SFR 91: Fears of "Making the Jump"...

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Here is how I have mitigated risk as I prepare to leave my job...

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening 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 funnels. Now, here's your host Steve Larsen.

 Hey, so the last few days have been pretty intense, not in a bad way. There's good intense and bad intense. You know what I mean? But the pressure has been increasing. My wife came to me the other day. I think it was yesterday or two days ago. She walked up to me. It was morning time. You know, everyone's kind of getting up. She walks in and she's like, "I had a really bad dream last night." I was like, "Really? What was it?"

She goes, "I had a dream that you were upstairs ..." I have a home office here upstairs, kind of in the corner of the house, which is kind of nice to have. I've got sound panels all over the place. I totally made a man cave. I love sitting in this room and creating stuff. I got whiteboards all over the place. Quotes on the wall. Three bookshelves totally full.

Anyway, I love it. Sound equipment all over the place. Film stuff. I've got a sheet over on the wall over here, top to bottom. It's a black sheet that I stand in front of and film a bunch of 4K videos with, which looks awesome, super cool, and actually pretty pro. It looks pretty awesome. Anyway, I like video a lot.
Anyway, back to the story. She goes, "I had a dream that you came down from the office. That you had left ClickFunnels. This was later on in the future, in January. You came down and you just said, 'Alyssa, is there a check in the mail?'" She was like, "I said back to you, 'No. Why would there be a check in the mail?'"

I'm like, "I don't know," or, "Who it'd be from?" "I don't know. I'm just wondering if there's a check in the mail. We only have a thousand dollars in our bank account." This is all in the dream. My wife was like, "What? Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? There's no money in the bank account?" Like, "What have you been doing?" I was like, "Ah, I haven't started selling anything yet." She's like, "Well, go start selling crap." Like, "What are you waiting for?"

Anyway, the pressure is here, okay? The pressure is turned up. I'm excited. It was never my intention to be an employee. But I am super thankful that I've had this experience. I would never regret the fact that I've gone through this and that I've worked for somebody else and that it's Russell Brunson. I mean, come on. Holy crap. This is like a dream job which seems all the more ludicrous that I would leave ClickFunnels. What's funny about it is that there's a lot of people ... I don't know if some of you guys who listen to this that still think that I'm crazy about them. It's hilarious to me how many people have reached out, giving me their opinion on the fact that I should not leave. I go, "Okay. You have no idea what I'm going to go do."

Some person messaged me and they're like, "Hey. Awesome. You're going to go do ..." I'm won't say exactly what they said, but it's just hilarious like ... It reminds me of the quote like if you're not marketing hard enough or if you don't offend someone by noon, you're not marketing hard enough.

It's funny, guys. As you develop your own attractive character, be prepared to have a lot of naysayers that pop out. I actually kind of look forward to it now. If I don't get enough naysayers, I feel like I'm not taking as aggressive of moves as I should be, so bring it on. I like hearing the other side too, but man, every once in a while it's like, "Gosh." I wrote something back to a certain individual like three times, and I just ended up deleting it. I was like, "It's not even worth it. Just, ugh, whatever." It's funny. It's funny, but the pressure is on. So what do you do ... I know a lot of you guys are thinking like what do you do when you know that you're about to lose your job? I shouldn't say lose my job, I'm leaving. But most people they either lose their immediately because they got fired or they're leaving this other job with a two weeks notice.

I've known for a very long time you guys, way before it was ever announced. Way before Russell every announced it before, everybody start talking about it. We have both known that I was going to leave ClickFunnels for a long time. What's funny about it is it's almost like ... I'm trying to think of an example, but you know like when you put something off and there's more ... I forgot the name of it. There's an actual theory behind this.

It's when there's an ... Like if you have three months to get something done, because you have three months, there is added stress and pressure because you have three months of stress and pressure rather than it being needed to be done in three days because you know that it's three days.

You know what I mean? It's been fumy because that's exactly what's happened. I've totally had sleepless nights. I've thought through ... I'm just being open about this, okay? I'm being open and I'm being real. I'm letting you guys know where I am.

What's funny is I'm not nervous about creating revenue on my own. Obviously, I would not leave ClickFunnels without that being a very solid plan, which it is. I'm grabbing a little ownership and a few other things that I haven't quite announced yet.

There's a lot going on behind the scenes in the world of Steve Larsen. But what I wanted to talk about real quick today was if you ... Okay, quick story. Russell has got this cool story he was telling me about the other day. I can't remember who, but he had this thing called like the 30 day challenge or something like that. I actually can't remember what it was called. But basically, the premise was this guy went around to all these gurus and he started saying things like, "Hey, let's say you lost everything. You lost your reputation or you don't have one. You're starting literally from scratch.

What would you do to be back on your feet in 30 days?" It's a pretty powerful question when you think about that.

Think about where you are right now and go ground zero in your own head, ground zero. No assets, nothing. No money, no reputation, no following, nothing. No list, anything, nothing at all. You have a ClickFunnels account and your rent on your internet has been pre paid for a month or something like that. What would you do? Right? What would you do? Someone messaged me the other day. They're like, "How can we not sleep anymore?" and stuff like that. What would you do if you knew you don't have a job in a few weeks? Come on. Tell me how would you handle it.

I worked my butt off which I've been doing.

We are more than fine. I made like 10 grand last week on this one event funnel, I'm sorry, application funnel. That's not to be cocky. I'm letting you guys know I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to just jump ship from something without any plan. It's a very solid plan. It's been there for a long time. It's amazing and extremely lucrative, and it's awesome. I'm excited to talk more about it once I'm no longer part of ClickFunnels, anyway, and tell you guys a little bit more about those things you guys can follow and totally funnel hack, which is awesome.

Anyway, but what would you do? What would you think about? So I want you to know the process that I've gone through in my head to make sure that I'm ready to make the leap because I know a lot of you guys are trying to do that because you message me about it. A lot of you message me. I don't think you guys realize how many of the rest of you are also messaging me besides a lot of the rest of you also. There's a lot of messages that I get. It's fun and it's awesome. Please don't get offended if I can't answer every single one of them. It's logistically impossible now. But anyway, what would you do though? You think about that. What would you actually do? Then what I invite you to do is as I go through like two or three things here to let you know what I've done. I've already tested it.

It's already making great money. It's already like this, you know, which is why I can leave, which is why I can go jump off and do that stuff. I want you to think through in your head your own checklist. What is it that you would do? Then I invite you to actually do it. Create that actual environment in your head and just get it done.

You know what's funny about building funnels? It's really easy. I know some of you guys are laughing when I say that, but it is. Click drag, drop, click buttons, choose some colors, right? I mean, if you can send email, you can use the ClickFunnels editor, right? What most people screw up on and the reason why it gets hard for them is because they suck at making offers, okay? Funnel building is more about offer creation than it is putting a few pages together, okay?

Any monkey can put a few pages together. They're even pre-done for you in templates where you literally would just have to change the copy on the page, okay? There's templates over the place. So then what is it really? Let's think about it. What actually is the reason why the funnel isn't working? It's because you suck at offer creation. If that stings a little, that's okay. It's medicine.

Think through, "Wow. Do I actually know how to create offers?" Wherever you are in the world right now, I want you to raise your hand. I'm not trying to get on a side tangent here, but I want you to realize how I've been able to secure my landing as I jump from ClickFunnels, because I know how. I know exactly why. I want you to be the same.

You've got to know why your stuff's working or why it isn't. If you don't know, that's the scariest thing ever. So I'm trying to shed some light on usually the number one reason why a funnel doesn't convert. Raise your hand right now and say, "I will not sell products anymore." What? "Oh, Mylanta. Steve Larsen, what are you telling me to do?" Okay, "I will not sell products or services anymore." Now you raise your other hand and you say, "I will now sell offers. I only sell offers now."

Now think about that. The point ... I was getting kind of ticked off when someone's like, "The book Expert Secrets is only about info products." Bullcrap. It's not true at all. "The book Expert Secrets is only about webinars." No, you missed the whole point if you think that. Go back and read it again, okay? Webinars is just an example of what to do. It's an example of how to pull off what the book teaches. Expert Secrets is such a good book because it's about offer creation. It's not about webinars. It's not about info products.

Those are just two examples of how to pull off what's it's really teaching you to do. If you missed it, go back, especially to the third section there what's called your moral obligation to sell. But honestly, the whole thing though, okay.

The reason why I am totally at peace about this decision, there's some few butterflies here and there, but honestly, I'm very excited and I'm totally at peace about it. There's some freakout moments. I'm not going to lie, okay? It has nothing to do with whether or not my ability to make money. It has everything to do ... My biggest freakout has everything to do with not being around other marketers, okay? Sitting in isolation in my home office, that freaks the crap out of me. Not because I'm a chatty guy, I'm actually not.

In public, I'm actually kind of shy. I am. I don't know what to say a lot of times. Whenever like after I finish speaking at an event or something like that, whatever it is, I'm actually pretty shy about it, okay?

Anyway, it actually scares me more to just be alone and not be connected to the marketing nucleus that ClickFunnels is. You know what I mean? That actually scares me to death. So I have a few things coming out, a few things to help mitigate that. Things that I've watched and things that Russell has taught me one on one. As I sat back and I asked specific questions and realized like, "Oh, that's why you do this. That has nothing to do with you needing money over there is it?" He's like, "No. No, no, no, no."

I was like, "That has everything to do with you staying connected and making sure that you've got the best of the best of the best." He's like, "Yeah." "Oh, man. Well, I'm going to do that." So just watch closely over the next few months because I am a funnel hacker. Anyway, so here's the reason why. It's because of offer creation. I've learned how to create offers.

I'm actually using the same process that I teach as the Two Comma Club coach, the Secrets Master Class coach. This is not something where it's like I've read about it and now I feel like I can teach it. It's actually not that at all.

I've been doing this for a long time and on my own before I worked at ClickFunnels, doing it for other people, doing it for their clients, doing it for their businesses, their customers, their product lines, and doing it for my own, right? Took a total hiatus, dropped pretty much everything except this podcast and a few other things as I started working for ClickFunnels.

I will tell you that the two things that really made the jump, that it is making the jump more easy for me is that I've gotten much better at selling products. I'm sorry, selling offers rather than products. Then number two, I am far better at marketing and not just selling, okay? Those are the two major differences there.

It's about two and a half, three years ago when I really learned the difference between marketing and selling, and then selling products versus offers, okay? When I sell offers, awesome. When I sell products, bad. I have to compete in price. When I do marketing, awesome. When I just do sales and no marketing, it's like starving leads kind of salesmen. It's not a fun place to be in at all. It's a terrible spot to be in.

Anyway, so here's what I've done though, so I want you to know ... That's a long freaking intro. I'm so sorry. But anyway, here's what I've done, okay? What I did is I sat back and I thought, "What is the core of my business?" Now you think about what the core of your business is. Let's think about it. I think it's a ... Gosh, what book is it? I think it's Rework. Yeah, Rework. At a hotdog stand, can you sell hotdogs without relish? Yeah, you could, right? You could do that. Could you sell hotdogs, I mean, could you have a successful hotdog stand without having mustard? Yeah. What about buns? Technically, yeah, sure, you could.

Could you have a successful hotdog stand without hotdogs?

No, okay. At every single business and in every single value letter, there is a core aspect to the business. You got to figure out what that is, okay? If you don't know what that is, it's scary because you treat every product like the core and you shouldn't. That's where a lot of you will start getting in trouble and they start to ... they confuse offers and it causes a little schizophrenia inside of their customers because they don't know what the core of the offer is. They don't know what the core of the business is and what it's actually offering, okay?

What I did is I figured out what the core of my business is and I placed it inside of a thousand dollar webinar which just kind of fits in the middle of the Value Ladder, okay? When I knew what the core was, I now could start testing it. First though, I wanted to make sure there would be traffic, ample traffic, ridiculous traffic, traffic in a way that I knew I would never have to worry about it again. So I started creating cool little free front-end products, and then I put them out there for free or I just put places over here or small little free plus shipping things or things ... You know what's funny? It exploded. It exploded. It made so much money on just this little dinky free crap where like barely any money kind of stuff. I was like, "What the heck?" We went on a cruise.

We did all sorts of stuff. Anyway, it made almost matching my beginning salary with ClickFunnels for a very long time, which is hilarious. I couldn't believe it. I'm like, "Oh my gosh. There's something to this." It took me a solid two and a half, three years to really clarify the core and the niche, and find the niche and create it.

Then what I did is I wanted to make sure that I would have an easy ascension. I know in past episodes I've said, "Hey, start at the core of the business and only sell that," which I did and I've done, but I have gone out and I've made sure there is an easy ascension. I've made sure that there's easy traffic in the front-end. I've made sure ... There's different strategies and ways to pull this thing off, okay? I've tested the core offer like crazy. It's not like I was skipping that step. I did not skip it at all.

But anyway, so if you're going to jump ship, or if you're just trying to get your first thing off the ground, or if you're just trying to make a little extra money, I remember like my first goal was just to make an extra thousand dollars a month. If I could do that, I thought that I would die and be in heaven because I would be able to cover some bills.

That was my goal four years ago, okay? It's crazy that how tiny that is. You can do that, okay? If you're trying to figure that out, number one, you've got to figure out your Value Ladder, okay? What I mean is figure out the core of the business, figure out a price point around a thousand dollars. Do not go cheaper, okay? And go start testing it. Go sell it like crazy. That's what I did.

Then when I knew it could sell, I went in and found an additional traffic source, I proved out that traffic source, and that was a really easy very soft landing for me to land on as I jumped from ClickFunnels, okay?

That Value Ladder, guys, is stronger than the majority of the business models I learned in my marketing degree. I feel like it gets misunderstood a lot of times. I'd go back and I read DotCom Secrets again if you don't quite understand that or whatever. Anyway, but that's how, that's why. I've got at least jitters. I've got all these, I mean, guys, I'm nervous. I am nervous, but there's complete safety in my head. Not just in my head, I've tested it.

The fact that I've tested these things, there's a Value Ladder and I only am focusing on one step of the Value Ladder at a time. I've built up the front-ends. I've built up the back ends. I'm finishing up the core right now, and then I just got to turn the machine on. Everything else has been tested. I know it's literally about me just clicking a few buttons now which is great.

If you're trying to figure out what to do next or if you're waking up and you're like, "Oh my gosh. Steven, there's so much data out there. There's so many things out there that I could go be doing right now. There's so much noise." What I'm telling you to do is go nail that Value Ladder. Figure out a core thousand dollar product or at least 500 bucks to two grand. Somewhere in there because then you don't need that many to actually change your life. Figure that out. If you don't know what it is yet, fine, don't let your brain leave that problem sitting still.

That's where your head needs to settle. Be okay with the fact that it's unanswered still and just let it sit there, let it marinate, let it marinate, let it marinate. You sit there and you figure it out. Then you just focus on that one thing, go test it. It could be life changing. It was life changing for us.

How crazy that that little tiny test that I did, guys, that had the complete ability to pay for the down payment on our house. We don't have a huge house, but it's not a tiny house. You know what I mean? It's because of that. Again, not showboating, I'm just telling you. I'm trying to illustrate the power of what it is that ... Anyway, so I totally have the jitters, okay? I'm nervous. I'm scared. There's a solid plan. I have I think eight different revenue sources identified. I'm just turning them on one by one now. They've been working great.

Anyway, it's exciting...

So what's cool about this, guys, is that from the ... This podcast is going to continue as I move past ClickFunnels, but what I really want to do is I'm trying to continue to podcast. I want to get to episode 100 before the end of the year. I don't think that's going to happen, but I'm not sure yet. But the reason why is because I want zero to 100 to be my journey with ClickFunnels. Then I want 101 beyond, I want to document my journey.

I want to document what's going on, the process that I'm going through, being super transparent, letting you know like, "Hey, this Value Ladder worked really well over here. This one did terrible over here. This one and this one ..." You know what I mean? And just being super open so you guys can see like, "Look, Steven is hitting the freaking ground running, and he's on his own. This is how he's doing, and this is how he's doing it." You know what I mean?

I feel like that would be crazy valuable, so I'm excited. I'm excited to keep doing these things, and I'm excited to keep pushing out. But I mean, there's totally been fear with it. I'm just trying to be true to myself so and it's going to be awesome so ...
Anyway, I'd still be contracted as the Two Comma Club coach for Secrets Master Class which I'm very excited about. I'll still be very involved at ClickFunnels, actually, from that aspect. But I probably will never be an employee again in my life which is crazy. If you want that and you're still an employee or even if you're not, like get more clear in that Value Ladder, it's totally the key to blowing this thing up.

We've noticed, especially people inside the inner circle, I've noticed other people ... Anyway, when someone has a clear Value Ladder, when they know what the core of their business is, when they know how they're actually making money ... What's funny is a lot of people don't know how they're making money, or it's haphazard, or they're like they think that the value is over here but really the market's giving them all the money in this area over here or whatever it is.

What's funny about that whole thing is every time someone gets super clear on their Value Ladder, I'm going to give this free thing. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go read the book DotCom Secrets, okay? That would give you context for the whole thing, of everything I'm talking about right now, but it is. When I read that and I was laying in the dirt with my M16 in my right hand and DotCom Secrets in my left hand, no kidding, when I read that and I was laying on the security line reading that book, my brain was exploding because now I had a map. I wasn't making it up anymore.

Suddenly, there was this logical progression that went from this product to that product to that product. Oh, sorry. That product doesn't fit, so I can't do it. There was so much clarity in my head. It made so much more sense. It actually was calming to me on what the path was that my business needed to take.

So it's the same thing. If you got noise just like screaming in your head right now, you probably don't know where you're going, okay? That's probably it. You probably have no idea where you're going. I know exactly where I'm going as I leave ClickFunnels. I have known for a long time, okay? At least six months, very, very clearly. About a year and a half, kind of fuzzy.

But especially in the last month, the clarity is ridiculous. So if you got the noise in your head, you have no idea where you're going, it's time to get back to the Value Ladder and think through what am I actually trying to sell, what is my offer, and then what funnel matches that offer

. Go build that funnel type, okay? You stay on that funnel till it's profitable, and the whole game will get so much more clear in your head. You might actually have fun with that again, okay?

Hopefully, you still are, but that's exactly what I'm trying to tell you is that this is it's a very fun game.

It is a game. I look at it as a game. I have a lot of fun with it, but it doesn't need to be this super confusing thing. I was confused out of my butt in my entrepreneurship classes in college. I took a lot of them because I really wanted to be one. All except one that they offered. I did really well in every one of them. I was always that weird kid that has actually doing entrepreneurial things, and actually had businesses, and was actually making money versus all the other students that were just trying to get A's reading books and writing reports.

What I can tell you is that there's a lot of information out there, but it's as vital as for you to learn a ton of stuff as it is for you to shield yourself from a lot of crap and noise out there...

The way I've done it is through the Value Ladder. That's the entire way that I'm able to go do what I'm about to do in January. So anyways, guys, excited for the journey to continue. I'm excited to have you guys with me as I keep doing it. I'm excited to keep pushing forward as I take this huge next step, it's a big step. All right, guys. Talk to you later, bye.

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