Here's a deeper look into how I launch my podcast content and the sideways webinar I sneak in…
Marketers are event throwers.
… and you can use this strategy to your advantage in ANY content that you put out - yep, even your podcast or your blog!
I’m gonna show you a strategy that I use in my content to:
- Break Objections
- Build Epiphany Bridges
- Build Pressure
- Announce and Sell products
… it’s time to throw in a sneaky *SIDEWAYS WEBINAR*
I DON’T WANNA PUBLISH
When I went to my first Funnel Hacking Live, I knew that I was prepared to do ANYTHING Russell said… EXCEPT publish!
I took 52 pages of notes FHL and in those notes, I actually wrote...
- “I don't wanna talk!”
- “What am I even gonna say?”
- “I don't even know if I'm interesting enough to listen to!”
My very first episode for Sales Funnel Radio was an interview because I didn't know what to say.
To start with, I just published because Russell said to do it. I fought him on that for a while...
Fear of talking was one of the things tripping me up.
… but then I realized, “Woah, producing content is changing me faster than I could change myself!”.
Creating content was teaching me what to sell faster than I could test things out.
I’M A CONTENT CREATOR
I’ve finally accepted the fact that I’m definitely in the content business!
One of the biggest questions I get right now is NOT:
- how to create an offer
- how to create a funnel
- how to create a sales message.
...instead, it’s, “Stephen, how on earth do you come up with your podcast content ideas?”
And that’s a very valid question - because I produce sooo much content right now…
(Bonus points if you remember the fish slap episode ;-) )
I’ve just bought mycontentmachine.com specifically to deep dive into how I create and publish content.
There’s a third show that's about to come out, (which is exciting)… and there's a lot of strategy behind it.
However, right now, I’m going to let you in on a secret... (and I wonder if you’ve noticed me doing this?).
WHERE I GET MY IDEAS FROM...
Often, I create content based around:
- An idea or an “AHA!” that I have
- Problems in my business and how I'm overcoming them (a fun thing to document!).
- Straight up documenting the journey of what I'm doing.
...but other times, I actually use a webinar script to create content.
Did you realize I was doing that? It’s very effective ;-)
WEBINAR SCRIPTS… THEY’RE NOT JUST FOR WEBINARS
You’ve probably seen a webinar, right?
Sometimes, when I say, “Webinar,” people just roll their eyes.
To that, I say, “Well, we're still making a ton of money off of automated webinars…
Webinars are NOT dead.
In fact, a while back, I realized that webinar scripts are NOT just for webinars - they’re for ANY selling...EVER!
So…
The question I’m gonna answer is:
How I use webinars scripts to create content without you knowing that I’m doing that?
Well, here’s an example…
During my last podcast episode, I shared all about my high-end program MyOfferLab with you... and while that wasn't a webinar, it was very much me breaking and rebuilding false beliefs.
My intent was to...
- Help you understand why OfferLab is so cool.
- Make you think, “Oh my gosh! This program could actually shortcut my success by a few years!”
IF I COULD LAUNCH SFR AGAIN…
The first 30-ish episodes of Sales Funnel Radio are so bad, that in some ways, I wish I could delete them…
You could tell that I was reading them out. I was like:
”Hey, what's up everyone? This is Stephen... uh, Larsen… Uh, you're listening to Sales Funnel...uh, Radio... uh....”.
The content was great, but the delivery sucked so bad.
(Oh, how I wished I could go back and do them again)
I probably would had deleted them if Russell hadn’t told me to keep them (and you should keep yours too)...
*It’s really helpful for your audience to see your journey because it helps them believe that the same transformation is possible for them.
My advice is:
Don't listen to yourself for a while… it's gonna bother you … it’ll totally get in your head…
You’ll start thinking: “Do I really sound like that!?!”
Naturally, I sounded really HOT! ;-)
Errrm… Sadly, NOT true!
I was terrible, “Oh my gosh,” I couldn’t believe that I sounded so bad!
The first 30 episodes of Sales Funnel Radio, I did TONS of interviews because I didn't know what to say.
I was sooo freakin’ scared of talking.
By about Episode fifteen-ish, I stopped reading everything out as much.
Then around episode 30, I started getting more comfortable with my voice and the way I sounded.
But here’s how I create my first content for SFR...
THE EPIPHANY BRIDGE
I went to page 114 in Expert Secrets...
On the right side, in the middle of the page, (geek alert), you’ll find the Epiphany Bridge Script...
...that was literally my episode.
- I wrote down all of the headings
- Answered all of the fields
- Deleted the questions to create the script that I’d use.
It was eight questions:
- The Backstory: What is your backstory that gives us a vested interest in your journey?
- Your Desires: What is it you want to accomplish?
- The Wall: What was the wall or problem you hit within your current opportunity that started you on this new journey?
- The Epiphany: What was the epiphany you experienced and new opportunity you discovered?
- The Plan: What was the plan you created to achieve your desire?
- The Conflict: What conflict did you experience along the way?
- The Achievement: What was your end result?
- The Transformation: What was the transformation you experienced?
Yes! I did ALL the Epiphany Bridge... in one episode.
Then on the next episode, I took one of the objections and false beliefs... (that I didn't answer in the main script!)...
...and I’d just found another story.
I’d ask, “What's the cool story that helps people realize that…”
- Their belief isn't real?
- They need to rethink the way they're seeing the world?
“Huh... cool!”
Now, for that story, what’s the…
- Backstory?
- Wall?
- Epiphany?
- Plan?
- Conflict?
- Achievement?
- Transformation?
And that's how I launched Sales Funnel Radio...
However, about a year later, when I launched Secret MLM Hacks Radio I did it very differently.
MY SIDEWAYS WEBINAR
The Secret MLM Hacks Radio launch was awesome, I learned a lot from it.
I wish I’d launched Sales Funnel Radio the same way… because it was so much better!
So let’s talk about the Sideways Webinar...
The way I launched Secret MLM Hacks Radio was totally different.
Here’s how I did it…
First of all, I understood that people are gonna have some serious hang ups about using funnels in the MLM space!
So I started thinking about what objections they’re going to have to even just the idea of using a funnel.
I listed out all of the objections out that I could imagine
All the ideas that were gonna cause them to flip out a little bit!
AND I started to look for ways I could break those objections with my stories.
STORY SELLING
Q: What are all the major elements of the actual webinar script?
A:
- The Origin story = Introduction to you
- The 2nd Origin story
- Story for Secret #1 = vehicle based concern
- Story for Secret # 2 = Internal based concern
- Story for Secret #3 = External based concern
- A pitch and call to action (CTA)
So for Secret MLM Hacks:
- Episode #1: was my origin story = the introduction to me.
- Episode # 2: was the story associated with the vehicle story = Secret #1
- Episode #3: focused on the internal story = Secret #2
- Episode #4: was the external story objections.
- Episode #5, I did a call to action = this cool little free download.
The audience had no idea that I was telling stories to break specific beliefs...
I had no following at all... and it was so crazy to see what happened!
At the time, Sales Funnel Radio was doing about 600 downloads a day.
Secret MLM Hacks had no downloads a day, but the engagement was through the roof - it was insane.
There was way more engagement from the MLM audience even with fewer downloads.
It was almost the creepy kind; aka, they find your phone number and wanna fly out to meet you!
And all because I broke their belief patterns in this way. I
It was super nuts how engaged they were.
HARVESTING FOLLOWERS
From Episode #6 onwards, I started asking a different question. I wanted to increase my audience, so I asked:
Q: Who would wanna get on this show?
A: Red ocean...C- level influencers...
Now, I'm starting to harvest other people's followings and getting them to come to me.
And with those influencers, come their follower… and if the enjoy the show, they’re probably going to start listening from beginning of the show…
Which means they're gonna hit my call to action and get sent over to a registration page or an opt-in page to start building a relationship with me.
This is 100% how I launched Secret MLM Hacks and it’s way more lucrative and effective when you do it this way.
Now, I have brought a lot of my students through this process with their MLM product.
If you go to iTunes and type in “MLM”... of the first top 20 podcasts, the first six of them are my students.
Their shows are ranking at the top of iTunes because they’re breaking and building people's beliefs like crazy!
CREATING PRESSURE
Before I even launched my Secret MLM Hacks product, I’d published about 50 podcast episodes.
To start with, I just started talking about the ideas and I told stories to break false beliefs and objections.
But then, around episode 10-ish, I started building pressure for my program launch.
I started saying things like:
“Hey, there's this crazy cool project that I've been working on and I just wanted to tell you guys about it!”
… then that was it - end of the episode.
In the next episode, I’d say:
”Hey, I'm really pumped, we've actually grabbed a few people as a litmus test to see if this project works and it's been amazing - this is kind of what happened... but anyway, that's today's episode... see you later!”
I'm starting to build curiosity.
Q: What are the two major weapons that a marketer has?
https://media.giphy.com/media/10HPl8c6VZKc4o/giphy.gif
A:
- Scarcity
- Urgency
… when used correctly, scarcity and urgency are AWESOME.
I thought I was gonna launch in October 2017, so I started building up all this pressure towards it….pressure...pressure...pressure.
I kept teasing, “It’s coming in October. I don't know the exact date yet, but be ready!”
People started commenting and leaving reviews on iTunes asking, “What is it?? This is so cool!”
#Open loop #Open loop
I wasn’t exactly sure what the product would be, but I knew it had something to do with funnels and automation.
I’d already been doing a few of those things personally... so I wasn't just making stuff up...I was doing the thing myself…
PREACHING TO THE RED OCEAN
I started telling stories about things that I hated in the MLM industry... stuff that just drove me nuts.
Things I felt that were an injustice about what was available for current MLMers.
Some people started leaving comments like, “I hate your guts, Steve... you're dumb!”
But other people started reaching out to me saying, “You’re right! It’s terrible. I hate it too!”
I didn't create the divide; I just brought it to the surface.
And when I started seeing this divide in opinion, it was a signal that I was on the right track.
It meant that when I start selling the product, people are gonna talk about it without me asking them to...
When it’s a little bit spicy like that, it means you have a talkable product
You’ve found the hot spots.
CREATING CONSTRAINT
A few episodes later I realized, “Oh crap, I wanna make the product even cooler, so I’ll actually have to push it back a little bit!”
I was focusing on leaving ClickFunnels well…
Yes, I wanted to leave...but I didn't wanna burn bridges... because that would be dumb.
So then I started saying, “Hey, I'm gonna launch to January instead, but I don't know when...”
At the beginning of November, I started thinking, “Alright, if I leave ClickFunnels on December 31st... can have something ready by January 4th?”
It was intense, but it was a good constraint.
I didn't want to go a while without getting paid though. We weren’t gonna have any other income…
...and that was some scary crap.
But that was the reality...
So, I asked myself, “How can I spin that to a positive and LEAD WITH IT?”
So I began telling people:
“I'm gonna leave ClickFunnels. I'm gonna leave my job! Watch what I do when I do this. I want you to know that the framework that I’m using works.”
It was a cajones moment...
Yeah baby…*twitch in the eye*
So then I started building the pressure by saying:
“If you wanna get on the waiting list and get first dibs on the product when it’s launched, go to this URL… Go get on the waiting list.”
I ended up getting 400 people on the waiting list before January even showed!
I started asking those people…
- What's your number one question or challenge with this?
- What's your big fear?
I started writing a huge list on a whiteboard with tons of:
- Objections
- False beliefs
- Stories of problems they were running into
- The things they hated
- Stuff they loved
This started showing me - “Oh my gosh, *that* is where I need to sit in this market.”
Beforehand, I kinda had an idea of what my product was going to be...but I still didn’t know EXACTLY.
...so I kept building up pressure!
MY FIRST BUYER
There was one lady who was so excited to buy in October that she stayed up waiting for the page to launch …
(I didn't know this at the time, she sent an email to me after the actual launch.)
She said, “Are you kidding me?! Why is it January?”
I was like “Sweet, that's a buy signal. We should probably move forward on this.”
She was that person on the Webinar who’s like, “I don’t care about the stack! Where is the link?!”
I thought, “Yes! Yes! Yes! I'm hitting it! Yes, this is gonna work!”
She actually started getting mad on the webinar.
I closed the chat just because she was starting to get in my head:
“You really wanna buy, but I’ve still gotta sell all these other people,! Come on now, hold on a minute!”
She ended up being the first buyer of the actual program.
Two days later, she messaged me...I think she was crying…
She said, “I forgot to tell my husband that I wanted to buy this! I stayed up all night and bought it without talking about it with him….and he's a little bit mad. I have to get my money back.”
I was like, “Oh, Crap!”
I was said, “All right, that's totally fine.”
She was sooo devastated and embarrassed.
A few weeks later, she came back…. and told me, “The most amazing miracle happened, Stephen!”
My husband was like, “You know what, you really want this thing, huh?”
And she said,” Yes, I've been waiting like six months, the dude's been dropping all this content on me like crazy!” (...by then I was Episode 60)
So she messaged me, “My husband just turned to me and said, ‘You know what? Why don’t you just go get it.’ ”
So she came back AND she re-bought it.
Now she's this HUGE evangelist…
And that’s what happens when you take care of people and build pressure in the right way by launching your content with a sideways webinar.
If you're just starting out you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies, right? That's also good.
But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right?
That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula.
So I created a special Mastermind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it.
Wanna come?
There are small groups on purpose, so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days.
You can hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com.
Again, that's OfferMind.com.
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