

Sales Funnel Radio
Steve J Larsen
My first 5 years in entrepreneurship was 34 painful product failures in a row (you heard me). Finally, on #35 it clicked, and for the next 4 years, 55 NEW offers made over $11m. I’ve learned enough to see a few flaws in my baby business… So, as entrepreneurs do, I built it up, just to burn it ALL down; deleting 50 products, and starting fresh. We’re a group of capitalist pig-loving entrepreneurs who are actively trying to get rich and give back. Be sure to download Season 1: From $0 to $5m for free at https://salesfunnelradio.com I’m your host, Steve J Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio Season 2: Journey $100M
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Dec 17, 2019 • 23min
SFR 292: To Customize, Or Not To Customize
The offer is a two-way agreement, not a beg-session to get anyone to buy from you. Here's when I STOP customizing my offers… My friends, I'm pumped for this - grab a pen and paper - 'cause this can simplify your business. A while back, there was an interesting post in my group… Here's what went down… Someone purchased a service, product or whatever, and after they bought it - they didn't like the fulfillment. So they went back to the seller and said, "Hey, Mr. Seller, I don't like this..." and the seller said, "Oh, so sorry about that," and gave their money back. And this actually made the customer mad. I was a little bit confused by this response because something similar happened to me... There was a guy who paid me for a one-hour consultation, (I don't really sell that anymore... ), but he scheduled it during the speeches at Funnel Hacking Live. And so I was like, "Oh crap, sorry about that." I reached back out and said, "Hey I'm so sorry,” and I just refunded his money. I was like, "Hey, here you go." Here’s the thing, the refund didn’t make him happy - in fact, guy was livid and made tons of nasty posts all over the place. The dude finally got so loud that I blocked him Originally, I was confused by his reaction so I reached out and asked... Why are you mad that I gave you your money back? What's wrong with that? Our call was scheduled for a time that I couldn’t do…? Why do you think I’d wanna get on a call for an hour with you after you've been lighting me up across the whole internet? … that's crazy! I'm NOT obligated to spend time with you. I can give you your money back and I no longer have an obligation, right? So, let’s go back to the post… THE CUSTOMER ISN’T ALWAYS RIGHT! The guy was super frustrated... he was so mad about getting a refund, and I was like, "I guess there's a pattern here." So let me tell you exactly how I respond… It was a good enough response that Mr. Russell actually liked it. Here’s how I started… After digging into this, I kinda understand the story. Now you paid somebody... You didn't like it You brought it up … and instead of getting more as you wanted, they refunded you. I said… Buying is a two-way relationship; I create an offer, set a price and a value, and use the offer as the anchor of the relationship, NOT the money. The offer is the anchor, NOT the money. This is a *BIG* mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make. So let me teach you something really cool here that will help simplify your business... When a customer uses their money as the anchor of a relationship, it forces the seller to dance at the customer's will. This violates the very first step of my offer creation formula - The Who. Just because someone has money doesn't mean I should sell them. That's NOT the only qualifier for you to sell to somebody. The offer is my agreement with the customer. If I keep changing the offer to each person, it equals a dizzying level of customization. That's WHY I don't change my offers for each person. If so I charge significant levels higher. In my mind, it sounds like the seller is just doing what they thought was fair, and like myself was unwilling to change their offer, so, they refund you - that's not spitting in your face. The customer is NOT always right. Whoever started that whole thing, "The customer is always right," in my opinion, that person has NEVER had a successful business! Or they worked in an industry that was 100% customization, you know what I mean (and even then the customer is not always right)? 'Cause… The customer is NOT always right. I don't want to fight the doctor if I'm about to go in surgery ‘Doctor, cut here and not here." The customer is ALWAYS right???? That's a stupid phrase… overall, it's just NOT true. And a lot of your businesses will be simplified by removing that belief and that vernacular… "The customer's always right..." No, they're not, you are too - that's why you're the seller. An offer is a two-way agreement, you can't keep customizing the offer per person - that's why we have a value ladder. HOW TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE BY SAYING ‘NO!’ One of the major reasons why you don't customize everything is because of how hard it is on your actual business. It is hard for me to ALWAY be changing the offer - because it makes it hard for me to create business systems. You have to understand the major functions of a business - and there are a lot of different theories/ competing beliefs around this… But I'm just going to draw the major functions of any business. The first function of any business is to generate a lead, obviously. Then you have to be able to convert the lead. There's a lot of great books with different views... “There are varying points... there are four points. No, there are five points of any business. No, there's six points of any business.” However, they're all around the same area for EVERY business. This is the reason why funnels work for any company. Every company has to be able to… Generate a lead Convert the lead Deliver/fulfill on the purchase Upsell (And then some people add...) Retain Again, various places have differing opinions, but it's basically that… A business is nothing more than a series of systems that generate and fulfills a lead. *THAT’S IT* … it's NOT some fishy hokey-pokey thing. It has nothing to do with some clever slogan... I don't have a mission statement, 'cause “Urrrgh!” Anyway... For example: Say I go generate a lead by creating an offer Let's say that I'm selling some widget… I need to go generate a lead who is most likely and has a predisposition to purchase that widget. If I continually change the widget I have to continually re-set up new lead machines. One of the reasons why some of my webinars have done so well in the past and I've only touched them once, (and it's been over a year and a half since I've touched one of the largest ones)... The reason why that works is that I'm not sitting here continually changing the offer. I change it for a while and I'm like, "Okay, this feels like a safe place for it to land!" … I stop touching the offer. *DON’T TOUCH THE OFFER* My job is no longer to keep tweaking the offer. My role and my business changes to finding more people to fit the offer rather than continually changing the offer. PRODUCT CUSTOMIZATION - WHEN TO *STOP* Most businesses have a good enough offer to… Make A LOT of money. Have consistent purchases. But as marketers, we tend to get so focused on changing the offer that we forget about the next step… Take it from the guy who's the self-proclaimed offer guy, stop changing your offer so much. PHASE #2 Find the person who fits the offer - that's way easier than constantly changing your offer. So back to my Facebook Group… This guy gets frustrated and says, "Oh my gosh. You're not willing to change the offer for me? And you gave my money back to me?" Like, “YEAH!” (ALL CAPS) First of all, that's fair. Second of all, it's smart on the business owner’s side. Any time as any level of real genuine customization, it sucks! That’s one of the reasons why a lot of entrepreneurs feel like their business wheels are spinning - they don't have a business. You can't make a business where it's constant 24/7 100% pure true customization for every person that comes in. Now, if your business is… "I build custom sales funnels for people." "I do custom body jobs in a car shop." … there's still a system you can build around that. I'm talking about when you're NOT customizing on purpose, and you keep changing all the stuff inside your offer. After a while... STOP! It's extremely hard to create a consistent powerful lead machine when your offer's changing all the time. It's very hard to convert if your offer isn’t consistent... I’ll change my offer for a while… but after a certain point, it's like… *STOP*. The next phase is to become good at finding people who fit the offer, instead of convincing EVERYBODY that they fit your offer. (I'm hoping this is not too techy) I want to… Generate a lead under the lens of those who have a predisposition to purchase the offer. Keep converting, (obviously), under the lens of the offer itself. Fulfill on what they purchased and *ONLY THAT* - it’s a two-way agreement, right? Keep up-selling people... but it's still anchoring off the offer. The offer is NOT just a marketing tool - for me, it acts as an anchor. Think of it this way... (I hope I'm not talking in circles here with this, but this is such a key thing!) HOW TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE BY FINDING THE ‘WHO! I've had several people who reach out and be like, "You're not willing to do this, extra thing for me?" I'm like, "No, you knew the agreement. The agreement was I was gonna provide this, this, this and this at this price, at this time frame." And it's funny… We call it an offer, but it's also an agreement between the buyer and the seller. BAM! (Write that down!!!!) Here’s the equation… BUYER + SELLLER + OFFER = AGREEMENT Let me illustrate this another way... There's a place where my wife and I take our car where we know they're gonna act like our car is gonna fall apart in a second! ... and then, they try to charge us like three extra grand for repairs that don't matter. You know what I'm saying? 😉 So we don't take our car to those people anymore! Instead, if we ever need even simple maintenance or an oil change, we take it to another spot… because the guy is ALWAYS fair with us. A lot of times car places say… These are the things that are terrible with your car. These are the things that are kinda in the yellow that are a warning. Here are the things that you should worry about kinda in the future. (It's very clever on their part by the way.) They're like, "Here's my offer. I will fix these things for these prices." After they start on the work of the car, if I want something else done on I have to pay more money… and it's assumed. It's the same thing with your offer! Just because it's an info product… Just because it's some other business besides cars... ... does NOT mean it's different, right? I will charge MORE something is outside of the offer - it makes sense. I have to do MORE. DO YOU HAVE A BUSINESS? Trey Llewellyn is an absolute animal. I look up to him - he's a beast, and I’ve gotten to know him a little bit more recently. We're both pretty darn busy but I think we both watched each other a from afar. #SBB (Steve Before Beard) Trey is an e-com genius - the guy makes tons of money. Anyway, Trey found is that every time you add a new SKU, (a new product, a new offer to your business), you increase the complexity of your fulfillment systems by 17X. Every new SKU increases the complexity of your fulfillment systems by 17X. So, my friends, the reason I'm going through this is NOT just for the individual who posted in my group kinda having a hard time… It's to help *you* understand the role of the offer in your business systems, NOT just marketing. A consistent offer allows you to have consistency across all major functions of a business - which allows you to create systems - which allows you to remain strategic. Here is the difference, check this out... ARE YOU CUSTOMIZING YOURSELF TO DEATH? When I was in college, I started learning how to drive traffic, lots of it. I got pretty good at driving just tens of thousands of clicks to certain things and it's actually opened a ton of doors for me - it was a lot of fun. Under that one service, me and my buddy had a waiting list of 15 businesses… Contrast that to about two years later (after I knew what ClickFunnels was) and I started doing funnels for other people… I found myself with a 12 business waiting list, but my service was different every time. I was building different funnels I was doing different campaigns. It was mind-numbing... Not the boring kinda ‘mind-numbing’ - it was too much and was crippling to me. I see A LOT of people being overwhelmed because they don’t know when to STOP customizing a product… "I'm doing this... and I'm doing this ...and I'm doing this... and I'm doing this… and this!" Here’s the rub… You're confusing the number of opportunities that you're running at with success. That's NOT true at all. Go look at like some of the people who are making the most money, they have one main offer, that’s it. Alex Hormozi = GymLaunch BAM! They did that one thing till (I think) they crossed $10 million... then they added the next thing. It’s the same in my business… HERE’S WHAT I’M NOT DOING People ask: Q: "Stephen how come you haven't launched like a mastermind yet?" A: Don't worry, I will, but... I don't have the business systems to fulfill on it the way I want to yet, so it wouldn't be smart for me. I don't want to yet, okay 😂 Q: “Stephen, how comes you haven't written a book yet?" A: Man, I'm focusing on the one thing on my value ladder, okay? That's the other reason we have a value ladder, we say… "Alright, okay, market place, okay community…” Here is my value ladder. Here are the things that I am agreeing. Here are the things that you can purchase from me ... but also the things that I'm willing to fulfill on. Here's the offer and here's the exact thing I'm saying yes to… I've had many people reach out and they're like… “Stephen what can I buy from you?" Man, go to capitalistcoaching.com, and you'll see EVERYTHING you can buy from me right now... That's all the stuff I'm willing to do and fulfill on at that price point… And it's ALL set up for a specific… ‘WHO’ ‘Dream Customer’ ...that I know will 'cause the fastest success story. At the top of my value ladder, my application funnels at are real application funnels. It is NOT me just trying to get anyone who has the money - people actually apply - ‘cause I'm legitimately trying to see if they are ‘a good fit’ for me. A lot of people ask… "How come you're not doing this Stephen?” “How come you're not doing this Stephen?” “How come you're not doing this Stephen?" A: It's because I know that there are certain things that I should and should not be doing and if I constantly have a changing offer it affects… All of my business systems Every major function of my company The type of person that I bring in And instead of focusing on *ONE* ‘dream who,’ - I get a lot of different ones coming on in from all walks of life. *I DON’T WANT THAT* I want one main type of ‘who’ = one main type of dream customer. It also affects my ability to create or NOT create a value ladder. TESTING MY OFFER You have to understand, there’s a timeline for when I launch a new offer… I test the offer I make tweaks I change things for a while. ... but there comes a moment where I stop and say, "I will no longer change, this offer is what it is... and my role progressing forward is NOT to keep changing the offer." STAGE #1 = Change the offer STAGE #2 = Find more veins of ‘the dream who.’ I launch and start changing the offer (which includes the message), and then once I've got it validated, I update to continually find ‘the dream who.’ FINDING ‘MY DREAM WHO!’ Q: How do I find my Dream who? A: With additional traffic sources. I have four major awesome traffic sources that I like and use, and I just dump in between them. Q: How do I get those traffic sources to find it? A: I have a list of Launch campaigns and Evergreen campaigns to get those traffic sources and those ‘dream who's’ to actually see my offer - bam, bam, bam. Anyway… I did not do a lot of storytelling in this one, it was a little bit more of a tactical episode here but it's because… If you keep changing your offer, past the testing period, by kowtowing and bowing to everyone just to get the sale… You literally... Drop your ability to have faster and greater success rates with your customers. So, set your offer and understand this is NOT about you going, "I will do whatever it takes to get the sale.” I will NOT do *anything* for a sale - because of ALL the things I've been talking about here. The offer is an agreement between me and the seller, it is NOT me begging the seller for a purchase. Alright, hopefully, this has been a helpful episode - this is a very key topic and one that I'm definitely passionate about! Partly it's because I went through 34 tries (over about 5- years) without a big success. And looking back, I can see that… I didn't have any clear dream customer - so no wonder I couldn't create good marketing. I had no clear offer - 'cause I was like, "Whoever gives me the sale, whoever gives me the sale, whoever gives me the sale." ...and it was one of the MOST painful lessons I ever went through! If you do wanna go see the things that I have available... if you’re like… "Oh, I wanna work with him more." "How is it I can get more of his time and attention?" ...which I get many of you guys reaching out about - go to capitalistcoaching.com, and you'll see all those things right there. It is literally my value ladder with clickable links to the things that it's referencing. There are some things on there (just so you know) that are not actually available yet... or where we're just focusing on the current students. I find that most people have zero clarity on their business - so how can a customer have any clarity on what you're offering? They can't - it's very hard!!! It sets this weird precedence (or no precedence at all) for what you actually will or *won't* provide, Hard to have a life when you keep changing your offer. You will literally be tied to the business if you keep changing your offer. If you guys got any value from this please tag me on social media and let me know… "Steve, that was fresh to death, that was awesome!" Let me know what you liked about it - I'm trying to just provide epic value for you. #StayTuned There are some fun surprises coming up in the next few episodes thatI'm very very pumped about!!! Alright! *You* reading this right now, you're in one of two scenarios. Either… You're currently selling a product and you've got a slick sales funnel and traffic... There are ads and you have content, bringing in new customers. You have upsells, downsells, and phone sales. You've almost automated it, making money while doing everyday things. Either that's all set up and going… OR… The second option is you don't have any of that, and you're still trying to make this work and tie all of these pieces together. If you want my help, just go to capitalistcoaching.com and see where you can get started. It took me a long time to get the skills for all this to get moving… Writing the sales letter Making the sales videos Building the funnel Writing follow-up emails Promo campaigns Promo emails Fulfillment plans Fresh new ads ... there's A LOT. And the path to move forward is different for each person. So I created capitalistcoaching.com for you to check out where *you* need to start. Whether you're just starting out with… No product No list No single clue on what to do next. OR… If you're like one of our BIG corporate clients who just need to add more revenue and scale your offer, go to capitalistcoaching.com. I don't really believe in shortcuts, but I do know you can speed up the path on the journey Figure out the BEST place to start by going to capitalistcoaching.com now Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Dec 3, 2019 • 30min
SFR 290: How To Position Content
Consistent publishing can feel like a chore. Lemme show you how I position my shows to attract future buyers. WASSUP? Check out my NEW background! *SPOILER ALERT* … it’s for my new show! ONE FUNNEL AWAY STORIES #THE BEGINNING Today, I wanna share with you WHY I believe it makes sense for me to create another show... (or *ahem* #3) 😉 My friend, welcome back, I'm excited for you to be here. Six weeks ago, (or something like that), I was at Russell Brunson's Inner Circle, and I was thinking to myself, "What can I teach that would be valuable for the room?" For a while, I’ve had this theory about why ClickFunnels exploded. So I just wanna do a quick and dirty on this to teach you my theory, and then I want you to see why it makes sense for me to create another show. Now, I understand that One Funnel Away is 100% a trademark of ClickFunnels. I had to do some fancy footwork and work with them in order to be able to use their logo on my show. You cannot just go out and just create stuff with other people's intellectual property. That's NOT what I'm telling you at all. HERE’S MY THEORY We all read these books like: Expert Secrets Play Bigger Blue Ocean Strategy ... and all these books teach that there’s a red ocean and that your entire goal is to create a blue ocean. So, if that's true... What is ClickFunnel's red ocean? If ClickFunnels is a new opportunity, what was the old opportunity? That was the question that's been on my mind for a while! So I started asking… If ClickFunnels is the red or the blue ocean, what was ClickFunnels’ red ocean? What is the market that ClickFunnels was born out of? I started thinking back to the stories that I had heard Russell tell, and I was like: "Oh, my gosh, the market, the ocean that ClickFunnels was born out of was the website market." And if you are like, "I don't know about that." Go back and listen to the Funnel Hacks Webinars… These are webinars that originally sold ClickFunnels. These are webinars that got ClickFunnels past tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Q: What is it that ClickFunnels was fighting against? A: Websites. HOW CLICKFUNNELS WAS ALMOST ABANDONED Now, the story goes... ClickFunnels was almost an abandoned project (If you’re thinking, "Stephen, how does this relate to a new show?" I'll get to that in just a moment, just stick with me for a second.) ... the product was amazing, but they were still trying to figure out how to sell it because... Creating Selling … are two separate activities. Anyway, Mike Filsaime reaches out to ClickFunnels and says, "Hey, you got that new thing ClickFunnels, come on my stage and come sell it." Russell's like, "I don't know man, people aren't buying it right now." Mike said, "Come on man, I’ve already told everyone you're going to." So Russell agreed to do it… This was the fifth or sixth time that Russell had tried to create a sales letter for ClickFunnels. There’s a key lesson right there... Even Russell's first few launches for ClickFunnels didn't work out. #Mind-blowing. So think about this… Russell goes to Mike Filsaime's event; he makes tweaks and adjustments to the actual offer, and suddenly - there's a stage rush. People are running to get an account with ClickFunnels. Q: What made the big difference? Why did it work so well that time? A: ... Russells messaging had become anti-website. He's like, "Hey, websites, I'm gonna fight against you." And ClickFunnels starts blowing up. On the flight back, Russell Brunson grabs his phone and says, "Hey, I've figured it out - we're all gonna get rich. The metrics are there - we're gonna do this thing." Over the next little bit, he pretty much starts shutting everything else down to go all and focus on ClickFunnels - which blows up and becomes what it is today. FIND YOUR NEXT MARKET? Now, eventually, ClickFunnels started running out of dream buyers in ‘the website space’… (Russell’s NOT trying to sell EVERYONE in the website space - he's selling to a little bit of the red ocean where his blue ocean customer exist.) Q: So what does Russell do? A: He goes out and finds the next market. Q: Who else does ClickFunnels sell to? A: ... Affiliates. Retail People who do software. MLM or network marketing. B2B. I remember one particular day... (this is when I worked for him still), Russell came back into his office and he goes, "Dude!" He’d just come from back from speaking and pitching ClickFunnels at Grant Cardone's event for the first time - so it was the first 10X event… As he’s about to get on the plane, someone runs up to him and says: "Oh man, you did so awesome, all these people bought ClickFunnels - the only reason I didn't buy is that you didn't say it was for B2B people." And Russell was like, "Oh, my gosh it totally is for B2B people, are you serious?" Q: So what did we do? A: We added B2B to all the categories on our sales letters. So you have to understand… What Russell and these ClickFunnels did. Why I believe ClickFunnels has exploded. My theory is that ClickFunnels’ growth is so immense because when they started running out of traffic a market they did NOT try to find more people in the same ocean… They didn't make the customer circle of the original market even bigger… Instead, they just found a new source of hot, hot, hot, mega ridiculous insanely hot traffic in a NEW market! When you run out of buyers, you don't go cooler in your messaging, you find a NEW market. POW! Replay that a *MILLION* times! 😉 This is a BIG lesson. When you're running out of people to sell to, don't cool down your messaging. Because that's... Very Hard Expensive Not Easy HOW TO MARKET YOUR BUSINESS When people say, "I'm running cold Facebook ads..." I’m like, “Hopefully, not!” That's NOT how ClickFunnels grew. Q: Did you know that ClickFunnels didn't even have Facebook ads running for the first year? Instead, they made all that money, this huge amount of change, just doing EXACTLY what I'm teaching you right here... They found somebody who had a big pot of their dream customers in different spaces… Affiliates Website Retail Software ...or whatever You don't try to cool down your messaging to capture more and more of the same market… … you switch markets. You go and you find your dream customer who's attending a different market… I don't wanna get too deep into this, but a market is NOT a person. If someone asks, “Who's your dream market?” There's no such thing. A market is a location not a person. You need to find your dream person who's frequenting another location - that's exactly how ClickFunnels exploded and blew up... ClickFunnels slowly adapted their sales message to tons and tons of markets. I dropped this theory out at the Inner Circle. I was like, "Hey, I've had this theory, what do you think - 'cause I can't disprove it." Everyone loved it which was great. HOW DO MARKETS THRIVE? Now you may be thinking.., “So Stephen, what does this have to do with launching a show?” Let me explain.., If One Funnel Away has blown ClickFunnels up bigger than anything else they've ever done ever, *ALMOST*... we have to understand a few things about markets... A market survives when it has an ecosystem around it. A market survives when there's continual story that people are consuming inside of it. The reason I'm saying this is because there's A LOT of markets that don't survive. Let’s take the example of Beanie Babies, Pogs, or disposable camera accessories... Q: Who wants to go in with me on disposable camera accessories? Anybody? A: No, it's dumb! Q: Why would you say that it's stupid to go to the disposable camera accessories market? A: A] That market is freaking small. B] There’s no money in it. C] There's no story around it. People don't believe 'em. You see what I'm saying? There are things that keep a market alive and things that kill a market. And I wanna make sure that who I'm attaching myself to is a market that is strong… ... and that's what I teach you at OfferMind. That's why I need you to come to OfferMind next year -'cause while I lead as The Offer Guy (and I am)... What I really teach you how to do (and what makes offer creation simple) is market positioning. When you know how to position yourself in the market, the offer is easy. So the reason why I'm doing the One Funnel Away Stories show, (and the reason WHY I've been forking out my own cash to go do this), is because… OFA has caused ClickFunnels market to grow at a speed that is nearly incomprehensible. Their market is getting larger and larger and larger and larger OFA is convincing people who were never planning on being ClickFunnels customers to be customers. It's actually expanding their little bit of blue market inside of the markets that they go serve - and that's NOT easy to pull off . Most markets don't ever figure that out - which is why they die. I'm hoping this not too much of a super techy episode, but I need you to understand why I'm doing this. WHY THE ONE FUNNEL AWAY STORIES SHOW? The OFA Stories banner cost me a 1000 bucks It's gonna cost me about 15 grand a month to run and promote the One Funnel Away Story Show. Q: Why on earth would I try to do this? A: The One Funnel Away Challenge is so powerful for brand new users - so I wanna make sure that the success stories that people are having become the forefront of the One Funnel Away Challenge. There are tons of reasons why. For me, strategically it makes sense - because now I am getting associated with the things in the front, (I’m being open with you guys about that). Why wouldn't I do that? I'm a marketer baby, my role is NOT to create noise, it is to align with where noise is. *Put that on a T-shirt* As a marketer, my job is to find where the noise currently is... Q: Where's the noise? A: One Funnel Away. Q: Does it work? A: Oh, yeah, (when people actually do it). IS CLICKFNNELS ONLY FOR INFO PRODUCTS? I just interviewed a guy who uses ClickFunnels to fill his private horse training business - (he fixes people's horses is what he told me). I’ve also interviewed a... Hairdresser Photographer Coach for dads Personal trainer Copywriter Studio gym owner Gone are the days of people saying ClickFunnels is just for information products. #No! #Done. One of the reasons why I'm doing the One Funnel Away Stories is because I wanna take the experiences of people who are doing the work we're telling them to... and share with them with the world. The fact that I'm creating the One Funnel Away Stories is actually helping the ClickFunnels market survive with an even stronger ecosystem. .... I'm doing it on purpose. If no one is talking about these successes, no one would know or think that it works - so I'm gonna talk about it. So real fast, I just wanna share a few ways that I'm creating the show - so you can see how I actually do this stuff. I wanna share with you how I pull this stuff off. MY CONTENT STRATEGY Q: So, Stephen, how are you gonna create the OFA Stories show? A: Well, first of all, I need to treat the show like a product - 'cause it is. So I say: Here is the market that I'm going to serve and its name is ClickFunnels I want this One Funnel Away Challenge to be sold to ClickFunnels' users and new people coming in. So the ‘who’ is someone a little bit less educated or new in this world, (which is great, it's fine, welcome, you found a home). It's meant for the people who may not be total diehards yet, maybe they need a few more stories or more examples of how ClickFunnels works in their industry. Maybe they're not marketers and they're like, "I don’t wanna think like that. Let me go see who else is a horse trainer. Oh, check it out, here's a horse trainer pulling off ClickFunnels." The show is NOT gonna be a One Funnel Away commercial... that's NOT what the show is. If the show was a continual promo of One Funnel Away, that would be so annoying. Instead, I'm taking the entrepreneurial stories of people in the OFA and I interviewed 'em (split-screen) deep on their journey and business experience. WANNA JOIN ME ON ONE FUNNEL AWAY STORIES? If you've taken the One Funnel Away Challenge and you’re thinking, "Hey, I'd be interested in being interviewed on that show," I'd love to have you. You gotta reach out to Shane Larson - he’s the guy running the One Funnel Away Challenge… (Shane, you don't know I'm doing this - sorry, buddy, you're about to get a lot of people pinging you. 😂 ) I use a template to ask very similar questions to every person that I interview. (If you're not on YouTube right now and you're listening or reading this, I would strongly encourage you coming over to watch this one. A few of these episodes are better when seen.) MY CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY Here’s how it goes… The interview happens on video with templated questions. The video interview acts as the base medium and we turn it into a TON of content. We grab an interview image. We grab the audio. We write the blog. We have Instagram and other platforms. We obviously have iTunes and other things like that. Obviously, there's Facebook - 'cause they're social platforms, that's another category. That's obviously the kingpin and then there's a whole bunch underneath it. There are Kingpin categories… Audio Image Written Social Everything gets syndicated and pushed all over the place. My role is to… Create a super awesome intro with a call to action Do the interviews Create a final call to action ... ...so now, this becomes the episode. Q: And then what do I do? A: I shove it at my audience and at all the other audiences that ClickFunnels serves - that's who I’m targeting. Now the reason I'm sharing with you is that if you were to say, "Oh, this show doesn't work very well for other people in internet marketing…” It's NOT meant for them. "Oh, this show doesn't work very well for those people who are this or that or the other." You understand that, just like a product, you have to have the base questions for the show… The who? Where they're trying to go? The problem they're running into as they go to their goal? And you position it so it's targeted at very specific people. I'm gonna go for this person and then this person and then this person. I'm gonna go with these individuals, and the ClickFunnels space - that's who it's for. PUBLISHING MAGIC There's this magic that happens when you create content or decide to continually publish - I promise it will change your life. ...it's incredible. The magic thing is that when you have laser clarity on who you serve, only then do you… Get people to listen to you Get the fringes. By having ultra clarity on who I serve, I actually get people that are out on the fringes, the people that aren't necessarily the ones I was gonna go for. If I try to target everybody I don't get anybody. You understand how targeting works like that? You have to be hyper clear on who you serve and who you don't. And funny enough, people work to try to qualify to fit in those categories and they work hard to be with you. My Best Buyers Always Come From My Content, Not My Ads HOW MY CONTENT STRATEGY STARTED When I first launched Sales Funnel Radio (my first show), it was just me and it was a $5/month account at libsyn.com… I’d ride my bike into Russell Brunson's office 'cause I was still broke, (I was just out of college and really haven't any money at that point)... My goal was to be in the seat at 6:00 AM - sometimes I was a little late (like 6:10) but usually, at 6:00 AM, I was there. I would unplug Russell's microphone from his computer and plug it into my little laptop (which I traded funnels for in college)... … and just started talkin' and tellin' stories. The reason I'm bringing this up is that all this looks really complicated… And if you're like, "I don't understand this!” I don't want that to be the reason you choose NOT to publish. So I'm sharing that with you because the success of the show has come out of the consistency of it and me trying to… Solve legitimate problems per episode Create value Get people interviewed on the show … it’s this amazing thing. And so, if you're like, "I don't understand this?” I'm just understanding it myself So think of it as like Publishing 4.0... but as I've seen these different patterns come together now I'm like: "Well, crap. My whole role here is to know who I serve, where they're going, the problems they're hitting along the way” That's NOT just true for products or offers, it’s true for content too. And I was like: "Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. Oh, and by the way, that's how ClickFunnels exploded by knowing who they serve and only doing one market at a time - holy smokes!” I learned more and more as I went along the way. So this is certainly more of a techy episode but I'm hoping it's shown you like, "Oh, my gosh, that's why he's launching MORE shows." WHAT HAPPENS AFTER SALES FUNNEL RADIO GETS THE AXE? There’ll be a show targeted at the ClickFunnels community… aka One Funnel Away Stories I don't know another person that's as big a fan of ClickFunnels as me. If you go to onefunnelawaystories.com you can get on the waiting list for that. Also targeted at this community, and broader internet marketing community is the show that will be coming out (as soon as we finish the studio) called pursuitofprofit.com. Yes, you can go to that show, it’s gonna be super cool. And then also targeted this community (because we're all made up of different people and we have different likes, dislikes, tastes)... I love my crowd here. We’re launching a new show called Modern Downline Radio. Be real with me here, how many of you guys have actually tried a multilevel marketing or network marketing thing in the past? (Which is totally fine, if it's not your thing - whatever then, don't do it.) But if it is, I grow mine without looking at it because of funnels - so that's the focus of the show. I’m gonna teach modern downline and product sales growth strategies. It's cool because a lot of it's like case study stuff -'cause that's what I do right now and I don't really do any work for it... (I did at one point but the work is perpetual.) I’M NOT THE FUNNEL GUY! I'm not trying to position myself as the funnel guy. That's the other reason why Sales Funnel Radio is going away for as far as my involvement with it - the content will stay up 'cause, come on, that's part of the power of the content. Secret MLM Hacks Radio is dropping out for several rebranding reasons, which is why the other show’s coming out. I'm so excited for Pursuit of Profit - it's a studio show, it's gonna be side-by-side similar to Impact Theory. I wanna fly people in and sit down side-by-side with them in a studio to ask them about their profit models. I wanna ask them how did you make profit? Show me your profit model. I wanna know because most people are like, "What's your business model?" But most people don't know what a business model even is. And so I wanna ask 'em what that is and have them come in and teach that - it's gonna be super cool. Take a lot to get off the ground on that one, but I'm super pumped about it. We're working to launch One Funnel Away stories, January 1st, (or at least that first week-ish)... I actually just got off of Voxer with Russell… The show itself will probably start with Russell telling more of his story of being One Funnel Away. We'll most likely have also Julie on as one of the other coaches. We'll have me on here as one of the other coaches with my One Funnel Away story. TAG ME! Hopefully, you enjoyed the blog? I’d love to get a review if you guys wouldn't mind - I’ve poured a lot into the show and it’s been super, super fun. Certainly, I’m sad to part ways but at the same time, it's the natural evolution. So let me know what you liked about the show, and please do me the favor of screenshot-ing any part of it, then tag me on social media, and say... "Steve Larsen, this is my favorite thing about that episode." Your feedback has actually has helped me see more of what you like than pretty much anything else. So I wanna keep making the stuff that's helpful to you. Thanks so much… and I'll see you in the next time. CAPITALISM SWAG.COM “Stephen, why do you call yourself the Capitalist Pig?” Ahh, there are several reasons... I had a lot of beliefs around money that were NOT correct, and eventually, in order to actually launch, I needed to change my relationship with money. It's one of the BIGGEST steps that most entrepreneurs need to take. So I wear this shirt that says Capitalist Pig, loud and proud, as a reminder of the power and responsibility that we've been given as entrepreneurs. I defend my message that you should get rich on purpose, and it's NOT evil, and I am vehemently against socialism. I believe true change will come from entrepreneurs and society, NOT the government. In the words of Grant Cardone, "Money can't buy happiness, but broke can't buy anything." I do not believe that the government should take care of me, an able-bodied person. I do not believe in unwarranted handouts. I DO believe in God and I believe in helping those who cannot help themselves. I believe God would rather me be rich than poor. Capitalism fosters personal growth, and God has been all along this journey. I believe the pursuit of riches creates strength of mind. I can do more as a rich person. I can fight louder for what I believe in as a rich person. I can help more people as a rich person. I have more time to work on my weaknesses as a rich person. I have more power to hire the right people to help me grow as a rich person. In the words of Mark Cuban, "I don't care what anyone says, being rich is a good thing." Money doesn't change me. Money amplifies me. If I'm a jerk when I'm poor, I will a much bigger jerk when I'm rich. If I'm charitable, and human-oriented when I'm poor, I'll have the power to bless in a massive capacity when I'm rich. If this is resonating with you, and you believe the same, go get your Capitalist Pig t-shirt, at capitalismswag.com. My friends, Get Rich, Give Back. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Nov 26, 2019 • 15min
SFR 289: What's A Funnel?
A new episodeAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Nov 19, 2019 • 20min
SFR 288: The Two Worlds Of Marketing
A new episodeAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Nov 6, 2019 • 14min
SFR 286: The Study Of Money
A new episodeAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Oct 29, 2019 • 26min
SFR 285: My Own Life Makes The Best Hook...
New environments are some of the easiest ways to create a new hook. Unless you physically never move, ever, this will work for you… I've been traveling A LOT lately, (more than I like), but what happened was, and with full disclosure… I said yes to more things than I realized I did ...and that's okay. But life’s been a little busier than normal and I've been speaking in interesting places like crazy… So, I thought it would an awesome idea to show you how to promote your business, create a hook, add curiosity, and leverage your time in a NEW and novel way… What I’m about to show you, has doubled my income in just 3 days. … it’s also lead me on some crazy adventures 😉 HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS & LEVERAGE YOUR TIME! I don't remember the first time I first saw Russell do this, but I remember thinking, "Oh that's really clever and cool!" Russell would be speaking in different places and instead of just traveling solo, he’d bring a film guy to film the whole journey - so he could capitalize and leverage what he was doing over and over again. #Genius But until recently, I wasn’t doing that… I’d just go speak at different places, sell, and that would be it… Sometimes I tell you about it, and sometimes I wouldn't. I speak a lot of places, but I'm pickier than I used to be. In the past, I’d just get on anything, and it was the same with podcasts... However, I probably won't do as many interviews for people's podcasts as I have in the past because… I'm gonna start designing my lifestyle a little bit more, which is very exciting, and a natural step after a certain spot. So in order to capitalize MORE on my time, there are a few things I've been doing... I was on an interview today and the guy asked me “How do you stay so effective?” Well... One of the things is, I only work from 9:00 to 6:00. … and that might shock some of you, but that's what I do. I work from 9:00 to 6:00, and once that's over, I don't do anymore! Sometimes, I’ll work in the evenings... If I have an event happening. If OfferMind's coming up. If I'm speaking somewhere. but that’s the exception, NOT the rule. The Rule is… I work 9:00 - 5:00, and that's it, and whatever I don't get done, I'm okay with that. I've had to be strict with myself and then be okay with that. I've been doing that now for a little over a year... Crap, it's October! so it's actually been a little over a year-and-a-half 😂 I'm really enjoyed where things are moving to. MY FILM GUY One of the things I've been doing to stay more effective (just like Russell) is to have a film guy follow me on my trips. It’s kinda funny how I found him… I was at my sister's wedding (which was awesome) - it's cool to see your little sister get married, and while I was there, I saw this film guy, and I was like: "Oh, he's really into it. I like his style, he seems to be getting some neat shots." And then, when I saw the video he produced, I was like, "Dude, that was good." So I reached out to him on Facebook and asked: "Hey, I'm speaking at Carnegie Hall, do you wanna come film me on the journey, while I'm there, in the streets, and then on the way back?" He's like, "Sure." So I paid for his ticket, paid for everything, (paid him, obviously), and then he filmed the whole journey and we did some cool stuff. Here’s what happened… Now, I have a little bit of an advantage ‘cause I've already read Traffic Secrets, but I can share this with you as I’ve heard Russell talk about this on his podcast… One day he and I were sitting in his office, and he had just come back from hanging out with Dean Graziosi for a day. And, at the time of this story, Dean filmed an ad a day which helped him to sell 4x as many books - it was ridiculous! Rather than spend a ton of time writing a single ad, Dean literally competes by making a massive amount of new ads. I was like, "That's really interesting." ENVIRONMENT & THE HOOK So there I am with my *FULL* speaking diary and a ton of traveling to interesting places to do, so I was like: "You know what? Every time we land somewhere, let's find the cool tourist attractions, and when I'm not speaking let’s go to those attractions and film ads.” ...and that's what we've been doing. In the last two or three weeks, we've easily filmed 50 ads, no joke. We just wrote this MASSIVE list of all the things that we promote (and maybe you don't even know I have that many things that you could buy?)... … and we filmed ads for each one of those things with a brand new hook that tied into the environment I was in. Let me explain… Today, I’m here in a baseball park so, I might say: "Boom, what's going on? It's Steve Larsen! Hey, I'm so excited, I'm in a baseball park and I want you to hit out to the park this year. So go ahead, post your goal down below, go buy this thing and just pay for shipping." I tie the hook into the environment that I'm in. Even if it's cheesy, it doesn't matter. SECURITY THREW US OUT! I wanted to film some ads at the Empire State Building, but we got caught and security threw us out. Everyone has a camera, but my film guy had a *CAMERA* ...you know what I mean? He had a Shotgun mic and this BIG Rode thing. … and we got caught and we couldn't film anything. However, #PlotTwist... The next day, we broke the camera apart and put it in our backpacks, and snuck it through security… We got to the top of the Empire State Building. And yeah, It felt a little bit scary for a little while, but... We filmed a bunch of ads at the top of the Empire State Building! (Shhhh, don’t tell anyone 😉) … it was super fun, and the ads look amazing! Next, we went to Times Square and filmed me walking through the crowd, the camera guy walking backward and Colton walking forward, parting the sea of people. It looks super sick! I'm talking as I walk through the crowd with all these billboards and banners everywhere. I’m tying in the environment to a very brief hook. Guess where we went next???? Yep! We took the camera to the Statue of Liberty… But we got kicked out again (Security does not like BIG cameras), so we had to go subterfuge mode again to sneak the camera in. I'm really bad at hearing "no." THE PERFECT SALES SCRIPT Then, we went to a theme park in Chicago that has the world's fastest zero to super-fast roller coaster - it had the most aggressive backward inversion… ...it was crazy. So we filmed a whole bunch of small ads tying the hook into the environment. Then I was like, "Let's film a longer form ad with multiple scenes." So I took out my notepad ( which is always with me), and basically did the same thing I‘d done with several other ads… I used the webinar script - it's the perfect sales script - that's really what we should call it. The theme park that was insanely over-packed and they had a Halloween theme going on, so I grabbed a pumpkin that was next to one of the props and did a cool pattern interrupt. I walked through rides while following the webinar script. It was very eye-catching, but at the same time, I'm following general, good direct response marketing principles. I'm telling you this because it doesn’t matter where you are... Take the opportunity of whatever you're already doing, and just document it. If you're like, "Steven, I can't hire a camera guy," then don't use one. Today, I balanced my phone on a chain-link fence in the park. ...that's all it takes. Russell still uses his phone with the Voice Memo App while he's driving and that's his podcast. "What camera equipment do you use?" My phone 😂 That's it. YOU DON’T NEED TO BE CREATIVEThe whole point of what I'm saying is… use whatever you're already doing and document. I know I've said that multiple times, but it’s true. You don’t need to be creative, you just need to document what you’re already doing… Don't create, document. It's much harder to sit down to create this brand new amazing thing - instead, just use the environments that you're already in and tie them into a hook. The environment is one of the easiest hooks. One of the reasons ads works is because of pattern interrupts… Well, the pattern interrupt could literally just be where you're standing. The Statue of Liberty; that's an awesome pattern interrupt. 😉 When you have a cool environment it literally means you can be less good at scriptwriting, and it would still be a captivating ad. Case in point… There's A LOT of crappy movies out there, but because of all the CGI and the graphics, you still get the explosions, so we still think, "Hey, it's an okay movie!" ….even if the script sucked. Ler’s face it, that happens all the time! People want variety - it's actually one of the six needs that Tony Robbins teaches about. ...and for some of us, that need is greater than others - so provide that variety and spontaneity with your environment. I've been using that principle more and more lately... I DON’T make the same content all the time anymore. Instead, I use whatever’s going on around me to create a cool environment. If you’re thinking, "Steven, but I'm not that creative." And you may be right, maybe you're not that creative, but guess who is? Mother Nature. Everything else that's around you. Other people. You don't need to be creative to have creative things! We're using environment to cause MORE emotion than (sometimes) my video may be able to convey… MY ‘NEXT’ BIG PLAN! I just got off the phone with my realtor, (who's amazing), and he's been helping us get an office space where I can actually set up an event space. I'm looking at shows like Impact Theory, and Baydros… And I think video is gonna go even further than it already has and so... I'm going to create a show where I can control the environment and make a very appealing environment for face-to-face chats with big people. My lease is gonna be a lot of money; we're probably gonna spend a solid 200 grand to outfit this studio that can be used for multiple things. I'm having them gut ALL the walls to build an event center that holds 50 people. It’s gonna be the full works with… A Stage Different Backgrounds Lights Cameras Sound ...all the things to make it feel like a brand new environment. Creating that transformational atmosphere is the BIGGEST costs for me when I do my events… When I walk into an event, it needs to transport me to a new place. And here’s the interesting thing... A lot of times, the same thing is true with ads or creating any kinda content. The reason I'm telling you this is that I'm in the process of setting up a space that I can use for a face-to-face interview-style show. I’m gonna pay for my office by using the space I create for… A Show OfferLab stuff My own mastermind, which is definitely coming, (we're building the funnel now). I just want you to start thinking of the different ways you can use your environment. So anywhere you go, start thinking about ways you can sit back and start creating these ads. TALKING TO A PUMPKIN We’ve cranked out about 50 short ads, and then more of a long-form one to promote One Funnel Away. I'm literally creating paid advertising for my bridge page promoting One Funnel Away - 'cause… It's super profitable It helps ClickFunnels It helps me It helps everybody There's enough commission that I can actually go spend money to acquire customers and still keep just a little bit over, which is nice. I'm don’t say "One Funnel Away" in the ads, I doubt that would be allowed… But in the ad, I'm sitting on a bench with a pumpkin... 🎃 (Yes, you know I'm a goofball at heart, and I'm totally cool with that)… I'm looking at him like: "I know, right! Have you ever wondered if you could build a sales funnel for your business?" ...it's super cheesy, but in the first two seconds, it’s like, "What? What? What?" #PatternInterrupt I don't care if it's goofy; there's a hook, and it pulls you and then I walk through the super cool script. BREAKING BELIEFS I’m tired of people saying stuff like, "Well, does it work for this industry? Does it work for this? Does it work for this?" So we went to the Better Business Bureau and we grabbed ALL the industries that you can find, and I just run through them... *ALL* of them. I'm trying to go through several hundred of these categories - because I'm sick of people asking the SAME question! After I hit a certain point in the script, it's just me dropping industry after industry, I’m… … getting into a rollercoaster … getting out of the rollercoaster … getting into an Uber … getting out of the Uber … collecting my luggage … walking back to the Uber … riding to the airport … running through the airport … getting on the plane … getting off the plane (you getting the idea? 😉) … it's all just categories. *All the things* I know people ask about when they do One Funnel Away or my other products. It's pretty hilarious, it slowly starts to fade out with a call to action as I keep adding the next category, on and on… STORYTIME WITH PAPPA LARSEN I wanna leave you with a cool little story about how you can use the environment to create a hook … #StorytimeWithSteve Back in the 1900s, there was a guy named Harry Reichenbach, (I believe he was the guy that dumped diplomas over enemy lines in World War I) … Reichenbach was known for helping people get some really cool things. There was an actor called Francis X. Bushman who wanted to be a famous movie star, and so he says to Harry, "Hey, I wanna be a star, would you please help me?" So Harry arranged to introduce Bushman to a producer. (This next bit is brilliant!) Harry goes to the bank and he gets 2,000 pennies... (I love this story.) ...and he starts walking Bushman, through the city, to the producer's office As they're walking, Harry starts dropping pennies... (Back then, a penny was made of something that was actually worth something.) So as he’s walking with Bushman, Harry is dropping all these pennies. At first, it's just kids picking them up, but as time goes on, adults start following him too… Eventually, there’s a MASSIVE crowd of people behind him picking up the 2,000 pennies. By the time he gets to the producer's office, there’s this sea of people. The crowd gave the studio executives the impression that Bushman was very popular and they signed him up for a big contract with Metro Pictures. The crowd had no idea who Bushman was, they just were behind him because Reichenbach kept dropping all these pennies. Say what you will about that, it’s *BRILLIANT* USE YOUR ENVIRONMENT Most marketers are nervous to do random stuff like that, and that's the reason why I started using ‘environment’... I don't care if it's an unanswered loop. You don't have to close all loops. I'm gonna open ten loops… That's why I'm looking at a freaking pumpkin… (Meet my pumpkin friend 🎃… what do you mean, you can’t see him!?!) I know it's a weird ad, but gotta be weird enough to catch attention. You don't have to be that ‘creepy weird’. You don’t have to be out there strange - that's NOT what I'm saying at all... just be ‘out of the norm…’ Focus on ‘out of the norm’ things in your ads… ...in the way that you shoot them ...in the way you put the things together ...even if you're not doing video ads, that's fine. We’ve found these types of ads to be significantly more effective than text ads… for me, anyway. So we're filming a lot more ads like that. In the last few days, we've almost doubled our revenue with the new creative we've been tossing out there. It’s the exact same stuff with just a little bit more ads, and sales have pretty much doubled in the last three days, which is NUTS! (It’s NOT enough of a litmus test to make a rule out of it, but it’s exciting!) So here’s what I want you to do... Start thinking about unusual ways to... Create curiosity Shoot ads If you're already going somewhere, take an extra five seconds to think about how you can use that environment for an ad. And if it's not awesome, who cares? Make a bunch of them! Compensate with ad volume rather than one perfect ad. … that's what we're doing and it's been awesome. PATTERN INTERUPT LARSEN STYLE Sales Funnel Radio is ending. Oh, you didn't know that??? … or a lot of you didn't. Sales Funnel Radio is coming up on 300 episodes and at that stage, iTunes starts to get weird, and so we're gonna end the show. Sales Funnel Radio currently has about 3,500 organic downloads a day - which is awesome, right? The message has just continued to grow, and I thank you for that because I know your sharing it has been a big piece of this journey. I gonna end the show, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna stop publishing though… I'm launching a show called Pursuit of Profit. “Oh, what's that?" Well, let me tell you… I'm gonna bring in a whole bunch of really cool rich people and ask them… How they've pursued profit? What allowed them to actually make cash? … it’s a different kinda show. It's gonna be awesome. (I had to pay a lot of money for that domain 😂) It's also the reason why Sales Funnel Radio output has slowed down as we work on this transition. If you wanna go get on the waiting list, go to pursuitofprofit.com - I'm very excited about it. It’s gonna be about 50% interview with someone big and rich and 50% me teaching you what I'm doing - I still wanna keep documenting the journey 'cause I think that's important. We'll fly in a whole bunch of people, and I’ll probably sell live seat tickets. The room's only gonna hold 20 to 30 people. I'll literally do back to back interviews with these AMAZING and rich people. I wanna dive deeper with a little bit more of a broader market. So if you wanna go get on the notification list, go to pursuitofprofit.com. Someday I'll teach you… The strategy of what I'm pulling off here Some things I learned Why I'm ending Sales Funnel Radio - which feels like a sin! We're gonna redo salesfunnelradio.com and put all of the episodes on a single MP3 player. But (stay with me) there’s even MORE! STORYTELLING IN MARKETING We're launching another show called One Funnel Away Stories, and here’s the story behind it... About two-three years ago, I was walking through the Vegas Strip with Russell …. (We were at an event to learn some things) Anyway, I was walking next to Russell, and I was like: "You know what's funny? All the tools are here now - they're largely all here. So why is it that some people still don't believe that this will work for them?" #1: I believe that it's just story. That's it. We just need more story. This has become a game…. It's no longer like, "Does it work for me?" Yeah, it does, alright! #2: I need to be techy… ClickFunnels means that you don’t need to be a coder anymore, right? #3: “I just don't believe." There it is, that's the kicker. Q: How do we break that belief? A: *STORY* So I was talking to Dave and Russell, I was like: "Why don't you guys buy One Funnel Away Stories?" (It's their domain, they're just letting me run the show) So I'm gonna pull in tons of people to share their story for 20 minutes hearing their story on how they used ClickFunnels, and funnels in general, to blow up. I think it'd be a really interesting show, it’s gonna be more story-based and less tactical. Each week you’ll get a chance to go hear success stories from people in crazy industries. I'm gonna choose ALL kinds of industries, they won’t be the standard ones you hear about all the time, tho there’s nothing wrong with those either. So those are the NEW shows coming up. As soon as Sales Funnel Radio hits 300, we'll be done. Sales Funnel Radio will stop, but we're gonna start two others shows. I do have some special tricks up my sleeve for the end of the SFR that have been ready for quite a while - which we're very pumped about! I'm psyched, it’s gonna be awesome. Thanks so much for being here. If you like this episode, please screenshot it, post on social media, and tag me - tell me what you liked about it. If you hated it, and you think my eyes are too large (as I do), go ahead and let me know that as well. Anyways, thanks so much for being a part of the show. I can't even believe we're nearing 300 episodes. I’m telling you... Start publishing, and in one year, tell me if your life's not dramatically different! ... it was for me. Thanks so much for all this, you are One Funnel Away. I encourage you to all get rich, give back, and be a Capitalist Pig. You’ll do more good in the world with more money than if you're poor. I strongly believe that. I don't believe the government should take care of me. I believe I should get as rich as possible, but first, I need to take care of myself, then I can go do good things with my money. #GetRichGiveBack AH, YEAH! Hey, wish you could geek out with other Real Funnel Builders and even ask questions while I build Funnels Live? Ah-oh… *Wish Granted* Watch and learn funnel building as I document my process in my funnel strategy group. It's FREE! Just go to the scienceofselling.online and join NOW. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Oct 22, 2019 • 16min
SFR 284: Trim The Shoots
Mother Nature knows to go all on the trunk of a tree for quite a while until the tree is ready for more shoots… Today, I wanna talk to you about something I call ‘Trimming the Shoots…’ A.K.A - *Doing Less, Better* I’ve put this together from two pieces of content… 1. An introduction I gave to my high-level students in my OfferLab program #SneakPeek. 2. A recording from my OfferMind event. First, I’m gonna explain what it really means to trim the shoots and then, I want to give you some MORE context... Because while this game is a ton of fun, it can also be EXTREMELY challenging. TRIMMING THE SHOOTS - HOW TO INCREASE SALES. I'm the oldest of six kids growing up in Littleton, Colorado... (Can you spot me?) And, my dad made me the yard manager... Meaning I answered for all blades of grass and every weed. It wasn't a massive yard, but it wasn't small, either… And I was where the buck stopped. One year, we planted two apple trees up on the side of the yard and those trees looked pretty sickly... They were as tall as I was, so they weren't that big. The first season went by, and they'd just taken root, so we didn’t expect much fruit. They were brand new trees, so they weren’t gonna make a lot of apples. Well, the next season, they were supposed to produce some fruit, but still, *NOTHING* And my incredible mother, (she made me!) 😉... wanted these apples (which weren’t that awesome to eat, but crazy good in pies)... ...but there wasn’t enough of them for even one pie. So I looked at these trees and thought, "How come they’re not producing any fruit?" ...and I realized there were tons of shoots branching off the main trunks. There were tons of these mini-shoots all over the tree. There had to have been at least 100 of these (no joke) tiny shoots… There were shoots EVERYWHERE! And as I looked at those shoots, I realized, "Oh, my gosh. Wait a second. That’s why the tree is NOT producing fruit. It's got too many startups." TIME TO CUT BACK! So as we started transitioning into fall, I took off every single one of those shoots. I broke them off and pruned the tree back, so it was only the main trunk with a couple of shoots. Anyway, winter goes by… Every once in a while, I glance at the trees, wondering how they're doing and I go shake off the snow from them. It snows like crazy in Colorado; people get snowed in, and I miss that. Frankly, it's one thing I don't like about Boise. I miss the snow, real snow; lots of feet of snow. But then Spring came along, and it started to warm up… (I love spring. Spring's one of my favorite times ever. I love those transitions between all seasons.) So I start going back out to the trees, and I break off the little buds that were trying to grow additional shoots. And what happened was crazy… By the end of that season, there were so many apples that it was breaking the tree. There were so many apples that the trees could not handle the amount of fruit. It was shocking to me how many apples were sitting on those trees. The weight of the apples was weighing down all the branches and almost every single branch was nearly snapping. I was like, "Holy crap. Why did this happen?" After I learned why... I pruned EVERYTHING in the yard. Maybe I got a little prune-happy, but I started cutting back and chopping everything. And the next year after that we had this incredible yard. (OK… maybe a slight exaggeration 😉) But there's a lesson here…. BUSINESS GOAL SETTING It may sound obvious, but I'm brought it up at the beginning of OfferLab to show you that you gotta prune the shoots! I’ve coached nearly 30,000 people. And when I teach the principles of what I do, it stimulates the mind... And the mind goes, "Oh, my gosh! I could do… *THIS* *THIS* *THIS* *THIS* *THIS* ...and all these shoots start appearing ALL OVER the place! And what's the problem with that? None of the shoots grow. The tree doesn't produce any fruit. You don't get anywhere. What I'm teaching is dead sexy, and it is 100% real #ItWorks… But you've gotta prune, you need one trunk, that's it. Don't think like, "Hey, I'm gonna grow this shoot with OfferLab, and I'm gonna grow all these other shoots on the side ..." ...it doesn't work like that! I’m growing a few more shoots, but it's only 'cause I have a team. I'm NOT the only one doing all the stuff. And I've done this A LOT... waaay more than the average person. So please lean into the fact that it's hard to pull this off when you have MORE than ONE shoot! OFFERMIND (My Team!) I have a few personal friends who are struggling, so I said, "Why don't you come to OfferMind?" They are probably on idea six or seven, (which is understandable, no judgment)... we've all been there. I was like, "Come learn the stuff from OfferMind and start to apply it to your thing and you will make more money." Anyway, I reached back out to them once the event was over and asked, "How'd it go?" They were like, "Good, but now we're doing this and this and this." It was like, "No! Stop! What are you doing? Cut that crap out! Stop messing with the shoots!" CUT IT OUT! To make a decision means to cut away all other options. That's what the word decision means - it means to cut away all other options. Decide what the ONE thing will be. You're NOT gonna make it if you’re like, "Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam!” #Oneidea. Now, I'm NOT saying that you can’t pivot if you decide, "You know what, I actually wanna go do this other idea." That's very much okay. It happens to me ALL the time. If that happens… You just course correct and pivot. But… It's gonna be very challenging if you have tons of things you're trying to do at once, and if you pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot. STAYING THE GAME When my wife and I got married, (you all know the story), we had *NOTHING* How many of you guys have ever been in that scenario? Not fun, right? Not fun at all. Money isn't bad or neutral, it's good. Do you know how greedy you get when you're broke? Way more greedy than when I've made a lot of money. You know what I'm saying? I'm gonna break a lot of beliefs around cash with this… One of the largest things I had to re-break, reframe and rebuild a belief, around was money itself; it's why I do the Capitalist Pig thing. It's like Batman, right? He's afraid of bats, so he became Batman. I was like, "I'll become the Capitalist Pig!" ...I’ve got A LOT of negative flack, but it kinda brings me pleasure, so… 😂 But it started way back in the day when I was nervous to charge even 50 bucks for an hour of consulting. I had nothing, so I started trying to figure out ways to make money, and it was like try/ fail/ try/ fail on repeat! Try... "Yeah, this is gonna be the one," *NOTHING*. "Oh, here we go again..." Understandably, after a while, loved ones ask (and I'm sure you've all had the question, right?) "Is this the *ONE* that's gonna work?" And you're like, "Yeah! Ain't nothing but a thang. I got this!" But I did NOT have it! I had NO idea if it was gonna work.. and you're fueled by a prayer and a hope… "Oh, my gosh, please make this be the one." I was probably two years in and I was still obsessively focusing trying to figure this out. I WAS DESPERATE I went to college in a place called BYU Idaho and one night, I was sitting on a couch in a freezing apartment at 2:00 AM… And I remember kneeling down and just begging God to help... it was really hard. I don't know if you’ve ever been in that place? (I was NOT planning on talking about this, but it was rough.) And you're like, "It's not that I won't do it, but *what* is it?" WHAT is IT? “ I was trying like crazy and we were spending money that, frankly, that we probably didn't have. I thought it was about... “The greater the risk, the greater the reward!” ...which is *GARBAGE* by the way. And all the stuff that I was trying, NOTHING was working. We were not making any money and I was like: "I gotta hold my feet to the fire here. What do I need? More pressure? I'm gonna become like 5000 diamonds. Holy smokes, I'm under so much pressure." We were living on loans, I think we had about $3400 for every three months to pay for rent and all the stuff. I'm not joking about going to the dollar menu date night thing. ...we’d do that stuff. IT TOOK 34 TRIES! So I was praying, "Please help." I don't know what you believe, and I'm okay with that, but… I believe is that God cares and that he’s willing to help But the answer isn't always, "Here it is on try #1.” Instead, my answer was… “You're gonna go through 34 tries, son. And I'm gonna mold you into something that you would not willingly become on your own." There's no way I'd be doing this right now. Even three years ago, I had huge levels of anxiety speaking with people. That was a REAL thing. Those first few episodes of Sales Funnel Radio, have you listened to 'em? Kinda crappy, right? 😂 And that's okay! I was like, "I surrender. Just tell me what to do!"... and Russell's like, "Publis!," I was like, "No, that can't be the answer." And Russell was like, "You should really publish." "No, that's probably not the thing. Let me go figure out more of this stuff. I wanna distract myself with other skill sets. Please. Okay, sweet, let's come over here." (You know what I'm talking about? We've all done it.) Then suddenly, I started publishing and started finding my voice. I started taking these steps and a little bit of light started showing up, *beep*... It was tiny, but it was out there. ...and piece by piece, it started coming together. But my family is where it all started… And there are things that I just would not have done, (including OfferMind) if it hadn't been for ‘The Lovelies.’ I call them The Ladies, my Ladies - my three little girls and my amazing wife. Think about it, it would be very hard to be married to me - think about what my wife’s had to go through... I'm serious! Think about that... For years, not knowing… "Is this kid just psycho?” "He's got giant eyeballs.” “ Go get a job." I joke to kinda relieve the pressure on that statement, but you understand how much she's had to go through… My wife is AMAZING! TAKE THE EASY ROUTE I don't want anyone to think like, "Whoa, he's talking about himself again..." That's NOT what I'm saying at all. But understand that the pattern I'm gonna share with you comes from hundreds of funnels at ClickFunnels and hundreds of funnels built with my personal students… ...it’s a culmination of ridiculous levels of stress and anxiety, and I'm excited because you DON’T have to go through that. We’ve made it really, really, really, really simple... #ReallySimple… and I'm stoked about it. BOOM! 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? They 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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Oct 15, 2019 • 19min
SFR 283: I Leased An Office For Free
From a 300 sqft room to a 3200 office (for free) We’re (finally) getting an office space, and I wanna walk you around real quick to share a principle with you that I learned from Russell which means that taking on this space isn’t actually gonna cost me a dime! I’m also gonna reveal to you: The next 3 revenue-generating moves I’m making... What’s coming after Sales Funnel Radio ends, (Yep, you heard that right!)... Why NOW is the right time to move into a larger space… Why you don’t need a ton of equipment to succeed and why bootstrapping doesn’t need to hold you back... Why my office is a MASSIVE mess… and WHY I don’t care! But first, I want to let you into the dream I have for my NEW space… HACKING ENTREPRENEUR SUCCESS I’ve had several people reach out and ask: "Stephen, why don't you have an office yet? You've made a lot of cash very fast in a short amount of period of time." And the answer is that it made no sense to take on a BIG office space (when I can work from the couch)… *Unless I have revenue plans attached to ‘that space’ as well* And this principle is something I learned very early on from Russell! When ClickFunnels was looking for a new office, not only did they find the shell of a space they wanted, they also drew all the things that they wanted in there. And then, revenue-wise, in order to pay for it, Russell made sure he launched a product that would cover waaay more than the lease payment of that new building. And he did that every single time he had something expensive to pay for... For example: When Tony Robbins came to speak at Funnel Hacking Live, it was expensive, man. Tony Robbins is really, really expensive. And so… Russell put on his marketer hat and said, "How can I pay for that?" and then, he started coming up with clever ways in the FHL event to raise the money to pay for Tony. And I'm doing the same thing here (...without Tony, but you get my drift?!). This office is NOT anywhere near as expensive as Tony. In fact, it's NOT that expensive a month at all, but even so, I’m NOT gonna be out of pocket to pay for it Here’s my plan… THE PURSUIT OF PROFIT I have three things I'm launching (that everyone's been wanting from me), that will help more than pay for this office space. But before I tell you what they are, I want to walk you around and share my plans with you… This NEW office is 3200 square feet, it's funny, 'cause on camera, it doesn't look that huge. I’m planning on doing A LOT of restructuring, and I’m gonna tear down a ton of walls and raise the ceilings. We can literally create any kind of structure we want. When I first started working for ClickFunnels, random people would just show up at the office. And that's fine, but it was awkward, 'cause people we didn’t know would literally just walked in. There were no keycards or any of that stuff, so you were always kind of on edge, wondering when someone was gonna just walk on in. It's mentally hard to get into a creative space when random strangers just walked in. So eventually, they made a wall with a keycard on one side and the event hall to the right… I actually want the exact same setup… There’s gonna be an event space in our NEW office Every quarter we spend $8,000 to $10,000 renting a hall, but we could just use that cash and have the setup here... ClickFunnel's made MORE money by building their own mini-event hall and attaching it to their office, and I'm doing the exact same thing. So, we're gonna knock down some walls and build an event center with a full AV setup. I'm trying to have my event room be almost the size of the event space that's in ClickFunnels. It won't be as big, but that kind of a the spec. I’ll still do my major events, like OfferMind, at other places, but what you need to understand is that Colton, Austin, and I have been sitting in a 300 square foot bedroom for the last year-and-a-half … 😂 Now we're going from a 300 square foot bedroom to a 3200 square foot place. ...it’s really, really exciting! HOW TO GROW A BUSINESS Let me show you outside... Check It Out…. It says Yellow Book USA; it's literally new tech replacing old tech. I don't need all the space that ClickFunnels has. Dave Woodward told me that Clickfunnels has about 7000 square feet and our office is about half of that. I can't imagine a scenario where I’ll need more than 15 people on my team… ...and so that's kinda what we're planning for. There'll be an open area and a few spaces with offices. It's been nice to work from home, but there's a lot of pros and cons. People ask me, "How do you handle working at home?" It's *NOT* easy. I spent $200 putting sound panels across the top of my “office” #bedroom; (it's just an over-sized bedroom). I put sound panels across everything! And I'll tell you… WHY THE “BOOM!”? One of the major reasons I started yelling so much was because I could hear my three girls in the background. Maybe there’d be a little fight… Maybe someone would get hurt… Maybe there was a little amping up... And so I’d ‘amp it up on camera’ to mask my kid’s noise. That's one of the real reasons I started yelling… There'd be all this commotion going off in the background and I’d be like… “And you gotta build the funnel! And you gotta... " So, NOT having to deal with that anymore is gonna be super cool. We will not have to put sound panels across the ceiling like we had to in the last office. Up here on the top and the back of this door is literally soundproofing. I just put spray adhesive of everywhere. But back to the NEW space, it's quite the large and it's perfect for what we need. So… I'm gonna knock stuff down Draw out the floor plan Focus on building a really cool event space that saves me having to pay $10,000 to $20,000 every time I wanna do an event. Instead, this space is $5000 a month; plus I'm building a revenue-generating machine. It's a way of thinking that allows you to generate revenue rather than take on business costs. When you have something expensive to pay for ALWAYS make sure that you plan for a way to make revenue with it as well. MY BUSINESS SYNDICATE For example: In the next year, I've got five events planned, and now two or three of them can actually just happen here in my NEW space. ...that's awesome! Every time I do an event for OfferLab it costs me $100,000. Now, instead of us running around and trying to coordinate hotels (which is it’s own full-time job and pretty much does give Coulton and myself gray hairs)... ...we will just put the event on here We've actually built on the cost of this revenue arm. That's the whole point of what I want to share with you today! Every time you're building out something and you realize: Hey, I need this piece done. I need to go build this piece of my business. I gotta go put something together. Instead, just think through other ways to generate revenue exactly like… Russell did with Tony Robbins. I did to build a lot of my events in the last year. Think about other ways that you can pull cash flow from what you’re doing? TITANS OF INDUSTRY So, I promised to share with you what I’m planning next after the demise of Sales Funnel Radio and when we move into the NEW space… We're hoping around January, beginning of the year-ish, we’ll be in the space and start building a studio for... #1: Pursuit of Profit is a live show that we'll be launching kinda like Impact Theory - (I'm a huge fan of Tom Bilyeu). Once we move into this space I’ll be able to bring people in to film side by side, (kinda like what I did with Russell at OfferMind), and make sweet episodes right here. #2: Business Syndicate is a show where I want people to come in and pitch me on building funnels for them, kinda like Shark Tank. But instead of just giving dirty money, (which usually doesn't do a lot for the business)... 'Cause you know, you guys know, I'm crazy against VC funding... Instead, you'll pitch me on building your funnels with my funnel team #3: Titans of Industry is my MasterMind, and that can happen here as well! Now, do you understand WHY it made sense for me to move now? 😉 It made makes no sense for me to take on a BIG expense… *Unless I had revenue plans attached to expense as well* You can go check out titansofindustry.com - it's NOT done (and ‘the space’ is obviously not done)... But there's a waiting list. It will NOT be a cheap Master Mind, but my stuff works really well. But I'd love to have you inside of the MasterMind if you want to. Anyway, I don't wanna say any more about that… 😉 It’s the same with Business Syndicate… If you want to pitch me to build your stuff in exchange for equity in your business and to participate in profits, let me know. Go to businesssyndicate.com and sign up on that waiting list. Can you see how (on the back of the info product space), I am trying to build the rest of this legit stuff out? … it’s very exciting! FACE YOUR EXTERNAL OBJECTIONS I challenge you to start thinking of things this way! If you believe: "Stephen, I can't afford these things in my business..." *REMEMBER* You're NOT the one paying for them. It's NOT my cash; it's gonna be other people coming in helping to foot the bill for this cool space so that we can all… Share Grow Learn ...together! By comparison, I just wanted to show you my old office… and check this out, it's a mess! It's funny because I've had people reach out to me and they're like, "You are affected by the environment you work in." That's kinda crap! If you are that’s fine... but I'm not… I'm more affected by sound than clutter. I've had multiple people reach out and say, "Stephen, it's so cluttered. How do you expect to get everything done in such a cluttered environment?" What are you talking about? #JustDoIt Are you telling me that you can't flex? Just do it! However… One of the major reasons why we need a NEW office is because we need storage space. CAPITALISM SWAG Q: Do you know how much leftover swag there is after an event? A: A LOT You never know exactly how many people will turn up and you want to have swag for EVERYBODY... So, I ALWAYS over order, and that's one of the reasons why capitalismswag.com was created - so that we could have a spot to sell off extra swag from things like OfferMind. So go to capitalismswag.com and we've got cool stuff there. JUST DO IT! The ONLY reason I'm showing you the *MESS* in my old office is to prove to you that… You don't need a lot of stuff to be successful, especially in the Internet space. Info products are one of the best places you can turn to if you're trying to increase your revenue. You gotta learn how to sell… ‘cause you're NOT shipping anything…. Things that are digital can be harder to sell - so learn how to sell and market, but at the same time, you can still bootstrap this thing, man. BOOTSTRAPPING SUCCESS When I was first building funnels in college, I didn't have the software I needed, so I went and I found it in public libraries. I built so many videos, funnels, courses, and stuff in public libraries because they have the software. I could just go there and put my headphones on … I'm just bringing that up because if like somebody says, "I don't have the tools," you don't need to own them. Where are they? Go find them! For my first ever info product, (which eventually turned into my thousand dollars a week product which was big for me at the time)... I didn't have a camera, so I went to a public library and rented a DSLR camera and a tripod 'cause we didn't have any money. I mean, this is cluttered guys, but “Your work environment affects you!” ...that's like the last 5% of things that matter. 😂 Just get it done. I'd rent the camera I'd rent the card I'd hunt computers down in the library that would take the card from the camera Upload YouTube - 'cause it was free. And that’s why I tell people… If you're trying to make something work, I have empathy (I’ve been there), but I have very little sympathy. I'm not gonna feel bad for you, but I will feel with you. That's empathy versus sympathy, and I think it matters like crazy on this... BUSINESS MINDSET & CLUTTER Austin's desk is actually a picnic table, which is funny enough what my desk was when I first got to ClickFunnels. We’ve got our TV that we are gonna use to show a stats dashboard that we’ve almost done building so we can ALWAYS track: Revenue We’re still trying to figure out the last part, but we're almost done with that. We also have a wall to track 'em sales and how close we are to a million bucks on stuff? … it needs to be updated, 'cause it's way closer now! We've got the paparazzi walls, but this is a black sheet that I stapled to the wall is how I filmed most of my first videos for the first program I created. I just wanted to add some context to what we're doing here. In the NEW office we’ll knock down all the walls and put flooring in. There's a lot of stuff that needs to happen during the TI space of the contract and stuff like that. But we're ready to rock! I'm just gonna drop a floor plan real quick and then talk to a few people to get some advice, and then we'll be good to go. It’s crazy nuts to compare this new space to where it started in this CLUTTERED 300 square foot room. (I only know that my house is 3500 square feet and that this room is 10% of it - because that's what we write off in taxes. 😂) I started in a 300 square foot of room, and now, we're gonna move to a 3200 square foot office that’s as big as this house. ...which is pretty crazy and I'm really excited about it. I expect we'll be in our new office for two, three years and then build the next building that we move to. Hopefully, this has inspired you to just get it done. If you don't have a briefcase, borrow one or realize they don't matter. #GetRichGiveBack As you likely have heard in my podcast, I left my job in January 2018 to build my million dollar business completely from scratch without any funding or any help... AND I HIT IT, right on February 1, 2019... Just 13 months later, we actually grossed a million dollars, which is pretty awesome. Better yet, I got to keep a lot of the cash, just 'cause my costs are honestly NOT very high. That said, there are several tools, though, I use to automate vital pieces of my business and ClickFunnels is one of them. ClickFunnels lets me build automated sales machines all over the internet that are non-stop pitching people for me. It's ONLY $97 a month... Better yet, I don't need to be a coder. If you're asking yourself, “Stephen, are you giving me a blatant pitch for ClickFunnels right now?” YES, 100%! I think it's dumb when people don't use ClickFunnels. It makes you MORE and saves you MORE. Basically, I have the power of an entire tech team in my hand and I want you to have it. Go grab a free trial of ClickFunnels by going to freecftrial.com. I want EVERYONE to experience the power of ClickFunnels in their business, so they're letting me hook you up at freecftrial.com. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Oct 8, 2019 • 25min
SFR 282: The 2nd Millionaire In America
This is one of my favorite, brilliant marketing stories! I’ve just finished another 20-mile bike ride (in the dark)… I'm still several miles from home, but my mind's kinda spinning, so I thought I'd stop and… Drop kinda a cool story about PT Barnum that involves a dead monkey and a fishtail… (Yep, that BT Barnum… and Nope, it’s NOT in the film 😉) Tell you WHY Sales Funnel Radio will be ending soon! #SHOCK! MAKING MARKETING HISTORY! I LOVE studying yesteryear's marketing gurus. I’ve been going back to the 1700s and 1800s… I've been kind of obsessed with studying how these old, rich, dead marketers got their messages out before the internet. ...because we live in a very different world. And while the internet is beautiful, it’s largely a crutch… And it’s a HUGE distraction if you don't understand what marketing truly is. To illustrate my point, I’m gonna tell you a story of a guy named PT Barnum. You’ve probably have heard of PT Barnum from the movie, The Greatest Showman, which is … A largely made up by Hollywood. A great movie. Most of what’s in the movie is NOT true. PT Barnum did have a circus, but it was his retirement project. Barnum was older when he started that circus, but the movie makes it seem like he had this young struggling family and that it was the circus that made him... That's NOT at all true. However, PT Barnum was a brilliant, brilliant guy, and he died in 1891 at 81 years old and by that time, I believe he was the second millionaire in America… he was definitely the first show business millionaire in America. A million dollars was waaay more back then than it is now, it was pretty impressive to have a million dollars at that time. HUMBUGS & A PRE-INTERNET MARKETING STRATEGY Barnum loved doing hoaxes, or as he called them, ‘humbugs’ for the public. And there's a lot of famous quotes from him about that... I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right. - P. T. Barnum One of the MOST famous hoaxes that Barnums well-known for is the Feejee Mermaid. The Feejee Mermaid was widely known in the1800s as being one of the greatest hoaxes ever pulled off. Barnum was famous for saying something to the effect of, ‘The world wants to be fooled, so let it be fooled.’ The bigger the humbug, the better people will like it. - P. T. Barnum So Barnum would play these tricks on the public and his sales would increase… And so long as he over-delivered on value, he found that nobody really cared that they were hoaxes.. Now, I'm not here to say whether or not that's right or wrong. I personally don't think that's right. Don't lie… However, there's a lot you can learn from the brilliance of what Barnum did. And I wanna share a really fascinating story on what I believe true marketing is if you remove the internet… It's kind of a funny episode, it's a cold dark night, and I'm in a Staples parking lot… (Who says marketing isn’t glamorous? 😉) *CHECK IT OUT* But back to the story! THE FEEJEE MERMAID Barnum had this museum in New York and most of his income came from this museum of crazy stuff, NOT the circus. AND… When in the mid-1850s, ‘a mermaid was caught off of the coast of Feejee’(#QuoteUnquote) it was brought to PT Barnum to see if he wanted to put it in his museum. It was literally a monkey's body that they had been sewn onto a fish, and it's kind of morbid. But Barnum decided that he could use the ‘mermaid’ to create a cool buzz! So he grabbed all of these naturalists to declare, "This is a true Mermaid from Fiji." Now, anyone looking at the ‘mermaid’ could tell that it was fake… So Barnum asked experienced naturalists until finally, he had a naturalist who would declare: "This is a real mermaid." Then he took *that story* and ran with it. He and one of his associates started sending letters to the newspaper from various locations. His associate acted as a doctor and they started “leaking” quote after quote of interactions they were having about the Feejee Mermaid and how spectacular it was to the press. They sent them from anonymous locations throughout the city and the nation. The press was like: "Oh my gosh, we're getting all these letters about this incredible Feejee Mermaid. Look at this correspondence between this doctor and PT Barnum the museum owner.” It was completely fake. However, when they’d created enough buzz, the fake doctor took a trip from New York down to Philadelphia o ‘business’ and brought the Feejee Mermaid with him. They did their Dream 100 homework and chose a hotel where the owner was friends with a bunch of newspaper editors. Dr. J. Griffin (fake doctor, fake name)... checks into this hotel and as a thank you for letting him stay, he promises to let the hotel owner see the Feejee Mermaid. The hotel owner goes, "Oh my gosh. That's the coolest thing I've ever seen. Do you mind if I bring some of my friends over?". Q: Guess who his friends were? A: Yep, all these editors! … but wait, it gets even better! Seriously, this is some AMAZING marketing! When people are like "I sent a Facebook campaign…” I'm like, "That's NOT a campaign, that's just a Facebook ad. *This* is a campaign. Study what Barnum did". Barnum was BRILLIANT at campaigns. So while this fake doctor is in Philadelphia swooning all of these editors, PT Barnum is busy at work in New York… He prints off 10,000 fliers with these voluptuous, nude mermaids. He literally litters 10,000 Mermaid pamphlets all over New York City. And what he says on the flyer is: "Guys, guess what? I am gonna get the Feejee Mermaid to my museum, but it's only gonna be here for one week, starting on this day." Oh my Lanta! That’s straight scarcity and urgency direct from the1800s! (Now, there's A LOT more to the story, I'm telling the Reader's Digest version.) CREATING A MARKETING CAMPAIGN 1800’S STYLE Now that the press in Philadelphia and New York are buzzing, Barnum puts the cherry on the top... ...and this is what he did. Again, I'm not here to argue whether or not this is right or wrong. I don't think it's right, but that's beside the point… Just learn from what he did here... So… There are10,000 fliers in New York City Philadelphia is buzzing. Everyone knows that the Feejee Mermaid will be in Barnum's museum for ONE week… So Barnum goes to the press and says, "Hey, local news-press. I wanna give you exclusive rights to cover the story when the Feejee Mermaid shows up". They go, "Oh my gosh, that's awesome." Then he went to the next newspaper and said the same thing… and he did this over and over again! He told all the newspapers, "You have exclusive rights!” All the papers were like, "Oh my gosh!" So the day comes when the Feejee Mermaid will be revealed... and there's a TON of pressure built up. The newspaper editors know about it and they were excited Over in New York, there are 10,000 leaflets all over the place with (I'll be honest) voluptuous, largely nude mermaids. (Again, I'm NOT talking about the morals of this, I'm just saying this is what happened.) Now ALL the think they have exclusive coverage! BUT… When the day of it comes, and the newspapers learn that all the other newspapers “exclusive coverage.” But rather than miss out on an opportunity, they ALL decide to l run the story… Because they don't wanna be the newspaper that's left out! And that gets ridiculous sales for PT Barnum and was a HUGE deal for his career. Now here’s my point... DON’T BE A LAZY MARKETER! Compare the amount of foot-work that Barnum did to create pressure around a single date and compare it to what MOST people do when they build a funnel and turn Facebook ads on… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it AGAIN… Facebook ads are NOT a campaign. I've had people say, "Steve, what do you mean Facebook ads are NOT campaigns?" Look, I'm not saying ads can't be part of a campaign, I'm saying that just running an ad is NOT a campaign. So let's think real quick about what PT Barnum did for his campaign to promote a completely fake and NOT valuable thing called the Feejee Mermaid. It was NOT the voluptuous mermaid in the pictures, it was this rotted to death, stuffed, frozen monkey sewed to the back-end of a fish. First of all… What was the hook that PT Barnum used to get this campaign going? Probably the picture of the mermaid… that's definitely one of them. The headline was very, very clever… I wish I could remember it off the top of my head, it ‘s on the internet, you can go look it up. He created a story. People do okay with the story, but creating hooks is a work of art. Most people don't really create a hook. The next part of EVERY campaign is to attach it to distribution. Q: What is the distribution channel that PT Barnum used? A: Newspapers. He even distributed 10,000 leaflets around New York City. He used the distribution channels that were already there. Barnum did NOT create his own newspaper press, he used the existing distribution that was there. That's 100% a direct response marketer play. So there’s a… Hook Story Distribution Call To Action Let's think through the mechanics a little bit...'cause there's another piece I wanna go hit real quick that’s very key… You'll see that Hollywood even does this today. Inside of the sales letter, he said, "The Feejee Mermaid’s only coming on these days and when it's gone, it's gone. ." Most of the time, people make the mistake of promoting their products by making it ALWAYS available. However, Barnum opens and closes the cart on a physical location, his museum. He opened the cart and closed the cart... that's HUGE; that was his call to action. These are ALL the same principles we use today; it’s no different just because we have the internet. When you remove the internet out of the equation and… Learn what marketing really is Learn how to build campaigns ...then, when you add the internet, it's very powerful. However, before you learn what marketing is and how to build campaigns, the internet can be a distraction. Now, there's one other element to this… HOW TO MARKET YOUR BUSINESS… Understand that Barnum did NOT start by going to the newspapers and saying, "You have exclusive coverage.” ... that was his final move. First, he created a series of campaigns. I literally call campaigns, orchestrated noise. Think about the way Hollywood launches a movie, it’s very similar. A year out, Hollywood will launch a minute-long preview - it doesn't say much, and they're probably still editing. But it just brings a little bit of, "Oh my gosh, I can't wait." And who does that attract? The fans! When Disney bought Star Wars to start dropping hints that they were gonna drop a movie, all they had to do a year before was play the 15-second Star Wars theme, and say: "Coming Summer, This Year!" ...that was it. And what do all the hypers do? “Oh my gosh!" They go spread the message all over the place … ... the ‘sneezers’ spread the message for them. That's the beginning of a campaign, it's a single pressure event… Then six months ahead of time, they release another trailer that's 90 seconds… Then in three months, they release another one that’s three minutes. Next, they release a few different versions and tell a little bit of story around different characters. ...it's a series of escalating pressure. That's a campaign! A campaign is NOT a single event, it’s a series of events that escalate pressure, and piggyback off of each other. THE GREATEST MARKETER… You can clearly see this pattern of creating events that build pressure in the PT Barnum example. Anonymous letters create buzz. A fake doctor goes to Philadelphia to build MORE pressure. 10,000 pamphlets with voluptuous mermaids are distributed. ALL the newspapers are given an ‘EXCLUSIVE. All these orchestrated events build pressure for a specific date, and that's very key. So one of the things I've been obsessed with lately is watching what other successful marketers do Launch keep the products out, once they're selling. That's two separate styles of campaigns. A Launch Campaign. An Evergreen Campaign. And I know I've beat that to death, but it's because *that* is how a marketer gets paid on the internet in today. It’s very powerful. I want you to analyze how a lot of those guys back in the past created noise and realize that that's why this stuff works. I use Facebook campaigns in conjunction with my podcast. A lot of times we'll drive ads to a specific podcast episode, NOT a registration page. People go through the podcast episode, and then we re-target them for a small download… Once they get the download, we re-target them for the actual thing with more pressure. BOOM! Cart closing, only open during this time. Bam! closeout. We still use the same principles as Barnum today! But it's ONLY when you understand the principles that Barnum used all those years ago that today's modern tools are really powerful. Without that backdrop, it's very easy to take advantage of the tools and use them in weird ways as easy distribution channels… And NOT actually use real marketing. That’s NOT marketing, it’s link barfing BARF! BARF! BARF! Anyway, hopefully, you enjoyed today's blog? And I’d really appreciate it if you dropped a review. THE DEATH OF SALES FUNNEL RADIO! Just so you know… ( Oh my gosh, I'm gonna start a campaign right here! ) Sales Funnel Radio will most likely be over at episode 300. (I’ll tell you why in a future episode 😉) It's NOT because this show doesn't do well; we get 2500 - 3000 downloads a day. I'll teach you guys the actual strategy of what I'm doing and a pattern that I noticed in content creation… I’m in a position now that I've really fought and worked hard for. But there is a principle that I'm following and that I want you to take note of. So, anyway, it's just a little heads up... in a month or two… Sales Funnel Radio will be over. The whole point of the show has been to document my journey from literally broke to... I'm hoping we hit a gross of 5 million by the end of this year. I still have another million and a half to go, but I think I can hit it and I'm trying to hit it by the end of this show. So anyway, It's pretty sick. #GetRich. Hey, just real quick: A few months ago Russell asked me to write a chapter for a secret project he was doing. I had to write a chapter for a book, this was the letter I got from him. He said: "Hey Stephen, let me ask you a quick question... You suddenly lose all your money, along with your name and your reputation, and only have your marketing know-how left. You have bills piled high and people harassing you for money over the phone. You have a guaranteed roof over your head, a phone line, an internet connection, and a ClickFunnels account for only one month. You no longer have your big guru name, your following, your JV partners. Other than your vast marketing experience, you're an unknown newbie... What would you do from day #1 to day #30 to save yourself? Russell Brunson Hey, if you want to see my answer and a bunch of other marketers who also answered that in this amazing book and summit, just go to 30days.com/stephen. You can see the entire summit, you can see the book, you can see what we wrote in there and each of our detailed plans. Just go to 30days.com/stephen. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Oct 1, 2019 • 18min
SFR 281: Using OPE (Other People's Events)
How am I using the Perfect Presentation Script in OTHER people's funnels? Are webinars dead? Kinda… Russell doesn't use the term webinars anymore, it’s now called a ‘presentation’. … and it's because people are like, "Well, I'm not gonna do a webinar to sell my thing." Frankly, people who think that are missing the point... ‘cause it's the format NOT the name that matters. The script itself works extremely well... whether you call it a webinar or a presentation 🤓 So ‘YES!’ the webinar is dead… Long live the Perfect Presentation Script! HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS AT OTHER PEOPLES EVENTS! So here’s a question for you… Q: What has 5 parts and can be used to sell or launch *ANYTHING* on or offline (and why I’m cycling in the boonies at 10 pm)? A: (You guessed it…) The Perfect Presentation Script! And this may come as a shock to some people… Selling a car, is the same as selling an info product, is the same as selling soap, is the same as selling insurance... etc. Sales is sales. And the other night, while cycling in the boonies, I came up with a sweet NEW way that I could ‘kill two birds with one stone’ to use other people’s events to save myself hours of work… Here’s how it happened... NO THANKS, I’D RATHER BIKE… Growing up, my parents said I was NOT allowed to drive unless I got my Eagle Scout. I didn't wanna too... so I biked EVERYWHERE instead. And it wasn't just down the road, I put in some serious miles in high school. Recently, I started cycling again… It was pitch black and I had only the w flashlight on my bike. I was trying to study the road and pushing super hard, some things were coming at me fast… It's totally a Children of the Corn scenario... It was so *FREAKY* … but it got me thinking! RELEASE THE PRESSURE It’s been such an intense week! We’ve been… Launching Running lots of payments Getting lots of people onboarded to Offer lab Now we're working with people to get all the inputs that my funnel team needs to build their funnel for them. *Yep! You heard that correctly* You may not know about OfferLab yet, but this is the second year we've run it. It was successful the first year, but now we’ve found ways to make it even MORE successful. So, anyway, it's been an intense week, and honestly, I need time to do aggressive physical activities just to stay in the zone. I use my little Apple Watch to track my time and distance and I'm at 19 and a half miles in about an hour and a half... Those of you guys who cycle might be thinking, "Oh, that's not that far, Steve." I get it, but check out the bike I'm on… It's a mountain bike… Look how FAT those tires are. Give me some credit! I'm pushing pretty hard, and I burn A LOT of calories doing this. I’m trying to get in more shape so that I can go jujitsu... it's gonna be a ton of fun. MY SPEECH WRITING HACK Anyway, back to that *sweet idea* I had… It suddenly hit me that I'm speaking at events six times in the next six weeks. Which means… I have six speeches to plan and write and it takes me, on average a solid 8 - 15 hours to create each speech. People are like, “Woah, Stephen, you don't need to do that.” I've had people tell me, "Stephen, you could just take a marker, stand up, and teach." Yes, but that's NOT the point. Even if I'm NOT selling something for money, I'm still selling ideas. And so I need to know… What's the false belief I gotta break? What are the stories? This is my craft. I'm not gonna just stand up and just spitball it, that's dumb. I’m highly prepared for every speech I give, *highly*... HERE’S MY AGENDA I'm gonna be speaking at Carnegie Hall along with... Martha Stewart Dan Kennedy (so long as his health is okay). Michael Gerber, who wrote The E-Myth, (that book changed my life in college). Hal Elrod from The Miracle Morning. ...I'm really excited about it. I'm NOT normally the kinda guy to name drop stuff, (and frankly, that kinda drives me a little bit nuts…) But… IT’S SOOO COOL!!! These are some of the people that I've learned from over the years, and maybe you have too. I'm pumped about it. I'm giving two speeches at Carnegie Hall, and then the very next weekend, I'm speaking, literally back to back, at two different events in different locations. On Friday, October 4th, (I believe it's the fourth), I'm gonna speak at Boss Con. And then Saturday, October 5th, I'm speaking at Carrot Con and Daymond John is gonna be there! Then I come back home to Inner Circle, and then I think the next week I’m getting on a plane to speak at Pruvit’s event. A lot of you guys know I'm in Pruvit, I'm in Russell's downline. I love Pruvit, I’m drinking it right now. It's A LOT of speeches. So I was thinking to myself, "Self, what else has five things? Oh, My Lanta, webinars/ presentations do." So here's what I was thinking… BREAKING DOWN THE PERFECT PRESENTATION I'm allowed to sell at Carrot Con, but the others, I'm not allowed to. So, if I just figure out which platforms would be best for… My origin story Secret #1 Secret #2 Secret #3 The Close. ... can you see where I'm going with this? So there are five parts to the perfect presentation, and I'm gonna take the speeches I write, put them in order, and then… I’ve literally created a whole NEW presentation from all the speeches for these events. I freakin’ love the perfect webinar (oops, presentation) format; I use it for EVERYTHING. It's how I sell my… Affiliate stuff. Expensive stuff. $25,000-program. $13,000-program. $3000/ $1000/ $1-programs. That format is so beautiful to sell *ANYTHING*... Even something is FREE, you still gotta sell it. I’M AN ARTIST At OfferMind 2019 we collected about $1.4 to 1.5 million in sales. We don’t have the final count, so we're not quite sure yet. But it's about $1.4 to $1.5 million in sales and I think we'll get to 1.6 or 7 - which is crazy. Here’s the thing, though… I spent four days just creating the slides for that one hour pitch. Not the research. Not the brainstorming. Not the thinking through. … four days on just the slides! ‘Cause I'm an artist baby. I'm a scientist, but I also love the art part as well. So when people are like, “Well, Stephen, you don't need to... “ *I’M GONNA PREPARE* #GeeksGetPaid However, instead of me spending 10 hours each for my next five speeches… What if I just spent the time creating one webinar, took out the pieces, and I told it across different stages?!?! Of course, I'm gonna have to adapt it a little bit. I know it's probably NOT gonna fit perfectly… I can't just walk on to the last stage and just immediately start pitching! I'm still gonna have to have a little origin story and stuff like that… But I'm gonna make sure I do it in a way that I can lace together the speeches from the five different stages. It's gonna be sooo sick- I'm psyched about it. PULLING IT TOGETHER I don't have that long to speak at Carnegie Hall; I have two sessions that are like 25 minutes each. It's not that long and I get it, it's just an honor to be there. That event's called Living Legends - so I'm excited to even be called a ‘Living legend’ - that's REALLY honoring. So, 25 minutes is not really enough time for me to teach something in-depth meaty and juicy, which is what I'm kinda known for… I'll still teach something, but I'm selling me NOT an idea. Most people will have no idea who I am... I don't think Martha Stewart even knows that I'm breathing air right now ... and that's totally cool. So instead, what if I go and I actually sell them on me. So I might as well tell my origin story at Carnegie Hall. ...and then, I'll give some cool nuggets on how to create cool offers and sales funnels and stuff like that. BOSS CON Then the next event I’m psyched for is Rachel Pedersen's Boss Con Event. Hopefully, you’re going? I’m excited to see you there. My guess is I’ll probably share Secret #1 or #3 at Boss Con. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about when I say this… Secret #1 or Story #1 is told tell after the origin story and it’s all about the product itself. Secret #3 or Story #3 is all about external-based false beliefs that you have to break. I don't wanna get too deep in that here… But the whole point of this is, that I'm trying to find more patterns and places to tell use the presentation script… So I'm basically breaking up a presentation funnel script at tons of events and I'm gonna use that to launch a product I'm promoting. So, "Stephen, what products are you gonna promote?" I’m so glad you asked… 😉 YOUR ONLY ONE FUNNEL AWAY I love the One Funnel Away Challenge, and so I said… “Just so you know, ClickFunnels... I think I'm gonna go sell the One Funnel Away Challenge at Carrot Con." And they were like, "Cool, we’ve got some additional things we want you to test with that." Hopefully, I'm alright to say this…??? But ClickFunnels is sending a bunch of One Funnel Away boxes to Carrot Con for me so I can sell One Funnel Away, which is super cool. So understanding that I'm such a big proponent of One Funnel Away… ( I help teach a lot of the one funnel away challenge. I'm one of the coaches in the challenge.) … it puts me in a kind of a neat spot where I can actually create a webinar selling One Funnel Away by telling it over five different events. That’s *SICK* (in the modern sense)! I'm so excited about it, it's gonna be awesome. WORKING THE PERFECT PRESENTATION I guess the whole purpose of this episode is that it doesn't need to be an official ‘webinar’... You just need to understand the principles behind why the presentation script works so well. The presentation script tackles false beliefs in the order that the brain typically experiences any sale or decision. For example: When I decided to bike super far tonight, I actually went through the same process that I’d go through if I was buying something. First of all, my vehicle-based objection to the bike ride was... “My back tire is a little bit flat.” "Stephen, shut up! (Steve is talking to Stephen, the weak side of me) Go to a gas station and pump up the tire." And that's what I did. "Oh man, I don't know how far I can go.” “Don't worry about it, just set your Apple watch, Steve. Go ahead and press the button, and start moving.” “Oh, man. I don't know if I have enough energy to do that?" "That's okay, son. You got yourself some Keto from Pruvit, man." ...and that's what I did. Most decision-making happens in the process of the presentation script, not just sales. That's the purpose… that's what I'm trying to say in this episode. IT’S ALL SCRIPTED So, if you're like, "Man, I'm gonna go sell something. I don't have time to do a full-out perfect presentation funnel." Then *DON’T*... just take the idea behind it and lace it in these different places. Every single product that I'm selling right now has a perfect presentation funnel selling in front of it... at EVERY price point! It's NOT locked to a price point. It's NOT locked to info space. I use the perfect presentation script for EVERYTHING, it's magic. Probably three years ago, I realized that there was a hack to the game, and ALL I had to do was learn how to sell expensive things to people with money. That's it! Q: Guess what the best way to do that is? A: The perfect presentation funnel. Q: Guess what that means though? Guess where you can sell with it? A: *ANYWHERE* I was dropping voice mails on people's phones before OfferMind telling very brief two-minute stories to pre-frame their brains before they showed up. It's ALL scripted, baby! Every single little pause of my OfferMind speech. There was a lot of thought behind… What people are talking about. When the presentations were given during the day to break and rebuild false beliefs. The effect of All the presentations together. I love my craft, man, “Oink, baby. What's up? Oink.” I'm very prepared, I have never stepped on a stage unprepared. There have been many times that I’ve… Stayed up 'til 3 or 4 AM in order to prepare a speech. Slept a couple of hours. Given a speech. Then rested. It's that big of a deal to me to step on a stage prepared because there's a lot that goes into it. It's NOT about content, it's about beliefs and distribution. That's direct response marketing right there; beliefs and distribution - that's measurable. [chuckle] There it is, that's marketing. Anyway, and that's the latest way that I'm using the perfect presentation script. Alright, my friends, hopefully, you enjoyed the episode… ... and go do something freaky! #GetRich. #BOOM! SEE STEVE LIVE So several years ago, I walked by a stage in a basketball stadium. It was my college campus and I was deeply concerned with what I wanted to do in my life. For some reason, I looked at the stage and thought, "Huh, one day I wanna be on stage. I wanna be an entrepreneur and I wanna buy and sell companies." Well, while the last one hasn't happened ... *YET* (Muahaha)... stage and entrepreneurship have. And as my business has grown and my message has spread, a frequent question I'm asked is, "Steve, what stage will you be on next?" Now I totally get that this feels, maybe, a little conceited here... But considering my childhood fear of speaking up, being heard, extreme lack of self-confidence, and getting in front of people, back in my growing up days, I feel satisfied. I thought I'd tell you where I'll be in the world coming up. And funny enough, just literally go over to seestevelive.com, and it'll forward you to the next place. I love stage and it's one of my biggest things to look forward to in my current role in my business. From little 10 person masterminds all the way to gigantic 5000 person events - from free seats to paid events - events have always been one of the ways I can deliver the MOST value and get the greatest “AHA’s” in the shortest amount of time. Just come say hi, and go over to seestevelive.com. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands