Boom! What's goin' on everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and this is Sales Funnel Radio.
Today I'm gonna tell you guys, and try and convince you that you should never hire a marketer.
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, I've been thinking about this quite a bit here.
Recently, I had a guy reach out to me, it was over on.. I don't remember who..
I have tried to find it on my phone, actually, but he reached out, (and this has happened many times), and I just wanted to address it, because it seems to be something that happens often.
The guy reached out, and he said, "Hey, I appreciate what you're doing, I watch the show..." First of all, thanks for watching the show, and he said, "I watch the show, and I was just wondering, could I give you, maybe, 20, 30% of my business to come in and be the marketer for it?"
And when I see that, I cringe for many reasons.
#1: That's not an attractive opportunity for me at all, 'cause it means I'm gonna be the guy making it rain, and getting paid only 20% for what I bring in - so that's NOT a deal...
Why would I be attracted by that? I'm not going to be, right?
It's kind of like when people come up to me, and they say things like, "Hey, Stephen, look, I've got this great idea, will you do it? Will you come in, you build the funnel, I'll give you 50% of it."
And I'm like, "Why don't I just do the whole idea on my own, and keep 100%?" You know what I mean?
An idea itself is not an asset. Ideas are not assets. Ideas are not value, right?
So, if you just have an idea, and you try and go bring somebody in like that, that's not attractive. They might as well just go and do it on their own.
So, number one, that's the first, like, "Ewww!" That I had when I saw it. I was like, "That's not a deal to me."
But the second thing that I notice is, 'cause this question actually comes to very frequently: "Stephen, will you take 20, 30% of my company, Stephen, can I give you 50% of my company? Stephen, will you do that?"
And what's funny, what's interesting about this topic, is that there's a fundamental issue that is actually going on when somebody asks that question. You should never ask that question - EVER - especially for the role of marketing.
One of my early one-on-one mentors said, that if you think about a business as a car:
Finance - is the guy sitting over in the passenger seat, planning how far you can get with what gas you've got? He's the guy on the side going, "This is what we can do. This is what we can project." Finance, very future focused. This is gonna be the future.
Supply chain - they're the ones hanging out the window. They're the ones who are testing to see how much gas is left in the actual tank? They're the ones seeing when the next gas station is coming up? How far can we actually get based on resources? Where do we get the next resources?
The supply chain is very past focused, "This is what we've needed in the past."
The marketer - is in the actual driver's seat. They're the ones goin', "You know what - let's go over there. I think that there's gold over there! Let's go that way." Marketers are the ones that drive the entire company.
I'm gonna get a lot of pushback when I say that, but it's very, very true. There's no cash... your business is dead! What brings in cash? Marketing!
Money is the byproduct of marketing.
When I see somebody come out, and they say things to me, like, "Hey Stephen, would you please be the marketer of my company?"
What that says to me, that is an individual who has been solely married to the fact that they think that their product is what gives them money. It is not! The product is not.
Now that might be the exchange of what actually pulls the money to you, but that's not how sales are done!
When I see somebody ask that kind of question, I know that there's a fundamental misunderstanding of what actually is causing the cash to come in.
It is not about the product. That is not what's actually bringing in cash.
So when somebody comes in, and they something like, "Hey, would you come and be the marketer?" That tells me they have no idea why their product is selling. They have no clue why they're actually being successful, or not successful.
They have no idea what levers are really going on inside the company... where if they just turn this lever, and push away that one, money would start coming in a little bit more, right?
I know when I consult for companies, I know that there are always, ALWAYS three or four levers that I could just go turn, and money is the result of it.
And it's mostly because us entrepreneurs, we get so focused on being the technician... we get so focused on, "Hey, I got a sweet product. This product right here is incredible, this product's amazing." And you're like, "Yeah, you're right, that's true, you know what, you're right, that's true. Not many of you have done that." But it's not the reason somebody goes and purchases, right?
Very few people will ever go buy something just because it's brand new and never been done, right? That's important, that's attractive, that's sexy... But the reason people buy has everything to do with the actual sales message, and the ability to tell stories.
When somebody comes to me and says, "Stephen, take a percentage of my company to be the marketer." What it's telling me, is that they actually have no idea what stories are selling. They have no idea why they're actually bringing in cash on their own. And it's scary. That's a freaky place to be in - and I understand it.
So, number one, "What do you do if you're in that kind of scenario right now?”
For the individual who reached out and asked that question, (which, first of all, "Thank you very much, I'm honored, but the answer's, No") - I've got a few things here...
If you're in that scenario, and you're like, "Man, I just realized when listening to Stephen, I have no idea why my stuff sells."
The first thing you need to start doing is to go back to your existing customer base, and start asking 'em at what point they realized this would be a good decision for them?
And if they point to a feature, you keep digging until they point to a story - that's very key.
Go back to your existing customer base, if you have a business right now, and you go back to your existing customer base, and you ask them:
And you just keep digging, and you keep digging, keep digging. Ask a lot of people. Man, I'm gonna ask like 50 of your customers.
Go in and ask 'em, and what you'll start to see is a pattern around whatever story it was that you were telling. It might take some digging on your side.
Now, if you DON'T have a product, if you don't have anything selling, you might be in somewhat in this scenario, at a bit of an advantage, because you're gonna be able to go in and just start telling stories. Not about the product - it's storytelling, okay? That's what selling is. You're telling stories.
Every commercial, every ad, every infomercial, infographic, anything. Anything that persuades you is story-based.
So what I want you to do, is I want you to start going out and start telling stories to people. And when you're able to measure which stories cause the biggest "Whoa!" That's the story you should be using. And that's exactly how it works.
Whenever you start seeing a story - or start telling a story to somebody, and they're like, "Wait, what website was that? Wait, where did you get that? Wait, what tool was that? Wait, what product was that?" When they start asking questions like that, they're in heat. That's a person with a wallet, who wishes to be lighter.
They're walking around like, "How do I buy this thing, I really, really need it."
I can't remember what product it was I just did that too recently, but I was listening to somebody, and they're like, "Yeah, just do this, this, and this, and I got this cool product." I was like, "I need that too!" And it was a cool story, I wish I could remember the specific experience. I just remember that just happened to me recently...
When you start to see those stories having that kind of an effect on an individual, you make notes of 'em. Earmark that story.
When I launch a product, one of my favorite strategies is just to just start telling stories on a podcast, or other people's podcasts, or a youtube channel, something like that. And what I'm doing, is I'm testing stories.
I'm trying to see like, "Okay, which of these stories is causing a positive buying reaction?" I don't care if it's from me or not, yet, I'm just trying to see if the story sells. The story is what's selling.
I don't even have to have a product yet, and I can get people to start purchasing.
And again, there can be, obviously, a very ethical and moral bridge to cross there, and make sure you don't cross that. Stay ethical, stay moral with this stuff, okay? But that's truly what's causing the actual purchase to happen.
So, the first two things:
Number one, coming to me and saying, "Do you want 20 to 30% of my business to be a marketer?" No! No! Because that means you don't know what you're selling, and you don't know why it's selling.
You might know what, but you don't know why. You don't know why the thing is actually selling.
Number two, right? The point I was just making right there - It means that the person whose business it is doesn't know stories that are selling. (And those are obviously very tied, those first two.)
But honestly, what I wanted to do real quick here, and I just wanted to give you guys a little piece of advice on who you should hire.
I'm not just saying like, "Don't hire a marketer." What I'm really doing is I'm trying to help you understand who you should hire. Don't hire a marketer!
Every time I've built a funnel for somebody, quick story...
One of the first roles I had at ClickFunnels was to build Russell's personal clients funnels - His personal clients who came to him, and these are hotshots, right?
You can imagine the kind of guys that Russell is willing to say yes to. They're hotshots, they're big guys, they're extremely successful, very well-known.
I was the guy on the side, just hammering these things out. Just pounding out tons, and page, after page, after page, funnel after funnel.
And what was super interesting about it is that, literally, just about every single time I was done building the funnel, and it was a success, and we got this huge influx of cash for them.
We were like "Sweet. Well, hey, that was a great project, appreciate it, your funnel's done now, keep running traffic to it." Then we would just, like, walk away - and the funnel would die almost every single time.
I can think of one instance where that wasn't the case.
I remember at one time, though, I think was running eight different company's funnels. It was eight! It was ridiculous!
So I'd be going in, and I'd be like, "Alright, this over here, we're in the health industry. Over here, we're in the camping industry. Over here, we're in the this, we're in the that..." All these broad areas...
I’d be looking at numbers and tweaking. I was like, "Russell, they need this…. Russell, ah, ah!" And I was pulling my hair out.
It's hard enough just to get an individual to build one funnel in their life.
You literally are one funnel away from the life you'd like. That's why we say that all the time - it's not a cute saying. It's very true.
Imagine doing eight at the exact same time? My brain's already on fire, but it was like extra ablaze. It got really, really stressful.
What we realized was that we had done so much of the marketing for them, figuring out which stories do sell... and not just what the stories are, but how to tell them.
There were so many things we'd figured out for them, and they had not had the epiphany yet on why those things were working. So then, when we left, they didn't know the three levers they should just keep turning, and cash would pop out the bottom.
So we literally stopped working with companies where the CEO was not also the marketer. 'Cause there's a business owner, a marketer, and an entrepreneur. A lot of times, especially as the company grows, that they're not always the same people.
I don't like working with companies where the CEO is not also the entrepreneur and the marketer. There's a sweet spot for me where I like working with that kind of company.
We'd go in, and I'd start working with a CMO, and I'd build these funnels, and we'd put them out, and THEN, I'd have to re-sell the entire concept again from the ground up to the entrepreneur, the CEO, or the business owner.
So there's a combination there that I like to work with that is very, very attractive to me. I know that I can go blow those types of companies up.
It's not that I can't make it work for other companies. It's just that there's so many holes to jump through that it's ridiculous. Lots of red tape. Especially when the organization starts getting bigger. So I don't like to work with anybody who's not the ultimate decision-maker.
If I build funnels with people, it's so rough when that business owner is not also the marketer.
And it makes sense - because the marketer's the one driving the sales. They're the one figuring where the next vein of gold is, but if they're not also the entrepreneur, the CEO, or business owner - it's hard. You're constantly re-selling the organization on what you're doing, rather than having the leader/marketer be like, "Rawr - let's do this!"
Never outsource your marketing!
We always joke that outsourcing your marketing is like outsourcing your sex life... You're not gonna do that.
Selling is the sex of business. The relationship is the fulfillment afterward. That's the big joke with it - we say that a lot.
The whole key, that's what I'm trying to say, is that when you go in, and you're not working with somebody who's the ultimate decision-maker in some form or fashion - who cannot control, or influence, or maintain their organization, and you are re-selling everybody, that is a terrible funnel-building scenario to be in.
I've been in it enough times to know when it looks like that might be what's going on, okay? So, does that make sense? There are multiple reasons why I say no, okay?
I just want you to know, real quick, who you should hire.
My goal of Sales Funnel Radio is to turn you into a marketer. Marketers make cash. Money is the byproduct of marketing. Marketing is the thing that gets you guys money coming in. Loving customers who continue to buy after they make that first purchase. I want to turn you into a marketer.
I'll probably do a podcast episode soon... in fact, I might do it after this one, where we'll just go over definitions so you guys can understand:
They are very different and unique scenarios.
They are all very different. Do not think they're the same. They're completely different things.
So the person you should hire…?
You need to think of it almost like a web... That's how I think of it.
If you are the main marketer, especially if you're small. Especially if you're just starting out in this game. (Now, if you're big, this also applies to you as well.) But the issue is, "You are the marketer... now, WHAT is marketing?"
Marketing is the act of changing beliefs with the intent of a purchase to happen.
That's all marketing is.
That's my own definition, but as I've just gone further and further in this game - that's what it is.
Marketing is not necessarily an ad. Marketing is not necessarily Facebook ads. It's not necessarily logos.
For a long time, I spent time asking myself the question, "What is marketing itself?" The essence of marketing itself, what is it? "It's Belief." It's the act of changing somebody's beliefs. It's the act of changing the way somebody sees the world.
You might do that through some kind of educational thing. It might be through some comedy ad. There are many ways to pull that off... but all you're doing at the core of marketing is shifting someone's paradigm. That's it.
You're changing the way they see the world.
That should be up to the main business owner/ CEO/ entrepreneur/ business owner/ the main decision maker. In my mind, that should be the same person as the marketer. I don't know why you would ever hire out the marketing department.
Everybody's in the marketing department. Everybody in your company should be in the marketing department! You're just changing beliefs. In my opinion, my very strong opinion, that mission should be down to every person in the company.
Anyway, so as got the main marketer, you go out and I start trying to figure out who you need to hire? That might mean a Facebook ads person. That might mean a creative individual, meaning like they create creatives like pictures, and logos, and stuff like that. That's not marketing, but it's a piece of it, right?
Honestly, a lot of the people that I hire for my content creation team, they aren't marketing, but they're part of my marketing engine. They're part of my engine that changes people's beliefs, their relationship with me, and my products. That's what marketing is.
So Facebook ads - that's not marketing - but it's a piece of it.
Creating logos, slogans, business cards - that's not marketing, but it can be a piece of it if you're tossin' in a little story.
I think the biggest waste of space EVER, is when you go into those arenas...
I went to a basketball game with my siblings and my dad - it was a few years ago for Christmas. We went to a basketball game, and we walk into this huge, huge stadium. I think it was in Phoenix. I can't remember who they were playing.
There's the people. There's the players. The stadium is all lit up and everything... but what else is out there? Banners, right? You got people's names - that's it! "Chase." "Coca-Cola."
That's NOT marketing, that's advertising. Does that make sense? Very different. They're very different.
I live in a world called Direct Response Marketing; meaning that the marketing I create is intended for the person that I hope buys. It goes direct to the consumer - right to the individual. That's the world that I live in - because my dollars are measurable.
I know that when I spend this amount of money, like 99% of the time, I get a customer, right? It's measurable. I don't have to go get big dumps of cash coming on in...
So, when you think about yourself, when you think about your business - when you think the way it's structured... You've got your market, you are the marketer; meaning the stories are coming from you. You're the attractive character of your business.
If you're the attractive character of your business, you better freakin' be the marketer - because the marketing stories that you're gonna be telling will most likely be about the attractive character.
Then you might have a Facebook person, an audio person (if you're doing something like a podcast) a video person - all these are pieces of marketing, but not marketing itself!
That's the whole point I'm trying to get down to.
So when somebody reaches out to me, and they say something like, "Will you come out and be the marketer?" I'm like, "Yeah, but I'll probably bring a whole team with me and I'm just gonna be the storyteller." That's what it really means to be the marketer. Anyways, that's all I'm trying to say with this.
It's funny because I've been asked multiple times, "Do you know any good marketers that I could hire?" Guys, you can't find good marketers to hire. I was talking with... I think it was Trey Lewellen, when I was over with him, hangin' out, and he and I were laughing about this very concept. He and I were talking together and saying how funny it is.
He's like, I keep getting asked, "Do you know any good marketers to hire?" And he said the same thing. He goes, "I always laugh when someone asks me that. You can't hire good marketers because they've figured out how to make money so easily that they're just working for themselves."
There's no such thing as hiring a good marketer - which means you need to become one yourself! Does that make sense?
I could find a good copywriter, I could find a great ads person, I could find a great... BUT it's dang near impossible to find a good marketer - because they're not hireable. Good marketers are not on the market. They're not looking for anything.
You can tell when somebody is a good marketer because usually, they're turning down every opportunity. They're so focused on what they're doing. they get the game - they understand it. There's are enough clicks that happen' "Oh my gosh, are you serious, that's how it works?" They're just doing it on their own anyway.
It's funny, 'cause I've had multiple requests for that in the past little bit. People have reached out, and they're like, "Okay, well, if you're not hireable, do you know any other good marketers I could hire?" “No!” I know a lot of people that you could probably train up, but in reality, they're not gonna be as obsessed about your product as you are - so just learn how to be a marketer. Just learn how to do it. It's not something to outsource.
I can find someone in finance, I can find a supply chain, I can find someone in fulfillment. Marketing is that thing, you don't outsource.
You can't find a good marketer, they're not looking. They don't care how good your opportunity is, they're already knee-deep in their own.
I hope this episode was helpful to you, and I hope that what it did, is it helped re-create some of the relationships between what marketing really is, your company.
Money is the lifeblood of your business. Cashflow is the lifeblood of your business. What's tied to that directly? Marketing! You don't outsource that. You could outsource the ads, all these different pieces I was talking about, but don't think you're being attractive by giving away percentages of your company to good marketers.
A joint venture, something like that, maybe? But, they're not motivated by that, okay? They're just not out there on the job board. There's no such thing as a poor marketer. There isn't! Which is why it's hard to hire 'em! Because they've figured out the game. There's no such thing as a poor marketer.
If somebody is poor, they're either new, or they're not a marketer. That's it.
If you figure it out, there's just a few tweaks to make the game real easy. That's what this whole podcast is meant to try and help you learn and understand.
I know this one was a bit of a rant - I was kind of all over the place a little bit, but hopefully, you got the idea:
"Don't hire a marketer! You are the marketer."
You try and hire a marketer, it's not gonna work. Be the marketer, hire out specific roles in your campaigns. That's it. That's what you hire. Don't try and find a good marketer... or hold out on your own business because you're trying to find a good marketer. It doesn't work that way.
Alright guys, thanks so much.
Hopefully, you enjoyed the episode, if you guys liked it, please share it. It really means a lot to me, it really makes me excited and feels good when I see your reviews.
It means a lot to me when I see that you guys have shared it. This is something I've dumped a lot of my own money into, just to get some of these lessons out, 'cause I wanna help share, so it really means a lot to me when you kind of pay it back, pay it forward so to speak.
Anyways guys, thanks so much, hope you guys enjoyed it, and I'll talk to you guys in the next episode.
Bye. Boom! Thanks for listening. Again, 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.