It was probably two years ago while I was at a Funnel Hacking Live… That I had one of the most meaningful epiphanies of my life as an entrepreneur. I was woken up in the middle of the night and was inspired to create a Medical Underground Railroad. Honestly, I don’t know what it is.  All I know is that I want to be one of those entrepreneurs who helped create solutions even for something they do not have specialties in. This project allows me to give back and make an impact. And so I talked to my coach (yes, I have business and personal coaches, too), and that’s where I came to know these powerful immortal words from Aristotle: "Nature abhors a void.” It means that nature will always fill any empty spaces.  So if you’re frustrated that you don’t have the clarity yet to some of your biggest business ideas, don’t fret. There’s beauty in asking questions even without immediate answers. Lemme tell you how you can apply this principle in real life and in marketing.   Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) My trip to Africa (00:52) The pros and cons of capitalism (02:07) The “nature-abhors-a-void” concept (04:54) An example of “nature-abhors-a-void” (09:55) Comparing different business models (13:21) How to be an idea pioneer (18:32) What is it to be entrepreneurially self-reliant? (20:52) The power of asking questions (25:44)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show - Join the OfferLaunch 2023 event here --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

It was probably two years ago while I was at a Funnel Hacking Live… That I had one of the most meaningful epiphanies of my life as an entrepreneur. I was woken up in the middle of the night and was inspired to create a Medical Underground Railroad. Honestly, I don’t know what it is.  All I know is that I want to be one of those entrepreneurs who helped create solutions even for something they do not have specialties in. This project allows me to give back and make an impact. And so I talked to my coach (yes, I have business and personal coaches, too), and that’s where I came to know these powerful immortal words from Aristotle: "Nature abhors a void.” It means that nature will always fill any empty spaces.  So if you’re frustrated that you don’t have the clarity yet to some of your biggest business ideas, don’t fret. There’s beauty in asking questions even without immediate answers. Lemme tell you how you can apply this principle in real life and in marketing. Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) My trip to Africa (00:52) The pros and cons of capitalism (02:07) The “nature-abhors-a-void” concept (04:54) An example of “nature-abhors-a-void” (09:55) Comparing different business models (13:21) How to be an idea pioneer (18:32) What is it to be entrepreneurially self-reliant? (20:52) The power of asking questions (25:44) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> - Join the OfferLaunch 2023 event <a href="https://offerlaunch.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

How to Become Entrepreneurially Self-Reliant

It's not the first time I've had this type of insight. But it resurfaced after years while I was filming a video about how unique the offer launch is. And that's what spurred the thought. I realized that there is a benefit to being an innovator. Sure, there are things to be blue, new, and prolific with. However, there are also certain things that it's best to model what has worked. One of the biggest frustrating aspects I have in teaching my frameworks to others is that "some" people would do differently from what the framework says. And they'd come up to me and say... "Steve, your framework doesn't work." Yeah? No way! Well, it feels like I'm handing a Ferrari to a five-year-old who can't reach the pedals yet. Lemme tell you more about what I mean by this...   Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) There's a certain playroom within the framework (01:37) What is the Red Ocean Analytics? (04:27) Two main reasons why people take reckless risks (05:48) Why you should copy the category king (07:15) The story behind the Ferrari framework (10:48) You got to learn to reach the pedals (12:44) Closing thoughts (14:53)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show - Join the OfferLaunch 2023 event here --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

It's not the first time I've had this type of insight. But it resurfaced after years while I was filming a video about how unique the offer launch is. And that's what spurred the thought. I realized that there is a benefit to being an innovator. Sure, there are things to be blue, new, and prolific with. However, there are also certain things that it's best to model what has worked. One of the biggest frustrating aspects I have in teaching my frameworks to others is that "some" people would do differently from what the framework says. And they'd come up to me and say... "Steve, your framework doesn't work." Yeah? No way! Well, it feels like I'm handing a Ferrari to a five-year-old who can't reach the pedals yet. Lemme tell you more about what I mean by this... Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) There's a certain playroom within the framework (01:37) What is the Red Ocean Analytics? (04:27) Two main reasons why people take reckless risks (05:48) Why you should copy the category king (07:15) The story behind the Ferrari framework (10:48) You got to learn to reach the pedals (12:44) Closing thoughts (14:53) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> - Join the OfferLaunch 2023 event <a href="https://offerlaunch.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

The 5-Year-Old in the Ferrari

Here I was, sitting and thinking about the very first successful sales funnel I made for another company. And it got me asking what made it so successful compared to my previous attempts. Obviously, I had good copies on my sales funnels, good sales videos, etc. But I think the answer is really simple… Survey your customers! As customers come and go, I surveyed my customers to fully understand what they need. It might seem like a leap, but it does benefit you in the long run.  Find out how.    Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) Why you should survey your customers (00:55) Other benefits of surveying your customers (02:28) One of the biggest things my audience has requested (04:27) Scaling a business model (05:20) What have I been up to lately? (06:54) Best resources for learning about surveys (12:34) Surveys and quizzes (13:14) Join my mastermind group (14:44)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

Here I was, sitting and thinking about the very first successful sales funnel I made for another company. And it got me asking what made it so successful compared to my previous attempts. Obviously, I had good copies on my sales funnels, good sales videos, etc. But I think the answer is really simple… Survey your customers! As customers come and go, I surveyed my customers to fully understand what they need. It might seem like a leap, but it does benefit you in the long run.  Find out how.  Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) Why you should survey your customers (00:55) Other benefits of surveying your customers (02:28) One of the biggest things my audience has requested (04:27) Scaling a business model (05:20) What have I been up to lately? (06:54) Best resources for learning about surveys (12:34) Surveys and quizzes (13:14) Join my mastermind group (14:44) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

Why You Should Survey Your Customers

“If you're still doing the same thing in 20 years, I'm gonna kill you.” Although those weren't his original words (he got them from the movie The Good Will Hunting), my business coach of three years, Brian, made me think hard about what I really wanted to do. For the past few years, it has always been funnel, funnel, and funnel. Hence, the birth of Sales Funnel Radio.  But now, I'm already entertaining the thought and feeling of "Where do I go next?". ‘Coz, no matter how much I'm invested in funnel land, I know it won't be where I will build my kingdom. No doubt... I'm honored to have produced over 350 episodes for this amazing Sales Funnel space. But here's my vision of the future of this show though...   Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) Saying yes too much isn’t a blessing (01:11) A lesson from The Good Will Hunting (04:19) Where can I build my next castle? (08:25) Owning the thought leader in me (10:39) Surround yourself with this kind of people (13:34) My future plans (14:29) Is this the end of Sales Funnel Radio? (16:48) The Capitalist Pig brand (20:02) What’s in the Capitalist Pig Newsletter? (24:24)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

“If you're still doing the same thing in 20 years, I'm gonna kill you.” Although those weren't his original words (he got them from the movie The Good Will Hunting), my business coach of three years, Brian, made me think hard about what I really wanted to do. For the past few years, it has always been funnel, funnel, and funnel. Hence, the birth of Sales Funnel Radio.  But now, I'm already entertaining the thought and feeling of "Where do I go next?". ‘Coz, no matter how much I'm invested in funnel land, I know it won't be where I will build my kingdom. No doubt... I'm honored to have produced over 350 episodes for this amazing Sales Funnel space. But here's my vision of the future of this show though... Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) Saying yes too much isn’t a blessing (01:11) A lesson from The Good Will Hunting (04:19) Where can I build my next castle? (08:25) Owning the thought leader in me (10:39) Surround yourself with this kind of people (13:34) My future plans (14:29) Is this the end of Sales Funnel Radio? (16:48) The Capitalist Pig brand (20:02) What’s in the Capitalist Pig Newsletter? (24:24) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

So, Will Sales Funnel Radio Continue?

I have been speaking on stage for years. And one of the most triggering things someone can ask me while I'm on stage is... "Steve, this is really powerful. But will it work for me?" Man, when I hear that, I just want to flip a desk because I already know that person will fail. I understand your good intentions; you want to help your customers solve their problems. You've put your blood and sweat into your course materials so you can share the formula that has worked for you and others. But while you're here to solve a valuable problem for your customer, they'll never get the result they're paying for if you don't do this one thing. Let me tell you more about it....   Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) The sad post-learning pattern (01:22) Modeling somebody vs. carving your own path (04:52) Simplicity always wins (06:30) One of my biggest pet peeves (08:36) The power of having a can-do attitude (10:41) You are your own hero (12:33) Funnel Hacking Live freebies (13:55) Overcoming self-doubt and taking extreme ownership (14:37) Complaining is not bad (19:20) How to deal with haters (20:17)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

I have been speaking on stage for years. And one of the most triggering things someone can ask me while I'm on stage is... "Steve, this is really powerful. But will it work for me?" Man, when I hear that, I just want to flip a desk because I already know that person will fail. I understand your good intentions; you want to help your customers solve their problems. You've put your blood and sweat into your course materials so you can share the formula that has worked for you and others. But while you're here to solve a valuable problem for your customer, they'll never get the result they're paying for if you don't do this one thing. Let me tell you more about it.... Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) The sad post-learning pattern (01:22) Modeling somebody vs. carving your own path (04:52) Simplicity always wins (06:30) One of my biggest pet peeves (08:36) The power of having a can-do attitude (10:41) You are your own hero (12:33) Funnel Hacking Live freebies (13:55) Overcoming self-doubt and taking extreme ownership (14:37) Complaining is not bad (19:20) How to deal with haters (20:17) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

The #1 Thing That Will Guarantee Client Failure

I remember my first few interviews. Man, those weren't the best of me. But if it weren't for those interviews and my consistency in putting myself out there, I wouldn't be considered an expert in what I do now. It cemented me in this industry which eventually led to bigger opportunities. Yet, most people often overlook this marketing strategy. Getting yourself interviewed is actually one of the most powerful and SIMPLEST forms of marketing. Why? 'Coz it never leaves the internet.  And if you know how to tie your answers into whatever you're promoting, you'll have leads for LIFE! Being interviewed is one of the key pieces of the publishing game, and it comes with some prerequisites. So here's how I started getting myself interviewed...   Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) My I’m-not-gonna-publish backstory (01:28) Why publishing is so important (05:24) How to get interviewed by others (10:05) Interview request sample (13:54) #1 rule when interviewing me (14:30) Two ways to pitch yourself for interviews (15:59) The danger with a purely interview-based show (16:57) Handy interview tips (20:29) Closing thoughts (24:14)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

I remember my first few interviews. Man, those weren't the best of me. But if it weren't for those interviews and my consistency in putting myself out there, I wouldn't be considered an expert in what I do now. It cemented me in this industry which eventually led to bigger opportunities. Yet, most people often overlook this marketing strategy. Getting yourself interviewed is actually one of the most powerful and SIMPLEST forms of marketing. Why? 'Coz it never leaves the internet.  And if you know how to tie your answers into whatever you're promoting, you'll have leads for LIFE! Being interviewed is one of the key pieces of the publishing game, and it comes with some prerequisites. So here's how I started getting myself interviewed... Key Takeaways: Intro (00:00) My I’m-not-gonna-publish backstory (01:28) Why publishing is so important (05:24) How to get interviewed by others (10:05) Interview request sample (13:54) #1 rule when interviewing me (14:30) Two ways to pitch yourself for interviews (15:59) The danger with a purely interview-based show (16:57) Handy interview tips (20:29) Closing thoughts (24:14) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

How to Get Yourself Interviewed by Others

I love the Linchpin model. In fact, I have changed everything in my business to it. And yours truly even got to write the foreword on Russell Brunson's upcoming book about the said business model. But I haven't seen anyone turn their event funnel into this Linchpin model yet. So while I was on an airplane to Miami, with some caffeine and dubstep, I had another epiphany that blew my mind. I created a fantastic new event funnel type using the Linchpin model!  And I can't wait to share it with you. Here's how it goes…   Key Takeaways: The new Linchpin model (01:25) How to do a Linchpin-style event funnel (02:21) My plans for Offer Launch and Offer Mind (07:51) The reason why I've slowed down (10:17) Blackout speaking explained (11:38) The future of Sales Funnel Radio (12:34)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

I love the Linchpin model. In fact, I have changed everything in my business to it. And yours truly even got to write the foreword on Russell Brunson's upcoming book about the said business model. But I haven't seen anyone turn their event funnel into this Linchpin model yet. So while I was on an airplane to Miami, with some caffeine and dubstep, I had another epiphany that blew my mind. I created a fantastic new event funnel type using the Linchpin model!  And I can't wait to share it with you. Here's how it goes… Key Takeaways: The new Linchpin model (01:25) How to do a Linchpin-style event funnel (02:21) My plans for Offer Launch and Offer Mind (07:51) The reason why I've slowed down (10:17) Blackout speaking explained (11:38) The future of Sales Funnel Radio (12:34) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

Creating My Linchpin-Style Event Funnel

When it comes to funnels, most marketers would think of it as purely for customer acquisition. But here's one of my biggest realizations for the past year: You can utilize funnels in so many ways! And the first thing you have to do is do what the market leader is doing. That's it. It's just ridiculous not to copy how leaders acquire customers.  Come to think of it. When you straight out clone the content king, you also limit the number of variables you're risking. And customer acquisition is something you should not gamble on in the first place. From there, you can use the same customer acquisition funnel to make an EPIC funnel for onboarding and fulfillment. And in today's episode, I will describe in detail what I mean about this.    Key Takeaways: Origin stories are not just for people (01:31) The best strategy for customer acquisition (03:59) Just do what the market leaders are doing (05:34) The truth about FREE challenges (09:11) My biggest realization about funnels and fulfillment (13:34) Episode wrap-up (15:02)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

When it comes to funnels, most marketers would think of it as purely for customer acquisition. But here's one of my biggest realizations for the past year: You can utilize funnels in so many ways! And the first thing you have to do is do what the market leader is doing. That's it. It's just ridiculous not to copy how leaders acquire customers.  Come to think of it. When you straight out clone the content king, you also limit the number of variables you're risking. And customer acquisition is something you should not gamble on in the first place. From there, you can use the same customer acquisition funnel to make an EPIC funnel for onboarding and fulfillment. And in today's episode, I will describe in detail what I mean about this.  Key Takeaways: Origin stories are not just for people (01:31) The best strategy for customer acquisition (03:59) Just do what the market leaders are doing (05:34) The truth about FREE challenges (09:11) My biggest realization about funnels and fulfillment (13:34) Episode wrap-up (15:02) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

The Best Funnel For FULFILLMENT

Funnel builders and internet marketers know the power of creating content.  We're wired to build, build, and build. And most of the time, marketers develop more sellable assets than the offer they're pushing. But most content creators don't know how to really use what they've built. That's what I realized after my friend and business partner, Raleigh Williams, and I bought MediaAcquire. MediaAcquire is an online marketplace to buy and sell media assets. In this episode, Raleigh and I talk about how marketers can monetize all the media sawdust they've created along the way and when to actually sell their social media channels.   Key Takeaways: The power of creating content (00:29) What is MediaAcquire? (05:13) Most content creators don't know how to monetize their platforms (05:59) On building products vs. building distributions (10:53) A message to new entrepreneurs (14:38) What to look for in something sellable or valuable? (21:40) Can you sell a media asset even if it's on a downtrend? (29:55) On monetizing your media sawdust (33:08)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show - Connect with Raleigh Williams here - Looking to sell your media assets? Check MediaAcquire here --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead.

Funnel builders and internet marketers know the power of creating content.  We're wired to build, build, and build. And most of the time, marketers develop more sellable assets than the offer they're pushing. But most content creators don't know how to really use what they've built. That's what I realized after my friend and business partner, Raleigh Williams, and I bought MediaAcquire. MediaAcquire is an online marketplace to buy and sell media assets. In this episode, Raleigh and I talk about how marketers can monetize all the media sawdust they've created along the way and when to actually sell their social media channels. Key Takeaways: The power of creating content (00:29) What is MediaAcquire? (05:13) Most content creators don't know how to monetize their platforms (05:59) On building products vs. building distributions (10:53) A message to new entrepreneurs (14:38) What to look for in something sellable or valuable? (21:40) Can you sell a media asset even if it's on a downtrend? (29:55) On monetizing your media sawdust (33:08) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> - Connect with Raleigh Williams <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@raleigh_williams" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> - Looking to sell your media assets? Check MediaAcquire <a href="https://www.mediaacquire.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead.

When To Sell Your Own Social Media Channels

In this week's episode of Sales Funnel Radio, I have finally invited my business partner, Raleigh Williams, to talk about our latest mergers and acquisitions deal. Raleigh started as an M&amp;A lawyer in New York and in Dallas - working for private equity firms, public companies, and big firms. Overseeing purchases and sales agreements for like $20 billion dollars plus deals, and getting paid a number that is way much smaller than what he deserved, made him realize to walk away from his lucrative job.  He has gone on doing his own business acquisitions. And now, we're combining his M&amp;A knowledge and my sales funnel expertise to value and acquire businesses and help them optimize through marketing. Join us in this special episode as we talk about how we're using sales funnel in business acquisitions, the criteria we're looking for in an M&amp;A, and our business plans.   Key Takeaways From small business consulting to mergers &amp; acquisitions (01:02) Meet Raleigh Williams (01:47) Turning passion business into a sellable asset (04:02) Traditional M&amp;As vs. funnel-driven M&amp;As (08:50) When you buy out a business built around a person (11:27) The numbers behind our latest business acquisition (14:59) Misconception on M&amp;As (20:35) What to look for in a business when doing an M&amp;A (22:05) How we plan to keep this business going (24:33)   Additional Resources  - Connect with me here  - Interview me on your show - Check out our latest business venture here - Connect with Raleigh Williams here --- Download Season 1 episodes here -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead.

In this week's episode of Sales Funnel Radio, I have finally invited my business partner, Raleigh Williams, to talk about our latest mergers and acquisitions deal. Raleigh started as an M&amp;A lawyer in New York and in Dallas - working for private equity firms, public companies, and big firms. Overseeing purchases and sales agreements for like $20 billion dollars plus deals, and getting paid a number that is way much smaller than what he deserved, made him realize to walk away from his lucrative job.  He has gone on doing his own business acquisitions. And now, we're combining his M&amp;A knowledge and my sales funnel expertise to value and acquire businesses and help them optimize through marketing. Join us in this special episode as we talk about how we're using sales funnel in business acquisitions, the criteria we're looking for in an M&amp;A, and our business plans. Key Takeaways From small business consulting to mergers &amp; acquisitions (01:02) Meet Raleigh Williams (01:47) Turning passion business into a sellable asset (04:02) Traditional M&amp;As vs. funnel-driven M&amp;As (08:50) When you buy out a business built around a person (11:27) The numbers behind our latest business acquisition (14:59) Misconception on M&amp;As (20:35) What to look for in a business when doing an M&amp;A (22:05) How we plan to keep this business going (24:33) Additional Resources  - Connect with me <a href="https://stevejlarsen.com/stay-present" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here </a> - <a href="https://interviewsteve.com/schedule" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interview me on your show</a> - Check out our latest business venture <a href="https://businesssyndicate.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> - Connect with Raleigh Williams <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@raleigh_williams" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> --- Download Season 1 episodes <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com/season-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> -- Sales Funnels Radio is a podcast for all passionate digital marketing pros looking to up their game and stay ahead.

How We're Using Sales Funnels In Business Acquisitions

My first 5 years in entrepreneurship was 34 painful product failures in a row (you heard me).Finally, on #35 it clicked, and for the next 4 years, 55 NEW offers made over $11m.I’ve learned enough to see a few flaws in my baby business…So, as entrepreneurs do, I built it up, just to burn it ALL down; deleting 50 products, and starting fresh.We’re a group of capitalist pig-loving entrepreneurs who are actively trying to get rich and give back.Be sure to download Season 1: From $0 to $5m for free at https://salesfunnelradio.comI’m your host, Steve J Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio Season 2: Journey $100M

Steve, you’e the man!  I appreciate learning about your journey throughout this podcast and learning about the different marketing strategies and tactics you’ve employed in your business  to help you grow and expand.  

Steve doesn’t gloss over any of the challenging stuff either - he goes in depth on the struggles he’s faced both in life and in his business.  

This is a modern podcast with information relevant to the current age we’re in about utilizing technology in the right way to drive business growth!

Super Grateful For Steve’s Advice

I had just finished all of Russell Brunson’s podcast and I wanted MORE!  Steve’s podcast here is exactly what I needed and his story is really inspiring.  Listen to him and Russell, and you’ll get exposed to others you should be watching/listening to.  I’m putting things into action as best I can and I’m finding little wins here and there, and I’m eternally grateful.  Awesome job!

Unbelievable Amount of Value

My first 5 years in entrepreneurship was 34 painful product failures in a row (you heard me). Finally, on #35 it clicked, and for the next 4 years, 55 NEW offers made over $11m. I’ve learned enough to see a few flaws in my baby business… So, as entrepreneurs do, I built it up, just to burn it ALL down; deleting 50 products, and starting fresh. We’re a group of capitalist pig-loving entrepreneurs who are actively trying to get rich and give back. Be sure to download Season 1: From $0 to $5m for free at <a href="https://salesfunnelradio.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://salesfunnelradio.com</a> I’m your host, Steve J Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio Season 2: Journey $100M

Sales Funnel Radio

Dan Henry

SFR 24: Dan Henry - From Pizza Boy To $200k In A Few Months. Dan Is The Real Deal…

Ben Willson

SRF 4: Interview - Ben Willson Strategy For 50,000 Free Site Visitors In ONE MONTH...

SFR 23: The 4 Essentials To Get Fast At ClickFunnels…

SFR 195: How To Create A Quiz Funnel...

SFR 258: Part 1 - Designing Your Value Ladder

SFR 130:The CORE Of A Funnel...

A while little ago, in my  Facebook group, someone hit me up with a question.   The question was:   “Stephen, would you have made $1 million faster if you’d just focused on ONE business?”   ...the question shocked me.   Because ...*I ONLY EVER FOCUS ON ONE THING*   So, I started thinking about how it can look like I’m doing MORE than I actually am... and it has EVERYTHING to do with how I focus and what I focus on.   So if you wanna get a crap ton done, (without burning out), this is for you!   BECOMING THE OFFER GUY   At the beginning of 2018, I had no product, no business, NOOOTHING. I only had ONE focus…   My first product was in the MLM space. I built a product and a high ticket offer.   Then, I spent two to three months just putting the systems in place and testing them to see if they worked...   I didn't take my focus from that ONE area until the systems in place to run it.   But I was kind thinking:   “Hmmm, I love offers, and frankly, no one else really geeks out about 'em as much as I do. I'm gonna be the offer guy.”   Russell said: “You should be the offer guy!”   Dana Derricks said: “You should be the offer guy!”   I realized that there hadn’t really been a full-on Offer Creation King since the early 1900’s #Claude Hopkins...   ...so I was like, “Yo, I'll be the offer guy!”   BUT… that didn't happen until September 2018.   BUILDING BUSINESS SYSTEMS   Thankfully, by that point, the systems I’d been testing in my MLM business were ninja awesome.   Unless we're launching something, I spend only about an hour a week on maintenance… so, now my MLM product is kind of my back-end business.   I’m not gonna shut in down…   We put $1 in and we get $8 to $10 back out.  Why would I shut those ads off?   It helps a lot of people, the content is good. It delivers and people make a lot of money from it.… *if they just do it*    It's something people want. It's extremely valuable. No one else is doing it.    I'm not gonna turn my MLM business off, but I don't have to maintain it that much either.   On my side, it's all automated and systems are in place.   I have:    Support. Fulfillment. Phone people who chat with customers.    BUT…   I'm NOT touching the business on a daily basis. I'm the orchestrator.   Once a week, I'll check in, but I don't really do that much of that anymore…   Coulton handles the majority of stuff over there, and now he's got systems and people in place to free him up too.   That's what's soooo funny about the whole argument that I would have made more money if I’d only focused on ONE thing. I ONLY EVER DID!   I only focused on ONE business.   HERE’S HOW IT WENT DOWN…   #1: I left my job    January - March: I focused solely on just that main MLM product. For the next two months, (up until about the end of April): I set up systems and teams to take over what I was doing.    #2: The one thing on top of that was that I'm still pretty involved in the ClickFunnels space.   So that might be the thing that some of you guys might try and slap my hand about… I DON’T CARE.   I love Clickfunnels. It's like my second home. Heck, I even have Russell stickers on my phone ;-)   So, I was contracted as a 2 Comma Club X Coach. I was creating a lot of content for ClickFunnels, and I was doing a lot of events and stuff still…   In August, we did the first One Funnel Away Challenge, so we were developing that content as well.   However, so much on the MLM side was already automated, so that I  didn’t really have to touch it.   Do you understand?   For the One Funnel Away Challenge, I go live once a day for 30 minutes to an hour, (except for two or three days each month when it’s a little bit more than that), and honestly, I just enjoy it.   I tell EVERYONE to start coaching. People overcomplicate thing. If you start coaching, after a while, you'll notice patterns, and see the BIG problems people have...   Then you make that a product that solves that problem. BOOM!   That's the real reason why I coach. It keeps me sharp. I'm not gonna stop that.   I’M NOT THE FUNNEL GUY   By about September, I started thinking:   This MLM stuff is fun, but what is it I wanna be known for?”    I'm not gonna be the funnel guy, ( even though I’ve built a whole bunch of funnels), that'd be dumb. Russell is the funnel guy. He's the category king of funnels. How can I create a business that’s complementary to funnels, but not in competition with Russell?    Well, I freak out and dive into offer creation more than anything else.   I just bought another book called The Science of Emerging Markets; it’s super nerdy, and I'm so excited about it...   My fifth bookshelf is topping out. I geek out, man. Offers are my jam. I love just offer creation.   I'm trying to be the offer guy.   … but that decision wasn't official until September.   MY OBSESSION   You have to understand that when I'm putting a product together... no other product exists in my mind.   I have CRAZY FOCUS. It’s obsessive, (probably too obsessive), kind of focus.‘I can't sleep that much for six weeks’ kind of focus. And, honestly, it’s not that healthy, but it's how my brain works.   I go in these cycles of insane focus... I go dead to the world. Besides my podcast and blog, no one hears from me. I barely leave my office:    I'm building I'm crafting I'm creating I'm very meticulous I’m very methodical about the things I'm putting together    That was true for the first 2 Comma Club Coaching program that I helped to develop at Clickfunnels.   It took me six months to create that... and for the first six months after it launched, I was NOT really doing my own stuff. Besides my podcast - *NOTHING*   I was solely focused on tweaking and improving the program    Did it provide what customer thought was gonna be there? Was it delivering the result that I was trying to deliver?    If the answer was:    No? This is not clear yet! I should plug up that hole.    ...then I filmed more training. I plugged any holes up.   So that's what I was doing for the first half of 2018 in my own business.   By the second half of 2018, I had:    Systems in place People running things for me    I spent almost no time, no energy,  no effort, or mental capacity thinking about that MLM business. I just ran, cash flowed and I made money.   Why would I shut that off? It's NOT a second focus, though!   I HAVE A PLAN   I have a few buddies who run several multi-million dollar companies, and they can do that because of systems. Think about Warren Buffett, how many companies does that guy own?   Did you know that he only has a small team of about 30 people... and he runs all of those businesses.   I’ll bet he has some kick arse systems in place!   You have to understand, I'm not a launch business.     I'm NOT just launching new things all the time... I know it can look like that, but I'm building out the value ladder.   It's very thought-out. I’m extremely methodical with what I'm launching.   It's NOT a second focus; I'm building the same thing.   Everything is connected and intertwined all paths lead to the same goal.    The book. The summit, (I have offersummit.com). My events.    ...they are all part of the same value ladder.   (I'll do an episode talking about my value ladder and how I structured it and how I thought through it, at some point in the future)   I'm also very excited to announce something extremely special at OfferMind on which is September 2nd - 3rd, 2019… but it’s all part of the same value ladder!   BECOMING A CEO   I cannot run two content teams, but a system can. I cannot run an internal funnel building team, but a system can.   The whole point I'm trying to say is that  I started as a marketer, but I'm also becoming a CEO.   A CEO is in  the business of systems.   I am a marketer who's also a CEO.   For Example:   My internal funnel team built 80%-90% of my OfferMind Funnel. Then I plug in all the holes, edit the copy, and stuff like that.  It speeds me up like crazy.   A lot of you guys are marketers, but you're not CEOs yet. That's okay, but you gotta understand that a CEO is in the business of systems.   I build a product, and then I put systems in place so that the time I personally have to spend maintaining it is very small... and if I can't create effective systems, then I don't build the product.   That is a HUGE lesson!   I've actually changed a lot of the methods I use before I design a funnel.   I no longer just design the funnel, the offer, and the sales message…   In fact, designing the actual funnel is ONLY on the top diagonal corner of my whiteboard   On the other bottom diagonal corner, I design the fulfillment and the systems, so that when my product launches, it launches with fulfillment.   Then, I sit back and I think to myself, “What’s my input required for that product?”   I still wanna solve the problem that product is solving. I still wanna deliver the value that the product and the offer are promising, but I don't wanna marry it…   ...and my guess is you don't either?   What I'm doing is very thought-through. I'm not just launching stuff. I'm NOT the guy juggling multiple balls, and I'm NOT the circus guy with the spinning plates. I don't do that.   I develop a business. Not a hobby product. I look at each one of these things:    What fulfillment is required? How can I over-deliver? What's the system that will do that? Is it a process or is it a who?    A hobby product is one where *YOU* are still the business.   If you are the person doing it all, you don't have a business. Your process will die if you go on vacation. This is one of the reasons why most businesses will NOT succeed.   STAYING IN YOUR ZONE OF GENIUS   My job is to stay in my zone of genius. So the question I have to answer is:   How can I operate in my zone of genius... while still delivering everything else?   In My OfferLab, there's a workbook that walks you through EVERYTHING piece by piece. Each person needs to consume largely the same material, which means I would be saying the same thing every single time, so I make a course and a workbook for them to walk through. Sweet!   To provide more hand-holding, I brought in in a who.   That who is with them pretty much daily, answering any questions and guiding them through.   I'm NOT trying to take the human out of the machine, (especially with my high-ticket stuff, I'm extremely involved with OfferLab), but I ALWAYS looking for ways to stay focused in my zone of genius.   My role in my business is to facilitate my own zone of genius.   … and it is NOT by me answering support emails.   It is NOT by me going when someone asks, “Where is this resource?” That is NOT something I should be doing.   THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE   If you're busy launching your product, and you're doing all the stuff on your own, it makes sense why you would look over at me, and be like, "How is he doing all that?"   The Answer is: *I’M NOT*   I have ghosts in the machine. I build machines. I build systems. I'm the systems guy.   I'm a marketer first, but I'm also a systems guy. I like to set things in place so that I know the same three-four things that I have to do to keep the machine moving.   #Monday = I launch products… because I love Mondays so much.   I love launching projects to my team: I don’t do it all. Instead, I say:   “Hey funnel team, this is what I'm gonna go launch, and here's what you're gonna do. I need you to do this. I need you to do that...”   … and I run through it all with them.   #Tuesday = is my content day.   #Wednesday = is becoming my systems day.   It's where I focus on my business systems; whether that’s setting a finance structure so that we’re protected legally, or whatever…   I literally write out systems that say, “ Hey Mr. Support Person, every time this happens, do this.”   … this is very much the piece that has helped increase my leverage in this past little bit here.   &gt;&gt;This is very important key stuff to understand

A while little ago, in my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/thescienceofsellingonline/?fref=nf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Facebook group</a>, someone hit me up with a question. The question was: “Stephen, would you have made $1 million faster if you’d just focused on ONE business?” ...the question shocked me. Because ...*I ONLY EVER FOCUS ON ONE THING* So, I started thinking about how it can look like I’m doing MORE than I actually am... and it has EVERYTHING to do with how I focus and what I focus on. So if you wanna get a crap ton done, (without burning out), this is for you! BECOMING THE OFFER GUY At the beginning of 2018, I had no product, no business, NOOOTHING. I only had ONE focus… My first product was in the MLM space. I built a product and a high ticket offer. Then, I spent two to three months just putting the systems in place and testing them to see if they worked... I didn't take my focus from that ONE area until the systems in place to run it. But I was kind thinking: “Hmmm, I love offers, and frankly, no one else really geeks out about 'em as much as I do. I'm gonna be the offer guy.” Russell said: “You should be the offer guy!” Dana Derricks said: “You should be the offer guy!” I realized that there hadn’t really been a full-on Offer Creation King since the early 1900’s #Claude Hopkins... ...so I was like, “Yo, I'll be the offer guy!” BUT… that didn't happen until September 2018. BUILDING BUSINESS SYSTEMS Thankfully, by that point, the systems I’d been testing in my MLM business were ninja awesome. Unless we're launching something, I spend only about an hour a week on maintenance… so, now my MLM product is kind of my back-end business. I’m not gonna shut in down… We put $1 in and we get $8 to $10 back out.  Why would I shut those ads off? It helps a lot of people, the content is good. It delivers and people make a lot of money from it.… *if they just do it* <ul> <li>It's something people want.</li> <li>It's extremely valuable.</li> <li>No one else is doing it.</li> </ul> I'm not gonna turn my MLM business off, but I don't have to maintain it that much either. On my side, it's all automated and systems are in place. I have: <ul> <li>Support.</li> <li>Fulfillment.</li> <li>Phone people who chat with customers.</li> </ul> BUT… I'm NOT touching the business on a daily basis. I'm the orchestrator. Once a week, I'll check in, but I don't really do that much of that anymore… Coulton handles the majority of stuff over there, and now he's got systems and people in place to free him up too. That's what's soooo funny about the whole argument that I would have made more money if I’d only focused on ONE thing. I ONLY EVER DID! I only focused on ONE business. HERE’S HOW IT WENT DOWN… #1: I left my job <ul> <li>January - March: I focused solely on just that main MLM product.</li> <li>For the next two months, (up until about the end of April): I set up systems and teams to take over what I was doing.</li> </ul> #2: The one thing on top of that was that I'm still pretty involved in the ClickFunnels space. So that might be the thing that some of you guys might try and slap my hand about… I DON’T CARE. I love Clickfunnels. It's like my second home. Heck, I even have Russell stickers on my phone ;-) So, I was contracted as a 2 Comma Club X Coach. I was creating a lot of content for ClickFunnels, and I was doing a lot of events and stuff still… In August, we did the first One Funnel Away Challenge, so we were developing that content as well. However, so much on the MLM side was already automated, so that I  didn’t really have to touch it. Do you understand? For the <a href="https://ofasignup.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">One Funnel Away Challenge</a>, I go live once a day for 30 minutes to an hour, (except for two or three days each month when it’s a little bit more than that), and honestly, I just enjoy it. I tell EVERYONE to start coaching. People overcomplicate thing. If you start coaching, after a while, you'll notice patterns, and see the BIG problems people have... Then you make that a product that solves that problem. BOOM! That's the real reason why I coach. It keeps me sharp. I'm not gonna stop that. I’M NOT THE FUNNEL GUY By about September, I started thinking: This MLM stuff is fun, but what is it I wanna be known for?” <ol> <li>I'm not gonna be the funnel guy, ( even though I’ve built a whole bunch of funnels), that'd be dumb. Russell is the funnel guy. He's the category king of funnels.</li> <li>How can I create a business that’s complementary to funnels, but not in competition with Russell?</li> </ol> Well, I freak out and dive into offer creation more than anything else. I just bought another book called The Science of Emerging Markets; it’s super nerdy, and I'm so excited about it... My fifth bookshelf is topping out. I geek out, man. Offers are my jam. I love just offer creation. I'm trying to be the offer guy. … but that decision wasn't official until September. MY OBSESSION You have to understand that when I'm putting a product together... no other product exists in my mind. I have CRAZY FOCUS. It’s obsessive, (probably too obsessive), kind of focus.‘I can't sleep that much for six weeks’ kind of focus. And, honestly, it’s not that healthy, but it's how my brain works. I go in these cycles of insane focus... I go dead to the world. Besides my podcast and blog, no one hears from me. I barely leave my office: <ul> <li>I'm building</li> <li>I'm crafting</li> <li>I'm creating</li> <li>I'm very meticulous</li> <li>I’m very methodical about the things I'm putting together</li> </ul> That was true for the first 2 Comma Club Coaching program that I helped to develop at Clickfunnels. It took me six months to create that... and for the first six months after it launched, I was NOT really doing my own stuff. Besides my podcast - *NOTHING* I was solely focused on tweaking and improving the program <ol> <li>Did it provide what customer thought was gonna be there?</li> <li>Was it delivering the result that I was trying to deliver?</li> </ol> If the answer was: <ul> <li>No?</li> <li>This is not clear yet!</li> <li>I should plug up that hole.</li> </ul> ...then I filmed more training. I plugged any holes up. So that's what I was doing for the first half of 2018 in my own business. By the second half of 2018, I had: <ul> <li>Systems in place</li> <li>People running things for me</li> </ul> I spent almost no time, no energy,  no effort, or mental capacity thinking about that MLM business. I just ran, cash flowed and I made money. Why would I shut that off? It's NOT a second focus, though! I HAVE A PLAN I have a few buddies who run several multi-million dollar companies, and they can do that because of systems. Think about Warren Buffett, how many companies does that guy own? Did you know that he only has a small team of about 30 people... and he runs all of those businesses. I’ll bet he has some kick arse systems in place! You have to understand, I'm not a launch business.   I'm NOT just launching new things all the time... I know it can look like that, but I'm building out the value ladder. It's very thought-out. I’m extremely methodical with what I'm launching. It's NOT a second focus; I'm building the same thing. Everything is connected and intertwined all paths lead to the same goal. <ul> <li>The book.</li> <li>The summit, (I have <a href="http://offersummit.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">offersummit.com</a>).</li> <li>My events.</li> </ul> ...they are all part of the same value ladder. (I'll do an episode talking about my value ladder and how I structured it and how I thought through it, at some point in the future) I'm also very excited to announce something extremely special at <a href="https://offermind.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">OfferMind</a> on which is September 2nd - 3rd, 2019… but it’s all part of the same value ladder! BECOMING A CEO I cannot run two content teams, but a system can. I cannot run an internal funnel building team, but a system can. The whole point I'm trying to say is that  I started as a marketer, but I'm also becoming a CEO. A CEO is in <a href="https://blog.salesfunnelradio.com/sfr-223-start-an-entrepreneur-but-end-a-ceo/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> the business of systems</a>. I am a marketer who's also a CEO. For Example: My internal funnel team built 80%-90% of my <a href="https://offermind.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">OfferMind Funnel</a>. Then I plug in all the holes, edit the copy, and stuff like that. <a href="https://blog.salesfunnelradio.com/sfr-205-how-to-increase-your-speed/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> It speeds me up like crazy.</a> A lot of you guys are marketers, but you're not CEOs yet. That's okay, but you gotta understand that a CEO is in the business of systems. I build a product, and then I put systems in place so that the time I personally have to spend maintaining it is very small... and if I can't create effective systems, then I don't build the product. That is a HUGE lesson! I've actually changed a lot of the methods I use before I design a funnel. I no longer just design the funnel, the offer, and the sales message… In fact, designing the actual funnel is ONLY on the top diagonal corner of my whiteboard On the other bottom diagonal corner, I design the fulfillment and the systems, so that when my product launches, it launches with fulfillment. Then, I sit back and I think to myself, “What’s my input required for that product?” I still wanna solve the problem that product is solving. I still wanna deliver the value that the product and the offer are promising, but I don't wanna marry it… ...and my guess is you don't either? What I'm doing is very thought-through. I'm not just launching stuff. I'm NOT the guy juggling multiple balls, and I'm NOT the circus guy with the spinning plates. I don't do that. I develop a business. Not a hobby product. I look at each one of these things: <ul> <li>What fulfillment is required?</li> <li>How can I over-deliver?</li> <li>What's the system that will do that?</li> <li>Is it a process or is it a who?</li> </ul> A hobby product is one where *YOU* are still the business. If you are the person doing it all, you don't have a business. Your process will die if you go on vacation. This is one of the reasons why most businesses will NOT succeed. STAYING IN YOUR ZONE OF GENIUS My job is to stay in my zone of genius. So the question I have to answer is: How can I operate in my zone of genius... while still delivering everything else? In <a href="http://myofferlab.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">My OfferLab</a>, there's a workbook that walks you through EVERYTHING piece by piece. Each person needs to consume largely the same material, which means I would be saying the same thing every single time, so I make a course and a workbook for them to walk through. Sweet! To provide more hand-holding, I brought in in a who. That who is with them pretty much daily, answering any questions and guiding them through. I'm NOT trying to take the human out of the machine, (especially with my high-ticket stuff, I'm extremely involved with OfferLab), but I ALWAYS looking for ways to stay focused in my zone of genius. My role in my business is to facilitate my own zone of genius. … and it is NOT by me answering support emails. It is NOT by me going when someone asks, “Where is this resource?” That is NOT something I should be doing. THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE If you're busy launching your product, and you're doing all the stuff on your own, it makes sense why you would look over at me, and be like, "How is he doing all that?" The Answer is: *I’M NOT* I have ghosts in the machine. I build machines. I build systems. I'm the systems guy. I'm a marketer first, but I'm also a systems guy. I like to set things in place so that I know the same three-four things that I have to do to keep the machine moving. #Monday = I launch products… because I love Mondays so much. I love launching projects to my team: I don’t do it all. Instead, I say: “Hey funnel team, this is what I'm gonna go launch, and here's what you're gonna do. I need you to do this. I need you to do that...” … and I run through it all with them. #Tuesday = is my content day. #Wednesday = is becoming my systems day. It's where I focus on my business systems; whether that’s setting a finance structure so that we’re protected legally, or whatever… I literally write out systems that say, “ Hey Mr. Support Person, every time this happens, do this.” … this is very much the piece that has helped increase my leverage in this past little bit here. &gt;&gt;This is very important key stuff to understand

SFR 235 - Focus And Systems...

SFR 272: 10 Common Product-Marketing Mistakes

SFR 167: My Favorite Traffic Methods (AND WHY)...

SFR 196: Cash-Causing Models...

Here's a quick example of how I'd make an offer for each major industry...   If you want to create a SEXY offer, you need to be a SCHEMER!   Oh, YEAH… it’s Claude Hopkins time… ;-)   In my last blog, I gave some quick and dirty examples of  sales messages across ten different industries. Today, I want to go one step further and show you how to create an offer!   … so once again, I’m gettin’ down with the granddaddy of offer creation (and toothbrushes), Mr. Claude Hopkins.   (Get with it, Kids!)... seriously, check out this advert...   ARE YOU A SCHEMER? Claude Hopkins was *THE MAN*   He was one of the world's first Schemers.    Now, a lot of people hear the word scheme and think of negative pyramid shaped connotations i.e, dodgy pyramid schemes.   ...but that’s NOT what the word Scheme word meant in Hopkins day.   In the late 1800s, a schemer was somebody you hired to design your offer.   Offers used to be called Schemes.    You’d hire a ‘Scheme Man,’ i.e., “I'm gonna get the Scheme Man to come into my business to design my offer and sales message… and that’s the scheme I’ll go to the market with...”   Claude Hopkins was known in the industry as being one of the world's best schemers.    Claude Hopkins was one of the first to:    Give out samples as part of the sale…   Test all his headlines with color-codes...   Put an ad on a car...    He was one of the first people who said that:   You SHOULD test... and the ONLY purpose of an ad was to sell, NOT entertain.    If you read my last blog, you’ll already know about Albert Lasker, (the energetic bipolar genius who’s responsible for you drinking orange juice at breakfast.)   Hopkins was hired by the advertising firm Lord &amp; Thomas where Lasker was a partner. In fact, it was Lasker who brought Hopkins in to work for the company.   … which meant that Lord &amp; Thomas were able to create both the ads and the offer for their clients.   Claude Hopkins was the top paid scheme man in the world.    At that time, he made $185,000 a year. That’s the equivalent of about 1 1/2 million dollars in today’s money. THAT’S A HUGE AMOUNT!   GREAT NEWS FOR THE TOOTH FAIRY   Although it sounds pretty disgusting to us... but before an advertising campaign, (devised by Hopkins), people didn't brush teeth.   Claude Hopkins was responsible for making brushing your teeth popular.   There was a company called Pepsodent who’d invented this thing called toothpaste, and Hopkins  built offers and sales strategies popularizing the idea of cleaning your teeth.   (“You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!”)   Claude Hopkins was AWESOME! He’s the total godfather of what I do. He wrote a book called Scientific Advertising in which he said:   “The time has come when advertising in some hands has reached the status of a science.”    However, that was in 1923, and since then...    Offer creation has become kind of a lost art... and that’s the reason why I'm bringing it back.    That’s why my Facebook group is called  The Science of Selling Online, NOT ‘the science and art’...    I don't believe in learning art. I want to learn science; the formulas and formats that cause cash as a rule.    Hopkins hated the concepts of making things look pretty, absolutely hated it.   When I read that, I was like, “Claude, I'm your doppelganger, man. I'm even losing my hair!”   # spot the difference   HOW TO MARKET A PRODUCT   When people things to me like, “Stephen this won't work in my industry,” I wanna hit them.   Are you kidding me?    We're talking about general sales/ marketing/ offer creation as a whole. It’s NOT dependent on:    What industry you're in.   The product you have.     You can take ANY product and turn it into an offer… you just need the right FRAMEWORK   There's a huge did between selling a product as a single solution, and selling an offer which solves a lot of other problems as well.   Right now, at the time of writing this, I have four very simple offer creation templates and frameworks that I use depending on what I'm building…   These frameworks are NOT flash in the pan strategies and tactics.     OfferMind is where I teach my frameworks, but I want to show you one specific framework that I call XAVIER.   I'm a little bit nervous to give this much away, but it's so I can entice you to come to OfferMind.   Offer Mind is NOT your average event.   I’m not a rah-rah guy. I'd rather get down to brass tacks and teach you the strategies.    I’ll tell stories when they're necessary, (if I can tell a false belief needs to be broken), but I'd rather just teach the thing.   OfferMind is very aggressive, you’re gonna be very tired by the end of it...  but I want you to come to the event to learn these frameworks.   A lot of times that's why your business isn't cash flowing, it’s NOT because you don’t have the right:      Message.   People.     ...it’s often because you don't have an offer and you've just been selling a product.    ... there's a massive difference (a huge gap) between a product and an offer.   The XAVIER Method helps you to bridge this chasm and get people to open their wallets.   XAVIER is how I structure the core of ANY business.   So I’m gonna go through the same ten categories as I did for  the sales message in the last blog. So that’s:    Agency / Freelancer   Information Products   E-Commerce   Coaching / Consulting   Network Marketing   Local Small Business   B2B Lead Generation   Blogging / Affiliate   Non-Profits   Just Getting Started / Other    I'm keeping the examples the same as they were for  the sales message example... so you guys can see, from sales message to the offer, how I’d pitch and tie them together.   If you want to watch me live, in front of an audience,  you can go here… if not, keep reading ;-)   THE PRE-FRAME   I'm very excited for you to come to OfferMind.  Hundreds of tickets have been sold already, so it looks like Offermind is probably gonna sell out pretty quickly.   As always, you can learn a ton from what I’ll be doing to promote OfferMind over the next few months. We have:    A Summit; I have offersummit.com, I can't believe I got that.   Hopefully, my book will be out beforehand too.   Check out the actual event funnel itself, it’s an incredible funnel.    What’s I’m about to dive into next is some of the material and types of things that we’ll go over in a lot of depth during OfferMInd.    OFFER CREATION SPEED DATING   I’m briefly gonna go through the vehicle, the internal and the external false beliefs that my dream customer would experience when they see my product and then ask:    How can I solve that problem?   How could I answer objections with additional things?    So I want to quickly walk you through some offers for each individual industry... ready?    Boom bam, baby whoa! Here we go!    INDUSTRY #1: AGENCY/ FREELANCER   If I'm gonna go build an offer (and I'm an agency/freelancer) this is how I'd do it:   If I say,  “Well hey, I'm gonna go run your ads.” Everybody's saying that! So how do I turn my service into an offer?    (Offer creation is  no different, even if you're a service provider)…   The service is the product.     A deep dive on your competitors: I give you information on their ads. That would be so awesome. I'd love it if you did that for me, “Oh my gosh that would be so cool.”   Weekly stats: I'll run your ads, but I'll also give you weekly stats.. as well as recommendations on how to tweak.   Ad creation: You don't need to hire anybody. I've got a creative team in my back pocket. They're gonna make all your stuff for you. You just have to hire us and we’ve got it all in a one-stop shop.   A FREE course:  I'll need a few things and I don't want to bother you, so I want to help you get the right VA. We have a course called The Automated Assistant that’ll teach you EVERYTHING you need to know    ….I’ve solved a whole lot of problems for the customer.    INDUSTRY #2: INFO PRODUCTS   Let's say I'm selling something about funnels, I’m gonna give you:    The physical book. (That's the main thing I want to sell anyway, right?) The audiobook. (This is the exact offer for  the fake book story, right?) A Quick Start Checklist.  You can get the book from anybody, but, “Oh my gosh,” I'm even gonna add the quick start checklist as well. A pre-built book funnel. The very one that you just went through. How cool would it be if you had that as well? My 10 Free Traffic Methods. Funnels without traffic are dead. So why don't you go ahead and get this through me for FREE? Reason to act now:  I'm gonna give you excerpts from top expert interviews.     Next one, super fast…   INDUSTRY #3:  E-COMMERCE   If I'm gonna  sell a pair of socks, I’ll give you...    A second pair of socks. A guide to the best sock and shoe match: I'm gonna get a stylist to show you the three best looks that go with your socks. A guide on how to keep your feet from smelling: (People are gonna want to know that. They're probably not gonna ask, but you're solving a problem they might not know they have.) #stinky feet A foot doctor interview series. Here are some cool  info products on how to keep your feet healthy. A FREE month of my Sock of the Month Club.     ...make sense?   *THAT’S AN OFFER*   Who are you gonna buy from?  It’s not hard to fulfill because half of it is freaking info products…. that’s the point!   INDUSTRY #4: COACHING/ CONSULTING (#funnel coaching)   I'm gonna give you…    Weekly Q&amp;A coaching.     Monthly stats and funnels.   All my personal stats     My Personal Funnel Assets: if I've got a pre-built thing that's already done, bam, here you go.   My Personal Rolodex Access: If there's somebody that I know would be a good fit for your business I'm gonna give you access them.   A Free Fly-in Day: where we can chat for a little bit.     ...I mean, come on, that's awesome! How many people are doing that? NOBODY!   INDUSTRY #5: NETWORK MARKETING (#Keto)   *This *is how I kill it in that game. It's so freaking easy, oh my gosh...    You're gonna get…      My keto product.     A Mail-in Blood Test Customization: Are you in Ketosis?   My Safe Eating Out Guide: so you don't get yourself out of ketosis.   The Cure the Cravings Jump Start.   My Keto Lead Funnel: so you don’t need to harass your friends and family... “Don't worry about it, I've got a sweet funnel for you.”    Make sense?   Boom! Next…   INDUSTRY #6: LOCAL SMALL BUSINESS  (#Restaurant business)   The main thing I want you to buy is my food, but you also get…    A meet and greet with the chef: I tell you my story, “Oh man, I was eating beans and I hated cooking. but now you can't get me out of the kitchen.”  (I swear Disney does that with their characters, and then they charge, like your freaking face for it.)   A bio-scanner. I want to make sure that I'm not making you fatter, so I scan you and I’ll know exactly what you've been eating... and what you shouldn't eat: “Ah, here's the menu for you. It's customized.” That's freaking sexy!   A customized handout to give your personal trainer: “Hey, this guy was a tubby today. He cheated, he ate a triple chocolate torte last night,” (which I did... and it was really good.)   A giveaway: Entry to a free raffle. I'm gonna come to someone’s house and cook a meal for them.     ...that's like, that's nuts!   Do you see how easy this is when you know the mechanisms?   Seriously, can you imagine doing this?    It's NOT hard when you realize that it's all about value versus price.   INDUSTRY #7: B2B LEAD GEN   Let's say you've got some tech software or an app, and you're trying to get leads…    A free consultation: you get the software as well as the consultation.   A Slow Internet Checklist: most of the time we find that if someone has a problem with our software we find out their internet is crappy. (We want to help you to figure out that you probably shouldn't bury my router in the backyard and expect good wireless service.)   A free support group: called ‘Too many tabs opened anonymous’ for those of you who have 50 billion tabs open.   Three-minute reminders: How to set your software up in short video format.   A quickstart guide: If you get stuck at all don't worry about that, we've done this a ton of times.   24/7 live chat: we hate ticketing systems, we know you do too. So we've got a live person every single moment of every single day. You've got something, we're here for you.   Free lead giveaway: we’ll give you a few of the leads we’ve captured in your market to prove to you that our lead system works.    Some really cool little bundles you can toss in that cost next to nothing.    INDUSTRY #8: BLOGGING/ AFFILIATES    A lot of the people that came to the original FHAT event were from the blogging world.    They were getting millions of hits every single month, but they were NOT monetizing a thing...    so we would use these kinds of offers with them…   AND BOOM, they’d make the Two Comma Club really fast.   So let's say you're a mommy blog talking about how to get some rest. Sweet, well I'm gonna give you a cool…      Restful Mama Cheat Sheet.     The Successful Mom's Day: a rough guide to how I can be a mom, but still have a career. (I know you guys want that, I've been reading your comments.) I brought in a whole bunch of experts to create a cool course.     An Interview Series from Working Moms.     The Getting YOU Time case study: All these cool case studies of women that have actually done this. They were totally overloaded.. (“I was driving myself and my family crazy, stressed to the hilt, then I did these few little tweaks and suddenly I got my time back and I'm there for my kids.”)   A FREE ticket to my Moms Retreat.    …that's a really sexy offer.    INDUSTRY #9: NON-PROFIT   “Hey, I need you to donate, and you’ll get…”      The “I Donated” t-shirt.     Our Highlight DVD: showing what accomplished with the funds that came in.   A raffle for Private Meet and Greet Meal: I'm gonna bring you and your family to meet some of the kids you've been able to help. It's heavy, it's intense, non-profits are. This is real stuff.   Raffle for the Donator's Highlight: get highlighted in our next newsletter.    INDUSTRY #10: JUST GETTING STARTED    This is the easiest way to start. I love this method. Here’s what to do…    Crowd create the course: don't make it yourself. Don't get stuck on product creation, get stuck on sales message creation. Go interview a whole bunch of people on something, and they’ll make it for you. Affiliate Outrage is the 101 on that. Interviews with 20 Millionaires: discover the cool patterns that lead to success. A checklist (the physical thing): I'm gonna mail a checklist to you so that you can actually walk through and make sure you're doing all the things lead to success. Private Community of Starters. A raffle to a Meet and Greet the Millionaires:  it'll be private, only a few people, but I'm gonna give you a raffle ticket so you can come and actually hang out with these people. How cool would that be?     The Bottom line is, whatever industry you’re in…   #1: *YOUR SALES MESSAGE MUST ROCK*   Capitalist Pig, Baby… BOOM!    If you're just starting out you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies, right? That's also good.   But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right?    That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula.   So I created a special Mastermind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it.   Wanna come?    There are small groups on purpose, so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days.    You can hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com.   Again, that's OfferMind.com.

SFR 237: Examples Of Offer Creation In Each Industry...

All right, All right. Sorry, I'm in the car again, by the way. Usually I am in front of a nice microphone. Every once in a while when nice thought hits me and I'm like, "Oh my gosh. That's one of the core principals that I use." I decide I should probably share them with you. Anyways, I'm in the car driving and just thought I'd take the time. Recently somebody asked me, I can't remember what they asked me, but this story from my past popped up, right. I had this stalker and sorry if she's listening to this, I seriously doubt it. I was in college and I had this stalker and everyone kind of knew it. I guess that's the thing about stalkers is they're not being subtle. She was showing up at our door in our apartment. She'd be like, "Hey, how's it going?" She was awkward about it. She'd be like, "Hey, yeah, so hi. Just wanted to come by and say hi and come say hi." You're like, Yeah you said it three times now. Then it'd be silent for a second and be like, yep because I wasn't interested. Then she'd be like, "See you." I'd be like, "Okay, we're done today, this is good. See you tomorrow or tonight or some awkward time." Then she'd show up again, and be like, "Hey I made this t-shirt for you." I was like, "You made me a t-shirt?" I think I threw it away after she left. I felt bad. I was like I'm not going to wear this and keep this going. Another day she came by and was like, "Hey, I made you cookies." I was like, "Oh my gosh, you're not buying me with your dang cookies, although they're tasty and delicious." Anyways, she went through this crazy elaborate scheme to ask me to this Jane Austin Ball thing that the campus was putting on. That's not something I would usually go to but I'm not going to say no. I wanted to be nice. I can't even remember what she did. Maybe is was another shirt, I can't even remember what it was. It was big and elaborate and it was extremely clear that she was going through this massive thing to go through the trouble to ask me to this dance in a really crazy way. I was like, "Yeah, sounds good." She was like, "That's all you're going to say is yes? I went through this huge thing you've got to say yes back in a really fun way." I was like, "Okay." I never did. She got all offended. She was like, "I get the feeling you're not interested in me." I was like, "That'd be right." I decided what the heck, I'll answer back in a crazy way. I was like, what's something that I can do that's kind of out there, I promise this relates to business, what's something I can do that's borderline crazy but it's not like the typical thing but will totally get the thing across. I want her to think afterwards she'll never forget it but also put a little disgust in her brain. I was just walking around and I was like, maybe something will pop up today. I was at the grocery store, I was getting food for the next week. I was over by where the meat section is, the deli area. I see these salmon, whole salmon, they're huge. They had been gutted and cleaned and everything of course but huge salmon. I'm like I'm totally buying it. I don't even know what I'm going to use it for yet, but it's somehow involved. I had this huge salmon and I bring it back to my apartment. This thing is frozen rock solid. I'm like, how am I going to use this for. All the sudden, I'm like, "This is it!" I went and I grabbed this knife and I start trying to chop off the tail part. This sounds a totally morbid but it was frozen solid so I had to leave it out until it was oozing a little bit. It was totally disgusting, smells a little bit. There was six of us in that apartment. I'm sure all the other guys were like, "What the heck is wrong with this kid?" I was telling them the idea though, they were like, "This is genius." I sawed off the tail and then I took a piece of paper and I wrote on there, "Looks like you got me hooked." I put it inside of a plastic bag and I shoved in it inside of the tail through the part where you clean it all out. Basically, there was a note in this massive Salmon tail. I went and I got a coat hanger and I made a hook out of it and some dental floss and I tied the floss to the hook, then I hooked the tail onto the coat hanger so it looked like it was a fish hook. Then I went to her apartment door an I hung it in front of their door. As soon as they open their door, they see it. It took them a while to try to find it. It was hanging in the hot sun getting all nasty and dripping everywhere. Its' totally disgusting. I had no problem dropping her after this. She opened the door. I was hiding and I heard her open the door and I hear her go, "Oh my gosh, what the freak is that? This is disgusting." She was looking at it, sees this little note sticking out. Opens it up and was like, "Looks like you hooked my tail" or something like that. She's like, "That's how you said yes?" I was like, "You're not my stalker anymore." I didn't say that. We went on the date and she still was like, "Don't be nervous if I want to touch you the whole night, I'm just really excited I'm on a date with you." I was like, "Oh, no." She totally got the idea, especially after the fish thing. I never saw her again after that. It's kind of a big long story. I ended up taking the other part of the Salmon and cooking it for a girl that I was actually interested in and totally impressed her and it was awesome. Anyways, what's the whole point of that story? That sometimes you have to lose people. You don't have to be mean about it. I'm not saying you've got to do crazy stuff. Here's what the lesson is, you've got to be prolific. The question I started asking myself to make that whole thing happen was, "How can I be prolific?" Which is not crazy, but not mainstream. It's that in between stage. The only marketers that actually do anything with a lot of traction, do something prolific. You think of dollar shave club. Their marketing is pretty raw. Stuff like Carl's Jr., I'm not condoning anything that any of these people do but if you just look at what they're doing, they're prolific. They're doing things that are out of the norm. If I'm going to go pitch someone and try to get them to buy, I might as well make them laugh, or shock them, or do something that's gong to be memorable because I'm sucking up their time. I guarantee she remembers that stupid salmon fish tail and understands that I'm just not interested, stop pursuing me, you're waisting your time. I guarantee she remembers that. Every one of my friends remember that. It was a little bit prolific especially for the dating world. I keep giving all these dating examples so I'll give one more. I came back home in between semesters for Christmas. I came home and I was actually at church. Goes to show what was on my head by going to church this time. I go to church I sat down in front of this girl. I was like, "Dang, who is that? She is hot. Holy crap." I sit down and my brother is with me. I was like, "Did you see her?" He was like, "Freak yeah man. Holy smokes." Anyways took me a little bit of guts to work up the courage to ask her out and things like that because she's hot. I was making sure I had my buff stuff on. I went and I asked her on a date. I was like, "I've got to do something on this date that's going to be really cool. Something that's not mainstream." It's really funny thinking about it, I never realized that I was asking that same question. Something that's not mainstream, something that's a little bit crazy. I want to get her out of there comfort zone a little bit just so she knows I'm a little bit nuts sometimes and she's got to know this is part of the package and I like to be out there sometimes. I was like, "All right, what are we going to go do" I picked her up on the date, and I was like, "We're first going to go to Goodwill." Which was like Desert Industries or something like that. We're going to go buy anything in there that has to do with argyle, like golfer's argyle." We went and I got this cool tie, I was wearing a fedora, she was wearing this vest. It was kind of goofy. She's like, "What the heck." I was like okay cool, just wait a second. We pull up to this putt-putt golf course. I was like, "We're going to play putt-putt like we're serious putt-putters which is why we dressed up for it." I was like, "We're going to go to do putt-putt like that then we're going to go have a picnic on the putt-putt golf course." She told me later she was way outside of her comfort zone. It was a double date, and my buddy were just hamming it up. It was a lot of fun. Shout out to Dan Wilcox what's up? Anyways, she was not interested in me after that date. She was like, "Crap, this guy is interested and I don't know how to say it." I was like, "I've got to do something else that's kind of crazy." This is going to sound nuts. How long have I been going on this podcast already? I've already been going, I've got to look at my phone without crashing here. Ten minutes, all right. I'll make it quick. All right, this is your guy's story. I was like, "Okay, I've got to sweeten this deal up because she's not interested I know she's not." Despite my strikingly amazing good looks. She worked at this daycare. I had at least convinced her to start texting me, things like that. Baby steps. I text her things. I'm like, "Hey hope your day went well, hope to see you sometime soon." She goes, "Oh my gosh, my day was awful." It was a Wednesday. She was like, my day sucked. "Kids are everywhere parents expect you to just [inaudible 00:11:27] their children now." She was a preschool teacher basically. She was like, "It was really really bad." I'm like, "Gosh, I'm so sorry. It's awful." I was like, "I'm going to make a survive your Thursday kit." I didn't tell her that. I was being goofy with it. I showed my childish side, cheesy side, goofy side, kind of crazy side, all that. I was adding in all these things like snacks and books and things that you would give a kid. I was like, "Here's your survive your Thursday kit. Give it to the kids or you have it or whatever." I went and I doorbell ditched it. She was like, "Oh, thanks." She's like, "Crap, this kid is like totally addicted now. I'm screwed." She was hot, you know. Anyways we went and she invited me over. she actually worked at an orphanage in Romania for a while. She showed me those pictures of that. I was like, "Cool, cool. This is progressing." I was like, "Man, I've got to do one more thing to try to get her to know, I'm a goof ball, but I'm serious. I'm crazy but I want to steady date." I'm losing my voice a little bit. I'm like, I'm going to make a catalog. She's talking about ordering all this stuff for her brother's wedding. I'm like, "Okay, I'm the oldest of six kids." Between me and the youngest one is seventeen years. I still have siblings still that are not even teenagers while I'm recording this right now. I'm twenty-eight if you guys are trying to do the math. This was like five or six years ago. You know those play sets? I took pictures of these play sets, like the food that they have in there. The little plastic pizzas, or plastic hot dogs or whatever. I was like, "Do you want a plastic pizza or a real one? Call this number to order." It was my number. "Do you want fake dates, which was a pile of dates like the fruit, or do you want a real date? Do you want a fake movie?" I took a picture of a movie theater, and I took a picture of a movie theater. Do you want this or this, this or this, this or this? She calls and she's like, "I'll take the real date with the real pizza, I'd like the real movie, real, this that, that, that." I can't remember. I was like, "Sweet, I got the next date." This sounds totally cheesy. That's the point. When you do your marketing, when you do anything, putting up a freaking order form, or there's no explanation or you're just buying ads straight to your site, that sucks. Playful people are typically more creative people. I had a professor tell me that. He was one of the best teachers I've ever had in marketing. I have a marketing degree. That's one of the things. He would have us play with little kid toys in the middle of his lectures. No joke, I played with play-doh. He was like, "You're required to play the entire time in this class. You understand that?" We were like, "what the heck?" He was like, "Don't take notes, put that crap way." He was like, "Don't do this, put that crap away." It was prolific. His teaching style was prolific. He's like, "That's not normal, that's crazy. Why are we doing this?" Because we were playing we were in a more creative state. That's the challenge. That's the whole purpose of this podcast. I'm trying to say, some of your marketing, some of these funnels you're sending over to me, your product is great, but your message is bad in your ads. You look boring. You look like a corporation, no one cares about corporations. No one falls in love with a corporation. They fall in love with a certain individual or icon or idea. You know Flo from progressive? She's the highest paid spokesperson. Why? Because people think of progressive when they think of her. It almost makes progressive third party compared to her. Shes' the advocate, she's the spokesperson. She shows faults and flaws and their commercials are cheesy but they give you a chuckle. That's the whole thing. One I saw recently, I won't say the name. It was a squeeze page, the page looked gorgeous, it was beautiful, it was amazing. Very well designed, very awesome looking page, totally main stream message. He's got a level ten design on a level two marketing message. Marketing is all that crazy stuff. That little prolific stuff. I'm not saying you have to do stuff that's crazy, but look at what everyone else is doing and don't do that. Which is the exact opposite thing you do when you're building the business. If you're building a lifestyle business right now or just something to make a little extra money, don't be creative. Don't get out there and be creative. Go find someones who's crushing it, model what they're doing. That's the safest path to making money in that industry also. Then after you've matched the control of the other person. After you're actually making money, it's fine to be prolific. It's time to go out there and find your own spot in the Eco-system of the industry that you're in. That's when you go be creative and crazy and playful or whatever it is. Whatever you are, it's not so much a matter of highlighting all of your strengths. "These are my strengths and I'm highlighting my strengths in my business and personally." No one cares. It's more about highlighting your differences. Everyone works so freaking hard to be mainstream in our society. Everyone does. That's what pop culture is. That's why everyone watches the same freaking TV shows. That's why everyone does the same things. You know what I do when I'm about to go create sales funnels? I watch comedy. I do. It's not even like it's adult comedy. I'll go freaking watch Even Stevens, one of my favorite TV shows of my childhood. Not all the time. Sometimes I'll go do that stuff, stuff that makes me playful. You cannot be consuming new data and be creative at the same time. You are either consuming or you're being creative. Your brain cannot be analytical which is one side of your head, and then creative, which is the other side of your head, at the same time. That's the whole reason I'm telling you guys these stories. Freak, man I used marketing principals to get my hot wife. I did. It's what it is thought. It's dating, it's sales. Anything you want. Anyways, I got sweet deals with people and awesome clients because marketing principals apply everywhere. It's all kind of the same formula. Just go be prolific if you have a current business. If you're working on yours, start looking for ways that you can be in the future, just do stuff that's kind of nuts. What's that crazy one I saw recently? There's a commercial I saw, you guys have probably seen this. I can't even remember what it is. You guys have probably seen this. There's a commercial, I think it's a commercial. It's been like a decade since I've seen it which is the power of this. Here's a better example, the Old Spice commercials. With that guy with his shirt off and he's like, "Hello, ladies." At the end, he's like, "I want a horse." All this random stuff. All he's really saying is wear Old Spice and you'll get a horse an a handful of diamonds and tickets and a lady. Anyways. I don't mean to beat a dead horse but stop being main stream. Highlight your differences and you'll be good. If you just do that one thing, you'll start to become a brand, you'll start to become your own culture, or your own cult-ure. Be your own cult. Kind of like Russell Bronson always says. Kind of funny. That's it man. Guys, ladies, whoever it is who's listening to this. By the way if you guys want me to look at your sales funnel, just shoot me a message. I'm on Facebook. Facebook is the best one, not Skype. I will talk to you guys later. Go ahead and send me some of your questions. I've got a lot of interviews that are coming out and a lot that have already come out. If this is the first time you've ever listened to this broadcast, just go back and I like to dissect people's sales funnels with them. Successful entrepreneurs and find out what failures they went through to produce that good result, or leading to that good part. Anyways guys, we'll talk to you later, thank you so much. I promise to not always do these in the care, I know the mic quality. Thanks for listening to Sales funnel radio, please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

All right, All right. Sorry, I'm in the car again, by the way. Usually I am in front of a nice microphone. Every once in a while when nice thought hits me and I'm like, "Oh my gosh. That's one of the core principals that I use." I decide I should probably share them with you. Anyways, I'm in the car driving and just thought I'd take the time. Recently somebody asked me, I can't remember what they asked me, but this story from my past popped up, right. I had this stalker and sorry if she's listening to this, I seriously doubt it. I was in college and I had this stalker and everyone kind of knew it. I guess that's the thing about stalkers is they're not being subtle. She was showing up at our door in our apartment. She'd be like, "Hey, how's it going?" She was awkward about it. She'd be like, "Hey, yeah, so hi. Just wanted to come by and say hi and come say hi." You're like, Yeah you said it three times now. Then it'd be silent for a second and be like, yep because I wasn't interested. Then she'd be like, "See you." I'd be like, "Okay, we're done today, this is good. See you tomorrow or tonight or some awkward time." Then she'd show up again, and be like, "Hey I made this t-shirt for you." I was like, "You made me a t-shirt?" I think I threw it away after she left. I felt bad. I was like I'm not going to wear this and keep this going. Another day she came by and was like, "Hey, I made you cookies." I was like, "Oh my gosh, you're not buying me with your dang cookies, although they're tasty and delicious." Anyways, she went through this crazy elaborate scheme to ask me to this Jane Austin Ball thing that the campus was putting on. That's not something I would usually go to but I'm not going to say no. I wanted to be nice. I can't even remember what she did. Maybe is was another shirt, I can't even remember what it was. It was big and elaborate and it was extremely clear that she was going through this massive thing to go through the trouble to ask me to this dance in a really crazy way. I was like, "Yeah, sounds good." She was like, "That's all you're going to say is yes? I went through this huge thing you've got to say yes back in a really fun way." I was like, "Okay." I never did. She got all offended. She was like, "I get the feeling you're not interested in me." I was like, "That'd be right." I decided what the heck, I'll answer back in a crazy way. I was like, what's something that I can do that's kind of out there, I promise this relates to business, what's something I can do that's borderline crazy but it's not like the typical thing but will totally get the thing across. I want her to think afterwards she'll never forget it but also put a little disgust in her brain. I was just walking around and I was like, maybe something will pop up today. I was at the grocery store, I was getting food for the next week. I was over by where the meat section is, the deli area. I see these salmon, whole salmon, they're huge. They had been gutted and cleaned and everything of course but huge salmon. I'm like I'm totally buying it. I don't even know what I'm going to use it for yet, but it's somehow involved. I had this huge salmon and I bring it back to my apartment. This thing is frozen rock solid. I'm like, how am I going to use this for. All the sudden, I'm like, "This is it!" I went and I grabbed this knife and I start trying to chop off the tail part. This sounds a totally morbid but it was frozen solid so I had to leave it out until it was oozing a little bit. It was totally disgusting, smells a little bit. There was six of us in that apartment. I'm sure all the other guys were like, "What the heck is wrong with this kid?" I was telling them the idea though, they were like, "This is genius." I sawed off the tail and then I took a piece of paper and I wrote on there, "Looks like you got me hooked." I put it inside of a plastic bag and I shoved in it inside of the tail through the part where you clean it all out. Basically, there was a note in this massive Salmon tail. I went and I got a coat hanger and I made a hook out of it and some dental floss and I tied the floss to the hook, then I hooked the tail onto the coat hanger so it looked like it was a fish hook. Then I went to her apartment door an I hung it in front of their door. As soon as they open their door, they see it. It took them a while to try to find it. It was hanging in the hot sun getting all nasty and dripping everywhere. Its' totally disgusting. I had no problem dropping her after this. She opened the door. I was hiding and I heard her open the door and I hear her go, "Oh my gosh, what the freak is that? This is disgusting." She was looking at it, sees this little note sticking out. Opens it up and was like, "Looks like you hooked my tail" or something like that. She's like, "That's how you said yes?" I was like, "You're not my stalker anymore." I didn't say that. We went on the date and she still was like, "Don't be nervous if I want to touch you the whole night, I'm just really excited I'm on a date with you." I was like, "Oh, no." She totally got the idea, especially after the fish thing. I never saw her again after that. It's kind of a big long story. I ended up taking the other part of the Salmon and cooking it for a girl that I was actually interested in and totally impressed her and it was awesome. Anyways, what's the whole point of that story? That sometimes you have to lose people. You don't have to be mean about it. I'm not saying you've got to do crazy stuff. Here's what the lesson is, you've got to be prolific. The question I started asking myself to make that whole thing happen was, "How can I be prolific?" Which is not crazy, but not mainstream. It's that in between stage. The only marketers that actually do anything with a lot of traction, do something prolific. You think of dollar shave club. Their marketing is pretty raw. Stuff like Carl's Jr., I'm not condoning anything that any of these people do but if you just look at what they're doing, they're prolific. They're doing things that are out of the norm. If I'm going to go pitch someone and try to get them to buy, I might as well make them laugh, or shock them, or do something that's gong to be memorable because I'm sucking up their time. I guarantee she remembers that stupid salmon fish tail and understands that I'm just not interested, stop pursuing me, you're waisting your time. I guarantee she remembers that. Every one of my friends remember that. It was a little bit prolific especially for the dating world. I keep giving all these dating examples so I'll give one more. I came back home in between semesters for Christmas. I came home and I was actually at church. Goes to show what was on my head by going to church this time. I go to church I sat down in front of this girl. I was like, "Dang, who is that? She is hot. Holy crap." I sit down and my brother is with me. I was like, "Did you see her?" He was like, "Freak yeah man. Holy smokes." Anyways took me a little bit of guts to work up the courage to ask her out and things like that because she's hot. I was making sure I had my buff stuff on. I went and I asked her on a date. I was like, "I've got to do something on this date that's going to be really cool. Something that's not mainstream." It's really funny thinking about it, I never realized that I was asking that same question. Something that's not mainstream, something that's a little bit crazy. I want to get her out of there comfort zone a little bit just so she knows I'm a little bit nuts sometimes and she's got to know this is part of the package and I like to be out there sometimes. I was like, "All right, what are we going to go do" I picked her up on the date, and I was like, "We're first going to go to Goodwill." Which was like Desert Industries or something like that. We're going to go buy anything in there that has to do with argyle, like golfer's argyle." We went and I got this cool tie, I was wearing a fedora, she was wearing this vest. It was kind of goofy. She's like, "What the heck." I was like okay cool, just wait a second. We pull up to this putt-putt golf course. I was like, "We're going to play putt-putt like we're serious putt-putters which is why we dressed up for it." I was like, "We're going to go to do putt-putt like that then we're going to go have a picnic on the putt-putt golf course." She told me later she was way outside of her comfort zone. It was a double date, and my buddy were just hamming it up. It was a lot of fun. Shout out to Dan Wilcox what's up? Anyways, she was not interested in me after that date. She was like, "Crap, this guy is interested and I don't know how to say it." I was like, "I've got to do something else that's kind of crazy." This is going to sound nuts. How long have I been going on this podcast already? I've already been going, I've got to look at my phone without crashing here. Ten minutes, all right. I'll make it quick. All right, this is your guy's story. I was like, "Okay, I've got to sweeten this deal up because she's not interested I know she's not." Despite my strikingly amazing good looks. She worked at this daycare. I had at least convinced her to start texting me, things like that. Baby steps. I text her things. I'm like, "Hey hope your day went well, hope to see you sometime soon." She goes, "Oh my gosh, my day was awful." It was a Wednesday. She was like, my day sucked. "Kids are everywhere parents expect you to just [inaudible 00:11:27] their children now." She was a preschool teacher basically. She was like, "It was really really bad." I'm like, "Gosh, I'm so sorry. It's awful." I was like, "I'm going to make a survive your Thursday kit." I didn't tell her that. I was being goofy with it. I showed my childish side, cheesy side, goofy side, kind of crazy side, all that. I was adding in all these things like snacks and books and things that you would give a kid. I was like, "Here's your survive your Thursday kit. Give it to the kids or you have it or whatever." I went and I doorbell ditched it. She was like, "Oh, thanks." She's like, "Crap, this kid is like totally addicted now. I'm screwed." She was hot, you know. Anyways we went and she invited me over. she actually worked at an orphanage in Romania for a while. She showed me those pictures of that. I was like, "Cool, cool. This is progressing." I was like, "Man, I've got to do one more thing to try to get her to know, I'm a goof ball, but I'm serious. I'm crazy but I want to steady date." I'm losing my voice a little bit. I'm like, I'm going to make a catalog. She's talking about ordering all this stuff for her brother's wedding. I'm like, "Okay, I'm the oldest of six kids." Between me and the youngest one is seventeen years. I still have siblings still that are not even teenagers while I'm recording this right now. I'm twenty-eight if you guys are trying to do the math. This was like five or six years ago. You know those play sets? I took pictures of these play sets, like the food that they have in there. The little plastic pizzas, or plastic hot dogs or whatever. I was like, "Do you want a plastic pizza or a real one? Call this number to order." It was my number. "Do you want fake dates, which was a pile of dates like the fruit, or do you want a real date? Do you want a fake movie?" I took a picture of a movie theater, and I took a picture of a movie theater. Do you want this or this, this or this, this or this? She calls and she's like, "I'll take the real date with the real pizza, I'd like the real movie, real, this that, that, that." I can't remember. I was like, "Sweet, I got the next date." This sounds totally cheesy. That's the point. When you do your marketing, when you do anything, putting up a freaking order form, or there's no explanation or you're just buying ads straight to your site, that sucks. Playful people are typically more creative people. I had a professor tell me that. He was one of the best teachers I've ever had in marketing. I have a marketing degree. That's one of the things. He would have us play with little kid toys in the middle of his lectures. No joke, I played with play-doh. He was like, "You're required to play the entire time in this class. You understand that?" We were like, "what the heck?" He was like, "Don't take notes, put that crap way." He was like, "Don't do this, put that crap away." It was prolific. His teaching style was prolific. He's like, "That's not normal, that's crazy. Why are we doing this?" Because we were playing we were in a more creative state. That's the challenge. That's the whole purpose of this podcast. I'm trying to say, some of your marketing, some of these funnels you're sending over to me, your product is great, but your message is bad in your ads. You look boring. You look like a corporation, no one cares about corporations. No one falls in love with a corporation. They fall in love with a certain individual or icon or idea. You know Flo from progressive? She's the highest paid spokesperson. Why? Because people think of progressive when they think of her. It almost makes progressive third party compared to her. Shes' the advocate, she's the spokesperson. She shows faults and flaws and their commercials are cheesy but they give you a chuckle. That's the whole thing. One I saw recently, I won't say the name. It was a squeeze page, the page looked gorgeous, it was beautiful, it was amazing. Very well designed, very awesome looking page, totally main stream message. He's got a level ten design on a level two marketing message. Marketing is all that crazy stuff. That little prolific stuff. I'm not saying you have to do stuff that's crazy, but look at what everyone else is doing and don't do that. Which is the exact opposite thing you do when you're building the business. If you're building a lifestyle business right now or just something to make a little extra money, don't be creative. Don't get out there and be creative. Go find someones who's crushing it, model what they're doing. That's the safest path to making money in that industry also. Then after you've matched the control of the other person. After you're actually making money, it's fine to be prolific. It's time to go out there and find your own spot in the Eco-system of the industry that you're in. That's when you go be creative and crazy and playful or whatever it is. Whatever you are, it's not so much a matter of highlighting all of your strengths. "These are my strengths and I'm highlighting my strengths in my business and personally." No one cares. It's more about highlighting your differences. Everyone works so freaking hard to be mainstream in our society. Everyone does. That's what pop culture is. That's why everyone watches the same freaking TV shows. That's why everyone does the same things. You know what I do when I'm about to go create sales funnels? I watch comedy. I do. It's not even like it's adult comedy. I'll go freaking watch Even Stevens, one of my favorite TV shows of my childhood. Not all the time. Sometimes I'll go do that stuff, stuff that makes me playful. You cannot be consuming new data and be creative at the same time. You are either consuming or you're being creative. Your brain cannot be analytical which is one side of your head, and then creative, which is the other side of your head, at the same time. That's the whole reason I'm telling you guys these stories. Freak, man I used marketing principals to get my hot wife. I did. It's what it is thought. It's dating, it's sales. Anything you want. Anyways, I got sweet deals with people and awesome clients because marketing principals apply everywhere. It's all kind of the same formula. Just go be prolific if you have a current business. If you're working on yours, start looking for ways that you can be in the future, just do stuff that's kind of nuts. What's that crazy one I saw recently? There's a commercial I saw, you guys have probably seen this. I can't even remember what it is. You guys have probably seen this. There's a commercial, I think it's a commercial. It's been like a decade since I've seen it which is the power of this. Here's a better example, the Old Spice commercials. With that guy with his shirt off and he's like, "Hello, ladies." At the end, he's like, "I want a horse." All this random stuff. All he's really saying is wear Old Spice and you'll get a horse an a handful of diamonds and tickets and a lady. Anyways. I don't mean to beat a dead horse but stop being main stream. Highlight your differences and you'll be good. If you just do that one thing, you'll start to become a brand, you'll start to become your own culture, or your own cult-ure. Be your own cult. Kind of like Russell Bronson always says. Kind of funny. That's it man. Guys, ladies, whoever it is who's listening to this. By the way if you guys want me to look at your sales funnel, just shoot me a message. I'm on Facebook. Facebook is the best one, not Skype. I will talk to you guys later. Go ahead and send me some of your questions. I've got a lot of interviews that are coming out and a lot that have already come out. If this is the first time you've ever listened to this broadcast, just go back and I like to dissect people's sales funnels with them. Successful entrepreneurs and find out what failures they went through to produce that good result, or leading to that good part. Anyways guys, we'll talk to you later, thank you so much. I promise to not always do these in the care, I know the mic quality. Thanks for listening to Sales funnel radio, please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to <a href="http://salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels</a> to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

SFR 3: Shakin' My Stalker - Prolific Style:)

SFR 194: Common Optin Page Mistakes...

When you go to the Inner Circle works, everybody takes a turn to teach something awesome to the group, and then they say, “Hey, I have some things I need help with.” Then the whole group kind of analyze this person's business and give feedback… You get advice from a lot of heavy hitters, and everyone is focused on you until the timer goes off - it's intense…   It’s mentally exhausting, but it's a lot of fun, and totally priceless! Before the Inner Circle, I could not sleep. I woke up at five dreaming that I was on stage...I was like, “I can't sleep anymore,” so I spent three hours pacing and working this out… MY OFFER CREATION PROCESS One of the things I want to teach you today is three simple ways to create an offer. We all think that creating an offer means that we go and add a whole bunch of products together… And that’s definitely an awesome way to create an offer…   ...but it’s NOT the ONLY way. Anyways, I want to teach you three of those methods today. THE DREADED QUESTION On top of that, another thing I think you’ll really find interesting is seeing me answer the question of what I actually do.. *that* is NOT an easy question for a lot of entrepreneurs to answer…   “What do you do?”...is kinda the dreaded question! When somebody asks, “What do you do,” and you have to answer - sometimes that sucks. But now, I can answer that question; I know exactly what I do…   There are some things that, (like I said in the past), you have to design, and there are other things that you have to discover… Sometimes explaining what you do is something you have to discover, and that's been the case for me; it's not the case for everybody, but for me, it's been that way... ...and I’m gonna share that with you in a single sentence! https://youtu.be/mwj8UkCVSds So you’re gonna find out:  Three ways to create an offer What it is I that actually do for the marketplace Why we have so many people reaching out to ask to be in our programs.  If you want to watch the actual presentation, you can do that  here. I have chopped out a certain piece that I don't want you to know about yet… ;-) We have a product that we've been doing for a while now, and we have a lot of people in it now - which is great, it's done quite well… It’s made a lot of money for us, and made A LOT of money for the students, I chopped that piece out, and I’m gonna keep that hush-hush for just a little bit longer while I finish a few things of…   YES, THIS WILL WORK FOR YOU! One of the most challenging things I have to deal with is when people ask, “Stephen, that's really cool, but how does it work for me?” They say things like:  I'm in high ticket B2B sales that are multistage sales that are multistage sales/ contracts… I'm in retail… Stephen, I'm in…  So, I think one of the things that’ll be helpful is for you to see three ways to create an offer… that you can tweak to apply to whatever business you’re in…   You can use them all together, (which is very powerful), but you also can use just one or two to add immediate value to whatever you sell. So let's talk about value creation and how that actually happens… JUST DO IT This is my third inner circle meeting as a member, and I think those of you guys who saw me that first time will agree that I’m really very different… One of the things that I've been focusing on is showing up as my authentic self and being unapologetic about that, and it's been very fun to start doing that…   … and I've noticed when I can do that for customers and help them arrive, they do all kinds of stuff on their own. That’s literally what the One Funnel Away Challenge was meant to do… If I can get them to say, “ I am an entrepreneur, I am a funnel builder,” they'll suddenly go do stuff without me yelling, “Just take the next step...”   The amount of forcing I have to do drops like crazy. BUILDING MY WAFFLE I have been building my waffle, and it is awesome:  I have to content teams I have a funnel team  … I don't have quite the executive team yet, but it's been awesome. I mean, stuff's getting done without me all the time.   A lot of people asked me, “Stephen, how are you doing all that you are?” I'm NOT, my company is. I'm building an actual asset… ... and that's been a major big piece for me in the last six months. Other cool things that we've done:  We did a cool  7-day launch (following what Russell did) - it was so good, it was awesome.  It launched my event, and opened the tickets - it was a 6-figure launch. I did my first quarter-million-month last month - that was awesome, that was a cool one. 10, six-figure months in a row - yeah, stuff’s going good. We have 3,000 downloads a day on the podcast, which is so fun.  I'm speaking of Carnegie Hall - how cool is that! That's gonna be with Martha Stewart, Dan Kennedy, Michael Gerber in September. My main product OfferLab - there's not even a funnel behind it - started at a quarter million, (softly just word of mouth), there's not even a funnel yet, it's been really validating.    The Carnegie Hall people asked me, “Do you want to sell?” I was like, “Yeah, I wanna sell!” They said, “No one else has said they want to sell…”   I was like, “Why would you say ‘no’ to that, of course, I want to sell.” WHAT IS AN ENTREPRENEUR? Anyways, I'm in this weird phase… I was talking to Alex Charfen a few days ago, and I was like, “Dude, I feel like I am always moving and changing.” Alex said, “...that's what an entrepreneur is. You just redevelop over and over and over again.” So it's been weird... I feel like I've been shifting and changing so fast and asking, “Well, what is my foundation as a human being... as me,” and that question is what I think has allowed my true self to start coming out.   In fact, two or three weeks ago, I told my wife Alyssa, “I can feel another change coming on, and I'm kind of freaked out about it..., but it's coming...” … and those changes are ALWAYS uncomfortable. One of the things I’ve realized who I serve... I didn't know the answer to that before... I serve existing and new entrepreneurs inside ClickFunnels There are a few things about ClickFunnels, in the last six months, that have shown me that it is A MARKET ... …and I'm very excited about because it's growing and maturing. And now, when someone asks, “What do you do?” I can tell them... I've never been able to answer that before. So here it is:   I help people design and launch wildly lucrative offers ... that's exactly what I do! So I'm excited; that's just the most ultimate ridiculous clarity. I think I would've been my own worst nightmare client like a year ago, because I couldn't answer those questions…    What do you want? Where are you moving to?  ...and so it's fun to be able to say that what I do in one simple sentence. Anyways, a little give here... I’M A CAPITALIST PIG   I call myself the Capitalist Pig, so I’d better know about capitalism - so I've been learning about the origins of Capitalism. I've been diving into a lot of history lessons… I’ve been learning about Adam Smith is known as the father of modern Capitalism… In his time, Smith was known, for disrupting a lot of things... NOT just Capitalism itself… In the 1700s - 1800s Europe, there was this really weird belief of how value is created... People believed that the amount of time spent creating a product equaled the amount of value that it had. But Adam Smith was like, “No that's dumb,” and he was the first one to really start switching that idea. Smith came in and flipped that idea, and said, “No no no…” Value is in the eyes of the beholder. Value is in the eyes of the person who's gonna consume it. And so, as the Offer Guy, what I'm really doing is helping people understand how value is created. And to do that, you have to understand the difference between COST/ PRICE/ VALUE… WHAT’S IT WORTH?    COST = is what you pay to fulfill. PRICE = is what your customer pays to get your product. VALUE = is determined in your customer's eyes.  I used to have this major, major hang-up; it was a huge false belief of mine… I used to think, “Oh my gosh, would I buy my own product?”   ...and that would be how I decide the price. *MAJOR PROBLEM* I wouldn't pay myself 35 grand to hang out with me for a day - I'm not that cool ;-)   BUT… I'm NOT the one buying the product... and lots of people do buy. The customer decides, the customer chooses the value, and I make things that are valuable in their eyes. WHAT IS AN OFFER? So... I've been on this mission to define an offer... and I can't say how many times, (even just with Russell), I've heard it said, “Can someone just define a funnel better... like how can we get a better definition? How can we explain it?”   So I'm trying to solve the same problem for offers, and I think I have… Recently, I was able to meet Dan Kennedy's ghostwriter. He was the guy who was in charge of all the writers at Dan Kennedy's place and ended up writing Magnetic Marketing. He and I would email back and forth, and he has his own book. His name's Jack Turk (by the way don't steal him, I'm still convincing him to write my book)... ...and in that book he says: Offer = Core Product + Value Add   I was like, “That's such a good way to define what an offer actually is!” PRODUCT VERSUS OFFER People ask me all the time, “What's the difference between a product and an offer, Stephen?” I'm like, “Well, an offer is a collection of products,” that's a method when you get down to it... A core product + value add = that's what an offer is! ClickFunnels = core product + value add (a whole bunch of other stuff that helps you use it better). For Example: ClickFunnels + Funnel Hacks = OFFER   So I've been geeking out hard on ways to create offers under that formula. How can I take a product and move it into an offer? So staying with the example of #ClickFunnels as the core product... The method we're all used to creating offers with is by adding MORE products in our stack slide - and it's a great method! We add product, product, product, product, product and that adds a lot of natural value to what we're selling… ...and now, our dream customer is like, “Boom! Well, of course, I'll pay a grand or two for Funnel Hacks!”   Does that make sense? These are super-powerful points to understand. There are other ways to create an offer, though… MY FAVORITE BOOK How many of you guys have seen the  fake book story?   I've made so many people mad with that story. The funny thing is that Michael Porter is like a huge deal. He's a scholar and Ph.D. But think about this… What's interesting is, I take his product, (I’ve never read that book, still haven't), and I sell it…   Every time I tell that story, ( it’s about eight times now in front of live audiences)... EVERY TIME I tell that story, (before I even get to the stack), people have the book in their shopping cart, and a lot have already bought before I’ve finished.   Q: What added the value and made people want to buy the book? A: It was the story and the sales message. This has been helpful for a lot of people in retail/ b2b/ multistage sales events, people who are on the fringes of ClickFunnels'... … it helps them create a product or an offer without having to create a HUGE stack! Some of them already have the product, and they're like, “I'm not gonna go create all these things for my stack.” Now how many of you have ever thought that? “What?!!! I gotta go create all that stuff inside of my offer to make an offer?”   If that’s you. Then you can use this method, you’ve just gotta have a really amazing story. THE CLAUDE HOPKINS WAY... The other way to add value comes from  Claude Hopkins…   Claude has this really interesting quote… I actually learned this first from Tim Ferriss in The 4-Hour Work Week. Tim uses the example of t-shirts, and he says, “If these aren't the most comfortable t-shirts you'd ever worn in your life, I'll give you the shirt back plus twice your money.” It's like, “Woah,” that just increased the value! Q: There are no additional products or sales message - so what increased the value? A: *The Guarantee* Now, back to Claude Hopkins, who said: Two men came to me each offering me a horse. Both made equal claims. They were good horses, kind and gentle. A child could drive them. One man said, ‘Try the horse for a week. If my claims are not true, come back for your money.’ The other man also said, "Try the horse for a week." But then he added, "Come and pay me then." I naturally took the second horse. Isn’t that interesting…   Hopkins flips the guarantee on it’s back and creates an offer out of the very same product - that's all he does!  Horse #1 Horse #2  ... what's the difference? Nothing but the guarantee! Why was there a natural value add, (‘I naturally took the second man's horse”)? ...because of the guarantee, this whole thing was switched.   There are more ways to create value, andI've been deep diving into the concept of what creates offers and some of the easiest ways to add value to everyone's business... I've been focusing pretty hard on this especially for the last year, and I had a big question arise in me… MOWER MAN GETS EVEN... I was mowing the lawn, and I don't know why, so I was listening to audiobooks, and I had this realization, like: “Oh my gosh, I am where I am because of talent not positioning.”   Have you ever realized that about yourself? It's freaky. I realized that people are making a lot of money because of positioning only and NOT talent. I was like, “Oh my gosh,” I said it out loud as I was mowing the lawn. I was like, “I am where I am because of talent, NOT positioning.” Some people are waaay worse, super bad and they’re making waaaay more money than me… And after I got over being pissed, I finally thought, “...but what's the lesson from this? Oh my gosh, look at how they position themselves in relation to the market!”   So now, what I do is I teach people in existing companies, (they're the ones that love this the most)...   And I've been traveling a lot doing this… I help companies understand what their market is. Most people can't even define what that means much less choose one. ...so I help businesses to understand what their market is and the relationship to all the other markets out there. IS YOUR RED OCEAN EVEN RIPE?   Not all markets are red Not all red markets  are ready for a blue    There are signals - there are patterns all over the place - I feel like it's ‘a beautiful mind...’ “Oh my gosh, are you all here?” And I've realized that “Oh my gosh, the path on this is so clear.” I just help people understand:  What market they actually sell into Who their dream customer is in there, so they're not trying to sell everybody The core problem they’re trying to solve…    ... and I dedicate my whole business to the Core Offer, it's pretty simple.   DO YOU HAVE A BUSINESS? Pre my ClickFunnels days, I was building funnels for a company in Florida using ClickFunnels... This company had an amazing product - their product was beautiful - they were known at the top of their industry. But as I started working with them, it was the most garbage jacked-up company I've ever seen in my life.   They had…  No Processes No Systems No support No salesmen  ... it was jacked up! That company was surviving strictly because it had a good product, there was NO business That’s when I realized that there was…  A huge difference between a business and products A huge difference between a business and funnels  ….and it just kept going and going from there, until I realized that what I do is help people:   Create the middle of their value ladder  Create the launch campaign that puts it into orbit... and the Evergreen campaign that keeps it there. Then whatever goes on top and the bottom of the value ladder.  So I've been realizing, “Holy crap, there are lots of ways to create an offer.” I just showed you very briefly, three ways to create a valuable offer:  You can do through the guarantee You can do it through having lots of products and a stack You can do it through a story  ... but there are ways all over the place to do that:  I can do it by identifying a core problem that there's already existing - I don't need to create the problem. I can do it through identifying a clear who in the market that I serve. I can do it inside the way I launch.  How many of you guys know someone who's waaay worse than you are, but they're making more money than you do? Pisses me off…   ….what about you? I'm like that is not right, and it’s one of the reasons why I'm diving so heavily into  what a campaign is… A campaign is NOT ads, but ads can be part of it. MAKING NOISE There are two different styles of campaigns, and I've been making HUGE lists of the major launch campaigns and evergreen campaigns that I've seen…   ...because that's how crappy people are making more money than you, that's how they're making more money than me…. They just make more noise. I'm a marketer - I'm a professional noisemaker. ...and the people making MORE money... well, they just know how to make MORE noise.   BOOM! Oh yeah, wasn't that awesome? Hey, just real quick: A few months ago Russell asked me to write a chapter for a secret project he was doing. I had to write a chapter for a book, this was the letter I got from him. He said: "Hey Stephen, let me ask you a quick question... You suddenly lose all your money, along with your name and your reputation, and only have your marketing know-how left. You have bills piled high and people harassing you for money over the phone. You have a guaranteed roof over your head, a phone line, an internet connection, and a ClickFunnels account for only one month. You no longer have your big guru name, your following, your JV partners. Other than your vast marketing experience, you're an unknown newbie... What would you do from day #1 to day #30 to save yourself? Russell Brunson Hey, if you want to see my answer and a bunch of other marketers who also answered that in this amazing book and summit, just go to 30days.com/stephen.   You can see the entire summit, you can see the book, you can see what we wrote in there and each of our detailed plans. Just go to 30days.com/stephen.

SFR 251 - 3 Easy Ways To Create An Offer...

Russell Brunson

SFR 172: Russell Brunson Tells The Shortcut To Learn Marketing...

SFR 233: It's All Just Learnable Formulas...

SFR 60: How I Create My Podcast - Power Of Publishing Pt. 1

Alex Charfen

SFR 255: Alex Charfen's Essential Systems For Every Business...

SFR 285: My Own Life Makes The Best Hook...

SFR 290: How To Position Content

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