POPULARITY
7 episodes with alisonjprince
Sometimes we just have to start anyway, even when we don't feel ready. Natalie Johnson has shipped over 8,300 orders despite never feeling prepared and joins Alison J. Prince on the podcast to share more about she used a DBA to pivot her business, why quality (and being able to look in her customers' eyes) is part of her business values, and how she's built a business around her schedule. Natalie, a mother of 6, also shares how she's been able to increase her confidence over the years and why saying “yes” is helping her grow her online business in ways she'd never expected.Shop with Natalie:Website: IvoryHomestead.comUse code AlisonJPrince at checkout to save 25% off your purchase (limited time offer) Follow on Instagram: @ivoryhomesteadFollow on Facebook: @ivoryhomesteadConnect with Alison:On Facebook: @alisonjprinceOn Instagram: @alisonjprinceLearn about the 0-100K System and how you can launch and grow your own online business here.
Alison went from being a Jr. High Teacher to building 4 multi-million dollar online brands, all while being a wife and mother to four. The paycheck-to-paycheck life wasn't working out for their family. They found themselves obsessively budgeting to afford everything they needed. She felt stuck - even though she was doing everything right!Then she discovered a pile of crafting scraps in her makeshift office...and this started her eCommerce journey for the last ten years.During this time she has taught her 13 & 10-year-old daughters, Makayla & Bridges to start their own business and make 100K. Find out how this Mom has gone on to build and teach a community filled with Because I Can members that are doing the same.Think you need that Shark Tank idea to start a million-dollar business...nope! Check out the products Alison started within her Idea Book. Grab your FREE GIFT: Idea Book from AlisonConnect with Alison J PrinceConnect With Katrina:Follow Katrina on FacebookFollow Katrina on Instagram Make sure to subscribe to the show, I release a new episode every Tuesday morning.
The power of the Internet is like your personal jet and yet, some of you are still walking. Get in the jet.You have got an idea, a product or a message, but you kind of feel like your voice is getting lost in this chaotic world or the product that you're offering is just getting drowned out. Maybe you're working your guts out, but you don't feel like things are happening and you're not getting anywhere and any money that you make just gets eaten up by stuff you didn't even plan for.This episode has the intention of breaking you free and moving you in a true forward Beyoncé on a jet motion.I'm going to call it this one Beyoncé in a jet with a tank full of gas and how you can join her.I also tell you about an email that I got from one of my students about how she just hit $20,000 for the month because she found out about the Beyoncé in a jet method, but let's think about that $20,000. This amount of money was just about two-thirds of what I made as a junior high teacher in a year, and she did that in a month.Seven months ago, this single mom of three kids made about a 1,000 dollars over the course of a year and in her business, she had tried a few things, but it really just wasn't sticking. Money was not flowing, when she learned the way a business really works.She's learning that she can create a lifestyle business around her kids versus being stuck in a nine-to-five job plus trying to handle a part-time job as well. She's learned the skill she needs to create money over and over, time and time again.She's also now teaching her children on how to make this their reality too. She's not only changing her life, but she's changing her kids' lives too as they get to watch their mom do things that she dreamed about because she's learning to make money.Just get off that hamster wheel. What if I help you find what you need to get off your wheel without having to have an employee?Stay tuned for those steps…Key Takeaways:A year ago, this single mom of three kids was so tired of not living (3:02)Money was not flowing, when she learned the way a business works (3:47)She’s flying past all of her expectations - $20,000 a month (3:57)She's not only changing her life, but she's changing her kids' lives too (4:51)The biggest epiphany moment of all of my business (6:31)In weeks, I went from $20/hr to 35 doing about the same amount of work (8:19)Steps to get off your hamster wheel - No. 1: You need to get in your jet (10:25)Speeding up the growth of your business by using influencers (11:52)Sell the stuff that you have sitting in your basement collecting dust… (13:49)Getting on the learning jet: Why not invest in an online course? (15:14)Get your products into a shipping facility (18:59)Moving fast - You're automating or outsourcing the busy work (22:50)Some of us are just stuck with a mentality that we're going to run out... (23:56)--Additional Resources:ShopifyClickFunnelsDownload your free personal bundle at AlisonJPrince.com/bundle--Connect with Alison:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn>>> Join the $1-100k Program
In this episode, I am joined by Natalia Riboldi of NatandNoor.com. She told me she thought I was missing out on interviewing some people that were just starting that may have questions - that were in the trenches still and weren't quite sure what to do.And in fact, she volunteered to come on the podcast towards addressing some of those issues.She shares with us how she went from zero to 87 stores in a short period of time.She says something about getting lucky because she had a friend that was in a business and a boutique.But really, one increases their luck by working.So yes, she may have had that first friend that sparked that idea, but she had to get on the road, she had to send the emails, you had to made the calls, she had to get uncomfortable for her to increase her luck.I don't think it was the opened-up opportunities for her to get into the 87 stores that she did. So I think yes, one can look at it as luck, but I also think it was a lot of her hard work that went into it.Stay tuned as we dive deeper and I go on to answer the questions she has.Key Points of Discussion:She graduated with a degree in oil painting - She’s always loved the arts (6:07)She started focusing on creating works of art and selling them (6:28)She had bought some earrings and invited people. She sold 20 pairs (9:34)Doing wholesale to actual physical stores has spelt success for her (13:29)Her future growth plans; things she wants to figure out (14:43)Pulling in products other than earrings to attract a wider audience (18:22)Natalia says online wholesalers really got her into the 87 stores (23:31)Constantly trying to think of new things to just make it fun (26:11)Connecting with influencers; creating a win-win situation (27:22)About ClickFunnels and Shopify (32:13)About giveaways with social media (36:43)--Additional Resources:NatandNoor.com (35% Discount code: NOOR)Tundra.comShopifyClickFunnelsDownload your free personal bundle at AlisonJPrince.com/bundleFree PDF: 16 of Alison's very first products online--Connect with Alison:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn>>> Join the $1-100k Program
This episode sees seven wildly successful influencers answering your questions about how to work with influencers. And they talk about what they like and what they look for in business collaboration.They talk about what tips they have to help you get in the door when trying to work with them and what they expect from a business.I've sat on the influencer side for 10 years now over on How Does She, so I've seen a lot and I've watched a lot of trends in marketing - I can tell you with surety that influencer marketing is one trend that will never un-trend!Influencer marketing is here to stay and learning the power of this will help you accelerate your business growth in the face of the fact that change is a constant. Yes, the platforms - TV, radio, and social media change. But influencers have usually figured out a platform. Yeah, you can go build your own numbers and be an influencer one day if you want to, but it can take years. So why not leverage the power of what's already been built by influencers that can put your product in front of their audience quickly so you can grow even faster? So stay tuned to dive in and hear out as to how influencers go about choosing which businesses they like to work with.Key Takeaways:For Sadie, it's about building relationships with brands and her audience (4:41)The number one thing she looks for in businesses is mutual respect (8:01)Holly works with firms having a product she knows her people will love (9:44)For Savanah, it comes down to how much she feels like they care (13:41)She needs it to be the right fit for her and for her audience (13:50)Three quick tips from Shelley (15:45)No. 1: Make sure it's a good match (15:50)No. 2: Send products with no strings attached (16:22)No. 3: Prove your product and your commission structure’s potential… (17:14)Camille Beckstrand is all for interaction on social media (18:22)What Ashley looks for - Do they mesh well with her audience? (20:09)And then she looks at their website, their images… (20:53)The way she’s approached makes a really big difference (21:36)Camille Walker likes to know what the company's expectations are (24:05)She loves to have a conversation with the company about their goals (24:32)--Additional Resources:Connect with Sadie Sabin on InstagramConnect with Holly Homer on InstagramConnect with Savanah Poulsen on InstagramConnect with Shelley Coates on InstagramConnect with Camille Beckstrand on InstagramConnect with Ashley Johnston on InstagramConnect with Camille Walker on InstagramDownload your free personal bundle at AlisonJPrince.com/bundle--Connect with Alison:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn>>> Join the $1-100k Program
In this episode, I am joined by Kati Oliver, who was a school teacher last year, when she doubled her annual salary in a day. She crushed her business goals in 2019 by selling out before Cyber Weekend even started and hit six figures in the first 15 days of November.And that’s not all - Just up until recently, she was able to hit sales numbers with just one product. That’s right - not a complete collection or a huge store of products. It was one offer.In this interview, I ask her questions that I've seen others ask her in my zero to a hundred K Facebook group.Kati tells us a little bit of her background as also how and why she started an online business.How did she manage to make it a priority to focus on her business? In what way are her kids in it? Is it Facebook ads or influencer marketing that has driven the sales? How did she figure everything out with no background in business or sales or product manufacturing? What are her future plans?Stay tuned to know the answers and join the dots.Key Points of Discussion:A family tradition linked to Xmas - 25 ornaments and nightly devotionals (4:43)In 2012, they put together 200 of these ornament kits and launched a site (5:21)In the first year, they sold 500. They sold out early October that year (5:33)Juggling teaching at elementary schools and the online business… (6:42)Their family conversations center a lot around business (8:53)Last year, she decided she was going to be done teaching (10:38)For 2020, her goal is to have an Easter kit ready to go (11:48)Figuring things out by themselves when starting out (13:41)Developing relationships with influencers - they’ve converted well (20:06)Katie’s top tips on approaching and working with influencers (21:24)“You want to dream big, have big ideas, but also start small.” (24:13)Keep going, no matter how hard it gets or how frustrated you get (24:27)Avenues for success: email lists, influencers, Facebook ads (24:56)--Additional Resources:20% off code for Kati's new Easter products that will be coming out: ICANNewTraditionCrafts.comNew Tradition Crafts on InstagramThe 25 Days of Christ on FacebookDownload your free personal bundle at AlisonJPrince.com/bundle--Connect with Alison:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn>>> Join the $1-100k Program
In this episode, we talk about the cost of getting an online shop up and going. Maybe you're wondering what the cost of an online store is to see if it's even worth it for you.You probably want to know the hidden costs, the unexpected things that might throw you off.Is it easy to start an online store? Honestly, I try never to use the word “easy” in business-building and if I do, let me know. Building something that you are proud of takes time and effort, especially at first. It follows the easy hard rule. What is that? Well, if it is easy now, it's going to be hard in the future. And if it's hard now, it's going to be easy in the future.So, how much does it cost to start an online eCommerce store? Well, I suppose if you're going to launch a competitor to Amazon, it's going to cost you a lot, right?Well, you can go into debt, spending thousands of dollars in inventory, having custom built eCommerce websites, hire a team to handle all your customer service and all your shipping and all that stuff. Or you can grow your business one profitable sale at a time. Reinvesting those products to buy more inventory to expand your business. Does it take longer? Yeah, but it works. So if you are stressed out about the money, guess what? There are ways that you can make this work. If you have money to go into it, great. You're just going to be able to grow faster. You've either got time or you've either got money and those are the two things that can help you grow your business faster. If you don't have money, you're going to have to spend more time.If you are a stay-at-home mom who needs some extra income to support her family, you can get started by using basically dryer change, some garage sale proceeds and a little imagination.We talk about what you need to pay for and what you don't.We delve into your product offer too.Just get cash for the stuff that you already have lying around in your house. Take that cash and buy some inventory to sell to your products, and remember - Buy small - You need to test it out. Get your online booth or shop. I use Shopify and recommend Shopify to get started - It’s $30 a month.Stay tuned as we dig deeper into what it takes...Key Takeaways:When you feel you just broke even or lost money, look at what you learned (8:02)Is it easy to start an online store? (11:06)How much does it cost to start an online eCommerce store? (14:30)Dryer change, some garage sale proceeds and a little imagination… (14:56)Get a business license (15:09)LLCs or sole proprietors? Find out what’s right for you (15:36)Sell something you’re not using anymore to pay for your business license (16:27)You need something to sell - Look at what’s gathering dust in your house (16:39)Invest that cash into some inventory to be able to sell to your customers (18:39)Don't buy a ton of inventory - Test your products (19:33)Start on Shopify. It's going to save you so much stress and frustration (20:29)Shipping: Amazon’s there; someone else can ship out products for you (22:24)You want some pretty branding on your packages; go to VistaPrints.com (23:14)If you are selling on other people's sites, make sure you know their rules (25:10)--Additional Resources:Download your free personal bundle at AlisonJPrince.com/bundle--Connect with Alison:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn>>> Join the $1-100k Program
In this episode, I bring in Rachel Miller, who is pretty much famous in the Facebook online marketing world because she has found the trick to grow your business FB page organically.Yes, organically, with zero money. Can you imagine what it would be like to grow your page to thousands of followers or even millions of followers without paying Facebook? It works.How do I know? I have actually been friends with Rachel for quite a while now and she has shared with me some of the tricks of the trade and we went from a couple hundred thousand followers to over 2.2 million followers on How Does She, one of my Facebook pages, and we did it in just a couple of years.Then I took my eCommerce business before I sold it to over 400,000 followers with zero Facebook ad spend, and these weren't fake followers. These were people that I got to serve and sell to every day.Now, I don't want those numbers to intimidate you. You might be thinking: “Alison, I just want a hundred. No way could I or no way would I want to get to a million followers.”Well, the good news for you is that the rules have changed a bit in Facebook land. It's more about community over numbers right now, so smaller numbers or follower accounts can convert just as high as big numbers if you have the right people.In this episode, Rachel dives into how you can find your perfect people and even influencers by asking the right questions on your page. She also talks about what to do if you're not getting any comments on your posts.Key Points of Discussion:Being a stay-at-home mom, Rachel wanted to connect with other people... (5:18)The right audience, message and content can help fulfil your purpose (9:34)Making a difference with people spending their time or money (10:46)If you're looking for people who have audiences, build a relationship… (11:51)Take your product out of it and talk about the other person first (16:58)They're there not to talk about their pain, not to talk about you (19:39)On your profile, have one thing that's going to help them trust you more (21:47)Have one call to action - we don’t want our audience to be confused (23:49)You need to make it stupid easy for people to understand (26:13)If I had a business question, I need to go where those biz people are (27:53)Make sure if the content lifts your audience up (28:33)Once you have some of your perfect people, begin tagging them… (28:55)--Additional Resources:Download your free personal bundle at AlisonJPrince.com/bundleDownload your free PDF telling you about 16 of Alison's very first products online at BecauseICanLife.com/giftJoin Rachel's Facebook group at AlisonPrince.com/Rachel--Connect with Alison:FacebookInstagramLinkedIn>>> Join the $1-100k Program
On this very special, two part episode Russell asks his inner circle to weigh in on the biggest marketing secrets they have learned over the past decade. You will hear from the following people on part one: Peng Joon Andrew Argue Rachel Pedersen Joshua Latimer Pedro Adao Jayme Amos Jaime Cross Annie Grace Alison J Prince Ryan Lee Stacey Martino Bart Miller Julie Stoian So listen here to get this amazing, valuable marketing advice from some of the top marketers out there right now. ---Transcript--- Hey, what’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Alright, I’ve got a special treat for you guys over the next two episodes. So the new year started and New Year’s Day I was sitting, we had my family up at the penthouse and we were just hanging out and relaxing and you know, I relax for about 30 seconds, then my brain starts thinking, what’s the next, what’s the plans for this year, what are we going to do? And I started thinking, you know, we know this was the end of a decade, and a new decade is starting. And I just started thinking about over the last 10 years, what are the biggest takeaways, what are the biggest aha’s and things like that, that I’ve had in my business? And then all the sudden this idea hit me, look, I know the things that, the big aha’s that I’ve had. And I’ve been, I talk about them on the podcast all the time. But I was like, I’ve got this amazing inner circle group of entrepreneurs who have been working with me for the last 5 or 6 years. Each of them paid, in the beginning it was $25,000 a year, towards the end it was $50,000 a year to be part of the program. And we had 100 entrepreneurs in it and I was like, you know these guys have been around me for a long time, they’ve been in the trenches, they’ve been doing this in their businesses. I thought how much fun it would be to hear what their biggest marketing secret was, their biggest takeaway that they got themselves over the last decade in their businesses. So I have a Voxer group that has all my inner circle members and I Voxed them and said, “Hey, just curious what’s your number one takeaway, what’s the biggest marketing secret that you’ve gotten over the last decade in your business that’s helped the most? If you guys could voxer back the responses to that, that’d be awesome.” And from that I got, I think almost 20 people sent back responses and they were amazing. So I thought how much fun to turn that into two episodes. So we’ve got two episodes for you guys that are going to be revealing the top marketing secrets from my inner circle members. And each one’s got a different thing. I told them to try to keep them under 3 minutes, some people were, had a lot of brevity and did it in less than a minute, others struggled and got in 3 to 4 minutes. But each one had a unique idea, a unique piece of gold for you. So I’m really excited for these next two episodes. And it’s interesting, as you listen to them, I’ve been teaching this stuff for the last decade and a half and there’s tons of things we teach and that we talk about and brainstorm about, mastermind about, and it’s interesting looking at each person, even though all of them have built huge 7 and 8 figure businesses, each of them had a different thing that was the big marketing secret, the thing that knocked down the big domino for them. And you’ll see some things amongst the inner circle members, other people they’re completely different things. But as a whole it was fascinating just to see what they’re all, what each of their biggest takeaways were. So what I’m going to do is this episode and the next episode we’re just going to play through those, each one is 3 to 5 minutes long, giving their marketing secret. Most of them followed the instructions and said their name and their website url, so we would have those. Some of them didn’t, so the people who didn’t state their names, I’ll jump in ahead of time and let you know who they are, and then we’ll plug in their thing. So with that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song and when we come back, we will start with the first marketing secret from my inner circle members. Peng Joon: This is Peng Joon and my biggest marketing secret that I learned from the last decade is that every given moment in time, we are building 5 different assets. And in marketing the first asset that we will ever build is the social asset. This is basically the stuff that will sit on social media forever. Many times when people don’t have the clarity as to why they’re creating that technical video on YouTube, why they are doing that Facebook re-targeting ad, why they’re documenting what it is that they’re doing. The reason for that is because they don’t know that this is step number one, they’re creating this social asset that can be fed into step number two, which is the digital asset. This is where you build the funnel, you build up the sales process, you build up something that will live on forever, in order to sell the course, the book, the consulting. And the question you gotta ask yourself is, “How can you take what you’re already doing in your life, the presentations, the life event, the consulting, the coaching sessions, how can you document them so that it can be turned into the digital asset that will work for you forever?” So for example, the keynote that I did at Funnel Hacking Live, I did that presentation once, but I turned that into a book, into a recurring that lives on, and is going to live on for a really long time to come. And the whole purpose of that, number two is to then move onto number three in order to create a proprietary asset. This is basically the infrastructure, the tribe, the community, if you think about what makes Apple Apple, if Samsung came up with something that was 3x better, with more features, half the price, chances are I’m not going to shift. Why? Because I’m locked in. I’m locked in and I’m thinking about the inconvenience. I’m thinking about the iTunes, I’m thinking about all of my files backed up in the cloud. Same thing for Clickfunnels. Even if there were 200 different competitors, even if somebody came up with better features or lower pricing, I’m not going to switch. Why? Because of the tribe, because of the community, because of the good will Russell, you have given to me in the last decade. That’s what locks people in, and it’s something that I’m thinking about all the time. And that brings us to number four. Number four is creating of systems assets. This is the SOP’s, the Trello boards. This is why I document what I’m doing on YouTube, Instagram, the steps on social media. Why? Because I’m constantly working on removing myself from the business so that I can work on the business and not in the business. And finally, that is all pushed to number 5, the capital asset. Understanding that ultimately why I’m building all these things is to build up capital. This could be office space, this could be property, things that generate positive cash flow, which then can be used back to step number 1, which is to fill social asset. And when you have this big picture, as to understanding why it is that you do what it is that you do, you’ll be able to have the big picture and have clarity on every, what you work on every single day. Andrew Argue: Hey it’s Andrew Argue from Accountingtax.com and I wanted to share my biggest marketing secret that I learned in the decade. And you know, I was kind of struggling coming up with this because I actually learned pretty much everything I know about marketing in the last decade, because I’m not really a marketer, I’m an accountant by trade. But when I think about the biggest thing I learned, that made the biggest difference, you know, a lot of times when people are doing marketing, they’re doing something that looks good, or something that feels good and they’re putting it out there, and it’s like a brochure maybe, or maybe like a Facebook ad, and they don’t really know exactly what the return on it is. So myself being an accountant, when I first started doing marketing I really had no idea what I was doing until I finally started actually calculating out what specifically what I was getting for what I was doing. So I would look, “Okay, what is my cost per click?” so what was the cost per click for somebody to come to my website? And I would know that number. And I started looking, “Well some of these people are coming to the landing page and then they’re opting in, what percentage of those people are opting in? That’s my landing page conversion rate.” So I would look at my cost per click. Let’s say my cost per click was $4, and then let’s say that only 10% of people were opting in, so that means my cost per lead was $40. Then I’d say, “Okay I spent x amount of dollars on Facebook or Google or something…” and I was getting leads for $40. Okay well then, where were those leads going, they were going next stage to book an appointment. And what’s my cost per appointment? Only 10% of people that became a lead booked an appointment. So that means $400 was my cost per appointment. And then how many people would I close? And I think until I really put those kind of metrics, the cost per click, landing page conversion rate, cost per lead, conversion from opt in to appointment, and the cost per sale, until I really put those metrics on it, I just never really felt confident in doing more marketing or spending more money, because I just didn’t really know what I was getting. So I mean, I learned so many things on the art and how it all works. I mean, obviously Russell’s done a tremendous job teaching me a bunch of different things about marketing, hook, story, offer, a ton of different things. But I really never felt comfortable to pull the trigger, and now we probably spent 6-7 million dollars on advertising over the last few years alone. So that’s probably the biggest thing I learned in the decade, hope that’s helpful. Rachel Pedersen: I’m Rachel Pedersen, the founder of the Viral Touch digital marketing agency and Social Media United, the leading online training for social media managers. Now I haven’t been in entrepreneurship for a decade yet, but over the last decade I definitely learned a lot about social media and attention spans. We’re in a time where technically speaking, attention spans are at an all time low. Or at least, that’s what we’re being told. The interesting thing that most people don’t realize, sorry you’re going to hear my son in the background, welcome to mom and entrepreneur life balance. So what I’ve discovered is that if you can grab someone’s attention within in the first 10 to 15 seconds, you have them. So many of us spend time watching TV shows or movies, you know Netflix binging for lack of better words, but how is that we decide what we’re going to Netflix binge? Well the chances are it happened because of a trailer. We stop, we look at the thumbnail, we give it about 10 to 15 seconds to decide if it’s worthy of more of our time. The most important thing that you can learn to do for your business, especially in this time where people are becoming increasingly discerning about what they’re going to allow their time to be spent on, is to truly know your message, really, really, really get it. Can you make your point clear in 10 seconds? Can you explain your business in the 15 second video or conversation? For me, jumping onto tiktok was such a great lesson and truly a test of if I understood how to grab attention in 15 seconds or less. And for me it’s a daily practice reminding me how to capture attention and ultimately harness a following that says, “Not only did we like that 15 seconds, but we want more. We want to binge watch all of your content.” So now is the time to truly understand how to capture attention. We are after all in the attention economy, and those who grab it in the first 10 to 15 seconds will be the ones that ultimately are binged over the next decade. That’s definitely what I’ve learned over the last 10 years of being on social media. Joshua Latimer: Hey what’s up? Joshua and Ashley Latimer from honorandfire.com. The biggest marketing secret I’ve learned in the last 15 years is really easy for me, and it’s relationship marketing. It’s looking at your business like a marriage instead of just a wedding, which is a weird analogy. But people are super, super short term minded with their business, and in today’s climate with the internet, people want to get a Two Comma Club award, or make a million dollars as fast as possible. And desiring that is not wrong, but from a sustainability standpoint, what I’ve found is that when you solve real problems by providing real quality solutions and services, it’s really, really hard to fail a business. But it takes a little bit longer when you play the long game. So that goes for your relationship with your employees, your relationships with your dream 100, relationship with your business partners. My biggest marketing secret has been to slow down, try to have massive integrity, so real problems, and play the long game rather than just getting the ad that converts or getting that offer to do awesome in that one launch, it’s really, really hard to fail when you focus on the marriage, and not just the wedding. And in business I see a lot of people really excited to launch something or to get their funnel done, and they need to spend more time on making sure that they’re solving a real problem with a quality solution, whether it’s a product or a service, because at the end of the day, money is a natural byproduct of solving real problems. And if you slow down and listen to Tony Robbins, Tony always says people overestimate what they can do in a year, and underestimate what they can do in a decade. If you can be one of the people that realizes that, I think it will help you. And Russell, you’ve helped me. And hopefully that adds value to listeners of your podcast. Pedro Adao: Hey Russell, this is Pedro Adao, I’m in the inner circle. Man, so many but the one I think that I have probably leaned into the most, and has really I think, helped me kind of blow up on movement, is just really going deep into the niche. Going deep into your client avatar and really leaving that red ocean and finding an underserved, or unmet needs, carving a niche so tight that only you can fit in. That’s kind of a phrase that I’m now saying a lot these days. So that’s the big thing, that’s been a game changer for me. It’s allowed me to find my place of uniqueness and really not feel like I’m actually competing at all with anybody, because I’m really serving this really micro audience. That’s been a game changer. And then tactic is challenges. Man, I saw, it was at FHL last year I saw Natasha teach on challenges and I took the free masterclass concept I learned from you in Expert Secrets, I was doing free masterclasses and doing well with those, and then heard about paid challenges, and we’ve been doing pretty much a paid challenge every single month since then and I just recently used a paid challenge to actually win a major launch for Pete Vargas, came in first place ahead of some pretty serious guys. So I have a great testimony around challenges, I’m happy to share as well. So that’s, those are my two big keys, which is carve your niche, find a great market that’s underserved, and then show up and deliver value and prove your work through challenges. Take all the risk upfront before you ask them to buy. Hope that helps, bro. Take care. Jayme Amos: My name is Jayme Amos, CEO of Ideal Practices, we’re the country’s largest startup dental consulting firm. In other words we help dentists open startup dental practices. The number one marketing secret for me over the last decade, that I thought I understood, was being able to serve a niche. So to trick myself into understanding this better in the last decade, and the way that this has made the biggest impact in myself and in my consulting company and in the industry where I serve, is to describe it as a niche of a niche of a niche. Now here’s what I mean, you’ve probably heard me say that I help startup dentists. Well, I help dentist, I do, but only younger dentists. Usually doctors who are working for someone else, and only even in that subset, startup dentists. They can buy a practice, they can partner with a practice, but we only help startup dentists. So what does this mean for you? Well, a niche of a niche, of a niche, well here are the benefits that it’s helped me be able to achieve. I’m able to now speak so clearly to the people that I’m trying to serve best. So I can make the greatest impact with those specific people. But not only am I able to speak to them clearly, I’m also able to understand their pain points. And not just the pain points of dentist, not just the pain points of young dentists, or associates who are working for other dentists, but just those young dentists who desire to open startup practices. This allows us to serve them really well. But one of the aha moments that I’ve had, that I think Russell even taught me back when I was first an inner circle member, I don’t know, 3 years ago or something. He told me this, I thought I understood it, and it’s taken me even more time to fully understand this niche of a niche of a niche concept, and it’s this. When I’m able to understand them best, when I’m able to niche down best, I also am forced to find where they are. Now that sounds easy on the service, but when I’m forced to find where those people are, I’m also forced to find the places that nobody else knows about, where I can have the greatest impact. And guess what? There are fewer competitors there. And I don’t even mean just in my case, a startup dental consulting forms there’s competitors, I mean the competition of noise. I mean the competition of advertising dollars. So think of noise, whether it’s a newspaper ad, or a magazine ad, or a Facebook ad, there’s other noise for people’s attention that aren’t even direct competitors, but it’s competition for noise. And when I find the place where those people hangout, there aren’t many other people there. So I’m able to be one of the loudest voices in one of the smallest pockets in this niche of a niche of a niche. So my encouragement to you, one of the biggest aha marketing moments that I’ve had through Russell Brunson, through Clickfunnels, through my time as an inner circle member is this. Find your niche, but trick yourself and remind yourself that you can be even more powerful with a niche of a niche of a niche because you’ll be able to speak to them best. Serve them best and find those pockets of opportunity where you can have the greatest impact at the lowest cost. So I hope this serves you well. My name is Jayme Amos, CEO of Ideal Practices, number one consulting firm for startup dental practices in the country, and so much of this is the direct result of Clickfunnels, of Russell Brunson’s guidance, and being an inner circle member. Hope this is helpful to you as you grow how you impact others. Take care, bye, bye. Jaime Cross: So this is Jaime Cross with Migsoap.com and the greatest marketing discovery I’ve made in the last 10 years and have used in our business is story selling. It is, story is transcendent and Philip Tollman said that after nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing that we need most in the world. So there’s also a really great story about a journalist who purchased 200 items on ebay for $129 and he wanted to do an experiment, and he turned around and sold those same items for $8000 including story. So our fortune has been found in our follow up with story and then we incorporate into our description. So as an ecommerce company we have been able to maximize profits by leveraging story. You know, even with our pounce product, it’s kind of funny because I wrote like a mini romance novel. So I’m not just talking about the product, I’m actually making this story that every woman wants to be in come alive on our website. So we’ve done that with all our products and I’ve got a lot of really great ideas about story. You know, there’s an art and science to it as well. So it’s a great way, because there’s a psychological and chemical reaction in the brain when you hear and tell stories, it connects you to your audience, so it’s a really great way to build strong relationships and strong bonds with your followers and with your tribe. So I love story selling and I’ve got some really examples here too, but your brain on stories is like on fire compared to just listening to you know, features and benefits in the typical old way or traditional way of describing products. Annie Grace: Hey, this is Annie Grace from This Naked Mind, and my top marketing secret of the decade is probably the simplest one, but it’s so incredibly effective. And it’s really all about consistency. So I actually started a podcast right around the same time that people in the UK, a group that was doing basically the same thing I was doing started a podcast. And they came out of the gate like, over the top with guests. They had Gretchen Rubin, they had John Lee Dumas, they had Ryan Holladay, they had Hal Elrod, they had all these crazy guests and they got all these downloads and all this press around their podcast, and it was incredible and I was like, “Oh my gosh, they’re just smashing it. It’s amazing.” And then over the year I just kept going, my podcast was just the people who read my book. And I’d publish every Friday and every Saturday, but I never ever missed a day. And over the years these guys started missing a few here and there, and then they took a break, and then they came back, and then they took another break. And if you fast forward 2 years now, my podcast has 3.5 million downloads, and they’re nowhere close. So the consistency of just showing up every single week. I’ve now done a newsletter every single week for over 400 weeks. And the consistency of just showing up weekly and just doing what you say you’re going to do really pays off in the long run. It reminds me of the tortoise and the hair. So that’s my best marketing secret. It’s not really a secret. But just do what you say you’re going to do, if you’re going to do a weekly podcast or twice weekly podcast, make it happen, make the commitment, make it work into your life. Same with a newsletter, same with your emails, don’t pop up and then drop off again, because there’s no faster way to lose trust. Alison J Prince: Hey Russell and the Marketing Secrets podcast listeners, Alison J Prince her from Alisonjprince.com. I went from a junior high teacher to building 4 multimillion dollar businesses with 4 kids at my feet, but found my greatest success was watching my 10 and 13 year olds gain confidence in themselves as they went on to sell their first 6 figures before they even stepped into a high school. I am the host of the Because I Can live podcast where I show you what it takes to set up and automate your own online store using the steps I currently use today, and what I taught my girls. Why? Because I can. The marketing secret that I have been using for a decade and I still use today because it works, and it will work for as long as marketing exists, is teaming up with influencers to help explode your business. Yes, you can start growing your own following, but that can take years. So why not leverage what can accelerate your speed? Now I’m not talking about the get rich quick stuff that’s out there, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about getting your products in front of an already warm audience, and not crossing your fingers and hoping that cold Facebook ads work. Imagine Taylor Swift talking about earrings she’s wearing on an Instagram story with a simple swipe up for her followers to go and buy. Do you think they would sell? Yeah! Don’t stress in getting Taylor’s attention, that’s not what’s needed. There are a ton of influencers out there who can rock the sales, and they have less than 100,000 followers. And some have even had 2000 followers and they have been known to move sales number mountains. So whatever you are selling there is an influencer who is looking to team up with a business like yours. Influencers have been building an audience for years, so it becomes a 3 way win. Win for you because you make sales, win for the influencer because they make a percentage of the sales, and a win for their followers because they get your really cool, amazing product into their hands. Creating this 3 win-win has been one of my marketing secrets to building online profitable businesses. I hope that helps you crack the marketing code going into 2020. Oh, and one more thing, if you’re sending all that traffic over, make sure you’ve got a Clickfunnels set up so that you can maximize the order cart value. Ryan Lee: Hey this is Ryan Lee from Cashflowtactics.com and wanted to share with you the biggest marketing secret that I learned from Russell Brunson. So over the last decade as I’ve been in the inner circle and studying the art and science of marketing, one of the biggest things, one of the biggest epiphanies that I’ve had is building a business around a future based cause. You know Russell taught us for years all of the presidents maybe forever, the one’s that won {inaudible} on a future based cause instead of an improvement offer. And for too long inside of our business we were focused on features and improvement offers, but as soon as we took everything down and focused on the outcome that our product and our service created for our clients, that’s when things took off for us. So having a future based cause, and the easiest way to implement that for us was really diving deep and figuring out the core desire of our ideal avatar, our ideal client. Once we understood their pain points and their desired outcome, we could focus our message on speaking to both that pain and then the future based outcome for our clients. So for us at Cash Flow Tactics, we built our business around empowering people with money to become financially free in 10 years or less, and our tagline that’s really driven massive amounts of business has been “Rise up, Live free.” So something very simple but it speaks to our ideal avatar in the sense that they want control. It’s a future based cause to rise up, choosing differently from where they’re at today, so that they can live free. And all of our marketing is based around that, both from the possibility as well as speaking to the pain. So good luck in 2020 future based cause is where the gold is at. Stacey Martino: Alright hey there everyone on Marketing Secrets podcast. I’m Stacey Martino, my husband Paul and I are the founders of relationshipdevelopment.org , and I’m happy to come in and share one of our biggest marketing secret strategy that we’ve learned in the last few years, and that comes down to something that Russell shared with us probably the first or second time that we ever met him within inner circle. Like many of you, Paul and I were stuck in that place of look we have this amazing solution, we know we want to make as many people know about this as possible. Everyone deserves to know about the solution that we have, ours is for relationship, yours is for whatever it is that you do, and I’m sure you’ve had that feeling at one point or another, “I want everybody to know about this. This s so good.” So Russell said, of course to us, “Hey, you’ve got to do a podcast.” Because love to listen to podcasts. Hence, we’re all listening to marketing secrets podcast. And what I did in that moment was, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s a great idea. Let me put that on my list, I don’t have time to implement that right now.” And I want you to learn from my mistake and catch yourself, because we all do this. “Oh my gosh, that’s such a great idea. I don’t have the bandwidth for that.” “Oh my gosh, that’s such a great idea. I don’t have time for that.” You have to catch yourself because one of the biggest strategies you could ever take away from this is you won’t get results from something you don’t implement. We have to implement, it doesn’t matter how many great strategies or ideas we have, we have to actually take action and get it done. So fast forward some time, we actually did make the Relationship Transformers podcast last year, it’s been catching like fire, it’s everywhere, it’s spreading, it’s doing everything we wanted it to do and more. And there’s two podcast strategies that have worked for our podcast that I really want to share with you. One Steve Larsen taught to us, which is to take your 3 Secrets Webinar and turn it on it’s side, and the first 4 or 5 episodes of your podcast is you doing like 20 or 30 minute chunks of your 3 secrets webinar to take them through your pillar content. Who you are, what you’re about, why is this different, what are the three secrets? So we did that, and it has been amazing. And then at the end of eveyr single podcast we share three action items like, “What can you do now to get great results now?” and a call to action. These are three things you can do to start getting results today, and your next step is join our 14 day boost program for your relationship. Whatever the first step is on your value ladder to help them take action. Because not only do you not get results from things you don’t implement, but the people who are listening to you won’t get results from things if they don’t implement. And yes, the podcast is amazing and we want to educate, and we want to inform, but if we don’t help them take that first step and take action, we’re not really serving them. So those are my strategies, I hope you implement them and make this an amazing year. Russell: Alright, the next person who sent a message was Bart Miller and Bart is a man of many talents. He’s the guy who dresses me for Funnel Hakcing Live, but on top of that he runs a huge ecommerce brand, he runs info product brands and a whole bunch of other amazing things. So with that said, here’s Bart’s biggest marketing secret from the last decade. Bart Miller: The number one marketing strategy for us this year has been using a warranty card that goes into every Amazon box that we send into Amazon, and having people come back and fill that out and getting their email and capturing their stuff, and then putting on that thank you page for filling that out, a order bump for products that they can sell right then and there after they, I don’t know if it’s a bump or an actual sale, but we just take them right to it. Conversions are halving on two different things. One they are obviously coming onto an email list off of Amazon for capturing them, which is awesome. So we’re building a really cool camping list. And the second is that we’re actually selling them something else and the take rate on that right now is about 35%, are taking the next offer, which is a continuity program in the cooking space. So anyway, really cool, but that’s worked really well for us this year, and converted really well for us. Russell: Hey this next one is from Julie Stoian. Julie is no stranger in the funnel hacker, or marketing secrets community. She was a key player here at Clickfunnels for a long time, and I think you’re going to love the marketing secret that she shared next. Julie Stoian: Hey, so I’m going to answer this for you. I think probably the thing that I learned the most or that stuck out to me the most over the last decade is I’ve learned all the mechanics of marketing and I’ve learned the different fields offer, creation, copy, design, but the art of the hook is really something that I learned a ton from you, Russell, and all the stuff you teach, and this idea of pattern interrupt and no matter how great you are, how great your offer is, if you cannot get people to pay attention and get curious, you’re not going to get people into your funnel. So over the past couple of years especially, I’ve started to see, now that I see it I can instantly recognize when someone is marketing without a hook, without a reason or a story or a pattern interrupt. And I looked back over a lot of my writing and all of the emails and sales pages that were the best, I realized had this really curious hook or this crazy story attached to it. So even though I had been doing it unknowingly, once I figured out that that was the key, I started infusing it into everything. Into my emails, my sales pages, my ads, even my social media posts, and this made just a tremendous difference.
Jaeden Schafer interviews Alison J. Prince who has built 4 successful multi-million-dollar online businesses. She’s been featured in Forbes, on the cover of Costco Connection, & spoken on the stage of funnel Hacking Live. However, her most successful business choice was teaching her 10 and 13-year-olds how to sell over $100,000 in 9 months. She watched them transform in believing in themselves and living what she terms the BecauseICan Clan life. She is now currently teaching thousands how they can live this life as well. Find Her at: AlisonJPrince.com
My guest today is Alison Prince. If you don’t recognize her name you may recognize some of her online websites. She's the creator of the 0-$100K System and a true believer in the entrepreneur lifestyle. Join us as we dive into how she did it, and how you can too. Visit Alisonjprince.com if you want to learn more about Alison’s businesses or take her classes. Visit www.BizNinja.com for more awesomeness
My guest today is Alison Prince. If you don’t recognize her name you may recognize some of her online websites. She's the creator of the 0-$100K System and a true believer in the entrepreneur lifestyle. Join us as we dive into how she did it, and how you can too. Visit Alisonjprince.com if you want to learn more about Alison’s businesses or take her classes. Visit www.BizNinja.com for more awesomeness
The Story Behind Alison's Ecommerce Empire... Stephen Larsen: Hey everybody, this is Steve Larsen, and welcome to a very special episode of Sales Funnel Radio. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best internet sales funnel. Now, here's your host, Steve Larson. Stephen Larsen: All right you guys. Hey, this is exciting. You know, for me I'm just selfishly wanting to talk to, in my opinion, one of the coolest people that is out there. One of the most inspiring stories. Doing exactly what they love. I'm just excited that I hit the record button and you guys get to listen in. There's a lot that I feel like I could learn from this person. I haven't done an interview in a very long time, and I'm excited to bring on just a complete rock star. Everybody, this is Alison Prince. Alison, how you doing? Alison Prince: Good. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Stephen Larsen: Yeah. You've been running the, let's see, Pick a Plum and Because I Can Clan for a while now, right? Alison Prince: I have. I actually own seven businesses, Stephen. Stephen Larsen: Oh really? Don't tell Russell. Alison Prince: I know. I'm a little bit of a serial entrepreneur. Stephen Larsen: We get that. That's cool. What's your most favorite one right now that you're doing? Alison Prince: Do you know, it's actually the Because I Can Clan. Stephen Larsen: Oh really? That's your most recent one, isn't it? Alison Prince: It is. I launched that right after I joined the Inner Circle. Launched it in about March, officially in March. Stephen Larsen: That's awesome. Just for everyone listening, the first time I ever met Alison is actually, actually do you want to tell everyone how you got into the Inner Circle? I think it's hilarious. Alison Prince: Yeah. I hope I don't get in trouble for it, though. Stephen Larsen: No. It'll be awesome. Alison Prince: I own a blog called How Doe She? I've been running that for almost eight years, which is crazy. We're always trying to learn, always trying to figure out new ways to do affiliate type promotions on the blog. I went to an affiliate conference, it was actually down in Las Vegas. When I got there, it was not the conference that I signed up for. I went to the classes. The classes, I swear, every single speaker was drunk, or it was totally a click bait class. The title was one thing and then what they spoke on was totally different. I'm like, where am I? I saw Click Funnel and I'm like, oh I wonder if this will really help my business? I went and I listened to Russell, and his title was exactly what he spoke about. He wasn't drunk. I really appreciated the honesty from the title. His pitch, the way he presented himself, I was just super impressed with it. Then what, two weeks later I had joined the Inner Circle. From just figuring out who Russell Brunson was, two weeks later, joined the Inner Circle because I knew he was good. I knew his message was good. I knew he was honest, and so I just jumped in with both feet. Stephen Larsen: That's awesome. I mean, it was literally, what, two weeks later you were at the Funnel Hackathon event, the FHAT event. Alison Prince: Yes, which was a wild ride. Stephen Larsen: Yeah, and you stood up and you were talking and stuff. It's funny because you introduced yourself and your story. I remember, I mean it's an intense three days. In the back office though, like back in Russell's office, he and I were both like, "Have you met that Alison lady? Oh my gosh, she's so cool. Where does she come from? Where are more people like that?" When we see you as an individual, and you as a person and the things that you're doing, you just seem like the kind of person that is 100% truly genuine and there and happy. You're present in the moment, and it makes people wonder, "Who is this lady? How is she doing what she's doing and why am I not doing that?" It's really cool. We talked all about ... Don't think, yeah, we were talking all about you. It's really easy. Alison Prince: Go for it. Lots of people do. I don't care. Stephen Larsen: Yeah. It's really easy to see just that you absolutely love what you do. It's super unique, it's extremely inspiring. You've got the family side down and the business side down, it seems like. You're traveling. Anyways. Alison Prince: Yeah. Well there is. Okay, so I've been over to Thailand for the last three weeks. I have severe jet lag right now. I took my whole family over there. We were out there for three weeks doing service projects. Why? Because we can... I decided, I've been able to do this and I have lived my dream life. Now it's time to help others live their dream life too. This is, we have so many opportunities here in America. The education, like on YouTube University, everything that Russell gives. Stephen, your podcast is absolutely amazing. We have so much information to change our lives. I decided to start the Because I Can Clan, because we can. We can change our lives. We can do the things of the dreams that we want to, and be in the moment. Have the family. I mean, I have four kids and we're over Thailand. Like real severe poverty, helping those kids, trying to help them change their lives. We were able to do some job training over there too. It was just, I don't know, there's just so much opportunity, so much excitement out there, to be able to live how you want to. Because it's just, it's there. There's so much out there right now. Stephen Larsen: It's so true. Before I hit the record button everyone, we were talking and you were saying, "It seems lik you and Russell don't sleep." That's so true. It's the exact same reason. It's funny, all these things that we learn and we go do, it's fun, but there's also a bit of a mantle that comes with it, it sometimes feels like. You have a responsibility, in my opinion, to go out and help other people know that you know how to do. Anyway, I'm just completely in agreeance of what you're saying. It's so real and tangible. When you start getting to these levels of various success, that you've got to turn around. I believe and it sounds like you do too, that there's a little bit of a responsibility to turn around and kind of just help humanity, help the other guy who's still struggling. Alison Prince: Yeah. Then I think it's ... Okay, so let's go back. I think it might be a little bit of selfishness too, because when you serve, you feel so good. If you can create a business around serving, it just fulfills you. In the mornings when you get up, it's not hard to get up at five, six in the morning, and you're so excited to get to work. You don't feel like you're working. It's just this beautiful thing that goes together, where you're actually having fun every single day, doing what you love. Then going to bed at night knowing that you did ... I don't know, you're just happy. It just fulfills, it fulfills me... Stephen Larsen: That's so fun. That's so cool. Yeah. I love what I do for people. My wife always makes fun of me. She's like, "How come you get kind of awkward every time someone asks you what you do?" I'm like, well because I don't know what to say sometimes. How much time do they have? Alison Prince: So true. Stephen Larsen: I want to just tell them everything, and they'll run away from me from that. I am extremely interested, my sister, my brother, lots of my close family and friends actually follow you very closely, and what you do. They're incredibly inspired by it. I just wanted to ask, did you always want to have your own business? Is this something you stumbled into? Is it something you created out of a side necessity? You know what I mean? What really put you into that? Alison Prince: Okay. I went to college and I was a junior high teacher, if you can believe that. Stephen Larsen: Wow. I had no idea. Alison Prince: I loved those kids. We laughed, or I laughed at them, every single day. Imagine, I don't know, 300 eighth graders that you got to see every single day. They were just a ball of energy. I know some people it's like their worst nightmare, but I love, we had so much fun together. We would do pumpkin chucking contests. Then we would sit in shopping carts for the mass equals acceleration times whatever. I forgot. It's all physics stuff. We'd put a kid in a shopping cart, push them down the hallway to see if they would go faster if someone was in the shopping cart, out of the shopping cart. We had so much fun learning. Stephen Larsen: That's awesome. Alison Prince: Then I got my first paycheck. Stephen, it was like a slap in the face. Because they handed me my paycheck and they said, "Oh, by the way, you qualify for food stamps." I was like, "Wait, what? No, I studied math and science for four years in college. What do you mean I get food stamps?" They're like, "Yup, welcome to being a teacher." You know, I should have done the research beforehand, but when you're young you don't really think about money until you start having children and your husband's going to school full time and you have real bills. I started a little tutoring business on the side. I could tutor one to two kids a night, but I had a baby at home. My husband was going to school full time and I just couldn't get enough tutoring hours in. Then I started hiring people. Hired them for $15 an hour but charged $20 an hour, so I made an additional $5. Then I ended up hiring about four teachers, and so I was making as much money, not actually having to go and work those two hours. I'm like, oh my gosh, what is this? That's when the entrepreneur bug bit, as I figured out how I could free up my time by hiring other people to be able to grow a business, or to be able to work on the things that made me happy. I haven't stopped since. Stephen Larsen: That's amazing. What eventually made you leave that? I really wanted to be a tenth grade history teacher for a long time. That was actually my dream for a long time. That's the first time all you guys on this podcast have heard that. I really love history. I love war stories. I love all that stuff. It was the exact same thing you just said, it was the paycheck that kept me from doing any of that. What eventually made you leave that altogether? Alison Prince: Well, we moved to Oklahoma. My husband got accepted to school out there. The pay was $10,000 less than the pay in Utah, if you can even imagine that. Then I was pregnant with my second child. We were on food stamps, state support, and I was working a ton as a teacher. I'm like, this is just, this isn't right. This isn't right... I don't want to be on state assistance. I've gone to college. My husband's going to college. I became a realtor at that point. I had to stop the tutoring business because, this is going to tell you how old I am, but the internet really wasn't up and going at that point. It was hard to do a business out of state, so I became a realtor during the boom. I made $60,000 working part-time. Was able to get off all the assistance, be able to support, help pay for my husband's college. Through that, real estate, I was helping new buyers and so I was still educating. I was still getting that fulfillment of educating people, but it was just in a different area. I was helping new home buyers find their first home, and it was awesome. Then that just led to the next business and then the next business. Then eventually it rolled around into How Does She, which is the blog. I call it my playground, where I get to learn how the internet works, how to grow Facebook. We actually grew our Facebook page to two million followers organically. Stephen Larsen: That's huge. Alison Prince: I know. We just hit two million like two weeks ago. We did it in about two years, so we're pretty excited about that. I get to learn and play. Now I started the Because I Can Clan, helping others be able to do the entrepreneur side of things, to be able to change their lives. To be able to, if they are teachers and they need extra money, there's a way to do it where it doesn't eat all your time. There's a way to do it to be able to bring in that extra income. Stephen Larsen: Yeah. I know everyone's situations are different, especially the guys that are listening out there. Everyone's coming from different backgrounds, so obviously take what I'll say with a grain of salt here. I remember the exact same thing, when we were in college and all this stuff. When we were first starting out, we had to take loans. We had to get all the assistance and stuff. I could not help but fight this incredibly huge feeling that I was just cheating, and I needed to go create a business. That's one of the major reasons I started doing that also. You're heavily involved though, right now in eCommerce, right? Alison Prince: Yes. Stephen Larsen: Big, big, big. Alison Prince: Yeah, when I started the blog, with How Does She, we would do posts. They were creative posts, like how to make this or how to make that. Then people would say, "Where do you get your products from?" I was sending them to Home Depot. I was sending them to Michael's Crafts. Then one day I was like, "Why am I not sending them to me? Why am I sending them to these other stores? Why don't I set up like an eCommerce store?" I started a business called Pick Your Plum, and sold out the very first day. What it was is, it was a daily deal site and I would have one product up every single day. The very first day, put up my product, sold out. Second day, sold out. Third day, didn't sell any. I'm like, dang it, is this the right thing? Then grew it into a huge business within two years, just by sending people over. It was just one product a day. Now it's about 70, 80 products a day. In the beginning it was just one product a day. I had never done eCommerce before. Then we would sell out so fast, and a lot of our American distributors, they would run out of the product for us. I got on an airplane, went over to China, and started finding manufacturers. I don't know any Chinese. I have never been to China. I've never taken a business class, Stephen, ever. Stephen Larsen: They're overrated. Off the record, they're totally overrated. I learn more from books. It's all good. Alison Prince: Yup. I learned more from doing and getting on that plane to China, than I ever could have in a classroom. It was scary. I had four kids at the time. My sweet husband was here and I'm like, "I'm going to China." He's like, "Okay." It's not just like going to the mall and getting products. Stephen Larsen: No. Alison Prince: It's crazy across the world. Yeah, got on a plane, went and found manufacturers. Then started to learn how to import. Did I make mistakes? Oh yes I did. Did I learn from it and created a successful business from it? Absolutely. It was well worth that. Stephen Larsen: Yeah, I remember, okay one of the most recent things that I've heard of that you've done is, you sold pillowcases. Alison Prince: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Stephen Larsen: First of all, how did you choose pillowcases out of every product that was out there? Alison Prince: Okay, so let me back up a little bit and tell you a little bit more about the story. Stephen Larsen: I would love that, yeah. Alison Prince: My daughters, they were sleeping in and just, they were 10 and 13 at the time. This is when I'm running How Does She, when I'm running Pick Your Plum. The girls, they were just being teenagers, and they were tired and sleeping in till 10. My husband and I were like, we don't want to raise children that are lazy. They were just trying to figure out what they wanted. What we did is we said, "You guys have three options. You can move out of the house." Which of course, we didn't want them to move out of the house. "You can do more chores, which we're going to start at seven o'clock in the morning on a Saturday morning. Or you can start a business. Which of those three choices would you want to do?" Of course, they were like, "We want to start a business." Stephen Larsen: Cool. Alison Prince: What they did is they started this business. I gave them some resources, but I really wanted them to try and to test it, because I didn't want to be holding their hand the whole time. They needed to learn this journey. Then you're not going to believe this, but in nine months, just nine months, they sold over $100,000. Stephen Larsen: That's crazy. Alison Prince: $100,000. Makayla, she was in junior high at the time, she would come home crying because she couldn't get her locker open. I'm like, "Don't worry honey, you just sold $5000 today. You can pay someone to open up your locker for you." Stephen Larsen: A 10 and a 13 year old, $100,000 a year. Alison Prince: 10 and a 13 year old, yeah. Yes, they sold over $100,000 in nine months. I was like, okay, if these girls can do it, other people can do it. Then I of course went to my sister. You got to test it, right? Done it with my girls, so I went to my sister and I'm like, "Hey, let's try something." She needed something at the time because she needed a new roof. There was just a lot going on in her life. She was budgeting and going to garage sales and just didn't have a ton of money to buy this roof that she needed. She went through this whole thing and she sold $129,000 in nine months. Apparently she wanted to outdo the girls. Stephen Larsen: New roof. Alison Prince: Got her new roof, yeah, it was pretty exciting. People have said, "Alison, well that's cool you've done it, and it's probably because you have these platforms." I'm not going to lie, How Does She has a great following of two million people. When the girls started, it wasn't that big of a number. People have said, "Alison, of course you can do it. You have these huge social media platforms." This goes to the pillowcases. I build a business to prove that you don't need to have this huge social media following to be successful. I went out and I found that pillowcases, yeah, like the lamest, boring product, were trending. That's the rule, secret number one, the rule to success is just sell what other people are buying. If people are buying it, just put it in front of them. You don't have to go out and have this huge, crazy shark tank idea. We went and we built this little pillowcase business. In 24 months we sold over a million dollars in pillowcases. Stephen Larsen: That is insane. Alison Prince: Yeah, and it was to prove that you don't have to have this big, huge social media following. On that pillowcase business, there's only like 55 Facebook followers. It's my sister and my brother, and I guarantee you they did not buy $1.1 million in pillowcases. Promise. Stephen Larsen: Now my brother and my sister, they've all gone through your course. They love your course. They talk about you all the time. Alison Prince: Yay, good. Stephen Larsen: Yeah, they just really, really love it, all the value you put out there too, and showing people how you do it. Their biggest question afterward though, and I was wondering if I could ask you here. Alison Prince: Put me on the spot. Stephen Larsen: Was, what are some of the methods you use to go find what people are buying? Alison Prince: I've actually built, and I go through it step by step in the course, so maybe I just need to point them to that again. You go and you, like there are specific sites that I look at to see what's trending. I check it almost every single day, except of course when I was in Thailand, because you couldn't get the internet half the time. The internet is so amazing and so beautiful, and it just, it literally spoon feeds you the information. You just have to know where to find it, and be receptive to it. Stephen Larsen: Oh that's so true. Yeah. Alison Prince: Once you know how to find the #trending on specific sites, then you just see what's selling. Then you go, and you don't copy their idea, I want to put that out there. You don't copy, like if they've got a specific branded product, you don't copy it, but there's so many commodity products out there. My girls, they didn't come up with some new crazy idea. You want to know what they sold? Did I already tell you what they sold? Stephen Larsen: No, I don't think so. Alison Prince: They sold scarves, Stephen. Scarves. Stephen Larsen: $100,000 with scarves. I told Russell the other day, if there's another like 12 year old that makes a million bucks, so help me, because it's ridiculous. The formulas are all out there everybody, for you to actually just make money. Alison Prince: It is. Stephen Larsen: You really just have to look around. The market will always tell you what you need to sell. I always tell people, the creativity that you need in order to make a lot of money is actually not inside of you. You don't have it or you don't possess it. All you do is you look around at everything that's around you, and you look at the market through some of the ways Alison's talking about. There's these ways you can test and see before you jump in, and before it's scary and you might lose your shirt. The market will always tell you what to sell, it's not inside of you to know. Alison Prince: You don't invest a lot of money, I love that you said that. The girls, they didn't put in like $16,000. No. They bought some from California, and then they just tested it. We probably, I don't know, put in maybe like $100 to $200 to see if they would even sell, and they sold out very fast so we knew we had something. Then we invested more, and then we invested more. Don't risk your whole life savings, you don't need to. That's crazy Stephen. I have sold so many products, and to this day I still won't invest huge money into stuff until I tested it. You don't need to. Test it first. Stephen Larsen: Yeah, 100%. I'm in the middle of doing that with my own thing. Just this small, little $100 thing, and it's been running for a long time. Finally, I feel like, all right, that's been tested to death, I think that I can actually jump full in on this other thing. It's been a lot of fun to do that. The testing is so key. Everybody dreams, I feel like. We get caught in this, it's totally the shark tank mentality. I need to sell something that's big and unique and crazy. I call it product big bang theory, where it's just boom, this big massive idea that no one's ever heard of before. The problem is that no one ever wants that stuff. They think they do. It's really product evolution. You're just finding other things that are selling and you add little tweaks to them, and go blow it up. Alison Prince: Yup. Stephen Larsen: This is Sales Funnel Radio. Which funnel do you use to sell that stuff? Alison Prince: Okay, so you have to remember that I just started ClickFunnels in March. Stephen Larson: You're a pro. Alison Prince: From February until June, I have been out of the country for two of the months. It has been insane and crazy, crazy stuff. I did a freemium funnel, and honestly the freemium funnel didn't convert as much as the 4.99 funnel did. Stephen Larsen: Wow. Alison Prince: I know, it's kind of crazy, right? The scarves, this was done before I knew about Click Funnels, the scarves, so we just did it on a basic shopping cart website. We did a freemium offer then, did amazing. We did three free scarves with the shipping, and then shipping and handling, and they did amazing. We did a lot of those. It did really well. I've noticed that in the community that I am in, I work with a lot of bloggers. I work with a lot of marketplaces. The freemium offer isn't converting as well. I think people are a little scared of it. They've been burnt by it. It's too good to be true. If we can just give them a really good deal, let's say we do the pillowcases for like two for 24, that goes like wildfire, with free shipping. Because it's an offer, and what you and Russell both talk about is give them an option, give them an offer they cannot turn down. Two for 24 with free shipping on these pillowcases, people eat it up. What we've been doing is we've been putting a lot of funnels in place that just really focus on one item, and one really good offer, which you guys of course talk about nonstop. That's it. Stephen, all we have to do is just listen to you guys and do it, and it works. Stephen Larsen: I'm paying her to say that everybody. Alison Prince: No, but it is so true. We over complicate things. We just need to keep things simple, and listen. It works. It's just super, we overthink things, we over complicate things as human beings. I know when I built my course out, I was over complicating things like crazy. Stephen, like I asked you some questions and you're like, "Simple Alison. Keep it simple." It converted so much better than when it was complicated... Stephen Larsen: That's awesome. Alison Prince: Props to you. Stephen Larsen: Thank you very much. You know, it's funny, most people, they tend to think, "Well Alison right now, she's talking about eCommerce and I'm over here in info products. That's completely different so I must need to disregard all of the things that she's saying." Or, "I'm doing this over here." Guys, it's all the same. It's human psychology. These sales processes, the way you create offers and you put it all together, it's the same thing across the board. It doesn't matter if you're selling physical, digital, any kind of info product business, a service based professional service, like you're a dentist or something. It's all the same. Alison Prince: It really is. Stephen Larsen: You just have to think what part your business fits in that model, and then go fill the gaps and it starts to come together. That being said, how did you think up an offer that they can't turn down? That's interesting. Alison Prince: I just asked them. Stephen Larsen: It can't be that simple. Alison Prince: It is that simple. You put it out there, and if nobody buys, no one pulls out their wallet, you know your offer stinks. You don't take it personally. You just say, okay, let me come up with another offer. I was on Facebook the other day, of course, and I wish I can remember the quote. Someone was saying, the reason why he's successful is because he just puts out offers. The more offers he puts out, the better he does. You take your product and you put out an offer. If it doesn't do well, okay, not a big deal, redo it and then test it again, and test it again and test it again. We need to be testing things constantly, until we can nail it. Then once we nail it, then of course we scale it, we grow it as big as we can. To put out a Facebook offer, that doesn't cost a lot of money. If you've got a good following, it doesn't really cost anything to just test it. You put out an offer, you put $5 in. If someone bites, oh take it. Tweak it just a little bit... See if you can get two people to buy off of it. I think that's what people think, they put out an offer and if nobody buys they're like, "Oh, my product stinks." Or, "Oh, I'm not good enough." When that's not the case at all. It's they just need to tweak it and try it again. I mean you're an entrepreneur, you know this. The only way you fail as an entrepreneur is when you stop. That's when you fail right there, is when you stop. Stephen Larsen: You know it's funny, two or three days ago Russell and I were at the office still, it was 1:30 in the morning, as men do. Alison Prince: Are you sleeping at the office too? I know Russell is. On a cot or something. Stephen Larsen: Not always by choice. Sometimes I just fall asleep there. We got this big cot there and a tent right now. It's funny. Alison Prince: You know, okay a little, another pitch. Seriously, I am so grateful for you guys. All of the information that you give makes my life so much easier, so thank you for not ever sleeping, just for Alison Prince. Stephen Larsen: Oh thank you very much. We have a lot of fun doing it. It's very, very fun. Alison Prince: That does not go unnoticed. I am seriously very, very grateful for everything you guys produce and put out there. Stephen Larsen: That's much appreciated, very much. We were talking a few days ago. He and I, for some reason, we both got on this big rant. We had been working super hard on these things, trying to relaunch and tweak and fix. Exactly what you're saying, what's the problem with this one? All right, let's go fix it. Just relaunch, relaunch. We both got on this topic, how did we both get started? He started going through his journey with me, and luckily we flipped the camera on, so it's going to be an episode here soon. It's really cool. He was walking through all the different products and all the sites and all the things that he had put out there. The ones that worked and the ones that didn't. I started doing the same thing, and it was really fun. He asked me, he was like, "When did it finally click for you?" I said, "It finally clicked for me when I realized that products and offers are not the same thing." For years, I had been selling products, and that's why I was failing, because I was the exact same as the other guy. When I created an offer out of it and I made it this awesome thing, and you get this and this, or you get this and an info product, or whatever it is. I started bundling and creating offers. That's honestly when it blew up for me. He said, "Yeah, for me what I've noticed is that it's the people who are obsessed with the marketing who always make the money. But the people who are obsessed with the money never make the money." It's totally about the marketing part of it and creating the offers. Anyway, I thought that was interesting you just said that. Alison Prince: It is. It is like, I call it the vision. How do you put together a product that's going to inspire people? On Pick Your Plum, it's a lot of like commodity, it's a product based site. I've never sold a product on Pick Your Plum. I sell the vision. One of my examples is, this is crazy, but when we first got started there wasn't a lot of money. I went out to my backyard. I found these blocks of wood. What I did is I decorated them with some stuff and made them cute, made them into ornaments for Christmas trees. Made them into block kits for kids, stuff like that. I sold the vision of what you could do with these blocks. Stephen, we ended up selling over $9000 in trash. Stephen Larsen: That's so cool. Alison Prince: Because we never sold the product, we sold the vision of what you could do with it. That's what you sell, right? You don't sell something. Stephen Larsen: You sell the hole, not the drill. Alison Prince: Yes, yes, that's exactly it. What can they do with it, that's what you sell, that's what converts. That's what people want. Stephen Larsen: That's awesome. How many times do you buy something and you never end up using it? Russell, it was kind of fun, he came over for dinner last night over here. We were geeking out over my books and the bookshelves. That's what we do, it's geeky and it's fun. We're going through all these books and my wife walks up and she goes, "Are you ever actually going to read those?" I was like, "Yeah, of course I am." Yeah, whatever. Russell was like, "Yeah, we read the titles and get the gist." It's funny that so many of us are like that though. We look at these, we'll go buy stuff, whatever it is. Exercise equipment is a classic example. Treadmills are just another kind of coat hanger for most people. It's because they got sold on the vision and not the actual thing. It's powerful. Alison Prince: It is. Stephen Larsen: Now I wanted to ask another part here. You've talked about how you just ask them and you create the offer. How do you get a lot of your traffic? How have you figured out that aspect of it? I know that's a big challenge for some of the listeners. Alison Prince: Okay. Remember what we learned in like kindergarten, about how to share? Stephen Larsen: Barely. I kind of skipped that one. Just kidding. Alison Prince: It really goes back to like elementary school, you share. You reach out to a blogger. You reach out to another shop, and you figure out how you can collaborate. Because that shop's trying to grow too, and you find out how you can work together. It really, it's so simple and everybody makes it very, very complicated, but it doesn't need to be. Like in blog land, we always are sharing each other's posts. In the eCommerce world, we're going out there and we're saying, "Hey, let's do a giveaway together. You've got a product that compliments my product, let's do a giveaway together. We'll get your readers and my readers excited, pumped up about it, and we can throw traffic to each other." Then we go to, now I'm working with my course, my digital product, so now I'm going out there and I'm working with other people who have a complimentary product. Then we interview each other or we post each other's stuff. I'm helping them grow. They're helping me grow. Now when I do this, you have to do it with people with similar numbers. If I came up to like Russell and I'm like, "Hey Russell, post me on your Instagram page." Something like that, and I only have like 200 followers or something like that and he's got a gajillion, it's not going to work. It's got to be something where, if I've got 200 followers, I'm working with someone with around 200 to 500 followers. You do it in a way, it's more organic, or it's more like a friendship instead of go follow, I don't know, Cookies With Lacy or something like that. That just looks too spammy. If you can post a picture that says, "Hey look at these cookies that Lacy made. They are so great." Vice versa. It really is networking and getting to know each other in the social world. It really does work. That is the big secret to how we grew our Facebook page to two million, is we just worked together. We came up with, "Hey, let's share each other's posts." Then I've got some bloggers right now that are excited about sharing this course. There's a few things that I've been working on, tweaking on. Stephen, I'm still working on that. I launched it in March, this course, and I've been tweaking it, testing it and perfecting it. Then I'm excited, I just got back from Thailand, to be able to start pushing it harder and harder and harder. I've actually got a webinar this morning and I'm really excited about it. Stephen Larsen: Oh cool. Alison Prince: I guess it's not a webinar anymore, we call them master classes, because nobody wants to go on a webinar. Stephen Larsen: Marketers. Alison Prince: Yeah. I've got a secret master class coming up today. I'm constantly tweaking that offer. How can I serve my people more? How can I get them more information? How can I help them become more successful? They see it. Then other people see it and then people start talking about it. It really goes back to what you learned in elementary, and it's to share. It really is so simple. Stephen Larsen: That's so interesting too, that you say it that way. Because I know one of the pieces of advice Russell and I give is, some people will be like, "Okay, I've got this sweet offer but I have no money for ads." A situation that we've probably all been in before. "I've got no money for ads. I've got no following. I'm literally brand new, there's still green on my ears." We always tell them to do something that sound ludicrous but is very strategic, which is just to go find somebody who has a following who would want the product, and just give it to them. Don't even try and get any profit from it. What you end up getting out of it though is a list, because you just send them out there and you end up getting all these people who opt in. Now you have another asset, there's a piece of value there. You go to the next guy and you say, "Hey, I got this list, you got this list, you want to do a little cross promotion?" Just like you just said. Now your list grows and you've got a little money. You go to the next person and do it again. By the time you've done it and flipped it six or seven times, you're rich. It's exactly like you're talking. Alison Prince: Yeah. You are going to get told no, and I think a lot of people are scared by the word no. Who cares if you get told no, just go find another person. You don't want to work with them anyways, if they're ... Stephen Larsen: It's going to happen. Alison Prince: It is. If you're prepared to get one yes out of ten, then you're a rock star and you will feel good when you get that yes. Don't think that everybody's going to say yes. You're going to get told no, it's not a big deal, just move on to the next one. Move on to the next one. I mean if it was easy, if we were just to flip on a light switch and become a millionaire, everybody would be and then money wouldn't have any value. We actually have to go out, do the work, build those relationships. Spoil those people and be treated how we would want to be treated. I know when I get a product in the door, a package, I'm like, "Woo hoo, this is the best thing ever." Stephen Larsen: I loved yours, by the way. Thank you. Alison Prince: Good. I'm glad you got it. That's the same thing. People want to be loved and want to be spoiled. Just treat them how you want to be treated. It's back to kindergarten. Stephen Larsen: That's awesome. I have one other area I just wanted to ask you about real quick. That is, okay you've got a guy over here who's saying drop shipping is the thing. Another person over here saying, "Do all fulfillment but only high ticket." This person says ... There's a lot of areas and a lot of facets of the eCommerce world, and you're obviously an expert in it. I just wanted to ask why you picked self-fulfillment, and low ticket, high volume? That's mostly where you've been, right? Alison Prince: Yeah. The In-N-out Burger approach. Where we can sell thousands and thousands of a product at a low price and make good money. The reason why, a couple things. When I first started, I didn't have money to get a huge warehouse. I didn't have money to have someone fulfill my products. It's expensive to have someone fulfill. The margins weren't there, and I knew a lot of people that needed jobs. I started, the very first one was in the garage, and I had people come over to the garage and help me fulfill out of the garage, because you do what you need to, to start growing your business. Then we got a little tiny warehouse, I think it was about 1200 square feet. Which I'll tell you what, scared the hejeebies out of me to sign that contract. Stephen Larsen: I bet. Alison Prince: When you're uncomfortable, I don't know, if we stay comfortable ... Stephen Larsen: Stuff happens. Alison Prince: Yeah. Don't stay comfortable... You've got to get uncomfortable to be able to have results. Then I just found joy in writing people checks that I knew, that I grew to love, that I grew to find. Then there was more margins in it. We got to do a lot more fun things as a company. In my course I do teach self-fulfilling has higher margins, and there are great ways to do it, but I do give options about having other people fulfill for you. The reason why I give both options is because I've been gone a lot, and I've been traveling. I want to be with my family. I don't want to stay up till two o'clock in the morning shipping products. That just, to me, is not fun. There's other options that I give to help you, because the entrepreneur should not be shipping. They should not ever ship one product. Well maybe one, to see how the process goes, but they should not be shipping the product. I do give options. I do talk about ways to be able to get that off your plate, and how to hire it out. How to hire another company to do it when you're ready. Things like that, just so you can truly focus on what you're good at. Finding the product, marketing, getting sales, getting out there, branding your product, growing your business. Not necessarily shipping, because that's, I don't know. Some people love shipping. I'm not a fan of shipping. Stephen Larsen: No, and it's funny to hear you say that, with the amount of stuff that you ship. Alison Prince: Yeah, no. I had my fair share of shipping. Oh man. Find help. Do not do it yourself. Find help. I teach that a lot in my course, you do what you're good at. You have, tell me which one it is, you have a podcast that talks exactly about that. When you guys are at ... See I stalk you Stephen, I really like what you have to say. When you're at IHOP and you were asking Russell like how he can get so much stuff done. He just hires it out because he's like, "I don't know how to do it." Which podcast is that, do you remember? Stephen Larsen: I don't remember. You know, it's funny, I usually, I just know that there's something cool that I want to share and then I come up with a title later. Alison Prince: Oh. It was probably about a month ago, because I listened to it. It was probably about a month, month and a half ago, but it was really, really good on focusing on what you're good at. Everything else, hire it out, get it off our plate. Stephen Larsen: Yeah, he told me once, he's like, "Stephen, I realized that I am a starter, and you are a finisher, that's why you're here." It's so true. That's how it happens, he starts and I finish. We're a cool team like that. It's very true, you've got to know which one you are though, hire out the other. Alison Prince: Agreed. Absolutely. Stephen Larsen: That's so cool. Alison, I know we've been going for a little bit... I just want to thank you for, I mean for anyone who's listening to this, I'm going to put so much stinking ad money behind this because I want everyone to hear your story and your voice and everything that you do. I am such a huge fan of Alison Prince and all the things that you do. It sounds like we stalk each other. You're just one of those people out there who's living and loving living. You set up what you do in a way so that you can love it. There's a lot of trial and error that comes with that in order to have it be that way. Anyway, it's just a massive example. Where can people find out more about you? Alison Prince: Facebook page, I just started the Because I Can Clan about three months ago. You can find me on Facebook over there. I do have a personal Instagram account AlisonJPrince, which I will start converting over into more of the business side soon. I really like about the journey, talking about the journey, how we're doing it. You're going to see how I start doing that, and I'm sharing my story. Like right now, on the Because I Can Clan, I've been doing a Facebook Live. I did a Facebook Live every single day except for two days in Cambodia when I didn't have internet. Stephen Larsen: Wow, what's your excuse? Just kidding. Alison Prince: Oh Verizon and Cambodia do not get along. Stephen Larson: That's funny. Alison Prince: I even called them and they're like, "Yeah, no. We just don't work with Cambodia." I'm like, "Wait, what? You realize what year it is." They said, "Yeah, there's just a lot of stuff." I'm like, okay, I don't wan to get into it. There was a couple days that we couldn't do it in Cambodia. I did, I related our experiences of scorpions and elephants and crazy stuff that we ran into and how that related to business. I did a Facebook Live. We're on day 19 today. I did it and I'm jotting down how fast that page is growing. In 17 days it had grown over 1000 followers, which I was pretty excited about. Then the next half the month I'm going to be doing that and then adding more. I'm documenting my journey. I'll do it on the Facebook page, and then I've got a closed group, Because I Can Clan group. Then I'm sharing with people over there what I'm doing, so they can watch what I'm doing. What you guys do, watch the master's hands. We go out there, we test it. We tell people what we're doing and what works and what doesn't work. Then they go out there and then they replicate it. Anyways, long story short, Because I Can Clan on Facebook, or my Instagram page. Then if they want to sign up for the course, that's 0-100k.com. You can find out all the information on the course. How people can make this a reality, if they want to get their kids going on it. Like my girls, they have their college education ready to go. They've got their savings accounts set up. They actually set up Roth IRAs this year. My eight and nine year old little boy, they have Roth IRAs right now. Stephen Larsen: I don't even have that. That's awesome. Alison Prince: It's a gift that we can give them as parents to be able to set them up financially when they hit certain ages. You've got to think through the process of, no, they're not going to be able to get all that money when they're 18 and go crazy with it. We've set up milestones so they can get it when they're this age or this age or this age. They have something, and they're eight and nine years old right now. Imagine what it's going to be like when they retire. Anyways, I talk about that kind of stuff because it's life changing. Stephen Larsen: It is. Alison Prince: I want others to be able to do it too, because it's not hard. You just have to listen to people. I think that's the biggest thing. Listen and do. You have to be a doer. You have to make things happen. Stephen Larsen: Yeah, and you can't be so afraid of appearing imperfect. I think that's the biggest killer. Alison Prince: Yeah. Stephen Larsen: I know it's one of the biggest killers, in my opinion, of entrepreneurs. Actually being vulnerable with your marketing, and getting out and sharing stories. Sharing the successes, but even more importantly the failures, if you are afraid of appearing imperfect. I always bring this up and people are always sick of me saying it. Again, when you start down the entrepreneurial path, like your imperfections explode in your face and you can't move on till you fix them. Anyway, it's awesome to have a person like you who's walked down the path. You know what it's like and you've been very successful. It's really cool to see. You're not afraid of messing up or being imperfect, or hey that test didn't work, and being public about it. That's a huge key. Alison Prince: You want to hear something funny? Stephen Larsen: Yes I do. Alison Prince: When I did my course, I set a date. Stephen, I set that date way too early but I wanted to push myself. I had stayed up for probably two weeks solid, just trying to get it done. I bought Liz Benny's course on the whole, how to set up everything for a course. Which Liz Benny, props to her, she is an amazing, amazing woman, a very wonderful teacher. When I did, oh my gosh, talk about a hot mess. When I did the course, I did the master class, it went well. I had people buying the course after. I had linked them to Liz Benny's course. People would buy the course and then they'd say, "Alison, how come I see a lady that's like talking about monkeys?" Which is her course, Social Media Monkey. I'm like, "Oh my gosh I forgot to change her link out." Then it gets even better. Then the payment plan, I didn't know that Stripe, when you do a payment plan it automatically sets it to a free 30 day trial, so I had given everybody my course for free that signed up for the payment plan. I'm like, oh my gosh. Then it gets even better, because why not, right? I put a huge type, like ginormously huge typo in the guarantee. I said, "100% money back guarantee if you are happy with the course." Stephen Larsen: Usually we don't care about typos that much, that's kind of a big one though. Alison Prince: That's a huge, huge typo. I am the perfect example of just do it. I ended up selling over, I think it was 26 courses my very first launch, and it was a complete hot mess. Stephen Larsen: I remember that. You did it, you crushed it. You just did it. Alison Prince: I just did it. You go out there knowing you're going to make mistakes. You tell people, say, "You guys, the tech's probably going to be screwed up because this is my first time, but the information that I have is valuable." It was. I was confident in what the offer was. I was not confident on the technology. They were patient with me and they were like, "It's okay. It's okay." I was able to get Liz Benny's course off there and direct them to my course. Get the payments fixed. Change the guarantee. I didn't have one person ask for their money back, because of what I was giving them. Because they were so excited about the offer, that they were fine with the mistakes. I think that we don't give ourselves enough credit, and we're too scared. Don't be scared. People are there to help you because they want to be helped too. Stephen Larsen: Yeah, they're all making it up. Alison Prince: Just do it. Yup. Mistakes and all Stephen. Everybody listening, who cares, just go do it. People need you. They need your information. They need your product, so just get out there and do it with mistakes and all. Stephen Larson: Yeah. I can't remember, I think it was Dan Kennedy, or I can't remember who it was, but he says, "You have an obligation to sell." If you've got something, it's actually an obligation. Alison Prince: Agreed. Stephen Larsen: Get out there and just do it. You owe it to your message. Alison Prince: Yup. You owe it to, I don't know, we were given talents, so let's go out there and share our talents. Let's do the best that we can, and live that Because I Can Clan life. Live how we want, because we can. Stephen Larsen: That's so true. Guys, go check out AlisonJPrince.com. 0-100k.com, I love that course, so good. The Because I Can Clan, the Facebook page. Alison Prince is the real deal. Super authentic. Very, very genuine, and is willing to be vulnerable whenever she makes mistakes like the rest of us. No reason to hide behind your own, because we all make them. Alison Prince: That's right. Stephen Larsen: Anyways, thank you so much Alison for being on the show, really appreciate it and all the value you gave. Alison Prince: Yeah. Thank you, it's been fun. 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.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
