In this episode, I share the lessons learned at each million dollar mark over the last two years.
I recently recounted through the timeline of all of the business and product attempts I've made... Here's a recap of my second 17 tries
Here's a recap of my second 17 tries...
Buckle up, this is Part #2 of my 33 product failures journey!
(Alternative Title ‘The Obstacle is the Way’ #2)
Hopefully, it's cool me taking two episodes to share my actual journey with you ‘cause there’s been A LOT of ‘failures…
BUT…
There's also been a lot of growth.
In fact, in my opinion…
Failure is largely made up. It's a facade to dull the will of dreamers
So when somebody sits back and says, "Stephen, I've tried these things, or I'm doing this, or I'm doing that..."
I have empathy, but I have very little sympathy…
Because... you know what?
So own that and know that it's part of the gift.
The gift that allows you to do stuff that the rest of humanity has a very hard time hacking.
They get really sensitive and tender, and that's okay,...
However…
You will become somebody new under this umbrella faster than anything else I can think of.
And the changes stick, they stay.
My business grows to the degree that I do.
As long as I see that revenue going up, funny enough that's one of the indicators I know that I'm changing, and it's awesome.
So guys, let's cut back over to the rest of this episode here. I would love to see your comments on this though.
For those of you guys who aren't watching on the YouTube session, it might be helpful for you to see the list.
If you feel like ‘I got it’ and that's cool too.
But I would love to actually hear how many attempts you guys have gone through on this.
And this is NOT like a ‘you/ me’ kind of thing.
Instead, I wanna celebrate that with you and say...
Or…
One of the games I'm obsessed with is called Cashflow (where you aim to get out of the rat race).
And when you get that first funnel that REALLY kills it, you get out of the rat race rather quickly and it's super fun.
So I want to show you …
I appreciate you being here, and I wanna know how many times you've tried to make a business work, (funnel or not)...
So leave me a comment!
After my first 17 product failures, that's when I started working next to Russell.
At that time...
Understand that the first four years of my entrepreneurial journey did not go that awesome, but these individual little lessons were ‘the way!’
However, I was obsessed…
(I'm just gonna keep saying it 😂)
I WAS OBSSESSED!
I was listening to a ton of podcasts (because they were free).
I didn't have ANY money.
It was a huge deal when I got a $7.95 free plus shipping DotCom Secrets book…
$7.95 was A LOT of cash for us at the time.
It was painful for me; I was nervous about it, thinking, "Ugh, is this gonna be okay ??? You know we could buy three loaves of bread with that money.”
Money was SUPER tight.
One of the reasons I rode my bike everywhere was because $20 for gas felt like too much
I know what it's like to NOT have money.
Everything, after I started working for Russell, gets a little foggy because I was building most of the products from 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM.
Here’s what happened...
I just told myself, "Larsen, you ready to feel a little pain?"
I'd say, "Yeah... okay, you're gonna feel tired for a little while, you're alright with that?"
I'd be like, "Yeah, I am,"
I'd do a lot of self-talk. I was like, "Alright, let's do this."
It was like this for probably for the first nine months because I was trying to develop just one additional revenue source.
And that's really when I started documenting my journey 'cause I realized how freaking rare was to sit next to Russell Brunson.
I was fully aware of the scenario I was in.
One of the things I had to overcome at this time period was like the belief that it would work just because I was sitting next to Russell, so it was a very raw moment for me as I say that.
'Cause like, Man people, what are they gonna say? “You're only where you are because you were next to the man."
Q: Did that help?
A: Of course, it helped, come on!
Q: Would you do the same?
A: Of course you would, right? Of course, you would.
But there are like 340 employees over there now and you don't know how to name a lot of them.
… that's NOT a bash, it's a really powerful lesson, (and I hope no one gets offended when I say that).
But the reason why everything else happens from this point on is that I started this podcast.
I was now getting paid by Russell - so we weren't broke. We had four-digit checking accounts or less and basically had zero savings.
We weren't living on student loans anymore and we were out of the starvation mentality where we’d wait for the next loan to come in so we would eat…
It was great not to have to think:
"Okay, we have to live off this money for the next four months because we don't know what other business Stephen's gonna fail at."
...you see what I'm saying?
I know some of you guys are going through that and that's why when someone's like, "Okay, but we'll do this, we'll do this."
I'm like, "Bruh, I get it. I get it 'cause I've been there. I get it. It took me years."
And then when I finally met Russell, it took three, four more tries before "BOOM!"
Understand where I'm coming from on this...
It was April when I started working at ClickFunnels and I launched Sales Funnel Radio in July. It took several months 'cause I was so freaking scared to be sitting next to Russell.
I was like, "Oh, man! "
You can listen to the first few episodes of the show… and they're NOT good.
*WHATEVER*
I was in the act of doing the thing.
I don't want hindsight bias, but when I look backward...
Like, "Man, I had to change, like, crazy in order to do what I'm doing now."
That's why I just keep launching the next thing.
Do that and you'll turn into somebody that you didn't realize you had the power to become.
When I created 'Sales Funnel Broker' the cash size started getting large because I started giving away a lot of free funnels.
I started becoming a stronger affiliate for ClickFunnels.
I was an affiliate for a lot of the very projects I was working on and that was BIG for me. It helped my confidence A LOT
Then probably 50 about funnels in, I started doing funnel audibles for people. You could get an hour with me for 100 bucks.
At that time, I was like, "A hundred freaking dollars. Oh my gosh." I was going nuts.
So I started selling more coaching and selling more.
You understand I was a good funnel builder but what I started becoming next to Russell was a marketer.
Being a funnel builder isn't altogether that crazy once you spend some time inside the ClickFunnels mechanics.
Learning to become a marketer was very different.
And I think it's one of the reasons people like Sales Funnel Radio so much is because I'm very open about the pain stuff.
I've been doing this for four years now, (just the funnel game), and to see how fast it all can happen when you just do ‘what the heck I'm telling you to do…’
It doesn't take that long to make A LOT of cash.
It took me 13 months to make my first million after leaving ClickFunnels.
Hopefully, no one gets weird as I say that. It's just...
That's the reality - proof is in the pudding.
Anyway, so I became more of an affiliate marketer for ClickFunnels itself.
I already loved ClickFunnels beforehand but when I saw how genuine Russell is, I began to love ClickFunnels even more.
I still love real estate - I own realestatesalesfunnels.com.
Don't go there right now. It's freaking garbage. It's terrible.
But I just started launching tons of funnels in those evenings or early morning hours.
I’d just launched stuff, man. There was no rhyme or reason.
And the reason it was that during my day job with Russell, we were launching funnels around those things.
And so I would walk away, like, "Oh my gosh, I saw how he did that. I could go do that too."
So I started launching…
And they would fail, and I'd be like, "What's going on?"
(This is a very powerful lesson)
The role that I had at ClickFunnels doesn't exist anymore, so I’m looking through very unique eyes…
... and I'm trying to give and be very open about this.
I started launching more and more. I had…
... there was a time when I had 12 funnels on a waiting list, which was crazy!
And what was nuts was that…
None of them worked very well.
I was like, "Wait, but I'm building all these funnels for Russell."
However, Russell was creating the offer and the message, and those were the two key things that I wasn't doing so well yet.
It took me, the first six months to really see how important the Offer and Message are.
It was all we did all day.
For me, personally, it was 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM pure obsession for a straight year, and then also in the evening times.
Then suddenly I started seeing these patterns in what Russell was doing; it was all the in-between things that are extremely hard to pick up from a book.
It was all the stuff that you gain from having a mentor, (even though Russell wasn't exclusively doing that with me).
Anyway, it was a crazy powerful lesson... and so I started pushing myself even more.
.. and I had my first five-figure a day!
I was like, "Holy crap." My eyes rolled to the back of my head and I realized how big this was.
It wasn't called My Funnel Stache, but I've launched that product several times now.
We’ve got it at a great place now and it sells well now, which is awesome.
But it usually takes a few rounds.
That's when I started doing a grand a week and it changed our lives, (that was probably six months into working for ClickFunnels).
I was building so many freaking funnels on top of doing it for Russell.
Not all of them were revenue funnels, I think some people think I built 500 revenue funnels.
No, No, No, No.
Maybe they were a100 of them specifically for leads in sales. Out of the 500 funnels, a lot were just for fulfillment.
There were major projects specifically for ClickFunnels.
So then I started doing big client builds - that was $11,500 a day. That was nuts.
I started launching My Funnel Stache.
I realized the thing that everyone wanted from me was just more funnel education.
So I started selling that.
And the rest is kinda history...
The BIG moment was when I realized that the info product model can attach to ANYTHING.
I was building funnels for Russell's inner circle and people like CNBC with The Profit.
And a lot of times, it’s how these guys would make a ton of money.
I've heard several people say like, "Yeah man, that made a lot of money, but I'm gonna make more money teaching how I did it."
I remember the first time I heard somebody say that, and I was like, "That's kind of weird."
But I realized it's because they're doing their skill and then they go teach how they did it on top and they get all this cash.
That's a powerful principle to realize.
I took a long journey until I found the two or three products exploded and changed my life.
A lot of the funnels that I have that are cash-flowing a couple of grand a day - this is the second or third time I've launched them.
That's very normal for ‘the space.’
But I feel like the thing that happens with people is they're like...
"Hey, I gotta go do all that crap in order to actually make it happen?!?"
A: Not if you follow a guy like me!
My whole purpose is to condense this, so you don't need to…
So make sure you're following somebody who's actually done it and walked the walk.
Originally, I thought I’d had 17 failures, but it's more like 33.
My stories are real. My stories are true.
The only time I've ever lied to you guys is on that fake book story.
I'm just bringing that up so that you all know 😂
Anyways, you guys are awesome.
Keep going at it and realize that there are hardcore patterns.
These are just my personal journey funnels that I’m sharing with you.
And you see, (obviously) when I started following someone, and actually paying to get into groups, the acceleration was insane.
It was so fast.
This blog covers the course of a year and a half versus ‘the six years’ I covered last week…
So it's yeah, that's a BIG lesson there.
Anyways guys, hopefully, it's been a good episode for you to see that!
It's of no other purpose than to show you truly what the journey has been…
That's why I created OfferMind... and I'm gonna pitch it right now, okay?
The OfferMind event was created to teach you the patterns that I did not know on any of this stuff.
Even a little bit into working for ClickFunnels, I still thought it was about the funnel.
It's NOT!
Q: What is a funnel?
A: Funnel is a sales message and an offer.
If you wanna learn the VERY simple formulas,( it's like six easy steps that I've just continued to condense, condense, condense, condense).
I coach like crazy and I'm doing the thing.
I am doing ALL this actively, and it's my obsession.
So if you wanna come learn from a guy like me who's actually done it and walked the walk…
I'm not just here just blowing smoke and theorizing.
Come to OfferMind.
Go to offermind.com, grab a ticket!
We're excited 'cause it's gonna be crazy, guys.
We have…
I will tell you…
Russell does not go to many events, much less speak at any besides his own, so this is a really rare thing.
I'm so thankful to him and I appreciated him for doing this.
Come to OfferMind, guys. I want you there.
It's really easy to create a message when you just follow the format that I'm gonna share with you.
and it comes from me doing it and becoming really introspective. So, guys, go to offermind.com, grab a ticket, so you can come learn from people who are actually doing it instead of theorizing. We'll see you guys later. Go get rich and give back my friends.
Oh…
*OINK*
Hey, if you're like me, you love marketing and sales strategies, right?
I have a hunger to learn new marketing and sales strategies all the time.
So I recently reached out to 98 marketing experts to ask them how they sell their products…
But I decided I wanted to do it in a clever way, and here's what I actually asked them…
"Your doctor suddenly delivers terrible news. You're diagnosed with an unknown disease, and unless you stop working in exactly 90 days, you will die.
You have a thriving business, an epic cash flow but now you need to use your marketing know-how to trim it all down and prepare for your final offer.
What steps would you take to plan, create, and launch your final offer, that will fund the rest of your life?"
Now, of the 98, only about 30 answered.
And I decided that I turn my video interviews with them into a cool FREE virtual summit.
If you want to watch the summit for free and see…
...just go to yourfinaloffer.com.
That's yourfinaloffer.com and sign up for the FREE summit now.
I thought I'd do something a little bit different and share all of my failures.
It took me 17 tries to make this game work…And after going back and recounting, it's actually 33.
THE OBSTACLE IS THE WAY
I recently recounted through the timeline of all of the business and product attempts I've made...
Here's a recap of my first 17 tries
I've always been interested in business. I don't know why, but it's just something that I've loved - it's kind of a passion of mine.
There's a lot of things I could dive deeply into and get passionate about. But for some reason, sales, selling and working with my hands, I've just always loved that.
When I was growing up, my dad had me be the yard manager.
I was... (I always say, "I was the oldest of six..." 😂) I am the oldest of six kids and so, I was bestowed the role of yard manager.
I was in charge of all of the hiring and firing of my siblings.
I had to go and create contracts; I didn't know how to do that. So I went and I wrote a contract.
My dad was guiding, but not doing…
He was like, "Go look it up ‘What's a contract?’ on Google."
So, I wrote the contract: "You will agree to weed... "
I had to go hire my siblings and make a proposal to my dad of how much money I thought it would cost for us, his children, to run the business, which I thought was very clever.
I had to write a proposal, "Dad, I think we can do it for $30 a week," or something like that.
Then he had me go interview my siblings, as cheesy as that might sound, it was one of the greatest gifts ever.
I think I was like 14, 15, 16, 17; like right in that range…
And I had to go interview my siblings and actually have them sign contracts to…
Does that make sense?
It was really, really cool because it taught me a lot about just the way business flows, and how to run it.
What's cool is that after I interviewed them and they signed their contract, my siblings would go do their thing and then my dad wouldn't pay me until I invoiced him.
I didn't know what an invoice was.
I thought that was the weirdest, dumbest word on the planet.
I was like, "What is an invoice? That's stupid."
And so, I had to learn what an invoice was, go write one and hand it to my Dad.
… it was like, net 30 terms, like a normal business.
My Dad would pay me and then I'd turn around and payout to my siblings.
I'd keep 10 bucks for myself, just for setting up the structure.
A lot of my siblings were younger than me; there's a 17-year difference between me and the youngest, so the youngest wasn't even around when this happened…
It was a really, really powerful because if they didn't do their part, I had to go in and fix that stuff.
… it was really cool.
I took the same principles and my brother and I, would go to Walgreens and buy these $2.50 laser pointer pens, and then we'd take my mom's labeler and label it for 18 bucks and go sell these laser pointer pens.
We're making hundreds of dollars a day as high school students until we got in trouble and the administration almost expelled us.
We had to do a bunch of community service for being entrepreneurial. Anyway, another topic 😂 … it was fascinating!
We grew up on the back nine of a public golf course. It wasn't a super nice golf course, but there was still a golf course.
So being kids, we'd hop the fence, dive into the ponds, grab all the golf balls, clean 'em up and sell 'em back to the golfers.
We did a lot of stuff like that.
I've never actually shared with you how it all happened and I thought it'd be kinda cool to just, "Hey, storytime," share with you ALL the failures.
I thought it was 17 failures, but it's actually 33.
It was like 17 until I found the internet, and then when I found the internet, then it was like another 16,17 tries…
So, I thought it'd be kinda cool to share with you.
I was on an interview recently and someone was like, "A few people have asked, Steven, if some of your stories are true?"
Yeah, they're true.
And that's why I'm so passionate about what I do.
(I gotta be careful with the language I use here)
I'm not pansy-ing around; this has been an active pursuit of mine for the majority of my life now, and that's one of the reasons it's done well.
I always laugh when someone's like, "I tried it once, it didn't work."
"Oh, you tried it once? Did you try it 33 times?"
And just so you know, when I say, "I tried that," I'm not saying, "I read a book and dabbled."
I walked down Main Street trying to sell people, okay?
I didn't count something as a try until I actually was actually trying it.
I mean I was actually trying to...
Reading a book and dabbling, hat's not trying. You gotta pony up a little bit and actually do the thing.
So anyway, that was in my teenage years…
TRY #1: LASER PENS & YARD BIZ
What was cool about that though is I started learning about marketing at that age, because I learned how to write flyers.
I would look at flyers, we'd print 'em out, chop 'em up and then my brother and I would just go run down our streets peppering all the doors.
We drummed a lot of yard business that way when we did our a yard business thing.
So anyway, I love working with my hands.
Crap, I forgot about others…
So, first one's on there, I'll say yard biz/pens 'cause I almost got kicked out for that but there were a bunch more - there were soooo many.
I was ALWAYS selling something as a teenager.
Anyway, that was like up until 2007 - I thought it'd be cool to actually give some of the timelines behind this too, so you guys know I'm telling the truth when I say…
"This is how much stuff I've tried with this and it's the reason so much experience has happened."
I'm NOT just drawing on things I learned from ClickFunnels.
I'm drawing from a HUGE background before I even heard of ClickFunnels, Russell or anything like that.
I'll pick this up at 2010…
TRY #2: STOCKS & OPTIONS
2010, I came back from a mission from a church and I got into a lot of stocks and options.
My dad and I went and paid a good chunk of change to learn from the Rich Dad Company only to find out that a lot of the things were old.
(You see I'm writing small here for a reason 😂)
With the stocks and options thing, the reason why I stopped is I got married, I got distracted, alright!
2011, I got married.
You'll see my relationship with money starting to change as I go through this list.
So the lie that I was believing in the stocks and options thing and why I left was that…
"You need money to make money and we have no money, so I'm not gonna make any money in selling options or anything like that."
There are ways around it every time.
TRY #3: REAL ESTATE
I started getting into real estate, and at first, I started doing residential but I ended up doing a commercial as well
At the time, I was listening to a guy named Sean Terry.
Sean had this podcast called Flip to Freedom and he was teaching how you could go get a house under contract and then in the closing period, flip the contract for like 10 grand more.
If you do one or two of those a year, it's a lot of money.
I started putting these road signs up all over the place.
We didn't really have any money, so we spent 300 bucks we basically didn't have to go put up all these road signs.
I put road signs all over the place, I'm talking tons of 'em.
And I ended up getting a lot of phone calls.
I was like, "Well, let's go do another campaign."
***These are campaigns, I wasn't using the internet!
Same thing; I was getting a list of all the people who had passed away and those who had inherited the house. So it was an inheritee list.
At night, my wife and I, hand-wrote hundreds of letters on legal pieces of paper.
And we wrote 'em, so they looked really weird.
And between the road signs and these yellow letters, I got 300 phone calls in a month.
We’d only been married like three months, and we had already gone through that whole embarrassing part.
We were about to go through the crazy part, where I found out I was not able to feed her… which you all know that story.
So yes, it's a real story! And it sucked, right!!!
So I got 300 phone calls, and I was trying to take these contracts and flip them in the closing period.
I learned a lot about, a lot about real estate at that time, and it was awesome, BUT…
Even though I got seven properties under contract, I hadn't learned how to sell yet, and so I lost all of 'em - which sucked so bad.
Like, "Oh man, that would've changed EVERYTHING."
And it's partly why I look back and say, "The obstacles' the way."
The fact that I realized, "I didn't even know how to sell" made me wanna get better at sales.
I wasn't ready to give up on the real estate part. I still love real estate. It's something we're actually doing right now.
Anyway... between 2007- 2010, that's when I basically ran away from home and did door to door sales, doing security in LA for a while.
And then I got kicked out of college!
… that time period is not a happy one.
Then I got back into college, so I graduated kinda late for my age.
TRY #4: INVESTING 401KS
I found a really cool mentor…
This guy called my road sign and he's like, "Hey, I know what you're doing," and he started mentoring me.
401ks are terrible!
So he was like, "Hey, if you put your 401k into buying a piece of commercial real estate, you'll get way more return and get paid, not just on the cash flow, but possibly the appreciation of the property itself."
So anyway, we started taking 401ks under his wing.
He knew what he was doing, he was a professional, so under his wing, he was teaching me how to take 401ks and invest in massive commercial real estate, and we give a percentage of the property to the person who invested.
It's really cool. I learned a lot about that.
TRY #5: DIAMONDS
We sourced these really cool diamonds, (made sure they weren't blood diamonds)…
And we’d get custom rings made for people.
People would take three or four pictures of rings they liked and my buddy and me, (super cool guy), would send these pictures over to this company, I think in LA.
They would send back a wax replica of a custom ring from the three or four pictures that the person wanted.
So we'd show them a wax replica, then they'd choose the cut, the clarity, and the color.
One of the biggest issues I kept running into was that I didn’t know how to sell
It was like, "I need to learn how to sell.”
It's one of the reasons I chose door-to-door sales. I wanted to get good at selling in a rough environment.
It was around that time when I started learning more about the internet, and I realized that all these ideas I was doing, involved the internet.
TRY #6: WORDPRESS
I started building WordPress websites for people with specific skills.
I built a website for an artist…
And the thing that sucked is I built a website, which already doesn't sell a lot for an artist, (people who don't usually make a lot of money).
It was a bust, man - that was the worst thing I've ever built in my life.
It was so bad, but…
The obstacles' the way, right?
And so it got me on the internet and I went and I started filming tons of YouTube videos because I realized the power of content.
It’s around the time I started learning from Pat Flynn.
If you guys don't know who Pat Flynn is - I love him, he’s the man.
I keep trying to interview him on Sales Funnel Radio and their assistant keeps saying like, "Okay, we'll see if we have time."
And I'm like, "Come over here. I want you to be on Sales Funnel Radio so bad. You changed my life."
Anyway, I started learning more about YouTube videos and publishing and content and learning more about what affiliate marketing was.
I was like, "This is really cool."
And I realized that I didn't know how to sell.
I hadn't learned that there was a difference between sales and marketing at this point.
By this time, I was married, and that's when I was like, "I need to go sell."
TRY #7: PEST CONTROL
I was like, "I need to go do door-to-door sales." Specifically, what I was going to do was pest control.
I was learning enough from Pat Flynn and the people he was interviewing to realize that there was this world called 'direct response marketing.'
Around this time, I started learning from Frank Kern also, but I didn't know that was his name.
This was back when he had long hair and looked like a hippie.
I learned that in direct response marketing that for every 100 flyers or mailers that you send out, you'll get one to two.
So I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna go recruit a huge sales team for door-to-door sales."
So I learned how to create my own flyers and what copy to use, (this is really when I started getting into more copywriting).
And I spent tons of time between classes, canvassing all the apartments and all the dorm rooms of people on campus.
Because when they came to our little meetings and they got in under me to the door-to-door sales thing, I got an override commission on all these people I brought in.
And that was one of the things that saved our butt.
My wife was an apartment manager at that time and we were barely making it. We were both working so hard. It was so intense.
I started putting ads for our pest control on the internet and my phone started blowing up.
And that's when I first started learning about the power of selling people who were already looking to buy what you're selling.
So I don't have to go deal with all that convincing...
I'm not in the game of convincing because of that experience.
‘The obstacles' the way…’
...maybe I should name the podcast that 😉
Anyway, that is really when I started getting into Gary V - I listened to the book Crush It!...
As I started getting into more of his stuff and I realized, "I needed some more hustle."
Not that I was lazy before at all, I was hauling, but I realized I could turn up the spicy a little bit.
Halfway through the summer, I was one of the top sales guys but that dropped and plummeted because I started learning about the internet and got distracted.
TRY #7: E-BOOKS
I was still listening to Pat Flynn and Gary V a lot.
And I was like, "I need to go sell e-books 'cause I want some assets to sell and e-books are nothing to fulfill."
So I wrote the world's worst e-book on the freaking planet - talk about selling to broke people.
Remember, I’d got kicked out of college and so I had to learn how to learn in order to come back in…
Now, I was now getting almost straight A's the whole time, (which is pretty cool considering all the other stuff I was doing in between classes), 'cause I learned how to learn faster.
So I was like, "Let me go sell a book to students about how I'm doing all these straight A's, how to hack the classroom."
It was the worst e-book’ - I think I had two sales and one was from my mom, “Thank you, mom”.
But that door-to-door sales experience taught me so much about…
I had a framework so that when I saw Dot Com Secrets, I was like, "I see what Russell's doing."
I didn't know who he was at this time yet.
This was about 2013, and that's when I joined the Army… (I was in for four years, I've only been out for like a year-and-a-half).
...but it's also when I joined my first MLM.
TRY #8: MLM
I joined my first MLM in 2013, right before I left for basic training.
And the reason I know that so well is 'cause I kept trying to sell all these other soldiers 'cause I was excited about joining my MLM.
I had like 10 people who were super excited to join, but as soon as we all got out, I never saw anybody again and NOTHING happened 😂
We'd be doing push-ups and I'd be selling people.
In the army, you'd get qualified in your MOS and AITs…
I got in trouble because I kept sneaking in all these finance books in the military because I hated what we were learning.
... that was crazy!
This is when I started learning from guys like Mike Dillard, Magnetic Sponsoring, and stuff like that.
This was a big deal for me because I started learning more again about how to attract dream customers to me.
(I forgot about a lot of that.)
Anyway, that's when I started getting into more like ClickBank and realizing what affiliate marketing was.
And I was diving deep into a guy, his name is Vick Strizheus. I can't say his last name, but he had a course called High Traffic Academy.
In spite of joining the army, were still broke and desperate - I picked up someone else's contract because there weren't any slots left due to a timing issue.
And so I hardly got paid anything; we got insurance, but that was about it.
So we were still starving and it barely covered our apartment… and so we could barely eat still, even by this time.
I was just hall and balls trying to figure out how to make it happen.
It was the greatest gift ever that none of these tries worked well.
If the stock and options thing worked, I'd still be doing it.
You see what I'm saying?
Like, "The obstacle’s the way, baby!"
Anyway, I'm gonna keep going... you guys get the point.
TRY #9: CLICKBANK/ AFFILIATE
This when I learned (even more so) who Frank Kern was.
It was Frank Kern who I learned the soap opera series and a lot about upsells from. I actually learned that from Frank, not Russell.
But when I saw Russell teach it, you know…
Russell has this amazing gift to teach things that are really complex.
So I was learning a lot of great things from Frank, but Russell brought it to this whole additional level.
Anyway, Frank Kern, if you watch this, you're the man. I love you, thanks for responding to me on instagram by the way.
Anyway, Frank Kern is who gave me the fuel to start doing more ClickBank stuff.
This is like kind of like a hodge-podge time with for me. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I was just being active.
I still hadn’t read Dot Com Secrets at that time and I hardly knew Russell Brunson even existed either.
I’d just done enough to see that I should put a squeeze page in front of an offer, and I learned that from Vick, and Frank Kern.
Because I started getting into more ClickBank and affiliate stuff - which is where my first dollar online came from…
And that was probably like, 2014 - there was a lot that went on!
TRY #10: PAUL MITCHELL
Then I started working for Paul Mitchell ‘cause ClickBank helped me get pretty good at traffic.
My first dollar online ever came from affiliate marketing - which is so cool and * SO VALIDATING*
If you haven't made your first dollar yet, just keep pushing till you hit it 'cause it's like, it melts all of these false beliefs.
That space from zero to one buck is way more than a dollar.
Yeah, oh, man. So nice - that was *HUGE*
The college I was going to, (BYU Idaho) was approached by Paul Mitchell who said, "Hey, we need help."
The professors were like, "We don't know what these two kids were doing but go talk to them."
And we drove lots of traffic online, it was awesome.
That's one of reasons I know enough about traffic to hire someone else to do it. 'Cause I learned enough, right?
I only want to learn enough to move forward.
So after Paul Mitchell wouldn't pay us….
... and told us to ‘chalk it up as an internship’ - that's when I met Coulton.
TRY #11: SMARTPHONE INSURANCE FUNNEL
At the time, Coulton had his own physical smartphone repair store. He sold off the business and I was like ‘this kid is like one of the only other people doing what we’re learning.’
There were three of us out of all-college that were doing what we were learning and because of that learning more than whatever was in the classroom!
Doing is ALWAYS a better classroom than a classroom.
He was like, "Hey man, I just sold my business. Let's go start a smartphone insurance business."
That was the first ClickFunnels funnel I ever built, right there.
By that time it was 2015, and that was my first bill to ClickFunnels... June July, August, it's one of those three months there.
We were still broke as a joke…
I did get paid a little bit of money from Paul Mitchell but it was like 500 bucks. You know what I'm saying?
Man, we're still barely getting by, it was like tooth and nail the whole time - which was kind of a blessing because it made me fight way harder than those who had money.
They were like, "Oh, it didn't work."
It was nice that I was broke. I don't want that now but, it was nice.
Anyway, the Smartphone insurance funnel was the first ClickFunnels funnel I ever built, and it broke even on the ClickFunnels fee, so we had enough customers to break even on it.
After a few months, we stopped doing it 'cause insurance is super hard to make sexy.
TRY #12: SECRET MLM HACKS CD
That's when I launched the first Secret MLM Hacks CD.
For many of you, this is the first time you ever heard of me. It was a free plus shipping funnel that I started hacking off of Russell.
And again, I was still in the middle of college.
No one bought it for the first 8 months, (a lot of you know the story), and while no one was buying it, I started just practicing with ClickFunnels.
That was around the time that I looked in the mirror and said, "I'm gonna be the best funnel builder in the world."
Am I? I don't know. And I don't care. But the pursuit of that is what caused the rest of this.
Just look at my tries!!!
This is before I even got to ClickFunnels.
Oh, what was cool about the Paul Mitchell and all the sort of stuff that's going on this time is that's when I found Jeff Walker and Russell Brunson.
I was deep into this before I even found ClickFunnels.
And with those two, specifically Jeff Walker and Russell Brunson, that was the key for me to know how to launch the smartphone insurance funnel, and then the Secret MLM Hack CD funnel.
MY MONEY FALSE BELIEFS
We were still broke and I was still dealing with a whole bunch of internal money false beliefs.
I remember my wife, asked very lovingly, but also very forward, she's like…
"Every time somebody asks you what you wanna do you, you're like, 'Well, maybe I'll be an entrepreneur but to give it all away. I wanna make some money but only because of this.’"
I was still very afraid to speak to people. I was getting more opinionated and January 2015 is when I started filming my yearly goal video.
I have the shaved head 'cause I was in the army, it’s a pretty interesting video.
And then every year after that, I did another goal video.
It was before I really knew what ClickFunnels was, and that's when I started getting into affiliate marketing.
Anyways, just to practice though, I started building some funnels for some other projects.
TRY #13: CHARITY MUD RUN FUNNEL/ WATER IONIZER
I’d enlisted in the Army and then went through RTC to become an officer - we had a charity mud run for what's called the Fisher House.
Fisher House is a charity that funds families to fly to whatever hospital a soldier got sent to if they get wounded.
And I built a little funnel that got 650 people to a live mud run and three news stories.
It was a HUGE success.
It gave me a lot of confidence, which was powerful because that's around the same time I was also doing another project and this was very key for me.
I’d learned enough about the mechanics of the funnel from the previous three, four, five projects, (and there were others in here, these are the major ones), that I was like…
"Okay, I get the funnel thing."
And so much of the time, my belief was like, "It's all about the product, it's all about the product, it's all about the product, it's all about the product."
That's why when I say, "It's NOT all about the product," it's a BIG deal ‘cause when I say that I'm speaking from experience.
I was walking around for these two, three, four years like, "What should I sell? What should I sell? What should I sell? What should I sell?"
It was at this point, I finally was like…
I learned this from the man himself, Mr. Russell.
There was a water ionizer company that I built for.
And what was cool about the water ionizer company was that it was “the one” where all these principles started clicking.
You notice that things didn’t click when I was reading a book. It's when I was actively in the pursuit of launching something else.
All these principles just started snapping together.
At the end of 2015/ beginning of 2016, this all started to happen.
Q: And guess what happened three months later?
A: My first Funnel Hacking Live.
...which is where I met ‘The Man’.
What was cool about the water ionizer one is that the funnels worked, and I made them some major cashola, and it was very validating.
So I started having these successes.
And while they weren't a lot, it was like break-even, break-even instead of lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose…
The water ionizing was when I started getting monthly cash flow which totally changed our life.
I was like, "Oh, jeez, this is sick."
It was only $1200 a month, but to us, I was freakin King Kong.
You know what I mean?
Anyway, that was a really BIG moment.
So next post, I’m gonna continue from the time that I got to ClickFunnels.
I tried hard to make this game work and it's one of the reasons I have so much affinity and empathy for those who are actually in this game.
If you’ve been in any of the One Funnel Away Challenges or in my coaching, you know I have so much empathy because of the huge list that I'm sharing here.
It took me a long time to figure this out.
And if I can figure it out, you can definitely figure it out...
You guys can do this game.
I have a lot of empathy, but I don't have sympathy.
I have empathy meaning I feel with you, because look at the huge list. But I don't feel for you.
I'm not here to feel sorry for you.
Your scenarios and where you are right now is a huge gift.
Hey, if you're like me, you love marketing and sales strategies, right?
I have a hunger to learn new marketing and sales strategies all the time.
So I recently reached out to 98 marketing experts to ask them how they sell their products…
But I decided I wanted to do it in a clever way, and here's what I actually asked them…
"Your doctor suddenly delivers terrible news. You're diagnosed with an unknown disease, and unless you stop working in exactly 90 days, you will die.
You have a thriving business, an epic cash flow but now you need to use your marketing know-how to trim it all down and prepare for your final offer.
What steps would you take to plan, create, and launch your final offer, that will fund the rest of your life?"
Now, of the 98, only about 30 answered.
And I decided that I turn my video interviews with them into a cool FREE virtual summit.
If you want to watch the summit for free and see…
...just go to yourfinaloffer.com.
That's yourfinaloffer.com and sign up for the FREE summit now.
Although ALL Offers can use a facelift, the main driver of a purchase isn't the offer itself…
So your offer may be good enough to sell already.
Here are two common things that really keep people from selling…
Steve Larsen comin’ atcha from the Two Comma Club X Cruise…
I'm here (with 400 Two Comma Club Xers) on the largest ship I've ever seen in my life.
It's so BIG that I can't feel the waves - I wish I could. I like it when mother nature lulls me to sleep on a ship.
I’m wearing ‘the team shirt’ and having a ton of fun…
I was on the same cruise a year ago… and let me tell you, A LOT has changed for me since then…
So I just wanted to share two common issues that stop people selling…
I also want to sure with you WHY your offer may actually be good enough already…
And WHAT you should be focusing on instead!
So without further ado…
HOW TO INCREASE PRODUCT SALES IN #1 MOVE
Real quick, let me tell you a powerful story... (I think I've told you guys this before, so I'll be brief).
I was a door-to-door sales guy selling pest control in Salt Lake.
And basically I had learned how to sell, (I'm just gonna say it, hopefully, it doesn't offend anybody), poor lower-income neighborhoods.
I'd spent five months doing door-to-door sales, (which if you've ever done that, you know it's completely grueling but an awesome, awesome place to learn and grow).
At the end of the summer, I was so excited to go pick up my check from the mailbox…
I go to the mailbox to collect the check that is meant to funds the next (however many months) of our life.
I grab the check, I open it up, and my jaw hit the floor.
You know when you're on a roller coaster and it shoots down really fast, that feeling in your stomach?
I was like, "Oh my gosh. Oh, Holy crap. I can't... This has to be wrong".
On the check from five months of work was ONLY $1200.
I called my buddy and I was like…
"Dude, what's wrong with this check? Something's wrong. You've clearly made a mistake!"
And he goes, "Dude, that's it."
I was like, "Oh, my gosh. This is it!"
I call him back again...
I was like, "No, this has to be wrong. There's got to be a mistake in what you're showing me right here."
And the REALITY is, he goes…
"Dude, you spent the entire summer learning to sell people who have no money.
What do you think happens when it's time for the second service of their pest control contract that you sold them?
They canceled! … and can you blame them?"
Meanwhile, all these other guys who’d actually sold fewer (but higher value) contracts in more well-off neighborhoods (who didn’t cancel) made waaay more money.
Now, hopefully, it doesn't offend anybody, but that's the reality.
The main takeaway here is…
Good products die in poor markets
So I want to share the two major traps that might be stuck in…
TRAP #1
And that might be one reason why you're NOT selling!
I stand up and I go to my market…
A market is NOT a person, a market is a location.
I was going to a bad location (without many dream customers)...
While my buddies had learned to sell in…
… locations or neighborhoods.
This BIG deal to understand, my friends.
This one principle has literally changed my business.
So #1, please understand that some of you are just selling the wrong person.
It's easy to make a mistake and say, "Oh, you know what...”
The reality is you might actually have…
But you're going after the wrong “WHO.”
In fact, it's such a wrong “who” - that they have no money!
So check yourself, sit back and ask...
Does this make sense?
Marketing does not work without insane ridiculous clarity on WHO you want to serve.
Good products die in bad markets
HOW TO INCREASE SALES #INTERNALLY
The second thing I want you to understand and this happened to me personally this last year...
(No one get weird with me!)
(I haven't actually done my goal video for this next year, I will do that soon.)
We almost hit 4 million - it's very, very close!
However, I feel like it was with less ferocious, obsessive, "I'm gonna kill myself 'cause I'm not taking care of myself" style of work.
It wasn't like that at all.
Here’s what happened…
About a year ago, on the previous Two Comma Club X Cruise, this really awkward thing started happening.
I’d taught for three hours during one of the days at sea.
And after that was over, I had a very challenging time being around people.
Some people got offended by it and they were like, "How dare you? I can't believe that. This is crazy. I have a question for you."
And internally, what happened was I started freaking out, almost panic attack style freaking out.
ONLY, I wasn't self-aware about it.
So Funnel Hacking Live happens and I started getting more of this internal anxiety popping up.
And for the last eight months, I've been very open about that on this show, I've been having a lot of therapy…
Mondays, (at 10 AM), Baby, is usually when I go do therapy stuff.
Everyone should do therapy
Oh my gosh, this cruise, for me personally... and on an internal level, I am so much calmer.
If I feel a trigger happening, if I feel anything going down, if there's anything...
I know how to stop it.
I have tools to sit back and grab some mental stability
… I have a foundation - it’s so nice.
I didn't know that I had anxiety.
I thought it just was just like, "Oh, you're an introvert..."
But that was not the reason, I might be a little bit of an introvert, but that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that there was a bunch of mental junk in my head I’d not ever dealt with.
I thought it would be appropriate right now to have you sit back and ask two extremely key questions...
TRAP #2
You might have some stuff in your head -you might need to do some leveling up inside your brain.
I always thought that ‘mind stuff’ was some fluffy crap the first time I heard people say that.
I was like, "Stop telling me to do this.”
… it was so frustrating for me.
I was like, "Just give me the formula."
"Stop telling me, ‘It's all in my head and it's all a mental game.' Just give me the formula, man. What is it? Tell me it, I'm gonna go get it done. It's gonna be awesome."
You may have felt that as well in the past 'cause I was believed that, too.
In fact, I used to make fun of meditation.
I was like, "Stop telling me it's all in my head."
Well, about a year ago, stuff started hitting the fan personally just a little bit and I started realizing that I needed to go deal with a lot of stuff.
So now, I…
THE TWO MAJOR DRIVERS
So the two major drivers of EVERYTHING that’s happened during this past little bit, are…
#1: Good products die in poor markets.
...and you might be miscalculating, "Oh my gosh, I don't."
Because you're thinking, "Oh, no one's buying it."
But…
You might just be selling in the wrong neighborhoods.
A market is a location, not a person.
You might be selling in a neighborhood that neighborhood doesn't have enough of your dream customers.
Make sense?
#2: You might not be a very good driver of the vehicle yet.
You may not have gone through a lot of the issues and stuff that you have going on.
If you don't have to have issues, don't go searching for them.
But if what I'm saying right now is clicking in your head, you're like, "I know what he's talking about..."
That one billion percent affects business.
I wanted to act like it didn't for so long.
I’d be like, "Yeah I got these problems, but who cares?”
And a lot of them are still there…
But I have learned to calm my mind and bring it down.
In fact, several people on this cruise have said, "Stephen, you're not all “BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”."
It's like, "I'm NOT like that all the time - it's just for fun sometimes.”
Business is fun and I'm gonna have fun while I do it... and sometimes I'm like, "BOOM, Baby! Yeah!"
And other times, I'm just calm.
In fact, when I landed in Miami right before the cruise I went and meditated at night on the beach.
Oh my gosh, that was so cool.
It was so fun that I did it again off of my suite balcony.
Anyways, I hope you're doing well and that you enjoyed this little heart-to-heart moment here.
YOUR FUNNEL MAY BE GOOD ENOUGH
Honestly, most of the time when I look offers, there are changes that need to be made... but that's usually NOT the issue.
Instead, there’s usually …
The offer is usually the smallest part...
So while I lead with being ‘the offer guy’ ...that's the smallest session in my events 'cause it's ALL this other stuff that’s REALLY in the way!
Offers are easy, man - it's all these other things that are a bit more difficult.
And finally, understand this, I don't care how nice that cruise ship we’re on is, I don't qualify to drive it.
And the funnels that we help you guys build are like that ship, 'cause sometimes…
But…
You can't let that steer the course of the ship!
You steer the ship, not the wave.
Make sense?
Alright, guys, I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks so much.
#GetRichGiveBack
If you guys want me and my team to create your offer and build the funnel that sells it, go to myofferlab.com.
Thank you so much and thanks for being part of the show. We'll see you guys later. Bye.
Alright!
I've been asked, "Steve, you were the lead funnel builder at ClickFunnels, why aren't you offering a funnel building service for people in businesses?"
Okay, that's a fair question.
Check this out…
Back in early 2016 when I joined ClickFunnels as an employee, there were only about 12,000 users of ClickFunnels compared to the 100,000 now.
And there were only like 40 employees compared to the 400 that there are now.
Okay? What does that mean?
It meant Russell and I were literally the only funnel builders
*PERIOD*
...it was literally just he and I.
About a year into my employment at ClickFunnels though, other funnel building team members started getting hired, we finally had a copywriter, a designer, etcetera.
It changed my whole world as we now had a funnel team.
So before I offered funnel building services, I wanted to make sure I could not only find my team but that it was also air-tight.
What I did not tell you, and what I've NOT been public about was that my team has already been building funnels for other people for over a year now...
... and so finally, I will tell you that we are ready.
We've been building other sales funnels for a while, I just have not announced it until now.
If you want me and my team to build your company a professional sales funnel, come get more info at myofferlab.com.
Make sure you use the “MY” … myofferlab.com.
It comes with a live three-day event just with me, so I can teach you
….as well as a year of coaching from myself and my staff.
Get more information and apply at myofferlab.com.
When you think about it, all businesses need to be able to do three things…
And your professional business needs a professional core offer and funnel to deliver it.
We've already been doing this for a year with students who have businesses that are…
...you get the point?
Not only will we build the funnel, but I’m also actually going to hook you up with the very people that I use to send various types of traffic to my own funnels.
I want you to be taking care of post-funnel build.
If you're tight on money, it's totally fine - we have various payment and funding plans which are also available.
Come learn more and apply at myofferlab.com.
Just be aware that we're actually building you a professional sales funnel, and my team and I actually have very limited capacity in what we can handle monthly.
So skip the line of people shouting the most popular question I'm asked which is, "Steve will build my funnel?"
The answer finally is, "Yes," just go start at myofferlab.com now.
Here's the plan people receive after they join OfferLab…
See how you can use what I'm doing in your own business!
I have an Offer Building Service - where we just happen to build your funnel too...
But a funnel just doesn’t work on its own.
So that’s why we created OfferLab.
And I thought it'd be really fun to share some of the welcome video that I send to people when they join the program…
You’ll see first hand the lengths you need to go to if you want to have a successful funnel…
And why being a funnel geek is optional!
I’m literally sharing a birdseye view of my personal funnel building process... and how I cloned it to create success for other people.
WELCOME TO OFFERLAB!
Hey, guys.
First of all, I just wanted to congratulate and welcome you into this group.
HERE’S THE SECRET...
When you pair OfferLab with everything else that ClickFunnels teaches, therein, in my opinion, (my very strong and validated opinion), lies the secret to making this game work.
OfferLab was created specifically because I can't go to everyone's office.
I get this request a ton…
"How much would it cost to fly, you in, Steve?"
I'm like, "Oh man, I don't know. I can't do that."
And plus, usually when I've made exceptions in the past and have gone and actually done a day consulting for somebody, what usually happens is…
They don't end up being able to pull off what I taught them anyway.
ARE YOU A FUNNEL NERD?
And it goes back to what a lot of what OfferMind was about…
For you to have success in this game, historically meant and required that you also were a funnel nerd.
Now, while you do need to understand certain parts of the funnel, you don't need to be a funnel nerd.
A lot of people aren't.
A lot of the BIG people that you see making the Two Comma Club …
A lot of them didn't build their own funnel.
Start looking into the stories of the people who are making A LOT of money…
A lot of them are NOT doing every single thing that’s being taught inside the space right now…
Instead, they understand what marketing is.
When I started looking at this whole pattern, I was like, "Holy crap. This is really interesting.
There's a lot of people in here who are NOT funnel geeks."
Anyway, you guys all know the story - so I'm not gonna keep telling it, but I just wanna welcome you to OfferLab and give you a brief walk-through of…
HOW TO GROW A BUSINESS
OfferLab is a program that’s NOT meant to be taken at a sprint.
I'm not telling you to slow down, I want you to go fast as you possibly can.
However, there's been times in the past where people have been like..
"Well Steve, it's been two days here and I don't have a million dollars yet?"
And I'm like, "This is a process.. .it takes time." 😂
So, I actually have the OfferLab Packet with me here - which by the way, these are sick, huh?
So as we go through the packet here, I just wanted to walk through, piece by piece, what you all get as part of the program.
Sprint, but it takes time - and that's okay.
I'll be very shocked if you guys don't at least make six figures in this program - VERY shocked!!!
We've stacked so many cards in your favor, it's ridiculous.
I've NEVER seen a program like this!
So anyway...
YOUR OFFERLAB SNEAK PEEK
So what I wanna do real fast is to just walk through the pamphlet so you know where everything is...
It's frustrating for me when I buy something, ('cause I buy a lot of stuff... it's one of the reasons I know how to sell.).
And it's like, "Well, where do I get that thing you were talking about?"
I hate that.
So instead, what I'm going to do real quick is just walk through EVERYTHING - so that you know, not only where to get it... but when it comes in play.
OFFERLAB PHASE #1: THE COURSE
So the first thing is the entire OfferLab course.
Now, this is very key, okay?
This is a living, breathing course.
What we need you to go through and do right now is start preparing for the OfferLab event that's coming up in six weeks.
It's here in Boise, and it's just with you guys - it's not for anybody else, it's not gonna be 600 people like OfferMind was... that's not it at all.
If you can't make the first date that's okay, there's another one.
The OfferLab program comes with one OfferLab event.
So you can choose one of the dates.
If this one doesn't work for you then go to the next one. And if that doesn't work for you, then you can also go to the next one after that.
It's an event that we do twice a year.
This first part right here is to help you develop the inputs that my funnel team needs from you.
This has been a massive mind jigsaw puzzle as I sat back and asked…
You know what I'm saying?
The point and purpose are …
So as far as the timeline goes, this is kind of the way the program works...
As far as the timeline goes for the whole program, the focus for the first little bit on the actual content.
Each week, we go live each Tuesday and Thursday.
Tuesday, Austin's gonna do open office hours, which means…
... go in and ask questions to him.
They're open office hours and the schedule's now posted inside the Facebook group picture.
On Thursday, he's gonna be doing what we're calling Input Audibles.
Meaning, since a marketer is ONLY responsible for the...
… those the macro-level inputs we need.
So, there are a few things inside of the offer and message that we need to get down… and that's what the program is gonna walk you through.
So on ThursdaysAustin is gonna be doing audibles on the funnel inputs…
'Cause you're not building the funnel, which is awesome.
Q: How freaking cool is this program?
A: Really, this is pretty awesome 😂
I'm so excited about it.
HELP ME, RHONDA!
Wednesday - It's open office hours with Rhonda but she goes in with slightly more themed things that have to do with that week's topic.
We go through these first six weeks together with you.
And my role?
At the beginning of each month, I do a deep dive.
I hope you guys do this in your programs…
Stand back and look to see how people are reacting to what it is that you've created, so that you can plug the holes.
And so, that's what you're doing. And that's what I'm doing.
I sit back and I'm like…
“Okay, if I'm a marketer and a result I'm trying to create is Two Comma Club or Titans of Industry Funnels…”
And my role is to…
I'll also be going live as well, I'll be very interactive with the group.
OFFERLAB PHASE #2: THE EVENT
So let’s talk about The OfferLab Event…
DAY #1: Review Day - is gonna be a bit of a review of EVERYTHING we’ve covered so you can see them all in-flow.
You spend six weeks going through all those pieces…
But it's over six weeks.
So, we're gonna spend one day just reviewing real quick
DAY #2:Campaign and Guest Speaker Day.
So in this next one, we have Dana Derricks coming to speak…
Then we have…
They're gonna be guiding a two-hour workshop walking you through a whole bunch of really just awesome stuff that’s needed to kinda sustain what we're having you create in the program.
DAY #3: Asset Day - is my personal favorite day.
We used to drive everybody around, but logistically it's kind of a nightmare - so we're having everybody come to one place to …
... it's *FREAKIN’ COOL*
Asset day is ridiculously insane.
‘THE WHO THAT KNOWS THE HOW’
I remember when I first started this, Russell would be like..
"Well, just go use the who that knows the how."
And I'm like…
"Dude, I would but I've gone through five who's and I've wasted tons of money.
Just tell me the who and I would use them, man. I'm sold on the concept, but ‘who's the who?’"
And that was the thing that was really frustrating for me - so, I get it.
I heard Russell say once, "The only reason I am where I am is because I spent the last 10 years putting the Rolodex together that I have."
I was like, "OH, CRAP!!!"
So you guys are gonna get the fruits of that by coming to asset day - which is really cool.
*ASSET DAY* … is VERY exciting.
READY TO ROCK OFFERLAB!
Now some of you guys are gonna be ready before the OfferLab Event, and that's okay.
The whole purpose and point of these first six modules are to create those funnel inputs.
If you're ready to rock, you don’t have to wait!
Once you have those first inputs created, we have a form that you fill out.
It's a test form, it doesn't actually go to the funnel building team…
We don't want you to use your funnel chip as fast as possible.
First of all, we want you to run through with Austin - he's gonna look at ALL your funnel inputs…
… it’s kinda like a test run, you understand?
I'm gonna look at your stuff too - I’ll spot check and be like...
“… okay, cool, this is ready to push into the funnel team."
Does that make sense?
I don't want you to go use your chip immediately.
Because…
Garbage in, garbage out…
(...not that you're garbage, but you know what I mean 😂).
And so, as soon as you…
... you're gonna start using those inputs.
You’ll send a form to Austin, (it'll be in the member’s area), and he’s gonna look through all your funnel inputs - it’s kinda a dummy run before handing off to the funnel team.
Once you go, take some time to understand what causes the funnel to have success...
'Cause it's very little to do with the funnel.
Anyway, so then what we're gonna go do is after OfferLab, whether you're ready before or after, we're gonna start having you guys go and put in your stuff to the funnel team.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO BUILD A FUNNEL, STEVE?
Plan on the funnel team being about two to three weeks to build your funnel - that's about how long I personally wait, 'cause I don't build my own funnels either.
You understand, the process I'm putting you guys through is the very process I follow.
It’s my process, that's how I know how to do it - we literally cloned it.
... and we're giving it to you guys.
There are gonna be A LOT of things I have you prepare (that you may not be thinking about) that will massively impact the level of success you have post-funnel build.
So, plan on it being about two to three weeks for the funnel team to actually build the funnel.
During that time, it's NOT time to go sit on the beach yet.
While my funnel team builds the funnel we start building the actual launch campaigns.
That's when your role shifts from funnel inputs to launch campaigns.
*That's* the other reason why we focus so much on launch campaigns in OfferLab.
I'm just kinda giving you an overview of the timeline of the program itself.
So it usually takes two to three weeks for me to have a funnel back from my funnel team.
That's just how it happens, but it's gold.
I have to didn't touch anything and it lets me focus on what will actually cause cash - which is campaigns!
OFFERLAB PHASE #3: PICK YOUR LAUNCH CAMPAIGN
So, while my team builds the funnel, I put together launch campaigns.
I like to put A LOT of pressure behind my campaigns, and even if the funnel's ready, it's not ready until I’ve built the PRESSURE...
When I have a lot of pressure, (and I mean tons of pressure) like…
I've got so much pressure built up and I'm like, "Here it comes, here it comes... "
And sometimes, I'll be honest with you, the funnel has been ready but the campaign hasn't built enough pressure yet - so I push off the funnel launch to keep building pressure.
I'm gonna throw a lot of campaign ideas at you guys, so I recommend that you choose ONE and then build up the PRESSURE!!!
You want them hot and bothered.
If you don't have that hot and bothered feeling from the people that you hope will buy, Don't Launch Yet!!!
Run your next campaign - they're like football plays.
And then you're like, "Oh no, maybe not yet."
Then run that campaign, build up the pressure and then BOOM!
Guys, I'll tell you that, again, I said this at OfferMind…
When I launched my funnel with the campaigns that way, all the money comes off that table…
And that's the money that I use to go pay off my funnel team.
By the time you actually get the launch out and rocking, that's the money I pay off the funnel teams with... (this is how I personally do it, do whatever you want to, but that's how I do it).
And then, whatever money is left over, I dump that into my evergreen campaigns and I start running evergreen campaign styles and strategies.
And that's kind of what forces it successful and keeps it out there.
Now, if I start to notice that the funnel starts to drop a little bit like the ofasignup.com has…
BUILDING A PRESSURE LAUNCH
Ofasignup.com has done really well - it's probably pulled 150 grand in affiliate commissions, but it's kind of petered out.
Q: So what should I do?
A:
I'll do the same kind of thing over and over again.
So again…
The purpose of the program is to go literally from idea and inception to launch and evergreen.
Now, there's a lot of people that are waaay better than I am at certain parts of launch and evergreen campaigns, which is why I brought them in the program.
So, once you actually have the funnel being done, I want you to choose ONE campaign-style inside the member’s area.
And we'll go through this in more detail, I know I'm saying a lot of stuff right here...
Choose one campaign style and just follow that process.
And when you've used that person's process to the ‘T’ ...then you go to the next one, and the next one.
I told the people that I brought in, "I don't want you to just send me more videos.
People don't need more info.”
I mean, they need the info that they need to take a step, but there's too much info.
So, I asked …
...to give OfferLab something that was actionable.
A mechanism that would hold your feet to the fire.
You guys will do…
...and then a high focus of the program at that point is publishing.
I'm gonna teach you guys how to publish the right way - where it's kind of low impact.
The goal and vision is that we build the middle of your value ladder.
For me...
Whenever I start getting a drop in leads, I want another front-end funnel.
When I need to build and pay for another set of business structures, I create a middle of the value ladder funnel.
That pays for a lot of my business structures.
When I'm like, "You know what? I'm ready to get paid."
OfferLab is a little bit more of an expensive program, but it's actually a middle of the value ladder program.
And it's what's helping me build out a lot of these business structures.
I don't necessarily personally get paid a lot from it - the numbers might shock you 😂
There's a lot of cost to running a program like this.
I'm gonna show you guys a lot of behind the scenes in my own business, I hope no one takes offense to that, sometimes people do, which kind of confuses me.
Anyway, the whole purpose is to build out the middle of the value ladder...
So once you have the funnel launched and you're getting consistent sales through evergreen ads.
And you're like, "You know what, I'm gonna do another launch campaign."
Anyway, the whole point is to keep turning on more evergreen strategies plus build business systems, (that's why Alex Charfen is coming on in)…
So this is like a conglomerate of A LOT of awesome experts!
Alright!
I've been asked, "Steve, you were the lead funnel builder at ClickFunnels, why aren't you offering a funnel building service for people in businesses?"
Okay, that's a fair question.
Check this out…
Back in early 2016 when I joined ClickFunnels as an employee, there were only about 12,000 users of ClickFunnels compared to the 100,000 now.
And there were only like 40 employees compared to the 400 that there are now.
Okay? What does that mean?
It meant Russell and I were literally the only funnel builders *period*.
...it was literally just he and I.
About a year into my employment at ClickFunnels though, other funnel building team members started getting hired, we finally had a copywriter, a designer, etcetera.
It changed my whole world as we now had a funnel team.
So before I offered funnel building services, I wanted to make sure I could not only find my team but that it was also air-tight.
What I did not tell you, and what I've NOT been public about was that my team has already been building funnels for other people for over a year now...
... and so finally, I will tell you that we are ready.
We've been building other sales funnels for a while, I just have not announced it until now.
If you want me and my team to build your company a professional sales funnel, come get more info at myofferlab.com.
Make sure you use the “MY” … myofferlab.com.
It comes with a live three-day event just with me, so I can teach you
….as well as a year of coaching from myself and my staff.
Get more information and apply at myofferlab.com.
When you think about it, all businesses need to be able to do three things…
And your professional business needs a professional core offer and funnel to deliver it.
We've already been doing this for a year with students who have businesses that are…
...you get the point?
Not only will we build the funnel, but I’m also actually going to hook you up with the very people that I use to send various types of traffic to my own funnels.
I want you to be taking care of post-funnel build.
If you're tight on money, it's totally fine - we have various payment and funding plans which are also available.
Come learn more and apply at myofferlab.com.
Just be aware that we're actually building you a professional sales funnel, and my team and I actually have very limited capacity in what we can handle monthly.
So skip the line of people shouting the most popular question I'm asked which is, "Steve will build my funnel?"
The answer finally is, "Yes," just go start at myofferla