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...

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.

But 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.

But 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.

Too many times I see people learning to solve a problem that is UNRELATED to where they actually are...

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.

Anyway, 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.

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The two most common lies I see people struggle with are also what slows them down...

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.

There'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.

WHEN To Interview, AND When NOT To...

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.

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 pre-built sales funnel today.

Ever wonder how the top guys actually make fortunes in MLM? Join us now to hear secrets of the "big guys"...

Steve Larsen:

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Now this is part six of six. This is the last segment of this whole series. We're gonna talk about MLM funnels. MLM funnels, this is gonna be a little bit of a different sub interview than the other five so far, and the reason being is because in the other five, I have always been interviewing an actual funnel builder, right? Somebody who put the funnel together for their business, their industry, whatever it was.

This is a little bit of a different scenario, I have an opportunity to interview an amazing gentleman who has built MLM the traditional way, but without bothering the family members and friends...

You guys know that's my whole thing and so, we're gonna learn how he did that without using heavy tech like I use. Does that make sense? So it's kind of a rare look at this. He's done both seven figures personally, both in his MLM, but also in traditional business. Anyway, he's a very, very rare take on MLM and what it takes to be successful with it.

Then what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna show you guys, or rather talk about and teach, why I have an MLM funnel myself and what it does and what it's done for me, and the whole psychology behind it because it's amazing. I've never seen anybody else do it. There's one other guy who kind of came close, but even then, it actually won't do the full thing that this does. Anyway, I'm excited for this interview.

Even if you're not an MLM, I think you'll enjoy the tactics that he uses and how he manages his own business, 'cause I think if we were all to manage his MLM business the way we manage our personal ones, our actual lives would get mentally quieter.

There wouldn't be so much noise in our head. Anyway, let's get into the interview...

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:

Alright you guys, I am super excited that you're here listening with me today. We have a very unique opportunity to hear from, honestly, one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. I actually only met him only a month or two ago, but right off the bat I could tell something was different.

I have on the call with me Mr. Jon Penkert, who alone inside of the MLM industry, he's one of the top income earners. He's one of those rare guys that has done both seven figures in regular business, but also seven figures in the network marketing business.

One of the things he's taught me is that most people only recruit two and half, two to three people into their MLM business ever. And to say that he's done, which is true, over $500 million in his own downline is absolutely amazing. Anyway, I'm excited to have Mr. Jon Penkert here with me. How are you doing man?

Jon Penkert:

Hey! Good morning Steve and thanks for having me on the call. It's a privilege to be speaking with you.

Steve Larsen:

I'm really excited that you're here. This is a very unique take. Most of the time when you hear the word MLM, I'm sure you were the exact same, you tend to run the other way.

Most people do anyway, and I know that you've figured out though the way that this whole thing works. But before we jump into that, I actually wanted to ask, how did you get into MLM?

Jon Penkert:

Well, I was an entrepreneur out of college and moved to southern California. I wanted to take advantage of the business opportunities there and leverage my skills and my degree. When I arrived in California, you know it's kind of the mecca for network marketing, I never really heard of MLM.

So, a friend of mine invited me to a meeting and I was very skeptical...

It just seemed too good to be true. I couldn't believe all the money they were making. I was like, "Man, I gotta check this out." And it's funny, you say that people run from MLM. What happened is, I started getting involved in network marketing and then people started running from me.

Steve Larsen:

Exactly!

Jon Penkert:

I learned very quickly that this MLM business, it's rife with problems. You end up losing a lot of your friends in the beginning 'cause you don't understand what's required to be successful, you don't understand that the key ingredients to network marketing that makes successful champions are no different than any other facet of life.

Whether it's business or music or sports, there's a formula to success. Once you figure that out, and you embrace the formula, then guess what?

You begin to have this success that you long for...

Steve Larsen:

Now, did you know what that formula was when you first started?

Jon Penkert:

No. As a matter of fact, I have about 10 years of pain, which means failure. I learned that success is built on the back of failure. I used to tell people, "I'm the biggest loser in network marketing," because I tried everything and did it wrong. So, I got about 10 years of pain before I figured out, "You know what? There's gotta be a smarter way to do this."

Steve Larsen:

That's amazing. So, when you first joined though, what happened? What was all that failure? Most people don't talk about the failure parts, but I think we can all relate to it.

Jon Penkert:

Well, I don't fail small. I failed big. Back in the 80's people in California were making $30,000 a month in network marketing and there was a company called FundAmerica.

You can research it...

It actually is the case that all the case law studies. It changed the industry, because back then, you paid a lot of money for your membership fees. It was high membership fee to get involved in these clubs, these MLM clubs. The federal government shut them down for illegal Ponzi scheme, and so the big boys like Herbalife and Amway, they all went to school on that and they changed how they come to market. So all the case law for network marketing was really centered around that FundAmerica.

You can do the research on the lawsuit. They came out on the other side nine months later innocent and not being convicted of a Ponzi scheme 'cause it wasn't, but it ruined the business opportunity and all the downline had dissipated. All of us that got involved and began to build saw the rug literally pulled out from under us in what we thought was the biggest opportunity of our life and we were all gonna become millionaires.

The truth is, you realize if you don't have experienced leaders that have set a foundation to do it right, you're gonna get taken out and there's a lot of examples of that today but the case law began with that FundAmerica opportunity that I was knee deep in and got the rug pulled out from under me.

Steve Larsen:

So you came in while that was all going on then?

Jon Penkert:

Yeah, actually I had the misfortune of coming in at the end. I got all my guys in and we started running right as they closed the doors.

Steve Larsen:

Oh man! Oh my gosh.

Jon Penkert:

Yeah.

Steve Larsen:

Did you pick up and go obviously to somewhere else then I'm sure?

Jon Penkert:

Yeah. Then I got into a couple other companies. I tried the travel industry, it's big in network marketing, and I tried supplements. That's also big in network marketing. The number one product in network marketing is weight loss.

We live in a culture that suffers from obesity and everybody wants the quick fix. There's a formula to losing weight, but everybody wants to take a pill so often times in network marketing, companies begin with weight loss. It's very common.

The problem with weight loss, for those of you that are in weight loss know that 90 to 120 days into the journey people do one of two things. They lose the weight and get off your product, or they don't lose the weight and they blame your product. You lose your residual income often times in weight loss 'cause people don't stay loyal to the product. Weight loss is a tough way to create residual income.

Steve Larsen:

Interesting. That is fascinating. So did you deliberately steer away from that? You're asking questions that most people who are brand new in MLM never ask. You know? An awareness of the economy and the market and what's selling and what isn't, it's through the roof. It probably wasn't like that at the beginning though I'm sure, was it?

Jon Penkert:

Well, it's not. When you look at an opportunity, most people get involved in an opportunity because it's based on hype, right? My really good friend found this product they love and now I love it. We're gonna get rich together, and we're gonna do network marketing. Those are not good reasons to join a network marketing company.

Unfortunately, that's how most people get involved in network marketing and then when they don't make the money, then they're like, "Oh, what happened?" There's five pillars of things that are important in network marketing. For those of your listeners that want to do the ... I was like, "Where do I find out about how to be successful?"

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

Harvard Business Review actually has a study on MLMs and what it takes to be successful. Go read it. Google it and find out here's the key ingredients that you need to be successful in network marketing. It's out there. It's not a secret.

Steve Larsen:

That's fascinating. So you go into, was it FundAmerica? And they kind of go under and go through all that big stuff, and then you transfer to another MLM. Now, were you successful you'd say in that one, or were you still learning what it took to be successful with it?

Jon Penkert:

Yeah. Well, I'm a type A driver and I'm very success oriented. I'm a guy that I'm gonna just try to make it work. I've done a lot of network marketing opportunities, but where I had the light bulb moment, the aha moment, was when one of my friends said ... I said, "Hey, get involved in this one and we're making a lot of money and we're driving the new cars and we're doing all this stuff."

And he looked at me and he said, "Jon, you always get the car but none of the rest of us do." That was where I went, "Wait a minute."

Steve Larsen:

Powerful.

Jon Penkert:

It's not about how much money I can make or what I can do, I want to find an opportunity where I can mentor people and help them drive the new car. So that was a paradigm shift in my thought process. I said, "You know what? I have to look for something ..." There's a word that is abused in network marketing it's called duplication. I got news for you guys, everything duplicates. Success duplicates and so does failure.

If you're using your influence to build your network marketing business, it's not duplicatable and ultimately will fail because your people don't have your influence.

But, if you have a system that people can follow to make money, the system will duplicate and then you have an opportunity in network marketing to create a sustainable residual income. The system has to duplicate, you can't just use your influence and that's when the light bulb went off for me. I said, "You know what? It's not good enough for me to be able to do it, I have to enroll people on the journey and will help them actually accomplish their goals."

Steve Larsen:

That's huge. So from that point on, you went forward and just noticed that it's got to be a system that's duplicatable, rather than you being duplicatable. System wise, what did you go create? What was it that you knew that you had to go do?

Jon Penkert:

Well, the first thing that I do when I look at a network marketing company, is I say, "Look, I need 90 days to see if the system duplicates."

Because once you begin ... most people make the mistake of measuring their success on their signup bonuses, right? "Hey, I went out and got a few people to sign up and they got some people to sign up, and in the first 30 days I made $3,000." That's not a duplicatable system, that's a sales job. The money you make on the front end isn't as important as if I sign you up Steve, and how much money do I make on you four months from now when you're on auto ship? That's the key.

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

Because if I want a residual income, it's not your sign up bonuses, but it's your monthly auto ship that creates an income for me. Now, if I have a product that doesn't have a monthly auto ship component, you can't create residual income. It's gotta be something that you need or want every month, right? Most people will buy something for a couple of months, but is it sustainable?

What does that mean? Well, is it something that, as a consumer, six months from now you're still gonna buy? Because if you're not gonna buy it then I don't have a residual income stream, so I always measure the opportunity not how much money do I make up front, but what kind of residual incomes am I making on an auto ship function three, four, five months out?

Then I look at the percentages of growth. If my growth percentage is there, then I've got something. Not the paycheck. If you look at your paycheck in the first two or three months of any opportunity, and measure the long term viability, you're making a mistake.

Steve Larsen:

Fascinating. Okay, so 90 to prove the system, gotta have the monthly auto ship as a component to the MLM you choose, what other components should people look for when they are choosing one?

Jon Penkert:

There's a saying in business, remember I'm a ... one of the things that made me successful in network marketing is realizing that my entrepreneurship business skills, in traditional business, they don't translate well to network marketing. When you try to bring your skill set from a traditional business model into network marketing, it doesn't work. It doesn't translate.

Steve Larsen:

Like what? What do you mean?

Jon Penkert:

Well, entrepreneurship requires a skill set where you have an ability to take risks and make very quick decisions and cut your losers fast and leverage a skill set more than a system. You try to bring your skills into network marketing it doesn't work because why?

[caption id="attachment_1194" align="alignleft" width="430"] Business Colleagues Together Teamwork Working Office[/caption]

You're managing a volunteer army, nobody works for you. It's like a sports team, right? Everyone's part of the team and we want to win together, but since no one works for me, I can't hold them accountable. I have to motivate them, which is why network marketing often times leverages self help. Become a better version of yourself, work on yourself.

Steve Larsen:

Fascinating.

Jon Penkert:

Because the stronger self you have, the more people you're gonna lead.

Steve Larsen:

Fascinating. It is all about the motivation then for that. I didn't realize ... I mean, I knew that MLMs kind of like bus op wrapped around ... with the personal development wrapped around it, but that's a fascinating way to describe that though. I've never thought of it that way.

Jon Penkert:

You said what's important? What do I look for? Sports parallels business that parallels network marketing, and what am I talking about? Leadership is the number one thing that has the biggest impact on your success.

Why is that?

Because the rate of the pack is determined by the speed of the leader and it doesn't matter if you look at successful sports teams or businesses or network marketing, you gotta have good leadership.

That's one of the things that I leverage going into an opportunity is are the leaders experienced? Are they just a bunch of guys that found a product and have never run a network marketing company? Or are their leaders proficient at the global business model? Because, listen you guys, today network marketing is the business model of the 21st century. There is no greater.

What you are going to get paid to do is monetize networks that you build globally, not networks locally in a local market, but your ability to sell products and services globally in a global market place. Which means what? Language conversion, currency conversion.

You monetize global networks, you want to be with a leader who's done that before. Somebody who's opened up other countries. Someone who understands logistically how to deliver products into those countries because you can have the greatest product in the world but if you don't have a leadership team that can deliver, you're gonna end up with a lot of unhappy customers.

Steve Larsen:

What are you doing to train people below you to become leaders? Like you said, that really does seem where all that duplication is even possible.

Jon Penkert:

I have my own philosophy on leadership. In the leadership circles, I've studied leadership and there's a great argument in leadership, and it's are leaders created or are they born?

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

They go back and forth on that question. The truth is it's neither. Leaders aren't born. You're not a born leader and you can't just choose someone and create a leader.

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

I like to look at leadership one of two ways. You're either a cheerleader, which sits at the back of the room and encourages everybody to be the best they can be and go out there and charge and go do it. Then there's the servant leader that says, "You know what? I'm going first. I'm gonna go and go across the river and swim across and make sure it's not dangerous and make sure it's attainable. And then I'm gonna encourage my people to follow me."

Leaders are neither born nor created, leaders are chosen...

The masses will choose to follow you if you're cutting the path and doing the right things and having the success. Success attracts success. So as a leader moves forward quickly, there creates a vacuum that people will follow. So my definition of a leader, first and foremost, is the visionary who's following the path and setting the right example and the people will follow.

Steve Larsen:

That is definitely the best definition of leadership I've ever heard. Okay, a cheerleader or a servant leader and you're chosen by others based on you cutting the path and being an example. Wow, that's amazing! So you go out and you're teaching others to do that obviously, because you've chosen an MLM with the monthly auto ship and you have to develop new skills, you now have the potential for actual residual income.

What are you doing to actually find people? It was fascinating, you told me when I first met you ... what do you say? The average person recruits only like 2.3 people in their life ever?

Jon Penkert:

Well the industry standard, and look, these are standards. Jim Rohn is a great leader and champion of network marketing. You can't beat the system and the system says the average person is gonna recruit 2.5 people in their career. So what network marketing companies try to do is they try to attract the superstar recruiters that are gonna recruit 200 people, but just do the math.

Eventually, if you have a system that requires the average person to recruit more than 2.5 people for instance, well you're gonna set them up to fail. You can't beat, basically, the laws in network marketing.

Steve Larsen:

Interesting. Okay, so one of the other pieces you've taught just floored me. I mean, I just was blown away by this strategy. Before I did any marketing, I actually was going into CIT. I was gonna be a programmer, and I was learning about these things called binaries but you dropped that word and it meant something totally different for MLM world.

Do you mind describing what it is that you were sharing with me?

Jon Penkert:

Well let's take a step back. The one thing that's consistent in life is change.

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

Change is always gonna happen. If you'd have come to me 10 years ago and said, "Jon, I got an MLM and it's a binary. Will you join?" I don't want to join that because an old school definition of a binary, the way they set them up really hurt people. The fairest comp plan was the uni-level.

There's matrix and there's different comp plan styles and different hybrids, but all of the legacy companies ran a uni-level platform.

The truth is, in a uni-level, you've gotta bring your 20 friends into a room, get them signed up, push them out, say, "Go get your own 20 friends. That's how I make residual income, but you gotta go to work and get a job."

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

That really catered to the type A drivers who could recruit, but it doesn't help the average person. Why? Because the average person is only gonna bring in a couple of people and now you need a front line of 20. So it begins to unravel. Now I say that, I made a lot of money in uni-levels, but today, the hybrid binary's serve the masses the very best.

Now why do I say that?

Because if you have a system where the average person is gonna get 2.5 people recruited and you have a three-legged system, four-legged system, five-legged system to be successful, you're setting yourself up to fail.

But if you have a binary system, which is a two-legged system, and you're building a team and 100% of the people as the recruiter that you bring in, either go onto your left team or your right team, that means each person benefits from not only your ability to recruit, but I've set them up to succeed because their 2.5 people does what?

It qualifies them. One left, one right and now they have at least a half a person overflow into their downline, so now every person's adding to this success of the system and the system supports the 2.5 people they're gonna get. If that makes sense. I know sometimes when you talk about numbers, people get a little foggy but that's the reason the binaries today are the best leverage point to create residual income.

Steve Larsen:

So for example then, just so everyone understands on who's listening as well, my first month of MLM was a classic example of ultimate failure. I did a great job of recruiting people. I literally went down Main Street and I recruited 13 people in that first month, but I spread them so wide. You know?

They were out all over the place, and you're saying that's not what I should do, right?

Jon Penkert:

Yeah, let's look at it. I like analogies in life. If you take a very large room and you have all of these light bulbs that are lighting the room, the light source defuses the light and it lights the room.

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

But that's not maximizing the energy. Laser beams maximize the energy. If you took all the light and you focus it into a small beam you can cut steel with it. When I'm running a team, as a leader, I want to maximize their efficiency. I don't want them focused on 10 legs on their front line, I want them to run this business with maximum leverage.

Two-legged systems does what? It focuses their time and energy in basically two streams, so you're not defusing your energy. You're focusing energy and your teams can run faster.

Steve Larsen:

Just in case people don't understand also the lingo or jargon, you're saying only two-legged meaning I'm only gonna put two people directly below me, right? And then try and do that for the people below them also, right?

Jon Penkert:

Yeah. In a binary system, I sign you up Steven and you go get two people. One left, one right. They get two people. One left, one right. Now, when you get the third person in the business, it has to go under Team A or Team B. Now, what's happened is those people that have joined you in the business opportunity, they take advantage of their upline, your ability to recruit, to help them build their residual income.

That's powerful...

That's what J. Paul Getty said when he said, "Look, I'd rather have 1% of a hundred people's energy, than a 100% of my own." Right! I want to join a team of leaders that are recruiting because I'm gonna bring my two people, and my people are gonna bring their two people. Then, the overflow, you have an opportunity now to gain the advantage of your upline's recruiting ability. If that makes sense.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, it really does actually. That's fascinating. Now, when you were saying that all binaries are not created equally as well, I guess compared to what you just said right there, could you show what a bad binary would look like?

Jon Penkert:

Well, I hesitate to step into that because there's a lot of people that make extraordinary incomes in uni-levels, and extraordinary incomes at what I would consider a bad binary. There's good binaries and there's, let's say, better binaries. Right? I look for best in class and there's a series of things that are qualifiers that will tell me, "Is this a good deal or isn't it."

Honestly, I'm gonna step aside for a second you guys. Look, you don't do this business by yourself. When I lead people, I tell them, "Look, you're a sum total of the five people that most influence you. Who are the five people that surround you?"

My life is no different. I've got very good leaders around me that I consult with. When we look at a comp plan, I don't look at it by myself. I get my business partners to pick it apart as well 'cause I'll only see a certain deficiency, but I've got guys that break it down.

They go, "Look, here's why it'll succeed and here's why it won't." I don't just rely on my own ability to analyze. I've got strong partners around me and each of you should do that. Your upline, your upline's leadership, and the downline, the people that you're attracting into your business. You have to surround yourself with strong people. That's a business acumen issue, that's not just MLM. It's good business.

Steve Larsen:

You've completely opened my eyes to more of these. The way you run the business is fascinating.

Even the fact that you said, that I have a business card. Why don't you have your own business card to hand out to everyone? You don't run it really cool man. It's so awesome.

Jon Penkert:

I don't have a business card because I want my people to trust me. As a leader, if you lose trust, you lose everything. So when I go in and speak, I'll speak in front of rooms of 20 people and 2,000 people, but what happens is people come up to me and they say, "Hey, Jon. I want to join your team. I want to be apart of your deal. Or do you have a business card so I can contact you?" I'm not there to recruit my people's people.

The only way you get ahold of me is really through one of my leaders. So I don't have a business card because I'm not looking to recruit anybody.

The other thing is what I've learned in the business as well is, even if I come across a cold prospect on an airplane if I give them my business card, I have a 100% chance of them never calling me. They just don't follow up.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah.

Jon Penkert:

But if i say, "You know what? I don't have a card but let me get your number and I'll follow up with you."

Now I've taken control of the relationship.

It's amazing how I always have a chance to follow up with them if I don't give them a business card. It's part of a business progress, but it's also part of my leadership where I don't want people thinking I'm gonna cross-recruit their people. I work for them, and when I'm in one of their business meetings, then you can always contact me through them. If they want to give out my phone number, they can.

That brings up another subject that you ... I'm gonna keep rambling here.

Steve Larsen:

Nah, I love it.

Jon Penkert:

What happens is, as you build these teams ... I've only recruited, best effort, between 30 and 40 people in any network marketing company I've ever been in because once you start building a team, I start working for my downline.

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

So when I go into your home, I meet your 20 people, guess what? There's two or three of them that want me to help them build their business and I meet their 20 people. The masses that I've created, I've done one person at a time partnering with them and building their business. So I don't have to recruit a lot of people personally.

All I have to do is be a leader and work with my downline and the masses will come if you do that.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, it's great. It's absolutely great. And so, if you go out and you have that servant leader attitude, obviously that we've been talking about, and ... Anyway, I'm taking huge notes right now, just so you know.

I'm drawing circles around all the key pieces and putting it together because this is really awesome. I hope all you guys listening are doing that too. I do that for every one of the people I interview. This is really, really interesting. So, if I'm brand new in MLM, brand spanking new or say I just joined a new one or whatever, what are the first key pieces you'd have me do as a new person into an MLM?

Let's say it's in the chosen one you like where there's a binary with it, there's auto ship, all the pieces are play. What would my roles be?

Jon Penkert:

Well, I would seek, as fast as I can, who's in my upline and who the leaders are because the upline leaders are waiting for their phone to ring with their downline because they want to work with them and they want to help build the business. You might as well leverage their experience because I guarantee you're two friends that you bring in, they don't know anything more about the company than you do.

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

The closer you can get to your upline leadership, the better that it is. I tell you what, here's what I wish I would have done and for all you guys that are new to the business, I wish when I was out of college I would have gone and looked in ... You know, the DSA today, there's about 20 to 22 legacy companies that do over a billion dollars. We're in an industry that does $130 billion globally. There's about 20 companies that actually do over a billion.

I wish that I would have found a product that I really liked and believed in, and then joined the legacy company for a couple reasons.

Because then I would have learned the successful tactics and strategies of a network marketing company and I would've got connected to leaders in the industry because if you think that five years from now, somebody's not gonna come out with the latest and greatest something and turn it into a network marketing company, you're wrong. The relationships that you build will sustain you throughout your career.

So, I wish I would have just gotten involved in really good companies and learned some principles and met amazing leaders because that's what network marketing's about. It's about connecting great leaders.

Any of your listeners, go find a good company and get involved with them, not because you're ... I hope that you spend the next 20 years with them, but you probably won't because the truth is, when you're looking for a good network marketing opportunity, the one thing that I cannot teach or coach you is something called timing.

Well, the time to get in those companies, honestly, was 20 years ago when they started. Right? Now you're not gonna create ... it would be a rare person, somebody probably will to prove me wrong but, the average person isn't probably gonna get in there and create an extraordinary six figure income because they've had their run.

I want to look for a company that's been around for a couple years, they've got their ground work underneath them, they're doing 40 to 50 million a year, and they haven't hit momentum.

The key is pre-momentum, and you'll get that in the Harvard Business Study Review, when you read it. You want a company pre-momentum, so that you're the one that is building the legacy and the income. When they do a billion dollars, you've helped them grow from 50 million to a billion.

That's what you look for, is timing. That's the one thing that you can't teach or coach, is to be in the right place at the right time.

Steve Larsen:

That's interesting. Do you have any tips for how you find a company that's pre-momentum?

Jon Penkert:

Very difficult. You gotta keep your ears open and be connected to a lot of people, which is why I said ... you know, if I was ... a great opportunity for even college kids. I think every college kid, the skills that you learn in network marketing will carry you through the rest of your life.

Go out and find a good company that you believe in the product and get involved and learn how to create these residual incomes because it's those people that you need that are gonna introduce you to the next big run.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, and I appreciate that that's what the advice you said, if I was brand new. First, know the leaders, know your upline. I never took the time to do that my first round at it. I joined one, seriously, just 'cause my buddy was in it. I mean it was the exact opposite of what you just said I should do when I did that four years ago.

Pretty much every entrepreneur I know is out there, whether or not they'll admit it, has been part of an MLM. It's such an awesome career. It's a great place to go to. The reason, obviously, why a lot of people have a bad taste in their mouth is because some over eager upline person turned around and badgered their family and badgered their friends and, honestly, hurt some relationships.

How do actually recruit? How do you get to getting leads in this industry without actually hurting those relationships? You know what I'm trying to ask? That was poorly worded.

Jon Penkert:

What happens often times, people get in these network marketing opportunities, they look at it as a "get rich quick" scheme. Right? Like, how can I make money off of you and your friends?

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Jon Penkert:

Then they get disappointed because that mindset fails them. It's really not the servant leader model, and so, when I talk to people who have been hurt been network marketing and we've all been in a network marketing company that didn't work out for lots of reasons.

Steve Larsen:

Sure.

Jon Penkert:

But I always tell them ... Zig Ziglar I think said it best. He said, "Create enough opportunity for people and give them what they want, you'll end up getting what you want." And so, what I've learned in network marketing, especially if I've dealt with similar experience, I'll say, "What are the things that your upline didn't do for you?" I teach them to be the upline that they wish they had. People resonate with that.

They realize, "If I do the things for my downline that I wish my upline had done for me, I'll create extraordinary success." And again, that's that leadership model of leading by example and not being a cheerleader. I'm gonna get in there and do the hard work with them because together we can do great things. That's really what I try to get people to focus on. When they have bad experiences in network marketing is, "Hey, let's you and I be the leadership team for your downline, that you wish you had."

And so, "Be the upline that you wish had," is my best practice.

Steve Larsen:

I appreciate that answer. I very strongly do believe in an element of business karma, if you go around and you start trying to help people and you put out legitimate value out there. It may not happen all at once, there's got to be this mentality of dropping your anger and not moving forward for a while, it's not a "get rich quick" thing, but eventually you do get what you'd like. It'll come, and almost be surprising, over night.

Just kind of show up. That's great...

Jon Penkert:

What people don't realize is that you attract what you put out there, so if you don't like what you're getting, take a step back and look at what you're putting out.

Steve Larsen:

Do you have any last pieces of advice for someone who, let's say they're in one, they like the product, there's not really a whole lot moving along ... what should someone be involved in daily, those tasks, those rituals that keep them engaged in the process?

Jon Penkert:

The biggest thing that I can do for each one of your listeners is ... You guys, take a deep breath and look in the mirror, because the number one quality that drives my business overall, is a belief in your self. You have to believe in yourself.

Find a company with integrity, with a great product, and a good comp plan but then, look in the mirror and go, "You know what? You are at the right place at the right time. You were chosen for this opportunity and go get it." Because I can't stop a person that 100%, rock solid believes. They will go out and break every barrier out there if they just believe.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah.

Jon Penkert:

As a leader, most often, all I do is get people to see that they have everything that they need to succeed. They just have to believe and go do it.

Steve Larsen:

Very enlightening, very fascinating. I appreciate that a lot. Now, you've obviously mentioned you don't have a business card and you work with the people directly under you, if people wanted to reach out or learn more about what it is you're doing or some kind of an action follow-up after this podcast, where should people go? What should people do?

Jon Penkert:

Well, Steven I totally appreciate and respect you and I'm glad that you invited me to be on your broadcast. This, for me, was really a favor to you. It wasn't an opportunity for me to recruit. I don't think I'm that great anyway, but I think that you find out who I am and what I'm in and you want to get involved, I would say embrace a local leader in your local market that's on my team that's great.

I'm not here to recruit people, I'm just here to support. If they want to reach out to you, you know how to get ahold of me. Let's work it that way.

Steve Larsen:

Sounds good. We'll do it that way. Awesome. Jon, thank you so much. I appreciate that. This has been fantastic.

Jon Penkert:

Well, it's my absolute pleasure and I look forward to working with you in the future. I'll tell you something. In life, when you get two people ... I love the mastermind principle. You get two people, it creates a third more powerful mind. You can change the world getting two people committed and believing in themselves and moving in the right direction. So, I thank you Steven for what you bring to the table and your commitment to success.

Steve Larsen:

Alright you guys. Now at this time, what I want to do is to show you guys a little bit more about the actual funnel that I've been using to recruit for downlines. It's amazing.

I came up with the concept about four years ago. I never thought that it would actually come to fruition as quickly, or as powerfully, as it has. What happened, basically, is I joined this MLM and it was terrible because I literally went down Main Street. We just found out that my wife was pregnant with our first kid and I was excited, but really honestly, I was scared out of my mind because I had no money.

I had nothing...

I know a lot of people listening to this are still trying to figure out what there thing is and they're still trying to create with their product or what ever it is, their first successful funnel or whatever. Just know that I know the feeling, right?

What happened was, basically, my buddy came in and he recruited me. He said, "Hey, come join this," and I was like, "No. That's a stupid multi-level marketing thing. I'm not gonna do that."

I ended up joining his after he was begging. But I did it with the reason in mind like, "You know what? This could pay for the birth of my child." I was like, "Hey, the clock's ticking. I got nine months. Let's go do this." What I did is I started studying and reading and I was literally going door to door. I was like, "If I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it 100%." And so, I literally did, I went down Main Street and I recruited 13 people my first month.

First off, I just want to say, I'm never ever gonna tell you the name of the MLM. That's not the purpose of this. I'm telling you this, "You can use what I'm telling you right now in any MLM." Okay? I'm just gonna get that big elephant out of the room real quick.

I was studying one night, and I realized that after I recruited those first 13 people, I was like, "Yes, this is awesome. This is totally duplicatable. I got all these people now." The problem was that literally none of them did anything at all. I literally had to take a cattle prod. I remember driving once three or four hours, something like that ... Yeah, it was three hours, three hours in a single day. I think so. Anyway, it was a long way ... just to meet with somebody just to see if they had actually done anything because they wouldn't answer the phone calls.

I couldn't motivate them. I was like, "This is not sustainable. This is not duplicatable. Whoever told me this was passive income was lying."That was my attitude, and there was an element of truth to that. I was like, "There's got to be a better way to do this."

What happened was, one night, it was like 3 a.m. in the morning or it was 2 a.m., 2 a.m. in the morning, I had class in a few hours. I was still in college, obviously. I was reading and all of sudden this guy ... I can see his face, I don't remember the eBook, I don't remember what company, I don't remember anything. I just remember hearing the concept "paid prospecting".

I was like, "What? Is this real? Is this true?" Now, this is the dark ages. This is pre-ClickFunnels days or about the time they were launching actually. I was like, "This is fascinating, and you mean, you get paid regardless if somebody joins you? Fascinating. What?"

I had this idea, what if I gave ridiculous value upfront, for free, for something and then something small paid, kind of like mid-tier, and then something more high ticket in the backend, and those people are the people that I go approach. Not family and friends. I can honestly say, and still say, that to this day there have been people, four years, me approaching them about MLM it hurt the relationship. I was like, "This is garbage. I'm not gonna do this. If this is what this industry is about, I don't want to do it." I know a lot of you guys are the exact same way. I was like, "What's this funnel thing?"

I had been building, basically the equivalent of funnels, in WordPress prior, before ClickFunnels days. I had a whole bunch of my own clients. It was a lot of fun. We had successes. We had failures. This is the story, you know?

Basically, what I realized is like, "What if I created this thing? I'll go film it." What I did is I basically funnel hacked.

Again, I didn't know that was the term or whatever, but I went and I started looking at all the top MLMers who are out there. I started asking like, "What are they actually doing?" And you know what's funny is that after a couple of months of just deep diving into each of these guys, I realized that none of them were doing home meetings, none of them were doing hotel meetings, they're not going getting on the phone, none of them were going to their family and friends.

They had created for themselves something unique. But what they did all have, every single one of them, had the equivalent of a funnel. They had their own website. They had the equivalent of a Webinar. It was interesting. It was so stark when I started looking at it. I was like, "This is the way to do that. Why have I been doing it the other way?"

So what I did is I literally was taking some of these top guys courses...

I was transcribing them. I was turning into my own. I was adding whole courses and elements to it. I went and I re-shot stuff. I put things together. It was one of the coolest things ever. It took me eight months, 'cause I was in the middle of college, I was in the army, we had our first kid. It took me a while to get it out, but when I did, nobody bought it at first. I had done a terrible job going around and sharing it with people.

Honestly, what was really happening is I was graduating. There was a lot stuff happening. There just was. I was trying to become an officer. There was a whole bunch of stuff that was happening in my life and so I moved on.

But some dude stumbled upon it and was like, "Oh my gosh! This is absolutely insane. Why are you not selling this more?" And I was like, "You know what? That was pretty cool." I went and I launched it and it was like massive, waterfall response. So many people just started coming out of the wood work, people I'd never heard of. I was like, "Holy crap! This is working." Pretty soon, I had a waiting list of like 12 people begging to join my MLM. I was like, "What the heck? This totally worked! Oh my gosh!" Anyway, fascinating.

Well, it was my first attempt at making something that was bigger and there was a lot of things that were wrong with it. I had been redoing the entire thing and putting it all together.

Basically, this is what happens, right? Just like Jon was saying. One of the problems is that people have not learned how to become attractive. I'm not saying good looking or whatever. I'm sure your all drop dead gorgeous. But you're not attractive yet.

In MLM, you have the same product. You have the same service. You have the exact same scripts, the exact same websites. There's literally nothing different about you. Why would I join you over somebody else? There's no reason. There's no reason to. The one currency that you really have is you. You must be different. There's really two currencies, but that's the first one.

The first currency, you must be different. You have to be sellable. You must know you. You've gotta find your voice. You've gotta know your message.

That's what this new course that I've been talking about is gonna come out and talk about. Anyways, it's been a lot of fun. I've had a lot of fun putting it together. So, first of all, that's model number one. It talks about becoming attractive and how you actually attract people to you, how you create things and products that are free, that just deliver a crap ton of value because if you can do that, it will pull people to you in a really fascinating way. Right?

You'll be giving before you ever ... you'll be leading with value before you ever even mention the fact that you have an MLM, right? I never even tell anyone about it ever. They have to find it through my funnel, and when they do, then I'll talk to them about it. Otherwise, it becomes this awkward thing and you have side agendas with every conversation. I hate that. I'm so against that. That's the reason I put this stuff together. Anyway.

Second thing that it talks about is validating. So now if you've got people in through free stuff and you've attracted people in, the second part is a validation thing meaning I need to validate how serious this person is. If someone spends a little bit of money on marketing education for their MLM, I know they're serious.

And so that's what I created. It was like a free plus shipping thing. And when someone bought it, I was like, "Hmm. This is not your standard MLMer." There's well over 10 million MLMers in America alone. Like, "Okay, this person already is separating themselves from the remainder of the people." And that's what I wanted.

The third part then was now that I've pulled them in, I've qualified them, now it's all about the duplication and actually selling them. Right? That's what I use Webinars for and no one really has ever seen that before, which is awesome. Very few people have which is so freaking cool, anyway. But the Webinar goes in and auto closes and recruits and gets them signed up. It's amazing.

Then after that, then it talks about some of this downline management stuff where I'll show you how to rob your downline. Meaning, there's a really good way to do this and a really bad way to do it and Jon touched on that, which is all about binaries, but, the right way to do them.

Yes, the principles amazing, but there's a right way to do it just like he was talking about. You know, leadership training. I'm gonna have a lot of cool stuff. I'm gonna talk about when to rinse and when to repeat. How do you tell?

It's weird to think of it like this, but it is a business and if someone's not doing their thing, might be time to rinse. If someone's run along with you and they can run with you, time to repeat. You do that through a very specific thing, and I'm not gonna give the golden nugget away, alright? There's a golden nugget to it. I'm totally gonna bait you guys. It's been ridiculous.

Just the paid prospecting aspect of what I built up alone, without any ad spending, I made 50 grand last year. It was nuts. No ad spend, nothing else, it's just up, just talkable word to word, mouth to mouth. I didn't talk to anyone about it. There's very specific strategies I used and the people that are coming to me are asking to join. I don't even tell them I'm in one. Have I even told you what I'm in? No, and that's the reason why.

That's why this is so powerful and why I've been so passionate about it...

People are like, "Steven, MLM? Seriously?" Well, yeah actually. If you know how to work the system in a good way, if you know how to create a new opportunity, if you know how to create an offer, if you know how to do marketing, if you know how to do everything that Russell teaches, then yeah. Why the heck would you not, if you can do that?

Then, the last part that it teaches you how to do, what it is shows you is I call it "pick your megaphone", "choose your megaphone", meaning, just choose one traffic source. Anyway, there's way more to it. There's a lot more that's been going on that you guys have no idea about that I totally kept from you for the last six months. It's been so sweet, all the pieces coming into play. Software pieces ... it's been great. It's been really great. I can honestly say very proudly that there's no one else on the planet that's been doing what I'm doing and it's ... Ah, it's so cool. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't. Anyway.

That's what I want to talk about funnel-wise though, alright? Funnel-wise, and please understand, again, I'm not here to pitch. I'm just here to tell you what I've been doing because this is the sixth segment of this series, which is all about MLM funnels.

So, what I've been doing, is I've been pumping ridiculous value into the MLM space. I know it's so good that people should be paying for it, and they know that. That's the feeling that I want them to have. Then I go through and I qualify them through something that's free and ... I'm sorry, something that's free plus shipping or whatever it is. Low ticket, 47 bucks.

Honestly, I don't really think it matters that month. All your doing is your vetting out the good people. What's funny is that little vet move that I've been doing, I've talked to more owners of MLMs from that one thing than any other thing. You get the kind of fish that you put the bait out for, right? You know what I mean? Put better bait out, you get better fish.

And so, I created a vetting system...

Funnels are not just ways to increase our average cart value. They're also ways to vet people. That's exactly what an application style funnel is. You're trying to have them apply. You want to sift out the dirties, the people who are just never gonna do anything with you or who are just the kind of people who you help like crazy but they'll always complain or the people who just won't go take action. You know what I mean? I don't want those kinds of people and I know you don't want it either.

So, first I attract through a lot of different ways, really amazing things actually. Then the second part is all about some kind of qualifier, money-wise. Paid prospecting, gotta charge. Right? Then after that, then I go close them through some more automated processes, specifically through Webinar funnels. That's what's been working for me and that's why I've been doing it.

Anyway, I'm not the focus of this interview. I just wanted to be able to toss in more of what I've been doing funnel-wise to you, so that you have an idea that there is actually a really awesome way to do it without ever talking to family, every talking to friends, and if you want to, that's fine. I'm not trying to dissuade you from doing it.

I'm just telling you that I am really against that and I don't do it for a lot of reasons.

I specifically target the kind of individual that I want. I want someone who's a rockstar, someone who loves marketing. You know what I mean? Those are the kinds of people. Then what I do is I ... My team is very, very, as far as my own personal downline management strategies or whatever, I feel almost weird saying this to you guys, 'cause this is not the typical audience that I say this kind of stuff to, but what I do is I say, "Hey, look. I'll give you my entire marketing system if you come join." You know what I mean?

Those are the things that you create yourself that make you attractive, otherwise, you're the same thing. Now, as far as a product standpoint, and fulfillment standpoint, and having to worry about customer service, MLM is fantastic because you don't have to worry about any of that.

They take care of all of it...

There's really ridiculous advantages to being a part of it. It truly can be passive if you set it up the right way. The problem is that most multi-level marketers, network marketers, have no idea how to market. And you're like, "What on earth is so..." Anyway, that's what I've been doing and it's been kicking butt. Anyway, it's been great. Not trying to be cocky, I'm just excited.

Anyway, if you are interested though, go check out secretmlmhacks.com just to see what I'm doing. Again, not pitching you, not trying to be weird or whatever. Just so you guys can see how I've been doing it.

If you love your MLM, stay in it, which is awesome. So anyway, go to secretmlmhacks.com to watch real time what it is that's been going on there in the MLM world. Alright.

Hey, guys, that's been the last part of this series. I've loved doing this with you guys. I've loved going through this six part series. I have more interviews that I've already lined up. Might be the next one, might not be. But anyway, we're gonna get back into ... Usually I try and publish two times a week, but these have been an hour long, almost every single one of them.

Now, if you really want to watch behind the scenes, as far as my hands, watch the magician hands, the real purpose behind these, yes it was to provide amazing value but there is something else that I did these interviews for that will help you. Anyway.

Keep watching everything that's going on. I think you guys will enjoy it and please, these speakers have done amazing things, they have dropped insane value. I want you to know that the listenership has well more than doubled because of these. It's not because I know that I'm great or anything like that. I has nothing to do with that.

It's because I understand the value these guys have been pumping out there...

Anyway, I've got a great follow-up episode already that I'm gonna be doing. I think you guys will like the next one. I'll talk to you guys later. Hope you enjoyed it. Reach out to the speakers, tell them thank you so much. And go take some serious action, and you will enjoy successes.

Alright guys, talk to you later. Bye!

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