SFR 31: "One Is The Loneliest Number"

There's currently about 8 people doing tasks for me at all times… There's no way I could do it without them…

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What's going on everybody? My name is Steve Larsen and you're listening to another delicious episode of "Sales Funnel Radio".

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

All right, all right, all right. I am super excited for today. I actually grew up riding dirt bikes. I never actually owned one. My brother did, I had a friend that did, and I would ride theirs a lot. It was a lot of fun.

I had a fun childhood, man. It was awesome. We did our fair share of things that were dangerous, stupid, but we were just really adventuresome kids. A lot of fun.

Fast forward a whole ... I'm still pretty young I feel like so I guess don't fast forward that many years, but up until right now. My wife one day was like, "Did you want to get that motorcycle?", and I was like, "What?", and for some reason she gave me the clear so I am super stoked.

I've been riding a motorcycle. I got a 2001 Kawasaki Vulcan. It's a cruiser. It's awesome. It's only a 500cc so it's not like ... I actually wish it was a little bit more powerful, but it's great though. It's fun for what it does and what I use it for. I only live like a mile and a half away from the ClickFunnels office. I don't need to go that far. It works fine. It's great.

Today, I took my motorcycle test and I was, I'm not going to lie, I was nervous. I had been watching Youtube videos. I've been watching videos of people who had hidden helmet cams, because I guess you weren't supposed to see what's on the test, and I was like ... it was kind of funny.

I got there and I was like, "Man, some of these maneuvers are really hard." Weaving cones, things like that. That's not that challenging but there was a few parts that were challenging.

There was another guy. There was only two of us. We ride up and we got out and we were chatting with him. There was some paper work we had to do. We had to tell him about some stuff. At the end of the paperwork part, he told the first guy, "You're going to go first, and Steve, you've got to wait".

I was like, "All right". I stood off to the side and I watched. The guy starts, and he was a little bit cocky when I was chatting with him before the whole thing started. He had the most gorgeous bike and he had done a lot of custom work to it.

He had done ... It looked fantastic. His bike was, I'm not going to lie, I had a little jealousy. It was pretty dang sexy. I will probably get a bike like his in the future because it was amazing.

I love my bike, and luckily it's over on the other side of the wall right now so it didn't hear me just say that...

He had a great bike. He goes and he's weaving the cones and he put his foot down, which is a huge violation. You get a lot of points for that.

You don't want points...

If you get so many points you fail. He skipped the last cone too. He skipped a cone, that's another lot of points. He put his foot down and got tons more points. He turns around and he's doing the next part and he puts his foot down again.

I was like, "What the heck, this is ... ".

It was kind of crazy because he was talking big game. Beforehand, we were checking out each other's bikes, we're looking at each others what we're riding. He had this awesome cool really awesome throaty sound that you want from motorcycles and stuff.

My current bike is a little bit too quiet so I was like, "How do you make it louder?" He was telling me and showing me all this stuff. He's like, "You could do this on your own, man. You could do this on your own. You could just drill out these little screws right here and you could pull this thing out. Your bike could be so much louder, so much faster. It's amazing." I was like, "Wow".

My first thought was like, "Crap, I don't want to figure out how to do that on my own." I'm really freaking good at computer stuff and funnels. That's my thing. I would rather pay somebody to make all the adjustments for me.

That was my first initial thought...

I was like, "Oh man, I just want this bike louder." It was funny, though, because during the test afterwards, he failed the test. He wasn't even allowed to continue. I saw the instructor get close to the other guy. The guy that was going first. He's like, "Look man, you put foot down twice and skipped a cone.

You failed. I'm sorry, but you failed...

I can't even let you continue with the test." He was a good a sport about it, but you could tell he was pissed, which is totally understandable. He was a good sport about it. He pulled off to the side.

I was like, "Crap. That dude didn't do it. How am I?"

I get on my bike and I went through and I put my foot down where he put his foot down. I start going through and I'm weaving though and I put my foot down again where he put his foot down but I didn't skip a cone.

I stayed on the course...

He just gave up but I didn't, which was awesome. I went through and I actually did the rest of the test perfectly. I got my motorcycle license today which is totally awesome but the guy, he didn't wait around to finish to watch.

He got on his bike and he left. He was super pissed. Oh man, it's okay. It's all right...

It's funny, I've been teaching my little three year old daughter, well she'll be three in December. I've been teaching her ... I walk up to her and I'm like, "Brinley, what do we do when life gets hard?" and she gets in kind of like a fighting squat stance and she just starts growling and gets her face on and I'm like, "That's right!".

"Brinley, what do we do when life gets hard?", and she puts her arms down slowly while she's flexing. I'm like, "That's right! We just get mean back, right back in its face", and she's like, "Yes!". It's really funny. It's pretty awesome. She's cool.

My daughter is awesome...

I wanted to say it to this guy. It was funny to me though. I was laughing at how much he wanted me to go change these pipes on my on and I was like, "No! I want to do that on my own."

I was thinking about that today. Obviously, it happened all today. It's actually been on my mind though, the last couple days.

I've been looking around at different entrepreneurs...

I've been looking at a lot of the people who either build funnels or who own businesses or whatever it is. Here's a commonality I'm starting to notice. You guys know I'm obsessed with patterns. You guys know that about me.

I like to watch for the patterns that are all around us that no one's looking for. What I noticed is that people who stay solopreneurs never quite make it. You know what I mean? They never get to that spot where they're like, "I have so much money now, I can just sit back on my own."

Meaning, I have enough money now where money is no longer an object the rest of my life. They never get to that spot. They never get to any place like that.

I had that realization, it was a few weeks ago. It's just been on my mind and I saw it again when this guy was trying to tell me to go do all this stuff on my own, and "You can do this on your own, and you can do this on your own", and I was like, "Holy crap. I don't want to make all the adjustments to my bike because it's not my passion first of all, and second of all, someone else has the unique ability for that. Why not let them do it?" You know what I mean?

I've been thinking about that. I've been thinking about that with my own business...

About a week ago, I hired an assistant. I think I also told you about this, but she's been amazing. It's my sister. She's awesome. My sister is crazy good at ... She's a great organizer. She's very, very, very bright. She got straight As in high school while I barely passed, which is not a joke.

I barely graduated high school...

I'm really excited because I have now replicated a part of me. It's the biggest thing I've noticed. A lot of people go out and they're like, "I do this thing on the side."

It's like, "Awesome". Until you actually involve other people. Until you build a system that does things while you're not there, you're going to remain a solopreneur and it's going to just basically be a hobby that makes you money every once in a while. That's the rough truth.

Business is collaboration. Business is people. If you can't get another person to work on things with you ... You are already capped. You can go and have an idea that's actually not that good.

You can go and have a business that's actually not that good but because there's multiple people working on it, you actually could make some money with it. Your chances for succeeding are so much worse if you stay by yourself. All I'm trying to say, the thing that's been on my brain ... The thing that's been on my head is hire people. Even if it's not full time, go outsource stuff, use VAs. I use VAs like crazy.

Way before I even hired my sister Marie to do this stuff with me and handle a lot of the content part of these podcast and blog and stuff like that, which has been great. Lets me go focus on the other revenue generating things that keep the business afloat. We both win. Everyone wins because of that.

All I'm trying to tell you is that ... Use VAs for parts that are amazing. It's funny. Russel's actually, I shouldn't say yelled at me because he's one of the nicest guys on the planet. He doesn't yell, but he has reprimanded me several times.

Here's the scenario...

I sit next to him at work. We'll be building a funnel together and he'll be like, "You know what? I wish ..." He'll say something like, "I wish this video had X, Y, and Z in it. I wish this video has a little bit different of an intro."

I have video editing skills. A lot of them. I love video. I really like video. I'm not a noob at all in video editing. I was like, "Oh dude, I'll do it." "No, no, no. I'm just going to have this other guy do it." I'm like, "Are you sure? I could do it right now." "Yeah, but you're doing ... You're busy building the other thing for me." "Oh, that's true."

Time will go on and time will go on. He'll say, "How cool would it be if I had this huge, big blowout poster board of X, Y, and Z." I'm like, "Oh dude, I could do it because I love Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator."

Actually, I don't really like Photoshop that much. Illustrator's amazing. I digress. This went on for a while. After a while, Russel's like, "You know what? I got to tell you, man. Just because you know how to do something, doesn't mean you should be the one that's doing it."

I was like, "Oh, that's a really good point." He's like, "Think about it. I could do lots of the stuff that the rest of the ClickFunnel employees can do, but that doesn't mean that I should be the one that's doing it. Someone else has the unique ability. Just because I can doesn't mean I should."

It's the same thing with your businesses. They're going to feel pain of disconnect. I dare you to hire somebody full time. I dare you to take somebody on where they're completely dependent on you for their income. I dare you to do it because it will explode your business.

It will make you do things you didn't ... You would have continued to plan on doing in the future. "Oh, I'll do that in the future. I'll go try and land that contract in the future. I'll go try and get that sale done in the future." Nope, bull crap. Someone is dependent on you for their income, for their livelihood and their life, their lifestyle, everything.

I dare you to go do it...

Even if it's an assistant and you're paying by the project, which is how I'm starting with my sister.

What it's doing though, and what I've noticed that it's been doing is it's forcing ... I'm already a go-getter and I'm already somebody that wants to go take on the galaxy all the time. Bring it on. I'm a fighter, I am. I'm a nice guy, but internally, the conversation that's going on and what drives me as hard as I go is that I'm a fighter. I dare you to do that.

Second of all, you've got to go hire someone. Go get someone out there because what it does is it forces you, like I was saying, to go out and close business. It forces you to focus on revenue generating activities while they take care of the managerial things. That's what needs to happen in a lot of your businesses.

I've had a lot of you guys come to me and say, "Hey. What will you do here?" Look, your skills are good enough to get paid for. That's awesome.

Your business is good enough...

People are paying for it and that's awesome, but you personally are way too swamped so you're not staying in any kind of creative zone. Does that make sense? By you not staying in a creative zone, you're not going to stay in the forefront of your industry.

Whatever it is.

What if they are selling toilet paper? You can sell anything with a funnel. You can sell anything because it is basically what's going on on the internet.

Those are the two things that I realize that, wow, hiring somebody has done two things. Number one, I go faster because she's taking care of awesome stuff. She's putting things together. She's incredible. She's very intuitive, solves problems without me always having to babysit her, that kind of thing, which is awesome. So, so cool.

Find someone like that...

Number one, like I said, you go faster. The business will go faster. Number two, you're going to be supporting somebody else's income. That does ridiculous things for your drive.

Some of you guys, if you have hesitation on it, which I guarantee 90% of you guys are, and I still do. Keep in mind that what it's going to make you do is it's going to make you clarify what your business actually is. If you've just been dabbling in, "I make some money doing this and I make a little bit of money doing that. Sometimes I'll make money in this way."

All that stuff will go away and you'll get clarity because you'll go, "Okay. What will turn a dollar? What is actually going to pull in money? I've got to pay somebody."Even if you feel like you don't have enough money to pay them, find a way to get a little bit of cash and don't get married to that cash.

Give it to the other person...

Have them do some task for you while you go do some revenue generating activity.

Anyway, that's all I've been trying to say, and that's what was going through my mind when the guy was telling me, “Hey, you could do all of this on your own.” I was like, “Yeah I could but it would take me forever, and the amount of time I would spend is worth a lot more money to me than be going and watching a billion YouTube videos. I'd rather just go pay some shop a couple hundred dollars and just have them do it because it's not worth it to me."

Is this making sense? Are you guys getting this? Is this sinking in that if you're in the funnel game or any kind of business at all, and you're by yourself, you're the solopreneur, you're already capped.

That's all I'm trying to convey here as I say this. It's important enough ... What's funny is, even since hiring my sister a week or two ago, our revenue's already gone up. Almost doubled. It's because I get to go focus on actually generating revenue and not managing what I've already committed to creating, producing, and putting out there.

I really want to know, if you could, please go to either Sale Funnel Broker, The Facebook page, or the actual blogpost to this. I want to know what you've noticed as you've taken on someone else. Again, if you want to baby-step it, which is probably the best way to do it, the smart way to do it, I'm not telling you to drop everything and just go hire people.

One of the adages in this industry, if you've never heard it, is that, and I can't remember who said this, but the rule is you only hire when it hurts. That's the second part of this whole thing. Hire somebody because it forces you to do awesome stuff, but until you are just dying, don't hire somebody just because you have to ... Hiring people is what kills businesses a lot of times because they hire too fast.

That's the caveat...

Understand what I'm telling you...

It needs to be in a balance but push hard...

Go as hard and as fast as long as you can. Just go, go, go, go, go, produce, get the grind out of the way, and then when you can, hire somebody else and watch the amazing things that it does for your company. It's not something that a lot of people think about.

Even just collaboration and teaching that person all that you know is amazing. It's amazing to watch what comes out of that, even in just a short amount of time.

Guys, that's my challenge, understand? Hire somebody. Don't be a solopreneur your whole life. There's a time, there's a season while you're proving your business model and you're proving how you actually make money consistently.

Also know that you should not hire until it hurts so you don't hire too fast. There's a strategy with this. Do you see what I'm saying? Nod with me while you're listening. Yes Stevie Wonder. I hear you, I get it. I've been putting Stevie Wonder in all my emails to Russel. It's been kind of funny. That's another story. Anyways.

Like I'm saying, I want to know what cool things are happening as you've taken on just one person, just one VA, just one part time individual. Just one person who consistently does the same task and project for your over and over again...

Please let me know because it's very, very fascinating to me. You got to be smart with it obviously. Be careful with it, but don't create the mistake of not hiring because you're so scared. It's better to hire and learn from it than try to play it safe in this category. It's that important. It's that huge.

Guys, I will talk to you later. I just had Jimmy John's delivered to me and I'm really stoked about it. I used to not like their stuff that much but I'm really pumped. It's starting to get late but I just wanted to record this.

I am going to pound this and I'm super excited. All right you guys, I will talk to you later. As always, if you have questions, please let me know at SalesFunnelRadio.com or you can also download free funnels that I've pre-built for you. There's also other awesome funnels in there.

Some of them are paid, but if you go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels or just click on "Free Funnels", you'll see it there.

You guys are all awesome and you motivate the heck out of me and I appreciate you all. Keep crushing it. Let's go make ... Whatever it is you're doing, go make it happen. Move that timeline up.

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