"value ladder" "growth strategy" "money making business"

These are some of the elements I look for when I'm deciding if I should enter a market. I only want the Red Ocean's where the cards are truly stacked in my favor. Here's how…

Today, I’m gonna teach you the method I use to make sure that my value ladder crushes it…

And “Yep, you’ve guessed it.” There’s a science behind the way I make sure that I have the right products at the right price points to sell at. If you want a money making business… and not just an expensive hobby, then listen up!

There’s gonna be a bit of Papa Larsen love, and I hope it’ll help you understand why your business may not be doing that well - even though you seem to have all the pieces.

...Just picture me in a Santa Hat, if it helps to ease the blow.

THE VALUE LADDER

Hacking The Value Ladder was a specific section that I taught during my recent live event OfferMind.

If you don't know what a value ladder is…

A value ladder is a way to design a business and map out your customer:

• Acquisition

• Ascension

• Monetization

• Continuity

In college, I was encouraged to write monstrous 35-page business plans, which were not even that executable by the time you were finished plowing through them.

Now, what you may not know is that the value ladder was kinda pioneered by Russell Brunson who did a whole lot of work to help figure out how to plot all those things on one graph -  value ladders are a huge deal.

I never write business plans; I ‘value ladder.’ It’s a way to simplify everything I'm doing.

HACKING THE VALUE LADDER

I have a value ladder for both of my businesses which means I know the exact next step I’m building at all times - which is cool because it also means I know exactly what I'm NOT building as well.

If you’re thinking, “Ok, Stephen, value ladders are awesome, but they’re nothing new...”

I want to show you the specific order I use to attack a value ladder that allows me to create cash flow and build my business at the same time as acquiring customers.

But first, I’m gonna cover the basics…

Traditionally, a value ladder looks like this:

There are value ladders with more steps, but typically we draw them with three steps...

There are two axes:

1. One across the bottom

1. One that goes up the side

On one side we have "value" and the other side we have "price."

Now, you might be a bit confused by this if you're brand new in this game... However, Price and Value are NOT the same thing.

(This is a completely different topic which would be fun to rant on about sometime in the future.)

The more value you give, the more money you can charge moving up the top.

So  when I'm planning how to actually tackle a red ocean, I always look at:

• The likelihood of me making money?

• How many cards can I stack in my favor, before I even start?’

To do this, what I like to do is tier the price points that are already in existence inside the market I’m hacking.

I look at three different categories inside the market, and ask:

1. What’s the area of the cheapest price range?

1. What’s the area does the middle price range fall into?

1. What’s the area of the price range that’s towards the top?

Let’s take a look at a hypothetical value ladder...

A REAL ESTATE VALUE LADDER

Let’s say I look at the three price points inside the real estate category and I find that:

• Super expensive = $10,000,000 houses

• The middle = $1-2,000,000 houses

• Down at the bottom = $100,000 - $300,000 price range.

Now I have my market and the different price points that the industry is used to bearing...

Next, I look to see, “How frequently does the average real estate agent make a sale inside each of those categories?"

Based on what I discover, I can work out, “How much can I expect to make if I enter that market?

If you’re sitting back thinking, "Oh crap, this is really, really simple."  It is, but, “Man, I'm shocked at the number of people that don't do this.”

They start selling some freaking knick knack and then ask, "How come I'm not making any money?"

I'm like:

Your funnel's great, your sales message is awesome, your offer is fantastic, but the industry you went into is not used to the price points that’ll actually make a lifestyle for you.

I swear if someone tells me they're selling “Homeopathic Life Coaching” to College Students, I'm gonna go nuts!

This exercise helps you to determine whether or not you even want to enter a particular market.

Just because I could enter a market, it doesn't mean I should. If that market isn’t a good fit for the lifestyle that I want, then I won’t go there.

I'm not trying to throw rocks here, but I am trying to get your freaking attention.

A “CHANGE YOUR WORLD” VALUE LADDER

A quick story…

There were some people that I’ve been coaching who (and I'm not gonna say what it was because I don't want to embarrass anybody), it became very clear that their target customer was extremely broke people.

I'm not saying that poorer people don't need or deserve services, they do... I'm just saying that you need to make the business that changes your world before you can make your change the world business. Man, stack the cards in your favor.

Make sure you think through this before you actually dive in.

Just because you could sell -  doesn't mean that you should.

For example:

When I was in elementary school, we had these things called Pogs, these little circle shaped colored cardboard things that you could play a little game with.  

I don't know that anyone ever actually figured out what the game was, we all just had 'em.

Let’s apply the same strategy that I applied to real estate to Pogs…

Well, hey, look at this cool (hypothetical) value ladder.

These are the price points that the market is willing to bear to get their hands on some Pogs:

• Top Level = $100
• Middle Level = $25
• Down at the bottom, we can go super cheap - (we can get Pogs cheaper than everybody else)  = $5

We could auto-ship out to people for $10 every single month.

I don't even know if you could find someone to give $100 for Pogs? But how much margin are you gonna pull on something like that?

You need to Hack The Value Ladder to see if it’s even worth you entering a market.  

If you have a huge list, or you’re an e-comm killer you may be able to pull off the Pog game… but for your average joe, Pogs are not going to be a change your world business - the margins are just to low!

Now, let’s shake this up a bit and look at a couple of different metrics I use to determine whether or not I should enter a market…

GETTING REAL WITH PAPA LARSEN

These are a few things that I look at when I'm building out a value ladder. For real, this is what I do. This is something that I look at before I:

1. Enter a market

1. Think about traffic

1. Decide what my offer is going to be

... before I even think through any of that stuff, what I'm thinking about is this:

Alright, so down at the bottom we're going to put "typical margins."

• What are the typical margins I can expect at the high price level, the middle price level, and the lowest price level?

• Next, up along the side, we're gonna go with "time to fulfill."

The problem is that lot of you guys are making money, but you're spending too much time fulfilling.

I'm not saying you need to get out of your business. I'm saying that you should start thinking about other ways to make a lot of money with margins - without a lot of time to fulfill.

If you’re still in your 9-5; that's a lot of time to fulfill with not much profit margin, right? It's the lowest spot on the totem pole, right there.

So let’s look at this more closely...

We fulfillment time on one side and typical margins across the bottom.

When you build a value ladder, the higher up you go the more margins you have.

Are there exceptions to the rule, "yes," but again, Steve Larsen is not about exceptions to the rule.  I want to know, “What are the rules that cause cash?”

I don't want to have to be constantly learning tricks to make money. What are the rules that make money? I can just follow those.

• At the very bottom price point #1 =  very small margins when you're selling something like a book, or whatever your low-end thing is.

• Towards the mid-price point, #2 = there are more margins - you're going higher up.

• At the top #3 - there’s even more margins going up - obviously, the place you wanna go is the very tippity top.

But first, you need to answer the question, “Who can you only sell to?”

Typically, the people who will buy your high-end products are the people who are already your customers

When you're entering a market and you take people from the red ocean and bring them out to make a blue ocean, you want to focus on the middle of the value ladder first.

However, the middle = lots of time to fulfill.

If you're like, Stephen, "Why on earth would we create something on purpose that actually takes lots of time to fulfill?"  Follow me for a second, this is hacking the value ladder...

The middle of the value ladder typically produces good margins

Which means:

• You can take the money and dump it back into ads.

• You get good enough margins that you don't need your Facebook ads to be perfect on round one - 'cause they're not going to be.

• You can get good enough margins that you can use the money to start building the business.

When somebody enters a blue ocean by building a product on the bottom of the value ladder, I know they’ve either got deep pockets, a giant list, are already an expert in something crazy... or they just like wasting money.

I have a hard time understanding why anybody would enter a blue ocean, or try to create one, with a low margin, low time to fulfill product the very bottom of the value ladder.

It baffles me; I don't get it.

MY GROWTH STRATEGY

The order I always build my value ladder in is:

1. Middle

1. Top

1. Bottom

...Because as I'm building the middle of the value ladder there are enough margins for me to go and mess up a little bit and that's okay.

When I do get sales it’s enough of a mid-tier price level,  that I can a dump it back into ads and still be profitable.

 The machine works. The systems work. The numbers work.

BUILDING A MONEY MAKING BUSINESS

1. I build at the middle price point first because it proves out the main idea with the customer. We a customer from the red, pull them over to the blue, then prove out the main idea with the customer.
2. Then I sell something more expensive to my existing buyers, NOT to those who are in the red ocean. This is the second place I like to go build - because it's a high price point and ironically, less time to fulfill than the middle.
3. Finally, down at the bottom, when I start running out of customers, I start building break even ways to fuel the two top tiers.
4. Down at the very bottom, before these three steps in the value ladder, that's where I have my content.

I take my content very seriously. I consider myself to be in the content business. It’s like my identity.

I am a content machine... and then I am Steve Larsen.

I think it was Gary Vee that said that the first time I heard it.

I build content, and that fuels the different steps in my value ladder. I'm NEVER not going to publish. I will be publishing for the rest of my life.

Let’s break it down...

1. The goal of the content is just to build a Relationship - that's it.

1. In the middle, the whole point is Acquisition - all I'm trying to do it acquire customers.

1. Next up is  Ascension.

1. The next step is Monetization - I'm selling my existing buyers more expensive solutions.

What I'm typically looking at as I'm building out the offers that go inside each one of these tiers, is how to deliver the offer that I'm promising.

If the job on my sales message is to give a cool promise, then the job of my offer is just to fulfill on the promise. The roles are not interchangeable; you cannot reverse them.

That's the reason why when someone has a cool product, but it's not selling... the problem is, they didn't make a sales message - of course, it's not selling.

• The role of the offer is to fulfill, not sell.

• The role of the sales message is to make a new promise, not fulfill.

I just wanted to teach you what I'm looking at when I'm coaching people.
There are a lot of frameworks running through my mind when I start looking at peoples stuff.

I'm like, "Yes, no, good, bad, wrong order, look over here, don't look over there." You know what I mean?

So that’s how I Hack The Value Ladder  in order to:

1. Discover what markets to go into

1. The order I build my value ladder - so I can build my business at the same time

1. I inflate a blue ocean and put the scaffolding in to win.
   
   

However, what I find is that when somebody reads the book DotCom Secrets, their natural inclination is to start at the very bottom and build a break-even tripwire funnel. They're sexy, they're cool, I totally get it.

Ironically enough, they’re more work than any of these at the top. Typically, they take so much more time to build, but not that much more time to fulfill after the sale.

… Now, a final bit of Papa Larsen Love,  I want to show you why undercharging my actually be damaging your value ladder and your business, and what to do about it…

DFY - DWY - DIY

You'd be shocked how many people in Russell's inner circle have never read Expert Secrets or DotCom Secrets. It shocked me like crazy. I thought they were joking, and I started laughing openly once at a Mastermind.

You have to understand that a lot of these people, they're successful business owners, a lot of them don't have time to go through the next book, they just want the "done for you" solution. So when you’re looking at services:

• At the bottom, we have the "do it yourself" solution - DIY
  
  
• In the middle is the "done with you" solution - DWY

• Then at the very tippity top, we have the "done for you” solution - DFY

I’m gonna tell you something that might shock you…

There's an individual that I buy services from who is an absolute killer, but I was blown away at how freaking cheap their services were.

I thought at least that I was going to be charged at least five times more than the person said they were going to charge me. I was like, "What?"

This has happened to me multiple times. Guys, stop selling your "done with you" services at "do it yourself prices." Okay? Cut it out. You're actually hurting yourself.

I actually lost a little faith in the person's ability to fulfill and deliver to me. I actually refused to pay the cheaper price.

I was like, "There's no way I'm gonna pay you that much." They were like, "No, no, it's totally fine, totally fine." I was like, "It's not fine." I was like, "You charge all of your clients this much money? That's pennies, that's absolutely nothing."

If you’re reading this, you're probably already better than the majority of that market at what you do.

Stop selling your stuff at stupid, dumb low prices just 'cause you're afraid and you have a price aversion.

• Your sales message is good enough to sell

• Your offer is good enough to fulfill

• Your funnel is good enough to deliver

BUT you're NOT making money because you're selling “done for you” services down at “do it yourself” prices. That's exactly what this person was doing.

It was almost nothing. I was almost embarrassed. I actually felt like I was in the wrong place. I actually refused to even take this person’s services on until we 4X’d the price. That's a true story.

We actually didn't even decide to do business with this person until they 4X'd their price and then it was just like, tolerable enough compared to all the other services and, I mean I have a lot of agencies working for me.

Even Colton walked over to the camera, "Look, do you know how hard it would be for Stephen to do this on his own? There's no way. Come on, it's worth way more. Are you serious?"

It was an insanely low price. Done for you services at do it yourself price.”

I actually felt embarrassed for the person at how shocked they were about what I was saying. And I don't want you guys to go through that.

... And what I'm trying to get you guys to understand is:

1. Just because you can sell something, doesn't mean you should

1. What the order you're going to enter your blue ocean in

1. What are the historical price points that your market is used to bearing... and how can you enter in near the middle - a little bit more expensive.

Be premium, but within the expectation that people already have at those of price points.

Russell told me that when he started selling and doing all this mastermind stuff, the accepted market price point for a year-long mastermind was five grand.

Russell's Mastermind is 50 grand now, and he's a part of where he pays 100 grand a year… but that wasn’t possible six or seven years ago.

The historical price points of the market could not bear those levels.

So if you don't know what your markets price points are now, Hack The Value Ladder - there’s already is one in existence inside the red ocean.

Understand what people are already used to paying so you don't have the embarrassment of someone going, "That cheap?"

... Because I will tell you, I felt like someone got me inside a cool Ferrari, I just went and test drove it, I was super excited about it...

Then I got out of the car, and there was a smug look on the salesman's face and they said, "Hey, we're going to give you this awesome Ferrari for only $2000!" You'd be like, “What's wrong with it?”

When someone is too cheap, it doesn't feel like a deal. It feels like you're in jeopardy.

Funnily enough, I felt more taken care of after spending more money

If you're like, "That sounds stupid. Stephen, you're dumb. Why didn't you get the discount?" You need to understand, it's not about the money at that point, it's about the value - and they're not the same thing.

You need to know that people are looking for that from you. I never do discounts, and you don’t need to either.

So if you’re undercharging, raise your prices. Just raise your prices!

• Understand the historical levels, then go a bit more premium

• Understand that the order you're gonna attack the value ladder in is: #Done with you  #Done for you # Do it yourself

...And when you do that, my friend, Welcome to the Capitalist Pig Game -  it’s so much easier to do it that way.

Until Next Time - Welcome to the Capitalist Pig Foundation!

Hey, obviously the funnels already dead if you can't get anyone to opt in, right?

So I spent four hours teaching an audience how to get high opt-in's. When they work, when they don't work.

If you want access to that member's area, where you can watch those replays, just go to freeoptincourse.com to create your free members account, now.

"business development" "business process" "strategic framework" OfferMind, success framework, offer creation

These are some of the BIGGEST needle-moving lessons I've been applying in the last year…

When I did my live event OfferMind, I didn’t just jump straight into the marketing bit… I started out by walking through some mental attributes that have really shifted the needle for me.

This isn’t something that I’d normally do, but after coaching thousands of people, I’ve noticed that if somebody doesn't have these sign posts inside their brain, a lot of times their business won't do very well.

So I want to share with you seven of the most life-altering lessons I've learned in the last three years.

These are especially potent when it comes to being able to function as the entrepreneur inside your business.

ARE YOU WILLING TO LISTEN?

A few weeks ago, Russell was doing a big push for Cyber Monday and Black Friday. I was watching the way that some people were reacting to the Funnel Hacking Live tickets being sold…

I was like "Dude, let me teach some things to help people actually make 2000 dollars in a day."

I woke up the next morning, and looked at my phone, and I was stoked to see my an email with my name there next to Russells.

I've pushed really hard in the game, and to see that he'd blasted his whole list about the training meant a lot to me.

I taught for three and a half hours, and it was really funny what happened…

There was a group of people who really appreciated what I was teaching, BUT it was not necessarily a marketing education, and I think that threw some people.

There was a small group of people who were very unhappy with the fact that I was not teaching my usual content.

It was amusing to see the stark divide.

However, there are some patterns that I've noticed inside of somebody's brain that makes them successful.

These are some of the biggest lessons I've distilled down, especially in the last year.

These aren't flash in the pan things - they’re the lessons that have made the BIGGEST difference for me in my life and my business as I've moved forward.

So, I'm gonna walk you through each of them real quick:

7 BUSINESS CHANGING LESSONS

(An early Christmas present from Papa Larsen)

LESSON #1:

FOLLOW THE FRAMEWORK

It’s really common for people to ask me, "Hey, Stephen, I'm gonna start building a funnel. What's the what's the checklist I need to make sure that my funnel gets off the ground well?" I understand what they're asking, but the biggest thing I've noticed is that people will get distracted by the creative process.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a:

• Funnel

• Business

• Product.

… the creative is the cherry on the top. It’s the exact opposite of what you need to focus on to succeed in this game.

You add the cherry AFTER you’ve made the cake… NOT before!

Let me explain…

When I was in college guys, a lot of times I was taught, "Make something that's brand new and completely prolific. Something that no one's ever seen before."

That’s some risky crap, and I never would follow that advice ever.

Instead, you need to follow the 80% framework. 80% of this entire game is just following the pattern. It's the 20% that allows you add your little glaze on top.

I get stressed out when people wanna know about “this little trick or gimmick.”  They have no idea that they're focused on the 20% instead of  the 80 that makes it work. You understand what I'm saying?

You can get an F in funnel building or make a design that's crappy, and still make enough money to have a fantastic lifestyle just by understanding the 80% framework.

If you are NOT a creative person, that's not a handicap. You just need to follow the framework to the ‘T.’

So, here's my lesson to you:

If you can't name, or tell somebody what framework you're following, then you’re spinning your wheels.

If you’re frustrated because you’ve been doing this game for so long, and tried tons of stuff..." But you have no idea what model  you’re following, and I'm not talking about funnels, I'm talking about business models….

If you can't say this is the 80% framework l that I'm following, that’s your problem, right there!

For years, I felt like I was spinning my wheels. I was like, "I know what I'd do in that guy's business, I know what I'd do in that guy's business... Why aren’t I making any money?"

And it's because I would always go out on the cusp to these places where I was trying to learn the 20%. And that's the 20% doesn't matter.

It's so much better to learn the 80% framework that causes cash. I only care about the frameworks that cause cash by a rule.

If you haven’t checked it out already there’s a really powerful episode called Cash Causing Models that talks about this in detail.

I don't wanna have to learn the exception to the rule in order to make money.  

I'm not throwing rocks at the financial market, but I don't do much stuff in the stock market or stuff like that anymore because I felt like I had to learn exceptions to the rule to make money.

It was the same with a lot of the things I was trying back in the day… that’s why I was broke :-(

The thing I like about funnels is that you can learn the 80% and then just build them and make money. You don't have to learn these crazy flash in the pan strategies in order to make it work out.

WANT A STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK?

Ok, well, what I recommend to find a framework that works is this...

(I'm gonna teach you right now how to shortcut your time to success)

For example:

If you're trying to be the best traffic driver for Instagram ads. What you need to do is start looking at the industry to work out WHO is yesteryear's framework master?

Let me walk through this real quick:

Let’s look at Sales Funnels...

Who's the person, right now, who understands the most about sales funnels? That'd be Russell Brunson, right!

 The reason Russell knows so much about sales funnels is that he’s studied yesteryear's gurus.

He's obsessed over the last generation of gurus. He knows the frameworks that they teach so well that he's learned how to distill  them down, find the gaps, and create his own frameworks.

I know one of the major reasons why I am where I am right now is because I decided, "I wanted be one of the best funnel builders in the world." Am I? I have no idea.

...But the pursuit of that led me to follow Russell Brunson, and he’s what I call ( and I know it sounds cheesy) A Framework Master. He’s the master of frameworks that cause success in funnel building.

So if you're gonna be the best traffic driver for Instagram, you need to ask, “Who is the yesteryear's guru's framework master?”

Meaning they’ve intensely followed loads of different gurus, consumed all their material, applied it, saw the gaps, and then produced their own frameworks.

MY OFFERMIND

My friend, I know that the reason why  OfferMind was such a big success was because I was teaching my own frameworks.

I've spent so much time preoccupied with the offer creation and the funnel building space, that I know where the gaps are between learning it, and actually doing it.

That’s knowledge comes from the time spent with the thousands of students I've help with offer creation. That’s a lot of mat time.

YOUR MISSION:

• Identify the framework master... the Jedi master, the sensei that has obsessed over consumed all the gurus and their frameworks -  then got so good that they started producing their own variations.

That's huge. You cannot fake that -  and that's why I follow Russell Brunson on funnels.

LESSON #2:

BE PEAK FOCUSED, NOT PATH FOCUSED

An individual who’s path focused  always takes a long time to start moving.

I used to do a lot of backpacking, I remember this time when we were climbing a mountain on a three-week backpacking trip...

We’d just come out of this beautiful valley. It was afternoon; the clouds had come can over and it started drizzling. There was a nice smell of rain in the air.

Suddenly, we found ourselves on the top of a ridge we’d been scaling, only to see another summit beyond it.

We’d keep going, but time after time, there’d be another summit to scale. You’d think you’d reached the peak, but it only revealed that you’ve further to go - it’s what’s known as a false summit.

Here’s how this relates to success…

I've noticed is that when the individual is focused on the peak, the path stops mattering so much.

The people that I've noticed who don't do anything in this game are the people who sit back trying to analyze every single path.

They wanna see from beginning to end before they get started, and that’s crap. It doesn't happen that way.

You’ve gotta be peak focused, not path focused.

I'm not saying you shouldn't learn the path as best as you can, but *reality check* ...everyone switches paths on the way up to the top. Everyone does!

For a while, I studied SEO. I hate SEO. I'm never gonna do SEO again. SEO drives me nuts. I would rather hire people to do that for me. In all reality, I hate it…

BUT that doesn't keep me from getting a cool online business online off the ground.

If you’re not sure about your path, the best thing you can do is get going.

Something aren’t revealed until you’re in motion

That’s just the way it is…

If you start on a path and find that you don’t like it, alright, then just switch paths, you're still heading to the same peak.

When I coach people, I know that if they’re peak NOT path focused, then they're a lot harder to stop.

If stuff starting to come up against them that they weren't expecting, they just keep focusing on that peak and they keep moving… and that's a big, big deal because it happens to everybody in anything that you pursue...EVER.

YOUR MISSION

• Stop obsessing over the path that you're supposed to go down and just start, even if there's no path in existence. If you know where the top of the mountain is, then just start moving.

I'm very, very proud of my lady right now. She's doing some cool seminars  and things that, she's never done before... and without me telling her... there's been no encouragement. I'm not like, "You gotta do this thing.” She's just doing it.

I was like, I’m so proud of you, most people don't take action for freaking ever." They just sit back and ask, "But what's it gonna be like in session two?"

Man, I don't know…

I planned OfferMind the week before it started, NOT before I started selling tickets. You understand?

Some people react, "Stephen, you guys are so risky, oh my gosh." No, we're not. We're letting the market guide us, and that can only happen when we’re in motion.  

You can't steer a parked car, people - move!

NUMBER #3:

LEAN IN TO YOUR CONSTRAINTS

You’ve heard me riff on this one before, but the constraints that you have... they're not real constraints.

You need to realize that everything that feels it’s against you is actually your superpower.

That's why when someone's like, "I don't have enough time or money..." I'm like "Bullcrap; I don't believe you. I have zero sympathy for you."

Once you recognise that, it's amazing how fast you can move in the game and there's so much less anxiety. You stop comparing yourself to other people. And you stop saying thing like:

• "Aw man, I'll take action once I'm in that kind of position."

• "I'll take action once I have that kind of a following."

• "Well, of course, they can do that because they have a huge email list."

... You stop saying crap like that because you realize that:

Everything obstacle you've been given is a tailored opposition just for you.

• You're bad at speaking? Perfect. It means that you're gonna learn it in a way that others that are natural at it are not gonna learn it.

• You have no money? Awesome. Lean into that. You're gonna have a story in the future where you can  say "Yeah, we had nothing," and you'll be more believable than the person that started with a lot of resources.

Lean into your constraints and be willing to live your hook

If you aren't willing to live the hook in front of your audience, that's a big deal because your audience is gonna call your bluff.

YOUR MISSION

• Stop waiting for thing to be perfect - lean into your constraints and live your hook.

NUMBER #4:

BUILD A BUSINESS THAT CHANGES YOUR WORLD BEFORE YOU CHANGE THE WORLD

Please, please, please, for the love…

Stop trying to build a business that changes The World before you’ve changed Your World.

That's why I call myself the capitalist pig. I’m telling YOU to Make Money.

There's nothing wrong with making money. Make so much money that you can change your world, because then you'll be in a position to change The World.

Let me ask you a question…

“How much power do you have if you're living paycheck to paycheck?”

Not much, right? You're very limited in the options that you have. I know, I’ve been there.

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR WORLD…

About six weeks ago, and we launched a new project…it's really awesome, but I want to tell you WHY we launched it in the way we did…

Number #1: I chose the wealth industry. I did that on purpose because people expect to spend money in the wealth industry.

It's not that they don't in relationships or in health, it just that they particularly expect to spend money in the wealth industry. So, it's an easier sell.

I'm gonna stack all the cards in my favor that I possibly can.

I don't have to turn around and say, "Hey you wanna spend 25 grand on this free plus shipping book?" Cause people will be, " Errm, No."

I choose an industry where I don't have to sell people on the fact that they need to spend money. There's already an expectation.

Key move right there…

Number #2:  I choose an industry that has existed for a while because it’s gotten so good that it continues to create new customers.

I sell in the MLM space, and that's the reason why. MLMs have been around for freaking ever and people are already convinced that it's good.

The industry creates the customers. I don't have to create a customer. They make the customer for me.

How amazing is that!

When somebody builds a product and they say, “Who shall I sell it to?” *Wrong Order*

The first thing I do is I look for is bloody red oceans that have been in existence for a while, and create customers.

I want the sales message to be alluring enough that it creates a customer for me, and then I just need to figure out what message I can send into that red ocean to pull customers back out to me.

I didn't create the customer; I collected the customer.

As an ocean starts to expand, and the idea behind it gets more valid, the market will move from customer collection to customer creation.

Here’s what I'm looking for:

1. I'm selling into wealth, not health, not relationships - when I'm trying to change my world and NOT the world, I selling into wealth.

1. I'm looking for a market that has been expanding long enough that customers and companies reinvest the cash they made from that market back into the same market.

1. I'm looking for ways to see, "Oh my gosh, this market is so good, they're not just collecting customers from other markets now. They actually are creating customers."

1. The sales message is alluring enough and strong enough that it creates customers - and then all I have to do is learn how to sell into that market.

There's a process...

I never have to worry about who to sell to again. I'd never have to worry about how to create a customer. I'm just collecting them. It's a lot easier. Does that make sense?

There's a lot of things that I walk through to see if that read ocean is ready to be picked:

• Is it ready for me to sell into?

• Is this a good product for me to go into?

• What kind of sales message do I see that there's a divide beginning already inside that ocean?

• Are there third-tier influencers rising inside of that red ocean?

There's a lot of things, and I'll definitely do a full episode on this, but I want you to understand:

Change YOUR world before trying to change The World.

It's hard to pull margins out in a change the world business for quite some time and so you end up losing steam. Guys, go get money. Get rich.

I'm all about making an absolutely sickening amount of cash and then doing cool things in the world with it that help people. That's kinda my thing. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

However, I know  it’ll be waaay easier if I change my world first.

NUMBER #5:

THE MARKET WILL ALWAYS TELL YOU WHAT TO DO

Now, what you have to understand is this game is about you learning how to be a good detective, rather than a creative genius.

You need to learn how to go into an ocean and see what's actually going on inside it, and have it start to guide you in the creation of a blue ocean.

It's the EXACT OPPOSITE of what  I was taught in college and by a lot of the books that are out there today which tell you to,"Come up with a cool, brand-new idea..."

Okay, but people don't just spend money because they say they're going to....

You need to discover WHAT  people are actually spending money on, NOT what they say they're gonna spend money on.

It's all about discovering a blue ocean with a red ocean customer - that's way easier to do it that way.

YOUR MISSION

• Become a detective in your Red Ocean, and discover you market with your customer.

NUMBER #6:

CASH IS NOT KING; CASH FLOW IS KING

Let me say that again, "Cash is not king, cash flow is king."

Too many times, I see somebody hit the Two Comma Club Award... they make a million dollars through the funnel and get this big payout, but then if it's not sustainable, they die.

I'm not saying it's not worth it, but I am saying that it’s not security.

I look for opportunities...

I have two value ladders right now that I'm building, two businesses.

I think of businesses as value ladders with systems in them.

There's two different value ladders that I'm building right now.  In both of them there's:

• An Acquisition Processes

• An  Ascension Processes for the customer

• Monetization Systems for the customer

So I'm ascending, I'm monetizing, and I'm actually acquiring customers inside the value ladder. However, it is incomplete without the fourth step, which is:

• Continuity.

It's not always super clear before I start, what that will be... but I want you to know that I'm always looking for a way to add a continuity base thing into each thing that I build because that continuity is what lets you build everything.

Is there a way for me to gain a consistent monthly check from my customers?

Bringing in this huge cash influx is cool, but it's freakin’ scary if it never comes again. And so I don't look for businesses where it's like, "Boom, tons of money all at once."

I'm not saying I don't do that, but I'm saying I don't let my emotional hair down and go," Oh my gosh, I'm totally set now."  Because that's freaky.

I look for ways to build my business and build my stuff so that I have cash flow. And when I have cash flow - when things are rocking, that's a huge deal.

That's actually what lets you build the business, NOT the funnel. The business is what supports the funnel. A business is systems.

Because of the cash flows that we have, I can go hire a team.

I take that cash flows and hire out different pieces of the funnel build or content machine.

I think ten people on the content team now between the two shows that I've got. Ten. It's not cheap. The reason I can do it is not because of cash flow.

So I'm looking for businesses where I can get money coming in. The funnel breaks even on the customer coming in, then I upsell them, and then there is continuity....

When I have that, I have a business.

YOUR MISSION

• Make Cash flow king in your business

NUMBER #7:

CONFIDENCE EQUALS COMPETENCE

If you don’t feel competent in the funnel game or inside of a business, you’ve gotta learn more… But you have to do it in a focused way.

I don't learn anything about SEO or social media posting because I don't want to learn it. It's not what I need in order to solve the next problem in front of me.  

On my whiteboard, I have two questions I'm trying to answer right now. That's it.

I know that if any other question that pops up, it's either something I need to solve on the way to solving the big problem... or it's not a real question.

There's two problems I'm trying to solve right now. I can name them, so I know exactly what I need to learn.

I don't just learn generally. I don't just learn for the sake of, "Oh, it's good to just learn." No, it's not!  That’s the best way to make your brain feel clouded. It'll literally clog your mental shelf space.

Go on what Tim Ferris calls a Low Information Diet

YOUR MISSION

• Learn on purpose - go on a low information diet.

THE ‘CRUSH IT’ TEAM

So, there you have it, the most 7 MOST important lessons I've learned during the last three years - and especially in the last year out on my own.

If I look back on the things that have made the big difference in my life, these are the players:

#1: It's all about the framework: If you can’t name the 80% proven will make money framework, you're gonna feel like you're spinning your wheels. You're gonna fire off your next funnel and not know why.

#2: You have gotta be peak focused, not path focused: Find the framework and  just start moving.

#3: Lean into the constraints: Anything that you feel, realize these are not constraint but super powers - specifically this has to do with the feelings and emotions of the individual:

• I'm not good enough
• I'm not smart enough
• There's no way, I can't speak
• I can't talk
• I don't know how to write copy

... blah blah blah, wah wah wah... and everytime I hear that it’s usually because somebody's starting to believe their constraints are actual constraints, they're not.

Constraints are superpowers - but not until you flip the way you're seeing them. You’ve  gotta be willing to feel a little pain, a little pressure, and a slight amount of discomfort in order to push through them.

#4: Change your world before you change The World: That's a huge one. I want to change the world, that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I wanna change the world. I don't know exactly how, but right now I'm changing my world and funny enough, that changes a lot of other people's’ world as well.

The pursuit of me changing my world has been changing a lot of other worlds, but it's also been giving me more in a position of power and increasing my capacity to change the world.

I know that those projects will come up soon, in fact, I can kinda feel they will be, but right now, doesn't matter, I'm trying to change My world before I change The World.

#5: The market will always tell me what to do: I totally believe that.

#6: Cash is not king; cash flow is king: Big old wins are awesome, but please build something that's sustainable.

#7:Confidence equals competence. Stop learning generally and for the sake of it. It is the best way to feel like you're going nowhere.

Until Next Time - Lean into Your Constraints!

Hey, there's more marketing resources than there are sands in the sea, am I right?

Okay, maybe not, but there's a lot. How do you know if you're paying for good ones?

Recently I went to my business bank statement, and I counted 51 internet tools and resources that I use to run my business every day and actually keep my team size small.

If you want to see the list, I actually filmed an individual video teaching you why I use each tool and the strategy behind it, and then I dropped the link straight to the source right below it. I

f you want to see the list and see what you can use yourself, go to bestmarketingresources.com That's bestmarketingresources.com.

Boom! What's goin' on everyone? It's Steve Larsen from Sales Funnel Radio.

Today I'm gonna teach you guys how I was able to pull off OfferMind so grandly as my very first event.

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.

The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.

Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.

My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up?

Hey, I'm excited for this episode. I'm excited for today, I'll be honest. So, just know that what I wanted to do, is I had OfferMind happen just very recently. OfferMind was my event that signified me moving into the offer creation category.

No one has become the category king of offer creation. I am trying to make my stand there as being the best and the first in that area as the solution provider for that area. You know what I'm talking about?

So anyways, I'm really really excited about it and all of it. OfferMind has signified a lot.

What this episode right here is not about is the content about OfferMind. What I wanted to do is take a kind of an objective look at how I pulled off OfferMind so grandly as my very first event. Anyways, it'll be fun. It'll be really really cool.

I love events. Events are very special. If you guys think about it, there are seven phases of a funnel - we learned that from the book, Dot Com Secrets.  The seventh phase of a funnel is to change somebody's environment. That's why events are so powerful.

If somebody is agreeing to come to an event - they've gone through the first six phases of a funnel. I'm not gonna go through all those right now, but you can look them up in Dot Com Secrets. The seventh phase of a funnel, the last phase of the funnel, is to change somebody's actual physical environment, and that's why it's so awesome when they show up... but it's also why it's so hard to get them to the event.

So if you're about to throw an event, and you're like, "It is super hard to get people to an event."  Yeah, I totally get it. I completely understand.

I was at this Inner Circle meeting a little while ago. It was probably like six month ago, I think... I dunno, my timetable is totally messed up now...

It was a while ago, and I was at this inner circle meeting, and I learned from some people, that what they've been doing is in some of their products, is giving away a free ticket to their event.

So when you buy the book or the program or whatever, included in that is a ticket to the event. That's clever. Now let me ask you a question though...

Do you think the person who shows up with a free ticket has the same mentality as the person who shows up with a paid ticket? No! Totally different.

In fact, if you give away a thousand free tickets, I would guess maybe 200 would actually show up. That much of a drop-off, okay? Huge drop-off. And a very different mentality; you will attract a broke room, a poor room if you're going to be selling something. Not to offend anybody, just being honest okay.

If you pay to get to an event, what do you think the attendance rate is gonna be? A lot higher.

It's pretty standard inside of events that have a 10% drop-off rate. A 10% no-show rate. They just don't show up. Baffles me. Blows my mind. I have no idea why it's that way, but it is. Even with the high ticket events, paid ticket events, whatever.

When I was running a lot of FHAT events, or Funnel-Hack-Athon Events... Guys, that was a 15000 to 25000 dollar event for people to show up. That is how much they paid, and still, we'd have people who would not show up after paying that much money. Yes, I'm serious. It's like, "Holy crap are you serious?" Yeah, I am. And that's what's interesting about this.

There's always a no-show rate.

There is gonna be a different mentality of person that shows up when you gave away free tickets versus the mentality of a person who showed up with paid tickets.

So I was like, "Well, I need validation to even move forward on this idea. How can I validate throwing my own event?"

I mean I've always wanted to throw my own event. And so what happened was, about four months ago when I knew that Russell was gonna be doing the, (wait, it's November isn't it? November/December by the time you see this episode it will be December? Okay, but right now, recording this, 'cause I match my content, practice what I preach here, right.)

...It was back in February when Russell first started talking about doing this book. The 30 Day book. When he first started talking about that, and he started reaching out to all the people for it, I was like, "Sweet, this is gonna be so cool." And I went in, and I got to write my chapter - it was really exciting and awesome.

What was cool, is when he wrote this book, when the idea came out for this book, I thought to myself, "That's it. That is how I can fill a room. That's the vehicle that I can give a free ticket away with when I sell it." So that was super exciting.

I knew that OfferMind was gonna be comin' up some time in the future. I didn't know when, but I knew it was there. Most people will stop because they don't see all the details yet. Don't stop... if you've got a sweet idea, just know that clarity will happen as you move, not before you move. Little nugget there, just threw it out.

...So when I saw Russell go out and say, "You know what, we're gonna give away, for everyone who promotes the book, we're gonna give 100% commissions." He's like, "I'm not gonna take any commissions on that book." I was like, "You're kidding. Oh my gosh, this is actually really really big. Okay, okay, dude, can I interview you on my podcast?"(Russell was on the podcast a little while ago.) "Dude, can I get this, can I do that." Alright?

And I started structuring a campaign around this book. Knowing that when I drop out a free ticket with the book, I'm gonna get more sales because the perceived value of my offer is gonna go through the roof.

I also knew that people were gonna be like, "Oh my gosh," and it was gonna be more talkable.

I sold 375 books, and I was like, "I bet a third of those people will actually show up." And that's about what happened. About 120 RSVP'd, but I think about 100 showed up - which is pretty standard for a free ticket. You know what I mean? There's not as much fear of loss if you don't show up for a free event that you didn't pay for, right?

So what I did, was I piggy-backed the event on Russell's event for the 30 Day book launch. That's how I filled it up so much. I purposefully did it that way.

Now, I also knew that a lot of people were not gonna be able to, or didn't hear about, or just were like, "Hey, I already bought the book through somebody else," I didn't wanna leave out all those other people. So what I did was I built an event funnel.

It was a very fast funnel to go in and sell people who wanted to actually dive on in and join the event. So that's what I did. And it worked really really well. I started selling different areas around it.

I sold a VIP upgrade.

A one-on-one session with me afterwards on the third day.

But the biggest mistake that people make with throwing events is, they try to make money on the event tickets. I don't take any profit on people just getting to the event.

There's not as much story in this episode, I just want to hit several things right here. I ran a little ask campaign inside the group, The Science of Selling Online, and I asked: "Hey, what question to do you guys have about how I ran OfferMind?" And so I'm answering a lot of your questions here so you guys can see how I did it:

>The event room in the hotel was $7500 I believe. And I was like, "I don't wanna pay for that." I was like, "Holy crap, are you serious?" I was like, "Well, what if I just did a really long one-on-one session with somebody on the third day."

So the event was two days, but there was actually a third day where I left it open for people if they wanted to do one-on-one sessions with me. That's exactly what happened. Somebody came in, and they paid, and I charged almost the exact amount as the room was. "Sweet, alright, somebody else paid for the room."

Please, no one get offended by this. I'm just telling you guys what's going through my head.

I knew it was going to be around $20000 for the AV team to come in. It was significantly more though. It was $35000 for the AV team to come on in. It's why it looked so pro and so amazing.

I was like, "Man, I don't wanna pay for that." And so I was like, "Okay, what if I just push a little bit harder on this book?” And I did, and we sold 375 books, that's the equivalent of $37500. "Well, sweet, okay, that paid for the AV."

We have some sessions that paid for the room.

Now, how I pay for swag and to make it awesome, get a photographer there and get someone just filming B roll? All of those things together was probably another 10,000. Alright? So what I did. Uh, it was more than that...

. Anyway, what I did, was I sold a VIP upgrade. Through that VIP upgrade, I think there was like 14,000 dollars that came in through the VIP upgrade. I was like, "Sweet."

You guys get how I did this?

...I mean, out of pocket, there was a few other expenses, things around that I'm just not remembering off the top of my head, but you have to understand and get resourceful. It doesn't matter what level you're at.

I've watched Russell do this when he's been planning Funnel Hacking live; there will be these big people like Tony Robbins... or "Let's get in this person or that person." He's like, "Crap, seriously, that's how much money they want?" Or, "It costs that much money to do that?" Or, "The event room is this amount of money?" Or, "The swag, holy crap!"

Rather than go, "Well maybe we won't," he says, "How can do that?"

Multiple times I've watched him go through and structure a way to liquidate his cost on that. That's exactly 100% how I pulled off OfferMind. Structurally I'm talking about, how I actually pulled it all together and pulled all those pieces together.

So in total,  I think it was around $65000 to pull it off? Is that about how much it was? $65000 for OfferMind?

- Yeah.

- I was just checking with Colton, my alter ego now.

$65000 to pull off OfferMind. I think, out of my pocket, to actually pull off the event, (about 37000 dollars for selling the book, another $7000 for plus the 15 ish plus the 20), I think I shelled out maybe personally about, maybe like six or seven grand, which guys, in hindsight, really awesome. I wanted sweet swag. I wanted an amazing visually impressive experience.

If step seven of a funnel is a new environment, I cannot just have you walk into a normal room, I must put you in an environment. Does that make sense? You have got to enter a different sphere, a different place. I'm willing to go into the hole over that. You understand? And so I did. Sort of like, structurally, that's how I pulled off the event.

Three days before OfferMind happened, I asked one of the AV guys, which they're freaking amazing by the way...

Valiant was the name of the AV team. They're the same ones that do Funnel Hacking Live. They're the same AV team that does all the Two Comma Club X events - they do everything for Russell. They set up the stage, it's a brilliant, brilliant room, all that stuff. That's why it looked so great.

... they came to me, and they had this cool pitch. They were like, "We love your light bulb logo. We're thinking, what if we dangle light bulbs upside down from the ceiling in this cool way with your logo floating in the back?" I was like, "That's amazing, yes! Sounds good."

So as far as structurally pulling off the event logistically, that's how it happened. I'm looking for ways to liquidate costs on the cool things rather than sacrifice experience, I ask "How I can afford, how can I create an experience?" So the event was pretty much completely liquidated. Almost. Almost, I did go into the hole a little bit with it. But that was, you know, whatever.

I mean, you guys that came. I mean, if you didn't come, there's no way you did not see someone posting about OfferMind, right? Social proof was all over the place.

I know the psychology of sharing a post on social media. The reason we share is because we think it's funny, or it evokes a lot of emotion, it makes somebody laugh, or it makes somebody feel important.

When I share something funny, I'm doing it because I'm saying I'm funny. When I share something that makes me angry, I'm sharing it because I'm saying it makes me angry. Does that make sense?

We share stuff to say who we are. It actually is a reflection of the essence of the individual sharing. It has less to do with what you're sharing and more about how the share-er feels.

And so knowing that those are the motivations; knowing and understanding that piece of it... What I was trying to do is give people content to share. That's why the room needed to be amazing. That's why all the stuff in there needed to be visually so impressive. You understand?

It was not just about me teaching. It was not just about me practicing stuff about my book that is coming out about it, right? Your Core Offer is gonna be the book and the content itself  from the event, was on a higher level, the stuff that is coming out of the book and I needed to test it in one final phase. I've been testing it for months and months, eight, nine months. And I needed to go in and do that.

But you have to understand, that was what the event was for content-wise. But I needed it to be so visually impressive. It needed to be an experience. When you walked in, I needed those doors to close. You're not allowed inside the event. No one is allowed in there. No one is leaking pictures. (I know a few people did, and I wish they hadn't.) Because what I'm doing is I'm creating anticipation.

Event throwing is what a marketer does, whether online or offline. Part of the event is anticipation for the event. Can you imagine, wow? And I needed to invoke that emotion:

Imagine what it would be like, imagine what the feeling is gonna be, what is gonna be like when I sit there, and I have this major epiphany on why I've not made it work yet. What's it gonna be like. And that game in the person's head is what I'm trying to cause. So that when they're behind closed doors, and the registration table is on the outside of the event, and the doors are closed, but they hear the music...

They hear the music and the feel the ground rumble, and they're seeing some streaming lights coming through, but they can't quite see what's going on. And for the first time, those doors open. There's literally new doors in their life opening. You understand? It's a symbol, okay? It is a symbol.

Event throwing is an art. There is a science behind it, but there is an art piece to it as well.

I am not just having people show up in a room and have me speak at them. In my mind, no matter the content, what I would say, huge, huge, huge opportunity, failure if that was the case. That is not why I threw the event. I threw the event, yes, for the content pieces, I'm gonna be using that in other places in as well; book, other cool stuff that's comin'. But I needed, it's more about the experience of the individual showing up. Is it a symbol of new opportunity in the individual's life.

I am breaking and rebuilding so many beliefs inside the person's head that they are literally doing things that they never thought they could do? They have new capacities for own life that they never thought were possible. That's what I'm trying to do. That's why the event is such a big deal.

All the stuff laid out in perfect matching order on the tables, the swag, the way they walk up, why the doors are closed, the way they open up, the music that's playing; music you guys hear me play on my live funnel builds. There is so much freaking psychology behind it.

It's important that I'm not in the room when you actually open the door. I should not be in the room. I should have somebody else introduce me. And their whole role is to raise the energy level of the room: "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" And then, "Welcome, Mister Stephen Larsen." I need that. It elevates. As I walk up to the stage and the person who is MCing, (which is James Freel, who I'm very thankful for), he got them riled up.

There were some cool videos played. Marley, my amazing video person, made this incredible walk-up video. Lots of credibility stuff. Stuff that I'm a little bit uncomfortable with. You know what I mean? I don't want ever to be like, “Me, Me, Me,” but that's important for the psychology of the event.

When I walk up, I need to make contact with the MC physically -  that's the transfer of authority and power on stage; it's visual in front of the people.

This is important, and I'm not making this up you guys. Go watched 10X Secrets training, he's gonna talk about this. That psychology is massive.

So when I walk up, my role is not to raise the energy of the room. My role is to come in with an already high-level energy room and then I can do my thing - otherwise, I gotta raise the energy of the room. I don't wanna do that role.

There's a lot to throwing the event. There's a lot of psychology behind it. You think I'm joking? Go watch people who actually do this professionally all the time. I've been exposed to a lot of that. That's why I know a lot of this, and I've been doing it - that's why we pulled it off well.

There's orchestration behind your actual event; how it runs, the way it happens.

I know that as the event goes up, I need to build pressure and excitement, and then release it. And then build pressure and excitement higher than last time and then release it. And then build pressure and excitement higher than the other two times and then release it. And then build pressure, and then sail. That's exactly what I did.

So I'm like "Boom, cool nugget drop," release it, let's take a break.

I can tell when people were exhausted mentally or physically. I put caffeine on the tables - Pruvit, that's the emblem I'm in, and you guys all know that -, and a lot of you guys ask me about it. I drink Pruvit every single day, and a lot of you guys know that. You know that about the orange bottle, right? This is the orange bottle. There's always orange juice in there. A lot of you guys comment about that.

What did I do? I need you mentally checked in, I'm gonna drop some stuff that no one ever taught before. So because of that, we made sure to get literally $2000 worth of Pruvit it on the tables, and keep it on the tables. It wasn't so much about me. I'm not trying to sell it; I need their brains checked: “Boosh, are they with me?”

Because I'm gonna go long and I'm gonna go hard and  I'm gonna go late into the evening. I'm gonna over-deliver day one. Over-deliver to the hilt. Blow people's brains. Boosh, brains on the wall, right!

The reason is that I'm doing everything that I can, everything that I can, to orchestrate an experience, not just drop cool content:

>They got caffeine.

>I'm givin' them notebooks so they can take notes.

I'm not gonna expect them to come with a pen and a notepad, but I need them to take notes. Mentally, they're checking in when they do that. When they open up that notebook and they start taking notes, they are with me.

When they take a little bit of caffeine, (still one of the best nootropics that's out there), they are with me. They can go further and longer than they normally can physically on their own. More discipline, more focus, more attention than they would ever do on at their own homes. Very fascinating by the way.

Then they go to sleep, or they're spending time with each other in the evening, they're like, "Holy crap, that was freakin' nuts, jeez."

Then the next day, what did you learn, what did you learn, what did you learn? And part of what I'm doing is, as I'm taking breaks, there were those catch box mics, and I'm like, "If you have questions throughout, ask me. I need us to be interactive." It's not just for questions, it's to keep you engaged.

Me throwing around the catch box all over the place, (the microphone that you can throw), it's so that I know what the coolest piece was, and I'm hearing where people's "Wow!" is.  I'm like, "Oh, for me the 'Wow’ was over here. You thought the 'Wow' was over there... okay, cool." And you guys were guiding me more than you realize when I was on stage.

I was extremely prepared, but I'm making sure that I'm spot checking based on your feedback. And when breaks are over, keep that energy high by throwing around the catch box: "What did you learn?"

If I'm just standing on stage in the one spot? Bad. Dumb. Failure. You guys know the photographer that was there, she's like, "You move more than anybody that I've ever seen on stage," and I'm like, "Yeah, it's because I am trying to keep you with me." You should be freakin' exhausted after one 90 minute presentation.

Russell taught me once, he said, one 90 minute presentation is the equivalent of an eight hour work day in energy expenditure. 90 minutes - I don't even know how long I went? I went from 9AM to 9PM. I think I went 12 hours.

There was a one and a half hour lunch break. We took a hour at dinner, I think? Did we take an hour at dinner? Something like that? So I went for eight hours? I was freakin' exhausted you guys. Don't plan on sleeping when you do this kind of stuff. And you should be exhausted. I'm running around the room. I am responsible for the energy tone that is set in the room. I am responsible, not the audience.

When people stand up, and they beg for comments, it's the presenter that's losing, not the audience. I know that. And when I was doing these super high-level FHAT events, stuff like that, they're deep, complex concepts sometimes right? It's not up to them. It's up to me. So I run around like an animal. My feet were freakin' on fire after day one.

A lot of people say, “Stephen how do you do what do?” It hurts! That's the answer man. It hurts.

I was laying down in the hotel room even though I live here - way easier to just stay in the mind-prep zone and stay in state while I'm staying in a room at the hotel that it's happening at - so I can just go right to the room, right back up.

Lunches, go detox, drop the pressure and noise, as Alex Charfen talks about:

Relax for a second, listen to some meditation music, chill the freak out and then go back into state. Whew, bam, right. The break is for me is just as much as it is for the people. Boom. Boom.

There were multiple times when someone would walk up and be like "Can I ask you a question?" and I'd be like, "Sorry, no, because I need to make sure I protect my break. I need to make sure I protect my time.”

So, guys, I wanna walk through how I actually structured my first six-figure day, 'cause that's what happened there, but not on this episode though. I wanna do that on the next one. I just want you know how I threw the event and what was all involved with it.

And we're gettin' swag, and we're getting net 30 terms so I can make sure I can get the actual affiliate cash coming in so it pays for that: "Let's get it over here, so it pays for that. Let's get it over here, so it pays for that."

And guys, that's how you throw a sweet amazing event.

You don't have all those things in places. Not usually, most of us, not usually. You don't have all of that stuff in place. Instead it's all about building the pressure just like you would a product. Build the pressure. "Tickets, go, go, go, go, go. We're gonna close, we're gonna close, we're gonna close. Who can pay for what? Who is gonna do what? Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam..."  It has a lot to do with anticipation, energy output, expectations, and experience, and environment. That's how you throw a good event.

I could of stood up and said things that were not actually that prolific, and it would still have been a great event because of the experience that we provided. Does that make sense? It's that big of a deal.

Now, I understand that the content was epic and it'd never been taught anywhere - I've never had a platform to teach all that. It was really really cool.

I've talked about the content that came from the event, and how I write the book slowly, and why the event was thrown and stuff like that... But I'm not talking about the content, I'm talking about the event itself and throwing it.

What I'd like to do in a few episodes from now as well is walk through how I was able to structure a six-figure day. My first one ever. It was almost multi-six, which is really cool. I want to teach you guys how I was able to go do that, and pull that apart as well.

These episodes are a little more in depth, a little more intense than I normally would make them, but a lot of you guys ask, so I thought it would be a cool place to do that.

Somebody asked, "What was the biggest takeaway you had from your first live event?"Thank you, Pat Phelps, appreciate it. What's the first biggest take-away? They are challenging, but Colton and I were even talking, and they're not as challenging as people said that it would be - and I know it's because we had great help. there was a full out team.

There's no way you can do that on your own, by the way. You need people. People were all over the place helping. I so appreciate that. I clearly understand and realize that it's not me, me, me land.

Biggest take-away? Yeah, definitely it was in liquidating costs through other things.

How much did all the AV stuff cost using all the other crew? $35000 for the crew. They are completely worth it. Hire them, they're amazing.

For the total event, 65 grand.

And as far as roles and positions, it was actually Dave Woodward who taught me that one person on your team should be dedicated to you solely for the entire event.

There's a lot of pressure going into your head, so you need to have somebody with you all the time: "I need this. I need water, do you have a protein bar or something like that?" Back and forth.

And understand guys, it was just Colton and me pulling this stuff off - it was so crazy.

A lot of people helped, swooped on in, and I'm just so appreciative. It really really means a lot. As far as setting it up, getting stuff on the table, really, I mean, it was just so so helpful. Colton's wife came in for a bit, Tara, she came in and did a lot. Ryan Jones, Scott, Taylor, you came in. Anyways, I'm trying to give kudos and thanks to where it's deserved. A lot of people involved in the pieces to set-up, stuff like that.

As far as roles though? Anyway.

The biggest thing I learned? You know what, I'm not gonna answer that one now. The biggest thing I learned, I want to talk about it on the way I structured the six-figure day, which will be really really cool.

Anyways, appreciate it guys. Thank you so much. Very excited about this. Hopefully you guys learned more about throwing events. I'm not saying it's gotta be that massive scale all the time.

You're like, "Crap Stephen, I don't have 65 grand to go throw an event." Okay, whatever, fine, but just know, it's more about providing an experience and changing the environment. It is the final phase in the funnel. And because of that, you're gonna lose a lot of people, the six steps on the way to the seventh.

Think about it. Russell's got a freakin' giant list. A lot of people that show up to Funnel Hacking Live are not using ClickFunnels yet. They want to, but still, his event is only 4000 people when there's 70000 active monthly users.

There's 4000 people coming to this next event, 4500, alright. Think about the numbers of that. He has such a huge list. Some people are like, "Stephen, I'm gonna go throw a massive event it'll be real easy."  Events are like the hardest things to fill ever. Way harder than a webinar. Way harder than anything else because they gotta go set-up:

>Who's the babysitter?

>What are my flights?

>What are my hotels?

>Can I get off time for work?

>Can I get off time for this?

...blah blah blah... there is so much stuff.

Events like that appeal to hot audiences -  when you have a very hot audience who are in the seventh phase of the funnel, so it's a small group. A very small group.

I'm excited for the next OfferMind - there certainly will be one. Probably, it's gonna be a yearly event.

Next year I'm actually already bringing in some really cool speakers as well. I can't tell you who, but... So anyways, If you guys want a ticket though, we do have discounted tickets for a little while. The price is definitely going up because it's a sick event. I got some cool people coming to you guys as well.

For this first event, I needed the content to be more about the content. The next event though, I'm actually gonna bring in some more people about, "Here's how you create offers around that industry, that industry, that industry, that industry, and here's the expert on the person that did it, that did it, that did it, that did it." So really cool people comin' on in about specifically offer creation - it'll be really really cool.

So you guys can go to OfferMind.com and go get your ticket. It's exciting. I'm really really pumped for you - really excited for all this stuff, it'll be really cool. So go to OfferMind.com to grab tickets.

If it's off, just put your name on the waiting list. If it's up, then the tickets are there and you can actually dive on in and grab a ticket at the price that it was at now. We're gonna have to raise it a little bit, but anyway, excited. Screaming success, a lot of people involved, and definitely, a Hail Mary. Just tons of fun... but it took Colton and me, I think, a solid three days just to recover physically. Probably a solid week to recover mentally. I was wrecked. You were wrecked, Couton? We were wrecked, man!

I've thrown a lot of events, but there was only one other time in my life I've been that tired, and it was during basic training. Seriously. That was insane man.

But anyways, cool stuff guys. Appreciate it. You're all awesome. I appreciate you guys comin'. I know a lot of you guys wanted to come and there will definitely be others. We'd love to have you at the future ones. See you guys later. Bye.

If you're just starting out, you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies also. That's also good. But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them. Right?

That's also what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula.

So I created a special mastermind called an OfferMind to keep you on track with the right offer and more importantly, the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it.

Want to come? There's small groups on purpose so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days. You can hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com. Again, that's OfferMind.com.

Boom! What's going on, everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and this is Sales Funnel Radio.

Today I'm going to teach you guys how to win affiliate contests. Not as hard as you'd think.

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine-to-five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.

The real question is: how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.

Join me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best Internet sales funnels.

My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

What's up, guys? I'm excited for this episode. Okay, two quick things real fast. So you guys saw a little bit ago, I went in and I was promoting really hard the 30 Days book.

I was able to win this affiliate competition, which is really fun. I sold 375 books and got first place. There was an offer created around that. There was a special thing that you guys got from me when you bought the book through my link; I gave a free ticket to the OfferMind event along with a bunch of other stuff. It was really really cool. It was sexy. Very exciting to get that kind of a thing.

Just last week, I threw the event, and what was cool was I knew Russell was selling this thing called 10X Secrets while the event was going on.

Now, I did not have any time to promote Russell's cool thing. I like promoting Russell's stuff, he's got obviously fantastic stuff, obviously. I don't need to tell you that. But I realized, like crap. I don't have time to promote this thing.

Then Miles, he helps run a lot of the affiliate stuff over at ClickFunnels, sends me a message and he goes, "Hey dude, I just want you to know that because of sticky cookies, you are in 16th place. If you get in the top 10, we're going to take you on a private yacht from Miami down to the Bahamas right after the 10X Growth Con in February." I was like, "Are you serious? I didn't know that was the prize. That's crazy!"

It was Thursday night that he told me that, and it was closing in two days. I was like, "Holy crap." And so what I did, and guys, there's a point to the story here and I'm not just like rrrrr. I want you to know the story...

I went in, and I was like, "OK. How can I provide value?"

This contest had already been going on for a week - which means all the people who were really looking forward to purchase, all the people who wanted to purchase, have most likely purchased from the get-go.

Which means I have to sell a portion of the audience that was not planning on buying it. You guys hear what I'm saying? That's a harder sale. I was like, "Oh, crap!"

So what I did is, and this is the big lesson here... I decided, like,"OK, what if somebody bought 10X Secrets through my affiliate link, what problems do I cause for that individual?" What problems does that cause when they buy 10X Secrets? What else might they want to know?

I was like, well, funnels, right?

10X Secrets is all about selling. Russell's the funnel guy, but that product is all about sales specifically. Specifically, stage selling.  

When you learn how to do that skill, it's very powerful. It's one of the reasons my funnels work really really well. It's one of the reasons why I do what I do. I can do what I do because I study stage selling.

Funny enough, selling in a funnel is like very similar to selling on a stage. As far as the delivery, they're a little different. The way you speak, the way you present, the way you're talking and pointing and all this stuff. Like that's its own skill set. But the psychology, it's very similar of what you're doing.

So anyways, I was like, well, what else do they need? What else would somebody need if they bought 10X Secrets through my link? "OK, funnels."

Well, I got this cool product called My Funnel Stache.... What if I just let people choose one of those funnels? So every asset I have about the webinar funnel,  e-com funnel, supplement funnel, or info product funnel. Whatever it is... there's lots of them.

And I will give them the training on how to build it.

I'll give them the share funnel, so it's pre-built.

I'll give them the email sequence. I'll give them the video that shows them the strategy of what makes it work.

There's all this stuff. I was like, "OK, cool, that's sexy. That's really sexy." But what else?

And I started thinking through, and I was like, "What if I sent out some leftover OfferMind swag to people?" We had some extra swag leftover - and this is the kind of swag we had:

We had a water bottle. This is the famous, iconic orange water bottle that a lot of you know.

A lot of you guys will be on my live funnel builds and watch me, I always have this thing with me. A lot of you guys ask me where I get it, where I have them.

So we talked to Nalgene, and they custom created some with Sales Funnel Radio on the bottle - which is kind of cool.

And so I was like, you get the bottle. (Actually, I can't remember if we did the bottle or not. Anyway, it's part of the swag.)

The notebook - it says Sales Funnel Radio across the top.

The cool branded pen.

I write a lot, probably more than you guys think I do. I listen to books and podcasts, and stuff like that less than you guys probably think I do, and I write probably more than you think I do. There's a big lesson in that.

So anyway, we got this sweet notebook for them, so people can take notes - because I know I talk a lot - and talk fast.

Then there's the famous Capitalist Pig shirt that everyone loves. On the back, it says Sales Funnel Radio.

My favorite is to wear those in airports and busy public places where I get the most dirty looks.

There's the "It's Monday, Baby” t-shirt.

If you guys follow me on Instagram at all, you guys know the story behind this - which is pretty awesome. "I love Mondays! I hate Fridays."  I reminded everybody of that on the back. Right? "Woohoo, Fridays suck. But wait for your Monday." Fridays suck, OK?

Anyway, so what I did, is I went, and I said, If you buy, (just follow me on this for a moment.) I said, if you buy 10X Secrets through my link, I'm going to give you the:

#Capitalist Pig shirt.

#Monday, Baby shirt.

#Notebook.

#Pen.

# I'll let you guys choose a funnel from My Funnel Stache.

#I will give you all assets I have around that funnel.

I went from, I think, 1500 in sales, something like that, to 13,000 in sales in two days. And I ended up taking fifth place in the whole contest. Not bad for just swooping in the last few days, right?

I'm excited; I'm going to get to go on a private yacht cruise with the top 10 other affiliates in ClickFunnels. We're going to go to the Bahamas and anyway, I don't know any more details besides that. I'm excited about that!  

I used the same principles that got me to be the number one with the 30-Days contest.

If I had planned a whole campaign around it, I actually could have maybe; I don't know, done at least number one, two, or three. I could have definitely gone a few more spaces. It was the last two days. That affiliate contest had been going on for almost ten days by that time.

What I want you to understand is...

I love affiliate marketing, first of all.

Think about this for a moment. Do you think people get more distracted by the creation of the product or selling the product? The creation of the product! All the time!

Everyone I coach, they're like, "Stephen, what products should I sell? What should I do here, what should I do here?" They get so distracted by the making of the thing that they spend almost no time studying and obsessing over how to sell the thing.

What causes money to go into your pocket? Now, obviously, the selling does. I'm not saying to not make a product that's not amazing. But what I'm saying is, "It takes more effort and energy to craft a campaign and a sales message and an event, whether it's online, offline, whatever. Right?"

The feeling of the event. More effort and energy to create a sales message than it does the product. You understand what I'm saying? I'm just going to pause there for effect when I say that. It takes more effort. You should be spending more time creating the sales message, the actual hook, the story than you do the offer. It's not a linear relationship there. It's massively asymmetrical, OK?

And so the reason I love affiliate marketing is because affiliate marketing is amazing training grounds for marketing skills.

If you're like, "Stephen, I've never launched a product on my own...  or every time I launch one, it doesn't work very well." Man, maybe take like a step back and go practice some affiliate marketing. That's why I created the program, Affiliate Outrage.

If you guys have ever checked out affiliateoutrage.com, it's a completely free program.  I'm not pitching a thing in that program. The reason I made it is because affiliate marketing is like training wheels.

You don't have to go make the product; you don't get distracted by that. All you do is you flex the muscles of how to sell stuff constantly and how to build campaigns around it.

How to actually go sell stuff. How to actually make the dollar turn.

Those are the skills that you actually need to go create.

How did I be number one for the 30 Day book? It's because I know how to market, not just make products.

How did I get number five in two or three days, right before the whole thing closed up?  I swooped right in; I was exhausted from the event, "All right, let's just do it." Bam! Number five. How?

It's because I know how to sell stuff.

I'm selling other people's products. You guys would be shocked. My list is not that big compared to the other people that I beat in the actual contest. It really isn't. So how the heck am I still getting top ten all the time? How is that happening? That's like a huge lesson in this.

When we at Traffic Secrets event down in Phoenix, it feels like a month ago now, it was crazy. When we were down there, wow, it was like a month ago. Anyway, when we were down there, Russell said something that I want to recap, so you guys all understand the power of what I'm talking about here.

He said, "Usually you make a dollar per month per person on your list. So just get more people on your list."  If you're bad, that's the metric.

When you start to learn a lot of these skills and a lot of things like that, then you start to make two dollars a month per person on your list per month. Then it's three; then it's four.

I think I do seven to eight dollars per person per month on my list. And it's because of how I'm doing it.

Now, I know I'm going to go list build more. I've got cool strategies coming down the pipeline. It's just for me; it's the next phase that I'm going into. I'm always list building. I've got lists all over the place, which is great. Probably too many. It's a little bit convoluted in a few places.

...But what I'm trying to say is like, you have to understand, the reason I can flex these muscles in these different areas is because I know how to make a very attractive sales message and a very attractive offer to pair with it.

It doesn't matter if it's my product or somebody else's.

If I don't control the cart, if you're selling somebody else's product, like a lot of you guys, you're commission-based salesman, you're in MLM or affiliate marketing, right? Does that make sense?

Whatever it is, you don't have control over the actual checkout process.

There are several angles I think of in this scenario:

#What problems do I create for an individual if they buy that product through my link?

# How can I solve that follow up-based problem with a product?

#  I could give them that. I have this; I could give them that. I have this; I could give them that.

So now, when they buy through my link, they get all these other things as well. Boom! I just out-valued every other person in the contest.

Multiple times that's how I've done what I have.

It's not about, "Buy through my link." It's about how can I outvalue everybody else who also is trying to give people their link? Does that make sense?

It's a big deal when you understand that, OK?

Because everybody else is promoting like this: "Here's my link! Buy through my link! Oh, man, I got this link, and you should buy through it!" So like, “Why? What's the difference between you and somebody else?”

So what you do is you create an offer around the other person's product. Make an offer around it.

A lot of you guys know the story, right, when I was doing door to door sales, I was going out to this area, and I was ticked. The day before I was not having a good day. It was super hot, and I'm hiding in this McDonald's area. I was selling pest control. It was so hot. I was like, "Maybe I should sneak over to McDonald's that's right there because of the AC?" I wanted to cool off.  I walk in there and funny enough, like half the rest of the team is already hiding in there along with my boss.  I was like, "Oh that's funny."

This guy walked up to us inside that McDonald's and just asked to buy. He was like "Hey, can I buy?" And we were like, "Yeah." We all stopped for a second and looked around. We were like, "No, you should buy. No, no, you be the one that buys. You haven't had a sale yet today; you go ahead, you get it." We were friends and family.

So finally, my boss pointed at somebody, the lucky person, and said, "Here you go, you take the sale." So they closed the sale, easy lay down sale right there. That never left me, because as we walked out of that McDonald's and we went back to keep selling pest control door to door, I realized that to that customer, there was literally no difference in who he chose.

It was the same sale, right, the same process. We were in the same uniforms. We had the same script. We had the same stupid cheesy jokes in our script. Same fulfillment. There was literally no difference in who he chose.

Guys, affiliate marketing is no different, OK? Which is a huge advantage if you understand this one principle I'm trying to teach you guys right now.

If you just understand that the game is about out-valuing somebody else. It's not about price. They can get the same product from like 100 other people. Tons of other people, OK? Instead, just outvalue everybody else.

So one of the things I like to do, like I was just saying, I like to think through and go like, "OK, what are all the follow up problems that I create for an individual if they buy that product through me, and what can I add in so that they get all those bonuses when they buy through me?"

There was a time when I built 89 funnels two times to fulfill on Russell doing this exact thing that I'm talking about right now. I watched him stand up, and he wanted to promote somebody, it was when I first started working at ClickFunnels. Stu McLaren was selling a program called Tribe. Some of you guys have probably heard of that.

When Russell promoted Tribe, he created an offer. He said, "Hey, when you buy through my link, I'm going to give you this and this and this and this and this and this because I see that Stu is teaching about membership areas which is super cool, well this thing I have goes well with membership areas. And I'll give you this, and I'll give you this, and I'll give you this, and I'll give you this."  I was like, “Cool.”

As part of that, I had to build 89 funnels x2 separate times to fulfill and deliver what he had given inside of his affiliate offer. Does that make sense? That's exactly what I'm talking about...

You're just riding on the additional problems that get created when somebody buys a product.

Whenever you sell something to somebody, you're not just solving a problem. You're also creating new problems. Which is fine, it's great. You just solve the follow up ones with more offers, you actually can sell more and make more money.

Does this make sense, what I'm telling you guys? Because I don't want to get like too in the weeds here around this.

The easiest way to dominate and destroy affiliate games is to understand this one principle.

If I have just a little bit of time, I will do what I just said. How can I solve the follow up problems that product will create? How can I solve it with products, and can I bundle it with that person's thing?

So when somebody buys through an affiliate link of mine, I can see it. It's in Backpack. I can log into the affiliate area and ClickFunnels. Boom, I get an Excel spreadsheet of everybody who's purchased from me and then I just email them the bonuses, or email them the ticket for OfferMind like I did, bam! You know what I mean? It's real easy. Super simple.

If they don't have access to that, I just tell them, "Screenshot your receipt and send it over to me and I'll send you the bonuses."

We just did that for 10X Secrets. That's how I killed it. I was expecting to sell like 12 packages. I sold 62, OK? Sixty-two people bought through that link. "Woo! Holy crap, OK?" We're going in, and we're fulfilling, we're shipping out all that stuff and doing all those things the next couple of days here, which is exciting. But that's how; just outvalue the other person.

I love this topic; it's a super fun topic.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to spread your wings and practice flexing your marketing skills muscles where you don't have to work on building the product.

One of the other reasons why this stuff has worked for well for me is I don't like to make a business out of affiliate marketing. I don't. It's like icing on the top. I'm not in the business of promoting other people's stuff. I promote my stuff. So I'm very careful about what I promote.

I only promote other people products when I know they are freaking incredible and they pair well with what I do. You guys get what I'm saying? Don't just go promote a whole bunch of people's stuff. I don't do that. I don't like to do that.

There's a method that I use to go and dominate in the affiliate space:

#Step number one: create an affiliate-based offer - Put their product in your offer and then toss in a whole bunch of your own stuff that you'll give them when they buy through your link. Boom, now you have an offer. You are now out valuing everybody else who's promoting that product.

Number two: Create a story around each one of those bonuses

So I'm gonna walk you through this here real quick, OK. Let me find it here real quick here. I'm inside of my ClickFunnels stuff here.

So what I like to do is I like to create a story around each one each one of the things inside of the offer I created for them. Because now I've got to promote it.

So if I have this cool affiliate-based offer, and I've got all these bonuses that are coming from me, I just got my computer out here, right, oh and this sticker, too, these are cool stickers we've got, barely created for them.

Check this out...

1. So I wanted to promote 10X Secrets. So my offer was:

# I'll give you some leftover swag

# I'll give you whatever funnel you want from My Funnel Stache as well as all the assets that come with it.

Does that make sense? That was my offer. So what that means, I have two storylines.

#1: I have a storyline about swag.

#2: I have a storyline around Funnel Stache.

So in my head, I knew, "Well, I've got like two days to promote." (I think I had three.) Anyway, it was two major days, but one was like a half day when I realized like "Oh crap, I should be doing this." (No, I had Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Okay, no, it was three days.)

So what I did is:

#Number one, I was just like, "OK, here's the offer," and I did a post on Facebook. I wrote out the post, and I was like, "Hey, if you guys don't know, 10X Secrets is going on. If you guys want to, here's my offer." I went live on Facebook talking about what they were going to get.

"You're going to get this," and I walked around my office showing them physically what they were going to get. That's very powerful, that's very important, alright? It's a physical aspect to my offer, OK? So I walked around, and I was like, You're going to get:

#This shirt

#this shirt.

#the water bottle

#the notepad

You're also going to get:

#Stuff from My Funnel Stache - the best offer.

So I walked around, and that's like step one. Just announcing the offer. You'll get sales just from that.

#Number 2:  I take my Facebook post, the description, and I go, and I send it as an email to my whole list. I remind them, "Look, this is going to end soon."

The next day, (remember now I've got two more storylines.)

>The first storyline was just announcing the offer.

>I have two major bonuses in there which means I have two stories I should tell.

The first story I told was about swag.

#Number 3:  I think the story I told was about how the offer of mine came about and why this shirt came about. Especially the Capitalist Pig shirt, right. How that Capitalist Pig shirt came around, and why does that make sense? That's why I did it that way. That's how it worked so well. There was a story about that; it became the story for the next Facebook post.

#Number 4: Then I copied it and sent it as an email with a link to go buy, with a call to action. "First, what you going to go do? Go buy through this link. It's my link. I'm just telling you it's an affiliate link.

Number two, send a screenshot to my team right here of your receipt. Number three, inside that screenshot, when you send the screenshot also tell us your shirt size, your address so we can ship stuff out to you.

Then tell us what funnel you guys want, all the assets for that that I have, and I'll blast it out to you as well. Ready, go! As a reminder, this ends Sunday at midnight, OK?"

Very standard call to action - that was it.

#Number 5: The next day it was Sunday, it was the story about the very next piece. The funnels, OK? I was like, "Well, how do I tell Funnel Stache stories in a way that people haven't heard yet?" So I started looking through assets I already had that I forgot that I had. That the audience will most likely forget that I had as well, OK?

A lot of times, guys, when it comes to affiliate stuff I'm just reusing stuff that I already have. A lot of times I'm not creating things that I don't have. For me, I'm going to spend my creative power on my stuff. However, for affiliate things I can just bundle up cool stuff. You know what I'm saying? So this is the post that I wrote talking about Funnel Stache, I said:

"Here's my client checklist. Some of you guys may have seen this. So here's my client checklist.  My early days of funnel building were ... interesting.

I'd take on anyone for any reason. At some point I was building for eight, eight different companies at the same time: skin care, toys, statues, supplements, political stuff. Yup, that was a crazy one. Different programs, et cetera.

I had no filter, no requirements, no qualifiers to work with me. Actually, my only requirement was whether or not someone had money to pay. My friend, that is not good business practice. I was a good funnel builder and hustling hard, but not at the right stuff."

Notice I'm not coming out saying, "Buy through my thing!" There's a story, right? I've told you the backstory. I've told you a wall. Internals, externals, like I'm hitting all the stuff right? So now I'm leading you into a spot where there's an epiphany, "Oh my gosh, there are actual qualifiers of who should be inside of my affiliate stuff."

...Okay, I'm going to go faster here, so this episode is not crazy long. But I want you to see just behind what's going in my head when I'm promoting somebody else's stuff - because two times in a row now, right, number one, I was number one for the 30 Days book and then I just didn't have any time. Last three days I just swooped in and was able to make fifth place - which is awesome.

But there's a method to how I'm doing this, and I don't think people know it. I don't think people are seeing what I'm doing. So what I thought I would do in this episode, is anyways, it's a little bit longer. Hopefully, that's cool with you guys.

So I said, "I was a good funnel builder, hustling, but at the wrong stuff. About two years in, I left college, I became Russell Brunson's funnel builder, and I started creating a checklist of things I needed to know about a company before I ever agreed to build a sales funnel for them. Here is that checklist."

I'm leading with serious value here. Am I promoting my stuff yet? No! That's big.

So then I walk through the checklist:

“There are 11 things that I walk through here. You need to look at this, look at this." I explain why in each one of them. People were like, "Holy crap." It got shared, it got commented on - it went all over the place. It was really really cool, the checklist.

Then I said, "I realize this list leaves a lot of you guys out. I can't build for you, or you're not in a scenario where I get to actually build for you, right? Your goal is to match your funnel building skill level with the correct client for you. So with that in mind, here is my gift to you...

About 12 months before I left ClickFunnels, I started building sales funnels in front of live audiences so they could ask their questions while I did it. The response was amazing. I kept doing it. I now have a collection of the best of the best sales funnels just as we would build them at ClickFunnels. I'd like to give one of them to you."

(... I mean, come on, guys, that's awesome copy. It's amazing. This took me about an hour and a half to write...)

I also want to give you:

#The course on how to build the funnel and why.

#The strategy of when to use it.

#The prebuilt shares funnel.

#The email sequence.

I'm also going to give you guys some of my leftover OfferMind swag.

#The famous "Capitalist Pig" t-shirt.

#The voice losing "It's Monday, Baby" t-shirt.

#Sales Funnel Radio journal and pen.

#I'm also going to pay for the shipping for you.

I was looking at my commissions when everyone would buy one of them, and it's like $118. My guess is it's not going to cost that much money to ship it, and then also less all of the costs of the swag; I'll actually be making money still on promoting this thing.

However, I'm willing to lose a little money to gain speed. Does that make sense?

I'm going to pick up more sales by losing, and I'm totally fine with that, I just wanted to be in the top 10, OK?

"How to get your gift: Simply buy Russell's new stage sales and closer training 10X Secrets through my affiliate link here.

Step number two: send a screenshot to goanswerme.com, which is the support link I have.

Step number three: just tell me your address, shirt size, all the stuff, we'll cover it in here.

Here are some of the funnels that are in there:

#Hiring funnel.

#Auto-webinar funnel.

# E-com funnel.

#Free plus shipping.

#Event funnel.

# Membership funnel.

#Publishing funnel.

#Supplement funnel.

Sound fair? Awesome. Just do steps one through three now.

Russell's ending his 10X Secrets offer tonight at midnight - you have 12 hours left."

Does that make sense?

Fifty-eight comments came in, and people were going nuts and commenting, "Boom, I just bought. Boom, I just bought. Boom, I just bought. Boom, I just bought."

#Number 6: The next thing I did, which was very very masterful on this, is I exported all the people who had already purchased, and I said, "Congrats " to these people for already purchasing. There's this huge list of people who've already been purchasing.

Huge social proof, right? Same psychology as you would have inside of a funnel. Does that make sense? So that's a huge move, and I do that all the time now. So that people see like, "Oh I'm not the only one doing this."

#Number 7: Then I tag the people who've been buying from me, so it pings them. "Oh, Steve Larsen just mentioned you in a comment." Like, what? They will go to that post. They will read it and say like, "Woo, yeah, baby." Massive social proof. You guys get what I'm saying?

#Number 8: Then I'll take that post and blast it to all my email list one more time.

Guys, that's how I run affiliate stuff. You don't get to sidestep marketing just because somebody else made the product and gave you a link to sell it with. You do not; you still have to create marketing. It's no different than if it was your product or not. Build a campaign around it, OK?

So:

#I told three stories.

#I made an offer.

What did I have? What were the assets I already had that could solve follow up problems they're going to experience when they buy the other person's product?

When they buy 10X Secrets, what are some questions they'll have? Oh, you know what, I know Stephen does a lot of stage speaking. What if I got some cool swag that he has that's left over. Cool. I already have that, awesome, done. Cool. Sweet. I can do a lot of cool things with that already.

What if I was able to send them out some funnels? Boom, done, awesome. "Which one are you going to choose?" Package the offer together.

One story is about the offer itself.

>Next story about the next bonus.

>Next story about the next bonus.

If I had longer, I would:

> Keep adding bonuses and stories with calls to actions.

>Additional social proof.

>Re-downloading the list of people who have bought from me.

>Putting it back out inside the email and inside of the actual comments area of the Facebook post.

>Take that post, push it out in an email.

Over and over and over and over and over. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Boom, here it comes! Here comes the ending, close close close, whoa, right!

And that's exactly how I do it, and that's exactly how I've always done it.

If I had even more time, I would go get Russell Brunson on a podcast, or whomever I'm promoting... I'd start getting that person on publications and interviewing them to make content around it.

You saw me do that with the 30 Days book. That's why I had so much noise.

I put my own content, my own money behind creating content for it. I just want you guys to know more about the affiliate game. It is not, not, not about just grabbing an affiliate link and sending some traffic to it.

Does that work? Sure. Are you going to make a lot of money? In my mind, doubtful.

Build an offer around the product. Build an offer around the other person's product and then go tell stories with a call to actions behind it. Super simple. A really easy way to do it.

I'm nervous to tell you guys this - because I've had a lot of fun being in the leaderboards like crazy for a lot of stuff.

Anyway, very very exciting.

Hopefully, you guys have enjoyed that episode. If you did, please please please go to iTunes and let me know and rate the podcast. That helps me like crazy, helps the show a lot. It really means a lot to me.

Those of you guys who have already done that, "Thank you, guys, I appreciate you guys being in this and watching this episode. Look forward to seeing you guys in the next leaderboards for anything you promote."

Boom, just try to tell me you didn't like that.

Hey, whoever controls content controls the game. Want to interview me or get interviewed yourself? Grab a time now at stevejlarsen.com

Boom! What's up everyone, Steve Larsen from Sales Funnel Radio. Today I'm gonna teach you guys how gurus write their books.

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my 9 to 5 to take the plunge and build my million-dollar business.

The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch. This podcast is here to give you the answer.

Join me and follow along, as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels.

My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

What's up?

Hey, I'm excited about this topic. I did a Facebook Live recently, and I went through, and I started showing you how gurus write their books.

Now, right off the bat, I want to acknowledge the fact that yes, I understand that people write books in a week or whatever. I'm not talking about that.

This is not to offend anybody, but when somebody says, "Oh my gosh, "why do you take so long to write a book, Stephen? Why does Russell take so long? Why do all these people take so long?" The reason is that we want them to be really really good, right? That's the only answer.

We want them to be super super epic, super fantastic.

Shortly after I got to ClickFunnels, Russell started drafting the Expert Secrets book...

If you've never had a chance to read that book, go to expertsecrets.com, pay for the shipping, and just get the book. That book changed my life. Awesome stuff.

...So he started drafting that book, and I'm right next to him. He'd be drafting stuff and drafting stuff.  At the beginning, I'd just be typing, like "Holy crap, history is in the making, right now three feet from me." I was like "This is super cool."

As time went on though, we started going back and forth on different concepts. I had a lot of fun being involved in the creation of some of the ideas. You know, it's obviously his book, he wrote it, it's all his.

I'm not gonna say, "Yeah I did that." Not true at all, okay? But I did have an amazing opportunity to be a part of a lot of things that were created for that book - to see the process, not just the content, the process that he was going through to make sure that what he was teaching about was prolific, was amazing, right? Was incredible. Was received well.

One of my favorite quotes is, "The destruction of information is the essence of intelligent work," or something like that.

You should not seek complexity. Complexity to make you sound smart does nothing for the person who's hearing the content -  which is why at Offer Mind, I didn't go huge into tons of stuff. I didn't go to the nerd zone.

I tested material like crazy to see how you received it and then watching you and your reaction to what I'm saying, I can go back, and I can adjust. Go back and adjust, go back and adjust. I'm holding something in my arm here. I'll show you that in a second, okay?

What I need you to understand is a lot of gurus that are out there who truly understand this game, I gotta be careful the way I say this, but whatever, I'll just be honest about this...

I get so nervous when someone's like, "Hey, I wrote my book in like a week." I'm like, "Is it any good? Have you tested it? Is the material in there fantastic?" A book will either make or break you. I don't want to write something that's not good, not amazing. I wanna write a book that's incredible, a groundbreaking book.

A lot of you guys have been asking me, "When are you going to have a book? When are you going to teach this concept?" What I've been doing, and a lot of you guys don't know, is I've been teaching a lot of this stuff for the past eight months, nine months with the intent to figure out if it's good material for a book.

I've been teaching this stuff, though, for years. I've been teaching it, I've been testing it, I've been seeing how you guys would react to it, and then I go in and coach people on those principles:

"Sweet, okay, that was received well. Oh my gosh, that one thing there worked really well. Oh my gosh, that plus that, boom. That made the money happen. That plus that, boom, that made the money happen. That plus that, in that scenario, that doesn't work very well." You know what I mean? I've been able to go in and test like crazy.

I am not trying to write a book for the sake of writing a book. I'm trying to write a book that's incredible. You know what I mean? It's not about speed for me in this area, especially with books. Books are very final.

In a members area in a course, I can go in and just switch out the URL, bam, new video, but with a book, it's there. It's printed. It stays. It's shipped. It's more permanent.

In this episode, we're going to cut over to the Facebook Live and what I want you to see is the process that I had a chance to watch Russell go through when he wrote the book Expert Secrets. Same process he went through when he wrote Dot Com Secrets. Same process he went through when he was writing Traffic Secrets. Same Process that I have been using to write my book. That was one of the real purposes of the event Offer Mind, was that.

So what we do, is, I've been coaching, I've been using this material, I've been testing it, but then I go through, and I write...

This is I think four or five legal pads worth of paper. It's a lot; I don't know if the camera can pick that up. It's a lot of paper; it's very very thick.

I draw one major diagram that represents all of it. Then I take little pieces out and say, "Okay, let's teach that and that. That and that sequentially. How should I digest this to understand it the best?" And that's what I do. That's what I've done.

Okay, now those are the principles, the major core things, now I need to go through and figure out the actual principles that teach that topic.

Now I need to think through the story that teaches that principle the best. I came up with probably 50 stories. I mean literally, it's a lot of stories. Because I can't just say, "Here's the thing!" I need to embed it, I need to embed it in the brain... and the way to do that is through storytelling.

So we're going to cut over the Facebook Live of me diving through... You're going to see these strewn out all across my office floor right here, all over the floor. You'll see more of the process of why we throw the event.

... Guys, a lot of the books that are out there that have been amazing, they're heavily researched books. It's not like someone's just walking around, I could make a book tomorrow, it's not hard, it isn't. I could literally just Vox something or make a voice thing, have somebody transcribe it, put it in a Word doc, print it, bind it, bam, done.

The process of writing the book is not hard. It's the process of coming up for the content that's challenging.

Something that's actually amazing.  Something that's completely prolific - So that's what's going on - I've been working hard at writing my book. This is my contribution to the marketing world. This is not an easy thing to go through.

The more I've looked at all these gurus who were doing this stuff, they all do something very similar to this. It's not about speed, in this specific area, for this exact move that I'm using and doing.

Soon, you guys will see me create my book funnel.

A lot of you guys are gonna join me for free - which is great. You can join me and watch me build a book funnel that's gonna sell the book.

You'll see me think through all the upsells, craft and create the offer, the sales message for it - because now I have the product, the book. But then I gotta also sell that. So the book is a sales message, on the new concepts and ideas, but then there's a sales message to sell the book, and then I have to make a sales message for a hook for headlines to bring you in. It's a big process, especially for book funnels. Especially for book funnels.

What I'm pumped about is there's not an aggressive timeline for me on this, perfection, obsession is the goal for me on this - which is why it's taken me a while, and I'm totally cool with that.

As I'm speaking right now there are three books in the hopper, one of them is near done, this one about offers, so it's gonna be called Your Core Offer. So you guys can go to yourcoreoffer.com, and that's where the book funnel will be.

If it's not up yet, which it likely isn't by the time you guys hear this, you guys can join a little waiting list, and I will drop it out to you the moment it's ready so you guys can jump on there. But also, there's a way for you to watch me build the thing if you'd like to, as well. So it'll give you instructions on how to do that.

I like to do this with complete transparency so you guys can check that out...

There's a lot of moving pieces with this. I don't want to rush for the sake of a timeline. This is a big, big, big piece,  a big move. Big credibility comes with having a book - so I don't want to jack it up just because I want to get it out tomorrow, or next week, or whatever. You know what I mean?

So let's cut over real quick, sorry for that long intro there, but I want you to know that stuff. So we're gonna cut over to the Facebook Live now, and see a little more behind the scenes of the actual process, and I'm gonna walk you guys through that.

Thanks, guys so much, appreciate it, let's cut over there now. Bye.

Real quick, so about two weeks ago, crap, it's Saturday. Yes, two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I was able to go in and hang out with Russell late into the evening at ClickFunnels office. It was pretty much just he and I. Dave Woodward came in for a little while, and we were going back and forth on concepts for the Traffic Secrets book and the Traffic Secrets event. This is one of my favorite things to do ever.

Right after I got hired at ClickFunnels, that's when we started drafting Expert Secrets. Russell would come up with some concepts, then he'd come, be like, "Is that cool?" and then we'd go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, that concept, this concept, that concept, this concept. I was very heavily involved in that process. It was cool to watch how a genius like that writes a book.

I get a little bit nervous when I see someone bragging about the fact that they wrote their book in a weekend. You know what I mean? Unless you got a crap ton of material, I'm nervous for you. I am nervous when someone writes a book that quickly. So here is how we write it.

I'm not gonna share with you guys everything. That's all you're gonna see right there... but this is what we do:

We come right over here on this side, and we write down on one, see all the red right there? The red right there, right there on that column?

First of all, what we do is we start up at the top right there, and we draw a framework, we draw a picture that represents the entire book, or the entire presentation, or the entire whatever. That's what that one is right up there. I'm not gonna share with you guys because it's secret, okay?

(Showing beard) No Shave November, you like that?

But first we start with the framework that's right up there, and it represents every single thing that's going to be in the book - One massive framework.

The next thing we do is we go in, and as logically as possible, we break up the main topics, like big subjects. Things that we could riff on for three or four hours. That's what all that red column is right there. Right where my finger is. See that? That red column right there.

So section one, two, three, four, five, six, right, down right in there, you can see the one that's massive, right there, where my finger is right there.

(Pointing around the office) "You like the stop sign?" That's for an ad.  "You like it?" That's all my Dream 100 packaging, all that stuff; there's some sick stuff there for Offer Mind, stuff's getting shipped in like crazy, so the office is totally messed right now.

Then what we go do is we draw out the major images that have to do with this session. All the major images right here. Check this out, we all the major images for that session. There's gonna be a whole bunch of smaller ones, but that's the major image and logical progression of an idea that represents that main session. Does that make sense?

So it's broken down kind of like this:

we've got that main framework up at the top; we're like "Woo, here's the picture or whatever." Then what we do is we say, "Okay, well, first of all, there's that part, and then there's this part, and then there's this piece of the framework, and that piece…’  and we start to number them out in these big broad categories.

We number them out.

This is like a main broad thing. This one piece right here is just this section. However, you have to know that in order to go this one. So we put it in order, it's descending in the order you have to understand the concepts to pull off whatever the book, the course, or the whatever is about. The presentation, right?

This is exactly the process we went through for the Traffic Secrets event. Exactly the process we went through for Expert Secrets book. Exactly the same process I'm going through for everything right here.

So then what we do, if this is session number one, this is session number two, session number 3, okay, this is how all the experts write books. Just so you know. Write slowly. Write slowly.

Number one, there's a big framework up at the top, and then you break it all out into these different sessions.

Those of you coming to Offer Mind, you're gonna see me do this, and the full circle of this.

So then what we do is we draw step number one -  actually pulling off that major piece of framework is this. Then we draw an image about that. We come up with four or five major images up at the top. Now there's gonna be a whole bunch of smaller ones as well, but that's not how we're going to describe it on stage. Does that make sense?

If this is a big whiteboard and I'm standing on stage, and I'm like, "Rah rah rah!" because I yell a lot. I'm drawing it out, I'm drawing out, I'm drawing out the framework, and then I show this slide — the final thing. Then I go to the next one, and I'm drawing it out on a whiteboard. I'm drawing, I'm drawing, I'm drawing, and suddenly, "Oh my gosh, let's show this next slide."

What we're doing is we're fleshing out all the content from our head about this one thing. Does that make sense?

If this is session one, you have to know this, and you have to know this, and these are all images.

That's why we draw doodles, guys. That's why the doodles are in Expert Secrets books, the Dot Com Secrets books, that's why doodles are in Traffic Secrets, that's why doodles are in my Secrets Masterclass course, my Secret MLM Hacks, right? My Funnels stash.

If I can explain it in a doodle,  then it's simple enough to be re-teachable. I need to be able to reteach it. It needs to be able to be transferable. The purpose is not for me to appear smart, the purpose is for me to be able to teach clearly these concepts to the listener. Does that make sense?

So I draw the major framework right up here. Major, major framework, and that represents everything in the event.

Then I go through, and we figure out, okay within in session one, two, three, four, five, six, or whatever. However many that is, and then we draw macro-level images, draw macro-level doodles across the top that represent a collection of ideas. Then on stage, all we do is brain dump on that one thing specifically for the recording. We are doing it for the camera - because here's what happens:

The recording, all the doodles, all the images, everything, get sent off to a ghostwriter. Now, we do not leave it up to the ghostwriter to do the produced work. We let the ghostwriter take the first pass at it - so that when we see that image, there's all this content going in and driving in all of the points possible for just that one image. Suddenly we have a sweet chapter. Then we have another sweet chapter. Then we go back in, and we rewrite the entire thing personally. That's exactly what I'm doing as well.

However, having somebody else go through, see the images, see the things, listen to the recordings, watch when I drew that, and write out the first initial draft, is the best way to get the brain dump out of the head.

Now a lot of you guys don't know this, but everything that I've been doing in the past eight months in my podcast has been little tiny micro pieces of this.

I've taught a little bit of this in that episode. I taught a little bit of that in this episode. A little bit of that in that episode.  I'm spot checking and trying to see if the content's sexy enough? Does it attract enough? Do you understand it? What content in there was like, "Oh my gosh, that's amazing!" Does that make sense?

So for the last, like, eight months, all the things I've been teaching, and all the things that we've been learning back and forth. It starts to come into this one clear picture - so now I can lace it in order. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Then, teach it for three days in front of all these people, and see how you react to it.


You guys heard Dean Graziosi? I think it's Dean Graziosi, he teaches this cool concept... he's like you know all these cool stage comedians, they get up, and they're like, "Man that guy's hilarious."

The truth is, they started a year ago.

They write 10 jokes, and they go out to a stage, and they say their 10 jokes. Two of them stick, and the other eight suck. So they erase the eight jokes. Then they go to the next stage, the very next night, with the two original jokes and eight new ones. "Oh my gosh, now three of them are amazing."

Then they'll go back, and they'll write another seven jokes, they'll tell the original three plus the new seven. The people are literally voting for them on whether or not the joke was funny. So when they finally get to Conan. That's when they finally get to Jimmy Kimmel. That's why they're hitting it so hard, and all their jokes are awesome.

Fantastic lesson right there. That's the same format we use to write books.

It freaks me out when someone's like, "Well it only took me three days to write my book." I'm like, "Errrm, have you tested any of that content? Have you tested any of those materials?" That's freaky. I would never do that. That scares the crap out of me.

I've had some people reach out to me, they're like, "I'll ghostwrite your thing in three days." I'm like, "I don't want that. That scares the crap out of me." Instead, I've taken eight months to go through and deep dive on little tiny pieces. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Then I'll make that one an episode.

Then this on principle, that seems a little risky, that's the episode. Then that's the episode, that's the episode.

Now, I have one major framework - (I'm not gonna show you guys), sitting at the top of this thing, and what I have is, down the left side, all the major sessions that I'll be teaching at OfferMind.

Now that all those sessions are in Offer Mind, I can go dive in and draw macro-level things, doodles, that represent complex ideas. If I can teach that, and do this for two hours, and collect all your questions and everything back and forth - that's a huge deal. Now I know my book will be amazing. It's gonna be called Your Core Offer. I'm very very stoked about it.

Your Core Offer material has been tested and tested and tested and tested; I have case studies, testimonials, personal clients, success stories. It's not something that just popped out of my head. It is something that I have been working on slowly, for months. So anyways, that's the whole point of this. Just so you know, here's what goes on.

The framework's at the top, all the major key pieces are right there, macro-level images across the side right there...

Then what I do is I order them, and I draw them into pictures, but then I go over here on the whiteboard and see all of the sections right there? Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, those are all the sessions, and I write out all of the outputs that someone should be able to get by the time that session is over.

It's not just, "Well, lemme teach you cool crap," I believe in "so whats?" I call them "so what’s?" Okay, I'm doing this sweet thing. "So what? Who cares?" Well here's the "so what?" Everything in blue - those are the "so what's."

You should be able to have outputs in your personal business and results based on everything in that column.

Everything in green, that's a story.

Everything in red, that's a principle.

Everything that's a blue line next to it means that there is a very awesome strong image or doodle that's been created just for that piece.

Now I can go to the next step. This is exactly what I do. This is what Russell does; I'm just telling you guys because I don't think a lot of you know this.

So what I did is I started a contest inside of Freelancer. Huge fan of Freelancer, if you guys want to see my strategy on how I use Freelancer, go to bestmarketingresources.com, and it's all in there for you.

Check this out. So I have a contest that's running, I need to find a good doodler. I know who Russell's doodler is for the books, but this is my own thing. Find your own people. There's funnel hacking; then there's being annoying. I don't pilfer off Russell's team. I go get my own.

So what I need to do now is find somebody who can do all the doodles for me. So check this out. Right here, watch this:

In Freelancer, what I've been doing is running a contest for the last 24 hours, it's very aggressive, I'm awarding $120 to the person who gives back. I just took one image, took a picture of it and said, "Redraw that with these parameters. I need it to look somewhat like this."

I've had 299 submissions. The contest just ended, and so what I'm doing now is I've got 299 submissions.

I'm gonna reload it because it says, "Time to choose the winning entry. Four people are planning to submit... " Well, they lost out. I am ruthless. I am ruthless. I'm just hoping you guys know...

I called it Redraw My Stick Figures Into Vectors - I want it to be a vector, and there's a $120 reward, I have a month to reward the person, but really I need everything back in the next day,

So I took one image, so let me show you guys the actual, so here's the description, so you guys can model if you want to. I said, "I need several images...this is the first attached. Don't worry about the words so much. I just need the image. The end up looking something like this." I took a screenshot from one of Russell's books. "I want it to be very clean." Then I walked through; These are the files that are attached. I give them a whole bunch of stuff and then down here in the actual clarification board... I think I have one there, yeah. I wrote several things in here.

I was like, "Look, I plan on sending 40 images to the winner as soon as the contest is over. We can discuss price when I need it back. Make it look hand drawn. I don't want it to look like clip art." I was ruthless to these people.  I do that every single time. 300 submissions in 24 hours, that's nuts.

I rejected almost everything. Look at that. That person couldn't follow directions. I said only black. No color. That looks like it's clip art. I mean, look at those lines right there. So I get super, super, super detail oriented on this. I get anal about it. I get intense because I'm about to drop 40 images on them, it's gonna be hell for me.

So I come in, and rejected, rejected, rejected, There's only a few images. You get some really weird ones. I'm like, "Did you even read the instructions?"

I have a little system. If it's a four, it means I should look at it again. A five, I absolutely love it, I hardly ever give them a five. I'm usually rejecting and giving them a three. If it's a one or two, I just kill 'em. I just get rid of it. I was like, "There we go." It's starting to look like more hand-drawn things. So there's a whole bunch of submissions that are the same exact thing - because I'm vetting people out.

Now, the next step that I do, that's where I am right now, is I'm gonna go vote on the last few ones, clean up the last few pieces, and I look for the top three people. I look for the top three people, and I go to my number one, and I go to number two and number three, and I give them the same pitch. I liked your thing. It was awesome. How much would it be? How fast can you get it done? Here's all the images. Several times I've had a few freelancers do the exact same project just in case I'm not totally sure yet. That way I have a lot of copies back of the right thing. Anyways, that's my process.

Now I have all the images, and I can go in and put them in slides. And as I'm drawing things up on the whiteboard in front of people in the OfferMind, and they're asking questions and I'm hearing them, that's the important piece, I'm hearing them and making sure that what I'm drawing in front of them represents all the questions that are important to answer. Then I can pop the actual pro-looking image on the screen once I've already drawn it and walked people through it as I'm drawing it. Does that make sense?

Next, that event recording will go back to a ghostwriter, who will go back through, and she will take all the images and what I was saying about that image, and turn it into copy. Then she'll go back and write the thing.  Then I rewrite the entire thing.

That, my friends, is how you do a book.

The recordings of the event will easily be an upsell in the book funnel that sells the book, along with audiobook and all that stuff. That's how this stuff works.

It's not hard to write a book. You can self-publish any freakin' book. Having a book can make you or break you. Just having a book out there is not good enough. Is it a good book? I don't care if it took two weeks to write it, is it good? You know what I mean? So, I want to write a good, good book. An excellent book.

It's freakin' awesome by the way, everything especially in those three columns right there, has never been taught by anyone ever. They're all the little things that I've been using to make my clients successful that no one's talked about. I'm excited about it.

How do you choose a ghostwriter and where do you look for them? Great question, John. Same process. First I'll start with my personal network to see who has good writers that they've liked, and I'll test them. There are two ladies right now that write my blog. There's a third who's gonna go help ghostwrite a second book, the first round of it; then I'll come back through and write the second one.

I'm working on three books right now. There's three of them. Ahh, this is so freakin' awesome...

One of them is about all the lessons I learned while sitting next to Russell.

The second one is about this offer here.
anywayird one is going to be pretty disruptive in MLM space because I do have a backend business there...

I'm psyched about it. It'll be cool.

I start with my personal network and I'll have them write a few blog posts to see if I like their style. I'm not just looking for style, I'm looking to see if they can match my voice. That's what I'm really looking for.  So I'll start with a whole bunch of small projects, and then if it seems like it's a good one, then I'll go more deeply on it.

Anyway, awesome. Super awesome stuff.

Freelancer, yeah, sometimes I'll write 'em on Freelancer. Guys, but it's so much easier if you can, to hire someone from your own audience because they know who you are, they get the culture - they want to do a good job. It's not just about money. They understand there's gonna be probably follow-up stuff - know what I mean? Really helps like crazy.

Anyway, I just wanted to walk you through that process.

Please write books slowly. I'm tired of seeing people write books in three weeks and then be like, "Well, I only had this many purchases", or, "No one's talking about it." Because you probably didn't test any of the content, and you probably didn't teach it in front of a whole crapload of people. You know what I mean? That's how I write and create stuff that's awesome.

The other side reason for my podcast is that I'm testing material on you guys. If I look at my podcast stats, sometimes the thing that I'll do is run in here and look to see, it's logging in real fast, so you guys can see it...

So freakin' nuts guys, we just passed 200,000 downloads a few weeks ago, and we're already at 213,000 for Sales Funnel radio. It's crazy.

So on the right column, these are all the episodes that just launched; Branding Comes Second, Five Phases of a Funnel, My Latest Free Lead Source, these are the stats for after they've been out for like a month or six weeks.  Like wow, 1,400, 1,400; 1,400 - that's awesome - just for that one episode. "Okay, sweet. What was the story I told there? Hmm, I wonder if I should use that over there? Huh, what was this story over here? Which comment back the most?" I'm letting the market vote.

I'm not letting them vote on the core concepts of the book; they wouldn't know know how to vote on that. They don't know what those concepts are, but I am letting them vote on stories. I'm letting them vote on the way I told it, the way I taught it that time. You know what I mean?

There's been several webinars where not many people have shown up that I've been doing JVs for ClickFunnels, and sometimes people will be like, "Well, do you want to cancel it?"  I'm like, "No, man, I want mat time." I want time on the mat. I want to just be doing the thing as often as I can. Does that make sense? The same thing is true with your content and the core concepts.

Your book can make or break you. If the book is the first time that you've ever taught those things, I am scared for you. Books are so permanent. They're so permanent. It's hard to unpublish a book. It's easy to unpublish an episode. It's easy to unpublish a blog. It's easy, right? Those are low-impact places to publish and test your material.

Doing things on a webinar, doing things in front of an audience, those are great low-impact places to do it. But when you write a book, there's a finality to a book for some reason. Those stay on my shelf.

Look, I got that shelf, that shelf, that shelf, stacks of books on the side right there, stacks of books down on the floor. I got books all over the place.  I'm constantly going back through them.

I went through and I started organizing all the books where I learned certain materials, next to all the stuff. Anyway, I'm excited, I'm excited guys, this is really really cool.

The process is a massive brain jog, but you become... it's amazing how many epiphanies you have, just in the middle of organizing the material.

So I'm excited for you guys. How many of you guys out here want to be an author? If you want to be an author, I hope that you choose to be, a lot of credibility comes with it, but man, jumping to a book, in my opinion, a book is something that you earn the right to write.

Something that Russell taught me... if you think about it, you earn the right to write a book. It's a stamp. It's a thing that lives for a long time. So if it's not amazing, if it's not blue ocean, if it's not prolific - that's some scary crap.

If you guys are like, "I'm trying to get my book out," - don't try too fast. I'm actually taking this real slow. Real slow, and on purpose, alright? This has been sitting out on the floor because I'm going back, and I'm reteaching it. I'll reteach Colton. I'll reteach other people: "Does that make sense that time? Does that make sense over here this time? Does that make sense?" I know how it works, but like, can you teach why it works? That's a totally different thing.

So I encourage you to write books slowly.

Half of the reason for Offer Mind is for me to teach you guys how to find your core offer and draft it, and how to go in it and take hold of a brand new market that's never existed before, and the process for doing so. That's not a small task, right? And luckily, I've coached thousands of people on this now, I have logged thousands and thousands and thousands of hours in doing this thing. It's my obsession. It's a Saturday, and it's what I do - it's who I am. It 's my work and my hobby. I love it. I don't think about anything else really. I love this stuff.

But understanding how to do it and knowing how to teach it effectively and simply, completely separate things. And so, this is the process we run through.

If you watch a lot of Russell's stuff, you watch a lot of my stuff, and you watch a lot of Dean Graziosi's stuff... a lot of big people that are out there, they're using their content platform as a way to test material for future big programs. That's exactly what I've been doing, and that's why this is such a huge deal for me to run through. So hopefully that makes sense.

(FB Comment) John Pumphrey, man, that's cool, that you're launching your podcast.

But anyway, that's why this is such a huge deal. If I can effectively test all my material, if I can effectively draw into little doodles, that's hard. Some people are like, "Why do you use doodles?" It's because of what it means. If I can make a doodle out of a complex thing, I have now simplified it enough to reteach it. Because most experts, they're way past the point of fulfillment for the audience that wants to hear it.

Meaning, all you need to do is go right here, and people are gonna be excited. But since you're the expert, and the guru, you deep dive and you go way past the point of fulfillment, and you stress the crap out of your audience. So if you can doodle it, it helps you go backwards so that you can still teach complex stuff, but in a way that's digestible quickly. So they're not having to sit back and be like, "I think I get it." If anyone says that, it's wrong.

If anyone says, "Yeah, that was really good," it was wrong.

If someone's like, "Whoa!"-  that was right. If someone's like, "Oh my gosh that was really cool," - that was right. So that's the process, that's how I'm doing it, and that's why it works.

It's not fast, so it freaks me out whenever I see people saying that.

So, anyway, hopefully, that's exciting to you guys. I am just freakin' psyched for OfferMind by the way., there are a lot of big people coming - I had no idea until we started looking at the list.

If you're brand new, awesome, I'm excited for you as well. I'm excited for you to be there, it's gonna be fantastic. It's how to craft an offer, and how to actually put together something that the market's been asking you for, but still the ability to be prolific at the same time, and which funnel best manifests the offer that you've put together. It's really cool. It's really cool. Stuff that no one's ever taught. I'm really really pumped about it, guys.

This is my move into becoming a category king. That's who I'm trying to become - the Offer Creation Category King.

Alright guys, we'll see you guys later. Hopefully, that was helpful to you, I'm really psyched about it. So the next thing I'm doing right now:

#1: I'm gonna go in and find my doodler, send a whole bunch of images to them.

#2: Figure out my intro and my outro for the actual whole event, and then, ready to rock.

The biggest question I struggled with for years, and easily the biggest question I'm asked, by the thousands of people I've coached in this process is, "Stephen, what should I sell?"

And if you've been listening to my podcast, you'd have probably had that question, right?

After thousands of coaching students and sheer obsession in the game, I started noticing that there was a strong but untaught pattern of how I was selling successfully, and over and over again.

It honestly took me about 17 business tries, or failures honestly, to figure this out - to get one right. Since then, though, they've pretty much all been winners. So what changed?

What changed? I learned the pattern, I learned the framework.

Secretly, for the last nine months, I've been working to document my process and refine it even further, and it's worked, very well.

My book will teach you how to design the core offer of your business, and a winning sales message that sells it.

Did you hear what I just said? That's a huge claim and I totally get it, but this will help you actually figure out what you sell and how to sell it. It's a process I've been using now for about three years for myself and my students.

If you want to learn the framework, this pattern or formula for yourself, go get my book at yourcoreoffer.com. It's free, just cover the shipping, at yourcoreoffer.com.

Boom, what's going on everyone?

It's Steve Larsen, and this is Sales Funnel Radio.

Today I'm gonna teach you guys about the origins of the offer.

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.

The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.

Join me and follow along, as I learn, apply, and share in marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels.

My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.
What's up, guys?

Hey, okay. So I was at the Traffic Secrets event. Traffic Secrets was an event run by Russell Brunson, just for the Two Comma Club X people.

If you don't know what that is, Two Comma Club X coaching is a program where we take people and we help them make their first million. Tons of fun, and it is successful. It's lots of fun. It's a fun group. There's a lot of events that come with it.

I'm a Two Comma Club X coach. I've now brought, at the time I'm recording this, about 2,000 people through this process now. There are patterns; and when people follow the pattern, they have success.

This event was called Traffic Secrets, it was over in Phoenix. Getting to Phoenix was pretty crazy. There was something messed up with the airplane, so they had to get us off and get a new plane. There was like, a bolt coming out of the side of the airplane, and no one could figure out what it was. It was really freaky.

We got off the plane to switch planes, and that is the moment, my friends, when adults become children and start whining and complaining.

Anyways,  I get over to Traffic Secrets, it's a bunch of fun. It's a lot of work.

I remember growing up, my dad traveled quite a bit as well. I always had this perception like, "Oh man, Dad, is it so cool going out?" Like, "You're traveling like a beast, do you have so much fun? What, did you see while you're there? Did you see this while you're there?"

It wasn't until I was a little bit older that I realized, it's pretty much straight work. I only see my hotel room, the event room, and the walk in between, that's it. And then the shuttle ride back to the airport. That's kind of all I see any event I go to.

Anyway, so, Russell got up. He talked for two days. I had a ton of fun. Right before that, I got a chance to go and hang out with him in his office just he and I, until about 2:00 am, to structure a lot of the content and things like that. It was just a ton of fun.

I'm going off script here real quick, okay? It's funny, 'cause my wife kinda laughs, she'll be like, "Hey, did you have fun with Russell tonight?"  

I'm not teasing her, I just think it's funny, and I get it, you know. She'll be like, "Why do you like hanging out so much?"  Well, besides the fact that it's Russell Brunson and we are good friends, the more you learn about the thing that you're doing, the less people you can relate with about what you're doing. You know what I mean?

And that's why the game can sometimes be a little bit lonely. So I always have a bunch of fun going and doing that. It was cool to be behind the scenes and be back structuring content and putting ideas and concepts together, and then go sit back and watch the audience as Russell executed that plan. Cool education right there.

Russell talked for two days. Lots of energy. "Rah, rah, rah," right? He's all over the place - lots of energy. At the end of two days, we go, and we're having dinner with the ClickFunnels crew, the staff and all the coaches were there. We were just shooting the breeze, just chatting for a little bit.

Most people left, and there's only five or six of us left, and we're like, "Hey, let's go see that movie, Venom." Which was super cool by the way, it was a good movie.

Just before we left to see the movie, Russell leaves for a second. He comes back, and he goes, "Dude. Do you know who Claude Hopkins is?" I'd heard the name, but I hadn't studied him yet.

I'm making the rounds on who I'm studying right now. I haven't gotten to Claude Hopkins yet. And I said, "No, heard the name though." And he goes, “Dude, you are going to love Claude Hopkins." I said, "Alright, cool." So he starts telling me a little about Claude Hopkins...and he said, "...basically, he's like the godfather of what you do." And I said, "Please tell me more."

This is a picture of Claude.  I went and printed out a picture of him.  It's gonna look really blurry. This is the man himself. What's up, man? Alright,  Claude Hopkins?

Claude Hopkins (1866–1932) was brought into companies to create the equivalent of an offer.  In 1907 he was paid a salary of $185,000 a year. That's like getting paid 1.3 million in today's dollars. This is a highly paid guy. And all he would do is go in and create offers. That's what he was known for.

Companies would hire him to come in and help construct the offer as part of the sales message. So he goes in and he would create the offer, but then also pieces of the sales message that would make it sexy.

I was like, "Russell, dude, that was like the greatest gift you could give me. Are you serious? You just taught me about how my market came to be."

I've been looking around trying to find the history of what I do? And it's not been an easy thing to go figure out. Not many people teach what I teach, which is one of the reasons why I'm stepping into that zone and being the category king of offer creation. That's my goal, that's what I'm going for.

You wanna see my second shot I'm calling? I'm calling it! My podcast introduction is all about, "Hey, I'm calling my shot!" Well, I'm doing that:

I'm on track I hope, for a million dollars this year. It's gonna be close; it's gonna be really, really, tight. But we're getting close. Some of you guys have reached out and asked, so I'm just telling you.

I'm trying to make my first million dollar business. I haven't taken on any VC funding, haven't taken on any debt.  It's gonna be close. Makes me feel better knowing it took Russell three tries to get it in a year. I'm getting close, though. I'm hoping that I can make it. I'm excited about it, though.

I started freaking out. I was like, wait, this Claude Hopkins guy. Here's more about him:

Back in the day, they were not called offers. They were called schemes. Meaning a scheme, like, you're gonna go create a scheme. What's your scheme to actually make cash? Back in the 1800s, you had a scheme man. A guy who created your scheme. They would come in, like, "Oh, I need a scheme man."

A scheme man would come in and would create the offer, or their scheme. And so that's the origins of offer creation. That's literally, that's how that stuff came about.

Now, I'm sure if some copywriter way back in the day, way before we actually wrote stuff down, similar concepts were going down, maybe? But that's how it happened, though.  They would go create these schemes and guys would come in and get paid huge sums of money to go in and actually create these things.

I freaked out when Russell started telling me some of this. And I was like, "That's amazing. It’s a huge deal that you told me that."  There was a few, little epiphanies I had. My brain just started running, which it does, and I let it. It's a ton of fun - totally like the Beautiful Mind thing. "I gotta ask you guys if some of you guys are real." But in my head, because of learning that, certain frameworks about how I know money is made started getting adjusted right there at the dinner table. Right there.

I was like, "Oh my gosh. That's how it works?" I was sitting next to Julie Stoian, and she leans to me after about five minutes, I was just zoned out. It's funny, my wife will reach over and be like, "You doing okay?" And it will wake me from this reverie; you know what I mean? I'm like, "Oh."

Well, Julie Stoian leaned over, she goes, "You're getting very pensive." And I was like, "Oh, crap." I realized I had zoned out, I was staring at something for, I don't know, probably ten minutes. My head was racing, and what I realized was that...

okay, walk with me for just a second here, okay? Just think about this for a second...

Every sales message, every good sales message has two introductions, and it has to do with the way the brain functions. Every sales message has two introductions:

One of the introductions, whoever the audience is that's listening to us, the introduction must introduce the person who's speaking. That makes sense. "Steve, who are ya?" Now I gotta do a little bit of an origin story. Meaning, how did I originally come into the thing that I'm doing?

"Well, I started the Sales Funnel Radio podcast back when I worked in ClickFunnels,” right?

You guys know all my, you all know my origin story.

Now, if I'm gonna sell something, I also need to tell, I need to do an introduction about the topic. So there's two introductions, does that makes sense? I'm just kind of setting the framework here. This is a big deal, this is a huge deal. This has made it so much easier for me to teach copywriting to people since I learned that.

And you, hearing this episode right now, just know I recorded this a few weeks ago, just so you know, that's just how I run my content - so that my team's got time to repurpose it like an animal.

So, anyway, there are two introductions to every single sales message. Now, think about this, what I'm doing is I'm going in and I'm telling my origin story. It is the way I introduce myself. It was not until Russell walked in and said, "Dude. Claude Hopkins," that I'm like, "Whoa! That's crazy." I realized, markets have origin stories too.  I was like, "What?" That's the second intro. You guys getting this?

If you're not freaking out right now, I totally get it. I'm a psycho, I'm a freak in this stuff, I totally get it. I'm gonna nerd out over things that you may not, and that's totally fine...

But here's basically what it means:

A lot of people when they sell, they believe that they need to come at it logically, or just emotionally. There are all these different ways to come in and be like, "I'm gonna tell you this, and do a whole bunch of scarcity urgency. I'm gonna do this and do the takeaway sale. I'm gonna do this and do that way." Does that make sense? "I'm gonna do the drug dealer close."

There's all these different ways - there's a lot of different scripts out there on how to sell something.

But what's fascinating is that it was the first time when I realized, if I just told the origin story of my product, there's a likelihood that my customers will see the product's flaws without me pointing them out. Think about this for a moment...

So if I'm thinking about, well, offers... it's really hard to find books about offers. It did not take me long to buy all the books on offers I could find on Amazon, and start to move through them. There's just not a lot on offers. There really isn't.

Claude Hopkins. He wrote the book Scientific Advertising. This guy knows what the heck he's talking about. If you start looking at the things that he's doing, the most crucial part of the sales script, the most crucial part of the sale, right, is the offer. Now, the sales message is what makes the sale, but that offer is the exchange to value. It has to be amazing.

And if I can go in and teach you, "Look, you have to have an offer."  So I didn't tell you a full out rap story with the correct script and all that stuff about the origins - you know, teaching you guys about the origins of the offer...

But if you think about this, if I just educate you on, "This is how offers used to be created..." Suddenly just knowing that there's a backstory that you may not have known about drastically produces and increases perceived value about what I'm talking about, right?

Let's say you're gonna try and sell somebody the keto diet, right? You go out and you're gonna talk about the Atkins diet. "Oh, here's the Atkins diet, you're just gonna eat meat, basically." I think that's the Atkins diet, is it? I don't know, anyway... Here's the one where you just eat meat all the time, right?

If  I start showing you a whole bunch of research on why the Atkins diet is the best, why this is awesome, why this is incredible. That's effective, but it's not nearly as effective, or it's not nearly as much incredible perceived value as if I can educate you on the history of the vehicle that my customer's already in.

I'm going deep here, is that okay? It's not a normal podcast episode. I'm just freaking out by this concept. Way easier for me to draw it, I should totally have my whiteboard over here with me.

The book Play Bigger, one of my favorite books lately, Play Bigger talks about how, whoever can best articulate the problem to a market, it's also assumed that that person has the best solution. You guys get that?

Let me say that one more time. Whoever can articulate the problem the best to a market, it is assumed that that individual also has the best solution. And that's why this is so powerful.

I realized that if I can get good at teaching the origin story for the market, for the product, that my customers are currently using. And I'm like, "No, you shouldn't be using that." If I'm the best at going in and teaching, "Look, here's the origin story about the product you're using." It's another way for me to sell them. It's another way to educate the market in a way. It's another way for me to articulate the problem the best - like Play Bigger is talking about.

And to do what Claude Hopkins teaches, and actually say, "Oh my gosh, check this out." And they self-educate. And then suddenly, it's like being pulled from the Matrix. "Whoa! I never realized the product for the flaws that it has." Does this make sense? This is a huge deal.

When I first started building a whole bunch of funnels, I was like, "Yeah, I got the Page Editor and ClickFunnels, I totally understand how this is going around. This makes a ton of sense. This is actually amazing. How do I write copy?" This is before Funnel Scripts or anything like that came out...

I was like, "How do I write copy? Dang it, aw, man, hm. You know what, I don't even know." And there was no answer. But guys, if you're like, "How do I write copy, one of the easiest ways to do it is just by telling the origin story of the products that your customer's currently using. How did that thing come into existence?

It was Steve Jobs who said, something along the lines of ... if you look around and understand that all the things that are around you that you can see, someone just made it up at some point.

When you understand that, it's freeing 'cause you realize, "Wait, that was created with the restraints of a human being's brain." One person, most likely, right? Which means it also could be altered, like, "Whoa. That's crazy stuff!" That's huge.

I'm trying to help you guys understand that when you are telling your story, when you're telling your offers... you're not just telling your origin story. The key and the point is to try and tell the origin story of the red ocean you're selling into. Does that make sense?

Someone put that on a freaking t-shirt, 'cause that's good stuff right there, okay? That's gold. It better be on a freaking Instagram quote card here soon. That's a big deal. That's a big deal - because it means I can shortcut a lot of the little scientific isms of writing copy, but still get the idea across.

That means I don't have to go learn why the engine works. I can just drive the car when I just tell the origin story for the market.

There's this super, super cool quote I really like from the book. I just have to log in real quick to it. I took a screenshot of it. I believe this is Claude Hopkins here. He has a very interesting way of speaking:

"Many have advertised, 'Try for a week, if you don't like it, we'll return your money.' Then someone conceives the idea of sending goods without any money down and saying, 'Pay in a week If you like it?' That proved many times as impressive.”

One great advertising man stated the difference in this way; "Two men came to me, each offering a different horse. Both made equal claims. They were good horses, kind and gentle, a child could drive them. One man said, 'try the horse for a week. If my claim's not true, come back for your money.' The other man also said, 'Try the horse for a week.' But he added, 'Come and pay me then.' I naturally bought the second horse."

You understand what I just did there?

This is a big deal, and it's the reason why, if you have an offer and you have a product, if you have a skill, a talent, something that you have that you know you are better than the majority of the market at what you do - which is probably likely all of you guys if you're listening to this...

If you're better than  the majority of the market at what you do, and you're having a hard time selling, the answer is, "You need to have a better offer." Which includes a sales message in my mind. They're very inseparable. That's why I create them at the same time. Does this make sense?

Two horses, exactly the same, right? Exactly the same, both amazing. A child could drive both of them, as it says. One of them says, "Try it for a week, if you don't like it, come back, ill give you your money back." The other says, "Try it for a week and then pay if you like it." The only difference between those two offers is a little tweak in the way it's presented. That's like, the definition of a freaking offer. Does that make sense? This guy is brilliant.

This is another Claude Hopkins quote I really, really like. I've been geeking out about him, this episode is just kinda about that:

"The time has come when advertising in some hands has reached the status of a science..."

Oh, what's up, Claude Hopkins, how you doing? I'm your man, 'kay? I am your man, that's me, that's me. The science of selling online. That's why that group was created. It's not about the art, it's about the science. What are the formulas? You guys heard about the frameworks episode that I did?

"The time has come when advertising in some hands "has reached the status of a science."

I want you to understand that.

There's some really cool quotes he has in here also about, I was going through about, where he talks about, this stuff, advertising, and selling. It's all salesmanship, and if you have any questions, the best answers come from looking at the problem from the stance of a salesman. Does it sell?

You are not in the business of entertaining. You're not. I'm in the business of selling. Now, as part of that, I might go and do some entertaining stuff. I might yell in the mic, and I might go crazy. And every Monday I might yell on the Instagram, "It's Monday, baby, whoo!"  Right? And there's a showmanship aspect to it.

But I clearly understand that the showmanship is not selling. The showmanship is getting people to me, but I still have to sell the different mechanisms.

Anyway, I've kind of danced all over the place in this episode. I just want you guys to know how stoked I am. And the major key of this entire thing, I'm trying to help you guys understand, is that your market, much like you, has an origin story.

Your red ocean that you're selling back into, just like you, has a red ocean, I'm sorry, has an origin story. If you can go, just learn, and figure out how to describe the red ocean that your customers or the people you wish were buying from you.  

You walk up and you're like, "Hey, you should be trying some ketones over here," and they're like, "Why?"

If you can go in and educate them why their current solution is not awesome, and use the origin story to do so - it's huge power. Huge power.

Origin stories are not just for an individual.

Anyways guys, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Mr. Claude Hopkins, for your awesome quotes and inspiration.

You guys will see me, many times now, attach, watch what I'm doing, okay? You will see many times now attach what I do in the offer world to the backstory, the origin story, of what Claude Hopkins created and pioneered as well. That's what I'm doing, that's why I'm telling you guys this episode right now. That's what I'm doing, and it's tying into so many pieces in my brain. I'm so stoked about it. It was the missing piece I've been looking for.

Boom! Found the hook, found the hook, baby.

Alright, my friends, go be schemers. Be scheming. Go create cool offers, I'll see you guys later.

If you guys like the episode, please rate and subscribe it. And I'll talk to you guys later, bye.

Whoo hoo!

Hey, there's more marketing resources than there are seams of the sea, am I right?

Okay, maybe not, but there is a lot.

How do you know if you're paying for good ones?

Recently I went to my business bank statement and I counted 51 internet tools and resources that I use to run my business every day and actually keep my team size small.

If you wanna see the list, I actually filmed an individual video teaching you why I use each tool and the strategy behind it. And then I dropped a link straight to the source right below it.

If you wanna see the list and see what you can use yourself, go to bestmarketingresources.com. That's bestmarketingresources.com.

Hey, what's going on everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. It's kind of a special, unique episode.

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.

The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.

Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.

My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

What's up, guys?

Hey, I am here at the JW Marriott over in Phoenix, Arizona at the Traffic Secrets event. It's been a ton of fun to watch Russell go in and teach traffic, which is interesting, I mean think about it...

The dude's running an almost near billion dollar company and doesn't know how to run a Facebook ad... BUT he's doing a traffic event.

The perspective of somebody like that that's really, really interesting. And so the things he's been teaching have been quite fascinating.

The trip here though was pretty crazy:

We're getting on an airplane, I was flying to Salt Lake. We get on this airplane at Salt Lake and everyone goes and they sit down obviously it's a full flight, totally loaded up.

The time for us to take off comes, and then it goes, and we're still sitting there. The plane hasn't even moved at all.

Pretty soon the captain comes on like all cliche captains; you know, "How you doin’ everybody?" It sounds like the microphone is in his face. Anyways he goes, "The update is that there's no update. I'll tell you when there's an update." I was like, "Okay, that was weird."

A few minutes later, he gets back on and says, "Hey look, the luggage guy was filling up the airplane and there was a huge bulge coming out of the side of the airplane. And no one can figure out what it is. The maintenance guy is here and they can't figure out what it is... so we'll give this a few more minutes here. We'll see what needs to happen." And he leaves, and we're all just sitting there like, "What on Earth?"

... And it's funny because a few minutes later he comes back on. (We now should've taken off like, 20-30 minutes ago.) "Hey, no one can figure out What the heck the bulge is coming out of the side of the airplane. We've got to get off and change airplanes. It will probably be another 10-15 minutes because that plane's not even here yet... go to gate C10."

Those kind of scenarios are always fun because that is when adults turn into children, right?

People start doing things like, "Oh, are you serious, ugh!"

I was like are you freakin' kidding me? Like, "Let's see, Alive? Or dead with bad plane? Alive? Dead with bad plane?" It was like, "Come on, are you serious? What are the alternatives here? There's not many alternatives. Not many options. Chill out."

Anyway, super funny!

So I get to the actual event and last night, at like 5:00 a.m. somebody pulled the fire alarm for the entire JW Marriott - which is extremely alarming to wake up to!

It reminded me of several basic training days. It's like "Whoa!" You wake up real fast  and you're like, "What's up???" And again, it's when adults become big kids and start complaining like crazy.

I'm not saying you can't ever have a negative feeling towards things that are going on in life, but there's been this pattern that I started seeing in my coaching, and things that are going on in life. I'm not saying not to feel emotions, but holy crap, if you can't handle something unexpected in life, and react to it well... If you can't be response-able - "able to respond," like the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says...

If you're not response-able I don't think you're gonna be a good entrepreneur.

The set of problems that I woke up to today was different (and not foreseen) to the problems I woke up to yesterday. And that's the game of freaking entrepreneurship.

So many people get so mad about stuff like, "Well, I didn't think it would be this way." "Give me a refund, this kind of treatment is unacceptable..." I'm like, "Really? Are you kidding? You could die." Like, "Shut up you big baby. Literally, you're a big baby." ...I always laugh at that.

I'll be coaching somebody, and I'll be like, "Alright, hey, now it's time for you to start publishing," and they'll be like, "Oh man!" And they start doing all this crap... "

“Are you freaking kidding me? In the last episode, I talked about  Cash causing frameworks, and you're not willing to do it?  Holy crap!"

It was interesting because I was sitting listening to Myron Golden... You know, I was doing my One Funnel Away Challenge stuff. I got up early, I went into the event room. No one was in there, just a few people setting up. I did my One Funnel Away Challenge coaching. Which is a challenge where I help people get a funnel out the door in one month...

I wanted to sit around with the lights, and I wanted to sit around with all the noise and the music in the background and do my coaching right there...

(Sorry, there's a big something coming. I'm gonna walk this way.)

...But it was interesting because Myron Golden walked up. And he goes, "Dude, I just read the most impactful book that I've ever read in my life since Expert Secrets." And when somebody says a phrase like that you know it's time to shut up and listen...

He said,  "It was a book called You Squared."  It's not long. It's actually a super short book, and I believe the audiobook is on YouTube for free. I'm excited to go listen to it.) But the basic principle and premise of it...

(Sorry for the sound of that guy right there. I'm trying to walk away from him.)

...The basic principle of it is this, and it's so funny because this is exactly what I've been noticing is the reason people don't have success.  They don't have success simply because they're so fixated on seeing beginning to end.

Myron walked up and he said, "The reason people are not successful yet is because... (There were several things that he said but the biggest thing that I remember...) He said, “The biggest reason they're not successful yet is because they have not decided to be yet."

And you might be "Okay, okay, I've got it, and that doesn't sound very deep." But just think about it right? "They haven't decided to be successful yet." The word decide means to make an incision and cut out all other options.

*Bird song*(What's up birds? You sound cool.)

...If you decide to be successful, you don't care what the paths are. You don't care about the roadblocks along the way. You don't care what things you're gonna hit. There's going to be unexpected stuff.

The reason I wanted to be an entrepreneur, when I started realizing what marketers really do, is because I had an early mentor of mine tell me, "Stephen, to be a marketer is to solve new problems every day that you did not have the day before."

To be an entrepreneur is to have a new set of problems every day.

If you have an unexpected thing that pops up in your life and you're like "Oh wah, are you serious? This is unacceptable. How come no one told me about this? The startup guide didn't include this piece for me."  Man, you are the freaking problem!

Does that make sense?

It's the way that you're seeing this thing. You haven't married the outcome yet.

#Step one: You figure out what you want. You put a stamp out there - stamping the ground. "Bam, this is what I want." You declare it, "This is it. Boom, this is what I'm going for." And then what you do is you just start taking steps.

The most common thing I see that stops people in the game is this... In order for you to actually totally get this I want to tell you a little story real fast okay?

I'm not that big of a hunter, but I love to shoot guns. Growing up, my dad took me hunting a couple of times. I love shooting .30-06. I like shooting big, heavy rounds. He's a lefty and I'm a righty. So I'd go out with this .30-06 with the bolt action on the opposite side which was really weird when you fired.

We'd go out to this little spot. He gets me up super early, you know. It's way before the sun is even out. It's pitch black, it's freezing, and we go up to these super high mountains, and we get out of the truck, and we start walking for a little bit. Then we'd stop, and sit down. I can't see a thing.  I mean it is like pitch, pitch black. I can't even see my hand in front of my face; it's so dark.

I'm sitting there and it starts to get super cold. When the sun is about to rise is when it is the coldest because all the cold starts to rise as the sun kinda chases it off the ground.

So you're sitting there for hours, and because you're not moving, it starts to get super cold as all that cold starts to come off the ground - and you know the sun's about to come up in a little bit. And sure enough, a  little bit of light comes. If I extend my hand all the way, I can see it now.

As we're sitting right there suddenly, the light starts to pop up just a little bit. And there's actually a peak, on the opposite side of where I'm sitting. I didn't even know it was there. The sun just barely hits the top of the peak. It was beautiful, it was absolutely amazing.

The sun keeps going up, and the line where the light is popping up keeps going down, down, down, down. Suddenly I realized, we are sitting on the edge of this gigantic, beautiful valley. This huge, amazing valley. I had no idea it was there.

I sat there for hours while I watched this thing pop up. And that experience always stuck with me. (I did not get an elk that day, which sucks but someone in our party did.)

Anyway, so this principle I want you to know is like the major core mentality that all successful entrepreneurs have...

I don't know what step #4 even is for me right now. I don't, okay? I know the macro level moves I'm moving. But there's a crap ton of micro things I don't even know exist, that I've never had to deal with yet. That I've never had to solve... But I know how to learn. I learned how to learn.

There's this amazing person who knows everything named freakin' GOOGLE. And I can just go there and I can Google. It's gonna be right there. I can go to this amazing individual called YouTube. And you know what? I can learn so much on YouTube. It's insane how much I can learn on YouTube.

Most of my early clients, I knew that what they were asking me to do was possible, but I didn't know how to do it. I knew others were doing it, but I didn't know how to do it. So what does that mean? It means I'm the variable.

So I would go out, and I would say, "Yes, client, I can do X, Y, and Z for you." Then I would go to YouTube, and I would figure out how to do it.

Literally, that's how I actually started.

I did that a ton for years. Having to have a deliverable forced me to learn quickly. Forced me to learn only the most valuable pieces I needed to move the ball forward...

The 80% that mattered versus the 20% to perfection. Don't worry about that last 20% okay?

I don't care what step four is for me on this micro level. I don't care about it until I've taken step three. I hardly even know how to put my foot down in step two right now. That's the whole point though, okay?

Most of the time, I've noticed... this is like the overlaying pattern I've seen. There's really two things that I've seen when I'm coaching somebody new in this game. I've now brought well over 2,000 people through this process of building a funnel and getting it out the door.

The first mentality I've noticed is that people are waiting to take action for them to see beginning to end.

Man, I didn't see the whole freaking valley forever. Hours, and hours, and hours of sitting there freezing my butt off, uncomfortable stuff okay? You never see beginning to end in this game, you don't.

One other thing real fast on that:

Stop learning generally.

I've said that before on this podcast. I'm just saying it again, it's just on my mind. All these things wrap together again.

It's like, "Man, I've got to stop learning generally. If I don't need SEO, why in the heck am I learning it?"

For me to place the very next step I need to take today, do I need to learn SEO? Most likely not, right? Most likely I don't need to put my foot right there.

There might be some other crazy, crazy thing way down the road, and even then I'm not gonna be the one doing it. Why on earth am I gonna study something like SEO?

If it's your thing, great.. but only if it's the very next step you need to take.

It would shock you guys how much I don't study books. It would shock you guys how much I don't just consume crazy amounts of podcasts anymore. It was good at the beginning. It was great, but as soon as I knew what I wanted as soon as I knew what I was going for it all became about learning with the intent to place the very next step in front of me.

I don't care how much other cool information is out there. It doesn't do anything, okay?

Knowledge is not power, knowledge applied is power.

And so I'm gonna apply it with the most intense force that I can with just the next thing. So I practice "Just in Time Learning." I place my foot down, Bam I just learned just for that thing just in time for me to place that foot in the next place.

Funny enough, as soon as I take step number one, a new step three always appears. It kinda comes into the light just a little bit. Not clearly, but then there's a new step one. I'm like, "Oh, okay. Let me place that foot  as best as my foot can be placed." Boom, there it is. "Oh, let me place a new foot down, Boom. Ah, wait, I don't know how to do that. That's okay, let me go read about this on YouTube."

My foot's off the ground. I'm not placing the foot yet, foot's still up there. Let me go see, oh, okay I know how to place that one. And pretty soon, you start walking at a pretty brisk pace. And the better you get, you start to sprint, you start to run.

Some of you guys have said "Stephen, you haven't even been graduated from college for three years yet. How the heck are you doing that?" That's how.

I don't just learn for the sake of freaking learning. I learn for me to go towards the goal. I don't care about the path it takes to get to the goal. It's gonna look like that okay? Stop waiting for it to be straight. Doesn't work like that okay?

So again, first thing I noticed from people is they want to see beginning to end. Doesn't happen that way, okay? Doesn't happen that way. You come to me, and you try and find anyone that it's happened that way for.

The second thing: The number one  excuse that I get for not taking action is "Stephen, well how does that work for my product?" Man, freaking-A alright. If you're selling anything or you're getting leads, I don't care if the point of sale is on the freaking internet or if it's off of it. I don't care if you're just trying to make contact a little bit... but if you're selling anything, anything...

I don't care if it's your product or if it's somebody else's. I don't care if it's info, if it's real estate it's real business, if it's brick and mortar stuff. I don't care if it's B2B, I don't care if it's retail...

If you're selling anything at all these are the principles that make things sell.

It doesn't matter if it's your product. Doesn't matter if it's someone else's product. Doesn't matter if someone else owns it. Doesn't matter if it's affiliate, okay? Guys, oh my gosh that one freaking drives me nuts...

Stop thinking you're unique. You are way less unique in your business than you think you are.

It's not a bash, it's the truth.

My stuff, there's like a 30% area where it's my pure genius. The other 70%...

Man, who was it that said, "If you think you're a hot shot, just look around and realize you've been standing on the shoulders of giants all along"? It's some quote like that. That's the truth.

That's the truth that you gotta understand. You are not unique. You are unique, but I'm saying your business, your product, it's not really that unique. You're not really that much of an exception to what I'm talking about because you're not at all, okay?

So don't think like, "Oh, I've got to see it from beginning to end." First of all, that's garbage, no one follows that. No one follows that.

It was literally the night before we sold the original Two Comma Club Coaching program that we actually outlined the offer.

People were registered for the thing. People were ready, we already did the first full day. It was the second day, the night before that second day where we actually, "Okay, what should we sell them?"

Just move, start swinging the bat. Too many of you guys have been focused on figuring out what the material of the bat is made out of. Who cares! Swing, Swing, Swing! Swing, and realize that you are NOT this like crazy exception to the things we're talking about, you're not.

"Well, I think my scenario is different." Bull crap, Bull crap! I'm gonna make you feel uncomfortable and call that right now. That's a lie, and it's been a lie that you've been romancing so that you won't have to take action.

What I've noticed is that in each one of my coaching programs it's always usually around anywhere from week two to six that's where I get the most push-back because those are the places where I force people to take the most action. So they start doing things like "Well, how much time does it take the average person to do this?"

That's a symptom of you having a belief you're literally trying to find a way to release yourself from the good pressure you're feeling. You're trying to find a way to NOT do the thing and keep your pride on the way out.

"Well people said that it takes about three months, and I only have two months and two weeks, so I'm not a good fit." You're trying to find a way to keep your pride and exit at the same time. Just saying, done it a lot.

I've coached thousands of people through the process now.

"Well Stephen, I don't know, how do you actually go create the product?"

Man, I guaran-freakin'-tee if you just go out and freaking Google that you're gonna find the answer.

If I start answering every person's little, tiny, baby question that could have been answered by Google!

I  teach you to be a self-solver.

My goal is to teach you a level of self-dependency. I want you to be self self-sufficient. There's a ton of stuff I can teach on all these different things, but the problem I've found is that people will use it as an excuse to not take action.

Or they'll use it as an excuse to try and keep their pride and justify their actions or their inaction for doing things: "Well Stephen, I can't see beginning to end." "Well Stephen, I don't think that this is gonna be..." "I don't think my product and my scenario Is a fit for what you're talking about." Yeah? Bull crap! Garbage, not true at all.  

A little tough love Stephen Larsen coming out right now because I'm so sick of people using those excuses. And I'm getting sick enough of it that I'm gonna get pretty forward about it.

I was coaching this morning for the One Funnel Away Challenge in the event room again. (We're just on a break, so I'm gonna go back in here in just a few seconds.)

...But someone asked like three times "Well I just don't know how this works for affiliate marketing" or  "Well, I'm in MLM so it's not really that way." "Well, I'm in retail so it's not really that way." I was like "Ugh freaking-A!"

I'm talking about sales -  this is human psychology.

Do you have a brain? Yes, you do. So does that person, and that person. Everyone in the audience does. These are things and principles that cause human persuasion and action in general.

You are not an exception to the rule. You are way less an exception to the rule than you've romanticized.

And I'm just saying it because I care about you guys. You are my audience, I protect you like crazy. That's my mentality.

A lot of people want to get on the show or stuff like that and I'm like "Meh, NO!" Because you guys are my tribe. I've sacrificed like crazy to try and reach out to you guys so you can hear my voice and my message. And so that's my message today:

#1: Your business is way less an exception to the rule than you want to think it is.

#2: Don't think you need to see beginning to end.

#3: Understand that these really are frameworks that cause cash.

#4: The variable, if somebody else is doing it successfully... if somebody else is out there making it happen, but you're not - then you're the problem.

Something in the way that you perceive the framework is the problem. It's coming from your head, between your ears.

Just telling you a little tough love.

I appreciate you guys, you're amazing.

If you have appreciated this episode and I spoke some tough, hard truth in this one - so I would love your honest feedback.

First, we're gonna put this on YouTube - then we repurpose it for lots of other platforms so you guys to consume on those platforms if you want to.

Anyway, please let me know, be brutal about it,  I would love to hear it.

Thanks so much guys, we'll see you guys later, bye.

Boom, thanks for listening. Please remember to write and subscribe. Hey, you want me to speak at your next event or Mastermind?

Let me know what I can share that would be most valuable by going to stevejlarsen.com and book my time now.