Podcasts about okay there

Jonnie and Codey talk through the week's news and cover Fae Farm Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:01:52: What Have We Been Up To 00:11:01: News 00:33:22: Fae Farm 01:15:40: Outro Links Wildmender on Steam Spells and Secrets Release Date Spirit of the Island Console Release Haunted Chocolatier New Screenshots Stardew Pet Hats Animal Crossing Lego Fae Farm Contact Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:30) Codey: Hello farmers and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Codey and we’re here today to talk about cottagecore games. (0:00:35) Jonny: And my name is Jonnie. (0:00:37) Jonny: Woo! (0:00:41) Codey: Woo! As always transcripts are available in the show notes and on the website and today’s topic is Fae Farm. Woo! (0:01:00) Codey: So I am an added human on this so I was not initially on Fae Farm so I did not play the game but I am here to ask Johnny all of the very important questions about Fae Farm and make sure that we get all the coverage. You’re gonna get grilled. Did you prepare for the test? Did you study for the test? (0:01:24) Jonny: I prepared for all of my other school tests. (0:01:26) Codey: You [laughs] (0:01:30) Codey: - What was your scores on most tests? (0:01:34) Codey: Okay. (0:01:38) Codey: Well, that’s great. (0:01:40) Codey: So, yeah, you’re gonna do great. (0:01:42) Codey: Okay, so we’re gonna talk about Faith Farm. (0:01:46) Codey: And before that, we have some news to go over. (0:01:49) Codey: Concerned Ape just trying to dominate the news cycle as always. (0:01:53) Codey: But before that, Johnny, what have you been up to? (0:01:56) Jonny: have I been up to? This is a game that I really like, and it’s called Cassette Beasts, and this week they came out with their DLC. I should have looked up the name of the DLC, it’s like Pair of the Unknown, or something to that effect, and it’s excellent. If you like Cassette Beasts, (0:02:14) Jonny: which everybody should like Cassette Beasts, this is more Cassette Beasts. It doesn’t. (0:02:20) Jonny: It adds stuff in the way you want DLC to add stuff, where it’s like, that’s cool, (0:02:25) Jonny: extra world build. (0:02:26) Jonny: I’m playing it on Xbox. (0:02:27) Jonny: I think I did play it initially on Game Pass, and then I enjoyed it so much. (0:02:41) Codey: What are you playing it on? (0:02:46) Codey: Okay. (0:02:47) Codey: With the game pass. (0:02:55) Jonny: I just wanted to. (0:02:56) Jonny: I don’t think the DLC is available through Game Pass, I think you have to buy that separately. (0:03:09) Jonny: And the game is only like, the game is really cheap. (0:03:13) Jonny: I get the feeling it’s like 25 bucks in New Zealand, which would put it like, probably below. (0:03:20) Codey: Yeah, so I’m seeing it on Steam, it’s $20, but less, it’s currently 25% off. (0:03:29) Jonny: Yeah, so I think it’s the same thing on Xbox, I think there’s a sale on there, so… (0:03:33) Jonny: Um, yeah, it’s just like, if you like Pokémon, and you know, you want to play a game that’s actually fun, um, play Cassette Beasts and don’t play Pokémon. (0:03:41) Codey: Oh, the developer is currently playing right now on something, I don’t know what this is. (0:03:51) Jonny: that was really dangerous to tell me why we’re in the middle of recording an episode you should play cassette beasts but I keep saying that to everybody so anyway I feel like that’s all I’ve really been really been doing oh the idea of the thing is like Marvel snap which we very occasionally talk about on the show is still really good and really fun. (0:03:52) Codey: Yeah, I have. (0:03:53) Codey: I’m sorry, we’ll try and get through this really quickly. (0:04:00) Codey: But yeah, I have not played Cassette Beast, I’m sorry. (0:04:07) Codey: I know I should. (0:04:14) Codey: Okay. (0:04:18) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:04:20) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:04:21) Jonny: I’m still sticking with that, and I feel like it’s way longer than I expected to stick with a mobile card game, but it’s just very good, very fun. (0:04:32) Codey: big enjoing. (0:04:33) Codey: Okay, yeah, I don’t play that either. (0:04:38) Codey: ‘Cause that beast looks really cute though. (0:04:40) Codey: If I had time to play a game on like a console, (0:04:45) Codey: that would be what I would probably be playing. (0:04:47) Jonny: Yeah. What have you been up to? (0:04:47) Codey: I have been up to insect stuff, woo. (0:04:52) Codey: So I had, I went and harassed legislators (0:04:59) Codey: the state capitol last week. (0:05:02) Codey: and was like, “hey, we need people to support insects and insect conservation and no one’s in charge of that right now.” (0:05:08) Codey: and that’s an issue. (0:05:09) Codey: and I got three of them to say, “yes, that is an issue. Let’s write legislation to make it someone’s problem.” (0:05:15) Codey: So that’s cool. Excited about that. Just gotta like, contact them now with some draft legislation, which is cool. (0:05:23) Codey: I also had this thing called the Great Insect Fair, which is my university’s like, big extension outreach things. (0:05:32) Codey: about insects, so everyone that does insect science at my university has like, a little table and they talk about their research. (0:05:39) Codey: We had over 3,000 people show up, which was great. (0:05:44) Codey: My club made $1,800, which is also great because we use that to support students. (0:05:51) Codey: Yeah. (0:05:51) Jonny: That’s pretty amazing that’s a lot of people to bug you guys Ahhhhhh… laughs (0:05:59) Codey: We bugged them actually (0:06:02) Codey: Cuz we had people hold like we had at cockroaches and Tarantulas and scorpions and things that people could hold We had I brought my bearded dragon and someone else also brought rats and so you could feed them Little mealworms, which is really fun Yeah for games I’ve been playing I’m still playing Pokemon go and I actually (0:06:29) Codey: I’m going to Hawaii in a week and I just found out that there’s a specific Pokemon that’s only available in Hawaii. (0:06:37) Codey: So I’m pretty stoked about that. So I’m gonna get a bunch of Comfey and bring them back for people. Yeah. Have you not? (0:06:44) Jonny: Nice, I’m still shocked at how big Pokemon Go is. (0:06:47) Jonny: Like, I just… I don’t like Pokemon Go. I just… I didn’t play after the first week. It’s not for me. (0:06:56) Codey: Okay. They’ve definitely fixed a lot and like made it a lot more. (0:07:02) Codey: Enjoyable and easier for like new people to start, which is really nice and yeah I still I still play it every day. I play that every day. I play Pikmin Bloom every day. Something I don’t play every day but I wish I remembered it every day is my Tetris game. I now have 382,000 points. (0:07:27) Jonny: So you are getting ever closer to the million you need for this cruise. (0:07:31) Jonny: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What do you mean either one million or two million? (0:07:32) Codey: Either one million or two million but yes. Depends on the cruise. (0:07:38) Codey: Some cruises are a million, some cruises are two million. It depends on which one you want. (0:07:39) Jonny: Okay. (0:07:43) Jonny: I am still very much in the category of this is a scam, Cody. (0:07:45) Codey: I’m excited. (0:07:48) Jonny: I feel like if you get on this cruise, you’re going to be like kidnapped, and then we’re going to turn this into a real crime podcast where we’re like trying to track you down. (0:07:57) Codey: Well currently all of the cruises that they have are sold out so. (0:08:02) Codey: There’s two million and five million and let’s see they had five cruises available. One was a seven-day Alaska cruise. Actually there were two seven-day Alaska cruises. There was a five-day Mexican Riviera cruise and then a five-day cruise. This doesn’t say where. Western Caribbean cruise goes to various ports starts in flow write-up. (0:08:32) Codey: Oh and then comes back to Florida. (0:08:34) Codey: Interesting. (0:08:36) Jonny: Okay, I like the point of getting on a cruise in Florida would be to not come back to Florida (0:08:41) Codey: right? I don’t want to come back. I just like, I think that one of the cruises went like some of the Alaskan cruises start you in Vancouver, British Columbia and it ends in Alaska so then you have to find a way back. So that’s like interesting to me why the other like that the other one you come back. Yeah these are the crews these are these are cruises that (0:09:11) Codey: are booked for the April April 2024 sailing there’s a couple of them there is another one that’s April 22nd April 29th so they have a couple different embarkings of these cruises but they’re all currently sold out but it doesn’t matter because I don’t have the money anyway or the points anyway there are 2 million or 5 million depending on which cruise but I did want to see one (0:09:41) Codey: for 1 million. The other game that I’m still playing daily is Usagi Shima which is the one that I played the adorable bunny collection game that I played with Al. I am only missing one bunny and I am about to Google it because I don’t know how to get this one bunny. Also some of the bunnies are like we like. (0:10:11) Codey: Our favorite toy is currently a question mark and I’m like that’s interesting. I have everything. I’ve purchased everything. (0:10:19) Codey: Like anytime I look at these The store there’s nothing that I don’t have so like How is the your favorite toy not not there? (0:10:31) Codey: I don’t know if she’s gonna the developer is gonna like release more. I don’t know but Very grumpy about that (0:10:40) Jonny: Maybe you just haven’t done the secret bunny handshake password to unlock the secret item (0:10:46) Codey: I must not have. I do still have some bunnies that I need to like become their best friend. (0:10:53) Codey: So like think of like Stardew Valley where you have hearts for everyone. (0:10:58) Codey: There are some bunnies that I still need to do hearts for. (0:11:01) Codey: Uh yeah and that’s what we’ve been up to. (0:11:07) Codey: Whoo! Okay so we’ve got some news. First up is Wild Mender. (0:11:16) Codey: And it is out now on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation. So this is the game where it’s a desert gardening survival game where you find like a spring in the garden or in the desert and you’re using that spring and bringing things back to that spring to like rejuvenate the world. (0:11:35) Codey: And it says also you’re cleansing the corruption that turned the world into the near dead wasteland before you. They literally say, “Or just make a pretty garden.” (0:11:46) Codey: That works too. Interesting. So, yeah, this is currently $25 on Steam. (0:11:55) Codey: I just realized I didn’t. Oh, Windows. Windows only. No Mac. (0:12:02) Codey: And they also said that if you share your garden screenshot in their Discord, (0:12:08) Codey: you enter a competition to win a plushie. They have two plushies. (0:12:13) Codey: the third. (0:12:13) Jonny: And this frog plushie looks so derpy it’s kinda great. (0:12:16) Codey: It is really… it kind of is giving me from Futurama that frog from… (0:12:24) Codey: It’s not a frog, it’s a toad. (0:12:24) Jonny: Yes, yes it absolutely is (0:12:30) Codey: Hypnotoad. (0:12:31) Codey: It’s giving me Hypnotoad vibes. (0:12:32) Jonny: Yep. 100% (0:12:33) Codey: Yeah, what are you… what are your thoughts on Wild Mender? (0:12:37) Codey: Are you a Wild Mender? (0:12:38) Codey: Is this up your alley or… (0:12:39) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:12:39) Jonny: No, it doesn’t look like that sort of game for me, because I’m not a big survival game person. (0:12:46) Jonny: I like something a little bit more directed, I think. (0:12:50) Jonny: But I like the idea of what this is trying to do. (0:12:53) Jonny: So I feel like if I was feeling like playing a survival game, I would be keen to try this one, because of the sort of more gardening style aspect rejuvenating the land. (0:13:04) Jonny: I think that’s really compelling to me, and something that I’ve kind of wanted. (0:13:07) Jonny: I think in one of the first episodes. (0:13:09) Jonny: was on, Al and I kind of talked about like the idea of you know being able to change the landscape in a farming game which this is obviously sort of getting into but probably more in that survival game sort of way rather than I’m kind of more hoping for it on a smaller scale right where it’s maybe a little bit more directed and bigger impacts than I think you would see in this sort of game but it looks cool. I think if you, you know, like a survival game and like a farming game this looks like a really fun fun little crossover to try. (0:13:44) Codey: Yeah, they do say that they Allows you to customize your experience from adjusting the difficulty all the way down to toggling sandstorms on and off There’s a lot of options to ensure that you can make the world work for you So maybe like you can get rid of a lot of the survival aspects And kind of be in like creativity mode a la minecraft, so (0:14:09) Jonny: Yeah, seems cool. (0:14:12) Codey: Next up is spell (0:14:14) Codey: and secrets this now has a release date this is the gosh what did he say Harry Potter without the turf so this is Harry yeah yeah if you really liked the world of Harry Potter and you want to go to a magical school and defend your magical school but (0:14:27) Jonny: Yep, that was… (0:14:29) Jonny: I watched the trailer and I was like “Wow, this looks like Harry Potter, but there’s no problematic people…” (0:14:35) Jonny: Well, there’s no problematic people that we know of involved. (0:14:44) Codey: you also believe that trans women are women because they are this is the game for you so yeah you it’s the release date is November 9th it’s coming out on switch PlayStation 5 Xbox series s and X and Steam and PC and the new trailer that they have did you watch the trailer Johnny there’s curling (0:15:10) Jonny: I did. I did. (0:15:12) Jonny: Oh, I might have missed the curling in there, but that… (0:15:15) Codey: at one point they’re not doing it in they’re doing it like on grass it’s like a turf but it’s it’s 100% curling it’s at about 38 seconds in (0:15:16) Jonny: Bye. (0:15:26) Jonny: Sorry, just… (0:15:28) Jonny: I was not expecting both uses of the word “terf” to come up in this conversation, but here we are. (0:15:34) Jonny: Yup. (0:15:38) Codey: oh my gosh you’re not wrong yeah (0:15:44) Codey: so they show you playing wizard jet let’s probably just chess but they show you playing chess and then right after the chess part they show curling but it’s magical curling it’s really interesting (0:15:58) Jonny: I think the thing that really… I can’t remember the name of the game but it was kind of like Magica or something and it was just kind of a game where you ran around as wizards and you kind of combined spells and like they had lots of weird elemental effects. This game kind of gives me similar vibes to that where it’s kind of like that 45 degree overhead sort of like action-adventure sort of vibe and just really playing off like “hey people just really like Harry Potter and this is kind of just like… (0:16:10) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:16:28) Jonny: um uh you know trying to do that and make it fun um and again I think it’s doing a thing that I kind of really like at the moment which is um games kind of being clear about what they are and being simpler like so many particularly AAA games at the moment are just so big and bloated and over complicated um and they’re trying to be all things to all people and this looks like a game It’s like hey, we’re a spells action adventure game Like you make your own character, that looks cool, you’re out of school Like there’s a lot of familiarity around it around just making what looks like a fun action adventure game. So this looks fun (0:17:10) Codey: yeah it looks really cute um it gives me it reminds me like the top-down style like you said like the 45 degree angle kind of reminds me of like the gauntlet series I don’t know if you ever played gauntlet but I loved that series and the fact that like when you open a door it like reveals the room behind it but until then it’s just kind of like empty space I don’t know it just it’s it’s It’s giving gauntlet, it’s giving… (0:17:40) Codey: It just seems like it’d be really fun. (0:17:43) Codey: And the fact that you can play with two people simultaneously, (0:17:45) Codey: so you and a friend can be exploring this world together, (0:17:49) Codey: is really cool. (0:17:50) Codey: So, yeah, Spells and Secrets releasing on the 9th of November on all of the platforms at the same time. (0:17:59) Codey: And they will have a physical release for a couple of them, (0:18:02) Codey: but it’s, I think, at a different time. (0:18:04) Codey: Spirit of the Island is getting a console release, (0:18:10) Codey: and this game is already out now on Steam for $18. (0:18:17) Codey: And at the time of recording, it’s 55% off, so it’s only $8. (0:18:22) Codey: But I don’t know if this is going to be there. (0:18:26) Codey: It says it’s got, like, a, I think, 44-minute– (0:18:31) Codey: 44-hour countdown, so I don’t know if it’s still there or not. (0:18:34) Codey: But I did see on their Twitter that they had another. (0:18:40) Codey: sale recently. They’re part of an indie sale. So I think that they’re on a lot of sales. So definitely keep your eye out for that if you want the Steam version. But the physical versions. So they have PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and S, and the Nintendo Switch. All getting physical releases. And oops sorry the retail version is only. PlayStation 5 and Switch. But they’re all coming out on… what’s the date? Where is it? Thank you. The 19th of October. (0:19:16) Jonny: 19th of October. (0:19:18) Jonny: I think this is kind of one of those games that’s in the category of “I would quite like to try when it comes to consoles, and now it’s coming to consoles.” (0:19:28) Jonny: It’s coming at a really busy time, so I feel like it might be one of those ones that, unfortunately, goes on the backburner until I get a bit of space. (0:19:30) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:19:37) Jonny: But really excited for it. (0:19:49) Codey: just the fact that they have a Paradise Edition, I guess, so on the physical releases for the PS5 and the Switch, they have this thing called a Paradise Edition where you get like stickers and a cute little tourist guide, but there are no prices available. Oh, $25, just kidding, (0:20:05) Codey: $25 is what they will be. I don’t know how much more of the Paradise Edition is, but (0:20:12) Codey: all of the console games will be $25 no matter where you are, euros or dollars. (0:20:19) Codey: It’s probably more for you, isn’t it, Donnie? (0:20:21) Codey: Yeah. (0:20:21) Jonny: Uhhh, I’m guessing it will be more for us. (0:20:24) Jonny: It will be probably more like $35 where I am. (0:20:25) Codey: Dang! (0:20:28) Jonny: But our dollars are… (0:20:35) Codey: Unfortunate, okay, and then yeah, Concerned Date just trying to dominate the, oh and I think Al said this, just trying to own the news cycle, right? (0:20:46) Codey: He’s just trying to make sure that every time we have podcasts, we have something to talk about and we bring them up again. (0:20:53) Codey: So for Haunted Chocolatier, he posted, Concerned Date posted four new screenshots as a thank you for the fact that he now has a million followers on Twitter, which is bananas. (0:21:05) Codey: Um, what do you think of these screenshots, Johnny? (0:21:08) Jonny: Yep, these look like screenshots from a game they’re concerned I’ve made. (0:21:12) Jonny: Like… (0:21:16) Jonny: I don’t want to downplay it, but I’m a little bit like… (0:21:19) Jonny: Until there’s real news, like screenshots are just screenshots, right? (0:21:23) Jonny: Like, yep, that’s… I don’t know. (0:21:25) Jonny: I didn’t… probably look particularly deep at them, because I was just like, (0:21:29) Jonny: “Yes, these look like, you know, ones of forest, ones…” (0:21:32) Jonny: I can’t even remember them, I’m reopening it, but yeah, like there’s the, you know, the library, (0:21:39) Jonny: I think we’ve seen before, a house, a fountain, and yes, these are like… (0:21:43) Jonny: These could be locations in Stardew Valley, except for the fact that we know that they’re not locations in Stardew Valley. (0:21:48) Codey: Mm-hmm. We know that they’re in a different game. (0:21:50) Jonny: That’s… yeah. (0:21:53) Jonny: Um, and I’m not trying to be down on it, it’s just more, “I don’t really want to be…” (0:21:58) Jonny: Like, I want to get excited for Haunted Chocolate here when it is close to coming out, (0:22:02) Jonny: not when it’s just a thing that we don’t know any more. (0:22:06) Codey: Yeah, I’m usually the same, but I do love the conspiracy theory, like people on Twitter who are nitpicking every little thing that they see in these screenshots. (0:22:20) Codey: I do love that people, when people get really hyped like that. (0:22:23) Codey: So for example, in the house, it looks like it’s a shop because there’s a shop portion of his house and then there’s like a little kitchen and then the bedroom. (0:22:32) Codey: No bathroom. (0:22:33) Codey: Just realized I don’t think he’s ever made is there our bathrooms (0:22:36) Codey: Are there bathrooms in any concerned ape things? (0:22:38) Codey: Just people just don’t have to go to the bathroom? (0:22:40) Codey: People in concerned apes world do not have bodily functions confirmed Um… (0:22:41) Jonny: I don’t recall dipping. (0:22:49) Jonny: So now you’ve opened this door, it’s not going to close that quickly. (0:22:54) Jonny: I was reading a book, like I really got into lit RPG style books, you know fantasy style RPG books, but it’s kind of often heavily inspired by video games. (0:23:05) Jonny: And one of the books I was reading recently, I can’t even remember which one, but I addressed it by basically being in this world, I didn’t want to address bathroom stuff, which you never address in books anyway, but they explicitly referenced the fact that magic just makes the poo disappear. (0:23:15) Codey: Mm-hmm Okay There’s just you take a magic pill or something and then that sits at the bottom it sits at the bottom of your gastrointestinal system and Any time anything gets within a certain distance of it. It’s like magicked away. Where does it go? (0:23:20) Jonny: No, just the magic. (0:23:22) Jonny: Yup. (0:23:23) Jonny: Yup. (0:23:24) Jonny: Well, see, that’s the- Well, that’s the fun thing, right? (0:23:41) Codey: Can you like make it go somewhere? Can you make it go to your enemy’s house? (0:23:47) Jonny: it’s never explained where it goes but but presumably (0:23:49) Jonny: it does go somewhere so maybe there is somewhere that is just you know the entire collection of humanity’s poo (0:23:55) Codey: Pooh Island. Maybe. Interesting. Well, in this screenshot of the shop, there’s like a little creature in the back that kind of looks like a thylacine to me, but it’s like obviously a, (0:24:10) Codey: you probably know all about thylacines because you’re down there. You don’t know what a thylacine is. So a thylacine is a, well it was a (0:24:11) Jonny: What’s a thylacine? What’s that in human words? (0:24:18) Jonny: I only know human words. (0:24:25) Codey: marsupial that looked kind of like a dog that existed in Australia, but the last one was killed in like the 1920s. So we have like some, but you’re down there. I know, I know. I got the Kiwis. (0:24:36) Jonny: Cody, Cody, I’m in New Zealand. We do not have the marsupials. That sounds like some Australian nonsense that’s like… (0:24:42) Jonny: Yeah, we’re in New Zealand we have birds. We love birds. That’s that’s our thing. We like dinosaurs. We’re way cool. (0:24:53) Codey: But someone on the Twitter said– (0:24:55) Codey: so saw this like Thylacine-looking little adorable thing and they said– (0:24:59) Codey: This is– I’m gonna credit them. Who is it? Mads. Start up with Mads. (0:25:05) Codey: Said, “Is that one of the animals you put the skeleton together for on Ginger Island?” (0:25:10) Codey: So possibly I’ve– so I’ve not ever done Ginger Island, so I don’t know. (0:25:10) Jonny: How interesting I don’t think so it doesn’t (0:25:19) Codey: But there’s this little creature, so that’s a deep cut that someone had. (0:25:25) Codey: Second screenshot of them in the forest. He’s using a bow and arrow. (0:25:34) Jonny: I mean, sure, but like, isn’t it just kind of like the slingshot? (0:25:38) Jonny: I mean, yes, but functionally. (0:25:38) Codey: No, it’s got a bow and arrow. It’s very clearly a bow and arrow. (0:25:42) Codey: No, it’s different. It’s different. (0:25:47) Codey: You’re at like a fountain, and it’s really the mermaid fountain. It’s really pretty. (0:25:54) Codey: And then, yeah, I guess there’s not much to say about the library other than the fact that (0:25:58) Jonny: actually so the thing that gets me excited and it’s from the forest screenshot is the inventory view um so it has like uh what I presume is a tool slot uh where it looks like there’s a stick or something in there and then there’s like a bow that’s selected and there’s a present and something else so it looks like a different version of the inventory system to stardew valley which for me is really exciting because that’s the thing I don’t like about stardew valley (0:26:04) Codey: uh-huh (0:26:19) Codey: Yeah. (0:26:20) Codey: And you also have a health bar. (0:26:26) Codey: With hit points in it. (0:26:27) Jonny: Yes. (0:26:28) Jonny: Yes, with hit points and… (0:26:31) Codey: Yeah. (0:26:32) Codey: And then is that a bowling ball or a coconut? (0:26:36) Jonny: I’m not sure what that is, because it’s definitely not a bowling ball, because there’s too many holes. (0:26:42) Jonny: I also think it’s… (0:26:42) Codey: They might bowl differently, you never know. (0:26:44) Jonny: I also don’t think it’s a coco… I don’t know what it is, but yeah, it looks… (0:26:49) Jonny: The two options feel like bowling ball and coconut, and I feel like it’s neither of those. (0:26:54) Jonny: Maybe it’s a chocolate? That would make sense. (0:26:57) Jonny: I’m gonna say it’s a chocolate. (0:26:59) Codey: Okay it’s a chocolate bowling ball. Okay so yeah those are the screenshots and our ramblings about them and the twitter comments about them. (0:27:12) Codey: Confirmation of archery which we got a hint at with started 1.6 last week when we talked about it but by we I mean Kevin L. But concerned ape was not done he wanted us to talk about him (0:27:29) Codey: so uh when was this yesterday he posted hats on cats and dogs so these are it’s just and it’s just cats and dogs from persoupsardou question mark haunted talk the tier question mark no no idea but they have hats on (0:27:55) Jonny: I feel like these are from Stardew, the only one I’m not sure about is the bottom left image, (0:28:02) Jonny: I’m not quite sure where that one is. But anyway, hats look cute on catsanddoll. (0:28:05) Codey: But yeah, they do. And there’s a big old bow on one of the dogs. So we’ve got like a cowboy hat. (0:28:13) Codey: We’ve got like, I don’t know what to call the hat on the top right. What would you call that hat? (0:28:21) Codey: It’s got a feather in it. (0:28:24) Jonny: uh I am not a hat expert so I don’t know what to call any of these hats like it’s uh it kind of reminds me of like the zoro style zoro yeah (0:28:33) Codey: Okay, the bottom. (0:28:35) Codey: Ooh, yeah, yeah, Zorro style hat. (0:28:42) Codey: I’m sure that Gaucho hat is what people have called it online, or Zorro hat. (0:28:51) Codey: Zorro hat or Gaucho hat. (0:28:54) Codey: Al probably loves that we’re diving this deep into these little pictures. (0:28:58) Codey: Probably not going to edit this out at all. (0:29:01) Codey: Um, the bottom left hat looks like if (0:29:05) Codey: a grandma was like, “I need to go to the market today.” (0:29:10) Codey: This is the type of hat that she’d put on, you know? (0:29:13) Jonny: Yeah, this looks like the one of the first hats that the kittens sell you. (0:29:18) Jonny: So the kittens sell you the hats? (0:29:20) Jonny: Mouse? (0:29:20) Jonny: Is a mice who sells you the hats? (0:29:22) Codey: think it’s mice. And then the bow is like the gigantic obnoxiously large bow. I would think like this bow is like Lady and the Tramp style bow. Like one of the one of the big bows that Lady had that’s like way too big for her little tiny body. So yeah, hats on cats and dogs and some screenshots. (0:29:22) Jonny: God. (0:29:23) Jonny: Yeah. (0:29:48) Jonny: And none of this is actually news, because it’s just pictures. (0:29:50) Codey: Just picture. (0:29:52) Codey: And speculation. Woo! (0:29:57) Codey: Since we love pictures and speculation, but possibly, whatchamacallit, video and speculation. (0:30:06) Codey: Oh my gosh. (0:30:08) Codey: Lego Animal Crossing. (0:30:14) Jonny: Yeah, so the video just shows like minifigs and it had like, you know, your classic characters from Animal Crossing. So you’ve got like Isabel and Tom Nook and a few others, which is cool. But I think the real speculation is are they going to be real Animal Crossing LEGO sets coming? And I feel like that seems very likely, given how much LEGO (0:30:44) Jonny: loves doing IP crossover stuff now. I would be very surprised if it wasn’t. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought it made sense because you could do everything from, you know, (0:30:58) Jonny: Nook Store to the museum. You know, you could go back to some of the old games and do like the coffee shop. You could do like the play a house, all sorts of things. Like it just feels like a really really natural collaboration. (0:31:14) Jonny: and a collaboration that is going to make many of us agree. (0:31:20) Codey: I mean that’s my thing is like is this hinting at figurines and like sets that you can purchase or is this hinting at like a video game because they have like I mean but like could they I mean is that it does say minifigure what okay when the balloon goes up over again this is an 11 second video y’all we’re really okay it says lego the lego logo and the (0:31:29) Jonny: Oh, I… did not give video game 5% (0:31:50) Codey: minifigure the minifigure I don’t know what that means our trademarks of the lego group I don’t (0:31:58) Jonny: Presumably it’s the trademark that they use for like because they I think they’ve done some blind box sort of stuff With with the minifigs like the the Lego the Lego people That would be my working assumption (0:32:14) Codey: I mean you could also, I mean you could have Tom Nook from every generation in this too because he looks like he’s wearing New Horizons, his New Horizons outfit, but he could wear, (0:32:27) Codey: you could get him wearing his wild world outfit, you know, like there’s, I feel like they’re gonna make a lot of money off of this. (0:32:35) Codey: This is from Nintendo of America by the way, I don’t think we said who tweeted this. (0:32:42) Codey: And yeah, people are just talking about. (0:32:44) Codey: How they’re ready to lose money and ready to be broke in the comments. (0:32:48) Jonny: Yeah, like I’ve been on the border of becoming a LEGO person for a long time and the thing that’s kind of held me at bay is I’m not big into most of the IPs that they’ve done collabs with, (0:32:49) Codey: So. (0:32:59) Codey: Oh yeah. (0:33:01) Codey: Yep, I don’t have money so… (0:33:08) Codey: That’s what stopped me. (0:33:11) Codey: And when I do have money it goes to my dogs. So yeah. (0:33:15) Codey: That’s the news. (0:33:18) Codey: So Johnny we’re here to talk about Faith Farm. So what… (0:33:20) Jonny: Whoo (0:33:29) Codey: Faith Farm, what is it? How are you? What are your thoughts? (0:33:34) Jonny: So at its core, Fey Farm is another iteration take on the Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, (0:33:45) Jonny: Story of Seasons, whichever one you want to sort of pick as the base. But it’s another iteration of that formula. So it’s farming… it’s probably more in the crafting end of the spectrum, (0:33:58) Jonny: so it’s a lot more crafting driven than it is farming driven. Farming is more of a thing (0:34:04) Jonny: in the game, rather than sort of being a central point. But it’s, you know, you… I think the starting is you have sailed to the island where the stuff is happening. Anyway, you’re a new resident and they’re like “hey there’s an old abandoned farm, would you like it?” You say yes, (0:34:24) Jonny: you start clearing up the farm and, you know, doing the quests and all of those sorts of things. So (0:34:30) Jonny: At its base, like the core gameplay loop, it is one of one of the most popular games (0:34:35) Codey: Yeah, looking at the launch trailer, it looks very Animal Crossing-esque, but with farming and magic. (0:34:43) Jonny: uh it’s so it looks that way and uh maybe maybe we’ll get into the so so I have a very conflicted take on this game right so if I was going to summarize my overall thoughts is that um this game plays really well but overall I do not enjoy this game because it’s missing some really really core elements and it’s helped me understand the things that I like in these sorts of games, but it is missing some really cool elements which (0:34:57) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:34:59) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:35:13) Jonny: are primarily around things like the story and the characters, which was very surprising to me because in a game like Fei Farm, and I guess probably to which probably just very quickly talk about why it’s called Fei Farm is that there are theories in the world, there is magic which we’ll talk about in a little bit, there is a theory realm which I have only really just got access to and it’s quite sparse but it kind of just seems like another area (0:35:44) Jonny: theories in it. So my expectation was that the story and interacting with the characters was going to be kind of a big part of the game. And weirdly it’s like yes there are quests and the quests drive a lot of what you do, but the characters are so non-factors in this game it is shocking. Like on day one you kind of learn that none of these people (0:36:13) Jonny: think interesting to say, like there is no interesting dialogue, they are not particularly distinctive like some of them have distinctive looks you’re like oh maybe this is the cool one there’s very few of the characters that are romanceable and the romanceable ones feel like they’re entirely separate from the characters that you interact with for most of the quest stuff. It’s just really odd how bland and boring the characters in this game are and how quickly they’re just like not a thing. (0:36:44) Codey: Mm-hmm, which is not normally when you’re playing these types of games. (0:36:52) Codey: People that play these types of games are really into the story of the people around you and why they’re there. (0:36:58) Codey: So not having that is a big black hole, I guess. (0:37:03) Jonny: Yeah, and I think for me, like the one of the really easiest comparisons that I’ll draw is, (0:37:09) Jonny: you know, they have all of their characters that represent the various things, so they have like the fishing guy. I couldn’t tell you the fishing guy’s name, just that he’s the he’s the guy that you talk to for the fishing stuff, and you compare it to a character like Willy in Stardew Valley, (0:37:23) Jonny: right? And Willy is just like a really great character in that he’s the fishing guy, but he’s, (0:37:30) Jonny: you know, a very passionate fisherman in a place where fishing (0:37:33) Jonny: maybe hasn’t been valued as much and he’s trying to look at it to get restarted and it comes through in his notice board quests, you know, like the way they’re framed and just the way his character speaks and his lines of dialogue where there’s a real character there that’s interesting and compelling beyond just being the fishing tutor, and that’s not the case in Fei Farm. (0:37:56) Codey: Mm-hmm Yeah, and it’s interesting cuz like on their website it says that They like it’s one of their big things is to grow lasting bonds They say our elaborate cast of neighbors will help you find your purpose Lean on them in times of need as you become a good citizen of Azoria. They might fall in love with you, too And it has like learn from the locals meet color for kick off colorful characters I don’t know why that was difficult find your soul mate bring friends home (0:38:26) Codey: so like this is Like it’s just so this is like maybe something that they’re hoping to develop or do you feel like it is what it is (0:38:39) Jonny: I kind of feel like it is what it is, like it’s… sometimes you look at something you go “oh there’s the basics of it there” but you know they could build on it. I don’t even feel like the basics are really there, like they all just have really generic… like on day one you have multiple characters kind of saying the same lines of dialogue to you. It’s not deep, the pool of romanciful characters is not particularly deep or interesting and you know… (0:39:09) Jonny: it’s an extreme version of the classic, like the few characters that you do like think “oh this one you know this one might be interesting” they’re just all not available for reasons that I don’t really understand. I did try to play with the system a little bit where it’s kind of like you just do fetch quests for you know the… and there’s friendship for the non-romanciful characters. (0:39:34) Jonny: But you just do fringe quests, or fetch quests to kind of build that. (0:39:39) Jonny: And then I did a date, you know effectively the cutscene once you get to a certain number of hearts with one of the characters, and it was very much one of those like “wow we could just put in any of the characters” like it was nothing specific to the character that I had picked, (0:39:51) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:39:53) Jonny: it was just like “we went on a picnic” and “hey I like you, you like me, great this was fun, let’s do it” like there was nothing special or unique to the character. I got no sense that I you know made a choice that was interesting. (0:40:09) Jonny: Or had any consequence, or was different to any of other choices. (0:40:13) Jonny: It was like, what? Which face looks the best? Which is, you know? (0:40:16) Codey: Yeah, not great. (0:40:17) Jonny: Like, it’s a video game. I’m not- (0:40:18) Codey: I mean that was me with Stardew. (0:40:20) Jonny: That’s not why I’m here. (0:40:24) Codey: That was a bad noodle. (0:40:25) Codey: And the first time I played Stardew, I was like, “Ooh, an emo boy!” (0:40:28) Codey: “I want the emo boy!” (0:40:31) Codey: But then, when you marry him, he’s–spoiler alert–he’s trash! (0:40:35) Codey: And I was like, “Oh, it’s not all about looks.” (0:40:39) Codey: Yeah. (0:40:39) Jonny: But that’s where you start and it changes from there right because you learn more about what the actual character is This is just like no which which? (0:40:47) Jonny: Which pixel combination do you think looks the best go with that one I guess So yeah, so that side of the game is very disappointing and kind of just because it’s sort of in the same realm Um, so there’s the there is the sort of story (0:40:51) Codey: Yeah, there’s not yeah, hmm (0:41:04) Jonny: Question and the quest system generally is is fine. You know, it’s kind of pushing you to do (0:41:09) Jonny: The next thing and in a you know similar way to most of these games do where it’s like Craft this thing or get to the bottom of the mine or you know Do do whatever this thing is and it kind of keeps you pushing along and that side of it’s quite compelling But the the biggest problem is so magic is part of the game and there’s a range of spells I think I unlocked two or three and the spells sort of help you clear stuff from the world so you can access more areas or (0:41:39) Jonny: Have so they have that use and I have a use on the combat side of things as well But when you unlock it, it’s kind of meant to be this big story moment So you do, you know a large fetch quest and you bring the the person that’s gonna teach you the spell a bunch of stuff You’re like, oh, this is gonna be really exciting and they say, you know Come and talk to me the next day and we’ll we’ll do the thing that we’re gonna do that will also Result you in learning the spell once you get really excited and then you go to bed and then (0:42:06) Jonny: Like a one-screen thing pops up that says “you and the character” (0:42:09) Jonny: went off and did the thing and then you just wake up in front of your house and now you know the spell. And the first spell I learned it took me a few days before I even recognized that I actually had the spell because I thought the game had glitched and I hadn’t the event hadn’t happened I didn’t realize that that one-screen thing was like the entirety of the thing so it’s really disappointing that you’re sort of building up to this big moment and in And the big moment is like a page in a book. (0:42:11) Codey: Mmm… (0:42:39) Jonny: Which is not a video game thing, like I didn’t get to… (0:42:42) Codey: Yeah, you didn’t get to like see you guys going off or anything like there’s no cut scene. It’s just you did it (0:42:43) Jonny: * (0:42:56) Jonny: Because you wake up on your farm, you don’t notice any change. (0:43:01) Jonny: Like there’s no immediate visual change that anything actually has happened, which is just (0:43:08) Codey: So the spells, is it like something that you can just do at any time or is it something that you have to have, like a store of magic and you can only do them when your store is full? (0:43:22) Codey: Mm-hmm. Okay. (0:43:22) Jonny: So it’s a mana system, and the mana effectively just works like stamina, so you can cast a certain number of spells a day effectively just in the same way that you can cut a certain number of trees or mine a certain number of rocks. (0:43:35) Jonny: So it kind of works fine, and the spells have interesting uses in combat in that they’re not just damage, so I think the second spell you get is a wind spell, which in the world it kind of clears some really heavy fog, (0:43:50) Jonny: but you can use it to knock enemies back. (0:43:52) Jonny: Which is a cool use of that spell, so it’s kind of that dual purpose. (0:43:53) Codey: Hmm Yeah Okay, so is it only you spells like you do you actually have like an axe and like a tool kit that allows you to Collect things from your environment or is it all pretty much through spells? (0:44:11) Jonny: No, so I’m actually surprised. So the spells kind of feel more like an add-on rather than the main part, so you still have all of the usual tools. And this is what’s really odd about this game, (0:44:23) Jonny: because this is the area where this game does things really, really right. So the way the tools work is for all of your base tools, so like your axe, your pickaxe, your watering can, (0:44:38) Jonny: those sorts of things. They’re… they… (0:44:41) Jonny: they auto… like, it will auto-select the tool based on the context that you’re at. (0:44:46) Jonny: So if your cursor is over the tree, then it will just automatically select the axe. (0:44:49) Codey: - Yeah. (0:44:51) Jonny: You don’t need to change to the axe. Same for the watering can, or like if you’re… (0:44:57) Jonny: if you’re over your crops, or if you’re in the mines, it’s just automatically the pickaxe, or if you’re on a diggable spot, it will be the spade. So you don’t have… (0:45:06) Jonny: you’re not constantly switching stuff, which is so nice, because you can kind of just run around and clean up your… (0:45:11) Jonny: farm really really quickly and you know there’s only a very small number of times I was like oh I thought I was pointing at this one thing and I was turns out I was pointing at something else so it used a tool that I wasn’t intending but those instances were so infrequent the convenience factor of that was really really nice the only tools that sort of aren’t on that wheel are your more like specialist tools so your wand is one your fishing rod is another and then there’s a bug catching it and that’s the… (0:45:41) Jonny: so you can you have to rotate between those ones which is generally fine because you’re often like okay I’ve done like I’m not doing work so I’m gonna move off the work tools and I’ll you know I’m gonna go catch bugs so I’ll select the bug catching tool the bugs are the bugs are great so the bug catching and fishing are kind of in the category of like really nice things to do where you’re sort of running around the world the fishings a little bit like So the fishing is a little bit (0:45:56) Codey: How are the bugs in this game? (0:46:11) Jonny: Animal Crossing style with the, you know, you need to cast in front of the fish and And there’s a bit of a reeling in minigame, which is fine. It’s not as difficult as the Stardew Valley one. So that’s okay the bugs you can Sneak up on and you have a chance to catch so the difficult ones you might need to have a few goes at at catching But they’re they’re really cool (0:46:36) Jonny: There’s bees in the game and they utilize the bees in a really cool way like you this you occasionally come (0:46:41) Jonny: Across a queen bee which you need to craft like your hives and things like that and then there’s also worker bees which you need to um uh craft Uh some some some like other like, you know Smaller sort of bee things. So I really love the way they use Use bees and it’s just kind of a nice little collectible thing that as you’re running around the world You’re like, oh, yeah, kind of just gonna catch some bugs or whatever. So it’s a nice little thing to to do (0:47:09) Codey: Do they look like regular bugs or do they look– (0:47:13) Jonny: In general, they kind of just look like regular. (0:47:23) Codey: Okay, so you’ve talked about the craft, not the crafting, you’ve talked about like the farming. Well, I guess you talked about just the tools themselves, (0:47:35) Codey: but like how do you, how does farming work in the game? (0:47:39) Jonny: Farming is kind of just like farming in other games, you know, you hoe the land, you plant the seed, you water the seed, and you know, you can use fertilizers to make it grow faster, you’ve got the crops that are just, you know, they’ll grow in three or four days and you harvest them once, and you’ve got the crops that will continue to be harvested over time, so there’s nothing particularly special or interesting happening from that respect, but It kind of works well. One really nice addition. (0:48:09) Jonny: And we’ll talk more about the world traversal in a bit. But you can go in the water, (0:48:14) Jonny: and when you’re in the water, or if it’s raining, your watering can just automatically fills up, (0:48:18) Jonny: which is just a really nice little quality of life thing. Because if you have forgotten to fill it up at the well after you’ve watered your stuff for the day, then it’s highly likely that you’ll just naturally fill it up over the course of the day with everything else that you’re doing. So that’s really nice. There’s animal farming as well. That kind of adds the little… (0:48:39) Jonny: …nuance of you need to interact with things every day, but they kind of like you based on have they been fed, have you packed them, and have they got sunlight? Which I really like the sort of have they got sunlight dimension. I think that’s pretty good. So that seems really cool. (0:48:57) Jonny: Only other thing I guess is just in terms of the types of crops, is that there’s flowers, (0:49:03) Jonny: which is cool. And you can do some flower crossbreeding, which seems kind of like a cool system and quite deep. (0:49:09) Jonny: So that seems like something that I kind of want to dig into more, which I’ve only really just started playing the surface of, because I don’t know that there’s seeds for every sort of flower. (0:49:19) Jonny: Maybe a little bit more like Animal Crossing, where there’s like the base colors for certain flowers and then you can crossbreed them. Yeah, yeah, so there’s that sort of thing. I get the sense that it’s sort of building towards there being more magical style of crops. I just haven’t got any yet, but I’m guessing they are in there. (0:49:22) Codey: Yeah, and then you put them next to each other. (0:49:39) Jonny: So, that’s pretty cool, and the best thing, so this is the best thing about farming, and this is the thing that this game does really, really well, because it’s all of the quality of life things, is you can move your planted crops. (0:49:52) Jonny: So if you’re like, I’ve put this in the wrong spot, or I want to adjust this to build something, you can move it, which is amazing. It’s so good. (0:49:55) Codey: Oh. (0:49:56) Codey: Yeah. (0:50:01) Codey: Well, and that’s something you could do in real life too. (0:50:05) Codey: You just get down to the roots and move your thing. (0:50:09) Codey: It’s not impossible. (0:50:09) Jonny: Yeah, yeah, it’s not it’s not impossible And it’s just so convenient because particularly with flower breeding when you’re like, oh I planted the wrong flower in the spot I didn’t want to crossbreed those two And you can just literally pick it up and swap it out for the one that you want. It’s really really convenient It’s such a nice little (0:50:29) Codey: So what do you do when you get the crops? What do you do with them like is it just kind of a you sell them or is there some type of like crafting or cooking. (0:50:40) Jonny: Yeah so this is probably a good segue into the crafting system because the crafting system is relatively deep in that so once you harvest them you can sell them if you want and that’s generally the worst thing that you can do. What you want to do with your crops is cook them. (0:50:59) Jonny: So you can at the start you just get a basic campfire and you can cook them on that but as you sort of progress you unlock more sorts of crafting stations and so you could take Um… (0:51:10) Jonny: Uh… something that you’ve… you’ve grown and you could… um… chop it up on… on one station and you know… (0:51:17) Jonny: Turn it into a maybe a cut version of the vegetables or… (0:51:20) Jonny: Mixed vegetables or something like that and then you could cook it on… you know a more elaborate… um… cooking station that can make… (0:51:26) Jonny: Um… better quality food and the better quality food not only does it sell for more But it you know does the energy restore or health restore or those sorts of things that you need for… (0:51:36) Jonny: um the mine and the crafting is kind of like it’s one of those (0:51:40) Jonny: versions where you know you jump into that you jump onto the table and you say craft 12 of this thing and it will craft them over time and you don’t have to stand there while it’s crafted but there’s a time element to to the way things are crafted but the game really rewards you for crafting with things so it’s not the sort of game where you want to sell stuff particular base versions and so again this game like quality of life features every other farming game copy fave farm’s quality of life features. (0:52:10) Jonny: at the start of the game on your farm there is a shed that shed has infinite storage you can hoard everything in this game it is amazing. (0:52:18) Codey: Oh my gosh. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. (0:52:20) Jonny: right it’s so good it’s so so good like I really want to uh like if you’re playing this game or you want to play this game hoard everything like sell stuff like there is there is certain stuff to sell like sell your things that you’ve crafted sell things that um you know you (0:52:40) Jonny: like you’ve you’ve kind of feel like you’ve done everything with and I feel like I feel like I should be able to do something with this hoard it hoard it because you can it doesn’t punish you it’s amazing (0:52:47) Codey: Yeah. (0:52:48) Codey: Well, that’s the problem with some farming games is you start the game and right off the bat, (0:52:56) Codey: you’re like, oh wow, this cool rock, that’s cool, (0:52:58) Codey: but I found it on my first day. (0:53:00) Codey: So it’s probably gonna be here all the time and I’m running out of inventory space, (0:53:04) Codey: so I’m just gonna sell it. (0:53:05) Codey: And then you find out that that was the rarest rock ever and you only get one every month or something like that. (0:53:13) Codey: And it’s just like, well, I sold it. (0:53:15) Codey: So, because– (0:53:15) Jonny: Yep. Yup. (0:53:17) Codey: Because I didn’t know what to do with it on day one, so that’s really cool that they have like stuff that you– like a way for you to just save everything right off the bat. (0:53:27) Codey: Because like– and you don’t have to– it’s just there, right? You don’t have to build it. (0:53:27) Jonny: Yeah Correct. Yep, so you don’t have to build it. It’s there from the start, which is great And you and your your characters inventory is also relatively Generous sets of things do tend to like have more sort of like stacks in your inventory where you can only carry certain amount in a slot and you have to unlock some slots, but your tools don’t take up inventory slots and Reli- (0:53:47) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:53:49) Codey: Oh my gosh. (0:53:53) Jonny: Right? (0:53:55) Jonny: relatively quickly you can unlock. (0:53:57) Jonny: to get your inventory to like 25 or 30 slots which is like really like it’s it’s it’s very good once you get it that far so that was that was just Honestly, it made it so fun because if you feel like you’re just running around the world doing what you want to do and you’re not Doing an inventory management thing. That’s just annoying and frustrating Oh and and just sort of for the the final thing because it’s really important to call access really good is the the crafting pu

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Using Strategic Planning to Recession-Proof Your Business With Kathy Bowman Atkins Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land, we’ve got Kathy Bowman Atkins from Lattitude group who's going to be talking today about how to recession proof your business via strategic planning. A lot of people have felt a bit of pressure of recent with some of the different evolutions that have been happening around the globe and pandemics and whatnot. And this is by far one of the most relevant podcasts episodes that you should all be listening to. So, Kathy, tell me, what is the step one, what is step one when it comes to strategic planning, especially in a time when there's 100 other things that you juggling? Kathy: Well, step one for strategic planning, whether it's in crisis time or good times, is to get the leadership on board. A lot of people think you know, it's hired this consultant, use this process, you know, XYZ, you know, elements, cover these things. If you don't have the leadership on board, the owners and so forth, and they're not behind it. I don't care who you hire, how good they are, how good the process is, you have to have the leadership on board. That's step one. And we talk to business owners and leaders about that very thing, Josh, when they talk to us about helping them. We have to get their commitment or it's a no go. Josh: That makes a lot of sense. So you want to obviously make sure that you have the planning and you have the right model there. So when you are bringing that into place for full leadership. If you've got a business where you've been running it for many years, and you think that you're a leader, but you may not notice the signs of micromanagement, and you think you've got a healthy team and a lot of people don't change things because they're not aware that they need to change things. How can you see the telltale signs that maybe you're running, running a business, wearing suspenders and using the fax machine or you’re living in the 1980s, early 1990s? And maybe you need to change the way your mindset is, how can you sort of start to pivot that without destroying the relationships you have in the business? Or the way you're working? Kathy: It's a really great question. And we've done that more than once. And we feel like that that's one of the things that people hire us for. It's not just to pump out a strategic plan is to tell them the hard truth, tell them the things that they need to do to make the progress they need to. So the way we do that is that there's a few ways that we do that. When we begin, we talked to key players in the business, not just the owners, not just what we call the sponsors, the people who have hired us, who've signed on the dotted line, okay? We want to talk to people across the business, okay, at every level in the business. So we conduct interviews with those folks. And we conduct interviews with all of the leaders individually, all the people that are going to be directly involved with the strategic planning process, because the truth of the matter is, no matter how open an environment, how open a culture that a company may have, or may think they have, there are things that the owners and the leaders don't know that people in the organisation can tell them. We're pretty honest brokers. And it's very important to be authentic. So we can develop trust and rapport with folks pretty quickly. And by the time we get ready to even put together the process for that strategic plan, that we have the tools, but there's certain customization depending on the company, we have a pretty good idea of where the big warts are, quite frankly, where the big problems are in the company. And so we go and sit down and talk to people and even leaders and say, Hey, here's some things that we've heard, here's some things that we're going to need to work on or you're going to need to work on to make this work. We're willing to work with you, we can help you, but you have to be willing to do it. So we have to have those honest conversations up front to make that happen. Now, what we have found over time, which is really interesting, Josh, in the early days of doing this, when we would come across that situation, my business partner and I, one of us in Canada that first would look at the other and say well we need to do this, but we're probably going to get fired today, you know, they're probably going to let us go. And it's not happened yet. Because people, for the most part, really appreciate that now you don't walk in there and tell them how lousy they are, etc. Because that's not the case. You know, these people have done a lot right to, you know, to form companies or to become leaders of companies. And so we're telling them in in a way that keeps the whole what they need to do. I mean, we've literally had conversations with business owners who started a business and ran them 20 years and said, if you don't step aside, and let us help your new leadership, you're not going to achieve the things that you say you want to achieve for this company and for your future, etc. And it's happened. So, you know, that's the way we do it. So, most of the time, it happens just from that upfront due diligence that we do and talking to people, Josh, and honestly, but as we get into the process, you know, by that we work with companies, we absolutely develop strong relationships with these folks, and I think that's really important. We really get ingrained in those companies. So we know what's going on. And we have that kind of trust. So that as those things come up, we can apart, you know, deal with them, and talk to them about them. So that's what's really key, in my opinion. Josh: S o you brought up a lot of good points there. For you and any of your listeners out there. A lot of what we do is around trying to find inefficiencies in business. So we do that for allowing them to automate tasks or create procedural documentation that allows them to have systematized tasks that betters their processes. We do it definitely more with a technology twist on it rather than anything else. And we find people that are dead wood in the business, and a lot of businesses big businesses or businesses that have been around for a while people get lazy if they haven't had KPIs to it to adhere to. And you end up having this issue with dead wood. How can you pivot that deadwood or does it come down to sort of a bit of a hard truth? Kathy: Well, there's not a one size fits all answer to that question, Josh. But there are multiple answers and all of which can work. I'm gonna start with the end in mind. And the end in mind is if someone is deadwood, you have to resolve that issue and you have to resolve that issue and keep people home. Okay? There's no benefit to doing that in a way that demeans people, degrades people, etc., etc. So, we take a look at, okay, is it a capability issue? Is it an attitude issue? Is it a fit issue? In other words, that they don't fit where they are? Could they fit somewhere else? And whatever that issue is, we look at what are the answers? Is there a way to help them to change that attitude to find that path? What's in it for them to do that, to make an attitude change? And if none of those things are possible, then it's about sitting down and having the honest conversation And, you know, I find nine times out of ten that people want to have the honest conversation that says, You know what, this is not working out. We don't see a good place for you here, we don't see you being happy here. Okay? Being your you know, your best and highest use, you know, reaching your potential here. And so you know, we think it's you know the right time for us to part ways. We'll help you in any way we can, you know, to transition out of this, but that's the best thing for everybody. And if you do that way, keep people home and treat them as human beings and as people not objects of the business, nine times out of ten, they end up saying you're right. Occasionally they don't but after the fact they do, I mean I say this all the time through the years I have walked plenty of people out the door, unfortunately. And I still get Christmas cards from many of them. I still go to lunch with several of them because it was the best thing for everyone. And that's the end that you want to get to, what's the best solution for everybody. Josh: I completely agree, you should be treating your team like family instead of assets or liabilities. I'm happy enough to say that I have a team of unicorns and it didn't happen easily. But in the latest situation that we've had with the pandemic, we've managed to have had some of those hard conversations around what direction do you see this business going? How do you feel should be going with you? And with the intention of other reducing hours or standing people down? And it was a very, very difficult conversation to have with people that we've been working with for years. And their results in the answers they gave to us brought a tear to my eye, I'm actually getting a bit teary even thinking about it anyway. But they said we want to do anything possible to better the business and to put the business entity advantage even if it means we're working full time, but we're not working for full pay. And one of the employees even said that they're in a position where they don't need the money, particularly, they're happy to work for free until we can get out of this hole. And I thought that's a fantastic team where we were all running in the same direction. We're all pulling in in the same direction, everyone's blowing wind in the sails to get us to the same spot. It made me feel good. And it really came down to the attitude of the team. And I think what you're saying there about that, it's all about shifting attitude and making sure that everyone's goals align with the business goals. So I'd imagine there's a few different bits and pieces that you guys use to sort of test and allow for people's emotions and their characters to come out. So do you use the same sort of tools when trying to align the staff and leaders and everyone's mindset with the same common goals? Kathy: We do. We've used Myers Briggs, we have used this and a couple of others. And it just depends on what the situation is in the company, you know, and what the culture and the nature of the organization is. Finding the right tool. There's two things finding a valid tool, all assessments out there aren't valid, and finding the one that fits the culture, that organisation. And the third one is, you know, being a facilitator or consultant that knows how to debrief that and to help them to use that appropriately. Because that's important too. You just can't do a Myers Briggs and hand the report out to everybody and say, okay, there it is. Josh: What do I do with this? Everyone needs to be sharing their results, they understand the emotions of how to talk to people. There's a book that I read called the five love languages, unless you're really close to the stuff probably not relevant. It still lets you to understand how two different parties are talking and communicating together. And I think that's really important, to make sure that if you're dealing with someone that's talking in a for instance, I'm not detail oriented. If someone says the job is finished, and this is and you've been out to achieve the objectives of what the original goal was set out, that's awesome. If they spent 10 hours doing the doing the spreadsheet and I've got the number out that I wanted at the end, awesome, but I don't need to know every single formula, the pivot tables, and everything else to it to achieve that. But some of the staff love telling me all about it. And so of course, of course I'm going to sit there and make sure that we're all lining in that regard, because you don't want to sort of just offset all their hard work and say, I don't care. Okay, good, I got the number, cool. And then you walk off, it sort of completely deflates them. So it's, I guess, about understanding how to communicate with people. And I guess, again, coming down to attitude. Kathy: It is, and, you know, this really ties into something that you and I talked about. I know that our staffs talked about in booking this, you and I talked about a little bit before this, how that strategic planning ties into this topic. You know, we all should be as business owners and leaders looking to put together teams that have aligned goals and values, correct. I mean, that's what really makes it work. We can think differently, we can process differently. But if we have aligned goals and values, having that kind of diversity of thinking and approaches is really powerful for us. And for a business, it's the same thing. Having a strategic business plan gives us that roadmap for everyone to align around. Okay? And know what they are applying in a you know, their own goals, how that ties to the company's goals, the direction we're heading. And how that helps everybody in the mix. Helps you, helps me, helps the company, the owner, whoever it is, and I. And so that's part of where, you know, strategic planning for business is just as important as having individual goals for all the individuals in the business. And, you know, having the KPIs, the key performance indicators or the metrics to manage too, you know, to see how we're doing. So it's kind of the same concept on a business level. Josh: Okay. So when you say strategic business plan, a lot of people I know will say I've got a business plan or a freak out of it. I know myself, I'm great at making a very simple thing over complicated. When I was younger, many, many years ago, maybe 20 years ago, I was developing something in my bedroom, which allowed me to open and close the bedroom door with a remote control. So I clicked the remote controller unlocks the door, opens the door, let someone in, click another button that closes the door and shuts it and my brother said that would take you 120 to 150 hours to build that. He's an electronic engineer. I said yeah. And he goes how many times could you have got up and open and close the door. Yeah, okay, that's right. I've automated something that doesn't need automating. And that's sort of what my first sort of aha moments with automation. So how do you make sure that you're focusing on the right things, you don't overcomplicate it, I know some people say a business plan to start off with doesn't need to be longer than half a page. But obviously, to really dive into some details, and ours is 16 pages long for the basic business plan and 70 for the longer business plan. But again, as I said, I go to too much detail. Kathy: But that's an excellent question. And this is where a lot of people fall off in a table with regard to strategic planning. You know, the key to strategic planning, we have tools and processes that we use, they're tried and true, and they're good, but they are a framework. What's really important is understanding upfront what the owners want, okay? They put in the sweat, equity, etc. They're here now, they want to get here and based on their business, their culture, okay, their values, what they're trying to accomplish their goals, right? Putting together the plan that's right for them. A lot of times people say, oh, you know, we're going to talk about processes, right? And you're going to bring in a list of processes, you know, 20 processes and try to cram down our throats? No, that's not the right thing to do. We're going to sit down and look at it with you, and you know the business better than we do. But we have a tool to be able to say, what processes should you have? Now, what are the key processes you should have in the business? And do you have them? If you have them, are they working or what needs to improve about them? That's pretty simple. At the end of the day, Josh. Now they're having the right tools to get people to do that. So we're starting with that. So we're looking at things that way. And we have a process that starts up here and says, these are all the things we you know, this big funnel, these are all the things we need to work on. There's processes and their systems, right. And there's some people issues, and there's equipment issues and you know, all kinds of things. And then we start whittling that down through our process that says, what's the most important thing? You know, what are the biggest obstacles? And we look at that through, you know, internal assessments and external assessors. So that all sounds very complicated, you know, but we do that with tools. People do a lot of work up front, so that by the time we walk in, in two days, we come up with a comprehensive strategic plan. And I don't care what size the company is, for a 12-month plan, which is what most of the detailed plans are. Now we look out five years just say Where do you want to be five years for most businesses, so we know what the long haul is, so to speak. But we do a detailed plan for most of the time for 12 months out. And we look at that company and say, you know what, we really don't want there to be more than eight goals for the company for that 12 months, because then we get a flight we have to flush those goals out into who does what by when what role the steps to achieve that. So that gets big enough, correct? Josh: Absolutely. Katy: And the other thing that we do, rather than handing people some big book to put on the shelf to collect dust, because that's what generally happens, we do two things. We give them their plan on one page, okay, and all of the relevant information about that plan that everybody in the company should have and be looking at, and understand it and understand how what they do ties into that. They have one page that they can look at, and it can be their barometer, the rudder, whatever you want to call it, any day, anytime making a decision. And then behind that, we use project management software, we set up a portal for their company, where they manage those goals and action plans. And we meet with them every month. So we insist that if they want to work with us that they have to agree to our change management accountability aspect of this. In other words, we're not going to go through this whole process and put it on the shelf. We're going to have a schedule meeting every month and we're going to look at this plan. We're going to use a signal light approach, what's working, what's not, we're going to make adjustments because I can tell you the minute that he drives on that proverbial plan, something's going to change. And we're going to make adjustments, we're going to look at the financials, and see how that's going and where we need to make adjustments. So we're continually doing that change management. So that's how you whittle it down. That's how you manage it. But that's why you need leadership. As I said, right at the top of the program, if people if the leaders inside the business aren't making sure that everybody knows the strategic plan and monitoring it and executing on it appropriately adjusting it is not part of their job, guess what? It doesn't happen. Josh: So, from what we've been speaking about so far, if I was to sum up in one sentence, a strategic plan is about accountability, timelines, infrastructure and goals, tying them together with small tested improvements, monitoring it over time. What else would you add to that to make that more true? Or how did that sound? Kathy: That’s really good. Would you like to come to work for us? Josh: Hahaha. We are just a small flight away. Yes, we'll jump on and get that happening. That's the elevator pitch, I guess, on the strategic plan. So, that's cool. Okay, so that that makes it very easy to break down. And you did speak quite a bit about tools, and a lot of people that are going to be listening to this, they're gonna be wondering, okay, what tools can we use? So, if you were to pick the top two tools that anyone can jump into right now, to gain more visibility into their business, or to start heading in the right direction, even if that's making up a back of handkerchief example, of a strategic plan, what tools would you say they could jump into and check out? Kathy: Well, you know, the very first thing is to figure out, this isn’t a tool. This is, you know, where's it that you want to take your company? Now, what's your purpose, what is it you want, what's your vision? Where do you want to take it? You have to know where you want to get to, in order to figure out how to get there. So if you are doing the back of the envelope thing, as you mentioned, you don't want to hire someone, you don't want to go through some big process. We have a lot of great processes, but there's one that you can't go wrong with. And that's a SWOT analysis, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, okay. It's probably the thing that covers most elements of a business, if you do it well in a single process. Now, we have a lot of other processes that focus on things, but that one is tried and true. And it can cover a lot of ground. Josh: Most people should be pretty familiar with them, if you're not. What are you doing? Get into it! I think this is kind of like a should be a clear cut answer. But what size of businesses should be looking to strategic planning? Should this be something that they're obviously looking at the start before they've even turned over $1 when they're looking to throw it to the boss and say, now I'm going out on my own or is this something that they should be waiting until they've got some structure in place? Kathy: Well, every business even as they're looking to start up, they need a business plan. They need a plan that says, okay, what do I need to start this business in terms of resources? Okay? And to start it up with the resources and get me through the first couple of years. The kind of strategic planning that we do, which is with established companies, we're not really working with startups so much at all, quite frankly, Josh, that's a little more comprehensive. And that can range from having one strategic planning team that has some folks across the business and is pretty comprehensive. Okay. We will get strategies too. Larger companies where we do something with an executive team and then we cascade down through different organisations and they do their own strategic plans to support the company, goals and direction. So it depends. So everybody should be doing some planning. You know, we started this talking about recession proof strategic planning. The thing that is to make you recession proof is to do your planning upfront. It is strategic to have a plan. So that's one thing. Now how strategic you want to be in that planning process is a different matter. And that depends on where you are. So, you know, a good way to think about that and wrapping this up right now we're breaking things down into six months. Okay, module so to speak. Most people don't know what's going to happen. So we got to survive for six months, we have to get through this. Okay? And that's really pretty much a cash and opportunity exercise. It's not very much strategic from the standpoint of what our strategy is, you know, and all this kind of stuff. And so we call that emergent strategic planning. Then there's the next six months, which is resurgence. Okay. So we've survived, we've gotten through this. How do we now start, you know, going back up? What do we bring back? When do we bring it back? And what does it look like? What lessons did we learn from all of this, right? And so we're putting that in a six month chart. And then we're talking about a six-month chunk of convergence planning. What that means is, people are going to start figuring out what the new reality looks like. Or they're going to make their assumptions about what it looks like and we can get more strategic and start looking a little bit further out. And taking advantage of these lessons learned and what the new realities are. Josh: Emergent strategic planning, I guess it's all about when things change. To make sure your emergent emerge from crisis and out to be stronger, would that be fair to say? Kathy: Yes, our mantra to everybody right now. Thank you for reminding me. We're saying to my business, and to every business, you had better come out stronger as people and as a business on the other side of this than you did going in? Josh: Cool. Well, I definitely think this is more relevant now than ever before. And for anyone out there that is listening and thinking, man, this sounds like too much. I've already got too much on my plate. There’s so many government incentives that I'm looking at or new stimulus packages, and I just want to keep myself with a head above water. And there's a place you can go. And Kathy Bowman Atkins from Lattitude Group has a fantastic offer here for one hour consultations. Would you like to tell us a bit more about how that can help small businesses? Kathy: Well, it's interesting, you know, people call us up and they say, Okay, this is where things are now. And I might say, what are the biggest obstacles? You know, top of mind, if we could only cover one thing in this hour? What's the biggest thing that is bothering you that that we could help you resolve? So we start there. Now generally, what happens is we can cover two or three things at an hour, you'd be amazed at how much ground you can cover. If they don't know, they’ll say, you know, I'm just really paralyzed. I don't know what to do. Right, then we start asking them some questions. Yeah, have you availed yourself to all the resources that are out there? Have you looked into them? Do you know what's out there? Okay. Let's make some assumptions about the worst possible case, okay, for the next six months, and that's what we have to look at, what is the absolute metric or two that you have to manage to over the next six months? For some people, it's pretty simple. Cash flow. I have to be able to maintain positive cash flow. Josh: That's mine.] Kathy: And so whatever we have to do, that we can help them to say, okay, in order to accomplish that, what are the steps we have to take? And what metrics do we have to be looking at all the time, because in this case, volume is going to be your leading indicator. In normal times, it isn't always your leading indicator. We're going to wait for the volume to materialize before we make moves like, you know, bringing people back because that we've had to lay off for certain vendors are no different things that we've put on hold. And that's the way we're doing it. So it depends, but those are the kinds of things that you do. So there's all kinds of things that can happen. We know … we need to know how to tap into these resources. Okay, we need to know how to furlough people, or what's the best approach to take. And we can, you know, we can help them with all of that. Josh: Well, anyone that's interested to have a consultation with Kathy, we're going to be putting a link in the description here for the podcast, as well as on the blog. Keep an eye out for that. And I think you're going to find that in one hour, you're going to completely revolutionise the direction of your business. Totally worth your time. And one thing I want to sort of say, in closing to ask you in closing is if there was to be one book they would say is your Bible, so to speak, is going to be the first step towards better leadership and strategic planning. What would be that one book that people should read or one resource that people should be listening to? Whether that be a news outlet or something like that? What should people be tuning into? Kathy: Gosh, there are many Josh, but I will tell you my go to book and it's not a new one. But I think in terms of leadership and self development, which is the key to all of this, it really is the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And that book goes way back, but I'm going to tell you, it's tried and true. And if people will adopt those and make those habits as leaders, it's really significant. Josh: For anyone out there that obviously is listening you can't see next to my bed, but it's sitting next to my bed right now. And, I've picked it up for a second time and rereading through it. So it's definitely worth its weight in gold. And it's a reasonably sized book. So that's saying a lot, it worth its weight in gold. It is. That's right. Well, Kathy, it's been lovely having you on the show. And is there anything else that you would like to cover off on before we pathways? Kathy: The only thing that I would say is, you know, even as a company that prides itself, and myself on being, you know, a strategic planning guru and all that kind of thing and you know, a purist when it comes to strategic planning. And I think all the businesses have to think about this no matter what business they're in that may be passionate for you. Right now you have to think about what's realistic and what can really help people. So you know, we're doing these six months module strategic planning things in a day or you know, prep for a week and then go in for a day at the end day and making them very reasonably priced. And we've never been a company that our value proposition was priced. We're not, you know the low cost option. But you know, you've got to remember where people are right now. And I think that's key for business leaders and owners right now. Josh: I completely agree. We've released a new product range that we're calling the dollar IT club which is focusing heavily on helping businesses out in the time of crisis, not putting more pressure on a saw that they've already got there. And I think that building and nurturing that relationship at the start will build a bigger and better things and show your worth. Kathy: Exactly! Josh: If anyone has enjoyed this episode. Make sure to jump across to iTunes, leave us some love. Give us some feedback. We'll put all Kathy's details here in the in the episode so you can get in contact with her, and stay healthy and stay good. Kathy: Thank you so much, Josh.

Are you setting up a Startup?  Have you ever lost all your money or got an unfair share? Have you ever wondered how to put a value on ‘sweat equity’? Today we are pleased to share an interview with our host Roland Frasier and the author of The Slicing Pie Handbook, Mike Moyer. Mike is a serial entrepreneur who wrote this incredible book and blueprint for Fairness in business equity deals!  “Our share of winning should be based on our share of the bets”. Mike Moyer If you love this show and it helps you with your business(es), head over to our home page https://businesslunchpodcast.com/ and sign-up for our memos. It would also really help us get the word out if you would subscribe and write a review on ApplePodcasts. “It kind of revealed itself to me that you can’t base equity splits on future events because you can’t predict the future. When you try to do that, you get it wrong”. Mike Moyer.  Listen Today For The background that premised his closer look at Fairness in business, his subsequent expertise, and this super helpful framework. “There aren’t multiple versions of Fairness, so I can’t change something and have it turn out fair. So like, if our dad gives us a cookie, the three of us, we’re going to split it a third, a third, a third, because we each paid equal amounts of nothing to get it. Okay? There’s no other way to do it. Now you could give me half or your share, but your generosity doesn’t make it "more fair". Right? And you should have decision-making rights over that third of the cookie.” Mike Moyer. Plus, What’s a dynamic split? “When you do equity splits on the outside of the venture, it’s comforting to know what you’re going to get. The problem is it’s always going to be the wrong number, right? But with a Dynamic split, you don’t know where you’re going to get, but you can rest assured that whatever you get, it’s going to be the right number. That’s a real difference”. Mike Moyer. How to deal with capital and intellectual property, as opposed to effort and labor. Why he doesn’t think stock options are a good idea. “People think you throw stock options at someone, and it’ll make up for bad management, that it will miraculously turn people into great employees, but I haven’t seen evidence of that. I haven’t seen research to support that either. I have seen research support as good, clear communication, clear goals, milestones, and clear vision”. Mike Moyer What to do when someone leaves or bails on a deal, but they want to be bought out. “And this is one of the most heartbreaking things when somebody kind of poops out at the beginning of the deal and they’re often the only one who ever makes any money”. Mike Moyer.  The Most Common Mistakes In 'Fairness' 1) Equal Shares 2) Premature Evaluations 3) Time-based vesting “Every time we contribute to a startup, and we’re not paid a fair market rate for that cost contribution, it’s essentially a bet”. Mike Moyer And SO MUCH MORE. Find free resources AND connect with Mike. At SlicingPie.com  The Slicing Pie Handbook on Audible Follow Roland Frasier On Facebook  On Instagram  Through his Website   Follow Business Lunch Podcast On Twitter On YouTube  Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Business Lunch with Roland Frasier? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on ApplePodcasts and leave us an honest review! Your feedback will help us improve the show and connect us with more high flyers like you. Click to find us on Apple Podcasts and other podcast players. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT DISCUSSED...• No Boss Talk: https://nobosstalk.com• Monday Morning Routine: https://www.bethholdengraves.com/routine• The Camp Elevate Facebook Group: https://thecampelevategroup.com• Beth’s Instagram: @bethholdengraves• Beth’s website: https://www.bethholdengraves.com• Profit HER Way Course: https://www.bethholdengraves.com/profit• 10 Ways: https://www.bethholdengraves.com/10ways KEYNOTES DISCUSSED:• Words are the most powerful thing that you have while you're thinking about the idea of recruiting and sharing. (02:22)• I want you to throw away those words that aren't working for you. This is a little thing that I want to share with you is that sound vibration travels through water four times faster than it goes through open air. Considering that your body is 70% water, you'll understand how quickly the vibration from negative words actually resonates with your cells. (04:15)• So before I do those reach outs and before I have conversations and before I start talking to people about being a business partner, the very first thing I do is make sure that I have my belief in line, make sure that I have my vibration high, make sure that I have that vision. (07:33)• If you're going to recruit, you have to have a list being who is it out there that you have on your list, on your phone, on your social media, in your community. (12:57)• There's a lot of different ways that we can get connected with people in different challenges, but this, every single week I have specific action toward an event. (17:25) WHEN DOES IT AIR...March 02, 2020EPISODE TRANSCRIPT...Beth:Welcome to ‘You’re Not the Boss of Me’. If you are determined to break glass ceilings and build it your way, this show is for you. I’m your host Beth Graves, and I am obsessed with helping you to not just dream it, but make the plan, connect the dots and create what you crave. Are you ready? Let’s get started.Everybody I talk to is negative. Nobody's working for my team. I don't know how so and so recruited. She must have had it. Big warm market. My family is laughing at me. I can't recruit. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what to say. I'm getting crickets. Nobody's open to this opportunity. Stop and pause. Did you hear all that negativity in my voice? Did you hear all of that? Disbelief and what I was sharing. Did your vibration just kind of drop to the floor? Words are the most powerful thing that you have while you're thinking about the idea of recruiting and sharing. So, we're going to start there. I am going to tell you exactly some shifts that you need to make and then I'm going to end with a strategy that I have used over and over and over again to recruit over a thousand people into the network marketing business that I'm in and to help others to do the same. And you don't have to be an influencer, you don't have to have a podcast. You can be, as I was, I share this all the time. A regular everyday person. I had an AOL account; I had a couple of hundred friends on Facebook. I didn't understand the online space, but I was willing to present. I was willing ask the question. So hearing from somebody that's like on a podcast, Oh, all these accolades, I want you to go back with me to 2014 I want you to go back to the person that said, okay, I'm going to trust this business model. I'm going to trust that this is the way that I can break the glass ceiling that I had if I was going to head back to work, to be a teacher. And so first of all, I had to have that belief. So, let's talk about all that negativity.  You heard my voice; I hear it all the time. And if you're a leader or maybe it comes out of your mouth, I can tell you that the person that's saying those things, people are feeling that vibration. People are feeling that negativity. So of course, they're not answering you. Of course, they don't want to talk to you about the business. You don't even believe that it works yourself. So, the first thing I want to tell you is let's shift those words. All right? So, when you hear recruit and grow rich, I want you to have affirmations around your business. I want you to throw away those words that aren't working for you. This is a little thing that I want to share with you is that sound vibration travels through water four times faster than it goes through open air. Considering that your body is 70% water, you'll understand how quickly the vibration from negative words actually resonates with your cells. You guys, it's science, right? I love that little science. So, I read this in an article. I think it's a Goop article, but it was like so incredible to think about the power of the words that we're using. And as I was doing this recruit and grow rich content, I started to think, yes, I can give you all kinds of strategies, but if we don't start with the vibration being high, if we don't start with having affirmations and vision and a positive mindset around the success of our ability to recruit and bring people into the business, and also the belief that that person will have success as a business partner with you, then yeah, might as well hang it up. So, let's start there. And if you haven't listened to my episodes or you're not over in Camp Elevate, it takes a lot of work, you guys to keep that vibration high. It takes working on the mindset daily. Having those affirmations around your business, having affirmations. I have them all over the place because the words create my reality. So, if I'm constantly saying, Oh, gosh, nobody's answering my messages. Nobody wants to do the business. I don't even know why I bother. Guess what's going to happen? Nothing. So, I want you to shift your words. I want you to get rid of those. Throw away words that say, nobody's going to join me. Everybody's crickets. Nobody wants to do this. I want you to create affirmations around how many people or waiting for your message, how many people were like I was in 2014 who is desperate, desperate for a change, desperate for a business that could help us to pay off the debt. And do you think Blair Critch on the day that she sent me a message was like, Oh, this is never going to work. She's never going to answer me. Uh, I don't know why I bother. I don't what to say. Is this spam? Oh, my goodness. No. She had total belief that she was sharing something with me that could change my life. I felt it. And she was just getting started. She borrowed the belief from our other friend that was already having success and she believed in the industry and her words were simple. Her words, we're so simple that I was curious, and I was interested, and I was excited, and it never crossed my mind that she didn't believe it would work. So, if she had sent like, I don't know, Beth, I don't know about this thing, but I actually like the products, but you know, I don't really know. It could be one of those things, but let's just take a look at, and I'm not so sure. No, she was like, listen, I'm all in. This company looks to be incredible and I'm having the best experience with these products. I want you to be a partner with me in this. Let's do this. It could be a great adventure with something like that. I was like, Oh, okay. So, I'm not telling you those are the exact words, but Blair's energy and her vibration and her belief was there. And so, I'm going to say to you, I want you to start with how do you view your business? Do you have gratitude around it? Do you have those five reasons that we talked about? Wait, this is the most insanely amazing thing for someone to become a partner with you. So before I do those reach outs and before I have conversations and before I start talking to people about being a business partner, the very first thing I do is make sure that I have my belief in line, make sure that I have my vibration high, make sure that I have that vision. I mean I visualize people saying yes to me. I visualize people having success. I visualize their life changing and so that vibration, it's high. It's like you have that friend. I know you do. I have that friend and she's like, come on, we're headed out. We're going to it to be so much fun. My friend's name is Heather and she's like, where to play? Ping pong. It's going to be a blast. Everybody's there instead of like, Oh, my gosh, like let's get dressed. It's so cold outside. Let's not go. I'm going to read you a quote. It's Gary John Bishop. Yeah. Has the book an F yourself, and this quote says, retrain your brain one word at a time. We can determine our emotions by steering our thoughts. We can shape those thoughts by being conscious and diligent about our words and the kind of language we engage in. So if you're engaging in any negativity around your business, around your conversations, around what is happening, that's the first step. So, switch it. Figure out a way to have those affirmations. Have a vision for what you're doing with the company. If you need help with this, join me over in camp elevate. We talk about it all of the time, or send me a DM and say, I don't even know what you're talking about so that I can guide you to a training on it. Okay? There's many penny podcasts. If you go back and listen about those routines, now let's talk about a recruiting roadmap. There are 10,000 people out there telling you 10 ways that you could make six to seven figures in your business if you follow this exact action plan. So, my friend Daniel Pope is a brilliant marketer. Brilliant. He's brilliant. And I said to him, everybody out there like I'm doing a challenge coming up and I'll tell you how to get on that challenge list.  I'm doing a challenge March 14th it's absolutely free and I'm going to give you five days of, I don't even know if it's called a recruiting roadmap because that sounds so like everybody has one. But my challenge is making money your way and it's feeling aligned with how you recruit. You're recruiting plan an actual way that you're going to create an event to share your opportunity. But we're also going to go way into the mindset. So today I'm going to give you a strategy. You're going to walk away with something that you can do today that you feel excited about, aligned with, and have a conversation with somebody that is your Beth from 2014 we're going to talk about that. But I want to talk about what Daniel Pope said and Hey, Hey Daniel, if you're listening, and I said to him, it's like Daniel, everybody out there is sharing a roadmap, a bootcamp. Everybody's saying, here's the way to earn six and seven figures. If you follow this exact social media blueprint or you follow this exact plan, and he said, Beth, it's like chicken pot pie and I want you to think of your business-like chicken pot pie. If you go to all recipes and you look up chicken pot pie, there's like but 272 that you're going to come across and there's different pictures and there's different ways that you can make the chicken pot pie the way that you recruit. It might have the exact same steps as me, but your recipe will always be different because your ingredients, everything that's making up your chicken pot pie. Is this making sense to you? When Daniel said it, it sounded way more brilliant. I'm going to have to interview him on the podcast about this. But when he said that to me and I was talking about this challenge I'm putting together and I said, I want it to be different. I want my listeners of the podcast and my followers that want a really good free training. I want them to come in and I want them to really feel confident, aligned, excited, not feel that icky and be excited to reach out to someone and say, okay, Hey, take a look at this. Here's what I want to show you. It's like show and tell in kindergarten. And he said, Beth, yeah, of course a lot of people like the buzzword’s you guys recruit and grow rich recruiting roadmap, the six and seven figure way to recruit hundreds and three to five new customers a day. Right? And he said that the way that it's delivered, the way that it's received, the spices that you put in yours, everybody has a little bit of a different shift. So that's what I'm sharing with you today is my recipe for chicken pot pie. But I want you to remember that there are certain elements of recruiting that have to happen along the way. I think for you to have success, and the very first one is that mindset. Is that okay? The mindset, the affirmations around, I am going to have a conversation with someone, and they are going to be blown away by what I'm sharing with them. I cannot wait to hear the difference. Oh my gosh, this week is going to be such a successful week. I cannot wait to connect with so many women that are ready and looking for a way for financial freedom, without having to sit in their cubicle. I can't wait to connect and share this incredible, incredible opportunity to hear the difference. Oh my gosh. I feel like tomorrow my inbox is going to be flooded with women that are asking me about how they can make an extra $200 to $500 a month, diversify their income and do it online and be a part of an amazing community. I can't wait. So, when I put that out there, did you guys feel the difference between why are there crickets in my inbox? Right? So that belief, so we obviously have to have a list. Everybody has to have a list. If you're going to recruit, you have to have a list being who is it out there that you have on your list, on your phone, on your social media, in your community. I don't care where it is that would be aligned with building a business with you that's looking for what you have. So, first of all, you've got to determine where is that list coming from? No, I hope that if you follow me at all, you know that I am consistently saying five, four, three, two, one, add two to your list today. Where does your Emily, that's my avatar. Where does she hang out? So, first of all, what is the pain, the frustration, the benefit of recruiting to your opportunity, going to give to someone. Do you know that that is first you cannot recruit? If you do not know that answer, what do you solve? Why would someone want to join you in the business? Well, for me, I absolutely positively wanted no glass ceiling. I wanted unlimited income potential. I want it to be able to have a flexible place to work. I wanted a first to market product. I wanted mentoring and leadership that was top, top, top in the industry. I had all these, these things. What are the things that you have? What are the things that you offer? What are the benefits of your opportunity? Because it is a crowded market out there. So, I want you to know what are the benefits of your opportunity, and just know that you don't have to explain it all to your prospect, but you've got to be able to know these things. Because if you were explaining to me why I should go to this new restaurant, because they have the very best cauliflower tacos, you are excited. I don't need to know what ingredients are in the cauliflower tacos cause I'm not a foodie, but I love cauliflower tacos and I am like, and they have skinny margaritas. I am so there. What night are we going Jessie? Think about that. So when you have decided that you have something that people are going to be waiting for you, they're like waiting for you to reach out and we know what paid and frustration we solve, then it's time to take some action. And I know that we have all kinds of things that say, Oh, never reach out. If you put the best content out there, they're going to come to you. Well, we can be strategic in our content and we can be strategic in that strategy. And we can put a lot of things in our stories that connect all of the dots. And very often when we're consistent and connecting those dots, we do have people that say, what is it that you do? But if you want to go to seven figures, I've got news for you. You cannot passively sit back and wait. Even if you have the best opt in and lead magnet and you've got people that are showing up every day saying, I want what she has. You still have to have a conversation. You still have to have an invite. So, let's back up a little bit. We've got that list. We've grown that list. We're connecting with people. Let's say that I have, I've connected with people in my Peloton group and I'm not saying go into these groups and recruit. I'm saying these are friends that you've connected with. I'm going to give you an example of a new connection. And how that works is I'm really learning about intermittent fasting for my health. Of course, weight loss is a great benefit, but for my health, I've read about regenerating cells when you go without food and I'm learning. So, I'm in some intermittent fasting groups and I'm genuinely sharing information. I'm genuinely cheering for people. I'm genuinely sharing because it's a group that I'm interested in. So I made a few connections with people that were giving me advice and I shot them a friend request adding two to my list and went over, you know, did some commenting and posting over on their wall to get to know them as you would a new friend, just like you meeting a new friend in real life. So now we've got, you know, we've added to the list, right? So you're thinking about, okay, I'm putting all this great social media out. I've got these curiosity posts, I've, I've got things in my stories and my new friends aren't asking me. This is what they said works in attraction marketing, right? If you put it out there, people will show up in your inbox. I am all about curiosity. I am all about sharing with people genuine content that aligns, but I am also about, you've got to take some action. If you don't take some action and you just wish that people show up, you will have a very, very slow build, a very slow build. So every single week, this is one of the big strategies that I used in still use in recruiting and every single week I create some sort of an event that I'm going to invite to that's going to inform and the purpose of this event is to get information about my specific opportunity. There's a lot of different ways that we can get connected with people in different challenges, but this, every single week I have specific action toward an event. Do you hear that specific action toward an event? I've done all the affirmations, I've done all the visualization, I know exactly what it is that we have. I've got groups that I can add to that are corporate wide or team wide. But if you are going to recruit, and I don't know if you guys heard my vending machine analogy, I might've shared it last week and I heard this in… who shared this. Somebody that was in Rob's group shared that network marketing is like having a vending machine and having a lot of them, right? You can like sell one big house as a realtor and make a really great commission, but once that house is sold, you've got to find another house to sell with the network marketing model and the distribution model, it's like owning different Coke machines and they're all over the place. So I might have 5,000 Coke machines and although I made a bigger commission on selling one big house, having these Coke machines, which would be represent the business builders, your business partners, your promoters, your distributors, means that you have touched the market in all of the different places. And so, my goal when I visualize that, visualize it and people, and I have a U S actually a world map and I visualize people that are joining me in all different places to build a global team. Then I have to get to work. So, I've done all the posting, you know, I've got all the interaction going on, I've got things in my stories. I'm educating on what a great business model. I even have a robot that was cleaning floors at Walmart and I'm talking about why we have to look to build in the online space. But if I want to build, and I'm saying I, if you want to build and you want to build quickly, you have got to actually reach out to people and ask and you don't have to be like, Hey would you be open? And if that doesn't feel right to you. But through my connection, through the interactions that I'm having and listening to my friends all over the place, so when I make new connections and new friends, I am making sure that at least at least once a day I am asking someone to take a look and I know that sounds scary and I know that you might want to shut down this podcast and say, I thought she was all about building an aligned business. I am you guys. I would never have had people like Jen or people like John or people like Jody or Nancy or Julie if I hadn't had the guts to just say, John, I'd love for you to take a look. I've got this event. It's 15 minutes long and I would love for you to just hop on in, listen, see if you've got questions, see if you're aligned with it. Okay? It's going to give you the information about why our company, why the network marketing model and why it might apply to you. Would you hop on in and I know that you're like, okay, what did she just say? What did she just say? That was my conversation with John, so John was a customer and I had gotten to know John and I knew that he had a goal of buying their first house or not their first house, but buying a house, getting out of a rental situation, paying off some debt, and that's also knowing your customer funnel. You can, your best people are waiting in your customer space. Did John feel like was like invading him? Was he like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe she asked me about the business opportunity? No. If I would've been like, Oh, I had to reach out to John. I don't know. He's going to think I'm spammy and weird. You know he is an attorney. No, I was like, everybody needs to diversify their income. The network marketing model is insanely brilliant, and you would be awesome at this. John, will you take a look? Do you hear the difference? Even that first invitation wasn't as good as that second one. Will you take a look and I have an incredible event going on? See I always have something to invite them to, to give them information. I find that if I'm inviting them to come in and take a look, and usually what I do, and this is my strategy is I'm Facebook, you can't go live and maybe you can with [inaudible] one stream live, but I haven't had success with it inside of an event. So, I put together a pop up group meeting, a pop-up group that I call an event. This is where I'm going to be adding people for my short-term event, so once a week. So, if my event takes place on Wednesday at nine o'clock and that's what, what's going to happen, I am going to say Wednesday at nine can you be their life? And this is the key you guys is I know we talk about automation, but it's the personalization. Once they say yes to the invite. So if my goal is to have at least at least if you're going for six and seven figures, you've made all these connections, at least five conversations a week, I am going to have to invite like 10 and when I send that invite for somebody to take a look, it feels really, really good because I know the benefit if they are going to receive, but I am not out there recruiting other network marketers let are like posting about their thing and being weird after a friend request the vision, the alignment, all of that that we come across. You will know when it's the right time and you will also have, if you use all of my strategies of great social media branding, giving out valuable, valuable content week after week after week, then you will have people asking you, you will have many people asking you and then you also have this event. So, once a week I get together. If you have leaders, you can do it with leaders, you can create your own. And I literally put together a quick event that takes place inside of a Facebook group and it's literally a 10 to 12-minute thing. And so, people's attention span I think is about six minutes. So inside of my event that I've invited John to, I have partnered with two or three or four other people that have different stories in the industry and we go live in this event on Wednesday nights. Now if somebody can't make it live, then we use one stream live and we drop it in. But we alternate. So, this week this is what we did, and it really, really worked. And I actually recruited three people from this actual method and I you're like, Oh, I thought this was something new. Imagine the consistency of every single week. So inside of the group I had five different people sharing and we talked about the big benefits of our personal company and the big benefits of the industry. And then the personal story behind we had and almost empty nest mom, a corporate America guy that has that. His son's in college. That was John. And we had two moms, Kristin and Sarah, yeah. That are working full time, making six figures while working this business part-time. And then we had Claire, who actually has come back to the company after she had made $1 million with our company, went out and found that she didn't find the right fit and recently had come back. And that was a powerful story. The purpose of this podcast isn't to tell you how great we're doing, but it's to give you a specific example. So, what was happening, and this is where the duplication comes in, is if your entire team has a blitz, okay, hear me out here about an invite, then everybody's into action. So, I know to build a multiple seven figure business, I not only need to recruit, but my team needs to recruit. So, I've got the affirmations, I've got the visualization, I've got the event set, and I help my team with the verbiage of how to invite to the event. So, I will say, let's pick a number. All right, and I want you to personally pick this number. And remember last week when we talked about atomic habits, we talked about writing something down and the time and the place that it will happen. You have a 91% greater chance that it will happen, so let's apply that atomic habit to what we're doing with our teams. If you have a team of three, great. If you have a team of 45 great. If you have a team of 4,000 great, this still works, and this may not be a new strategy for you. This may be something you've heard, but are you consistently doing this every single week? Are you consistently showing up every single week to follow these steps? This is how you become a master recruiter. You consistently show up on social media with the right marketing, with the right content, you consistently pour value. You consistently make those connections. You consistently do all of those things that we talk about for great marketing, but this is the bread and butter. This is the way that you actually pull those people that you've been pulling, right? Pulling and saying, Hey, we've got this event this week. I know you've been curious, or I know we've chatted about this in the past. You make a decision; you write it down this week I will invite five people into our business builder promoter distributor opportunity event on Wednesday at 9:00 PM. I will invite them during a blitz on Monday at noon. I will follow up with them again on Monday at six and I will send a reminder for the event at eight 30 on Wednesday. Does that sound like a lot of work? It is, but it's a lot of work to keep working at your job because you're not making a multiple six or seven figure income because you didn't do the due for the recruiting, so I'm just going to be honest. There's a lot of people out there that are saying, Oh, you just posted. People come and you have this…It's really great. If you talk to any person that's made seven figures in the industry, I'm going to tell you they had a consistent plan for how to show the business and I find that if you show the business in a very systematic, very shark oriented, detailed way that most people will fall off. They want to hear the stories, they want to hear the benefits, and the next step after that is if somebody is, has that shark personality and wants those details, the next step after that is to go do that. So, here's your strategy for the week. I mean we've talked about for this, and like I said, this is helped our team to recruit thousands. This has helped me to consistently recruit week after week after week after week. I set that intention with my affirmations, with my visualization. I write down what it is that I'm going to do. I make that promise to myself, like we said with Atomic Habits. Then I schedule a Zoom. This is the important piece. I schedule a zoom with my team and if you don't have a team schedule with some sidelines or invite your one person on your team, I have to set up the event, the events easy to set up, and I could talk about this all over in camp if you're in the group, but the event gets set up, we plan it, we set up the group, we I'll talk about what the content will be and we say it's five minutes each. So, the whole event itself could be a total of 20 minutes. If you have four people sharing, the first-person welcomes talks about the benefits of, you know I might talk about the benefit of diversifying income, right? Residual income and I might say a few things about the personal comp plan and then I'm going to share my personal story and what made me decide and then I'm going to say, hold on. Coming up next, I'm a, I'm a sign off from this live and I do it this way on purpose. I don't go into a Zoom where we're all sharing because it gets too long. I want to have snippets. So, five minutes, five minutes, five minutes, and this is just one strategy. There's many the five minutes, five minutes, five minutes, and you can automate those videos. But I really, really know that the live touch during that life. Okay, so we've got, we're talking about setting it up. I'm going to go back to the Monday. So, Monday at six o'clock, let's say every week on Monday. And this is consistency of showing up for your team. If you have layered leadership, you guys, I'm not always running this Zoom, but I'm always doing my inviting. So, you get on and you say, okay, let's all make a commitment. How many are you inviting? Let's invite tonight. What verbiage would sound great? Okay, great. Let's give it a go. And while we're on the zoom, we're braver together, right? Remember, girls don't go to the bathroom. Like when you're in high school, you bring somebody with you because you're braver together. All right, so we've done that Zoom. Here's the thing is if you can get one or two people into action or a hundred or 200 people into action and they're doing the invites, you have got momentum on your team. The reason why people stop and they're not growing is because they're not having conversations and they're not having conversations because they don't know what to say and they don't know what to say because nobody's giving them a cool event to invite their friends to. Like if I had to call my friend Sarah and I wanted her to play tennis, but I didn't know where we were playing tennis or when or what the date was. And I was just like, Hey, tennis. But if I knew I had a invitational that had food and mimosas and it was going to be a competition and it was going to have our favorite pro rubber, I'd do like, it's on the seventh we're going to meet at 10 it's going to be awesome. Are you in, can I count on you? Yes. So different. So, when you get your teams on board with a little blitz each week to invite to the event, more people have action. And if you do it on a Zoom and you have different ideas and you're sharing verbiage and you're all like being super brave and you're making a commitment, right? People are in action. An action creates results. And start that zoom with the visualization. Start that zoom with some positive affirmations. Show your team how to show up in a positive way and say, you know what, you guys, somebody is waiting for your message tonight and I can't wait to find out who someone's life is going to change because you're introducing them to your business. I can't wait. Yeah, people excited and together squash that negativity. So, notice how this is now duplicatable. So, we're inviting to that Wednesday event. They say, yes. Awesome. So as soon as someone says yes, they've put up their hand and then the conversation starts like, Hey, I'm curious, like what do you do now for work? Have you ever done another online affiliate network marketing business, getting the details, staying in touch? Because if someone says they're showing up, that's a hot lead for the week, right? Even if they don't answer, then I'll do a reminder. So, if I've promised myself to reach out to 10 people and have conversations and one person says she's showing up, that's awesome. Two is even better. Three home rent, right? So, what happens, this is the differences. A lot of people have events, a lot of people have zooms. The consistency of how you respond to that invitation is key. And like I said, this is the difference between making sometimes money like grocery money and making life changing money is how you handle that live event. So, let's say that I've invited Sarah and she said, yes. Hey Sarah, it's we're getting ready to get started. I'll see you over in the event and I will actually tag you as well. So, during the event, I'm very active. So if it's me that's going live, I'm asking someone to tag if I'm live, I'm asking somebody else to tag the people below and to say like, Hey, Beth is life at this life and your team is on and you're like creating energy and you're making comments and you're tagging and people are seeing the excitement. All right, so the live event happens. The next is find out if they were on live, reach out and say, Hey, what did you think? The replays will be up in the group. They're going to stay up in the group for 24 hours. Can you watch those tomorrow? Cause I'd love to have a conversation with you after you have watched the videos. If they've watched them, tell me what, what are your thoughts? And then ask for the close. Just say, is there any more information that I can provide for you? Tell me what's on your mind. Isn't this incredible? And pause. Three-way chats can come up once they've had the exposure. Then you've got to see if they need any more information, any more education, any more validation before they're ready to make a decision. So, you've had them look and then the follow-up is, Oh, my gosh, wasn't John's video? Incredible. I just love him. What are your thoughts? What are your thoughts? And quickly then I love to say, you know what? Usually I will say, I've got a special tonight for my own personal special for new promoters. Here's how this is going to work and I'm getting started tomorrow with an incredible group to be running for these bonuses. Can I count on you? Conversations, connections, get some validation. So, what just happened here is we created a vision. We created our vibration. We creative positivity around this idea that people need what we have. People are looking to diversify income. There is a robot cleaning the freakin’ floors in Walmart. You guys, people need to know about the network marketing industry. We also have an agreement that we can't just post and pray even if it's incredible content. Even if I've written a book, even if I'm in my stories and even if I'm being interviewed in 15 Facebook groups, I still have to, if I want to go next level, I don't know many people, they may say it, but I'm telling you guys, many people that don't recruit without having an intentional ask and when you're putting out value and when you're showing up as an extraordinary human and your putting out that vibration, nobody is going to roll their eyes and say, why? How dare she asked me what if Oprah asked me to join a network marketing business? What if it wasn't for me? Would I be like, Oh, Oprah, you're terrible. I can't believe you asked me that. I'd be like, wow, Oprah, she's so cool. Cut all this stuff. She does look at all that like love her Super Soul Sunday. That was such a compliment. Thanks Oprah. Like think about that. Think about that. So, then we talked about having an actual event where we're giving the information that is a new opportunity, live event inside of a Facebook group. We talked about having a blitz with your team, where you start with giving them belief, giving them vision and sharing ideas. We talked about the atomic habit of writing down, how many on this day, when, how writing it down, making that commitment. And then we went ahead and talked about what happens during that launch. So, during that I keep it a launch. You guys, what happens during that event? Cause we also do live launch events for launching new distributors and promoters. And we'll talk about that. Maybe we'll talk about that next week. So, this was a mouthful, but I want you to imagine this. I want you to close your eyes for a second. If you're not driving, I want you to imagine every single week having the opportunity to have an invite to show someone what you know, to show someone a way that they can create options for their family. Do you see that person? Do you see that dad? Do you see that mom working two jobs? Do you see the stress at night? They are tossing and turning and thinking about debt. Do you see somebody that's lonely? Do you see somebody that absolutely positively is missing community? It's personal development. They need a circle that perhaps gratitude and new practices of journaling could save a marriage. Perhaps paying off debt could save someone from so much stress that they become ill. what if you have the answer for that person that can't sleep tonight? What if you do? You may miss. You may ask the wrong person. Let's not really the wrong person. You may ask somebody that's not ready, but I ask you this. If you create a system of duplication, if you create an event, do it. Do it for one week. What if he showed up every week? What if you spent this whole activity that we're talking about you guys between the blitz? Even if you run the blitz and you're in the event, it's literally one hour of your time, one hour of your time each week in the most important activity asking, you've got asked for what you want. You have marketing, you have visibility, you have ways that people are attracted to you. You're pulling them to you. You're connecting. But the difference between even a six figure and a seven-figure earner is asking for what you want. Pick up the phone invite, but when you have a blitz event, you teach your team to do the same thing and when you have a live event, they get to see the passion. They get to see the team rallying together. They get to see the excitement. Our event last night you guys, people were excited. They saw the love, they felt like, Hey, I want to take a look at this. I can tell you because I was able to look at the numbers of the people that participated in the event. I was able to look at how many people came into the business and then the fun begins. So, I asked you this, are you willing to take the time each week to grow that business? Are you willing to spend time in the absolute best income producing activity? If the answer is yes, I encourage you to give it a go. Give it a shot. We're going to be talking about this and many other ways to have a recruiting roadmap. I'm going to do a free challenge. It's going to take place on March 14th I don't know that I even have the signup ready yet, so what I want you to do, if you want to get into this free challenge and actually work through this and there's a few other details that are really important that I didn't share with you that I need to be live, go ahead and send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook messenger. Next week I'll have the funnel setup where you can actually get on the list for it, but since we're talking about a recruiting challenge and roadmap, we're going to work through this. So, I am going to give you in that free challenge, I'm actually going to give you different options that are like this and then a super-secret about how to actually close more. I closed 100% of people with this when I did a recruiting blitz just three months ago and I'm going to share that inside of this challenge that we're starting on March 14th I think the date is all right, so give that over into Camp Elevate because I will be announcing it there as well. That's probably just as easy, thecampelevategroup.com thank you so much for being with us today and this has been a long one but super, super important and I want to stop this podcast or end this podcast with fishing in the dark with a review fishing in the dark. If this is you, you get yourself a free boss at, send me a message over on Facebook messenger, Instagram DM. I love this podcast. Beth gives so many nuggets of wisdom. I am listening intently and have started to put things into action. I have chosen a fresh start and we'll be implementing gratitude in January of 2020. So, I know that you've been doing it now for a few months. Fishing in the dark. I am so happy to join so many women who are on this journey with me. Here's to 2020 may you all be blessed and grateful of what, thank you, fishing in the dark and I can't wait to know who you are in real life. I love when I try to guess, so that's all I have for you today and I want to say to you, be you briefly, if this sounded a little bit off, if you're like, yeah, but she talks about this aligned business, you guys, this is aligned. If your vision and your mission is truly to impact women and help them to build a business that nobody can be the boss of them, there is no better way than network marketing and somebody had to reach out to me. Somebody had to send me that text, somebody had to give me that invite and I encourage you to do the same because in your hands, if you're building a network marketing, you have an incredible gift to offer to someone today. That's all. I'll see you all next week. Thanks so much for being with me today. Screenshot, send this into your Instagram stories. I'm going to also do some boss hats for people that do that as well. So, I've got a lot of Boss hats, Mandy, because I think we're going to have a lot of people sharing this out in Instagram. I'll catch you guys all next week, or I'll see you over in Camp Elevate.Thanks so much for hanging out with me today on 'You're Not the Boss of Me'. I'm hoping that you've found one thing that you will do today that will allow you to move forward to that big, audacious goal. And I have a favor to ask of you, and that is leaving me a five-star review over in iTunes every single week. I read your reviews. I love hearing what you have to say, and it allows me to bring you more, to get more people to interview that are doing the thing, breaking the glass ceilings, creating what they crave, and helping you with your game plan. So, leave me a five-star review, and when you do, I will enter you to win the 'You're Not the Boss of Me' swag. So, make sure you leave it and we'll reach out to you if you're the winner. Thanks so much for hanging with me today and we'll chat with you soon.

  So you've decided to start your YouTube channel! But in this digital age wherein you have a lot of competition, how exactly do you jumpstart your channel when you are just starting out? In this podcast, Nate willshow you exactly how you can grow your channel from having no subscribers to becoming a six-figure generating machine!   What do you do to grow a YouTube channel when you're just starting out? You've got zero views, zero subscribers and yet you really want to take this seriously. You really want a chance of making 6 or even 7 figures. I'm going to show you how to do that. You're definitely watching the right video because I've done that. And I've done it several times. Meaning, I currently produce 13 different channels. And there's several that are making 6 figures that I started from scratch. One of them is making 7 figures every 7 weeks. So, here's what you can expect. What I'm going to cover in this video is first, I'm going to talk about YouTube's search and I'll introduce you to my leaf strategy. Which makes it really easy for you to pull in traffic from people who've never heard of you before but are searching for your expertise. And then I'm going to talk about how to start your video and how to give content hooks so the people will stay to the end of your video. Next, I'll talk about calls to action. There's 3 different main calls to action that all that I'll teach you how to do so that you can get people to take action on your videos and send signals to the YouTube algorithm that this is a good video. Well then, talk about click-through rate. And some of the things that we've done to get better click-through rates so that you can get more and more people to click on your videos and get better results. I'll then share the sequel technique. There's a few different channels talking about this strategy. It's a really good strategy. I'm going to share how you can do it specifically to a video on your own channel and share with you a story of how we got 5 million views on one video just using this one technique. And then I'm going to wrap up this video sharing a 4 ingredient formula that if you make videos that follow these four ingredients, you will get exponential growth on your channel at the 4-month mark. It works every time. The key to getting found in YouTube search is to do keyword research before filming. You've got to do it before filming. So many people have come to me and asked, "Hey, Nate. I've got hundreds of videos. And they're just amazing content but they're on YouTube they're not getting any traffic. How can I SEO these videos. Can you help me with that?" There is nothing that I can do to SEO a video. YouTube has taken away that ability. You have to do keyword research before filming and I'll give you an example. A friend of mine Doreen's Beckman, she came to me and says, "Nate, I have a great remedy for sore throats." So, we could have just pulled out the camera and started filming her. And she shared her secret and maybe I would have titled the video, "Doreen's secret remedy for a sore throat." Okay, we could have done that but instead we chose to do keyword research first. I found the phrase, "How to get rid of strep throat without antibiotics." 9 words long. That's not a phrase that I made up. But that phrase had consistent search volume every month on Google and YouTube. So, that was a title of the video. Now, Doreen is like, "Okay, I know the formula by heart. I use this all the time but I'm going to answer it in a way that answers this specific question." I'm going to teach this principle. That video ranked number 1 on YouTube instantly. And has been getting traffic for many many years now. That's what we do with the hundreds of videos that we launch every single month across all 13 channels. Now, after you've watched this video, I want you to go watch my leaf strategy video. I'll link to it right up there. I go into way more detail on how you find the questions that people are searching for online. I show you a lot more examples and I show you the tool that you can use that you just put in your idea and it will tell you the specific questions that you can use as your video titles. Now, we're going to talk about how you start your video. See, if you've done the keyword research first, you know what the title is and your job is to do 2 things in your intro. The intro is the part that you start with right before your video logo, your branding piece or your opener. Okay, the intro, it needs to tell people what the video is about and why they should watch. Okay? What and why. What's the video about? Why should they watch it? So, I'll demonstrate this for you. Let's use that sore throat remedy example. Welcome back, in this video, I'm going to talk to you about how to get rid of strep throat without antibiotics. There really is a way. You probably have these ingredients in your kitchen. I have been using this remedy for years. It really works and I'm going to teach you everything about this remedy. Beyond just the what which I said right at the beginning, I then elaborated with another sentence or 2 explaining why I'm the person to deliver it. And although this is Doreen's remedy, I have been using it for years so I could make this video. That's it. That's your intro. You want people to know that they are in the right place that the video that they hit play on is what they were expecting. They have clarity on what the video is about and why they should keep watching. So, after that 2-part intro, then you go to a video logo. The video logo might only be 5 or 10 seconds long. 10 seconds at most. And then you come back into your content. At the beginning of your content, you'll want to lay your content hooks. Okay, content hooks give people curiosity about all the different things you're going to be teaching or sharing in your video. And you may have noticed that I did that in this video. I went through... I've got them listed right here. I went through and told you that I was going to introduce keyword research. Then I was going to talk to you about the intro. That is going to talk to you about keeping people to watch all the way through the end. That's the content hooks. Then I assured that I was going to teach to you about call to action and how to get more people to click on your videos. Then I introduced it I was going to talk to you about the sequel strategy. And then I talked to you about that exponential 4 ingredient formula that I'm going to share at the end, right? When I prepare my videos and I have my clients prepare their content for their videos, we just do it by bullet points. So, when you start into your content, you want to give a summary of these points but not telling people, "Oh, the first ingredient is raw honey the second ingredient is cayenne." No. You might say, "Well, I'm going to share with you the first ingredient..." Alright, you might say it this way: "I'm going to go through all 3 ingredients and tell you why they're in this concoction what they do for your body. And then I'll explain how you mix them all together." That make sense? So, I'm giving a summary but I'm not giving away the meat. I'm creating curiosity so that they want to watch the rest of video and get all that meat. You want to have a call to action in every video. And there are 3 different types of calls to action that you can give. One, it can be a call to action to get people to join your list. Now typically, you don't say, "Hey, if you want to join my list or get on my email list or buy something from me, click the link below." Typically you say, "Hey, I've got a free gift for you. I want to give you my book for free. If you want access to that, go ahead and click the link or go to the link in the description below." See, that type of a call to action, they'll know, they'll get your free gift. And they'll be in your sales funnel. You'll have their contact information. You can follow up with them after that. That works all the time. And you definitely want to every once in a while, have a video with a main call-to-action leading people to your lead magnet. The second call to action all share is you can get user engagement. You can ask people to like, to subscribe, to comment below. You can actually do a poll. I'm going to do a poll right here. Go ahead and click this link and answer the question. Did you know that you could do a poll on YouTube? Just click yes or no. And we'll see what percentages come up there. That's a great way to get engagement and you can have that as one of your main calls to action. The reason for doing that is the YouTube algorithm likes engagement. The more engagement you get on your video, the more YouTube will promote it to other people. Now, a third type of call to action that you want to do regularly throughout your videos is recommending that people go to other videos whether on your channel or other great videos on other people's channels. So, I've already done that in this video. I've recommended my leave strategy video. It's still linked right up there. After this video is done, I definitely recommend that you check that one up because it's really going to help you know how to find those questions that people are searching for. So, when you're preparing the content of your video, know what is the main call to action for this video? Am I going to lead it to my lead magnet? I'm going to lead it to user engagement or am I going to lead people to click on another video? When you get to the end of the video, you don't want to say, "Hey, hopefully found this video helpful. We'll see you tomorrow." Because you're essentially telling people, "Bye, you can go about your day now. You're done with YouTube." YouTube would actually rather that after they're done watching your video, they watch another one. So, at the end of the video, you might say something like this: "Now, that you've got a good foundation of how to grow from 0 subscribers and 0 views up to a seven-figure revenue stream, let's dive deep into that leaf strategy. Okay, go ahead and watch this video next. That makes sense? I'll probably say that at the end of this video. Click through rates, thumbnails, they become far more important. My business is really focused on YouTube for the last 7 years. In all the years that I've been doing YouTube, thumbnails have just become more and more important especially in the last year or 2. See, when people open up YouTube there's a whole menu of different videos that they can watch. They see an image with a title underneath. The do I want to watch this one? Do I watch that one? Do I watch that one, right? You've seen this. So, how do people choose which video to click on? It's really a matter of what's interesting. What creates curiosity. So, the first recommendation I have is to definitely design your own custom thumbnail, okay? YouTube will go through and pick three different still images from your video and you can say, "Which of these three do you like the best?" Or you can design your own custom thumbnail. You can design your own image that creates curiosity that relates to the content of your video of course but will compel people to want to watch your video or want to click on it. In the beginning, all you can do is just give it your best guess. Put your imagination and your creativity to work and create a thumbnail. You can use Canva or Photoshop for that. But then you can actually do A/B split testing. YouTube says that this feature is soon coming. Right now I use a tool called tubebuddy. So tubebuddy, I use that to do my A/B split testing. That's where I can design version A, launch it. A few days later, I launched B and then it will do an analysis and compare which thumbnail gets more clicks. Sometimes all I do is I just change the color of the text. That's it. The image, the the design of the thumbnail stays the same. I just changed the color of the text and that might change it from a 4.6% click-through rate to a 5.9% click-through rate. It's crazy. But you can do stuff like that to get better and better results. So, as you launch your channel and you're putting all this work into creating these videos, doing a/b split testing can really help you get better and better results. Now, let's talk about the sequel technique. Okay, a lot of YouTubers are using this. They'll find a very successful video on YouTube and that they'll create a sequel to it, right? They'll try and create a similar video that's better than it and they'll try and get some of the traffic from that video to then come to yours. I've tried this strategy for other videos. And it works maybe one out of every 10 or 20 attempts. And it works okay. I'm going to share a strategy that works way better, okay? And that's to look for great opportunities within your own channel. So, YouTube analytics is great. Once you've been at this for 4 or 5 or 6 months, you have a lot of videos in there. Chances are there's been some that have caused spikes. When you're in your analytics, the best thing to look at is what videos are YouTube suggesting. Okay? There's a lot of different ways that your videos can get views and traffic. You can get it from search, you can get it from what YouTube calls browse. Suggested. There's other sources of traffic like you know Facebook leads or email clicks. Okay, we're talking about suggested. If you find a video that YouTube is suggesting to other people to watch, that means YouTube likes this video on your child because it's making YouTube money. They're probably pairing ads with it. That means YouTube likes this video and it's suggesting it to other people because it's making YouTube money. Either because they're pairing ads with it and it works really, really well or this video leads to long session watch time. You know, something like that. YouTube has chosen this video and likes it and is suggesting it to other people. So, here's the opportunity that you have: You can create a sequel to your own high performing videos. Let me share with you a story, okay? So, one of the first videos that Kris Krohn and I created is "How to invest your money in your 20s?" So, I'd noticed that that video it had I believe over 60,000 views at the time and a lot of those views had come from suggested traffic. The original video is only about six minutes long. Kris Krohn was sitting in one place. In fact, he was sitting on his pool table with the red felt. And he just shared his story. So, I told Kris, we're going to redo this video. We're not... We're going to leave the old one there on YouTube. It's still doing well but we're going to make another one with the exact same title. And I thought... I tried to think like, 'Why did they like that thumbnail? Why did have a good click-through rate?" I thought if they liked his pool table, they're really going to like his car." So, I had him put his BMW i8 in the video. And when I filmed the video, I actually... I had to really twist Kris's arm at the time. He was... He didn't want to be that guy. But I had him pull up in his car, the wing door came up and I followed him with my glide cam as he walked and talked into his house. So, I followed him in through his door. His cleaning lady happened to be vacuuming so I said, "Hey, cleaning lady." Went into his kitchen. Got a drink of ice water. Went downstairs where his pool table was. Went back upstairs where a flipchart was. We made a longer video. Shared the same story but it was a lot more inviting like we're going into Kris's home. This strategy totally worked then and it's worked in many times since. Over the next 2 weeks, this channel performed above average. Okay? It was a good video. And then, it totally took off. From the next 5 weeks, our channel grew from 80,000 subscribers to 160,000 subscribers. I don't want to confuse this but we actually did two sequel videos at the time. This one that I'm telling you about was the main one. And these two videos together or the next five weeks doubled the size of our channel. We got way more views. Adsense revenue became significant. You know, 5 figures. So, how does this apply to you? Well, you'll find similar opportunities in your own YouTube channel. Just look through the analytics and find which videos YouTube is suggesting the most and create a sequel. Are you ready for the 4 ingredient formula to take your channel exponential? Right? You're going to have spikes in 4 months. It works every single time if you have these 4 ingredients. I'm serious. I've done it many times. Ingredient number 1, you've got to do keyword research before filming. Number 2, your videos have to be 10 to 12 minutes in length on average. Okay, have a minimum of 7 minutes. You can go longer. That video that I just told you about the sequel that went huge it's got over 5 million views, that one was actually a 20-minute video. We didn't plan on it being that long but it's worked really really well. Have your videos average 12 minutes in length. Okay, ingredient number 3 your videos need to have a good retention rate. You know, have an average of 45% or higher retention rate. So, if you've got a video, we'll just make math easy. If you've got a 10 minute video, people should at least be watching 4 and a half minutes of that video on average. Ideally, 10 to 12 minute video should have a 6 or 7 minute average view duration. The reason that that's an ingredient in this formula is YouTube likes watch time. And if you're putting out tons and tons of content but your videos on average are only being watched one minute through or one minute 20 seconds through. Which I've seen. This formula will not work and your channel will still grow gradually but you won't experience a spike. Okay, here's the last ingredient. Ingredient number 4 is you've got to post five episodes per week. Now, there is some controversy. Different YouTube influencers that I highly respect that are friends of mine and there are other ways that you can achieve success on YouTube with different amounts of frequency. Such as one video per week. In the space of experts making how-to informative type content, this formula works. And if you have these 4 ingredients, you will get a spike. I've never seen it fail. Keyword research before filming; 10 to 12 minutes in length; average retention rate or view duration of 45% or higher; post five episodes per week. And at that 4- month mark, you'll experience a spike. On the Kris Krohn channel, it was 4 months to the day we had a spike. We were averaging like 500 views a day. Something like that. And our first spike we got up to 10,000 views in a single day. And we never got down below a thousand or 2 a day even when that settle down. But then quickly had another spike up to 30,000. 35,000, in fact. Soon we got to a point where our average baseline was higher than our first spike. And we've never looked back. You've heard me talk a lot about keyword research in this video. And I've actually created a keyword research mini-course. So, in addition to watching my leaf strategy video that I've linked to above, down in the description and on my end screen here, it's probably somewhere on the screen, I also want you to check out my keyword research mini course. This is a free gift where I actually take you step-by-step through finding the questions that your audience is searching for. You know, so you have expertise. This'll guide through finding the questions of people are asking. So you'll know what to title your videos. Go ahead and click the link below and watch that leaf strategy video next.

Imposter syndrome affects creators, entrepreneurs, and artists by the millions. Learn how to overcome the feelings of not being enough, today... As mentioned in the video here's the subconscious reprogramming meditation you can listen to daily to help reprogram your operating system - www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu5Dpw_PSuo I cover more about how and why this works in this post here- www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.milesbeckler.com%2Frewire-your-brain%2F&event=video_description&v=qmMI8CnS0jQ&redir_token=iIpfQTc5OyMhWIeA4fqDo5XH5uV8MTU3MzYzNzQ3NEAxNTczNTUxMDc0 And for the last point, focusing yourself on your audience… This post goes deep into how the law of attraction and the law of reciprocation actually works seek and understand why this is beneficial at a business level - www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.milesbeckler.com%2Flaw-of-attraction%2F&event=video_description&v=qmMI8CnS0jQ&redir_token=iIpfQTc5OyMhWIeA4fqDo5XH5uV8MTU3MzYzNzQ3NEAxNTczNTUxMDc0 And while you're at it you might enjoy my video on the law of attraction here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9SqusSJQM In this video, you're going to learn exactly how to overcome imposter syndrome. Specifically, you're going to learn the five keys that I've used in my life to overcome this myself because if you're moving your life in a direction of doing something that you've never done before, that none of your friends, your family members or your coworkers have ever done before, odds are you're going to meet resistance along this path, and it's going to come in a couple of ways. Number one is external resistance from these individuals. I mentioned, right? When you're surrounded by people who are striving for mediocrity in their life and you're shooting for excellence, there's a lot of people that are going to think, Oh, don't you want to be safe, or who that stuff's risky. Your mom go, Charlie tried the internet stuff, man, that stuff don't work. Everyone on there is a scam, so there's this ex ternal form of resistance that you're going to have to deal with, but then there's the internal form of resistance. That internal conversation we have with our ego that's going to ask very rude oftentimes questions, at least for me, like who do you think you are or you're not enough and I'm here to tell you you are enough and when you reframe your mindset based on these five specific principles, you'll be able to blaze forward on your path confidently knowing that this is totally normal, right? Everyone who has created amazing things out of nothing and they had no clue how they were going to do it, they all deal with this at some point in their process of you're feeling it. That just means you're on the path. Let's jump into the actual five steps. Number one is stay focused on who you are becoming. Okay? There's this whole like fake it till you make it thing and I don't buy into that. I think it's a bunch of bologna, but I want to ask you, who are you becoming? When I started making my videos, I started making them out of a frustration that I noticed a lot of people teaching on YouTube about digital marketing. They weren't teaching at all. They were just trying to sell their overpriced courses. I bought into a couple of courses and they were terrible, and I was like, I know more than these dudes charging thousands, and I was like, F it. I'm gonna just make the videos myself. Okay? So in that moment, I committed to becoming the most helpful internet marketer online period. I'm the most helpful marketer in the world. I've kind of refined that down and I stay focused on this. Here's what people can't do. Okay? There's this whole like fake it till you make it thing and I don't buy into that. I think it's a bunch of bologna, but I want to ask you, who are you becoming? When I started making my videos, I started making them out of a frustration that I noticed a lot of people teaching on YouTube about digital marketing. They weren't teaching at all. They were just trying to sell their overpriced courses. I bought into a couple of courses and they were terrible, and I was like, I know more than these dudes charging thousands, and I was like, F it. I'm gonna just make the videos myself. Okay? So in that moment, I committed to becoming the most helpful internet marketer online period. I'm the most helpful marketer in the world. I've kind of refined that down and I stay focused on this. Here's what people can't do. And that journey is the process of becoming. So you're not necessarily trying to be the be all end all today. You're in the process of becoming that. Okay, so who are you becoming and what would that person do? And then do those actions. Now you'll get better at it. And I got better at making videos. I got better at teaching. Everything has fallen into place because I stay focused on who I am becoming. So get focused on who you are becoming.  

Let's dive into WHAT gets you paid. It's not the offer!... Hey. What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen. You're listening to probably one of my favorite episodes of Sales Funnel Radio so far. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. Now, I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio... What's up, guys? Hey, I know probably every episode is my favorite episode when I'm doing it. Anyway, this is one of the core reasons and ways to actually make more money... What? Hopefully, that's an exciting topic for you. Hey. Next to me to my right right now, it's a chest. I've got a bunch of random stuff in there. Some guns in there. Frankly, it's extremely very thin, brittle chest. It's slightly painted green. There's these little latches on it that are all rusted out. Frankly, it looks like a piece of junk. It does. For right now in today's value, you probably wouldn't get much for this, which is interesting. How many guys want to buy it? I would love to maybe ship it out to you if you guys want to buy it. Anyway, that'd be really, really awesome if you guys want to purchase it. You're like, "What, Steve? Are you kidding me?" All right. Let me shift it up for you now. Let me tell you that this chest belonged to Captain Wayne Kartchner, an ancestor of mine. This thing is old, guys. This is an heirloom. It's next to me. it's rusted out. I do keep a few things in it but it's next to me here. Captain Wayne Kartchner. I've got several military members that have been in my bloodline, which is part of why I went into as well for myself. Interesting. How many guys want to buy it now? Would you be shocked if the price that I sold this for after telling you that story would be a little bit higher? No. It wouldn't shock you, would it? It would not shock you at all that I'd actually charge more money for that. Hey. I've got some pieces of dead tree over here. It's awesome. There's some blank ink on them. It's a book. Anyway, how many guys want it? Sweet. Sweet. Cool. You know, I'm going to sell it for 100 bucks. If you guys want it, just message me right now. Is that cool? All right. What if I was to tell you that this one book has made me a butt ton of money and has actually given me the life that I have been wanting really, really bad? Cool. Is it worth 795? You guys get what I'm getting at? Hopefully, you are. One of the questions I've been getting a lot lately... Some guy wrote out and he said, "Hey. This is one of the topics I've been pounding on a lot lately for my coaching students." I wanted to be able to go in and I wanted to teach you guys the same thing. This is important. This is very important... What I want you to know is we're about offer creation. Offer creation and storytelling. Those are the only two things that I really care about anymore. Okay? Those are the two most lucrative skillsets I can even think of. The farther I follow this rabbit hole down, the farther I've realized, the more I've realized that that's really it. That's really it... I don't have to be an amazing, creative individual with Photoshop. I like Photoshop. I don't have to be an amazing, creative individual with ... I don't have to know how to code. There's a lot of people that know how to do this. Okay. I can outsource all that stuff but the thing that I cannot outsource very well is this whole storytelling offer creation piece. Why? Why?.. Let me tell you a story real quick. A man walks down the street. It's actually an alley. He walks down the street. He's creeping. He gets shot and dies. Okay? Let me switch it up for you though and give you some context. It's a war zone and he's a soldier. Okay? Huh? Right? In one second, you might think that someone was murdered. In another, you might think that they were just killed in the battle zone. Fascinating context. Context is everything. Context is what actually delivers value. Okay? Offers is not where value is created... I want you to know that. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I'm trying to help you guys. Look around at these objects that are around you. One of my favorite stories is a story of this violin. I don't know if it's true or not. It's a movie. You guys might know it. This movie where this violin is being shown. It's at an auction. They're auctioning off this super old violin. Somebody's like, "Yeah. I don't remember the price once were but it was super low." Everyone's like, "Really?" The auctioneer's like, "You only paid that much for it and no one would go any higher." Suddenly, this old gentleman just starts walking up to the front of the room. He takes the violin. In front of everybody, he starts to clean it. He cleans the violin. He polishes it. He tunes it. He plays the most incredible song and just hands it back to the auctioneers and goes and sits back down. The offers for the violin go through the roof. Why? Context, guys. Story. A story creates context for things. Okay? When we're thinking about offer creation and products and value and how to make more money, you have to understand. Your offer is not what creates value. Offers do not create value. They deliver it. They don't make it. Okay. They deliver it... They scratch the edge but they don't make value. What makes value is the sales message. Okay? For example, a lot of you guys know that I'm religious. Here's a biblical example. There's a woman. She goes and she pays tithing. She gives away just two pieces of coin, whatever it was. I can't remember how much. Some rich people next to her make fun of her because she only gave just a little. Okay? Now, from a monetary standpoint, she gave just a little bit. These other people give a ton because they have a lot of money. Christ, he's sitting on the side. He says, "Who gave more?" Everyone said, "Well, the rich people." Actually, let's get some context here. That was almost all of her money. How much more worth were those coins that she gave? Think about it in those kinds of terms. Think about it. Okay? There's a lot of things, objects, heirlooms you may be even given. For example, I go over to Cache Valley every once in a while. I've got family over there. I had no idea that one of my ancestors in I think, Sweden or Denmark. I can't remember now... I could say this if I wasn't recording an episode right now. One of my ancestors got on a ship and lived on a ship going back and forth between. This is in the mid 1800s. Going back and forth between America and England until he had enough money to get off the ship and he walked across America seven times helping people from the East Coast all the way over to the West Coast. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He did it seven times... The guy was so intense and such a leader but a humble leader. No one else really knew. Anyway, they wanted him to settle in this area, Cache Valley. They wanted him to be the mayor. He said no. He did not want to be the mayor. They went in and they literally voted him to be the mayor without him wanting to be the mayor. They made him the mayor. Okay?... They called him to be the leadership and he did not want to be in it. He constantly fought back. The only way is because by public vote, they just chose him to be and they decided to be. He ran from it. He didn't want to be. Now that I go into Cache Valley, that place means more to me. That means more to me. He settled part of that area over there. He helped create the towns and everything. When I go in there, it means more to me now. Why? Context. Okay? Story. I know the story now. I went and I saw his gravestone. That guy was a crazy entrepreneur. I had no idea until I learned that. That gravestone means a lot more to me now because I know the story. I know the context. Value is created in story... Story changes context. Context is what creates value. When I sit back and I say, "Hey. Go get this thing called ClickFunnels. Go get this product over here. I've got this cool product over here called Secret MLM Hacks. It's killing it. It's awesome. We have a lot of cool success stories. People are doing great in it." If I just go say that, you'd be like, "Oh, sweet. An opportunity for Steven to take my money." Right?... If I start telling my actual story though, if I develop a sales message, if I use some frameworks that's meant to change the way that the people see the world, that people see the product, value is created in a sales message, not an offer. It's the reason I laugh so hard. People are like, "Well, I would go selling it but I'm not done creating the offer. I don't think anybody will pay for the offer yet." I'm always like, "My gosh. That is not how value is created." Okay? Value is not created through the offer. It is delivered through it but it's not created in it. It's created inside the sales message. Because the sales message delivers context. The sales message changes frames. It changes the blueprint of how we see the world, of how we see the object, of how we see the offer. Okay? Get good at developing those stories. Get good at telling those stories. That's the whole reason why I keep trying to preach that just a little bit. I know I've pounded it hard in the past little bit but it's the reason why, too. I was telling them to go publish. Publish, publish, publish. I know I'm a broken record with the publishing thing. Okay? I know I am but it's because when you publish, people see you differently. You are changing the context that they're looking at you with. How many of you guys when you first saw me, you're like, "Oh, yeah. That's the lead funnel brother ClickFunnels." Without listening to this podcast, how many of you guys ... You guys didn't know much about me. You didn't have affinity for my brand and what I'm doing. You didn't. That's fine. I know that. I knew that. Therefore, I publish. Does that make sense? Now, when I say, "Hey. I'm out at an event. Hey. I'm out on a mastermind. Hey. This is a sweet book." By the way, I'm writing a book right now about all the lessons I learned next to the desk of Russell Brunson. Okay? It's freaking awesome. Okay? I'm so excited. My gosh, it's so good. It's 300 pages. It's really, really good. Anyway, you guys don't care about that though until I deliver context. Until I deliver context. I need you to know that. I'm just trying to help you understand that. When you are developing your offers, when you're coming up with something new to sell, that's the reason why first, you start with the sales message piece... You're going to have to figure out on a very rough draft 30,000 foot view level of what your offer is or an idea of what it's going to be. They don't make the thing until you know that actually turns money. It's not the offer that's turning money, okay? You don't get paid because of an offer. You don't. Okay? You get paid because of a sales message, because of a sales letter. That's what gets you paid. That's the thing to obsess over. If there's any skillset I can beg you guys to go learn and be obsessive over, it is the skillset of telling stories. Okay? It is the skillset of selling stuff. It's the skillset. Thankfully, one more step back on that ladder is becoming a good marketer. Because being a good marketer, you don't have to sell as hard, which is awesome. At the core of marketing, it's storytelling. It's educating. It's educating with the intent that they go and purchase something. Okay? That's what marketing is. You're changing belief patterns. How do you do that? You're changing context. You're adding context. You're taking away context. You're adding things to it so they look differently at an object that might otherwise be four pieces of thin wood next to me on the side, right here on the floor. You know what I mean? There's context with it now. I know that there's a story behind it. I know that there is a story... People will pay more because now, they know the story. They know the context. They see the value. It's four pieces of wood that's pretty destroyed. You know what I mean? Did the monetary actual value of this chest right next to me changed when I told you that story? Not really. No, it did. It's the same pieces of wood. It's not like it's an appreciating asset. It's this piece of wood right here. Why does it have a lot of value? Because of the context, because of the story that you now know. When you're developing your offers, please know that that's not where you get paid. You get paid because of story, which ultimately is your sales message. Anyway, that's the whole point I'm trying to help you guys. The products and offers, it's not where the value is created. It's in the sales message. The product and offer just delivers. It delivers on the value but that's not where the value is created. If you're having a hard time selling your stuff, number one, yeah, definitely. Look at your offer. Maybe there's certain things in there that ... I don't know. It just sucks. The reality is, is that you could go in and have a crappy offer with a fantastic sales message. It's a classic example when you go and buy something on the internet and it shows up and it's pure garbage. Why did that work? It worked because the sales message was amazing. It was incredible. The actual product itself was terrible. Okay? That's a two-step method of getting paid more. Just number one, bring it from a product and turn it into an offer. Don't sell products. Sell offers. Number two. Man, make this incredible story. Make an amazing sales message because that's really what assigns value. I will never get rid of my ClickFunnels account. Never. Ever. Why? Not just because of the money that comes from it, because of all the story. The stories that Russell tells where he goes out and he says, "Hey, look." I even saw it. When people, they had never used their ClickFunnels account ever. They just like the t-shirt because they liked the culture that's behind it. They've got t-shirts. They've got the context behind why that t-shirt matters. Does that make sense? I'm trying to close you, guys. You guys getting this? Anyway, I hope that that is hitting home for you. This is such a huge topic and I'm trying to hit it straight between the eyes. Because there's a lot of people who've been saying this stuff to me lately. They're saying this to me lately. All right?... "Hey. I'm not done with my offer yet. Therefore, I cannot sell anything." It's like, "Well, that's not how things are sold. Yes, you can." All right? Someone reached out to me today and I can't remember who said it. Snippy is not the right word. They're very forward though. How would somebody purchase something that's not created yet? When I say, "Hey. Go create a sales message and start selling before the actual offer and products are created." Somebody's like, "Who would do that?" Like, "Well, a lot of people do that that's why I've launched everything." When we launched Funnel Builder Secrets, that whole offer went out there. Incredible offer. The offer wasn't made yet. We knew what it was but it wasn't created. We actually didn't put it together yet. An amazing sales message put this together. We made millions of dollars off that thing before it was even done. Lots of money. The original Two Comma Club Coaching program secrets master class, when I was putting that together, we're selling that thing. It wasn't a Two Comma Club before the thing was even done. Why? Because the value was already assigned. Now, the value was assigned, people were paying for it because the value was higher in perceived value than they were actually paying for it. Then I could go in and I could just create it. I literally created it one week ahead of them. Who does that? A lot of people. I just listened to a sweet interview with Ezra Firestone and Ryan Moran. Actually, Russell sent it over to me. He was saying this exact type of thing. Ezra Firestone does the same exact thing. He creates this cool sales message, makes sure that it sells. He sells to his Beta users for $1,000. The future people have to purchase it for $1500. That first Beta group helps him create the product that they purchased. That makes sense? Anyway, I think I said that, does that make sense too many times. I got to start breaking up more trial closes. Anyway, I hope though that like I said, that's hitting home. That you guys are getting it. Okay? The ability to develop a marketing and sales message is so powerful. That is where value is created. That is where value is assigned because it's where context is delivered. Okay? It's where context is given. We see the blueprint of the object differently. Even though this water bottle in front of me, I used to backpack a lot growing up. There was this Nalgene water bottle that I had. That thing went with me everywhere. I took that water bottle. I don't know how many hundreds of miles I backpacked with that water bottle. I would never get rid of it... There was this value I had assigned to it. When we were backpacking to different areas, we ran out of water. We had to ration water and be a little bit scary actually. Different creek. That's the water bottle. For some reason, I don't know why. I won't get rid of that water bottle. I can't find it now. That was a lot of years ago. Okay? For a long time, that was it. It was not just a piece of plastic to me. There was a story, lots of them behind that very water bottle. Does that make sense? Sounds cheesy. Totally true though. Completely accurate and applies to every object that you're selling. Okay? Find ways to deliver new context. Another way to say that. Find ways to break and rebuild belief patterns. That's what that is. Anyway, all right. For fear of saying the same thing over and over again, just probably in this episode. All right, guys. You're all awesome. Appreciate you. Go forth ahead and tell them a profitable story. Bye. Hey. Thanks for listening. Hey, look. Can't decide what funnel you need or need more in-depth training on how to use your current funnel, find out which funnel you need at salesfunnelbroker.com and get your premium pre-built funnels and training today.

My message to market to offer match... Hey, what's up everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sale's Funnel Radio. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my 9:00-5:00 to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real questions is how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me, and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sale's Funnel Radio... What's up, new intro! Hey, first off, just celebrating 100 thousand downloads. We've actually be past that for quite a while, just have not had the chance to create the new intro. I wrote this script while I was in the airport, I think two days ago, and I was like let's go do this, let's get it done. Anyways, hopefully you like that. I wanted to be more forward, and open, and purposeful about what this podcast is really all about, and why I do what I do. The first about 100 episodes were me just documenting the journey and lessons as I sat next to the man Russell Brunson, of course, right? After that though, I wanted to make a really strong point of this is what I did, when I did it, this is my adjustments as I saw what market was telling me to switch. This is the part of the business and part of the funnel I'm building here and there, but not until this point because of this and that. Do you know know what I mean? I'm trying to help you guys see what I'm doing and why I'm ding it. We certainly had a chance to build a lot of those kind of things for other entrepreneurs and such along the way, and finally I was like man, I see this pattern, it's the same pattern, regardless of the industry, I'm just going to go do it, and it's been working great. Anyway, it's been a ton of fun. Here's to 100 thousand downloads, and moving along, and me kind of documenting the journey as I keep going forward. It's been off to a great start, we're officially in the month of March, which is crazy. That's nuts... Anyway, hey, so this last week I was, I've traveling like a beast, guys. About two weeks ago I was in Vegas, last week I was in Dallas, and then I hope those of you that are coming to Funnel Hacking Live I'll get a chance to actually meet you. I got something cool. Stay tuned, I think next episode I'm going to drop something cool for you guys, for those of you who are actually coming to Funnel Hacking Live. Anyways, I was speaking last week, and I don't know what the deal is with when events get created, but I feel like they get the speakers in by saying there's going to be this many people, and getting people in events is like the hardest thing on planet earth. To get someone to buy something on the internet, that's a lot easier, because, I mean, you're either having to ship something to their house, they don't have to change anything in their plans, or it's literally an info product, and you're just giving access to them, or some coaching, but an event? They got to take time out of their life. They're going to plan a flight, they're going to plan hotel rooms, they're going to plan how to get from the airport to the hotel, they're going to plan, does this make sense? What are they going to eat, what are they going to wear? They got to pack a bag? They got to make arrangements. Besides the fact you're going to sell them the actual ticket, like it's pretty incredible to watch how people, but you can really see who the amazing, amazing individual marketers are based on the events that they're putting, on which is Russell Brunson's No Different, it's freaking huge. It's amazing, it's bar none the best marketing event that is in there, that is out there. In my very humble, but straight forward opinion, and correct opinion. Anyway, this last event I was speaking at was awesome. There was supposed to be 2000 people, there was only 1000 people, which is still a lot of people, and that was a lot, which is great. I had a lot of fun, but I was expecting more. Anyway, a lot of fun though. In the evening time I went and I spoke, and I got to go to dinner with some friends that were there, and one of the people asked me a question. They said, "Steven, how do you really come up with all this podcast material? Where do you see yourself in five years? What are you going to be saying?" This is one of the major concerns that I feel like people get when they start considering publishing regularly, right? I had the same concern. The concern was what the heck do you say? Especially after I can come up with a few different episode ideas, but after a while I don't know what to be saying anymore. You know what I mean? I totally get it. I went through the exact same predicament. Whereas I don't even know, what am I going to say in episode 97? What about episode 140? What am I going to say when I'm at episode 1000? Oh, my gosh, right? I will tell you that I don't care at all until I'm at episode 96 is over. Until 139 is over, until 9999 is over. Okay? There are times, though, I've don't that six part series where I went through and deep dived with other experts in their funnels. There is times where there is a lot of planning involved with it, but I started just talking very openly about how I do my shows, and I just wanted to drop this little tiny thing onto you, and help you understand how. I feel like this is one talent and skill that has served in many areas, and I know is one of the major reasons why I've been speaking more. I know is one of the reasons why I've been able to go out and even do Russell's fad events, it's because of podcasting. I was talking to them, and I was like, "Well, here's the thing that a lot of people don't realize, is that you're learning with me. Okay, we're learning at the same time, I'm just telling you what I'm learning." How many of you guys are learning something new probably every day? Right, everybody. Everybody is. Are you telling anyone about it? One of the major things that I did in college, I know one of the major reasons why I started getting straight A's, I do believe ... You guys know that I am very religious, I believe in God, and I don't live perfectly, but I try to live the best I can. I know that for me I did really, really, really well in school. A lot of that was divine intervention, there is not a doubt in my mind. But a lot of it had to do with my own action, obviously, all of it. None of it happens without my own action, and one of the habits that I started creating for myself is that every time I came back from a class in college, this is very key, listen to this, this is, it's the same pattern for how I come up with stuff in my podcast. Every time, most times I should say, as often as I could, one of the things I actively did was whatever I learned in class that day that was exciting, that was interesting, that was prolific, that was amazing, that was something I wanted to remember, I made it a point to teach it to somebody else as quickly as I could. The moment I was done learning whatever, whether it was stuff I was studying on my own, or stuff that was in a class, or something I was building a funnel for another business, in college, that's where I developed that pattern, I developed that habit. When I learned something that is incredible, when I learned something that is like, oh, my gosh, like that really helped me here, here, and here. Right? I teach it to somebody as fast as I can. I find somebody. I have even taught random people. I know that sounds stupid and weird, but I have literally, I've done it before, or I'll send a message to somebody and be like, "I know you're thinking about this at all, I just learned something cool, I just wanted to share," because frankly it's to be selfish. I want to share it with you, but I also want to make sure I remember it, and I will teach them what I just learned. I do over and over and over and over and over... What's cool about it is it's almost like you guys have seen The Five Minute Journal? I can't remember who it's by, but it's the five minute journal, and who is by actually? I can't remember ... Anyway. The five minute journal goes through and it makes you look at your day, it makes you go back and look, and kind of debrief. I can't think of the other word for it. Assess, take accountability for the things that you did in your day, and the things that you learned, and what was amazing, what was bad, how you're going to change it, how you're going to react. I try and treat this show like that. Does that make sense? When something amazing it going on in my life and I'm like oh, my gosh, that's crazy cool. I got to share that. Right? Then it becomes very, very easy for me to continually have podcast material. I don't know what two episodes from now is going to be, but I know it will be amazing, because I thought it was amazing, and because I get excited about it, because I'm obsessed about funnels and marketing it's going to be easy for me to talk about it, and it's going to be easy for me to tell a story around it. Does that make sense? You've got to develop this talent, this habit, okay? What was super cool was I was able to use very, very heavily when I was speaking this last weekend. I've shared with a few other people as well, so if you've heard this, I'm sorry, but I went through and I was on stage and I could tell very, very quickly that the stories that I was telling, I wasn't allowed to pitch, but I took the first half of my webinar script and I just took out the pitch and I pretty much did the exact same script. I still broke and rebuilt their belief patterns, and I know it worked because a ton of people came up afterwards. Actually, it's kind of funny, for the first 24 hours not a lot of people came up. For the second 24 hours I feel like it all hit their brains and they're like, wait a second, I get it. The next day it was like floods of people. I've never had that happened before, it was funny. I was like awe, cool. Anyway, I could tell I was speaking, I wasn't pitching, but I was definitely selling, I'm always selling. I'm selling through stories, very crafted stories to help break and rebuild the way they see the world and whats actually possible, you know what I mean? You obviously can use that for very bad things, but anyway. I was speaking though, and I was I could feel that the room, like a third to a half of the room was not with me. Because I've been practicing this as frequently as I have, right? I have an entire separate podcast show. We're at episode 60-something now, right? I'm about to cross 200 episodes of doing this, let alone the different events, let alone the different places I've spoken or taught, let alone the different coaching sessions. Pretty much all of Friday for me is coaching. My entire Friday, every week, I just coach 100s of people. I mean, it's the entire day. I've been doing for that over a year now, and I've had a lot of practice at it. When I was up there and I could feel that part of the room was not with me, because their eyes went down. They got distracted by what was on the table in front of them. I wasn't getting any more like oh, ah, like you would at Fourth of July, you know what I mean? I was able to see, I was a able to sense it. I don't know what it is guys, it's a sixth sense. You will develop it if you do what I'm telling and just start publishing, you will develop it. It will not happen for awhile, but you will develop it. I could feel that part of the room wasn't with me. One of the challenges that you have as an entrepreneur, one of the challenges that I run into, that everyone runs into. I'm no exception on the rule in this, when you've got a product that kicks butt, I know that the webinar that I'm selling, that the product that I'm selling right now, it's amazing. I know it's the best one that's out there right now. I know that there is nothing out there that it like it. I know that I am the only one that delivers it how I do with the most value. I am confident in that, but that's not what sells stuff, the message is what sells it. The sales message is a different thing than the actual product. It's the reason you can start selling without the product actually being done. I've been obsessing over the sales message. I've just barely finished the product that I've been selling, which is awesome. It's such a good feeling ... Anyway, what I've been doing is I've been going and I've been selling, selling, selling, selling. Selling like crazy, and when you have a product that's, follow with me. I know I'm kind of stumbling, but follow with me, I've got 15 billion thoughts all over the place. I'm trying to follow it and grab it. When you've got all these different ... Sorry, when you've got this amazing product, okay, I'm sure all of you guys have an amazing product, so why isn't literally everyone on the planet running out to buy it? I know we've already talked about sales message is what sells the product, however, there comes a point when you don't need to be tweaking as much of the sales message anymore as much as you need to be tweaking who's hearing it. Does that make sense? I know we've all heard the phrase, "Message to market match." 100%, totally with that, totally agree with that, obviously. I think one of the dangers we will fall into through as funnel hackers is we will continue to change, after awhile, I'm not saying not to, but change your product, change the sales message, tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak. I'm getting it to a point now with the level of obsession that I've been at, where I feel like it's not going to be so much tweaking the sales message anymore that's going to be doing it, I think I could shorten the sales message for my webinar right now. I think I could shorten it. I think it's a little long, but the actual message, I think it's spot on. I think my offer, there is a few things I could add to it to turn up the sexy just a little bit, and I think I know what they're going to be, but the next piece if really changing who is hearing it, right? Who I'm dropping it front of. Steven, why are you on this random rabbit, squirrel that's over on the side? You're talking about being on stage. Okay, here's why. I was on stage, and I was telling you that about half through I could tell they were with me, they were getting it, they were like, oh, my gosh. Remember I was pitching to MLM-ers. If you're not in MLM, that's fine. I'm just telling who I was speaking with, and I was speaking with them, there's 1000 people there, I show them the funnel stuff, and a lot of them have never seen this before, and they're like, "Holy crap." About half of them were freaking out, they were like, "Good grief, that's what you just did?" I was like, "Yeah, what's up? I don't know any of you guys, you all know each other though." Anyways, it was really cool. About the other half, though, weren't with me. From that I had two options. This decision happened in my head very quickly while I was up there. They gave me a tight 45 minutes to be up there and be speaking. I had a very tight timeline, and ... That was really fast for what I did up there. I had two options, through. Option number one was to just say, you know what? It's fine. If you don't resonate with what I'm saying you're not probably a good fit for this anyway. Does that makes sense? I wouldn't say that, but that would be my reasoning, but like you didn't resonate, that's fine. That's okay. You didn't resonate with the stories, you didn't resonate with the sales message, even though I'm not pitching, I'm definitely selling, and you didn't resonate, that's fine... Number two, though, the second option I have is the one I took, which was to grab another story that I have been practicing, because of all the publishing, because of the podcasts, because of all the stuff, I developed, right, that little sixth sense that I'm talking about and grab another story from my Quiver... Grab another story, grab another arrow from my Quiver and launch that story out there that I think fits who I saw who was also in the room. I was like, "Man, I didn't realize there would be this many of this kinds of demographic. This kind of psychographic, this kind of belief pattern. I didn't realize, I wish I would have known that before. Do you know what I mean? Your ability to adapt on the fly like that will very much depend on how much you've been publishing, how much you've been practicing telling the story. The first option I had was okay, that's fine. You didn't resonate with my message, that's cool. I think a lot to when I automate the webinar that that will be my reasoning, hey, look, you didn't resonate, that's fine, but I have a second option, which is the benefit of doing live webinars, which is the benefit of feeling like live is you get to feel that sixth sense, and you get to go out and you get to say, hey, look, let me launch this other story. Let me grab another arrow from my Quiver, and shoot it out there, and go is that going to stick? And it did, and I was able to grab a hug other portion of the room and it resonated with them. Does that make sense? I know I'm kind of all over the place with this, but I hope you understand what I'm saying. This is all very very connected. Your ability to tell story, do it repeatedly, have a lot of stories in your Quiver, and being able to sense when to grab. They're like weapons guys, you grab another story, boom, and you launch it out. You grab a different story, boom, you launch it out there, you're like oh, man, that one didn't hit. Boom, that one hit. I can tell, I'm reading their body language, they're jumping all over the place, they're clapping, they're screaming, whatever. The equivalence of that online, during a webinar, whatever... If you're not getting a lot of that feedback when you're selling your product it might be very well possible that they're not feeling that. You have two options, number one is to say, that's fine, and you just keep finding people that resonate with your current message. Number two, launch a second story and shoot it out there. Launch a second story, see if it sticks, and be like oh, that one didn't stick, boom, and you launch another one, and you launch another one, and you launch another one, and your ability to do it quickly will very much effect how well the rest of your funnel performs. Anyway, does that make sense? That was kind of long, roundabout way of saying all this guys, but I hope that makes sense, what I'm saying here. This was a pretty powerful thing for me to go through. I've done it on very micro scales, where there's maybe up to 60 people in a room. I've done that many times, where I can sense it, I can feel it in the room and be like they're not getting it, or be like you know what? Let's come up with a brand new analogy on the fly, or let's use one of their business, okay, let me weave a story in between there to help break and rebuild beliefs there. Your ability to tell story is marketing, and it is selling. I'm sorry, is marketing, not selling, it's face-to-face. Anyway, I hope that make sense, and I want you to, the takeaway from this episode ... I feel like I've been all over the place a little bit with these last few episodes, but I'm trying to distill down the things that I'm noticing. It's like I think we all have the bricks, what I'm trying to do is help you fill in the mortar, you know what I mean? The glue between them, and figure out how to do that stuff. Anyways, I'm trying to help you understand that the takeaway from this is that you have got to write out storylines of what's happening inside your life. You've got to. If you've got the gumption, which I hope that, if you don't have it, learn it. Just start publishing. Start publishing those storylines, and as you do it, I don't know somewhere around episode 30-ish, I started finding my voice. Then something else happened around episode 90. I don't know I've heard it from a lot of you guys, you felt it as well. There was this extra amount of, I don't know, glaze that my voice gained as I published. It was like this extra sizzle, and I think it was part of that sixth sense that started coming in... As I would start to say stuff it was almost like I would hear the audience reply with something, with the false believe that they were hearing, that they were giving up as an excuse, and I'd have a chance to react back and forth, boom, boom, boom, boom, back and forth, back and forth, as if you were in the room with me while I was doing these podcasts. Does that make sense? I hope that you're understanding what I'm saying here with this. This is super, super, super, super, powerful. I know I pound the story, I tell you guys get good at story, but the applications for it are all over the place. It's not just in publishing, not just in selling, but the ability to adapt on the fly. The ability to get new markets in, when Russell tells the story about, "Hey, I couldn't figure out how to sell Click Phones for awhile." He had to change the story. That's the major thing. When he changed the story and the offer, and he's tweaking it back and forth, boom, boom, back and forth, back and forth, which offer matches the story that I'm telling, that matches the person that's hearing it. It's really this three part series, right? Who's hearing it, what's the story that they're hearing, and you got to craft that, and then what's the offer? Then when you match those three together, that's where the magic happens. What I was feeling on the stage was the person who was in the room was not the person I was anticipating. Crap, my story's not right, which means my offer, even though I wasn't actually pitching, I was certainly selling though, I was still breaking and rebuilding the way they saw the world, wasn't correct. There was a mismatch. I felt the mismatch. It was like this three part mismatch. I got to come up with another way to say that. It's message to market match, yeah, but there is something, it's deeper than that. It was the thing that I start knowing, and feeling, and sensing, and I hope that you understand what I'm dropping out there with this, and start feeling that. Start asking yourself, okay, who am I actually doing the selling to? What's the story I'm using to gain their attention and break and rebuild their beliefs? Then number three, what's the offer? Where do I feel like that weak spot is? If you don't know what the weak spot is you are not pitching frequently enough. I'm telling you around episode 85-90ish, okay, that was a long time, that's when I started feeling it. You have got to have frequency with this thing. Frequency is far more important, in my opinion, than perfection in every single thing you say. I say too many ums, I say too many ahhs, I'm practicing storytelling, I'm practicing is ... Anyway hopefully this has been helpful to you guys. You know what? You might actually have an amazing offer, and my gut feeling is that you probably do, you probably know that it is amazing, and if you don't know that, get there. Okay? Oh, it's amazing! It's so cool! It's the best thing on the planet. I know I can defend it to death. You know what I mean? If you got that, boom, done, boom. My offer is there, there is a few more things I got to toss in there to make it extra sexy, in terms of my fast action bonus, but the offer, done. Okay, next piece. Message. What are my stories? My stories are set, my stories are freaking awesome. I know they're great, I feel it. Then what's the next thing though? It's who is hearing it, and I think I'm speaking to about half the people that I'm supposed to. I think the other half that are coming in, they're not going to resonate with my story, so number one, whatever, or number two fire a different story. That's the next piece I'm trying to figure out when it comes to my webinar funnel. That was a very long message, and hopefully it made sense, and hopefully you can see how it applies to what it is that you're doing, and think of it in these three stages, and as I've done that it's simplified, the entire process for me. It's all very much interconnected, it's all very much, and you will not do it without mat time. You will not do it without podcasting, or whatever it is. Publishing in general, you will not develop that kind of sixth sense without actively seeking to. It will just kind of happen one day you'll be like oh, crap. I felt, that was weird, you know? It's kind of cool when it happens though. All right guys, thanks so much for listening, I appreciate it. I've developed a whole bunch of other cool outros, and maybe I'll talk about that in the next episode coming up and why I did that. Anyways, thanks so much. Talk to you later. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening! Please, remember to rate and subscribe. Got a question you want answered live on the show? Head over to SalesFunnelRadio.com, and ask your question now.

How you guys doing, eh? I'm excited for this episode. I am very excited to share this with you actually. I was at an event this last week. I know some of you guys follow both shows I have and there's probably a third one at some point who knows but I was at this awesome event if you guys ever heard of Grant Cardone. Grant Cardone had an event called "The 10x Growth Con". It's amazing. It goes through and talks about you know basically well there's a lot of cool goal setting, how to sell better, things like that and it was interesting. It was a lot of fun. It was cool. Well my friend and mentor and old boss, Russell Brunson, CEO of ClickFunnels, came and he spoke. He was teaching everybody how all this funnel stuff works in different industries. He's like, "And if you're an e-com, this is how it works over here." There's 90 or was it 8,500 people, 8500 people. We were in a stadium, literally. We're all sitting there and the lights are dark and I was listening to Russell and he was talking, he was teaching everyone how to use a lot of cool like funnel automation and the internet to sell in different industries. One of the things that people fight a lot of times, they'll say, "Hey, Stephen this is cool but I just don't know if it works for me. I just don't think it'll work for my MLM. I just don't think it'll work for my product." You might be right. There might be some rule some whatever and you guys know I got a little bit passion in that last episode as I talked about what MLM that I'm or how I chose my MLM and things like that and frankly I still believe what I said that if you really truly cannot use anything internet related, why the heck are you in your MLM? If you can't take advantage of the cool stuff where everyone's actually buying, where the buying eyes are, where people expect to purchase stuff, where the easy sales happen, you better really, really love your product. Anyway, that's a different topic. I was sitting there and Russell's going through and he's talking about, he was teaching everybody like, "Look if I was in e-com I'd do this. If I was in retail, I'd do this. If I was an affiliate, I'd do this." Then he said, "If I was a network marketing I would do this and in fact I didn't tell Stephen. Stephen, where are you?" 8500 people so I just yelled, super loud. I was like, "Woo," and I yelled really loud and it shocked everyone around me. He goes, "What Stephen's doing in network marketing is he makes people apply to join his downline. They got to go through and before he even tells people what MLM he's in they go through, they apply and they create a relationship with him and there's this cool things that he sends out to him and it's this process. Then at the very end then he goes through and talks about his MLM, then he goes through and talks about ... " I was like, "Holy crap". He took screenshots of my funnel and he put it in front of everyone. I was like, "Oh, my gosh, dude! That's so nice of you." I thanked him like crazy, like crazy. Anyway, it was really, really cool that he did that. First of all, I was floored that he used what I'm doing as an example and I was like, "Man, this is really cool." I hope that people realize that what I'm doing here, what I'm teaching on this podcast, what I'm teaching in my product, what Secret MLM Hacks is, is extremely cutting edge. It's not like anything else that's out there. I had someone write in and ask, "Well is it like this sort of thing this other thing?" No. There's nothing else that teaches anything that does what it does. There's nothing else and it's the reason I felt passionate enough to leave my job over it, which is ludicrous. I get it. It is. I understand that but it was justified enough in my head. Everyone acts out enough reason in their head to justify at least their own behaviors and I did that and it was because of this. What I did is first I was like, "Man, that's so cool. I was like, "I hope everyone realizes what he just said and how much credibility comes with the stuff that I'm trying to teach everybody." Then I was looking through my webinar script. I was looking a moment and realized that I was watching the replays, I'm going to pull this, parts of this clip and I'm going to put it inside of my free web class. If you haven't had a chance to go through my free web class, would love to have you. Secretmlmhacks.com and what I'm doing is I'm going through and I'm using it as a piece of authority and credibility showing that what I'm teaching is actually legit. It's awesome. Straight from the mouth of the man right? Russell Brunson in ClickFunnels. You know what I mean? I am not somebody to ... because I get really weird when it comes to authority plays. In fact I was just making fun of somebody's funnel, someone's product, which is all about how cool he is and I was like, "Come on." I spoke at this event once it was all about how you should gain certain amounts of credibility inside of market places and there's an element to that you guys but I make fun of it like crazy. In fact, one of the biggest lessons I've ever heard and learned was actually also from Russell and we were talking about this very principle, should you showboat? Should you look like you are hugely wealthy and massively successful? Should you? Should you? It was interesting. We were talking about those things and I feel a little bit weird about it. I don't necessarily ... there's times and places for it and I believe that this web class that I've been doing that is a time and place, there's a very strategic place for it, which would be great to show. This is an example like, "Hey, look. The guy's talking about me and this program that you're going through right now is that not credible enough to go purchase it, right? And actually see what this is all about. See what all the buzz has been about." There's a very specific lesson that he taught me and this is all I wanted to tell you guys. This is probably going to be a shorter episode but I really believe this. I think Tai Lopez has got some great stuff I really do. I think it's funny that he's talking pictures in front of cars all the time. Since he owns them, okay, we're cool with that but I have heard of people going and renting expensive, exotic cars. This is a thing, go renting exotic looking cars and renting a very expensive looking suit and taking pictures in front of them as if it was theirs and they'll go use it as if that is what makes a sale happen, as if that is the reason why someone will come and follow you and buy from you. It drives me nuts. If that's who you really are, great! Expose that part of yourself. Be an open book. Whatever it is. If that's not your normal thing, do not feel pressured to do that stuff. I don't. Most of the time I literally just wear a T-shirt, jeans and I am barefoot all the time. Why? Because that's me. I hate shoes. Even when I did work for someone else, I never wore my shoes around the office. I had people come up to me and they'd ask me, "Are you just trying to connect with the earth a little more?" That has nothing to do with wuwu or anything like that. It's little out of straight comfort and he's like, "Oh, really? They let you do that here?" I was like, "I don't know. I just never really asked. I just kind of took my shoes off all day." Whatever those differences are in your life, it's all about expanding and highlighting the differences in your life. But, there are times and place when it comes to using credibility, when showing like, "Look I do know what the heck I'm talking about." You should have that as well. It doesn't mean you have to go around. I know some people, you're like I don't feel comfortable running around me like oh, man. Look how good I am. If it feels that way to you then it probably feels that way to other people as well. Okay? There's a level of confidence that you should have. The most confident person in the room always wins. That's one of my favorite quotes. You could be fighting for the wrong point. You could be actually totally dead wrong but as long as you're the most confident person in the room, you will always win. You must be confident. You must have confidence in what you do and what you sell, your MLM's product, the opportunity you're with. You must be confident with it. If you cannot have complete absolute certainty in what it is you're selling, start looking at what you're doing. When it comes to those things there is this area where you should, you should show off a little, know how to talk about yourself appropriately. Look, I am doing X. Look, I am good at it. Look, I'm really good at Y and Z. Look, I'm really good at it. This person over here said that as well. Got some credibility from him. There's ways to do it without looking like you're a self-centered jerk. Can I say that? I don't know. But, that's how I feel though. And there's ways to do it though without looking like you are using your authority and credibility to solely sell. You can use it to help break people's beliefs about you and rebuild it and help them realize that yeah, I actually have done this stuff. That's the same reason someone asks for a resume. This is another form of a resume a far more effective one in my opinion but this is like having a resume that's actually valid that people are actually going to care about when someone else says, "Yes, you are doing great." Yes, he's someone else who's higher in their level of influence, higher in their level of authority. There are certain times and places to use it. Just be careful that to your audience, don't look like you're being self-centered. Here's the quote, this was taught to me also by my friend and mentor, Russell Brunson, and this is what he said, "If you want credibility, don't seek it." That's what he said to me. I said, "Oh, that's really good." He said, "Seriously, if you want credibility in your life, don't seek it. If you want fame don't seek it. If you want ... " the moment you begin to look like you are seeking authority, your market sees it and they will distance themselves from you because you are actively trying to increase the plane that you are on. You are actively trying to increase the level that you're on. You're trying to show look how good I am, instead of buoying up the other people around you. I think it was Tony Robinson who said, "To get what you want in life, all you got to do is help everyone get the things they want in life." You got to help enough people to get what they want in life and you'll have what you want in life. It's all about helping other people, but there's a level, there's a spot when it comes to doing ... anyway, anyway I hope you guys get the point. Hope you guys get the idea of what I'm trying to say here. Is that there's a level, there's an area where it's helpful to do so to actually talk, you need to know how to talk about yourself. You got to know how to sell yourself. They're buying you after all but do it in a way where it doesn't look like you're completely egotistical and if you go, "Stephen what's wrong with that?" You know what? Maybe there's nothing wrong with that but there are people who are attracted to that and a huge amount of people who are not. Anyway, my challenge to you guys. Yes, I'm going to challenge you on this podcast episode today is if you have no video of somebody else talking about how great you've been in their life, go get it. If you have no person of authority who is saying, "Oh, my gosh look. Steve Larson says I'm great." Or, in my case, Russell Brunson says, "This stuff works and this is great." You need that kind of stuff. There are very, very famous marketing launches where the entrepreneur has gone out and they've launched a product and they've got the sales funnel, they've got the sales script, they've got tons and tons of ... , they got lots of sales stuff. They do it right and they make tons of money and they'll close the cart down and people can't buy it for a long time and they'll go get results with the people who bought. There was this ... I can't remember his name, I'm so sorry you guys. I remember the lesson, I remember the principle so I'm sorry I quote it who it was but what he did is he went and he took all of the social proof. He took all the testimonials. He took all of the result people were having with his actual product and he went and he relaunched his product with no sales video, no sales script. There was literally nothing on the page except an absolutely, gigantic webpage full of testimonials and it made as much money as the first time he launched it with no sales script, no sales video. That's the power of it, guys. Social proof is huge. Getting the bless off of people that are higher in authority and influence of you is huge. You should have that stuff. You should get it. You should know when to use it. You should know when to talk about yourself. You should know when not to. You should know when it might be sounding and feeling like you're just completely obsessed with yourself you're not actually there to solve legitimate problems inside the marketplace, right? In fact, for those of you guys who have seen it. In fact the very funnel Russell was talking about, the way I do it is I go through and I get a whole bunch of videos of people talking about how I've helped solve actual legitimate problems for them next to the actual application. As you're filling out the application to join my downline, people are saying, "Look, Stephen helped me with this, this and this. This is what was going on in my life beforehand now, this is what's going on in my life afterwards." That's me doing exactly the very same thing. There are times to use it but not every single piece, 24/7 is me saying, "Look how great I am. Look how amazing I am." Know when to use it. My challenge to you is that if you have been helping people, which I'm sure you have been, I hope you have been. If you feel like there's no one you can reach out to and say, "Hey, do you mind filming just a little video for me, just on your phone saying, "Hey, this is what my life before I met Stephen this is what it was like afterwards."" If there's no one that you can reach out to, I wager that you've not done enough for other people. What I would do is go get a whole bunch of videos from the people in your downline or other people who are of influence who would only do something like that with you and give you that stamp of approval saying, "Ei, I certify this guy." Be truthful about it. Be ethical about it. But doing that does a lot. I'm very excited. I'm taking that video clip out. I can't believe he said that on Grant Cardone's stage in front of 8500 people, very, very nice of him and he walked through the funnel briefly. I'm going to take that and I'm going to put it inside the Secret MLM Hacks free web class so you guys can see the very concept I'm talking about in that web class. You guys can see his christening of what I'm talking about, okay? Go ahead if you've not checked that out. I would love to have you guys. Go to secretmlmhacks.com, you guys can check that one out and then anyway go grab those little pieces of credibility for yourself. Anyways, guys thanks so much and I'll talk to you later. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Would you like me to teach your own downline five simple MLM recruiting tips for free? If so, go download your free MLM Masters Pack by subscribing to this podcast at secretmlmhackradio.com.

You guys how are you doing? So I'm recording this on January 1st but it will probably go out tomorrow though. But I'm super excited for this year, this year, this day, this morning is actually something I've been fantasying about for six years. In fact, I was trying not to get emotional this morning about it. Man tears of course, man tears, they're very tough. But I have been, I've been wanting to do what I'm doing right now for six years give or take I'm sure a little bit of time as the dream became more and more clear, but I've been so stoked to do this. You guys I left my job last weekend and I am full time, doing this now full time. And I've had plenty of people tell me I'm crazy. I've had plenty of people tell me that I'm brave. I've had plenty of people tell me, "Yeah you'll do great. Go get it." A lot of people tell me I won't. All over the place, it's so funny anytime you ... I'm sure that you guys have all experienced it before especially when you get into any kind of MLM or do anything, do anything in life. People come out of the woodwork to let you know their own opinion which is pretty funny. It's awesome, but at the same time it makes me kind of laugh because like us you're an armchair quarterback sometimes aren't ya? You know, depending on what they said. And I've had plenty of people let time know that what I'm doing is dumb. A lot of people tell me, "Hey, this is going to be great. Good luck. You're killing it already, like you've got nothing to fear." It's interesting. You will experience this, and if you have not experienced this yet in MLM, my guess is you probably are not marketing hard enough, number one. Number two, don't worry it's coming. Okay, it's on the way, and your reactions towards it are very much going to determine what happens to you afterwards, how you continue to go forward. There's a great, great quote by Tony Robbins. I can't say the quote directly but I remember the idea, and the idea was that if you want to change your life you have to simply change the story that you've been telling yourself in your head, and I had to do that. I had to do that really very much on purpose, especially as both people who are excited for me started telling me about it, but also a lot of the naysayers as they've been coming out. I had to be careful of the story that was going on in my head and I was just thinking this morning, just meditating and deep pondering this morning as I was getting ready, I was thinking about how blessed I feel that I can go do this and that to come with you guys and share with you how I've been marketing and getting people applying to join my downline. How I've been getting people not just to get in my downline, but what I do with them to really duplicate me, and give them proven systems and processes and what I do with each one of them to really ... I mean it's amazing. It's amazing. And I've had a hard time finding anyone else in the MLM industry who really opens up like this and I'm not trying to pat my own back, but it is one of the major reasons why I started this podcast. Like everyone is approaching MLM from the stand point of, "What do you say to get someone to join an MLM? What do you say to get someone in here"... What do you do here ... In my opinion that's great but it's also the wrong approach and so I go through and I help people understand how to create offers. How do you actually become unique in MLM again? When truly you're upline and downline, you're in competition with them, you know? You all sell the same thing, you're trying to go for the same people. They are your team but they're also in competition. So how do I approach that with my team so that we're not all competing with each other and we can all thrive in our own thing? How do you actually ... That's amazing that's a huge promise and the only reason I can promise it is because I've been doing it in other industries and I do it in these other, specifically one other, and I mean it works. It's been working. That's literally what I do for a living is I help people take their product and I help evolve it, so that they're taking a step out of where all the red ocean is and back into a blue ocean. That's what I do. So I help people do that, help people create automated funnels, and automated selling scripts, automated closing things, and I've been super excited. I have been fantasying. It's probably the wrong word, but I've been fantasying about how to do this, or the fact that I get to share it for a long time. It's January 1st 2018 and I can't even believe it. I started this tradition about four years ago. And you can find it on YouTube if you want, but on YouTube about four years ago I realized how sick I was with where we were. I was in college. We were broke and I decided that I would get really vocal about my goals. And that I only wanted to set one goal. And I would set a monetary, a fiscal goal, and my goal that I would go out and I would set ... Here's basically what I did, I grabbed my phone or my computer and turned the camera on. And I publicly declare what my goal is for the next year, financially, and then I account for what happened last year. So I've been doing this for four years in a row now and I always put the video out on YouTube. I usually make a podcast episode about it. I did last year. But there's four years of this now. I'm about to do it again. which is the fourth year today. I'm about to do it again and I'll probably put that out to you guys so you can hear what it is and it's one of the scariest things that I do. But it's funny because as I got really clear that ... Okay the naysayers have been around me for a long time. But also so are a lot of the people who are trying to ... It's a yin and a yang thing, I created a divide for my own life. I didn't mean to, but on one side are all these people saying, "Yes you can do it." And on the other side all these people saying, "You're dumb, are you kidding me? That's stupid. Stick with your job. Stay with your nine to five. There's security there." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I knew that's not what I wanted. And I knew that I've always wanted to be on my own. I've always wanted to go on my own.I've been excited to do so. But it's funny that as you get super clear ... That's the thing I realized really quickly, as I got really clear on what I wanted, so much so, so much so, that I could actually get out there and actually go publicly declare it. I mean that's pretty freaky a little bit. It's in some scenarios to say the actual number that I'm going for, and actually where I was last ... You know, the year before. It's pretty ... It's humbling, you know to realize that, but it's also extremely, oh my gosh like such fire in the gut because not only now have I gotten real with myself, and honest with myself, but then all these people who are the people who are trying to listen to, the people who are trying to buoy me up. The people who are trying to help me. They come out and they say, "Steven, you better do that man, you better do that. How you doing? How's your goal?" And because I get clear on it, other people also help me. You know so whenever I do feel like you know I'd love to sleep in, or something was just really so hard that I went through it. I just went through something that certainly was not a win. In fact, it was a loss, or whatever, you know what I mean? People are already around me, and I didn't mean to do that. I didn't know that would be a side benefit of me getting public about my goals. But it is, and I do, and I am, and I'm inviting you to do the same thing. I don't care if you do it about a financial goal or whatever, but just choose one thing, not this massive list of crap you'll never do. What's the one linchpin that if you attacked that it would swing this massive gate of success? My dad grew up on a farm. I think he was the first one to go to college in my family history line, and he's the man. I have such huge respect for my dad, and for what he did, and everything he overcame. I mean it's pretty amazing. An amazing story but he grew up on a farm, and these big farm gates towards the actual hinge of the gate. If it swings like half a centimeter, those gates are so big that by the time you get to the actual end of the gate, it's swinging feet, right? What is the linchpin in your life that you know has been there that has been ... That's been determining where you go and where you don't go? Okay, everyone knows what that is, it's that thing that's been on your head that you're trying not to address, that you're trying to act like you don't need to deal with yet, or it really isn't that big of a deal, or it'll happen later and I don't really need to address it now. You know what I mean? Everyone knows what that is, so go through and figure out whatever those things are for you. What's the biggest linchpin? I'm not just saying in your MLM business. I'm saying in your life in general. Okay, business will require that you have to get better. Business will require that you have to become a more powerful individual in order to be successful in any way. So what is that thing in your life and go figure out what it is and get real. Don't choose a ton of stuff in my opinion. I'm just telling you what I would do. Go choose just the one thing. What's the one thing if you did it, it would swing that gate like crazy, massive linchpin kind of a thing. It's kind of like what Tim Ferris would say. Tim Ferris always says like, "Hey look, if you were to follow me around for a day you would get pretty bored." Okay, someone asked this in an interview and they're like, "Tim Ferris," and if you don't know who he is, he's the author of the book, The Four Hour Work Week, which is fantastic, I have it right next to me, still one of my favorite books. He said, "You know what honestly if you came and you followed me, I think you'd get pretty disappointed on what I do. It's pretty boring. I get up," and this is what he was saying, "I get up and I meditate for a while and then I go and I," he was like, "I sip some tea for a while, and then I go on a walk for a while, and I do that for weeks. I really don't do anything. Maybe I'll do some yoga a little bit." And he's like, "That's really all that I do, but what I'm doing is for weeks I'm trying to identify what the one big thing in my life is that if I was to knock that down the rest of the little dominoes would get knocked down also." Instead of screaming around all over the place on all these little tiny things in my life like I got to do this. I got to do this. I got to do this. And like you could do that or if you just did this one huge thing it would knock down all the others, right? And that's what I'm trying to help you understand is and that's how I've, especially the last three years I've really been trying to focus on just the one goal, the one goal. Yes, there are other goals. Yes, there are other things out there. But the one big thing that would really swing the gate. The most juice for the squeeze, you know what I mean? Most juice for the least amount of squeeze I should say. And go do that, and then get public about it. Tell people about it. It will freak you out, if it doesn't it may not be big enough. Okay? And I mean everybody. Don't hold back. "Oh, that person will think it's dumb so I'm not going to tell them." It's time to tell them, okay? You get real with yourself. You get real with other people and you get out there and you start saying, "This is my goal," whatever it is. Monetary. It could be anything. And be like, "This is the thing that I'm going to rock. I'm going to tear it down this year. This is my year to do that." And so I'm excited because a little bit later today that's what I'm going to go record and I'm nervous. But you can go check them out. Like the first year, four years ago I remember thinking like man and I publicly said, "If I could just make an extra $1000.00 a month that would change our life." Just an extra $1000.00 bucks a month, that would be ridiculous you know? And then the year after that it was like if I could just do $3,000.00 and I'd work super hard and half the time I wouldn't hit it, but other times I would. So then I'd raise the goal. And I'd be like< "Oh man," and I remember the second year it was like, "If I could just do $3000.00 a month that would be amazing, that would cover life expenses easily, that would help me. I mean three grand a month, that's huge. That's huge." And I remember having that feeling and then last year the goal was 30 grand a month. "If I could just do 30 grand a month it would be huge, oh my gosh that'd be massive." And it's cool to see the progression that's been in myself, I'm like, "Oh you know like 30 grand," did I hit it every month? Nope. But I did hit it a couple and you know it's interesting to see like those different pieces and so I know what my goal is next month. Sorry, for this next year, and I'm pretty nervous to declare it. I'm pretty nervous to saying what it is that I want, but man by you saying that stuff just starts happening. I believe in God, I don't know if you do and that's fine, whatever. But that's not what this is about, but call it whatever you want but stuff starts to fall in place, stuff starts to get kind of align for you almost when you get clear about what you want. I feel like some, a lot of times I feel like people don't get successful because they don't know what they want yet. Like, "Oh I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this." You really have enough time in your life to get really good at really just like one thing. You know what I mean? Really, I mean really good at like one thing. So get what is the thing? Choose what it is. Is it MLM? Is it this? Is it that? Or whatever it is, you get clear, you get honest, you get sincere with yourself and figure out really have a heart to heart and like sit down like, "Okay, what is the thing that I'm going to be known for? What is the legacy that I'm going to be known for?" I doubt it's going to be, "I was this, and I was this, and I was this, and I was this." And even if it becomes that, it doesn't happen all at once you're going to achieve each one of those one at a time not simultaneously. So like what is the thing? That you're going to go do, just one and you go and get clear about that. I started, I thought I was clear on that and the more and more I think about it, the more I declare publicly, the more clear it gets, the more clear my actions become each day is far more deliberate. The things I do today create a foundation for what I'm going to be able to get done tomorrow. If I don't get the things done today that I'm going to then you know ... No one's it doesn't matter I can't move on, you know what I mean? So figure out what those things are and kind of backwards plan and think about that and try and get sincere about what it is you actually want. And it doesn't matter if you can't see beginning to end on how you get it done. In fact I guarantee you, you won't know exactly how you'll get it done. And if it's a goal that you can see exactly how you'll get it done it probably isn't big enough. It's probably not massive enough.It should almost kind of freak you out. Okay I was listening to I think I said this on this podcast but I can't remember. There's an interesting, there's a billionaire, a billionaire that was getting interviewed once and they're like, "hey what are your tips for success?" And they were kind of giving those things and the billionaire was saying though that I don't remember who's was or where this was or whatever, but the billionaire was saying like, "Look, what do you want to be doing in 10 years? What do you want to be in 10 years? Financially, maybe where you're living, what is it?" And the person responded and he goes, "Awesome. Now ask yourself, "What can you do to get that done in six months?" Whew, okay I don't know what that is for you. I don't know what it is that you're thinking about. I have no idea. It's going to be different for every person, that's great. We're all different human beings I'm not trying to force anything down your throat of whatever it's supposed to be, but like figure out what that is. And as soon as you get super ridiculously wicked clear on what it is, and you start declaring it, how do you get that done in such a short amount of time, a compressed amount of time, okay? I'm trying to invite for this audience and everyone on here, which is growing like crazy by the way, we're about to pass 10,000 downloads I'm very, very excited about it. But it's only been going like four months, totally organic too, which is awesome. I'm sure I'll turn ads on in some future, which I want to explain to you how I do, what I do on that. At some point but we're about to pass 10,000 downloads. This is an awesome community. It's very tight actually and I want ... We all look out for each other. There's a lot of fun. But I want you to know just get real honest. And if it means that it takes you away from MLM, all right, you know it's your ... Got to get real and you got to be willing to make some serious sacrifice about it. I was listening to ... Gosh what book is this in? I have the book I can't remember ... I'm looking on my bookshelves right throw. Crap. But anyway the main lesson I wrote it on my wall. I've got quotes thumb tacked all over my walls. I don't know, I look at them all the time. One of them I'm looking at right now. It says, "There are no life choices, there are only life trades." Ooh, powerful. There are no life choices, there really are no life choices. There are only life trades. If I want to get this, if I get clear and I know exactly what I want to do, massive income, short amount of time, or massive impact I should say because whatever your goal is. Huge thing, how do I get it done in a shorter amount of time? Now what am I willing to trade for that? It's not really a life choice, it's a life trade. Where you're like, "Hey look I want to go to X Y and Z. Awesome. Awesome. Super cool. Super cool, right? I want to go do one, two and three," whatever it is. Great in order to do that let's figure out what it is you actually have to do to get that done. Now what does it mean you have to give up? All right? To decide, literally means to cut out, the word decide, I looked it up yesterday. But the word decide literally means to cut out. So when you choose something and you actually decide what it is you want to do, you are cutting out all other options. You are saying no to literally pretty much everything else in your life, okay? I'm not saying to say no to like relationships, your moral law and code, and religion. I'm not telling like any of that kind of stuff. I'm saying but you got to get good at saying, "No," because as soon as you become a person in motion everyone else gets attracted to that and they will suck to you and they will start throwing all sorts of opportunity at you and it will get noisy. So you've got to get good at saying, "No," and get good at saying, "Yes," to just one thing and kill it. It is about saying, "No." It's not about saying, "Yes." Okay? There's plenty of opportunity out there, that is not the problem, the problem is how much there is and the fact that there's only so many hours in a day. Unfortunately as much as I try to believe I'm superman for a while and could do tons of stuff. Like you know, I can only do one thing at a time. And I got to clear on it. I got to clear exactly what that is. So anyway, so I was not planning at all about talking about this, in fact I have something very different written on my notepad here for where I was taking this episode. But I felt like I wanted to go through that a little bit that like I understand you might be building this MLM while you're working a nine-to-five somewhere else that's great. Totally fine, no judging that. I just left my job too. I was doing that for a while also. So totally get it, okay? Been there, done that. But whatever it is that you do want eventually, I mean you got to be willing to sacrifice like crazy to get there. And you can do it, and you'll find some inner strength for it. And it can be a little bit scary, but it's also super fun. Totally cool. Fun stuff. And you'll find that you actually get more strength and fortitude than you probably realized that you had all along. Hey, what I'm doing today, what I'm doing right now is I have been working on this product and I've been putting this thing together and you know I've launched a lot of products. The job that I was leaving, it's an amazing job. I absolutely loved it. I was the lead funnel builder at ClickFunnels. And I was Russell Brunson's right hand guy. And I just I built a lot of products, I put well over 300 funnels together on the internet. So I'm excited for this, I know what works in MLM and for some reason I don't see enough teaching it. And so I've been doing it and testing it and it works and I've grown the downline's exploding below me and it's a lot of fun. True duplication and I'm really not actually that suave of a person face to face when it comes to selling MLM. So I put automation together to actually address my own weakness so if you're like, "I don't want to talk to a bunch of people," great I don't either, which is why I set this stuff up. So anyways. I'm super stoked because of this product that's launching on January 4th. It's like three days, it's time. It's exciting. It's super cool. I have been putting this together, and planning it, and knocking the rough parts off of it, and rebuilding stuff, and bringing in the right people. It's not just myself there are other rock stars that are coming in and teaching certain aspects of it. Huge, amazing people, I'm excited for you guys to see them in the course. They've already been recording their sections and I mean it is insane. Their courses are amazing. Anyway, but that's on June 4th, I'm sorry, I got June in my head because that's my kids birthday. January 4th. January 4th, like in two days, three days. And today what I'm doing is I'm building the registration process so you can come watch the free web class. It's just a web class and I'm teaching people how to set up these kinds of automation pieces. It's kind of the cool preview of what's really inside there but you'll still leave being able to do stuff. And so anyway if you want to go to SecretMLMhacks.com, secretMLMhacks.com and that's where you can register, you can check out the product that I've put together and it's all extremely proven stuff, okay? It's the stuff I do with my own downline and what I did is I flipped it into like a training and teaching model and course so that you can go do the same thing with your downlines. which is freaking awesome. Oh man I'm so pumped. If you love automation, if you realize that you're not unique in your MLM. If you realize you're in competition with everybody else. If you realize that you're selling with the exact same scripts as everybody else. You have the same duplicated websites as literally everyone in your MLM, upline and downline. If you realize that the only tactic your upline's been teaching you is to talk to a whole bunch of friends and family, come check out the course, okay? That's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I was emotionally scarred enough the first time I ever joined an MLM and what happened and how there's still soured relationships that I have because of that first experience. That was like three years ago and I hated it so bad I left my first MLM. I couldn't believe what how, it was extremely embarrassing, and I became that guy at family reunions. I became that guy that friend to kind of stick around from because everyone would be like, "What's your next thing Steven? What are you going to try and get me in here and there." I was like, "Oh my gosh, like if that's MLMN this sucks I'm gone." Okay and I went through and I got really good at these other automation processes, really good at closing people with tons of other ... And I was like there's got to be a way to apply it so I did. And the result was insane and I got tons of people joining my downline who I'd never met, and it's not that I'm trying to take the human out, the human element out of MLM it's still networking, it's still meeting people. But the kind of person that's coming is amazing, the kind of person's who's applying to join my downline, that's insane. Who does that? Anyway, I'm excited. Go check it out secretMLMhacks.com, you can get signed up there, and check it all out so. It's finally time, this is amazing January 1st, I've had kind of this feeling of euphoria a little bit, I've been dreaming about being on my own for pretty much my entire life. And today's the first day, this is crazy. I'm very, very excited and I'm proud of myself. You guys should all be proud of yourself too. Go get real about your goals, what it is you actually want and if something isn't working, have the courage and honesty to nip that and move on. So all right guys. Talk to you later bye. Hey thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Would you like me to teach your own downline five simple [inaudible 00:24:08]and recruiting tips for free? If so go download your free MLM Masters Pack by subscribing to this podcast at secretMLMhacksradio.com.

This week, we spend some time with Joanna Harcourt-Smith, "Swiss-born British socialite," host of the Future Primitive Podcast, and author of Tripping the Bardo with Timothy Leary: My Psychedelic Love Story.Michael on Joanna’s 500+ Episode Podcast: http://www.futureprimitive.org/2016/11/the-crossroads-of-the-unexpected/Check out her archives. They’re amazing."God IS A Sense of Humor""Know That You're Everything"“To me, people are mushrooms. My claim to fame was the fact that I found the mushroom Timothy Leary in the forest. And I had to eat that mushroom so I could really start to flex the accordion of my being.”“I don’t even know that there IS a past and a future. The numerous psychedelic experiences I have been gifted with by life have told me that there is NO past and there is NO future.”“Everything lives. Everything wants to live. Nothing dies, it just becomes composted and intertwined with each other.”“When I make a soup, it’s like painting. Getting all these ingredients together is so exciting, it’s so alive. Somebody says to me, ‘That’s so delicious. Can you give me the recipe?’ ‘I can’t give you the recipe! Don’t be crazy! It’s impossible! It just happened in this moment and it will be forever, because it’s inside of us. Okay?’”“There are several parts of myself looking at what’s going on, and it’s like, I used to be depressed by the committee going on inside of me but now I ALWAYS have fun with the committee! I mean, I’ve got my own theater going on here…” [laughs]“At my age, either you amuse yourself with knee replacements, or…gratitude becomes the greatest element of your life. That’s the key. I mean, THAT’S the key.”“Instead of choosing your work, I would highly recommend that you choose your play.”“The play, at the end of the day, is a lot more important than the work.”“This person you are talking with, what do they long for? And how can I participate in this longing?”On getting Timothy Leary out of prison:“It was useful to the left because he was a martyr. And it was useful to the right because he was a scapegoat. So I quickly saw that that situation was absolutely practical for everyone involved. Except for this young woman who was LONGING for this interesting man. I’m always longing for somebody I can have a good conversation with. And just doing it in prison wasn’t enough…It was impossible. And in a sense, I love that.”“They stripsearched me because I was the paramour of the good doctor. But it was clear to me that the best place to hide the drugs was my ‘innie’ belly-button. They never thought of that.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My feelings after spending 10 hours yesterday with my 9 year old, doing homework. On today’s episode Russell talks about why he hates school and struggled there.He also rants about why he’s frustrated with the school system that his own kids are in and why he thinks a lot of it is just busy work. Here are some frustrating things Russell talks about in this episode: Why Russell thinks that kids shouldn’t have homework. Why he is frustrated by his twin boys’ different 4th grade teachers doing things different and overloading one of them with homework. And why Russell thinks you should be tested on how the real world works, instead of just memorizing the right answer. So listen below to hear why Russell is frustrated with the school system his kids are in. ---Transcript--- Good morning everybody. Welcome to a very, very, very rainy Marketing in Your Car. All right everybody hope you are doing amazing. I think we have a lot of new Marketing in Your Car followers and listeners. We just started promoting it. We just got set up marketinginyourcar.com. It’s got all back episodes, links to them, transcripts, and a bunch of other cool stuff. So if you want to get on the e-mail list, to get notifications when new podcasts come out, and just see a cool thing go to marketinginyourcar.com. Other than that, I’m excited to have you guys here today. Today is going to be a rant day. I hope you guys are okay. Today I wanted to rant a little bit about a thing that we like to call school. I don’t know about you guys but school for me was really, really, really difficult. I think it is for most entrepreneurs. I’m guessing that if you’re listening to this you probably fall in that same camp and you have struggled like I did, like most entrepreneurs do. I never really understood why until recently. This guy named Alex, he wrote a book called Entrepreneur Personality Type. There’s only 500 of them in circulation. Anyway he did a talk at a Genius Network … and he’s actually speaking at our next Funnel Hacking Live. So if you’re not coming, go to funnelhacking.com and get registered for our seminar. He’s going to be speaking about the entrepreneurial personality type. When he explained it the first time I got chills like 20 times. I was like, that’s me. I finally understand myself. It made me understand why I hate school and why I struggle with it, and all sorts of stuff like that. This recently I had a reason to even hate it more. So, as you guys know, we went to London a couple weeks ago and took my family out of school for a week, and it was awesome. Before we go we ask the teachers like, “Hey, give us some homework so we can make sure the kids don’t fall behind.” Right? So one kid basically gets no homework, one gets a couple things, and one the teachers like, “I haven’t done my plans yet so we don’t have any homework for you.” So like all right. So we go on the trip, and out there we’re like we’re in London, we’re seeing these amazing things, go into history they say the Buckingham Palace, they saw the Tower of London, they saw all these amazing things. On top of that my kids just recently read Willy Wonka, or Charlie’s Chocolate Factory or whatever it’s actually called. So we saw the Willy Wonka play, which was amazing. Just all these cool things, right? So we come back from that. We get to school and this is just … It drives me crazy. We have twins so they’re in the same grade but different teachers, right? One teacher’s like, “Oh cool, you got tons of culture and history. You’re good. You don’t have to worry about any homework.” Then my other twin the teacher who didn’t have of her assignments done now gave him every single paper they’d done in school. Plus every homework assignment for that entire time. They were insane. We sat there for the last two weeks every single night, we spent about two to three hours with him trying to this stupid homework. He’s a fourth grader, right? Then like Sunday we spent probably eight or nine, maybe even ten hours with him just trying to get his homework done. Like dozens, like everything that you would do in school she gave him for homework. It doesn’t make any sense they’d do that. Then the funniest thing is that they had a whole homework assignment on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We had read the book, we seen both the movies, and we just saw the play live in London within the last 30 days, right? So we’re going through trying to answer these questions and I don’t even know the answers to these things. Like it’s ridiculous. It’s like reading comprehension but it’s asking a fourth grader all these questions that have nothing to do with anything. If I’m getting stumped on these questions at this point in my life, for fourth grade homework assignment on a play … On a book …. On a play we just barely saw, it’s just ridiculous, right? It goes on and on and on. It’s just like this mass amount of work for them to do just to keep them busy. Like I almost think it’s like parents and teachers don’t want … Like their kids are so crazy busy doing all these cool things like learning, and studying, and reading, and running, and playing, and having fun, and developing themselves as humans. They don’t like that because it’s like chaos and it’s not structured like they want it to be. So they give us all this insane amounts of homework to like structure your kids so that they’re not bugging you. It drives me crazy. They go to school at 8 in the morning, they’re home about 4. Then they had like two hours … Hour … Two hours of homework every night as well. The entire day is taken up with school work. Which none of it has any point. You know what I mean? I remember in college writing papers and then the papers are done and then you threw them away. Like there’s no purpose and no point to any of it. It’s just all just manual, menial work that doesn’t actually help you in any way whatsoever. It just drives me crazy. So I just wanted to go on a rant today with you guys. I’m sure most of you guys can empathize with me. If I was a teacher and my kids were going to London for a week, I’d think, “Man, this is such a great experience. What I want to you do is I want you to write a report about the cool cultural things you saw, and then what you learned at the Willy Wonka play.” Something like that that’s actually is going to be so much more useful than like here’s a bunch of math problems that don’t mean anything. See if you can solve them. Oh, and then here’s a bunch of questions on that book that are so hard that don’t make … That aren’t even like logically … Things you have to go back and reread the book like 16 times to be able to find these random, obscure things you want to bring out in a quiz, and on and on and on. I only know that because I had to reread Willy Wonka like 20 times yesterday trying to find all these little remote answers. Just ridiculous. Anway I just think that it’s crazy. I think it’s out of control. I think that our kids are stuck in a school system most the day anyway and the last thing they need is to come home and do homework. I think what they do when they get home they need to get home and get away from that, and relax, and have fun, and play, and grow and, be kids, and be creative, and stop trying to recite answers, and look up things, and figure out math problems. They do that all day at school. If they’re not doing it at school there’s an issue with the teacher I think. There’s kind of my rant. Yeah. I’m sure some of you guys I probably deeply offended with that. For me it’s just ridiculous. It makes me … We’re not going to for a lot of reasons, I see a lot value in the homeschooling because of that. Where you can actually have your kids study things that matter and create assignment and things that help them grow as opposed to just like, “Oh, here’s a book. You read it all. Now you’ve finished reading, go back and reread to find the answers that I wanted to pull out to try to stump you.” It’s just ridiculous. It’s not how we learn in the real world, right? I think like the math … Even math … It’s funny because they spend all this time trying to teach us how to do math. Which I understand it’s good to know the basics. Since I’ve been out of college I’ve never done math once. There’s these things called calculators we use. I almost think like they should have the kids focus 50% of assignments on learning on how to use a calculator. That’s the real world we live in today, right? I remember one of my friends is right now in college. He’s writing like a thesis statement or something like that. He’s got to write this thing. I was like well you should just hire someone to write it for you. Hire a ghost writer, you do the research, tell them what to write, and have them write it. He’s like, “No, that’s cheating.” I’m like, “Are you kidding me? That’s cheating?” Guess how it works in the real world, guess what happened when I wrote my book? I did the research, 10 years of hard work, and then I found a writer to help me write it. That’s how the real world works. Okay? There’s not … I bet one out of ten books on the New York Times Best Seller List were actually written by the actual authors. There’s people that help you with that. That’s how the real world works. So why aren’t we tested on how the real world works? It drove me crazy in one of my programming classes, I couldn’t figure out answers so I’d hire people in India and Romania to help me figure out the answers, and I’d get the problems right. My teachers would get upset saying, “You’re cheating.” I’m like, “How am I cheating?” In the real world, guess what I do when I can figure out an answer? I hire someone who gives me the answer! That’s such a more valuable skill than spending six weeks trying to figure out an answer. In fact I would fire one of my employees if they had spent six weeks trying to figure out an answer instead of just asking somebody who might actually know. That’s a skill that is transferable. That’s what school systems should be based on. Is who here can actually find the answers to questions? Not who knows all the answers to every single question. Who can memorize things and regurgitate them? Who can find these things? Who can open Google and find the answer? That should be what tests are because the real world is. If we’re not … If the real wor- Great. I’m in the intersection and my car just died. Darn stick shifts. Sorry I’m not used to driving a stick shift while I’m ranting. It’s hard to do two things at once. That’s just how I feel so anyway. I have a lot of sympathy for my little kids who are going through this right now. Part of me just like, “Why are they even have to do this? Like they shouldn’t even worry about turning it in.” I’m trying to be a good parent and help them understand the value in it. It’s hard. So I just needed to rant to you guys who get me because I am helping my kids. I’m making sure they get homework assignments done. I’m not talking bad about their teachers. I’m trying to help them in that way. The reality is I just don’t think that that the world works that way anymore. So for me, I’m just saying that I do not like school. If you guys agree with me, please share this podcast. If you go to marketinginyourcar.com you’ll find a link to it. You can grab and share it with your friends and family, other people who may or may not agree with me, I love to get feedback. Go comment on the blog. Let me know if you disagree. It’d be awesome to have a fun conversation there. Anyway I’m at the office. It’s rainy. So I’m going to jump out of here and go get warm. I’ll talk to you guys soon. Have an amazing day. Don’t let your kids go to school. Just kidding. They should go to school but just for the social reasons. Don’t let them stress out too much about homework. All right. I’m out of here. Talk soon.

We went to see Fifty Shades Of Grey just for you to hear what we think of it and no other reason - OKAY? There's quite some naughty language, which is to be expected from an episode based on one man's journey to get a girl to succumb to his dominating advances. Find us on these networks: YouTube: http://goo.gl/JF4qnv Twitter.com/Gentmoot Facebook.com/Gentmoot SoundCloud.com/Gentmoot Thanks for listening.

My guest is the smartest man in the world, . This is a win, dorks. Ostensibly, it’s old timey baseball. And there’s plenty of Civil War to present baseball talk. But Greg is a man who loves language and nicknames and this is fascinating. A treat for all of us. You’re welcome.   Credits: Audio leveling by Music is by . Website design by : who has his OWN .   The websites are and  . Apps are available for the ,and . Review the show on iTunes and feel free to e me.   Notes: – the link that Greg sent me. Great article. Okay… There’s too many references. You people on your own. Good luck. I just let it wash over me.