The Hidden Millionaire - Anthony Morrison - FHR #256

Why Dave Decided to talk to Anthony Morrison:

Since launching his first business in 2005, Anthony Morrison has expanded exponentially. A self-taught internet mogul, Morrison devised a one-man business operation while attending college full-time.  Author of two successful books, Anthony devised a systematic approach to entrepreneurs success and used it to develop eleven additional companies, all of which have been highly profitable.

Tips and Tricks for You and Your Business:

• How To Grow A Successful Business. (1:10)
• Building True Connections From The Start. (7:42)
• Scaling Your Business. (13:00)
• Customer Lifetime Value. (19:37)

Quotable Moments:

"When you have a really good relationship with the people that have bought your product, the people that are investing their money into your knowledge or your software tools and things like that, you created that good relationship."

"The core message that I send to my students is never give up. You can't fail if you never stop trying."

"When I can see the shift in the way people think and the way people feel, the weight, the results they're getting, that's an inspiration for me to never give up, never stop doing what I'm doing, as long as I can keep doing it."

Other Tidbits:

Anthony Morrison travels the country sharing his story and teaching his skills to budding entrepreneurs speaking at large events. He hosts a weekly webinar called “The Success Connection,” focused on marketing strategies. He discusses the importance of building long term business relationships by growing your business the right way.

Links: FunnelHackerRadio.com FunnelHackerRadio.com/freetrial FunnelHackerRadio.com/dreamcar

---Transcript---

Speaker 1:     00:00       Welcome to funnel hacker radio podcast, where we go behind the scenes and uncover the tactics and strategies top entrepreneurs are using to make more sales, dominate their markets, and how you can get those same results. Here's your host, Dave Woodward. Everybody. Welcome back to funnel hacker

Speaker 2:     00:18       radio. This is gonna. Be a fun ride. I'm so excited. I'm Anthony Morrison on the show. Anthony, welcome. Thanks for having me here, man. Excited to be on your way. Did you have to understand to get anthony on a show like this is like pulling teeth. It's only taken me a year and a half actually give them a $5,000 ring and it still isn't even close to the rings he normally wears.

Speaker 2:     00:42       He's one of our eight figure award winners. Two Comma Club. Been crushing it for years. Best part about it, anthony, you and I were just talking about is you're actually building real businesses naturally. One of the things I want to talk about is so often people get started in this business. They think they're going to go out and try to make a quick buck and you're not. We're just talking about the sec come in and basically FTC coming down and shutting everybody down, basically one a month, the last six months and these are guys who've been again doing high tens, twenties, even close to $100,000,000 and they're just doing stupid business. So what I want to talk to you about real quick here is how do you grow real smart business because you've been doing this now for over 10 years. I mean you've been crushing this thing, grow a real business.

Speaker 3:     01:22       Well, I've certainly made my mistakes. I've been guilty of follow the follow the leader, follow a path and kind of see what everybody else is doing. The same thing. And when I first got started in this business, I was doing it, you know, of like the top down and I started on television. Most people will start with, let me create an offer or a funnel or whatever and then build their way up the opposite. I just said, hey, let's go put something on TV and sell books. And so I started off with just like blast, right? With tons of tons of customers. We sold a million books and all these people that I didn't really know how to create that relationship and it's something that Russell has always done and it's something that I think is the reason why clickfunnels has grown so quickly and so efficiently.

Speaker 3:     02:18       It's because of the relationship that Russell creates with the audience, with your students, with the people that are using your software, and I've implemented the same thing in our business and I think that is the key to growing a successful business, to growing a longterm business and then to growing it the right way because when you have a really good relationship with the people that have bought your product, the people that are investing their money into your knowledge or your software tools and things like that, um, when you created that good relationship, then you don't have to do all this crap. You see all these other people doing to get people to buy something. You don't have to do. Push the limit and tows the line. You can literally just say, just like you guys did at the event I was at, hey, check out this new coaching program.

Speaker 3:     03:06       We have it's nominal blood and body and it's because they're not just buying that program, they're buying into you and they're buying you because they believe in you and they believe the things that you're saying and, and they, they've gotten there through your actions, through seeing the actions that you know, that you've kind of, you've put in place with them. And so I feel like that is the best way to build a real business. Seeing these people that just go out here and run these offers and create a page and slam it with some traffic and try to sell something that's not worth anything and you know, all that kind of stuff. That's just, it's why, you know, how many people have you seen in the industry since we got started? You know, way more than them still here. Oh absolutely. And I think actually we were talking about the artwork that's behind you and it's one of the things I wanted to vote these guys, this is an audio podcast or you're not seeing it, but I want you to kind of talk about the little piece of art behind you because I think it ties into exactly what you were just referring to as far as the longevity that happens when you build a real business.

Speaker 3:     04:04       Yeah. So I'm always trying to, um, to inspire myself. But I do, I do webinars every single week. I mean, I've been teaching my students for, Gosh, three, I guess three years now. I committed to doing the success connection and it's, it's a weekly training with me and it's every single year we don't sell a bunch of stuff. It's literally just teaching and it. And it really doesn't have anything to do with any specific a course that I sell. It's more of an overall, like, here's what's happening today. It's fluid because it's live every week. And I'm always trying to inspire myself. But I was trying to inspire my students and they always can see what's behind me. And so I kind of started telling them, uh, three years ago, kind of the, the, the core message that I send to my students is never give up. Like you can't fail if you never stopped trying.

Speaker 3:     04:55       And so I had this artwork made and it's like those that I know, people can't see it, but like all throughout it, there's the message never give up, but it's really focused on in order to see it. And so what you'll find is what I find is there's people that are looking at this artwork behind me. They're seeing this message never give up. And I think that's such an important thing. And it's one of the reasons why, you know, why I this one of the reasons why I'm still here doing this podcast with you. Just not even two months ago I lost my dad and I always thought, I always thought that if, when my dad passed away, my dad worked with me. He was very close to me. It was everyday I was working with my dad. I always felt like I would probably just give up, quit and, and, uh, just uh, you know, with beach or something, I'd probably just wouldn't have the drive or the desire to continue doing anything.

Speaker 3:     05:52       And that's what, that's always been my plan. That's just what I've been programmed thing. And I'll tell you, it's kind of funny. I tell my students this all the time, as much as they need that success connection every week, that time with me where I can teach them and kind of show them the new things. We use click funnels every single week in there as much as they need that. For me, I think I need that from them because when I can see what we're teaching actually helping people, right? Actually changing their lives to actually changing their outlook on how to build a business or whether or not they can be successful or whether they failed or maybe they're just still trying. Right? It's like when I can see the shift in the way people think and the way people feel, the weight, the results they're getting, you know, that's an, that's an inspiration to me to never give up, never stop doing what I'm doing and to keep as long as I can keep doing it.

Speaker 3:     06:46       As long as I'm learning and growing and knowing new understanding, new things I can share with people, I should do it. And I think that's another reason why our business has grown so much. And it's another key to growing a real business and not just playing on the Internet. It's, it's a two way communication. You want to teach as much as you can to your students. You want to share as much as you can with them, but you also want to learn from them. And you also want to have this, this opportunity to let them make you a better person. Let them make you a better marketer, let them make you a better teacher. And I think that I've, uh, I've certainly over the last three years with our students and the success I've accomplished that. And, um, it would've been more difficult for me to just walk away from business knowing that I will lead this big group of people that have stuck with me for three years every week, you know, and, and I think that helps. That helps us to do what we do and do it at a high level.

Speaker 2:     07:42       You know, Anthony, I really appreciate that and especially I know how close you were to your dad and how tough that was. And I think that, uh, you know, people see you and they see your success and they see, yeah, you know, you and your family are flying around in private jets and you got exotic cars, you're living at the beach and, and, and I think at times when a person is first getting started, it's like, you know what, I'll be able to real business after I first get my bills paid. And after I, you know, it, it's easy for Anthony to say that because he's already made it quote unquote, if you don't mind, I only, because I know your, your story as a kid and everything else and kind of where you've come from, help people understand how do you build that true connection from the very beginning, realizing, yes, I understand you have to make money. You've got to pay your bills. That's the first first financial freedom aspect. You've got to get to overcome it. How do you do that at, at the same time, building the true authentic business that's going to last.

Speaker 3:     08:31       Yeah. Do you maximize the hours in a day? And um, you know, I, I've had people from telling my story how I got started because in the last few years, because I mean obviously it was plastered all over television for three and a half, four years. And so I didn't want to just be so repetitive, but the fact of matter is, is, I mean, look, I started a business and I didn't have something like a click funnels. I mean I have to go hire somebody to build a website. This was back before there was a just a point and click and drag. That stuff didn't exist, you know, so even though a website building business, I don't know anything about, you know, what I was doing, but what there were, there were a couple of key points that I think really helped me be successful. I was in college, I was going to a medical school.

Speaker 3:     09:21       I had 22 our semesters at the time, which is I had to get the dean to sign off on allowing me to even take that many hours in a semester because I wanted to get finished quickly and get on the medical school. That was my, that was my plan. So those 22 hours, we're actually 30 hours a week of school when you add in all the labs and things don't get credit for it. So I was just like last year whose school? Right far more hours than I would have to spend between school and studying. Then a person would have to spend at their regular job right now, like they had a nine five, and the way I looked at it was, you know, my dad was retired. He, he, we were all set. My Dad always took great care of us, invested his money in Worldcom.

Speaker 3:     10:04       A lot of people listening to this probably know that story. They went bankrupt. My Dad lost almost his entire life savings and so that was point number one. It created my one. My reason why and I think that many people are so eager to just jump on here and make some money. They never really dig deep to figure out why do they want to make all that money. I never started my business so I could fly on a private plane. That was not my, that nothing that didn't care. I don't even know that even existed when I started in business. I started it in my parents house paint and to keep them from struggling, but that was my reason why when you have a real, like a real substantial, real personal reason why people want to be successful, I think it drives you to look past all these little obstacles that life throws at us and you start figuring out how can I get past this instead of why is it holding me back?

Speaker 3:     10:55       So for me, I created more hours in my day. I started a business that literally ran 24 hours a day. So it's three, eight, 40 am. Finding them. I was up on the telephone working and at the time I was selling car parts and the Internet. So I had a little ecommerce store and I never took a minute off. Right. So even though I was in class and even though I was working and doing all these things are studying in class, like a lot of people working. I was working at 8:00 at night and I'm fucking night 11:00 12 because I knew that my advantage was that I was willing to go the extra mile. I was willing to be open and be working when other people were sleeping and play like on the weekends. Right. And that's what gave me the opportunity to have success and build a business while still busy with something else like busy with life.

Speaker 3:     11:49       And my point would be for a lot of people it's, you know, it's. And then once you see the success that you had from that, I mean I've started making 20, $30,000 a month. It's a whole lot easier at that point to then say, Hey, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to focus full time on this business, but you have to create the opportunity for you to get it done so that you have a job and you certainly don't want to advise people, Hey, just quit your job for a to the wind and build a, build a funnel, right? Like, that's not what. I don't think that that's the message that Russell sends out. I don't think it's. I think what we do is we say, eliminate the waste of time. Don't spend time watching television. Don't spend time sitting on facebook reading everybody's updates, give off of instagram, delete twitter, put your cell phone down when you get home from work and really focus on your business and focus on acquiring knowledge in an implementing that knowledge instead of all these other distractions and you'll find we have so many hours in the day that you can work on your business that you would have already just been wasting anyway, and that's the way I was able to build my business and build a real business while having this whole other thing going on in my life.

Speaker 2:     13:00       Thanks so much for sharing that. I, I'd like to take it to a new step and that is you've obviously you've helped literally thousands, if not even close to millions of people at some point in your career building their businesses. The part I want to talk about right now though, Anthony, is the scaling aspect because you've had the ability to scale. Unlike a lot of the others that I've been in, the situation I'm at right now, I know a lot of very, very successful entrepreneurs, but you have. It's been fascinating for me to watch your ability to scale, so if you don't mind, give some people some ideas as far as once they start getting again, I look as far as, you know, you get in that two and a half to $750,000 range a year. You've got to really focus on scaling and if you don't mind telling me how you doing the scaling aspect.

Speaker 3:     13:44       Yeah. So one of the things that we implemented about two years ago, um, it was something that seemed like a daunting task. Right? And a lot of times I think that, uh, that we, that we look at these, these big complex icon daunting tasks and put them on her note, Adam, he said they were going to get that done and then every time you look at it was building out a robust back end automation. So on a responder or back in marketing funnel that would continue to market to our students' intelligence based on what they were interested in, what they've looked at or clicked on our educational portal of the questions they've answered on surveys. There's all kinds of, all kinds of things. What I found was, was that currently we have about, we're approaching a three year automation, so if we generate a lead through, we to possibly generate a lead through click funnels, our facebook ads, youtube ads, Google ads, solo ads, um, it doesn't matter television, direct mail, all the different marketing channels we use when we leave.

Speaker 3:     15:04       We have a full three year sequence that, that lead goes through base and it's intuitive. It's based on what they, what they respond to, what they say, what they buy, what they buy, all those types of things. And it's three, four years now. I've had written out of my notebook and said, need to do really big automation series, right? This will help me scale to make more money. Um, and then I broke it down and I remember Dave, I remember watching this show and it always, it always stuck. It always stuck with me when I looked at and when I went on to take on tasks that I watched the show and it was, it was on television. It was one of these, uh, like who can eat the big hammer, like, could you finish this big hamburger, you know, faster, you know what I mean, was one of those eating competitions and there was this little skinny kid which reminds me of me because I haven't been able to get in high school, so this is what it is.

Speaker 3:     15:56       And then there's this really big dude and they both got this massive, massive hamburger and they said, okay, who's gonna eat it first and who's going to eat most of it? And they just, they said, go right. Well the small guy sat there and cut that. Literally he said he spent like five minutes flooding that stupid hamburger in these little pieces. All the other guys just hammering down on the hamburger, right? At the end of the day, the little guy way more of a finished the whole thing. The big, the bigger guy literally almost passed out. And here's why. The big guys looking at this massive hamburger, they asked the right. So like every time you take a bite out of something, you're looking at the massive amount of I guess room. You still have to go, right? You still have to go. It makes you sick. Whereas this other guy was eating just like little bitty bites, right?

Speaker 3:     16:48       It's like eating chicken nuggets, right? Instead of trying to eat an entire team is even little bites. It was never as mine was never tricked into thinking he couldn't accomplish it because he didn't see anything in front of them except one piece is a positive and so he was able to just keep going and going and going to end up eating way more than this other guy and I always thought to myself, if you break down these daunting tasks, these big things that when you stare at them, they're gonna Freak you out. You break them down into small little pieces in your compost, this little piece and then this little piece and you stay focused on the piece that you're working on that you won't let your, you know your attention. Go to all of the other stuff you have to do is complete this full task.

Speaker 3:     17:26       You'll be focused, you'll be energized to be able to complete it, and that's what we did this. We started off with a certain set a day on a responder automation and every single week we added seven days to it, so every week we would add another seven, sometimes 10 days to this automation, and over the last three years we've built an autoresponder with automation that's three, this literally three years d and now when we get a lead to scale, it's literally allows us to just know, okay, we've got. We know what our lifetime value of a lead is. We know what we can pay for a lead. Now we can just take our marketing and go generate leads and we already know how we're going to generate that revenue. We don't have to then go create a new product or trying to create some kind of new marketing to make more money.

Speaker 3:     18:17       We've already got it planned out and all automated. I think that that's a massive advantage if you're trying to scale, especially if you're trying to spend, you know, as you spend more money on facebook or youtube or whatever, the more you spend typically the higher lead calls yet, so it's hard to scale because you're always looking at how much money can I make inside of 30 days. I looked at how much money, how you make over three years, and then at what point do I get a break even and then how much profit am I coming in and for me, men that we've tripled our revenue every month since we put that in

Speaker 2:     18:54       to answer that is so cool. I think it's one of those things where people say, Oh yeah, I'm going to get to that sometime. The fact that you guys actually have done it, it's why it's so hard for people to compete against you. It's next to impossible. I mean, you can outspend them on your acquisition. You can. Your lifetime value is huge and you have such an enormous amount of data on on on your customers and you're providing value so often and so frequently that I love, love what you're doing. It reminds me so often. I see people, although they'll create one product, they make money on it and they're like, okay, now I've got to create another product and instead of creating another product, you created the automation which allows you just to double down on your customer and goes back to really truly building a real business versus just a fly by night product. Okay,

Speaker 3:     19:37       real businesses don't look at how much money can I spend today and how much money am I gonna make today? They will get money as it costs us to acquire customer and what's the lifetime value of that customer. Too often in our, in our space, we talked about lifetime value, but all people really care about is if I spend 100 bucks on facebook today and only made 90, oh gosh, I'm going broke because they haven't got a real business. They've got one offer and it got one thing that they're focused on. We have continued to build out trainings, courses, softwares and offers that we can provide to our students that are complimentary. And then what we did was we built the offers out. Then we said, okay, let's build the automation now. Right. And once we got the great thing about a day, it's like seven to 14 days of automation done.

Speaker 3:     20:22       We started buying traffic, right? Because we were 14 days ahead of the game and every week we just get another set in 14 days ahead of the game. So we've got like none of our leads ever get stuck in other words, right? Where they're just sitting there waiting for something. There's always something there and we're always seven slash 14 days ahead of the, you know, the very earliest leads that we, that we got. Then for the new ones that come in today for three years, our automations takeover and do all kinds of awesome stuff that, you know, again, like you said, lets us out on a, on the marketing channels and it lets us not worry so much about how much did it cost today versus yesterday. We just look at the average cost per lead and we know what we're going to make and it makes it very easy to make decisions on marketing.

Speaker 2:     21:14       I love it. Well, I could spend days talking to you. I always love whenever we ever had the opportunity connecting as we kind of get close to wrapping things up. How can people get Ahold of you? How did they get, how do they get onto your weekly success connection?

Speaker 3:     21:27       Yeah, definitely. So we've got, uh, our student portal is probably the best way. It's more than education.com. So if you get more education and create a free account and when you get inside of that account, that's kind of our student portal where all of our students go in and access their trainings, forces and softwares and things like that. There's also a success training. It's a completely free. It's what I do for our students. It's almost 100 percent focused on click funnels because that's what I use, you know, so every single week we're building funnels, we give phones to our students, we give them my funnels and we really just try to help elevate their knowledge and their ability to implement and use the clip on software because that's what we're doing anyway, you know. So this is not for click funnels, it's just this is what it is. That's what I do and I always teach what I do and so it just kinda worked out. But every Thursday night is kind of what happens. But uh, but yeah, you can check out [inaudible] dot com. You'll get some free trainings and stuff.

Speaker 2:     22:36       Sounds great. Always great talking to you. Thanks so much. Anthony will be in Texas.

Speaker 4:     22:41       Hey everybody, thank you so much for taking the time to listen to podcasts. If you don't mind, could you please share this with others, rate and review this podcast on itunes. It means the world to me. We're trying to get to as a million downloads here in the next few months and just crush through over $650,000 and I just want to get the next few 100,000 so we can get to a million downloads and see really what I can do to help improve and and get this out to more people at the same time. If there's a topic, there's something you'd like me to share or someone you'd like me to interview, by all means, just reach out to me on facebook. You can pm me and I'm more than happy to take any of your feedback as well as if you'd like me to interview. I'm more than happy to reach out and have that conversation with you. So again, go to Itunes, rate and review this, share this podcast with others and let me know how else I can improve this or what I can do to make this better for you guys. Thanks.