already bought it, right? Some reviews. That's it.

Now those are all things we would include in an info product, but why do we not have to include that on a physical product? It's because we can anticipate, right, the tangible aspect of that product. I can sense that I'm gonna be feeling and holding and touching this thing. This thing is gonna be real. It's gonna show up in my mailbox. I'm gonna take it out and it's real.

I can touch it, right? I can hold it.

I just got this sweet hoody from a rap artist I really like. I'm usually not that much into rap, but I found this guy I really like and he's amazing and I've been just all about his music for the last like month and ... Or however long. And it's been awesome and I totally bought his hoody, it's freaking cool. And it was expensive. But the perceived value is through the roof. Now if someone ... It was $60 for this hoody, okay? So it's relatively expensive, right? Actually honestly not that bad, now that I think about it, but when I think about like, okay, how much would you have to sell me for me to spend $60 on an info product, right?

It's gonna be quite a bit more, you know what I mean? It's gonna be quite a bit more money. Now you think about it ... Okay, so the first thing I'm trying to tell you is that if you are selling an info product, if you can figure out a way to actually send something physical, anytime someone buys an info product, you're perceived value of that offer is gonna go way up.

Let's think about this for a second, right? On a free plus shipping offer, free plus shipping, you're getting something physical in the mail, so free plus shipping, seven dollars, for something physical in the mail, that's really cheap, especially if it's a book, right? The perceived value of that is way higher than seven dollars, that's why it's so stupid, simple and easy, for people to go and get that thing. If you bundle an info product with a physical product, the perceived value goes through the roof, most of the time.

If you do it right, if it's not crap, right? But most of time, the perceived value goes through the roof.

And so, that's something I was trying to tell them, is that when you're actually selling on these webinars or these mid-tier products, right? Let's say it's around $1000, $2000, something like that. If you can bundle some kind of welcome package, something that they get in the mail, something that the perceived value is gonna go through the roof. "Hey, guess what guys? You're not only gonna get this sweet info product that's gonna teach you X - Y and Z, guess what?

You're also gonna get my welcome package. It's something that I'm gonna ship to you in the mail, so make sure you put in your shipping address because I've got some cool box that's coming. We've got a T-shirt for you, we've got this cool notepad that's customized and a sweet pen with our logo on it." Or whatever. You know what I mean?

If you've got those kinds of things in there, it's gonna be a lot easier for you ... Perceived value is gonna be a lot higher. I hope I've made my point with that. Start thinking through what those things are. And if you don't have an idea, I guarantee that if you were to go to Amazon and you started checking out key words that relate to whatever you're selling, I bet you can find stuff, right? Even if it is another info product, you could seriously just serve it up in a physical way, right?

"Hey guess what? It's a whole bunch of recordings. Oh, guess what? I also transcribed the recordings and I put them in a little notebook and I'm gonna be shipping it out to you." Does that make sense?

A lot of times, the additional money you're able to spend or sorry, a lot of times the additional money you have to spend to ship out something like that is gonna be far worth the additional money you get to charge for that thing. You can sell a lot more stuff typically, when you bundle an info product with a physical product. Okay, that's number one. Physical product, one of the easiest to increase perceived value of whatever it is you're currently offering, okay?

And there's I think, through a lot of things that we've sold, you know, either personally, I've seen a lot of my early funnels, that's actually how I did it, was a free plus shipping thing, but then it went onto info products afterwards. And that's one of the models, where we have the most ROI, usually.

Personally, as well, I've been that way, because we lead them in with a physical product and then when we sell info products on the upsells, it's pure profit. It takes nothing to fulfill on that. And it's free plus shipping, they've already paid for the shipping, they've paid for the product, right? And now we're just selling additional product, more info products than we were going to 'cause more people are seeing the upsells. You guys following me?

I hope you guys are seeing how this gonna makes sense for your business, because if you think ... Especially on front end funnels, front low tier funnels, and even mid-tier, heck, even high-end products. I mean, I've seen Gary White, those black books that he sells like for $1000 or $10 000, however much it is, it's a lot of money. You're getting something physical in the mail and a lot of times, that's one of the easiest ways to boost the perceived value.

So, anyway, without beating a dead horse, I hope you understand that. Start seeing the way you can apply that in your business right now. Number one, have an info product. Number two though, you toss something in, even if it's simple, you toss something physical in there. The perceived value, typically can go through the roof, as long as you not sending them pure crap or something like that, you know what I mean? It does have to be good, obviously. Alright, does that make sense?

Alright that's number one. Physical product bundled with info product. Number two. Number two way to increase the perceived value. Now, this is not a definitive list, but these are three things that I always teach, that's kinda always off the top of my head. But we were two ...

Sorry, getting stumbly, it's that caffeine starting to hit. I routinely see these things as the things where the perceived value goes up through the roof a little bit higher.

Okay, so number two: software. Now when you think software, I don't want you to think ClickFunnels, right? You're not gonna go out and you're not gonna freelance this software ClickFunnels in like a day. Okay, that's just ... It's amazing, right? That's software's incredible. What's cool about software is that it does take usually an extra coder or programmer, it does usually take some extra people, it does ... It does definitely increase the perceived value. Now, I wanna give you a few resources you guys can use to go create your own software.

Click FunnelsI, right now, am creating my own app. I have this problem that I continue to run into, over and over and over and over ... And it's not a huge problem, but I see a really easy, obvious way for me to create this cool app that's gonna solve a ton of my own problems and I know if I'm having the issue, a lot of others are also.

And I'm not gonna tell you what it is yet, I'll tell you guys as soon as it's out and stuff. It will probably take two months, honestly.

But guess what? I'm not a coder or programmer, I have no idea how to do that stuff. The most I know how to code, I can read a little html, I kinda know what Java Script is doing and I read it, I definitely cannot write it. I can definitely read and write CSS a little bit, at least enough to be dangerous, that's how I do a lot of, you know ... That's it though. And that should be a source of comfort for a lot of people. That I don't know how to do that stuff, because it means that you don't have to either. If you don't know how to do that stuff.

So I wanna give you two resources real quick. Alright, if you start thinking through software, software, software, software ... Software is some cool stuff you can toss into your current offer, to easily boost the perceived value. When you think of Brandon and Kaelin Poulin, right? Those two, they're doing like a million dollars a month or something like that. I mean, something ridiculous. They're selling an app, okay? They're selling access to an app. You think about how powerful that is, okay? It's huge, that's amazing. And I guarantee it, it could not have been a million dollars to create that app, but because ... I mean, the perceived value of apps are so big. Apps aren't that crazy hard to create anymore.

If you go to Flippa.com, Flippa.com. That's with two P's, F-L-I-P-P-A.com. What's cool about Flippa.com is they ... It's a place for entrepreneurs to post pre-made apps, pre-made E-com stores, pre-made ... And all of it with an existing revenue. And you can go buy existing software and apps and E-com stores and all this ... In fact, pretty soon, one of the people I wanna interview, what he does is he goes on Flippa, he finds a cool E-com site that's already killing it, buys it, puts a funnel in front of it, if he can tell it's in a cool niche and blows it up.

They've already proven the product concept the hard way, now he just puts a funnel there and blows it up. Like Flippa is amazing, well in Flippa, you can buy pre-made apps, they're already on the Apple app store. You're buying the whole thing, you're not buying source code, you're not white labeling it. Although there's plenty of other places, you could also white label apps or something like that.

But what's cool about Flippa is that you can go and you can actually, you know, you can grab a whole bunch of stuff that's already existing and anyway, so super cool. Flippa.com, that's awesome. The other place that I go is Freelancer.com, I love Freelancer. I know there's others, there's Upwork, there's a whole bunch of other places you can go get, even Fiver, although I've wasted more money software wise on Fiver, than anywhere else.

Although, Fiver still has its place. But anyway, Freelancer and Flippa, those are two places I like the most 'cause I can post projects and I can post contests and find out and sift out who's actually good. Does that make sense?

So anyway, software does not need to be expensive. And what's cool is that you can go and you can get, you can go get existing software that's already proven, you can bundle it for free, you can put it into your existing stuff, you can do ... And it's way, way, not as nearly as expensive as you might think it is. I saw some app on Flippa the other day, I get little notifications 'cause it's exciting for me. I'd rather go on Flippa than Facebook, Facebook stresses me out now. And so sometimes I'll just kinda dink around in there and I'll watch what's going on. Some app, it was pretty cool, sold for like 70 bucks.

I mean, when I say it doesn't have to be expensive, I really mean it, you know? Some of the most expensive ones I've seen on there, like three grand, even up to 10 grand, but it does not need to be that much.

Anyway, there's a really good book that's called ... And this is why software is so cheap. And I'm sorry I'm going kinda deep, I know this is kind of a bit of a longer podcast, but I just wanted to drop this all to you guys, so that you know some easy ways to make more money. That's what I'm really ... This is me trying to help you make more money. So hopefully you don't mind that this podcast is a little bit longer this episode today ...

So, there's a really good book, it's one of my favorite books actually. I read it in college and it was one of the books that actually had a stark impact on me. It's called, 'A Whole New Mind', it's by Daniel Pink and the subtitle is: Why right-brained thinkers will rule the future. You need to think about this. Now in America, and honestly most places, you know, first world places, especially obviously like ... Are you farming right now? Do you have a farm?

Most of us, no. And even if you are farming, you probably chose that profession, you know what I mean? Like it's not like I have to go be farming. I'm not ... we're not making our own clothes, I'm not trying to like pump anything to try and get electricity, like the basics of life are pretty taken care of. You know what I mean? In a lot of first world places. Especially if you live in America.

And so, like back in the day, when you know, during the Industrial Age and back when we were manufacturing like crazy or electricity is brand new or you know what I mean? Like those were the hot things to go sell, that was the hot markets. But that stuff's kinda taken care of. It's either monopolized or de-commoditized, right? So who really rules the future?

It's the creative ones, right? It's the ones who are ...

It's the reason why you can go hire out programmers super cheap, they're a dime a dozen. You can go get programmers ... And it's not ... I'm not saying don't go be a programmer, there's certainly a great place for it. But you just gotta understand where value gets really creative inside the market place, it's not typically someone who's doing some maintenance style job, right?

It's what's new and exciting? It's the creative stuff, it's the stuff that's out there. So if you can be the creator, that doesn't mean you have to be the programmer, but if you can go create a piece of software, if you can go create ... It's not that expensive to go create those things anymore.

And so, that's all I'm trying to say. Anyway, start thinking through like simple apps, little tiny simple things that you see ... I mean, I'll go back to the Brandon and Kaelin example, Brandon and Kaelin's app is a list of recipes and some exercise videos that describe to you what you should be doing on your daily routine and stuff.

It's not like, it's not like it's doing crazy stuff, it's basically a content app. Does that make sense?

That's the whole point I'm trying to make. It doesn't need to be crazy. So, if you've never thought about creating some kind of software piece before, I urge you to start thinking through that, okay?

Anyway, so number one, think about how you can do a physical product bundled with your info product, right? Or vice versa, as the upsell. It definitely ... It boosts your perceived value. And number two, some piece of software that you can bundle with an info product or with your physical product or ... Does that make sense? Okay.

And then number three, here's the other thing, now I wanna explain this one just a little bit. Let me just say it first, okay, number three, live Q and A. Okay, that's number three. Live Q and A. Now when I say live Q and A, I mean live group Q and A, alright? I mean live group calls. In my opinion, in my opinion, you should never include your own time as part of the fulfillment of whatever your current offer is.

MoneyLet's say you're selling a $100 thing, don't you dare be offering your time as part of the offer, when they buy that info product. Does that make sense?

Even on a $1000 webinar funnel product, a $1000 product, I still tell people, I always tell people this, at the FAD event, to Two Comma Coaching, anywhere, I tell people, "Do not put your own time in to fulfilling each order."

Okay. When we do the Two Comma Coaching programs, like when I built Secrets Master Class and we built that program, when we were putting all those things together, I am not doing one on one calls. And the reason why is because there's no way I could handle that, I'm trying to sell a lot of right? Of Two Comma Coaching programs and they're totally worth it. And it's awesome to have all those people in there.

But I do group coaching calls and I record them and I make those recordings available to all the people who are currently buying and buying in the future. And I index them. So I say, hey, in this one we talked about this and they can go listen to the recordings, and it starts to replicate me. And this is when we talked about this and that replicates me. And this one we talked about that. And I index all of them and now they're all inside the Secrets Master Class and Two Comma Coaching programs.

And now anyone who comes in the future, they can keep watching those things and reading those things. And I still continue to do the live Q and A, group Q and A, every single week. One on one coaching time, that's higher up on the value ladder for me. I don't want myself to be a part of that fulfillment, right? I don't want that. I want an info product, it's only a $1000, like my time is not worth that, you know what I mean? It's worth more than that.

And so, I wanna ... Anyway, those are some of the easiest things ... Because when you offer a live Q and A, as part of your stack, as part of your offer, whatever it is you're selling, right? Stack slides and things like that, that's not just for webinars, that's for every step of the value ladder. No matter what you're selling. I don't care if it's a free plus shipping seven dollar offer, put a freaking stack slide side by side with it, alright? Where does the free plus shipping book sit on the stack slide, probably the tool, right? Or that top one. Cool. Let's fill in the gaps.

Alright, let's figure out what a bonus one is, bonus two, bonus three, that's how we make offers, that's how we ... On any, in any level of the value ladder, okay?

Anyways, I'm sorry, I know I'm going really technobabbly with this one, I just wanted to toss in three of these things that we routinely do, that I routinely do also, to boost the perceived value, to give more and actually help you guys charge what your things are really worth.

So, anyways, number one, just to recap again, find some kind of physical product. If you don't have any ideas, Amazon probably does for you, right? Number two, software. Doesn't need to be expensive, Flippa.com, Freelancer.com. Honestly, what's cool too is you can go to the app stores and see what things are already selling. You can probably go to some coder and say, "Hey, I wanna make me a version of that." And all they gotta do is ... What do you call it? App hack. Right?

Software hack. And actually create that. Number three, live Q and A's. That gives warm, fuzzies, that I'm gonna be taken care of, that helps me know that there's plans after this. That lets me know that I'm not left on my own. That makes sense? That lets me know that other people are involved with it. So anyway, those are three things.

I'm sure there are a lot of other things as well, but those are the three go-to things that I continually go through and that ClickFunnels and Russell continue to go to as well, to help boost the perceived value of what it is you're selling.

I'm not saying it's not worth whatever you're selling it, but sometimes customers have a hard time like believing it, you know?

Especially if they're Debbie downers, especially if they're doom and gloom style people or they just don't ... Whatever it is, like whoever you selling to, people want that extra thing, they want to feel like they're taking advantage of you, which is sad and stupid. But if you can play to it, by boosting perceived value and show 'em like, "Yeah, you're right. You are taking advantage of me. Here's all this extra stuff." You know what I mean? Like then it can help you sell even more and those are little things that take hardly anytime on your fulfillment, you know what I mean?

Which is awesome...

So, anyway, guys hopefully that was helpful. It's one of my favorite sessions to do, we dive a little bit deeper into that, even at the FAD event and through Secrets Master Class, but I thought I'd just kinda dive into it a little bit more, so you guys can see a little bit some easy ways to do this. So, again, does not need to be expensive, does not need to be very time consuming even. And honestly, you don't need to be the one doing it, right?

If it's physical, a fulfillment house can do it for you. There's a ton of places, right? I don't send out ... I have a free plus shipping CD thing that I've been sending out for years, I don't send any of those, some other person does 'em. I think in Indiana. I don't even know. That's the whole point with this whole thing.

So, anyway, physical product, some kind of software and some kind of live Q and A, group Q and A that you can record and continue to use in other assets, in other places and keep perceive value high.

So anyways, hopefully this is helpful guys. I know it's a little bit of a longer episode, but this is honestly one of the coolest things on the planet for me, to share that kind of stuff with you.

Please ... You know what would be really cool though, honestly? This podcast is gonna hit 80 0000 download here, very shortly, which I can't believe. I mean, it's so exciting. Thanks for being listeners, thank you for jumping into this content with me and sticking with me in all this.

Number one, I would love if you guys wouldn't mind to go to iTunes, I am asking, and just leave some reviews. It was fun for me to go back the other day and see all of people who have left reviews, it's exciting. It's really cool actually. Got me pumped.

But number two, more importantly, honestly, if one of these three things, I would love to know if you guys actually implemented 'em and I would love to know how much money you guys actually made back from it 'cause that would be so cool. Very, very exciting.

So anyway, you guys are all awesome. I really appreciate just you listening. You know what's really cool for me too? Is just to know you guys are all out there, that you all listen to this, that it actually is helping you with your life. I love reading your comments. I love reading the things you guys are doing as well.

Sales Funnel RadioAnd you've been successful with all this stuff, so scratch and back both ways, just so you know. I love hearing your comments and making these, probably just as much as little pieces of gold I'm trying to drop in each one of these.

So, anyway, you guys are all awesome. Talk to you later, bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Wanna get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

Nov 1, 2017

iTunes

I just realized I have TWO FULL Value Ladders running right now... NO NO!

ClickFunnels

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio, oh yeah.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best internet sales funnels, and now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Hey guys, hope you're doing fantastic, hope you're having a great week, great day wherever you are. Thanks so much for tuning in, really appreciate it. This podcast I believe just passed 70,000 downloads. 70,000 downloads, that's crazy, never in my life, I first started this only a year ago, did I think I'd have that many downloads, that's amazing.

Anyway, thanks so much for being a listener, thanks so much for being a subscriber and tuning on into this. 70,000 downloads that's awesome guys, and I really appreciate it, appreciate the support and hopefully you are getting some nuggets and things you can use inside of your sales funnels, both online and offline to increase your revenue.

There's these sayings that I continue to put out in my head, these sayings that repeat in my head over and over again, and one of them that I say in my head all the time is like, I believe, one of my ism's is that I believe very much that one of the purposes of entrepreneurship ...

One of the purposes of business in general is to pump as much value into the marketplace as you possibly can. Now I realize a lot of people will disagree with me on that, I'm not saying that it's not to make money, it is. It is to turn dollars, sales keeps the economy going.

Make money, charge money, you know what I mean? Don't be afraid to sell, but you do that by pumping value into the marketplace.

So anyways I just hope that my little ism there, like pump value into the market, pump value into the market. Like that's my thing, and hopefully this podcast has been helpful in some aspect to you, in some way. I would love if you wouldn't mind, I got on iTunes a little bit ago, and there's several reviews on there. Those are awesome, those are fun to read. If you wouldn't mind I would love to have a review in iTunes of this podcast, that'd be really fun.

So anyway, don't feel pressured, but man I would love that, it'd mean a lot...

Hey I'm really pumped, I love speaking on stage. I was on stage a lot growing up, I actually sang in a band, I played drums for four years, the full kit. I played piano for about six years, I sang, whether it was in choirs or in musicals or something like that, a lot of you guys probably don't know that about me. I sang a lot, ever since fourth grade, and I had the lead in several things growing up and anyway, really, really enjoyed it.

I have the privilege of getting on stage yet again, several more times. I'm excited, I just got asked to go speak at James Smiley's B2B event, very excited about.

If you guys don't remember him, he was on an episode probably about 10 episodes ago, he was talking about his B2B funnels and from that one podcast, I don't know how much it was he made, but it was a lot, which is very exciting. I had no idea, and from that one episode all this stuff has stemmed out, and I just really appreciate him as a friend and buddy. They ended up asking me to go over and speak at his event here in Dallas next month. So I'm really, really pumped to go do that.

Then I'll be speaking at another one in January, called Authority Maker, that'll be exciting as well, that ones in Vegas. So anyways, I'm pumped and there's actually several more already lined up next year.

I love talking, I love speaking from stage, luckily feedback has been that not bad to listen to either, which is kind of nice. But hey I have been revisiting my Value Ladder, and it was a few days ago, I sat down at my white boards here.

I stood and I was jamming to music, I was in state, I was in flow, and I was really excited and I realized that I have two value ladders.

If Russell saw that he would slap me, because it means I have two different businesses. Anyway I sat down, I started mapping through my Value Ladders, you know so I was putting the first thing in there. Right, Sales Funnel Radio, the next thing on there, and the next thing on there, and the next thing on there, and there's all these other things and I started putting them on. I was like those don't fit in that business, like what on earth? I went and I was like, wait those all create their own Value Ladder in a different Value Ladder, it's their own business.

For those of you guys who don't know what a Value Ladder is, all we do is we start with cheap and or free things up front, and they give a lot of value to the customer or the person who's visiting. Then all we do is as a business we try to age and ascend customers. So as we give away that first thing, and we try and solve legitimate problems for the person, that lets us create a relationship with them.

Well that means that I can now start charging money and the more value I'm bringing to that person, the more money I can start to charge them.

So there's multiple steps in that Value Ladder, and the farther up the Value Ladder that you move, you get into areas like done for your products. Implementation and coaching products, the products that are more high tier, high ticket, more time intensive for the entrepreneurs personal time, and you obviously charge more for things like that.

Usually when someone has not, does not feel like they can ... Usually when someone doesn't feel like they can charge enough money, it's usually because they're actually not pumping enough value in there. Or the person hasn't felt enough value come from the entrepreneur yet. So there's this weird awkward feeling that comes from it.

So it doesn't necessarily matter where someone comes in, what level they come in to your Value Ladder with, but it's important to be purposeful about it. So think through, like what's your Value Ladder. I encourage you after this episode to go write that down, what are the free things, what are the free pieces of bait. What are the free things that people should be paying for, that you've got out there, right kind of your region of things, or things that help identify hyper buyers and things like that. Usually there's a whole funnel dedicate to just that front end product.

Okay now what's the next thing? Is it a 47 dollar thing? 297 dollar thing? 497 dollar thing? 1000 dollar, 2000, you know what I mean? There's usually standard kind of price points throughout, that can be a whole episode. But anyway, think about what your actual Value Ladder is, and be purposeful about it, and don't get dissuaded from it.

I don't know about you guys but I repeatedly suffer from shiny object syndrome, or at least I did for a long time. There's so many cool things out there, that I could be doing, that you could be doing. That ClickFunnels and Russell could be doing, I mean opportunities ... You know what's funny, I was actually talking to Russell about this the other day, and I was saying dude how funny is it that when you're in college, the mentality of every person in college typically, stereotypically, is oh my gosh I just hope that I get a good job.

Please just get me a good job, I have to have a good job.

You know hopefully there's at least one person out there that can give me the opportunity to have a good job, and I'll just work till I die there. I was like dude how funny is it that, that's the mentality in college, yet for an entrepreneur it's the exact opposite. It's like oh what opportunity should I chose? There's too much crap going on, there's too many things that I could go do. We were just laughing about how funny that is.

If you're not feeling that yet in your life, my guess is that you've not been pumping enough value, you've not been solving enough legitimate problems out there for people. Solve legitimate problems, and you'll be pumping value out there.

Opportunities will come knocking at your door like more than you can handle, and just trust me on that, go test me on that, tell me how it goes. I dare you to go give something away for free that you should have charged for, if you have nothing for free to actually give away, and watch what happens. I was watching, I was listening to Dayna Derek's on stage the other day, it was awesome, and he was like hey yeah, this book of mine, you know he's selling it for a lot of money, he's like I realized it was in a separate Value Ladder.

So all I did, I just took this book that was a lot of money and I just made it for one of my free things in the front, and it brought in all these extra customers and now it's reinforcing my one Value Ladder.

I was like hey that's really cool, it's sweet, it's a cool approach to it. He's like yeah now I just have tons of cool front ends, lots of cool front ends, but it still supports the core Value Ladder, the core business. I'm not chasing new shiny objects all over the place anymore.

I was like, that's interesting, that's cool. It's been interesting because Russell went back and he started looking at his Value Ladder, he's like hey now this is our business and this is all we do. We're getting more focus there, and I realized like crap I have two separate Value Ladders, and they're similar enough that I feel like I can't get rid of them but they are as different enough that I feel like they're not the same thing.

I don't have the answer, I actually it's kind of been the thing that I've been going through right now, is trying to figure out how to split the two. I don't really know yet where that split is, and I've committed to both, and I'm not telling you what the other one is yet, I will at some point here shortly.

So you guys can go check it out, because it's killing it, the first funnel, the first page has got a 68 percent optime rate. There's been like 400 people that have hit the page, 68 percent, it's ridiculous. Tons of other ... So anyway, I'm testing it right now, I'm making it all awesome. It's this little side fun thing I've been doing on my own and it's killing it, and I'm so excited.

Anyway I'm going to go turn ads onto it here shortly, and it's not hot traffic, it's not ... This is warm traffic, but still 68 percent optime rate, I'm like what the heck, so exciting. Anyway, but my encouragement to you though is to not have too many Value Ladders, and in fact just have one.

So what's the core of your business? Typically the core of the business, this is what we teach in Secrets Master Class from the 2 Comma Club coaching. What we teach, what I teach is that really the middle of the Value Ladder, mid tier right, somewhere around 1000 dollars, could be more 2000, 25 hundred, five grand. Could be a little bit less, maybe down to like 500 bucks, usually not a whole lot less than that, usually, there's exceptions.

But the core of your business, what is it?..

I hope that you have one, that something that is kind of mid tier right there. Why? Because it doesn't take a lot of mid tier Value Ladder level products to change your business. It doesn't, because they're higher ticket, you don't have to sell as many of them to help your wallet.

How many smaller, free plus shipping seven dollar books do you have to sell to actually make a dent in your wallet and actually see? A lot, right? A ton, so they're great for front ends, but that's why we don't want to try and make money off of them, they're just to bring people in. We'll make money on that middle value ladder area, and then we'll double our business with a high ticket thing in the back.

Do that to each Value Ladder, do that to each funnel, do that to each, and that's the formula right there. There's a whole bunch of other things you can do with it, and it's a lot of fun, it's a lot of deep strategy depending on what industry you're in that we could go through right now.

But I'm trying to not go too deep ... Its fun though, I really, really enjoy it, and the only thing I'm trying to say is that if you feel like you've been spinning your wheels ... 'Cause I remember feeling that way, I felt that way for a long time, years, and the problem was that I didn't have one Value Ladder. I had tons, I was going to do ... There was a piece of real estate that I had a contract on, it was 3.5 million dollar piece of commercial real estate. I was flipping the contract, and that was one deal with one dude, and then I was writing, I can't even remember what else I was doing. I was like totally unrelated businesses, I can't even remember now that was probably like about five years ago.

Holy crap that was five years ago, I don't remember every else that was going on, what I do remember is that there was a lot of things I was doing, but none of them to the full extent. I was spread too thin, and it's because I didn't have one Value Ladder. That's why I was laughing so hard when I sat down here the other day and I started looking at it, I was like crap I have two freaking Value Ladders.

So my answer to it right now has been that I'm just not even working on one of them, and I'm only working on the other. I'm not touching the other, I'm not doing anything with it at all. Soon I'll reveal to you guys everything of what all those things are, so you can check them out, you can see what I'm talking about. See examples of the stuff that I know is converting, it's been fun, 'cause I've been able to test stuff before you guys will ever see it.

So I can you actually numbers, which is exciting too, which I think you guys will enjoy.

Anyway that's the whole point of this, it's fun for me to listen to Russell as he coaches his inner circle, one of the biggest things that he yells at them for is when he can tell they have more than one business. He can tell ... You're just not going to do more than one business very well, you're not. That's the thing I was kicking myself for, I was like crap.

This other one snuck in so well I didn't even notice it, you know. That was just this little side hobby turned into this actual thing, and I was like oh crap, I have to actually support this thing now, like dang this is working. Oh gosh it's working, wait a second I already have a second business here now, oh, oh. So I've been trying to figure out what to do with it, again don't totally have the answer, I'm just only working on one at a time I guess.

So I won't even touch the second for months, but it's going well. I'll tell you ... Again I know it's kind of, I'm being elusive but that's okay. Anyway guys go back restructure the business, think through what your front end free things are and what's cool about this is that you can have tons of cool free front end things. You know that part of the fun of it, when you know your Value Ladders converting, you know and you got a mid tier thing that's converting that well, and you've got a high ticket thing that's converting really well.

I mean you get to go create all the cool front end products and multiple layers of it, as much as you want. As long as it's all part of the same business, all fueling the same part of the core. That's so fun, but the moment you take your focus and you shift over to, which is the medicine I'm trying to take right now too, and I'm like crap. Shiny objects, I just want to do this one thing.

I'm trying not to take on a third that I really want to go do, but I shouldn't do it.

Every time you go do that though you spread yourself too thin, and it takes a lot of mental mojo just to get a single funnel up, and I think everyone on this podcast probably knows that. So if you go do that and you're skipping from understanding one market and one person really well, and you're trying to skip over to a different profile, and understand that person really, really well. It's the whole reason why when I was ... I built a lot of funnels for my own clients for a while, I don't currently do that right now.

I wouldn't take on more than one, because I couldn't handle more than one, because I had to understand so deeply just that one customer, right, for that one business, for that one Value Ladder. So that I could make the copy, I could make the sales letters, I could put the funnel together. I could make the follow up sequences, I could make the higher ticket thing and the front ...

I mean there's so much that goes into it, right? Some guys making his whole career out of it, you think I can go do three or four of these at the same time? There's no way, that's why I was like, I got to just one of these things at a time. It's the same ... I'm trying to take my own medicine. I feel like I'm preaching to the choir now, you guys probably already know that, but I encourage you to go back and really think through what your Value Ladder actually is. Let's say you don't have the back end yet, ask your market.

Let's say you don't know what the front end is, ask your market. I encourage you to not start by creating a front end product, and if you already have, that's fine. I encourage you to start with a mid tier product, thousand bucks. Why?

'Cause you only need a few of them to really break even, right? It's way harder to throw everything up against the wall and hope that something works when it's a free plus shipping offer, it's like oh. I know for E-comm people they might not like to hear that, well you can start with something that's even higher. You know, make an offer out of it, package a few things together and sell it in a package, as an offer.

Or sell more higher ticket items at first, that'll at least get the cash flow going as you figure out how and what to sell.

What are you selling? How do you sell it? You figure out those things the core of the business right there in the middle of that Value Ladder, boom, I guarantee you, you're going to start getting feedback. As you start getting feedback, guess what happens? Patterns will start to emerge, oh you know what everyone's asking for this one thing, that would be a really cool free plus shipping front end.

Or a really cool free download front end, or a really cool 17 dollar physical thing front end. Does that make sense?

Let the market tell you what front end to make, it's way less risky. Then guess what, a lot of people after they're consuming your core product, your 1000 dollar thing, around that area. Guess what's going to happen? A lot of them are going to go, oh my gosh I wish I had more Steve in my life, oh my gosh I wish I had more of you, your business, whatever it is. They're telling you what back end thing to go create. It's way easier to do this game when you take a lot of the guess work out of it, let the market tell you.

You only have to kind of guess once, you're not really guessing 'cause you're going to run an ask campaign for that mid tier product. They're telling you everything to make, the market will tell. That's the whole point I'm trying to make with this, have one Value Ladder, let the market tell you what those front and back end products are, and create a new niche based off of the core product, that mid tier product.

Anyway, I chattered a lot with this, and it did get a little bit techy, but I hope that, that helped. I hope that it simplifies a lot in your head, for years my head was spinning. I could do this, I could do this, I could do this. No, no, cut away everything else, cut away, cut away. Don't worry about those things, what's the one mid tier product, the 1000 dollar thing that you could go create right now, and actually go sell it? If it doesn't sell doesn't sell round one, tweak it.

Figure out how to sell it, what are you selling, how does it sell? The core of the product, and then the market will start to tell you what to do in those back end and the front end products. The market will tell you what they don't like with your core thing. The market will tell you, it's all about iterations, just keep it going.

Launch, figure out what's broken, go back fix it, and relaunch. Boom, boom, boom, that's how we do it. That's how I do it, that's how Russell does it, it's how ClickFunnels does it. It's how every person I've ever seen be successful in this stuff, all of the hundreds of people who've come through the 2 Comma Coaching Program. All the people in the Secrets Master Class that I've coached, that's how it happens. I feel like there's this paralysis that starts to happen, oh I better have the back end before I launch the front end.

Like no, just launch the freaking, do the core, go launch the core. Oh I got to have this and this in place, no you don't. No, you don't, half the time we don't have the actual product built yet when we sell it. Like what? Oh my gosh, what? Well we're trying to see if the thing is right, if it sells, then we'll go build it real fast. Does that make sense?

Take the pressure off, go figure out the one funnel, it'll simplify everything in your head. Go figure out the one Value Ladder, it'll simplify everything in your head. Have fun with the thing, gosh it's so much fun, if I'm not having fun with it I usually suck at it.

Anyways guys thanks so much, hope this has been helpful, thanks for tuning in to this episode. I'm very, very excited for everything that's coming up, both in the internet marketing world. Whatever's going on in your life I hope that it's going awesome too, and if it's not go orchestrate it that way as well as your business. I'll Sales Funnel Radiotalk to you later, bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio, please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to Salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre built sales funnel today.

 

Oct 28, 2017

iTunes

If you can figure out these 3 things, then you can make good offers...

ClickFunnels

Hey, hey. What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Hey, hope you guys are doing great. It is a fantastic, what is it, Monday night, and it's a little bit late. I am loving the day though, great day, went awesome. Recently, Russel did a webinar and went fantastic. I know that I've mentioned it on here before but the webinar just ... I mean, it was incredible. The whole thing was incredible, really enjoyed every piece of it. It's fun for me to watch, fun for me to go through it and see all those pieces in action. And there's a pattern to ... and I don't know if I ever shared this before, so I thought I would.

There's a pattern to how we create webinars.

And Russel's unique ability is really offer creation, specifically webinars, I'll say that. Kills it with the webinar slides, with the webinar creation, all those pieces. And I am the Secrets Master Class coach, in the Two Comma Club program. And the whole purpose of the program is to help people get $1,000 webinar off the ground, which becomes the core of their business. So there's a place that we always start every time. I don't think I've ever shared this with anybody though, on this podcast anyway.

When peoples webinars aren't converting, one of the biggest things I always notice right off the bat is it's usually that ... okay, if you haven't read the book Expert Secrets, some of this is gonna be techno babble. Okay?

So go read the book Expert Secrets. I don't know why you have not read it. If you haven't, go ... it's seven bucks. I had a buddy once that was ... he was like, "Dude. How come you're not telling me exactly how to do this stuff?" And I was like, "I've told you how. Go get the book. It's free, you just pay for shipping." And he's like, "What? Hey dude, that's totally a scan dude. Are you kidding me?" I was like, "Wait a second. Wait a second. Dude, you're asking me," and this is a buddy I kind of grew up with a little bit, and he's like, "Dude, you're asking me."

Actually, he's a buddy in the army. Anyway, whatever.

I was like, "Dude, you keep asking me over and over again how I'm doing what I'm doing, how I'm able to do what I am doing both financially, both with my time, with all the ... I'm telling you right now, go get the freaking book and read it." And he was like, "Dude, no. It's got to be a scam man. Look at this. This is one of those sites that takes your money."

And I was like, "You're paying for the freaking book. You're telling me you won't gamble seven freaking dollars on trying to figure out what it is I'm doing." He's like, "No. No. No. No." And I was like, "Oh my gosh. Okay." That's kind of my litmus test now. I don't work with anybody who has not read both Expert Secrets and DotCom Secrets. Maybe because there some technobabble and not so foundational.

Anyway, whatever. All right. Anytime someone ... I recently did a coaching session with someone and they're like, "Hey. Could you look at my webinar funnel?" And actually this is a repeated coaching session topic. As the Two Comma Club coach, this is ... so anyways I was looking at the webinar. This is on one of the Friday calls that I do. It's a lot of fun.

And they used to be four hours long, but I cut 'em down to two hours 'cause there's so much recorded content in there for people to go through already. But anyway, the part that people always mess up on ... I was going through four different people's ... I was going through their entire webinar funnel and script live, in front of the whole coaching program. And it was a lot of fun. I really, really enjoyed it, went through it.

And the part that I've always noticed that people mess up on is really like only two or three things. And if you get these two or three things, the rest of the webinar script and funnel is really easy. And you can put it all together, a monkey can put it together. It's really, really simple.

The most challenging aspects of it, right, after you've created a niche, after you've gone and you've created the niche, you've created a new opportunity, and you started to put an offer together. The most challenging thing that people have to figure out, and the place where people mess up the most on is figuring out their three secrets. Steven, what's the three secrets? The three secrets are completely based around false beliefs.

And what people will do ... this is what we tell people to go do, go run an Ask campaign. Right? Figure out what people have got. Don't try and figure out what the market wants. Don't guess it. Go ask 'em. Ask 'em. Figure out exactly what it is that they want or that they're struggling with, and now you know what their false beliefs are, and now you know how to create your three secrets. That's like the spot, those three secrets. The three secrets and the big domino statement and the stack, those are the three different things.

If you don't get your big dom ... If you have no idea what I'm talking about go ... seriously, go get the book. All right? I'm not asking you to buy it through my affiliate link. I'm getting no goodies by saying that to you right now.

It is bar none ... I have a marketing degree, it is more valuable than my entire marketing degree, which took me five years to go through. Anyway, that's ... in all sincerity though, that is a life changing book. If you read DotCom Secrets and Expert Secrets, those two pretty much recap and more all of my degree, far more actually. But anyways, those are the three areas though.

So, the big domino statement is the one where it's kind of like the first, you know, "How to blank without blank!" Right? That's like the headline of the whole webinar. People will mess that up sometimes, or they won't get it quite right, or they'll be too wordy in it, or they will say something that it just doesn't sound true at all. How to lose weight without ... eating cookies only. And I mean, that doesn't sound believable. You know?

So, that's the first place, the how to without statement, the big domino statement, basically the title of the webinar. Right? That's number one, the title of the webinar. Number two is the three secrets.

Those three secrets: internal false beliefs, external false beliefs, and vehicle based false beliefs. Now again, if you have no idea what those things are ... really, really simple way to put your marketing message together and your script in general. And what's cool is that I use that formula. I use the Perfect Webinar script in so many places besides webinars. I've used it in podcasts. Some of you guys don't know that's what I did to you. I've used it in email scripts. I've used it on stage presentations, both when I'm selling and not selling. I've used it ... I mean, I've used it a lot of places.

It is persuasion 101, so don't think of it as the only thing you can do with it is a webinar. And then that third place that really people mess up on is the stack. Now, the stack is your offer. A lot of times people will not realize that they've gotta go and use the Stack Slide. The Stack Slide is the key to creating an offer in any business, any business. Stack Slide, it is the key, the key for the entire webinar, the key to your niche, the key to your new opportunity, the Stack Slide every single time.

Whenever I'm creating anything, I use the Stack Slide. I think through ... what's the main offer? What are the three bonuses that directly address the false beliefs? Right? And what's a tool I can give 'em to help speed up the progress? If I can think through those things, boom, offer creation. Boom. Really, really easy to know that you're gonna win. Right?

And it takes a little while, cause you gotta go run some Ask campaigns and stuff. So, anyways, this has been a little bit more of a techobabbly broadcast, and it already feels weird coming out of my mouth. I'm gonna be totally honest with you right now. I'm giving you freaking straight gold right here, but I haven't packaged it around a story so it's not really being delivered very well. And I know that, and I can feel it while I'm saying it.

I've been doing podcasts long enough now to know that I ... it feels weird coming out. So please just take what I'm trying to say and just ... I wish I had, I should have packaged a story around this a little bit better. But, you know what? Here's one right here.

Now, I didn't realize that I was doing this when I was in college. And I know I keep bringing up stories back in college time, but that really was the birth of me as an entrepreneur as I struggled for four freaking straight years failing after ... I listed it out once a couple of months ago, it's like 17 businesses I failed in before I had the first success. And it was an okay success, and the next one after that was like a huge one.

And then, after that, it's been like bigger and bigger and bigger, and it's been awesome. But there's this product that was selling, and I was selling the product. It was a great product. And there was some up sales with it. There was a problem though. Every person that I was selling this product to, whether or not they bought the up sales, they would message me afterwords and go, "Great product Steven. Oh my gosh, great product. I'm loving it. This is so awesome. One thing though, I feel like the up sale should go with it."

And I was like, "Greedy son of a ... are you kidding me? What? I'm not gonna ... no, it's the up sale. Are you kidding ... no, it should be with, you're supposed to buy that to get it. Are you kidding?" And I was like, "Ah whatever!" And then the next day, someone would ask the same thing. And that request started coming more, and more, and more, and more.

And I was like, "Good grief! Oh my gosh, are you kidding me?" Anyway, I was really, really mad about it. And I was telling my wife, "Man, these bunch of people I'm selling to right now are just really greedy. They want all of it for the price of the initial thing."

And I was like, "And I can't tell if I should do it because the market's asking me to. Is that what that is? Or am I selling to the wrong people and they're willing but not able to buy?"

Where am I there? Where am I there? I might as well test it. So what I did is I took the main offer, the main product, I took the main product and I went and I took the up sale, and I made it a part of the first product. So when you got the product, you got the up sale also for free. Little bit of time goes by. Little time goes by. There's suddenly there's this big spike in my sales, and I was like, "What the heck is going on? Are you kidding me? Okay. Cool, cool, cool. I don't know what the heck, traffic source is the exact same. Why is there more sales coming in?"

And then, shortly after that, all these people started coming to me, and they're like, "Hey Steven, you should put in that second thing. Put in a second thing man. We would love to have that. Put that in. That should be part of it because that's gonna help us do the actual ..." And I was like, "Daw greedy, are you kidding me? That's freaking ... you're supposed to buy that. I already added in the first up sale."  Anyway, I ended up adding in every thing from the funnel into the first product, which made it an offer. That's what made it an offer.

And when I did that, huge spike in sales, and it sustained at that level for a long time, and paid for tons of stuff. It was great. Oh my gosh. It was awesome.

Anyway, long long time. And I learned a lot from that. I learned that inside of every single funnel is a mini Value Ladder that your business overall ... my business overall was ... I had this Value Ladder where I had this free stuff in the front, like mid tiered stuff kind of in the middle, and then high ticket stuff in the back. Yes, my business was that.

However, every funnel was also a mini Value Ladder. And I was like, "Interesting. And it's an offer." And I started putting ... anyway.

Anyway, I hope that that makes sense what I'm trying to say here. But in these webinars, when you're going and you're creating 'em, you gotta understand that the Stack Slide is the key for everything. If you wanna go make a sexy brand new new opportunity, a brand new offer, as a B2B person. Boom. There's a way to do it, Stack Slide. Use that as a template.

Let's say you are in network marketing, or MLM. What do you have as assets out of the gate? Well, if they give you physical products, cool. And we'll fill in the other spots of the Stack Slide. We need a few bonuses. And let's toss in a Master Class on how to use the product. Boom. Stack Slide. Done. That's the new opportunity, new offer going in. No one else has done that, so you're brand new. You just created a niche. You understand what I'm saying?

The Stack Slide is the freaking key for how to create offers and create niches ... to create niches in places where it's all improvement based offers where it's no longer sexy. What's some of the least sexy businesses you can think out there? There's a bunch. But the way to make them sexy again ... you might be thinking Steven I'm in retail, how can I use these funnel things? Stack Slide. Okay? That's how you do it.

Every time I create an offer now, whether it's at ClickFunnels or personally, I start with the Stack Slide. Okay? And what I do to fill it out is a go run an Ask campaign, figure out what the false beliefs are.

That helps me figure out what my bonuses are, bonus one, two, and three. Again, if you don't know what I'm talking about, this is straight techno babble if you've never read Expert Secrets. Go read Expert Secrets. Okay? So I gotta start with the Stack Slide. Then what I do after that is I start thinking through the main thing that people are asking for. That becomes my master class. You know? Or the physical thing, whatever it is.

Click FunnelsThen I think through something physical as a tool, or a piece of software, or whatever it is that I can pull on with it. So, I'm putting the main thing with it, like a master class ... or let's say I'm in eCommerce, the physical product.

All right. Now, let's give 'em some kind of tool. So if I'm selling an info product, what kind of tool could I give as an info product? Well, there's a piece of software, maybe there's some pdf guides, maybe some checklists before someone can use their thing fully.

There's all sorts of stuff you could pull, and you don't have to come up with it. The market tells you. And then, there's bonuses one, two, and three that relate to the internal, external, and vehicle related false beliefs. Does that make sense? It's the template for every freaking business, for every single brand new niche that's out there that you are creating.

The way to get into it is through the Stack Slide. And it blows my mind that people have a hard time understanding that. It doesn't matter what business you're in. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. If someones sitting there and they're thinking, "Oh, I don't know if that'll work for my business." If you freaking need customers or leads, it will work for your business. It's how you address the false beliefs of your market with products as the answer, and create a new niche.

While you're doing that, you're also making the niche stronger. So it's harder for people to knock you off. Does that make sense? I'm sorry for how much techno babble ... I feel like I'm on a soap box right now. This has not been a normal episode of mine. But I hope that ... I hope that makes sense, what I'm trying to say here, that the Stack Slide is the key, not just for webinars. Okay? Webinar is just a ... it's a sales script. Right. It's a sales opportunity but what are you actually selling on the webinar? You're selling the Stack Slide. Okay?

So take that Stack Slide, and that becomes the blueprint for how you succeed in whatever business you're doing. I don't care if there's 100 other people competing in the exact same thing. Where you differentiate yourself? Stack Slide.

That's how you do it every single time. Right now, on my ... let me turn around here, my mic's on the other side here. Right now, on my whiteboards in my office right here, my home office, I have Stack Slides all over the place. New offers, new things I'm thinking through. Once you nail that Stack Slide, man, the funnel is easy to build. Steven, how does ClickFunnels build so many funnels so quickly? We start with the Stack Slide, that's how.

That's how we do it. And then we think through like ... cool, okay, here's our offer. Here's our brand new offer. Now let's go find someone else who's done something similar, funnel hack them, add in our offer instead, funnel hack their traffic, figure where it came from. Boom. Ensures our success really quickly. That make sense?

Not that we succeed out the gate every time. Mostly we don't. But on the second tweak usually we do. The second tweak. Tweak, not full readjustment. You know what I'm saying? That's how. So anyway, that's all I'm trying to say. I'm just trying to place emphasis on the Stack Slide. I feel like that's one of the themes that I keep telling people about all the time, it's like Stack Slide, Stack Slide, Stack Slide. If there's one thing you can do to figure out how to make more money in your business, Stack Slide. Stack Slide. Stack Slide. Stack Slide.

I feel like I should ... before Russel knew who I was, I wanted to get his attention on social media. So I told him I was such a huge fan of ClickFunnels that I would staple his logo to my chest in one of his events. That never happened, but I did get a laugh out of him. And he did figure out who I was after that.

But I feel like I should do that with your Stack Slides, like go freaking stapled to your chest. Okay?

And it's all about that. If you wanna be competitive. If you wanna be the guy who's ... the person who's out there keeping everyone else on their toes, rather than you feeling like you're on your toes all the time and barely in business, it's because your offer or your Stack Slide isn't good enough. So go back to it. Get real clear on what it is that you're actually delivering, and that's the whole key to all of it. Anyway, thanks for letting me get on my soap box a little bit. I realize how some of that was a little bit technical, it might have been a little bit more challenging to understand just by hearing it.

But if you seriously have not read Expert Secrets, go read the book. That book is fantastic. Anyway, I'm not just saying that 'cause I work there. I'm surrounded in marketing books right now. That still is easily, now you know, top five ever. Ever, of like any category. So, go read the book.

Then you'll understand what I'm talking about. When it gets to that part about selling, specifically creating new offers with the Stack Slide, really really take your time. Don't try to power through it. Really take your time to try and Sales Funnel Radiounderstand how you do it. And then, create examples of different industries you would create offers in.

Anyway, that's all I got for you guys. I will chat with you later. B'bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Wanna get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/free funnels to download your pre billed sales funnel today.

 

Oct 25, 2017

iTunes

"What made Russell... RUSSELL??" After 18 months of sitting in the same room every day, I'm beginning to understand WHY Russell Brunson is Russell Brunson... maybe?

ClickFunnels

What’s going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you’re listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you’ll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today’s best internet sales funnels and now here’s your host, Steve Larsen.

Hey, hope you're good. Hey, so was it this last week? We were putting on this webinar. It went fantastic. I got to watch Russell in full bore offer creation mode, and it's been fun. I mean I love watching him in that mode as well, and I try and learn like crazy. I'm trying to be a sponge. The things that I learn, I'm trying to pass 'em on to you guys. I'm trying to soak in those things. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, this guy's like a 14 years of experience of obsessive, obsessive perfectionism and being the absolute best inside the marketing world." Like holy crap, and I'm trying to soak things in.

Well, it's been fun to watch. We put this webinar on, and it was cool to see why, and it was fun to watch why. He went back, and we were looking at the same old offers we had. We were like, "We need to fix some stuff. We could just fix it and re-put it out there," but honestly, it's completely a brand new offer. It's a totally different product.

We went out, and we launched it and it killed it. It went amazing and yet, again, I had another experience where I went back home to my wife, and I said, "Babe, I just watched him make $1,000,000 again." Like holy crap.

Russell and I were sitting back the other day, and it was fun to ... I love getting him in those moments where he starts to reminisce, and he's telling me about ... If you guys never been inside the ClickFunnels office, all across the ceiling, all across the walls towards the ceiling, there are these 2 Comma Club plaques. They're all across the walls. They're all over the place, all over the walls, all over ... in the hallway near where the bathrooms are. Literally, ceiling-to-floor totally covered in 2 Comma Club plaques of people, of the ClickFunnels users who've made a million bucks, and they're constantly coming in another five every week. It's crazy. I mean it's really, really exciting.

It's fun to see. I didn't think I had any kind of aversion towards making money beforehand. I really didn't, but the scope of what I feel like I'm able to accomplish has just been sky-rocketing.

I was sitting back and Russell started reminiscing. He goes, and he was honestly asking me ... "Hey." He's like, "Steven, dude, how many 2 Comma Club plaques do I have out there again?" I was like, "You have like 18." He's like, "Dude, I've been put in the 2 Comma Club 18 times on my own and three of those awards are in the 8-Figure Club." This is besides ClickFunnels, altogether, which makes a lot of money. Besides, ClickFunnels, altogether, right? Russell knows how to make offers. It's fun to go back and watch him create offers.

Click FunnelsRepeatedly, one of the phrases, one of the lessons that's been ... I mean it was already burned in my brain. I remember two or three years ago, I was listening to ... It was when I first learned of who Russell Brunson was. I hope you guys ... I'm totally Russell Brunson Fan Boy. If you guys are not okay with that you should probably get off because there's ... anyway.

I hope you don't mind if I share some lessons that I learned from him personally. This is one that's really stuck out to me, and I wanna tell you what I'm doing about it, but anyway, about three years ago, I was listening to one of Russell's earlier podcasts when it was still "Marketing In Your Car." He said in there, and I believe I've brought this up before, but he said in there ... "One of the easiest ways to become successful in something is to get a coach, number one and number two, to be a coach." Right?

The moment you get a coach, you're not held accountable. Number two, the moment you become a coach you start to learn your own tactics better because people are asking you how you do what you do. You may not I honestly know how you're doing what you're doing, so you get a coach, and you be a coach.
That theme has continued to come up over and over and over. I mean all the time it comes up, and it came up again yesterday.

Honestly, weekly that that is the theme. He is constantly looking for the next coach, for the next person, the person that he can go hook into and not only be held accountable from, but who's the next powerhouse he can take his plug and plug into and learn more, whatever it is and supercharge.

I love books. I am surrounded in them right now as I'm recording this podcast. There are books all over the place; stacks of them literally. Not just in bookshelves. There are stacks of books. Books a great, but sometimes when it comes to applicable knowledge that you need in the moment, man, coaches are great. Get a coach. Get a coach. Get a coach. Get a coach. That's been the thing that I've been watching him doing. I mean I'm starting to do myself as well.
There was guy when I got hired on at ClickFunnels, and I was the ... got hired on as the Lead Funnel Builder.

I'm sitting there, and I was already starry eyed. I'm pretty sure I was mute for the first two months 'cause I couldn't believe I was sitting three feet away from Russell Brunson. I was like, "Holy crap, dude. I almost put a poster of you on my wall?" He was like, "Ah, ha-ha." I was like, "I'm not kidding." It's like oh, awkward.

There's a guy though who messaged out to me. He goes, "Dude, do you realize that to be near Russell that often is to become more like him in every way." Trey Lewellen calls me "little Brunson" now.

I'm not patting my own back, but what I've started to notice, I've been there a year and a half now, and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. That's starting to become true." The ism's; my mannerisms. Even the way I speak, the way I teach, all those pieces are starting to sink deeply into my own behaviors. Behavior is not an easy thing to change in human beings, right? It's not. That takes a long time. There is a huge amount of conscious effort that goes into shifting how you behave, right?

Tons. Oh, especially over the last two or three weeks.

I've begun to ask myself why has Russell become Russell? It's been a very interesting question, and it's kind of been a little bit subconscious; also conscious question, though. I was like, "Why? Why do I really feel Russell has become Russell?" There's a lot of reasons. There's a ton of 'em. The work ethic is through the roof, right? I mean he ... The dude knows how to work, right?

He understands how to be a creator, right? Rather than someone just creating a me-too product. He knows how to create offers. It's so funny. A lot of times we'll go create something. ClickFunnels will go put something out there and within a little while, people will be trying to knock it off with their own versions of it. Russell has not created his expertise by learning how to do that well.

He has created his expertise on learning how to create brand new amazing offers, right? That's huge, but why?

One of the major points I'm trying to get here: why has Russell become Russell? Because I have never seen him where he's not had a coach. I have never seen him where there's not a sense of urgency, which is in part to the fact that someone else is holding him accountable as well, who he has paid money to. That's amazing.

Recently, I would do coaching. I love it. It's a lot of fun. It was actually a buddy. I don't know if you guys know Akbar Sheik. I actually had him on the podcast recently. I hope he doesn't mind me telling this. I respect him like crazy. He is not just an acquaintance. He's a true friend to the core and I really, really appreciate him, but if you think about that. He came, and he's like, "Hey, do you wanna look over something of mine? I'll take one of your coaching spots."

I was like, "Sure, that'd be great."

I was tempted to not charge him, and I was tempted to not charge him because we're close. We're very, very close. You know what I mean? I've done that a lot to family, and I've done a lot of close friends and you know what I've noticed? Every single time is they never do anything afterwards. Ever. It's the saddest. It's heart-wrenching for both; the one being coached and the coach.

Because the coach is really trying to help and so even by the way of self-preservation. Not that I'm emotionally weak or anything, but it sucks to watch that.

I was like, "Dude, I hope you don't mind, but there is a law; some kind of weird unspoken law that if I don't charge somebody they don't do anything. They don't do anything. It's a sad thing to watch happen. It's not fun."

When I first graduated from college, I was so impressed by the book, "DotCom Secrets," I sent 30 of them to friends for free. I just got the books, and I sent 30 of them out. I was like, "This book literally has changed my life. It started my actual business while I was in college. It got me out the door. It got me. It got me everything."

"DotCom Secrets" was the freaking way, man. I mean I was so obsessed already that I plugged the powerhouse that I was already learning to become with the powerhouse of "DotCom Secrets," and it exploded me and made me qualifiable to actually work at a place like ClickFunnels next to Russell. You know what I mean?
It's because I was trying to coach. I was trying to get a coach, and I was trying to be a coach. That was a principal that was always going through, around in my head, but I told my buddy. I was like, "Dude, I feel like I gotta charge you although it's weird for me to do so."

He was like, "Hey, dude, I actually understand that. You charge me full price." I was like, "Okay."

It's amazing what happens when there is a transfer of value back and forth. That's why it's free plus shipping. Does that make sense? Because if it was just free, no one would ever do anything afterwards. There has to be, even though it's usually $7 for the shipping. There has to be some kind of transfer value both ways. It's a give and give relationship, not a give and take one. Does that makes sense?

All of business is, all of customers ... Any business I've ever seen that's worthwhile. It's sustainable for a lot of reasons. It is a give and take. There has to be some kind of transfer of value back and forth between the two, but I'm starting to notice ... Akbar paid me. My buddy paid me. I went and I watched Russell go out and get a new coach again for something different. He is constantly learning.

I started thinking through ... Okay. Just bear with me for a second. I'm trying to figure how to share this. A lot of people have been telling like, "Steven, oh, my gosh, you work in the freaking marketing nucleus of the planet." I was like, "Yeah. I know." Freaking amazing. I mean it's the most cutting-edge stuff, right? Status quo is created in ClickFunnels. That's amazing. Marketing status quo is created in ClickFunnels all the time.

How? He is bathing himself in it and loving it and is so passionate about it and if you can't be passionate about the thing you are to that degree, change the thing. Find the thing. You may not be in the right thing.

He's going around, and he's constantly pushing himself, pushing himself, and I had the thought like how freaky would it be? Would Steve Larsen be Steve Larsen if I had not hooked into that? Interesting. I believe I would, but not with the speed that has happened. If you're frustrated with how slow things might be moving. Maybe they're not going fast enough. I dare you to go get a coach, and I dare you to pay them full price. I dare you to pay a full price. You know what? Overpay 'em a little bit.

There is something weird that happens. Every single time I do any kind of coaching at all, I charge for their benefit. Does that make sense? It's not that I need the money. I'm not dying. You know what I mean? We're doing great, but if I don't charge, the other person doesn't take it serious, and they don't go freaking get off their butt and do what I said, or you know what I mean?

The best people I've ever seen coaching wise - oh, my gosh - they come willingly. They pay beforehand and then they go do the thing immediately. Then they report back to me within like a day. They've already done the thing that I said. Like, "Oh, my gosh, that's way cool." Then they'll come back, and they'll do another session, back and forth and back and forth. That's how it happens.
I think it's the same thing. Sitting around listening to Russell, the way he talks and be like, "Yeah. Yeah. This person was my first mentor."

"Oh, yeah, this person over here was my mentor for a while over here doing this." "Oh, you know what? This guy over here? He was a mentor of mine." He was like, "Holy crap, dude. How many mentors have you had?" I know you've been at if for 14 years, but really in hindsight, 14 years is not that long. You know what I mean?

Compared to all the greats that have been out there and all the guys who have done this. I mean 14 years that's not that long. In 2003, 14 years ago, that's really not that crazy. That's not that crazy. How has a guy who's not even, he's barely past mid-thirties, the way he is? It's 'cause of his coaching. That's my opinion, all right? He's just hooking into people all the time. He doesn't freak out when someone says, "Yeah, you gotta pay in order to be a part of this." He gets it. He knows it, right?

That's why there's hundred thousand dollar groups in Masterminds. Those people get it, but sometimes it takes a mentality break. It takes a shift for people to understand that. Of course, there's an element of status to it, as well, being part of those kinds of groups, but that's not it.

Russell Brunson\Every time I watch or I hear the guys that are involved with those groups, every time I see someone whose going ... I mean they all understand you have got to pay to play. Get a coach and be coach. Get a coach and be coach. Get a coach and be good. I feel I should keep saying that over and over and over again. Just burn it in your head.

That one principle. Russell asked me once. He's like, "Dude, what was the thing that got it? What was the thing that clicked in your head?" I was like, "Two things. Number one, I learned how to create offers when I was in college." Not products, offers. Not services, offers. The point is to graduate products and service into an offer, right? You don't sell products. You don't sell services. You don't sell products or ser ... That's not at all what you sell.

You sell offers...

It's very different. It's very different. When I learned how to do that in college. Boom. Massive, massive stride and progress for me. Luckily, I learned that before going to ClickFunnels.
Then I was like and I said the second thing, what I told him was, I was like, "Dude, there was this podcast you gave when I was probably a junior in college and you said 'Get a coach and be a coach.' That changed my life."

'Cause I was trying to be a coach. I was Periscoping and I was Periscoping, I was scared to death. I really don't know all the things I was talking about. I was just trying to talk about different lessons that I was learning in marketing. That was it. I didn't have enough experience so I was just choosing little things here and there. That's what got me publishing and out the door. Then I was trying to get a coach as well. I was just consuming like a beast with the intent to reteach it.

That's very, very key of learning for two. I've talked about that as well on here. Anyway.

I'm blabbering now, but I want you to know that's really been the major thing in my mind why Russell Brunson has become Russell Brunson. For the last 18 months, I have spent every day, work day, in the same room with him. The thing that I watch over and over and over again ... You know what? I bet you listening to this podcast right now, you probably know how to work hard. You probably do. I'm a hard working guy. I do believe in an element of law of attraction.

There's certainly the attractive character. You've probably been attached to this podcast for some reason. Mono e mono. We're seeing each other eye to eye or at least ear to ear. Voice to ear, anyway, right?

Okay, so then what's the difference? His speed of execution is insane. The dude knows how to make offers. He knows how to work. You probably know how to do the same thing, but man, the dude has coaches for everything. He'll have a coach for ... Yeah. Maybe I shouldn't rattle 'em all off, but there's a lot. It's all over the place. There's coaches for everything.

Then I get frustrated when someone's like, "You have a coaching fee to help me with my funnel, Steven?" Freak. Yes. I do. Because you won't do a dang thing unless You pay. You understand? You know what I mean?

Clearly, I get animated about it 'cause I'm like, "Gosh, you don't get it yet. You don't get it yet." Anyway, lot of fun. It was fun. I look up the Akbar like crazy. He's fun to do that with him. All the other people that have done coaching sessions with me, you guys are all awesome, too. I really appreciate it.

If you are looking for one ... You know what that's an announcement for later on, but anyway, guys, I hope that's sinking deep. Hope you're getting what I'm trying to say here. That if you choose to get a coach, it increases your speed in a way that's very hard for me to describe. Especially when you pay, always pay. Otherwise, I have a hard time saying that it's an actual coach.

I see a lot of people sometimes on Facebook go like, "Hey, who wants to get together and do a Mastermind?" It's like, "Oh, that's cool. That's great." But if it's a free Mastermind, I feel like sometimes people have the facade of movement, and they start confusing motion with achievement. It's just moving. They're not really achieving stuff. You know what I mean?

I'm not saying they're not good. I'm not saying you don't learn stuff. You learn great things. It's awesome. It's resources. It's fun stuff. I totally get it. I'm not backing on that at all. I feel like sometimes people try and take the place of a coach with things like free Masterminds on the internet, and I don't think that that takes its place at all. I think it robs it if you're thinking that way.

Anyway, I'm continuing to ramble here, and I'm trying to get faster on my podcast. Sometimes I go a little bit too long, and I know that, but anyway, you guys are awesome. Appreciate it. Go get a coach and be a coach. I'll talk to y'all Sales Funnel Radiolater. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today’s best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Oct 17, 2017

iTunes

Here's how I changed my aversion to charging what I'm actually worth...

ClickFunnels

What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

How are you guys doing? I hope you're doing great. I hope the week has been awesome. I'm trying to publish this at least once a week. I'm not going to lie, it's been so busy. There has been times I just have forgotten. There are these other things going on.

Anyways, I apologize. I'm trying to get around as much as I can because there's a lot of cool things going on with really powerful lessons. I keep trying to capture them. I've got a whiteboard. The way I do these episodes, actually is, I've got a big whiteboard behind me. Any time I got a sweet idea or this is really cool lesson or some little nugget or something, I write it down and then I try and figure out some cool way to share with you and talk about it. Anyway, this last week has been awesome.

Actually, my favorite part about working at ClickFunnels, the last two days has been the perfect representation of why I love working at ClickFunnels. It's fast-paced. I'm always building like crazy. I think I've built I don't know how many membership sites in the last little while, huge ones. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of videos, very, very intense at times. A lot of fun though.

They're good intents, but there has been this extra thing going on that every time it pops up, I love to walk away from my computer and just observe. Sometimes I don't even have things to add compared to the brilliant mind of Russell Brunson. Whenever this happens, this very specific thing, which I'm getting to you in a second, I pause everything and I watch really, really closely. It is contagious. It's the funnest thing I've ever experienced every time it happens.


I actually remember the first time it happened. When it first started, I've been at ClickFunnels over a-year-and-a-half now, I think, which has been awesome. It's something special to watch. I think if we all got better at doing this, in fact, I know it's one of the major pieces of Two Comma Club coaching.

It's one of the major pieces of the Secrets Masterclass. It's one of the major pieces of every other successful person I've ever seen out there, especially online. It is offer creation. I love watching Russell come up with sweet offers. It is the coolest thing I've ever seen. I've watched it a ton of times. I participated in it a ton of times. I've held brainstorm a ton of times, but every time it comes up, it is so ... I can't even describe the acceleration as we start to come up with new things. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but oh my gosh, it's so cool.

One of my favorite parts of being an entrepreneur is the fact that you are creating something that has never existed before. You think about that. That's powerful. That's legacy right there. Most people are trying to figure out like, "What's your legacy? What's your legacy?" Well, for an entrepreneur, you get to experience your legacy over and over again as you create offers in a different way, but it's true when you think about it. It's awesome. It's fantastic. There's a guy who reached out to me. He reached out to me just a little while ago and he said, "I'm just a builder."

He said something like that. I was like, "Hey, how's it going?" Basically, I don't even remember the scenario. I actually don't remember the person. I just remember what he said. It was that he was writing back. He was basically saying like, "Look, I'm not worth anything. I'm just a builder. I just build funnels." That's what his mentality was as he was saying his thing towards me. I was like, "Just a builder. Holy crap, dude, no wonder no one wants to give you money. If that's your attitude about your own craft, first of all, no one is going to want to get ... if you're not excited about it on your own, don't expect others to be."

Anyway, one of my favorite movies is the movie, Hot Rod. I know it's cheesy but oh my gosh, I love that movie. It's so funny. I totally have a clip here. It reminds me of ...

Video Clip: "I use to be legit. In fact, I was too legit. I was too legit to quit, but now, I'm not legit. I'm unlegit. For that reason, I must quit."

Steve Larsen: I love that. I think it's so funny, but that's how I feel about it. People come out and they say it like, "I just do this. I just do that." No one cares about your thing more than you do. If you don't care about it that much, no one is going to care about what you do. You got to really care a lot for people who actually started caring like you do.

Anyway, you're the sole driver of your thing. You better be freaking excited about it. Otherwise, you're probably in the wrong thing if you really can't get pumped about it. No one cares about your stuff like you do.

There was a whole bunch of things I wanted to say to him, which I felt like I could not convey in writing right there.  I just get so many messages now. It's overwhelming. I don't often reply. It's not because I'm trying to be rude. It's out of self-preservation because I want to build other things in my life too and have a life in a day and get my tasks done and things like that. Please don't get offended if I don't respond sometimes.

Anyway, there was this thing I wanted to reach through the computer and shake this guy and slap him and be like, "Dude, first of all shut up. Don't ever tell me who is also a builder that you are just funnel builder. You have the coolest opportunity on the face of the planet and the fastest pace, most explosive industry that's out there, and you're telling me, 'I'm just a builder.' Shut up."

I don't want to hear that. You have the best tools that are out there. ClickFunnels, in my mind, bar none and second to none, there is no greater tool that's out there.

Some of the best training. I have a marketing degree and I don't use any of it compared to even reading a book like just even one bExpert Secretsook, DotCom Secrets.

Let alone, add in Expert Secrets or even any other marketing that's, really, out there. You have the best tools, the fastest-paced industry, lots of money in it, lots of money to be made in it, places that reconnects and you change people's lives and you're telling me that you're mopey, wake up. You know what I mean?

That's how I felt. I wanted to reach to the computer and be like, "Holy crap man, shut up." You got to change the mentality, first of all. You cannot just look at your thing, "Oh, I'm just a chiropractor. I'm just an eCommerce guy. I'm just retail."

Whatever it is, if that's your mentality, no one freaking cares.

I believe that he's wrong, first of all, for thinking that. Like, "I'm just a builder." His mentality, already, is off. He's not going to be successful with that. You're not going to develop an attractive character. That's for sure. Actually, you'll probably develop one just because, but it's going to be the wrong one. The kind of attracts character that attracts other people who are also like that. That's how I feel. (2) I could tell, there was other things he said and I could tell by what he was saying that he was misunderstanding what he sells.

Actually, I get the feeling that a lot of people struggle with this.

It's very distinctly different way to think about what you're actually selling, but it really, really helps to think about it and understand. Actually, in my mind, it helps clarify your whole mission as an entrepreneur. It clarifies all the tasks and all the roles, the roles that you're fulfilling and the roles that you're signing out and hiring out whether VAs or whatever.

Anyway, if you can figure out and understand that you're not in a business ... Let's say that you make cakes. I don't know why I'm saying that. It's late. You guys check out the late night munch season, whatever. Let's say you make cakes. You make great cakes. My wife loves that show, Cake Boss. Let's say that you make cakes and you go, "I just make cakes."

No one cares about you anyway, now that you've said that, you don't even have your own confidence to own the thing that you do. No one is going to follow you anyway.

You got to refix that attitude;  though, you're wrong. You actually don't just make cakes. You're not in the business of making cakes. Your business is not your oven. Your business is not your mixing bowls. Your business is not the spoons and spatulas or even the ingredients. Your business exists because there are systems in place that sell the cakes. You're not in the business to make cakes, you're in the business to sell cakes. It's hard for people who are entrepreneurs, sometimes, to grasp that and think that and be like, "No, I'm a chiropractor. I adjust backs." No.

No, you don't. You sell fixed backs. You just happen to know how to do it. Does that make sense?

This is a huge distinction. I know a lot of you guys who listen to this probably know that. You've already got that down and you're like, "Cool, I got that. Check. Move on. Got it." I really hope that it's sinking deeply when you start to do that. My business as a funnel builder, before I ever met Russell, took off when I made an attempt at trying to sell funnels.

I just happen to know how to build them. Does that make sense? I was not in the business of the thing. I'm in the business of selling the thing. When that distinction happens, often time, when I find out that a lot of people have a hard time charging money for whatever it is they're building or charging money for their product or their service or whatever it is, a lot of times, it's because I think that they're stuck in the mentality of the first, which is that they're stuck in the mentality that they make cakes. It's like, "No. No. No, you don't. You just happen to know how to do it. You're actually in the business of selling the cakes."

When you break that mentality, in my experience, there's really two rules behind it; (1) Break that mentality and know that you're in the business of selling the cakes, (2) have you ever bought a cake? Let's just, for this example, keep going with that one. If you've ever bought a cake, you can charge for a cake. We were just talking about this the other day or two, actually.

However much money you've got your products selling for, I bet you could raise your prices, and your customers are not going to bat an eye, whatever. Yeah, prices go up, but we get too afraid to do it. A lot of times, what ends up happening is, we start to say, "Well, you know what, I've never paid $3,000 for a coaching package, so how could I ever charge that?" You know what, you're right.

There might be this level of business karma or whatever that says, "You can't charge for something unless you've bought it at that price point yourself." You know what, you might be right. That might be, actually, legit. If you want to get over that, go freaking buy a $3,000 coaching program. Congratulations, you now have the right to sell a $3,000 coaching program. Does that make sense? My whole goal with this episode is that, I wanted people to be able to go through ... I'm trying to show in some logical ways, I should've thrown more stories out there, shown to be more markety with it and showing a little few more things of this, but you're not in the business of your thing. You're in the business of selling your thing. That lets you charge more money. This whole thing is about dollar.
I can actually charge more money.  Understand you're not the business of the thing. You're in the business of selling the thing.

That's the first way. By understanding that, I found that more people have this mental leeway to be like, "Oh, yeah." Because in other ways, they go, "Well, I knew how much it cost to make the cake, and it only cost me $4. How can I charge $40?" It's like, "Shut up. That's the wrong persona you need to be talking to. You got to be talking to the other side of you." How do I sell the thing? When you start looking at the sales side, it's like, "Okay, well, how much can I charge for it and get away with it?"

That's a little bit more of the mentality, I hope, that people are gaining. Not that you're trying to take people for their money or whatever, but man, freaking charge for your stuff. The second thing, if you want to charge more money is that you got to break through those price barriers by you buying products of that price barrier also.

If you're trying to charge $10,000 for a program, some people are fine with that.

Like, "You know what, I've never bought a $10,000 thing but I got no problem charging for one." Other people are like, "Oh my gosh, I would never charge $10,000." Well, it's because you've never bought something for $10,000. You can't think about that amount of value because it's unfathomable. Like, "$10,000? Oh my gosh, what?" It becomes this mystical thing. "$10,000?" Like, no, don't treat money that way. It's just a tool. It's not this mystical thing. "What? $10,000 is so much money."

Not really. Break the mentality. It's not that much money. You know what I mean?

I hope this makes sense. I hope this episode makes sense. This is, honestly, a scattered brain episode. I just wanted to turn the recorder on and just start because this has been on my mind. If I watch more and more and more, it's like, "Holy crap. You're not selling a thing. You're in the business of seeling a thing." If you're having a hard time charging a high ticket price for something, you've got to go buy something that's high ticket and give yourself that mental permission to move forward, that business karma permission to move forward and be able to charge that price.

I think I mentioned this before about Frank Kern taught that, "If you want to make more money, there's really three things you can do to just double your business really, really quickly."

He says, "Charge more." Just charge more. Just even by 10%. Just charge more. You'll be shocked at how much people don't whine and don't complain and don't care.

Charge more money...

Have somebody calling every one of your customers in the back-end and selling your high ticket packages. Have somebody, a sales guy. They don't even need to know what it is you really do. Have someone, "Hey, I saw you bought this thing. I hope you really enjoy it. We just wanted to call and just offer you this $5,000 package where Steve Larsen goes through this thing with you and yada, yada, yada."

It doesn't take many of those to really double a business.

I don't know what your price points are or whatever they are, but whatever it is, whatever your price points are, whatever your high ticket stuff is, have somebody in the back-end who's actually calling all of those people who bought from you in the past and ask them to spend more money.

Charge more money...

Have someone follow up for high ticket sales in the back.

You've got to find a way to not just sell online alone. We've done a lot of cool studies and we found out that the people who make the most money are the people who have both online and offline elements to their funnels. Online and offline elements to their funnels. Sales funnels, putting an opt-in page, to a squeeze page, to an order form, to an up-sell, to a down-sell, that's a funnel but they existed before the web, in general.

A sales funnel is, any time anything is sold, whether or not you decided to make a funnel, you made a funnel. If money was exchanged, they walked through some funnel and most people don't purposefully think about what that funnel is. It's what ClickFunnels is. It's a way for people to actually think through and become methodical on how to actually sell their stuff.

Anyway, this whole episode is all about ... I just want you to know a few more of like, my mentality is, I look at money and how to charge stuff and why I feel like I can charge high ticket and why I feel like I can. Some of it is just out of self-preservation now where it's like, I literally cannot get to every person. I have to be able to have some filter.

It's going to be a higher ticket price point. You'll get to that spot if you're not already. Anyway, a lot of you guys who listen to this podcast are. Anyway, that's pretty much it.

You got in the business of selling a thing. You know what, business is the thing and business is selling the thing.

If you're having a hard time charging for high ticket stuff, go buy something high ticket. That third part are the three part things with Frank Kern, but  just raise your prices;  have someone charging or going and following up and actually trying to close high ticket deals in the back, and then figure out some more offline elements to your funnel if you're strictly online. Meaning, you might send them a post card. Meaning, you might send them some package. Maybe do a welcome package. Whatever it is, strictly digital or strictly just in a traditional funnel as we know it now can actually be a little bit damaging, not damaging but you actually could make quite of it more by putting some offline elements in there. That's what we found. Anyway, that's pretty much it, guys.

There's a lot of tips and more mentality ways, I guess, to charge more money. That's the whole purpose of this episode, but as I was watching today, the last two days, as we've been going through a lot of offers and offer structure and different brainstorming and different product creation, really, it's been so fun to watch just a ridiculous amount of value that Russell has a habit of giving. It's easy for him to charge high ticket stuff because he gives way more than he charges for. Obviously, that's another strategy as well.

ClickFunnelsThere's tons of things you can do, but it's been fun to watch that process again and fun to be a part of that process again and see, "Oh my gosh. Yeah, we could do this. We could throw this in. We could do this." We start thinking about those crazy things. "We could toss this in and this in and this in." Half of it was crazy stuff that we have no idea how to fulfill on or whatever, and then we go back to remove the crazy stuff and you're left with an amazing offer that you can charge high ticket for.

Anyway, I'm ranting now. It's getting late, but anyways, I hope you guys are doing great. Go rate your prices. Don't be afraid to charge for what it is that you do. Even if you're collecting leads and you could still apply this same principles, Sales Funnel Radioeventually, to business, eventually, there's going to be a place where they give you money. Go to those places and apply these same principles there. Anyways, guys, you're awesome.

Hope you're all doing great. I'll talk to you later. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free?

Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuild sales funnel today.

Oct 13, 2017

iTunes

"When Does The Hustle Actually Suck?"...

ClickFunnels

Just do it. Make your dreams come true, so just do it.

That's right.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Hey, what's going on guys. Hey, that was my little three year old. She obsessed with that Shia LaBeouf thing where he's like, "Just do it. Make your dreams come true, so just ..." She's like quoting it. She's walking around and she says it all the time. It's adorable. It's hilarious.

There's this part of me that's like, "Oh my gosh. I'm so excited." I've never had any success without becoming a monomaniac about something. Just really obsessing, being all about massive volume in whatever the thing that I'm going for whether it's a physical goal, financial, personal development, spiritual, anything. Monomaniac, these sprints of like really high intensity focus is how I've done what I've done.

When I see my little girl do that, I'm like, "Yay, she's got," but then there's other side of it. There's this other side of the coin that I don't think is talked about as much. Gary V who's at the Viral Video Launch a little bit ago, and he talked about ... He's on stage for a solid two hours it seemed like. He did a great job obviously. It's Gary V, but someone asked him ... I don't remember exactly what they said, but the question had to do with some kind of life balance. That's a question a lot of people ask. It's a good question to be asking for sure.

I do get a little surprised at how many people ask it. I guess how frequently it gets asked. I remember Gary V said like, "Look."

Something to the effect of, "You don't want to wake you when you're 37 years old and find out that what you've been doing the last 15 years you hate. You've built something that you don't want to be a part of or you've built something that literally sucks so much of your time in your life away that you really don't have time to live outside of your business."

It's been kind of an interesting experience going back and forth on that. I mean I've worked my butt off for the last five years. I mean specifically over the last five years. Really it's been like eight, but really the last five years has been just high pressure sprinting, very, very, very little rest.

Just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. I get that a lot from my dad. My dad was an extremely successful businessman. He's actually a software architect. He was an executive at IBM. He took on huge roles over at American Express. He was all over the place and set a lot of industry standards for the software world. My dad's the man.

I learned how to work because of him and specifically because of yard work and the way he interacted with me on that. You know what I'm talking about. I talk a lot about that in the early episodes of this show. Anyway, it was a little bit ago. I've been working like crazy, just doing tons of stuff. Working, working, working. One morning I was leaving and I was like, "Hey guys, I'm going to go to work."

My little girls had just asked like, "Hey." They're saying, "Are we going to go to the park?" I was like, "No, I got to go to work." My little two year old like sucked to my leg and was looking up at me with like the biggest saddest puppy dog eyes I've ever seen. I was like oh crap. It kind of rips your heart out a little. Gosh, dang it, am I doing this for the right reasons or is it my own?

I don't know. I'm really aggressive. I'm extremely ambitious obviously. Chances are if you're listening to this podcast, you are also. I mean usually podcast listeners are go getters. Anyway, the whole point of this podcast, I've had a lot of things in my mind lately for how I want to make sure that I'm crafting my life.

I recently have had the experience ... I'm not sure if you guys read the book "The ONE Thing" by Gary Keller. "The ONE Thing" by Gary Keller. Fascinating book. I looked at that book like many entrepreneurs and said, "Oh yeah, but everyone else has to do just one thing. I could do like 15."

I haven't really taken it that seriously. There's been a few experiences over the last two weeks though where I've been going through it. I've actually had the chance to get to know Don Hobbs who runs the Gary Keller "ONE Thing" events. He's been coaching me through a lot of this kind of stuff. He's been teaching me like, "Steven, man, what's your one thing? What's the thing out in the future?" I'm like gosh, I don't know.

I almost got offended by it at first. I was like, "I don't know." When I was running the two mile race in the army, right, the two mile. You go in as fast as you can for two miles. I never did it by looking at the finish line.

I always did it by looking three steps ahead of me. That's how I've lived my life where I just keep heads down and I just sprint and I just go towards stuff. Build the funnel. Get the thing done. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and just go, go, go, go, go. It's good because you got a crap load of stuff done. Stuff that takes other people way too long. They think about stuff too much rather than just act and get something out there and fix it as its falling. You know what I mean?

Anyway, and he's asking like, "Hey, what's your one thing? What's your one thing?" I was like, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't honestly know what my some day goals, what my one thing goal is." My thing's way out in the future. Whenever people say like, "Where do you think you'll be in 10 years," I'm like I have no idea. I have no idea. I mean that's what I said to him when he and I were chatting. It almost got a little bit heated. He was like, "You got to know what your thing is." I'm like, "I don't know what my thing is." I'm really good at short-term sprints, getting a ton of awesome stuff done that rocks. I told him. I was like, "Look, I've lived my life this way for especially the last five years."

Actually probably most of my life. I don't plan more than six months in advance because it's guessing. That's what I've always felt. My whole mentality towards that has started shifting and changing. I've started thinking through like okay, what is it that I really want? I know how to hustle. I know how to crush it, but when my little girls are running up to me and saying like, "Look dad, take me to the park," it starts to tug on the heart strings a little bit. It's easier to charge high ticket for my time when you start having those kind of life events happen to you like, "Hey, here's a kid. Hey," whatever.

You kind of check yourself just a little bit. I've been kind of going through that lately and thinking through a little bit more ...

I don't know. I think that living a balanced life is a façade. I still do. A lot of people ask me this type of question, which is the only reason why I'm bringing it up on this podcast. I get this question frequently. How do you balance everything? I was like well, I don't. I don't try to. I've never found success by being balanced. Are you kidding me?

An Olympian is an Olympian because they train their freaking butt off and that's all they do for decades. You know what I mean? I don't try to live a balanced life. I don't try to. I work hard. I don't sleep that much.

I had this screeching realization though about two weeks ago and I've been trying to figure how to say this on the podcast.

I had this screeching realization like why, you know. The ability to work this freaking hard is amazing. I love it. I learned it from my dad. I love working where I do. Emotionally scratches a lot of itches. You know what I mean? It's amazing. I guess that'd be a question that I post back to everyone who's listening. I'm just trying to pass it. I don't totally know the answer yet. I'm still trying to figure that out and I actually feel like that answer will be something that's discovered. It's like a discovered answer mixed with intention.

You'd all find it. I'm not exactly sure what that 10 year goal is, the 20 year goal is. Look, I have no idea. The thing that I know that I do want to do is keep teaching people how to make money.

I'm very, very interested in philanthropy. I really, really want to go do a lot of third world stuff. I look at money as a tool. It's a means to an end. I don't totally know what that end is though. I just kind of have an idea of what those things are. It was these going through more of Gary Keller's "ONE Thing" book, talking to Don Hobbs, Russell, talking to I guess like Dave Woodward.

It's been very eye opening to be like okay, short-term for these things, but like make sure it's actually affecting the one thing you're trying to go for. I've never really been that huge into planning whatever. I lived the last five years of my life going, "You know what? I want to go for that."

Then I'd get it because that's who I am and what I do. I take my target and I destroy it.

That's my whole mentality...

That's my internal persona is is whatever the obstacle is, I'm going to crush it. I'm going to go to the left of it. I can go to the right of it. I'll go above it or below it or I can blow the crap straight through it. That's my warrior mentality. That's like get out of my way. This is who I am and what I do. Don't try and stop me.

My being is built on movement. When I'm forced to sit still for too long, I feel like I'm kind of like entering hell a little bit. I don't mean just like sitting, but like if I feel like there's a lack of movement, it really messes with my head. It really messes with my being in general.

I'm real good at those sprints. I'm real good at those. I'm not trying to just focus on me with this episode today. I hope that you understand the why. Like what is it that you're actually pushing for?

Money's great...

Not going to take it with you. What's the impact? Obviously the impact that you can have is greatly increased by the amount of money you do have, which is how I look at all this game. I want to learn it to make a lot of money for the means ... There's a means to an end, which is I really, really want to do a lot of philanthropy stuff. I don't totally know what that is.

I know that I'll figure it out when I get there and that's kind of how I've lived my life, but I do want to have a little bit more long-term direction and I hope that you're doing the same. If you haven't read that book, I seriously recommend it. It has been an interesting exercise.

What's been funny, it's been hard to actually answer the questions. Anyway, I always get kind of frustrated when people were like ... I actually think I did an episode about this a while ago. It was like, "How do you balance everything?" It was like, "I really don't think that there's such a thing as balanced." Balanced compared to what? Who is it? It was Dan Sullivan. I think it's Dan Sullivan.

He talked about like if you want to feel really bad about yourself, make sure you compare yourself to some ideals because you'll never reach them. They're a façade. They're undefinable, right? If you compare yourself in I don't know what you're trying to do, compare it to pop culture, that would suck because pop culture changes momently, right?

Every hour there's a new thing, there's a new style, a new fad, a new this, a new that. If you want to feel really crappy about yourself, compare yourself to an ideal, right? That's been part of my fear is I don't know want to compare myself to some idealistic thing that's out there.

That's been my fear with setting a one thing goal, but I'm realizing it's a false belief of my own, right?

What Dan Sullivan says is, "Look, rather than gaining your sense of self-worth by comparing yourself to an ideal," he says, "Compare yourself to where you've been. Compare you to you, rather than you to some ideal because ideals change and you'll never actually reach it because they change.

It's undefinable." He was like, "Look back and figure out where it is that you've been and where you're going." Anyway, it's kind of interesting. You got on one side a guy like Tim Ferriss, right? Tim Ferriss boasts a 4-Hour Workweek, which I'm sure he's so popular now I bet that's not true anymore.

For that business though maybe it is, that business that book is about. The 4-Hour Workweek. 4-Hour Workweek, right?

He sat back and he said, "What's the one thing I can do that when I do that, it makes all the other tasks irrelevant?" Right? That's how he approached it.

That's one side of the spectrum. The other side of the spectrum is like Gary V style where it's like sprint, go, go, go, go, go, roar. It's like oh my gosh. Hustle. Hustle until you bleed. Hustle until you get ... Honestly, I appreciate the hustle. I can do the hustle, but the hustle sucks. The hustle is not a sustainable strategy. Right? I believe the need of hustle especially when you're building your business for the first time, you're building funnels in the valley lighter, you're trying to figure out what offers convert. Man, you better be hustling, man.

That is life changing. That is the potential for generational wealth. You better be hustling towards that. That's my mentality. It's like, "Man, you don't like what you're doing in life? Then freaking do something about it and you run at it. You sprint at it." Don't try and save a little for later in case you got to run back. Give it all in the sprint. It's the only way I've ever found that actually gets stuff out and built and done. I'm good at that. I'm very good at that.

That's the thing. Then there's this other romantic side by Tim Ferriss. He was like 4-Hour Workweek compared to Gary V, sprint until you bleed. Hustle, hustle, hustle. You're crap until you're running at all times. Hustle and then the taxi.

Anyway, it's like very different schools of thought going towards hopefully the same outcome that I'm seeing all these other guys go for. It's interesting to watch how people take the path towards whatever they're going for, where it's Gary Keller's "ONE Thing."

Just one thing...

If it doesn't have anything to do with the main event that you're going for or the main goal, don't even attempt it. Other people are like, "Just do it all. Sprint you all. Something will stick on the wall. Go, go, go." I don't have the answer.

I'm not trying to tell you guys what the answer is, but for me right now what I'm trying to figure out is okay, if I can't define a 10 year old, can I define a five year? What is that?

Are the things that I'm building and what I'm putting, is it in supporting of that? The hustle is great and I believe there's a time and season for everyone of those schools of thought. I believe that there is the 4-Hour Workweek style when you figure out the new opportunity and the charismatic leader.

You figured out the cost. When you figure those things out, in my mind it does become a little bit more 4-Hour Workweek-ish. Not that you can take the back seat or actually work four hours, but like it's all about creating the systems and putting people in place and be able to step back and step out. I get that. I think there's a time and a season for that.

I also think there's a time and a season for the hustle...

I remember sleeping literally three, four, five hours a night literally just about every single day of my entire college experience because I was studying marketing and launching businesses and trying to be successful. I was hustling my face off. I worked so hard and then I go to marketing classes and people are like, "Well, we know what you're talking about."

I'll be like, "Man, you guys have not a clue." What we're learning right here is 15 years old. You know what I mean? Anyway, I love the hustle and sometimes we can romanticize the hustle. Sometimes I see too many posts on Facebook of people saying, "I'm doing my 3:00 AM. I haven't slept tonight. I haven't slept great," but you're going to sleep the next 24 hours because you're going to be dead and totally rocked.

You know what I mean? Whenever I see somebody say, "Oh my gosh. Yeah, I worked a straight 46 hours," there are very specific times and seasons where that is needed, but I actually don't think it's something to brag about. In my mind it means that you might be doing something wrong.

Maybe you didn't delegate it properly or you did bad on your launch calendar and you didn't plan appropriately. You know what I mean? Whenever like, "Yeah, I've been hustling doing X, Y and Z," like okay, because of what? Is it because of you truly have that many things to get that or is it because you're trying to be busy because you're confusing that with achievement? Activity with achievements, the same thing.

I always laugh. I think they're tagging me in the post. I can't remember. Regardless, I saw several in a row of people bragging about how they had not slept in a very, very long time. Read the book "Rework." The book "Rework" talks about that very principle. It's dumb. You can't be creative when you're tired. That your part of your brain starts to shut down.

It's like the most high maintenance part of your head...

You're not going to be creative. You're not going to come up with a new opportunity. You're not going to come up with new copy. You're not going to be a very good analytical traffic driver if you're reading stats. You know what I mean? If you're tired, it rocks your world. I still only sleep five, six hours in a night.

Usually it's five, but man, it's taking a while for me to ... Anyway, all I'm trying to say is figure out if you're actually in love with the hustle or are you using hustle to get the end goal. There's a very important distinction.

My hope is that you don't fall so in love with the hustle that you just keep doing it because you don't know what else to do. It's what Tim Ferriss talks about in The 4-Hour Workweek. He's like, "Look, most of us work because we don't know what to do besides work." I love work and work is a sanctifying aspect to it. There's so much personal development that comes from it, but man, it is not about straight hustle. The hustle sucks sometimes. It sucks a lot of times.

Truly for the first time in like four ... I mean five years.

For the first time in five years, I have been asking the question, so what? What is it for? How come I'm doing this? What's the farther end goal? What's the reason that I want to push forward on this? I'm not going to lie. That question has freaked me out because ... Actually Alex Charfen talks about this in the Entrepreneurial Personality Type.

If you guys don't know him, go check out Alex Charfen. He is fantastic. He helps me learn more about myself than I know about myself and why I act the way I do and why I can do these hustle periods. He talks about these very things.

Like, "Look, if someone asks an entrepreneur what their five year goal is, their brains explode because they have no idea how to even think that far ahead.

There's so much stuff that they've got going on." That's how I feel. I don't know what the answer is. It's literally like those old TV sets when the channel isn't on. It's like ssh. Do you know what I mean? There's this blank channel. I have no idea.

Five years from now, 10 years from now, no idea. That can be a little bit freaky. I'm trying to get more clarity on what that actually is and I'm challenging you to do the same and to take it serious and to know what the end game is. Are you falling in love with the hustle? That's basically the whole point of the whole episode I was trying to make with this whole thing. Is it like oh gosh, you got to have ... If you want to be really successful and stuff, increase your volume in that activity.

You will be successful. Have huge ridiculous unbalanced volume in whatever you're trying to be really good at or make money at or whatever it is and you'll be successful. That's like the formula. Just obsess. They'll do well. Obsess, but know that it is a means to an end.

The way you stay relevant, go back to these little tiny obsessing moments. It's kind of like the way I learn now has changed dramatically. The way I learn, I actually have not read a full book in quite some time. Years actually. The reason why is because I realized that I was distracting myself with the activity of reading books rather than applying what the books were saying. Right?

I realized that I needed to change my learning style and I needed to start doing these little more mini learning sessions.

When I first started, it was like this big gulp. Just taking in everything I can. I was reading all these courses, taking all these things in. Then eventually I needed to change my strategy because I was just not launching anything.

I was way too distracted. It's the same thing with your goals and what you're actually going for. I think at the beginning it may not matter as much what that long-term goal is, but I'm starting to ... I'm really, really starting to ask the question, okay, what is the long-term goal? Does this activity have to do with that? Is it sustainable?

Is there a reason I should be doing this or should someone else be doing it for me at a hire out? Those are all the kind of questions and I can feel that I'm in a transitionary period. It's important to be self-aware of where you are in that process. I'm not telling you not to hustle.

Sales Funnel RadioGosh, I'm going to hustle as long as I can. I also know now it's a means to an end, rather than this glorification thing, like this badge of honor. "I haven't slept in 47 hours." Well, then you've got a problem. There's another problem set you're not addressing and because of that, the side effect is happening. Take a step back. Figure out that problem set. What's going on? How come you can't? Anyway, that's all I got for you guys.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Oct 11, 2017

iTunes

Live listener Q&A about how I keep my "state" in the right place to build quickly...

ClickFunnels

Oh, what’s going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you’re listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you’ll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today’s best internet sales funnels, and now here’s your host, Steve Larsen.

Hey, guys, got a cool episode here today. I get asked this question shockingly ... I expect this question to come along, but not with how often it's asked.

Anyway, this is gonna be a cool segment. I'm gonna pull in a question that I got from Gerim Atkinson. I appreciate the question, man.

I get a lot of questions from you guys and if you guys want to ask a question to me just go to salesfunnelradio.com. If you scroll down, there's gonna be a green button on the bottom right.

You can ask any question. It will voice record straight off your browser directly to me and then I can toss it in. Anyways, here's the question from Gerim.

Gerim:

Hey, Steve, Gerim Atkinson here. First, I just wanted to tell you thank you so much for your awesome podcast. I love all the content that you cover here. I love the super high level stuff. Then, I also really love when you get in the weeds; the tactical podcasts where you're talking about different techniques that you found have been successful in building funnels so really appreciate all the value you bake into here, as well as, the different funnels you built out.

Just appreciate all you do so super huge thanks for that.

The question I had for you was as you're getting into the zone to build out funnels and pulling from what Tony Robbins often talks about of getting into state. I would love to hear what you personally do to get into state to build funnels. Like what anything looks like for that process.

Are there things you do beforehand to get you focused and concentrated to sit down and work as you're building away? Are there foods that you found are really good for you to help keep up energy levels and keep you focused? Music? Headphones? Anyway, I would just love to hear what that process looks like for you that allows you to be zoned in on your game of building funnels and chasing after what you're working on.

Anyway, thanks again, and I hope you handle my question. Thanks.

Steve:

Hey, Gerim. Hey, man, thanks so much. Appreciate that. Hope you're doing well personally, as well, my friend. Hey, great question. I honestly get that ... I've always been shocked at how many people ask that. Not so much ... I always expected that I would get that question quite a bit, but not how ma' ... A lot of people ask me that. What's the ... In fact, a lot of people at the PHAT event that we did asked that question. That was one of the biggest ones. What's the state you have to be in? What's the mental control?

I always have made fun of the whole mindset training industry. When they're like, "I'm gonna teach you some mindset training." It's like, "What the heck does that mean?" It sounds so fluffy to me. It's taken me awhile to figure out my own process, but I have one, and it's been by accident as I've put things together, and I've built 'em and things like that.

Here's what I do. This might be weird or whatever, but in the morning when I wake up there's actually a YouTube playlist that I've been building over the last while. What it is, it's a lot of my favorite motivational videos. I hate calling them motivational videos because I don't need motivating.

I err on the side of doing too many things. There's no one putting a cow prod to my back. I just move. I know I move. I'm a shaker and that's one of my strengths; is I don't need motivating, but every once in a while, I get in a slump. I'm not gonna lie. Like the last week, I felt a little bit like I've been in a little bit of a funk. There's some vulnerability for you right there, right?

I mean we all feel it. Everyone I know feels that eventually. It's not like ... I don't just run around screaming all the time, but it is a great way to break state. It's a great way for me to ready and get excited. Even if I'm really, really tired, there's times where we'll be at the office till two or three in the morning. It's like I'm dying, but I get back into state by choice. That's the whole key. It's by choice.

I'll start jumping around, physically. Russell and I, we literally, we'll start jumping around. We'll play some music that's really fast and upbeat. We'll jam out to some rock music with some really silly air guitar stuff. You know what I mean?

I mean that's the whole thing. I've never been successful or a very good marketer or very good business person or very fun person around be, or I'm sorry, a very fun person in general to be around if I'm not having fun. Does that make se'? Even when crap hits the fan, even when stuff's really hard, even when it's very, very challenging ... The number one thing is I've gotta find a way to have fun with it.

Even in college, when I did not like classes or when there's stuff to go, I had to find something that I was doing, I had to find it interesting. Some aspect of it needed to be interesting to me, or I had find a way to make interesting.

Or I just didn't care. I'd enter into this total state of apathy.

That's one of the easiest things you can do when you're starting to build funnels. I mean or your business or whatever it is. It's this game and when you realize it's a game, like in my mind a lot of the pressure gets taken off. I'm like, "Well, I don't totally know what's gonna work so let me just throw it all against the wall and let's see what it does. Oh, that does, cool. Now, let's move forward."

You know? And that's how ... and with that backdrop, this gets a lot easier.

Number one, man, state control; tons of state control. There's a lot of times. I've mentioned many times before that I'm in the middle of getting out of the army. When I was in basic training and when I was there, and I was doing all the ... We were running around, and it was super hard.

It was really challenging. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the fastest. I wanted to shoot the best, so I basically was, almost the whole time.

I was the second fastest in my entire platoon and company. There was one other guy that could beat me. He was so freaking quick. He was like the second fastest runner in Nigeria or something. He was so ... Oh, my gosh. He was running the two miles in 10 minutes and 30 seconds. The guy was hauling. My fastest was only 11 minutes and 52 seconds. I mean, he was killing me by whole minutes.

Anyway, ah, still, I'm very competitive. I wanna be the best so like it's still ... That guy's awesome. He's the man. Rono's the coolest dude ever, but geez. Anyway.

There was a phrase that we would repeat a lot of times when it was freezing. I went in the middle of winter. That was a terrible time to go to basic. I went at a time when they were shutting down the different parts of the base that I went to and so they couldn't feed us normally. The amount of food we got was drastically less.

I lost a ton of weight that I didn't need to lose while I was there. Other guys in training were not that way at all. They were well fed. I mean anytime crap hit the fan and we would just ... Sometimes we'd just start yelling, be like, "Right." We just back into state.

There was a phrase they would repeat over and over again and they would yell, "Fake motivation is still motivation," okay? That sounds cheesy, but there's some serious truth to that. Especially when crap gets hard, and I guarantee you it's gonna hit. Look, when I'm trying to build a project, I see the beginning to the end on a macro level. It is impossible to see it on a micro level, though.

I can't tell you how many times ... Literally, every single time we launch a funnel at ClickFunnels, something bad happens. Mega bad. I'm not talking like, "Oh, we forgot to write an email sequence." No. For some reason, this integration over here didn't work, totally broke half the thing, whatever funnel we're building. Or major changes. Or massive hiccups. You know what I'm saying?

Literally, every single time.

I'm trying to say this you so that you understand that it happens to every single person and to think that it won't happen to you is ludicrous. You're gonna feel crappy sometimes. There's gonna eventually be a part where pure grit is involved, and your ability to withstand adversity mentally. You're gonna have one or maybe two people come out of the gate and tell you, you can't do it. But by the time it hits your ears, and it goes into your head, we translate it as precedents for how everyone's looking at us.

That's true anytime you start anything. It's true every time I start anything.

I'll go launch something. I'll get a lot of people saying, "Hey, that's sweet." I'll get some people saying, "Oh, that sucks. Like mwa, I can't believe you're doing that. Eh."

They're the haters and just expect that, but what's funny is that the tendency, and what I see a lot of people like who I coach and who I help and things like that, the tendency is to hear the one or two people and mistake it for being everybody.

Everyone hates my thing. No. It's two people, and they hate everything in life so don't even worry what they think. No, it was only two people, and they're just the kind of people who wanna be miserable their whole life, and they're trying to find something else to do, too.

You just happen to be the next victim.

That just happens.

Any time you put something out there, just know, number one, it's gonna take a lot of mental grit for you to combat a lot of the negativity that's gonna come your way. Whether you are a funnel builder, or you are the face of stuff and don't know anything about funnels, which is fine. Or you're a copywriter or whatever it is, any one of our roles. There's always very unanticipated resistance. Every time. To think it's gonna be different is totally ludicrous.

Any time I've ever launched anything from both friends, families and enemies, I've always had a lot of pro stuff and negative stuff. It's just the way it is, and it's fine. Eventually, you gotta just understand, you're not gonna please everyone, and you shouldn't try to. In fact, the fact that you're not pleasing everybody is a great thing. It means you got polarity inside your attractive character. I just said something before that's probably gonna offend a lot of people.

I think mindset training, like selling mindset training, it is the most fluffy thing on the planet to me. I don't understand it. Define it then at least. Like mindset training, it's like I do that everyday anyways. Not that I'm trying to, but I realized if I touch the hot stove, I can't do that. It hurts. I know it's not how it works, but you see what I'm saying?

'Cause we all have pros and cons. We have pushes and pulls towards everything going on around us. To think that everyone's gonna be happy about the things that you do, it's just not true and that's okay. That's why you build a community and culture around you. It's a support system.

One thing that I know the Russell does is he just doesn't look a lot of times at comments, whether he's in the middle of a webinar or on a Facebook live or stuff. When he's actually delivering the main thing, he doesn't look at comments. It's because 90% of it is really great stuff, but there's always 10% or just the freaking idiots. They decide that they wanna crap on everyone else's parade. It throws him off. It throws me off, so I don't look at the comments for a while. That is one trick.

While in the middle of delivering a presentation or a webinar or Facebook live or whatever it is, for a while, I look at the comments like crazy when I'm in the middle of the launch when I'm putting things out there 'cause I'm ask campaigning stuff, but besides that though, I don't really look at the comments for a while until I get the thing up. Then feel free to poop on it 'cause that's just how it works.

Anyway, I wasn't meaning on going off the whole thing, but I just I want you to know and everyone that's listening, I plan stuff on a macro level as deeply as I can, also, on the micro level, okay? I see the macro.

I'm like okay, I'm gonna go from this funnel to this funnel. People are generally really good at that piece. Then I try and get really nitty gritty on the micro level. Okay, well, this page is gonna have this and this page. It gonna have this offer and this automation over here and it's gonna have this, this, this, this.

I'm gonna do these things. I'm excited about it, but it never goes that way. Ever.

In the 300 funnels I've built in the last 18 months, it doesn't ever go how we're actually gonna ... We'll put stuff together. I mean it's so rare that there's not a hiccup or there's something that I've realized. Oh, you know what? I've taken it as far as I can. We have to have XYZ video. I thought we could get along without it, but we need it now. You know what I mean?

It always ends up that way.

This game has more to do with how fast can you get over the crap and just keep moving on? The tendency for most people, though, is they'll hit something. They'll hit a wall and they'll go, "No. Dang it, a wall. Eh." And they get uh, no, a wall. Then they fixate on it and it becomes bigger than it actually was in the first place. They start saying, "Well, I'm not successful because of the wall that came up. I wasn't expecting, and well, that guy didn't have a wall over there."

Not that you could see, but he probably had a ton more than you could see. Then they get fixated on this thing that was never that big in the first place. All they had to do was go around the left of it, around the right of it, over it, under it or they could just blow straight through it.

A lot of success in this, not just in funnel entrepreneurship, in life comes down to the ability to move past stuff quickly, the unexpected quickly, whatever the things are that are coming up. I'm not telling you to not acknowledge your emotion when you have that upset. Acknowledge it. Yeah. It sucks. Yeah. It's bad and then boom, move on.

You had the pity party. Go forward, okay? That's it because otherwise you fixate on this thing, and then it becomes the object in your mind for why you're not moving forward.

Then you start to fear the obstacle leaving because then you're like, "Crap. Now, I have to move forward." It becomes this backwards and forwards thing. I see that a lot of times. I mean there's over 500 people inside the Two Comma Coaching Program. I see that a lot. Every one of us goes through it.

Every one of us struggles through it. Every one of us ... When it comes to publishing for the first time, that's a biggie. A lot of people have a hard time with that one. Especially, creating a dream 100 list and actually starting to build relationships. That's one a lot of people stumble on.

Creating a new niche. Creating a new offer. Building out not just the funnel part, but ... the actual building of the funnel and sitting down and doing it, that's the sexy part that everyone wants to do, but they don't actually sit down, actually write the copy. In every one of those aspects, there's gonna be these hiccups. Hey, either you're not good enough, and you gotta figure it out or hire somebody. Or some other unexpected thing's gonna pop up. It's this game every single time, right?

One of my favorite quotes. I'm gonna botch it, but the idea ... is that, hey, look, you can measure the success of anybody based on the number of hard problems they've solved. If you want to be super successful, you have got to look at yourself as a problem solver. You can't look at others for the solution. You gotta solve it on your own. Be a self-solver. The faster you can self-solve, the faster you're gonna be successful with it.

I mean every time I put something out, that's how it works. Every time. You know what's fun? It's almost like ... That's why I call it mind muscle. It is like that. At first, it's really hard. You're like, "Oh, this is the first time I've experienced any kind of adversity in something that I want. The world doesn't seem to want to give it to me. They're asking me what my value is, and I'm not sure what my value is yet."

You're flexing this muscle in your brain for the first time. Then you get it out. You actually launch the thing or whatever, and it's like, "Ah, now relax for a second."

Now, let's do the next one. It's a big mind muscle flex again. You're like, "No, my gosh. This sucks. It's so hard." It's the same thing over and over and over again, but now you watch Russell's team. You watch the way he and I interact. You watch the way he interacts with his other people. It's like here's an adversity. Boom. With three ways, we could solve it. Sucks, but we're over it. Boom. Here's three ways we could fix this. Boom. Here's two ways we could do this.

What was cool is that I know one of the major attitudes that I've had, that has helped me tremendously in my very short career, as it's been so far, is I go to Russell or you might go to your boss, or you might go to whoever your higher up is, or you might go to your spouse, you might go to whoever, your girlfriend, your significant other and you say these words, give me your hardest problem, okay? You say those words, and you're gonna have a lot of guaranteed mind muscle flexing, right?

You're gonna have a lot of iron pumping with your brain. It's gonna be really hard, but if you're willing to go through that, holy crap, your speed increases so intensely and you can get so much stuff done in your life. You can move forward because you don't get caught up on petty crap like, "Uh-huh, they didn't like something I said. I got three negative comments back. Uh." So what?

Just do the next one...

Keep going...

You gotta practice that over and over and over again...

My suggestion when you're building these things, especially when it comes to your brain, is understand when you're about to have burn out. I actually have a ... It's this white cube. It's got all these different times on it and whatever side pops up ... I'll put a 30 minute timer on. Boop. Hear a little beep? And then in 30 minutes, the timer's gonna go off, and I'll switch over to the five minute one. Now that means you get a five minute break.

Then I'll switch back to 30 minutes, then go back to five minutes. 30 minutes/five minutes. Then I go back and forth and back and forth. That's one way I go faster and for longer periods of time without needing to have this big massive break. That is one strategy that I do use.

Another strategy that I use is I try to make three moves a day, meaning I just try and make, if you think ... like a chessboard, I try and make three moves per day, right? If I only have 24 hours per day to get whatever I'm trying to done, let's see, I'm gonna be at the office for a certain amount of time. I'll be home for a certain amount of time. I gotta sleep, a necessity, for a certain amount of time even though I hate it.

At some point, I gotta work out even though I'm not really been doing that for a while. You know what I mean? I only have 24 hours. If I can just make three moves per day, it will at least always be moving the ball forward. If I don't make any moves at all during the day whether it's for my own stuff or for Russell or for a client, for anybody, if I could just move just three moves a day, then you can define what that is, but they can be good sized moves, stuff that matters.

Okay. I got in contact with this correct person I needed to. Awesome. I did this podcast episode. Cool. I designed this page and least have the layout for the remainder of what the funnels gonna be like. Boom. Three things. Whoo. All right, I can go to sleep. You know what I mean?

I try and make three moves per day. That's a great way to pace yourself. We like to always think that we can sprint towards the end, but the reality is you gotta plan out how long you think it's gonna take you to build a funnel or a business.

Then double that assumption.

If you're like, "Hey, it's gonna take me three months." Okay. Plan on six, right? Work like it's gonna take you three months. Work like the plan is three months, but just know that you're actually gonna do it in six. That's another ... Same with cost. I think it's gonna cost me 10 grand to get this project out. All right, that means it's actually gonna be 20. What can I do to increase cash flow?

You know what I mean? Those little things that I do to expect and plan for any type of hiccups or bumps along the way.

Then honestly, I just listen to sweet music. I can't listen to music that has words in it very much. That distracts me too much and distracts my brain, but I know I have a little bit of enough ADD in my brain; actual ADHD a little bit, a lot of symptoms of it that I need some other stimulus going on in order for me to focus, so I'll have music playing, which is usually over 120 beats per minute, which sounds cheesy, but that's true. It's over 120 beats per minute.

Then I go ... The music doesn't have any words really that much. It's a lot of house music almost, and I just zone out and do my little 30 minute/five minute, 30 minute/five minute. Try and get three moves done in the day. That's how I do it.

If stuff ... Sorry. I'm getting stuttery. If stuff begins to get in somewhat of a lull, I need to stand up. I recommend standing desks. Usually, I stand the first half of the day. I stand the entire first half of the day without sitting, and I'll sit the last half of the day. That keeps me more engaged as well.

I guess those are some tricks ... actually wasn't thinking about, that I do. Then mixed with the mental, I call it mind muscle.

It's a post that I did on my personal Facebook page if you wanna go look at it, but it's the playlist, the playlist itself. Here's the post I wrote. I'll end with this. Okay.

Mentally, I think of myself as just a freaking warrior, like whether or not that means that physically or whatever. Says, "I'm Steve. Hear me roar. The latest conversation with me, myself and I." Then I said, "Enjoy your brain you're already marvelous. I don't need motivation. That junk fizzles and dies quickly anyway. Some place, at some time, you'll need actual grit in whatever you. Look forward to the grit. When motivation leaves so do the hobbyists."

It's a super key line. "When motivation leaves so do the hobbyists so although I love living and smiling on with purpose, make it hard, Coach. I found that this is all more about saying no to stuff rather than yes. Wonder junkies and Renaissance men have the toughest time of all so control your mind and rage after the goal like the last drop in a desert. Embrace the suck." That's another phrase from the Army a lot. "A ticked off drill Sargent at my basic training said that. They called him The Dragon."

"Never tell me what I can't do. I'll kick you in the neck. Has nothing to do with drinking my own Kool-Aid. I know my own weaknesses. Periodically, I lay in my office floor, seeing marvelous visions of my own goal," which is very true.

I actually do that a lot, too, so I'll lay on my office floor here at home, and I'll just stare at the ceiling, and I just envision, and I embody what I'm trying to be. I try and take that on. I try and shed things that I'm not trying to be. I do that many times also. There's all these things I'm remembering that I'm doing I forgot about. Let me keep reading here.

It says, "But I really only need and want to see the immediate three steps in front of me at all times. It's how I control noise. I've learned to love ambiguity. The battle is in you. It's against your own mind. Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts." That's from Buda. "Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts."

"Business karma is real. Be a crappy human, and it'll return. Whoever said, 'The customer's always right' was probably a politician because that's total garbage, but everyone" ... I'm having a hard time reading this. I'm looking through my little foam screen thing here that's attached to my mic, and it's blurring my vision.

Anyway, the whole point of it is you gotta freaking move forward. Abraham Lincoln said, he said, "Gentleman, why not laugh, with the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die."

Just have fun with it. There's a whole bunch of little mind things. You'll figure out what works for you. You'll figure out what those things are, but when it comes to ... You just gotta be a freaking tank in your brain. I mean because no one else cares about what you're doing, okay.

It's a sad reality. I'm not saying that people don't listen to this. They don't care. I'm not saying people don't care, but you're the only one ... Let me say this another way. You're the only one who's passionate enough about what your thing is to actually go through the crap, in order to get it done. You're the only one. No one else can have that responsibility on their shoulders. Don't look to anyone else. Don't try and put it on anyone else. No one else cares as much as you do to actually get your thing up and out the door. If it's already moving, nobody cares enough to actually get it to the next level.

It's only you. You are so alone in that. It's actually not a freaky thing to realize. I'm not saying like, "Oh, you're all alone," or whatever. What I'm saying is it's actually a liberating thing to realize and understand that you have total control. You can get things on your own. 

I'm not saying it's totally on your own. Create a team. Put the pieces together you need to, but you are the driver, and it's exciting when you realize that. Like, "Ah, wow. The battle really is against my own brain and the critic inside of my own head. Huh?" It gets really, really easy after that.

Anyways, guys, it's a long episode again. The last two have been long. I'm so sorry about that, but Gerim, it's great question. When I heard that, I was like ... Massive fire behind that so, anyways, appreciate that.

As far as a recap, I would find out what your own mind muscle is. I would flex your mind muscle. Figure out how that works for you. Work on state control like crazy. I stand. I listen to music that's fast paced, not crazy, but that keeps me engaged. No words with it. I plan the micro, and I plan as much as I can ... I'm sorry. I plan the macro, and I plan as much as I can the micro; all the small little details, but then I 100% expect that that's gonna be false. It's totally gonna be different when I actually get in the weeds.

Anyway, whatever you think time and cost wise it's gonna take for you to get something out the door, I would make an entire launch plan before you ever start building anything. Plan the whole thing out with dates, when you're doing what and then hold your own feet to the fire, but then double that timeline to make it more realistic.

Then plan on making three moves per day...

When you actually do three moves per day, what it lets me do emotionally is it lets me have personal wins that I need in order to stay engaged. If I don't have a personal win in something for a little while, I feel a loss of momentum in motion. It actually make me feel a lot of anxiety. Like I'm not doing anything when I could be doing a lot still.

Sales Funnel RadioAnyway, hopefully that helps. Be freaking tanks and figure out exactly what it is that keeps you ticking when stuff gets hard 'cause it's gonna happen. Expect it, but only look to yourself for the answer to get over it.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today’s best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Oct 6, 2017

iTunes

After 301 funnels, I’m just barely noticing why I’ve been building so fast...

ClickFunnels

What's going on everyone, this is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels and now here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Steve Larsen: All right guys, I apologize first off that I've been a little bit less consistent with this podcast the last little bit here. It's been so busy. It's been so busy. We've been going and building a lot. Russel's been in inner circles. There's a lot of stuff been going on in the sales funnel world in general and it's so fun living in the click funnels area because I feel like I'm in the nucleus of where marketing principles and status quo is created.

It's fun, it's cool to sit back and go, "Oh my gosh, I can see how this is going to become a thing in the whole industry," and really fun to get to do that. Anyway, it's been busy, it's been fast. The last four days alone I have built four membership sites and these are not like little tiny membership sites. Anyone would be happy to just have one of them. There's been 500 videos put inside of them. Redesigning them, each one at a time. It's been fast, fast paced and I've really, really enjoyed it.

There was something interesting thought that happened as I was building these membership sites and I was putting them all together, and honestly if you don't have a membership site I think you should go create one. Even if you're like, "Hey, Steven, I don't know what the heck to put inside of it." I would go create a membership site for the sole reason of you being able to put cool content in there. When people are like, "Hey," whatever your expertise is. Whatever it is that you do out there.

You're like, "Hey, how do I do X, Y, and Z?" If you go make videos on that and put it in there, I mean, that becomes a really cool asset, or at least cool bonus, or something.

ClickFunnelsAnyway, I really think that click funnel's on massive power with membership sites which we've been building. Our 25,000 dollar packages. Guess what, membership sites have been click funnels. 15,000 dollars, guess what? Built inside click funnels. Several 10,000 dollar packages. All the membership sites have been in the click funnels. I've had a lot people come back and say, "There's no way this was built with click funnels."

I promise you it is. I'm not a coder and that's, I billed it out. Anyway, that was a bit of a rant there but I notice something. I notice something as I was building it. As I was, I mean, I was probably on video number 400. I was placing in, I was building, I was going fast pace. There was resource links. PDF downloads, checklists all over the place.

All this stuff that you'd want to have when going through a course to help someone actually understand and learn.

What was interesting is I got about half way through the first one and I realized that I was not ... It's freaking but you know how like you can get in a car and you're driving somewhere and then all of a sudden you realize you're there and you don't realize you got there. Your brain's on autopilot. You know what I mean, kind of feeling? I'm not saying I don't pay attention when I drive, but I'm saying your brain can be in other places and it's kind of second nature for you to drive the route you are and you're not really noticing that tree on the side of the road.

That happens to me sometimes when I build but not usually...

Usually, that happens to me when I do things where it's not so creatively intense, you know where little details matter but I found myself doing that. I realized like, "Holy crap," like dozens and dozens of videos and lesson sections had gone by and I didn't even notice it. I was like, "How interesting. I wonder why that is with this." A lot of it was a lot of copy paste, building stuff. There was some redundancy in the task I was doing which made sense.

I don't actually think that, that's the reason why they got done so fast. Why I got them done so quickly. There's four massive sites in three and a half days. I mean, those weren't the only things I did either. I mean, these huge, huge, huge, huge sites and like I thought it was going to take me way longer than that. Like a week or two, or three weeks to build out these just massive things.

I know a lot of you guys go through this. You're like, "Okay, I've got these huge sites to build. There are these funnels or whatever it is." You're probably like me.

Maybe you're not a coder or programmer so it might feel a little bit more intense for you to get those things done right.

Anyway, I realized why I was able to do it. It's because there was a pattern that I started following. I had two monitors up and even in the way I was building there was this system that I was creating without realizing that I was creating it. I was putting this whole system together. I'd look over on the left, see what I was modeling, grab the URL in the center. Copy and paste in the text. Copy, paste, repeat. Open up. Drop inside the link.

I can still see the process in my head because I've been doing it for the last three and a half days. Just pumping out these huge sites. These huge membership funnels and sites. I was like, "How interesting is it that it's that way. That I was able to do that. I mean, I've built over 300 funnels in the last year and a half working at click funnels and I usually don't, I can't get into that.

I usually have to think consciously about every single decision that needs to be made and it almost freaked me out. I'm not going to lie.

It almost kind of scared me a little bit because I was like, "Is there a detail I'm missing?" I actually had to backtrack a little bit but I realized that I was creating these processes and systems to handle things that I was doing over and over and over again. I suddenly had all these experiences I've had in my past just kind of start flooding back to me. I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's like this. That's like this." There was a company that I was working for when I was in college.

It was around the time I was trying to prove to the industry that I was worth my salt as a funnel builder. That I honestly had so much more to learn. I obviously still do but I was trying to prove that like, "Hey, I'm a runner. I'm willing to work. I've got the base skills down. Somebody hire me.

" I was trying to say like, "Somebody get to me. Somebody hire me." I was running around, I was shotgun emailing all these people and I ended up working for this company.

I had the most interesting experience when I was working there. I was excited. I was trying to prove myself. I wasn't charging them anything, I just wanted to show that I knew what I was doing in these certain areas.

I was like, "Look, I know you have no idea what a funnel is. Let me just go ahead and build it and if it makes money let's talk about me making some kind of cash, or whatever. Only if, so zero risk to you." They're like, "Okay, that's sweet."

That's how it happened, and so I start building this funnel. Actually, I ran an ask campaign to their current customer list. I was very strategic on who it was I chose and I ran this ask campaign and I built this funnel based off the data and it was huge win and it made all this money and I was like, "Oh my gosh, it worked." I was like, "What, this is so cool." It was really cool because I learned something super valuable. As I was moving forward and building this funnel, it was a water product. These guys had an amazing product.

I mean, it was a fantastic product but I realized and I don't want to offend anybody, I realized that their business had been successful because of the product, not because of their business. Like, "Steven, woah. Wait. What are you talking about? That makes no sense." Of course they were successful because of the business. No, they really didn't have much of a business itself. They were very, very few business elements to it and they had survived for years and years and years on the merits on a freaking amazing product.

Okay, now let's compare that to tons of other scenarios that I have build for where it's like we'll go out and we'll build for someone and we realize, "Oh my gosh the same thing." These people over here have successfully been a business for the last number of years strictly because their product is amazing. Not because they have a great business. Okay, now let's think of the difference between the two. Obviously the product is, that's obviously the medium that the cash comes in.

However, there's so many times I've built funnels for people where their business was not able to handle the funnel. Does that make sense? This is a very, very important distinction that I learned about three years ago as I started building for all these other people. It was about two and a half years ago and I started looking around realizing like, "Oh my gosh, some of these people have no idea why they're being successful. They understand the product is why they're making money, but they don't actually have a business."

One of my favorite books is a book called The E-Myth. E-Myth revisited. Now, I know you guys have all heard this before or you've read the book before. If you haven't read the book E-Myth, you should go read it because it's going to talk very, very clearly about something that I'm trying to ... This one principle that I'm talking about right here has been one of the things repeatedly I've seen over and over and over again between someone who's a so-so funnel builder and someone who is a freaking great funnel builder with a business. Okay.

I didn't know my own processes at the time...

I didn't understand and honestly I thought that, I was like processing...

I don't want to put processes together. James Freal, freaking man. He's got a podcast I believe with Dean Hall. They got a podcast called Just the Tips. It's amazing, it's hilarious. I think I'll be on it soon. James Freal came in and he's a master at processes and he came in a year ago and he sat down with each of the employees at click funnels and he's like, "Hey, what do you do? Describe your processes to me. Let's figure out for your position what these processes are so we can package them up in case we want to add stuff to them and we'll make more of a system out of this."

It was so funny because he came to me and we sat down in this side room and we start chatting and he's like, "Hey, what are your processes? How come you're successful. What are the things that you do when you're building a funnel where anyone else could walk up behind and pick it back up?" I almost got offended. Not offended, that's the wrong word, but I certainly was tongue tied. I was not able to actually tell him what my processes were. I didn't have processes.

Even as Russel's funnel builder when I was just barely getting in there...

I didn't have processes. I barely still do and I was like, "Okay, what's step number one?" I was like, "Oh, gosh. I don't know, it's different ever single time." There's so much art behind what I do. I would not consider myself a designer. I would not consider myself an artist but just the art of the marketing. The art of putting all these things together. I was like, "I have no idea how to actually define my process. What do I do?" This is a super important question you have to ask yourself.

Why does Microsoft and why does ... Why does IBM, why does Microsoft, why does Apple buy little tiny incubator startups? These little companies that have gone and they've built this cool app and this app has gone out and they've launched and they've put this app out onto the space. Now, let's think about this. Does Apple have the capacity to build the same software that, that other tiny little startup built? Of course they do. They have ridiculously amazing engineers.

Why would Apple care to buy the little startup with the brand new app?

It's because of the following, it's because of the business. They've put processes in place, they know that when they do X, Y, and Z, they get this many dollars out. They have a process in place. That's what a funnel is. I mean, essentially you're creating a process for revenue and most people have no idea why they make money. That's what the thing I was realizing when I started doing that work two and a half years ago for this other company. I was like, "Oh my gosh. Every sale for you is different. Every customer service inquiry for you is different."

Every time someone needs a refund or there's a part that broke or whatever, it's different.

Every time you do this, it's different. It's different, it's different, it's different and you know how much of a headache that causes inside of you? It's ridicules. It was funny because I had to take a big old slice of humble pie, or it was actually the full pie and I was talking to the brilliant James Freal and I was talking with him and he was like, "Yeah, what are your processes?" I'm like, "I don't freaking know. I've never actually thought about what those are."

I know what the outcome is but I don't know what the processes are to get me to the outcome and I was like, "I don't know."

Guys that was like a year ago and I am just barely figuring out what my processes are when I funnel build. I obsess so much with the process of funnel building and the process of marketing itself that I follow these blueprints all over the place that I just know work. None of it's mine and what I've been doing is I've been trying to sit back and go like, "Okay, why. Why am I actually able to build it that fast? How come that happened that quick?"

I'm not saying I'm the best in the world, I know I'm not, but I know I'm pretty good. Why did it work? Anyway, this is from the book of the E-Myth. I thought I'd grab it. This is one of my books on the shelf. I just dropped like three more thousand dollars on books, built an entire other book shelf so I have ... You know what's funny is that everyone's got these motives for why they want to be successful. I honestly want to read, I want to buy a lot. I buy books. I can't stand audio books.

It's not that I can't stand them, I actually love listening to them, but if the book is only an audio book or if the book is only a kindle book, for whatever reason for me it's not worth as much. I'm like, "Oh, well it's not worth its salt. It didn't make it to be a physical book. I'm not going to even listen to it or read it kindle or whatever. You know what I mean? I like to buy the physical thing. Anyway, I looked it up and I was like "Oh, yeah. This just like what I learned about in E-Myth like four or five years ago."

Anyway this is on page 83 and towards the bottom there he's talking about the importance of creating the business. Basically turning each position into a franchisable thing. Meaning, not that you go ... What he's teaching is, he's teaching how to create processes and he's teaching you the importance of looking at each position, so you might be a solo-penuer.

You might have a nine to five...

You listening right now, you might be doing something else that actually pulls on your actual income and you're trying to build a funnel to take you out of that nine to five.

You're trying to build a funnel to get you to the next step or whatever you're trying to do or it's the ascension. You know what I mean? What ever process you're in, whether or not you have a team, it's important to start looking at the processes and all the things that are involved in turning the dollar for you.

That's how you're going to hire people out. That's how you're going to replace yourself eventually. Anyway, this whole thing's been on my mind a lot lately.

Anyway, so this is on the bottom of page 83 and he says, "Because the business format franchise is built on the belief that the true product of a business is not what it sells, but how it sells it."

Okay, he basically said, "Look, an actual business, it's not ..." What is a business? He's saying, "It's not the product that it sells. A business is merely how it sells the product. A business is a set of systems. A business is a set of processes that talk with each other that sells the product." That's all he's saying.

He says, "The true product of a business is the business itself." The true product of a business is the business itself. I thought, "How fascinating, how interesting." That's why Apple wants to go by the little start up that has the app. It's not that they can't make the technology, it's that they've proven how to sell the technology. They've proven how to sell the app. They've proven that, "Hey, these are the positions you need so if you want to buy us or acquire us or whatever it is, you now know turn key wise you have to have this position, this position, this position."

They do this, this, and this. This one is X, Y, Z and this one does one, two, and three. If you can start to do that with everything that you're doing, holy crap it's a lot of work. Tim Ferus actually talks about this in the four hour work week.

He talks about every time he'd go launch a product or he'd put his supplement out there from his supplement company. He fielded all of the customer service questions himself for the first month and he did it for the sole reason that he could literally keep track of every question that was coming in and the answer that he started making a format for on the way out.

We did the same thing and then he went out and then he went out and he hired a person and they literally just had to read the docs that he created and send the response back out. I mean, he made it dummy proof. That's the whole reason why he was able to blow up ... Four hour work week, that's why that's possible, it's because of all the systems he put in place.

He made it turn key. Every position around him and then he just systematized that thing. Found someone, boom. Then they only talk to him when there's contingencies. When there's things that were not in that process.

It's the same thing with funnel building. I now know when I funnel build, that first thing I've got to go do is I sit down. Whether it's me or Russel, or us together, whatever it is. Usually I almost always draw it out. I draw it literally on paper. I draw boxes and I put a few details in the box. Okay, this is one page.

Okay, now this link goes over to the other page. This is the next part of the funnel. That starts this emails sequence. I'm going to add them to this list.

I kind of diagram out the entire thing but the step that's even before that is I have to know what the actual offer is inside of the funnel. Every single sales funnel is a mini value ladder. Okay, a business has a value ladder where you're trying to send people up to hire dollar amounts and different value levels and things like that. Each individual step in the value ladder is a mini value ladder. That's what a funnel is. That's why you can have up sales.

This is the higher point on an up sale or a down sale. Higher tickets in the back end, things like that. Follow up sequences that push to more and more dollars in the back. All right, that is a value ladder. Anyways, what I do is I sit back and we have to think through. Okay, what's the offer? What's the value ladder of this funnel alone. How does it fit into the bigger picture value ladder? The big macro level one. Then I go and we draw that out and we draw these pieces out and we put it all together and that's how it works.

Those are my first few steps and then even before is start building before that, then I start thinking through, "Okay, what's it going to look like? What are the colors like? Is there something proven in the industry I need to start looking at and start putting those elements in? Are there things that I know are little ninja tricks from other unrelated industries that also work?

Are there things that you know ..." And I start putting all those pieces together way before I ever, ever start building the new funnel.

I think one of the issues that I see over and over again is that people just go straight into click funnels and they just start building crap and they don't know what they're building towards or to and there's nothing that ... They haven't planned any kind of ascension. They haven't planned anything for their bait. How they'll get people in there.

They haven't planned anything so much as, "I funnel hacked, meaning I went and I copied and pasted." I looked at someone else's page and I put it all together.

That's not how it works. That's not what funnel hacking is. That's like the surface level of funnel hacking. Anyway, that was totally way more of a rant than I ever thought it would be, but basically this is it.

This is the whole point of the podcast that I wanted to make on the show today is that there's really two different levels, two different strength levels of a business. The weaker form of your business. How should I say this?

The weaker form of revenue is when you have a business that survives strictly because the product is amazing. Now, I don't know about you, but I know several places where that's true. Where the product is amazing but the actual business that sucks. How many times have you said, "Oh, yeah they've got a great thing but the customer service sucks over there."

Okay, that's a perfect example of a product that is literally driving all the revenue. There's barely enough business built behind it.

I mean, so many times we've built funnels for people and then we get a frantic phone call three days later begging us to turn it off. Turn it off, turn it off, my business can't handle it. I don't have enough inventory. I can't handle the volume you're sending over this way.

That's because there's not enough business built underneath the funnel to support the strength of the funnel that we've built. That's the first level, that's the weakest kind is when a business survives strictly because the product is good.

That's great and it's a good place to be. It's better than not having the business at all. In fact, that's probably the place to start. I would rather that you start there instead of trying to build up a business and figure out your freaking logo and the stupid crap that doesn't matter. Only worry about revenue first. That doesn't matter.

MoneyRevenue, revenue, revenue, revenue. Sales, sales, sales, sales, sale.

Nothing else, don't go rent an office. Don't go, none of that. Don't do any.
It's funny. Any of the stuff that I learned in business school is probably the stuff you should not do at the beginning. All right, first go to get the sale but it is ultimately the weaker form and the weaker part of business. It's more ... It's better to be the business style where the business survives because of processes. Where there's enough processes behind it, you can walk away and the thing could run itself. That's how the four hour work week works. That's how Russel's company works.

That's how, there are processes and whether or not every single position has been defined and all the processes behind it and here's how we actually put all the funnel together, and here's how we put the things in. Whether or not you've actually put those things together consciously, every person knows what those things are. My challenge to you is to write them down and to start taking note of what those things are.

If you get hit by a bus, heaven forbid, what are they going to do to pick it up? What are they going to do? Is everyone else's jobs going to be on the line just because you're the only guy that knew what was going on? That sucks, it should not be that way. First it can be that way for a while, Ferus talks about that and that's how he did it for a while but eventually systematize the whole thing.

Anyways, that's the entire purpose of this whole podcast is I just wanted you to know that it can take a while and I am literally just barely starting to figure out why my speed on these things is so quick and it's because literally, subconsciously every single time I have always built the process. There's been several times Russel would say, "Hey dude, how's it going on that one thing?" I was like, "Honestly dude, I'm only on the first page but I just got the process down and so I know the rest of them will go quick." It's true, it's bam, the rest of it goes quick because I got the system down in the beginning.

Anyway, I feel like I'm saying the same thing over again now, but hey, so one thing real quick I wanted to point out to you guys is that there is definitely a very forward and definitive process that has been put together on how to build a live webinar funnel. Now, last week, this last Saturday I went and I built a live webinar funnel live in front of a bunch of people.

I don't remember how many people were on but they watched me build the whole thing and I honestly just thought I'd be kind of fun to do it.

I thought it'd be a lot of fun to put the whole funnel together live, answer any questions and see what other things people are struggling with. There's no replay or anything like that. I'll probably do one again some other time shortly. If you want to follow next time I do something like that go to salesfunnelbroker.com/live. Salesfunnelbroker.com/live is the place where I broadcast and build out things live. Whatever I'm building so you can watch and learn and I like to interact back and forth.

Anyway, so I went and I built this live webinar funnel in front of a whole group of people and there's always a map that is true for that funnel style and I know it very well. Anyway, I made it into this really cool PDF document and I'd like to give it to you guys. I'd like to give it to everyone on this call. I'm sorry, I said call because I'm in front of a mic.

Everyone who listens to this podcast, I'd like to be able to give to you guys but I do ask for one thing in return. I would like ... I have never collected testimonials and if you guys can just grab your iPhone or whatever it is and shoot a sincere testimonial about me or whatever about me or something like that, or whatever it is.

Just shoot a testimonial around myself and if you send it over to me in Facebook messenger, I'll send that PDF of the map of what it takes to make an actual successful live webinar funnel as well as the share funnel link to the funnel, I'll give that to you guys for free. It's going to be something I charge 400 bucks for in the future.

Anyway, I just wanted to drop that on out because I see over, and over, and over again ... There's all these people reaching out to me saying, "Hey, Steven, would you look at my webinar funnel?" I would go check out their webinar funnel and it was like ... I was surprised the thing was running it was so bad.
Anyway, so, I've built it and I put it all together and I'll give you the funnel as well as the map. It's a PDF that's pretty rocking.

Anyways, if you want that go ahead and record a testimonial to me and send it to me on Facebook messenger and immediately I'll just shoot back, or as soon as I can, the PDF as well as the share link to that actual webinar funnel. Anyways, reach out to me. My name is just Steven Larsen. Meaning that's the spelling of it. S-T-E-P-H-E-N L-A-R-S-E-N on Facebook so you can find me. Anyways, that's it Sales Funnel Radioguys. Go create processes. It is more important than I ever gave stock to, and I'll talk to you later. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Sep 26, 2017

iTunes

Russell Brunson and Gary V have both said it's better to "Document and Sell", rather than simply just "Create and Sell"... SO! Watch me build my next personal webinar funnel LIVE...

ClickFunnels

What's up everyone? This is Steve Larsen. You're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now here's your host, Steve Larsen.

All right, all right. Hey, it's gonna be a fast episode. It's more of an announcement styled episode. Hey, a few episodes ago I finished a six part series where I went through each of the industry's, basically six different categories of businesses, that are using ClickFunnels.

And honestly, pretty much every business that I know of fits in them. And it was fun because I went through each one of those categories, and went and I found a rock star that's killing it in each one of those areas.

Now my whole ... I believe in a level of business karma. And I know that there are people out there who may not be in love with sales funnels the way I am, and that's totally fine.

It's my thing. And you have a thing. I'm not asking you to take on my thing. All right? It's your peak. You stay at your peak. You be the best in the world. Stay on that peak.

It's the reason I won't go learn Facebook ads. One day, Facebook won't be the hot shot stuff. You know what I mean? One day, there will be a new traffic source that's massive. Now it may not happen for a really long time. I don't know.

MoneyBut guess what I know is always going to be there? Funnels. Because it has to do with sales. And whether or not you meant to build one, you have a funnel. All right? Online or offline, you always have a funnel. Right? And so I decided to stay on this peak.

Well so, I got these six different categories, and I've been thinking to myself how cool would it be if I went and I live built a funnel, that works really well in each of those six different categories? And so what I thought was now I don't know how long this will take. I don't know the timeline. If it's gonna be really, it's gonna be all over the place.

But I'm going to ... Anyway, I believe that if I just keep pumping value into the marketplace, value always comes back. And every time I've ever done that, it's always true. And so I thought how cool would it be ... What if I was to build a Webinar Funnel live for everyone? You know?

And I probably wouldn't give the funnel away for free because every time I build them, they take a solid ten hours. You know? I'm not just gonna give that for free. I'd charge for it. But it wouldn't be a lot. It'd just be a little bit.

But how cool would it be if I went and I built an application style funnel the way that I know they work? How cool would it be if I went and I built an E-commerce funnel the way that I know that they work?

MLM the way I know that they work? You know what I mean? Each one of the industries, go through it. Retail. Back and forth, and back and forth, and I actually built live. And you guys could come join me and watch, and ask questions, and stuff. That's freakin' awesome. That would be a lot of fun.

Anyway. So that's what I'm thinking. And I'm thinking it'd be a lot of fun. And so I guess the, I don't know if you want this kind of lesson or whatever with this. If you can include people in the act of your own craft. Whatever your specialty is, if you can include people in that, you're really ...

You guys know it was in the movie, "Hitch." Right? In the movie, "Hitch," there's that scene where Will Smith goes and he makes dinner with the chef. You know what I mean? With his date and his date's boss. Right?

And he goes, and he's there, and he's cooking the food with him. The chef is including them in the process of making the food. That's why they're there for the process.

The more you can do that, and unveil, and show behind the curtains of what it is that you actually do, and peel back the curtain, and show like hey, this is how I do what I do. People fall in love with you like that.

And so I guess that's me just being vulnerable just telling you that's my goal is to help you see exactly what I do, and why I do it. And so what I'm thinking is I ... Anyway, I think the way I'm gonna do this ... I had this idea just a few days ago. And I think I'm gonna do it.

Where I think we'll have it where if you go to salesfunnelbroker.com/live, salesfunnelbroker.com/live. I used to have it all building, or I'd build live on a different platform, but I kinda want to keep it all in the Sales Funnel Broker platform, that I've already got there.

By the way, there's the equivalent of thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and thousands of opt-ins. There's so many people, that have downloaded free funnels off of that site, which is awesome.

But that's the reason I built is just to give tons of value away. But I kinda need to revamp it. I built that over a year ago now, and I need to get that a little bit more. I need to update it. So I thought how cool would it be if I actually included you in the update.

And if I go rebuild kind of the bank of funnels that's there as well as all of the stuff that is given. So I'm gonna start with a Webinar Funnel. And I'm gonna do it I think on September 30th, this Saturday. And I'll get up, and so right now by the time you hear this episode, this will be up. Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/live.

And what I want you to do is you can opt in. And what you're opting in for is basically I'm gonna make that page basically a webinar registration page. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna be able to register for a live funnel build with me, and with whoever else wants to watch.

And you can follow through, and do the same thing that I'm doing. Now I'm not there to train each aspect of ClickFunnels, or to give massive orientation. So I'm gonna go my normal speed. And I'll play some music. And I'll explain what I'm doing as I'm doing it. And it'll be a lot of fun. Like they're just funnels I want to build anyway.

I love what I do. But just know that I'm doing it for a specific purpose, for specific reasons. And I thought hey, how cool would it be if I just, I don't know, if you want to join.

So, and then what I thought would be kinda cool was if I posted the replays underneath. And you can get the full replay when, and the funnel that I built. You know? And I'll charge. But it's not gonna be a ton.

But these will be prebuilt funnels based on how I know that it works. So I've built almost 300 sales funnels now for ClickFunnels in the last year and a half. I built a crap ton of funnels. I literally have dreamt in the Editor, the ClickFunnels Editor. You know what I mean?

Anyway. So this is kinda a fast episode, but I thought I'd give that announcement, that this could be kinda neat. That if you want go to ... And I'll always, I'll have you opt in so for the purpose of me being able to go and announce when the next funnel building live session is.

So the first one will start with the Webinar Funnel. But then we'll go on to the next one. Right? Be an E-commerce funnel. Then we might go onto the next on. It might be a ... You know what I'm saying?

And I thought how freakin' cool would that be to include you guys in that process. You can see, number one what I'm doing. Number two though, I actually give you the funnel, that you were watching me build. Like that's freakin' awesome.

With all the little tricks, and all the little things that I do, and all the little ninja stuff, that we know works. And I mean that's freakin' cool.

So anyway, whenever you're ... Think about your own business right now. What can you do to include your customers, and your prospective customers, or your following, or whoever.

In the process of your craft include them in your craft. It's your art. You know what I mean? And don't be afraid if people are gonna steal your art. That's not at all what this is. So I wouldn't be too nervous about that.

So all right guys, number one let me know if that's sweet 'cause I think it's, I think it'd be awesome. Just know that it's gonna be a several month project. It's not like it's gonna be I'll drip this out as I have time to, which is very limited.

But I'm gonna start with the Webinar Funnel, and I'm gonna do it on September 30th. If you're gonna ... If you hear this episode afterward, it's probably already up. So you can probably go check it out.

Again that's salesfunnelbroker.com/live. I'm gonna revamp that entire thing. But for right now, that's how we're gonna do it. So yeah, I think that's how we'll do it. All right guys, cool.

That's all this episode is. Just a little fast. A little invitation announcement. And the reason that I'm doing it is because we've learned that when you actually show people what it is behind the scenes that you're doing, you're sales go up like crazy because you're answering all these beliefs inside their head, that might have been false. You're rebuilding belief patterns without them even asking.

For example, Funnel Fridays. Right? Funnel Fridays is something that Russell puts together with Jim Edwards who's the creator of Funnel Scripts. Last year that made millions, and millions of dollars. Several multi-millions by doing nothing else other than showing how Funnel Scripts works in those 30 minute little funnel building segments.

You see what I'm saying? That's exactly why I'm doing it. So I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna show you guys what I do. That's my skill. That's my art, and my craft, and the thing that I love doing.

And so I thought hey, might as well show you what I'm actually doing. And I've got another 200 funnels to build in the next few weeks here, which is ridiculous. I don't know if I'm gonna make it. But it kinda stresses me out to be honest.

Sales Funnel RadioBut how the heck can Steve Larsen do it that fast? Well I'm gonna show you, and then I'll give you the option to be able to get the actual funnel, that you're watching me build. And you can follow along with it, anyway.

So be prepared for a five, six hour build. Okay. It's gonna be long. And we'll have the whole thing ... I'll have the whole thing recorded for you for your pleasure.

So all right guys, I'll talk to you later. Again, go to salesfunnelbroker.com/live.

Sep 22, 2017

iTunes

Too many times I see people learning to solve a problem that is UNRELATED to where they actually are...

ClickFunnels

Woohoo. What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen. You're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels, and now he's your host Steve Larsen.

Hey, guys. I hope you're doing great. It is a very rainy day outside right now. It's been freezing. Holy crap. Hey, we just barely had our viral video launched at ClickFunnels which has been a ton of fun. I really, really enjoyed that. As marketers, you always try to make events out of everything, right? You sit back and you're like, "Hey, we got this cool video coming out. How can we make an event out of that? Well, we could just put it on YouTube and publish it. That's not very exciting. What if we had this cool event where we had people show up and we all have a big launch party together? Cool. You know what? What if we had Gary V. show up?

Oh, my gosh. Gary Vaynerchuk. Let's have him show up and he'll talk to us a little bit more about social media and virality. Cool. Awesome. Let's do that. You know what would be awesome? What if we had the actual people, Harmon Brothers, who made the launch, the actual video itself? Let's have them come teach more about the formula they used to make videos go viral? Cool. Awesome."

Guys, ideas evolve like this over and over and over again...

It's so fun. They're so fluid and they're all over the place. There's no idea that's ... Well, no. There's definitely such a thing as a stupid idea. But, then you continue to evolve and grow and, oh, my gosh, what if we had the top YouTubers out there since they got huge reach on video and obviously it's a video? What if we had them? Oh, my gosh. Let's have them come to the party and we'll literally teach them how to share our video with their audience of millions of millions of millions and go like, "Well, it's Idaho. It's Boise."

I don't know. We're like, "Well, we got to have some cool thing. What can we do? How can we make them look like rock stars for coming to Boise, Idaho?"

Dave Woodward, he's the man, was like, "Hey. Oh, my gosh. What if we broke a world record? We're there. Let's rent out the Boise state stadium. We'll hold an event in the top box, suite area." I don't know what to call that area. "Then we'll go down on the football field afterwards and we'll play bubble soccer." Then he's like, "Oh, my gosh. I'll be right back." He came back in. It was so cool. Dave is amazing. I've watched him work his magic. He's like, "Oh, my gosh. What if we broke a world record on the stadium?" He's like, "I'll be right back."

That's one of the most exciting days I ever had ever. He ran back in and he goes, "I just talked to Guinness Book of World Records. They can totally come out. We just got the stadium. We just got approval for this." We're like, "Crap. We can actually pull this off." Dave is the man. Then, all of a sudden, he's like, "How are we going to get all these people there?" Then the game became how do we get all the these massive, massive influencers to come out?

Guys, I remember when I was riding my bike home one day and I've mentioned this story before. I was riding a bike home one day. This was years ago and I had almost no money. We're living on loans and I was trying to make this whole thing work. What happened is I was riding home and I was like, "Oh, my gosh. I can't. Why is this not working? How come I'm not making money?" I have the stark slap in the face realization. It's because you're not even asking anybody for their credit card anywhere. There's no place for people to give you money.

Crap. I was like, "Dang it. That's totally the reason why."

A lot of people who listen to this show are very successful and a lot of people who listen to the show have yet to launch something but you're learning this problem set of information. You're learning this information to solve a problem set that you're not on yet. Russell can go out and he can spend lots of money or he can spend lots of time getting people out to promote his thing because he has a thing. Does that make sense?

That was my big realization when I was riding home that day. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. I don't even have a thing."

I'm learning...

Yeah, I know exactly what I would do to 2X this company. Crap. I don't have one myself yet. You know what I mean? That was my realization years ago when I was riding back home. It was freezing. We didn't have money for a second car even. You understand what I'm saying? I didn't have a thing. There was no business for me to be applying to these marketing principles to.

It's fun to watch when you do have a thing. Right now, obviously, I have several things. I keep it on the low count as far as how many things I have going up. Russell, obviously, he's got quite the amazing thing, ClickFunnels, right? A total market disruptor. Amazing software.

Once you have your actual core business created, it's super fun because the problem set changes. You're able to turn around and you're able to say, "Okay. Now that I have a business, now that I actually have a product, what are all these fun marketing games I can apply things to to actually become successful with this?" Does that make sense?

We're at the viral video launch and it goes amazing. We show up there and I got asked to stand at the front and greet people and help them get their tags and all that kind of stuff. I had a ton of fun doing it. We had about 400 people show up. They're showing up and they're showing up. It was so fun, so fun. These massive influencers are there. I got to meet and talk with and chat with Billy Gene, Billy Gene Is Marketing, JP Sears and a ton of people who are a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the entire experience.

This tells you how much I know politics which is a little bit embarrassing. Maybe I should not even start saying this. But, the guy running for governor showed up. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We had a lot of big people there and we gave them a reason to show up, bubble soccer, viral video launch. We needed to answer the question: how can we improve their status by showing up? Does that make sense?

It's not in a negative light like, oh, look at the status and look at how high and mighty you are. That's not at all what I'm talking about.

But when you're doing these Dream 100 strategies, when you actually finally have a thing, when you have a business, when you have an idea, when you got cash flow, the name of the game, especially when you're doing JV stuff whether it's for your customers or for it's people you're doing joint venture things with, the question near there to answer is how do I make those guys look like rock stars?

How do I make them look like rock stars? How do I increase their status through my brand? When you can answer that question, it becomes a lot easier to say, "Hey, let's do something together." Then it's not just about money and availability and like, "Hey, we'll split 50/50." Yeah, that's cool. That works.

When you can really answer the question: what can I do to make you look like a complete genius to your own audience? What can I do to make you look like a rockstar to your own audience, increase your status in their eyes? Not that it's all about status or being high and mighty but subconsciously that's what's happening. We had to answer that question. When we did, that's when all this came together. That make sense?

We brought that up specifically. How can we give these guys a story so that when they show up to little Boise, Idaho, potatoes are all over the place which I've actually never seen a potato on the side of the road, but how can we make them look like a rockstar, or increase their status, or give them things that can protect their status at the same time? Totally asymmetric gain on their side. No status lost. Total status gain. How do we make that happen? That was the question we had to answer.

Anyways, we had the event and Russell spoke for a while and showed how we got this amazing ... If you guys haven't watched it, I think almost all of it is on YouTube. Gary V. got up and he spoke and it was awesome, too. It was really, really cool actually.

Personally, I'll just tell you I've never really listened to Gary V. that much but I'll probably start after hearing him. He definitely had some great stuff. Half of you guys are probably like, "Well, duh. It's Gary V." There's so much content out there. Sometimes it's more about content choosing than taking in everything.

Then we went and we played bubble soccer down on the field. It's a ton of fun, lots and lots of fun. I was in one in this little bubble things and we were just messing around before game started. I didn't get a chance to actually do the actual world record part of it. There wasn't enough spots so they asked the employees to pull out. I was in one though before the game started and I went hit a guy. We're wearing these name tags that had this sharp metal edges on it. It totally popped up and cut my forehead.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun...

Anyways, there's really two different problem sets that the individual has to solve. If you don't even have a business yet, it's obviously going to be hard for you to pull off stuff like that. If you don't have an actual business, if there's no product or service that you put out to the market, if you're not actively asking for people's credit cards or money, it's going to be really challenging for you to go create or do a Dream 100 strategy. It's always shocking to myself, to Russell, to anyone in the actual ClickFunnels staff, it's shocking how few people actually do Dream 100 stuff, actually make a list of the top 100 people they wish they would be working with.

I've got one. I actually send packages to them all the time personally on my own, non-ClickFunnels related stuff. I'm getting the relationships. I'm sending out the packages, letters. I'm doing this and it's fun, how awesome those things work. That Dream 100 strategy, that was insane.

I think one of the reasons why we see so few people do it is, number one, there's some confusion on how to do it. Then, number two, some of the people who either listen to this podcast or who are still trying to figure things out, they're still trying to figure out the core of their business so they've not actually started the Dream 100 strategy.

Number one, I get that. Number two, don't wait to start the Dream 100 strategy. It's all about relationships. It's all about creating relationships. You can't dig the well when you're thirsty. You got to do it before you're thirsty. You know what I'm saying? Whoever those people are, the top giants inside your industry, the people who are there who've been crushing it and start creating relationships with those guys. I can always tell when I'm someone's Dream 100 strategy because they usually buy a product of mine just to say hi. They don't want to look like they're freeloading or they'll send a package. Whatever it is. They'll start by leading with value. That's what we had to lead with.

Half of the people we invited to this viral video launch, they'd never really been on our list before but they're on our list now and we had to lead with value. Hey, come on out to this viral video launch. Come out to this bubble soccer thing. Come out to this and we'll give you awesome content to shoot and film. We'll do this and this, this and that for you. By the way, if you want to take 15 seconds, we'll show you real quick how to share our video with your audience.

You know what I mean? That's after the fact. We didn't lead with that. That was second.

Anyway, there's always two different problem sets that pop up and they alternate back and forth. It's fun to watch both of these problem sets. They appear in every single launch that we do. It's always two different things. Number one, there's always a problem set that always has to do with personal development or personal flaw. You know what I mean? There's always something that pops up. Oh, my gosh. I can't do this. I have a hard time doing X, Y, and Z.

The second one that always pops up is a business development or business flaw meaning your system or whatever it is you've built is not set up to handle where you're trying to go or you're, as an individual, not set up for where you're trying to go. You know what I mean? If you can't get up at a decent hour, you're going to suck at business. You know what I mean?

Depending on what it is you choose to do...

Whatever vehicle, whatever business you've chosen to go be successful at, just know that those two things back and forth will alternate back and forth. They pop up all the time. They pop up in the viral video launch. They pop up. They're not uncommon. But it seems like some people get shocked and they're like, "Wait a second. I have to address my personal flaws in order to be successful in business? This is business, not a personal development conference."

Guys, I've had more personal development through business than any other personal development course because I had to.

I literally was unable to progress. My cash was actually unable to increase without me addressing personal character flaws. Hey, Steven. You're a little bit shy. That's true. I had the nicest kid award growing up. You're a little bit shy. You're having a hard time with talking to people. Internally, I wasn't shy though. I was a ticked off kid who was mad at everybody.

I just wasn't confident enough to say stuff. You know what I mean? I had to get over that. I had to overcome that quickly. I remember how I did. One of the ways I overcame that is, you guys are going to laugh about this, but I needed to train myself and I knew that that was a ... I was too nice. My resting state was nice guy and there's nothing wrong with that. But, when it came to business, I was piss-poor at making decisions. Does that make sense? I have no problem admitting it. That's how it was.

I would stand in front of the mirror knowing that one day I wanted to be on stages, knowing that one day I wanted to go and I wanted to be able to speak. I wanted to be able to add value that way. For whatever reason, I've always wanted to speak on stages which is so cool because it happens all the time now. It's a lot of fun. I'm speaking on stages at keynote and I'm super pumped. In January, it's going to be awesome. I'll tell you more about that later.

How I got over it, that fear, was I will go stand in front of the bathroom mirror. I would take videos of guys like Russell Brunson. I would mute the video and I would stand in front of the mirror watching guys like Russell or Russell himself and I would mirror everything that they would do physically.

I'd move my hands the way they would...

I would move my body the way they would and I'd get exciting and my facial expressions the way they would. It gave me ammo, so to speak, on how to deal with people on a one-on-one basis. This is going to shock a lot of you guys and be like, "What the heck? There's no way this is actually true." This is totally true. I got voted the nicest kid in my graduating class in high school, 600 people. It was not because I was the nicest kid. It's because I was freaking shy. You know what I'm saying?

Anyway, number one, again, super fun to see all these problem sets. They happen to every single thing we launch. We're no different. We just expect them to happen. Does that make sense? Number one, like I said, there's always a personal development or a characteristic flaw episode that happens. Hey, you're not good enough at this or your weaknesses are this. In order for you to progress, we need to either address that or solve it somehow. Then money can be made.

Number two, there's always a business development/business character flaw meaning your system may not be good enough to handle what it is you're trying to go do. The other day, actually it was a few weeks ago, we crashed another company's server because we sent too much traffic to them even though they said they could handle it. That's a freaking business flaw. You know what I mean?

That's an actual business systems flaw...

That's the reason why funnels are so freaking cool. A lot of times when I go out, there's been many times where I build a funnel for somebody whose business cannot handle that funnel, that strong of a marketing arm. I have been close to bankrupting them on how fast they've sold without being able to get more inventory as quick. You know what I mean? You guys understand what I'm saying?

I get asked all the time to build funnels for people. One of the biggest things I have to ask people is, number one, what traffic are you getting and what traffic are you already getting right now? Number two, what's the backend of your company like because you may not be able to handle, which is a funny problem set that most people never have to deal with but that's the power of these funnels. Does that make sense?

We had to go out and we had to beef up ClickFunnels. There's a new onboarding system. We have this cookbook now. There's a system that vets out the different funnel types for you so that you can go get a prebuilt funnel every time you build a new one in ClickFunnels now.

There's now this gamified thing that pulls you through and trains how to use all of ClickFunnels, get everything set up for you. Does that make sense? We knew that we had a flaw that way so we went and we created a new system. We went and we created a brand new business development of a different style, not relationship-wise, although that might be the problem, but it had more to do with us. It had more to do with our systems and how we put things together. Does that make sense what I'm trying to convey?

What was fun, just this whole viral video launch, it's fun to watch it from where I sit and the fact that I sit where I do and fun to watch all the problems being addressed. There's always character flaws that pop up in every single one of us when the stress gets high and myself included, everybody. It's interesting to watch. There's different breaking points. That just happens. It's okay. It can be a stressful thing.

Number two, there's always business flaws that pop up. Maybe your system, the actual business model isn't strong enough to handle what you're trying to do or maybe it's too strong and you're selling to the wrong people. You know what I mean? Whatever it might be.

Anyway, hopefully that's helpful. As you start thinking about what it is you're trying to put out there and launch or maybe it already is launched, what character flaw or personal development thing do you need to go through actually to get to the next level? Maybe you're not disciplined enough in a certain area. Maybe you're too disciplined in some area and you're actually leaving people out.

Then, number two, what is wrong with the business that you're in right now? Where is the flaw? You got to look at this thing like it's an infant all the time and that it's always broken and that there's something that's messed up with. You can't marry it. It's all about these iterations. How fast can you get feedback from the market, fix it and go back? How fast can you get feedback from the market, fix it and go back over and over and over?

Money loves speed and your ability to make those iterations is highly dependent on you understanding what the flaw is and the money follows pretty quickly after that when you figure out where your business really doesn't have a sell stuff and where those flaws are.

It's always funny. I watch it every time now. I've been here for a year and a half. I've built almost 300 sales funnels now in pretty much every single industry. I don't know an industry I haven't built in now or a funnel that wouldn't work in every one of them. Every time these are always the thing that happens. It doesn't matter if a person is a celebrity we're working with and they're already successful. There's always a personal development flaw whether it's an understanding flaw meaning they don't understand as an individual what the heck we're doing and a business flaw.

If you're trying to get to the next level, which I hate that phrase ... I'm trying to get to the next level. What the heck does that mean? That's fluffy and fictitious. I have no idea. Let's say you're trying to make more money, that's more concrete, just know that those are two things that are going to pop up: business flaw, personal flaw. Just watch for them. Don't be ashamed when they pop up because they're going to.

Every single time they always do...

That happens to us every time. Just know that it's going to and expect them. When they pop up, you got to think of it like you're in the ring with this thing. You're an octagon. As soon as it pops up, boom. I'm going to hit it. I'm going to solve it. As fast as I can get it done, that's as fast as I'll be able to be successful with this.

Anyway, I hope that's helpful. Viral video launch was a huge success, totally amazing. Rockstar of the entire event was definitely Dave Woodward. The guy just freaking killed it. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe everything he did for that.

Sales Funnel RadioAnyway, if you don't have your own cookbook, I'd go get it, too. It tells you like, "Hey, are you trying to get leads or money? Cool. Oh, you're trying to get that. Cool. Don't worry about these funnels. Oh, what industry are you in? This, this or this? Okay. Well, then I won't worry about these funnels." It narrows down which funnels are best for your scenario that we've proven. Anyway, I think you'd like it. All right, guys. I will talk to you all later and have a good one, guys.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Sep 20, 2017

iTunes

Click above to listen in iTunes...

The two most common lies I see people struggle with are also what slows them down...

ClickFunnels

Hey, do you guys remember that time I was hooked up to a lie detector machine in front of an FBI agent?

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

I was with the army at basic training, it was 10 weeks longs, we were doing all the things you see in Hollywood. We were running around, we were shooting, we were throwing grenades, we were shooting machine guns, we were really up early, up really late, hardly any sleep, hardly any food. You know what I mean?

The whole works...

I was one of the only guys who was there over the age of 20. I was definitely one of the only guys there who was married and I was definitely, definitely one of the only guys of the entire 200 in my company who actually had kids, also. I went into the army at an age that most people do not go into at. I'm about to get out, which is awesome.

At the end of the training, my company they showed up and they said, "Hey, we need some people to go over to this polygraph machine and you're going to help FBI, NSA, and CIA agents with their polygraph skills." If you don't know what that is, that's like the lie detector machine, right? They like look in your pupils and stuff like that.

Some of that's true, some of that isn't. They're like, "Hey, Larsen, we know that you have a pretty clean record. You need to go do that with them." I was like, "Okay. Dang, all right."

They send me over to this building, which happens to be the national polygraph testing center. We're marching over there, it's early morning, the sun's not even up yet and you're marching over there. Everyone's holding their gun and stuff and we're walking over.

We get inside there and we sit down in this room and it was kind of dramatic. This lady walks in and she goes, "Hey, by the way, just want you to know this is an actual polygraph.

If we find anything inside your actual record, or anything comes up, or we uncover anything we will kick you out of the army and there's a chance you could go to jail." We were like, "What? Holy crap." It's funny because some people started opting out of it. They were like, "Oh, I feel sick. There's no way I could do this." I was like, "Sweet, this is cool."

They were like, "By the way, also, if it doesn't go well or if we feel like you're lying we're going to take you to this room and we're going to interrogate you." I was like, "No way. I have got to get interrogated." They're like, "Sir, you're not supposed to want to get interrogated." I was like, "Come on. That was would be so fun." I was like, "Is there a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling and you guys are going to hit it, and yell in my face, and fire a gun somewhere? I don't know, interrogate me!"

They're like, "You're not supposed to want that."

Anyway, so they take me over to this room. We literally waited all day. They take me over to this room and we sit down in this chair. It's just me. The room is totally quiet. There's just a desk, this random lady sitting there I think as an agent from some agency. I don't know. It could have been Jason Bourne, I don't know. No, but we were sitting there and it was just this lady and I in this closed room. It was quiet.

I just remember how quiet it was. It was extremely, extremely quiet. The kind of quiet where you can hear your own breathing, where you can ... It's like your thoughts are almost loud. You know what I mean? It's that kind of room. Super, super, super quiet. Can't hear anything out, can't hear barely anything in because the agent wasn't saying anything.

I was sitting there and they start hooking me up to this machine. It was like I was in a dentist chair almost. I sat back and I laid back in this thing. They were wrapping straps around my chest, and around my arms, and at my fingertips. Polygraphs were a lot easier to beat way back in the day. They're pretty good now, though.

What's funny about lying, this is what they taught us, is that any time you tell or hear a lie, anytime you especially tell a lie, you have a physiological response to that lie. The same response happens as if a disease entered your body. That's why they're able to tell and see if you lied because whether or not you want to there's this reaction inside your body that is harmful whenever you lie. I was like, "Whoa, that's really cool.

I've got to remember that."

Obviously, I did...

What they're doing is they're looking for all these different spikes in your body; blood pressure, pupil dilating thing, all these different things. The pupil dilating this is, I guess, an easy way to not see it so they don't do that as much. Anyway, it was fascinating though.

I'm hooked up to this machine and they start asking these questions just to see where my normal response is. "Is your name Steven Larsen?" "Yes." "Are you a man?" "Yes." They ask all these super false things, "Are we in Mexico?" "No."

You know what I mean?

Really, really it's exactly like you hear in the movies. Pretty soon ... What we were instructed to do was at some point, because this was a training exercise for the agent, we had to lie. They told us we had to lie sometime in there. They were like, "Don't tell us where. Don't tell us when. Don't tell us the question that you're going to lie about. Nothing. You tell the truth the whole way through because it's a real polygraph and at some point in there you need to lie." We were like, "Crap, okay. Okay, sounds good."

I had this place. I was like, "I'm going to lie here. Here is where I'm going to lie." Mentally, you know it's coming up. The polygraph is going great. That spot started coming up and I was trying to keep myself cool knowing that I'm about to lie to an actual ... I think she either CIA or FBI ... An actual agent. I was like, "Crap, here it comes and I've got to be good at this."

The lie comes up and it was something ridiculous like, "Are you affiliated with a terrorist organization?" Or, "Do you supply and create mass illegal drugs?" Or some ridiculous thing and I lied on it. The agent leans in, kind of like this slow breath, leans back out a little bit, squints, and then she asks the same question again, and I lied.

She goes ... Then, she just moves on right next to the next question. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I just beat a polygraph machine. I just beat a polygraph machine. That's ridiculous."

She believed it. What was funny was that she almost caught me. She almost got me. I'm a little sad that she didn't because it meant that I could go get interrogated and I was good enough that they never picked it up. I was like, "Crap, I want to go to the interrogation room. Come on, make it hard, coach."

That happened. We walk out and I started thinking through because I went back to the rest of the people they brought with us. There was like 50 of us, 40 or 50 of us, something like that. There was only like one other person, two other people who actually beat it. Everybody else was caught. I was thinking like, "How interesting of all those tests, why did we beat it?"

There's two reasons why...

Number one, I realized that I had to put myself in the state of absolute apathy. There needed to be ... I literally had to care about nothing in the world. I literally had to care about nothing but myself. It was the weirdest feeling and sensation, almost out of body experience ever. Number one, I had to get in a state of apathy. No decision mattered, nothing matter. Number two, this was the hardest part and I almost messed it up; I had to believe the lie.

I had to believe the lie...

The first time she asked, I almost didn't make it. She almost caught me. I was like, "Crap, I have to actually believe that what I'm telling you right now is true."

There was like this moment ... I only had a few seconds between each question each time she asked where I had to really dig down and actually believe the lie. I will tell you that that is one of the major reasons people are not successful. You're like, "Steven, what the heck does that have to do anything with it?" I'm telling you right now, or business in general, is most of the time is what ends up happening is there's really two sets of lies that go on inside a person's head.

We just finished another FHAT event, as we call it, Funnel Hack-A-Thon, that's F-H-A-T, the F-Hat. Funnel Hack-A-Thon. It's three days, it's intense, there's now hundreds of hundreds of people that have gone through it that I've been able to take through, which has been a lot of fun. There's always two sets of lies that I always need to overcome in the person's brain.

Even though they paid to be there. Even though they have some of the best information. Even though there's some of the greatest advantages, stuff I've never had. Huge stepping stones in their favor towards their success.

This is true for anything you go do, anything that you go out and you try. Whenever you're trying to make money, whenever you're trying to go try a new sport, anything; there's always two sets of lies the individual has to over come inside their head. I've noticed it over, and over, and over, and over. It's the same things.

When I'm on stage and I'm talking, and I'm speaking, and I'm going, and we're showing these different things, there's two different lies. If you can over come these two lies, it's going to be great for you. Number one, the first lie is a lie all about limits, internal limits.

The lie basically says, "I can't. I am unable. I won't be able to. This something that won't work for me. It's great that it worked for you, it's not going to work for me."

It's a set of internal "I can'ts", personal lies about the individual. It's limiting about your own self, about your own abilities, your own skills. You've got to understand that everybody feels that way. There's not reason to go and say, "Oh my gosh, there's no way I can get this done." Everybody felt like that at one time.

I'm not saying you should not feel that. Those are feelings of inadequacy that can come to any person no matter how good you are. Even Madonna talks about a lot of the ... I actually really don't like her at all. I think she's dumb. I hate Madonna.

What I think is fascinating is there is an article I heard about where she talks about the incredible, incredible self doubt that she goes through even before she's about to hit stage now when she's already successful. You know what I'm saying? I'm not telling you that limiting beliefs and lies about yourself are not going to happen. They're going to happen at every stage. It's going to happen.

It doesn't matter how confident you act...

It doesn't matter how sincere you act, how cool, and calm, and collected you are on the outside. Every person fights with a level of internal, "Hey, can I actually do this? Is this actually something inside of me that I'm able to accomplish?" Every person. There's no reason to be excluding because you feel that way. Every person goes through it.

It's funny to watch. I'll always see ... We'll get through a big principle at the Funnel Hack-A-Thon event, right? Three days are going through and we've been on stage, we've been going for 18 hours, just on day two alone. It's an intense event. It's a lot of fun. We get a lot of things done with it. The two comma coaching events. I can always tell who's about to have that belief. I always need to crush it immediately. I'm not telling you to get into this motivated, "Blah, blah, blah," like la la land stuff.

I'm telling you to expect that you will have those and understand that when you are, you've got to be self aware enough to realize that when you're experiencing that belief. Does that make sense? When you're experiencing the belief that there's no way I, personally, can get this done. "Steven, what does that have to do with business?"

Everything. It has everything to do with business.

Russell Bronson says there's a place now where the question and the problem is, "Who the heck to we funnel hack?" He's so far ahead of every person who's out there. The issue now is, who do we funnel hack? We don't know. The list is getting small because he is in the forefront.

Who the heck are you modeling after now?

You talk about internal beliefs he's got to completely battle and go over. I know that. We've got to go and say, "Hey, I'm at the forefront of this." This is something that no one's ever done and completely be able to take the risk that you could be dead wrong. You've got to be totally fine with that. You've got to be fine with that. That's the secret to getting over that lie.

You need to be okay with the fact that you're totally going to fall flat on your face. 90 percent of the time that doesn't happen.

There's some level of success that happens inside and you've got to learn to look at it and go, "Hey, look, I was successful here. I was successful there. This has been great because of x, y, and z." If you can learn to look at the good, it's not that you're shunning or acting like the bad doesn't exist or like the failure didn't happen. Know that it did. Learn from the failure.

Also know that if you sit and you stew on it and you go, "Look, I'm not good at this. I'm not good at that. I'm not good at blah, blah, blah," you're never going to make it. It's that strong of a requirement. In order to be successful with any kind of business, anything. You guys know how freaked out I was just to launch this podcast, let alone the funnels put out in the world. It's a freaky experience sometimes.

You're like, "Crap, this could go and fall dead on its face." I'm not telling you to go totally numb and be like, "Well, I don't care about anything." I'm not telling you to do what I did and go into a total state of apathy. That's not the right answer. You should care. You should be really freaking passionate.

But to go and say, "Oh my gosh, it doesn't exist," or whatever, learn from the mistake. That's fine. There's so many times I see people, especially when I'm on stage, and it's coaching or whatever it is. Chatting with people, it's all about, "Oh, I don't want to mess up." You're gonna. "I don't want to fail." You're gonna. "I don't want to this. I don't want to that." Guess what? We all fell flat on our face.

Do you know how many times we fail at click funnels? A lot and it's totally fine. We've all hit this place where we're like, "You know what? We're going to give it our best shot round one." When you launch your course, or when you launch your funnel, when you go and launch whatever it is you've got to be willing to be able to fail. That's how the success comes.

You've got to be able to look at the failure and be like, "Okay, that's fine." You know what, it's not that I'm expecting it. I'm hoping it doesn't happen, but when it does, that's okay because I'll recover quickly.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I'll recover fast and do my next reiteration and launch it immediately again. Boom, launch again, launch again, launch again, launch again, launch again, fail, launch again, fail, launch again, fail, boom. You go, and you go, and you go.

The problem is that a lot of times the tying between each failure is so freaking long because we're trying to recover or we're trying to make sure it doesn't happen again or whatever. Who cares?

Just go launch the thing. It's gonna fail. Just expect it to. Then, turn around and then you make the tweaks. Let the market tell you. You don't currently know everything that you need to to be successful.

The market knows. You'll never know unless you launch something. Anyway, that's limiting belief number one.

That was totally a rant. I hope that that makes sense. This is number two, though. Number one, the lie that people always experience when they're about to do anything business-wise is number one, is an internal based lie. "I can't. I won't be able to. I am unable." It's all about the ability of the individual. "I can't."

The second kind of lie that I see that people will hit against is, it's external. "That can't work. That won't work. That isn't proven. That system's not correct. That funnel isn't good enough. That funnel isn't ... That business model. That product." You know what I mean? They make it external. What ends up happening is it becomes an excuse for them to anchor the fact that they haven't launched on those things. They go, "You know, I haven't launched yet. I haven't put those things out because of that. The market is bad."

That was one of mine...

My first time in real estate, I went around I put signs up all over the place. I got 300 people to call me in a single month, which is awesome. I was not a realtor. I was in the middle of college, like my second year. I had no idea what I was doing. All I was doing was trying to match sellers with buyers and take a cut in the middle. I was doing a double escrow close. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I got seven contracts. Guess what?

None of them closed. I got two multi-million dollar contracts, commercial real estate listings, and I knew how to get the deals at the time, but I had no idea how to close them though. For the longest time I blamed the market. Realizing, though, eventually that actually I wasn't good enough at selling the contracts that I was getting. I could get the contracts. I was good at that, but I was not good enough yet.

One of the issues with ... The funny part about these two different lies is one is internal about the individual. The other is an external form. What's funny is usually the external lie is usually to cover up an internal insecurity. Does that make sense? "Hey, the market's not good." No, Steven was just really bad at selling the contracts he was getting. You know what I mean? He didn't know enough at that time. That sucks. That was really embarrassing. That actually was a very painful experience for me, professionally, to fail that hard after so many months of doing it. Finally, I just dropped all the contracts and I was done. I was like, "Ugh."

Anyways, guys, those are two different kinds of lies. One of things that you can do best to hamper yourself is to believe lies. You've got to understand that those two different types of lies are really, really prominent and they will never stop. They're going to be something that pops up ... You know what's funny? I don't know if you guys watch the Funnel Hacker TV episodes, but there was one about me and my pump up songs.

I was sitting in our sound booth. I'm about ready to get on a four hour coaching call and I got on these coaching calls, right? Before I do it though, holy crap, you guys. I take a little caffeine and I turn up the ... I turn up really heavy rock music and I have jam session every single time to get me jazzed up because I need to always make sure I'm in state so that I'm not ... It's like a repellent against any kind of lies. Especially, two kinds of lies. "I won't be able to do this coaching call well enough." That's not true. Number two, "What if this system fails?" Usually there's like seminars or something like that.

Do you see what I'm saying? They will always pop up. Always. They're constantly there. Because they're constantly there, the noise that it creates often causes the individual to believe that it's true. It's not true at all. There's just opposition in everything. If you're doing great stuff, also understand that you're going to have crappy stuff that comes up at the same time.

Equal intensities, equal strengths the whole way. That's okay. Expect it.

Anyway, hopefully that's been helpful. Don't believe the lies. Believe that you can do it even though you might not know enough, that doesn't mean it's not possible. It's possible. It's possible. It's possible for me to go be amazing at this stuff. It's possible for me to go be successful. It's possible for the system that I'm building to work. It's possible for that funnel. It's possible for that market to want it. Does that makes sense? That kind of hope you build your whole foundation and business on is huge.

Sales Funnel RadioThere's a recurring thing. I hope it was okay. It's not necessarily an actual funnel strategy episode, but hopefully it's been helpful. Buddha once said that ... He said, "Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts." That's from Buddha. I'll say it one more time. He said, Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts."

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-billed sales funnel today.

Sep 12, 2017

iTunes

WHEN To Interview, AND When NOT To...

ClickFunnels

Oh, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

You guys, it has been seriously six weeks since I had personally done a podcast and I'm very excited for this episode actually. I hope you've been enjoying the last six episode.

What I decided to do is that, you know, when we found out that oh my gosh, look, there's six different categories really that most businesses fit in.

Almost all of them actually...

I was like, "Why don't I go find someone who's killing it with internet sales funnels? Let me go find that person. Let me go interview them and go dive deep with them." Anyway, I hope that you've enjoyed it. If you've not had a chance to listen to each of them I would.

What was coolest to think through especially as the interviewer, watch all of these similarities that everyone one of them was talking about. A lot of it had to do with just standard marketing principles, but then also the very specific ways of like, "Hey, this works only in this industry," or, "This works only in this industry."

But what's funny, and the more I've talked with Russell and the more that I've learned from him, he's taught me in many aspects that a lot of the times some of the reasons why he goes and he crushes it so hard routinely, over and over and over and over again is because he will take tactics and use them cross-industry.

There's a great book ... Oh my gosh, I can't remember the name of it. It's the story of the dude that was selling snake oil almost literally and he made tons of money and people found ... Ah, man, I can't remember the name of it.

Crap, I should have found it before I started this episode, but basically what he's taught me is that hey look, one of the best ... And actually teaches that in the book too.

Is that one of the best places to find the best working marketing tactics out there is actually inside of the medical industry, right? They've got weight loss, they've got different dieting, they've got liposuction, they've got procedures, they've got high ticket things, low ticket things, supplements, continuity. You know what I mean? They've got all this stuff just over and over and over again.

There is so much money spent on having the best sales copy and the best advertorials, the best creatives, the best ...

You know, so if you think about different ways to do funnel hacking it's not always just yes, go find somebody inside your industry who's killing it.

Really red ocean. Funnel hack them and then take one step further, add your own piece into it and now you have a new niche, right?

That's how you have a new opportunity. Well, one of the other ways you can protect the niche and protect your business is to start studying cross-industry tactics. That's one of the major reasons why I'm telling you.

Even if it's one that you're like, "Hey, I did not think that at all I would get anything from that interview Steven did before," but my guess is that you will and that you'll learn something. Go, "Oh my gosh, if I was to take that from this industry and place it over here I wonder if it would work really well?"

Now you'd be prepared it might flop, but it's also highly likely that you're gonna ...

It's super fascinating to start thinking of it that way. Anyway, so go out and start trying to find different cross-industry tactics that you could be throwing in there. Now if you don't have a business yet, focus on the business.

Focus on creating something. Get something out there.

Start selling, start asking for people's credit cards...

Don't get distracted by that when I'm telling you right here. But if you've got something up and you know how it sells, you figured out what you're selling and you figured out how to sell it, now it's time to start going cross-industry.

Or maybe it is start going out and how can you create yourself to be more hard to beat, right? How can you create yourself even stiffer competition or stiffer for others to actually beat? Stronger marketing tactics, right? Make the offer even cooler. There's a whole bunch of different ways.

That's actually part of a presentation I give elsewhere that I should maybe show you here and ways to protect your niche. But anyway, I recently, while I was in the middle of those interviews, I had somebody reach out. And it's always so funny to me the people that react on what I publish. It's hilarious. You always get people who love what you do and it's super fun to hear from them. I love that. It keeps you motivated.

And then there's always people that reach out and you're like, "Did you get some kind of status by telling me how much you hated the last episode of something?" What was the motivation going on inside your head for why you felt you had to actually turn around and say, "Hey, that sucked." Or I don't know, when I knew it didn't. Or frankly I don't care. You know what I mean? If you're out there and you're starting to publish just understand it.

I wanted to just tell you guys why I actually publish. Why I do this. Because a lot of you know I did not want to publish for a long time and I want you to know why you should be.

I've written out several reasons here...

I want you to know why you need to be publishing, because this individual reached out and they were like, "Look ..." They said, "Steven ..." Which I totally disagree with, but I see what they're saying too. They said, "Steven, you're so much better interviewing people and you're terrible by yourself." I was like, "Mmmm, that's a strong opinion. I can see that."

But I want you to know why I interview and I want you to know why I will have ones where I just teach my own thoughts.

I recently was sitting in a room with JLD, right? John Lee Dumas, Entrepreneur On Fire. Great guy. Do not take anything I'm about to say as a jab at him. Understand that it is completely out of a positioning move of what I'm about to say. I listened to him teach on stage and the man is amazing. He's done how many thousand interviews literally. That's his whole model.

He interviews people like crazy, right? Like Letterman. You know, David Letterman. He just interviews. The interview and the interview and the interview and the interview and the interview and the interview. And that's it, and I don't know any of his personal thoughts.

While he was talking I had the very, very distinct thought pop into my head. I was like, "You know what's interesting ...?" Because he started doing Q and A and every single one of the questions that was coming to him all had to do on how he podcasts. None of the questions had anything to do about business or marketing.

It was all about, "Hey, how the heck do you pull off recording that many interviews? Oh my gosh. Hey, how on earth are you able to get it done?" And I'm not taking jabs at him. What he's done is fabulous. It's amazing. He's made obviously a huge name for himself, but when Russell stands up, who also has a podcast, who publishes in many places, people know very well who he is. People don't ask him how he podcasts.

Meaning he'll get that question, but it's not the main topic...

People don't ask me, "Steven, how do you podcast?" They ask that, but it's not the main topic. They ask me, "Steven, how did you build that funnel that made X number of dollars and broke records?" Or you know what I mean? That's more the type of question that I get.

I don't get questions about ... I mean more than two or three that I've had that has spurred a few podcast episodes where I teach you how I do my podcasts and how I publish, but I positioned myself as wanting ... You know, I want people to know that I'm in a unique spot where literally all day, every day I'm building stuff in click funnels in different industries and get to see cool places.

You know, "Hey, this works well here. This works well there. This doesn't work well here." That's a unique place to be in and I was like, "That's a unique place to be in." And I was like, "That's a unique positioning." I don't want to do interview after interview after interview where suddenly I become the guy who is just the interviewer. Right?

And so start think ... I want you to go publish.

It will change your life...

Give yourself one year to publish. Even just do a bare minimum once a week and I promise you your life and your situation and your trajectory will be in a different spot because of publishing. It helps you figure out your craft. And you know what? That person was right.

Especially at the beginning of my podcast show. You can go back and listen to them. They're not that amazing. Like what I am saying is good, how I'm saying it, my delivery, me, my message, my polarity, my attractive character wasn't that good and I know that, and Russell knows that and everyone who listens to it knows that. But the reason that I podcast and the reason that I do it is because it made me better.

I've been doing this over a year now, which I'm very proud of. I had some great episodes, had some ones that probably aren't that amazing, but the reason that I podcast and the reason that I do a few shows ... Yeah right, kind of sporadic in between.

There was a season there where I kind of didn't do many interviews, but I like to sprinkle them throughout and I've got some great interviews coming up for you guys...

Oh my gosh, it's so freakin awesome. I got some good ones coming up for you, but the reason I do is because I find my own voice by doing this and one of the biggest issues that we find why people are not being successful ... I'm about to go run a FHAT event tomorrow for three days. Why can I stand up ... And I'm not saying that I'm as good as Russell or I'm not trying to compare myself to him, but how can Russell Brunson let a guy ...

Again, I'm not tooting my own horn, but just think about this. I'm not drinking my own Kool-Aid. I'm very, very aware of that. Just think with me through this on the process.

How is it on earth that the CEO of ClickFunnels, guy like Russell Brunson, could let a guy like Steve Larsen stand up on his stage for three straight days and teach in his place? Well, it's because I've been practicing my own voice, right? I figured out my message, I figured out those things. There's a piece of value I can now give and at the beginning when I was publishing I didn't have those things, so I went and I interviewed and I found my voice along the way and it got stronger and stronger and it still does get stronger and more intense.

The power of publishing is ridiculous. It's amazing. If you think of it, it's almost like ... A lot of you guys know I like to backpack a lot. I love being out in the mountains. There's something about it. I think it's ... For whatever reason it's very, like, a combination of calming to the nerves but also I feel like there's a lot of great meditation, things like that, you can do.

I actually don't really know how to meditate, but I like the quiet and maybe that's close enough. I like the quiet and I like to think while it's quiet and dream and things like that. You know what I mean? And have my own little visions on where I want to be and things like ... Like that's cool. I really enjoy that, but just thinking about that, any time there's ever been a trail ...

You know, I've done a lot of high altitude backpacking where the oxygen is so thin the trees can't grow. You know, like the super, super high mountains. I love that stuff. It's extreme, it's hard, it's very challenging, it's very taxing on the body. It's fun to go through something like that. Well every time ... And you might laugh and go ... Anyway, let me finish that. Every time we go climb a mountain, if there are moments where there's no trail ... Which might shock you.

There's a lot of moments, especially high altitude where there's not a lot of people, humans, that have been up there like ever. You know what I mean? Not a lot of humans have gone in some of the places I've been, which is really, really fun. There is not enough feet that have hit the ground to create a trail, you know what I mean? And it's way harder to climb or it's a lot harder. I got to be more careful. The footing is different, it's more loose. It can be more scary, and so when you're climbing up these mountains and you're doing this stuff, when there is a trail it's so much easier.

Think of every episode that you publish like a brick and you lay that brick and you put it down there and just like ... It just popped in my head. Just like Will Smith says, "You lay that brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid."

And you put it out there as best as you know how, and you just focus on that one. Not on the whole road, not on the whole trail. I've never actually hiked a mountain where there's a brick trail, but just for the analogy. Okay, then there's another brick. Now you need to lay that brick as perfectly as that ... You know, and that's like another episode or another content piece or you've published something or whatever it is.

Another communication piece has gone out there. And you do it as perfectly as you can and you do the next one as perfectly as you can. Pretty soon you have a road. Does that make sense?

And it's easier for people to climb your mountain as you, the guru, on the mountain. Does that make sense?

It's easier for people to approach you when you have tons of episodes and you have tons of stuff published. That stuff doesn't go away. Do you know the SEO power behind the stuff that I've made with that? That's the reason that I do it. Anyway, that's just part of the reason I just wanted to share that with you that I interview people because of the ridiculous value. I know I'm not an expert in everything or barely even in one, you know?

And so I go find people who got great stories and I have them share their experience. Stuff that would take me their lifetime to learn also. I just got my own, so I go interview like crazy, which is super fun. Usually I'll batch interview and I'll get tons of interviews done at once and I'll just kind of drip-release them out.

And then there are moments when I'm like, "Hey, you know what? There's a cool thing that I just learned about X, Y, and Z and you know what? It has everything to do with funnel building. Why don't I just share it with you?" You know, right? It's just my episodes of myself.

Everyone that you put out there is kind of like a brick and guys, ah, it has helped ... Someone could have a great, new offer. They can have a great, new opportunity. They could have a cause, but if they don't have the charismatic leader, which is heavily dependent on finding your voice. If they don't have that last aspect it is very challenging to create a mass movement. It's very challenging to create a brand. You got someone super boring?

I don't care...

Guys, stereotypically in College, professors, they know a lot of crap, right? But a lot of times a lot of them are really boring, right? They're bored of their own message. They don't have the attractive character or charismatic leader and the ones that have that are the ones that really make you turn into a new person, right? Or challenge you or whatever it is.

Anyways, it helps you find your voice and the last part here is the revenue that a podcast can generate is insane, right? Last year I had a single product generate 50 Grand, a lot of which was kin or a lot of it came from the podcast. There's no ad spend. People found out because of this. Podcast listeners are typically buyers.

They're action-takers.

They're the kind of people who are doing things when they're out and about, right? They're listening to things when they're out and about. They're proactive people. They're not the kind of people who sit around and watch TV all day. YouTube audiences aren't really like that. Podcasters are, right? Facebook people, they're not usually like that also. They're kind of there for distraction and for entertainment.

Podcasters though? If you're listening to this podcast I know already that you're the kind of person who has dreams and goals and aspirations. You're trying to do something with your life and you don't give a crap if someone else is trying to make fun of you about it. Does that make sense? That's the people I want to hang out with, so that's why I chose podcasting, okay? The revenue that comes from it is crazy.

You'll find your voice, you'll become better, you will figure out your own craft. I can't think of a stupid reason or a bad reason to publish. Just know that when you get out there and you start publishing, you're going to get haters. It's stupid. I don't know why. What the heck else are they doing in their day? I have no idea, but that's why I publish and I want you guys to know that and if you feel awkward ...

I feel so, so excited and so happy. I've had I think at least four people that I know who've at least told me that because I said, "Hey, go podcast, go podcast, Sir," or whatever it is. "Go publish." Whatever it is that you love doing. They've starter their own show or their own channel or whatever. They've started their own publishing venue and because of it they've made money. Episode two, you know what I mean? Lots of it. Life-changing amounts and not just like one person that I know of. It happens over and over and over again.

Publishing brings an insane amount of authority behind it.

Anyway, it's getting late. I got to go to bed. I got the fad event, which if you don't know what that is, it is a three-day event where basically we help you write out your entire webinar script. We build the webinar funnel, we help you create a new opportunity, the attractive character. I mean every piece you can imagine. We have had many people ... We actually really only started doing this back in February, but that was kind of just to a closed-group. Publicly we've only been doing it for four months.

We've had several people make well over a million dollars from that event alone, so I'm excited. It's always a fun group to go to and it's part of the Two Comma Club coaching program that I'm the head coach for, which is awesome. Super fun. I really enjoy that program. Love hanging out with those people, but I got to go to bed because it starts at few hours and I'm going to be on stage for couple times for like 18 straight hours, so they're long days.

Super fun, but anyway, great stuff.

Anyways, guys, hope you're doing awesome and if you want to be interviewed on my podcast I want you to go to salesfunnelradio.com. I'll be updating that site soon. I'll be updating all the stuff I've been doing shortly, but I'm a little bit busy. But go to salesfunnelradio.com, scroll down and click on the green button on the right and it will record a voicemail straight off your browser right to me. And, you know, sell yourself. Pitch yourself. Tell me your story.

Tell me what it is that you do. I'd love to get more stories and such on here. I've got already a kind of a waiting list, but it's exciting. Not even a month ago we're at 50,000 downloads. We're already past 62,000. It's only been a few weeks. I appreciate all you guys. You guys are all awesome and just go make a lot of noise, okay? Whether it's publishing or whatever it is and know that you'll get a little backlash from it, but who cares? Whatever.

Alright guys, talk to you later. Bye.

Sales Funnel RadioThanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnels for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

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