SRF 18: Live Critique Of A Listeners Value Ladder

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You can practically skip the "Mission Statement and Business Plan" bull crap with a good Value Ladder and Funnel Hack...

What's going on everybody? Welcome to 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 bundles. Now here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Hey what's going on? I'm excited for today, this is a fantastic ... Anyways, I love this. I have another business that I have, it's called Secret MLM Hacks. I'm not pitching it, I'm just saying. This is context. Anyways, in there I have a product. If they take advantage of it they can send me their value ladders and I can critique them.

 Anyways, someone just sent me one, and I thought, hey, it'd be kind of cool. What if I critique one of these things that I'm getting on Sales Funnel Radio.

I have it here in front of me and I guess on the blog I'll put up pictures of it so you guys can see what I'm talking about. Hey I  got permission from the owner, which is awesome.

Thank you very much Chris Gordon, you're the man doing some awesome stuff here for letting me do this.

 Anyways, I'm going to go through the value ladders. He sent over two value ladders here, which is good. On this very first thing, and for those of you who are just learning about value ladders or this is your first time on the podcast, or whatever it is, a value ladder is simply a map.

It basically models the entire business that you are going for...

 It's like a graph, and on one axis you have value, and on the other one you have price, the amount of money you can get.

The farther ... On the bottom, those are your free things. You've got your E books, free courses, PDF downloads. You see those things all over the internet. "Hey, where should I send this? Hey take this quiz and I'll send the results through e-mail." Those are just clever ways to get your e-mail address so that they can start marketing to you.

 The very next thing will be a page with something cheap on it. The next page will be a page with something a little more pricey on it, and then another one with a little more money. You get the idea, that's a value ladder, you move up rungs, or however you say that. Ladder rungs, right?

Anyways, you move up ladder rungs in value. How much you give a person and how much you are going to charge them.

 The higher someone goes, we can anticipate that person was really in pain.

Someone only purchases for two reasons, pain or pleasure, they are both emotional. Pleasure, whether it's a biz op thing, or for pain. Hey I've got to solve this problem. The whole job of marketing is to educate people on the pain that they don't know they have, or they do.

Or the pleasure that they don't know they have. I cannot speak right now, I was up super late last night. Or the pleasure, whether or not they know they have it or could have it. That's the only job of marketing is education. That's from Jay Abraham.

 Anyways, this value ladder, so you sent me a value ladder, thank you very much Chris again. I'm going to go through your value ladder. It literally just looks like he drew, just so everyone knows, you draw what stairs would look like looking at them from the side. At the very bottom you've got your free thing and then there is a next step of the stair, and then the next step up, the next step up. As you move along you add more value but you also charge more money.

 The first time I ever learned of this concept was from Russell Bronson. It's cool because once I got it I was like holy crap, he could model a whole business in just this little graph.

Not only what you are going to give but how you are going to deliver it, the price points that you are going to bring with it, continuity, which we know that if you don't have continuity then you are not going to succeed, you are actually going to fail most of the time.

 It's been said that unless you have continuity you don't have a business...

If you guys don't know what that means, continuity is like, "Hey get on our monthly shipping program." It's the things that you can charge for over and over and over again. Like commodities.

I bet 90% of you out there are on continuity for eggs. Eggs, milk and bread, as America we are on that continuity program. We can guarantee everyone is going to buy eggs and milk. Or tires, consumables, things that expire.

If you can get something like that in your business, where they pay for a membership over and over again like a gym membership, that's continuity.

Unless you have that, it's said that you don't have a business. You are just selling one time things, these little instances of business, not a full one. Anyways, let's go through this with that backdrop.

 This reminds me of so many stories, it's awesome. When I was first learning about this stuff, I'm a little bit of a mischievous guy. I don't know if you guys have noticed that, you probably have since listening to the things that I say and stuff like that.

Mischievous is not the right word, I just don't think that a lot of rules matter, which I guess is probably the definition of mischievous.

I remember there was this time when I was learning these things. I'm in the Army if you guys didn't know that. I had my uniform on, we had just finished something, and I was in college.

We had just finished ... Anyways, I had kept my whole rucksack. If you don't know what a rucksack is it's like those huge backpacks you see soldiers wearing with all their stuff in it.

It's not like you carry extra things in it, that thing is jam packed with only the essentials because that's the only thing that's going to be with you for several days. Five days, ten days, that's it.

 I'm really sorry if someone is listening to this and you get offended, but I don't really care, this is not the podcast for you if you get offended.

Anyways, I don't know if this is trespassing or whatever, but there was a gym at the college I was going to, like a basketball gym. It's a stadium and there were these box seats and these box seats had windows on them but they were always unlocked.

 I would watch. I'd turn around and I'd act like I was on my phone.

Just standing up there, put my phone up, I was just looking around. Then when no one was looking or the room was empty I would throw my stuff through the front window and I would jump through the window.

I'd climb up, lift myself up through the window, and then close the window if there was a window on there. If not, then it was just open.

But that's where I would study. I did that for 10 months and then no one caught me. Then janitors got up there and they started cleaning stuff, and then it started getting tricky.

That's when it was starting getting fun because I memorized all the times they would come and get out of there.

Watch them come, and then go back up. Because it was quiet, no one would go up there. Especially when I was wearing a uniform, people stare at you.

Anyways, that's when I first started learning the concept of the value ladder...

I started building out sales funnels and had crazy deep study sessions learning this stuff. I always try to tell a story because I feel like if I go right into tactics, it's just going to be crazy boring for everyone.

I would get bored.

 Anyways, that's the story. I ended up getting caught a couple times. I would peak over and see the closing ... Because I would stay up there until like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning many, many, many times. I'd put in four, five, six hours a day at least studying this stuff on the side of school.

I got straight A's for most semesters so I did quite well, but I was crushing it. I was barely sleeping and learning about these things.

It's funny because every once and a while I'd look over the edge and the janitors or building security would be right there and they'd look up and go, "I think someone is in there."

I heard them and I'd be like, "Oh crap." I'd start stuffing all my stuff back into my backpack, run through the back way and just start booking it down the hall.

Because you are not supposed to be there past ... I guess they close the building at midnight or something. Plus you are not supposed to be in the box seats anyways.

 They ended up catching me three or four times. You'd think that after I get caught. Not just caught like I stopped and I ran, caught as in face to face caught. They are like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "Just homework. Just thought I'd check it out."

"How'd you get up here?" "The door was open."

 Oh man, you'd think normal people would just stop and say, "Oh I'm not going to do that again." I mean I kept that going for like a year and a half.

Anyways, that story was way longer than I thought now. The value ladder. Chris, it looks like this is an MLM, which is awesome, you should check out Secretmlmhacks.com. There is some good courses that I give in there for free.

Anyways, the very first thing you have on here is a free E book. The one mistake I've seen with people's value ladders because I've seen these over and over again is that they are too vague.

You know what you are talking about, which is awesome, but as you go and write out all the details to each one of these steps, things will get hashed out in your mind that you didn't know needed to be fixed or worked out.

 It says free E book, that's great. Obviously we know the price of that...

But I would just come through and say who it's for, why are you making it, what's the sexy thing about it. Because what's funny is that you'll find that you'll spend more time on the first rung of the value ladder than you do any other step in the funnel.

That part, that first hook has to be sexy, very. The easiest way to think of it is take the thing that's at the top of the value ladder, and make that free.

That's really counter intuitive.

Salesfunnelbroker.com, I have free sales funnels in there. That's shocking for people. You can download my entire website.

That's my free end thing. That's pretty big...

I get nervous about that still, that's hard, that's a big, big deal. I spent 200 hours on this and I just give it to you guys, and it's a sexy offer. I get so many opt ins every day off that thing, that's the reason why.

Take something that's crazy sexy and make that a front end offer. Next rung up, green nutrition. I don't know what that is. You have the word basics under it.

Again, I would say add a price point in there. This needs to be so clear that you can hand it to someone else and they can figure it out.

 I don't know what green nutrition is, I'm assuming that this is a supplement MLM. It looks like that because the next one is protein supplement.

The next rung up is skin care and essential oils. Maybe this is essential oils, I don't know. The top one you have is become a distributor.

 You have on here also continuity and things like that...

That's great, you focused mainly on the selling of the product, not becoming a distributor for the MLM, which is fine. I know several people personally who are the top earners in many MLMs and they build a value ladder for the product. But then they'll go build a value ladder also for recruiting. Secretmlmhacks.com, that one is for recruiting.

 Anyways, you have another one here. Another value ladder. I think ... Wholesale distributor. Let's see. This is your second value ladder that you sent and it looks similar to the other one, but the biggest thing that I'm seeing in here that's missing is price points.

If you think about price points it's been proven that the number three, the number seven, the number nine. Those are the numbers that you need to use a lot of times. That's why you see 3.99, you never see 4 bucks. It's stupid but it does things in the brain. 3.99 is a great price point, or 3.97, great price point. Or 3.79, you even see that one.

 You hardly ever see 3.92. Anyways, you need to add price points on every step of the value ladder. Free E book, that's obvious.

But the next step that you have is retail customer...

You are doing that with a sales page. Next one is repeat order customer with an auto ship page. You'll need to clarify that on how you are going to pull that off inside of Click Funnels. If you are not using Click Funnels by the way you are insane.

I used to build all this stuff inside of Word Press, that is hell. My friends, use Click Funnels, it is so much easier. Anytime you download one of my funnels from salesfunnelbroker.com you get a trial membership, which is awesome. You'll still get to use the funnel and make money with it before you ... Anyways, I kind of lost my train of thought.

Then the very top one you have wholesale distributor...

I know no one else can see this on the actual podcast, but this is what I would caution you on is that you have auto ship and continuity marked for the entire value ladder. I'll tell you, that's incorrect.

First what you need to have is ... Okay this is also something that I learned from Russell while I was studying like crazy about this. Amateurs focus on the front end of the funnel.

You are not trying to make money on these first few items, you are just trying to break even with ad cost, because then you get free customers...

 Your cost to acquire customer is zero. It's even positive if you make money with it.

You are not trying to make money, you are building a funnel just to get customers...

Free E book, that's a good hook, but how are you going to break even on the ad cost? The very next product has got to be something, $47, $49, with another one after that at $97. If you get on industry standards on that you'll be able to break even on ad cost and get customers for free.

 If you listen to, there is a great story I heard. Russel told this story. I know I've mentioned him three times on here, yeah, I listen to a lot of his stuff. I listen to a lot of people's stuff, but I guess since I learned the value ladder from Russel. I'm just mentioning him a lot. 

But I heard this crazy story, he's like, "Look, we had VCs come and try and purchase us and they asked us what our cost to acquire a customer is, and we told them we actually make money every time we acquire a customer."

They laughed and were like, "Oh that's very funny." Russel is like, "I'm actually serious. We don't pay anything to acquire a customer, we actually make $40."

They are like, "What the heck, how do you do that?"

The reason is because of these value ladders, it's because of a sales funnel...

These front end offers, these front end things, I'm looking at E book. The very next thing, retail customer on a sales page, you need ... That has got to be very sexy right. That, in my mind, don't try and sell retail customers immediately.

You need to have something that is a one ... There is only one option for it. Almost like a one time offer. They only can purchase one item and it's $47, and on average, what, 10% of people will actually purchase it.

But that will help you break even on ad cost so you can acquire customers for free the rest of your business life...

Don't jump straight into retail with, "Here is an E commerce store with tons of things you can go purchase." Those items, high ticket items, continuity items, and random items, those don't come in the value ladder until a little bit later on.

You need to first focus on just acquiring a customer and breaking even on the ads...

 Then, once they are a customer, then through e-mail, through Facebook, through whatever medium you are choosing, then you pitch to them your high ticket thing.

It's pretty high ticket to have somebody come in and be a wholesale distributor and join your MLM. That's pretty big. Not necessarily that it's a lot of money but it's a high ticket commitment.

Continuity, getting someone on a continuity thing, that's great, but that's a different style of a sales funnel for that...

You're not going to have that as the front end offer. "Hey why don't you join my business and spend $60 a month?" It's like, "What, I don't even know you."

That first front end value ladder has got to be get in and join my cult, join my culture, get to know me, break even on ad costs, get a relationship. Now that we're jiving and now that we're moving along, okay, now I'm going to send you the introductory page for my high ticket funnel.

We'll see if you get on that...

No you didn't? Okay now I'm going to send you my funnel that just sells you my continuity product. All right cool, now I'm just going to send an e-mail out that sells the random bonuses and things like that.

This value ladder, it's not bad, it's the concept of a value ladder for sure. But you should definitely add a few more things in there. You have continuity labelled across the whole bottom.

You are not getting continuity from a free E book over and over again. I know you have it labelled as auto ship, but those things, you got to push them back.

That's not how to works...

Anyways, I got to figure another way to do this, because I know you guys are on the podcast, and maybe that didn't make sense, but that is what I would do. That was a long critique.

You got the concept down for sure but this whole thing about auto ship, if that's your one sole thing with business ...

Here is what I'd do...

If you've ever heard of Trey Lowell and he's got a company that he's making $0.5M a month with selling free ... Which is funny, think about what I'm saying here.

He is selling free gun targets... 

Meaning he comes in and he gives people, "Hey here is 10 free gun targets, just pay for the shipping and it's yours, we'll eat the cost ourselves." Their cost to acquire a customer is whatever the cost is just for the targets they get, which are probably in bulk and probably cheap because the other guy is paying the shipping.

 Well the very next thing that they offer is more gun targets...

You say, "Well hey, here is 10 free gun targets. You know what, we are sending this out, if you just pay 10 more dollars we'll send you out 20 more gun targets. That 20 extra bucks is going to cover his costs and he might actually make a dollar or two. He is not going to make a lot of money but that's not the point, he is just acquiring a customer.

The very next page after he offers more is a $1 trial into a continuity program...

He said, "After you join, I just want you to test it out for $1 just so I can weed out people who are freebie seekers. Just for a buck, test it out for a month, and in 30 days it jumps to $15 a month, or whatever it is. If you don't want it, that's fine, just let me know and we'll cancel it, no issues." It's a really soft close, right?

Doing that is a fantastic way to bump people into a continuity thing... 

If you can do that, say "Hey, I know you guys do that with ..." MLMs love to give away samples, right. Do that with a sample man. You give away something free, free E book, that's all right.

If you can, try and get something that's even more sexy. They very next thing, give more of the same thing, but then for the continuity just say, "Hey for a dollar ... " Or, it could be free plus shipping offer.

"I'll send this out to you for free, here is a sample of the product, just cover the shipping." Then the very next page says, "You know what, if you want to try an actual bottle at cost this is what it ... " It depends how you pitch it, it could be cost it could not, I don't know. 

Anyways, there is a lot of different strategies for getting people in continuity...

You cannot just come out and say, "Hey why don't you commit to giving me money every month?" Use some other mechanism or tool to dump them into that.

Anyways, guys I'm sorry, this podcast was way longer than I thought it was going to be, but Chris, thank you so much for sending that to me, guys if you want me to critique yours, just e-mail, steve@salesfunnelbroker.com. Send me your value ladders and I can critique them.

 I'll put this up on the blog, I'll also put the images up also so you can see. Or if you don't want me to, I don't have to either, I will still critique it. But then also, if you guys have any question that you want answered, I just started this thing. I think it's kind of cool. I call it the "Hey Steve!" show. I got these sweet T Shirts made.

If you want, go over to salesfunnelbroker.com and click on podcasts at the top and you can record, in the "Hey Steve!" section, you can record a voice mail to me right off that browser, right off that page, and it will e-mail me whatever you say and ask the question too.

I got to vet the question of course, but if the question gets on, I'll send you the free T Shirt.

Anyways, guys, I'll talk to you later, thanks so much, and I hope you have a good one. Remember to go create value with your value ladder. All right guys, see you.

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