Sales Funnel Radio

Easily, one of the biggest hurdles that people have to overcome right from the start is knowing what their business value will be.   Business value is measured in many ways, but starts with knowing the big problem you solve…   Today, I'm gonna teach you about My Core Problem Planner.   When I was young, I did a lot of backpacking with my Dad. He grew up on a farm and loves the outdoors, my whole family loves the outdoors.   We’d go camp out by creeks and streams and play in them. CANOEING AND GROWING BUSINESS Well, I remember coming back from one campout, I don't remember how we got on the topic, but my dad told me that MOST people will NOT actually do a lot of the things that they wanna do life because rather than go get them, they’ll wait for things to come to them…   It was a father-son moment that had a BIG impact on my brain. My Dad said:   “Look, Stephen, most people go through life as if they're in a canoe without a paddle. They're in a very slow moving river and because it's moving they feel progress in their life... and so they won't pick up the oar and start paddling.”   He told me:   “Most people will never pick up the oar that's already in the canoe and use it to start pushing in the direction they wanna to go.   Most people just wait for the current of life to take them different places. They will change because life is change, and they'll progress because life happens to them...   But very few are actually willing to pick up the freaking oar and do something with it.”   However, some people who DON’T even have an oar will get creative and grab a branch as they're floating down the river and break it off  and use it until they can find an oar or make one.”   That analogy has stuck in my head for a long time because it’s fascinating.   Very few people in this life are willing to actually pick up the oar and start moving.   ARE YOU PADDLING?   So when you think about the amount of competition that's out there, it's really it's NOT me versus EVERYONE. It's me versus the 20% of humanity who are actually trying to do stuff with their life… the people who are actually picking up the paddle!   Even then, MOST people don't understand anything about what I'm talking about...   So it's me versus maybe 10% of humanity... MOST of whom are NOT willing to experience the personal growth that's needed to actually launch stuff.   If you think about it this way, you’ll understand that the competition is really NOT very high... and that showing up is half the battle.   PLAY BIGGER?One of the biggest questions people ask when I'm coaching is:   “Stephen, I've got an idea... do you think this is the idea I should build a business around? Do you think this is where I should focus? I'm gonna go solve this. I'm gonna go do this. I'm gonna create this kinda value.”   The challenge is that we try to solve too many things at once.   The best businesses solve one major problem... and that's it.   One of my favorite books is called Play Bigger. It teaches that it's not about going out and saying I have the best solution, 'cause everybody's saying that…   It's about going out and saying, I can describe the problem that you are experiencing the best.   You lead with the problem NOT the solution.   If you watch a lot of the things that I do, that’s what I do. I read that book, and I was like, “What's up!”   It's all about being able to evangelize the problem that you solve and being able to describe it better than everybody else.   The book teaches that if you’re gonna create a business, you need to be able to articulate and teach the problem better than anyone else who's your competitor.   I love that book and a lot of you guys will probably go read it now ;-)   THE THIRD-GRADE PROBLEM   The basic premise of Play Bigger is that whoever articulates the problem the best; it's also assumed that that person has the best solution.   So if you're like, “Man, Stephen I'm gonna go solve a problem. I'm gonna go do this... I'm gonna do that…”     I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE SOLUTION!   I need you to look me in the eye and say, “Stephen, this is the problem that I'm solving,” and you need to be able to explain it so a third grader would be able to understand. *SERIOUSLY*   In the Army, they taught everything at a third-grade level... which was mind-numbing sometimes.. because that's the average education level of most people.    So, here’s what you need to do…   You need to be able to articulate at a third-grade level, the one problem that your business solves better than the rest of your competition BEFORE you ever even get into the solution!   *HEAR ME* I didn't say two problems, or three...ONE PROBLEM.   “Here’s what I solve... and this is the actual problem.”   NOT the solution, THE issue. You don’t need to worry about your stack,(“First you're gonna get this and this and this….” ), I'm not even talking about any of that.   That stuff will almost nearly take care of itself if you’re the best at describing the problem to a market.   WHAT’S YOUR CORE PROBLEM?   During the last OfferMind, one of the major things I wanted people to be able to work on was the core problem that they solve.   If you go to OfferMind.com you can join the waiting list for the next one. We're still figuring out a few of the dates, but I'd love to see you there. I'm trying to get some very famous people to keynote, and we're just playing with some dates. There's a great book I love called Rework. It teaches:   Can you have a hotdog stand without relish? Yeah, absolutely.   Can you have a hotdog stand without sodas and drinks? Absolutely!   You can (technically) have a hotdog stand without hotdog buns.   BUT…   You can't have a hotdog stand without a hotdog... right?     If you're thinking, “...where's this going?”   What I love about this example is that it teaches that there’s:   A core to every single one of our businesses and we must be able to know what that core is.   You need to be able to say:   “Hey, look, I'm gonna focus 80% of my attention on the core revenue generating activity in my business.”   ...But that means NOTHING if it’s NOT solving the core problem.   THAT’S WHY I CALL IT YOUR CORE OFFER.   Some people call it the purple offer, (I called it that for a little bit too), but the real name I’ve given it is “Your Core Offer.”   THE CORE OF YOUR BUSINESS   Here it is… A Core Problem = which you should be able to articulate better than EVERYBODY else.   A Core Solution = the actual core of your offer.   These two separate things are the core of your business. The rest of the things in the value ladder are expansions and contractions on the exact same idea.   I want you guys to think through your core problem.   I’m gonna walk you through my process as I did it at  OfferMind. Grab a pen and paper because I’m gonna help you find:   The ONE problem to build your business around. The ONE problem to lead within your marketing message.     HOW TO FIND YOUR CORE OFFER   It's not that you can't help in other areas, but there's one core problem you need to solve. *Just one*   I'm gonna list out all these problems.   I'm gonna rank them on how well can I evangelize that problem.   What is the likely revenue of that problem if I solve it?   How many customers are there likely to be from that red ocean who'd be interested in coming over to a blue if I was to articulate that problem the best?   Are people seeing this problem easily? (If they aren’t, that's not a bad thing... you can't unsee a problem once I've seen it.)   FOR EXAMPLE:   I didn't realize how much of a problem it was to go pick up food until Ubereats came out. You know what I'm saying? (That's one of the stories in Play Bigger)   I didn't realize how much of an issue it was for me to have to stand out on a sidewalk and raise my hand out for a taxi until Uber came out.   Uber articulated the problem that we didn't know we had.   That's one of the major keys to choosing the core problem that you solve.   What I'm trying to do is help you understand that there are a few key pillars that will give you clarity in your business... so that you can move forward and say:   This is what I solve.   This is the problem.   This is the core of my business.   I know exactly who I'm talking to and who I'm NOT talking to.   These are the price points that they love.   So that you can actually have a successful business.   I spent the first several years running around trying stuff like a headless chicken. I couldn't tell you what I did...   I couldn't tell you what problem I was solving. There was just crazy noise!   If you don't know the problem you're solving … if you don't know what model you're following ... and if you're not finding ways to increase your speed...   That’s the formula for noise in your head. THE INNOVATOR’S DILEMMA   There’s a book called The Innovator's Dilemma which says:   Markets that do not exist cannot be analyzed.   If I'm creating a blue ocean, how can I design every element of a blue ocean? I can't. It doesn't exist!   So when people are like, “I'm gonna make this. I'm gonna make this. My new opportunities gonna be this. My product’s this. My business is gonna be this.”   I’m like, “You're guessing. YOU don't represent your market.”   Suppliers and customers must discover them together.   So there's an element of design by listening to the market, and there's an element of this of doing it on your own.   DISCOVERING THE UNKNOWABLE   You can't know how to make a blue out of your own head. That's why I say that you’ve gotta understand this is way easier when you just take the decision making out of your own head and get past your opinions.   Not only are the market applications for disruptive technologies unknown at the time of their development, they are unknowable.   If it’s based on your own opinion, don't sell it.   You’ve gotta understand the core problem that you solve.   If you can articulate the problem well, then people assume that you know how to solve it.   SO…   An Innovator's Dilemma: Design the core offer with the customer.  I'm NOT gonna design it on my own. I’ll design the offer with the customer.   Play Bigger says: Articulate the problem better than anyone else and it's assumed you have the best solution.   You can use these two principles to help build your Blue Ocean Scaffolding.   Let me introduce you to…   THE CORE PROBLEM PLANNER   First, I need you to understand that there is a core problem that you will be solving.   There are multiple kinds of offer creation. Most people know me for my purple offer creation method, but there are actually several ways to create an offer…   But the one everyone should be focusing on first is what I call The Core Offer. It’s an offer creation method where you bring your dream customers along with you, and they help you make and birth a blue ocean.   In order to make a Core Offer, we need to solve a Core Problem.   The journey starts with YOU understanding the problem that you solve.   To do this, I use my Core Problem Planner:   Until you understand what you're solving it doesn't matter what you create.   If you’re intimately understanding the person's brain and the objections that they have. (Vehicle, Internal External), then you'll start to see the problems.   You'll know it’s a problem because it'll be a problem. However...   Not all problems are created equal.   RANKING PROBLEMS   You use the Core Problem Planner to help you rank problems. At this stage, I'm looking for a problem that fits several criteria and this is one of the easiest ways for you to actually create a Blue Ocean.   Don't try and solve every problem your customers have. You're gonna die…   I'm NOT trying to solve all problems. I'm trying to solve a core problem with a core offer.   We're gonna figure out the core problem and make an offer and a solution just for that ONE problem.   Here’s how it works:   STAGE #1: LIST PROBLEMS   Does your dream red ocean customer have a problem with (identify your own problems here):   Traffic.   The actual Funnel.   The Offer.   Marketing.   Publishing. When you’ve identified those problems, i.e,   The red ocean sucks at this...   The red ocean problem is...   The red ocean customer can't …   You move on to…   STAGE #2: THE CORE SOLUTION   Start brainstorming how could you solve those problems?   Figure out creative ways that you could actually, truly solve those problems. This is how I figure out what to make... and what’s secure and lucrative at the same time.   STAGE #3: EVANGELIZE THE PROBLEM   Third row down, I'm ranking my ability to evangelize the problem.   This is a core piece moving forward…   If you have a hard time explaining the problem that you solve, people are NOT gonna assume you have the solution.   So I wanna rank which of the red ocean problems I discovered is the easiest for me to evangelize about… that could be on my podcast or when I'm talking to people.   If I'm being interviewed by other people and they're like, “What is it you do?” And I'm like, “BAM!” That's exactly it.   I'm looking for something that's easy for me to put on a banner, or put on a T-shirt.   Because *REMEMBER*…   NOT all problems are created equal. I'm not trying to solve all the problems; just the one core true legitimate issue that they have that matches my ability to actually go and evangelize about it.   STAGE #4: HEALTH/ WEALTH/ RELATIONSHIPS?   Moving to the final row, I'm looking to see if solving my Core Problem will deliver Health, Wealth, or Relationships in a BIG way.   Health, Wealth, or Relationships is the product. My product's NOT the product. Health, Wealth or Relationships are the things that your dream customer actually want the most. THE MAGIC COMBINATION   In order to pick the ONE the Red Ocean Problem that I’m gonna solve, I look for the cool combination of:   Solving the problem   My ability to evangelize about the it.   Delivers health/wealth/happiness in a BIG way   I'm looking for a core problem to solve that hits these multiple criteria. For years, I walked around thinking, “What do I sell? What do I sell? What do I sell? What do I sell?”   Then I switched to, “Who do I wanna serve? Who do I wanna serve? Who do I wanna serve? Who do I wanna serve?”   Then it was what are the problems? Like “Whoa, they have a lot of problems.”   I was like which problem do I wanna go attack? Which problem do I wanna attach myself to?   But now I know that NOT all problems are created equal, so then this is how I actually started figuring out what’d be good for me to sell.   Until Next Time… Viva Capitalist Pigs!   The biggest question I struggled with for years and easily the biggest question I'm asked by the thousands of people I've coached in this process is, “Stephen, what should I sell?”   If you've been listening to my podcast you have probably had that question, right?   After thousands of coaching students and sheer obsession in the game, I started noticing that there was a strong but untaught pattern of how I was selling successfully and over and over again.   It honestly took me about 17 business tries or failures honestly to figure this out and to get one right. Since then though, they've pretty much all been winners. So what changed?   What changed? I learned the pattern. I learned the framework.   Secretly for the last nine months, I've been working to document my process and refine it even further... and it's worked very well.   My book will teach you how to design the core offer of your business and a winning sales message that sells it.   Did you hear what I just said?   That's a huge claim and I totally get it, but this will help you actually figure out what you sell and how to sell it.   It's a process I've been using now for about three years for myself and my students.   If you wanna learn the framework, this pattern, the formula for yourself, go get my book at yourcoreoffer.com. It's free, just cover the shipping, at yourcoreoffer.com. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

I KNOW this is how and why my business blew up so fast. The answer isn't what you think but I was careful to continue this practice each and every week for the last 3 years…   Today, I'm gonna teach you the most legitimate path I know to become an expert.   There’s a question that’s starting to come up more frequently when I jump on interviews with people, and that question is: “Steve, how do I become an expert?”   I believe that if you seek to become an expert, that can sometimes lead to some weird scenarios.   Someone taught me once:   If you want status, then don't seek it. If you want credit, don't seek it.   And that's kinda the formula I follow, I’ll explain more later...   However, there is a path that you can follow that’ll shortcut your journey to expert... if you have the right intention. BECOME AN EXPERT     I really don't read as many books as I think people think that I do, but there’s something very specific that I do, pretty much every week, which keeps me sharp... and keeps me on my game.   In my mind, it’s also the most legitimate path to becoming an expert in whatever you're doing.   I'm NOT saying you have to become an expert. You don't! But if you want to, this is how you can fast-track, establish credibility and gain expert status without having to learn, read, study, and deep-dive 24/7.   ...And it’s why my stuff has blown up so much in the last two years! COACH STEVE   I coach a ton! You probably have no idea how much.   Every Friday, I wake up and do two hours of open mic Q&A with the Two Comma Club Coaching group. Specifically, I'm coaching them on their offers and their sales messages.   At 11:00 am, I immediately jump on the One Funnel Away Challenge Where I do almost another hour of coaching.   Two Comma Club Coaching is usually for slightly more advanced people whereas the One Funnel away is targeted at newbies. After that, at 12 pm, I go live with my MLM group (Secret MLM Hacks) where I typically coach a newer person to funnels. Which is fun.     At 1:00 pm, I have about an hours break, and at 2 pm, I go live again to my OfferLab group, and then, sometimes, I'll go back to my FB page and so another open mic   Every single Friday is at least five hours of coaching almost non-stop.   I’ve spent a lot of time coaching people!   It’s one of the ways that I got so good, so fast. Sometimes, when I say that, I think people are like, “Oh, that's cute!”  But, NO!   I spend as much time as possible with my customers.   GET a coach and BE a coach is how I've advanced so fast! I know that's the reason.   YOUR PATH TO SUCCESS   So if you're like, “Hey, how do I get better at my craft?” The answer is, you need to spend MORE time teaching your thing. I don't care if you’re in info products, B2B, or retail...   Drop every book and just coach people...  and you’ll be guided to what it is that you need to get done.   When I first started the Two Comma Club Coaching, I did live open mic Q&A for four hours every single Friday for a year and a half. I was the only coach, with 675 students   Do you know how good you get when you coach that often... and when you're answering questions throughout the week too?   If you want to get good real fast stop burying your head in a book and just answer people’s questions. Just add value.   I don't read that many books... but that's NOT a badge of honor.   I read books and I listen to podcasts with the intent to hunt answers. But when I want to get better and more fine-tuned on my craft, I coach!   That's the BIG Secret... There’s NO secret!   HOW TO ESTABLISH CREDIBILITY   l have people come and ask me, “What are the top books you’ve read?” I’m like, “I could tell you that... but at what cost?”   If you're reading with the intention to distract yourself from actually spending time with your customers, it's gonna be an issue.   It's gonna be a major, major issue.   When I feel that I'm starting to lose my edge,  the thing I'll run to is coaching. I'll spend MORE time on ground-level with people who have questions.   ....And because of that, Russell ‘the man’ has told me many times, “Stephen, you have spent more time with the customer at the ground floor than anyone else.”   Guys, that's how I've gotten the edge. That's how I've gotten where I am! I know that's exactly the reason why!   So, if you...   Want to get better?   Want to go faster?   Want to add more value?   Want to get known?   *ANSWER QUESTIONS* That's it!   JUST DO IT   Set a time every single week to go live in front of your group. Say, “Hey, I'm here because Steve Larsen told me I should answer more of your questions. What are your questions?”     ...Just have people ask their questions.   Do you know how easy it is for me to figure out what to sell when I answer a lot of questions? The image comes clear really fast. It's actually faster, and in my mind, more effective than an Ask campaign.   I start to see that twenty people are asking something similar... “Huh! What if I made a product about that?”   You know what I'm saying?   It’s waaay easier, MORE secure, and it helps like crazy… and it makes YOU better.   If you don't know the answer, just say, “I don't know the answer.” And go figure it out!  If you think you might have an idea of what the answer might be... just be honest.   CHARACTERISTIC OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP   One of the sessions I did on the Two Comma Club Cruise was all about  how the red ocean builds the blue, and how your red ocean helps decide what you build in your blue ocean! It’s fascinating.   As I was talking a lot of questions started popping up...   Over the last three years, I've spent literally hundreds of hours coaching … (It's probably near the thousand-hour level now).   The core of my business is content and coaching.   One of the things that I’ve got good at seeing is, “Does this person actually have a question about this... or are they asking me a question because they want me to make decisions for them?”   Identifying that split is what’s made my coaching so effective in the last six months.   I have to help that person's brain to understand the issue in the exact same way as if I'm selling a product to somebody...   When you sell a product there’s a series of beliefs and belief gates they have to walk through... and they're sequential.   THE VEHICLE: Once they understand, “Oh, my gosh, there's a possibility this vehicle could work.”   INTERNAL BELIEFS: I’m able to pull this off.”   EXTERNAL BELIEFS: I have the resources (external) to get where this vehicle is promising I should go.”   As I watch the questions that people ask, I'm asking myself these questions:   Does the question represent a hang-up?   Is that person trying to get me to answer something for them that they should have the power to answer on their own?   Is it a legitimate question?   ARE YOU SCARED?Most of the time, I find that people have enough knowledge in their noggin' to be able to go answer the question on their own.   They know enough to answer the question... or at least take the next step.   So, is the question   Seeking a Distraction - so they don't have to take action?   Legitimate?   If I can tell an individual is seeking distraction for the sake of NOT having to take action, I know that I need to work them through vehicle, internal, and external beliefs in themselves before moving forward!   If I can tell they're asking the question because they want:   Distraction,   The semblance of motion.   To feel that they’re making progress in something.   To just ask the next thing... and the next thing. I know that there's a little bit of a dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins hit with me answering their questions.   This is BIG to understand.   ...Because, once you understand you’re ask questions for the sake of feeling momentum, then you can also know that the truth is:   You know what you want to do.   You know what you’re supposed to do.   You know enough to take action     ... BUT you’re scared, and you don't want to move forward.   To avoid this fear, you distract yourself with further education that you really don't need right now… “Stephen, I have a few questions!”   You see what I'm saying?   It’s a HUGE deal.   ARE YOU SEEKING DISTRACTION?   So when someone asks me,  “Stephen, how do you send an email?” I'm like, “Do you really have a question on how to send an email… or could you figure that out on your own... and you're just trying to distract yourself?”   YOU NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AND SHOW UP FOR YOURSELF!   THIS PISSES ME OFF!   Part of my content strategy is to do interviews every Tuesday morning. I don't care if your a newbie and I'm your first episode... or if you’re experienced, and I'm the next up…      I set up InterviewSteve.com because I get interview requests a lot. If you want to have me on your show, you can jump on and set a time in my calendar.   But, if you set it up, show up... because I'm going to. But will you?   I’ve been stood up two times in a row recently because people said, “I'm NOT ready yet.”  That drives me up the freaking wall! I can't even tell you.   I’m a Time Nazi.   It's one of the reasons why I am where I am. I'm NOT saying I don't take breaks, but I'm a freakin’ Time Nazi, man!   When someone messages me the night before... or five minutes before the appointment... (or they just don't show up)...  And they're like, “Stephen, I'm not ready yet!” I wanna shout, “Get ready, why'd you sign up! What are you doing!”   Coulton's like, “Yeah, man, it’s been shown that it takes  someone 20 minutes to switch tasks efficiently!”   It drives me nuts!  So I did this...   So if you want me to be on your show I'm happy to do it... BUT Show Up!   I'm all jazzed up. I got everything set up. I got my little Diva light, I'm ready to rock! There's a mental prep that goes on…   So, here's how you get ready:   You take Expert Secrets, and you open up to Page 114.   It's called the Epiphany Bridge Script. There are your questions! That's all it takes! Ready! Okay, there we go! You know.   Oh, man, I can't tell you how much it pisses me off when I get stood up!   I get it because it's booked out quite a way in advance. So people signup just out of the fear and the scarcity of, “I'm never gonna be able to interview Steven.”   ...And then they DON’T show up. “Man, I am so much less likely to get on an interview with you in the future if you do that to me.” I’m a pretty chill dude. I'm aggressive, but I'm chill; it's a cool combo. “ BUT, set me off... my eyes gonna twitch. I'm gonna go nuts!   JUST GOOGLE IT!   I’m always looking for the split between legitimate questions  and distraction questions:   If someone asks me EVER again, “Stephen, how do I add funnel?”   Click add funnel, baby, it's right there! Add funnel, you just click it! You know what I mean? You have got to learn how to answer questions on our own! That's the name of the game, my friends.   Welcome to Entrepreneurship! You’re gonna have questions all the time…   Yeah, duh, we all do!   How many times do I wake up and NOT know what I'm supposed to be doing that day? It happens more frequently to entrepreneurs than most people probably know.   Anyway, back to my no-shows…   Instead of totally wasting my time I hopped in my FB Group and did an open mic Q&A to answer some legitimate questions   SOME LEGITIMATE QUESTIONS Sonia asked: How to tell the difference between a distraction-based question versus a real question?   Steve: Usually, by the follow-up questions... they're trying to find a way to logically release themselves from having to do what the answer was.   Meaning, if someone's like, “Stephen, how do I add a funnel?” I'm like, “Well, what you're gonna do is click add funnel.”  If they say, “Okay, I get that, but what if it's a Tuesday, and I don't have any time?”   I'm like, “First of all, that's NOT for me to solve. Pony up, and make some time in your life.”     Number two: They’re trying to figure out how to logically release yourself from the pressure of taking action. They want release. ...And so, if somebody starts asking me questions where I can see they're trying to release themselves from the positive pressure of taking action, that's when I'm gonna call  them out:   “Something's up? Why are you not taking my answer?”   Why are you backpedaling? Why are you trying to get me to say, “Oh, you know what, in your scenario, you're right, you don't click add funnel?”   They want me to give them permission to not take action, and I will NOT do that.   It's part of what's made me a very forward coach, and sometimes, people don't like that... whatever! I don't care. I'm about getting people results!   FB COMMENT: Hey, Stephen, you keep me motivated and moving forward.   STEVE: Awesome, that's great. Just make sure you turn it into discipline, motivation is nothing.   FB COMMENT: What do you do when you don't know what to do next? That is a legitimate question. Does that even happen to you? You always look like you have everything completely figured out.   STEVE: One of my little tactics is to stay booked up as much as I can. I know that a percentage of the activities I'm doing right now may NOT be what I'm wanting to do 20 years from now.   I set my goals, and then I map out as best I can, the things that I think are gonna take me there. And then, I act! I just run…   I had 17 businesses that were failures. Now, number 18 would NOT have been a success unless I had done those other 17 first.   On the flip-side, thank goodness those 17 tries did not work!   .Otherwise, I'd be doing those businesses. You see what I'm saying? All of those things prepared me for the thing that was coming with number 18. BAM!   So, there are two things going on in my head.   I just have to book myself and just run, and do stuff. Just take action! Big, Massive Action.   In the last six months have I gotten good at,  “Okay, only these activities will take me to where I want to go.” However,  I still know that there are things I'm doing that I shouldn't be... or that things that don't take me where I'm trying to go. So I have a few options:   Stress the freak out over every single action I take. Oh, my gosh, that gets so stressful.   Just do stuff.   So sometimes, especially when I was just starting out, (not so much anymore)….but a year ago, there were many times I woke up and was like, “I have no idea what to do next?”     ...And that can be stressful.   RED DOT, GREEN DOT   So I think to myself, “What’s the next move I can make that makes money?”   Just that one question.   What is the next path to cash and how do I get there? Then I list out all those things.   And then I'll list out all of the things that I think I need to do to make money, and I put a big green dot next to the things that are massive revenue generating, but mentally taxing (like building a funnel, writing a sales script).   Then I'll put a small green dot next to the things that are revenue generating, but not as revenue generating in the moment, or are mentally taxing (like creating a relationship). It can make money, but not at the moment.   Next, I put a big red dot next to the things that are not revenue generating. Then I erase all of the red dot tasks.   I do the big green dots during the time of the day when my brain is most fresh... which for me, is usually 7:00 a.m. to about 1:00 p.m.   Even if I stay up late, I have a hard time sleeping past seven. My brain just wakes up... so I'm gonna do the big green dots during that time of the day.   I focus on the small green dots during the rest of the day...   And I will NEVER do a red dot.   A business that’s NOT revenue focused dies.   As the entrepreneur, I'm the only one who cares about my business in the way that I do. That's just the way it is. There's nothing wrong with that, that's just the way it is. It's your baby, don't expect it to be someone else's baby.   I'm the only one responsible, the buck stops with me on making a buck.   The buck stops with me on moving forward. The buck stops with me on going and getting the new client. I can go get closers. I can go get phone people. I can go get funnel builders. But, it's ultimately down to me if something does or does not happen in my business.   So I answer the questions:   How do I serve?   How does it make money?   Once I figure that out and I do red dot/green dot, and that helps like crazy.   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

How Much Should You Charge?   Q: How many of you guys get stuck on the pricing?   I totally get it. It’s always like, “Man, what do I charge? I’ve got this sweet core offer, what do I charge? Look at all this value… what do I charge for it?”   As I'm Funnel Hacking the message and the offer, I'm also looking at price points.   I'm looking to see:   What’s everybody else charging?   What price points have the successful sellers proved?   Because…   The path is already paved.  You've just gotta follow it!   FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD It’s like Dorothy and The Yellow Brick Road. You just follow the proven price points that people already buying and then... (I’ll tell you in a moment… keep reading).   It's great…  because a lot of the decisions are NOT even up to you.   You just have to know your Red Ocean:   Talk to sellers   Get really intimate with the buyers   ... And then, BAM! 80% of your decision making comes from other people.   MY FRAMEWORK   I look to see historical price points.   I might see:   $97   $147   Someone at $127     A cheapo who's afraid to charge money and has a lot of internal hangups... they only sell for $47     I had money hang-ups for a long time too. That's why my first product was $127. I was afraid to charge more money.   You might find someone's who’s like, “Oh, I'm gonna be the $297 person.   BUT... most people will be kinda in the mid-range, between $97-$127.   I'm like, “Hmm... If I’m really cheap I won’t be able to spend much on ads and still cover my cost of goods.”   You look at all the historical price points, and then if you can't be super cheap... *Be Really Expensive* You need to figure out: “How can to be premium?”   For example:   If there's only one guy selling at $297, then I want to go that little bit higher, “Hmm, what if I sell at $347?”   ...Then I justify the premium price point by creating an offer   If I can't be really cheap, I need to figure out how can over-deliver and out-deliver everybody else inside of that market   WHY PREMIUM PRICE POINTS WORK…   Not all industries are gonna have a mid-tier $1,000 offer, but that's very common in the info product model. There’ll be multiple price areas in different industries… so you need to check yours out.   If you see a house for $1000 you probably shouldn't buy it, right? You know what I mean…   There’s probably something wrong with it, right?   So you need to see what the price categories are in your Red Ocean.   What are the:   Really high price point   Medium price point   Low price point   Historical price points   ... And then you can look to see how you can be just a little bit premium.   For my business, I want the name. I want the reputation.   I don’t want people saying, “ It's like only like $4 for the house. There’s gotta be a catch!”   Because there's an interesting thing that happens with price, let me explain...   THE $5,000 LAMBO   Do you own a Lamborghini?   I keep making fun of Lamborghini’s. I think they're super awesome. But... if it's NOT yours don't go take a picture and act like it is... that's all ;-)   If you do own a Lamborghini, I think you're cool.  I'm not making fun of them.   Anyway, let's say that you want a super cool car.  Say a Lamborghini. Or a Ferrari.  I'm bad at cars. What's a cool car? A Batmobile, *Definitely*   I'm NOT a car or a sports person at all.   So let's say you go to a Lamborghini store and you're like, “I’ve been saving up for this Lamborghini forever. It is my dream!”   You walk in, and the salesman is awesome and you go for a test drive:    “Imagine what it'll be like taking your spouse out in this car…”   The salesman is putting you into an emotional state of anticipation:   What will it be like?   How will people look at you?   They’re playing with your identity.   You start thinking, “Oh man, this is gonna be so cool. I can’t wait. This car is soooo me!”   Subconsciously, that’s the game that’s going on...   Just as you’re getting out your wallet to buy, the salesman comes over and says, “Dude, I got something so special for you. It's so awesome. We’ve decided that we will give this new Lamborghini to you for only $5,000.”   What’s Your Reaction?   Yeah. EXACTLY! “What's wrong with it?”   Suddenly you start to feel different about the car. You're like, “Is this crappy? Is there an engine? What's wrong with this car? Am I just buying tires and a frame… What's going on?”   BUYING AN  EXPERIENCE   I'm trying to help you understand that you do the same thing to your customers when you go too cheap on price. Stop going cheap, a lot of 'em don't want cheap.   I don't want cheap when I buy certain things now. I'm like, “Give me *REAL* expensive. I want the best experience that I can get.”   Your customer is buying an experience   So when I look at different price ranges, if it's NOT the super obvious low thing, almost always I'm gonna go as expensive as possible and just add experiences into the offer.   So as far as pricing models go, Man, beware of selling the $5,000 Lambo. l look at the price point and think, “Okay, I'm a little bit premium... great!” I don't wanna be the $5,000 Lambo. There's no identity status increase when someone buys a $5,000 Lambo.   Everyone's gonna look at you and be like, “You're an idiot! What’s wrong with it?”   A lot of people buy brands just so they can say, “Uh yeah, I bought this really cool car. It’s a Lambo.”   It's not cool that you bought a car. It's cool that you bought a Lambo.   People wanna be able to do that when they buy your products as part of reselling themselves post-purchase and selling others; so don't rob 'em of the experience.   Price can actually be a BIG part of that status experience, but most people run to discounting price.   SEE YOUR VALUE   Because you’re an expert at what you do, you probably DON’T see the value of what you offer, and then you discount, discount, discount… *STOP*   A guy came to do some work on our house. He said, “Man, I'm sorry we gotta fix this electrical outlet. It's gonna be $100.”   I was like, “That's totally worth it to me. I have no idea how to do electrical work and will not die over $100, fix it for 100 bucks. You want $200? Sweet”   You have to understand that your perception of price is NOT their perception of the value.   That's a good one. Bam! Lemme say it again so it sinks in:   Your perception of the price is NOT their perception of the value.   That's the whole point.   ...And when your natural knee-jerk reaction is to discount price because you're afraid, you're in your own head.   You're valuing it from your side. That's NOT how your customer values it.   I have no idea how to do a lot of handyman work. So I'll pay a lot of money so I don't even have to think about it. So charge MORE money. STATUS INCREASEHave you ever bought something that you're NOT really proud of buying?   A lot of times it's because there wasn't a status increase included with the purchase…   Maybe it was really cheap and you're like, “Yeah, I just went the cheapest option... I know…”  You try and save face that way, (which is actually a way to increase your status too). You get MORE status increase when a person’s like, “I bought my dream car! Let me post pictures all over the place.” They want that status increase.   Understand that that's how the game's actually played.   What's the value to the other person?     Value does not mean dollars. It doesn't.   It means:   Solved Problems   Identity   New Beliefs.   ...It means buying the Lamborghini *full price* ;-)   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 also, 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 also 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’re 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

  Today, I'm gonna to tell you about my very favorite book… *Spoiler Alert* … it’s NOT one of Russell’s ;-)   There's a really important lesson that goes along with this… so make sure you don’t skip any of this… or you won’t get the payoff.   I'm psyched to tell you about this book... because it literally transformed my life.   I've only ever shared the story of why this book is so powerful and important in a few select places. At OfferMind (my own event right back in November...  you guys can get tickets now at offermind.com),  I finally recorded the strange story of how this impactful book came into my life.     … so, y'all ready?   THE TWO VOICES   The game's hard for a while, right? You're proving yourself to... life, existence, God, the universe, the market, EVERYBODY…   You’ve decide,  "I want this cool thing? Sweet!”   Then, for a while, the path tends to be:   Objection   Objection   Objection   Constraint   Constraint   Constraint   ...Right?   If you’re at that stage don’t worry about it. Start publishing about your journey… ‘cause funnily enough, those are the things that people will follow you for.   For me, it was around business try #8... that was the time when things started to get me down. It was rough, man!     I was one of the only people in the entire world,  besides Russell, that I even knew who was doing this... and he didn't know who I was.   I didn't know how to describe what I was doing to other people well. So it kinda got lonely.   Crap was kinda hitting the fan for me mentally.   I was trying to stay true my mission, but I had two voices in my head:     I know it's there. This is going to be super. I just need to keep going.     But man, am I just being stubborn? Should I get a job?     ...You know what I mean?   There was this conflict back and forth: “Is it really there... or am I just believing in a mirage?” And that's when a lot of the self-doubt started to creep in…   MARRY THE PROCESS   Although things were still tough, there was this moment where I started learning enough that I would kinda get in fights with my marketing professors...   And for whatever reason, at that moment, things started turning for me.   When you declare what you want and start walking towards it, things begin to conspire for you.   It doesn’t mean that there won’t be opposition... but most people aren't even willing to declare what they want publicly, in a big enough for things to conspire in the first place.   Declare your intent and stuff will begin to happen for you, and for your sake... I believe it's God. That moment had NOT quite happened yet for me, but it was close.   89 CENT BEAN BURRITOS...   I was sucking it up on several different business attempts, and life was really challenging.   I was:   Broke   In the Army   Studying in College   Married   A father   It was a lot...   My wife and I, would go to like a Taco Bell, or somewhere like that for our date nights because 89 cent bean burritos were all we could afford. It was fun…     But it was extremely humbling... and a constant reminder of what I wasn't.   Papa Larsen realness coming out here...   As I started trying my next business, I was excited. I told Princess Babe (my gorgeous wife) about it... and she wanted to believe in me.   But it was challenging…   And when she asked, "Is this the one?"   On the outside, I was, "Yeah, babe. I'm your man. I will provide." But I wasn't providing at all. We were living off loans, and it was really tough.   Then one day, EVERYTHING changed...   THE MAN   It was a grey rainy day, and I’d just finished the most boring class on earth, #Quantitative Economics... Man, it sucked!     As I walked to my next class my head was full of doubts and questions:   Crap, is this the one?       I wanna feel like a man.       I wanna provide.       I wanna be her man.       Am I good enough for this?       Maybe I’m NOT good enough.?       Maybe I should go get a job?       But $8 an hour won’t pay the bills.       Should we keep living on loans?     All these doubts and questions were running through my head… the noise was intense.   Have you ever have felt the noise? It was like, "Shut up… I can do it… but am I psycho?"...       Is this the one?     I don't know if this is going to work? “I don't either.”   Let's put money on it. "Are you serious?"   Let's go get money for ads! “What? We can barely eat…” A lot of my passion comes from this situation because I know a lot of guys are still there... and I want to get you through it.   All these voices were competing in my head as I walked. Suddenly, I see an old gentleman (who I'd never seen before) sitting on a park bench. It had just stopped raining... and (super-cheesy straight out of a frickin movie), the clouds part...   He was sitting on the bench reading a book, and the dude was just wearing wealth. Just so filthy freakin’ rich. You could just tell.   I'm still some way off when a limo pulls up in front of him.   This dude with an unnaturally straight posture gets out of the car, walks around the front, opens the car door, and does a little half-bow…   I was starting to get a little bit closer now…   The older gentleman stands up, and they exchange looks. You could tell they knew each other. Maybe he's been his driver for a while... I don't know, but I know there’s a history.   They exchange a few words, then the older gentleman starts to get into the limo…   By this time I'm getting pretty close..,   And as the driver starts to close the limo door, something in me, out of sheer desperation, made me run…   I ran ‘cos I wanted it.   I ran full speed and slammed my hand in the door right before it closed... which hurt...I wanted him to know I was there.   I was like, "Hey, what's up? I know you don't know me". Then I asked, "How did you get this? I'm sure you get asked it a lot. How did you get all this?".   Once he realized that I wasn't going to hurt him, he stopped, looked me straight in the eye, and said, "Yes, a lot of people ask me that".   I said, "How do you do it? It's not that I'm not trying... I'm launching, I'm doing the stuff. What is wrong? Other people have success and I'm don’t. I'm the variable. What is wrong with me? What is it?"   He looked at me for a moment, then he reached down, and handed me a book. Then he said, "Read this".   It was the book that he’d been reading on the bench before the car pulled up.   He said, "If you will read this for 20 minutes every day... and then spend the next 40 applying it, you will not recognize your life in two years."   I was like, "That's super random... the clouds parted. Maybe that was a message?” It was so cool.   So I spent the next year; 20 minutes reading the book, 40 minutes applying. 20 minutes reading, 40 minutes applying... I spent the whole year like that.   And, in one year, just as he promised, stuff started happening in my life.   I stopped looking at the clock and I stopped judging my self-worth based on how fast that guy or this lady achieved success.   I stopped looking at the clock, and I just put my head down.   After that day, I didn’t see him again for quite some time… That was four years ago!   Four years ago, he handed me the book and drove off.   MY GIFT TO YOU   Since being in Russell's world, I have a lot more connections... my Rolodex has grown a lot, and eventually, I managed to trace the guy who so generously changed my life with that one book.   I reached out, and said, "Hey man, just so you know, that was a huge deal to me".   Since then, we’ve been in communication quite a bit now, which is really fun, and when I told him my story he said that I could give each reader of my blog a copy of his book... which is really exciting. I know right? It's awesome!   I’m a very slow reader, so I asked if I was licensed to read and record the book. He said, “Yes.”   So I have:   An Audiobook for you   A Checklist so you guys can make sure that you're implementing correctly.   Since then, he and I have gained quite a relationship and he wants to do a private event in about six months from now.   It's going to be in his house, so it’s ONLY OPEN to 20 people.   It’ll be an event with him and me where we'll actually apply EVERYTHING you learned from the book.   It's gonna be in 6 months from now; so that you’ll have time to read the book and follow the checklist. Sound good?   So you guys get the:   Book   Audiobook   Checklist   Opportunity to attend a private event for 20   Sound good?   Who's ready to buy something?     BUT FIRST, SOME QUESTIONS… (...and a confession)   What did I just do with your emotions there?     Do You want the book?     By the way…   That's all fake. I’ve read that book in my life. It’s just a random one off my shelf.   THE MORAL OF THE STORY   Q:  Why do you want the book?   A: *THE STORY*   Everything about how you sell has everything to do with the story you tell.   All of that was FAKE...   But when I told the story at OfferMind, and asked: “Who wants the book?” Even people who’d heard the story before raised their hand.   Let me ask you…   Q: Did you feel more of a connection to my wife because of that fake story?   Interesting, isn't it? The power of story is a huge deal. All of that was fake. None of that happened, but yet you probably felt a connection   Q: What about the story makes it so impactful?   A: I painted your exact situation.   Q: How did I know that?   A: Because I've been there... I know my red ocean customer. I know you. I know the stories you've been in. I know the scenarios you're in. A lot of it is because I've been there as well.   If you understand your red ocean it allows you to craft a story for your sales that connects emotionally with your ideal customer.   A purple sales message Did I talk about the chapters in the book? No! But people still wanted it.   Too many people are like, "Oh, I gotta build this last feature in my offer to make it sell”.  No! That's NOT what makes it sell.   The sales message is what sells. It has nothing to do with the product. It's all about the story selling. Story is the sales mechanism. The product just fulfills on its promise.   That's what’ll make you scratch the itch and go:   "Oh my gosh, I remember that chapter he talked about". Even though I didn't.   "Oh, this chapter is amazing. I remember the backstory. I wonder if this is what he was reading on the bench?"  Even though I didn’t mention that at all   You begin to romanticize certain elements of the product.   So when you see the product for the first time, you're like, "I know the backstory behind this feature. I know why this was such a big deal".   It is one of the most common things that I run into when I'm coaching people... "Steve, I haven't launched yet, because my product's not done"... *WRONG*   It has nothing to do with the product.   STORY SELLING   We often use product development as a logical excuse, (although it is NOT), for why we haven't launched. It's, “How I can sell something that isn't yet made?”   Take the money. It's NOT bait and switch. Your customer knows the product isn’t  made yet... and then, once the market has voted with their wallet, then you go make it.   I call this the purple sales message... the power of it is that you’re able to test a whole bunch of stories that allow you to make your product with security rather than risk…   Don’t want to spend 8 months building a product (as I did my first time) that isn’t market validated.   Russell sent me a message saying, "Dude, you've got to stop telling that story. They're not gonna believe you when you actually go sell something".   That's the point I'm trying to help you guys understand that this is how stuff is sold. It's got nothing to do with the product.   No one gives a crap about your features. It's not the reason why someone buys.   You can still obsess and over-deliver for your clients and your customers. I believe in that…   BUT do it with the understanding that this is NOT what puts money in your wallet.   What puts money in the wallet is the sales message. Products never sell themselves. The sales message and product are two separate and independent assets   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 also, 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’re small groups on purpose so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days.   Hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com. Again, that's OfferMind.com.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

I try to pay myself as little as possible, but ONLY for this reason... Here's what I'm ultimately building towards.   Would it surprise you to know that, even though I came pretty close to hitting $1,000,000 this year, the amount of money that my wife and I live on is less than half of what we were getting paid when I worked at ClickFunnels?   Out of all the money that comes into the business, I take just a tiny amount to live off…   I’m not saying it’s fun, but I’ve got my eye on a bigger prize. I'm focused on building a long-term asset.   I know that if I just focus for 4 years, then it's gonna shortcut 40 years!   Some people have asked:   What's your long-term vision?   What's your long-term goal?   What do you do with the money once it comes in?” So I decided to share my 30,000-foot-view strategy with a small group of people in my OfferLab Program to help them understand a little bit more about the game I'm playing.   OfferLab is the equivalent of my Mastermind or inner circle. It’s where I share the most of my nerdy geek out brain.   I don't think I've ever actually shown this to anybody outside of that group…   Frankly, one of the major reasons why I left ClickFunnels is that I realized I couldn't pull this plan off while I worked for somebody else.   Insert *Massive Disclaimer* Here:   I’m NOT a financial advisor. I’m NOT an investment person. I'm just telling you this is what I'm doing and this is how I look at things.   The reason I'm sharing my plan is so that you can start thinking through your long-term strategy as well.   WHY I TOOK A HUGE PAY CUT   I hardly paid myself at all in 2018. Even now, my wife and I, are just scraping by…   That might shock you, but it's actually on purpose because I'm dumping in all the cash I make back into:   Building a Funnel Team   Creating Mind-blowing Content   Increasing my Web Presence   My plan is NOT to live off the income from my funnels or any of my time that I contract out. I'm really playing long term, top-down strategy…   I have a plan, I'm working the plan... and the plan's working.   Making a million bucks is not that crazy. Everyone will most likely do that in their lifetime...   I don't wanna die and barely have made a million bucks…   What I really want in the end is philanthropy. I wanna go do cool projects. I really wanna go help domestic and international, but that takes money.   That takes a lot of crap to be able to pull that off, so that’s why I'm trying to freakin' dominate right now.   BUYING BACK YOUR TIME   Most people start by contracting out their time in a service business.   These are the things that I am doing right now, it's everything from:   FHAT events   The One Funnel Away Challenge   The 2 Comma Club X   My own funnels   My own projects   Coaching is definitely part of my major service-based business.   Everything I get paid from Russell usually ends up being about a fifth of my monthly revenue. Everything else, I generate on my own. I'm very proud of that. I’ve worked my face off for it.   But when the cash comes in I'm using it to develop something that's long-term because the downfall with a service business is that it takes a lot of time, and usually when you get paid money, the work begins.   The benefit of a product business, physical or digital, is that once you pay the money, typically, the sale's over. It's easy to get into the service business, but you eventually gotta move into the product business to buy back your time.   What is it that's going to release you and buy you back your time in the long run.   PLAYING THE FUNNEL GAME   Funnels are extremely effective, so you need to have a plan for when the cash comes rolling in.   I've been part of multiple funnel launches where we almost bankrupted em’ because we sell too fast. I know the funnels work.   That's not the problem, but sometimes businesses aren't strong enough for the funnels that I build.   ....then a lot of times, once people have made all their money, they don't know to do with it.   You might be thinking, “Oh, that'd be a nice problem to have.”  And yeah, you’re right! *BUT IT IS A PROBLEM ALL THE SAME*   Most people don't know what the heck to do with the cash that they get from the funnel game because it comes in a lot faster than from many other businesses, especially when you leverage the internet.   You could have an entire funnel offline, but when you decided to use the funnel online as well... a lot of amazing stuff can go down.   I've got my time contracted out in several places, it’s not just theOne Funnel Away Challenge and the 2 Comma Club X...   There are several places where I contract my time out... that's the reason I'm hustling so hard right now.   There are two value ladders I'm building out, a front-end business, a back-end business…   I need the outcome of having a team that handles more of the creative decisions for me... and I also want to create mind-blowing content.   You wanna change an industry, you change the content that they are consuming.   So this is the strategy; this is how I'm doing what I am right now…   BUILDING A TEAM   I grab my revenue, and I dump it into:   My own funnel team   Mind-blowing content   Then all I do to turn the gears...   My input is the strategy and critical creatives.   Critical creatives = No one else can write my book for me.   I have an author who's helping me with the initial draft, but I will definitely rewrite it a billion times.   So in order to turn these gears, I need to put in the strategy and creatives that that represent my part of the brain that no one else can do It's my shtick, it's my thing. Offers, funnels... that's me.   I'm trying to be the best, so it's kinda hard to find other people in that area, so I'm NOT gonna try and outsource that part of it. I think that's stupid.   Then all the revenue that gets generated supports the teams. The other income I get from Russell (about a fifth of my revenue), the rest of the income I create, I dump all of that back in.   I'm really stoked, guys. I found out that I actually miscalculated how much money I made last year by a good chunk. I forgot about another account... so it was about almost 900 grand that I did my first year on my own, starting with no product, no funnel, no nothing, and that's really awesome.   The teams are handling the 80% while I do the critical the 20%. I was doing 100% for a long time.   Then all the cash that comes from the 80%... I'm still NOT taking money from it. Here’s an overview:   2018 = the goal was to create services and assets to bring in cash to build teams   2019 = The goal is to build a web presence and have my teams take on 80% of the work   2020 = I'm I'm rolling the cash from everything I create into my next thing… (more about this later) ;-)   This is how I've NOT:   Taken on any debt   Borrowed any money   I've never put a dollar of my own in my own companies, and it's because only take a tiny amount of money to live on... and I roll everything else back into the business.   I've only been away from ClickFunnels for a year, and it's pretty amazing what's happened. It’s to toot my own horn. I'm just saying, it works...   WHAT ABOUT AFFILIATE INCOME?   I don't even treat affiliate cash like profit. I use it as investment cash to go launch expensive things that I don't wanna pay for out of my own pocket or business pocket.   The One Funnel Away Challenge is something I run for ClickFunnels on the daily. I coach and go live with people to help them to build funnels and overcome challenges, and it's a lot of fun.     A lot of lives are changed by it, and it has kind of a soft spot in my heart. When you promote The One Funnel Away Challenge you get $100 for every person who signs up, which is pretty awesome, right?   A lot of you guys have seen me talk about it, you've probably seen my emails…   Well, I ended up selling 388 copies of the book. I was like, “What? That’s 38 grand!”   Now, I'm not the kinda guy to just be like, “This is how much money I made in that amount of time!” That's NOT what I'm saying. I just put that money back into my business...   WHAT NEXT?   So the next thing I'm doing is rolling all that cash over into other assets.   For me and my wife, the asset type that we want to marry is real estate. I'm gonna go in and grab apartment complexes... that's our plan.   But even when I have those apartment complexes and the money they’ll bring in, I'm still not gonna be livin’ it large. Instead, I’ll take that money and roll it into more real estate. I’ve started looking already.   I’m gonna roll the money those assets create back into more real estate. Then those assets will create more assets.   One of my favorite lessons that ever came from the book Rich Dad Poor Dad is that assets create assets... then assets create luxuries.   Someone reached out  to me and said, ‘Stephen, you make more in a month than I do in a year.” I was like, “Correction, my business does. That's true. At this point, (Jan 2019) Me? No!”   The money that I live on is tiny… there’s maybe a little glaze on top... a little sesame seeds on the buns every once in a while, but that's basically it.   The asset goes in and creates cash and rolls the money back into more assets.   ...And that's gonna happen for an undisclosed time, and then, finally, then... I will start living large.   This is a four-year plan that I'm running, and year one went really well; it's totally working.   If you don't have a specific plan like this as you move forward, that's okay. Just know this is what I'm doing:   PHASE #1:   My own money   My own funnels   All the stuff that I'm building   Other stuff for other people   High-ticket events   Low-ticket events   2 Comma Club X   ... all the places where I’m contracting my time.   What's fun is when you transition from the service-based business to the product-based business.   Some people do that out of the gate because then you start to make even more margins... and get your time back, so then you can start building a team.   PHASE #2:   I take all that money, and I rolled it into:   My team   Mind-blowing content   A web presence   My input now is only like 20% of each product instead of the full 100% because these other guys are doing all the stuff. PHASE #3:   I take all that cash, and roll it into different asset accounts… they're savings accounts, but I hate that word. It's really a storage account like Grant Cardone talks about.   It's a storage account where we're saving up a lot of money so that we can roll that into apartment buildings.   Then that apartment building will roll on top of itself until it buys the next one, and then both of those until they buy the next one...   The aim is to buy a new asset (#apartment building) once a quarter from the money created from other assets.   PHASE#4:   Assets create luxuries = I get to live large and focus on philanthropic work.   ARE GURUS DIFFERENT?   So when you think through how your strategy in the entire game is played... it's fine if you don't know beginning to end, but I would at least try and figure out your 30,000-foot view.   IMPORTANT: I did NOT know all of this before I started moving forward. Please hear me when I say that.   If you're like, “But Steve, I don't have a top-level, 30,000-foot-view strategy. Do I need one before I start moving forward?” No, you don't.   Just get the funnel out the door, and then as you move forward things will begin to form and crystallize. All these opportunities that you didn't have before will start to appear, that's just the name of the game.   The longer I've done this, the more I've realized that, honestly, one of the major things that keeps some of these gurus where they are is... the fact that they have a team. It's literally their speed. That’s the difference, nothing else.   A lot of them don't even know much more than you. It's true. The reason that they've blown up is that:   They have a web presence   They've got more content out there so they're easily more findable   They're actively creating more and more campaigns to sell the same products a lot of times   They just drop their content while living a cool lifestyle because they've rolled all that cash over into other asset types   Pretty cool, huh? Now you can play the long term game too!   Until Next Time - Viva La Capitalist Pigs!   Hey, many don't know that I actually made my first money online as an affiliate marketer.   If you wanna know how I funded my entire company without using any of my own money EVER? You can learn to do the same for FREE at AffiliateOutrage.com.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Here's some takeaway's I learned and taught on the 2CCX Cruise this year   Imagine going on an amazing cruise to the Bahamas with Russell Brunson, James Friel, John Parkes, Julie Stoian, and a bunch of amazing Two Comma Club Coaching Peeps…     You’d expect to have a ton of epiphanies... and you’d be right!   Today, I want to share a game changing insight I downloaded... and the most well-received lesson that I taught during the cruise.   Y’all ready?   MAKING A MILLION   The Two Comma Club Coaching helps people create their offers and the sales funnel that will best present the offer they’re selling in their business, and I'm one of the coaches for the program.   Two Commas = A Million.   This year, we went on a cruise from Miami to the Bahamas with 400 students to have fun, mastermind,  and geek out about all things marketing.       We went to Nassau, Saint Thomas, Tortola, and some other places I can't pronounce… and I got to see dolphins and stingrays.   I even saw the world's deadliest plant … which is in the Guinness Book of World Records. Apparently,  if you even touch it, you die. It's crazy, crazy, crazy.         Pretty much every single day there were masterminds with all the coaches taking turns to teach, open mic, and Q & A.   There were golden nuggets dropping all over the place. James Friel, John Parkes, Julie Stoian, myself, and Russell various things that we saw the group needed…   It was so cool each coaches perception of what the group needed. I'm NOT gonna go through everything here, you’d need to join the program. However, there was one session that I really liked...   James Friel was the first one up, and he started talking about setting goals. I really appreciated his viewpoint, so I want to share it with you now. WHY YOU SHOULDN’T 10X YOUR GOALS   Have you’ve ever noticed that a lot of people who teach goal setting just focus on, “What's Your Big, Massive, Scary Goal?”   I understand the point of having a big goal that makes you kinda freaked out, there's a benefit to that.   A few weeks ago, I set my own SCARY goal for this year. I'm charging towards four million dollars, and I really hope I hit it.   It's NOT some shot in the dark number, I know how to get there - I have a plan, I was very careful when I picked that number.   It’s freaking me out a little bit, not in a negative way; it's positive stress.   If the number was any higher though, it would be different... I'm right on the line of positive stress versus negative stress for that goal.     Goals shouldn't just freak you out for the sake of it.   I know Grant Cardone says, “What's your goal? 10 X it!”   Sometimes that's extremely destructive, and I'm not actually a fan of that when it comes to your team. We're not necessarily wired the same way.   If you go to your team and say: “Hey, everything that you're doing, 10 X your effort!”   It's like: “Oh man, how about an arbitrary goal you can't measure... and then let's just stress the crap out of you all.”   It paralyzes everybody.   Personally, I think there's room for BIG SCARY GOALS that push you, but there's also room for goals that are just the next two-inch putt.   YOUR PROCESS GOAL   James talked about how the goal that we generally set as New Years Resolutions is typically a result-based goal: “ I want this result. I want this thing…’   A lot of times, it's a mountain that you want to get to the top of so you can have a huge life-changing outcome; a Massive Result- based Goal.   James said that the reason why most people never hit their goal is because they don’t have a Process Goal.     A process goal is THE THING that secures your results goal.   For Example:   A Result-based Goal:  My goal for the year is to get back to 10% body fat. I want to get back down to the single digits eventually... that's my results-based goal. The Process Goal: I need to break down how I’m gonna achieve my goal?” What’s the process?  How can I break that goal down into smaller chunks?   Habits: Your process goals are achieved and determined by your habits.   A lot of the time, we only set the BIG GOAL, without giving enough consideration to the process and habits we’ll need to actually achieve our goals.   If you want to succeed you need:   #1:  A Habit: I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna work out every single day. This is how I'm gonna eat, etc....   #2:  A Process Goal: Here's the process that I know will cause success and get my result = Your habits feed that process goal   There are a few other pieces, but I'm just kinda focuing the top level view here…   However, there's one other piece that James dropped out which I thought was fascinating... He taught that what’s need to start this whole thing is an Identity Shift.   CREATING IDENTITY SHIFTS   I totally geek out about identity shifts.   Taking on a new identity is one of the major purposes of a sales message.   It's the hardest thing to cause, and one of the most important components. If I can cause an identity crisis and an identity shift, then it’s real easy to sell to that person.   ...I don't mean that in a negative sense, but that's really what's happening, so it was cool to see how James tied that into goal setting.   For Example:   I’m going to be a Funnel Hacker   I'm going to be a triathlete   I'm going to be a Two Comma Club Winner   Each of these goals has a corresponding identity, and when we take on that identity it spurs the whole process forward. I can’t be a triathlete if I never train… so to be a triathlete I need to have the habits and identity of a triathlete...   So, now I know my results-based goal, I have to ask:   What's my process to get there?   What are the habits that are gonna get me there?   What are the small problems I can solve daily?   Do I have the correct identity? MY RBF    On the ship, I had a lot of people walk up to me, and ask: “Stephen, where do you go in the middle of the day?”   Well, I'm kinda a wandering soul. Sometimes, I’d just wander and discover different parts of the ship, it was really cool.   There were almost 6000 people were on that ship. It was a small town floating around - which was nuts.     I had a few people walk up to me, and say, “Dude, you need to chill out a little bit.”   Haha! If you see me in public, and I look pissed, or like I'm NOT totally checked in with reality, usually it's because I'm focusing on something and thinking hard.   It's not that I'm mad… sometimes I just have a bit of an RBF (Resting Bitch Face).   I'm like, “Oh, sorry, I'm not actually mad, I'm just thinking.”     A lot of the time,  I was hiding out and reading a book…and hiding. I wasn’t really hiding, I was just trying to find places where I could read quietly. I was hiding in essence.   One of my favorite books at the moment is Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins.  It ties into everything I'm talking about to do with goals and identity,   If swearing offends you, don't read it. There's a lotta swearing, but super, super good book! It’s one of the best non-marketing books I’ve ever read in my entire life. Goggins says that what keeps us from obtaining our dreams is our current identity. He says that our head puts a governor on what we believe we are capable of, and that governor hampers our ability to get our dreams.   In order for us to attain our dreams, we must take on a new identity.   I read that in the book, and then James was saying: “Hey, it all starts with an identity shift.”   I was like, “Whoa, identity shift, identity shift, identity shift!”   It's all about identity.   HERE’S THE QUESTION…   Ask yourself this:   What’s the identity that you have taken on, and does that identity currently allow you to attain the goals that you set for yourself? Did you set a results-based goal without a process goal?   Do you know what habits you would need to guarantee that you hit your goal?   Is your identity a governor of your dreams?     If your identity is:   I'm not good enough = You gotta shed that identity.   I'm not smart enough = Get rid of that crap.   I don't know this... I don't know that = Change that identity   I'm not worthy....   There's no way I can…   I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't…   ...you’ve gotta be able to shed that identity and be able to say to yourself:   Self, I'm good enough. I can get out there. I can get it done.   It’ll cause a little bit of noise in your head because you’ll have say goodbye to the old mess. Which is why I had to put up that episode about why Steve killed Steven. It wasn't a cute thing…   I’m actively trying to take on new personas and personalities at all times. I'm discovering new capacities and potentials that I didn't know were there. WHY STEVE KILLED STEPHEN   If you’d asked me six years ago if I could achieve everthing that I have, I would've said “No, I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, I don't know how to study…’   ... which were all true things at the time!     This game is  NOT just about learning models or frameworks because you won’t even be able to operate the model if your head is not where it needs to be, and if the goals you're setting are being held back by the identities that you have.   You need to take a close look at yourself and ask if everything you believe about yourself, your capabilities, and the world are serving you?   It might be that you have to look back at what you’ve learned from friends, family, or teacher (whoever)...   You can love them, and still decide to shift and drop parts of what you were taught by them that isn't true.   You need be able to scale away things in your head so that you can architect YOU.   Everything I teach inside the One Funnel Away Challenge has a lot to do with that…   It's NOT so much about me just teaching:   Set a huge goal   Here’s  the big framework   Here’s the big model to make success   I know that's not where people struggle; they struggle with identity:   I'm NOT good enough.   I'm NOT smart enough.   Does this work for me?   Is there a chance that I could do this?   I see there's a possibility, but can “I” achieve this?   That’s where people get the BIG hangups.   It has almost nothing to do with does the model work? “Yeah, it works. You're not working it.” You know what I mean? SEEING IDENTITY EVERYWHERE   I thought it was really powerful, and it seemed to be this undertow theme that I started seeing in all these places as far as marketing education goes: Identity, identity, identity.   Sales messages create an identity.   Red oceans in competition, they’re all in that spot because they have a collective identity.   Blue oceans have taken on a new identity, the sales message helps create that.   We all have identities for any opportunity we try to seek in life, and sometimes our old identity is what's holding us back.   The model good, it's often part of ourselves we need to shift, shed, and get rid of.   If you liked that, please go say thank you to James Friel, he’s the man. He's one of the other Two Comma Club coaches. He's also in my OfferLab program teaching systems.   I'm really pumped for you guys to have more access to myself, to him and to the rest of the people in my Hero Team which you’ll hear about soon... so anyway, go say thanks to him, 'cause that was really profound…   Then just know that as you start to set those goals, look at: Did you set a process goal? You probably set the results goal, but do you know HOW to get there?   I'm NOT saying you need to see all the pieces, no one ever does, but do you have a plan on how to structure your habits?     I don't necessarily know how I'm gonna go from exactly 11% body fat down to exactly 10%... but I have an idea that my process and my everyday habits every day could be:   Get up   Workout   Eat things that are green and thing that are meat   I know enough to just move forward and figure out the rest of the details as I go.   ...and that's the way it is with pretty much everything in life.   MOVING FORWARD|Just to finish off and throw in some extra value to help you achieve your goals, I want to share the top three lessons from one session I taught that was very impactful for people.   It has to do with the question:   “Stephen, how do you get so much done, and NOT get overwhelmed?”   So the theme I wanted for today is:   Set the goal   Understand that your identity might be holding you back a little bit, so you might need to shed that   Here's how I move forward   Here’s how I get so much done without sabotaging my brain, and without overwhelming my mental shelf space.   How do I make sure that I don’t have too much stuff, so I can decompress every once in a while On the cruise, I spent so much time with the new business person, NOT just funnel builder. Someone who's brand new, who's never done any of this before, and I understand what happens in that person’s brain when they start this game.   It's NOT just like, “Hey, you gotta learn this stuff….” It's like, “Hey, prepare for this mental barrage of crap you're about to hit at the same time.”   THREE STEPS TO ACCELERATE   In all the coaching programs that I'm involved with, (my own, and other people's that I help fulfill), I’ve found that there are three things that accelerate someone's progress faster than anything else.   It's NOT usually about having another course. I'm not saying don’t buy them. I'm not saying don’t get a mentor. Those things are amazing, and they'll shortcut the amount of time it takes for you to be successful…   However, most people already have so much stuff that they haven't done anything with.       So, here are the three things:   #1:  Know what problem you’re solving:   If you do not know what problem you are solving, that's gonna be an issue for you and your business. You have to know what problem you're solving. The ONE problem.   I always know which problem I'm solving. I know exactly which ONE it is. It’s on my whiteboards at all times   Everyone has noise in their head ...and as we move forward most people get distracted by that noise:   Am I doing the right thing?   Am I doing the wrong thing?”     I'm feeling confident     I’m not feeling confident at all   ...there's this huge noise, and what will dramatically compound the noise in your head is to NOT know what problem you're trying to solve.   I practice what I call just in time learning. What that allows me to do is cut out everything else from my head that I don't need to be learning.   If I don't need to learn SEO, I'm not gonna read a book on SEO. Some people will  be like, “Well, yeah, duh!” But a lotta people are NOT thinking that, guys.   I know the one problem that I need to be solving, and that's it. I only learn to solve that problem.   I go to my bookshelf, and I pull out all the books that look like they could help me solve the one problem.   Sometimes, I can solve one problem a day. Sometimes, I can solve one problem every three months, but I never added in a new problem until that problem is solved.   The problem I'm solving this year is something I told you in a previous episode… building a team, and especially an internal funnel building team.   So…   * Write down the one problem you're trying to solve*   #2: Can you can clearly tell somebody else which model you’re following?   I’m following the info product model. The problem I'm solving is the team building problem.   If you don't know what model you're following, you're prone to follow any new thing that comes your way. These are ways that I keep myself anchored in what I do so that I'm not getting sidetracked by all the crap around me.   What problem am I solving?   What model am I following?   If I know what framework I’m following, 80% of all the decision making is already done. Someone else has already paved the path, so it's not about me being a creative genius.   It's about me learning the 80% framework someone's already paved in front of me.   Then maybe, if it's required, I’ll learn the last 20% creativity….   Most of the time you don't have to though.   You just learn the formula, the path, and the framework from someone who's already moved before you, and that solves all the problems.   Massive ways to reduce the noise inside your head.   What problem are you solving?   What model are you following?   How can I increase my speed?   You should be able to tell anyone the answers to the first two questions at any time.   #3: I ask myself frequently, How can I increase my speed?   Now funny enough, that question used to feel noise producing for me, but NOW  it’s actually a noise reducing.   If I start to slow down, for some reason, I feel the drag more. If I find ways to speed up the process, I don't get lost in the detail. I don't get lost in a being a perfectionist.     I don't get lost in trying to make sure that it's so good that when I put it out there because my emotions are at stake. These are the three tools that I've been using, and I just wanted to briefly share them with you because people found them impactful when I shared them on the cruise. It was an hour-long session, but this is a brief version…   I recommend that after reading this you find the answers to these questions:   Which problem you are solving = one problem only. Then only learn for that problem. Learn for the one step in front of you, that's all.   What model are you following?   How can you increase your speed in a way that helps me fuel momentum, so that I have fast wins throughout the day?   Hope to see you on the next cruise… 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 also, 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’re 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

This is one of the reasons I pursue this game so hard. Check out the other options you have to this funnel game…   Today, I'm gonna teach you The Wealth Formula, and why I'm so jazzed about this Funnel Game.   I'm really pumped to share this with you.   I ran through The Wealth Formula at my exclusive OfferMind event, so you’re gonna get a sneak peek behind closed doors...   Right now, I'm doing the One Funnel Away Challenge which is specifically targeted at people who are people new to funnels.   The Wealth Formula is my answer when someone says, "Stephen, this is really cool, but it seems like a lotta work. There's gotta be another way?  How long does it take the average person to be successful with this?"   ...I hate that question, it drives me nuts. I’m like, “Well, how bad do you wanna make a million bucks?” What Yield Will You Learn To Earn?   One of the benefits hanging out with the amazing people at ClickFunnels was that I got some cool insights into the books and courses they rated. I got to see who the gurus learned from...   If a guy who runs a hundred million dollar company thinks something’s cool… then I should probably think that's cool too, right!   Ya know what I mean?   If I hear, “Hey, I really learned a lot from this...” I'm like, "What was the name of that again?"  I'm gonna look it up and buy it.   I bought so many books when I worked at ClickFunnels... because I was just like, “If Russell thinks that's amazing, I need to make sure I have that info for the future.”   I’d be sitting feet away from people like Tony Robbins or  Robert Kiyosaki, and if they said, "I read this great book recently... " I’d be like, Boom! BUY IT.   The Wealth Formula was one of the things I heard about, for the first time, while I was at ClickFunnels... and it was life-changing for me.   I already believed in funnels, but this was amazing.   Capitalist Pig, Baby!   At OfferMind I did a presentation called: “What Yield Will You Learn To Earn?”   I walked through how much money you can typically expect to get from different kinds of investment vehicles…   I know there are people out there making MORE money from some of the ways that I  talk about, but I'm talking about the 80 percent majority.   I don't wanna learn stuff where I have to learn exceptions to the rule in order to make cash. I'm interested in the rule.     … the cash causing models.   If I do  X, Y, and Z, will I get this amount of money? I'm looking for the 80 percent rule. The default that makes the cash most of the time.   Let me show you how the Wealth Formula plays out…   THE WEALTH FORMULA   QUESTION #1: Figure out how much money you're willing to put away into an investment account every month for the rest of your life? You don’t touch it, it’s just meant for investments. Write that amount down.     For this example, I'm gonna use $165...   Can you put $165 in an account every month?   If you're like "Hey, I can't do that right now." That's okay, you're solving the problem ahead of time... and that's cool. QUESTION #2: How long will you leave it there?   Okay, let's say 25 years.   For 25 years, you're not gonna touch that money. It's not meant for income. QUESTION #3: What yield will you get? What yield you’ll get depends on the investment vehicle you choose? … And that's one of the things I wanna talk about here. QUESTION #4: What’s the total amount of money you want?   Let's say, a million dollars… that’s a nice round number ;-) So now, I wanna run through a few examples with you… because if you knew how to earn a higher yield... what would that mean for you?  CLUE: *IT’S HUGE*     RETURN ON INVESTMENT…   WEALTH SCENARIO #1:   So let's say you take $165 every single month at a yield of zero percent (and just put it under your mattress) for 25 years.   How much money would you have?   After 25 years, you’d have $49,500.   I know you mathematicians are freaking out over the fact that it's zero percent, just get past that... you’d have $49,500...   Could you live off of that if you retired? Probably not, right?   You’d get creative real fast…   WEALTH SCENARIO #2:   Let's say you take $165, and you want to learn to earn 3 percent for 25 years.   Q: Where can you guarantee to learn to earn 3 percent?     A: Some savings accounts… I'm talking guaranteed, you understand? There are some savings accounts out there right now, not many anymore, but there are some that'll give you 3 percent if you just leave it alone.     Q: What would the total be after 25 years? After 25 years, the total would be $73,775 (I left out the cents).   Let’s keep going…   WEALTH SCENARIO #3:   $165 per month at 6 percent for 25 years…   Q: What's an investment vehicle that’ll guarantee you that return on your money for 25 years?   A: A Certificate of Deposit (CD) from a bank. You can totally get six percent from a CD. You loan the bank your money for 25 years, and you get back six percent back after that.     … 25 years at 6 percent equals $114,000. WEALTH SCENARIO #4:   Let's say you learn to earn seven percent…   Q: What investment vehicle would allow you to earn 7 percent over 25 years?     A: Last year the average mutual fund made seven percent from a 401k... ain't that crazy? Yeugh. That sucks! How much is inflation?   Do you think the value of money's gonna go up or down?  DOWN, right! It's on the way down… Not only can China buy us now, I think Canada could too. The dollar's going down baby. They're the one that made the American flag for three dollars and sent it over.   So…   If you put $165 per month in a 401K at 7 percent,  after 25 years you’d have…   ...$134,000.   WEALTH SCENARIO #5:   Okay, let's say you take $165, and you want learn to earn ten percent...   Q: What’s a guaranteed way to earn ten percent for 25 years?   A:  A Mutual Fund will do that. Again, NOT a lot of them offer that much anymore, but if you can find one, it’s pretty much a guaranteed return, right?     I'm looking for very sustainable, secure things that you can put your money into.   If put your $165 per month into a mutual fund offering 10 percent, after 25 years, that's gonna turn into $220,000.   Right next one…   WEALTH SCENARIO #6:   $165 per month at 16 percent for 25 years...   Q: What will get me a 16 percent return? Options start to get a little bit lower, right?   A:The empanada food franchise that we created at college came in at 16 percent.   At the end of that semester, we had to do a full financial P&L statement…   I was so embarrassed at my numbers. I stood up and said: "We only got 16 percent returns, but at least we learned a lot."   The professor said: You got 16 percent?" I was like, "Yeah, I'm sorry. I know... I tried really hard. It sucks! Fire me, please." He said: "That's amazing in the food business! That's not easy." He was the CMO of Denny's...   My knee jerk reaction was to yell out, "That Sucks! I'm never going into the food business, ever... “   ...It's not like that returns guaranteed, and it's not nearly as passive as some of those other models we’ve talked about! 16 percent over 25 years would yield….   ...$654,000. WEALTH SCENARIO #7:   Q: What investment vehicle will yield 20 percent returns on your monthly investment of $165 over 25 years?   Q: Tax Lien Properties are hyper guaranteed by the government.   You could take $165 every single month, package it up, and once a year go down to the courthouse steps and buy as many tax lien properties as possible, and the government says, "I guarantee you 18 percent ...  or even a 36 percent return."   Did you know you could do that? Interesting, right?     Over 25 years, that would turn into 1.4 million dollars.   Congratulations, I made you a millionaire! Is that cool? ...it's freaking pennies, let's keep going…   WEALTH SCENARIO #8:   $165 every single month for 25 years at a return of 25 percent.   Q: What vehicle would give you that kind of return?   A: Fix and Flips will definitely do that, right?     I've got great friends that do this. They'll try and flip hundreds of houses in a year. Obviously there are variants, but 25 percent is a totally realistic number. It's kinda low, but it’s a realistic...   Let's keep going...   WEALTH SCENARIO #9:   Let's say I put a dollar a month into something every month for 25 years, and I get a hundred percent return...   What would my return be after 25 years?   It's freaking huge = 375 million dollars!   Now I know you guys are gonna laugh at this... but it's to illustrate a point…   Q: What vehicle could give you that return on investment?   A: Sales Funnels!   I've never had such insane, consistent returns in anything like the funnel game... Let me show you how this works …   HOW TO RUN A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS   There was a guy who came to Russell for a funnel. He taught you how to kill people. He was teaching self defense. Not like karate, “I'm gonna use this move, that move…” It was the dirty foul play, let's just make you live kinda stuff.   We hung out in Russell's garage on his wrestling mat for two days. I had to mimic poking Russell's eye out with my thumb, and all this crazy crap.   These guys were amazing at what they did. They taught us all about biology and the way the body really is: “Hit that organ. Then boom! It's done.”   I was like, “Holy crap, I love you, Russell. This is really heavy. Oh man.”   We weren't allowed to talk to each other. We were each others test dummies for two days. It was effective, but it was heavy.   We built this awesome funnel for him, and John starts driving traffic and we’re putting $1 in and he was getting a $1.30 back out.   But he was pissed. He was so mad at us.   I was like, "What is wrong with you?"   It would go up to $1.40, $1.50, then back down to $1.30… back and forth… He was asking us, "What's going on? This is crazy."   We were like, “What is wrong with you? We’d be throwing a party right now!”   They were putting a dollar in, and getting $1.50 back out, plus some customers and people on their list.   Just upsell something... and that's a million dollar scenario.   Even if you’re just breaking even, you're getting customers for free. That’s a million dollar scenario... even if you suck.   INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT   My whole goal is to put a dollar in and get two dollars back out… c'mon let’s keep em going.   When I launched ads for Secret MLM Hacks, I put $4,000 in ads. That week, $8,000 came back out.   Then I put that $8,000 back in, and $16,000 came back out. I was like, "This is sick, let's do it again."   The next week I grabbed that $16,000 and $32,000 came back out. I was like "Oh, my gosh! This is starting to get big. Phew!"   I didn't take profit (That’s very key, don't take profit for a while), then I took that $32,000, and put it back into ads, and that month, “Crap! Only $48,000 came back out.” Darn it!   $4,000 turned into $48,000… Does that sound good to you?   Find an investment vehicle that does anything like what funnels can do? *That's my point*   There’s no better investment opportunity, no better vehicle for making it rain in your life than learning this sales funnel game.   NO COUPONS!   When someone comes to me and says, "Oh, I could save you a couple of percentage points on your house." I don't freaking care!   I am focused on how to make money, not save it. I'm not a coupon cutter. ...And I want you to have that same mentality too!   My mom is amazing… she'd walk into a grocery stores and we'd get two grocery store, grocery carts full of food, and they'd give her $400 at the same time. It was like, “I dunno how you deal with coupons?” but she figured out a way to do it. It was nuts.   BUT…   If you take the same amount of effort and just figure out how to play a piece of this funnel game the return on investment can be huge.   It's not like school….   You don't need to get an A in funnel building to make a lot of money. You can get an F, and put a dollar in and still get a dollar fifty back out.   That’s a fifty percent return. You see what I'm saying with this? This is where Papa Larsen comes out a little bit…   Okay, check this out… When I first launched I put a dollar in, and got four back out for a while.   ...Then ad fatigue starts, and that's totally normal,  and now, “Oh crap, I'm  putting a dollar in and only getting two dollars back out. Oh dang it.”   That's awesome!   What's the move at that point?   You call your ads person and say, "TURN IT UP!" Borrow if you need to and dump that cash in! Does this make sense?   This is how I've done it.   Maybe you broke even, or lose money the first few times you do it. Sweet! Who cares?   I've never taken a loan. I've never put a dollar of my own into my ads...   This is what I do instead:   Build up the audience   Sell the audience   They guide me in the creation of the thing I sell to them   They give me the cash   I take that cash and I dump it immediately back into ads; Boom back in. Boom back in. Boom back in   … those numbers start to get real big real fast after the fifth or sixth time. How much did it cost me to build that audience? Nothing, because I'm publishing on a podcast. I've never put a dollar of my own into my business. Ever!   THAT is why you learn to be a funnel builder. Welcome to the greatest game ever!   The numbers are easy to work, and you can suck at it and still make a lot of money…   But too many people are like, “I can't launch yet it needs to be perfect.” Oh man!   If I put a dollar in, I get 50 percent return back out. That's super realistic returns right there... and that's how a lot of people do it.   All these people that make a million dollars in three or four months, and get the actual Two Comma Club Award, this is how they do it! They just know the numbers.   I'm NOT even thinking about the fact that I might have an upsell, I'm just thinking on that funnel...   You go and add another funnel, and “Bam!” Way more money.   Who was it that said, “A well-executed idea is worth ten lifetimes of hard work.”?  I think it was J. Abraham... on a beach!   Anyway, $1.00 in, $1.50 back out for 25 years...   If you just did that... and you sucked... No upsells or anything else…   That's five million dollars.   Does it install hope in the noggin?   You can afford to suck at it the game for a while, but most people aren't willing to do that... or to get help when they need it.   ...don’t let that be you!   You can be real bad at the game and still make it rain   Mmm…. Oh, that's good one. It's gonna be on a T-shirt soon ;-)   Boom! Until Next Time…   Hey, I know this game can take a few tries to get the money flowing, especially the first time, right? And that can suck.   I also know from experience how frustrating it can be to know your business is just a few tweaks away from your next big payday, but you don't know what tweaks to make. I've felt completely paralyzed by that in the past, and it sucks.   I've been blessed to work with thousands of new and successful businesses over the last three years, and two things have really shocked me.   #1: I began noticing the pattern to success is vastly the same, but everyone's spot on the path is obviously different.   #2: I've been shocked and overwhelmed by the number of people asking for my help, my systems, and funnels in their business.   Well, until now I've never had a system or product in my own business to help you build yours. Now, I'm finally able to be public about all this.   If you'd like my help to build your offer or sales message funnel and even your content machine, go to myofferlab.com.    The path to online and offline success is 80 percent the same regardless of the product, price point or industry, and it works if you're new, or are already a killer in business.   You can get more details on how to get my personal attention and frameworks in your own business by going to myofferlab.com   In-person classes are limited to 60 people each, and frankly, I can only do about two of these a year. Get more details, and even jump on the phone with us for free at myofferlab.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

This is one of the greatest skills I've ever learned. An incredible teacher taught this to me in college, and I taught everyone else at OfferMind...   One of the secret weapons I have in my arsenal of marketing skills (and life in general) is design thinking   Design thinking is one of the reasons why I'm able to step into the darkness without seeing the whole path in front of me.   I was taught design thinking when I was in college, and it’s one of the MOST valuable things I've ever been taught in my life.   When I shared the design thinking process at OfferMind, I got some amazing responses.   You can watch the whole process here, but if you’d rather keep reading, then carry on… WHY DESIGN THINKING?   The process was invented by a company called IDEO. If you don't know who IDEO are, they’re the company who invented the mouse for Steve Jobs’ first version of the personal computer.   IDEO are the reason why your toothbrush is shaped the way it is. In fact, many of the things we use daily have actually been designed by IDEO.   IDEO has mastered the process of creativity. They’ve manufactured process that produces innovation almost on demand. You’re gonna have to get your playful zone on to make the most of what I’m about to share with you, but just know that if you're boring as a person, your offers will be too.   I'm straight up telling you. If you suck to be around, no one's gonna wanna be in your tribe. If you have a Debbie Downer kind of mentality you're gonna be terrible at this process.   Those who are creative are typically more playful individuals.   It’s time to get back into your kindergarten brain and the enter the fun zone of your noggin if you want to get the MOST out of this process…   Almost everything I've created has been produced following this design thinking process.   When I was in college, I had a FANTASTIC professor who became one of my first ‘one on one’ mentors. He was the CMO of Denny's and Pizza Hut. He invented stuffed crust pizza. Yep, he's the man.   I used to hang out in his office after classes and just fire questions at him.   MY FAVORITE SEMESTER   There was one semester where our entire focus was to launch a business from scratch and make as much money as we could on our own.   Instead of being like, “Hey, do this and this and this and this…” they literally just threw us out the back door and said, “Build the parachute!” We were like, “Oh, Crap!”   We were together in different teams of about 15 and took us on a retreat to bond and brainstorm.   I got put in the food business. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I hate cooking.”   Each team spent several days up in the mountains talking about ideas, and trying to decide:   What should we sell?   Who do we need to serve?   What should we put together?   What would they want?   I don't know if you noticed, but I'm a little bit loud, and so I got voted CEO of the company. I was like, “Great…”   We  decided to sell empanadas (I didn’t even know what they were at the time)   We had one class each day, and the rest of the time we were just supposed to make money.   THE TEACHER WENT CRAZY...   One day we walked into class to find all the tables piled with toys. There were Lincoln Logs, Lego, bouncy balls, and Play Dough all over the place. I mean literally, just tons of toys all over the table...   We just stood there look at the just looking the teacher standing there with a whiteboard, a squirt gun, and all this random crap all over the room, and thought, “What the heck is going on? He's lost his marbles, right?”   Then teacher looks at us and says: “I'm gonna teach you how to think.”   He said, “I want you to brainstorm different ideas. Let's talk about what you're gonna call your company?” Then he sat down, and kinda hid away at the back of the room.   One by one each of us got up and started writing down our ideas on the whiteboard...   We came up with all these crazy names and it was really funny. Someone would stand up and write something on the board, and we'd be like, “Oh yeah, that’s a good idea.”   Then one time, after someone had written an idea on the board, a student in the corner of the room made a kinda disapproving sigh...     Quick as a flash, the teacher jumps up takes out a squirt bottle, shouts, "BAD KITTY!"   ...and started shooting the student in the face with water.   We're like, “Who is this guy? Are you serious?”  We were all afraid to “He's become unhinged, man!”   But we kept going, and eventually, we noticed that every time someone had any negative reaction to an idea, he would shoot them in the face with water and yell, “BAD KITTY!” HOW TO THINK   RULE #1: You cannot be creative and serious at the same time. Half the reason I mess about is that I'm trying to stay in the creative zone.   If you’re playful it’s way easier to be more creative. Most ideas aren’t gonna come to somebody who’s NOT playful.   If you're kind of a stiff,  this is not gonna be that effective. I'm just telling you, straight up. Some Papa Larsen love coming out here..   If you're boring your offer will be too   Just telling you... Okay?   Being an attractive character is a learnable trait, so that's the saving grace. RULE #2: Get moving  - I have a freaking trampoline and a balance board and I try to stay physically moving and active.   I guarantee that your change the world ideas are NOT gonna happen while you're sitting behind a desk. Get up!   When I need some sweet ideas. I put headphones on and jump on my the trampoline. or use my balance board with some Vitamin C in my veins. Then it’s like, *DING* “That would be sick. Yeah, that would be cool.” And then I go and test it.   RULE #3: You don’t have a lot of creative power on your own. It’s always amplified by doing it with one other person at least. Another time we walked into class and there was construction paper, scissors, pens, Crayola crayons, popsicle sticks, and glue all over the place...   We had to come up with an idea and then make a prototype of it. Then we had to walk to another human being and hand it to them... and if we looked at the prototype instead of the other person: “BAD KITTY!” MY PRODUCTS SUCK!   When you hand off your prototype to somebody you need to look into their eyes, so whatever reaction they have you can ask:     Why did you do that?     You think it’s crappy! Tell me why?”   Then you go back to the drawing board and make another prototype and based on that feedback, and rinse and repeat!go put it in front of more people.   Stop falling in love with your product. Hand it off to somebody and just get a reaction.   In only three weeks, our Empanada business ended up doing $3000 a week selling to poor college students. They created the entire business with us.   We’d go in with an idea, watch the reaction and say, “Why’d you do that?” Give me a reason.”  We’d deep dive until we started getting good at asking questions that caused amazing feedback.   Then we'd go back to the drawing board, and go through the same cycle again and again...   My offer creation is the exact same process. If you think I've developed these cool formulas that make my products great from the get-go. *WRONG*   I plan on failing at the gates. My product is gonna suck. ITERATION STATION   Get your prototype out of the gate as fast as you can, show it to people and watch there response. ASK QUESTIONS. Stop harboring your product like it's your baby.   It was the exact same with the Secrets Masterclass. When Secrets Masterclass was created, I went through and created different pieces and put it out base on my perceptions. Then I start getting in the weeds with the customer.   Everything in the bonus section in the bottom bonus section in Secrets Masterclass was created post-launch to fill the holes.   I call this Iteration Station, baby, woo!   When I enter Iteration Station it means that I'm in a test phase. It’s a no judgment phase. Stephen R Covey says:     This is huge! It’s a big piece of the puzzle. PREPARE TO FAIL When it comes to your core offer and offer creation itself, you’ve got to be willing to fail a ton of times as the market guides you, it's NOT gonna happen otherwise.   I've noticed that people’s identity gets hung up with:   What happens if I launch and I fail?   What happens here…?   It's all based on fears that are completely made up and haven't even happened yet.   You need to keep Iterating. Iteration is part of the process of innovation.   Design Thinking 101   This is the design thinking process as systematized by IDEO: STEP #1:  Empathize.   “What are the things that you need to understand about the red ocean before you can actually make it blue?”   You’re looking for signs to make sure that it’s even a good ocean to go into? Should you run? Should you go the other way?   You’re trying to empathize with the customer. You need to feel what they feel.   “Oh man, you're using that red ocean vehicle, I'm so sorry for you. That ocean sucks.”   They're like, “I know, I've been using this product and it's garbage.” Then you ask: “Why?”   Once you have the answers you can go in and start to design something awesome.   STEP #2: Define.   Next, you need to take all that data to fill in the gaps and design the framework. Once the framework is filled out, this next piece is super fun…   THE DESIGN CYCLESTEP #3: Ideate   STEP #4: Prototype   STEP #5: Test   These three are stages that you cycle through forever. Don't fall in love with the product.   Ideate = You have an idea of what offer you’re gonna produce.   Prototype  = You get ready for a test launch.   Their opinion doesn't matter, their wallet’s does.   Test = You actually try to sell your prototype to a potential customer. You don’t ask, “Hey, do you like it?” Then you ask, “Oh, what didn't you like about that?”   I've noticed that after three or four iterations... if you really do the process, you’ll have an offer that out values everything. This is the BIG process laid out: Empathize - First understand.   Data - Gather and start plugging it in.   Ideate - Come up with ideas   Prototype - Make a beta version... it's cool to call it beta, that's a good way to save pride if you want: “Oh yeah, it's in beta. I hate it too”  You're like, “Crap, it's supposed to be my thing.”   Test - Put it in front of customers; that's the last part.   You're going: Ideate, prototype, test, over and over again.   Remember it's NOT about being a creative genius, it's about being a detective.   If can walk in front of somebody and ask, “Tell me what you like or don't like? If it sucks or if it's amazing?”  If you look in their eyes... Man, you guys are gonna be great funnel builders. You're gonna make a lot of money.   Too many of you are like, “Oh it's my baby, I don't wanna put my product out there.” Yeah, that's why you're making money. You have to be prepared to fail.   Eventually, the market will guide you into discovering the core offer. HOW RUSSELL BUILDS FUNNELSWhen I built funnels with Russell, we fully expected that it wasn’t gonna be that amazing during round one.   Lots of funnels failed straight out of the gate.   If you saw the Experts Secrets book launch, we started that funnel two days before the launch. Woo! That was extremely stressful. I don't think I've had that much caffeine in such a short amount of time.   The Harmon brothers had this cabin where Russell, John, I and a few others went to help write the first script for the viral video. We were hanging out with these writers, and they're using this exact same process.   They’d come up to us and say, “We've got a script for you.” They'd read it out to us and we’d give feedback about any holes, and then they'd leave for four hours. Then they'd come back and read it again. Back forth, back forth, back forth, back forth.   This is the process of innovation.   During the Expert Secrets launch, we were still in the cabin. The writers were iterating, and so were we.   We looked at the stats for Expert Secrets Launch and saw that, for some reason, upsell number two, OT02 wasn’t working well.   So in the middle of the launch, at 1 AM (we tried to wait until there weren’t many people awake) ...Jamie Smith and I were busy changing the live funnel with all this traffic hitting it.   Then BOOM! One iteration hit and it brought the average cart value up a whole bunch.   You gotta understand that this is what Russell's doing with his team at ClickFunnels. We create all our stuff with the total expectation of failure.   You use the customer to help you innovate.   BAD KITTY COMES TO OFFERMIND   During OfferMInd , I used the same process I learned at college to teach design thinking.   STAGE #1: I split people into teams and gave them twenty minutes to design a prototype. These are some of the responses I got:   - Teamwork work helps.   - Craziness is creativity.   - Ask questions, lots of them.   It's about asking tons of questions back and forth, but using the market to do to help frees the Entrepreneur’s mental shelf space and give you room to think.   This is the process that actually causes creativity.   STAGE #2:  Hand the prototype to a person in another team while looking into their eyes to gauge feedback. DO NOT, for the love of it, fall in love with your prototype.   Ask questions, and have someone write down everything. If they...   Hate this   Love that   ...write those things down. This is the best market research you'll ever do in your life, it's amazing.   Did anyone feel how easy that was to gather information that way? Audience Member: It's amazing how people see something completely opposite of what we thought.  Like, “Whoa, we saw this as good. No that's bad cause of this.”   Steve: Isn't that crazy? It speeds up how cool something is, like how fast you can actually make it. Cool, thanks so much.   Audience Member: One thing that I thought was really great was when we showed our prototype to people, they’d say something different about it because they thought it was something else and really that helped us improve it more.   Steve: And you only did this for freaking 20 minutes, can you imagine if you actually did it? You know what I'm saying? With the actual product? It's very fast to make cool stuff.   Audience Member - Huge lesson for me. Our group flew right to prototype and test. we spent zero time getting data. So when we went to different people there were questions we didn't know. “Well, are you gonna do this? are you gonna provide this for me?   I was like I don't know, we didn't, we talked about where the steps should go. We didn't talk about the actual meat of what we're gonna do... we just talked about how pretty the cover was.   Stephen - Which is what happens for most entrepreneurs. they are like, “Hey I'm gonna go make this sweet thing, it's gonna be really awesome, it's amazing, why is it awesome? Because it's mine.” I don't know, right? You just gotta get it out the door. Launch.     Audience Member - Share all your craziest ideas with people because you might not be that crazy.   Steve: Yeah, absolutely.   Audience Member - We sold multiple products.     Audience Member - A lot of overwhelm at first. And then presenting it, in even more overwhelm and fear. Because I don't think we did a very good job honestly, but then getting feedback I was surprised at how much feedback people are willing to give us openly.   They'd be like “Hey, this is kind of like, this is what I see and this is good and this is bad.”   The one thing that Alex talks about is clarity getting you out of overwhelm.   And so as soon as we got some feedback from some people,I was like “Oh.” And then we wondered, “Is there gonna be a round two? Do we get to go play with Play Dough again and redo it? Cause we could totally nail it next time.” Steve: Isn't that the fun part--   Audience Member - So having multiple people give us feedback, the creativity took a minute, it didn’t feel like we had to spark it at first, but when we brought in people, that's when the spark happened. I don't have any doubt that we would light a fire and then take off, after multiple revisions. PLAYING THE GAME   Can you see how this game starts to get played? So, just to recap real fast. What we're doing is :   Gathering data from the red ocean, getting kind of an idea of something that would be awesome.   Empathizing, understanding the who and who we want to be selling to. Who we want our customer to be.   Prototype, coming up with ideas, grabbing all that data.   Launching,  the expectation to fail takes all the pressure off the mind for the entrepreneur. You actually can go back to the creative zone when you use this process.   When people try to be the only creative one:  “I'm gonna be making it out of my own mind.”  Funny enough, they're the ones that get landlocked. Ain't that funny? It's like totally opposite of what you expect. This is one of my offers in January when I launched it, by April it had changed dramatically because of this exact same process.     I make sure that I'm not falling in love with my offer. It's broken. It will always be broken. There will always be improvements. It will never be perfect and that’s good.   ...because it means that I DON’T emotionally attach to my product, so  then it’s easy to hand it off to other people and ask: “What would you change?”   I would launch back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in the middle of the value ladder.       Do you see the star right there in that value ladder? I ALWAYS launch in the middle of the value ladder.  At the mid-price points... that's how I get it off the ground.   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 also, right? That's also good.   But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right? That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula.   So I created a special Mastermind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it.     Wanna come?   There are small groups on purpose so I can are 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

If you ever sat down to create a sales message, you’ve probably gone through a process to discover a few vital things about your target audience.   You’ll want to know:   Vehicle-Based False Beliefs   Internal False Beliefs   External False Beliefs   Which Stories to Craft   The Source of their Current False Stories   ...there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes in the pursuit of a message that sells.   All of which is great! HOWEVER, (all caps for emphasis) a lot of times marketers skip over one VITAL area along the way, and that is…   Who's already highly likely to give you money?   *THIS IS SO IMPORTANT*   If you ignore this question you’re going to create a customer who:   Takes a lot of convincing to buy   May not be ready to buy   Is high maintenance   I'm not saying you're NOT in the right market, I'm saying, you're selling the wrong person in that market.   CHANGING MY TARGET AUDIENCE   I actually went through this situation at the beginning of this year... During January, February, and March of 2018,  I was selling in the wrong zone. I was like, “Crap, I’m selling the wrong customer. I'm selling a more challenging customer.”   It's not that I'm NOT willing to help those people...   But I'm here to make a change in Steve Larsen's world before I make a change the world business, and you should be doing the same.   Before you focus on ‘changing the world’ you need to cash out hard and make a lot of money. Capitalist Pig, Baby!     So now before I even decide to start selling a product, I run through this brief checklist so I know if it's even worth pursuing… and that’s what I’m going to share with you today…   BUT FIRST, how’d you like to join me for a mud run?   MY MUD RUN FUNNEL   You may not know, but probably the third funnel I ever built was for a charity 5K warrior mud run.   We had fire pits, mud pits, and crazy obstacles where you put on armor to tackle them. All the money went to the charity for the Fisher House Foundation which helps support bring family members to the bedside of injured service members.   I was still in college, and it was my first event funnel. The funnel worked and the way we promoted it worked very well. We got on the news several times, and 650 people show up for the event. Then we used the funnel after the event to raffle off some cool items too. I enjoyed it a lot. It was very validating for me to sit back and be like, “Oh crap. I knew this would work, but man this funnel stuff really works.”   Looking back, it's funny how long it took me to build a simple two-page event funnel. I remember finding random places on campus with fast, free internet. I think it took me 40 hours to build!   SELLING MUD RUNS TO COUCH POTATOES     I have a question for you:   Q: If I'm selling a mud run, who is the easiest person to sell?   A: Somebody who already does mud runs, right?   If you’re thinking, “Yeah, Stephen, No Duh!”  You’re right, it is, “No Duh!” But a lot of the time, people don't have that approach with the products they sell.   Now let's flip this a little bit…   Q: Who would be the most challenging person to sell a 5K warrior mud run to?   A: Someone who’s never run a race in their life:   They like being clean all the time   They don't own a pair of running shoes   They don’t like being outside   That person is gonna be a hard sell - they don’t even WANT to do a mud run.   Let's talk cookbooks:   Q: Who would be the best person for me to target if I'm going to sell cookbooks?   Yep, you’ve guessed it…   A: Somebody who already buys cookbooks.   ...BUT there's a lot of marketers out there who create their product, and it's a freaking 5K warrior mud run, they're like, “I want to change the world.”   So they focus on selling to somebody who has literally lived their entire life on the couch...  Because it means they’re changing the world while they do business.   I'm NOT saying you shouldn't try to change the world. I want to change the world too. BUT as far as a product goes, that's a sucky way to do your marketing. I'm trying to get you to think about how you do your targeting.   There seems to be this theme going on, especially for a lot of new marketers, but even for experienced ones…   They find the vehicle, internal, and external related false beliefs   Craft stories.   Set up all these campaigns and sequences.   Make ads and creative   Create content.   ...They make all this cool stuff,  but it's targeted at the person on the couch rather than the person who's already in motion doing the thing.   I see this often. I wouldn’t bring this up if it wasn’t true.   A CONFESSION…   Probably once every other week, I’ll start looking for NEW books to buy on Amazon. I’m looking for ways to spend money because I need a dopamine hit. I know that's what I'm doing...   Check out the episode where I talked about emotional buying  and D.O.S.E. (it’ll change the way you market ;-) )     I'm like, “Huh, I haven't read those hundreds of books on my shelves... What if I go buy more books? Oh yeah, that makes sense.”   I love books, so I spend $200 on more books. and I do that routinely.   Here’s a couple of the latest books that I'm really excited to read I don't know these authors, I've not been asked to say this, I'm just stoked... I mean, look at these titles:     #1: Marketing to Mindstates: the practical guide to applying behavior design research in marketing.   “Oh, baby! Can you imagine the mental ecstasy? Woo! That's going to be a good one, right?”   #2: Changing Minds: the art and science of changing ours and other people's minds.   “Wow, that’s some tiny, tiny font, but that's really cool stuff, I'm excited about it.”   I'm excited to read the book Changing MInds, I'm not dropping on the book at all, but if you're focusing on changing the minds of your customers, it's highly likely that you're skipping over the easy buyers. It’s NOT gonna be an easy sell.   If you wanna sell books, then your target audience should be book buyers IN MOTION MARKET ANALYSIS   I know without a doubt, one of the reasons all my stuff has done so well this year, is because I'm targeting people who are already in motion, doing the things that I'm selling.   I'm NOT trying to convince somebody, “Hey, come do a mud run, I know you've never put on running shoes.”   I'm convincing the person who is running:  “Hey, you like that run? Why don't you come over and do this run? Super cool!  I'll give you X, Y, and Z.”     The length of the bridge to the sale is super tiny! GETTING HOT? Let’s talk about hot, warm or cold traffic… Check out Eugene Schwartz, baby...     When you hear people say, “Oh, you've got to create a bridge...”  You need to remember that NOT all bridges are the same length.   I think of it as an education bridge  and the education bridge required for hot traffic is very short. Why? Because they're already in motion.     The education bridge required for cold traffic is freaking huge.   In fact, there are NOT many products that ever really hit true cold mainstream traffic. It's usually the hot and the warm traffic that’s sold to... that's it!   If I'm going to sell anything, I'm looking to sell it to people who are already taking active steps in their life -  because it means I don't have to work on rebuilding dumb false beliefs.   I'm still going to rebuild false beliefs, but it's way easier to knock down the false belief for HOT or WARM TRAFFIC. COLD TRAFFIC; it's like freaking Fort Knox. It's super hard for me to break down those kinds of walls. Cold traffic doesn’t even want those walls broken, a lot of them don't care:   “You mean I didn't have a problem before and you're trying to educate me that a problem exists? Oh, I don't want MORE problems in my life!”   Cold traffic is really challenging. WHY MLM?When I left ClickFunnels, the product I started selling was an MLM product. Why did I choose that?   The reason I chose MLM was that I knew people in that space were already trying to do funnels, but there wasn't anybody who had stepped up and said: "Hey, here's where you can come learn about MLM funnels.”   That's partly what I mean when I say: listen to what the market's telling you. The market is telling you how it wants to be sold.   The market said, “Stephen, would you please make cool funnel education in the MLM space.” Well, it didn't actually say that…  but I was looking, and I was like:   “Crap! Y'all are trying to do this stuff. Why don't I just set something up? Here's the training. Here's the pre-built stuff. Here’s Q&A sessions. Here's the bam, bam, bam, boom. Done!”   It was a big success out the gate because, metaphorically, I was selling people who were already doing mud runs.   I was selling people who already owned running shoes…   A lot of them were already trying to build MLM funnels - they were just sucky... Does that make sense? COLLECTING CUSTOMERS   It's so much easier to do what I call customer collection.   Selling Hot Traffic = Customer Collection     Cold Traffic = Customer Creation     I know I've talked about this before, but customer creation is really, really challenging. Not many markets ever survive that area.   Customer creation, that’s a different beast.   Y’all know I'm a ClickFunnels fanatic, and I will be forever... call me minion or whatever…   If you think about what Russell did, that man's a genius because when he first started ClickFunnels he sold to hot traffic.   He took ClickFunnels and put it into the website space; he threw rocks at websites. He said, "Hey, websites suck, why don't you come over here and start doing this funnel game?".   Q: Now who does that attract?   A: The people who are already likely customers.   ClickFunnels didn’t create customers, it collected customers.   Think about that... and think about how you're marketing right now.   When you think about the length of the education bridge you require your customers to cross before they're able to purchase... make sure you're not trying to build a MASSIVE educational bridge just for prestige. THE WRONG SALES MESSAGEI'm super psyched guys, I’m getting to do some really fun consulting soon. I can’t tell you yet because the contract's still going down, but it's a cool place that makes a lot of movies that you’d know.   However, I’d make a BIG mistake if I went in and said: "Hey, let's sell to the people who DON’T watch movies already".   That'd be stupid… don’t do that!   When I start building a marketing message...   I'm gonna to sell mud runs to the people who already running races.   I'm gonna to sell cookbooks to people already buying cookbooks.   I'm going to go sell software to people who’ve already bought software.   I’m gonna sell movies to people who already watch movies   BECAUSE it means I don't have to go in and say: "Hey, you should buy this thing.”   Super fast, easy way to sell.   Otherwise, you’ve gotta go through this massive convincing game and the convincing game sucks. I HATE it.   You get into a feature war...   If you feel that you've been in a feature war with your customers, you're selling the wrong person. I'm not saying you're NOT in the right market, I'm saying you're selling the wrong person in the market. THE SHORT BRIDGE TO A FAT WALLET   If you watch the way ClickFunnels is run and other successful companies that blow up fast, one of the things they're really good at is grabbing the super easy hot traffic who need a short education bridge, from other markets.   Then when they can feel that the market's starting to dry up, they DON’T turn to warm traffic, they just go grab the next market… and the next market.   Russell's like, “Let's go sell the B2B space. There's a group inside of that B2B space that would love to build funnels. Now let's go to the supplement space. Yeah, let's show them how it works for supplements. Let's build a few supplement funnels and do a few episodes about it.”   BOOM!  Easy buyers to pick up.   That’s how a company without any VC funding, any of their own money, or any kind of debt, in general, gathers hundreds of millions of dollars!   They're NOT getting distracted by trying to create new customers... they didn't focus on Customer Creation for the first three or four years. It's only been in the last like six months when ClickFunnels started doing things like the One Funnel Way Challenge, which I help run…   ONE FUNNEL AWAY   My explicit role in the One Funnel Away Challenge is to help create a customer.   I'm there to groom, I'm there to sift and sort, I'm there to get people out who shouldn't be in there;  the people who are going to be the most challenge customers.   Sure, they could buy but they're NOT dream customers.   Dream Customers:   Want the short education bridge.   Are fast purchases.   Have faster success stories.   Don't fight me along the way.   If I'm going to sell a mud run, I'm NOT going to sell to people who've never run ever because they're going to ask me dumb questions like:   Should I warm up?   Should I tie my shoes?   Should I bring a water bottle?   Should I get good sleep the night before?   ...You know what I mean?   I'm not making fun of anybody, but you gotta understand...     DUMB QUESTIONS?   If you want to see if you're selling the right person, look at your support tickets.   Look at the questions coming in after customers buy from you to see if they’re short education bridge style questions?   I'm not going to give you a parameter here, but you'll start to see, “Oh sweet, I'm getting a lot of good questions there…” or, “Oh man, I'm getting a lot of dumb questions.”   They’re not dumb questions in themselves, but they represent:   I did not create the right marketing. I created the wrong bridge. I'm selling a more challenging customer.   Millions and millions of dollars are created just by soaking up the easy buyers who are already in momentum and want to purchase things that you place in front of them.   Every time I see somebody on Facebook saying, “We just turned on ads for cold traffic.”   I want to reach through my screen, give them a hug and then slap them. I'm like, “No! why?” Don't ever create ads to cold traffic,  especially out of the gate.   People create brand new products and the first thing they go do is create cold traffic massive bridge marketing. *Rough* That spells somebody who's gonna fail and call funnels a scam later on:   “I put all this money in and it didn't work!”   Yeah, duh! You're trying to sell a mud run to somebody who's never got off the couch. They're NOT gonna do a mud run for fun.   So, to help you avoid making this mistake, I want to walk you through my quick Target Audience Checklist. THE TARGET AUDIENCE CHECKLIST I'm part of a cool project that I can't tell you about yet, but I just spent three days writing an EPIC 25 page project. I've got legal pads and paper all over the place, filled with ideas...   One of the things created was a CHECKLIST to help people briefly identify if they're targeting the right person.     So before you even move on to creating a marketing message, finding false beliefs, and telling new stories. All that stuff that we do…   You need to ask the questions:   Am I even talking to the right person?   Is this the easiest sell?   Is this the sale have the smallest education bridge?   You want to be able to say, just, “Oh, hey, there's a mud run in your area. Here's the date, and the cool offer that comes with it.”  AND Sweet! It’s sold.   Let’s think about this in terms of business-building...   If I'm going to sell a business building education program, business-building events, business-building information products, or coaching, whatever...   #1: I would expect to sell people who already have a business.   Okay, feel me when I'm saying that.   If I'm going to sell something called, "How to build your business”  it’d be a drastic mistake for me to sell people who don't have a business yet.   This can feel counter-intuitive… but it’s true!   If I'm selling business building education, the best purchaser will be somebody who already has a business and who's just looking improve.   It's going to be a much larger bridge for someone if they're building a business for the first time. They’ve got to deal with all the mental crap besides all the strategy stuff.   The mental junk that goes down inside someone's brain the first time they build a business is huge.   I deal with that all the time; thousands of people saying things like:   "Well, I know you said to publish, Stephen, but what if someone reads what I’ve written?”   People have asked that! I'm like, “Isn't that the point? Yeah, hopefully, they do. Then you can ask them if they liked it?”   There's a lot of mental stuff that goes down…   So if we're going to sell business building education and programs, you should sell people who already have a business. *Easy Sale*   #2:  I'm going to sell to somebody who's already been list building.   If they know enough to build lists, we're talking easy drop in the hat sale.   #3: I'm going to sell to somebody who has a product that's at a similar price point to mine.   It’s soooo easy that to sell a $15,000 product to a person who also sells something around 15 grand - in their mind, the can easily justify the purchase. They're like, “Oh man, that's one sale for me.”   BUT if I target somebody who's still at a nine to five, they're like, “15 grand! Holy crap, that's like two or three months of work.”   You know what I'm saying?   It’s gonna be really hard to get that individual to say, “yes!” So I'm going to target somebody who already has a business, and who sells an expensive product... because they can justify it:   “Oh yeah, you're right! Hey, that sale we just got let's just take that cash over to Stephen.”   #4: I'm going to sell to people who already have an internet presence.   They don't ask questions like, "But how do I build a social media profile?" They’ve already solved that problem.   The length of the education bridge needed is represented by the number of problems they've already solved in order to use your product.   If a bridge is super freaking long it means they have a lot of problems to solve.   They haven't walked through a lot of things that are required in order to be successful with your product. They’ve far more problems than the person who’s hot traffic.   I'm NOT saying you shouldn't help them, but gosh, just freaking sell somebody who’s already:   Likely to buy   Highly likely to be successful   Highly likely to do exactly what you say   When I sell somebody that's hot traffic versus somebody who's cold traffic, my business and my personal happiness increase by leap and bounds. Personally and emotionally, I feel better.   #5: If I'm going to sell to people on how to publish, the easiest sale is to somebody who's already publishing.   Are there as many people? No, but they're fast sales.   There are still MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to be made before you have to throw in the towel and start selling warm traffic.   I'm super pumped, I just bought mycontentmachine.com…   Nothing is there yet, so you can’t check it out yet, but I'm super stoked because I want to teach you how I created my content publishing machine. WARNING SIGNS   So, to wrap up; think about this…   If you have to defend your product like it's a dissertation for your Ph.D., it's highly likely that you’re NOT selling to, or haven’t figured out how to speak to, hot traffic.   Mega Hot Traffic is:   Problem-Aware   Solution-Aware   Educated Already   They just need to see your solution - which makes it really simple to sell to them.   Take a look at who you're selling to see if you’ve picked hot traffic; the easiest sale with the shortest education bridge?   If you're not selling anybody yet, when you build your product, (or if you do affiliate marketing), make sure that who you're targeting is already massively dispositioned to purchase.   This usually means your customer is already purchasing something similar to your product, and they just need something new to buy to scratch the itch.   Then all you have to do is…   *Just stand in front of them*   Until Next Time - Keep Crushing It!   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

Boom, what's going on, everyone?   Steve Larsen from Sales Funnel Radio, today I'm gonna teach you guys my event teaching template.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today and now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   Join me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up, guys? Hey, I'm excited for today. I wanna share with you guys kind of a cool little thing here.   I’ve been teaching at events for a number of years now. I’ve taught everyone, from people who are brand new to people who are extremely experienced and very wealthy, and there is a format that I teach in.   One of the things that I get asked, actually more and more frequently this has been happening, is, “Stephen, how can you get up and riff for two hours?”   The answer is, I'm not just like talking, I'm actually following a format in my head.   There's been a few people have reached out and said, “Stephen, I wish you'd just get straight to the principle.” But there's reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing with this.   Right after my OfferMind event in 20218, I had the opportunity to go in and teach Russell Brunson's new speaker team for about half a day. He's got a new traveling team and they travel around on small stages that he can't get to, 'cause of who he is - which totally makes sense.   This team pitches ClickFunnels and content around the world, which is awesome. It's super cool.   So I was asked to come in and teach some of my methods and how I do what I do. I walked up and there wasn't really much of a framework, I had an idea…   I was watching and observing like crazy before it was my turn to go up, 'cause I wanted to see where they were. So I had an idea of what to actually talk about… But guys, I'll be honest with you, sometimes as I'm talking, especially on stage, (I'm always extremely prepared, especially when I get on stage), but there's always a little bit of playroom.   One of my favorite things to do when I'm talking and going through a principle or whatever is to watch, I don't know how else to describe it, other than watching the eyes of the people to see:   #: Do I have them?   If I'm losing them, I've got to tell a story.  I've got to just do something that's high drama or drop some more gold, something a little more valuable. I've got to do something to get 'em back; whether that's an engagement, or  sometimes I'll do a random Q&A.   Half of a being speaker is being able to deliver cool stuff; the other half is being able to read the audience.   I’ve done a lot of three-day events, tons of them and I have slides, but not every group that comes into the room is the exact same, so I've got to be able to adjust based on what they're doing.   So what I've done, especially over the last two years, I've been developing kind of my own pattern for how I do stage stuff.  Those of you guys who are coming to Funnel Hacking Live, you’ll see me do this.   I'll be extremely prepared, however I'm also gonna leave a little bit of room. I'm gonna watch how people are reacting.   There's been some stages that I've spoken on and like every audience is different, there's nothing to really prepare you for it, other than just doing it.   There’ve been some audiences that I've spoken to that were just the driest, dry, most unfun group to talk to ever, I'm not gonna say who it was, but it was a few events in Vegas and Texas and these other areas. I just talked to them and like, “Man, are you guys dead?”   Anyway, before I say anything offensive, I'm gonna move on, but like, “MAN!”   Then some of the most fun stages are not necessarily always the most educated in what I do, so I've got to start at a different level. You've got to be really fluid as a stage talker.   Now there's a difference between stage teaching and stage pitching - huge difference, monumental difference.   Every time I'm doing a stage pitch, I will follow a webinar script.   Teaching from stage, it's kind of that, but not really, there's a lot more that goes into it.   So my wife and I, we're both geeks now and she and I were talking late about stage and we were talking about the different formats of being able to present on stage, and so I thought it'd be kind of cool to share with you guys some of what I do, and how I'm actually able to pull that off…   I'm not just riffing, although it may look like that.   Let me just pull this whiteboard in here. If you guys are on ITunes, no sweat, I'm gonna walk through, you guys won't miss anything out. Drawing just helps me explain, so that's half the reason I draw so much.   Okay, so the first thing that I do is I go in and I draw a big old framework picture. It's a massive framework picture right here up at the top and it's a picture that represents the all the content.   One of the major reasons that I do this is because it helps me stay focused on what I need to produce, but also it helps me stay focused on what I should NOT get distracted by. There are squirrels!   As a speaker, you're like, “Oh man, you, one person in the audience, you think that's cool? Why don't I go on a massive tangent and teach you some other cool things, 'cause you think that's cool?”  No! I'm sticking to a framework.   There was an event I was speaking at early on, one of the first stages I ever spoke on, and it was really valuable, but I stopped teaching and started Q&A-ing.   Stage pitching, totally different than stage teaching, which is totally different than Q&A, which is totally different than workshop. They're not all the same thing. They're the little tools that I pull out of my pocket when I need to to keep:   Things interesting   The learning up and high   The energy high   People engaged   ... 'cause some of the principles I go through... man, they're freaking boring. I know they're boring! I hate listening to boring speakers. Hate it, hate it, hate it.   I don't really watch so much football. I like the Denver Broncos, they're my team, but I don't really watch that much of it, but when I do…   I'm not really an armchair quarterback, but I am TOTALLY an armchair quarterback when I am watching other people on stage. I’m nitpicking the crap out of 'em, I can't help it. I'm like:   Oh, I would have done that different   I would have pointed differently there   What's with the stature of that person?   Why is every one of their sentences going down? They should be going up.   ...you know, it's like I can't help it. This is my craft, this is what I do, I can't help but watch what people are doing on stage.   So anyway, there's different mechanisms and frameworks and patterns that I'm using throughout. Specifically for this episode, I'm gonna walk through how I handle teaching on stage in a way that’s:   Interesting   Interactive   Captivating and brings the minds of the audience with you   If I just pop right out and say, “Here's the framework!”   The audience will: Look at it   Finds something on there that they have seen before   Thinks that they understand the rest of it immediately - when they don't.   I can't just walk up and be like, “Here's the framework.” So what I do first of all is I go in and I draw a framework picture, then what I do is I break up the picture into chunks, three, four, five, six, seven chunks.   This is exactly what I did for OfferMind   This is exactly what I did for all of the FHAT events that I used to run   It's exactly what I do for OfferLab, which is coming up for those of you guys that are coming to it.   ...Does that make sense? There's a lot of what I do that comes from just this piece alone.   I got to hang out with Russell when he was drafting a lot of the Traffic Secrets book which he's been working on. He's writing it right now, but the actual ideation of the principles, he does the exact same thing... Where do you think I learned it? ;-)   When I first got to ClickFunnels and he started drafting the Expert Secrets Book, this is exactly what we did.   There was a picture that represented all of it and then the picture was broken up into four or five different pieces, and those are the major sections of the book.   So I do this the exact same way when I'm doing a teaching-based event. When I go into pitching, that's a different activity and a different pattern. But specifically this is how to teach at events. Okay, just making that clear, so that no one thinks that's how you pitch!   The first thing I do is I draw a picture…   If I can explain a complex principle with a doodle, it means it’s simple enough for the masses to understand. Most people are on a third grade reading level,and I can't stand up and use complex vocabulary.   The point is to not make me look smart, the point is to educate the audience.   It drives me nuts when you can tell someone wrote a speech to make 'em look smart, rather than to connect with the audience.   I'm not gonna name any names, but man, there was an event that I went to, (this happened like three times last year), where I got to speak at an event or I went to one that I just kind of wanted to go to… and there would be one or two speeches specifically you could just tell that were created to just remind everyone how cool the speaker was.   ...That's awesome, but I believe that if you want credit, don't seek it. If you want stature, don't seek it. You're gonna look like you are and you distance yourself from the listeners, 'cause you're like:   “Will you remind me again of how awesome I am, please? Remind me how much of a pedestal I'm on. Raise me up, please, audience, following.”   ...You distance yourself from the audience in that one move. Stupid, don't do it! okay.   So anyways,I draw a picture (for a lot of reasons), but it's so that I understand it in a simple way to teach it and so it's a simple to deliver the principle at the same time.   So I draw a smaller picture of a chunk of the major framework picture and I do it again, and then I do it again.   Let's say that there are four major principles, that are distinct from each other inside of this major picture. So then I draw another picture. Then there's a pattern inside each one of these that I'm pulling off.   When I'm doing a lot of Facebook Lives, or even sometimes in these episodes, I don't always do this in these episodes, but a lot of times I'll follow kind of a version of this a little bit.   There's really two phases to this:   #1: Is Preparing: so, first,  I'm gonna walk through the preparing phase, which is what we're doing right now.   This is how I prepare all the content ahead of time to make sure that I am ready to over deliver on stage. Is it a brain jog? Yes, it’s mentally exhausting. It’s so challenging.   I'm going through the exact same process for my book right now. Ha, right! It's not easy, guys. It's NOT easy at all.   Realistically, if you're doing something that's gonna be a little more permanent like a book…   I don't write the book to make money, it's gonna make some, but I'm making the book to make sure it’s easily transferable information to the masses. It's a low ticket thing = low cost + high circulation product.   So these are the stages I’m gonna go through with you:   1. Preparation 2. Delivery   So the first thing I do is I come up a big picture represents all of it and then there's four major principles - they're like little breakouts of the major framework. So now let's get down to each one of these levels. I draw the major, overarching principle pictures and I will usually use blue.   The next color I use for the actual content itself is typically green.I hope it shows up well on the camera here. Then I draw a smaller picture, yeah, that shows up alright, I draw a smaller picture and inside of that, I'm coming up with:   A quote, A story The actual concept itself A ‘So What?’   You’ll see Russell do this in several places as well, I do this in a lot of spots: “Oh, cool quote about this. By the way, here's a really cool story that's gonna set you up to understand the concept when I drop it.” Which is why I always tell a lot of stories on this show and anywhere.   Then, the “So what?” Meaning; “Who freaking cares?”   If I teach you something cool and you can't use it,  then who cares? I'm not here to say, “Oh, look how cool I am. So what? Who cares?   I hate my time being wasted. I do my best NOT to waste you guy's time, so I do what's called a “So What?”   I this at OfferMind; meaning: I teach you the principle Here's what you should be able to do with it now that you've learned it.   It's like the deliverables, the thing that they should be able to go do afterwards.   And frankly, this is a small picture... and then I do it again. We do a smaller picture, a quote.. and these are all little, tiny micro stories that teach the bigger concept. There'll be a bunch of 'em, boom, boom, small, small pictures. However many I need, in order to actually accurately show the BIG concept.   Does that make sense so far?   Then what I do is I typically, not always, it depends on how much time I have...   So then I grab a red pen and red to me is the “So whats?”  If you don't have red, you're dead... meaning this is the applicable area of what I'm teaching here.   So then, I usually do somewhat of a workshop/Q&A, not always. One or the other, sometimes both, it’s very time dependent. These usually end out the principle that I’ve taught.   For those of you guys who have got tickets to the next OfferMind, you got the replays from last year, watch me doing this.   Each session is is usually about an hour and a half to two hours,and then we usually need a break, and that's fine, but I usually end with a workshop/Q&A section or session.   I do the exact same thing for every single one of those major pictures and frameworks moving forward. Does that kind of make sense?   That's how I prepare, but that's NOT actually how I teach it. That’s NOT how I teach it at all.   Now I'm gonna erase the bottom of this right here, just so that I can draw how I actually toss it out, okay.   So that's why I lace it all out on my floor. I just got another 12 legal pads from Amazon Basics, because I'm running out. I use a lot of legal pads because I'm literally drawing pictures and writing the quotes on all these sheets on my floor and stuff - because then I can visually see:   “Crap, I'm missing a story on picture number two, section one, right, oh, dang, I'm need to find a quote, that backs up what I've been saying, I know this is a true principle, who else talks about that?”   That's why I buy so many books, I don't necessarily read that many books from cover to cover, I don't. What I do is I hunt answers. If I know I'm missing a quote from section one, picture number three, I'm like, “Crap, who talked about that again?”   Then what I do is I walk through my bookshelves and I grab out all the books,that look like they're about that topic and I will rifle through and speed read like crazy.   In fact, on the other side of this camera is where I usually put all that stuff. I had stacks of books next to each principle: “Oh man, this stack of books is really about that one principle. This stack of books is really about that principle.” And I rifle through them to make sure.   That's why OfferMind was so good, guys, I did my freaking homework.   Let me grab another color here. Yeah, let's grab black…   So that's how I prepare, but the way I actually deliver is, I always start with a story. A story at a place of high drama. Sometimes I will start also with a quote; sometimes those are interchangeable. It's not always in that order, but these are always at the beginning at least.   So it's a story at a  place of high drama, and a quote. I never just present the picture. This is one of the reasons why so many of us use whiteboards on stage is we are drawing the picture in front of the audience. If you have to go fast, that's fine, but it actually creates a deeper understanding for the audience if you draw and explain at the same time ...and then show them the finalized picture that you prepared ahead of time.   Russell does this at Traffic Secrets. I do this all the time like at the FHAT Events.I did this several times at OfferMind, time depending, based on where I was.   What I do is I draw a story to place high drama, then I go through a quote and then I'm drawing the picture in front of them on a clean whiteboard or a clean piece of paper.   I'm saying the steps that they need to take in order to to do that principle, but I'm also visually writing down those steps. That's why in my slides, a lot of times, you'll see I'm drawing the picture even though it's already done on the next slide.   This works so freaking good.   I've used this many times on a lot of stages, a lot of stages, okay. I've an abnormal amount of stage time for someone my age and I know that, and I'm just saying, okay.   So then I'm gonna number the steps out, audibly and written and then finally I press the slide button, 'cause I go make all these pictures. I have an artist go in and they will actually make a rendering of each one of these pictures. But if I just show it, it's not nearly as effective. Then I go through my “So Whats?” and then leave off with the Q&A/workshop. Does that make sense?   Sorry for the reflection there, guys, I'm trying to get that off there. Anyways, cool, that's how I do it.   First, I prepare it in the order I’ve shown you, but then I deliver it in this order.   I DON’T just:   Show the picture Use a quote Tell a story Reveal a concept Add the “So Whats?”   BECAUSE… it's better if the audience discovers the picture with you as you're drawing it. Man, that's so much more effective. The learning's a lot deeper.   Anyways, I just wanna share that with you guys. Some of you have been asking about this and I'm stoked to be able to share it with you.   So if you guys are doing events - which are amazing. I believe everybody should do an event. Events are incredible whether it’s virtual or in person.   Marketers are event creators.   When you go in, especially in a teaching event. I'm speaking in a lot of places already in 2019, I'm really stoked about it.   I got a lot of offers, I'm going a lot of places and I'm excited about that. I'm saying no to most of 'em, 'cause I'm really focused on my goal for this year. Thank you, I don’t want to offend anyone.   If I’m  gonna do any kind of stage speech at all, if I have an hour, if I have 30 minutes, if I have three days, this is how I do it.   You'll see a lot of times, when I'm trying to over deliver content, in my head, I'm following this format.   What's the story format I'm using? Epiphany Bridge Script.   What's the quote I'm using? Someone who's influential, that  the audience all know about.   I'm drawing the picture in front of 'em. I suck at drawing, whatever!   Next I walk through and number the steps out: it's the same exact thing I would do in a webinar script, but in this format, it's a little different.   Then I go in and write the “So Whats?” Finally; Q&A/workshop at the end, time dependent. I love that one, it helps 'em really feel like they've gotten a lot.   Anyway, that's the format that I use both in creating and in delivering.   What I want to do real fast is cut over to one other video real fast…   When I was at OfferMind, I ended the event. I was done, I was excited, I was like man, I knew that it had been awesome. A lot of money has been made from that event already; meaning the people in the audience applied everything and made a lot of cash, which is awesome and very validating…   But I was getting down and guys, I was tired, okay, I was about to go get in the car and continue to teach the speaker team. I was exhausted, man. I had really not slept in a while, and if you've ever been on stage, like you should be freaking tired.   The photographer came up to me afterwards and she goes, "You move more on stage than anybody I've ever seen ever," and I said “Yeah, well, number one, I hate bad speakers who are boring and number two, if I don't keep things interesting it's gonna suck.”   I don't know if you guys have heard the saying or the stat. I don’t know if it’s a stat or a saying, whatever... but I believe it's true, 'cause it seems true every time I do it…   90 minutes on stage is the equivalent in energy to a full eight-hour workday   ...And so to go for two straight days, man, you're wrecked, you are so freaking tired.   Whenever I'm doing a webinar, it's an hour and a half, I'm acting like I'm on stage. I’m exhausted after I do a webinar. I’m putting out energy, I’m working hard. They will NOT exceed my energy level.   I set the pace, so I've got to come in high and hard, so that I can bring everybody up because that brings them in a better place to be engaged and learn,   I pre-bought caffeine for the tables.   Anyway, so I did all this stuff, and then the event ended, and as I was about to walk off, Colton runs up and he goes, "Hey, wait everyone, don't move, don't move, don't move."   I didn't know he had a mic in his hand and he invited John Ferguson up and they gave me the Statue of Responsibility Award which had a hard time not breaking down and kind of crying over, guys.   The only reason I'm showing you guys this, it's not to pat my back, it's to pat my wife's for what she does to support everything that I'm doing. It's pretty intense.   So I just wanna give a little shout out to my wife here.   We're gonna cut over here, so you guys can watch US get that award and the amazing compliment that he gave her at the end of this video.   So anyways, let's cut over real quick here:   Coulton: We have something pretty special planned for Steve right now.   He has no idea.   So you guys are gonna be part of this, but in order to, like, explain it a little bit more, we're gonna roll a video, so if you guys wanna kinda sit back and watch a quick video with us, that would be awesome.   VIDEO: Viktor Frankl, the author of Man's Search for Meaning and a Holocaust survivor, he firmly believed that if we don't act responsibly with our freedoms, we will lose those, and now we're able to create his vision. His vision was to create a Statue of Responsibility. Bookend the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast with a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.   "Freedom threatens to degenerate into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsiveness. And that is why now it's for ten years that I've been teaching my American audiences they should see to it that the Statue of Liberty on the Atlantic Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the Pacific Coast." -Viktor Frankl   SCULPTOR OF THE STATUE: "Everyday we make decisions. We can think about what defines us. Is it our past, or is it where we're going? Is it what we want to do, or what's happened to us? We have the ability. We decide what we're going to create each and every day."   Coulton: I'm now gonna invite Mr. John Ferguson up to the stage real quick.   John Ferguson: So Stephen knows what this is, but a lot of you didn't, so we wanted to share the video.   On my way out here, I had an opportunity to talk to the sculptor of The Statue of Responsibility.   Two years ago, we were on a mission to find entrepreneurs, influencers, people who are looking to change other people's lives.   Viktor Frankl had in his study in Vienna, a sculpture with a man called The Suffering Man who reaches up to the sky looking for help. He always used to say, before he passed away, is "Where is the hand reaching down?"   Being a Holocaust survivor, he talked about responsibility on the West Coast to bookend liberty and freedom on the East Coast, and so we said:   "Look, we have to find individuals who are the hand reaching down to others in our world."   Don't you think Stephen is one of those people? Yeah, totally!   I think I've known Stephen about three years, first Funnel Hacking live event. We talked about that, and he is a different dude. He is awesome, right? I mean, phenomenal.   And so I talked to the sculptor, and I had him sign one of the statues, and it’s numbered, and we're only giving away a few of these to individuals in the country.   These individuals will have their names in a special place at the statue that will be built in Southern California, 305 feet tall, just like The Statue of Liberty. You'll be able to go inside and visit it.   Because of what he's done, not only for this community, but for all of your communities, do you understand that? Now you can get your message put in a way, you guys are all a part of this.   To Steve:  so would you accept the Statue of Responsibility as a gift for what you've given all of us?   Steve: Absolutely, man. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that a lot. That's huge. Thanks, man, thank you.   John Ferguson: And one last thing here with Alyssa, the reason why I wanted her on the stage was she's the hand reaching down at home while Stephen's here with us.   So thank you for giving us Stephen while you're having to take care of the home. Appreciate it.   Steve: Thanks. It means a lot. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Well, you guys are, you guys are gonna see my tears flex in a second.   Hey, guys thank you so much for being here. We love you, we appreciate you a lot. This is totally a family endeavor. Hope you guys know that and feel that from us, and go change the world. We'll see you guys. Thank you, thank you very much. Thanks for watching this episode, please rate and subscribe at ITunes, I would really appreciate it if you guys rated it. That means a lot.   Guys, thanks so much. Let's cut over to the video and see us getting that award. Bye.   Boom, just try to tell me you didn't like that!   Hey, whoever controls content controls the game. Wanna interview me or get interviewed yourself, grab a time now at stevejlarsen.com. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands