SFR 55: How I Run My Ask Campaigns...

 

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One of the biggest questions I get is how to run my ask campaigns. Welp... here ya go!

Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larson and you're listening to a kind of late-night 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. And now, here's your host, Steve Larson.

Hey, I'm super excited to be here today. Gosh I'm kinda freaking out just a little bit, I'm not gonna lie. In two days, I am speaking on Russell's stage, for two days. And I'm excited about it.

Gosh I love stage. I absolutely love it, but I'm kinda stressing out a little bit. I went and got my hair cut, and getting all the things ready that I need to, writing my slides right now. It's like 250 slides. It's nuts, but I'm kinda ... Anyway, I'm stressing out a little bit, I'm not gonna lie.

I did a lot of stage growing up, tons of stage, lots of stage, and I really enjoyed it. I sang a lot, I was in a band. I've said this stuff to you guy before, okay. Me being on stage is not the scary part. I actually love it, it's a special kind of rush and I ...

Anyway I crave it...

I love it when people ask me to speak, because I get really stoked about it. Well, this is Russell Brunson's stage, though. It's like, "What the heck. Holy Cow." It's a bigger deal for sure. So, anyway, I know that I'm probably not going to sleep much tonight or the night next also because I need to just keep preparing and I want to be awesome, you know.

Russell's changed my life, he's changed a lot of people's lives. I'm going to speak for two days at an event that he's putting on, and I'm really excited for it. It's just ... Anyway ... What's funny is I'm actually more nervous about him and other people that know me ... like seeing me on stage like turn on.

You know what I mean? When we talk to each other back and forth there's a certain presence we have personally. But then there's another presence we have when we go talk to someone when we are actually presenting. When we are actually teaching. You know what I mean? I'm a different person when I get on this podcast than when I'm talking to my mom or dad. You know what I mean?

And it's not that I'm a different person, I shouldn't say it that way. But my energy level's different. Usually when I talk to my mom or talk to my dad or talk to any family or my brothers or sister or anything like that, I'm not on there going,

"What's up guys? Whoa!" You know what I mean? For me to come out, that's my normal stage-on presence and I'm going to be that way for like 20 hours. I'm actually more nervous about that part of it than I am any of the content- I know the content. I'm just organizing it now- than anything else. Anyway, I know it'll be good.

Anyway, it's just a different side of me that many of the people that I work with over there have not seen from me. So I'm actually more nervous about that part than anything else.

All right, I want to address a question real quick that I continue to get asked over and over and over again. Real quick, though, I just want to tell you guys a quick story, though. I went and I started building Sales Funnels for companies well before I worked for ClickFunnels, well before I worked for Russell, and I started putting all these pieces together.

If you read a book from one person and you think you know it all, let me just tell you real quick that you don't. What's best is to go find a subject and then read all the books you can on that subject from all the different experts because each of the quote unquote experts is going to give you a different take.

Does that make sense?...

You're gonna be able to get all these different pieces from these people that you may not have gotten before if you just read one book, took one course.

So what I started doing is I started learning about product creation. I actually didn't realize that that's what I was doing, now looking back, but that's what I was doing. I was learning how to create products. I was learning how to put together offers and things that are attractive that would make others want to give me money and I needed to prove myself to the market.

You know what I mean?

I felt I knew how to do this stuff. I had done it on small scales with other people and my own stuff. I'd done it. But I wanted to get a big shot, you know, "Hey everyone! Look, I do know how to do this, you know? Please pay me for what I feel I'm worth."

You know what I mean...

And I know a lot of you guys probably feel that way. I'm sure you guys know what that feels like, right? To not get paid what you feel you are, right? What you're worth.

What I did is I went and this was about three years ago, I started shotgun sending emails to tons of different companies saying, "Hey, I want to build a funnel for you. I know you don't know what that is. I'll do it for free. If it makes money, will you hire me?"

Right? And I started doing that to tons of different companies. Well, one of them stuck. One of them caught and he came out.

He was like, "I don't know what that is but, I mean, if you want to build something that's going to be potentially cool for free, that's a great proposition."

So I jumped out there and all I did is I honestly just used Google forms. Google forms is free and what you do is you write- In the book "Ask" by Ryan Levesque, he basically has six different questions that you have, six or seven, but it's a few different questions that you go and you put together and the very first question is like this big, wide open net.

Basically, the first question is something along the lines, "Hey, what's your biggest question with X?" Or, "What's been your biggest challenge with X?" And you just leave it blank, totally open. That's it. That's the whole question. And you let them answer as much as they want to.

The second question starts to get more narrow. And there's more like multiple choice things. And the next question gets more narrow and the next one gets more and more narrow.

And each question is capturing the data, regardless if they actually finish the entire survey.

I was like, "Cool." I think I could do that. Basically what happens is, after you collect all this data, you pool in all this data and then you'll start to see the top concerns. You'll see the top questions, the top main buckets where people are struggling in and then you run another one with just that topic in mind.

I didn't even get as far as that. Typically, I don't. We've run that before just for the ClickFunnels community so that we could help and know what people needed help with. I have hardly ever gotten that deep into it. I've really just asked that first set of six questions and that's it.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'd go get the book "Ask" by Ryan Levesque and seriously read it. It's a great one. And you read that in companion with "Expert Secrets". Those two together? You'll know exactly how to create offers. It's amazing.

More clarity and how to create an offer in those two books than anything else I'd ever read before.

Anyway. So I went and I was like, "Well, shoot." I didn't know what Wufoo was. I didn't know what all the different form builders were out there. I didn't know any of that stuff. All I did is I went and I used Google forms because it was free. And I went and I put together this "Ask" campaign and I was doing it for a company that sold water machine, like hydrogen water machines, things like that.

So extremely health conscious, very homeopathic conscious minded type person and I basically put the question, "Hey, what's your number one health challenge right now?" And that's kind of a pointed question but I wanted to do that. I wanted the question to be forward enough that the people who actually answered it would give me results and it would be very valuable data.

Here's what ended up happening. He had a list of a couple thousand people. It wasn't that big of a list, to be honest. But I went and dropped out the email to his list and I said, "Hey everyone!" I put the title in there "quick announcement and a favor". That was my email subject title, my email subject line.

Quick announcement and a favor. I learned that by the book "Launch" by Jeff Walker. It's a great headline by the way. I've used that many times and I always get great results from it.

This is far more of a tactile podcast than I usually do but I just wanted to show you guys what I actually do in my "Ask" campaigns because I've been getting asked this question a lot. "Hey, how do I actually run an "ask" campaign? How do I get this out there?"

The first step: I made it in Google forms, then I went and I blasted it out there with an email and then I put a link to the Google form in the email, and then what happened was, there was about 150 people that responded to it over about a week.

When people didn't respond to it, I captured all those people who didn't. I resent it again. And I asked it again on the Facebook page and I asked it in several places. It wasn't just a one and done kind of thing. I dug.

And I was like, "Cool! Wow! That's more people than I actually thought it would be in the first place." What I did is I started reading all of the different pieces. I started reading all the responses with all the responses on one side of the screen and then a blank sheet on the other.

And if something happened that I just did not expect ... I expected that I would start to see the commonalities and I did. That was three years ago. I can't remember what they were now but it was extremely valuable. But I started reading through all of these different responses and people telling us, "What's the number one challenge with your health that you're struggling with right now?"

That's basically what the question was...

And number two was, "How much are you spending per month your health? Supplements or prescriptions or whatever it is- How much are you currently spending right now?"

And then number three, "Did you personally diagnose your own disease or did a doctor do it?" I needed to get down to the, "Who am I really talking to? Are these people who are kind of skittish and they self-diagnose and now they're medicating over it?

Or is this actually a legitimate disease, not that that says a disease is legitimate, but you know what I mean. I needed to know that kind of stuff in my marketing and my messaging.

What ended up happening, this totally shocking thing started happening because, as I actually sat down and I started reading all these questions, I started crying. Actually crying. It was really really intense. I was not expecting it. I was not expecting it. Because here's what was happening. People were answering the number one question with so much vulnerability, it took me off guard. It was nuts. I couldn't believe it.

And what ended up happening is I sat down and I started reading these questions and people were saying things like, "Hey, what's the number one challenge you're having with your health right now?" People were writing things like, "I'm sitting next to my spouse right now who is dying in bed and should die at any day. What can you do to help us?" Stuff like that. I was like, "Oh my gosh!" "Hey, I just lost one of my kids to cancer. I wish we had more of an answer about that."

Holy crap! And it was really really in depth, long answers...

And I had to stop three times because it was so intense. I gained so much affinity for my customer and the people that I was trying to go and learn about that I literally had to stop. I didn't expect any of that. I did not expect that I would have to go do that. I didn't expect that I would need to step back.

I didn't expect that, not that I didn't love the customer before or really care about the customer before, but my affinity for them, for what they were feeling, what they're going through, shot through the roof. It was so powerful, you guys. Oh my gosh.

I went and I just started putting into a bucket of, "Well, this is more of a question about this." "Okay, so is that one." "This is kind of a new category. Let's make a new category." Does that make sense? And I started tallying together all these different things, both one what I thought people's beliefs were and then also their biggest question as well.

So I started learning...

"Oh my gosh, these people are all wanting something like this." Do they actually want this or is it more like a Henry Ford thing and they think they want that but really, I'm going to give them this and it'll also solve the problem better. You know what I mean like with the car and horse and buggy thing.

It took me probably three or four hours just to go through the 150 questions and start to make little buckets with it. What ended up happening is I knew now how to speak to the person. I knew what their pain points were. I knew. They gave me the headline. Does that make sense?

They gave me the copy. They gave me exactly what it was that they were going to go and buy. Again, you can use this for good or bad, but I went and I created a little campaign. I made a trip wire funnel with the things that we knew that they'd go buy and then we launched it. And it made them like 50 grand. And 50 grand came through that funnel in the next couple weeks there. 20 grand in two days and then another 30 trickled in after that.

And I was like, "Holy crap! That Ask campaign worked! This is nuts! It's so crazy!" The only reason I'm bringing this up is, like I said, a lot of people have been asking me how does this work? How do you actually do an Ask campaign?

Here's some of the faults that I've seen from many people as they start to do this. One, they only ask once. They only ask one time. Sometimes my wife has to ask me three times just to take the trash out, you know what I mean? You're asking for some personal data and you might need to ask a couple times. Does that make sense?

I wouldn't just stick with one medium either. I would email it out and then I put it on Facebook. Then I'd do a Facebook live. Then I might put it on YouTube. Then I might go and do a periscope shoot about it. And then I might take some of the responses that are coming in and just anonymously read some of them.

"Man, I can't- This is so touching. I have to read these." Because that'll make other people want to go answer and tell their story since they know they're being heard. Does that make sense?

A lot of people that I'm watching, what they going and doing is they're asking just one question, which is fine, but you can ask the full six that Ryan Levesque talks about in the book which, by the way, I'd go get it. They're not paying me to talk about the "Ask" book. There's no promotion thing going on here but I just have it right in front of me and it's a great book.

But I wouldn't just ask one question, meaning, I wouldn't just ask, "Hey, what's your number one challenge with X?", email it out one time, and then do nothing else. Do you know what I mean?

I would also try to get as much as you can. I like what Russell suggested. Get at least a hundred responses if you can. Now, for me, that has meant that I have to boost the post. I actually had to put a little money behind it. I am data digging like a beast. Does that make sense?

The other thing I do is I'll go read reviews on other people's products that are indirect or direct competitors to what it is I'm selling and then I'll go make a list of all those things. I'll go read reviews on the product, whether it's on Amazon Top Seller's List, whether it's on- And I'll start digging. The whole point of the Ask campaign is not just for you to ask and have answers come to you. Which it is but you have got to dig. It is a period of market research.

It is a period of where you figure out really in depth what someone actually is thinking.

The thing, too, is you gotta look beyond the surface level...

I wish I'd pulled up the actual Ask campaign itself that I did. In fact, I might do that here while I'm ... You might hear some clicking sounds. I'm on my computer.

But I would go and, when you start reading the responses, what they're going to tell you is, first of all, they're going to tell you some surface level stuff and that's fine but you need to start looking at the underlying beliefs they have because of that. That's what Russell tells you to do, right? Go look at the underlying-

Sweet, I found it. Cool.

Hey, I'm going to read you the questions that I wrote so that you guys have somewhat of a framework for when you actually go do your Ask campaign, whether or not you've actually read the book "Ask".

My very first question was, like I said, a water company. What I said was, "Please be as"- This is all in Google forms, totally free and what's nice is Google forms also, in the responses section, they've got a tab there where it makes all these cool graphs for you so you can see the responses, the percentages that people are answering one or the other, whatever it is.

Anyway, there's only six questions. And I said, "Please be as detailed and specific as possible. Please go beyond saying, 'I want to be more healthy.' The more specific and detailed, the more likely I'll be able to cover your topic."

So the first thing I asked is, "What's your number one single biggest health concern or challenge right now?" All right? And I put in an example. "Example: I'm sick of blank and blank and I've tried blank for too long." And I just put a little primer question in there for them.

Second question was, I said, "Which of the following best describes you? I have a currently diagnosed health challenge or I don't have a health challenge but I'm careful about the potential of future health issues." The hard part is that you're going to want to load it like make any kind of bias as well.

Number three, I wrote, "I mostly take remedies and medicines, a, only prescribed from doctors, b, which are only homeopathic, c, from over the counter or, d, I rarely take any remedies or medicines of any kind." Right?

Number four said, "Roughly how much money are you spending on your health products or remedies and medicines, including supplements, each month?" And that was nice. I put some ranges in there. The reason I asked the price point because now I know, hey, if these guys are spending like $500 a month on their own health supplements or prescriptions that they're already currently buying, they're probably not going to have an issue if I just go asking for another 50 or $100 purchase.

Does that make sense?...

Mentally, that's not a price block for them because they're already spending a huge chunk. And I needed to know that kind of data. It was pretty interesting. Most people answered ... where am I? Most people answered that they spend between 50 and $200 a month on their current health supplements and remedies and things like that.

Number five, "What is your primary health goal?" The reason I asked that question is so that now that when I go talk to them, I can say, "Hey, you guys! I know that you want to do X."

How do I know that? It's because they told me. Does that make sense? And the copy speaks directly to them by asking them what their challenge is and their main concern is, you will now know exactly how to speak to them.

And I said, lastly, "I may follow up with a few people personally to learn a little bit more about your situation. If you'd be open to chatting for a few on the condition I promise not to try to sell you anything, please leave me your name and email below."

The reason I do that is so that is- Let's say someone put something really intense in there or something it just kind of makes me curious. Man, pick up the phone and call the person and be like, "Hey! Could you tell me a little more about that?"

The reason I'm going over this is because over and over and over again, I have seen people stand back and go, "Oh, you know what? I don't like Teletubbies or I don't like Beanie Babies, therefore, I am not going to make them." Okay, those are huge products. I don't like them either but I don't fill my own wallet. You do not fill- You are not your target market. You're not.

So put aside what you really like, you know? There's this whole area where you stop caring what you actually want to sell and realize what people are buying, okay?

What's nice about the Ask campaign and things like that and what Russell teaches is that you're going to get beyond what things you really really like. You might be really really good at stock trading. You might be really really good at some specific talent. Some skill. Something that you spent a lot of time getting really really good at. That's good and you need to have that but the way that you sell it, the actual marketing behind the sale is what you're trying to figure out. What tag lines or what things are people actually saying right now. Can I use that exact phrase inside my actually copy? Can I use what they're saying in my headline?

It's so funny. When I first realized what retargeting was, retargeting campaigns, first of all I didn't know what it was but it was funny because I would go to a few websites and put in a few pieces of data in there and then I'd go over to some other site, say YouTube or whatever where they've sold ad space, and then all of a sudden, I've got all these ads that are saying directly what I put into the last website and it was like, "What the heck? How do they know this?" Ohhh. Retargeting campaign. Interesting. This is crazy cool!

So you can use this on front end targeting. You can use it on background as retargeting campaigns. You can use this in your email. Use it everywhere. The whole point is for people to feel like that you are completing the conversation that's already happening inside their head.

Before I keep going, let that sink in...

You need to figure out what's already going on inside their head and use the same vernacular, use the same vocab, use the same phrases, the train of thought, the similes and symbolisms. The same things over and over again that's already going on inside their head. If you can do that then they'll feel like you know them.

They'll feel like you were there for them even more. And I want you to be. Right?...

Be truthful. Be honest. I want you to be ethical in this business and you are but it will also help you get the sale faster because you are joining the conversation that's already going on in their head. If you don't do that, you're guessing.

The whole point that I'm trying to make here is that if you get out there and you start making these campaigns, you start putting things together, you gotta realize that the creativity that you need to actually make money, 90% of the time is not actually inside of you. It's in the market.

All you're doing is you're harvesting from the market and the market's telling you, "Hey, you know what? I really like Teletubbies. I really like Beanie Babies." Personally, I hate that stuff. I imagine you do, too. That's probably not the market for the type of person listening to this podcast but that's not the point either.

Man, if I knew that freaking Beanie Babies were something that was going to sell, I wouldn't care. People are buying it. You know what I mean? And I would go and I would sell it.

I'm not telling you to get away from your main task or your main skill or the thing that you're good at or the thing you're going to sell, but what I am telling you is go ask what people are wanting and give that to them. That's all it is. Find a hot market.

You're going to ask them what they want and number three, you're going to give it to them. That's really all it is. Those are the three things. And it's as simple as that. And people go make it too complicated and they'll start guessing.

It's good to go deep. It's good to go find some awesome deep research and go really really hardcore and funnel hacking and things like that and you should do that. But you also need to realize that sometimes making things up on your own, man, that's gambling. I'm not a gambler. I think gambling's dumb.

I don't understand why someone would play poker. I would rather gamble my money, quote unquote gamble, in a business. You know what I mean? On ad spend- Anyway, whatever. I won't get on that tangent.

Anyway. That's what I'm trying to tell you guys. In order to actually go create the product, stop guessing. You don't need to guess. Just go ask and if you don't have a clear picture of what your offer is, it means you've not asked enough so go ask more. And go get your message out there and be like, "Hey, I'm trying to think of ... I really want to go have this product be out there."

Look, man. When we were in ... I'm sorry I tell so many college stories but, I've only been out of college for a year, okay? When I was in college, though, we had this business we ran and made three grand a week, this student ran business. We built it from the ground up and it was awesome and super cool and I was the CEO of it and it went really really good. The only reason we stopped it is because they made us.

That's another story but anyway, we literally walked around campus asking people to fill out surveys. It was super embarrassing for a little bit. It was kind of annoying. "Hey could you fill this out?" "Hey, could I ask you just a few questions?" You know, "Hey!"

Obviously in anything, you get a lot of people who are jerks, but at the same time, a lot of people really were helpful. Well, I'm terrible at cooking but we ended up starting a cooking business because that's what people wanted to buy. I hate it so much. I don't know that I really ever cooked. Maybe one time.

I was like, "Cool. Food." What kind of food do you want? And they went through and they told us. I was like, "Cool! What flavor do you want?" They went through and told us. Awesome. "About how much would you pay for this?" And so we did about a week of just hardcore research, day after day after day after day. And after a day, we'd sit back and go, "Hey, cool."

Well, that's what people want, all right, let's dive in one more step. Let's dive in one more step. Let's dive in one more step. And that's how I run the Ask campaign.

There's a lot of ways to run it. It's not just automatically electronically. We are literally asking people, getting into the emotions behind it. And getting into the reasons, "Why do you want food?" "Why do you want this?" "How come with us health challenged?" What really is making me say that? And if you can go one more level deep, that's really where Russell's book gets into.

Go one more level deep. And what it'll do is it'll start to show you all the false belief patterns that people have about your product. Now you know what your goal is. Now you know what the marketing is you have to go create.

You guys know that I always tell people, "A product and an offer are not the same thing." It's dangerous to have a product. It's really cool to have an offer. Go get an offer. Well, number two on that is, "Marketing and sales is not the same thing."

There's really four categories.

Number one, what's the product? Well, I found out, because I asked people like crazy that people want this food thing. All right, cool, I've got three more categories I've got to go find out about. All right, well, what's the offer? What do they really want with it? And that's what we did. We're like, "Hey, what do you want with it?"

You know what?

I really like chips and a drink. Cool. What kinds of chips and drink? They are literally building the offer that we're going to go sell them later. Does that make sense?

I'm sorry, this is a long podcast. I'm so sorry but I hope you're getting this.

Number three, what I did is I went, "Okay, well what's the marketing behind it? How are people going to [inaudible 00:26:16]? Cool. Well, what times do you want to get sold this stuff? About what time- How much money are you keeping with you at all times?" You know what I mean? You just work piece by piece by piece through those four things.

What's the product? Cool. We found that out. What's the offer? How are they actually packaging it and what do they want to buy with it? Number three, what's the marketing behind it? And number four, what's the sales behind it? Meaning, what do they want to have happen face to face? Turns out, they just wanted package deals.

You know what I mean? Marketing is what brought them to our counter. Sales is what happened when they were at the counter.

Anyway, I could keep going and going and going. I'm so sorry but I just hope that this helps with the Ask campaign. I hope that it's helpful what I'm telling you. The Ask campaign is such a crucial thing. I didn't realize that that's what we were doing when I was doing all that stuff but that's exactly, it was the same principles. We asked questions like crazy and then, after people bought, we asked them more questions.

And we found out things like, "Ugh, you know what? Christmas is coming up. I sure wish there was some hot chocolate around." Well, shoot, we just made hot chocolate and we charged a couple bucks for it. Actually, we brought it from $1500 a week from then up to $2000 a week and then it was up to $3000 a week. And then we started catering because people told us they wanted it. Your whole business is this way.

First, Ask campaign your way to find a product if you don't already know what that is. Number two, go Ask campaign your way to find out what offer people are willing to purchase. And if you don't know, make the offer. Hand it to them. And when they're holding the offer, or when they're looking at the offer, don't look at it with them. Look at their face. What reactions did they give? Why did they do that? And then ask them, "Why did you do that? Why'd your face go that way?"

And don't fall in love with your product ever because they'll come back and say, "I wish you'd done this." And if you fall in love with your product, people will stand back and, "I'm in love with my product. It's perfect how it is. You don't know what you're talking about." It's the wrong thing. You're not filling your own wallet, remember? You're not filling your own wallet. You are not your target market, even if you participate in the thing that you're selling, you are not your target market.

Number three, then you're going to Ask campaign your way to find out the marketing. That's huge what funnel hacking is. That's what funnels do, right? They're marketing pieces that bring people into your world. They're big marketing arms basically.

Number four, we go find out the sales part. Okay, what are people saying in comparing or in competitive offers? That's really when you start tossing in all the different things that people are telling me from the Ask campaign. I use that in my copy.

Those are the four things. You don't just Ask campaign one time and you're done. That is not the way do it. If that was the case, funnel scripts would not exist. If that was the case, I'd bet "Expert Secrets", the book, would not exist. If that's the case, ClickFunnels would not exist.

By continually asking over and over and over again what the market wants, you will stay ahead of the curve and you'll stay ahead of the other guy that ends up just caring more to the money and less about the customer and starts to fizzle away and die because they're in that cutting edge anymore. Does that make sense?

Anyway. Sorry, this is a long one but I just get really passionate about this topic because stop making it up. Because you don't know. And it's okay that you don't know. And the way to know is just by asking people. Just ask like crazy! Man, I ask questions to everyone.

My wife used to make fun of me for it because we'd be at the grocery store and I'd just start asking questions. "Hey, when's your busiest times? Oh, cool. What are they mostly buying? What are the things you guys are most scarce in all the time?"

And the cashier always looks at me weird but they answer my questions and I kind of have an idea now. And I just do that everywhere I go. I just make it a habit. I just ask questions. I suffer from insatiable curiosity and you need to do that. Suffer from insatiable curiosity. Go and just ask questions.

And if you're curious, ;people like to talk about their life. They'll tell you. Some people are having a bad day and they won't tell you. Who cares? Go to the next one. You know what I mean? People like to talk about themselves.

Anyway. Guys, hopefully I was helpful and these work like crazy. I just did several Ask campaigns last week for the product we just launched, ClickFunnels, which is too comical to coaching. Anyway, I gotta get back to producing my slides and getting ready for that but I thought I'd just drop this out to you guys because it's a big deal. And a lot of people do it really wrong.

Anyways, guys, I will talk to you later and you're all rockstars. Bye.

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