Sales Funnel Radio

Boom, what's going on everyone?   Steve Larsen from Sales Funnel Radio and today I'm excited to teach you guys my list management strategy.   I spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left by nine-to-five to take the plunge and build my million-dollar business.   The real question is, how well 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.   Hey guys, I'm excited to show you guys this.   This is probably a simple lesson, but I find more often than not there is a lot of people out there who don't really have a strategy for what I'm about to show you.   Which means for all the lists that are being built, (which are the true asset of the Internet), there’s no strategy - there’s no list management at all.   I remember the first funnel I ever built, it was a free plus shipping funnel, and it was selling this little CD.   For those of you guys listening on iTunes, just know I'm drawing this but you'll be fine just listening as well.   It was free plus shipping CD funnel and as soon as you bought the CD…   Let's say the CD was here on the very first page - there’s a list specifically of people who bought that CD. Now, that makes sense. there was a list just for the CD people.   Then there was a bump in there…   If this is the first time you've ever tuned into Sales Funnel Radio, just know we're talking about sales funnels obviously.   This is the way to sell things on the Internet, and this is one of the cool strategies to get a lot of low-end, low-ticket kind of things out the door through a free plus shipping funnel.   So anyways, there'd be this bump, like: “Hey, you want to add something else to your order?” So there'd be another list specifically for this bump.   ...and it started getting messy quick. You're starting to see where I'm going with this, right? The next upsell = there was another list.   There was another list for this one.   There was a list of people who just bought the down sell.   There was a list of people who made it all the way through the funnel and bought everything.   ...I mean, it was like a list upon list upon list.   Lists had gotten together and had babies. There were camps of lists all over the place. It was ridiculous. I had so many lists. It got convoluted very very quickly.   So literally every funnel that I'd build…   If it was just a standard kind of low ticket funnel like this; I would easily have one, two, three, four, five, five or more lists per funnel. That's just for this value ladder step two.   So if there were all these other value ladder pieces, for example, if there was five on this one, five on that one, five on that one…     That’s easily 15 lists for every single thing I was going and I was building...   And then I’d go build for other people!   I mean, it got so convoluted so fast. I would have to go in and re-remember where each person specifically. It was terrible guys.   And I know you're like “Oh, woe is you.” But like seriously, imagine how intense that gets very very quickly. It gets stressful.   Every time you want to send an email, you’re stuck selecting 100 lists: “This one but not that one, this one but not that one.” It takes a long time actually.   It took significant chunks of Russell's day every time he would do it.   One of the things Russell had me do when I first got there, (probably about five months in), is I had to condense and organize and sort all of the lists at ClickFunnels.   It's was a half a million people that were on that list at that time... just ClickFunnels' lists; now it's way more than that.  It was a huge, massive list, but it was spread out across, I think well over 50, 60, 70. Don't quote me on that, but it was a lot of lists.   So what I had to go do is come up with some kind of procedure some I could sift through to say,  “Okay, this is how we're going to handle all list management in the backend from here on.”   These funnels we built were so powerful, but there’s not really a nomenclature. If there’s not really a system for naming and organizing all the different lists that are inside someone's ClickFunnels account, value ladder, or inside of any business, it gets really convoluted.   I know this might sound kinda a trivial trial, but it's not though! I promise, go try this out, and you'll see how frustrating it gets when you want to send an email.   It's hard because your brain will be so consumed by the next thing you are building to have to go back and remember what you were doing in each one of these pieces. Man, that's why we have automation.   So there are a few more pieces of automation people can add inside of their funnels to just make the whole thing sing and make it really really simple.   That's the purpose of today's episode. I want to teach you guys, real quick, this list management strategy that I use still today.   I just barely went through and I started deleting a bunch of lists that are old. I realized I wasn't following my own strategy. I think I just deleted 40 email lists. I download all of them, combined them, and re-upload them to my Seinfeld list   If you don't know what I'm talking about here, guys, go get the book DotCom Secrets.   If you're on this podcast and you've been listening to this and you haven't read that Dot Com Secrets, you should probably follow a different podcast…   I say that jokingly, but not really ;-)   This is gonna help you tremendously in every single funnel. I'm trying to make this as simple as I possibly can. Let me just move this whiteboard a little more here… (I'm gonna draw a list here in red)   I'm never going to build a funnel and NOT collect an email or some kind of contact information. Whether it's some kind of Facebook opt-in or whatever, I'm always gonna be collecting a list. *ALWAYS*   There's no point for me to even make the funnel if I'm not going to somehow collect a list. It's NOT always page one, but somewhere I'm going to be collecting some kind of opt-in. There is a core list that I am always adding to.   ...So if this is again my value ladder, I am always, always going to add people to what I call a Seinfeld list. That's what it is called. It’s called a Seinfeld list.   That Seinfeld list represents and is added to by every funnel in my value ladder.   So if I have this big old list right here, kind of like a bucket... that's how I kind of imagine a list... like hey here's a big bucket. That's my symbol, when I'm drawing funnels, for a list.   I have one Seinfeld list that represents the entirety of the value ladder.   If anybody opts in anywhere on any funnel, all rivers, all oceans lead to my Seinfeld list.   Every time I'm building a funnel or designing it;  Seinfeld. Seinfeld list, meaning Seinfeld series. If you don't know what that is, you gotta read DotCom Secrets.   Just to recap real fast:   The Seinfeld list is the general list of all your people. We call it that because when we email them, we are following the Seinfeld (as in the Seinfeld show) format of talking to people.   There's gonna be a really small micro-story which doesn't necessarily need to relate with the topic about the email, but it's just to capture attention and edutain.   And then I'm gonna go in and have some call to action.   The Seinfeld is the list I'm consistently hitting. It's the list where I'm gonna go and be like, “Oh man, I should go promo my next thing.” It's the Seinfeld list that I'm emailing, NOT all of my list.   For Sales Funnel Radio, we blast out a general, “Hey, here's the next episode… this is what it's about. We choose specifically my Seinfeld list and my Sales Funnel Radio list inside of my ClickFunnels account - just those two.   All rivers lead to Seinfeld anyway.   Every single funnel though, I'm running it off of just a few lists. It’s the same for every single funnel, I'm just telling you.   I stopped collecting unique lists for people who just opted in for OTO 2, or who wanted a downsell - that sucks quick. It gets terrible real fast.   So the first thing that I do, whatever they opt to…   Let's say there's an opt-in form with a big old button and someone opts-in and gives their email. The first thing I'm gonna go do is add them to a general opt-in list for the specific funnel.   ...so each value ladder funnel has its own opt-in list…   After about five, six, seven, sometimes 10 days, however long it takes for this specific campaign to end, I automatically add them to my Seinfeld list.     So let's say that there's an email soap opera series that's dropping out over five days. On day six, I would automatically tell ClickFunnels: Add that contact to my Seinfeld list, and on day seven remove them from my opt-in list.   I want to know exactly where people are inside of my funnel.   There are not many occurrences where I want someone to be on multiple lists at one time.  At the same time, they could be on:   An opt-in list. A Seinfeld list A buyers list   ... that's it.   If they are on one list and they suddenly get on the list for the high-ticket thing, that's fine as long as they are actually experiencing the funnel still. I don't want them to be there 10 weeks later just sitting and chilling out in there.   That does not give me a good accurate description of where the flow is happening inside of my value ladder. Does that make sense? Again, we're more techie on this episode, but just follow me on this. This is actually very simple once I just draw it out.   So I have the opt-in list, and after, let's say, day six, I'm going to have ClickFunnels automatically add that contact to a Seinfeld and then on day seven remove then from the first list. I don't want them on both.   Seinfeld or opt-in, NOT both at the same time.   If it's just a general opt-in with nothing to purchase, that's how I would do it.   If they opt-in in general, I'm still gonna add them to opt-ins. I'm NEVER not gonna just not collect the data. I'm gonna collect the data.   But let's say they purchase something here on the first page, I would add them to another list. Say it's a two-step order form, so they opt in, boom, I'm gonna add them to opt-ins, okay, but if they actually purchase I want to know who my specific buyers are.   I want to speak to my buyers in a very specific manner; so I'm gonna add these guys to their own list. I'm NOT going to create a specific buyer list for each individual product in my entire funnel -  like I was saying before, that sucks quick. It's terrible.   That's pretty much it, guys! I mean, I wish there was more to this episode. I mean that really is it. So let's walk through a few scenarios here…   Let's say someone opts in and they get added to the opt-in list where they experience an email sequence or some kind of follow-up sequence - something, an Actionetics. Maybe they're hitting all my Facebook ads for a while, and then once the lead kinda dies down and I realize they're not very warm anymore, they're kinda cooled off and they’re NOT really in a buying state anymore, I want to get them off the list. I don't want them on the opt-in list.   I don't want them to be a representation of people who are in the funnel. They're not on the funnel. I don't want them in the list…   I've done this in series before that’s been a 21-day series or 30-day series…   So on day 31, or whatever, I will automatically have ClickFunnels add that contact to my Seinfeld list, and on the next day, remove them from the list they came from.   That way, everyone else who's left in the list, they are still in the list, they are still in the funnel. They are still experiencing the funnel. I'm still trying to sell them. That helps me, it's really cool guys.   I can look at my ClickFunnels account and see: There's a ton of people right here at the bottom on my value ladder = that's great. There's almost no one in the middle and tons of people at the top = Why are they not ascending from this space to the next space easily?   Does that make sense? It lets me see things more accurately.   I don't want lists all over the place. That's crappy, it’s literally a clog in my funnel. So that's one scenario... and every single value ladder step is that way.   All rivers continue to add to the Seinfeld list and remove from the original opt-in list of that value ladder step.   This is super easy, super key.   The buyer's list is the one list that they will NEVER get removed from. I want to speak specifically to my buyers sometimes.   When someone makes a purchase they are added to the buyer's list. If they buy the next OTO, they’re already on the buyer's list, I'm NOT adding them again. They’re already on the buyer's list.   For each value ladder step, there’s a specific buyer’s list so I know how many people are buying on each value ladder step. Then there’s one Seinfeld list for all of them Then there’s one opt-in list for each of them.   ...And that's literally how I run it.   They can stay in a buyers list forever and hopefully, they’ll never opt out.   So there's an opt-in list on each value ladder step, but eventually, that opt-in list expires for that session, and that person gets added to Seinfeld list   It’s literally with those three lists that I manage all of my stuff.   As I'm building the funnel, I walk through several scenarios to see where the dead ends are. I don't want leads to get stuck somewhere and stay there forever. They should not hit a dead end.   The only place that it should end is in a Seinfeld list or buyers list. That's it. It's flowing somewhere.   Now I'm able to sit back and go like, “Holy crap, look at this! They're going from here to here, but then NOT from here to there. What's wrong with this series?”   If the email series is first meant to sell whatever's going on in the funnel, and then let's say I have more emails that are meant to ascend somebody to the next piece in the value ladder, and the next value ladder. I want to be able to figure where things get stuck.     So I'm gonna go one level deeper on this here real quick…   There's one other piece to it that makes the whole thing sing and it's something that can really help you guys as you start to move forward on this stuff.   Check this out:   So if I've got a value ladder...   Man that sucks, I need like those big thick markers. I got them for my whiteboard for the OfferMind event, but they’re hard to find. I haven't found anybody with dry-erase versions. You know what I mean?   Anyway, so if I've got a value ladder: each value ladder has a list for opt-ins, and a list for buyers.   That opt-in list will auto dump people out to the Seinfeld list. I don't want them to stay there long term.   Eventually, all rivers lead here to the big old Seinfeld list. Now I can accurately see how people are moving inside of my actual value ladder, but there is one other piece here that is actually super cool.   If you go to ClickFunnels.com and you’re NOT logged in, you’ll see a new quiz.   Clickfunnels has created 10 unique onboarding sequences based on the industry you’re coming from; which is very very clever.   SoI click on Network Marketing, I'm gonna get onboarded to ClickFunnels in that specific industry's language. Massive project. Absolutely huge! Not a small feat to pull off. Amazing that Russell did that.   Let's say somebody comes into a specific funnel, then I need to create a sequence inside of each funnel to sell them on what’s in this funnel. That's the purpose of that opt-in, to sell them what's inside the funnel.   When somebody opts into my application based funnels (I get two to three applications per day asking people to join some things that I do, which is really cool), well, when they go opt-in, I have a 10-day series continually pitching them to join my thing.   So now, I'm making a series for each value ladder step, but I'm also making a series in between each value ladder step.   One of the things that I'm gonna be doing in 2019 which I'm really pumped about. On the floor, you guys can’t see it, there’s yellow paper all over the place. I’ve started to design and put together an onboarding series so that regardless of where you come into my funnel, you’ll find easy ways to consume my entire value ladder, NOT just that one step, Does that make sense?   I want one of those big long email series, let's say it's 30 days or whatever, and what it's doing is:   The first 3 emails are selling you on why you should come up to this area of my value ladder.   The next 3 emails are selling you on why you should come purchase in the middle of the value ladder.   Then 3 emails are selling you on why you should come up to the very top level of my value ladder.   ... So there's a tie-in list between the steps which can be attached to the Seinfeld list.   I have the value ladder steps already built out, but the thing I'm stoked for 2019 is this piece: When you get into my world, and I need you to go build an offer.   Q: What's the easiest way for you to do that? A: Go buy my book (which we're working on right now which I'm super stoked about).   Q: What should you do next? A: You should probably come to OfferMind in all reality.   Q: What should you do after next? A: We got this sweet thing called OfferLab where I actually help build your thing. I'll fly out to you, or you fly out to me, or and you can come to a three-day event with just a small group of people.   Q: What should you do next?  A: Oh, you know what, it looks like Steve Larsen's got a mastermind (which I'm gonna have soon).   ...That's part of the value ladder I've been designing, but what's the sequence?   So, if someone was to start at the very beginning of the value ladder, this BIG sequence would actually pull them through and showcase every single area of the value ladder and all the things that are in it.   So that's how I manage my lists.   Again, a bit of a long episode and more technical, but hopefully it spurts some ideas on how you can organize your lists more.   It's NOT just for organization sake. It’s literally to see the effectiveness of how well you're upselling people NOT just in the funnel, but from value ladder step to value ladder step.   That's the way we do it, and honestly, I'm super stoked for that.   I've watched a lot of people go in and build one of these big sequences and I'll be doing the same soon.   I just went back and rehashed all the stuff that I've been doing in my own ClickFunnels account to make sure that it was set up with this process.   There was a lot that I had, just for speed's sake, forgot to set up like that.   So I exported about 40 lists, combined them all, uploaded that new list to my Seinfeld list, and then deleted the old separate lists.   I went through every single funnel and added automation to add to Seinfeld and remove from opt-in. Which I’m psyched about   So the next piece, sometime this year I'm gonna be building out an awesome onboarding sequence, which is not aggressive, but it's showcasing: “Boom! Once you get this, did you know I have this? Did you know I have this?”   A lot of people have no idea what I even sell, or they have no idea of all the products I do sell or the things I do offer. That's a problem! Don't have it in your business.   One of the ways you can solve that is by having one of these cool onboarding sequences as well.   So, anyways, guys, that's kind of the list management stuff that I do.   You literally can run your entire thing: One funnel with three lists.   More often than not when I log into someone's ClickFunnels account, they have no set up for how to run it. I have no idea where people are getting stuck in their business, and it's hard for us to actually maneuver.   I don't know who to send emails to and who to not to. I don't want to send an email to the entire list when they're still inside a funnel. I want them to focus on that purchase.   I don't wanna come around with, “Hey, I know you're about to scratch the buyer's itch with a $15,000 thing. Why don't you come buy my book for $7.95?” Like, NO!   There are specific people you should NOT be talking to who are inside of your sequences right now.   That's exactly why I wanted to do this episode. So you guys can see from a top-level, each part of the funnel, each part of the value ladder is super similar.   It's the way that I'm able to go and send them from piece to piece and only talk to specific people - that's very very key, super key.   Anyways guys, thanks so much for joining me.   If you guys like this, please like, subscribe and review it in iTunes - that actually means a lot to me.   Guys, we'll see you in the next episode, bye.   Woo-hoo!   Hey, there's more marketing resources than there are sands of the sea, am I right?   Okay, maybe not, but there's a lot...   How do you know if you're paying for good ones?   Recently, I went to my business bank statement and I counted 51 Internet tools and resources that I used to run my business every day and actually keep my team size small.   If you want to see the list, I actually filmed an individual video teaching you why I use each tool and the strategy behind it, and then I dropped a link straight to the source right below it.   If you want to see the list, then see what you can use yourself, go to bestmarketingresources.com. That's bestmarketingresources.com.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Boom, what's going on, everyone? Steve Larsen from Sales Funnel Radio.   I am excited for this episode. Well, to be honest, I'm actually freaked out. This is my 2019 goal.   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 everyone?   Hey, so every single year I do this, and it's the scariest thing I do every single year. This is my fifth year in a row of doing this.   If you wanna see the past goals I've made year by year, you actually can find them on the youtube channel. You go to salesfunnelradio.tv,  and it'll take you to the actual youtube channel. If you want to check it out there - you can see the playlist of my previous years' goals.   Well, every single year I do this. And I remember the first time I ever did this. I was in this place of desperation. I was going into the army. In fact, you can see I have a shaved head. There's almost no fat on my body for some of those videos in there.   I remember sitting back and just thinking, “I'm tired.” guys. I'm tired of not having what I wanna have. I need to start doing things that are more drastic. And that's kind of what I was going through in my head at that time.   So I grabbed my computer, and I literally had traded funnels for the computer I was using. Actually no, not at that time. I don't even know that I really knew what a funnel was when I made that first video.   When I think back about it. I was taking a lot of traffic courses. Yeah, okay, that's what it was! Wait a second, so at the time what was going on, I was probably at business try, let's see, that was around number eight or nine, maybe ten.   I was a traffic driver for Paul Mitchell.  I’d had my first thousand dollar day, and it blew my mind. I was like "Holy Crap!" I was working with another guy at the time, we split the check, but still, $500 in a single day for me, I had never done that. And I was super blown away, guys. That was nuts. Absolutely insane for me.   We were living on a grand a month, basically, I believe. Something like that, anyways. It was hardly any money. And I was tired of it.   We’d been married for three years by that time and I was sick of being poor.   You can actually hear me in the very first thing say that: "I'm tired of being poor. "I'm tired of not having the things I'd like to have. "I'm tired of not having a lifestyle."   And honestly the biggest internal reason? I was tired of feeling like I couldn't provide for my family. I was sick of all of it.   I was like, I need to start doing bigger things. I need to start doing big, drastic things in my life that are the big disruptive activities that literally catapult me to new levels.   So the new goal that I made, the huge big goal that I made that very first video, five years ago, again you can see it, and you can see the progression year by year, which is crazy. I never thought I was starting a thing by doing this. But you can see, the big goal, I wanted to just do an extra thousand dollars a month.   I was like, “If I could just do,” and I didn't know how. I was like , “If I could just do a thousand dollars a month that would radically transform our lives.”   ...I mean, we would eat a little bit better. We would eat more. We could actually eat in general. I was just sick of it. I gotta be honest with you guys.   Looking back on what's happened in the last five years, first of all, is ridiculous. I didn't really figure out the game for the first two years doing these videos.   Then two years ago I was like, “Oh snap, the pattern's everywhere”... and then this last year, I decided to actually test the pattern, and I left my job. Scary, scary, scary stuff.   But when I think about it and the things that have propelled me, I actually wrote this on my window. It says Play Angry. I'm not an angry guy, but when I remember back to what life was like before I started doing this stuff…   I worked my face off, guys. I worked so freaking hard. I know the reason why stuff has happened really well in the last, especially two years. It's 'cause I worked really freakin' hard.   I only took two days for Christmas, and that's not necessarily a badge of honor. I actually wanna change that, and that's part of what I want to talk about for my goal for this upcoming year, but I work hard. I work really hard. I just get after it.   Nine times out of ten, I have no idea what the plan totally is. I'm just taking action. I'm just doing stuff.   So as I look back at the things that have really kept me moving forward, like, “Yes, there's this strategy, that strategy... Remember to do this before that...” That's great, and it's helpful.   But 80% of it is just me remembering the crap that I was going through and what life was like without having known or doing the things that I'm doing now - which sucked. I mean, “Oh my gosh, life was hard.”   ...So I'm excited for this. I'm not gonna lie, I'm actually nervous about this. I hate posting these videos. It's one of the reasons I do it: I hate it. It freaks me out. I don't want to tell you all my goal.   I don't wanna account for every previous year every single January. I hate New Year's resolutions, I think they're stupid. Why am I gonna do that once a year?   At the end of every single month I think through the goal, what I'm doing next month, I make sure that all the things and activities I'm doing are heading me to that target more closely. I'm not doing that once a year, that's stupid. So, anyway, I guess an effort for me to accept a little more of that resolution thing is to do this.   If you guys have never seen me do one of these episodes, or declare my goal publicly - what I do is I account for the last year.   It's not to throw mud in anyone's face. It literally is so you can go back and watch:   Year #1: Here’s Stephen when he had no money and was completely broke.   Year #2:  Still broke. He still hasn’t figured it out.   Year #3: Still broke, but it’s a lot more breakeven.   Year #4: Wow, lotta cash coming. Oh, my gosh.   Year #5: Stephen left his job... Holy smokes, why? What did he learn?   I'm trying to be super freakishly transparent in a way that’s not that popular anymore. It's not me saying, "Woe is me. Look how weak and vulnerable I am." No, no, no, no. Not at all. That’s NOT the point.   I'm trying to do is document everything I'm doing on the way so that you can see my journey.   Being broke was one of the most painful things I've ever been through in my life. And it almost had nothing to do with the money. It had everything to do with my feelings of inability. It wrecked my brain, guys.   It sucked, I don't want to feel like that. That's something that I'm really afraid of. I'm open to talk about that...   So I worked my face off, and after applying a few of these patterns, things really started to work. And then things really started working.   Anyway, so at the beginning of this I always go through and account for last year, and then tell you what my goal is going to be this next year, fiscally.   There's really only two, maybe three goals that I ever set. EVER. Anyway, so I'm gonna go through the fiscal goal for this upcoming year, and then my plan to get it. Which I'm really pumped about.   There's something that I, this episode is a little bit different than the previous ones that I've done where I just kind of say the goal. I want to tell you what I'm trying to do and... there's a gap, guys. There's a hole…   Literally two days ago, I realized that it was starting to appear in me. And I think I know how to fix it, but I'm freaked out about this one area, and I'm gonna solve it. It's just been really challenging.   So anyways, I'm excited about this though…   'Kay, so here it is, okay?   # January 1st, 2018, I left my job. And just to be clear, I had NO team. I had NO additional revenue at all. I had absolutely zero. I didn't have a product. I wasn't running any funnels, I didn't have a script.   Guys, I left with nothing.   I'm actually shocked how much hate mail I got by leaving ClickFunnels. Which is stupid, by the way. That's my choice, no one else's.   But when I left ClickFunnels, the reason I did it was because I had been coaching so many people in the Two Comma Club coaching program at ClickFunnels, that I started seeing these patterns of what was making somebody successful and what wasn't.   There were these holes and these gaps. And I was learning how to do is fill in those holes. Regardless of the product, the price point, or the industry that anyone was in, I was able to go through and figure out, "oh my gosh, this is how you fix it!"   I’d create my own framework and drop it in front of them, and BOOM!   I helped create a lot of millionaires in that program. Literally. A lot of hundred-thousandaires, which is still really good, and tons of people made money for the first time in their life on the internet.   I started getting better and better, and better, and better, better.   I'd already been doing the Two Comma Club coaching program for over a year at least, probably almost a year and a half by the time I left ClickFunnels.   So there were two reasons why I left ClickFunnels:   Number one:  I just knew in my bones I'm an entrepreneur. I just know that, and I'm trying to be more true to myself. I'm trying to find me. And I know that I'm an entrepreneur.   So the longer I stayed at ClickFunnels, regardless of how amazing it is over there and regardless of how dumb it looked for me to leave, and how cushy and amazing and plush and secure that job was... it wasn't me. So I left.   I had to grow some balls and just do it.   So number one, I had to get out of there.   That was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made in my life. Okay, literally. And it still hurts. It’s hard that I only live like three miles away from ClickFunnels, 'Cause I just wanna go in sometimes, and be like "What's up? You all are awesome! Hey, can I just hang out for a bit?"   I tried really hard not to be that kid that just won't leave. You know what I mean?   So I just didn't show up for the first three months. 'Cause I didn't want to be like "What's up guys, how you doing? Hey, remember I said I left, but I'm not leaving. How are ya?  So I left... and really made sure I left.   Number Two: The second reason was that I’d become very confident in the frameworks I was producing. When I was coaching, I knew that if people just did it, they would make money - eventually.   There might be some in-between things that they need to fix, which usually had to do with their personality and NOT my framework. But eventually, it would work.   A lot of good marketers do this, guys. You gotta think about this, right? I started asking myself the question…   I remember this was June 2017, and I started asking myself the question: “What is something huge, like really big, like the biggest thing I can think to have to go through to prove that I know this stuff?”   Straight up, I don't know, what's the word, prowess.  I was trying to, not as a "look at me," but it was to prove to myself and others that I wasn't just building funnels in the corner.   I knew there was more. I knew there was more. And I knew that my frameworks worked. So I started asking myself the question: “What's something that's so big that it would be hard for people to not notice me?” You know what I mean?   Again, it's not like an out of a "look at me!" mentality. But it represented so much - because of all the crap I had gone through. And all the stuff that had gone on in my life up until that point.   I was like, “I need a crucible.”There needs to be this big event. What's the craziest thing I could fathom going through to prove to myself that I could do it? Almost like going full circle and healing parts of me that weren't healed about what I had gone through. You know what I mean?   ...And then especially, “How can I prove to myself that what I am teaching?” I know it works!   If I go to the gym and I'm like "Hey, I wanna lose weight," I will never hire someone who's overweight, right? I don't want to be a hypocrite and be the guy who's teaching stuff that he hasn't done…   And that really got in my head, and it started giving me a complex. I knew that what I was teaching worked because I was seeing other people do it. But I hadn't done it. And to me that's freaking blasphemy. It's like, it's so stupid.   I'm never gonna hire somebody who's broke to teach me how to make money...   I follow the principle of the guy who has the biggest cheese. Sausage number one man. Right, who's the guy, who's the lady, who's the person out there who has done it so much, right, and they can teach it so well because they are speaking from experience?   I wanted to be that kind of person. I wanted to prove that my frameworks work.   So I thought to myself, "Self, what if you left your job with no assets, no income, no funnel?”  Like, this is freaking extreme! I know it is. And I'm not recommending that anybody do that.   For me, and where I was, that was the right answer.  I was like "That's insane." And I went back and forth for a few months like, "Are you kidding? That's stupid, dude! Why would you do that? You're gonna leave?" And like, “Yeah, but it's the ultimate, it does work."   How do I know?   Because I jumped out of a moving airplane with no parachute and built it on the way down.   Again, scary, risky, risky like crazy. That's risky.   And so anyways, I'm super proud. I obviously wish I had made more this year. Who doesn't wish that? But I'm really proud that it worked. And that I knew the frameworks and the models and the formulas to make the game work so well that I could do that.   And again, not like a beat on the chest, “Look how great I am!” But you see what I'm saying?   It was really important for me to prove to myself that I could do that, and for whatever reason, me and my personal development and growth needed that.   So anyways, what I'm gonna do really fast is I wanna walk through what happened last year,  what I'm gonna do next year, and how I'm gonna do it.   ...And then there's something that's kind of freaking me out a little bit and I'm trying to figure out how to solve it. And I think I have the answer but I'm not quite sure.   Anyways, let me pull in my whiteboard here. My trusty whiteboard. Okay, check this out. Here it is. Let me just make sure there's no glare. Let me look over here at the camera. Alright…   So last year from January 1st to December 29th at 9pm mountain time... (I held off a little bit to record this episode 'cause I was trying to flet December end out)... I did $850,000. Well, $850,353, and 87 cents - which is cool.   Last year, if you watched the video for 2018's goal, I was like "I'm gonna go make a million bucks." And like, I saw that and I was like, “Crap!” You know. I was like, “Yeah! No!” Like, “Yes! No!” Superbad. I was like, “NO!” … because of THAT.   So I'm super stoked, I did 850 grand out of the gate:   No team No funnel No product No system   The only thing I had been doing was publishing = big lesson in that.   I had done 100 episodes of Sales Funnel Radio at the exact date that I left ClickFunnels, I believe. The show hadn't even done 100,000 downloads when I left ClickFunnels; we're now at 250,000 downloads of Sales Funnel Radio. Last I checked, but it's growing by almost 2,000 a day now. Which is awesome. So that's cool, right? That's me accounting, being totally open and really vulnerable.   When I left ClickFunnels, I followed my own formula and made 200 grand really fast out of the gate. And then, I got freaked out, guys.   January and February what happened was, there was a lot of cash that came in. And I’d built funnels for revenue, but I hadn't built systems for a business. So I was the business. And it was hell, I'm not gonna lie, guys. It was so nuts.   March came around, which was Funnel Hacking Live, and I turned off pretty much every revenue stream because I was like, "Shut it down, shut it down! I need to go set up this stuff.  I gotta go put these things together.”   So I started putting together all these systems and all this stuff like, support. And then Coulton moved down. And I started putting all these people together because I couldn't handle the speed that the revenue was coming in.   I couldn't fulfill fast enough which is scary because the people were like "Oh, it's a scam!" And “It's not a scam, I just can't keep up.”   Trey Lewellen went through a similar thing when he sold that many flashlights. You know what I mean? Crazy, crazy, crazy.   So I slowed everything down…  and a lot of March and April was a lot of more biz building which was exciting, but it freaked me out, guys. I was trying to keep it cool but man, I was so scared because there wasn't a lot of revenue coming in.   At the beginning where it was like 40, 50, 60 grand a month, somewhere like that, it was like like 10, 15 grand, and I was like "We're gonna die in a gutter. Maybe this was a stupid mistake!" You know, "What have I done?"   So, I was so scared, but I knew the process and I just kept true to it and kept blocking out the noise. And when I turned everything back on, we were back up to 50 grand, 70 grand, and then, five months in a row of hundred, hundred, hundred.  I was like, “Holy Crap!”   Last month in December we didn't hit the hundred. It's funny man, people go on holidays and everything just kind of shut down. It was totally a slow season, I didn't know that. But I'm so stoked though.   And then what also happened, is we were pulling in so much money there that again, I had to stop things and slow things down.   A lot of December for me has been business building and systems building. So I've been building these things that’ll make it so that I can move faster in 2019.   So here's the sting, guys. Here's the sting…   I did 850 grand, collected. Check this out. Man, I was so pissed off when I saw this.   I was just quickly running through my accounts receivable,and we're getting another big chunk of cash again either today or tomorrow. Okay.   Check this out:   Collected = $850,000. To Collect, (meaning the business is there, we're just collecting it still) = $156,000   Man, that's a million dollars!   That's six grand over a million bucks. No, no, no no no!   I was so mad when I saw that. I ran downstairs to my wife and I was like "Look,  that + that  = that’s over a million! What! Like why didn’t I set up more systems?”   Anyway, it was super cool, BUT like, a massive slap in the face.   When I tell you guys the market will always tell you what to do - it just did! I was like "No!" The market's saying: “Stephen, you don't have the systems in place yet to collect enough of the money upfront in some areas of things that you provide.”   There's some really high-end stuff that I go and I do. I just get so excited about doing the thing I didn't have everything set up  - which is stupid.   ...but how would I have known unless I looked. Unless I listened to the market. Unless I was willing to fail... you know what I mean?   So was it a failure? “No, but Yeah.”   By the numbers, yeah. Was it really? No.   Did I do something really risky? Yeah. Did it work? Barely. You know what I mean?   So I'm excited guys, I can't describe to you the feeling of accomplishment that I have with this.   If you guys have been following me at all, I mean there's been many, many moments where, I'm not gonna lie, a little man-tear happened, okay. It flexed on the way out so it's still manly, it's cool.   ...But there was a little bit of a tear there and I was like "Man, you're crazy, Stephen. In fact, you killed Stephen. You're Steve now." A lot of you guys are asking me what you can call me; you can call me, whatever....   But anyway, this journey, this year has been of insane growth in many areas. I've learned:   What did work   What didn't work   Where I should tweak stuff   Where I need to go next   I know what to go build next.   ...And I know, because of pain. I couldn't have foreseen some of the things that I need to go fix, which is why I needed to leave ClickFunnels. You see what I'm saying?   I would NOT have known, "Hey look, when you move into this area watch out for this and this and that."   I wanna be the ultimate litmus test for what I'm teaching people.   So, risky? Totally. oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. Not that risky though, because of what I do and what I did. Don't compare yourself to me if you're like "I'm NOT willing to leave my job."  Yeah, then don't. I'm not telling you to, okay? But what I'm so stoked about was, “That would've been a million dollars. No! Dang it!”   ...Because I, technically, have two businesses, I didn't get a Two Comma Club award this year for my stuff, but both of them, we got the stuff to make 'em work really well, you know? It's freaking close.   Anyway, so I'm being open with you guys about what happened, and what didn't.   I’m trying to be the ultimate guinea pig on a lot of the stuff and test guru's material out.   And Russell Brunson's is the closest material that I've ever found where it's like ready out of the box, you know? It's not that way for other guru's stuff.   I want to be long-term. I want to have the reputation like that for my material. Not like, "Yeah, when you go to that person's stuff, it's great and it's really helpful, but you still need X, Y, and Z to actually use it."   I don't want that. I don't want that. That's why I made OfferMind and I made that event because it was me going through and showing the framework.   I have a very framework, systems-focused brain. And I love going in and pulling those things out and showing:   Look, this is how I did it   This is when it worked   This is when it didn't work.   ...and being that kind of person.   So anyways, going forward, my goal for next year - which is scaring the crap out of me. Which solves half my problem I'm gonna get to in just a moment here. My goal for next year, though?   If you watch the pattern, a lot of what I've done for these goals is the first year was $1,000 a month. Then it was $3,000 a month. Then I think is was $5,000 and then $10,000.   This last year was a million bucks - which is $82,000 a month.   This year, though…   Man, I'm telling you guys, I don't totally know all of the path on how to get there, but I see enough of it that I think it's gonna work. It’s scaring me to death. Ready? Here we go. You can see that, right? Yeah, okay. Four million dollars.   I've tripled the goal almost every time.   And that's where I've gone from one to three, you know. Then this to that. Four million, though, that's the goal! Gosh dang it, that's really freaky to say to you guys.   I know the systems that are gonna be in place. I gotta have more of them. A lot of what I need to set up in order to actually make that happen.   I gotta have a better phone sales system. I'm noticing that that's a big issue of mine. I don't have that many closers. And there's not much of a system and a script set up for that stuff.   This year for me has been a lot about the methodology I use and I teach that you need to enter into and design a new ocean with a single product.   Once the idea has been proven then you go and you can develop all the things inside of the value ladder to go explode it and expand it and actually plant your stake there.   Okay, so for this year…   I’ve  accidentally kind of become the category king in two different categories. One of them was purposeful; the other was completely accidental.   The business I lead with, my major, major passion, is Offer Creation. Just since OfferMind, collectively, those who attended, they've made hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. A lot of money.   I know this stuff works.   It's NOT one person is just killing it, that's a lot of people. And a lot of people who have never made money ever.   I continually get a lot of people that are like, "Man, I made my first 10 grand ever. 10, 30, 30, 30!" And I'm like, "Yeah! What's up?”   Pretty sure you guys made more money collectively than I did - which is awesome and I've very proud about that, actually.   I made more money doing the thing than teaching the thing. That's also very important to me as well. I focused on that a lot of this year.   So what I'm pumped about, you guys, is that I have gone in and I've developed these two businesses.   I have a front end business and I have a back end business:   #1: I teach offers, and I help people create their offers. I build off a lot of 'em, and a lot of people are in need for that. That's one of the major missing loops I was seeing in what I was coaching in the Two Comma Club coaching program.   And so I was like, “I'm gonna go be the offer guy.” And because of Russell Brunson and Myron Golden and Alex Charfen, and a lot of guys that I was being super vulnerable and open with…   They were like "Stephen, dude, you geek out about offers more than anybody we've ever seen in our entire life; go be that guy. There isn't a guy for that. Go be that guy."  I was like, sweet. So I'm the offer guy.   I've proved out the idea into that market.   How did I do that? By OfferMind.   Now that I've got that, I have a product up here. There's actually gonna be a second one up at the top. And then there's a whole bunch of cool front ends.   So on top of all these, proving the idea in front of the market, that's a lot of what this year was about. It's not so much about cashing out. It was about me proving out the systems and the things that I was teaching -  that they work.   If you look at Alex Hormozi, Brandon and Kaelin Poulin. If you look at, a lot of those people that blew up and made 10 million really quick, it's because the year prior, they actually went in and proved out their systems. And then scaled hard with a sales closer team and a phone team, which is what I'm gonna do.   A lot more sales positions, a lot more money up front scenarios, so I don't have this happen again.   The very one at the bottom says: An Assistant. I don't even have an assistant. It's literally two of us that are full time. I have two content teams  and now, we're building an internal funnel-building team. Which is really exciting.   For me to increase my speed, I cannot be the only one building my funnels anymore.   So anyways, guys whatwhat I'm trying to say when I'm teaching you guys right here is like, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that fail at this part of it. This is where they die.   They will remain the solopreneur; they cannot build the team.   They don't know how to scale, they don't know how to put the systems in place. I am excited to crack that code. I will will win at it, and I'm really, really pumped about that.   Now the thing that's freaking me out, just so you guys know: major growth in my life has come from scenarios that I don't know how to solve but walk forward anyway.   I didn't know how to build a funnel the first time I told someone I'd build one. Was it lying? No, because I knew it was possible, and I knew I'd figure it out. So I youtubed like crazy, you guys.   I remember the first time I asked ClickFunnel support how to change background color inside the editor. Okay, seriously, you guys are way further ahead than I was when I started, okay?   I got to the Funnel Hacking Live event the first time with no money. I had to bootstrap my way there. That's a crazy move. That's a big bold move.   I created the original Two Comma Coaching Program and ran the FHAT Event, which is crazy. A lot of successful people came from that event. For me to say yes to that was a scary thing.   I had to replace Russell Brunson on stage for three straight days, That freaked the crap out of me. Yeah, I was excited but I was scared to be totally honest with you.   Leaving my job! WHAT? Okay, that's nuts.   And so what I've noticed is that I suck at willingly manifesting personal growth. I'm not good at it. Almost no one really is. 'Cause when we start feeling pain the natural inclination and all of our justifications say "Back off, Stephen, why you gonna feel that pain?"   What propels me forward, and what I've been trying to figure out is what the next absolutely freaky goal is? What’s the experience?   I have a hard time willing those kind of experiences into my life, anyone does.   Like, basic training. Man, I couldn't get out of that. Right, I couldn't get out of, and I did those things for that reason.   I did door to door sales because it scared the crap out of me, and I knew I'd learn like crazy in the middle of that environment.   I'm trying to find the next environment. You see what I'm saying?   My  goal is four million dollars. I know I'm gonna hit that. It's a goal, it's scary 'cause I've never hit it, but I know I'm going to. I know that this next year I'll probably have at least three Two Comma Club Awards.   ...cause I got a lot of products that are in the hopper and they're all gonna tie together and reference each other, it's gonna be awesome.   BUT the thing that I'm trying to figure out is: How can I architect freaky big things and environments I can't get out of? And I don't know how else to do that except for a big goal that feels freaky to me that I've never done before.   And is it bigger than other people's? No. Some peoples are bigger than mine, I totally get that. But I'm on a journey and a comparison of me versus me. And to me, that scares the crap out of me.   I gotta build crap I've never built. I gotta build stuff I've never done. And I gotta push forward that way.   Anyways, what I'm saying is, the thing that I'm trying to figure out... Guys, this sounds so opposite. Completely opposite than what a rational individual would do.   I did not have an option when I left ClickFunnels, other than to make money work through funnels - because my back was against the wall, and I knew that. And that's one of the reasons I was doing it.   I could learn at a really slow pace by studying others, which is good to do for a while. I could learn at a really slow pace by consuming tons of content, which is really good to do for a while, until you're trying to figure out what you want to do   BUT, then, I don't know another way except burning the boats.I voluntarily try to find ways to put my back against the wall and cut all options out.   For the last five, six years there's been a lot of scenarios like that. Bam, bam, bam.   I'm 30 years old, I don't want there to be too much comfort in what I do. My goal could freak me out, but I know I'm gonna hit it. I know I'm gonna hit it. So, what can I orchestrate in my life to make it where I don't have an option but to move forward?   ...And that's the thing I've been trying to solve and it's really been freaking me out. I don't know how to solve that right yet. Because I don't wanna get comfy.   I'm not saying I'm not gonna go experience and have fun times doing a few things, you know what I mean? I'm gonna enjoy life, and I am a happy guy, but when it comes to personal growth and business and moving forward, frankly, I want to be big. And I know that…   Hopefully you guys know what you want? Don't be apologetic about it.   ...But how can I orchestrate the next ridiculous scenario in my life where I don't have an option? Where I will figure it out, out of desperation.   Which sounds crazy. Almost a masochist, I promise I'm not. But you see what I'm saying?   I have never learned more about myself than in those scenarios. I've never learned to love me more than in those scenarios. I've never learned to fill in the blanks faster, with more aggression, applied aggression, good aggression, right, than in those scenarios.   So like, man, I left the job, right? And everyone talks about that, and okay, done.   I'm trying to figure out what the next freaky thing is? And I can't.   I think there's a combination of some physical aspect, so I've been saying like, “Man, sometime I'm gonna try and choke out Russell Brunson in jiu jitsu.” Which is freaking scary 'cause that dude's like, all-American killer. That's cool, but my back's not against the wall.   There's no scenario yet where my back's against the wall. My back's not against the wall yet for this years goal, which freaks me out.   Most entrepreneurs just glide into the night when they hit some kind of a phase like this and I don't wanna be that way.   That's the real thing. That actually freaks me out more than the four million. I know how to hit that. I know the processes and the systems. I know exactly what I'm building. I'm almost done with my high-ticket thing that I've been building and putting together, and it's so awesome and there's nothing like it, and it comes from this perspective that has been very unique for me - because not many people do the stupid move I did by leaving my job.   Which is ultimately awesome, but you know what I mean?   Anyway, I'm really pumped about it, but I know I'm gonna hit that goal. I know exactly what my products are gonna be in my value ladder. I've got people building that stuff for me now.   My internal funnel-building team that I dream-lined out; I've already approached them, and they already said yes. Now I'm just gonna run through the process of it.   I'm gonna treat it just like I do my content team, so I'm gonna babysit it the first few funnel-builds to really document the system, and then keep moving forward. You know what I mean?   But like besides that, where's my next level of:  "Oh crap Stephen, can you do this” coming from? And that, my friends, has been one of the greatest accellerents to anything that I've done ever.   So I'm really pumped about it, but also scared to death 'cause I don't actually know the answers yet. I'll figure it out, and I'm gonna keep looking for it. It's exciting, exciting stuff. So anyways guys, that's my goal. I collected $850,000   I still have $156,000 too collect   I'm gonna do four million this next year.   Honestly ,I feel like I'll do four million this next year running at the pace that I am, but anyway. I know I think at least we'll do three; four is the stretch. Which again, freaks me out, but I see where to go for it. I'm pumped about it.   Watch how I'm launching my stuff moving forward to watch how I'm doing that. It's a balance between what I'm doing publicly and behind the scenes in my actual company. It's this next piece, though: How can I orchestrate a little bit more fear for me personally?   To be freaked out for the sake of: let's put your back against the wall and see what you're made of, Larsen? You know what I mean?   Anyway, so I'm psyched about this, guys. Thanks so much for sticking with me. It's a little bit of a longer episode, but I just want you to know that's my goal.   I challenge each one of you guys to post your goal publicly.   It’ll freak you out; it usually scares people. And a lot of the audience that is following you, that you might not even know about, even if you don't feel like you have a following, someone's watching you, they'll follow up with you. A lot of you guys did with me. They were like, "Stephen, you gotta hit the goal, man!" I'm like "I know, and I think I'm going to!" And I thought I was, and then I didn't freaking collect on some of it - “Dang it. Dang it man! Gosh!”   Anyway, whatever…   Thanks for following the journey. Appreciate it.   Again:   I challenge all of you guys to go in and post your goal, whether on the comments of this post or somewhere, but get open and real with what you want. Get unapologetic about it, and move forward. Because no one wants what you want more than you do. Stop waiting for permission.   Alright guys, see you later, bye!   Aw, yeah!  Hey, obviously a funnel's already dead if you can't even get anyone to opt in, right?   So I spent four hours teaching an audience how to get high opt-ins; when they work, when they don't work. If you want access to that members area where you can watch those replays, just go to freeoptincourse.com to create your free members account now.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Red ocean strategy" "how to succeed in business" "market research" traffic temperature   Do not choose an ocean that isn't red. Here's how to know if yours is... Not all oceans are red, and not all red oceans are ready to birth a blue ocean. The Red Ocean is your market.   So how can you tell which Red Ocean is ripe to be picked… and how to position yourself in that ocean for success?     MY RED OCEAN STRATEGY   ...Keep reading and you’ll discover the #1 biggest reason I see that people DON’T have a successful sales funnel that has nothing to do with your:   Sales Message   Offer   Funnel   Traffic   I’m gonna show you HOW to know if a Red Ocean is ready to have a Blue Ocean come out of it… and WHY it matters.   Let me tell you a story…   I watch a lot of people get up on stage to talk about their thing.   I remember this one guy who was making loads of money in real estate. He was showin' the numbers and all this cool stuff.   However, the sales letter that he was using was NOT that impressive. I don't mean that in a mean way. He just wasn’t an amazing sales message writer.   BUT he was making a lot of money because of WHAT he was in.   A little bit later, I was coaching somebody who was an amazing sales message writer. Their offer was so incredibly sexy. They had an amazing sales funnel and their traffic looked great…   BUT they were hardly making any money because of MARKET they were in.    WHAT they were in was the problem:   Not the sales message   Not the offer   Not the funnel   Not the traffic   ... nothing else.   It was WHAT they were in.   I went through this red ocean strategy at my OfferMInd Event. If you want to get tickets for next year you can go to offermind.com. It's gonna be awesome.   … but listen up, cause I’m going to be dropping some gold here for you too. HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS   If you aren’t making money the problem is often, NOT that you don't have an amazing offer - it’s that you're literally in the wrong market.   Money is not known to exchange hands at a high rate.   People don't like spending money on the kind of solution that you've created.   So, ahead of time, there's a checklist I go through to make sure that what I create is gonna sell.   When I started in this game, I’d always start with a funnel. I'd be like, “Oh, sick. Here's this sweet funnel.” And I’d run into some serious snags and really big issues along the way.   So I started thinking, “Oh, crap. I can't start with the funnel anymore. I need to start crafting the sales message.” I was like, “Oh, sweet.”   BUT then I learned that that's not even true either...   Now, before I even start the sales message, I think about positioning. It's all about the WHO. I call it “The History of the Who.”   So I dive deep into the Who and the Opportunity to help me determine the likelihood of me building a successful sales funnel before I ever pursue writing a sales message.   I want to stack as many cards in my favor as I possibly can to make it a win. Why wouldn't I? And you should too!     TO BE THE CATEGORY KING?   A lot of people ask me:   Q:  “Stephen, why on Earth are you not providing more sales funnel educational programs? Why are you not building more courses about sales funnels?”   A: ...Because there are SO MANY people doing that. It would be suicide for me to go do that. It'd be dumb.”   It would be a dumb move for me even though I was the lead funnel builder at ClickFunnels.   Why? Because Russell Brunson is the category king in that space. I'm not gonna go fight over scraps in that area.   I'm not gonna compete with Russell. That'd be stupid. Does that make sense?   QUESTIONS INVITE REVELATION   So before I ever decided to start sellin' Offer Creation stuff or anything in the funnel world. The question I asked was: “Where do I fit in the ecosystem of all the markets that are out there?”   And that's what I'm gonna walk you through here.   This is super crucial stuff, but a lot of people don't ask this before they jump in and decide WHAT to sell… and that’s a HUGE mistake.   Here's the concept…   IS YOUR RED OCEAN PREGNANT?   Before I start building out a NEW value ladder, the first thing I want to do is identify a Red Ocean that’s ripe and ready give birth to a Blue Ocean baby because:   NOT ALL markets are created equal.   NOT ALL markets are at a price point with a history and a customer education level that’s right.   For example:   The market for Beanie Babies was massive 10 years ago, now, by comparison, it’s super tiny.   So if  you're like, “Stephen, I'm sellin' Beanie Baby accessories…”  *CRINGE*   Your market, your Red Ocean is TINY.   The likelihood of being successful is so small, you’d literally have to capture darn near 100% of your market for your Beanie Baby accessories business to be successful.   Likewise, who here wants to invest in KMart or Sears? No one. Why? Is there a market? Yeah, but it’s sooo wicked tiny - you don’t wanna go there.   STACKING THE CARDS   Now, I wanna walk through a few things that I look for to make sure that what I'm entering is a place of security... and that the chance my chosen market being lucrative is extremely high.   Remember, the real estate guy I told you about at the start of this blog? He’s an example of someone who was NOT a good sales funnel creator. NOT good sales message writer. NOT amazing at creating offers, but just good enough...   Specifically, he chose a good enough market to come out of, which meant that he could make a lot of money. It's more about picking your ripe market, than almost anything else. The actual positioning of where you sit inside the market and what Ocean you're coming out of.   I'm not makin' fun of it, but man, if someone else comes to me and wonders why they're not making money as a “homeopathic life coach selling to college students.”     I don't care if you're the best, you're just not positioned to make a lot of money. The cards are not in your favor.   … so what do you look for when picking a ripe Ocean?   TIMING MATTERS Timing matters when it comes to markets.   Often when a big company explodes, a lot of them will attribute it to timing.   We were in the right place at the right time.   We had the assets we needed.   We had the business we needed.   We had all of the things in place to take advantage of something that we saw that no one else was in.”   So timing matters, and I want you to know that.   Markets are living, breathing things. They don't need to stick around and often they don't.   Don’t be surprised if your funnel doesn’t work, if you’ve chosen   A small market   A market that's contracting instead of expanding   I'm gonna tell you in a moment, why markets don't stick around…   There are specific signs I look for to let me know if I’ve found a market that’s safe to enter…   So if you’re cool with it, I'm goin' a little deeper...   IS MY RED OCEAN RIPE? So, these are the things that I look for to know if this market is ready to birth a Blue Ocean.   #1: Conflicting Beliefs   If you have a tiny market which it starts to grow and expand. If money's being reinvested that market and customers are being created, sooner or later, those customers will bring in more customers and they'll sell each other.   ...Eventually, you’ll get to a spot where the market/ red ocean starts to get so big and so many gurus start to appear that, (regardless of industry), conflicting beliefs will start to arise.   Conflicting Beliefs are a key sign to look for.   When that happens, “Oh, Baby! Blue Ocean”   So whenever there's conflict inside the Red Ocean, inside of a market, that's an amazing opportunity for you. #2: Too Many Product Options   The theme of products inside of a Red Ocean is very much like, “Hey, we're better, no we're better, no we're better.”   There’s a lot of very similar products that are just slightly better than each other. There are not any products that are different.   Different is the theme of the Blue Ocean.   ...And when you start to see tons of products competing on ‘better,’ that’s one way to know that the Red Ocean is ripe.     It's why, if you don't know your market/ Red Ocean, it's really risky.   #3:  Customer Innovation   If customers are starting to innovate on the products in the Red Ocean, that's another big sign. #4:  The rise of C- level influencers   There are category kings and main honchos; the Russell Brunson's of other industries. The A-level influencers, the big fish.   Then there are B-level influencers. Not quite as big, but still quite big.   When you see the rise of C- level influencers. The third tier influencers; that's a big sign that you're ready to branch out and take people from the Red Ocean to take a following into a NEW Blue Ocean.   # 4: An Ugly Ocean   By this I mean, is your Ocean is contracting? If your Ocean is leaving don't pick it. I like avocados a lot. Avocados are good for like five to seven days, then they go bad.   It's very much that way with Red Oceans. The ship may have sailed… or the avocado may have gone rotten ;-)   Don’t try to make a dying or dead market work for you. It won't work.   I'm not sayin' that you can't make money, but the road is long. Stop doing that!   IS YOUR MARKET CONTRACTING? You know your market is dying specifically when businesses are NOT reinvesting cash back into the Ocean.   If businesses are taking money out of a market and not putting it back in, that’s a contracting market.   If you don't see entrepreneurs:   Reinvesting cash   Building up the business   Building up systems and teams   Building up more infrastructure.   … that’s a contracting market.   Grant Cardone’s last event was 9000 people. His next one is 35000 people. They’ve rented a whole baseball stadium.   What does that tell ya?   A: The dude is reinvesting cash back into that area. That's some freakin' security. That is an expanding market.   If you see A-level gurus reinvesting cash at that level - that's a big deal. It's not just cool, it’s a signal.   If I wanted to sell Grant Cardone's salespeople, that would be a sign to me that it is safe for me to go create a new opportunity. Does that make sense? # 5: A Decrease in New Buyers Entering The Market   # 6: A Decrease in New Sellers   ... Meaning:   There are no more new businesses being created   There are no new people   There's a declining rate. Then don't go into that market.   You're lookin' for strength in numbers in both customers & successful businesses.   #6: Fad or Foundation?   When you can ask this next question, it’ll help you like crazy:   Is my Red Ocean a fad or a foundation?   Fad = Beanie Babies, POGs, KMart, Sears…   This is one of the MOST key things I can teach you right here... and it’s the main core of this entire episode.   Too often, people make a product and they come to me and ask, “Steve, who should I sell it to?” I'm like, “You have no idea who your market is, do you?”   The Red Ocean is your market. That's who you're pulling from and bringing over to your new thing.     But before you chose a market you need to answer the question,“Is my Red Ocean a fad or a foundation?”   How do you do that…   TRAFFIC TEMPERATURE   There's a key way to know if that's true, and it all comes down to the temperature of traffic.   I know this is more of a technical episode but stay with me. This is HUGE.   This is the difference between millions of dollars and nothing.   Seriously, this is the difference between a break-even business and a profitable business right here.   I do NOT ever have to ask, “Where's my customer?”  - because of what I'm about to tell you right here.   It’s one of the major reasons why my stuff's blowin' up and I've only been away from ClickFunnels for a year, and it's gone this well.   Not tootin' my horn, just sayin'...   It comes down to the temperature of traffic.   And I think people skate past this idea too fast.   There are three kinds of traffic or three temperatures of traffic:   Hot traffic   Warm traffic   Cold traffic   ...And I know, as my audience, you’re like, “Yeah, duh Stephen I've heard that.”  Follow me…   #Hot traffic takes the smallest amount of education to sell. The bridge that they need in order to actually make a purchase is very tiny. They're problem aware and they're solution aware.   #Warm traffic needs a little bit more education to sell. They're problem aware, but they're NOT solution aware.   #Cold traffic takes a freakin' gigantic bridge to sell. You have to educate them like crazy, lots of education. They’re NOT problem aware or solution aware. So you gotta educate them on the problem and the solution.   ...and that's super challenging.   There are not many companies ever really build that cold traffic bridge. That’s the key.   If you’re struggling in your business right now, It's probably because:   you don't know your WHO. You have no idea who you're selling to.   You DO know WHO you are sellin' to, but you might just be sellin' the WRONG person. You're literally attached to the wrong market, the wrong Red Ocean.   This DOESN’T mean you have to abandon everything - just switch. CHANGE.   I had to do that in March. March of this year, I realized I was sellin' the wrong person. I had to switch whole markets.   I went back, and I changed all the vernacular in my:   Copy   Emails   Sales letters   Actual offer   ...I changed everything.   Same product, but I changed the messaging because I realized that my Ocean was wrong. HOW TO FIND YOUR OCEAN   There is a piece of this Red Ocean, right here, that would LOVE:   A new opportunity   A new vehicle.   They’re in the current Ocean and they're the current products and the current vehicles. BUT they HATE them. That is the best person to sell.   Remember, The 3 personas of the Red Ocean? Go back to that episode again if you need to refresh your memory.   I'm NOT goin’ for everyone inside of the Red Ocean. I'm goin' for the person who's, like, “I love that  I can get health/ wealth/ relationships, but I freakin' hate the vehicle. I hate this product. I hate using it. I just don't know what else to use? My friend, that is the easiest person to sell to. That's who I sell to.   When someone calls me on social media, they're like, “Stephen, will you help me be successful with x, y, and z?” I already know they're NOT the right person just because of that one move.   ... I'm like, “Probably not.”  If you're not willing to go get the program off of the webinar that I put out there, you're not my customer. I'm not here to convince you...   BUT... the person who is in the Red Ocean, and they:   Hate the vehicles   Hate the products that are there   … that's who you want to talk to. That’s the easiest person to sell.   Stick with me. this is BIG. Millions of dollars, BIG.   This is why ClickFunnels is ClickFunnels.   This is why Apple became Apple.   Seriously, right here, this is it... ENTER THE CUSTOMER COLLECTION ZONE   When you’re selling to hot traffic, (people who are problem aware and solution aware) you are in a zone, that I have come to call, “Customer Collection.”   There's not much you have to do except tell them a tiny story + very small levels of education, and you have collected the customer.   I'm looking for the market that has moved successfully from customer collection to customer creation.   Boom! That's the key, right there.     Can your market create a customer, not collect?   ...And that's where you see ClickFunnels doin' a lot right now.   I'm the One Funnel Away coach. The One Funnel Away Challenge is built completely to create customers.   Russell Brunson has soaked up tons and tons and tons of these other people, right. Lots of other markets. He's grabbed, he's collected a lot of the customers that are out there.   ClickFunnels has moved from customer collection to customer creation.   They're selling more to cold kinds of traffic. MUCH HARDER! So hard that markets close because of it.   If a market cannot go from customer collection to customer creation, the market dies because they run outta customers; they run outta fresh blood to sell.   Sure they can continue to sell existing customers, but it’s NOT sustainable. It's only sustainable when you can move to customer collection successfully. Does that make sense?   I know it's getting deep here; you might have to read times, and that's okay. BUT I want you to understand what I'm looking for. I call it Red Ocean Analytics.   I spend waaay more time understanding the Red Ocean than I do building the Blue Ocean.   It's about me selecting the right market to come out of to write my sales message for, to adapt and create an offer for, a sales funnel for.   But before any of that, I want to know...   Am I hookin' up to a market that is expanding?   Is money being reinvested?   Is your market contracting?   Is your Red Ocean gonna die because it’s NOT been able to move from customer collection to customer creation?   Customer Creation = Not many markets do that.   CUSTOMER CREATION IS HARD   Now, ClickFunnels knows how to create customers because you're talkin' about Russell Brunson.   Steve Jobs knew how to create customers too...   It took me forever to get an iPhone, but Apple created a customer out of me. I was, like, “I don't know, I have a computer, I don't need an iPhone.”   Facebook, okay. I hated Facebook for years. I had a love-hate relationship. I still kind of do...   But FB created a customer out of me. They literally built a customer. I was not a customer. I was kind of openly anti-Facebook. They created a customer out of me.   They were able to move from customer collection to customer creation. Very hard. Not easy to do. Not many markets do it.   And if you're like, “Oh, I gotta create customers.”  No, you don't... I never have to ask the question, “Where is my customer existing?” Because the Red Ocean is creating my customer.   Did you just get the “AHA”?   Let me repeat that… I never have to ask:   Who do I sell to next?   How do I go create my next customer?   Where does my next lay down sale happen?   ... I don't deal with any of that crap because I know exactly WHAT market I am coming out of.   I have been very careful to make sure that the market is creating the customers for me.   ...Because if they are collecting them only, then yeah, I'm gonna have to answer the question, “Where's my next customer?” But I don't have to do that because I only pick markets that CREATE CUSTOMERS.   It's freakin' incredible!   Frankly, it's the reason why my stuff's been selling so well. It's the reason why I have made moves to very carefully become the Category King of Offer Creation  - because nobody's in it.   Where am I coming out of? I'm stemming out of the sales funnel building world.   Why? Because they're moving from customer collection to customer creation with People like Russell Brunson, the One Funnel Away Challenge, and all the new education that's out there.   There's so much noise in the sales funnel market. It's a safe place for me to consistently find my customers. BOOM!   If you want MORE about this, I went way deeper during OfferMind.   There are at least eight points that I collect about every single market before I even start building a funnel.   Again, love to have you at the next OfferMind. I'm totally pitching you. You need to come.   Before I ever build a brand new opportunity, a brand new value ladder, or anything like that. I dive in and ask, “Is my Red Ocean ready for a Blue?”   I am gonna find a market to sell to that has:   Moved from customer collection to customer creation   New buyers & new sellers   Conflict inside the market   Differing opinions   Lots of options   A lot of product options startin' to pop up in there   A lot of education   The audience is getting smarter - which means I can start selling people who are problem aware but NOT yet solution aware.   ...Timing matters!   The market, (the Red Ocean), is priming my dream customer for the Blue Ocean I want to create.   Do you understand how BIG this is?   Once I’ve found my ripe ocean, then I can go do all my other stuff for:   Sales Message Creation   Offer Creation   Sales Funnels   Publishing   ... all that other stuff that I do.   I'm publishing for the Red Ocean NOT the Blue. The Blue barely exists. The Red Ocean is your market, NOT the Blue.   I want you to feel what I'm takin' about when I say that. I didn't understand any of this stuff when I first started out.   And one of the reasons why everything failed was because I was fighting over the scraps because I didn't know my position in the market.   I know this is deep. This is a lot of theory... it’s not even theory. This is HOW it works.   I want you to understand why positioning and picking a ripe ocean matters so much.   Until Next Time - Keep Crushing It!   Boom. If you're just starting out, you're probably studying a lot. That's good.   You're probably geeking out on all the strategies 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.   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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

"how to be productive" "growing business" "entrepreneurial skills, value ladder, team building   This is the one question I ask every quarter that always CHANGES my business... Answering this question ALWAYS results in me growing my business. Each my business changes for the better... NOT my funnels, my business.   ...if you’re wondering, “...but, Steve, aren’t your funnel and your business the same thing?” I totally get why you’re asking that. I used to think that it was too… until the strangest thing happened to me...   Here’s how it went down… HOW TO BANKRUPT A BUSINESS I was building cool funnels for a company:   Day #1: We launched the funnel, and the sales start pouring in.  I get a call from the owner: "This is awesome, this is epic, this is incredible. Are you serious! I can't believe this."   Day #2: I get another call:  "Wow! The sales are still coming in. This is really still cool... I think..."  (This time they sound a little more unsure)   Day #3: The phone rings: They're like, Help! The sales are still coming in. Turn the funnel off. TURN IT OFF!"   The first time this happened, I was shocked that anyone would want less sales?   But the company was like, "You're gonna bankrupt us." I was like, “Oh, crap!”   Until that point, I didn’t realize that the funnel was different to the business.   It sounds silly to say that now, but I just didn't know that at the time.   A massive amount of sales sounds fantastic, right? But if your business doesn’t have the systems to cope with a massive amount of fulfillment, then you’re in trouble.   So what do you do about it? *ANSWER* You ask yourself the question:   How do I increase my speed?   ASKING A POWERFUL QUESTION   When I ask THIS question it ALWAYS provokes the most change and the most progress in my business.   It actually happened this way…   I was coming back from a speaking gig where I’d sold a ton of stuff. It felt awesome and I was excited about it.   ...THEN I had to spend the entire night fulfilling on what I had sold. Which was great, but I’d only slept four hours the night before and I was exhausted!   So sitting on the plane on the way home the thought came to me, “Stephen, how can you increase your speed?” And I wrote it down in my notebook.   I started listing out all of the ways that I could possibly increase the speed of my business.   My funnels, do great, but the business needed some work so that I could leverage all the opportunities that were coming my way…   The BEST way for me to show you how I answered the question:   How do I increase my speed?   … is to let you in on a Q&A session I did with my OfferLab Group.   These are the high-level killers who work with me directly, one-on-one.   Each week, I do training sessions with them. Look at their stuff to help them design their:   Funnels   Offers   Message   I haven't officially launched OfferLab, so unless you came to OfferMind, this is probably the first time you’ve ever heard of it.     I'm not selling anything else. Offer Lab is not open to anybody else because we're fulfilling. We're putting in the processes and the systems in place.   … So this is kinda like a sneak peek behind the scenes of Steve Larsen.   HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE & INCREASE SPEED   We had a cool chat with the CEO of Pruvit (the MLM I’m in). And, like a lot of people, he asked me to build funnels for Pruvit.   I was like, “Well…”   My first thought was, “Sure, that would be honoring, but I don't have the team in place to handle that.”   That's why I initially went back to Tony Robbins and told him, “No.”  I didn't have the team in place to build the front revenue, or the team in place to support it after it was built.   After talking with CEO of Pruvit, Colton and I just stared off into eternity for a little bit. Our heads were spinning.   We had a tremendous opportunity in front of us. But first, we had to answer the question, (...and here it comes again): “How can we increase our speed?”   So we've been asking that question in TWO areas:     How do I increase my speed on fulfillment?   How do I increase my speed on sales?   *NEWSFLASH* Answering those two questions, usually, does NOT involve MORE of YOU as the entrepreneur.   ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS & PLAYING BIGGER   Play Bigger teaches that in order for you to really make a lasting business that's awesome, you need to design a category, a product, and the business, at the exact same time. Well, I've gotten really freakin' good at designing:   Categories   Products/Offers   I'm getting far better at the business side, as well.   It's the reason why I’m able to create so much the content …   But what do we have in place on the fulfillment side?   I'm nervous to bring in all the money that we could because I wouldn't be able to fulfill on it very well.   … So the questions that I've been asking are:   How do I fulfill faster?   How do I sell faster?   We asked the question, “How could we increase speed?” And that question ALWAYS leads to growth and things that are, frankly, a little bit uncomfortable.   Let’s use my content machine as an example:   I have #1 Content Team for Sales Funnel Radio, but a while ago, I realized that I needed to spin up a second content team for Secret MLM Hacks. So that’s what we did.   There are a few people that are on both teams, but it's a separate team. It's really interesting, the process is different, even though they're both content. It's really fascinating.   We mapped out a high-level process and we found the people to fill all the positions. So I wanna walk you through this because this will change everything for YOU… 3 QUESTIONS THAT’LL SAVE YOUR LIFE   So glad you asked… ;-)   The 3 questions that will save your life are:   What problem am I trying to solve?   Who is my dream customer who has money and is able to spend a lot of money?   What's the model that I'm following?   As part of answering those questions in my own business, I draw up value ladder and leave it somewhere visible to act as a roadmap and an anchor.   (A value ladder is for life, NOT just for Christmas)   Opportunities are so funny guys, it's like they show up as soon as you start the down a path, another opportunity pops up.   It's like opportunities have babies and multiply the moment you start moving and doing anything in life.   I'm sure you’ve have experienced that, right?   So to keep myself rooted and forward, I always draw a value ladder.   I have two value ladders because I have a front-end business and a back-end business.   The business that's in the back-end is the MLM stuff, you know about. The front-end stuff is all offer creation/ funnel stuff You’ve seen me building out.   I wanna walk you guys real quick through this value ladder, and then tell you guys what’s happened because we asked the question, “How can I increase my speed?”   That question usually, (in fact, I'm not even gonna say usually), it has ALWAYS made me grow. And sometimes, in ways that are NOT all that comfortable… in fact, pretty much every time.   Just beware, every time you ask that question, if you're truly willing to find the answer to the question, you're gonna have to grow.   So here’s what I do...   CREATING MY VALUE LADDER   Because I have my value ladder planned out, I can answer the question, “What model am I following?”  In this instance, I'm following the Info Product Model.   Now the stuff that I'm doing has never been done, but the model that I'm following has totally been done.   Does that make sense?   That's where I get a combination of living on the edge and doing things that have never been done before - so I have security at the same time.   I don't need to run a risky business. There's no way. I'm not into risky business.   But the stuff that I'm doing though, the actual content and all those pieces; 100% is stuff that's never been done before.   It's how you get the combination of risk and security at the same time.   I draw out the value ladder. At the bottom, is all my free stuff:   My radio shows   Publishing like crazy   A free program on each side.   An affiliate program.   The real reason Affiliate Outrage exists, is so I can teach people how to be affiliates for me. About a third of our sales last month for the MLM side came from affiliates. It's working - it's awesome.   I'm not just gonna give somebody an affiliate link. I'm gonna teach them how to use it, and how to make an offer so that they feel inclined to create content around that affiliate link. Does that make sense?  That's the way I do it.   My value ladder has:   The radio shows... and that kinda content   Books   Webinar   Event   Mastermind   It's the exact same model on each side of the business.   It’s a lot of funnels! We have a hard time getting somebody to just build one funnel… We counted; there are 12 funnels we need to truly hit every single step that we have planned.   So what I do is I hack the value ladder in order of importance?   I always start in the middle; I practice what I preach.   I go up to the top of the value ladder.   Finally,  I go down the value ladder.   But the question that we started asking is, “How can I increase my speed?” That's the question I want you to start asking yourself:   “How can I increase my speed in…”   Creating an offer?   Creating a sales message?   Creating a funnel?   Fulfilling for what I sell, (so I can sell faster)?   Gaining the sale?   I ask that question multiple times, in multiple areas, for multiple things. Asking this question helps tweak out a lot of the processes that support revenue. BE UNCOMMON AMONGST UNCOMMON PEOPLE   The first time I asked the question, “How can I increase my speed?”... I was working for Russell and had no time of my own. It led me to create a schedule, that I lived by for about a year, that was painful.   Went to sleep five hours a night, then I'd get up at five, be at work at six, work on my own there 'til nine.   It's always been that question because…   Money loves speed. Money sticks by speed. Money feels the thrill of speed.   ...and so I have to adhere to that lesson at some point.   I can build everything in these value ladders, but if I’m the only one building them,  it's gonna be slow. I want all that done next year. In just one single year. That's fast, man.   That's almost as fast as ClickFunnels builds their own funnels.   Seriously, they build one funnel and launch it, just about one every other week. That's crazy!   So what I've started asking the question about...  and what I want you to start thinking about is: What revenue model am I following?   What business model am I following?   So the questions that we’ve have been trying to answer, and I think that we have, are   How can I increase my speed in the business?   How can I increase my speed in the revenue?”   ...and the way that I'm doing that, is by building teams around both. QUESTIONS INVITE REVELATION    I have two businesses:   The Offer side - the sales funnel side   The MLM side.   These are revenue models, but what supports these?   So Colton and I asked the question several times last week:   What do we need to have in place in order to pull  EVERYTHING off, in a year? If questions invite revelation, which they do, you gotta be real careful of the question you're asking in business and everything else. So we went back and forth:   “Well, here's all the stuff that we have and all the things that are forward facing. Do I have that on each side?” Like, “Crap, no, I don't.”   “Do we have a system set up where if I don't show up for a month, would things keep running on their own? Like, “Hmm... I gotta build more of the business side there.”   It's just about there - which is really fun.   For my content teams; I show up the first half of each Tuesday, and it keeps both machines alive.   I can keep speaking and be forward, in the front of everybody, because of the systems that I've built. The teams that I've built.   We have Content Team #1 and Content Team #2.   Then our NEW funnel-build team, they're gonna be the ones who actually go dive in and build out all the funnels.   Although I'm a funnel builder, I’m been my own bottleneck.   Which is what I realized when I was looking at this stuff.  I was like, “The only way we can keep going as we are now and still make great money is to get another team.”   The parts of the business that I should be involved in are actually a lot narrower than I'm currently focused on.   A GROWING BUSINESS    I was talking to Al Hormozi this last week, and a few other of my good buddies who've made like 10 million in a year, and they validated exactly where I'm going with this. They said:   At this point, it’s NOT about you. It's all about the team.   Q: How do I sell faster? “Crap, I gotta speak more. Oh, I can't speak more…”   A: Content Team #1.” Boom! And I mapped out the content team, and then made it.   Q: How do sell faster on the MLM side?  I'm either gotta speak a lot, or I’ve gotta go drive a lot of money with ads…   A: Content Team #2.  Boom! that's the one that did it on the MLM side too.   ...the next question I asked was...   Q: How do we increase the speed so we can build-out this value ladder with even more speed?   A: “I need an internal funnel-building team.”  It came faster than I thought, but I realized I needed it. I've built the majority of everything on the MLM side, and I've built a few things on this side, and lots of stuff on the bottom. And I'm good at it, but I'm just only one person.   So we've mapped out the process and the positions we need, in order to build an internal funnel-building agency.   We just got the last person on board and they're like, "Absolutely, heck yes."   Next, I'll tell you how we automate everything... LEVERAGING ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS   If you’re already selling stuff, the next process is speed of sales - and has less to do with you, which is fun, but it can be terrifying.   When I left ClickFunnels, the position that I had ceased to exist. When I left, the position closed. So my final task was to replace me with a system.   That made me think about what I was doing in a different and advantageous way.   I had to document everything that I was doing for each funnel, find the similarities, and then start systemizing all the pieces and create a checklist.    It's  was super complex and  crazy.   If you’ve done like funnel-building on your own, you know that the checklist can be freakin' huge. Let alone:   Write Research Positioning Voice   ...and all those things.   The actual act of putting a funnel up - it's easy because of ClickFunnels, but there's still a big checklist with it. There's a lot of things you can put inside of there. There's a lot of bells and whistles that you can get distracted with.   THE BAT SIGNAL   Anytime we built a funnel at ClickFunnels; they had what's called a bat line meeting. We grabbed a cool image. You know that like the Bat Signal that Batman shines up in the air.   When Russell sent that image out to his team, they all know that in 15 minutes everybody has to get on the same Zoom room.   Then Russell teaches for the new funnel for a straight hour. He draws it out, “First, we're gonna have this page, and then we'll have this page, and then we'll have this page, and then we'll have this page, and these down-sales, and then this automation.”   He draws all the pieces and  puts it together.   What's cool is that it’s recorded. So afterwards, they take that recording, and some writers go and they'll make mini tasks for each individual. There's heads of each of department.   So they grab a writer to write out the to-do list of everything they were assigned during Russell's batline meeting. That's exactly what I'm doing.   I'm planning out not just the funnel, but also planning out podcast material and content that would be really cool to time with the launch of the funnel.   This year, you guys will see me do specific podcast episodes to build pressure around the launch of the whatever funnels we're building.   Then there’s the:   Funnel plan   Sales message   Offer   Fulfillment   We're gonna need this package and this package - so we  go to our fulfillment house (which is a few miles down the road), and let's make sure they package everything together, so that every time a sale happens, this thing gets shipped out.   That's all the stuff that I'm really good at and what I teach…   Then I know, I'm gonna create sales videos. Right from the get-go. The videos are gonna be on the pages - because I can just hand those videos to writers... and I know who all of these people are.   If you notice, most the styles that we do, pretty much all the time, if you look at the copy underneath all the videos in any page I create, it's pretty much the exact same thing that was said in the video.   Which is means I can hand videos off to a writer and they can write all the copy for the sales page.   Then the video and all the copy gets handed off to the designer, and they make it look incredible.   Design doesn't sell, but I'm not against making things look good.   The designers make things look awesome, and use the copy. You’ve seen sales copy, where certain words are bolded out. There's a certain style of writing for sales letters.   Now they have the writing, the designer can take one of my templates to build-out the initial funnel, put all the copy in there and put the videos in for the initial build.   From that point, the funnel will go to to a funnel finisher... that was actually my original role at ClickFunnels when I was hired.   I was the funnel finisher.   We didn't have extra writers or designers. We had a videographer, it was Brandon, but we didn't have writers, we didn't have designers… So I actually did all three of those roles for the first year.     It was the only the final eight months that I was there, that we actually started building out, actual teams and processes. Before that, it was just me - it was insane. It was freakin' insanity.   Funnel finishers are the ones that do all the stuff that's not fun to do in funnels:   Legal footers   Favicon   Metadata   Naming all the pages   Linking all the emails   Adding the email copy in email sequences   Adding  SSL Certificates   Porting over URLs if it's bought from somewhere else   It's all the stuff that sucks to do in a funnel, but it's super important.   Next, I try to break the funnel. That's my favorite part. I like to go in and try my hardest to just crush it!   Then, because we've gone through video stuff, we've had designers and all this stuff, then  I start working with the traffic team and coordinate my podcast episodes with the launch of the actual funnel and the ads going out.   Then I just review and tweak it. So that's it.   It seems really complicated, it's actually not. This changed my life.   What I focus on, when I'm building these teams out, 'cause you guys all should all have teams, eventually. If you don't right now, that's okay. If you don't have a team, (or you're not in a position to have a team)...   What I found is that it means that you're still building this main core product inside of your new value ladder:   You haven't actually built the product yet   It's not actually selling very well yet   You don't have a funnel yet.   The first time, you being the one doing all that is totally appropriate - that's totally fine.   But building out, everything from above and down below it, after that, is really just a repackaging of that main idea in different ways that are more expensive or less expensive.   This initial build-out, that can take awhile. That's fine, that's fine. So if you're like, "I can't have a team yet." That's okay, usually, it means you don't have enough cash or you're still launching this main core product inside of your value ladder.   But from there, everything else, you should be able to do fast when you build a team.   But there's one thing that changed my life  when I'm building out these teams...   TEAM SECRET SAUCE   ...So when I'm building these content teams out, the things that have really made the BIG difference is:   I no longer hire individuals. I hire agencies.   That changed everything! When I hire an agency to do video, rather than a person, the speed is better, the quality is better.   If some reason, there's a holiday, or birthday or whatever, they got a replacement, usually.   When I hire an agency, it's usually a little bit more money - 100% worth it. 100% worth it! They're easier, they're faster, they can implement better.   They follow the processes better which I'm about to show you. I don't hire individuals anymore. I hire agencies.   So there is a specific agency for each one of these, almost. Like the funnel finisher one, that doesn't need to be an agency for that, that's a single person job.   Like I don't even know how you'd make an agency out of that. But I actually do think that that person has an agency, which is funny.   This person's the only person that hasn't is the writer, but he's had a massive writing company in the past, which is cool. So he still has that background and totally gets the project management side of fulfilling - which is really interesting.   I don't ever hire a person anymore, I only hire agencies.   That's true for every one of my content pieces.   It's funny, looking back, on the Sales Funnel Radio content team, and the Secret MLM Hacks Radio. In the Sales Funnel Radio content team, there's seven or eight, something like that.   But they're pretty much all full-blown agencies behind each individual person. It's the reason it costs so much, but it's also the reason it's so good. You know what I mean? And it's fast, and it's consistent.   I can pretty much set my watch to each time an episode drops. They're good, they get it, they move. And they got backups.   And what's cool, is that when I hire an agency, they've thought about their internal process. They've thought about how to fulfill. They've thought about how to do all the things the best possible way.   When I hire an individual, a lot of times they haven't, and they're just doing it. They know how to do the thing, but they haven't thought through how to actually write down the process for the thing. That's a very different mentality to be in.   In the Secret MLM Hacks Radio,  we just barely spun that team up, probably about three weeks ago, cause I knew we needed it. I could just tell. There are a few people on both teams, but there's a lot that aren't.   The team has either eight or nine people now -  which is pretty crazy.   I use this approach for even for one-offs stop kind of things that I do now.   There's a person that I've been hiring to revamp my LinkedIn profile, 'cause it sucks. I know it sucks.   But I'd rather hire a person, who owns and started their own agency, rather than an individual - because of what they've gone through mentally to prove-out the process. And the fact that they can bring revenue to keep a team going.   Man, it's night and day difference.   I'm not saying the individual can't be good, but holy crap, huge difference in insights. Oh my gosh! So, agency, agency, agency, agency, agency, agency, agency. That’s saved a ton of stuff.   Oh yeah!   Hey, wish you could geek-out with other real funnel builders, and even ask questions, while I build funnels, live?   Oh, wish granted!   Watch and learn funnel-building, as I document my process in my funnel strategy group. It's free, just go to thescienceofselling.online and join now. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

  "sales letter" "then vs now" "get out of your own way" the attractive character   Ironically, the only real way to "know thyself", is to continually "sculpt thyself"... ...Don’t worry, I’m still here.   I did kinda die, but only in a metaphorical way so that I could birth my attractive character - and create a then vs now sales letter story to sell my upcoming Mastermind with James Smiley and Rachel Pederson. Here’s how I announced my death on Facebook:   … it was an attention-grabbing way to tell my audience about the Mastermind that’s gonna be happening the day before Funnel Hacking Live on Feb,18th in Nashville, Tennessee.   I didn’t just blast an email out to everybody saying, “Hey, I’ve got this mastermind. You wanna come? Click the link."   ...Because that's the easiest way to promote like an idiot. It’s annoying and not at all entertaining.   Selling is much show business as it is anything else.   When I see somebody promoting their stuff by saying; ”Here's the link, Just buy. Click, click, click, click, click!” I don't want to buy. I HATE that crap. If I don't see that from somebody it makes me wanna buy without even knowing what it is  - because they get it. I get asked all the time, "Stephen, what's the one thing people can focus on to be a good funnel builder?"  My answer is always: “TELL STORIES.” Quite often it doesn’t sink in, and they ask again, "No, no, no. I mean funnel building. I'm talking about ClickFunnels editor stuff!"  I'm like, "Yeah, storytelling..."     I'm telling you right now. the editor is so freaking easy. If you can't sort the editor out, you probably shouldn't be on the internet.The ClickFunnels editor is so simple. That's NOT where people struggle. Take it from the dude who’s coached thousands of people in this. People don't struggle with funnels because of ClickFunnels. People struggle with funnels because they have no idea how to sell and they have no idea what makes a sale happen...HOW TO LOSE A SALE The day after OfferMind, I had a cool opportunity to train the new speaker team for ClickFunnels. The biggest thing I helped them realize was that the thing that will screw your chances of a sale up is believing that the sale depends on how well you know ClickFunnels; what it integrates with and all the features.   The quickest way to NO SALES. If you’re mentioning your product a lot, my guess is that you're focusing on the features of your product. #You’re selling with the wrong script. In fact, you're probably not using a script. People will fight you on features, so instead, you need to cause an emotional epiphany in your potential buyer's brain. So now, I want you to start thinking about what you're doing when you sell... "Do you actually know what causes the sale? And can you craft a sales letter that helps you to close your sale instead of hindering it?"   One thing you’ll notice as I go through my sales letter is how little I actually mention the actual mastermind. I don’t talk about:   Who’s speaking first   How long they're gonna talk   Scheduling   The time of the event   The exact location     ....because the sale always happens without too much focus on the actual product. GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAYIf you guys are ever in a pinch and have to write a script fast, then the script that I followed was the "then vs now theme."  It took me about two hours to write my story - which is pretty standard if you're gonna cover all the stuff...Honestly, there are some things I would change, but it's good enough. And it's good enough because I used the Epiphany Bridge script.   I want you to understand that making money has nothing to do with how well you know the thing you're selling. It has everything to do with the script itself and the emotional connection it creates.   The sales message is where you make the money.   I love the webinar script... I use it for all kinds of selling.   There's a crucial part right at the beginning of the webinar script which I call the two introductions: First of all, we need to introduce the subject, and then you need to introduce yourself as the speaker.   These introductions are NOT always:   At the beginning   Together   In the same order   But, at some point, you have to say:   "Hey, this is who I am."       “This is the topic.”   Every once in a while I've seen scripts where people combine the two introductions - and that’s totally fine.   After you’ve done the two introductions, you can use the “then vs now” method. It's one of my favorite themes inside of any sales script, and it's one of my favorite ways to tell a story. I used a similar strategy to the one I described when I revealed how I win affiliate contests - because, frankly, it works!   My strategy comes in two parts:     I'll write a massive Facebook post - which proves to the Facebook algorithm that it's actually worth something and people are gonna have some opinions - so they'll work a little harder to share it. I make sure I use a cool like feature image (see above).   Then take that post and turn it into an email with the same call to action.  I don't push to Facebook. I just push to the same CTA. ClickFunnels lets you use all kinds of emojis and stuff like that in the emails - so I use those too.   … So now, let me show you how I used the “then vs now script” to write that sales letter for my latest mastermind. HOW TO WRITE A NON SUCKY SALES LETTER So the first thing I need to do: If you're scrolling through Facebook,  you're trying to get a dopamine hit and distract yourself... So I'm gonna do a serious injustice to my cause if I don't let you be distracted. So I'm gonna do my best to grab your attention… (and this works for email subject lines too):     It's the first thing you're gonna see… and then there's skull and crossbones emoji right there, and it says;   ...Right up at the top, it says, "Mastermind." So you click right there, it'll bring you straight there.(We're capping the event at 100 people, just tellin' you. It was half full a few weeks ago - so I don't know if there’ll be any place let now. That's not a scarcity play I'm just lettin’ you know the score…)   ...Now I’m gonna paint some ‘thens’:   I don't know if you know this about me, but this is all true stuff …   I'm just gonna be raw and tell you, I would go home and wonder, "What the heck am I good at?" I've learned that a lot of entrepreneurs actually struggle this same question.   As entrepreneurs, we're often very good at putting teams together and leading and organizing people… but that's a hard talent to leverage in a fifth-grade playground...     It can be challenging growing up.. or even into early adulthood, trying to figure out what the heck you're good at?  So just know, you're not alone. Then, I put a whole bunch of stars in a row - so I can break the pattern: This is literally a then vs now statement: "Stephen WAS all of those things, but Steve is NONE of them."   Next, I go FULL ON in the NOW:     BECOMING AN ATTRACTIVE CHARACTERSteve is a freak of nature who is uncommon amongst uncommon people.   Some people reach out and ask, "Stephen, you're about to go speak on stage, are you nervous?"   Of course, I'm freaking nervous, come on. Yeah, I'll get nervous, of course, I do. You have to understand,  I've created Steve. It's a separate persona that I totally step into. I'm not always in that persona, but I've learned that persona.     The attractive character in my business is me - but it was not a natural attractive character.I'm trying to help you understand that you can craft your own attractive character. The Attractive Character is not something you need to step into the business already knowing. I almost never see that. I see entrepreneurs who:   Still sucks at talking   Do not know how to lead   Have no polarity, and are afraid to show real opinions. I'm showing you how I wrote a then vs now script, but I'm also helping you to understand that you can develop a new you.   BUT WHAT ABOUT THE HATERS?     Steve almost welcomes the haters and their mud so he can laugh in their face, stare in their eyes, and steal their soul. ... that line goes through my head a lot.   Haters used to bother me a lot. I was like  like "Oh crap, another hater I gotta go deal." It's not true at all anymore though.   I love David Goggins. He swears like a freaking animal. If you're offended by swearing, Do not listen to him -  but he talks about that concept a lot.   THE DAY THAT STEVE KILLED STEPHEN I hate pop culture songs that sing about how life’s a pity party: ‘I loved you, and then you changed.’ I'm like that is the stupidest song I've ever heard in my entire life.   Of course, they changed after you fell in love. It's life. If that's not how it's supposed to be -  we'd all still be wearing diapers and drinking out of a bottle.   Most of the time when someone feels a lack of progression in their life it's literally because they‘re doing everything they can to keep themselves from changing because they're afraid of what's gonna happen next. Life is change. Don't fight it....And what's cool is the person who wins is the person who leans into that change and steps forward and says, "You know, what, I'm totally cool. I don't know how to build a funnel. I don't know how to podcast. I don't know how to be the attractive character, but I'm willing to suck.”   ...That’s the person I love to work with.   REAL TALK WITH STEVE LARSEN These were the conversations going on in my head. I think it's stupid we make fun of people that talk to themselves. I talk to myself all the time.     Every time success has required their rebirth.   Let that sink in. It's a true statement, my friends. That's a huge deal. Read it again.   I always thought I'd be coaching people on marketing tactics. We all did when I started the Two Comma Club coaching program as the coach, but I don't get much of a chance to teach marketing because I need to help people rebuild their brain and their relationship with themselves. MAKE IT HARD, COACH   I know 100% that one of the major reasons why I am standing in front of the camera right here filming this for you is because of my mentality. When I walked in to ClickFunnels, was very much like, "Dude, Russell, give me your hardest thing. Your hardest thing. What is your hardest thing today? Give it to me." I remember the first few times, I think it was kind of awkward for him because it's not a normal mentality. Employees do not ask their employers that question. I say, "No, I'm serious man. What's the thing you are least looking forward to today?" And he would look through his list of tasks, and hand me his hardest task that day. ...And that meant the possibility of failure - which that happened a few times. But man, it's like such a better way to approach life. So if you're still working for somebody else, don't be, no pity party. Instead, start asking your employers, "Give me the hardest task you've got." Just for the sake of the growth.   Wanna here the awesome quote I came up with in the shower (total transparency here ;-))   Ironically the only way to know thyself is to sculpt thyself. A lot of you just don't qualify yet to deliver the thing you're trying to do, meaning the market's not gonna believe you. You haven't sculpted enough. You haven't created yourself enough. You need to get real and raw.   ...like I said, this is *Real Talk* with Steve Larsen ;-)   As soon as you get real, and you're willing to take on a new challenge that you don't quite understand how to do. There’s an emboldening that happens inside of your soul. Your mind expands and you become a new you. You become more of who you already are.     It's really cool, I love watching it. It's one of my reasons why I do what I do still.   Here’s what I wrote next… Let me give you an example…   I just got asked to do another project. I'm not allowed to talk about it yet, but I have to admit, I'm a little bit stressed out about it. It's due in three weeks, and I don't actually know how I'm gonna pull it off. But I know I will. I just haven't wrapped my brain around it yet. But when opportunities like that pop-up, I know that they’ll make me grow… so I say “Yes.” Today, a multi-hundred millionaire reached out and asked me to do some stuff. I've been expecting the call, and I've been working the relationship. I knew it was coming up and I knew I needed to say yes. But I'm not gonna lie; I'm not actually equipped to do some of the things that he was asking for  - so I'm building an internal funnel agency to build my own projects. I'm trying to answer the question, "How can I increase my speed right now?" I don't know the answer to that, and I'm okay with that. Welcome to entrepreneurship. Welcome to growth. Welcome to growth that's so customized that it changes you. That's why I love the game so much. I'm going back to the script here… ...And all these people commented #ANewMe. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. EMOTIONAL SELLING ...so did you notice how little I actually talked about the detail of the event itself?   I don’t talk about:   Who’s speaking   Scheduling   The time of the event   The exact location   … I don’t talk about any of that stuff ... That stuff matters like way down the road. Instead, I got raw. I got real. I wrote this from the heart.   I really am the least likely success story. If I’d come from another angle, and said, "Yeah, come learn from me." There’s an audience that appreciates and wants that…   But I’ve found that most people who are just starting out or who haven’t had success in the game yet - don't want that. It actually stresses the crap out of them, freaks them out. And frankly, that's not my personality…   So a 'then vs a now' script based around my personality is a great way to connect emotionally.   I build a story and craft an emotion to help you realize that I'm just a few steps ahead a lot of people on this journey. I understand where people are on the path, and I build that connection and rapport with the script.   There's a lot of angles you can use as stories, and Dot Com Secrets talks a lot about those different angles and stories you can use in your attractive character in your storylines. I am the crusader attractive character type.   If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you gotta go read Dot Com Secrets and  ExpertSecrets to find out what I'm talking about as far as the script writing style. I wouldn’t say I'm like a pro sales letter writer, but I know enough about what makes things sell to let me work quickly and seamlessly this past year. Until Next Time -  Remember, the only real way to know thyself is to continually sculpt thyself. 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.co  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

"value ladder" "growth strategy" "money making business"   These are some of the elements I look for when I'm deciding if I should enter a market. I only want the Red Ocean's where the cards are truly stacked in my favor. Here's how…   Today, I’m gonna teach you the method I use to make sure that my value ladder crushes it…   And “Yep, you’ve guessed it.” There’s a science behind the way I make sure that I have the right products at the right price points to sell at. If you want a money making business… and not just an expensive hobby, then listen up!   There’s gonna be a bit of Papa Larsen love, and I hope it’ll help you understand why your business may not be doing that well - even though you seem to have all the pieces.   ...Just picture me in a Santa Hat, if it helps to ease the blow.   THE VALUE LADDER   Hacking The Value Ladder was a specific section that I taught during my recent live event OfferMind.   If you don't know what a value ladder is… A value ladder is a way to design a business and map out your customer:   Acquisition   Ascension   Monetization   Continuity In college, I was encouraged to write monstrous 35-page business plans, which were not even that executable by the time you were finished plowing through them. Now, what you may not know is that the value ladder was kinda pioneered by Russell Brunson who did a whole lot of work to help figure out how to plot all those things on one graph -  value ladders are a huge deal. I never write business plans; I ‘value ladder.’ It’s a way to simplify everything I'm doing.   HACKING THE VALUE LADDER   I have a value ladder for both of my businesses which means I know the exact next step I’m building at all times - which is cool because it also means I know exactly what I'm NOT building as well.If you’re thinking, “Ok, Stephen, value ladders are awesome, but they’re nothing new...”   I want to show you the specific order I use to attack a value ladder that allows me to create cash flow and build my business at the same time as acquiring customers. But first, I’m gonna cover the basics…   Traditionally, a value ladder looks like this:   There are value ladders with more steps, but typically we draw them with three steps... There are two axes: One across the bottom   One that goes up the side   On one side we have "value" and the other side we have "price."   Now, you might be a bit confused by this if you're brand new in this game... However, Price and Value are NOT the same thing.   (This is a completely different topic which would be fun to rant on about sometime in the future.)The more value you give, the more money you can charge moving up the top. So  when I'm planning how to actually tackle a red ocean, I always look at: The likelihood of me making money?   How many cards can I stack in my favor, before I even start?’   To do this, what I like to do is tier the price points that are already in existence inside the market I’m hacking. I look at three different categories inside the market, and ask:   What’s the area of the cheapest price range?   What’s the area does the middle price range fall into?   What’s the area of the price range that’s towards the top?   Let’s take a look at a hypothetical value ladder...   A REAL ESTATE VALUE LADDER Let’s say I look at the three price points inside the real estate category and I find that:   Super expensive = $10,000,000 houses   The middle = $1-2,000,000 houses     Down at the bottom = $100,000 - $300,000 price range.     Now I have my market and the different price points that the industry is used to bearing... Next, I look to see, “How frequently does the average real estate agent make a sale inside each of those categories?"Based on what I discover, I can work out, “How much can I expect to make if I enter that market? If you’re sitting back thinking, "Oh crap, this is really, really simple."  It is, but, “Man, I'm shocked at the number of people that don't do this.”   They start selling some freaking knick knack and then ask, "How come I'm not making any money?"I'm like: Your funnel's great, your sales message is awesome, your offer is fantastic, but the industry you went into is not used to the price points that’ll actually make a lifestyle for you. I swear if someone tells me they're selling “Homeopathic Life Coaching” to College Students, I'm gonna go nuts!   This exercise helps you to determine whether or not you even want to enter a particular market.Just because I could enter a market, it doesn't mean I should. If that market isn’t a good fit for the lifestyle that I want, then I won’t go there.   I'm not trying to throw rocks here, but I am trying to get your freaking attention.   A “CHANGE YOUR WORLD” VALUE LADDER A quick story… There were some people that I’ve been coaching who (and I'm not gonna say what it was because I don't want to embarrass anybody), it became very clear that their target customer was extremely broke people. I'm not saying that poorer people don't need or deserve services, they do... I'm just saying that you need to make the business that changes your world before you can make your change the world business. Man, stack the cards in your favor.Make sure you think through this before you actually dive in.   Just because you could sell -  doesn't mean that you should. For example:   When I was in elementary school, we had these things called Pogs, these little circle shaped colored cardboard things that you could play a little game with.   I don't know that anyone ever actually figured out what the game was, we all just had 'em. Let’s apply the same strategy that I applied to real estate to Pogs…   Well, hey, look at this cool (hypothetical) value ladder.   These are the price points that the market is willing to bear to get their hands on some Pogs: Top Level = $100 Middle Level = $25 Down at the bottom, we can go super cheap - (we can get Pogs cheaper than everybody else)  = $5   We could auto-ship out to people for $10 every single month.   I don't even know if you could find someone to give $100 for Pogs? But how much margin are you gonna pull on something like that? You need to Hack The Value Ladder to see if it’s even worth you entering a market.     If you have a huge list, or you’re an e-comm killer you may be able to pull off the Pog game… but for your average joe, Pogs are not going to be a change your world business - the margins are just to low!   Now, let’s shake this up a bit and look at a couple of different metrics I use to determine whether or not I should enter a market… GETTING REAL WITH PAPA LARSEN   These are a few things that I look at when I'm building out a value ladder. For real, this is what I do. This is something that I look at before I: Enter a market   Think about traffic   Decide what my offer is going to be   ... before I even think through any of that stuff, what I'm thinking about is this: Alright, so down at the bottom we're going to put "typical margins."   What are the typical margins I can expect at the high price level, the middle price level, and the lowest price level?   Next, up along the side, we're gonna go with "time to fulfill."   The problem is that lot of you guys are making money, but you're spending too much time fulfilling.   I'm not saying you need to get out of your business. I'm saying that you should start thinking about other ways to make a lot of money with margins - without a lot of time to fulfill. If you’re still in your 9-5; that's a lot of time to fulfill with not much profit margin, right? It's the lowest spot on the totem pole, right there.So let’s look at this more closely...We fulfillment time on one side and typical margins across the bottom.   When you build a value ladder, the higher up you go the more margins you have.   Are there exceptions to the rule, "yes," but again, Steve Larsen is not about exceptions to the rule.  I want to know, “What are the rules that cause cash?”   I don't want to have to be constantly learning tricks to make money. What are the rules that make money? I can just follow those. At the very bottom price point #1 =  very small margins when you're selling something like a book, or whatever your low-end thing is.   Towards the mid-price point, #2 = there are more margins - you're going higher up.   At the top #3 - there’s even more margins going up - obviously, the place you wanna go is the very tippity top.   But first, you need to answer the question, “Who can you only sell to?” Typically, the people who will buy your high-end products are the people who are already your customers   When you're entering a market and you take people from the red ocean and bring them out to make a blue ocean, you want to focus on the middle of the value ladder first. However, the middle = lots of time to fulfill. If you're like, Stephen, "Why on earth would we create something on purpose that actually takes lots of time to fulfill?"  Follow me for a second, this is hacking the value ladder...The middle of the value ladder typically produces good margins Which means:   You can take the money and dump it back into ads.   You get good enough margins that you don't need your Facebook ads to be perfect on round one - 'cause they're not going to be.   You can get good enough margins that you can use the money to start building the business.   When somebody enters a blue ocean by building a product on the bottom of the value ladder, I know they’ve either got deep pockets, a giant list, are already an expert in something crazy... or they just like wasting money. I have a hard time understanding why anybody would enter a blue ocean, or try to create one, with a low margin, low time to fulfill product the very bottom of the value ladder.   It baffles me; I don't get it.   MY GROWTH STRATEGYThe order I always build my value ladder in is: Middle   Top   Bottom ...Because as I'm building the middle of the value ladder there are enough margins for me to go and mess up a little bit and that's okay. When I do get sales it’s enough of a mid-tier price level,  that I can a dump it back into ads and still be profitable.    The machine works. The systems work. The numbers work. BUILDING A MONEY MAKING BUSINESS   I build at the middle price point first because it proves out the main idea with the customer. We a customer from the red, pull them over to the blue, then prove out the main idea with the customer. Then I sell something more expensive to my existing buyers, NOT to those who are in the red ocean. This is the second place I like to go build - because it's a high price point and ironically, less time to fulfill than the middle. Finally, down at the bottom, when I start running out of customers, I start building break even ways to fuel the two top tiers. Down at the very bottom, before these three steps in the value ladder, that's where I have my content. I take my content very seriously. I consider myself to be in the content business. It’s like my identity.   I am a content machine... and then I am Steve Larsen. I think it was Gary Vee that said that the first time I heard it. I build content, and that fuels the different steps in my value ladder. I'm NEVER not going to publish. I will be publishing for the rest of my life.Let’s break it down... The goal of the content is just to build a Relationship - that's it.   In the middle, the whole point is Acquisition - all I'm trying to do it acquire customers.   Next up is  Ascension.   The next step is Monetization - I'm selling my existing buyers more expensive solutions. What I'm typically looking at as I'm building out the offers that go inside each one of these tiers, is how to deliver the offer that I'm promising. If the job on my sales message is to give a cool promise, then the job of my offer is just to fulfill on the promise. The roles are not interchangeable; you cannot reverse them. That's the reason why when someone has a cool product, but it's not selling... the problem is, they didn't make a sales message - of course, it's not selling.   The role of the offer is to fulfill, not sell.       The role of the sales message is to make a new promise, not fulfill.     I just wanted to teach you what I'm looking at when I'm coaching people. There are a lot of frameworks running through my mind when I start looking at peoples stuff.   I'm like, "Yes, no, good, bad, wrong order, look over here, don't look over there." You know what I mean? So that’s how I Hack The Value Ladder  in order to:   Discover what markets to go into   The order I build my value ladder - so I can build my business at the same time   I inflate a blue ocean and put the scaffolding in to win. However, what I find is that when somebody reads the book DotCom Secrets, their natural inclination is to start at the very bottom and build a break-even tripwire funnel. They're sexy, they're cool, I totally get it. Ironically enough, they’re more work than any of these at the top. Typically, they take so much more time to build, but not that much more time to fulfill after the sale.   … Now, a final bit of Papa Larsen Love,  I want to show you why undercharging my actually be damaging your value ladder and your business, and what to do about it… DFY - DWY - DIY   You'd be shocked how many people in Russell's inner circle have never read Expert Secrets or DotCom Secrets. It shocked me like crazy. I thought they were joking, and I started laughing openly once at a Mastermind. You have to understand that a lot of these people, they're successful business owners, a lot of them don't have time to go through the next book, they just want the "done for you" solution. So when you’re looking at services: At the bottom, we have the "do it yourself" solution - DIY In the middle is the "done with you" solution - DWY   Then at the very tippity top, we have the "done for you” solution - DFY   I’m gonna tell you something that might shock you…   There's an individual that I buy services from who is an absolute killer, but I was blown away at how freaking cheap their services were. I thought at least that I was going to be charged at least five times more than the person said they were going to charge me. I was like, "What?" This has happened to me multiple times. Guys, stop selling your "done with you" services at "do it yourself prices." Okay? Cut it out. You're actually hurting yourself. I actually lost a little faith in the person's ability to fulfill and deliver to me. I actually refused to pay the cheaper price.I was like, "There's no way I'm gonna pay you that much." They were like, "No, no, it's totally fine, totally fine." I was like, "It's not fine." I was like, "You charge all of your clients this much money? That's pennies, that's absolutely nothing." If you’re reading this, you're probably already better than the majority of that market at what you do.   Stop selling your stuff at stupid, dumb low prices just 'cause you're afraid and you have a price aversion. Your sales message is good enough to sell   Your offer is good enough to fulfill   Your funnel is good enough to deliver   BUT you're NOT making money because you're selling “done for you” services down at “do it yourself” prices. That's exactly what this person was doing. It was almost nothing. I was almost embarrassed. I actually felt like I was in the wrong place. I actually refused to even take this person’s services on until we 4X’d the price. That's a true story.   We actually didn't even decide to do business with this person until they 4X'd their price and then it was just like, tolerable enough compared to all the other services and, I mean I have a lot of agencies working for me.Even Colton walked over to the camera, "Look, do you know how hard it would be for Stephen to do this on his own? There's no way. Come on, it's worth way more. Are you serious?" It was an insanely low price. Done for you services at do it yourself price.”   I actually felt embarrassed for the person at how shocked they were about what I was saying. And I don't want you guys to go through that. ... And what I'm trying to get you guys to understand is:   Just because you can sell something, doesn't mean you should   What the order you're going to enter your blue ocean in   What are the historical price points that your market is used to bearing... and how can you enter in near the middle - a little bit more expensive.   Be premium, but within the expectation that people already have at those of price points. Russell told me that when he started selling and doing all this mastermind stuff, the accepted market price point for a year-long mastermind was five grand.   Russell's Mastermind is 50 grand now, and he's a part of where he pays 100 grand a year… but that wasn’t possible six or seven years ago.   The historical price points of the market could not bear those levels. So if you don't know what your markets price points are now, Hack The Value Ladder - there’s already is one in existence inside the red ocean.Understand what people are already used to paying so you don't have the embarrassment of someone going, "That cheap?" ... Because I will tell you, I felt like someone got me inside a cool Ferrari, I just went and test drove it, I was super excited about it...Then I got out of the car, and there was a smug look on the salesman's face and they said, "Hey, we're going to give you this awesome Ferrari for only $2000!" You'd be like, “What's wrong with it?”   When someone is too cheap, it doesn't feel like a deal. It feels like you're in jeopardy.   Funnily enough, I felt more taken care of after spending more money If you're like, "That sounds stupid. Stephen, you're dumb. Why didn't you get the discount?" You need to understand, it's not about the money at that point, it's about the value - and they're not the same thing. You need to know that people are looking for that from you. I never do discounts, and you don’t need to either. So if you’re undercharging, raise your prices. Just raise your prices! Understand the historical levels, then go a bit more premium   Understand that the order you're gonna attack the value ladder in is: #Done with you  #Done for you # Do it yourself ...And when you do that, my friend, Welcome to the Capitalist Pig Game -  it’s so much easier to do it that way. Until Next Time - Welcome to the Capitalist Pig Foundation! Hey, obviously the funnels already dead if you can't get anyone to opt in, right? So I spent four hours teaching an audience how to get high opt-in's. When they work, when they don't work. If you want access to that member's area, where you can watch those replays, just go to freeoptincourse.com to create your free members account, now. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

"business development" "business process" "strategic framework" OfferMind, success framework, offer creation   These are some of the BIGGEST needle-moving lessons I've been applying in the last year…   When I did my live event OfferMind, I didn’t just jump straight into the marketing bit… I started out by walking through some mental attributes that have really shifted the needle for me.   This isn’t something that I’d normally do, but after coaching thousands of people, I’ve noticed that if somebody doesn't have these sign posts inside their brain, a lot of times their business won't do very well.   So I want to share with you seven of the most life-altering lessons I've learned in the last three years.   These are especially potent when it comes to being able to function as the entrepreneur inside your business.   ARE YOU WILLING TO LISTEN?   A few weeks ago, Russell was doing a big push for Cyber Monday and Black Friday. I was watching the way that some people were reacting to the Funnel Hacking Live tickets being sold…   I was like "Dude, let me teach some things to help people actually make 2000 dollars in a day."   I woke up the next morning, and looked at my phone, and I was stoked to see my an email with my name there next to Russells.   I've pushed really hard in the game, and to see that he'd blasted his whole list about the training meant a lot to me.   I taught for three and a half hours, and it was really funny what happened…   There was a group of people who really appreciated what I was teaching, BUT it was not necessarily a marketing education, and I think that threw some people.   There was a small group of people who were very unhappy with the fact that I was not teaching my usual content.   It was amusing to see the stark divide.   However, there are some patterns that I've noticed inside of somebody's brain that makes them successful.   These are some of the biggest lessons I've distilled down, especially in the last year.   These aren't flash in the pan things - they’re the lessons that have made the BIGGEST difference for me in my life and my business as I've moved forward.   So, I'm gonna walk you through each of them real quick: 7 BUSINESS CHANGING LESSONS   (An early Christmas present from Papa Larsen)   LESSON #1: FOLLOW THE FRAMEWORK   It’s really common for people to ask me, "Hey, Stephen, I'm gonna start building a funnel. What's the what's the checklist I need to make sure that my funnel gets off the ground well?" I understand what they're asking, but the biggest thing I've noticed is that people will get distracted by the creative process. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a:   Funnel   Business   Product.   … the creative is the cherry on the top. It’s the exact opposite of what you need to focus on to succeed in this game.   You add the cherry AFTER you’ve made the cake… NOT before!   Let me explain…   When I was in college guys, a lot of times I was taught, "Make something that's brand new and completely prolific. Something that no one's ever seen before."   That’s some risky crap, and I never would follow that advice ever.   Instead, you need to follow the 80% framework. 80% of this entire game is just following the pattern. It's the 20% that allows you add your little glaze on top.   I get stressed out when people wanna know about “this little trick or gimmick.”  They have no idea that they're focused on the 20% instead of  the 80 that makes it work. You understand what I'm saying?   You can get an F in funnel building or make a design that's crappy, and still make enough money to have a fantastic lifestyle just by understanding the 80% framework.   If you are NOT a creative person, that's not a handicap. You just need to follow the framework to the ‘T.’   So, here's my lesson to you:   If you can't name, or tell somebody what framework you're following, then you’re spinning your wheels.   If you’re frustrated because you’ve been doing this game for so long, and tried tons of stuff..." But you have no idea what model  you’re following, and I'm not talking about funnels, I'm talking about business models….   If you can't say this is the 80% framework l that I'm following, that’s your problem, right there!   For years, I felt like I was spinning my wheels. I was like, "I know what I'd do in that guy's business, I know what I'd do in that guy's business... Why aren’t I making any money?"   And it's because I would always go out on the cusp to these places where I was trying to learn the 20%. And that's the 20% doesn't matter.   It's so much better to learn the 80% framework that causes cash. I only care about the frameworks that cause cash by a rule.   If you haven’t checked it out already there’s a really powerful episode called Cash Causing Models that talks about this in detail.   I don't wanna have to learn the exception to the rule in order to make money.     I'm not throwing rocks at the financial market, but I don't do much stuff in the stock market or stuff like that anymore because I felt like I had to learn exceptions to the rule to make money.   It was the same with a lot of the things I was trying back in the day… that’s why I was broke :-(   The thing I like about funnels is that you can learn the 80% and then just build them and make money. You don't have to learn these crazy flash in the pan strategies in order to make it work out.   WANT A STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK?   Ok, well, what I recommend to find a framework that works is this... (I'm gonna teach you right now how to shortcut your time to success)   For example:   If you're trying to be the best traffic driver for Instagram ads. What you need to do is start looking at the industry to work out WHO is yesteryear's framework master?   Let me walk through this real quick:   Let’s look at Sales Funnels...   Who's the person, right now, who understands the most about sales funnels? That'd be Russell Brunson, right!    The reason Russell knows so much about sales funnels is that he’s studied yesteryear's gurus.   He's obsessed over the last generation of gurus. He knows the frameworks that they teach so well that he's learned how to distill  them down, find the gaps, and create his own frameworks.   I know one of the major reasons why I am where I am right now is because I decided, "I wanted be one of the best funnel builders in the world." Am I? I have no idea.     ...But the pursuit of that led me to follow Russell Brunson, and he’s what I call ( and I know it sounds cheesy) A Framework Master. He’s the master of frameworks that cause success in funnel building.   So if you're gonna be the best traffic driver for Instagram, you need to ask, “Who is the yesteryear's guru's framework master?”   Meaning they’ve intensely followed loads of different gurus, consumed all their material, applied it, saw the gaps, and then produced their own frameworks. MY OFFERMIND   My friend, I know that the reason why  OfferMind was such a big success was because I was teaching my own frameworks.   I've spent so much time preoccupied with the offer creation and the funnel building space, that I know where the gaps are between learning it, and actually doing it.   That’s knowledge comes from the time spent with the thousands of students I've help with offer creation. That’s a lot of mat time. YOUR MISSION:   Identify the framework master... the Jedi master, the sensei that has obsessed over consumed all the gurus and their frameworks -  then got so good that they started producing their own variations.   That's huge. You cannot fake that -  and that's why I follow Russell Brunson on funnels. LESSON #2: BE PEAK FOCUSED, NOT PATH FOCUSED   An individual who’s path focused  always takes a long time to start moving.   I used to do a lot of backpacking, I remember this time when we were climbing a mountain on a three-week backpacking trip...   We’d just come out of this beautiful valley. It was afternoon; the clouds had come can over and it started drizzling. There was a nice smell of rain in the air.   Suddenly, we found ourselves on the top of a ridge we’d been scaling, only to see another summit beyond it.     We’d keep going, but time after time, there’d be another summit to scale. You’d think you’d reached the peak, but it only revealed that you’ve further to go - it’s what’s known as a false summit.   Here’s how this relates to success…   I've noticed is that when the individual is focused on the peak, the path stops mattering so much.   The people that I've noticed who don't do anything in this game are the people who sit back trying to analyze every single path.   They wanna see from beginning to end before they get started, and that’s crap. It doesn't happen that way.   You’ve gotta be peak focused, not path focused.   I'm not saying you shouldn't learn the path as best as you can, but *reality check* ...everyone switches paths on the way up to the top. Everyone does!   For a while, I studied SEO. I hate SEO. I'm never gonna do SEO again. SEO drives me nuts. I would rather hire people to do that for me. In all reality, I hate it…   BUT that doesn't keep me from getting a cool online business online off the ground.   If you’re not sure about your path, the best thing you can do is get going.   Something aren’t revealed until you’re in motion   That’s just the way it is…   If you start on a path and find that you don’t like it, alright, then just switch paths, you're still heading to the same peak.   When I coach people, I know that if they’re peak NOT path focused, then they're a lot harder to stop.   If stuff starting to come up against them that they weren't expecting, they just keep focusing on that peak and they keep moving… and that's a big, big deal because it happens to everybody in anything that you pursue...EVER.   YOUR MISSION Stop obsessing over the path that you're supposed to go down and just start, even if there's no path in existence. If you know where the top of the mountain is, then just start moving.   I'm very, very proud of my lady right now. She's doing some cool seminars  and things that, she's never done before... and without me telling her... there's been no encouragement. I'm not like, "You gotta do this thing.” She's just doing it.   I was like, I’m so proud of you, most people don't take action for freaking ever." They just sit back and ask, "But what's it gonna be like in session two?"   Man, I don't know…   I planned OfferMind the week before it started, NOT before I started selling tickets. You understand?   Some people react, "Stephen, you guys are so risky, oh my gosh." No, we're not. We're letting the market guide us, and that can only happen when we’re in motion.     You can't steer a parked car, people - move!   NUMBER #3: LEAN IN TO YOUR CONSTRAINTS   You’ve heard me riff on this one before, but the constraints that you have... they're not real constraints.   You need to realize that everything that feels it’s against you is actually your superpower.   That's why when someone's like, "I don't have enough time or money..." I'm like "Bullcrap; I don't believe you. I have zero sympathy for you."   Once you recognise that, it's amazing how fast you can move in the game and there's so much less anxiety. You stop comparing yourself to other people. And you stop saying thing like:     "Aw man, I'll take action once I'm in that kind of position."       "I'll take action once I have that kind of a following."       "Well, of course, they can do that because they have a huge email list."     ... You stop saying crap like that because you realize that:   Everything obstacle you've been given is a tailored opposition just for you.     You're bad at speaking? Perfect. It means that you're gonna learn it in a way that others that are natural at it are not gonna learn it.   You have no money? Awesome. Lean into that. You're gonna have a story in the future where you can  say "Yeah, we had nothing," and you'll be more believable than the person that started with a lot of resources.   Lean into your constraints and be willing to live your hook   If you aren't willing to live the hook in front of your audience, that's a big deal because your audience is gonna call your bluff.   YOUR MISSION   Stop waiting for thing to be perfect - lean into your constraints and live your hook. NUMBER #4: BUILD A BUSINESS THAT CHANGES YOUR WORLD BEFORE YOU CHANGE THE WORLD   Please, please, please, for the love…   Stop trying to build a business that changes The World before you’ve changed Your World.   That's why I call myself the capitalist pig. I’m telling YOU to Make Money.   There's nothing wrong with making money. Make so much money that you can change your world, because then you'll be in a position to change The World.   Let me ask you a question…   “How much power do you have if you're living paycheck to paycheck?”   Not much, right? You're very limited in the options that you have. I know, I’ve been there.   HOW TO CHANGE YOUR WORLD…   About six weeks ago, and we launched a new project…it's really awesome, but I want to tell you WHY we launched it in the way we did…   Number #1: I chose the wealth industry. I did that on purpose because people expect to spend money in the wealth industry.   It's not that they don't in relationships or in health, it just that they particularly expect to spend money in the wealth industry. So, it's an easier sell.   I'm gonna stack all the cards in my favor that I possibly can.   I don't have to turn around and say, "Hey you wanna spend 25 grand on this free plus shipping book?" Cause people will be, " Errm, No."   I choose an industry where I don't have to sell people on the fact that they need to spend money. There's already an expectation.   Key move right there… Number #2:  I choose an industry that has existed for a while because it’s gotten so good that it continues to create new customers.       I sell in the MLM space, and that's the reason why. MLMs have been around for freaking ever and people are already convinced that it's good.   The industry creates the customers. I don't have to create a customer. They make the customer for me.   How amazing is that!   When somebody builds a product and they say, “Who shall I sell it to?” *Wrong Order*       The first thing I do is I look for is bloody red oceans that have been in existence for a while, and create customers.   I want the sales message to be alluring enough that it creates a customer for me, and then I just need to figure out what message I can send into that red ocean to pull customers back out to me.   I didn't create the customer; I collected the customer.   As an ocean starts to expand, and the idea behind it gets more valid, the market will move from customer collection to customer creation.   Here’s what I'm looking for:     I'm selling into wealth, not health, not relationships - when I'm trying to change my world and NOT the world, I selling into wealth.   I'm looking for a market that has been expanding long enough that customers and companies reinvest the cash they made from that market back into the same market.   I'm looking for ways to see, "Oh my gosh, this market is so good, they're not just collecting customers from other markets now. They actually are creating customers."   The sales message is alluring enough and strong enough that it creates customers - and then all I have to do is learn how to sell into that market.   There's a process...   I never have to worry about who to sell to again. I'd never have to worry about how to create a customer. I'm just collecting them. It's a lot easier. Does that make sense?   There's a lot of things that I walk through to see if that read ocean is ready to be picked:   Is it ready for me to sell into?   Is this a good product for me to go into?   What kind of sales message do I see that there's a divide beginning already inside that ocean?   Are there third-tier influencers rising inside of that red ocean?   There's a lot of things, and I'll definitely do a full episode on this, but I want you to understand:   Change YOUR world before trying to change The World.     It's hard to pull margins out in a change the world business for quite some time and so you end up losing steam. Guys, go get money. Get rich.   I'm all about making an absolutely sickening amount of cash and then doing cool things in the world with it that help people. That's kinda my thing. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing.   However, I know  it’ll be waaay easier if I change my world first. NUMBER #5: THE MARKET WILL ALWAYS TELL YOU WHAT TO DO       Now, what you have to understand is this game is about you learning how to be a good detective, rather than a creative genius.   You need to learn how to go into an ocean and see what's actually going on inside it, and have it start to guide you in the creation of a blue ocean.   It's the EXACT OPPOSITE of what  I was taught in college and by a lot of the books that are out there today which tell you to,"Come up with a cool, brand-new idea..."   Okay, but people don't just spend money because they say they're going to....   You need to discover WHAT  people are actually spending money on, NOT what they say they're gonna spend money on.       It's all about discovering a blue ocean with a red ocean customer - that's way easier to do it that way. YOUR MISSION     Become a detective in your Red Ocean, and discover you market with your customer. NUMBER #6: CASH IS NOT KING; CASH FLOW IS KING       Let me say that again, "Cash is not king, cash flow is king."   Too many times, I see somebody hit the Two Comma Club Award... they make a million dollars through the funnel and get this big payout, but then if it's not sustainable, they die.   I'm not saying it's not worth it, but I am saying that it’s not security.   I look for opportunities...   I have two value ladders right now that I'm building, two businesses.   I think of businesses as value ladders with systems in them.       There's two different value ladders that I'm building right now.  In both of them there's:   An Acquisition Processes   An  Ascension Processes for the customer   Monetization Systems for the customer   So I'm ascending, I'm monetizing, and I'm actually acquiring customers inside the value ladder. However, it is incomplete without the fourth step, which is:     Continuity.     It's not always super clear before I start, what that will be... but I want you to know that I'm always looking for a way to add a continuity base thing into each thing that I build because that continuity is what lets you build everything.   Is there a way for me to gain a consistent monthly check from my customers? Bringing in this huge cash influx is cool, but it's freakin’ scary if it never comes again. And so I don't look for businesses where it's like, "Boom, tons of money all at once."   I'm not saying I don't do that, but I'm saying I don't let my emotional hair down and go," Oh my gosh, I'm totally set now."  Because that's freaky.   I look for ways to build my business and build my stuff so that I have cash flow. And when I have cash flow - when things are rocking, that's a huge deal.   That's actually what lets you build the business, NOT the funnel. The business is what supports the funnel. A business is systems.     Because of the cash flows that we have, I can go hire a team. I take that cash flows and hire out different pieces of the funnel build or content machine.   I think ten people on the content team now between the two shows that I've got. Ten. It's not cheap. The reason I can do it is not because of cash flow.   So I'm looking for businesses where I can get money coming in. The funnel breaks even on the customer coming in, then I upsell them, and then there is continuity....   When I have that, I have a business.   YOUR MISSION   Make Cash flow king in your business NUMBER #7: CONFIDENCE EQUALS COMPETENCE       If you don’t feel competent in the funnel game or inside of a business, you’ve gotta learn more… But you have to do it in a focused way. I don't learn anything about SEO or social media posting because I don't want to learn it. It's not what I need in order to solve the next problem in front of me.         On my whiteboard, I have two questions I'm trying to answer right now. That's it.   I know that if any other question that pops up, it's either something I need to solve on the way to solving the big problem... or it's not a real question.   There's two problems I'm trying to solve right now. I can name them, so I know exactly what I need to learn. I don't just learn generally. I don't just learn for the sake of, "Oh, it's good to just learn." No, it's not!  That’s the best way to make your brain feel clouded. It'll literally clog your mental shelf space.   Go on what Tim Ferris calls a Low Information Diet       YOUR MISSION   Learn on purpose - go on a low information diet.   THE ‘CRUSH IT’ TEAM     So, there you have it, the most 7 MOST important lessons I've learned during the last three years - and especially in the last year out on my own.   If I look back on the things that have made the big difference in my life, these are the players:   #1: It's all about the framework: If you can’t name the 80% proven will make money framework, you're gonna feel like you're spinning your wheels. You're gonna fire off your next funnel and not know why.   #2: You have gotta be peak focused, not path focused: Find the framework and  just start moving.   #3: Lean into the constraints: Anything that you feel, realize these are not constraint but super powers - specifically this has to do with the feelings and emotions of the individual:   I'm not good enough I'm not smart enough There's no way, I can't speak I can't talk I don't know how to write copy   ... blah blah blah, wah wah wah... and everytime I hear that it’s usually because somebody's starting to believe their constraints are actual constraints, they're not.   Constraints are superpowers - but not until you flip the way you're seeing them. You’ve  gotta be willing to feel a little pain, a little pressure, and a slight amount of discomfort in order to push through them.   #4: Change your world before you change The World: That's a huge one. I want to change the world, that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I wanna change the world. I don't know exactly how, but right now I'm changing my world and funny enough, that changes a lot of other people's’ world as well.   The pursuit of me changing my world has been changing a lot of other worlds, but it's also been giving me more in a position of power and increasing my capacity to change the world.   I know that those projects will come up soon, in fact, I can kinda feel they will be, but right now, doesn't matter, I'm trying to change My world before I change The World.   #5: The market will always tell me what to do: I totally believe that.   #6: Cash is not king; cash flow is king: Big old wins are awesome, but please build something that's sustainable.   #7:Confidence equals competence. Stop learning generally and for the sake of it. It is the best way to feel like you're going nowhere.   Until Next Time - Lean into Your Constraints!   Hey, there's more marketing resources than there are sands in the sea, am I right?   Okay, maybe not, but there's a lot. How do you know if you're paying for good ones?   Recently I went to my business bank statement, and I counted 51 internet tools and resources that I use to run my business every day and actually keep my team size small.   If you want to see the list, I actually filmed an individual video teaching you why I use each tool and the strategy behind it, and then I dropped the link straight to the source right below it. I   f you want to see the list and see what you can use yourself, go to bestmarketingresources.com That's bestmarketingresources.com. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Boom! What's goin' on everyone? It's Steve Larsen from Sales Funnel Radio.   Today I'm gonna teach you guys how I was able to pull off OfferMind so grandly as my very first event.   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?   Hey, I'm excited for this episode. I'm excited for today, I'll be honest. So, just know that what I wanted to do, is I had OfferMind happen just very recently. OfferMind was my event that signified me moving into the offer creation category.   No one has become the category king of offer creation. I am trying to make my stand there as being the best and the first in that area as the solution provider for that area. You know what I'm talking about?   So anyways, I'm really really excited about it and all of it. OfferMind has signified a lot.   What this episode right here is not about is the content about OfferMind. What I wanted to do is take a kind of an objective look at how I pulled off OfferMind so grandly as my very first event. Anyways, it'll be fun. It'll be really really cool.   I love events. Events are very special. If you guys think about it, there are seven phases of a funnel - we learned that from the book, Dot Com Secrets.  The seventh phase of a funnel is to change somebody's environment. That's why events are so powerful.   If somebody is agreeing to come to an event - they've gone through the first six phases of a funnel. I'm not gonna go through all those right now, but you can look them up in Dot Com Secrets. The seventh phase of a funnel, the last phase of the funnel, is to change somebody's actual physical environment, and that's why it's so awesome when they show up... but it's also why it's so hard to get them to the event.   So if you're about to throw an event, and you're like, "It is super hard to get people to an event."  Yeah, I totally get it. I completely understand.   I was at this Inner Circle meeting a little while ago. It was probably like six month ago, I think... I dunno, my timetable is totally messed up now...   It was a while ago, and I was at this inner circle meeting, and I learned from some people, that what they've been doing is in some of their products, is giving away a free ticket to their event.   So when you buy the book or the program or whatever, included in that is a ticket to the event. That's clever. Now let me ask you a question though...   Do you think the person who shows up with a free ticket has the same mentality as the person who shows up with a paid ticket? No! Totally different.   In fact, if you give away a thousand free tickets, I would guess maybe 200 would actually show up. That much of a drop-off, okay? Huge drop-off. And a very different mentality; you will attract a broke room, a poor room if you're going to be selling something. Not to offend anybody, just being honest okay.   If you pay to get to an event, what do you think the attendance rate is gonna be? A lot higher.   It's pretty standard inside of events that have a 10% drop-off rate. A 10% no-show rate. They just don't show up. Baffles me. Blows my mind. I have no idea why it's that way, but it is. Even with the high ticket events, paid ticket events, whatever.   When I was running a lot of FHAT events, or Funnel-Hack-Athon Events... Guys, that was a 15000 to 25000 dollar event for people to show up. That is how much they paid, and still, we'd have people who would not show up after paying that much money. Yes, I'm serious. It's like, "Holy crap are you serious?" Yeah, I am. And that's what's interesting about this.   There's always a no-show rate.   There is gonna be a different mentality of person that shows up when you gave away free tickets versus the mentality of a person who showed up with paid tickets.   So I was like, "Well, I need validation to even move forward on this idea. How can I validate throwing my own event?"   I mean I've always wanted to throw my own event. And so what happened was, about four months ago when I knew that Russell was gonna be doing the, (wait, it's November isn't it? November/December by the time you see this episode it will be December? Okay, but right now, recording this, 'cause I match my content, practice what I preach here, right.)   ...It was back in February when Russell first started talking about doing this book. The 30 Day book. When he first started talking about that, and he started reaching out to all the people for it, I was like, "Sweet, this is gonna be so cool." And I went in, and I got to write my chapter - it was really exciting and awesome.   What was cool, is when he wrote this book, when the idea came out for this book, I thought to myself, "That's it. That is how I can fill a room. That's the vehicle that I can give a free ticket away with when I sell it." So that was super exciting.   I knew that OfferMind was gonna be comin' up some time in the future. I didn't know when, but I knew it was there. Most people will stop because they don't see all the details yet. Don't stop... if you've got a sweet idea, just know that clarity will happen as you move, not before you move. Little nugget there, just threw it out.   ...So when I saw Russell go out and say, "You know what, we're gonna give away, for everyone who promotes the book, we're gonna give 100% commissions." He's like, "I'm not gonna take any commissions on that book." I was like, "You're kidding. Oh my gosh, this is actually really really big. Okay, okay, dude, can I interview you on my podcast?"(Russell was on the podcast a little while ago.) "Dude, can I get this, can I do that." Alright?   And I started structuring a campaign around this book. Knowing that when I drop out a free ticket with the book, I'm gonna get more sales because the perceived value of my offer is gonna go through the roof.   I also knew that people were gonna be like, "Oh my gosh," and it was gonna be more talkable.   I sold 375 books, and I was like, "I bet a third of those people will actually show up." And that's about what happened. About 120 RSVP'd, but I think about 100 showed up - which is pretty standard for a free ticket. You know what I mean? There's not as much fear of loss if you don't show up for a free event that you didn't pay for, right?   So what I did, was I piggy-backed the event on Russell's event for the 30 Day book launch. That's how I filled it up so much. I purposefully did it that way.   Now, I also knew that a lot of people were not gonna be able to, or didn't hear about, or just were like, "Hey, I already bought the book through somebody else," I didn't wanna leave out all those other people. So what I did was I built an event funnel.   It was a very fast funnel to go in and sell people who wanted to actually dive on in and join the event. So that's what I did. And it worked really really well. I started selling different areas around it.   I sold a VIP upgrade. A one-on-one session with me afterwards on the third day. But the biggest mistake that people make with throwing events is, they try to make money on the event tickets. I don't take any profit on people just getting to the event.   There's not as much story in this episode, I just want to hit several things right here. I ran a little ask campaign inside the group, The Science of Selling Online, and I asked: "Hey, what question to do you guys have about how I ran OfferMind?" And so I'm answering a lot of your questions here so you guys can see how I did it:     >The event room in the hotel was $7500 I believe. And I was like, "I don't wanna pay for that." I was like, "Holy crap, are you serious?" I was like, "Well, what if I just did a really long one-on-one session with somebody on the third day."   So the event was two days, but there was actually a third day where I left it open for people if they wanted to do one-on-one sessions with me. That's exactly what happened. Somebody came in, and they paid, and I charged almost the exact amount as the room was. "Sweet, alright, somebody else paid for the room."   Please, no one get offended by this. I'm just telling you guys what's going through my head.   I knew it was going to be around $20000 for the AV team to come in. It was significantly more though. It was $35000 for the AV team to come on in. It's why it looked so pro and so amazing.   I was like, "Man, I don't wanna pay for that." And so I was like, "Okay, what if I just push a little bit harder on this book?” And I did, and we sold 375 books, that's the equivalent of $37500. "Well, sweet, okay, that paid for the AV." We have some sessions that paid for the room.   Now, how I pay for swag and to make it awesome, get a photographer there and get someone just filming B roll? All of those things together was probably another 10,000. Alright? So what I did. Uh, it was more than that...   . Anyway, what I did, was I sold a VIP upgrade. Through that VIP upgrade, I think there was like 14,000 dollars that came in through the VIP upgrade. I was like, "Sweet."   You guys get how I did this?   ...I mean, out of pocket, there was a few other expenses, things around that I'm just not remembering off the top of my head, but you have to understand and get resourceful. It doesn't matter what level you're at.   I've watched Russell do this when he's been planning Funnel Hacking live; there will be these big people like Tony Robbins... or "Let's get in this person or that person." He's like, "Crap, seriously, that's how much money they want?" Or, "It costs that much money to do that?" Or, "The event room is this amount of money?" Or, "The swag, holy crap!"   Rather than go, "Well maybe we won't," he says, "How can do that?"   Multiple times I've watched him go through and structure a way to liquidate his cost on that. That's exactly 100% how I pulled off OfferMind. Structurally I'm talking about, how I actually pulled it all together and pulled all those pieces together.   So in total,  I think it was around $65000 to pull it off? Is that about how much it was? $65000 for OfferMind?   - Yeah.   - I was just checking with Colton, my alter ego now.   $65000 to pull off OfferMind. I think, out of my pocket, to actually pull off the event, (about 37000 dollars for selling the book, another $7000 for plus the 15 ish plus the 20), I think I shelled out maybe personally about, maybe like six or seven grand, which guys, in hindsight, really awesome. I wanted sweet swag. I wanted an amazing visually impressive experience.   If step seven of a funnel is a new environment, I cannot just have you walk into a normal room, I must put you in an environment. Does that make sense? You have got to enter a different sphere, a different place. I'm willing to go into the hole over that. You understand? And so I did. Sort of like, structurally, that's how I pulled off the event.   Three days before OfferMind happened, I asked one of the AV guys, which they're freaking amazing by the way...   Valiant was the name of the AV team. They're the same ones that do Funnel Hacking Live. They're the same AV team that does all the Two Comma Club X events - they do everything for Russell. They set up the stage, it's a brilliant, brilliant room, all that stuff. That's why it looked so great.   ... they came to me, and they had this cool pitch. They were like, "We love your light bulb logo. We're thinking, what if we dangle light bulbs upside down from the ceiling in this cool way with your logo floating in the back?" I was like, "That's amazing, yes! Sounds good."   So as far as structurally pulling off the event logistically, that's how it happened. I'm looking for ways to liquidate costs on the cool things rather than sacrifice experience, I ask "How I can afford, how can I create an experience?" So the event was pretty much completely liquidated. Almost. Almost, I did go into the hole a little bit with it. But that was, you know, whatever.   I mean, you guys that came. I mean, if you didn't come, there's no way you did not see someone posting about OfferMind, right? Social proof was all over the place.   I know the psychology of sharing a post on social media. The reason we share is because we think it's funny, or it evokes a lot of emotion, it makes somebody laugh, or it makes somebody feel important.   When I share something funny, I'm doing it because I'm saying I'm funny. When I share something that makes me angry, I'm sharing it because I'm saying it makes me angry. Does that make sense?   We share stuff to say who we are. It actually is a reflection of the essence of the individual sharing. It has less to do with what you're sharing and more about how the share-er feels.   And so knowing that those are the motivations; knowing and understanding that piece of it... What I was trying to do is give people content to share. That's why the room needed to be amazing. That's why all the stuff in there needed to be visually so impressive. You understand?   It was not just about me teaching. It was not just about me practicing stuff about my book that is coming out about it, right? Your Core Offer is gonna be the book and the content itself  from the event, was on a higher level, the stuff that is coming out of the book and I needed to test it in one final phase. I've been testing it for months and months, eight, nine months. And I needed to go in and do that.   But you have to understand, that was what the event was for content-wise. But I needed it to be so visually impressive. It needed to be an experience. When you walked in, I needed those doors to close. You're not allowed inside the event. No one is allowed in there. No one is leaking pictures. (I know a few people did, and I wish they hadn't.) Because what I'm doing is I'm creating anticipation.   Event throwing is what a marketer does, whether online or offline. Part of the event is anticipation for the event. Can you imagine, wow? And I needed to invoke that emotion:   Imagine what it would be like, imagine what the feeling is gonna be, what is gonna be like when I sit there, and I have this major epiphany on why I've not made it work yet. What's it gonna be like. And that game in the person's head is what I'm trying to cause. So that when they're behind closed doors, and the registration table is on the outside of the event, and the doors are closed, but they hear the music...   They hear the music and the feel the ground rumble, and they're seeing some streaming lights coming through, but they can't quite see what's going on. And for the first time, those doors open. There's literally new doors in their life opening. You understand? It's a symbol, okay? It is a symbol.   Event throwing is an art. There is a science behind it, but there is an art piece to it as well.   I am not just having people show up in a room and have me speak at them. In my mind, no matter the content, what I would say, huge, huge, huge opportunity, failure if that was the case. That is not why I threw the event. I threw the event, yes, for the content pieces, I'm gonna be using that in other places in as well; book, other cool stuff that's comin'. But I needed, it's more about the experience of the individual showing up. Is it a symbol of new opportunity in the individual's life.   I am breaking and rebuilding so many beliefs inside the person's head that they are literally doing things that they never thought they could do? They have new capacities for own life that they never thought were possible. That's what I'm trying to do. That's why the event is such a big deal.   All the stuff laid out in perfect matching order on the tables, the swag, the way they walk up, why the doors are closed, the way they open up, the music that's playing; music you guys hear me play on my live funnel builds. There is so much freaking psychology behind it.   It's important that I'm not in the room when you actually open the door. I should not be in the room. I should have somebody else introduce me. And their whole role is to raise the energy level of the room: "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" And then, "Welcome, Mister Stephen Larsen." I need that. It elevates. As I walk up to the stage and the person who is MCing, (which is James Freel, who I'm very thankful for), he got them riled up.   There were some cool videos played. Marley, my amazing video person, made this incredible walk-up video. Lots of credibility stuff. Stuff that I'm a little bit uncomfortable with. You know what I mean? I don't want ever to be like, “Me, Me, Me,” but that's important for the psychology of the event.   When I walk up, I need to make contact with the MC physically -  that's the transfer of authority and power on stage; it's visual in front of the people.   This is important, and I'm not making this up you guys. Go watched 10X Secrets training, he's gonna talk about this. That psychology is massive.   So when I walk up, my role is not to raise the energy of the room. My role is to come in with an already high-level energy room and then I can do my thing - otherwise, I gotta raise the energy of the room. I don't wanna do that role.   There's a lot to throwing the event. There's a lot of psychology behind it. You think I'm joking? Go watch people who actually do this professionally all the time. I've been exposed to a lot of that. That's why I know a lot of this, and I've been doing it - that's why we pulled it off well.   There's orchestration behind your actual event; how it runs, the way it happens.   I know that as the event goes up, I need to build pressure and excitement, and then release it. And then build pressure and excitement higher than last time and then release it. And then build pressure and excitement higher than the other two times and then release it. And then build pressure, and then sail. That's exactly what I did.   So I'm like "Boom, cool nugget drop," release it, let's take a break.   I can tell when people were exhausted mentally or physically. I put caffeine on the tables - Pruvit, that's the emblem I'm in, and you guys all know that -, and a lot of you guys ask me about it. I drink Pruvit every single day, and a lot of you guys know that. You know that about the orange bottle, right? This is the orange bottle. There's always orange juice in there. A lot of you guys comment about that.   What did I do? I need you mentally checked in, I'm gonna drop some stuff that no one ever taught before. So because of that, we made sure to get literally $2000 worth of Pruvit it on the tables, and keep it on the tables. It wasn't so much about me. I'm not trying to sell it; I need their brains checked: “Boosh, are they with me?”   Because I'm gonna go long and I'm gonna go hard and  I'm gonna go late into the evening. I'm gonna over-deliver day one. Over-deliver to the hilt. Blow people's brains. Boosh, brains on the wall, right!   The reason is that I'm doing everything that I can, everything that I can, to orchestrate an experience, not just drop cool content:   >They got caffeine. >I'm givin' them notebooks so they can take notes.   I'm not gonna expect them to come with a pen and a notepad, but I need them to take notes. Mentally, they're checking in when they do that. When they open up that notebook and they start taking notes, they are with me.   When they take a little bit of caffeine, (still one of the best nootropics that's out there), they are with me. They can go further and longer than they normally can physically on their own. More discipline, more focus, more attention than they would ever do on at their own homes. Very fascinating by the way.   Then they go to sleep, or they're spending time with each other in the evening, they're like, "Holy crap, that was freakin' nuts, jeez."   Then the next day, what did you learn, what did you learn, what did you learn? And part of what I'm doing is, as I'm taking breaks, there were those catch box mics, and I'm like, "If you have questions throughout, ask me. I need us to be interactive." It's not just for questions, it's to keep you engaged.   Me throwing around the catch box all over the place, (the microphone that you can throw), it's so that I know what the coolest piece was, and I'm hearing where people's "Wow!" is.  I'm like, "Oh, for me the 'Wow’ was over here. You thought the 'Wow' was over there... okay, cool." And you guys were guiding me more than you realize when I was on stage.   I was extremely prepared, but I'm making sure that I'm spot checking based on your feedback. And when breaks are over, keep that energy high by throwing around the catch box: "What did you learn?"   If I'm just standing on stage in the one spot? Bad. Dumb. Failure. You guys know the photographer that was there, she's like, "You move more than anybody that I've ever seen on stage," and I'm like, "Yeah, it's because I am trying to keep you with me." You should be freakin' exhausted after one 90 minute presentation.   Russell taught me once, he said, one 90 minute presentation is the equivalent of an eight hour work day in energy expenditure. 90 minutes - I don't even know how long I went? I went from 9AM to 9PM. I think I went 12 hours.   There was a one and a half hour lunch break. We took a hour at dinner, I think? Did we take an hour at dinner? Something like that? So I went for eight hours? I was freakin' exhausted you guys. Don't plan on sleeping when you do this kind of stuff. And you should be exhausted. I'm running around the room. I am responsible for the energy tone that is set in the room. I am responsible, not the audience.   When people stand up, and they beg for comments, it's the presenter that's losing, not the audience. I know that. And when I was doing these super high-level FHAT events, stuff like that, they're deep, complex concepts sometimes right? It's not up to them. It's up to me. So I run around like an animal. My feet were freakin' on fire after day one.   A lot of people say, “Stephen how do you do what do?” It hurts! That's the answer man. It hurts.   I was laying down in the hotel room even though I live here - way easier to just stay in the mind-prep zone and stay in state while I'm staying in a room at the hotel that it's happening at - so I can just go right to the room, right back up.   Lunches, go detox, drop the pressure and noise, as Alex Charfen talks about:   Relax for a second, listen to some meditation music, chill the freak out and then go back into state. Whew, bam, right. The break is for me is just as much as it is for the people. Boom. Boom.   There were multiple times when someone would walk up and be like "Can I ask you a question?" and I'd be like, "Sorry, no, because I need to make sure I protect my break. I need to make sure I protect my time.”   So, guys, I wanna walk through how I actually structured my first six-figure day, 'cause that's what happened there, but not on this episode though. I wanna do that on the next one. I just want you know how I threw the event and what was all involved with it.   And we're gettin' swag, and we're getting net 30 terms so I can make sure I can get the actual affiliate cash coming in so it pays for that: "Let's get it over here, so it pays for that. Let's get it over here, so it pays for that." And guys, that's how you throw a sweet amazing event.   You don't have all those things in places. Not usually, most of us, not usually. You don't have all of that stuff in place. Instead it's all about building the pressure just like you would a product. Build the pressure. "Tickets, go, go, go, go, go. We're gonna close, we're gonna close, we're gonna close. Who can pay for what? Who is gonna do what? Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam..."  It has a lot to do with anticipation, energy output, expectations, and experience, and environment. That's how you throw a good event.   I could of stood up and said things that were not actually that prolific, and it would still have been a great event because of the experience that we provided. Does that make sense? It's that big of a deal.   Now, I understand that the content was epic and it'd never been taught anywhere - I've never had a platform to teach all that. It was really really cool.   I've talked about the content that came from the event, and how I write the book slowly, and why the event was thrown and stuff like that... But I'm not talking about the content, I'm talking about the event itself and throwing it.   What I'd like to do in a few episodes from now as well is walk through how I was able to structure a six-figure day. My first one ever. It was almost multi-six, which is really cool. I want to teach you guys how I was able to go do that, and pull that apart as well.   These episodes are a little more in depth, a little more intense than I normally would make them, but a lot of you guys ask, so I thought it would be a cool place to do that.   Somebody asked, "What was the biggest takeaway you had from your first live event?"Thank you, Pat Phelps, appreciate it. What's the first biggest take-away? They are challenging, but Colton and I were even talking, and they're not as challenging as people said that it would be - and I know it's because we had great help. there was a full out team.   There's no way you can do that on your own, by the way. You need people. People were all over the place helping. I so appreciate that. I clearly understand and realize that it's not me, me, me land.   Biggest take-away? Yeah, definitely it was in liquidating costs through other things.   How much did all the AV stuff cost using all the other crew? $35000 for the crew. They are completely worth it. Hire them, they're amazing.   For the total event, 65 grand.   And as far as roles and positions, it was actually Dave Woodward who taught me that one person on your team should be dedicated to you solely for the entire event.   There's a lot of pressure going into your head, so you need to have somebody with you all the time: "I need this. I need water, do you have a protein bar or something like that?" Back and forth.   And understand guys, it was just Colton and me pulling this stuff off - it was so crazy.   A lot of people helped, swooped on in, and I'm just so appreciative. It really really means a lot. As far as setting it up, getting stuff on the table, really, I mean, it was just so so helpful. Colton's wife came in for a bit, Tara, she came in and did a lot. Ryan Jones, Scott, Taylor, you came in. Anyways, I'm trying to give kudos and thanks to where it's deserved. A lot of people involved in the pieces to set-up, stuff like that.   As far as roles though? Anyway.   The biggest thing I learned? You know what, I'm not gonna answer that one now. The biggest thing I learned, I want to talk about it on the way I structured the six-figure day, which will be really really cool.   Anyways, appreciate it guys. Thank you so much. Very excited about this. Hopefully you guys learned more about throwing events. I'm not saying it's gotta be that massive scale all the time.   You're like, "Crap Stephen, I don't have 65 grand to go throw an event." Okay, whatever, fine, but just know, it's more about providing an experience and changing the environment. It is the final phase in the funnel. And because of that, you're gonna lose a lot of people, the six steps on the way to the seventh.   Think about it. Russell's got a freakin' giant list. A lot of people that show up to Funnel Hacking Live are not using ClickFunnels yet. They want to, but still, his event is only 4000 people when there's 70000 active monthly users.   There's 4000 people coming to this next event, 4500, alright. Think about the numbers of that. He has such a huge list. Some people are like, "Stephen, I'm gonna go throw a massive event it'll be real easy."  Events are like the hardest things to fill ever. Way harder than a webinar. Way harder than anything else because they gotta go set-up:   >Who's the babysitter? >What are my flights? >What are my hotels? >Can I get off time for work? >Can I get off time for this?   ...blah blah blah... there is so much stuff.   Events like that appeal to hot audiences -  when you have a very hot audience who are in the seventh phase of the funnel, so it's a small group. A very small group.   I'm excited for the next OfferMind - there certainly will be one. Probably, it's gonna be a yearly event.   Next year I'm actually already bringing in some really cool speakers as well. I can't tell you who, but... So anyways, If you guys want a ticket though, we do have discounted tickets for a little while. The price is definitely going up because it's a sick event. I got some cool people coming to you guys as well.   For this first event, I needed the content to be more about the content. The next event though, I'm actually gonna bring in some more people about, "Here's how you create offers around that industry, that industry, that industry, that industry, and here's the expert on the person that did it, that did it, that did it, that did it." So really cool people comin' on in about specifically offer creation - it'll be really really cool.   So you guys can go to OfferMind.com and go get your ticket. It's exciting. I'm really really pumped for you - really excited for all this stuff, it'll be really cool. So go to OfferMind.com to grab tickets.   If it's off, just put your name on the waiting list. If it's up, then the tickets are there and you can actually dive on in and grab a ticket at the price that it was at now. We're gonna have to raise it a little bit, but anyway, excited. Screaming success, a lot of people involved, and definitely, a Hail Mary. Just tons of fun... but it took Colton and me, I think, a solid three days just to recover physically. Probably a solid week to recover mentally. I was wrecked. You were wrecked, Couton? We were wrecked, man!   I've thrown a lot of events, but there was only one other time in my life I've been that tired, and it was during basic training. Seriously. That was insane man.   But anyways, cool stuff guys. Appreciate it. You're all awesome. I appreciate you guys comin'. I know a lot of you guys wanted to come and there will definitely be others. We'd love to have you at the future ones. See you guys later. Bye.   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. 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 keep you on track with the right offer and more importantly, the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it.   Want to come? There's 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

Boom! What's going on, everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and this is Sales Funnel Radio.   Today I'm going to teach you guys how to win affiliate contests. Not as hard as you'd think.   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? I'm excited for this episode. Okay, two quick things real fast. So you guys saw a little bit ago, I went in and I was promoting really hard the 30 Days book.   I was able to win this affiliate competition, which is really fun. I sold 375 books and got first place. There was an offer created around that. There was a special thing that you guys got from me when you bought the book through my link; I gave a free ticket to the OfferMind event along with a bunch of other stuff. It was really really cool. It was sexy. Very exciting to get that kind of a thing.   Just last week, I threw the event, and what was cool was I knew Russell was selling this thing called 10X Secrets while the event was going on.   Now, I did not have any time to promote Russell's cool thing. I like promoting Russell's stuff, he's got obviously fantastic stuff, obviously. I don't need to tell you that. But I realized, like crap. I don't have time to promote this thing.   Then Miles, he helps run a lot of the affiliate stuff over at ClickFunnels, sends me a message and he goes, "Hey dude, I just want you to know that because of sticky cookies, you are in 16th place. If you get in the top 10, we're going to take you on a private yacht from Miami down to the Bahamas right after the 10X Growth Con in February." I was like, "Are you serious? I didn't know that was the prize. That's crazy!"   It was Thursday night that he told me that, and it was closing in two days. I was like, "Holy crap." And so what I did, and guys, there's a point to the story here and I'm not just like rrrrr. I want you to know the story...   I went in, and I was like, "OK. How can I provide value?"   This contest had already been going on for a week - which means all the people who were really looking forward to purchase, all the people who wanted to purchase, have most likely purchased from the get-go.   Which means I have to sell a portion of the audience that was not planning on buying it. You guys hear what I'm saying? That's a harder sale. I was like, "Oh, crap!"   So what I did is, and this is the big lesson here... I decided, like,"OK, what if somebody bought 10X Secrets through my affiliate link, what problems do I cause for that individual?" What problems does that cause when they buy 10X Secrets? What else might they want to know?   I was like, well, funnels, right?   10X Secrets is all about selling. Russell's the funnel guy, but that product is all about sales specifically. Specifically, stage selling.     When you learn how to do that skill, it's very powerful. It's one of the reasons my funnels work really really well. It's one of the reasons why I do what I do. I can do what I do because I study stage selling.   Funny enough, selling in a funnel is like very similar to selling on a stage. As far as the delivery, they're a little different. The way you speak, the way you present, the way you're talking and pointing and all this stuff. Like that's its own skill set. But the psychology, it's very similar of what you're doing.   So anyways, I was like, well, what else do they need? What else would somebody need if they bought 10X Secrets through my link? "OK, funnels."   Well, I got this cool product called My Funnel Stache.... What if I just let people choose one of those funnels? So every asset I have about the webinar funnel,  e-com funnel, supplement funnel, or info product funnel. Whatever it is... there's lots of them.   And I will give them the training on how to build it.   I'll give them the share funnel, so it's pre-built.   I'll give them the email sequence. I'll give them the video that shows them the strategy of what makes it work.   There's all this stuff. I was like, "OK, cool, that's sexy. That's really sexy." But what else?   And I started thinking through, and I was like, "What if I sent out some leftover OfferMind swag to people?" We had some extra swag leftover - and this is the kind of swag we had:   We had a water bottle. This is the famous, iconic orange water bottle that a lot of you know.   A lot of you guys will be on my live funnel builds and watch me, I always have this thing with me. A lot of you guys ask me where I get it, where I have them.   So we talked to Nalgene, and they custom created some with Sales Funnel Radio on the bottle - which is kind of cool.   And so I was like, you get the bottle. (Actually, I can't remember if we did the bottle or not. Anyway, it's part of the swag.)   The notebook - it says Sales Funnel Radio across the top.   The cool branded pen.   I write a lot, probably more than you guys think I do. I listen to books and podcasts, and stuff like that less than you guys probably think I do, and I write probably more than you think I do. There's a big lesson in that.   So anyway, we got this sweet notebook for them, so people can take notes - because I know I talk a lot - and talk fast.   Then there's the famous Capitalist Pig shirt that everyone loves. On the back, it says Sales Funnel Radio.   My favorite is to wear those in airports and busy public places where I get the most dirty looks.   There's the "It's Monday, Baby” t-shirt.   If you guys follow me on Instagram at all, you guys know the story behind this - which is pretty awesome. "I love Mondays! I hate Fridays."  I reminded everybody of that on the back. Right? "Woohoo, Fridays suck. But wait for your Monday." Fridays suck, OK?   Anyway, so what I did, is I went, and I said, If you buy, (just follow me on this for a moment.) I said, if you buy 10X Secrets through my link, I'm going to give you the:   #Capitalist Pig shirt. #Monday, Baby shirt. #Notebook. #Pen. # I'll let you guys choose a funnel from My Funnel Stache. #I will give you all assets I have around that funnel.   I went from, I think, 1500 in sales, something like that, to 13,000 in sales in two days. And I ended up taking fifth place in the whole contest. Not bad for just swooping in the last few days, right?   I'm excited; I'm going to get to go on a private yacht cruise with the top 10 other affiliates in ClickFunnels. We're going to go to the Bahamas and anyway, I don't know any more details besides that. I'm excited about that!     I used the same principles that got me to be the number one with the 30-Days contest.   If I had planned a whole campaign around it, I actually could have maybe; I don't know, done at least number one, two, or three. I could have definitely gone a few more spaces. It was the last two days. That affiliate contest had been going on for almost ten days by that time.   What I want you to understand is...   I love affiliate marketing, first of all.   Think about this for a moment. Do you think people get more distracted by the creation of the product or selling the product? The creation of the product! All the time!   Everyone I coach, they're like, "Stephen, what products should I sell? What should I do here, what should I do here?" They get so distracted by the making of the thing that they spend almost no time studying and obsessing over how to sell the thing.   What causes money to go into your pocket? Now, obviously, the selling does. I'm not saying to not make a product that's not amazing. But what I'm saying is, "It takes more effort and energy to craft a campaign and a sales message and an event, whether it's online, offline, whatever. Right?"   The feeling of the event. More effort and energy to create a sales message than it does the product. You understand what I'm saying? I'm just going to pause there for effect when I say that. It takes more effort. You should be spending more time creating the sales message, the actual hook, the story than you do the offer. It's not a linear relationship there. It's massively asymmetrical, OK?   And so the reason I love affiliate marketing is because affiliate marketing is amazing training grounds for marketing skills.   If you're like, "Stephen, I've never launched a product on my own...  or every time I launch one, it doesn't work very well." Man, maybe take like a step back and go practice some affiliate marketing. That's why I created the program, Affiliate Outrage.   If you guys have ever checked out affiliateoutrage.com, it's a completely free program.  I'm not pitching a thing in that program. The reason I made it is because affiliate marketing is like training wheels.   You don't have to go make the product; you don't get distracted by that. All you do is you flex the muscles of how to sell stuff constantly and how to build campaigns around it.   How to actually go sell stuff. How to actually make the dollar turn.   Those are the skills that you actually need to go create.   How did I be number one for the 30 Day book? It's because I know how to market, not just make products.   How did I get number five in two or three days, right before the whole thing closed up?  I swooped right in; I was exhausted from the event, "All right, let's just do it." Bam! Number five. How?   It's because I know how to sell stuff.   I'm selling other people's products. You guys would be shocked. My list is not that big compared to the other people that I beat in the actual contest. It really isn't. So how the heck am I still getting top ten all the time? How is that happening? That's like a huge lesson in this.   When we at Traffic Secrets event down in Phoenix, it feels like a month ago now, it was crazy. When we were down there, wow, it was like a month ago. Anyway, when we were down there, Russell said something that I want to recap, so you guys all understand the power of what I'm talking about here.   He said, "Usually you make a dollar per month per person on your list. So just get more people on your list."  If you're bad, that's the metric.   When you start to learn a lot of these skills and a lot of things like that, then you start to make two dollars a month per person on your list per month. Then it's three; then it's four.   I think I do seven to eight dollars per person per month on my list. And it's because of how I'm doing it.   Now, I know I'm going to go list build more. I've got cool strategies coming down the pipeline. It's just for me; it's the next phase that I'm going into. I'm always list building. I've got lists all over the place, which is great. Probably too many. It's a little bit convoluted in a few places.   ...But what I'm trying to say is like, you have to understand, the reason I can flex these muscles in these different areas is because I know how to make a very attractive sales message and a very attractive offer to pair with it.   It doesn't matter if it's my product or somebody else's.   If I don't control the cart, if you're selling somebody else's product, like a lot of you guys, you're commission-based salesman, you're in MLM or affiliate marketing, right? Does that make sense?   Whatever it is, you don't have control over the actual checkout process.   There are several angles I think of in this scenario:   #What problems do I create for an individual if they buy that product through my link?   # How can I solve that follow up-based problem with a product?   #  I could give them that. I have this; I could give them that. I have this; I could give them that.   So now, when they buy through my link, they get all these other things as well. Boom! I just out-valued every other person in the contest.   Multiple times that's how I've done what I have.   It's not about, "Buy through my link." It's about how can I outvalue everybody else who also is trying to give people their link? Does that make sense?   It's a big deal when you understand that, OK?   Because everybody else is promoting like this: "Here's my link! Buy through my link! Oh, man, I got this link, and you should buy through it!" So like, “Why? What's the difference between you and somebody else?”   So what you do is you create an offer around the other person's product. Make an offer around it.   A lot of you guys know the story, right, when I was doing door to door sales, I was going out to this area, and I was ticked. The day before I was not having a good day. It was super hot, and I'm hiding in this McDonald's area. I was selling pest control. It was so hot. I was like, "Maybe I should sneak over to McDonald's that's right there because of the AC?" I wanted to cool off.  I walk in there and funny enough, like half the rest of the team is already hiding in there along with my boss.  I was like, "Oh that's funny."   This guy walked up to us inside that McDonald's and just asked to buy. He was like "Hey, can I buy?" And we were like, "Yeah." We all stopped for a second and looked around. We were like, "No, you should buy. No, no, you be the one that buys. You haven't had a sale yet today; you go ahead, you get it." We were friends and family.   So finally, my boss pointed at somebody, the lucky person, and said, "Here you go, you take the sale." So they closed the sale, easy lay down sale right there. That never left me, because as we walked out of that McDonald's and we went back to keep selling pest control door to door, I realized that to that customer, there was literally no difference in who he chose.   It was the same sale, right, the same process. We were in the same uniforms. We had the same script. We had the same stupid cheesy jokes in our script. Same fulfillment. There was literally no difference in who he chose.   Guys, affiliate marketing is no different, OK? Which is a huge advantage if you understand this one principle I'm trying to teach you guys right now.   If you just understand that the game is about out-valuing somebody else. It's not about price. They can get the same product from like 100 other people. Tons of other people, OK? Instead, just outvalue everybody else.   So one of the things I like to do, like I was just saying, I like to think through and go like, "OK, what are all the follow up problems that I create for an individual if they buy that product through me, and what can I add in so that they get all those bonuses when they buy through me?"   There was a time when I built 89 funnels two times to fulfill on Russell doing this exact thing that I'm talking about right now. I watched him stand up, and he wanted to promote somebody, it was when I first started working at ClickFunnels. Stu McLaren was selling a program called Tribe. Some of you guys have probably heard of that.   When Russell promoted Tribe, he created an offer. He said, "Hey, when you buy through my link, I'm going to give you this and this and this and this and this and this because I see that Stu is teaching about membership areas which is super cool, well this thing I have goes well with membership areas. And I'll give you this, and I'll give you this, and I'll give you this, and I'll give you this."  I was like, “Cool.”   As part of that, I had to build 89 funnels x2 separate times to fulfill and deliver what he had given inside of his affiliate offer. Does that make sense? That's exactly what I'm talking about...   You're just riding on the additional problems that get created when somebody buys a product.   Whenever you sell something to somebody, you're not just solving a problem. You're also creating new problems. Which is fine, it's great. You just solve the follow up ones with more offers, you actually can sell more and make more money.   Does this make sense, what I'm telling you guys? Because I don't want to get like too in the weeds here around this.   The easiest way to dominate and destroy affiliate games is to understand this one principle.   If I have just a little bit of time, I will do what I just said. How can I solve the follow up problems that product will create? How can I solve it with products, and can I bundle it with that person's thing?   So when somebody buys through an affiliate link of mine, I can see it. It's in Backpack. I can log into the affiliate area and ClickFunnels. Boom, I get an Excel spreadsheet of everybody who's purchased from me and then I just email them the bonuses, or email them the ticket for OfferMind like I did, bam! You know what I mean? It's real easy. Super simple.   If they don't have access to that, I just tell them, "Screenshot your receipt and send it over to me and I'll send you the bonuses."   We just did that for 10X Secrets. That's how I killed it. I was expecting to sell like 12 packages. I sold 62, OK? Sixty-two people bought through that link. "Woo! Holy crap, OK?" We're going in, and we're fulfilling, we're shipping out all that stuff and doing all those things the next couple of days here, which is exciting. But that's how; just outvalue the other person.   I love this topic; it's a super fun topic.   Affiliate marketing is a great way to spread your wings and practice flexing your marketing skills muscles where you don't have to work on building the product.   One of the other reasons why this stuff has worked for well for me is I don't like to make a business out of affiliate marketing. I don't. It's like icing on the top. I'm not in the business of promoting other people's stuff. I promote my stuff. So I'm very careful about what I promote.   I only promote other people products when I know they are freaking incredible and they pair well with what I do. You guys get what I'm saying? Don't just go promote a whole bunch of people's stuff. I don't do that. I don't like to do that.   There's a method that I use to go and dominate in the affiliate space:   #Step number one: create an affiliate-based offer - Put their product in your offer and then toss in a whole bunch of your own stuff that you'll give them when they buy through your link. Boom, now you have an offer. You are now out valuing everybody else who's promoting that product.   Number two: Create a story around each one of those bonuses   So I'm gonna walk you through this here real quick, OK. Let me find it here real quick here. I'm inside of my ClickFunnels stuff here.   So what I like to do is I like to create a story around each one each one of the things inside of the offer I created for them. Because now I've got to promote it.   So if I have this cool affiliate-based offer, and I've got all these bonuses that are coming from me, I just got my computer out here, right, oh and this sticker, too, these are cool stickers we've got, barely created for them.   Check this out...   So I wanted to promote 10X Secrets. So my offer was:   # I'll give you some leftover swag # I'll give you whatever funnel you want from My Funnel Stache as well as all the assets that come with it.   Does that make sense? That was my offer. So what that means, I have two storylines.   #1: I have a storyline about swag. #2: I have a storyline around Funnel Stache.   So in my head, I knew, "Well, I've got like two days to promote." (I think I had three.) Anyway, it was two major days, but one was like a half day when I realized like "Oh crap, I should be doing this." (No, I had Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Okay, no, it was three days.)   So what I did is:   #Number one, I was just like, "OK, here's the offer," and I did a post on Facebook. I wrote out the post, and I was like, "Hey, if you guys don't know, 10X Secrets is going on. If you guys want to, here's my offer." I went live on Facebook talking about what they were going to get.   "You're going to get this," and I walked around my office showing them physically what they were going to get. That's very powerful, that's very important, alright? It's a physical aspect to my offer, OK? So I walked around, and I was like, You're going to get:   #This shirt #this shirt. #the water bottle #the notepad   You're also going to get:   #Stuff from My Funnel Stache - the best offer.   So I walked around, and that's like step one. Just announcing the offer. You'll get sales just from that.   #Number 2:  I take my Facebook post, the description, and I go, and I send it as an email to my whole list. I remind them, "Look, this is going to end soon."   The next day, (remember now I've got two more storylines.)   >The first storyline was just announcing the offer. >I have two major bonuses in there which means I have two stories I should tell.   The first story I told was about swag.   #Number 3:  I think the story I told was about how the offer of mine came about and why this shirt came about. Especially the Capitalist Pig shirt, right. How that Capitalist Pig shirt came around, and why does that make sense? That's why I did it that way. That's how it worked so well. There was a story about that; it became the story for the next Facebook post.   #Number 4: Then I copied it and sent it as an email with a link to go buy, with a call to action. "First, what you going to go do? Go buy through this link. It's my link. I'm just telling you it's an affiliate link.   Number two, send a screenshot to my team right here of your receipt. Number three, inside that screenshot, when you send the screenshot also tell us your shirt size, your address so we can ship stuff out to you.   Then tell us what funnel you guys want, all the assets for that that I have, and I'll blast it out to you as well. Ready, go! As a reminder, this ends Sunday at midnight, OK?"   Very standard call to action - that was it.   #Number 5: The next day it was Sunday, it was the story about the very next piece. The funnels, OK? I was like, "Well, how do I tell Funnel Stache stories in a way that people haven't heard yet?" So I started looking through assets I already had that I forgot that I had. That the audience will most likely forget that I had as well, OK?   A lot of times, guys, when it comes to affiliate stuff I'm just reusing stuff that I already have. A lot of times I'm not creating things that I don't have. For me, I'm going to spend my creative power on my stuff. However, for affiliate things I can just bundle up cool stuff. You know what I'm saying? So this is the post that I wrote talking about Funnel Stache, I said:   "Here's my client checklist. Some of you guys may have seen this. So here's my client checklist.  My early days of funnel building were ... interesting.   I'd take on anyone for any reason. At some point I was building for eight, eight different companies at the same time: skin care, toys, statues, supplements, political stuff. Yup, that was a crazy one. Different programs, et cetera.   I had no filter, no requirements, no qualifiers to work with me. Actually, my only requirement was whether or not someone had money to pay. My friend, that is not good business practice. I was a good funnel builder and hustling hard, but not at the right stuff."   Notice I'm not coming out saying, "Buy through my thing!" There's a story, right? I've told you the backstory. I've told you a wall. Internals, externals, like I'm hitting all the stuff right? So now I'm leading you into a spot where there's an epiphany, "Oh my gosh, there are actual qualifiers of who should be inside of my affiliate stuff."   ...Okay, I'm going to go faster here, so this episode is not crazy long. But I want you to see just behind what's going in my head when I'm promoting somebody else's stuff - because two times in a row now, right, number one, I was number one for the 30 Days book and then I just didn't have any time. Last three days I just swooped in and was able to make fifth place - which is awesome.   But there's a method to how I'm doing this, and I don't think people know it. I don't think people are seeing what I'm doing. So what I thought I would do in this episode, is anyways, it's a little bit longer. Hopefully, that's cool with you guys.   So I said, "I was a good funnel builder, hustling, but at the wrong stuff. About two years in, I left college, I became Russell Brunson's funnel builder, and I started creating a checklist of things I needed to know about a company before I ever agreed to build a sales funnel for them. Here is that checklist."   I'm leading with serious value here. Am I promoting my stuff yet? No! That's big.   So then I walk through the checklist:   “There are 11 things that I walk through here. You need to look at this, look at this." I explain why in each one of them. People were like, "Holy crap." It got shared, it got commented on - it went all over the place. It was really really cool, the checklist.   Then I said, "I realize this list leaves a lot of you guys out. I can't build for you, or you're not in a scenario where I get to actually build for you, right? Your goal is to match your funnel building skill level with the correct client for you. So with that in mind, here is my gift to you...   About 12 months before I left ClickFunnels, I started building sales funnels in front of live audiences so they could ask their questions while I did it. The response was amazing. I kept doing it. I now have a collection of the best of the best sales funnels just as we would build them at ClickFunnels. I'd like to give one of them to you."   (... I mean, come on, guys, that's awesome copy. It's amazing. This took me about an hour and a half to write...)   I also want to give you:   #The course on how to build the funnel and why.   #The strategy of when to use it.   #The prebuilt shares funnel.   #The email sequence.   I'm also going to give you guys some of my leftover OfferMind swag.   #The famous "Capitalist Pig" t-shirt.   #The voice losing "It's Monday, Baby" t-shirt.   #Sales Funnel Radio journal and pen.   #I'm also going to pay for the shipping for you.   I was looking at my commissions when everyone would buy one of them, and it's like $118. My guess is it's not going to cost that much money to ship it, and then also less all of the costs of the swag; I'll actually be making money still on promoting this thing.   However, I'm willing to lose a little money to gain speed. Does that make sense?   I'm going to pick up more sales by losing, and I'm totally fine with that, I just wanted to be in the top 10, OK?   "How to get your gift: Simply buy Russell's new stage sales and closer training 10X Secrets through my affiliate link here.   Step number two: send a screenshot to goanswerme.com, which is the support link I have.   Step number three: just tell me your address, shirt size, all the stuff, we'll cover it in here.   Here are some of the funnels that are in there:   #Hiring funnel. #Auto-webinar funnel. # E-com funnel. #Free plus shipping. #Event funnel. # Membership funnel. #Publishing funnel. #Supplement funnel.   Sound fair? Awesome. Just do steps one through three now.   Russell's ending his 10X Secrets offer tonight at midnight - you have 12 hours left."   Does that make sense?   Fifty-eight comments came in, and people were going nuts and commenting, "Boom, I just bought. Boom, I just bought. Boom, I just bought. Boom, I just bought."   #Number 6: The next thing I did, which was very very masterful on this, is I exported all the people who had already purchased, and I said, "Congrats " to these people for already purchasing. There's this huge list of people who've already been purchasing.   Huge social proof, right? Same psychology as you would have inside of a funnel. Does that make sense? So that's a huge move, and I do that all the time now. So that people see like, "Oh I'm not the only one doing this."   #Number 7: Then I tag the people who've been buying from me, so it pings them. "Oh, Steve Larsen just mentioned you in a comment." Like, what? They will go to that post. They will read it and say like, "Woo, yeah, baby." Massive social proof. You guys get what I'm saying?   #Number 8: Then I'll take that post and blast it to all my email list one more time.   Guys, that's how I run affiliate stuff. You don't get to sidestep marketing just because somebody else made the product and gave you a link to sell it with. You do not; you still have to create marketing. It's no different than if it was your product or not. Build a campaign around it, OK?   So:   #I told three stories. #I made an offer.   What did I have? What were the assets I already had that could solve follow up problems they're going to experience when they buy the other person's product?   When they buy 10X Secrets, what are some questions they'll have? Oh, you know what, I know Stephen does a lot of stage speaking. What if I got some cool swag that he has that's left over. Cool. I already have that, awesome, done. Cool. Sweet. I can do a lot of cool things with that already.   What if I was able to send them out some funnels? Boom, done, awesome. "Which one are you going to choose?" Package the offer together.   One story is about the offer itself.   >Next story about the next bonus.   >Next story about the next bonus.   If I had longer, I would:   > Keep adding bonuses and stories with calls to actions. >Additional social proof. >Re-downloading the list of people who have bought from me. >Putting it back out inside the email and inside of the actual comments area of the Facebook post. >Take that post, push it out in an email.   Over and over and over and over and over. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Boom, here it comes! Here comes the ending, close close close, whoa, right!   And that's exactly how I do it, and that's exactly how I've always done it.   If I had even more time, I would go get Russell Brunson on a podcast, or whomever I'm promoting... I'd start getting that person on publications and interviewing them to make content around it.   You saw me do that with the 30 Days book. That's why I had so much noise.   I put my own content, my own money behind creating content for it. I just want you guys to know more about the affiliate game. It is not, not, not about just grabbing an affiliate link and sending some traffic to it.   Does that work? Sure. Are you going to make a lot of money? In my mind, doubtful.   Build an offer around the product. Build an offer around the other person's product and then go tell stories with a call to actions behind it. Super simple. A really easy way to do it.   I'm nervous to tell you guys this - because I've had a lot of fun being in the leaderboards like crazy for a lot of stuff.   Anyway, very very exciting.   Hopefully, you guys have enjoyed that episode. If you did, please please please go to iTunes and let me know and rate the podcast. That helps me like crazy, helps the show a lot. It really means a lot to me.   Those of you guys who have already done that, "Thank you, guys, I appreciate you guys being in this and watching this episode. Look forward to seeing you guys in the next leaderboards for anything you promote."   Boom, just try to tell me you didn't like that.   Hey, whoever controls content controls the game. Want to interview me or get interviewed yourself? Grab a time now at stevejlarsen.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Boom! What's up everyone, Steve Larsen from Sales Funnel Radio. Today I'm gonna teach you guys how gurus write their books. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my 9 to 5 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? Hey, I'm excited about this topic. I did a Facebook Live recently, and I went through, and I started showing you how gurus write their books. Now, right off the bat, I want to acknowledge the fact that yes, I understand that people write books in a week or whatever. I'm not talking about that.This is not to offend anybody, but when somebody says, "Oh my gosh, "why do you take so long to write a book, Stephen? Why does Russell take so long? Why do all these people take so long?" The reason is that we want them to be really really good, right? That's the only answer. We want them to be super super epic, super fantastic. Shortly after I got to ClickFunnels, Russell started drafting the Expert Secrets book...If you've never had a chance to read that book, go to expertsecrets.com, pay for the shipping, and just get the book. That book changed my life. Awesome stuff. ...So he started drafting that book, and I'm right next to him. He'd be drafting stuff and drafting stuff.  At the beginning, I'd just be typing, like "Holy crap, history is in the making, right now three feet from me." I was like "This is super cool." As time went on though, we started going back and forth on different concepts. I had a lot of fun being involved in the creation of some of the ideas. You know, it's obviously his book, he wrote it, it's all his. I'm not gonna say, "Yeah I did that." Not true at all, okay? But I did have an amazing opportunity to be a part of a lot of things that were created for that book - to see the process, not just the content, the process that he was going through to make sure that what he was teaching about was prolific, was amazing, right? Was incredible. Was received well. One of my favorite quotes is, "The destruction of information is the essence of intelligent work," or something like that. You should not seek complexity. Complexity to make you sound smart does nothing for the person who's hearing the content -  which is why at Offer Mind, I didn't go huge into tons of stuff. I didn't go to the nerd zone. I tested material like crazy to see how you received it and then watching you and your reaction to what I'm saying, I can go back, and I can adjust. Go back and adjust, go back and adjust. I'm holding something in my arm here. I'll show you that in a second, okay?What I need you to understand is a lot of gurus that are out there who truly understand this game, I gotta be careful the way I say this, but whatever, I'll just be honest about this... I get so nervous when someone's like, "Hey, I wrote my book in like a week." I'm like, "Is it any good? Have you tested it? Is the material in there fantastic?" A book will either make or break you. I don't want to write something that's not good, not amazing. I wanna write a book that's incredible, a groundbreaking book.A lot of you guys have been asking me, "When are you going to have a book? When are you going to teach this concept?" What I've been doing, and a lot of you guys don't know, is I've been teaching a lot of this stuff for the past eight months, nine months with the intent to figure out if it's good material for a book. I've been teaching this stuff, though, for years. I've been teaching it, I've been testing it, I've been seeing how you guys would react to it, and then I go in and coach people on those principles: "Sweet, okay, that was received well. Oh my gosh, that one thing there worked really well. Oh my gosh, that plus that, boom. That made the money happen. That plus that, boom, that made the money happen. That plus that, in that scenario, that doesn't work very well." You know what I mean? I've been able to go in and test like crazy. I am not trying to write a book for the sake of writing a book. I'm trying to write a book that's incredible. You know what I mean? It's not about speed for me in this area, especially with books. Books are very final. In a members area in a course, I can go in and just switch out the URL, bam, new video, but with a book, it's there. It's printed. It stays. It's shipped. It's more permanent. In this episode, we're going to cut over to the Facebook Live and what I want you to see is the process that I had a chance to watch Russell go through when he wrote the book Expert Secrets. Same process he went through when he wrote Dot Com Secrets. Same process he went through when he was writing Traffic Secrets. Same Process that I have been using to write my book. That was one of the real purposes of the event Offer Mind, was that. So what we do, is, I've been coaching, I've been using this material, I've been testing it, but then I go through, and I write...This is I think four or five legal pads worth of paper. It's a lot; I don't know if the camera can pick that up. It's a lot of paper; it's very very thick. I draw one major diagram that represents all of it. Then I take little pieces out and say, "Okay, let's teach that and that. That and that sequentially. How should I digest this to understand it the best?" And that's what I do. That's what I've done. Okay, now those are the principles, the major core things, now I need to go through and figure out the actual principles that teach that topic. Now I need to think through the story that teaches that principle the best. I came up with probably 50 stories. I mean literally, it's a lot of stories. Because I can't just say, "Here's the thing!" I need to embed it, I need to embed it in the brain... and the way to do that is through storytelling. So we're going to cut over the Facebook Live of me diving through... You're going to see these strewn out all across my office floor right here, all over the floor. You'll see more of the process of why we throw the event. ... Guys, a lot of the books that are out there that have been amazing, they're heavily researched books. It's not like someone's just walking around, I could make a book tomorrow, it's not hard, it isn't. I could literally just Vox something or make a voice thing, have somebody transcribe it, put it in a Word doc, print it, bind it, bam, done. The process of writing the book is not hard. It's the process of coming up for the content that's challenging. Something that's actually amazing.  Something that's completely prolific - So that's what's going on - I've been working hard at writing my book. This is my contribution to the marketing world. This is not an easy thing to go through. The more I've looked at all these gurus who were doing this stuff, they all do something very similar to this. It's not about speed, in this specific area, for this exact move that I'm using and doing. Soon, you guys will see me create my book funnel. A lot of you guys are gonna join me for free - which is great. You can join me and watch me build a book funnel that's gonna sell the book. You'll see me think through all the upsells, craft and create the offer, the sales message for it - because now I have the product, the book. But then I gotta also sell that. So the book is a sales message, on the new concepts and ideas, but then there's a sales message to sell the book, and then I have to make a sales message for a hook for headlines to bring you in. It's a big process, especially for book funnels. Especially for book funnels. What I'm pumped about is there's not an aggressive timeline for me on this, perfection, obsession is the goal for me on this - which is why it's taken me a while, and I'm totally cool with that. As I'm speaking right now there are three books in the hopper, one of them is near done, this one about offers, so it's gonna be called Your Core Offer. So you guys can go to yourcoreoffer.com, and that's where the book funnel will be. If it's not up yet, which it likely isn't by the time you guys hear this, you guys can join a little waiting list, and I will drop it out to you the moment it's ready so you guys can jump on there. But also, there's a way for you to watch me build the thing if you'd like to, as well. So it'll give you instructions on how to do that. I like to do this with complete transparency so you guys can check that out...There's a lot of moving pieces with this. I don't want to rush for the sake of a timeline. This is a big, big, big piece,  a big move. Big credibility comes with having a book - so I don't want to jack it up just because I want to get it out tomorrow, or next week, or whatever. You know what I mean? So let's cut over real quick, sorry for that long intro there, but I want you to know that stuff. So we're gonna cut over to the Facebook Live now, and see a little more behind the scenes of the actual process, and I'm gonna walk you guys through that. Thanks, guys so much, appreciate it, let's cut over there now. Bye. Real quick, so about two weeks ago, crap, it's Saturday. Yes, two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I was able to go in and hang out with Russell late into the evening at ClickFunnels office. It was pretty much just he and I. Dave Woodward came in for a little while, and we were going back and forth on concepts for the Traffic Secrets book and the Traffic Secrets event. This is one of my favorite things to do ever.Right after I got hired at ClickFunnels, that's when we started drafting Expert Secrets. Russell would come up with some concepts, then he'd come, be like, "Is that cool?" and then we'd go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, that concept, this concept, that concept, this concept. I was very heavily involved in that process. It was cool to watch how a genius like that writes a book. I get a little bit nervous when I see someone bragging about the fact that they wrote their book in a weekend. You know what I mean? Unless you got a crap ton of material, I'm nervous for you. I am nervous when someone writes a book that quickly. So here is how we write it. I'm not gonna share with you guys everything. That's all you're gonna see right there... but this is what we do:We come right over here on this side, and we write down on one, see all the red right there? The red right there, right there on that column? First of all, what we do is we start up at the top right there, and we draw a framework, we draw a picture that represents the entire book, or the entire presentation, or the entire whatever. That's what that one is right up there. I'm not gonna share with you guys because it's secret, okay? (Showing beard) No Shave November, you like that? But first we start with the framework that's right up there, and it represents every single thing that's going to be in the book - One massive framework. The next thing we do is we go in, and as logically as possible, we break up the main topics, like big subjects. Things that we could riff on for three or four hours. That's what all that red column is right there. Right where my finger is. See that? That red column right there. So section one, two, three, four, five, six, right, down right in there, you can see the one that's massive, right there, where my finger is right there.(Pointing around the office) "You like the stop sign?" That's for an ad.  "You like it?" That's all my Dream 100 packaging, all that stuff; there's some sick stuff there for Offer Mind, stuff's getting shipped in like crazy, so the office is totally messed right now.Then what we go do is we draw out the major images that have to do with this session. All the major images right here. Check this out, we all the major images for that session. There's gonna be a whole bunch of smaller ones, but that's the major image and logical progression of an idea that represents that main session. Does that make sense? So it's broken down kind of like this:we've got that main framework up at the top; we're like "Woo, here's the picture or whatever." Then what we do is we say, "Okay, well, first of all, there's that part, and then there's this part, and then there's this piece of the framework, and that piece…’  and we start to number them out in these big broad categories. We number them out. This is like a main broad thing. This one piece right here is just this section. However, you have to know that in order to go this one. So we put it in order, it's descending in the order you have to understand the concepts to pull off whatever the book, the course, or the whatever is about. The presentation, right? This is exactly the process we went through for the Traffic Secrets event. Exactly the process we went through for Expert Secrets book. Exactly the same process I'm going through for everything right here. So then what we do, if this is session number one, this is session number two, session number 3, okay, this is how all the experts write books. Just so you know. Write slowly. Write slowly. Number one, there's a big framework up at the top, and then you break it all out into these different sessions. Those of you coming to Offer Mind, you're gonna see me do this, and the full circle of this. So then what we do is we draw step number one -  actually pulling off that major piece of framework is this. Then we draw an image about that. We come up with four or five major images up at the top. Now there's gonna be a whole bunch of smaller ones as well, but that's not how we're going to describe it on stage. Does that make sense? If this is a big whiteboard and I'm standing on stage, and I'm like, "Rah rah rah!" because I yell a lot. I'm drawing it out, I'm drawing out, I'm drawing out the framework, and then I show this slide — the final thing. Then I go to the next one, and I'm drawing it out on a whiteboard. I'm drawing, I'm drawing, I'm drawing, and suddenly, "Oh my gosh, let's show this next slide." What we're doing is we're fleshing out all the content from our head about this one thing. Does that make sense? If this is session one, you have to know this, and you have to know this, and these are all images. That's why we draw doodles, guys. That's why the doodles are in Expert Secrets books, the Dot Com Secrets books, that's why doodles are in Traffic Secrets, that's why doodles are in my Secrets Masterclass course, my Secret MLM Hacks, right? My Funnels stash. If I can explain it in a doodle,  then it's simple enough to be re-teachable. I need to be able to reteach it. It needs to be able to be transferable. The purpose is not for me to appear smart, the purpose is for me to be able to teach clearly these concepts to the listener. Does that make sense? So I draw the major framework right up here. Major, major framework, and that represents everything in the event. Then I go through, and we figure out, okay within in session one, two, three, four, five, six, or whatever. However many that is, and then we draw macro-level images, draw macro-level doodles across the top that represent a collection of ideas. Then on stage, all we do is brain dump on that one thing specifically for the recording. We are doing it for the camera - because here's what happens: The recording, all the doodles, all the images, everything, get sent off to a ghostwriter. Now, we do not leave it up to the ghostwriter to do the produced work. We let the ghostwriter take the first pass at it - so that when we see that image, there's all this content going in and driving in all of the points possible for just that one image. Suddenly we have a sweet chapter. Then we have another sweet chapter. Then we go back in, and we rewrite the entire thing personally. That's exactly what I'm doing as well. However, having somebody else go through, see the images, see the things, listen to the recordings, watch when I drew that, and write out the first initial draft, is the best way to get the brain dump out of the head. Now a lot of you guys don't know this, but everything that I've been doing in the past eight months in my podcast has been little tiny micro pieces of this. I've taught a little bit of this in that episode. I taught a little bit of that in this episode. A little bit of that in that episode.  I'm spot checking and trying to see if the content's sexy enough? Does it attract enough? Do you understand it? What content in there was like, "Oh my gosh, that's amazing!" Does that make sense? So for the last, like, eight months, all the things I've been teaching, and all the things that we've been learning back and forth. It starts to come into this one clear picture - so now I can lace it in order. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Then, teach it for three days in front of all these people, and see how you react to it. You guys heard Dean Graziosi? I think it's Dean Graziosi, he teaches this cool concept... he's like you know all these cool stage comedians, they get up, and they're like, "Man that guy's hilarious." The truth is, they started a year ago. They write 10 jokes, and they go out to a stage, and they say their 10 jokes. Two of them stick, and the other eight suck. So they erase the eight jokes. Then they go to the next stage, the very next night, with the two original jokes and eight new ones. "Oh my gosh, now three of them are amazing." Then they'll go back, and they'll write another seven jokes, they'll tell the original three plus the new seven. The people are literally voting for them on whether or not the joke was funny. So when they finally get to Conan. That's when they finally get to Jimmy Kimmel. That's why they're hitting it so hard, and all their jokes are awesome. Fantastic lesson right there. That's the same format we use to write books. It freaks me out when someone's like, "Well it only took me three days to write my book." I'm like, "Errrm, have you tested any of that content? Have you tested any of those materials?" That's freaky. I would never do that. That scares the crap out of me. I've had some people reach out to me, they're like, "I'll ghostwrite your thing in three days." I'm like, "I don't want that. That scares the crap out of me." Instead, I've taken eight months to go through and deep dive on little tiny pieces. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Then I'll make that one an episode. Then this on principle, that seems a little risky, that's the episode. Then that's the episode, that's the episode. Now, I have one major framework - (I'm not gonna show you guys), sitting at the top of this thing, and what I have is, down the left side, all the major sessions that I'll be teaching at OfferMind. Now that all those sessions are in Offer Mind, I can go dive in and draw macro-level things, doodles, that represent complex ideas. If I can teach that, and do this for two hours, and collect all your questions and everything back and forth - that's a huge deal. Now I know my book will be amazing. It's gonna be called Your Core Offer. I'm very very stoked about it. Your Core Offer material has been tested and tested and tested and tested; I have case studies, testimonials, personal clients, success stories. It's not something that just popped out of my head. It is something that I have been working on slowly, for months. So anyways, that's the whole point of this. Just so you know, here's what goes on. The framework's at the top, all the major key pieces are right there, macro-level images across the side right there... Then what I do is I order them, and I draw them into pictures, but then I go over here on the whiteboard and see all of the sections right there? Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, those are all the sessions, and I write out all of the outputs that someone should be able to get by the time that session is over. It's not just, "Well, lemme teach you cool crap," I believe in "so whats?" I call them "so what’s?" Okay, I'm doing this sweet thing. "So what? Who cares?" Well here's the "so what?" Everything in blue - those are the "so what's." You should be able to have outputs in your personal business and results based on everything in that column. Everything in green, that's a story. Everything in red, that's a principle. Everything that's a blue line next to it means that there is a very awesome strong image or doodle that's been created just for that piece. Now I can go to the next step. This is exactly what I do. This is what Russell does; I'm just telling you guys because I don't think a lot of you know this. So what I did is I started a contest inside of Freelancer. Huge fan of Freelancer, if you guys want to see my strategy on how I use Freelancer, go to bestmarketingresources.com, and it's all in there for you. Check this out. So I have a contest that's running, I need to find a good doodler. I know who Russell's doodler is for the books, but this is my own thing. Find your own people. There's funnel hacking; then there's being annoying. I don't pilfer off Russell's team. I go get my own. So what I need to do now is find somebody who can do all the doodles for me. So check this out. Right here, watch this: In Freelancer, what I've been doing is running a contest for the last 24 hours, it's very aggressive, I'm awarding $120 to the person who gives back. I just took one image, took a picture of it and said, "Redraw that with these parameters. I need it to look somewhat like this." I've had 299 submissions. The contest just ended, and so what I'm doing now is I've got 299 submissions. I'm gonna reload it because it says, "Time to choose the winning entry. Four people are planning to submit... " Well, they lost out. I am ruthless. I am ruthless. I'm just hoping you guys know... I called it Redraw My Stick Figures Into Vectors - I want it to be a vector, and there's a $120 reward, I have a month to reward the person, but really I need everything back in the next day, So I took one image, so let me show you guys the actual, so here's the description, so you guys can model if you want to. I said, "I need several images...this is the first attached. Don't worry about the words so much. I just need the image. The end up looking something like this." I took a screenshot from one of Russell's books. "I want it to be very clean." Then I walked through; These are the files that are attached. I give them a whole bunch of stuff and then down here in the actual clarification board... I think I have one there, yeah. I wrote several things in here. I was like, "Look, I plan on sending 40 images to the winner as soon as the contest is over. We can discuss price when I need it back. Make it look hand drawn. I don't want it to look like clip art." I was ruthless to these people.  I do that every single time. 300 submissions in 24 hours, that's nuts. I rejected almost everything. Look at that. That person couldn't follow directions. I said only black. No color. That looks like it's clip art. I mean, look at those lines right there. So I get super, super, super detail oriented on this. I get anal about it. I get intense because I'm about to drop 40 images on them, it's gonna be hell for me. So I come in, and rejected, rejected, rejected, There's only a few images. You get some really weird ones. I'm like, "Did you even read the instructions?"I have a little system. If it's a four, it means I should look at it again. A five, I absolutely love it, I hardly ever give them a five. I'm usually rejecting and giving them a three. If it's a one or two, I just kill 'em. I just get rid of it. I was like, "There we go." It's starting to look like more hand-drawn things. So there's a whole bunch of submissions that are the same exact thing - because I'm vetting people out. Now, the next step that I do, that's where I am right now, is I'm gonna go vote on the last few ones, clean up the last few pieces, and I look for the top three people. I look for the top three people, and I go to my number one, and I go to number two and number three, and I give them the same pitch. I liked your thing. It was awesome. How much would it be? How fast can you get it done? Here's all the images. Several times I've had a few freelancers do the exact same project just in case I'm not totally sure yet. That way I have a lot of copies back of the right thing. Anyways, that's my process. Now I have all the images, and I can go in and put them in slides. And as I'm drawing things up on the whiteboard in front of people in the OfferMind, and they're asking questions and I'm hearing them, that's the important piece, I'm hearing them and making sure that what I'm drawing in front of them represents all the questions that are important to answer. Then I can pop the actual pro-looking image on the screen once I've already drawn it and walked people through it as I'm drawing it. Does that make sense?Next, that event recording will go back to a ghostwriter, who will go back through, and she will take all the images and what I was saying about that image, and turn it into copy. Then she'll go back and write the thing.  Then I rewrite the entire thing.That, my friends, is how you do a book.The recordings of the event will easily be an upsell in the book funnel that sells the book, along with audiobook and all that stuff. That's how this stuff works. It's not hard to write a book. You can self-publish any freakin' book. Having a book can make you or break you. Just having a book out there is not good enough. Is it a good book? I don't care if it took two weeks to write it, is it good? You know what I mean? So, I want to write a good, good book. An excellent book. It's freakin' awesome by the way, everything especially in those three columns right there, has never been taught by anyone ever. They're all the little things that I've been using to make my clients successful that no one's talked about. I'm excited about it. How do you choose a ghostwriter and where do you look for them? Great question, John. Same process. First I'll start with my personal network to see who has good writers that they've liked, and I'll test them. There are two ladies right now that write my blog. There's a third who's gonna go help ghostwrite a second book, the first round of it; then I'll come back through and write the second one. I'm working on three books right now. There's three of them. Ahh, this is so freakin' awesome... One of them is about all the lessons I learned while sitting next to Russell. The second one is about this offer here. anywayird one is going to be pretty disruptive in MLM space because I do have a backend business there...I'm psyched about it. It'll be cool. I start with my personal network and I'll have them write a few blog posts to see if I like their style. I'm not just looking for style, I'm looking to see if they can match my voice. That's what I'm really looking for.  So I'll start with a whole bunch of small projects, and then if it seems like it's a good one, then I'll go more deeply on it. Anyway, awesome. Super awesome stuff. Freelancer, yeah, sometimes I'll write 'em on Freelancer. Guys, but it's so much easier if you can, to hire someone from your own audience because they know who you are, they get the culture - they want to do a good job. It's not just about money. They understand there's gonna be probably follow-up stuff - know what I mean? Really helps like crazy. Anyway, I just wanted to walk you through that process. Please write books slowly. I'm tired of seeing people write books in three weeks and then be like, "Well, I only had this many purchases", or, "No one's talking about it." Because you probably didn't test any of the content, and you probably didn't teach it in front of a whole crapload of people. You know what I mean? That's how I write and create stuff that's awesome.The other side reason for my podcast is that I'm testing material on you guys. If I look at my podcast stats, sometimes the thing that I'll do is run in here and look to see, it's logging in real fast, so you guys can see it... So freakin' nuts guys, we just passed 200,000 downloads a few weeks ago, and we're already at 213,000 for Sales Funnel radio. It's crazy. So on the right column, these are all the episodes that just launched; Branding Comes Second, Five Phases of a Funnel, My Latest Free Lead Source, these are the stats for after they've been out for like a month or six weeks.  Like wow, 1,400, 1,400; 1,400 - that's awesome - just for that one episode. "Okay, sweet. What was the story I told there? Hmm, I wonder if I should use that over there? Huh, what was this story over here? Which comment back the most?" I'm letting the market vote. I'm not letting them vote on the core concepts of the book; they wouldn't know know how to vote on that. They don't know what those concepts are, but I am letting them vote on stories. I'm letting them vote on the way I told it, the way I taught it that time. You know what I mean? There's been several webinars where not many people have shown up that I've been doing JVs for ClickFunnels, and sometimes people will be like, "Well, do you want to cancel it?"  I'm like, "No, man, I want mat time." I want time on the mat. I want to just be doing the thing as often as I can. Does that make sense? The same thing is true with your content and the core concepts.Your book can make or break you. If the book is the first time that you've ever taught those things, I am scared for you. Books are so permanent. They're so permanent. It's hard to unpublish a book. It's easy to unpublish an episode. It's easy to unpublish a blog. It's easy, right? Those are low-impact places to publish and test your material. Doing things on a webinar, doing things in front of an audience, those are great low-impact places to do it. But when you write a book, there's a finality to a book for some reason. Those stay on my shelf. Look, I got that shelf, that shelf, that shelf, stacks of books on the side right there, stacks of books down on the floor. I got books all over the place.  I'm constantly going back through them. I went through and I started organizing all the books where I learned certain materials, next to all the stuff. Anyway, I'm excited, I'm excited guys, this is really really cool. The process is a massive brain jog, but you become... it's amazing how many epiphanies you have, just in the middle of organizing the material. So I'm excited for you guys. How many of you guys out here want to be an author? If you want to be an author, I hope that you choose to be, a lot of credibility comes with it, but man, jumping to a book, in my opinion, a book is something that you earn the right to write. Something that Russell taught me... if you think about it, you earn the right to write a book. It's a stamp. It's a thing that lives for a long time. So if it's not amazing, if it's not blue ocean, if it's not prolific - that's some scary crap. If you guys are like, "I'm trying to get my book out," - don't try too fast. I'm actually taking this real slow. Real slow, and on purpose, alright? This has been sitting out on the floor because I'm going back, and I'm reteaching it. I'll reteach Colton. I'll reteach other people: "Does that make sense that time? Does that make sense over here this time? Does that make sense?" I know how it works, but like, can you teach why it works? That's a totally different thing.So I encourage you to write books slowly. Half of the reason for Offer Mind is for me to teach you guys how to find your core offer and draft it, and how to go in it and take hold of a brand new market that's never existed before, and the process for doing so. That's not a small task, right? And luckily, I've coached thousands of people on this now, I have logged thousands and thousands and thousands of hours in doing this thing. It's my obsession. It's a Saturday, and it's what I do - it's who I am. It 's my work and my hobby. I love it. I don't think about anything else really. I love this stuff. But understanding how to do it and knowing how to teach it effectively and simply, completely separate things. And so, this is the process we run through. If you watch a lot of Russell's stuff, you watch a lot of my stuff, and you watch a lot of Dean Graziosi's stuff... a lot of big people that are out there, they're using their content platform as a way to test material for future big programs. That's exactly what I've been doing, and that's why this is such a huge deal for me to run through. So hopefully that makes sense. (FB Comment) John Pumphrey, man, that's cool, that you're launching your podcast. But anyway, that's why this is such a huge deal. If I can effectively test all my material, if I can effectively draw into little doodles, that's hard. Some people are like, "Why do you use doodles?" It's because of what it means. If I can make a doodle out of a complex thing, I have now simplified it enough to reteach it. Because most experts, they're way past the point of fulfillment for the audience that wants to hear it. Meaning, all you need to do is go right here, and people are gonna be excited. But since you're the expert, and the guru, you deep dive and you go way past the point of fulfillment, and you stress the crap out of your audience. So if you can doodle it, it helps you go backwards so that you can still teach complex stuff, but in a way that's digestible quickly. So they're not having to sit back and be like, "I think I get it." If anyone says that, it's wrong. If anyone says, "Yeah, that was really good," it was wrong. If someone's like, "Whoa!"-  that was right. If someone's like, "Oh my gosh that was really cool," - that was right. So that's the process, that's how I'm doing it, and that's why it works. It's not fast, so it freaks me out whenever I see people saying that. So, anyway, hopefully, that's exciting to you guys. I am just freakin' psyched for OfferMind by the way., there are a lot of big people coming - I had no idea until we started looking at the list. If you're brand new, awesome, I'm excited for you as well. I'm excited for you to be there, it's gonna be fantastic. It's how to craft an offer, and how to actually put together something that the market's been asking you for, but still the ability to be prolific at the same time, and which funnel best manifests the offer that you've put together. It's really cool. It's really cool. Stuff that no one's ever taught. I'm really really pumped about it, guys. This is my move into becoming a category king. That's who I'm trying to become - the Offer Creation Category King. Alright guys, we'll see you guys later. Hopefully, that was helpful to you, I'm really psyched about it. So the next thing I'm doing right now:#1: I'm gonna go in and find my doodler, send a whole bunch of images to them. #2: Figure out my intro and my outro for the actual whole event, and then, ready to rock. 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?" And if you've been listening to my podcast, you'd 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 - 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 want to learn the framework, this pattern or 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