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Steve Larsen: What's going on everyone, this is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Secret MLM Hacks radio and I've got a very special interview and a very special guest to bring on today for the show. So go ahead and stay tuned. We'll cue the intro, grab a pen and paper and sit tight. So here's the real mystery. How do real MLMers like us read and cheat and only bug family members and friends. If you wanna grow a profitable home business, how do we recruit A players into our down lines and create extra incomes, yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives. That's the blaring question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks radio. Hi, what's going on everyone. Hey, I'm really excited for today. You guys have a very special treat. I have just been so incredibly impressed with this person. I have actually been watching closely, from am distance. Seeing everything that's been going on. You guys know my take, in the MLM space. I truly believe that MLM nowadays is broken for the way we get it. We get it, and it's not set up correctly. Or there's so many things we got to do in order to actually still be successful with it. And it's not an aspect that's really taught by uplines. And that's not something that ... I'm not anti up line, I'm not anti the man. I'm not anti those things. But it's just the reality. And from a distance, I started watching who the who was. Of all the other people who believe the same thing. And there's more ways to do it. And hey, the Internet's here, and why do we use that. Various things. And we ran across this amazing woman. Gloria MacDonald. MacDonald. Gloria MacDonald, and I'm so excited to have her on today. She is an expert, a pro in the MLM space, using LinkedIn, using various tools and things across the internet. Very honored to have her here today. And thank you so much for being here. GloriaMacDonald: Oh Steven, absolutely my pleasure. I'm thrilled and delighted to be here. Steve Larsen: This is awesome. Very, very excited. Could you ... You have a lot of success now, right. And you're doing all these great things. And I know you've done things with huge players. Was it always that way? GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, yeah. I came out of my mother's womb at the age of two. I was three level diamond in Amway. No. Steve Larsen: You saying you've always been successful, wow. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, always. And I've never had any struggles at all, you know. Yeah, right. Let me tell you another story. Let me tell you the true story. Steve Larsen: Sounds good. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah. So I started in Amway, in 1979. So right off the top, Steve, and I hate to do this to you, but I have to correct you on something that I've heard you say. With great respect for what you've done. But I heard you say that [inaudible 00:02:43] hasn't changed since the 1990s. And I'm sorry, but it hasn't changed since the 1970s. Steve Larsen: I will take your correction. GloriaMacDonald: I don't fault you for not knowing that, because you wouldn't have been around in the 1970s. I was. Steve Larsen: That's funny. GloriaMacDonald: So it's mind boggling to me. Because people are still doing today, and network marketing companies today are still teaching and training exactly what I was taught in 1979 before the internet existed. Before personal computers existed. You know, there was no such thing as a personal computer. Cell phones didn't exist. I hate to think about what a dinosaur I am. But none of this stuff existed that exist today, that is so powerful that enables us to build our networking businesses in a much more effective and efficient way. And still, network marketing companies are still teaching, and uplines are still teaching, make your list of a hundred people. [inaudible 00:03:57] market. It's like, good god really? You know? Really. So, I went through all the struggles. I've done everything everyone else has done. Done my list of a hundred people too many times. I was an overachiever. So I did, you know, a hundred and fifty people, or two hundred people. Steve Larsen: Sure, yeah. GloriaMacDonald: You know, I- Steve Larsen: What happened from that? Was there a moment where you're like, wait a second. GloriaMacDonald: Well, yeah. What happened from that, was just like everybody else. I got so much rejection. And I burned through my one market. And then, especially back when I started, then what on earth what do you do? You couldn't hop on Facebook or LinkedIn, or whatever. Because those things didn't exist. So you had to be out and about, strike up conversations with total strangers in the grocery store. You know. Steve Larsen: Yeah. GloriaMacDonald: And really networking meetings like we know them today didn't exist in 1979 either. So it was tough. It was grueling. Anyway, and the interesting thing, what I know now that I didn't know then, was all of that old school technique ... And don't get me wrong. Obviously there have been people who have built huge businesses using all those old school techniques. And that's great, and that's wonderful. But why would we still be using that today? Steve Larsen: Right. GloriaMacDonald: When there are far more efficient and effective ways. And the biggest thing about those old school ways, is that they work completely against the way our brains work. They go completely against our human physiology, biology, chemistry, psychology, and you know, our brains job is to keep us safe and protect us. So every time we start to feel any kind of rejection, our brain is literally saying, "Don't go there, don't do that. It's not safe. Rejection's not good. No, no, no, no, no." So why would you put yourself in a position where you're working against your biology, when there are all kinds of ways today where you can work with your biology, and you don't have to ... I mean, literally, you can do rejection-free recruiting. You know that, you're doing it. Steve Larsen: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now, the first time I heard you say that, I was like, dancing up and down, screaming. Because I was like, yes, yes, someone else! Okay, absolutely. You talk about, it's literally against a lot of the way our chemical make up is put together. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah. Steve Larsen: Which is true. Could you talk a little bit more about that, and what you mean about that? Because that's fascinating. I'm pretty confident most people have no idea about this. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, I mean seriously, the way our brain works, the job our brain is to keep us safe, and conserve energy. That's the primary job of our brain. And it goes back to millions and millions of years of evolutionary psychology, where literally we had to conserve energy in case a tiger or lion jumped out of the jungle at us, and attacked us. We had to be ready to just fight, or flee. Steve Larsen: Right. GloriaMacDonald: And so we had to conserve energy, and we had to be very very very aware of what was going on around us to protect us. Steve Larsen: Yeah. GloriaMacDonald: And so, even though we're not facing lions and tigers today, in that same way, our brain's job is still to protect us and to conserve energy to keep us safe. And so literally anything that feels uncomfortable to us, the brain recognizes that and says, "No, danger zone, danger zone." It literally tries to shut us down. So rejection's not comfortable for anybody, unless you work really, really, really hard against your brain. But the problem is, the vast, vast, vast majority of people just can't do it. They physically can not do it. They physically cannot re-wire their brain to go against human biology. And they can't re-wire their brain to say, "Nope, doesn't matter. I don't care about being safe." Because we need to be safe. So yeah, it goes against- Steve Larsen: I mean, you're literally saying that MLM is going against the way our bodies are built. What do you doing different? When did you realize that, and the new thing you learn. Like, oh my gosh, there's this whole other way. I don't need to be doing it this way. How do I become more in harmony with my body, and the way my body is made up to be successful in MLM? GloriaMacDonald: Great question. It was just within the last four or five years, that I had this huge uh huh, as I studied the brain more and more. And I studied the brain a lot, because it's fascinating, I believe. It's really important to understand how the human brain and the human body work to be successful, and to understand what's going on in your prospects brain. Because it's not just you, it's your prospect, right. Steve Larsen: Right. GloriaMacDonald: Your prospect brain is going through the same thing, and it's saying, "No, no, no, no. This doesn't sound like I'm going to be good at this. This doesn't sound like I'm going to succeed at this." So their brain is taking that too, because their brain's job is to make sure they don't fail. So yeah, it's just over the past four or five years I've really started understanding a whole lot more about how the brain worked. It's like, oh my gosh. Wow, all this prospecting and recruiting stuff the way I've been taught over the last 35 years really doesn't work with the brain. I mean, I knew it was tough. I knew it was tough for the vast majority of people. And I knew that somehow or other, I just trudged forward and did it. But I knew most people couldn't. But I didn't understand exactly why. I thought, well people just don't have enough stick to it ness. They just don't, all the stuff we heard. Their Why isn't big enough. Oh, you know. They just don't have enough guts, whatever it is. But it's much, much, much more scientific than that. Steve Larsen: It's not just that. GloriaMacDonald: Pardon? Steve Larsen: It's usually not just, hey I'm lazy. I don't really want success. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah. Steve Larsen: [inaudible 00:10:41]. GloriaMacDonald: Exactly, exactly. And then it was really just in the last two years, that I figured out the technology piece of okay. So, you know, it was two years ago I heard about this attraction marketing thing. But okay, what's that. That sounds kind of interesting. And realized, my gosh, traction marketing, the beauty of traction marketing is that it's not working perfectly with the brand. That's why it works. Because it takes out the whole rejection thing. And then you know, I started mucking around on Facebook, and had some initial success. But then Facebook algorithms changed and started going crazy and stuff like that. So my ads weren't working, and all that kind of stuff. Steve Larsen: Thank you, Zuckerberg. GloriaMacDonald: Pardon? Steve Larsen: Thank you, Zuckerberg. GloriaMacDonald: Yes, exactly, yeah. And again, not to say that there aren't people out there that aren't having success with Facebook ads. But I think it's extremely. So Steven, if any of your listeners are listening today, and who are listening today are actually just trying to start off with Facebook ads, I think the message people need to hear, are look. If you're just starting off today, it's going to cost you a wack load of money if you don't already have a huge following. Steve Larsen: Yeah. GloriaMacDonald: So the people who are making Facebook ads work, are the people that started four, five years ago, and already had followings of 50 thousand, 60 thousand, whatever. Before all the algorithms started changing like crazy. And even they are experiencing an increase in advertising cost. But it still is worth it to them. But I think it's really tough for the person that's starting out today. So I just thought, this is not a recipe for success. So I started fooling around on LinkedIn. And it was like, oh my gosh. Steve Larsen: Now, what made you choose LinkedIn? If I could just interrupt you. Sorry about that. I mean, LinkedIn is usually not the place people think of, you know. What made you go there? GloriaMacDonald: Well, I'd had a presence on LinkedIn from a previous business. Not much. I had, oh I don't know, a thousand, 12 hundred connections on LinkedIn. I fooled around with Linkedin a little bit, but not in the same way at all. And I don't know, Twitter, I thought, really? How much can you do with a hundred and twenty four characters, or whatever it was at that point. Because it was [inaudible 00:13:16] than it is now. Steve Larsen: I think we're grounded at 180 now. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah. And Twitter's just not my thing. And again, there are people making money on Twitter. They are. Not me. And I fooled around a little bit with Instagram, but I couldn't figure out how Instagram was going to work for me. And again, people are making money on Instagram, but that's not the platform I cracked. So I just, I don't know. LinkedIn just made sense to me, it felt comfortable to me. And when I thought about it, I thought, wait a second. LinkedIn is where a whole bunch of professionals are. And in fact, the average LinkedIn user has twice the buying power that the average online user. So it's a more professional ... I say LinkedIn really isn't a social media platform. It's really a business platform. So the beauty of LinkedIn is that you can get right down to business. Steve Larsen: You don't expect that. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, you don't have to be what I call fake social. You know. Steve Larsen: That's awesome. GloriaMacDonald: So yeah. Steve Larsen: That's awesome. So you went, oh man, something's messed up there. Eventually, you left the tactics. And just so everyone's clear, we're not bashing on any MLM, just the actual tactics. They're so weird. And you go, you're like, what about this LinkedIn thing. What made LinkedIn work so well? I tell you what, if I see someone else posting on social media of them, a selfie in a gym. You know, saying, "I'm working from home today." And you're like, you just started this. You know, it can get a little frustrating. How is your approach so different so that we're not offending those parts of the brain. We're actually attracting people the right way. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, great question. So first of all, it starts with really targeting people you know who are already open and interested in what you have to offer. It's not just the old three foot rule, anybody who comes within three feet. Or anybody who calls, or anybody who breathes. You know ... Steve Larsen: [inaudible 00:15:34]. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, yeah. It's not that. It's really understanding who your target market is, and figuring out how to exactly find them. This is true for any platform. It doesn't matter whether it's LinkedIn, or Facebook, whatever. The whole basis of being able to work with the brain, is knowing who's already open to and interested in what you have to offer. And then being able to have highly targeted messages to those people. So that when you actually end up on the phone with them, or in a zoom call with them or whatever, you're not going to get any rejection. So I say to people, look, my day is filled with conversations like you and I have right now. When I'm talking to people who are already totally sold on network marketing, they already believe in that. They struggled. The vast majority of them struggled. And they feel like, oh they can just figure out the secret. If I could just get the one thing to work, then I'd be a millionaire. As you and I both know, it's not that easy. Nothing is that easy, it's a business, and you have to treat it like a business. It doesn't mean 100 percent of people are going to buy from you, or join your team. But there's no rejection. There's no beating your head against the wall trying to talk someone into the idea that network marketing isn't a scam or a pyramid scheme or whatever. So it works with the brain. And you know, there are millions and millions and millions, and millions and millions and millions of network marketers on LinkedIn, but they're not using it. Steve Larsen: So they're sold on the concept of network marketing, they just don't know how to apply it anymore. Especially in today's internet saturated world. Everyone's far more shut off a little bit, and ... So how do you ... When do you know that you're ... Because here's how I imagine it, right. Someone comes in, and you kind of start sizing them up. Not to say you skip the relationship, which you don't obviously. But you're sizing them up, and trying to see, hey, is this person someone I can attract to me, in starting up a conversation. What are the signs that you know you're taking to somebody who's already in an MLM, who's already ... Without being, feeling like you're being pushy? GloriaMacDonald: Well for me, it's really simple. They have it on their LinkedIn profile. Steve Larsen: Got you. GloriaMacDonald: So I target them because they said on their LinkedIn profile, that they're with ABC company. Or they've got the words Network Marketing in the profile, whatever. So it is very easy to find network marketers on LinkedIn. It's a piece of cake to find network marketers on LinkedIn. And the beauty of what I teach, Steven, is it's free. Now, people say, oh you can't scale when it's free. And there is a certain amount of truth to that. But only a certain amount. And you know, my whole goal is to help people make money. Because as you and I know, there's so many people that, they've got a dream. They want to be able to send their kids to college. They want to be able to take vacations. They want to be able to pay off their debt. They want to be able to take care of their aging parents, whatever their dream is. And they can see that it's worked for other people in network marketing. But it hasn't worked for them yet. So I want to help people make money. So I am all about ... Sure, you can go spend a hundred thousand dollars a month on Facebook ads, if you've got the deep pockets. But how many people do, you know. So I'm all about starting right where the person's at, and helping them right where they're at. So if you don't have deep pockets, if you're struggling to make ends meet, and you really want to build your network marketing business, then you can start off absolutely for free on LinkedIn. You don't even have to pay for a LinkedIn subscription. And you know, I'm into this now ... Well, it'll be 11 months that I launched my first LinkedIn thing. So I started one thing that I launched in August last year. So right now, I'm going to do it right around, say the 20th or so, of August. So I'm 11 months into this, and I have not paid a dime for LinkedIn advertising. Not a dime. And I've made multiple six figures in the last 11 months. Steve Larsen: That's amazing. GloriaMacDonald: All on Linkedin. Steve Larsen: That's fascinating. Now, is there things that you got to be aware of? I know on Facebook you got to be aware of a few things with [inaudible 00:20:28] marketing, and MLM on Facebook. Is LinkedIn the same? GloriaMacDonald: No, LinkedIn is open to you just using the words network marketing, MLM. They're absolutely open to it, it's a business platform, and people are there to talk about business. And network marketing is a business. So, you know. Steve Larsen: That's awesome. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah. And, I will say, Steven, that one of the things I see all the time, and it drives me bonkers, is ... And I even see this with people who are trainers. Network marketing trainers. And they've got training programs on LinkedIn. And what they're doing, is they're teaching people how to do Facebook on Linkedin. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Steve Larsen: Different platform. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, it's a different platform. It's a business platform. In fact, just yesterday, I was having a conversation with somebody, and she was sending messages to connections on LinkedIn. She said, "But nobody's messaging me back." And I said, "They don't." They don't. This is not Facebook, it's not about being fake social. It's not about being, oh how's your day going today? Oh, you know, here's the color of my new toenail polish. Oh, this is what I had for lunch. No, this is business. This is not about having, you know, just mindless dribble conversations on messenger. Steve Larsen: Oh, thank you. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah. Stop it, guys. Stop it. And it drives me bananas when I see people putting all the motivational inspirational quotes up on LinkedIn. Now, I am all about motivation and inspiration. I'm all about it. So here's the analogy I use. If you were an accountant, and you're going in to meet a prospective client, would you go in with a binder full of motivational, inspirational quotes to show your new perspective client? No! Steve Larsen: If they were a poster store, maybe. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, but no, you're an accountant. Steve Larsen: Yeah, no. GloriaMacDonald: You're going to go in with a photo album of your family and what they did last weekend, or the picnic you had. It's like, no, guys. This is business. This is not Facebook. And I see network marketers doing it all the time. It's like, stop it. Steve Larsen: Yeah, it comes off kind of weird. I heard somebody say, you got to match the content with the context of the platform. So it's like- GloriaMacDonald: Yeah. Steve Larsen: Totally, totally different feel on LinkedIn. That's not what that's for. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, absolutely. Steve Larsen: So let's say you identify somebody. How do you approach that person on LinkedIn, without coming across like that? You said, they're not going to message you back. But how do you get their attention? GloriaMacDonald: Well, I always lead with value. It's all about leading with value, it's literally about attracting people to you, because they're really interested in what you have to offer. So I send people an invitation to connect. Very simply, you don't have many characters anyway, you're limited to 300, and you can't put links in the initial message. So I send invitations saying, "Hey, I see you're with ABC company, I'd love to connect with you. Looking forward to it, thanks, Gloria." Super simple, right. Steve Larsen: Yeah. GloriaMacDonald: Right. And then when they connect with me, I send them a message saying, "Hey, thanks for connecting," I don't remember the exact wording, but it's something like, "I've found LinkedIn to be a super powerful place to build network marketing business. And here's a link to my free guide for four steps to power prospecting on LinkedIn." Steve Larsen: Cool. So you give them some value, and you know you're talking to an MLMer, a network- GloriaMacDonald: Exactly. Steve Larsen: Wow. GloriaMacDonald: Yep. So it's all about [inaudible 00:24:26], just like you're doing, Steven. Steve Larsen: Yeah. Now so, you go, you leave them with value. And what are two steps you tell anybody. The first two things you need to go do in order to get started? GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, the first thing is to set up your LinkedIn profile very, very differently than what you ever thought. So most people think of LinkedIn as really an online listing. Get rid of all that crap. Use LinkedIn ... Use your profile page as a sales and marketing machine. So I literally have sales coming in, seven days a week, while I'm sleeping. While I'm doing other things, you know. Because it's all automated. Now at the end of the day, you have to talk to people. Sure, you can do things to get people really, really qualified, which is what I highly recommend, that you keep qualifying, qualifying, qualifying. So that you're only speaking to people who have raised their hand multiple times, saying, "Yes, I'm interested, yes I'm interested, Yes I'm interested." And then, at that point, you get on the phone or zoom with them, or whatever, and talk to them about your opportunity. But it's all about using automation to pre-qualify people, so you're not wasting time talking to people who aren't open to, and interested in what you have to offer. So you really are only doing rejection-free prospecting and recruiting. So take everything off your profile page that has anything to do with where you worked, what year you worked there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just because the LinkedIn field might say company name, you don't have to put company name in there. I put the title of one of my [inaudible 00:26:24] in there. Steve Larsen: Oh, I love it. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, I put four steps to power prospecting. Free gift. You know, that's the company name. Location, we don't care about location. We're- Steve Larsen: Internet. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, internet. It's the internet. Steve Larsen: Everywhere. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah. You know? So, just because it says location, doesn't mean you have to put location in there. Put a link, put a link to where they can get the [inaudible 00:26:51] or put a link to your online calendar, or whatever it is. But give people a way to connect with you. Now, links on your profile page on Linkedin, are not live. You have to copy and paste them. You know, LinkedIn, like everything else, is trying to keep people on the platform. But that's okay. I still put, "Copy and paste this link." And yeah, so use your profile page as a sales and marketing tool. And I would also say, don't put anything on your profile page about your network marketing company. Steve Larsen: Amen, oh my gosh, amen. GloriaMacDonald: Yup, take all that stuff off there, and lead with value. So, what is it that you have to offer your target audience, free information that will help your target audience with whatever their paying points are. Steve Larsen: Wow. Okay, okay. So step one, drastically treat that profile page completely different from most likely pretty much all of us are. Not totally different though. GloriaMacDonald: [inaudible 00:28:05]. Steve Larsen: And two, what would be the second thing you'd have people go do? GloriaMacDonald: Then, be very targeted in terms of who you are inviting to connect with you. And who's invitations, when people send you an invitation to connect with them. I only accept invitations from people who are in my specific target market. I do not accept invitations from people who are not in my target market. Steve Larsen: I accept everybody. Uh-oh. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, I wouldn't do that. Steve Larsen: I don't even get on it that much. I'm totally going to get on this thing now. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, well you better, Steven. Steve Larsen: Yeah, that's awesome. GloriaMacDonald: I mean, seriously. Linkedin is an absolutely untapped gold mine for network marketers. It's an untapped gold mine. Steve Larsen: Wow. Okay, okay, profile. Step two, get real targeted on who you allow, and don't allow. And who you're going for, and don't go for. GloriaMacDonald: Yeah. Steve Larsen: And then step three, is probably go buy your course, yeah? GloriaMacDonald: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you could do that. Steve Larsen: I appreciate you being on here and sharing everything. Everyone, you said it's GloriaMacDonald.com? Go to? GloriaMacDonald: Yes. Yeah, so M-A-C for MacDonald. Gloria MacDonald dot com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. Gloria MacDonald. And I'm in Toronto, Canada. But Gloria MacDonald. Or on Facebook, Gloria MacDonald. Steve Larsen: Oh my gosh. Well, we appreciate you taking the time. This has been absolutely amazing. And frankly, this is the kind of stuff I just feel like, no one really ... You know, this is disruptive information, everybody. I hope that you take time to sit down and actually re-listen to this, and write down the steps she just said. Because that's very powerful, and come back. You owe Gloria a huge testimonial when you made your millions, as well. GloriaMacDonald: Thanks, Steven. It was great to be here with you today. Steve Larsen: Absolutely. Thank you so much. Oh, isn't Gloria awesome? You can't learn that stuff anywhere else. Hey, kick a thank you over to Gloria, and check out Secret MLM hacks, by going to Gloria is awesome dot com. Again, that's Gloria is awesome dot com.

I'm STOKED that Peng got on my show. Come learn how he transformed both his audience and himself in his crazy story... What's going on everyone, it's Steve Larsen and you are listening to Sales Funnel Radio. This episode is a little bit different. I had the incredible honor of having Peng Joon on the show with me. And if you don't know who he is I've heard him described many times as the Tony Robbins of Asia, actually by a lot of other big people. Anyways, he's very, very impressive... Millions and millions of followers. This was a huge honor to have him on. What I was trying to do is I was trying to do a Zoom interview so that I could record him, and I together, so you could see our faces and have the first video episode of Sales Funnel Radio. The issue is that he is in Malaysia, and I am here in Boise Idaho. We both have fast internets. I think literally the fact that we were on the other side of the world from each other, the internet was not agreeing with that. So anyways, I had ripped the audio from it instead and just do audio only. This interview is incredible you guys. How should I say this? The quality of my life, but also the direct thickness of my wall has been impacted directly from Peng Joon, and especially what he taught at Funnel Hacking live, and the things that he's doing. I watched him for quite some time and he is very, very, impressive. I was incredibly honored to have him on. So anyways, excited for the interview. Please definitely take notes, and if there's little glitches or whatever here and there with the sound, or the interview I apologize with that. Again, a lot of it had to do with just I was being on the other side of the world. We eventually had to turn off our video, and just do an audio interview. So if it's a little glitchy here and there I apologize, but this is worth your time to learn and listen of what he's doing. In fact, much of the inner circle now is calling their own content strategy they coined it the Peng Joon method. It is because of how powerful this stuff has been in their own content curation and generation, and spreading it all over the world. Guys, I'm just very thankful for you guys being here and listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please go take notes and welcome to this episode with Peng Joon. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. Now I 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. Alright guys, hey I'm excited for this. This is gonna be so much fun. I've had this individual on my list of people that would be a dream to interview for actually a long time. There's an actual list, and I'm blown away right now. I'm gonna try not to blush too much. This is gonna be a bunch of fun. I actually have on here, Peng Joon. He has such a gigantic following, and the way that he's done is actually amazing to me, totally astounding. And has had a direct impact on literally the way that I do my personal business, as well as I know a lot of you guys as well, so this is gonna be a bunch of fun to dive on in. Anyways, without further ado I welcome you to the show. How's it going Peng? Peng Joon: Hey, I'm good. Steve Larsen: Thanks for taking the time over there I know it's a historical day like you said. Peng Joon: That's right. I'm just so excited. It's one in the morning right now, but I don't think I'm gonna be sleeping any time soon, because I'm just so excited. History made here in Malaysia. Steve Larsen: So cool. You just went and voted, and waiting for results is that what it is right now, everyone's waiting? Peng Joon: Yes, that's right. Steve Larsen: That's so cool. Thanks for taking the time to do this especially during such a big day over there as well. For everyone else, first of all if you're not following Peng, he's one of the go to people. I watch everything he does, okay. Go follow him. Go do everything he says to... How did you get started with this whole thing? You kind of talked a little bit about it at Funnel Hacking live, and you were showing a video of how you first started out on stage. It was amazing. I think it broke everyone's beliefs on the ability to be successful like this. Can you just for everyone else you mind just talking a little bit about that what you were doing? Peng Joon: So here's the quick back story. For my entire life I've always been this really shy, introverted kid. When I start off with my online journey I just wanted to be anonymous and make money online without speaking to anyone ever. So what I did was back then I was really struggling. And here in Malaysia things are really different. My first pay slip, I actually got my first job for was about 300 U.S. dollars and it was my monthly pay cheque. I worked on that job for nearly two years before I realized I need to do something different. So what I did was I didn't realize I had a strength back then, but I was really passionate about computer games. I created my first ever digital product which is really like a 32 page World of Warcraft ebook, that was it. It did well. It enabled me to, and I started scaling to all these other gaming websites and guides, and because I didn't want to be branded as Peng Joon, because I had this limiting believed that I thought to myself nobody would ever buy a product from someone called Peng Joon. So a lot of these sites I branded under my pen name Tony Sanders which really, true story was Tony Robinson, Colonel Sanders. It was Tony Sanders. Basically, the turning point was when I had all these different niche websites, and I owned several dating websites in the dating niche as well. So I was also branded Tony Sanders, and one day without me realizing it I actually set a huge broadcast for a dating offer to my entire gaming list. So I got 400,000 gamers receiving a dating offer, and the spam complaints was really high, and I was using AWeber back then, and they literally shut me down. And I couldn't believe it because I was paying I think $2500 a month On my bill, and I would never thought they would shut me down, but they did. And used to give me a copy of my email list, and we went back and forth for probably over 10 days. This is the terms of service it stated here that if you shut me down we are not obligated to give you an email list. So I really lost my entire business overnight. Because of that, I realized you know what this is an opportunity for me to do something different, and I want to be able to share with other people what I did in my gaming, and all these different niche websites that I did. So I thought why not teach other people how they too can market what they know based on their life experience, their passion, and learn, monetize what they knew. So that was the first time ever I actually stepped out of my comfort zone, and decided to ... But I was really shy and introverted, and I still am, but what I did I wanted to improve myself, so I started going all these different speaker trainer events. I started practicing in front of a camera, in front of the mirror... It was a journey. That has allowed me to, so it was a lot of journey of self-discovery getting a lot of past my fears, limiting beliefs, and all that kind of stuff. That has enabled me to now speak in many different countries, and more than 20 countries now. Doing events, doing workshops, retreats all that kind of stuff... Steve Larsen: There had to have been this moment then, because I actually was very similar. I was so shy. I got the nicest kid award, because no one heard me speak. You know what I mean? I actually really, really it was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about this, and ask you about it. It's actually one of the biggest questions my audience wanted me to ask you as well. When you had this ... I was so afraid to talk to people. If you had the same kind of thing I remember there was this moment for me where I just realized of this self-awareness. “Oh my gosh, I'm shy." And I didn't know that for a while... Holy crap. I had to actually start actually doing things kind of like what you did. Was there a moment when you realized, oh my gosh I need to become, I had to become something. I want to shape and shift the way I am. Is there a moment you can think about- Peng Joon: Oh yeah I remember the moment so vividly. It's basically when I did my first ever event. So back then, after I did all of those different events. For a long time this event organizer, Success Resources, they've always wanted me to speak on their stages. But I always said no, because speaking is not for me... Eventually, I took a leap of faith and I did my first event... So back then after going to all these different speaker things and stuff that was when I realized they talked about the stack. Back then it was pretty old school. You would use a flip chart, and you right down the offer and the price, and then you would kind of cross things out. You give out the bonus, and you say things like, “For first 17 people go to the back room and sign up you get all these different things.” So I did that in my first event, and it was in this huge, it was at the Singapore Expo Hall it was this huge room. There was about 900 people there. Right after I did my stack and offer my bonus and I said, “For first 17 people go to the back of the room, and sign up.” It was all quiet they were all you know. My mind was racing, because when I was attending all these different speaker trainer events what would happen is people, all the other participants, do a similarly a table rush, they all stand up go to back room, and give you confidence. But when I did it for real nothing happened. It was weird, it was awkward. So back then those things were very different to all those, no music, and when I had to walk to the back room. Just imagine this... Room of 900 people, huge expo hall, I had to walk back and awkwardly smile to everybody as I walked. It was like the walk of shame. I walked back. I remember this one of the staff who was working there she asked me, “So Peng Joon do you know how you did?” And I said, “No so how many people signed up?” I noticed she was avoiding eye contact, and that's when she said, “Yeah well nobody signed up.” I went back stage and I was sitting down there, and I realized, first of all I was very disappointed. Disappointed in myself, because at that point in time I truly believed that I did my best. I didn't wing it. I spent tens and thousands of dollars attending all these different events and seminars. I practiced in front of camera, in front of mirror, but doing my best just wasn't good enough. And at the same time I disappointed the audience the value of what I had to offer. The irony was so many people coming up to me Peng Joon it was an amazing presentation. But nobody bought anything... That was when I told myself I think speaking is probably not for me. So I was about to leave the event. The CEO of Success Resources, Richard Tan, he was there. I went up to him I said, “Thank you for inviting me to your event, but as you can see speaking is probably not for me. I might come back to be a conference speaker, but maybe not a sales speaker. What do you want me to do?” So I was about to leave the event, here is what he told me. He said, “You know Peng Joon we been around for more than 20 years. We worked with the best of the best. We work with people like Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, Robert Kiyosaki, and all these guys. Worked with best, best and worked with many average speakers that we have seen come and go. And I can tell you right now this is when an average speaker will quit. So you decide if you are average.” And those words were so powerful... I really realized that my entire life speaking really was one of those fears that was just one of those things that I could never do, because all of these things I tell myself like I'm not a people person, I'm introverted, I'm shy, and all these different reasons. I realized, and I asked myself, “What if I could conquer this one fear that I thought I could never do. Then I will be unstoppable.” It was just one moment of decision where I told myself I'm never gonna quit until I really become world class at this. And that I just continued practicing. I attended more events. I continued just practicing, and eventually I sucked less and less, and eventually I became good. That was the journey... Steve Larsen: Was there a moment where you were able to sit back and go, “Oh my gosh I actually think this possible.” He said I'm going to be I don't want you to be average go off and do it. You said, “Oh my gosh okay we'll go do it.” And you started moving forward. When was the moment though where you felt this period of self confidence? It seems to me most entrepreneurs actually know what to do next. They just don't have any confidence to do it. It's much of a personal development thing as it like hey here's how you make a dollar. Here's how you make money. So is there a moment where you had, you know what I mean, like that first real success where you're like, "I could actually do this"? Peng Joon: Yes. And I think back then so this was like I think the first time I had it was a few shifts. Number one, the importance of telling your story, which is your struggles as well as your successes. For me back then all I wanted to do is, my mindset was as long as I went on stage on a platform, and as long as I gave them great value. I will go stream the content give them as much as they can so that they can understand the value that I'll be able to give them on the backend in my offer. I passed the stories and the struggles of the back story. It was so crucial. On top of that, and you know this, is that it came from the angle of just teaching. Without really coming from the angle of answering objections, objections about the opportunity. Objections about the limiting beliefs. Objections about the external. So that was the difference. Steve Larsen: That's interesting. So a focus itself on when you understood now how to actually go for the objections, and rather than just teach itself. Actually get into the mind of the person. That's interesting. I never heard anyone say that would be one of the things that ... Peng Joon: 100%. The difference between a world-class speaker/closer, and average one is that a closer understand that the entire presentation is a close. Right from the start, the open, the content, the stack, the close. The entire thing is a close. To really be able to serve an audience at the highest level it's not about the steps. Even though it might be intuitive to think that it's about the steps it's about the content. If you really think about it you might be able to give them all the steps, but if you are not covering the objections, their self-limiting beliefs, their attitude, the environment that they're in. Let's say we're in fitness. I'm teaching people how to get sick, tight abs. So if I taught them the steps, and we all know the steps are. The steps is just eat right, exercise daily. So everybody knows what the steps are. Everybody wants to get healthy. Everybody wants to look good naked. But reason why people don't do the steps is because of the other 80% which is the why, the desire, their attitude towards it. All that kind of stuff. The objections that they might have, and therefore in order to really serve the audience at the highest level it's not about just teaching the steps, but rather the other 80%, the mindset and attitude behind it that will make all the difference. Steve Larsen: That's amazing. I appreciate you saying that. So those are the things you identified in your own head started doing to yourself what you do to customers. That's what pushed you forward... I want to ask real quick about the way that you do your content, because the content that you create is incredible. I know you batch a lot, you put a lot of it together. To go from someone who's shy, and introverted to somebody who you are now. You have books that you written, you're an author. You have millions of followers. Dude, you are so ... and you are in front of massive audiences that you're teaching. You write books about the things that freaked you out at one point. That's amazing. Could you talk a little bit about how you realized you needed to go heavy into the content creation side of this? Peng Joon: Yeah. We all know that the algorithm on all these different social media platforms are constantly changing. It's harder, and harder to get rich, especially if it's organic. For the longest time marketers have always said that the first step you need to be doing in order to get people into your funnel is to collect their name and email address. That's like the golden rule of marketers for the longest time. But here's the problem. The problem with that is, first of all, that could have been effective maybe fives years ago, but to me a person is going to be a lot more reluctant to give you their name and email address in the first encounter. And also it's gonna be a lot more expensive... So to go about that the new way of doing things is really to lead that entire relationship with the value first. To be able to put out content out there where people don't have to ... where there isn't a catch. Where they don't have to give you a name and email first in order to get value. So you are able to lead with that, which again putting out content on social media, reaching people who don't know who you are, so you give them value first, and then we target them later for the main email address it becomes a whole lot cheaper. That relationship is gonna be totally different because it started off with you giving value. That's different. The rules of the game has changed. It's basically the first thing you need to be doing now is rather than starting off a relationship by getting a person's name and email address, it should be starting that entire process by getting people pixeled in, or into a custom audience where they have engaged their page like, commented, or shared anything on your page, or watched specific videos of more than say 50%. And then we target them for the opt-in. I know it's a little bit technical here depending on, yeah but that's how it should be done. Steve Larsen: Makes total sense. Makes total sense. They are already pre-framed what you're gonna talk about. They already pre-framed who you are. False beliefs have already shattered that you didn't even know you're solving. That's amazing. Peng Joon: And you think about it, it's kind of like going into a club. Getting somebody's name, and email first is really like going into a club, and try to get somebody's name, and phone number in the first five minutes of your conversation. Maybe some pick-up artists can do it, but it's gonna be tough. However, if after the conversation... with value first that's kind of like perhaps going to a club, and ...who has interest, who's looking at you, and then talking to them. And then building value, building relationship, and then asking them for their...it's going to be easier. Steve Larsen: So Peng Joon is coming out with a dating tips book very soon with that very strategy right? Sorry for the lag in the internet a little bit everybody. Peng Joon: ... Steve Larsen: You are right there? Okay got you. Peng Joon: ... Steve Larsen: Awesome. So I wanted to ask you also real quick. Let's say you're a new entrepreneur just starting out. Let's say you redoing this you are starting over again. How much emphasis would you focus on just amassing, because I get this question all the time. How much focus would you give on amassing a huge following versus making a product that's selling? Would you put one before the other, would you do them in tandem? Peng Joon: [inaudible 00:21:06] So I mentioned this strategy. One of the thing I always want to make it really clear. The priority for somebody that's starting out should always be building their funnel first. Be clear about what they are selling, what their offer is, building the funnel before they start messing around with traffic, or social media, or podcasting, or anything like that. People get caught up with all these distractions they think they need to put up content in bulk they need to do...Facebook when in fact for new entrepreneurs one of the things that they get distracted by is people telling them that they need to do all these different latest tactics and strategies which is like Facebook, or Instagram, or podcasting, and doing a blog post. When in fact, if you are first starting out the only focus you should have is your funnel. It's getting clear what you're selling, what your offer is, and building up that funnel for that offer. The best way to tell if you have a funnel is to ask yourself this morning when you woke up, whether you made any sales while you were asleep. And you if you didn't make any sales where you sleep last night means that you don't have a funnel. That should be your core focus before you start dabbling into all these other traffic generating strategies. Steve Larsen: That's so powerful that you say that, absolutely. Someone has reached out, and they are like, “Well I'm gonna grow this huge following I'm brand new.” I'm like what are they gonna follow you for though? So at what end what's the end goal there, so when did you know your business was ready for this brilliant content machine that you have? Peng Joon: I think it was just the progression. There wasn't really a moment in time when ... And I don't think it really happens for anybody where we just wake up and say today is the day we're ready. It's just through little progress every single day, and the little victories along the way. So yeah I don't think there was a moment, and time specifically. Steve Larsen: Sure. I know that you gave an entire presentation on this on Funnel Hacking Live. Not trying to ask you to do that as well. Can you talk through your process just a little bit at a high level what you do to actually generate all this content? Peng Joon: So it all begins with the pillar content, which is a video. Shooting a video where you begin with the end in mind, which means you are gonna use highly engaging content as titles, where you will look at, and there are many tools for this [Bust a Move 00:23:44] is one of them, while you look at what content in your market industries already proven to convert by looking at the conversations people already having. Creating videos based on that topic, and you want to be creating topics that has some sort of polarity, rather than using safe neutral topics. So what I mean by that is so if you are in a topic of, say wealth. So rather than a safe topic which is how to make more money, a much more powerful video would be here is the reason why you are broke. That's gonna offend some people, but the people that's gonna be into it is gonna be a lot more engaged. We need to understand that there's no money in neutrality. It's either they love you, or hate you, but there's no money in neutral. Start off with that, and by saying that I'm not talking about intentionally creating videos that offend people. I'm not a polarizing person, but I'm talking about taking a stand for something, and not being safe about it. If you take a look at all the books, you take books like 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad', when it was created that goes against every single safe principle when it comes to wealth, and investment when it was written. That's why it did well. So that's the first step. Creating videos, based on topics as high engagements, and then after that I got a nine step process, but it's basically about repurposing it so that it goes into your blog posts, it goes into youtube, it goes to Facebook, and Instagram. I call this strategy the Content Multiplier Formula, which is basically having all your content put into all these different platforms where the content matches the context of the platform. Steve Larsen: Which I think is so interesting, because it's not like you go on ... most people get on Facebook to get distracted. They are not getting on there to ... a very different intent than I go on youtube for, which is to usually some kind of how to thing, or maybe some other piece of entertainment or whatever. That's very fascinating, so you match content to the context of the platform that's fast. Peng Joon: And that's so crucial, because what I see some marketers do is they post the same piece of content onto all platforms failing to understand that people go onto these different platforms for different reasons. So it can still stem from the same pillar content, but you want to repurpose it in a way that matches the context of the platform. Steve Larsen: Amazing. You obviously have this down it's a science now for you. Every time I see you on Instagram, or wherever you don't seem like a lot of the classic A type personalities, or entrepreneurs out there where it's like they are usually stressed out of their brain. You got this down so well for how you done it, and the way you multiply content and match it. How do you go actually out, and start actually multiplying all that content that way? You must have a massive team. Peng Joon: Out of 12 people that works for me in my team in-house not including the people that we outsource to, but in the grand scheme of things we are really lean, and it's not a really big team. Steve Larsen: That's awesome. Peng Joon: So no, you don't have to have a lot of people doing all of that. In fact, chances are if you give them the right system, and the strategy, and the steps to follow you probably just need three people if you are really pumping out with current content. And that's like a lot. The video guy, the graphics, and one content writer. Steve Larsen: Wow, interesting okay. Video graphics, and a content writer themselves. They'll go out, and repurpose all the stuff. For you I know when you spend three days with 90 videos that you create. Peng Joon: 120, yeah. Steve Larsen: You got 120, oh I thought it was 90. Peng Joon: Yeah 40 videos a day. Steve Larsen: What? That's so crazy that's amazing, and these are three, five minute videos something like that? Peng Joon: Yes. Three to five minutes works best. Sometimes it can be shorter, but three minutes would be the average. Steve Larsen: Wow, okay. Three, five minute videos. That's actually what triggers from that pillar content, the rest of the machine that you created. Fascinating. Peng Joon: Yes. Steve Larsen: Fascinating. Thanks for your time today. Again everyone, sorry for the little bit of lag in the internet there. We are talking on the other side of the world right now, so which is pretty awesome. I know that you have this ... you are such an expert at it now, you wrote a book. I love the actual sales video I've watched it many times that you have for it. Very, very fascinating. I encourage everyone to go get it, but do you mind talking a little bit about why you wrote the book, 'Platform Closing'? Peng Joon: So I realized there were a lot of people like me that struggled, like they have a nice message to share, but because of all these different limitations, or maybe they just didn't know how when it comes to speaking, and presenting. It doesn't need to be live events it could be through sales videos, or webinars. I wanted to show people how to do it, because there wasn't one book that really specifically showed people how to speak, inspire, sell on all these different platforms. I wanted to be able to show people as well that it's not about talent, because that's what many people think. They think that oh because I'm not like that therefore I can't do it. People might look, say Peng Joon ... speak and sell, but I'm not like you. I'm not extroverted, and therefore I... So I wanted people to see that look that I know that's like a lot of people out there. They are not doing it, because just like me they're either too afraid, they have that fear, they are introverted, and therefore they never even begin. So that's why I wrote that book. Steve Larsen: That's amazing. That's amazing. And it's only been out for a little while right, it's very recent. Peng Joon: It's about six weeks in since I published it. Steve Larsen: Awesome, that's awesome. I guess is that the best place for people to come follow you, and learn more about you? That book right there? Peng Joon: So if you always wanted to learn how to sell, inspire, and present you can go platformclosing.com. It's a free book you just need to cover shipping. Steve Larsen: Man, thank you so much for your time on this I appreciate it so much. You really are an inspiration, not just to me, but a lot of people in my audience as well I know they are just gonna love this. Thanks so much. Anything else you'd like to share with us? Peng Joon: I think at the end of it all, you just need to get started. I think I want to leave with this. I think that one of the major things that really separates successful people is this one main thing. So when it comes to one thing to do a task. We all have these dreams and aspirations. The difference between a successful person, unsuccessful person is this. We might want to do something, but we only tell ourselves these three things. It's the road blocks that we have is just these three things... It's either number one, we don't have the time or money. Just the lack of the resource. Now here's the difference. An unsuccessful person, that's where they stop. They let that reason why they can't do it. While a successful person would say, “So how can I raise this money? How can I put it on Kickstarter? How can I pitch it to an investor who might be believing in my dream as well so I can start this project?” Or it could be if you don't have the time it's, “How can I find an extra hour? How can I be more productive with my time? How can I shut off social medial?” Perhaps it could be stop watching Game of Thrones or something. But to be more resourceful, know how to get the resources. That's the first one. Number two, it's basically where they say, “I want to be able to do this, but I don't know how.” And this is where again, a not successful person this is where they stop. While a successful person would say, “Okay I want to be able to do this, but I don't know how.” Same starting point, but now they say, “What I add it in my agenda now so that I can find out how. I'll watch the youtube videos, I'll read the books, I'll attend the seminars so that I can learn how." Number three, I want to be able to do this, but I'm not like that. They might look at me and say, "You know Peng Joon won't be able to do [inaudible 00:32:55]." You don't get it. I'm not like that. I'm not an outgoing person, I'm not extroverted. Again this is when unsuccessful person will stop. They let that to be the reason to why they can't do it. While a successful person would say, “I understand that in order to scale my business I need to learn how to speak, and present.” But I'm not like that. So how can I become more like that? How can I add it in my agenda, and catch myself out of my comfort zone so that I can become more like that. I think that in anything we do whether it's building funnels, whether it's speaking, whether it's selling, all of that. The difference is in just the way we think about it. And that's really the differentiator between successful people, and non-successful people. Steve Larsen: That is incredible. So number one, I don't have the resources or time versus how can I get the resources and time. Number two, I don't know how versus I'm gonna find out how. Number three, I'm not like that versus I'm gonna become that. That is just amazing. Thank you so much for your time today, Peng Joon, especially there in a historic day in Malaysia. Thanks for the viable interview here, and what you shared. Peng Joon: I enjoyed being here. Thank you for having me. Steve Larsen: Boom. Just try to tell me you didn't like that. Hey, whoever controls content, controls the game. Want to interview me, or get interviewed yourself? Grab a time now at stevejlarsen.com.  

  Click above to listen in iTunes... I've come to know and be increasingly amazed by Dana. His knowledge and skillset never ending and very impressive. Dive into this episode with notes to learn how he's using the Dream 100... What's going on everyone, this is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. How's it going everyone, I am super excited for today. I have a very special guest on. Please go stop whatever else you're doing. Again this is another one. Take a piece of paper out, write down notes, write down inspiring things that come to you. This is the kind of episode that not just has the ability to teach you a lot, but have a direct impact on the thickness of your wallet. I'm very excited for our guest today. I have known him for quite some time. I'm always extremely impressed with everything that he does. I want to welcome to the show, Dana Derricks. How you doing man? Dana Derricks: What's up man? Hey, thanks for having me. And for anybody that's listening, if you're in your car, pull over, put your hazards on. Just stop what you're doing. Tell your dog to go away. Your about to get hit with some gold here. Steve Larsen: This is awesome stuff. Thanks for being on. Anyway, I've been just been super impressed with you. I think honestly the first time we met though was we were redoing the homepage of ClickFunnels and Russel's like ... I remember I came in one day and Russel was like ... He was like, "Hey man. Dude I got Dana Derricks man. He's going to come on over and he's going to help us rewrite the entire, all the copy for ClickFunnels' homepage." And I was like, "Cool. Wait, who's this?" "He's the goat farmer." I was like, "Wait there's a guy ... There's a goat farmer who's an internet marketer?" He's like, "Yeah yeah yeah yeah." And then you came out and you showed up, and you had overalls and like, sweet straw farmer hats. And I was like, "This guys is the man." And like ever since then I've just been diving into your stuff. I'm super impressed with what you do. Dana Derricks: Dude, thanks man. I'm glad I have one fan. Steve Larsen: Whatever. Dana Derricks: No, that was so much fun and don't forget what ... By the end of that trip, what did you end up wearing home? Steve Larsen: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So he came in one day, just so everyone on the show ... He came in one day, it was one of the last days, and he had a full chicken suit costume for me. What was ... You gave Dave a massive bear. Russell had ... He was the gorilla right? Dana Derricks: Yeah. Russell was a gorilla, Dave was a bear, you were the chicken. Steve Larsen: That's right. And I thought that it'd be funny to ride that on my motorcycle home. So I did. And we'll put that - Dana Derricks: And... Steve Larsen: In the show notes. Dana Derricks: Yeah. Please. And can we put the picture? Can we dig up the picture too? Steve Larsen: Yeah. I'll go find the picture. I'm just writing that down. Dana Derricks: Oh man. So good. Steve Larsen: Chicken. Dana Derricks: Such a good sport everybody. Steve Larsen, everybody. Steve Larsen: Oh thanks man. Appreciate it. Well hey, just so ... If you guys don't know, if you're not aware, Dana Derricks is one of the, I would say foremost experts on this whole concept that I feel like is extremely kind of gray, cloudy. A lot of people don't understand it, but it's this whole thing around the Dream 100 and how to actually implement it.   And I mean you literally wrote a book on it right? And when did that come out? Dana Derricks: When did the book come out? Steve Larsen: Yeah yeah. Dana Derricks: I think it's been out for about eight months. So probably about towards the end of last, of 2017. Steve Larsen: Okay cool. Now before, before you were doing Dream 100 ... So I mean, first of all, how did you become an advocate of Dream 100? How did you start doing it yourself? Was it ... I mean, I know the story, but for everyone else who's listening, like how does a goat farmer who's also a copywriter, who's also an internet marketer overall product creator, go directly into Dream 100 stuff as well? Could you give us a little backstory there? Dana Derricks: I know. Everybody at this point is probably thinking, "Stephen, what is wrong with you? Where did you find this guy?" Steve Larsen: "Who is this guy?" Dana Derricks: Yeah. "What's happening?" So yeah. So I guess a little bit of a backstory that got me into the Dream 100 was I'm the type of guy that's going to try everything, and then figure out what works and what doesn't. And when I figure out something doesn't work, I just keep moving. Like, so I always say like honestly, there's two things about me that work well. Like, number one I'm too dumb to overthink things so I don't get paralyzed by that. And then number two, for every ten things I try, one of them works and I'm thrilled. Like I'm so grateful for the other nine that didn't work so that I could get those out of the way to find the one that did. Right? So like for me, like I look at like major league baseball right? The best in the world, on the planet, go up to the plate and they end up getting a base hit or you know a single, double, triple home run only three out of ten times. Right? Like nobody goes over four out of ten. So what's happening the other seven out of ten times? They're striking out. They're hitting the ball and getting it caught. Like bad stuff's happening almost over two thirds of the time. Yet like, us in business we go and try one thing, we step up to the plate and we expect to hit a home run, and then when we don't we're like devastated and never want to step up to the plate again. So for me, I was not ... I wish I could share this amazing story of how I fell in love with the Dream 100, and it was this love story. But reality is dude, I tried everything. So back in the days of Google SEO, like, Google AdWords, and then YouTube, and then Facebook, and then like all these things I tried and tried and tried, and it just like, it sucked and I failed. I kept failing, and failing, and then I realized, "Wait a minute." I was already doing the Dream 100 before I even knew what it was, and that was the only thing that ever worked for me. So that's why I got obsessed, doubled down, wrote a book about it, and all that other good stuff. Steve Larsen: I mean, how did you first find out about it though? Was it straight from Chet Holmes course, from Russel's stuff, from ... Where'd you learn about it? Dana Derricks: Yes. So I actually first figured it out through Russell. I think he had something ... One of his things was like the lost chapter on the Dream 100, and he just kind of described what it was, and then he was talking about Chet and I was like, "Oh man. I have sifted through many stacks of hay looking for this needle, and I finally found it." And then I grabbed Chet's trainings and it was like game over from there... Steve Larsen: So what ended up happening. I mean you read this thing, and you go start implementing. Like what did you do first? Because there's a lot of ... I feel like there's just a ton of misconceptions. Everyone thinks it has to be this package, or it has to be this ... I don't know. I think we all over complicate it a bit. Like what did you end up go doing? Dana Derricks: Totally. So well, the first that I think everybody thinks when they first learn about the Dream 100 is, "Oh my gosh, I've already kind of been doing that. Right? I didn't realize it." So for me, the big epiphany immediately was, "Holy crap." So for those that don't know my story, I grew up in a town of, I kid you not, 512 people. Steve Larsen: Oh no way. Dana Derricks: Yeah. My graduating class was 30 and we had a big class. Steve Larsen: Wow. Cool. Dana Derricks: Yeah. So my life growing up, because we didn't have a movie theater, we didn't have a grocery store in town. We had nothing. We had a bunch of cows and not even a goat. Like what the heck? Right? So football was our life, and I love football so much that I didn't want to stop playing after high school. I wanted to play in college. And nobody from my school, or area for that matter, played in college or did anything after high school. Like it was just, like we're too small. Nobody knows about it. Like it's not for real. So I'm like, "Screw that." So none of my coaches ever played college football. They don't know how to help with recruiting and all this. So I'm like, "Screw that. I'm going to do it myself then." And basically what I did is I created these ... Well first I started with ... I printed out a list of 40 schools that I potentially wanted to play football for. And then I made a packet for each school, like literally a box, and in it had like the highlight tape, a letter of recommendation from a coach, a personalized letter addressed to the coach that I was sending it to, all this stuff right. And I mailed all 40. And I was like, "All right, sweet. Let's see what happens." Two weeks goes by nothing. I'm like, "Wow that was a waste of time." Third week, I get called to the principal's office which for me is not a good thing. Like, "Oh man. What did I do?" I go in there and there's a football coach in there, and I'm like, "Whoa." He's like, "Are you Dana," and I'm like, "Yeah. Who are you?" He's like, "I'm Coach so and so." And he's like, "I'm here to recruit you." And I'm like, "What? You're here to recruit me? You came all the way to my town?" He's like, "Yeah," and then day or two goes by and then I get called back in and suddenly there's two coaches in there from two different schools at the same time. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh." And I remember like ... Yeah. Like my principal pulled me aside and he's like, "Dana when is this going to stop. It's really disruptive." I'm like, "I'm sorry Mr.C, it's like a broken fire hose. I can't do anything." So long story short, because of the Dream 100, I didn't even realize what it was at the time, I ended up getting a pretty major football scholarship, and I'm the only person in the history of my school that's ever gotten any sort of athletic scholarship, and it's 100% thanks to the Dream 100. So that's like the first emotion you go through I think when you learn about the Dream 100 is like, "Oh my gosh. Why didn't I know about this sooner? I was already doing it." You know? And then it turns into, "How do I now leverage the crap out of this in what I'm doing today here and now?" Right? So what I did, just really quick, was I wrote out a list of my Dream 100 right then and there and I remember, I'll never forget, Russell was at the top of my list and I looked at it ... This was not that long ago either. This was only a couple years ago. I looked at it, I'm like, "There's no way that I could ever get that guy to ever pay attention to me or do anything with me." Right? And I erased it. I literally erased it, and then I was like, "Oh maybe." Right? "YOLO." So I put it back up on the side of the list, like with an asterisk. And I'm like, "Eh. Maybe." Right? And then fast forward like couple years, and then I go up, get to meet you and hang out with Russell, and speak at a Funnel Hacking Live, and all this other crazy stuff, and it's all 100% thanks to the Dream 100. Steve Larsen: So for everyone else also, before we started this Dana is an amazing copywriter. He's amazing and Dream 100, and between those two topics I asked him, I was like, "Which one do you want to talk about?" And he said, "Which one do you want to talk about?" I said, "Which one gets you the most frustrated and mad?" And he immediately said, "Dream 100." Why is that? Before we dive into some how you actually put this together, how come the Dream 100 gets you most ticked off compared to copywriting which is also very important? Dana Derricks: I love this question. So for me it's because I feel like it's sort of a tragedy that most ... Every single business isn't ... Like first of all that everybody just doesn't know about it, number one. And then every single business or entrepreneur isn't using it. Like to me that is such a tragedy. And for some reason, like I still don't know why. For some reason when people think of traffic and getting people into their funnels or eyeballs on their offers, or whatever, they instantly think, "Oh Facebook ads. I need Facebook ads." And for some reason, like that apparently is the only traffic source in the world. Right? Like, it's just this crazy misconception and the reality is is the Dream 100 is a much ... How do I want to say it? It's a much more sustainable approach because it will never go away. It worked 50 years ago, it works now, it'll work 50 years from now. And it also ... It's free. I mean it's targeted eyeballs on your stuff for free. And it's all about ... It's really not that difficult. It's just building relationships with people. So that ... I guess that fires me up is like why everybody thinks they need to have Facebook ads or whatever else when they could be using the Dream 100 instead. Steve Larsen: Yeah, I feel like maybe that is part of the issue though is like, most internet marketers now are ... We're just spoiled. I mean before Facebook days, I mean how did everyone get the traffic that they needed. It's exactly what you're talking about right now and I feel like that's ... Not that Facebook's a bad thing, but I don't know how to drive ads. Like I don't want to go learn that stuff. I feel like Dream 100 is so much more long term sustainable, higher leverage sources of eyeballs than going and ... Anyway. And learning that stuff. So you mentioned real fast, you said, "Okay. I went and I ..." It's funny because Russell was number one on mine also, and I was like, "Eh, we'll see. I don't know." How did you make your list? I feel like that's the ... Do you feel like that's the reason people actually never do this? Like one of the choke points? Or how do you actually put it together? Dana Derricks: I think that's a big one. And that's probably the most common question I'm asked when I'm talking about it. Yeah. It's like, "Who was my Dream 100? Who was it?" And I'm like, "Well ..." So finally I came up with a very simplistic equation I can give you and your listeners if you want it. Steve Larsen: Yeah. I'd love that. Dana Derricks: So basically it starts ... It doesn't start with your Dream 100, it starts with you and then your customer avatar. So it's literally this simple. Who is your customer avatar? And that to me is a function of who do you want, as well as who do you not want? So it's who you want, minus who you don't want, equals your customer avatar. Right? And then so I've got my customer avatar, because if you don't have that then the Dream 100 is a very complex, difficult thing because you don't know. Right? So all right. The next question is, where are your customer avatar? Like where do they hang out? Right? Is it certain Facebook groups? Is it associations they're in? Is it ... Are they buying the same book? Are they all subscribed to the same software? Do they listen to the same podcast? Like if you can figure out who your avatar is, figuring out where they are is not that hard, and then wherever they are, whoever owns and controls the group that they're in, the groups I should say, or the audiences, that right there is your Dream 100. Steve Larsen: Interesting. So you go from your customer avatar meaning who you want and don't want, and then you go from where they are, and then who already has them. Dana Derricks: Exactly. Boom. Done. Steve Larsen: Who has them. I'm just taking notes. Dana Derricks: Sure. Steve Larsen: Who has them. Okay, so then from that point, like ... So I'm just ... From when I've launched a lot of stuff and I've got Dream 100 stuff all over my office right now. What ... Huge believer. Huge believer. So I'm excited I get to - Dana Derricks: Yeah man... Steve Larsen: I feel like ... I mean I like to sit down and start creating somewhat of a campaign for each one of these people with a blend of personalization, but also my ability to do it kind of en masse. You know what I mean? To each one of these people. I don't know if that makes sense. But what do you do next to actually get a hold of them? Are you going one by one for each of them? Are you doing something mass that kind of blankets all 100? Dana Derricks: Great questions. So I actually, gosh this is just a little bit off topic but it helps to kind of illustrate this. So how build my system around what's working is I do everything the hardest, longest way possible and then that becomes my system. So for example, if I launch a new offer for something, like if I have a ... If I come out with a new $2000 book right? I will find the person who is absolutely unqualified to buy it, who might want it, but who's totally ... Like for example, maybe they're totally broke. Right? And I will literally go through and answer every single question for them, and have 1500 back and forths if I have to, to then have basically, after the point of first contact to the point where they actually buy the thing, which is like a humongously long duration of time and effort. That is my system. Right? So that is now my system because very single objection basically has already been taken care of, and those are now all scripts that I can use for the next person. So I do the basically ... That's how I look at everything. So for my Dream 100, like let's say I have a target. And I'll use more of a short term target. So like a smaller kind of, more accessible one. Because Russell, that's a long term play. Right? But like a smaller one that you could start the conversation with already is like ... You definitely have the elements of personalization, so figuring out ... And this all comes obviously from ... So for those of you that are Dream 100'ing Stephen, you're in the right place because listening to his podcast is a great way to get his attention and get to know him, and the second secret sauce I'll tell you is, buy all of his stuff. Okay? So there's a correlation usually between how much access you get to someone, and how much money you've spent with them. So - Steve Larsen: That is fascinating actually. Dana Derricks: Right? Steve Larsen: Man. You say too much good stuff man. You got to slow down. I can't write that fast. Dana Derricks: Yeah. So for me it's like, I'll just pick ... So when you're starting out, it's really critically important to just pick one that isn't years down the road, so don't go after Tony Robbins on your first one. But also don't go after somebody that is already in your network that you could get a yes from without even having to go through all the hoops of all the other stuff right? And then just figure out what it is that can just showcase to them that you care about what they say, and you listen, and you consume their stuff, and you buy their stuff. Right? So I've had people ... I learned this myself, they're like, "Well are you ..." I wanted to partner with software companies before and they asked, "Well are you a subscriber of the software?" And I'm like, "Good question." Right? Like, "I should probably get an account and get to know it really well before I should expect them to want to do anything with me." Right? So that's the beginning. If you're not already doing that, then it's going to be really really difficult. But once you are, then ... Because it's like you're part of the community right? And - Steve Larsen: It's funny that ... There's a few times I've tried to reach out, or someone reached out to me, and they're like, "How do I learn this?" I'm like, "You serious? I have a course on this." They're like ... You know there's been times when ... Anyway. I don't know how else to say yes, amen, ahh, little hallelujah, lights coming down. What he's saying right now, please visualize bright shiny objects and things in the sky because that is so gold. Dana Derricks: That's funny man. But yeah, like if you think about it, makes total sense too. Like, if you're already ... And the other ... To take that a step further, is if you can contribute value to their community, right? So like for me with Russell, I have intentionally ... I don't ... I love helping people, but like I'm not getting paid and I'll go into the ClickFunnels community, the Facebook group or whatever, and I just go help people. I'm not there, I don't have an agenda. I don't have ... I'm not selling them. I'm just going in there and helping. So if they have a question to something that I know the answer to, I'll spend five, ten minutes helping them. Steve Larsen: Which you're so good at man. I've seen you pop around all over the place doing that. Like I watch you do that all the time. You're such a ... Ah, it's awesome. Okay cool. Yeah. Dana Derricks: Thanks man. Well hey, see I'm glad somebody notices. Steve Larsen: I do man. Yeah I turn back around I'm like, "Man this group doesn't even ... It's not even active anymore. Or this." I'm like, "Man, Dana wrote a long incredible response to that. This is cool. He spent a lot of time on this." Dana Derricks: So yeah. Because if you think about it, who's the perfect person for a guy like Russell to put on stage at his live event? Somebody that the community already knows, likes, and trusts. Right? Somebody that has invested in him and what he's building. And then, not only like monetarily. Yeah I gave him a lot of money to get into his inner circle, right? But also like, I spend quite a bit of time, and energy, and effort on helping his people for free. I don't ask for anything in return you know? So it's like ... That's a deadly combination for anybody to ... How can you say no? Right? Steve Larsen: Right. Oh interesting. Dana Derricks: So if somebody's saying no to you, ask yourself those three things. Am I already buying their stuff and consuming their stuff, and in the community? Am I contributing to the community? And have I ... What was the last one? Oh. I think, have I given them a lot of money? Steve Larsen: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Okay okay. So once ... Let's say ... Let's say ... Right. Because there was some point when Russell's like, "Wow. I'm now aware of Dana," and you realize that he is. How do you move forward? I feel like that's one of the other major questions kind of from the community that happens. They'll be like, "What do I say to him next?" You know, "When do I drop, 'Hey we need stuff?'" What's the steps forward after you've gotten their attention? Dana Derricks: This is like the second most frequently asked question is like, "I don't know what to say to him" or "I just feel like ..." Whatever. And I'll share quick like ... So Lady Boss, Brandon and Kaelin Poulin, amazing human beings, I work with them. They're in my intensive I call it. It's kind of like a course mastermind blend. And they build a $10 million company off of paid ads. And I'm just thinking to myself, "Holy crap. If I could make $10 off paid ads I'd be thrilled," right? And they're like, "We should probably try this Dream 100 thing." And I'm like, "Yeah you probably should. Good idea." So three days before Funnel Hacking Live, Brandon the action taker he is, he enrolled in my course and then he's like, "You know what? I got a guy I think I'm going to put in this spot." So because they're a big company, they can just by having a full-time affiliate partnership management person. Right? So he ends up being Brandon's brother, and his name's Jeff. He's awesome. And Jeff asked me three days before the event this exact question right? Because Kaelin was going to be on stage, which is an amazing opportunity for people to know Lady Boss, and I'm sure there are people in the sea of the 3000 plus that they could potentially work with somehow right? Or they know somebody that they could. So Jeff's like, "Dana," he's like, "I'm really new to this. What do I say to people?" And I'm like, "Jeff, this is the only thing you have to make sure you say. Everything else just be yourself, but this is what you have to say. Before you end any conversation, just ask the question, 'How can we help each other?'" That's it. If you can just get that question out there, they may not have the answer immediately, but at least it gets their mind going, and number one it like tells them what your agenda is. It's not, "Hey can you do Lady Boss?" No. It's like, "Hey. We want to help each other," and that's kind of how it was for me as well with Russell is I got on his radar, and then you know it's like, "How can I help you with what you're doing? How can I help ClickFunnels?" Right? And then that's how it came to, "Hey. You could probably help me by coming out here and knocking this copy for the homepage." Right? So a really long winded way of saying like, if you can just always have that question in your mind, "How can we help each other," then it just takes care of the rest. Steve Larsen: You know, it's interesting, with that approach, which I absolutely love because it comes from a place of friendship, and adding value, I mean you think about Dream 100 ... I mean, doing that 100 times, I mean it's easy to see how ... You easily could have a full-time position with somebody just doing that alone. Managing those relationships, working on the next pieces. Is there ever ... What's the point in the relationship after you've been adding value, because I'm sure it's different for everybody. We're all different, but is there a time where ... Because some of them probably come up and go, "Hey. Let me promote your stuff." But then there's probably other times you have to come back out and say, "Oh my gosh, he's not getting it, or maybe I do have to be a little more forward." Like how do you approach somebody and say that without sounding ... After you've given value, they know you're there, they know you're there to help, you've clearly developed a relationship. What's the way that you approach them and say, "Promote my stuff?" Dana Derricks: Love it. So I basically relate it to marriage. So me personally I would never get down on a knee if I didn't know the gal was going to say yes. I just don't want to be the next YouTube marriage proposal fail video. Right? Steve Larsen: Which are great to watch. Dana Derricks: Oh yeah. As a viewer. Yeah. So I look at it the same way as like ... Like I ask myself, "Have I built up enough goodwill with this person," whether that's buying their stuff, consuming their stuff, being in their community, contributing to their community, or whatever. Contributing directly to them. "Have I done enough of that for them to say yes to what I'm going to ask?" And if the answer isn't a clear yes, I just keep giving value. And usually for me, it's get to the point where people will ask me, "How can I help you?" Like all the time. That's one of the most common asked questions I have is from people just when I see them at events and stuff, and it's like, "How can we help you?" And then I'm like, "Hm. Well let me think about that for a second..." And then it's just the perfect ... So that's the thing is like, can you confidently say yes you've built enough goodwill up for them to say yes. And then number two, if not just continue to give them more value somehow. Steve Larsen: That makes total sense. Okay okay. So we've gone through ... Okay. Gone through how you make the list, psychology of ... I love your approach by the way. That is just pure gold. Choose the hardest way possible because that becomes a system. That way all the objections popup and you can address those in scripts. Things like that. Just brilliant. How to actually ... What do you do with the Dream 100 next? How can we help each other? On to promoting. Okay. You are notoriously known in the inner circle, in pretty much everywhere who's ever come in contact with you, for your incredible packages that you do send. Dana Derricks: Oh man. Steve Larsen: Could you talk a little bit about the way that you do that? I know that Dream 100 itself is not packages, but obviously that is a strategy and a method. Could you tell us a little bit about what it is that you're sending out and what you're working through as you go through each person? Because I've heard some pretty amazing stuff get sent around from you. Dana Derricks: Oh man. Well do I have your address? I'll have to get it. So yeah. Russell talks about ... Because somebody asked him this once, and he had a great response. He said that he likes to theme things. And I didn't even realize that I was doing it, but he mentioned me as well. But he does superheroes. You know. So that kind of takes some of the question out of what you should be sending is if you can latch onto a theme. So for me, obviously goats. So I've got ... Let's see if I have one. Oh I must have sent it out. Oh no I have one. Hold on, wait for it. Steve Larsen: Is that the screaming goat thing? Dana Derricks: That's the screaming goat. Steve Larsen: Nice. Dana Derricks: Oh I got to get you one man. Oh my gosh. That's the best way to crush any awkward silence ever right there. Steve Larsen: Just play that. Dana Derricks: Yeah. So my stuff is really goat related. And then the other thing that I look at is ... And the other thing, if you're creative you don't have to spend a lot of money. I know that's a concern for people, and at the end of the day though this stuff is so valuable, as soon as you get one, yes everything's paid for. So I keep that in the back of my mind. That keeps me going. But as far as like making it stand out and be cool, because I get stuff ... People send me stuff and I hope ... I don't care if they're listening or not. Steve Larsen: It's a lesson. It's a lesson. We're all good. Dana Derricks: Yeah. Like I love you guys. Keep sending me stuff. There is a difference though between something that somebody personally put together in a box, and somebody that just sends me a gift from Amazon with like a gift card, or the typed out thing from Amazon. Like both are cool, and you doing just the Amazon thing is better than 99% of people. But like there's something to be said about that hand touch and stuff. So for me like, I guess my creativity comes out because one of the things I sent to everybody in the inner circle that kind of got everybody kind of, I don't know, in a frenzy was - Steve Larsen: Yeah.. Dana Derricks: Yeah. Was a wizard stick. So long story short, my dad lives in Texas, I'm in Wisconsin and I like to send to his Christmas gifts. So a couple years ago I bought this weird like weed puller thing where it's like you don't have to bend over to pull weeds out. It's like ... You know what I'm talking about? Steve Larsen: Yeah yeah. Totally. Dana Derricks: And I open it up from Amazon or whatever, and then I forgot. Threw the box away and then I was like, "Oh man. It's like 4:50 PM on a Friday. I need to get this out to my dad." So I went to the post office and I'm like, "Do you have a box that this would maybe fit in?" And they're like, "No not at all." And I'm like, "Oh crap." But he's like, the post master was like, "But we could send it like that." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "Yeah." Like picture basically like a shovel. Essentially a shovel. He's like, "We could send it just like that." I'm like, "Wait what? You don't have to put in a box?" He's like, "No." So basically, picture the shovel. They just printed off the label, and then like stuck it to the handle of the shovel, and then the shovel got sent in the mail just like that. Like no box. And so I'm like, "Huh. You don't have to put things in boxes. That's amazing." So I sent out these wizard staffs or whatever, and I zip tied a wizard hat on top, and didn't put it in a box, and all these sticks essentially showed up at people's mailboxes and it was just this big crazy viral thing. And stuff like that that's just way more memorable and exciting when stuff like that shows up than just a box from Amazon. You know? Steve Larsen: Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Let's say ... Okay. So I've identified my Dream 100, I've contributed some things to the community, I really want to do things to grab their attention, what are some of the ... I mean, how much money are you spending on each one of these packages? You mentioned it could be cheap, and sometimes that's better, but how much money per package do you expect, or ... I guess that's the question. How much money do you expect to be spending on each one of them? Dana Derricks: If I can keep it under ... So depends on the target too. I segment my Dream 100 with A, B, and C. Steve Larsen: Oh really? Dana Derricks: Yeah. A is being like the top, B is being like middle, and then C is being like quick wins. Reason for that is because another things that people ask is like, "Well how high should I shoot?" And if you have all like, Russell, Gary V., Grant Cardone's on your list, like it's not that it won't happen, it's just that's not going to happen any time soon. You know? So I learned an expensive lesson from my football scholarship. And that was I ended up playing in a division two school, which they still give great football scholarships, and mine was a huge one, but wasn't a D one school because I listened to the doubt in my head that I was never good enough to play D one so I didn't even print off any D one schools. I really regret that to this day. So I just had B's on the list. And so if I'm looking at ... Typically for a B campaign, or even some C's, if I can keep my packages between $20 and $40 a piece, I'm pretty happy with that. But again, there come ... It comes with like, pretty relentless followup. Because if you just sent the box to somebody, good luck. But you got to do more than that. You know? Steve Larsen: Right. Right right. Followup process. What does your followup process typically look like? Dana Derricks: Oh man. So - Steve Larsen: Because you're a beast at this man. I'm pumped to hear this. Dana Derricks: It's very extensive. So ... Oh man. Do you want the whole ... Not like the whole thing, but do you want to know the extent I go? Steve Larsen: Yeah, totally. I do. Because I feel like what people do is, let's say I go put the package together, I go to the mailbox, I drop the thing off. Boom. I've now done Dream 100. You know? That's kind of it, and people kind of like rinse their hands. "Yes, I get my success cookie for the day." But it's really not over... Dana Derricks: No. It's just beginning. Steve Larsen: You're brilliant at this part. I'm so pumped. Dana Derricks: Thanks man. So that's like ... If you're running a marathon, that's the gun that just started the marathon. But you can go home with your marathon number on, and you've dressed up, and congrats you participated, but you didn't finish. Right? So for me it's like, I'll send them ... For me really the lumpy mail is permission to follow up with them. That's all it is. Because if I send somebody a gift card, or I don't care, wizard stick in the mail, like I have the right to follow up with you now. Right? I've spent money, invested time and money into you, now you don't have to work with me, or say yes to what I'm asking, but you do have to reply. Like that's the decent thing to do. So I will then send them an email followup, and it's never like, "Hey did you get my email?" Like have you ever had somebody message you 17 times on 17 platforms saying, "Did you see my email?" Steve Larsen: Yeah. "I called you. I called you. I called you. I called you." You're like, "Oh my. I know. I saw it, okay?" Dana Derricks: Dude. Yeah. Like we saw it. Like - Steve Larsen: It drives me nuts. Dana Derricks: Right. But if it's like, "Hey did you see the package I sent?" That's a different ball game. That's like, "Whoa you spent money on me, and you took the time and energy to cut through and go to me in the mail." Right? So I'm always like, "Hey did you get the box yet that I sent," or whatever. And I'm not like ... I'm never annoying about it because like, I'll look at the tracking and make sure the thing was delivered before I'm like, "Hey did you get the box?" And they're like, "No, what box?" Right? It's like ... So that ... So it's basically multi-channel followup. It's really ... It's extensive. So it'll go from emails and Facebook messages and whatever they are on, and then if I get no response from them, and I know that they're potentially seeing my messages and I've gone to the extent of like, two, three, four weeks of followups, next is a dodge ball in the mail. Steve Larsen: Wait you send them an actual dodge ball in the mail? Dana Derricks: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Steve Larsen: So you're calling them out? Dana Derricks: Oh yeah. If I have their address, they're so screwed man. Steve Larsen: I didn't know you do that. That's funny man. Dana Derricks: Oh yeah. Well that's because you've replied to me. Steve Larsen: Oh that's funny. Dana Derricks: So dodge ball. Rubber snakes work really well. It's literally ... And it's always ... Here's a thing. It's always got to be around humor though, and sarcastic, otherwise it's just ... It wouldn't work. So like the dodge ball's like, "Come on man. You're dodging me." And they know I'm not going to stop at this point. And the rubber snake, I think it's just to hilarious to think of the thought of them opening a box to see a snake inside. Like, it's just so funny. So I've never had to go past the snake, but the next one ... This is kind of naughty, but I will, I am prepared to send a certified with like a W9 inside that basically says, "All right man, have it your way. If you don't want to reply, then I guess you can pay the taxes on all this stuff I sent you." It's all a big joke, but that's the extent. Like people don't see ... They think you ... Like you said, they just send something and then all these good things happen and it's not. You have to really work. Steve Larsen: You have to really keep going on them. Dana Derricks: Yeah. And just be ... But being like ... Not badgering them though either. Steve Larsen: There's a line. Dana Derricks: Value. Yeah. For sure. Steve Larsen: Okay, so someone ... Is the package ... I've heard you say this before, but just for everyone listening. Is the package the first thing you send to them? Dana Derricks: No. So what I've found is ... I'm not sure the number, like the percentage. I'd say it's close to half. Probably close to half the Dream 100 deals I've made, I've never had to send anything in the mail. Steve Larsen: Wow. Dana Derricks: Yeah. So that's more of like, it's in the tool belt, it's like a special kind of like drill. Right? You can use it when you need to, but you don't have to use it. So for me it's like more so cutting through the noise, and then giving me permission to continue to followup. Steve Larsen: Interesting. Okay. You just turn up the heat when you get to packages. Dana Derricks: For sure. And then also though, it's also about nurturing too. So I send my existing affiliate Dream 100 people, like my number one affiliate last year, I sent him ... I think I probably told you this before, but I sent him a big screen TV and surround sound just out of the blue. Right? Just to keep him happy and yeah. So that's when it comes back in is really just spoiling people and giving them gifts and all that good stuff. Steve Larsen: So ... Okay. So I mean you've given a lot of ways to actually pull this off, to get attention. As far as like pulling off a JV with them, and them ... Could you go through some of the practices that you have when someone says yes. Like, "Yeah I'm super super excited to dropout." You know, my people [ Dana. I've heard a lot of people that go by ... I don't know. They'll pull like a URL up. There's a whole lot of like small little isms and little practices that are out there. Do you mind going through just a few of those? Dana Derricks: Yeah, sure. So is this ... What's the goal? To get them to promote? Steve Larsen: Yeah. I guess as far as like they've said yes. As far as pulling off the JV with them. What are some of the things that you do to make that go smoothly? Dana Derricks: Sure. Great question. So the number one hurdle that you'll have to get through first is getting them to actually do it. Because all these people will tell you yes because they don't want to disappoint you or whatever. But few will actually follow through and do the promotion. Steve Larsen: Interesting. Dana Derricks: Yeah. And Russell talked about this too. He said ... I don't know if he's faxed me this or where I heard it but, he said for every hundred people you target, you'll probably only end up with maybe about six that actually do the promotion with you. And of those six probably only about three will actually be worth all that time and energy. Steve Larsen: Totally believe that. Dana Derricks: Yeah. Right? So I break it down like this for ... And my students do it this way. So it's like, first things first. Once we're to the point where we think we can ask, we do. And then when they say yes, we're always selling the thing that sells the thing. So it's not like ... It's getting the calendar. Getting it penciled in on the calendar. That is like the next win we need. That's what we're trying to sell. If we can get that dang spot locked up, I can remember there were ... I was on the phone with the CEO of very well known company in our space, and he's just like, "Yeah we're booked through whatever." And I'm just like, "Dude. You know what? That's totally cool. Let's just do October. Right? How's that? Like, October clean for you?" He's like, "Yeah, yeah okay." And then I'm like, "All right cool. How about the 12th?" And then just getting it on there because if they're going to be like, "Oh I want to look at my schedule, I have to view calendar, I'll have to get back to you," or whatever. But more friction right? Steve Larsen: Sidestep. Yeah. Dana Derricks: Yeah. So I found too like where it was ... Excuse the sirens this is a big deal for a town of 1000. Steve Larsen: You're good. No worries. Dana Derricks: So like, also I've been surprised too where like I had it penciled in, I'm thinking, "Yeah they just told me that so I would keep them happy, or keep me happy." And then they actually did do it on that date and time. So it was like, "Wow, this is awesome." So that's the first big thing. And then making sure that you take everything off their plate. Because the minute they thing that they're going to have to lift a finger for this, they don't want to do it. Right? So from beginning to end, we do every single thing. We will create all the swipe files for them to send out. We'll create all the affiliate ... I call them co-branded funnels. So if we're pushing a webinar for example, it'll be a co-branded webinar funnel. We'll offer to host a webinar if they are cool with that. And then we deliver everything to them about like two weeks in advance just so that everything's done. And then we followup and make sure. That's what's really cool about having an affiliate manager is that they kind of take care of all that, but like we'll make sure that every step of the way is covered so they don't - Steve Larsen: That's fascinating. Oh man that's super ... Okay wow. That's crazy cool. And what do you when you ... Because I mean, I'm sure it happens right? You go out and you're getting ... I mean I've had those people ...I've had this happen also. Like you go out and someone says yes. You get the few yes's. Six say yes, three actually do it. What do you do with those other three? Dana Derricks: Good question. So - Steve Larsen: Is that when you send them the W9? Dana Derricks: So if they've said yes but you just haven't got it scheduled yet, right? So I would try, just throw it way out in the future, and if you still don't then there's something there they want to do something with you, but apparently the way that it presented was ... That might not be what they're actually going to be comfortable doing. So I would like at trying to down sell it somehow. So if it was originally, "We're going to do a, you know, a joint venture webinar together," maybe starting out with a Facebook live might be better right? Something that's a little bit easier them to not have to fully commit to, or even just like doing an email to their list or something like that. Because even that's going to be better than nothing, and if you look at ... That's another thing that we ... Is pretty cool. So if you can do something successful with them, even if it's something small, you can go back to them and do something big. So you know, look at Russell with Grant Cardone. He went to 10X last year, and basically wasn't given ... He got on stage, and he was allowed to pitch kind of, but he wasn't allowed to do half of what he asked to do. Steve Larsen: Right. The true Russell style. Dana Derricks: Exactly right. Grant's like, "We're going to do it my way." He's like, "Okay, fine." And Russell did it Grant's way, got some wins out of it, but then look what happened the next year. Russell go to to go there and call the shots. He said, "I want this. I need that." Grant and his team said, "Okay. Whatever. You proved yourself last time." And then boom. Closes $3 million in an hour and a half. Right? But he would have never been able to do that had it not been the year before doing it Grant's way, doing it smaller, doing it in a way that Grant was more comfortable with. Steve Larsen: That's cool. That's cool. Okay. I know I'm just pounding you man. I got one more question for you. Scenario is, right, you go off, you've done the successful ones with the three, you're obviously continuing to work and warm up the leads for the other 97 as you go through. With the ones that you have done it with though, what's kind of your play as you move forward? Are you hitting them again for the next promo? Are you ... I guess post successful campaign, what kind of actions do you take with that person? Dana Derricks: Yeah. So for me, especially like once you've figured out who's good, for me it's like how can we integrate? So I just want to turn and take it to the next level. So for me personally, like let's say that I'm JVing with somebody from my course, and we do a webinar together, kill it. We do five, six figures together, whatever. I want to work with that person. I don't want to just do once a year, once a quarter. I want like full on, how can we work together. So I always offer ... What I've been doing a lot is I'll create a bonus module for whatever their thing is, if they've got a course. I'll come in there and basically teach a bonus module, or I will throw in my book in their value stack, or whatever just so that I can get not just access to their audience, on the one off promotions, but for every single buyer that comes into their world, they see me and the affiliate doesn't have to do a thing. Right? And it comes back to value. Like this module I make, it's not like a pitch necessarily. There might be call to action. There is a call to action of course, but this is value, value, value and it's always enhancing the thing that they already sold. That's kind of the secret there. So I look at integration after a successful one. Steve Larsen: Oh man, that's interesting. That's so cool. Man you have just like, just divulged. I have a full page of notes. Just given so much. I just appreciate that like crazy. I mean right, there's only a few people that ever really even written about this topic. The Chet Holmes. Amazing Chet Holmes, Russell himself, and you. That's it man. Like those are the options. I know you have a book that has come out and is amazing. You have a lot of people ... I have a lot people who'd come and ... The book's incredible. And I'm very very excited for it. Where can people go get the book? How do they find out more about you and follow you? Dana Derricks: Yeah. For sure. For anybody that's kind of vibing with this, and you're like, "Oh man, that sounds a lot better than running Facebook ads or running after the next shiny object," Stephen and I are totally Dream 100 junkies, and I'd love for you guys to do the same. So it's called The Dream 100 Book. Actually had the foreword written by Russell. It's pretty cool. I think Stephen's read it. Steve Larsen: Woo-hoo. Yeah. Dana Derricks: There is a caveat. Actually listen to Stephen's advice. So one of things you have really made famous Stephen is the concept of sell it before you make it. Right? Which I love by the way. I actually did that. Stephen said to do that - Steve Larsen: No way. Dana Derricks: Yeah dude. So I sold a copy of The Dream 100 Book, my first copy, for $2000 before I wrote one page of it. Steve Larsen: No way. I didn't know that. Dana Derricks: Yeah dude. Because Russell says writing a book is similar to giving childbirth. Which is...None of us know, but it's probably true. And so there was no better incentive to write a book than to have somebody on the hook for two grand that's waiting for it. Right? So anyway, that's the caveat. It is $2000. However, because Stephen was so gracious to put on a chicken suit and drive around on a motorcycle in Boise, Idaho - Steve Larsen: I secretly just loved it. I was excited. Dana Derricks: Yeah. I mean if he didn't like it, he was putting on a good show. So for you guys listening, if you're vibing with this, I'm actually going to let you guys get a copy of it for free. Steve Larsen: Holy crap. Dana Derricks: I don't do this really for money that much anymore, so I'm cool with that as long as you guys don't share this with the rest of the world. [inaudible 00:48:48] The mad buyers that paid two grand for it. So the link is going to be ListentoStephen.com. ListentoStephen.com. Steve Larsen: That's cool man. Appreciate that. It's S-T-E-P-H-E-N. Yeah? Dana Derricks: Correct. The good spelling. Steve Larsen: Yeah, the good spelling. The biblical way. No but seriously, just echo what Dana's saying here like I ... Funnel's nothing without traffic. And especially as an entrepreneur and those of you guys who were listening. I know you guys are go getters. This podcast is getting a significant amount of downloads daily now and I thank you all for listening, but what I want you to know ... And that's the way that I think about it too. Russell thinks about it, Dana thinks about it. Like all these top guys, they're not out looking usually for like this little tiny trick insight of a platform. Right? A Facebook trick. A Twitter trick. They're not looking ... That's not how they do it. Instead, they outsource that piece of it, because we all know it's still important, and they go focus 100% of the time on developing these kinds of relationships. So anyway, I'm super excited. That was very very generous of you give that Dana. So it's ListentoStephen.com. Dana Derricks: Totally. And you all should listen to Stephen. Keep listening to him. Steve Larsen: I appreciate that. Well thanks for being on the show man, and where can everyone go to follow you as well? Dana Derricks: So being the farmer I am, I don't think I'm on instant grams. I'm over on Facebook, or DanaDerricks.com, or just keep listening to Stephen, and every once in a while I'll probably pop up. Steve Larsen: Absolutely. All right. Hey, thanks so much for being on the show. And everyone go to ListentoStephen.com and get the free copy of ... It's literally called Dream 100. Was two grand, for this audience it's free. Dana Derricks: Go get it. Steve Larsen: Boom. Just try to tell me you didn't like that. Hey whoever controls content controls the game. Want to interview or get interviewed yourself? Grab a time now at SteveJLarsen.com.

Most of us never said, "I wanna be a marketer" when we were 7. I'm come learn from Ed's persistence and watch how his new business is blowing up!... What's going on everyone this is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today and now I've left my 9 to 5, to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is: how will I do it without VC funding or debt completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio... Hey, how's it going everyone. Real quick, I've got a really special treat for you guys here today and before I introduce our special guest I don't know how long it was ago, maybe four, five, six months ago I was walking down the street with Russell in Vegas and we had just gone to some convention. I don't actually remember what it was but we were walking down the street and there was a moment where he and I were chatting and I said, "Russell, is it interesting that we have the best of the best tools that have ever been available ever? ...The best of the best training. The best of the best coaching. The best of the best of all these different things. The insights. What really does it come down to, then, to a person taking action?" We were chatting about that and I said, "I think it has to do with just belief. Just telling stories of people who are actually doing it. Telling stories of people who have actually gone through and figured it out and gone through what looks like is kind of the mire for a little while but really is not." Anyways, I'm excited to have our guest on today who has done incredible things and, anyway, we were at a master mind right before Funnel Hacking live and this gentleman was here and I saw him, heard him speak, and immediately thought I've got to interview this gentleman. Lot of respect for him even for just the brief amount of time that we were able to meet together. Anyways his name is Edward Bordi. Ed, how you doing man? Ed Bordi: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Steve Larsen: Awesome. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad that you're here. Thanks for jumping on the show with us. Ed Bordi: Of course. Steve Larsen: You were telling this story. You were telling a little bit about your backstory and it's what pulled me to you, to be honest. I don't know, led me to you, and I think it's inspiring for other people to hear. ...Do you mind sharing a little bit about your backstory and how you got into this whole internet entrepreneurship game? Ed Bordi: Yeah, no, sure. Actually, it was about 10 years ago when I just stumbled into it really. I was working in a corporate environment, had a 9 to 5 job and my career goals for a long time, back then, were to climb the corporate ladder. I had planned on becoming an executive in the company I was in and that's the path I was taking. My company had paid for me to go back to school and get my masters. I did some study at Wharton Business School. I studied marketing and I was taking that path and in the middle of that process I had a situation happen at home. My wife had, she had become ill. She had develop a chronic illness that had made her bedridden. Probably 80% of her day was stuck in bed and that put a monkey wrench in our whole life, really. My plans were the least of my worries as the point, it was just at that time just taking care of my family and I had babies at the time... I had a like a five year old and a newborn when this happened. I put my career on hold and just was focusing on taking care of my family. I really wanted to do something more and especially now because of the situation that I had in my life. I wanted to have more freedom because I ended up having to work from home full time to take care of my wife, plus do a full time job. I was always thinking, I really wanted to be able to, if I could, have my own business. Maybe work from home, not have somebody else dictate my time and my hours and all that so I was always thinking about what I could do and I really had no idea at the time what internet marketing was or being able to have my own business for working from home. I just had no idea... I heard this ad on the radio. It was, I'll never forget it, I mean I can literally hear the guys voice right now. His name was Andy Willoughby and he had this program called the Three Step Plan. I listened to him every single day as my morning routine. ...You know, "Hey, this is Andy Willoughby and how in the world are you?" Anyway, that was the way he started his radio pitch and then he went off and he talked about ... Yeah. It was just, it was catchy and it was all about working from home. I think months probably passed, I heard this radio ad over and over again and I just called him up one day. I'm like, "What is this all about?" It was no details, it was just, "Make money working from home, Andy Wilabee's three step plan." I called the number and a gentleman called me back. ...A guy by the name of Brian McCoy who ended up becoming a very good friend of mine and who is actually, today, probably one of the top money earners in one of the biggest companies in the direct selling industry today. I think he's the number one earner in one of those companies today. I haven't talked to him in a couple years but anyway, Brian McCoy was an amazing guy. He ended up becoming a mentor of mine and I worked with him in the direct selling industry. That's where I started but that was really me learning, it was a network marketing business and I learned selling, I learned talking with people on the phone and doing all those sort of things and I actually struggled for quite a long time with that business. I don't think I actually made any money with it for probably six months or more. Then, this is when I learned about internet marketing. Up until then I was just working with the network marketing and just cold calling people, generating buying leads. Calling them up, trying to sell them my product. I was struggling with that. I wasn't really getting anywhere. I was learning how to do sales and call calls and I was getting better but I really wasn't doing well, and then one of the people. I was making progress. I think I had a few people on my down line at the time and one of the people in my down line came across this book by a guy named Mike Dillard. I remember telling him, "That's not going to help you in your business. Don't worry about that, just ignore that. Just keep doing what we're supposed to do. Keeping having cold call line and doing all this stuff." Then, I picked it up... He gave it to me and I read it one day. I was intrigued. It was all about generating your own leads and creating a business of your own. Your own identity. Branding yourself and not somebody else and I really liked the idea and I just dove into that and I had some success pretty quickly, actually. Just little bit of background on me. My background is technology. My job was in the IT. I was a software developer, so for years I would develop systems. ...Yeah, so one of my software jobs early on, I developed an application that was a direct competitor to visual basic, so it's pretty cool stuff I was developing as a software developer. Steve Larsen: That's amazing. Ed Bordi: Yeah, and so I decided to build an online website to capture leads to generate for myself and Mike Dillard talked about this. I built a website, I wrote the code and I just literally typed in the HTML in my editor and did some code and some developing. Launched a website. Steve Larsen: That's awesome, wow. Ed Bordi: Yeah, it was a simple squeeze page. It was the first one I ever did. It looked just like Mike Dillard's example in his book and I started getting leads. People started to literally call me up and I was like, "Wow, this really works." I was spending 100s of dollars on these leads that had no idea who I was, what I was selling and all of the sudden I created leads on my own and they were calling me up and I was ... They were qualified better because they knew who I was ahead of time and what my opportunity was. That's how I got started and I tweaked it, and I learned it, and I ended up building ... I built a sales funnel is what I built. It was like a simple page. It was a squeeze page that linked to an A web or email autoresponder and I had a 10 day email sequence that I wrote and I just followed up with them, and they called me. It was literally ... And I had a thank you page. It was a two step funnel. Squeeze page to a thank you page and email sold Mike's book. The offer was sell his book as an affiliate. Then I called them up after they bought the book and I would sign them up into my program and I ended up doing pretty good with that. That's how I got into the internet marketing and, at that point, after I got good at that I totally just reinvented my business. I was still doing network marketing but I didn't do the whole having meetings at my house and cold calling people. I was just using this as something I had learned. Steve Larsen: That's amazing, first of all. You go through, you hear the ad, you see the model, you do the model and actually build out the squeeze page itself. Build out thank you page. What was that doing for you personally at that time, I guess? Ed Bordi: As soon as I got my first lead I couldn't believe it. I wasn't making any money at all at that point, but I just saw that it was working and the fact that I saw that it worked. That I could put something up there, somebody would respond to it and buy without me ever talking to them at all. I mean, that totally blew my mind. I couldn't believe that, that actually was possible... Steve Larsen: So cool, wasn't it? Ed Bordi: Yeah. I literally was so excited I became obsessed with it. I was like, "If I was able to do this. Even just like this tiny little success that I had. If I really got good at this, what could happen?" I just knew the possibilities were endless and that's what I did. I ended up just really diving into study. I mean, I ended up buying stuff from other people. Perry Marshal taught a Google AdWorks course. I bought all his stuff. I learned about Dan Kennedy and I started buying a lot of his stuff. Steve Larsen: Nice. Ed Bordi: Everything that Mike Dillard put out, I literally bought every one of his courses and devoured them and implemented them and I ended up doing really well. It was probably six months after that. After I started studying I managed a good business at that point. I was actually making money now. I was probably making close to 1,000 dollars a month at that point. My business, which was really good, especially when I was in the negative before I hadn't earned all this stuff. Then, what really changed my business back then was Dan Kennedy talked about, and Mike Dillard too, this idea of magnetic marketing. It really, it's just attraction marketing where instead of pushing your message out to the world and just hunting down leads is you create a persona for yourself and people are literally attracted to you and you don't have to do as much work going out and hunting down people to be customers. They just come find you because you've created this authority ... You've elevated yourself to somebody who is in authority. I just, I liked that idea and I wrote a book and it was based on my six months of the success that I had at the time and because I was a software developer I built a replicable system. It was like an affiliate marketing system, basically. People could download. It was a free download... They could download my book for free, which was my front end offer and then they would get free access to my system and then in the system they would basically get a complete funnel built out for them with all their information just built into it. They could just promote that. ...I built that whole system and I ended up doing my own ... Now they have this dream 100 idea. Back then I learned the idea, it was called sneezers. Seth Goaden wrote about it. Steve Larsen: Yeah, yeah. I know about sneezers. Seth Goaden's the man. Ed Bordi: Seth Goaden called those people sneezers and those are people who are really highly influential people in your market who, if you can get them to buy into your product then they'll do all the work of promoting it for you and then you just need to work on dealing with them. Same idea as the dream 100. I did that, I got all the people in my upline who had a lot of influence and could start promoting my book and my system. I literally, once I did ... I think I had 1,000 downloads in one night. I, literally, this was just a couple months after I still was struggling. I just, literally my head was spinning at the time and I was just still figuring things out. Nothing was, I mean the system was a little bit buggy and nothing was perfect but I was just working through it. Learning and making progress. I just got to experience all those things and it was just a lot. I remember just enjoying every minute of it and I was hooked. I was just hooked on it... The great thing is, I was able to, I studied really hard and I implemented and the thing that worked is I studied really hard and I implemented what I learned right away. I think that was the reason that I had success. I didn't just sit on ideas. I put what I learned into action immediately and it's surprising. If you do that, you can get results. Steve Larsen: Yeah. You actually do with your are learning for sure. What kind of stumbling blocks did you hit along the way, though? I mean, that sounds, that's amazing and someone who's listening to this might think like, "Oh, man. I could just put the stuff together and it'll work." Ed Bordi: Yeah. Steve Larsen: Certainly it can but what did you hit along the way? Ed Bordi: Yeah, no. Seriously I hit a lot of stumbling blocks. First of all, those are the successes. Steve Larsen: Sure. Ed B   ordi: The issues that I had along the way were when I first built my website, my first version of it, it looked terrible and I don't think anybody ... I think I spent 100s of dollars on Google AdWorks and I don't think I got anybody to opt in. It's just a process of learning and testing and tweaking and then going over and over again. It's a very frustrating process but because I stuck to it and I just didn't give up. I think that was they key, why I had success. I just didn't give up... I knew it worked, I've seen other people do it and make it work and I was just going to make as many iterations and as many tests as I could until it worked. I probably went through, easily, 20 or 30 different versions of a squeeze page or a funnel at the time before I got one that worked. I mean, that's, I mean literally ... That was 10 years ago before there was anything like ClickFunnels. This was me, literally, building them out. It would take me two days to write one of these. Steve Larsen: Just for one page? Ed Bordi: Just for one page, to build it out, to make sure it's all working and tested and then get it up and running. Then it would just totally flop and then I like, "Okay," then I would throw that out and then I would just start over again. That was definitely one of the big stumbling blocks for me. Steve Larsen: I mean, how much time, I guess, since you started that to the time when it all started clicking? Ed Bordi: Yeah, I think I just learned about it and I just started putting things into action. I had a couple wins right away but I think they were just lucky things. Like I was leveraging Mike Dillard's systems so it was an established proven system at the time. When I was doing that, that was easy... Easier, excuse me. It wasn't easy because I had to learn how to do the AdWords. You had to ... It's not just the technology part too, and understanding the steps. It's all the stuff that the supporting systems and processes and steps that you need to do. To have a successful squeeze page it's not just putting up some HTML, it's understanding who your customer is. It's really understanding the psychology of the person who's looking at your page. It's having the skill set to know what to put on the page. What's the copywriting supposed to look like? What's the headline supposed to say? That, it wasn't just the technical piece of it and the steps. Squeeze page to a thank you page and some emails. It was understanding who the customer is and knowing how to word your emails and how to word your headline and that was a lot of study too. I mean, I was literally devouring books. I was reading a couple books a week, probably, and I was reading them cover to cover and then I would go back and reread them. I remember, I was really into Dan Kennedy at the time and Mike Dillard, and a couple other copywriters. I would literally take Mike Dillard's sales letter and I would read through it, every word, and then I would take it out and I would literally write it. Rewrite his sales letter just to internalize the process and I did that. I would rewrite the best sales letters that I could find. I would do that over, and over, and over again and I think that was one of the biggest things that helped me because the technology piece. You know, anybody can just throw up a website or hire someone to throw up a website. It was really understanding the psychology and the copywriting is really what helped me get better and I struggle with that. All those first 20 versions I was telling you about. It wasn't just necessarily the page, it was the message wasn't probably right was the issue. That was something that took quite a while to figure out. I'm even today, 10 years later, I'm still trying to refine my ability to deliver the right message. It's a process and that was the part that was the hardest. I struggled with getting leads initially because of the process of figuring out the right messaging. Steve Larsen: That's fascinating that ... I wish more people do what you just said that you did. I just want to point this out to everyone who's listening because right now behind me I've got sales copy literally printed out across my floor that I laid in a row. I'm marking it up and I'm going all over the place. ...Some of the first sales copy I ever learned how to actually write I, by hand, transcribed it and rewrote it and reread it and did it in front of the mirror. I loved that approach to it. There's no other way, in my mind, it's one of the fastest ways to shortcut process of learning this stuff. Ed Bordi: I agree with you. I mean, I think that may be, people have asked me why I've been able to have some success with selling and with the writing and the copy that I've done and I think it's probably because of that. As I said, I really, I followed a lot of different copywriters and one of the things that I picked up early on was this whole idea of swiped copy. I have a massive swipe file. I have boxes and boxes of literally junk mail and sales letters that I've printed out and advertisements that I've grabbed off the internet and I've printed them out. Whenever I'm writing anything, I dig through my swipe copy and I find something that's similar or relevant and I take good ideas and I mix different pieces of that version and that person together and that's how I end up writing most of my copy but it's a process, and it really helps you internalize what works. Steve Larsen: Absolutely. Ed, could you tell us what you're doing right now? What is that's taking your time now, business wise? Ed Bordi: Yeah. Right now I am growing my business three different ways. Well, first of all, I should say I still have a full time day job. Although I don't probably need to keep it, if I didn't want to, I'm making enough from my side business right now to quit my job but I'm keeping it mainly. Well there's a couple reasons... First reason is, it's a good story because the people that I'm trying to help probably already have some side of an existing career or a 9 to 5 themselves and I wanted to be able to show them that you can do this. Look, I'm still doing it. I have a full time day job and I was able to double my income on the side. Steve Larsen: Yes, so for that. Ed Bordi: Yeah, and I can do it then you can do it. Not only do I have a full time day job, but I'm still the full time caregiver for my wife. I still have two kids. I do all the cooking and the cleaning and the shopping and the running the kids back and forth, and I run a side business at the same time. That's currently what's on my plate and my business is this. I have a marketing agency and some of the services I do for my marketing agency are if companies are startups, they have this idea but they don't know how to develop that idea into a real business. I will help them write a business plan and then put that, crystallize their ideas and put it into a clear plan and a strategy to implement. A lot of times, companies that I work with or the people that I work with, they want to launch a brick and mortar business. Not always, sometimes they want to have an information business or an internet business too. If they want to open a brick and mortar business, I have from when I went to school 10 years ago, I learned how to develop business plans and actually get funding from different places. One of my recent customers I helped them, I wrote a business plan for them and we secured one and a half million dollars to launch a business for them. Steve Larsen: Wow, congrats. Ed Bordi: Yeah. That was one of the services I had and then once I launched, I helped ... They developed this relationship with me, I helped them get their funding and now they had the money to start their business and they naturally wanted to hire me because we built this relationship and they know me, and the like me, and they trust me. What I'll do, is for that business and for other customers, if I get them funding the next step is to hire me to actually do your marketing for you. My marketing agency is like a full done for you type services. I will do everything for them and there's various services from figuring out, getting their websites up and running and redefining their sales processes, and making sure that they have the right messaging and whatever it may be. That's what I'm doing right now. I have two customers and both of them are brick and mortar businesses where I help them write their business plan, get funding, and launch their businesses and they hired me to do their marketing for them. I also have a growing coaching business. If somebody wants to, they have their own business but they don't ... They want to do it themselves, they can hire me to help coach them through the process. That is another part of my business that I have as well and I'm mainly focusing on, I'll help anybody... Any kind of a business that needs help, but I've been focusing on people who are just transitioning from an idea to a business. Mainly startups is who I'm focusing on helping. Steve Larsen: Right, sure, sure. Now, I know hindsight is 20/20. We always say we could go into the future and look backwards a little bit. Just you've obviously going at this for quite some time and then all of a sudden it hit and things are happening and things are starting to fall in place. You've got the cash flow coming in and what road blocks, when you look backwards, what road blocks do you see that you realize, "Oh man I totally could've side-stepped that?" Ed Bordi: Absolutely. Steve Larsen: You know what I mean? What might some of those be if you were advising someone else? Ed Bordi: Well, I went from how I started to where I am now, but there was a whole middle area there where I had a lot of struggles. I mean, I literally, when I first started out and I told you my story. How I was having all that success? Steve Larsen: Right. Ed Bordi: There was a point, back then, where it became so overwhelming that I didn't know how to handle it and I literally just dissolved my entire business. I just couldn't do it. It was way too much on me because I had the job and I had babies, and I had to take care of my wife. It was just, I literally was just completely overwhelmed... I was doing everything myself. I was building websites, I was getting customers. I was coaching customers. I was creating products, I was writing books. I mean, I was doing everything. Plus, I had a full time day job, I was raising a family. I think that was a major ... I just was not handling, just the operations of my own business properly. I didn't know how to just get help. I didn't know how to outsource. I didn't know how to be efficient with just the things I do from day to day. I really, really struggled with that and it destroyed my business. I literally went from having a very successful business years ago, to just giving it all up and making nothing. I went back to just doing ... I said, "I just can't take it anymore." I dropped it all and I just went back and did just a regular full time day job. I think the main reason was I tried to do everything myself and I didn't look for help. I didn't outsource any of the work. I didn't have a coach to tell me what I was doing wrong or help me course correct if I needed it. I was just inefficient with my time and I had a lot of fear in me that I was afraid that because I had so much on my plate that I was not only going to disappoint my customers, that I was going to just ... It was just going to be too hard on my family as well. I just had all these worries and fears and it just became too much so those are some of the things that ... Those are some of the reasons that I stopped before and I decided recently. In fact, by the way the success that I'm having right now with my business. The coaching clients that I have and the marketing clients that I just told you about. Steve Larsen: Yeah. Ed Bordi: All this happened within the last few months. Steve Larsen: That's great. Ed Bordi: I did not even have a business until October. October 31st. Steve Larsen: That's awesome. That's how fast it can happen. Ed Bordi: I literally just decided that and there was a lot of stuff that happened in between but I always wanted to do something but I wasn't quite ready yet. I just decided that if I was going to do it, I needed to fix the few things that I just told you about, that I did before wrong. Steve Larsen: Right. Ed Bordi: I needed to make sure that I had a way to do it without completely getting overwhelmed. That I had, I learned how to be more efficient over the years or some other things that I did to help with that. I started to reach out to my network. One of the things, actually, I think that helped me more than anything was just making sure that I was around people that thought like I thought. Steve Larsen: Yeah. Ed Bordi: People like yourself, Stephen, and just other entrepreneurs who have a positive attitude and do what the right thing is and are not the people who want to blame other people for their failures or mistakes. But they're really just, they take accountability for what they do and they're positive. Those are the things I needed to make changes with and once I figured out how to fix those things, then I was able to ... Decided that I was ready to start up again. I will say, today, that not much has changed in my family. My wife is still sick. I still have a full time day job and my business, today, is bigger than it ever was and I don't have any stress. I won't say that completely. There's always a certain amount of stress ... but I will say that it's not ... The troubles and the worries that I had before, I'm not really dealing with them now. I'm feeling happy and confident and I have clarity in my business and I'm not overwhelmed because I do have help. I'm outsourcing things that are not things that I, necessarily, have to do. Steve Larsen: Is that what the difference is when you say happy/confident? Is that the big difference? The outsourcing part? Ed Bordi: I think it's just the difference is, I made sure I surrounded myself with a network of people who are already where I want to be. I hired a coach to help me. I made sure that I had outsourcing in place and I started surrounding myself with people like myself. Where in the past it was just all the people that I was surrounding with, maybe people in my family, or friends around me that just didn't understand why I was working that hard and doing that. I can't blame people. Not everybody has the same ideas and vision that I have, but if those are the only things you hear, sometimes you start to believe that maybe it is too much and maybe you shouldn't be doing those things. I made sure that I had the right people around me this time... Steve Larsen: Right, right. That's so key and for such a long time I wasn't quite sure if that was ... I didn't know if that was fluff or if that was real, either. It's so funny, I've experienced the exact same thing you're talking about. Where you jump out, you do stuff on your own, and then you turn back around and you realize you're either sinking or you can't handle it all, or there's ... And, man, proximity of power. Getting close to those people who are the coaches, who are the right networks, who are ... There is so much to that. Ed Bordi: I would actually say that, that may be the one thing above all other things that I changed, that helped. It's just knowing that you have somebody to lean on if there's a question or a problem. Steve Larsen: Right. Ed Bordi: Sometimes no matter how sure you are and confident in yourself, it's always nice to bounce ideas off of somebody else. It gives you that extra bit of confidence and belief. I think that was one of the biggest things for me, for sure. Steve Larsen: It's so huge. Well, Ed, what are you hoping to get done in the next three, six months? Where are you hoping to take it? Ed Bordi: I am hoping to, I doubled my income in the last couple months. Steve Larsen: Woo hoo. Ed Bordi: I'm looking to double it again in the next six months, at least. I have a plan to get there and I'm actually very confident that it can happen. I have the systems in place. I have the people in place to help me scale to that level. To me, at this point, it's just a matter of doing the work and because I really enjoy helping people. I mean, I literally, one of the things that I love to do. I love the systems and I'm a technology guy. I can get so excited about building funnels and software and stuff. Steve Larsen: Yeah, you're right at home. Ed Bordi: Yeah, I love that stuff. As great as all that is, there's nothing like helping somebody change their life. I mean, it's literally, it's an unbelievable feeling of somebody really wants to make a change in their life and if you're able to help them get there, that's pretty neat. ...That's what I'm excited about doing and that's my goal over the next few months. I'll probably keep my job. I don't have any plans on getting rid of it, but if at some point this year things progress the way I hope then I guess I'll see about that but right now I don't have plans of quitting my job. Steve Larsen: Yeah. That's not an end that I usually rush to. Ed Bordi: Yeah. Steve Larsen: Make sure that it's going for a while. Yeah, totally. Ed Bordi: Yeah, I want to make sure ... To me, it just makes a lot of sense that if I could build my side business. Instead of just taking all that money and buying all kinds of fun toys. I have a family and I have a home, maybe I'll pay off my mortgage. Maybe I'll put a bunch of money away. ...Maybe I'll pour a lot of it into my business to help my business grow even faster. If I have a job, I have some of those options available to me. If I don't, then I'm maybe putting myself back in some of those stressful scenarios that I was talking about before. I'm not in a rush just yet. I'm just leaving that open as an option. Steve Larsen: Sure, sure. Absolutely. Ed, I want to thank you for your time here. Where could people reach out to you or find out more about you, learn from you? Ed Bordi: I have a website. It's edwardbordi.com and on my website and on my website you can see all the different things that I'm doing. I can help people with business plans or I can, if they need coaching I can help them with coaching. I also, I am available to speak and whatever. If somebody needs help with their business in various ways they can learn about those things on my website. I also have a URL, it's called startup and you can get there from my main website too. That's my coaching program for startup companies... Steve Larsen: It cut out for a second there. What was that? It was startup what? Ed Bordi: Startupsuccesspath.com. Steve Larsen: Success path. I'm just writing it all down. Okay. Ed Bordi: Yeah, and that's where you can learn more about how to start working with me if you want to join my coaching program. Steve Larsen: Awesome. Sorry, go ahead. Ed Bordi: Yeah, so those are the two ways right now that you can get a hold of me and basically what I'm doing right now is trying to find people who are just not sure where they want to be with their business or they know where they want to be and the don't quite know how to get there. They can either hire me to help you to do the work for you, or just come alongside of you and be a coach. Steve Larsen: Awesome, awesome. Well, hey thank you so much. I appreciate your time here and just going for it and staying with it. That's really, when it comes down to it, just firing a lot of times. Eventually something starts to stick and I think at the crux of it, that's just really nice to hear and see others doing that. Thank you so much for your time, for your inspiration as well here and appreciate it. 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.

Steve Larsen: Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen. I have a very special episode for you guys today. I have a guest that I'm bringing on the show. His name is John Ferguson. John Ferguson is an expert in face to face selling of MLMs. He's been hired and worked for the Rich Dad company. He has been ... He's one of the guys that MLMs hire and bring in to help improve their entire sales process. He creates scripts to help sell products, he helps scripts ... He create scripts that lets you sell your MLM product in a way to people you've never met before that is not pushy. So I'm very excited for him to be a here. It is a treat to have him and please take notes on this. This is not your normal kind of a thing, and I had to beg him to get on the episode here. So I'm excited. Let's go ahead and jump into the episode today. So here's the real mystery. How do real MLMers like us [inaudible 00:00:48] and only bug family members and friends, who wanna grow a profitable home business, how do we recruit A players into our down lines and create extra incomes, yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. You guys actually have a really special treat. I'm excited. I have a guess on the show with me today and his name is John Ferguson and literally every time I speak with him, I feel like I learn and I grow, and there's different things that I learn about the MLM industry. I learn about what he's doing and frankly, it's amazing, the resume that John has and I wanna bring him on the show here and give you guys a chance to be elevated for ... with what he's being doing. So without further ado, John how's it going? John Ferguson: Doing fantastic Steve and I'm super stoked to be here. I'm glad you invited me on. I am ready to deliver and I appreciate that introduction dude. I feel like a hero already. Steve Larsen: You are. I feel like ... I don't know. Every time I speak with you, you're like, "Oh, yeah. I helped ..." I don't know if I can say this, "Yeah, I helped Robert Kiyosaki. I helped this huge person over here. I set this MLM up over there." Like what? Like you've been doing a ton of stuff. John Ferguson: Yeah. I've kind of tried ... I've played the backend role for a number of years, where like you mentioned the Rich Dad organization, I really played that backend role. If you think about like Batman, he's got not Robin, which was the sidekick, but Alfred. Right? Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: The guy that's making sure all the gadgets work, make sure that Batman's not getting himself into trouble and it's really a role that in the past, has really helped a lot of people like people you just mentioned. So I ... It's a lot of fun for me to see others succeed with the systems and tools and the coaching and mentoring that you offer them. So yeah, it's been an awesome career so far. Steve Larsen: Now I wanna be able to go through kinda how you got into this and did it and all, but could you just ... For everyone else on here, if they don't know the amazing John Ferguson, could you just give us a run down of what it is that you actually do when you say Rich Dad organization and the other ones you've worked with? John Ferguson: Yeah, certainly. So what I do is I help closers sell more. Okay. I help individuals who've never sold in their lives sell their first sale. When it comes down to network marketing and multi-level marketing, I find there's a lot more nurturers than really the A type personalities, and for me what we do, is we take individuals by the hand, we guide and we direct them through selling without selling. And I know that sounds kinda weird, 'cause you're like, "What's selling without selling? Like you've gotta sell." Right? Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: What it is, is I remove the ... we remove the animosity by helping people learn an evaluation process like stepping people, rather than just going in like a hardcore close. Steve Larsen: Sure. John Ferguson: [inaudible 00:03:52]. So that's really what we do. We ... In the past like with the Rich Dad organization, I came in and contracted as a trainer and I worked a number of years, where we took their telemarketing, their speakers, their trainers, their coaches and really developed them in some better methods of asking better questions to help get to the root of the desire and the needs of people and then we can deliver that, through the products and services that we offer. And the cool thing about MLM is that there are so many people that need so many things and I buy so much stuff from network marketing companies. I think I'm like ... on like an auto ship for like seven different ones. It's not that I sell their stuff. It's that there are so many wonderful products out there, I wanna help other people get them to the marketplace and get them in the hands of consumers and eliminate that fear of enrolling people and making a sale. Steve Larsen: That's incredible. I mean so you've done it ... I mean you have quite the rap sheet and thanks for explaining that. I knew you'd do a better job than I would doing that, after talking with you extensively this past little while ... past few months, but are you ... I guess ... there's two different directions I want to go with this. My brain is just all over the place. I'm excited to have you on here. Is ... Do you use a lot of like spin selling methods, like the book Spin Selling? Is it that kind of thing a little bit? John Ferguson: You know, it's more direct and- Steve Larsen: Okay. John Ferguson: I'm not the proponent network marketing that is gonna always jump after mom, dad, sisters, cousin, next door neighbor's dog and try to invite them into my network marketing business. I've never done that in sales either. What I like to do is, I like to put out the proper marketing, which I know that your people are learning some phenomenal tools Steve and you're teaching them how to attract the right people ... actually people who really want what you have and then enroll them and get them buying from you. And so my ... And is coming on the backend of that is, is how do I determine ... Like how do I determine the wants, the desires, the needs from somebody? And so I take them through a series of questions, like broad based questions, pointed questions and direct questions and I always get the question, "Hey, John isn't a pointed question a direct question?", and not really. A pointed question just kind of gets more to the point and a direct question is literally right on the money. It's right when you're going for like the heart of the matter. And so if we can learn to ask a little bit better questions, what I can do is I can find out exactly what their needs are, where their pain is, and I'm not usually paying to like make that person really feel it 'cause who wants someone to like squeeze their wound, right? Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: "Hey, you've got a cut there. Let me get some salt water and just start spraying it on there." No. Okay. But we need to know where the pain is so that we can move them away from it or motivate them towards pleasure and that pleasure point is what I'm after mainly, because we live in a day and age right now that everyone can see through the BS. Like their belief systems, not the other BS. Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: Okay. But where there's so much on the internet, there's so much on YouTube, there's so much all over the place that we just want the information we need now, but we also wanna know that the individual that is working with us is gonna help us for us right, and really cares. And so, our method allows our closers to step into a role ... You know I wouldn't wanna say expert advisor because I don't think coaching closes. It's not something that I believe. I've had a lot of people go from the coaching industry into selling and when they coach, they can't close because they get so much information. Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: The person is like, "Oh, this is great. I'm gonna go out there and do it." So- Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: When it comes to our method, it's really just getting to the root ... It's human communication, man. It's just understanding what your goals and focus and expectations and you as the closer, knowing your product well enough, knowing your services well enough, that you're able to match what is needed and what is and what is desired with that individual in a way that they beg to buy from you. I mean it's backwards. Like if you wanna call it something, I wouldn't call it spin selling. Let's say backwards closing or something like that. Steve Larsen: Right. That's interesting. Do you mind giving a few examples of like the kind of questions you would ask? I guess you and I meet on the street and I show a little bit of interest in what you're doing. What would you ask me? John Ferguson: So here's the thing, I would first off ... If we're gonna meet on the street, like we're at Barnes and Noble or we're in some book store or some function, and I believe you have some type of an interest in my business. Right? So for instance, one of the easier ones out there right now is like health and fitness or real estate, it's a pretty hot topic. So what I wanna do is, I wanna just kinda ask you a broad question. Right? Steve Larsen: Okay. John Ferguson: So for what I would do is this, I really just kinda get in it, "So what do you currently do for a living?" Right? And someone's gonna say, "Well I'm a tractor driver." And I go, "Wow. How long have you been doing that for?" And they're gonna say, "Well, I've been doing that for 16 years." And I go, "Oh, man. You must love it." Steve Larsen: Okay. John Ferguson: And that answer right there is an answer and a question all at the same. Once, I'm slapping them upside the head- Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: Going, "Wow, I love it." Steve Larsen: Interesting. John Ferguson: And then they're gonna say, "Not really." or they go, "You know what? It's not bad going through other people's junk. I just don't see retirement in it." Right? So you're gonna find out an answer ... What I'm doing there, is I'm trying to poke them a little bit without being rude and I don't wanna create a situation where I'm hurting anybody. But I wanna find out, "Okay. Where are you at? Like are you ready to move out of this thing or you're in dysfunction for what?" And if they say, "Look yeah, I hate it. I wanna get out. I've been stuck in it for a number of years." And then I'd say, "Well, fantastic." Right? "So what would you be doing?" or "What ... If you had a better opportunity, what would your life look like?" So what I'm trying to do is I'm giving some broad questions to find out where this individual may fit and I'm building rapport, but I'm gonna stay on an agenda. My agenda is to get them to a more pointed question on how I can get this person into my business now. So I'm ask, "So would you keep your ..." The classic, "Do you keep your options open for making more money?" I don't like that question. Steve Larsen: Yeah, I don't either. John Ferguson: I don't usually use that question because it's too weird. Like for me, it just makes me feel weird. Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: So ... You know shower time. No. So what I gotta do now is I just say, "Hey look ..." I tell him what I'm doing. I say, "Look, I've been a real estate investor for 17 years. I'm looking for some individuals that might qualify to work with me in that arena. Have you ever thought about real estate investing as an option to make more money?" So I'm gonna get a little more direct, a little more pointed on my questioning and I'm gonna ask him right, and if they're in a real estate function or if they're in a network marketing function or I'm going ... So I'm never just going blind a lot of the times into ... just question people off the street. I believe that if you ... there's enough people out there that we can target the proper marketing to attract people on the front end, that by process allows me to help them through all the way to the backend in becoming a buyer. Steve Larsen: Interesting. John Ferguson: So pointed questions. If I was giving all pointed questions, I'd just ask him for instance, if that person said, "Yeah. I'm looking for something better." I say like, "How would you like to better your experience in life?" Right? And they're gonna [inaudible 00:11:16] what they wanna accomplish. Now I'm not gonna get into becoming their buddy. Okay. Those questions aren't gonna be for me to go okay, they say, "Well better life ..." They say, "Well, I'd love to travel more." And if I get into a discourse of, "Oh, I've been here. I've been there. Oh, my life because of what I've been doing in my business has allowed me to do this." I get into my like 30 minute pitch on how great my life is because of my business, I've just lost those guys. Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: They don't care. Like they really don't care. What they care about is, is that you care that they care about what they want. I know that sounds a little weird, but that's what it is and if I'm able to say, "Oh, that's fantastic. I love travel too. I've had the blessing of being able to travel with what I do." And then follow it up ... That statement always opens up another question, "Where would you travel if you had the time and money? Like if money wasn't an option, time wasn't an option. If you weren't dumping trash, where would you go?" Right? And be genuine, like literally we've gotta be more interested. It's about questioning rather than dictating and I think that's where a lot of MLM upline don't understand. They came in the same way and they're like, "Hey, give me your story, give me your two minute blast." Just chase until the buyer dies, literally you're gonna kill them. Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: Right? Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: And so I think ... Today's day and age, if you're able to ask proper questions, you're able to minimize that shortfall and you're gonna be able to lead this person down and you're gonna be able to help that person. And in the meantime, you will build rapport faster if you stay on target with these types of questions, rather than trying to dictate, "Hey, your life is so much better." Find out about them, ask them the questions. It's gonna build so much intrigue in this person that you're asking these questions, you're giving these little mini statements, what I call little micro commitments or a mini statement of where your life is, or what you're loving about your current company and your current situation is you're growing than it will ever do ... You're just dumping a whole bunch of information on [inaudible 00:13:15]. I know a lot of people talk about that, but [crosstalk 00:13:17]- Steve Larsen: You're saying [crosstalk 00:13:18]. So you're saying that it actually works to pay off and actually like care about people? John Ferguson: Right, right. Steve Larsen: Just real quick. I wanna just run through this real fast. So you're saying ... First of all, I love that you defined the difference kind of between a pointed question versus a leading question. You're not asking leading questions, your asking pointing questions. Right? Where it- John Ferguson: Correct. Steve Larsen: Where you're going out and you're saying ... you're saying, "Hey ..." I'm writing notes like crazy, just so you know. You start by saying, "Hey, what do you do?" And big broad question, trying to figure out where they fit like, "Whoa. You must love it." And like that is huge. Before you go on that, you're talking about yourself. You're like, "You must love it." And you say ... From there, there's gonna be a split, "Yes, I do." or, "No, I don't." And then from there, you kinda know where to take the conversation. Right? They're the ones basically ... You're just kind of guiding it. John Ferguson: Correct. Steve Larsen: The whole way. That's amazing. Okay. John Ferguson: [crosstalk 00:14:12]. Yep. You're guiding the process and what you're doing is, you're leading them down this path to essentially want to buy from you. They want to enroll with you. Well they wanna continue to engage. Steve Larsen: So where do you- John Ferguson: The whole [crosstalk 00:14:24] psychology, right? Steve Larsen: Sure. John Ferguson: I mean everyone wants to be heard. Right? And so if someone's gonna listen, they're gonna keep telling you, but you have to guide that not down a road, "Hey, let's become best friends. We're gonna talk about what we ate last night and oh, I love pasta too." "No, I like fried ferret." Whatever it is, don't go there. Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: Like try to keep a pointed ... And so, it's less about us now and it's more about what their needs and desires are and if they feel that they're getting their needs met and their desires met by talking to you, that's gonna draw them in to wanting to move forward, even if it's a simple invitation. "Hey, you know what? Sounds like you'd do really well with what we're doing. I'm pretty sure that you'll love it. Let me give you my business card. Let me get your information and I'll send you an email on XYZ. I want you to watch this five minute video. I want you to watch this 10 minute video and real quick it's gonna ask you a few more questions, it's to introduce you to my business and some of my partners. I think you're really gonna love it just based on our conversation." It kind of opens that door for you to do that initial interview, that initial quick introduction to your business, even if you're out live at an event. You're able to hand your card off, you're able to show them your website and it's less abrasive and they're gonna have more intrigue to go, "Wow. That was a really cool conversation. I don't usually have those conversations, so I'm gonna watch this website 'cause what those guys have might be something I've actually been looking for for a long time." Steve Larsen: So from there- John Ferguson: Whether they're looking or not, they're gonna wanna go look. Steve Larsen: Okay. No, awesome. So from there, they're going ... I'm just ... I'm trying to outline it. So you go in broad, then you go in pointed questions and then you kinda go through ... you called it kinda the needs, desire sections. Right? Where ... And how long do you usually stay in that? I'm sure it's per conversation, but I mean how do you know when you're able to go out and finally drop the line of, "Hey. Let me get you my business card. Let me email you. Let me send you this five minute video." When do you know you've gotten to that spot that you can actually say that kinda stuff? John Ferguson: So typically what happens is, is once I've asked enough of these questions, even before I get very direct, I might ask a direct question of an individual. I might say something like, "At the end of the day, you've influenced your family and you've won more freedom by working with us. Why did you do it?" And then they're gonna tell me and/or ... What's gonna happen even is, is we've been asking them questions so long that they're gonna get like I said, intrigued about us. They're gonna ask us what. They're gonna say, "So I mean it sounds like you've got something awesome going on. What is it you do?" Steve Larsen: Yeah. What are you doing? John Ferguson: Like who are you? Right? Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: That's gonna open the door for you now to share that invitation. Right? You've understood their needs. Now this would ... We're talking face to face right now. Now if I was gonna be over the phone right, some of my advertising was through ... Like don't tell anybody, but I've done some of this ninja stuff on Craigslist. I've just posted a little ad that says, "Hey look, are you interested in XYZ? If you are, call me or if you are, respond." And this stuff works there too and obviously building funnels and posting those paid advertising through like Facebook and Instagram. All that works really, really well, but when it comes down to it, let's say you've got people in Nebraska and you live in California. What are you gonna do? Like how are you gonna meet that person face to face? They've just introduced themselves to you. They're gonna go through your phone, they're gonna [inaudible 00:17:40] your thing, but I like high ticket sales, and so I wanna help this person get the maximum of what's gonna help them. And so the lowest product price point that we typically sell is about $2,000.00 and we do a little bit over the phone, and so if I'm ... I can run this line of questioning over the phone, I'll have a notepad right next to me writing the answers down as I go. So I can go okay, wow that's a need. Okay, wow that's a desire. Right? And so now as I'm asking questions, I can define out what my next questions are. When you get ... We're really good at these types of questionings. These types of questions, it will just come natural to you and it's just following a progressive line, broad based, pointed, direct, broad based, pointed, direct. And sometimes you'll ask a direct question and they won't wanna answer it. They may feel a little standoffish if you haven't done a good job of building that initial rapport, bringing them down the ladder. Right? No one wants to go from the 15th step on the ladder and jump down to step number one, like it hurts. Okay. It's kinda like dropping 150 feet with your buddy, filming it on Facebook and screaming until you fall, like I saw that video of you. That's nuts, right? Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: But no one wants to feel that way without the bungee cord. Okay. Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: So we have to take them down that ladder and sometimes you may have to come back up and ask a little more pointed questions to get to where you want, and then come back down to the direct question to the root of the issue of what their true desire is. So now, they're literally asking you Steven, this may sound a little bit more complicated than it really is. It's literally one or two broad based questions, one or two pointed questions and one very direct question. You'll have five questions and you have literally opened the door and they're literally asking, "So what is it you do? How long have you been doing it? Is there any information that I can have that I can talk to you about?" And if I'm doing this over the telephone, it's about an eight minute conversation. Right? I like to keep it about five to twelve minutes. Anyone out there who I typically find ... especially individuals putting this in their practice, as when we're teaching telemarketing teams or when I'm teaching a network marketing business ... Like I was just in New Jersey teaching 200 network marketers in the room in like a six hour session how to do this and the challenge was is asking less, but doing it in the right way- Steve Larsen: Interesting. John Ferguson: Because I think we have this desire to talk and what I found was a lot of people spent more time talking and trying to talk someone into liking your thing because you like it. No one cares why you like it, they just don't. What they care is why they might like it or why ... what will help them. Spend less time dictating and more time recording right, taking down the right information and ultimately they're gonna ask. They're literally [inaudible 00:20:36], "What's my next step? How do I move forward with you?" I've never had ... I've had people say that they've never had conversations like this ever in the network marketing world. Right? I'm sure a lot of your listeners right now are going yeah, I mean that ... People would just beat me up and just ask me, "Hey, come to my thing. Come to my thing. Oh, you're gonna love it. You're gonna get this. You're gonna get that out of it.", and it was just noise. Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: Well just turn off the noise, ask them more questions and let them speak for a minute and guide them down this path to where they're literally begging to buy from you. Steve Larsen: What's the golden that someone can ask you? Obviously besides, "Hey, where do I put my credit card?" But like what's the question that when you know that you have them, you know what I mean? When you know that this person's progressing and maybe that's probably the wrong way to say that, but when you know that they're following the process to the T and they're eating out of your hand, you know what I mean? When do you know? John Ferguson: It's a number of things. It's a number of questions. Steve Larsen: Sure. John Ferguson: Typically, in our industry because it's sales, some of your listeners may have heard the title buyer's questions. Steve Larsen: Sure. John Ferguson: Really it's ... I like to call them intrigue questions, but really what it is, is they're asking you, "Okay. What's the next step?" That's it, like because it doesn't feel abrasive like a sales pitch or a sales opportunity, it's more of like an invitation. They're typically asking, "So how do I move forward with you? Like what's my next step with you? Do you have a meeting that I can attend? Do you have something that I can acquire now?" Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: And so they're literally asking you at that point for the sale. Does that make sense? Steve Larsen: Yeah, yeah. They're asking buyer questions, yes. That's how I think ... Absolutely. Okay. Intrigue questions. John Ferguson: Yeah. Steve Larsen: And so what would be your follow up at that point? Obviously you said, "Hey, go to the five minute video." or "I'm gonna email you." What's the preferred thing that you do with them after that? John Ferguson: So depending on what I'm doing or depending on the organization that I'm working with, some of them have like an initial introductory video or an initial introductory meeting where they're gonna have to come sit down with you and meet with some of the other team members that you have, or they're gonna come out or they're just gonna stay at home. They're gonna watch a webinar and they're gonna go through this introduction to the company. So typically, I'm delivering them to some type of information that continues to build intrigue, but also delivers some information and it's what we call kind of a either a business orientation, a business briefing and that is literally our first few steps in this entire process. Okay, because at this point now, it's a presentation. Now we're gonna be delivering some of the information to continue that intrigue, but to deliver on what we promised, and then at that point, we're gonna take them to our closing process and it's literally a three step process. It's introduction, invite, presentation and then close. I mean that's as simple as it gets. Steve Larsen: Wow. Wow. Now this is something that sounds like you're doing this like face to face and over the phone but not just for- John Ferguson: Right. Steve Larsen: Not just for ... It's fascinating because most ... especially phone scripts, right? Most phone scripts that I've ever used especially in the internet marketing space, kind of the other market that I'm in, right. I ... Typically, these kinds of phone conversations is something that we would do for more warm audiences and people who knew who we were and knew what were doing, and we were just there to kinda close them and guide them in the sale. But you're able to do this kinda thing to ... I don't wanna say cold, but people who you've honestly may have never met before. John Ferguson: Yep. That's exactly what I do. Steve Larsen: That's amazing. John Ferguson: I don't like the whole ... I got my mom and dad and my cousins and sisters in my first couple of network marketing business. Steve Larsen: Sure. Who didn't? John Ferguson: And it [inaudible 00:24:21]. So I think all of the listeners have done that. Steve Larsen: Yeah, yeah. Sure. John Ferguson: They've tried that. So there's only so many family members you got right, that can buy from you and join your thing. So you have to go out there and build new relationships and the only way to do that is to either go out there and literally cold market, which can be a little more [inaudible 00:24:42], warm them up first. Right? Why not send them to an initial video? Why not get them to opt in to an advertising piece? Why not have them call you first? Get them knocking your door down first and then take them through these little bit of questions, take them through an introductory video or a webinar and then invite them to participate with you. Steve Larsen: That's fascinating. This ... I mean is an incredible expertise. I appreciate you just kind of outlining that. I'm sure top level ... For those of you guys who don't know, I've been talking to you guys a lot about the program, Secret MLM Hacks that I've created and my team's in and we're selling also to any of those ... of you guys who want, we ... John is so good at this, that I pretty much begged him to come and teach a huge segment of this insider course as well. So those of you guys who are like, "Oh, man this stuff's so cool. How do I get more of that?" Well you a lot more of John Ferguson inside of Secret MLM Hacks as well and this expertise is incredible, John. How did you develop this? I mean this is not like a normal ... You know what I mean? I don't know many people who are doing what you're doing like this. In fact, you're probably one of the first ever in this kind of way. How did you get there? John Ferguson: It was out of bare necessity. So let me give you some back story. My ... Just real quick some of my back story. Steve Larsen: Sure. Yeah, please. John Ferguson: I grew up in a home in Southern California. My father was laid off seven times before I was 17. Steve Larsen: Wow. John Ferguson: For most of my life growing up, I lived with my grandparents and my mom, my dad, my two brothers and I, my grandma, my grandpa and my great-grandmother lived in like a 1,500 square foot home in Whittier, California. It had three bedrooms, one and a half bath, and there's a need for four bedrooms there and so I learned a lot. One, I learned family, the importance of family and how hard it takes to work to keep a family together, especially when you're struggling financially, and I also saw that working a job wasn't for me, like I saw the struggle. My father worked three jobs at one time. They would go around cleaning churches when I grow up, and I was a little squirt running around at five, six, seven years old, taking the chalk erasers, smacking the board with them as my dad was finishing up wiping them down in the church and he'd have to go clean them up again. Let me ... Later down the line, I realized why he was a little upset with me but couldn't really freak out 'cause we're in a church. But I saw that level and so I decided to go to college and like most people, they're like okay, go to school, get good grades, go to college, get a good career. So I took that path and I played basketball in college and I went up and dunked on somebody in a preseason game and I ruptured two discs in my back- Steve Larsen: Wow. John Ferguson: Blew out my knee and my ankle- Steve Larsen: Oh, my gosh. John Ferguson: And there was no way I was gonna be able to get in NBA and I'm sure some of your listeners were going, "NBA, yeah." I mean I was not gonna be able to play in the National Basketball Association because I had blown out my body. To this day I can't feel my left leg, like part of my left leg is like numb. My foot is a little bit numb because of that injury. Steve Larsen: Wow. John Ferguson: And so going to college, I mean why go to ... I thought at the time and no disrespect to anyone that has a diploma. That's awesome. You guys did it, you won it. Fantastic. There are careers that definitely need the execution, but for me at the time, I was like well if I'm not gonna get in the NBA. Right? That's the whole reason you're going to college, is to get in NBA ... Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: I quit. I was like I'm out and so I got into the career world. I started working at a company called Hollywood Video. You know that dinosaur video place you used to go rent videos from? Steve Larsen: Yeah, yeah. John Ferguson: I wore the red cummerbund, I had the red bow tie. I was waving at people and within a short period time, it was about four and half, five years, I had risen from the ranks from just customer service representative up to a district manager, and I had 14 stores. I was running multimillion dollars for this company and I remember coming home from one vacation, we got five weeks paid vacation. I came home from one vacation and my beeper, like for those of you guys who don't know what that is, it's kinda like a little box that buzzes and beeps on your hip. Okay? So half the size of cell phones today and like three times its width, but I was coming down the mountain, I was up fishing and camping with my family and it goes off, like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And I'm looking down at it and I'm going what is going on with this thing? It was like 911*. 91111*. 91111 and I'm going what is ... Like something ... Someone had to have died in one of my stores. I'm freaking out. I call my manager, the VP over there area and he's like, "Where are you? You need to come in right now." And I'm like, "I just got off of vacation." And if you don't know the type of organization I was working with, it was like to go on vacation, you had to like ... I filled out the form and then the form had to be filled out by my boss and then the boss had to send up to his boss and then corporate had to sign it. They had to send it back to you and you got like five pages of documentation showing you're gone. Right? Steve Larsen: Wow. John Ferguson: So I get back ... Literally I got written up for being gone because one of my store managers got sick, the assistant manager couldn't come in to cover their shift in one of my stores. It's like an hour away from even where I live and my manager had to go in and cover the store for like 20 minutes. What I found was- Steve Larsen: Wow. John Ferguson: It's that I was climbing the wrong ladder on the wrong building and ... I mean at the time, I was the number one in revenue, I was the number one district manager in the company for holiday contests and sales. My teams were like at the top of my level and I had a lot of loyalty and at that one moment, I lost my 2.5% raise. Now think about that. Steve Larsen: Two and a half percent. John Ferguson: [crosstalk 00:30:28] I was freaking out about not earning another 1,600 bucks, 1,700 bucks a year. Steve Larsen: Wow. John Ferguson: Because I was only making about 80 grand a year and 2.5%, 2% of that is 16, 1,700 bucks. Steve Larsen: Wow. John Ferguson: And like to someone like that ... Like I look back on that like how did I survive? Right? Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: But that's how it is. Like that was a good salary then and for me, I had to find another way. And so getting into this situation, I got into my very first real estate property, started becoming ... I became a real estate investor and I ... For two years, I spent a ton of money, like over 200 grand in trends and boot camps and seminars and coaches and I'd finally be able to ... I was able to quit my job and I got involved in a network marketing organization and I've never been involved with one before in my life and they said, "Okay. Go get everybody." So I go ... I get everybody I can get like ... I got like 30 people in this one meeting. I had 25, 30 people. The guy in the front of the room is rocking. Like he's up there, he's like telling a story and I'm watching all my guests and I'm in the very back ... The room is filled with like maybe 200 people and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. I'm gonna make like a hundred grand tonight." Like it's- Steve Larsen: Look at all this. Yeah, yeah. John Ferguson: [inaudible 00:31:48]. Right? Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: And I'm like, "[inaudible 00:31:50]. This is so great" and I'm looking around at everybody around me. I go up to my mentor, I tap him on the shoulder. I'm like, "Dude, check it out. I'm gonna get certified in one meeting. I'm gonna me a hundred grand, you're gonna make like 50 grand. This is sweet!" Like I'm so excited and I'm telling everybody and all the people that I looked up to in my [inaudible 00:32:10] network marketing business and have been involved with me a couple months and I'm like, "I've been working my guts out trying to get people in this room and this is gonna be so awesome. Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: And at the very end of the night, most network marketing companies do this is, is, "Okay. Are you a one? Are you a two or a three? Are you an A, a B or a C?" Right? And all my people are like two or a like one, meaning that they're in! They wanna join and they got some questions, but they wanna join! I'm like oh, my gosh. How am I gonna handle all this business all at once? And so I grab like two laptops and I go run into the front of the room, I grab all my guests, "So you guys follow me." Right? Like the pied piper, you guys are all just getting. "Let's go!" And so I get to the back of the room and my brain is exploding, my heart's pumping out of my chest. I'm sweating profusely because I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. This is gonna be so cool." How do I not ... Like how do I hide my excitement? Right? [crosstalk 00:33:02]- Steve Larsen: Yeah, to keep it cool. John Ferguson: [inaudible 00:33:03]. It's like this rush, right? It's like drinking five Red Bulls at once. Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: And so [inaudible 00:33:09], I'm going, "Okay everybody. For those of you who are the number ones, raise your hands again. Okay. Fantastic. I've got two laptops over here. I've got them open and ready to go. Just get your credit cards out. I [inaudible 00:33:20] to sign up [inaudible 00:33:21] here. [inaudible 00:33:23] got questions [inaudible 00:33:24]. Let's go!" Yeah. That's about how it was man. Silence. Nobody moved, like not one bit. Steve Larsen: Wow. John Ferguson: And you know I had the, "Oh, man. That's great stuff, John. I'm just not ready to move forward." "Oh, I didn't bring my checkbook." I got all the excuses and like when you go from such a high, like you're gonna win, right? Then you literally drop and then you melt and you're like about to be in tears, your face turns red and you're like, "Oh, my gosh. How did misjudge all this?" Steve Larsen: Right. Right. John Ferguson: That was the moment I knew that I screwed up and I needed to do it better and I had learned right then and there, that I didn't know enough about the people that I had invited to this meeting. That I was told what I considered a lie, was that just invite people, throw a diaper against the wall, some of them will stick, others are gonna slide down, and I realized it doesn't matter what you're throwing against the wall. It's just gonna leave a mess and so I knew right then and there, I needed a better system. I needed a better way to engage the right people and not just people. I knew that I never wanted to chase other people. I never wanted to feel that way again, where I had this pit in my stomach, not because of the success that I was gonna have, but because what did I just do and how did I look, and I just told everybody this was gonna be fantastic and I was exhausted- Steve Larsen: Yeah. John Ferguson: Because I worked so hard, not one person purchased man, not one and that was the day. And I went in I started ... we're finding the systems and we're finding how I ask people questions and I read every sales book I possibly could and I wasn't finding the information in there. And it was difficult and I started with Rich Dad organization, I started working with some of these telemarketing teams and learning what they did on the phone and how they sold coaching and mentoring and packages and I literally just went into the trenches for a couple of years. And I took what I learned from speaking and training and teaching in the network marketing industry in front of these big rooms and what was going on behind the scenes with a lot of these organizations selling trainings and services and products on how they were enrolling people at these higher levels. And it just ... It just ... They had a baby dude. They had a baby. I'm gonna take this and I'm gonna take that, it was like a mad scientist, Frankenstein, let's just put it all together and over the years, it came out fantastic and to like ride it off of the wings. And I don't really like to like talk about myself a lot, but in this instance I need to and I don't like the phrase ... I hate this phrase and maybe you do too, I don't say this to impress you, but to impress upon you. I hate that phrase, like just tell us the truth, you're trying to impress us. Right? And so I hate that phrase- Steve Larsen: Brag about yourself John. Let us know, let us hear it. John Ferguson: Yeah, man. So it's time to impress you. So I'm telling this so you are impressed by some dude who grew up in Southern California in a box with his entire family, looking like Charlie from the Chocolate Factory, who was able to make it out of that world just by sheer bull dogged determination. I wasn't smart, I just gathered all the stuff, mixed it up in the blender and poof. I joined a network marketing company a few years back and I said, "Look, I have test this method and I'm only gonna be using my method. I'm not gonna be using anything else. I'm gonna con ... I'm gonna throw out some bait. I'm gonna throw out some advertising and get people calling me, and I'm gonna see if these people that I do not know, I can put in some information with ... through a webinar, through testimonials, through Craigslist ads, and let's see if I can build a rapport well enough just with this system, but it works." I started that in the network marketing company, I think it was about November, when I actually started selling and advertising, and by the end of the year, I had taken their sales contest. I was number one that year. I was inducted into their ... Like a lot of you guys know like the Diamond Club or the President's Advisory Council of [crosstalk 00:37:33]- Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: Literally inducted into that crew and people were upset. Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: Because there were people who worked all year long in the network marketing business and they hadn't closed enough sales to make it. Like I remember I had beaten one of the ladies who did a phenomenal job. She's a wonderful person, very good dear friend of mine now, who I've had the opportunity to train and teach her teams this as well. They had done great but I only won by like six grand. Like my revenue was ... It was that close. But with only having a couple of months to finish off this ... the contest by the end of the year to go to their national convention and at that point, I knew I had something different that you could use on the phone, you use in person. That an influencer can use to sell coaching, that you can sell products, you could sell water, you could help people [inaudible 00:38:23] literally a [inaudible 00:38:25] individuals [inaudible 00:38:26], 'cause we know that people don't like what they need. Right? We know that. Like if you just give them the needs like, "[inaudible 00:38:32], like I know I need to take vitamins but I'm not choking the horse pill down." Right? So how do I give them the desire? How do I fulfill the desire and the need at the same time and then wrap it all up into a bow to where they're begging me to buy? And that's what this is man and that's what we've developed and it has shrunk the time it takes for me to work with people. I work about 20 hours a week now in what I do and the rest of the time I spend with my family man and I like to invest in real estate still. I like to buy properties, I really like helping people, I like traveling and speaking and running masterminds, and that's it dude. I mean that's kind of the evolution of this process. That's how I came up with it and I can't a 100% credit because I learned a lot in these different organizations from different people, that had little pieces. Right? I think that's we do as entrepreneurs- Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: As influencers. We've been influenced ourselves to actually go out and influence and so for me to take credit, I'm not a self made millionaire. Okay. It's a team thing, whether it's a book that you've read from someone who has passed away, passed along that knowledge in that book or that audio course, or the mentors that you've continued to have and the friendships and the relationships. Like I've learned a ton from you Steven, like a lot of what you've taught has helped even this process succeed in greater- Steve Larsen: Oh, cool. John Ferguson: And the other businesses that we own. And so like I think that the more people understand how connected that we are, the whole lot easier that everything becomes and it's less about closing and it's more about connecting and getting people to desire what they need, than shoving it down their throat. So hopefully the answer's there. I went on a discourse man. Steve Larsen: I love the discourse, but it's so true like that whole phrase, we all rise together. To me, for some reason that always seemed a little bit cheesy but the longer I've been doing this, the more I've realized the exact same. It's like look, I did not get anywhere on my own, like it's all ... We all do it together, we have to. If you try to do it on your own, you actually will drown. Anyway, I ... I'm so thankful for what you taught here and it just ... I think the listeners are gonna love it. Guys if you have, please reach out to John and say thank you. You can learn more from him as well. Where can people find you, John? John Ferguson: The easiest thing right now to do is I like to connect with people. I like to see who you are, what you're doing in the industry and one of the greatest tools right now out there Facebook. I'm on Facebook, you gotta go by my real name John Albert Ferguson. I know, it's not just John Ferguson. I got the big Al from my dad. So John Albert Ferguson on Facebook and it's real simple. I've got my personal profile and I got my page, and my page ... You can hit me up in the messenger and if you need some help, I'd love to spend about like a 15 minute consultation with you for free. No charge, just to kinda see where you're at, what you're doing, maybe we can unlock a few things and help to implement it and if it's something we wanna work together, you'll be on that, fantastic, and we'll find a way and we do coaching. I do mastermind, such like that, but really I wanna provide value first, and what they're gonna see too Steven, is I love real estate investing. And so you'll see a lot about my real estate and things I do and as well as my coaching and training and speaking within the sales and network marketing arena. So I think that's probably the easiest thing to do man, is just so they can get a picture of who I am, like my family and what I do. I think that one's the biggest thing, is in this industry I think a lot of people don't sell, they don't close. They can't because they feel they have accomplish some level of success before they can introduce their thing. Right? Well let's say I've got this bottle of water here that's gonna change people's lives. Right? Well maybe it's you're first week and your life hasn't changed yet. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You can poster the water, you can your upline, you poster just the experience you've currently had in the last 24 hours of being involved in an amazing community of people and enough is enough. Don't have to be right now and I like the whole act as if thing, but why not just be you? Like be yourself. Steve Larsen: Right. John Ferguson: Like are you going to allow somebody into your house with dirty, muddy shoes? Probably not. You're gonna ask them to take it off. Are you gonna let just anybody join your thing? Probably not and you shouldn't. Like if you're like, "No. Yeah. I will. I haven't made a sale so I gotta close somebody. Like if anyone wants to come in and give me money, they're in." No. That could be way more headache. Steve Larsen: Yeah. No way. John Ferguson: That would be ... It's not worth the headache. You wanna retain the right people so they can build the right community with you and you'll have a whole lot more fun. Like the money doesn't matter. You'll make more money being happy and enrolling the right people than you will trying to get other people just to buy- Steve Larsen: Amen. Amen. We need that on t-shirt and a mug. That was good. Yeah, anyway. I appreciate that. Sorry to cut you off there. John Ferguson: [crosstalk 00:43:32]. Steve Larsen: You were on a roll man. I'm loving the dialogue. This is awesome. John Ferguson: Yeah. No, we're good. Steve Larsen: Hey ... Thank you so much. Hey guys, go check out John though. Go to ... Go to his Facebook page. He's doing ... What ... You said working 20 hours a week, which is awesome. Obviously walking the walk, talking the talk. You know what you're doing and for me it's been fun to look around and go find out like, "Oh man, who were the ones in MLM who are really killing it? Who are ..." and not ... Meaning they've actually figured out a system and you clearly just over and over and over pop up as like one of the most expert individuals in this space and this area and I'm just so thankful to have you on the show. Please go check out John though at Facebook, connect with him. You can do a 15 minute consultation with him. For those of you guys who are jumping in Secret MLM Hacks, you also got an awesome training module from him as well. John, thanks so much for being on the show today. John Ferguson: Yeah. Fantastic. It was a pleasure. I really appreciate it and love what you're doing, Steven. You got some amazing things happening for your listeners and Secret MLM Hacks rocks. I mean if your listeners haven't joined that yet, you need to because that is what we're talking about today, is really engaging the proper people with the proper solutions that are geared towards their desires and their needs and you're laying it out there in plain speech that anybody can implement. So yeah, I'm just glad to have been a part ... a smart part of this and helping your audience succeed, man. Steve Larsen: Oh, man. Thanks so much. Appreciate it and thanks everyone for listening. Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to rate and subscribe, whether you just want more leads or automated MLM funnels, or if you just wanna learn to get paid more for your product, head over to secretmlmhacks.com to join the next free training today.

Ever wonder how the top guys actually make fortunes in MLM? Join us now to hear secrets of the "big guys"... Steve Larsen: What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Now this is part six of six. This is the last segment of this whole series. We're gonna talk about MLM funnels. MLM funnels, this is gonna be a little bit of a different sub interview than the other five so far, and the reason being is because in the other five, I have always been interviewing an actual funnel builder, right? Somebody who put the funnel together for their business, their industry, whatever it was. This is a little bit of a different scenario, I have an opportunity to interview an amazing gentleman who has built MLM the traditional way, but without bothering the family members and friends... You guys know that's my whole thing and so, we're gonna learn how he did that without using heavy tech like I use. Does that make sense? So it's kind of a rare look at this. He's done both seven figures personally, both in his MLM, but also in traditional business. Anyway, he's a very, very rare take on MLM and what it takes to be successful with it. Then what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna show you guys, or rather talk about and teach, why I have an MLM funnel myself and what it does and what it's done for me, and the whole psychology behind it because it's amazing. I've never seen anybody else do it. There's one other guy who kind of came close, but even then, it actually won't do the full thing that this does. Anyway, I'm excited for this interview. Even if you're not an MLM, I think you'll enjoy the tactics that he uses and how he manages his own business, 'cause I think if we were all to manage his MLM business the way we manage our personal ones, our actual lives would get mentally quieter. There wouldn't be so much noise in our head. Anyway, let's get into the interview... Announcer: Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen. Steve Larsen: Alright you guys, I am super excited that you're here listening with me today. We have a very unique opportunity to hear from, honestly, one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. I actually only met him only a month or two ago, but right off the bat I could tell something was different. I have on the call with me Mr. Jon Penkert, who alone inside of the MLM industry, he's one of the top income earners. He's one of those rare guys that has done both seven figures in regular business, but also seven figures in the network marketing business. One of the things he's taught me is that most people only recruit two and half, two to three people into their MLM business ever. And to say that he's done, which is true, over $500 million in his own downline is absolutely amazing. Anyway, I'm excited to have Mr. Jon Penkert here with me. How are you doing man? Jon Penkert: Hey! Good morning Steve and thanks for having me on the call. It's a privilege to be speaking with you. Steve Larsen: I'm really excited that you're here. This is a very unique take. Most of the time when you hear the word MLM, I'm sure you were the exact same, you tend to run the other way. Most people do anyway, and I know that you've figured out though the way that this whole thing works. But before we jump into that, I actually wanted to ask, how did you get into MLM? Jon Penkert: Well, I was an entrepreneur out of college and moved to southern California. I wanted to take advantage of the business opportunities there and leverage my skills and my degree. When I arrived in California, you know it's kind of the mecca for network marketing, I never really heard of MLM. So, a friend of mine invited me to a meeting and I was very skeptical... It just seemed too good to be true. I couldn't believe all the money they were making. I was like, "Man, I gotta check this out." And it's funny, you say that people run from MLM. What happened is, I started getting involved in network marketing and then people started running from me. Steve Larsen: Exactly! Jon Penkert: I learned very quickly that this MLM business, it's rife with problems. You end up losing a lot of your friends in the beginning 'cause you don't understand what's required to be successful, you don't understand that the key ingredients to network marketing that makes successful champions are no different than any other facet of life. Whether it's business or music or sports, there's a formula to success. Once you figure that out, and you embrace the formula, then guess what? You begin to have this success that you long for... Steve Larsen: Now, did you know what that formula was when you first started? Jon Penkert: No. As a matter of fact, I have about 10 years of pain, which means failure. I learned that success is built on the back of failure. I used to tell people, "I'm the biggest loser in network marketing," because I tried everything and did it wrong. So, I got about 10 years of pain before I figured out, "You know what? There's gotta be a smarter way to do this." Steve Larsen: That's amazing. So, when you first joined though, what happened? What was all that failure? Most people don't talk about the failure parts, but I think we can all relate to it. Jon Penkert: Well, I don't fail small. I failed big. Back in the 80's people in California were making $30,000 a month in network marketing and there was a company called FundAmerica. You can research it... It actually is the case that all the case law studies. It changed the industry, because back then, you paid a lot of money for your membership fees. It was high membership fee to get involved in these clubs, these MLM clubs. The federal government shut them down for illegal Ponzi scheme, and so the big boys like Herbalife and Amway, they all went to school on that and they changed how they come to market. So all the case law for network marketing was really centered around that FundAmerica. You can do the research on the lawsuit. They came out on the other side nine months later innocent and not being convicted of a Ponzi scheme 'cause it wasn't, but it ruined the business opportunity and all the downline had dissipated. All of us that got involved and began to build saw the rug literally pulled out from under us in what we thought was the biggest opportunity of our life and we were all gonna become millionaires. The truth is, you realize if you don't have experienced leaders that have set a foundation to do it right, you're gonna get taken out and there's a lot of examples of that today but the case law began with that FundAmerica opportunity that I was knee deep in and got the rug pulled out from under me. Steve Larsen: So you came in while that was all going on then? Jon Penkert: Yeah, actually I had the misfortune of coming in at the end. I got all my guys in and we started running right as they closed the doors. Steve Larsen: Oh man! Oh my gosh. Jon Penkert: Yeah. Steve Larsen: Did you pick up and go obviously to somewhere else then I'm sure? Jon Penkert: Yeah. Then I got into a couple other companies. I tried the travel industry, it's big in network marketing, and I tried supplements. That's also big in network marketing. The number one product in network marketing is weight loss. We live in a culture that suffers from obesity and everybody wants the quick fix. There's a formula to losing weight, but everybody wants to take a pill so often times in network marketing, companies begin with weight loss. It's very common. The problem with weight loss, for those of you that are in weight loss know that 90 to 120 days into the journey people do one of two things. They lose the weight and get off your product, or they don't lose the weight and they blame your product. You lose your residual income often times in weight loss 'cause people don't stay loyal to the product. Weight loss is a tough way to create residual income. Steve Larsen: Interesting. That is fascinating. So did you deliberately steer away from that? You're asking questions that most people who are brand new in MLM never ask. You know? An awareness of the economy and the market and what's selling and what isn't, it's through the roof. It probably wasn't like that at the beginning though I'm sure, was it? Jon Penkert: Well, it's not. When you look at an opportunity, most people get involved in an opportunity because it's based on hype, right? My really good friend found this product they love and now I love it. We're gonna get rich together, and we're gonna do network marketing. Those are not good reasons to join a network marketing company. Unfortunately, that's how most people get involved in network marketing and then when they don't make the money, then they're like, "Oh, what happened?" There's five pillars of things that are important in network marketing. For those of your listeners that want to do the ... I was like, "Where do I find out about how to be successful?" Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: Harvard Business Review actually has a study on MLMs and what it takes to be successful. Go read it. Google it and find out here's the key ingredients that you need to be successful in network marketing. It's out there. It's not a secret. Steve Larsen: That's fascinating. So you go into, was it FundAmerica? And they kind of go under and go through all that big stuff, and then you transfer to another MLM. Now, were you successful you'd say in that one, or were you still learning what it took to be successful with it? Jon Penkert: Yeah. Well, I'm a type A driver and I'm very success oriented. I'm a guy that I'm gonna just try to make it work. I've done a lot of network marketing opportunities, but where I had the light bulb moment, the aha moment, was when one of my friends said ... I said, "Hey, get involved in this one and we're making a lot of money and we're driving the new cars and we're doing all this stuff." And he looked at me and he said, "Jon, you always get the car but none of the rest of us do." That was where I went, "Wait a minute." Steve Larsen: Powerful. Jon Penkert: It's not about how much money I can make or what I can do, I want to find an opportunity where I can mentor people and help them drive the new car. So that was a paradigm shift in my thought process. I said, "You know what? I have to look for something ..." There's a word that is abused in network marketing it's called duplication. I got news for you guys, everything duplicates. Success duplicates and so does failure. If you're using your influence to build your network marketing business, it's not duplicatable and ultimately will fail because your people don't have your influence. But, if you have a system that people can follow to make money, the system will duplicate and then you have an opportunity in network marketing to create a sustainable residual income. The system has to duplicate, you can't just use your influence and that's when the light bulb went off for me. I said, "You know what? It's not good enough for me to be able to do it, I have to enroll people on the journey and will help them actually accomplish their goals." Steve Larsen: That's huge. So from that point on, you went forward and just noticed that it's got to be a system that's duplicatable, rather than you being duplicatable. System wise, what did you go create? What was it that you knew that you had to go do? Jon Penkert: Well, the first thing that I do when I look at a network marketing company, is I say, "Look, I need 90 days to see if the system duplicates." Because once you begin ... most people make the mistake of measuring their success on their signup bonuses, right? "Hey, I went out and got a few people to sign up and they got some people to sign up, and in the first 30 days I made $3,000." That's not a duplicatable system, that's a sales job. The money you make on the front end isn't as important as if I sign you up Steve, and how much money do I make on you four months from now when you're on auto ship? That's the key. Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: Because if I want a residual income, it's not your sign up bonuses, but it's your monthly auto ship that creates an income for me. Now, if I have a product that doesn't have a monthly auto ship component, you can't create residual income. It's gotta be something that you need or want every month, right? Most people will buy something for a couple of months, but is it sustainable? What does that mean? Well, is it something that, as a consumer, six months from now you're still gonna buy? Because if you're not gonna buy it then I don't have a residual income stream, so I always measure the opportunity not how much money do I make up front, but what kind of residual incomes am I making on an auto ship function three, four, five months out? Then I look at the percentages of growth. If my growth percentage is there, then I've got something. Not the paycheck. If you look at your paycheck in the first two or three months of any opportunity, and measure the long term viability, you're making a mistake. Steve Larsen: Fascinating. Okay, so 90 to prove the system, gotta have the monthly auto ship as a component to the MLM you choose, what other components should people look for when they are choosing one? Jon Penkert: There's a saying in business, remember I'm a ... one of the things that made me successful in network marketing is realizing that my entrepreneurship business skills, in traditional business, they don't translate well to network marketing. When you try to bring your skill set from a traditional business model into network marketing, it doesn't work. It doesn't translate. Steve Larsen: Like what? What do you mean? Jon Penkert: Well, entrepreneurship requires a skill set where you have an ability to take risks and make very quick decisions and cut your losers fast and leverage a skill set more than a system. You try to bring your skills into network marketing it doesn't work because why? [caption id="attachment_1194" align="alignleft" width="430"] Business Colleagues Together Teamwork Working Office[/caption] You're managing a volunteer army, nobody works for you. It's like a sports team, right? Everyone's part of the team and we want to win together, but since no one works for me, I can't hold them accountable. I have to motivate them, which is why network marketing often times leverages self help. Become a better version of yourself, work on yourself. Steve Larsen: Fascinating. Jon Penkert: Because the stronger self you have, the more people you're gonna lead. Steve Larsen: Fascinating. It is all about the motivation then for that. I didn't realize ... I mean, I knew that MLMs kind of like bus op wrapped around ... with the personal development wrapped around it, but that's a fascinating way to describe that though. I've never thought of it that way. Jon Penkert: You said what's important? What do I look for? Sports parallels business that parallels network marketing, and what am I talking about? Leadership is the number one thing that has the biggest impact on your success. Why is that? Because the rate of the pack is determined by the speed of the leader and it doesn't matter if you look at successful sports teams or businesses or network marketing, you gotta have good leadership. That's one of the things that I leverage going into an opportunity is are the leaders experienced? Are they just a bunch of guys that found a product and have never run a network marketing company? Or are their leaders proficient at the global business model? Because, listen you guys, today network marketing is the business model of the 21st century. There is no greater. What you are going to get paid to do is monetize networks that you build globally, not networks locally in a local market, but your ability to sell products and services globally in a global market place. Which means what? Language conversion, currency conversion. You monetize global networks, you want to be with a leader who's done that before. Somebody who's opened up other countries. Someone who understands logistically how to deliver products into those countries because you can have the greatest product in the world but if you don't have a leadership team that can deliver, you're gonna end up with a lot of unhappy customers. Steve Larsen: What are you doing to train people below you to become leaders? Like you said, that really does seem where all that duplication is even possible. Jon Penkert: I have my own philosophy on leadership. In the leadership circles, I've studied leadership and there's a great argument in leadership, and it's are leaders created or are they born? Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: They go back and forth on that question. The truth is it's neither. Leaders aren't born. You're not a born leader and you can't just choose someone and create a leader. Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: I like to look at leadership one of two ways. You're either a cheerleader, which sits at the back of the room and encourages everybody to be the best they can be and go out there and charge and go do it. Then there's the servant leader that says, "You know what? I'm going first. I'm gonna go and go across the river and swim across and make sure it's not dangerous and make sure it's attainable. And then I'm gonna encourage my people to follow me." Leaders are neither born nor created, leaders are chosen... The masses will choose to follow you if you're cutting the path and doing the right things and having the success. Success attracts success. So as a leader moves forward quickly, there creates a vacuum that people will follow. So my definition of a leader, first and foremost, is the visionary who's following the path and setting the right example and the people will follow. Steve Larsen: That is definitely the best definition of leadership I've ever heard. Okay, a cheerleader or a servant leader and you're chosen by others based on you cutting the path and being an example. Wow, that's amazing! So you go out and you're teaching others to do that obviously, because you've chosen an MLM with the monthly auto ship and you have to develop new skills, you now have the potential for actual residual income. What are you doing to actually find people? It was fascinating, you told me when I first met you ... what do you say? The average person recruits only like 2.3 people in their life ever? Jon Penkert: Well the industry standard, and look, these are standards. Jim Rohn is a great leader and champion of network marketing. You can't beat the system and the system says the average person is gonna recruit 2.5 people in their career. So what network marketing companies try to do is they try to attract the superstar recruiters that are gonna recruit 200 people, but just do the math. Eventually, if you have a system that requires the average person to recruit more than 2.5 people for instance, well you're gonna set them up to fail. You can't beat, basically, the laws in network marketing. Steve Larsen: Interesting. Okay, so one of the other pieces you've taught just floored me. I mean, I just was blown away by this strategy. Before I did any marketing, I actually was going into CIT. I was gonna be a programmer, and I was learning about these things called binaries but you dropped that word and it meant something totally different for MLM world. Do you mind describing what it is that you were sharing with me? Jon Penkert: Well let's take a step back. The one thing that's consistent in life is change. Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: Change is always gonna happen. If you'd have come to me 10 years ago and said, "Jon, I got an MLM and it's a binary. Will you join?" I don't want to join that because an old school definition of a binary, the way they set them up really hurt people. The fairest comp plan was the uni-level. There's matrix and there's different comp plan styles and different hybrids, but all of the legacy companies ran a uni-level platform. The truth is, in a uni-level, you've gotta bring your 20 friends into a room, get them signed up, push them out, say, "Go get your own 20 friends. That's how I make residual income, but you gotta go to work and get a job." Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: That really catered to the type A drivers who could recruit, but it doesn't help the average person. Why? Because the average person is only gonna bring in a couple of people and now you need a front line of 20. So it begins to unravel. Now I say that, I made a lot of money in uni-levels, but today, the hybrid binary's serve the masses the very best. Now why do I say that? Because if you have a system where the average person is gonna get 2.5 people recruited and you have a three-legged system, four-legged system, five-legged system to be successful, you're setting yourself up to fail. But if you have a binary system, which is a two-legged system, and you're building a team and 100% of the people as the recruiter that you bring in, either go onto your left team or your right team, that means each person benefits from not only your ability to recruit, but I've set them up to succeed because their 2.5 people does what? It qualifies them. One left, one right and now they have at least a half a person overflow into their downline, so now every person's adding to this success of the system and the system supports the 2.5 people they're gonna get. If that makes sense. I know sometimes when you talk about numbers, people get a little foggy but that's the reason the binaries today are the best leverage point to create residual income. Steve Larsen: So for example then, just so everyone understands on who's listening as well, my first month of MLM was a classic example of ultimate failure. I did a great job of recruiting people. I literally went down Main Street and I recruited 13 people in that first month, but I spread them so wide. You know? They were out all over the place, and you're saying that's not what I should do, right? Jon Penkert: Yeah, let's look at it. I like analogies in life. If you take a very large room and you have all of these light bulbs that are lighting the room, the light source defuses the light and it lights the room. Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: But that's not maximizing the energy. Laser beams maximize the energy. If you took all the light and you focus it into a small beam you can cut steel with it. When I'm running a team, as a leader, I want to maximize their efficiency. I don't want them focused on 10 legs on their front line, I want them to run this business with maximum leverage. Two-legged systems does what? It focuses their time and energy in basically two streams, so you're not defusing your energy. You're focusing energy and your teams can run faster. Steve Larsen: Just in case people don't understand also the lingo or jargon, you're saying only two-legged meaning I'm only gonna put two people directly below me, right? And then try and do that for the people below them also, right? Jon Penkert: Yeah. In a binary system, I sign you up Steven and you go get two people. One left, one right. They get two people. One left, one right. Now, when you get the third person in the business, it has to go under Team A or Team B. Now, what's happened is those people that have joined you in the business opportunity, they take advantage of their upline, your ability to recruit, to help them build their residual income. That's powerful... That's what J. Paul Getty said when he said, "Look, I'd rather have 1% of a hundred people's energy, than a 100% of my own." Right! I want to join a team of leaders that are recruiting because I'm gonna bring my two people, and my people are gonna bring their two people. Then, the overflow, you have an opportunity now to gain the advantage of your upline's recruiting ability. If that makes sense. Steve Larsen: Yeah, it really does actually. That's fascinating. Now, when you were saying that all binaries are not created equally as well, I guess compared to what you just said right there, could you show what a bad binary would look like? Jon Penkert: Well, I hesitate to step into that because there's a lot of people that make extraordinary incomes in uni-levels, and extraordinary incomes at what I would consider a bad binary. There's good binaries and there's, let's say, better binaries. Right? I look for best in class and there's a series of things that are qualifiers that will tell me, "Is this a good deal or isn't it." Honestly, I'm gonna step aside for a second you guys. Look, you don't do this business by yourself. When I lead people, I tell them, "Look, you're a sum total of the five people that most influence you. Who are the five people that surround you?" My life is no different. I've got very good leaders around me that I consult with. When we look at a comp plan, I don't look at it by myself. I get my business partners to pick it apart as well 'cause I'll only see a certain deficiency, but I've got guys that break it down. They go, "Look, here's why it'll succeed and here's why it won't." I don't just rely on my own ability to analyze. I've got strong partners around me and each of you should do that. Your upline, your upline's leadership, and the downline, the people that you're attracting into your business. You have to surround yourself with strong people. That's a business acumen issue, that's not just MLM. It's good business. Steve Larsen: You've completely opened my eyes to more of these. The way you run the business is fascinating. Even the fact that you said, that I have a business card. Why don't you have your own business card to hand out to everyone? You don't run it really cool man. It's so awesome. Jon Penkert: I don't have a business card because I want my people to trust me. As a leader, if you lose trust, you lose everything. So when I go in and speak, I'll speak in front of rooms of 20 people and 2,000 people, but what happens is people come up to me and they say, "Hey, Jon. I want to join your team. I want to be apart of your deal. Or do you have a business card so I can contact you?" I'm not there to recruit my people's people. The only way you get ahold of me is really through one of my leaders. So I don't have a business card because I'm not looking to recruit anybody. The other thing is what I've learned in the business as well is, even if I come across a cold prospect on an airplane if I give them my business card, I have a 100% chance of them never calling me. They just don't follow up. Steve Larsen: Yeah. Jon Penkert: But if i say, "You know what? I don't have a card but let me get your number and I'll follow up with you." Now I've taken control of the relationship. It's amazing how I always have a chance to follow up with them if I don't give them a business card. It's part of a business progress, but it's also part of my leadership where I don't want people thinking I'm gonna cross-recruit their people. I work for them, and when I'm in one of their business meetings, then you can always contact me through them. If they want to give out my phone number, they can. That brings up another subject that you ... I'm gonna keep rambling here. Steve Larsen: Nah, I love it. Jon Penkert: What happens is, as you build these teams ... I've only recruited, best effort, between 30 and 40 people in any network marketing company I've ever been in because once you start building a team, I start working for my downline. Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: So when I go into your home, I meet your 20 people, guess what? There's two or three of them that want me to help them build their business and I meet their 20 people. The masses that I've created, I've done one person at a time partnering with them and building their business. So I don't have to recruit a lot of people personally. All I have to do is be a leader and work with my downline and the masses will come if you do that. Steve Larsen: Yeah, it's great. It's absolutely great. And so, if you go out and you have that servant leader attitude, obviously that we've been talking about, and ... Anyway, I'm taking huge notes right now, just so you know. I'm drawing circles around all the key pieces and putting it together because this is really awesome. I hope all you guys listening are doing that too. I do that for every one of the people I interview. This is really, really interesting. So, if I'm brand new in MLM, brand spanking new or say I just joined a new one or whatever, what are the first key pieces you'd have me do as a new person into an MLM? Let's say it's in the chosen one you like where there's a binary with it, there's auto ship, all the pieces are play. What would my roles be? Jon Penkert: Well, I would seek, as fast as I can, who's in my upline and who the leaders are because the upline leaders are waiting for their phone to ring with their downline because they want to work with them and they want to help build the business. You might as well leverage their experience because I guarantee you're two friends that you bring in, they don't know anything more about the company than you do. Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: The closer you can get to your upline leadership, the better that it is. I tell you what, here's what I wish I would have done and for all you guys that are new to the business, I wish when I was out of college I would have gone and looked in ... You know, the DSA today, there's about 20 to 22 legacy companies that do over a billion dollars. We're in an industry that does $130 billion globally. There's about 20 companies that actually do over a billion. I wish that I would have found a product that I really liked and believed in, and then joined the legacy company for a couple reasons. Because then I would have learned the successful tactics and strategies of a network marketing company and I would've got connected to leaders in the industry because if you think that five years from now, somebody's not gonna come out with the latest and greatest something and turn it into a network marketing company, you're wrong. The relationships that you build will sustain you throughout your career. So, I wish I would have just gotten involved in really good companies and learned some principles and met amazing leaders because that's what network marketing's about. It's about connecting great leaders. Any of your listeners, go find a good company and get involved with them, not because you're ... I hope that you spend the next 20 years with them, but you probably won't because the truth is, when you're looking for a good network marketing opportunity, the one thing that I cannot teach or coach you is something called timing. Well, the time to get in those companies, honestly, was 20 years ago when they started. Right? Now you're not gonna create ... it would be a rare person, somebody probably will to prove me wrong but, the average person isn't probably gonna get in there and create an extraordinary six figure income because they've had their run. I want to look for a company that's been around for a couple years, they've got their ground work underneath them, they're doing 40 to 50 million a year, and they haven't hit momentum. The key is pre-momentum, and you'll get that in the Harvard Business Study Review, when you read it. You want a company pre-momentum, so that you're the one that is building the legacy and the income. When they do a billion dollars, you've helped them grow from 50 million to a billion. That's what you look for, is timing. That's the one thing that you can't teach or coach, is to be in the right place at the right time. Steve Larsen: That's interesting. Do you have any tips for how you find a company that's pre-momentum? Jon Penkert: Very difficult. You gotta keep your ears open and be connected to a lot of people, which is why I said ... you know, if I was ... a great opportunity for even college kids. I think every college kid, the skills that you learn in network marketing will carry you through the rest of your life. Go out and find a good company that you believe in the product and get involved and learn how to create these residual incomes because it's those people that you need that are gonna introduce you to the next big run. Steve Larsen: Yeah, and I appreciate that that's what the advice you said, if I was brand new. First, know the leaders, know your upline. I never took the time to do that my first round at it. I joined one, seriously, just 'cause my buddy was in it. I mean it was the exact opposite of what you just said I should do when I did that four years ago. Pretty much every entrepreneur I know is out there, whether or not they'll admit it, has been part of an MLM. It's such an awesome career. It's a great place to go to. The reason, obviously, why a lot of people have a bad taste in their mouth is because some over eager upline person turned around and badgered their family and badgered their friends and, honestly, hurt some relationships. How do actually recruit? How do you get to getting leads in this industry without actually hurting those relationships? You know what I'm trying to ask? That was poorly worded. Jon Penkert: What happens often times, people get in these network marketing opportunities, they look at it as a "get rich quick" scheme. Right? Like, how can I make money off of you and your friends? Steve Larsen: Right. Jon Penkert: Then they get disappointed because that mindset fails them. It's really not the servant leader model, and so, when I talk to people who have been hurt been network marketing and we've all been in a network marketing company that didn't work out for lots of reasons. Steve Larsen: Sure. Jon Penkert: But I always tell them ... Zig Ziglar I think said it best. He said, "Create enough opportunity for people and give them what they want, you'll end up getting what you want." And so, what I've learned in network marketing, especially if I've dealt with similar experience, I'll say, "What are the things that your upline didn't do for you?" I teach them to be the upline that they wish they had. People resonate with that. They realize, "If I do the things for my downline that I wish my upline had done for me, I'll create extraordinary success." And again, that's that leadership model of leading by example and not being a cheerleader. I'm gonna get in there and do the hard work with them because together we can do great things. That's really what I try to get people to focus on. When they have bad experiences in network marketing is, "Hey, let's you and I be the leadership team for your downline, that you wish you had." And so, "Be the upline that you wish had," is my best practice. Steve Larsen: I appreciate that answer. I very strongly do believe in an element of business karma, if you go around and you start trying to help people and you put out legitimate value out there. It may not happen all at once, there's got to be this mentality of dropping your anger and not moving forward for a while, it's not a "get rich quick" thing, but eventually you do get what you'd like. It'll come, and almost be surprising, over night. Just kind of show up. That's great... Jon Penkert: What people don't realize is that you attract what you put out there, so if you don't like what you're getting, take a step back and look at what you're putting out. Steve Larsen: Do you have any last pieces of advice for someone who, let's say they're in one, they like the product, there's not really a whole lot moving along ... what should someone be involved in daily, those tasks, those rituals that keep them engaged in the process? Jon Penkert: The biggest thing that I can do for each one of your listeners is ... You guys, take a deep breath and look in the mirror, because the number one quality that drives my business overall, is a belief in your self. You have to believe in yourself. Find a company with integrity, with a great product, and a good comp plan but then, look in the mirror and go, "You know what? You are at the right place at the right time. You were chosen for this opportunity and go get it." Because I can't stop a person that 100%, rock solid believes. They will go out and break every barrier out there if they just believe. Steve Larsen: Yeah. Jon Penkert: As a leader, most often, all I do is get people to see that they have everything that they need to succeed. They just have to believe and go do it. Steve Larsen: Very enlightening, very fascinating. I appreciate that a lot. Now, you've obviously mentioned you don't have a business card and you work with the people directly under you, if people wanted to reach out or learn more about what it is you're doing or some kind of an action follow-up after this podcast, where should people go? What should people do? Jon Penkert: Well, Steven I totally appreciate and respect you and I'm glad that you invited me to be on your broadcast. This, for me, was really a favor to you. It wasn't an opportunity for me to recruit. I don't think I'm that great anyway, but I think that you find out who I am and what I'm in and you want to get involved, I would say embrace a local leader in your local market that's on my team that's great. I'm not here to recruit people, I'm just here to support. If they want to reach out to you, you know how to get ahold of me. Let's work it that way. Steve Larsen: Sounds good. We'll do it that way. Awesome. Jon, thank you so much. I appreciate that. This has been fantastic. Jon Penkert: Well, it's my absolute pleasure and I look forward to working with you in the future. I'll tell you something. In life, when you get two people ... I love the mastermind principle. You get two people, it creates a third more powerful mind. You can change the world getting two people committed and believing in themselves and moving in the right direction. So, I thank you Steven for what you bring to the table and your commitment to success. Steve Larsen: Alright you guys. Now at this time, what I want to do is to show you guys a little bit more about the actual funnel that I've been using to recruit for downlines. It's amazing. I came up with the concept about four years ago. I never thought that it would actually come to fruition as quickly, or as powerfully, as it has. What happened, basically, is I joined this MLM and it was terrible because I literally went down Main Street. We just found out that my wife was pregnant with our first kid and I was excited, but really honestly, I was scared out of my mind because I had no money. I had nothing... I know a lot of people listening to this are still trying to figure out what there thing is and they're still trying to create with their product or what ever it is, their first successful funnel or whatever. Just know that I know the feeling, right? What happened was, basically, my buddy came in and he recruited me. He said, "Hey, come join this," and I was like, "No. That's a stupid multi-level marketing thing. I'm not gonna do that." I ended up joining his after he was begging. But I did it with the reason in mind like, "You know what? This could pay for the birth of my child." I was like, "Hey, the clock's ticking. I got nine months. Let's go do this." What I did is I started studying and reading and I was literally going door to door. I was like, "If I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it 100%." And so, I literally did, I went down Main Street and I recruited 13 people my first month. First off, I just want to say, I'm never ever gonna tell you the name of the MLM. That's not the purpose of this. I'm telling you this, "You can use what I'm telling you right now in any MLM." Okay? I'm just gonna get that big elephant out of the room real quick. I was studying one night, and I realized that after I recruited those first 13 people, I was like, "Yes, this is awesome. This is totally duplicatable. I got all these people now." The problem was that literally none of them did anything at all. I literally had to take a cattle prod. I remember driving once three or four hours, something like that ... Yeah, it was three hours, three hours in a single day. I think so. Anyway, it was a long way ... just to meet with somebody just to see if they had actually done anything because they wouldn't answer the phone calls. I couldn't motivate them. I was like, "This is not sustainable. This is not duplicatable. Whoever told me this was passive income was lying."That was my attitude, and there was an element of truth to that. I was like, "There's got to be a better way to do this." What happened was, one night, it was like 3 a.m. in the morning or it was 2 a.m., 2 a.m. in the morning, I had class in a few hours. I was still in college, obviously. I was reading and all of sudden this guy ... I can see his face, I don't remember the eBook, I don't remember what company, I don't remember anything. I just remember hearing the concept "paid prospecting". I was like, "What? Is this real? Is this true?" Now, this is the dark ages. This is pre-ClickFunnels days or about the time they were launching actually. I was like, "This is fascinating, and you mean, you get paid regardless if somebody joins you? Fascinating. What?" I had this idea, what if I gave ridiculous value upfront, for free, for something and then something small paid, kind of like mid-tier, and then something more high ticket in the backend, and those people are the people that I go approach. Not family and friends. I can honestly say, and still say, that to this day there have been people, four years, me approaching them about MLM it hurt the relationship. I was like, "This is garbage. I'm not gonna do this. If this is what this industry is about, I don't want to do it." I know a lot of you guys are the exact same way. I was like, "What's this funnel thing?" I had been building, basically the equivalent of funnels, in WordPress prior, before ClickFunnels days. I had a whole bunch of my own clients. It was a lot of fun. We had successes. We had failures. This is the story, you know? Basically, what I realized is like, "What if I created this thing? I'll go film it." What I did is I basically funnel hacked. Again, I didn't know that was the term or whatever, but I went and I started looking at all the top MLMers who are out there. I started asking like, "What are they actually doing?" And you know what's funny is that after a couple of months of just deep diving into each of these guys, I realized that none of them were doing home meetings, none of them were doing hotel meetings, they're not going getting on the phone, none of them were going to their family and friends. They had created for themselves something unique. But what they did all have, every single one of them, had the equivalent of a funnel. They had their own website. They had the equivalent of a Webinar. It was interesting. It was so stark when I started looking at it. I was like, "This is the way to do that. Why have I been doing it the other way?" So what I did is I literally was taking some of these top guys courses... I was transcribing them. I was turning into my own. I was adding whole courses and elements to it. I went and I re-shot stuff. I put things together. It was one of the coolest things ever. It took me eight months, 'cause I was in the middle of college, I was in the army, we had our first kid. It took me a while to get it out, but when I did, nobody bought it at first. I had done a terrible job going around and sharing it with people. Honestly, what was really happening is I was graduating. There was a lot stuff happening. There just was. I was trying to become an officer. There was a whole bunch of stuff that was happening in my life and so I moved on. But some dude stumbled upon it and was like, "Oh my gosh! This is absolutely insane. Why are you not selling this more?" And I was like, "You know what? That was pretty cool." I went and I launched it and it was like massive, waterfall response. So many people just started coming out of the wood work, people I'd never heard of. I was like, "Holy crap! This is working." Pretty soon, I had a waiting list of like 12 people begging to join my MLM. I was like, "What the heck? This totally worked! Oh my gosh!" Anyway, fascinating. Well, it was my first attempt at making something that was bigger and there was a lot of things that were wrong with it. I had been redoing the entire thing and putting it all together. Basically, this is what happens, right? Just like Jon was saying. One of the problems is that people have not learned how to become attractive. I'm not saying good looking or whatever. I'm sure your all drop dead gorgeous. But you're not attractive yet. In MLM, you have the same product. You have the same service. You have the exact same scripts, the exact same websites. There's literally nothing different about you. Why would I join you over somebody else? There's no reason. There's no reason to. The one currency that you really have is you. You must be different. There's really two currencies, but that's the first one. The first currency, you must be different. You have to be sellable. You must know you. You've gotta find your voice. You've gotta know your message. That's what this new course that I've been talking about is gonna come out and talk about. Anyways, it's been a lot of fun. I've had a lot of fun putting it together. So, first of all, that's model number one. It talks about becoming attractive and how you actually attract people to you, how you create things and products that are free, that just deliver a crap ton of value because if you can do that, it will pull people to you in a really fascinating way. Right? You'll be giving before you ever ... you'll be leading with value before you ever even mention the fact that you have an MLM, right? I never even tell anyone about it ever. They have to find it through my funnel, and when they do, then I'll talk to them about it. Otherwise, it becomes this awkward thing and you have side agendas with every conversation. I hate that. I'm so against that. That's the reason I put this stuff together. Anyway. Second thing that it talks about is validating. So now if you've got people in through free stuff and you've attracted people in, the second part is a validation thing meaning I need to validate how serious this person is. If someone spends a little bit of money on marketing education for their MLM, I know they're serious. And so that's what I created. It was like a free plus shipping thing. And when someone bought it, I was like, "Hmm. This is not your standard MLMer." There's well over 10 million MLMers in America alone. Like, "Okay, this person already is separating themselves from the remainder of the people." And that's what I wanted. The third part then was now that I've pulled them in, I've qualified them, now it's all about the duplication and actually selling them. Right? That's what I use Webinars for and no one really has ever seen that before, which is awesome. Very few people have which is so freaking cool, anyway. But the Webinar goes in and auto closes and recruits and gets them signed up. It's amazing. Then after that, then it talks about some of this downline management stuff where I'll show you how to rob your downline. Meaning, there's a really good way to do this and a really bad way to do it and Jon touched on that, which is all about binaries, but, the right way to do them. Yes, the principles amazing, but there's a right way to do it just like he was talking about. You know, leadership training. I'm gonna have a lot of cool stuff. I'm gonna talk about when to rinse and when to repeat. How do you tell? It's weird to think of it like this, but it is a business and if someone's not doing their thing, might be time to rinse. If someone's run along with you and they can run with you, time to repeat. You do that through a very specific thing, and I'm not gonna give the golden nugget away, alright? There's a golden nugget to it. I'm totally gonna bait you guys. It's been ridiculous. Just the paid prospecting aspect of what I built up alone, without any ad spending, I made 50 grand last year. It was nuts. No ad spend, nothing else, it's just up, just talkable word to word, mouth to mouth. I didn't talk to anyone about it. There's very specific strategies I used and the people that are coming to me are asking to join. I don't even tell them I'm in one. Have I even told you what I'm in? No, and that's the reason why. That's why this is so powerful and why I've been so passionate about it... People are like, "Steven, MLM? Seriously?" Well, yeah actually. If you know how to work the system in a good way, if you know how to create a new opportunity, if you know how to create an offer, if you know how to do marketing, if you know how to do everything that Russell teaches, then yeah. Why the heck would you not, if you can do that? Then, the last part that it teaches you how to do, what it is shows you is I call it "pick your megaphone", "choose your megaphone", meaning, just choose one traffic source. Anyway, there's way more to it. There's a lot more that's been going on that you guys have no idea about that I totally kept from you for the last six months. It's been so sweet, all the pieces coming into play. Software pieces ... it's been great. It's been really great. I can honestly say very proudly that there's no one else on the planet that's been doing what I'm doing and it's ... Ah, it's so cool. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't. Anyway. That's what I want to talk about funnel-wise though, alright? Funnel-wise, and please understand, again, I'm not here to pitch. I'm just here to tell you what I've been doing because this is the sixth segment of this series, which is all about MLM funnels. So, what I've been doing, is I've been pumping ridiculous value into the MLM space. I know it's so good that people should be paying for it, and they know that. That's the feeling that I want them to have. Then I go through and I qualify them through something that's free and ... I'm sorry, something that's free plus shipping or whatever it is. Low ticket, 47 bucks. Honestly, I don't really think it matters that month. All your doing is your vetting out the good people. What's funny is that little vet move that I've been doing, I've talked to more owners of MLMs from that one thing than any other thing. You get the kind of fish that you put the bait out for, right? You know what I mean? Put better bait out, you get better fish. And so, I created a vetting system... Funnels are not just ways to increase our average cart value. They're also ways to vet people. That's exactly what an application style funnel is. You're trying to have them apply. You want to sift out the dirties, the people who are just never gonna do anything with you or who are just the kind of people who you help like crazy but they'll always complain or the people who just won't go take action. You know what I mean? I don't want those kinds of people and I know you don't want it either. So, first I attract through a lot of different ways, really amazing things actually. Then the second part is all about some kind of qualifier, money-wise. Paid prospecting, gotta charge. Right? Then after that, then I go close them through some more automated processes, specifically through Webinar funnels. That's what's been working for me and that's why I've been doing it. Anyway, I'm not the focus of this interview. I just wanted to be able to toss in more of what I've been doing funnel-wise to you, so that you have an idea that there is actually a really awesome way to do it without ever talking to family, every talking to friends, and if you want to, that's fine. I'm not trying to dissuade you from doing it. I'm just telling you that I am really against that and I don't do it for a lot of reasons. I specifically target the kind of individual that I want. I want someone who's a rockstar, someone who loves marketing. You know what I mean? Those are the kinds of people. Then what I do is I ... My team is very, very, as far as my own personal downline management strategies or whatever, I feel almost weird saying this to you guys, 'cause this is not the typical audience that I say this kind of stuff to, but what I do is I say, "Hey, look. I'll give you my entire marketing system if you come join." You know what I mean? Those are the things that you create yourself that make you attractive, otherwise, you're the same thing. Now, as far as a product standpoint, and fulfillment standpoint, and having to worry about customer service, MLM is fantastic because you don't have to worry about any of that. They take care of all of it... There's really ridiculous advantages to being a part of it. It truly can be passive if you set it up the right way. The problem is that most multi-level marketers, network marketers, have no idea how to market. And you're like, "What on earth is so..." Anyway, that's what I've been doing and it's been kicking butt. Anyway, it's been great. Not trying to be cocky, I'm just excited. Anyway, if you are interested though, go check out secretmlmhacks.com just to see what I'm doing. Again, not pitching you, not trying to be weird or whatever. Just so you guys can see how I've been doing it. If you love your MLM, stay in it, which is awesome. So anyway, go to secretmlmhacks.com to watch real time what it is that's been going on there in the MLM world. Alright. Hey, guys, that's been the last part of this series. I've loved doing this with you guys. I've loved going through this six part series. I have more interviews that I've already lined up. Might be the next one, might not be. But anyway, we're gonna get back into ... Usually I try and publish two times a week, but these have been an hour long, almost every single one of them. Now, if you really want to watch behind the scenes, as far as my hands, watch the magician hands, the real purpose behind these, yes it was to provide amazing value but there is something else that I did these interviews for that will help you. Anyway. Keep watching everything that's going on. I think you guys will enjoy it and please, these speakers have done amazing things, they have dropped insane value. I want you to know that the listenership has well more than doubled because of these. It's not because I know that I'm great or anything like that. I has nothing to do with that. It's because I understand the value these guys have been pumping out there... Anyway, I've got a great follow-up episode already that I'm gonna be doing. I think you guys will like the next one. I'll talk to you guys later. Hope you enjoyed it. Reach out to the speakers, tell them thank you so much. And go take some serious action, and you will enjoy successes. Alright guys, talk to you later. Bye! 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James is not only one of the most well connected individuals I've ever met, he's also got his B2B funnel totally dialed in... Steve Larsen: What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to a very special and frankly quite unique episode of Sales Funnel Radio. Speaker: Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels, and now, here's your host, Steve Larsen. Steve Larsen: All right, you guys. Hey, I'm super excited to welcome you and our special guest today to the show. This is an episode I've never quite done before, and frankly, it's an area that I personally am still learning about sales funnels and I'm really excited to have him here with us today and I think part the curtain, let the veil down, so to speak. Very, very pumped to learn from him. Guys, please help me welcome Mr. James Smiley. How you doing? James Smiley: What's going on, Steve? Steve Larsen: Living the dream, man. James Smiley: Woohoo. Steve Larsen: Living the dream. James Smiley: Thanks so much. This is going to be awesome. Steve Larsen: I'm excited that you're here. Just for everyone else, the first time I ever met James, my life is run off of an app Voxer, and pretty much my life, Russell's life, all of our lives, we live on this app of Voxer, and that's how we talk. I don't think I've ever called Russell on the phone ever. I don't know his number, you know what I mean? We all live on Voxer and I get Voxed a lot, from just lots of people. Sometimes it's about me creating new barriers just so I can have my own headspace, you know? But then also there was this guy who kept asking, he's like, "Hey, do you want" ... From these really big and really popular companies, "Will you build a funnel for these guys?" "Hey, what if you built a funnel for these guys?" They were these huge companies, massive, massive, some of them billion dollar companies, and I was like, "Who is this guy? How is he" ... Number one, "Who is this?" Number two, "That would be cool, but how are you getting these leads? How do you find? That's insane." We have a lot of our own certification partners, ClickFunnels. I have my own clients I've built for, but man, the people that you were talking about, I was like, I mean, "This is insane." Anyway, I don't know if I'm allowed to say any of the names, so that's the reason I'm not, but man, I just got to ask, how do you get into something like B2B funnel building? James Smiley: Yeah, no, thanks, Steve. Super excited to be here hanging out with you guys, and I'll just start by saying massive, massive ClickFunnels fan. Being following you guys since before ClickFunnels. I was actually working at- Steve Larsen: Oh, really? James Smiley: Yeah. I was following Russell from some research that we were doing at a big company that I was consulting with, and we were trying to figure out how big was this internet marketing thing going to be and content ... It was really content and where was content going. It was really cool. It's just been awesome to see everything that's happened and been a massive consumer of everything that you guys do, so thanks for everything you guys are doing. I guess to directly share how can somebody go from being an internet marketer or running an agency, or whatever they do now into getting B2B clients, I think one of the things I try to share with people is you've got to get face to face with these kind of people... I think your chances go up exponentially if you can get face to face with them. One of the things that I've been doing and having a lot of success in the past couple years is running a webinar, mini webinar type of system where you could be running a lead or you could be running a lead ad or a Facebook ad or something, and running that into a small auto-webinar kind of scenario. Believe it or not, even removing the login aspect, we've seen a lot of success. We've gotten a tremendous amount of appointments by sending a LinkedIn ad or a YouTube ad directly to a website, to a ClickFunnels page, where it's auto playing myself or one of our sales reps or whatnot, and then from there, they can just click to book, to book a meeting. Steve Larsen: And that's the main goal? You don't do anything else besides that's just the main goal, the interaction from? James Smiley: Yeah. Something that I've used for a long time, I actually learned this I want to say it was like in 2004 or 5, at a Chet Holmes event. Chet Holmes, Tony Robbins event. I think it was called Ultimate Business Mastery a long time ago. Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: But I learned about the ideal thing to do is to try to broaden and generalize more your message and really hit on something that's new, cutting edge, innovative. Chet taught us year ago to do things like an executive report or an executive summary, and nowadays with technology, it's pretty easy to come up with something innovative. You can look up online really innovative videos and blogs, and what are the trends in such and such technology. And then essentially what we're doing is we're saying, we're running an ad saying, "Mr. or Mrs. executive. Are you prepared for the 2020 blah blah blah revolution?" Or, "Are you prepared for this and this? Join a three minute webinar," whatever you want to call it, "And let me explain it to you." The person there explaining it is my sales rep. Steve Larsen: Interesting. James Smiley: Yeah, and then at the end he or she is saying, "Well, I'd love to follow-up with you. I'd love to give you this $600,000 of research that we've done" or whatever that number is, "Book an appointment right now and I can give you this guide, I can hand you this guide," or whatever. We would always try to get face to face with them if we can. Steve Larsen: So do you run these local just to where you are mostly? Or I mean, you're getting on a plane? You're flying out to them a lot? James Smiley: Yeah. I think it really depends on what kind of business you're running. When I worked for much larger companies, our territory was across the nation, but in more of an agency model I've helped some internet marketers in the space, it's easy to set up a local roadshow or those kind of things through your town or through your city, where you can go and present some information. Really hot things I would think would be for your guys' audience maybe like where is Facebook going to take business in the next three years? And, are the companies in your area prepared for that? You can run a local ad saying, "Hey, I'm booking nine meetings" or, "Six meetings and this is a local tour that we're doing and it's a $3000 event and I'll do it for free, and I'll come to your office, but here's the deal. Number one, the owner has to be there, and then number two, you have to give me X amount of time," or something like that. You put some stipulations on it, but if you can get in front of them, your chances are going to go tremendously. Utilizing the web system and the web tools and the web automation that you guys have set up, and I really like Russell's two step follow-up process that you guys use. I believe for like high ticket sales and stuff. We use a very similar approach. I would say a lot of the times it's one person versus two, but the psychology's actually exactly the same as a two step, so that might help people when they get on the phone with somebody, knowing what to do and where to take it next, but yeah. Steve Larsen: That's amazing. That's really cool. I mean, we're always ... Go ahead. James Smiley: I've done this with as big as companies that are in the government all the way down to when I ... I think I was one of Dan Henry's first 50 or 60 students. Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: When I buy even a course like that, I'll just go implement it right away. I want to know, I want to know everything in the first 10 days or so, so I went out and booked a ton of small appointments and went out there and did it. The same process works whether you're going after a chiropractor or whether you're going after a Fortune 2000 or somebody in the government. Steve Larsen: That's amazing. Because this kind of approach, I mean, the core of what we usually teach is usually, "Hey, let's do a free plus shipping offer. Here's this little $7 thing." That's not really the same approach you're going to use when you go to B2B, but the same principles certainly apply of sales. This is cool... I've never seen this before, that's awesome. I want to ask more about you personally, right after this too, but you're saying funnel wise ... Go ahead. James Smiley: You're right. Like, the psychology is the same, which is when I read the DotCom Secrets book, I was like, "This is right on." Even in my industry, I was like, "I don't know if you guys fully understand like how big it is in my industry." I mean, it's huge. Steve Larsen: It's massive, dude. I read it when I was laying out, holding my M16 out there and I was reading this thing and I was like, "This is changing everything" and all these startups were like, "Shut up Larsen." I was like, "No, I don't think you get it. This book's amazing." Sorry. Just a little testimonial there. James Smiley: And I would say the comprehensiveness of that, I mean it's just scripted out for you. It's the most complete book I've ever seen on this kind of stuff. The other thing I was going to inject, too, Steve, is a lot of people say, "Okay, I can get that meeting. What do I sell them? What do companies want? What are the sweet spots?" I'll share some of the things that we're doing and seen a lot of success with, so we're seeing a lot of success with companies that are five million to about 15 million. Steve Larsen: That's the sweet spot for you, right? With this funnel. James Smiley: It's a sweet spot that it's almost downmarket from where I usually play. I usually play in the 10 to 100 million dollar client range, but I've found the ease of getting into clients that are between five and 15 million is unbelievable. If you look at how many businesses in the last three to five years have gotten into that four, five, six, seven million dollar range, it's astronomical. The small and medium sized business has exploded and so most of these owners have gotten there because of some innovation, some relationship they built, some partnerships, some new technology or new industry that came out, and they almost, when you get with them, they almost don't fully understand how they got there. But they're just happy they did, right? Which anybody would be, and so- Steve Larsen: So like the people that have like, they've figured out enough stuff to get that far but they're ... That's kind of an interesting filter, though, as far as cool clients to have. That's interesting. James Smiley: Yeah. The beauty of these people, these companies, is number one they have money. Number two, they reach a plateau where their main goal of the executive staff, the CFO, these people, is they're just trying to maintain revenue and herd the cats. Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: They don't want revenue drop off, right? I mean, it's a generalization, but I can tell you through Gartner and Forrester and all these market research firms that I've been fortunate enough to see what the data is, these companies that are in this small and medium sized world, they have no real focus on sales anymore because they're just trying to maintain the revenue that they just ramped up in the last one to five years. Steve Larsen: Interesting. James Smiley: So you come in, right? Or any of your followers who have an agency or whatever, and the great questions to ask them is, "How does your pipeline look? How does your sales funnel look? What's your cost per acquisition? What's your cost per lead?" It's astonishing. I would say over 9 out of 10, almost 95% of the time they will not know how to answer that. Steve Larsen: Wow. James Smiley: You talk to a 10 million dollar company, they don't know what their cost to acquire a customer is, what their cost per lead is. Steve Larsen: Wow. Truly is an accident then, which makes you the hero. That's awesome. James Smiley: Yeah, so you come in with that angle and then it's funny, like the main thing we lead with is funnels, right? It's the main thing we lead in. We say, "Are you getting leads online? Are you using online automation? Are you using social media?" 9 out of 10 times, maybe more than that, they're going to say, "No, not really but we've heard about it" or, "We're thinking it." Steve Larsen: "We posted on Facebook once. We have a page we don't do anything with." James Smiley: Yeah, like one of my clients is a big company in California. They're a top tech company, and they were telling me that when I asked them these questions they said, "Well, we have a marketing agency that did our website and then a year ago they said, 'Hey, do you want us to run Facebook ads?'" This is very typical, right? Marketing company- Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: ... they know branding, they don't really know leads, sales, or want to be responsible or on the hook for sales, but they know branding, they know the four Ps of marketing, all that stuff, right? Steve Larsen: Yeah. James Smiley: They watch an Etsy video or YouTube, or took a class, and now they're Facebook ad experts. Here I come into a client, they're spending 5 to $6000 a month on Facebook ads, and all the agency is doing is boosting their posts. Steve Larsen: Like, with no other strategy. James Smiley: I could not believe that. I was like, "You're paying this company thousands of dollars, plus you're earning five grand of your own money, and all they're doing is boosting your post? That's not even an ad. That's not like a real ad." Steve Larsen: No. I could do that, and I don't even know Facebook very well. That's easy. James Smiley: Yeah. They had done this full fledge for about three months. Steve Larsen: Wow. James Smiley: They ramped into it and then they said, "We're all in, five grand a month." I said, "How many sales have you ever made in those three months?" They said, "Zero." I said, "So you've spent over $15,000 in ads and you don't have one trackable sale?" He said, "Yeah." He said, "Can you help us with that?" It's like, once you get in the door, you'd be surprised how many of these big companies are disorganized in that area and they're looking for somebody to help them. Steve Larsen: That's so cool. That's so cool. I mean, right before this we were chatting, and you were talking about, "Hey." I mean, there's this process you go through while you're with them. Do you mind taking us through that, like the outline you have in your head? James Smiley: Yeah. One of the things that I'll train people on is when you're in a meeting, when you get face to face with somebody, there's really three things that you need to know before you close, okay? Here's one thing about closing is if a sale is moving too fast and it's a big sale, something is drastically wrong, okay? Steve Larsen: Which is such the opposite thing you want to know and here. James Smiley: It's almost like the opposite of true internet marketing, where it's like you want speed, you want traction, right? With these big companies, very few times does one person make the decision. Nobody really wants to be on the hook if there's a downside, but everybody wants to wave the flag if there's an upside. When you're coming in, you have to understand that there's going to be ... B2B is more of a chess match and you have to understand how the chess match is played and why people want you in there. Believe it or not, the bigger the company, it's not always about revenue and it's not always about sales... It's usually about the bigger the company, and I'm just saying this so people understand, that most of the time the motivation, the influential factor is going to be somebody wants a promotion, somebody wants to look good, something like that. Steve Larsen: Just to follow-up with that real quick, what's your strategy to make sure you're actually pitching the decision maker, you know what I mean? Because otherwise, I could see you literally pitching everybody, you know what I mean? James Smiley: Yeah. One of the things that I do when we're warming up leads and booking meetings is so number one, we're trying to get a face to face meeting. Number two, if we're going to do an onsite seminar or something like that, we require the business, the decision maker to be there, or we'll say, "Or we'll charge you." Steve Larsen: Interesting. James Smiley: The decision maker has to be there or we'll send you an invoice, and they have to stay the whole time. If you don't set those parameters, 80% of the time you're going to get some marketing manager who's just basically stealing your ideas and going to go tell the boss that now they're smarter. You've got to get the decision maker there when you're presenting and being the guru. Steve Larsen: And you're presenting in their office, with them, as like a roadshow, part of your funnel basically? James Smiley: Yeah, that's been a big thing that we've done the past five, six, seven years. I've done it at a number of different companies, big companies, small startups, all those kind of things, and for my own agency, and it's worked really well. If you can't get into meetings, the next best thing, something that and I'll just throw this out there for your audience as well, just like a backend hack that we're using, is something that works really, really well is to set up your own Meetup.com or network with somebody who runs a Meetup.com. Say, "Hey, I'm an XYZ expert." "I'm a Facebook ad expert," "I'm an online automation expert," and say, "I do this seminar and we've done it, the value of it is thousands of dollars, but I'll do it for your people for free if you can get 10 people or 20 people in the room." Then, so you can use Facebook, you can use all the little event invites apps to get people there. You can use Meetup.com. For a while, we ran our own Meetup.com here when we we're just getting established in Dallas. Here's the thing about B2B that's different, is you only need like one or two or three really good people in the room to make a six figure income. Steve Larsen: Yeah. That's ... Wow, yeah. James Smiley: Yeah. One of the most profitable meetings in the past, or really this year that I did, was with one person. This person was a big business owner, big time networker, multimillionaire, and it was just to him, and I talked to him and wrote all over his whiteboard for an hour and a half, and then he referred me to my biggest client this year, which I mean, getting a five and six figure deal is pretty common in the B2B space. Steve Larsen: Sure, which is just crazy for so many people who are just starting this game. Like, that blows their mind. "One deal, six figures, what?" But that's the kind of stuff that you kept dropping on my Voxer and I was like, "Who is this guy?" James Smiley: Yeah. Really, some of the people that I've been helping is the ideal scenario for somebody like me, is to go there, win that relationship, keep up the corporate relations, and broker out the services on the backend to people. I've got a network of trusted people. If I need email copy, if I need funnels, if I need Facebook ads, you know what I mean?... That's an ideal scenario for somebody like me. I would say when you start out, try to do as much as you can so you learn the process inside and out, but it's amazing how much money you can make versus how much time you put in. I always have people say, they're like, "James, you have four kids, married for 13 years, great marriage, you seem like you" ... I used to be a pro fisherman, pro bass fisherman, so I fish a lot, I have all these fishing pictures, I run an info product for fishing. Steve Larsen: Wow. James Smiley: They're like, "How do you do all this stuff? You have this huge business, and you're speaking at these conferences and stuff." I'm like, it's the B2B space that I play in where I only need less than a handful of clients at a time, and they're going to more than take care of me. I would say something that's really important and I don't want to be one of those people to paint a false reality here. You've got to know how to fire your own client when you're in this game. Steve Larsen: Do you do it a lot? James Smiley: I would say I turn down about 50% of the people who say they want to work with me. Steve Larsen: That makes me feel better because I fire a lot of people. Fire your own customer, yeah, okay. James Smiley: Yeah, it might even be more. Whereas, if I feel like I'm going to get into something and as soon as something goes wrong they're going to blame me, like it could be anything, something in marketing, revenue, CFO doesn't ... Whatever. I'm out of there, you know? Steve Larsen: Totally, yeah. There was a guy, like just recently, and he ran up to me and he's like, "Hey." He's offering me 50-100 grand for me to build a funnel and I was like, "Hey, that's really cool" and it was like a drop in the hat, really easy one that I knew it'd like double sales and all this stuff, but it was simply because ... I said no to him just because I didn't think we'd get along. That sounds ludicrous to people but I don't want to get into this relationship with someone where it's like just hell the whole way, you know? James Smiley: Yeah. Steve Larsen: It's like, "Oh." Yeah, anyway. James Smiley: Yeah. I mean- Steve Larsen: The key is firing more than hiring almost, you know? Just be really picky with those high end ones. That's the biggest thing, [inaudible 00:23:48]. James Smiley: Yeah. Something to piggyback off that, Steve, is you want to make sure you're set up as a corporate entity, a minimum of an LLC. Because you're dealing with big clients and they have lawyers, so- Steve Larsen: Got you. James Smiley: I mean, I've been able to navigate the waters and stay out of any of that, but this is not like working with a three-man show down at the local strip mall area, you know what I mean? Steve Larsen: Sure, yeah. James Smiley: If something goes wrong, the CFO's not going to take the heat. He's going to shift it to somebody else, and so you just need to be prepared for that. Make sure that you don't get into those type of relationships on the frontend, that's the best thing you can do to protect yourself. Steve Larsen: Right, that's interesting. I mean, when you first got started doing this, I'm sure you had your own legal documents and all this stuff. I mean, did you spend a lot ... Probably more time obviously than the average person, just setting up the legal aspects of it? James Smiley: Yeah. I hired a coach to make sure I did everything right. Steve Larsen: Oh, cool. James Smiley: I'm big into coaching, have always been, and so yeah, I hired somebody just to make sure that I had all that buttoned up. It's not as complicated as I thought, but I'd rather be safe than sorry on that end. Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: A lot of these companies, they're legacy business models and legacy leadership styles. They're not going to be all about handshake deals a lot, so you're going to need decent contracts and things like that. Out clauses. You don't ever want to get stuck to where you can't get out. You always want there to be a way for you to step out without any repercussion. That's a big thing, yeah. Steve Larsen: You've gone through and you ... I mean, you showed me how you got the leads. Totally genius funnel, and Meetup.com, ah, I wonder why I've never thought of that before. Like, people go to those. James Smiley: crosstalk... Steve Larsen: Like, that's such a, that's perfect for that industry. Anyway. James Smiley: Yeah. We've ran them, like digital marketing ones, like 5-10 people would show up the first meeting. We ran technology ones, you'll get a ton of people. Meetup.com, there's people there. Once you schedule that, you can rally all your social media channels and get more people there, but yeah, I mean we've ... Let me give people a hack on how where to have this meeting, right? You don't want to have it home or something, and you may not have a place of business. The best places I've found is number one, a really nice local library. Steve Larsen: Really? James Smiley: Yeah. Like, I'm here in Frisco, Texas, just a local library. There's a great meeting space, projectors, all that stuff, and it's free. As long as you're a card carrying member of the library. Steve Larsen: Which takes like five seconds. James Smiley: That's right. Steve Larsen: Yeah... James Smiley: It's funny, this lady actually asked me, "Are you a card carrying member?" I'm like, "Um, that sounds like a little bit more than" ... A card carrying member of the library. Steve Larsen: "Where's the bouncer?" James Smiley: The other really cool place is the Microsoft stores, if you have a Microsoft store in your town or city. They usually have a business center that's attached to it, and you can go in there, and as long as you're not ... I hate to say this, but as long as you're not bringing an Apple computer, and a Windows computer, there are hookups and everything, and just- Steve Larsen: Wow. James Smiley: ... A really cool free innovative space. You just call down there and say, "Hey, I want to book a business meeting." They love it because a bunch of business executives are going to come and be around their technology, so they'll let you come in for free. That's two easy places to have it. The third one is I'll ask somebody, a company, if they want to sponsor the location. That actually works really well, because you'll usually have somebody who wants to show off or maybe wants to create opportunity for themselves, so they'll host it in their own building. Steve Larsen: Wow. James Smiley: That's the third way we've done it and it works out really well. Steve Larsen: Do you end up selling a lot of times the sponsor on your services? I can imagine that they'd get interested, too. That's [crosstalk 00:28:07]. James Smiley: We will sell everybody in the meeting. We'll sell to everybody, yeah. Steve Larsen: Do you mind going into how you run the meeting itself? Like, what do you do in there? "Hey guys, want to build a funnel?" James Smiley: Yeah. Surprisingly when I first downloaded Webinar Secrets and all these online methodologies, it's actually very similar. Steve Larsen: I thought so. I was wondering if it was ... Okay, yeah. Nevermind, go on. James Smiley: Yeah. That's why the more that I've unraveled all the things that you guys are putting out, number one I've personally spent over $10,000 on your guys' stuff. I mean, Steal Your Funnel, Let The Show, everything. Your guys' stuff has been rock solid and I actually consume it, right? Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: As I've been consuming it, I'm like, "This is so unbelievably productive in my area." Like, you could actually take the content of some of these things and just say, "Hey, B2B, fill your funnel. B2B, sales presentations." It would open up the doors tremendously. Steve Larsen: That's all I did in that first info product, actually. I was in college, I read DotCom Secrets, I was obsessed with it, and I held a three hour meeting in a stranger's home with tons of people and I recorded it. It was the same content. They were like, "Brilliant." James Smiley: Yeah. It's amazing, like one of the biggest things that people are going to need when they're starting out is they're going to need credibility. Usually people will give you a shot, you can set up one of these meetings in a couple weeks, and actually have it. Like, in 10 days from now you can have your first meeting and have people there. But you're going to want to make sure you record it, the audio. You can go onto Amazon.com, there's a $20 Bouyer microphone that has a 20 foot extension. You can lapel it up onto yourself, so you can record what you're doing. Number two, you want to get somebody to take some photos so you have photos. All those kind of things help you build credibility, so as you continue to move forward, you can use those photos, use the recording, all those things as promotional items and those kind of things. Steve Larsen: Interesting. James Smiley: Yeah, and then once you get into the meeting, the general structure is in the very beginning I will absolutely try to wow with something big. Like, the biggest headline I can come up with, and so in my career, I was able to grow two zero to 20 million dollar businesses, new lines of business, like from nothing to over 20 million. Steve Larsen: Oh, my gosh. James Smiley: And I did two of those before I was 35. Steve Larsen: Holy crap. James Smiley: Yeah, so that's usually the line I'll start out with. I'll say, "I'm going to tell you the backend secrets of how I grew two zero to 20 million dollar businesses for two different companies, and how I did it before I was 35, and maybe some of that will be helpful for you guys. Would you guys be onboard if I shared that with you?" Steve Larsen: what... James Smiley: Yeah, exactly. Steve Larsen: Cool. James Smiley: That shocks them, and then you go into like the three step process you use is awesome. Then, on the backend, the biggest thing you want to do is push them to one on one meeting. Like, you'll get people just the hot leads are going to walk right up to you, but try to push everybody to a meeting. If you can get 10 people or let's say you only get five people in the room, if you can book half of those people and then close one of them, that could be easily a five figure deal, easily a five figure deal. Steve Larsen: Interesting. James Smiley: So, yeah, I mean and that's just with five, you know? Steve Larsen: Right. James Smiley: But it's surprising. When you think of psychology of what we're doing, the more I read the stuff you guys put out, I'm like, "Wow, this just crystallizes what we've been working on." Like, it streamlined everything we've been doing. Steve Larsen: That's cool. James Smiley: Yeah, it's been really cool. Steve Larsen: You just barely touched on, so you go through, use some of the Perfect Webinar script which we ... Russell's always mentioned he regrets that he called it that because it's used way more places than just a webinar. Then, you're trying to push to a one on one with them which is awesome, booking and closing them. The one part that you kind of mentioned before the call, so I'm like biting at the bit to try ... I want to hear about also, because every single one that you ever talked about with me was like these huge deals with these very well known companies. I'm just not sure if I'm allowed to say the names so I'm not, but like, "Whoa, that's crazy." How do you structure a five and six figure kind of deal? James Smiley: Yeah, good question. I'll just reveal what we do and hopefully that helps your audience. The three things that mentally in my head, when I get to a one on one meeting, whether that's a phone call, but ideally it's face to face, is I'm looking for is there a need? Like, do they really have a need for my results? I'm pushing results, what I've done, and here's a simple hack I've taught new sales reps. I mean, I had a sales rep come in who was a used car salesman, and at AT&T he ended up being one of the top salesmen in the entire country among 10,000 sales reps and he was a used car salesman. I've taught them this strategy of if you don't have a true result, just Google a result in that industry for that type of service or technology. There's stories out there, there's blogs, there's videos, and you want to be able to share some type of result. Like, "People who used this, this is the type of result they're getting." Like if you can't honestly say, "My clients are doing this," or, "Your competitor who works with me is doing this," then at least share something in the industry. It will help you move the conversation forward. You need them to anchor on a result, and I will keep going back to, "So is that the kind of result that you guys want in your business?" Or, somehow I might say, "What would it do for you guys? I mean, I know you guys have a lot going on, but what it would do if you were able to get that kind of result? Do you actually think you could handle that amount of leads or would I absolutely swamp you?" Once I can get them to anchor on a result, I'm trying to see like is there really a need with that, right? Once I've established that, and a lot of times if I don't understand it, I will just ask them. I'll say, "Do you actually need this or do you just think it's cool? Like, do you need that result? Will it actually help your business?" Stakeholder, board members, VC angel investors, will those guys care or how big is this, right? Number one is need. Number two ... Go ahead. Steve Larsen: Yeah, I just wanted to touch on that. Because that's actually a very stark difference between what we do and sounds like B2B funnels. We always tell people what they want. If we try and sell people what they need, most of the time you don't make a lot of money with B2C, you know? In that category. That's interesting. You specifically go for the ... That makes sense, too. These big companies, they've got a bunch of cash, they're trying to figure out how to plug the holes in. That's probably their mindset anyway, that's fascinating. That's a big difference. James Smiley: Yeah no, that's a very good point. I would say one of the things that I've seen a contrast between what the internet marketing world as I understood it and consumed it to be, and B2B, is in B2B there's not as much emotional decisions. People who make emotional decisions do not stay in executive leadership very long. It's like the bigger a company gets, the less agile they get, right? Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: I ran innovation at AT&T, I did some stuff with Facebook. When you deal with these bigger companies they'll talk about ... I ran an innovation center, but I would always say, "What are we innovating?" You know? Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: Because when you're a big company, you can't make as many mistakes because when you make a mistake, that could tank your stock price three bucks, which is billions of dollars. Steve Larsen: Interesting. They're all walking on eggshells all the time, that's interesting. James Smiley: Yeah, so people want sign off, approvals, and all those kind of things, and so it's important to have someone inside the business, ideally the key decision maker, the owner, who's your champion. Very key to have a champion, someone who's willing to champion it internally, in the business, but I would not try to push to one call closes and those kind of things as much, because a lot of times there are influential factors. Like, if a CEO makes a decision and he spends money on you but then this other part of the business is going under, somebody, like the CFO, the board, whatever, could say, "Well, why did you shift money there versus over on this side?" There's a lot of factors that take place, and so, although I am absolutely pushing them to make an emotional decision, so I'm actually trying to push on that want feeling more, but I'm presenting it more as a need is maybe the way I would say that. Steve Larsen: Oh, that's clever. I love that. James Smiley: Number one need, the next thing I'll go to in the meeting is I will ask them directly, "Perfect. I mean, that's cool. I know we can do it. You've got the right person" type of thing, and then I'll say, "So what's your timeline to get this done? When would it be good for you to get this done? When do you want it done?" Once again, if a sale is moving too fast and they're just skipping over this stuff, something's going to fall on the backend, and you're not going to close the sale. You need to establish a need and get common agreement there. Then, you need to establish and get common agreement on a timeline. They may say, "I need all these results in two weeks." You're running LinkedIn or Facebook ads or whatever and you go, "That ain't happening." So, you need to understand the timeline, and that's going to set expectations, right? If you can agreement there, the next question I'll ask is the most important, which is about the money. I'll say, "So, you want these results, we've already talked about how you think you can generate $8000 a month more or $8000 a week more," whatever. Steve Larsen: Wow. James Smiley: "What's your budget to be able to" ... "What are you willing to invest to be able to do that?" I'll tell you, like 90% of the time, somebody's not going to come back and say, "I have $200,000 free cash flow." But you will find out with that question if they don't have a budget. I mean, most of the time, you're going to find out if they don't and that's key, right? Like, if somebody comes back to me and says, "I can probably carve out like 6 to $8000 this year for you," that's not my client, you know? Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: Although it could be a great relationship for a lot of people, it's not my client. Steve Larsen: If they don't have a budget, do you walk then? James Smiley: Yes. Steve Larsen: That's awesome. James Smiley: Yep. I've got a playbook that I'll usually leave with them that during the meeting, I'm kind of like writing a few notes, a few ideas. I'm wowing them with the type of results and if they start asking you, they might start asking you details about, "Well, why are you an expert at this?" I might go into different ways to create audiences and as I'm telling them hacks and things like that, I'll be writing those down. Then, I end up leaving that behind with them, so it's something nice that we leave behind. But typically, the only three things that I need to know is is there a need? Is there a timeline? Is there a budget? That goes for whether I'm working with somebody in the government, so whether I'm working with a Fortune 10 or a new startup or an individual. Steve Larsen: That's amazing. That's amazing. Holy crap. That's really cool. It's neat to see how you pulling off on their ... I mean, I always tell people, "The customer's not always right, the customer's not always right." Whoever said that phrase was just totally wrong and not in business, or read about it in a book or something. It's call to see you sifting and sorting out people like that. James Smiley: Yeah, and there for time, I know we're going to be cutting close here, do you want me to share how to structure the price tag? Steve Larsen: That would be awesome, actually. That's a big question I've got for it, as well, yeah. James Smiley: Yeah, so I've learned this over the years. When I was in my 20s, I would always screw this up. When I got in my late 20s, early 30s, I just started figuring out, now I feel like I've really crystallized this, so what you want to do, especially if you're an individual consultant or running a small agency, is number one, you're going to probably laugh at how similar this is to what you guys do. It's actually the same exact psychology, just a little bit different on how you present it. But the first thing I do is I'll say ... So, if I were working at such and such a company ... So, a live example would be when I was at AT&T, I was in what's called the "high-po" program, the high potential executives program, so I was on a fast track to be an executive in the company. Essentially, around October of this year, I left a couple of years ago, but around October this year there was a high likelihood I would be at a VP or some type of executive or something like that, as long as I was progressing, right? Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: So what I tell them is, that kind of a job ... So I left that and I say, "Now, that's a 300 to $500,000 a year job." That's kind of where I start, you know? It's really important that when you present that figure of what your true full value is, it's important that they believe it, okay? When I was younger, I used to just zoom by it and I was kind of embarrassed. Like, if you can't anchor off of that, because that actually becomes your high price tag, where then you start doing a price drop, right? Similar to what all these guys do, what you guys teach. You want to anchor off of what's your absolute highest value, and be honest. If you're a $80,000 person, say you're 80. If you're a 100, say you're a 100. If you're 50, say you're 50, but so you anchor off that and then so in their mind they're going, "I want that result, but crap, I can't afford that." Then, the next thing you bridge to is you say, "So not only am I at least a 3 to $500,000 employee, but you look at some of my competitors who offer this service," and trust me, there's always going to be someone who's more pricier than you, than me, right? So you say, "Some of competitors and you may know these guys, this guy or this guy, they charge 400 to $600,000 for this service. In fact, just to have this meeting could be $2000." Now, they're going, "Dude, this was a great meeting but I don't have that kind of meeting," but they have to believe that you're worth it or that somebody would actually pay you for that, okay? If they don't believe- Steve Larsen: How are you doing that? Yeah, how are you anchoring that? James Smiley: You set it up in the very beginning. From when you come in, when somebody says ... I was meeting with, a sales meeting with Siemens' CO not that long ago and I don't know the guy. A partner of mine brought me in and he sits me in, I'm the youngest guy in the room and he looks me dead in the eye, shakes my hand with a big old smile, he says, "James, tell me something about yourself." Just right away, no introduction, "Tell me about" ... That's very common, right? Steve Larsen: Sure. James Smiley: The last thing you want to do is go through your resume. They're not actually asking you, "Tell me your resume." The thing you want to say is what are your results. What are the things you've done that are huge, the big headlines. That's where, instead of saying, "Well, when I first got into technology," you're losing the sale already. The first thing you want to say, "Well, what's really cool is I sold this deal and had this partnership and I've been able to help these logos, and I've been in this publication, or I have a book." You want to almost give your sales pitch, like your value proposition to the world, you know? Like what are your big headlines? In the very beginning they're going, "Wow, this person's pretty high level. This person is much more high level than our marketing managers." Steve Larsen: That's interesting. You're not necessarily telling the origin story, but you're telling ... You're in the testimonial phase of what you've done. Okay. I'm just putting it in my head where you're going, okay. James Smiley: Yes. The only thing I teach people to talk about, I've told hundreds of sales reps this, the only thing you want to share is your results. You want to share what you've done, who've you've helped, what their ROI was. Don't talk about, "I've been in the industry for 22 years." No one cares about that stuff because most people have been in the industry for XX amount of years. Steve Larsen: Sure, especially if the CEO, if they're like, "Yeah, I've been here forever." James Smiley: Yeah, yeah. That's not impressive and I would say the same thing in terms of how you fill out your LinkedIn. If you're not established in the industry, don't make your LinkedIn a resume. Make your LinkedIn from top to bottom, all about results. You'll see a significant difference in the type of people that want to engage with you, and so yeah, do you want me to come back to the price tag thing? Steve Larsen: Oh heck yeah, yeah. This is awesome. I'm just trying to keep you going. I don't want to turn it off. This is awesome. James Smiley: Yeah, this is fun. I'm going to anchor on a super high price tag that I'm worth as a full time employee, working at a corporation, working 40 to 60 hours a week, whatever that is, and then I'll bridge it to, "Okay, this is what my competitors are worth and this is what they charge you, and hey, you might even talk to one of these guys, right?" A lot of times they're like, "Yeah, I've heard about them and man, this is way too pricey." Then, I'll start to back it into typically, I would charge $150,000 for something like this. When I present that, I'm saying, I start off with, "In order for me to drive 1.2 million dollars of new sales revenue" or whatever that is, right? I actually try not to lean as much on revenue. I'll lean more towards a different metric. I'll try to anchor on a different metric like, "In order for me to double your leads, in order for me to 4X your leads, or in order for me to take your cost per lead to this number," right? I'll try to stay off of the revenue number now. I learned that when I was really young. I used to just talk about revenue, but it's better to talk about something slightly different, something that's a little bit more easily measurable for something that I can deliver. Then so I'll say, "In order for me to do this, you think about the impact and what that could do to your revenue, how it could double, triple your revenue, how it could make you" ... I won't say this directly but essentially I'll hit on something like, "How it could make you look better to your boss, to your board, how much more money you can get from your VCs," right? I'll hit on that. Then, I'll say, "In order for me to do that, it's a deal at $150,000." Now, I've established like, "Okay, there's a price tag," and now they're like, "Oh crap." The very next thing I step into, and you have to snap to this quick is, "The only thing we need to know together here is do you want this result? I f you want that, I can always find a way to help you pay for it." Once you say that line, now they're like, "Oh cool. Awesome." They're with you, right? Now they're like, "Okay, help me pay for this." That's where you can break it into different structures, where you can do ... If I can, I'll try to do half up front and then take the rest and divide it over six months or 10 months or whatever you want to do. Make sure you have a good contract there, so if they cancel, there's a ... We try to do a 60 day out, so if they want to cancel today, they still have to pay two more months, so we'll include a lot of those clauses in there. They can't just drop us on a dime. We tell them, "Look, you're a big company." Every partnership will end at some point, every one. You're never linked at the hip with a company forever, so the contracts are set up to help you make sure that when those departures happen that everyone's on the same page. What I'll say is, "You don't want me just to leave and all your ads are running and all this stuff, right? The clause is something that makes it a smooth transition for both of us, to make sure that you're covered, that you guys have exposure, those kind of things, added risk, just because maybe I find a better client." I wouldn't say it like that, but you know, whatever... Yeah, and then a lot of people will ask you in the contracting process about, they'll say, "Well, I don't know if I want a commitment. I want it month to month. Do you do month to month?" I will say this, I'll say, "I don't and here's why. One is if there's no commitment, I can drop you like a dime because there's a lot of you. There's only one of me, but there's a lot of you, so you have to- Steve Larsen: Great line. James Smiley: Yeah. So, I may not say that directly, but I'm just trying to be quick here. I'm going to turn the table there and say, "Do you just want me to leave?" That's where they're usually like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. We want some type of commitment. We don't want you to just run off to our competitors," right? Steve Larsen: Yeah. James Smiley: So yeah, that's something I'll do in the contracting process as well, is try to make sure that I'm not just going to get left out in the cold, protecting myself, protecting my revenues so it's more predictable. Most companies are not just going to drop it all upfront unless they're more government related, those kind of things, or if you're backing up on their fiscal year they might just drop some cash like that. But yeah, I mean, most of the time they're going to want some type of structure and so the best is to do half upfront if you can. It's very typical in contracts to see that. The next best would be make them pay some balloon payment upfront, and say, "Guys, you guys know, to set this up, it's a thousand times harder to set it up than to maintain it three months later, so I need to make sure I'm not running on a negative." I always say things, when it comes down to cost, the big thing you want to inject is, "As you can imagine, I've got a million people. I can go down to all your competitors, they would all want to work with me on this. I just need to make sure that I'm paid so that this keeps my attention, so my attention's on it." That's actually true. Steve Larsen: It is, 100%, yeah. James Smiley: It's so true, yeah. Like, when you're getting paid $500 or $1000 a month, you're like, "$1000, I'm trying to get to 12,000," it's so small, right? Steve Larsen: Yeah, it is small. James Smiley: But if somebody's paying you 5000 or 12,000, it's a much bigger deal, right? That's one thing that I'll try to inject, is you're paying to make sure that my attention stays on it. I'll inject that. Another thing, if I'm having problems closing or adjusting price is I will bring up that what you're really getting here, I'll talk about corporate positions, "Is you're getting a marketing manager, you're getting online strategic digital marketing VP, and you're getting a salesperson. Think about if you were to hire those people. Like, just the hiring process would cost you five figures or more, multi five figures, just to hire them," you know? Steve Larsen: Sure, sure. James Smiley: Then you're like, "Then you've got to maintain them, then you've got all the different things that come in with employees." Then I'll even throw it out. I'll say, "Look, if you want me to find you those three people, I know three really good ones. I can help you bring them on." They're looking at that price tag going, "Forget that." Those are some of the things that I do to try to work on price justification but if you can get down to selling them on the result and then you've set them at ease and say, "Look, my only job now is to help you. Let's work together to figure out how to pay for it, right?" They're like, "Yeah, let's have that discussion." Steve Larsen: That is so cool, because then you're not standing in there being the bad guy. Instead of standing forward face to face with them, now you're standing side by side. Oh, my gosh, that's awesome. That's cool. James Smiley: Yeah. It works. Steve Larsen: I mean obviously you're selling throughout. The sale's never going to end, even after you've made the end, the sale continues obviously, but when do you know that you have them? James Smiley: I know I have them when ... That's a great question. To me, I've learned it's more of a gut feel over time. I just get this gut feel like, "This one's going to work" but I think the reality of that is when I've got the decision maker, I've got agreement on time, on need, time, and budget, and the person is like anchoring with me on all the big anchors. The result, my value, my ultimate value. Like, when they're anchoring on those two things and they're sold on it, they're like ... I'm trying to close a $150,000 deal right now, and I've had the CEO tell me multiple times, because I'll throw it out there, I'll say, call him on his cellphone, "Hey man, are we going to sign it?" He's like, "Well," he's like, "Man," he's like, "Yeah, I need to get this done. We need to get this done." I'll say, "The other option, man, honestly, you can hire me out right. I will entertain that. If you want to bring that kind of contract forward." The first thing they do is go, "Dude, I can't afford that." I'm giving them a bargain, right? Steve Larsen: Sure, sure. James Smiley: Yeah, so when I know I've got them there, I've got them. The last thing I'll say is, it's a fine line between ... You want to keep pushing, you want to make them commit to, "Okay, cool, why don't you think about it and let's set up a meeting for Friday where we can finalize this?" You want to give them an end date. That's where the scarcity and all those kind of things come into play, and I will absolutely, 80% of the time they're going to drag their feet. It just happens, right? People don't want to be on the hook for signing a 100,000 or a 200,000 or a $50,000 deal, and there's always a level of unknown any time you sign a deal. It doesn't matter how good you know, what kind of testimony someone has, there's a level of unknown. You're like, "I don't know. I mean, I hope the guy does what he says, but I don't know." There's a level of risk that they're taking on, so that's why they drag their feet and it's important to ... Like, what's that saying in the seven highly habits? It's like, "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," it's like, "It's more important to understand than to be understood." The reason they're dragging their feed, you have to understand that. Most of the time it's because they don't want to be on the hook if something goes wrong. Steve Larsen: Which is why you set the positioning of being next to them, helping them pay for it. I'm assuming that helps like crazy. James Smiley: Yes. It's huge there and then also, as days go by, I'll say, "Hey man, as you know, we have marketing systems, automation out there, 24/7, 365. Just to let you know, I've got to move my business forward like you do every day, and so I've got some more leads in this area. I just want to know, how does it look? What's your level of confidence here that this is going to happen in the next week or two?" Steve Larsen: Oh, good question. James Smiley: You know what I mean? Steve Larsen: Yeah. James Smiley: That's a good gauging question, and so you need to inject, I just love when you guys talk about scarcity. Because I've been doing that my whole life but I've never called it that. It makes it so clear. Like, it's a word that you can always go to at the end of a sale. Like, "What do I need to do to create some scarcity and some urgency in this guy's mind?" You know? Steve Larsen: Right. That's interesting. Scarcity without saying, "Hey, I'm so hard to get a hold of that we should jump into bed together," you know what I mean? James Smiley: Yeah. B2B, most people are going to see through that stuff. You need to be genuine, for sure, yeah. Steve Larsen: That makes sense. Man, oh, my gosh, I wish there was more time. I have to actually leave and actually go build, but I'm blown away. This is insane. This is so cool. I've never had such a clear understanding of how someone actually pulls the funnels off in B2B. I've got another buddy who does them as well, but this is insane, though. You've gone through and just to recap, I always take notes every time I interview somebody, just because I learn so much, man. Especially, holy crap, this has been amazing. So obviously you went through how to structure the five to six figure price point, the price tag, and the deal, with the needs, timeline and, "What's the budget for this?" And actually start getting the money there. I love the process, the actual funnel itself. That's amazing... Every time that we teach somebody, "Hey, if you want to start going," like right now, in Two Comma Club Coaching, there's been a few people who have asked, "Hey, can I sell a $10,000 price point off of a webinar?" Most of the time, we usually say no. Like, by that price tag, you need to start getting them out. You've got to change the selling environment. You need to go and separate them from behind their computer and go get them somewhere. The fact that you say that first of all, the lead's coming through LinkedIn usually, then through some maybe auto-webinar, you're booking a call, and you're pushing them to an event where you're a traveling roadshow so, "Catch me because I'm leaving" kind of thing. Oh, my gosh, that's so cool, because you're changing that selling environment. Anyway, I have so many notes that I'm putting notes on my notes in between lines, so I can't even decipher them all no the spot right now but I will very shortly. Man, this has been fantastic. James Smiley: Yeah. I mean, I appreciated being able to share with you guys. Steve Larsen: Where can people find out about you? James Smiley: Yeah, thanks for that. JamesSmiley.org is the main site to go to. We're going to be doing, there's just been so much demand in the past couple months. Really, I would say last three or four months. I had a big press release and just different things, and I've had a lot of people say, "How do I do that?" We're going to put something together to start coaching people and helping them get into this. I'm really into personalization which is kind of my style, so I'm not going to do a traditional, "Hey," like most people would probably do it. Just, "Buy my online course" or something. We're going to do it a little bit more personal, but because I think if you're going to get into this space, that's where your head needs to start going no matter what. We put together some resources at JamesSmiley.org/sales, and there's a playbook that we've put together. This is a playbook that I used when we IPO'd a company called TeleNav. It was 350 million dollar a year revenue SaaS company. It was one of the most successful GPS technology companies out of Silicon Valley, but when I came in, I was the sixth employee and when I left there was like 400 employees. I ran sales from Los Angeles, all the way to the other side of the country, and so this kind of goes over how did we go about that process and how did we go about closing all those big deals and getting all those big partnerships done. It's really become a playbook for people when they go into a meeting. It tells them how you talk through the price tag, how do you even start generating B2B leads, and another cool thing that we just went ahead and put in this playbook is there's a PowerPoint presentation that's a template. It's like 100 slides. We had a big market research firm put this thing together, and so whenever I need to make a pitch, I'll go in there and grab three or four slides, and the graphics and everything is amazing. We actually paid $7000, we literally paid $7000 to have this thing made about two years ago. I'm just going to give that away in this playbook so you'll know how to generate leads, you'll have a really slick way to do your presentations so you'll look super professional, just slap your own logo and your own feature function benefits, and your results in there, and we'll teach you the system of how to close. One of the biggest things that you guys need is credibility, and if you're not an author, what I'm going to do is I'll include in here as maybe like a bonus, is I'll co-author a book with you, which is very likely to be an Amazon Best Seller. I've got a couple of those. Steve Larsen: Whoa. James Smiley: At least you'll be, you'll get the home study course, you'll get one on one time with me in the mastermind group, and then you'll also be a co-author of a best seller that you can use that as your business card, you know what I mean? Going into businesses- Steve Larsen: Wow. James Smiley: ... saying, "Oh yeah, by the way, here's something I wrote on Facebook ads. Here's something I wrote on online automation," or whatever. I'm hoping that's just a killer value and people would sign up for that, so that's... Steve Larsen: Good. Awesome, man. That's huge. James Smiley: Yeah, so hopefully that adds a ton of value to people who are trying to figure this thing out. It's at JamesSmiley.org/sales. You know what's just funny is like my passion truly is to help people and especially entrepreneurs. Like, that's where I came from, and one of the things that I started telling people last year when they started asking me about this is is, you know, I bet you when people first got into Facebook ads or they first got into whatever, that there was all this unknown, right? Steve Larsen: Right. James Smiley: But then a couple months later they're like, "I got this." That's the same thing here. I mean, once you get your first one or two down, you're going to feel like this is easy. The process becomes a lot easier. Steve Larsen: That's awesome. Well guys, thanks so much for listening, and thanks so much for James as well. The B2B expert, sales rep trainer, script writer, event thrower, sponsor getterer, pro bass fisherman. James Smiley: Woohoo. Steve Larsen: It's been amazing. I really appreciate it, and guys go to JamesSmiley.org/sales and get frankly, one of the coolest things anyone's ever given away on this show. Oh, my gosh, I'm going to go there right now and go opt-in as soon as we're done. Anyways, thanks so much man. James Smiley: Okay. Appreciate you guys, have a great day. Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.  

Click above to see in ITunes... If you've never met Liz then there's a little spark missing in your life. She's one of the most inspirational and hard-charging people I've met. Here her wisdom now.. Steve Larsen: Hey how's it going everyone? I am super excited today because I have a special guest on and it's not too often that I get to go interview someone as amazing as Liz Tennyson. How are you doing?  Liz Tennyson: I'm amazing, hi everybody.  Steve Larsen: Good, good, good. I'm laughing still because a lot of people that I interview, it's kind of early in the morning, and their either kind of half dead still or just not very lively and you're already making me laugh. T his is good. Liz, I was wondering just right off the bat. The first time I saw you online, I think it was in the ClickFunnels certified page and you were like just dropping these huge value bombs and I was like, "Oh my gosh, who is this lady? She's killing it." I was wondering, could you tell us a little bit about how you got involved with funnels in general. Liz Tennyson: I was going to say I'm glad you didn't mention, but then I'm going to mention it. My first post in there was me with my silly, I guess it was one of the physical products, the book, that Russell sends out with one of his products. I can't even remember which one, but I never get mail and so it was so fun to get something like in the mail and so then I posted it in the certified partner group and people were laughing at me. The way I got started with the certification program really just started this Spring, I was struggling with- I had my funnel set up but I was using so many different systems and so frustrated because it was taking me forever. I'm one of those people that I like to figure it out on my own. Especially even before I'm hiring somebody to do it, so I was still trying to figure out how to get everything up and I found ClickFunnels. I can't even remember who said, "Liz, you need to get your head on straight and simplify."   That month I moved all my funnels over and we had a really fantastic month and so then I started kind of going, "This is pretty incredible how fast I can create things." I'm an action taker and so then from there-  Steve Larsen: I noticed that... Liz Tennyson: From there it just kind of progressed into I was telling people about it. I was telling people really they should be using ClickFunnels and then the opportunity for the certified partner came up and it just seemed natural. Steve Larsen: Yeah. Liz Tennyson: It wasn't the best time. I have so many things going on with my book and my actual business, but it really, it's on of those things that I just had to do.  Steve Larson: Now what is your actual business? What is it that takes your time? Liz Tennyson: I am a holistic health coach and a personal trainer. I run an organization called I'm A Fit Mormon and so my niche is obviously Mormon woman. Mom's that I help stay healthy and fit. Steve Larsen: Cool. That's awesome. Now obviously ClickFunnel has played into that a lot. Russel and I have been talking a lot about this. It's so hard to define what a funnel is to someone who has no idea what the are you know? Liz Tennyson: Yeah.  Steve Larsen: It's a challenge to do this. Was it for you easy to make the transition over? Liz Tennyson: For me it was. I think I've been doing business for so many years. Even when I owned a FedEx franchise in my 20's.  Steve Larsen: Geez.  Liz Tennyson: It was the same thing in real life... You have to know how to transition a client throughout your process so once I understood how that worked, it just was kind of putting it into the online forum. Even when I help my clients, you know, I know exactly step 1, step 2, step 3. I think that if somebody can get that concept, kind of step back from ClickFunnels for 10 minutes and say, "What do I actually want to do for somebody? What am I actually doing for somebody?" Then you can build a funnel that can do that process. It kind of seemed natural to me... I take about, I don't know, I think last week I took maybe 2 to 3 hours and kind of wrote out you know the process I really wanted... Where I could really serve somebody better, if I was to create this type of funnel. If I was to create a really good sales page. It has to be good because then I want them to use my product that can actually change their life. I think if you step back for just a little bit and do that process. Then the funnel building is a lot easier. Steve Larsen: That's so interesting you say that because I- "What am I doing for someone else and how can I serve them?" That's such a good question to start with cause so many of us, I mean, we all want to make money, but when somebody makes that the pure focus, it's really really hard to actually make the money on there. I almost feel like it's a dog smelling fear. Everyone can tell when you're just there to pull their credit card out of their wallet...  Liz Tennyson: Yeah and you end up with a sales page that's like "buy from me" and nobody knows like where did I find this guy that's just selling- you know? Like just selling me his stuff and that works if maybe you have- I could do that with my community because they love me and they know I put out good stuff, so could build a page that says like, "hey buy my next thing." But it's taken me 2 years to be able to do that and I don't do that because I want them to understand what the products actually going to do for them and the... it's going to take them from. Even though I could pitch a product and make money, it still doesn't serve my community the best and at some point that's going to start diminish if I'm not actually serving them in some way. Steve Larsen: It seems like every entrepreneur goes through that though. Cause obviously you get in to make the money but you're say that it sounded like there was a point where you bridged the gap between you know, "buy buy buy buy buy" and then over to help.  Liz Tennyson: I go through a lot of different scenarios, when I started, I thought it was going to be like a non profit right? Cause I'm like, I felt like "oh I'm such an amazing person and I'm just going to give" and I know that doesn't really work if you don't actually go to be a non-profit and there's no money coming in from like anybody that wants advertised. You have to figure out a new way that I could serve people and that was like writing programs and being able to coach people through the process. At some point, even if it works on the front end, it at some point, you have to cultivate. That's what I love about ClickFunnels too is the culture. It's really, I'm pretty loyal of a person. I've been married 19 years, I have my 4 kids and I've been a member of my church my whole life. I feel like I'm pretty loyal but its hard to get me in. A lot of people pitch me, I have great energy, I really love people so a lot of people pitch me all the time. It's hard to get me in a community. It's hard for me to commit to a community.  I was on the phone with somebody that was actually pitching me this weekend and saying, "Oh, Liz, you would do so much for our community and we really want you." And I said, "you know what? I was just at this incredible event for ClickFunnels and I'm in and I can't really commit to something else because this is where my heart is right now and this is where I want to be and this community is growing really fast. I feel like that I have so much that I could give to the community and people that are coming on to learn how to use ClickFunnels and build their own businesses and that kind of stuff." I just feel like the culture that you build around your product, even if the culture is we build great products, right, so you can keep putting out great stuff that functions well and serves people well. I think is the main bottom line that actually pays so much more on the tail end if you just look at it that way. Steve Larsen: That's awesome. That's really awesome. What about the ClickFunnels community made you that loyal? Most people are in the community but you usually don't go vet communities you know what I mean? That's not something that most people go do. Liz Tennyson: Like I said at the very first, I wasn't really looking for anything, it's not a really if I were to look at it logically, even my husband's like. "Liz, you have your own book coming out." Like in book stores in January. We have a book tour, I am upper level management of my MLM company. I'm traveling around teaching and so it's not like a great time for me to even do this or commit or anything like that but I don't know what it was. It was way before the event this weekend, there was that feeling like this is kind of my, a lot of these people are going to be my family is kind of how I felt. I think maybe in the certified partner program, Nora's done a great job of creating that community with those people and then when I got there this last weekend, I felt so home. I don't know what it is and I'm not saying it's that way for everybody.  I normally don't do that but I felt like I got meet Randall who was the second person after Derek that I was on the phone with for the certified partner program and he has the coolest job to sell to collect. From that conversation, I sent him a card and all this kind of stuff. I'm sure he thinks I'm a total psycho because I keep telling him thank you but to meet him in person was, it meant so much to me. I don't know what it is.  Steve Larsen: Yeah what is that? Why would that- Liz Tennyson: I think, well, so I've worked really hard, I guess I'll tell you my back story. I've worked really hard... I got married at 19. Obviously I've been married 19 years so we can do the math. We immediately started having babies. When you're 19 and you start having babies, you can choose two paths. You can choose college and take in a whole bunch of student loans to practically live. Or you can become and entrepreneur. Those are the two choices. I guess there's a third choice, to like live with family and-  Steve Larsen: Die a slow death.  Liz Tennyson: Totally. My choice was to become an entrepreneur. Miraculously I was hired as a manager at a bank. I don't even- really looking back, I was 20 years old with a baby and they hire me. I worked graveyards while my husband worked days doing construction and we were trying to figure out like what type of business we were going to start. From that process we bought a franchise, we've done a whole bunch of different things. I love the process of MLM. If it's done correctly and I've been building businesses for a long time... Really ... after 19 years ... gosh you got me all excited. Having Randall on the phone I don't know what it was but it was like the universe is just confirmed your hard work matters, you know? You built up to some really incredible things and that phone call was like one of those pivotal things that he told me on the phone he says, "I don't tell people all this all the time" and he just said, "I can tell Liz that your life is going to completely change." And my life was already changing... I'm already a hustler. I'm already doing amazing things... I already create that balance between a mom. I'm there for my kids all the time and I create incredible businesses. I'm able to keep that balance and do some pretty awesome things. Then when he said that and I don't normally, it's so funny, cause I don't normally care about if somebody gives me a compliment you know. My ego isn't really connected to a lot of things and so for him to say that, normally, I'm used to people pitching me so normally I'm like, "yeah yeah". Whatever, yes, like I know I have charisma and I know you want me on your team. You know?  Steve Larsen: This is the only time I've been able to do this. Liz Tennyson: Exactly. There was something, I don't know if it was really ... him or if it was just like everything was cultivated up until that point and I was just completely vulnerable and my heart was open to change. At that moment it was like, "okay here we go, I shouldn't make this commitment but I feel like it's right so I'm going to and I'm going to let everything else ride after this."  I'm pretty good at making business decisions, I don't chase the shiny object... You know, I'm pretty solid and loyal and to the commitments that I make. It was like it was, "yeah lets just do this" I wasn't all in. I just I don't know what it was. It was good, solid people. I guess. Russell's built an amazing team and this weekend begin able to meet so many of those people, really, I don't know if you can call it, changed my heart, I don't know. Steve Larsen: Yeah yeah.  Liz Tennyson: It just felt so solid. Steve Larsen: That's awesome because most people do not want to meet their salesman. You know what I mean?  Liz Tennyson: I know and it was so funny because my husband was like, "maybe he's just really good at his job Liz, like maybe he's just a really good salesman." And I said, "Well he is a really good salesman and I respect that about him." But he also like- Steve Larsen: But he's a real person too, he's not being fake with you. Liz Tennyson: The connection we have, like he listened, which is really important to me if somebody listens. He listened to every single thing. He even asked me, "Liz, you're a really exciting person... ...Are you a shiny object type?" You know?  Steve Larsen: Yeah. Liz Tennyson: He really wanted to build with the certified partner program people that are committed. People that were a good fit for ClickFunnels and so he was vetting me to make sure that I wasn't flighty and gonna take off after I got really excited. Cause I want people that are gonna finish and actually become certified. I was glad that he did that. Steve Larsen: You know I remember ... I have two thought here. Trying to figure out which one to go for. I remember when I went to that last event. That last funnel hacker event. I was actually in college and it was my last week of college and I didn't have a way to get there and so I traded someone a funnel. I built a funnel for them and they paid for my plain ticket, a ticket to get in and two nights of a hotel and so I kind of just fended for myself for the others and stayed up all night in the basement of the Sheraton the last night there. What was funny was I remember getting on the plane just going there and for some reason having that feeling like, I feel like my life is going to change. You know?  Liz Tennyson: Yeah. Steve Larsen: I didn't work for ClickFunnels at the time. Russel had no idea who I was, anything like that. That's not even how it changed it was just something inside though for sure that I don't know what it was. I came back and that was actually the first time my wife looked at me and she goes, "You seem happy." I was like, "Was I not seeming that way before?" I didn't know that I wasn't appearing as happy beforehand but I guess she was like "it was a physical difference."  At the time I was going to go work for another guy. I won't say the name or anything in case he listens to this but she goes- As soon as I came back there was some other issue with this other guy I was going to go work for and she was like, "It was like this switch that flipped and you immediately went back to this other person and I realized that unless we go try and get you, find a way for you to work for Clickfunnels, I want the version of my husband that came home from that event." I don't want the other one.  Anyways, not to digress on that, I'm just completely agreeing with you. It was a life-changing thing for me. It's a very special thing for sure. I wanted to point out and say congrats by the way. At the last event, you won the best funnel right? Liz Tennyson: Thank you thank you, I'm raising my hands right now. Steve Larsen: I can see you actually. Woo. Liz Tennyson: Taking my virtual reward. Steve Larsen: Tell us about it. That's awesome. That's a big deal. Liz Tennyson: That was really fun. I knew that we would have some type of funnel hacking. The people from June's event kind of told me about it but until you get there you don't know what it really is. You don't know who the business owner's are... When you get there, you know, you go through the day and then business owner's tell you a little bit about their business. Then Nora says, "Okay, you have until tomorrow morning to build them a functioning funnel."  Steve Larsen: Woo. Liz Tennyson: Right?  Steve Larsen: That's exciting. Liz Tennyson: Then tomorrow you will present it to the owners and they'll pick a winner and hopefully we'll get some really great stuff that they can actually use. Then there was two owners and she put names in a hat and pulled out names who had which owner and so we were lucky enough to get ... he owns a flooring company in Idaho and he was incredible. His name was Matt and we got to pick a partner so somebody had come over and Michelle said, "Hey do you want to be my partner?" And we were super excited. Then that night you get the opportunity to just sit and talk to the owner. What was really cool is because I love to listen, right, to what the needs are, I had to ask him- He's incredible person and he's a genius and kind of he already knows about ClickFunnels. He had five ideas. Five funnels that he wanted built, but we had to create one. The night pretty much consisted of, "okay what funnel is most important? Let's get very clear on what funnel is most important to you." It turns out the funnel that was most important to him was to get people from the area, from Boise, Eagle and Meridian into his store. He said that numerous times that that was the most important. I love, I know how to do Facebook ads and I know how to do targeting and research for that.  With those skills, we created a funnel that was for him that was getting people into the store and it was only for those three areas and we him do a video for the front page and a coupon that they could bring in to the store that after they opted in, they could download the coupon. Then we showed him a little bit of how to target those homeowners. We showed him how to target different home values with people so he could run some new ads to get people into his store.  It was really fun... We had a tough competition though. There were so many talented people there and when they would go up, I was pretty com- I don't like to think I'm competitive, like I'm okay if I lose, if somebody does an amazing job to beat me. Steve Larsen: You're okay losing, but not really.  Liz Tennyson: I'm like a good loser. My husband is a terrible loser. I often just lose on purpose so we can just stay married. Steve Larsen: I've totally done that before. Liz Tennyson: We almost got divorced like after year one from playing Monopoly. We can not have this game in this house.  Steve Larsen: It's chess with us. I purposefully have lost many times to that game cause otherwise- Anyways, anyways.  Liz Tennyson: Anyways, besides that. There were some really talented people and as they were going up I thought, "Oh I want to be able to do this in the next funnel" because they had some really great ideas and really great converting processes. Then the owners chose the winners. That was really fun... Steve Larsen: Do you mind taking us through the funnel that you built and why you did that? Usually focus so much on the funnel side and you're like funnel funnel funnel you know its hearing more about the Facebook ad and how that moved through the funnel. That might be kind of cool if you don't mind? Liz Tennyson: For me, I have a lot of people, especially in the last couple months, I have highly converting funnels for myself and so people will say, "Okay can you do that for me?" The first thing I say is, "Do you know who you're selling to? Do you know who you're going to target? Because if I build you a funnel and you don't know who's going to see it, you're not going to make any money."  Steve Larsen: That's true.  Liz Tennyson: Right? If you can't direct traffic to it, Russel even talked about this in the first session of the certified partner. If you can't drive traffic and actually have people see your funnel, it's going to be really hard for it to convert because there's not going to be anybody to convert.  For that process the first thing we did is find out in the Facebook ads insights there's a way that, obviously this is like a whole class of itself. You can search home owners, you can search people even that want to do home renovation. Those types of things, we searched house values so we did, I think it was 150 to 275 and then 275-500 are the two different groups that we had we targeted women cause they're usually the ones making the choice of changing the flooring in the house. We did create because this business owner, we're going to figure out him how to target and speak it correctly without it hurting anybodies feelings but a lot of moms that are nesting that are having their first baby, he finds that they come in and want new flooring, they want to change their house.  Being able to help build him a list of pregnant moms in the area, own homes I think is a pretty targeted group that if you can get the message clear then it would be a really highly converting funnel for him. Going through that the most important thing for him was that he is amazing. That he gives out spot cleaner. You can go in for the life of your carpet you can refill the spot cleaner from him. That is an amazing bonus.  Steve Larsen: Is that a front end or something?  Liz Tennyson: It's a back end to get people to know that's the service- that's like a bonus that's like unannounced that you just get from him. Steve Larsen: Awesome.  Liz Tennyson: The biggest point of the funnel from him was social proof. He is big in his community. His mom started the company so they've been around for years. Right now all of the traffic that they get is from referrals, they have amazing reviews. He has done, before he came to the event, he had some great SEO done so he ranks #1 on Google and he just has a ton of reviews on there that are all amazing.  Social proof is a big deal... We needed him on the page. Him because he represents the company and he really wants to be known in the area as the expert. To make a video just about flooring would not have met his needs. So putting him on the video to introduce himself to start to cultivate that relationship, to start to cultivate that trust, was really important. Then at the top of the page, it said, "Do you live in" I'll have to look at the funnel again. I think it says, "Do you live" or "Are you from Boise, Meridian, or Eagle?"  Steve Larsen: Mm-hmm (affirmative) cleaver. Liz Tennyson: Because he doesn't want any leads from anywhere else.  Steve Larsen: That's awesome.  Liz Tennyson: If they get to that page and they're not from that then they'll go away right?  Steve Larsen: Yeah. Liz Tennyson: He's not going to get leads that are not targeted, he's not going to get leads that are going to waste is time and waste their time. Right? If they're not from that area, they're not going to need his flooring. He doesn't want to expand because he knows that they area that he lives in is big enough that he doesn't have to expand to different areas, besides those three.  Then below that was just an opt in that was "Hey get your free coupon, come in to meet Matt for the flooring needs." The things it had on the opt in though that were required was name, email and it had a drop down that they could tell him, "I am from Eagle, I am from Meridian, I am from Boise." He would have that info so then he could create a segmented list for just Boise people. That kind of stuff. That was really really really important to him.  We didn't get the chance to do it but in our presentation we talked to him about, "you know obviously we would be doing Facebook pixels and stuff like that to do retargeting just to those people" and then the coupon. Then at the very very bottom was-  Steve Larsen: Was this like an opt in page then or? Liz Tennyson: Yeah its just like a video opt in page and then at the very bottom was a really cool thing for people that are creating social proof. It was connected to his Facebook page so when people even go to that page, it will start to collect to those comments and just create more social proof for him which is really important. Steve Larsen: It was kind of like... now would he go and follow up after? Cause this sounds like a really simple, but powerful funnel. Was it two pages?  Liz Tennyson: It was just two pages and then the download that they could click to get the download for the coupon.  It was just an opt in and a thank you.  Steve Larsen: The reason I bring that in is because some people think like these funnels have to be huge just so many things you've got to put in it and you've got to have three up sells and a down sell and often, no, you don't. I've been building for real estate and they're just 2 pages but they're so powerful. It's the way you use them. The messages. I love that that's what you focus on. The messaging. Liz Tennyson: Yeah well and the most important thing for him, once we figured out, this is what I want it to do. This is the most important thing. Of course you can build other funnels for different functions right? Steve Larsen: Yeah. Liz Tennyson: You could say like, we could've made like a sales page or send them to sales page like "hey and we have a carpet sale" right? Steve Larsen: Yeah. Liz Tennyson: He didn't want to do that. That was cheesy to him. He wasn't interested in putting anything on sale because his stuff is highly valuable and he doesn't have to put stuff on sale. To drive traffic a lot of time ... even for me and this is a really good thing that people should be writing this down right now. For me I built a Facebook page for my community because I am a social, like I am building a community. I started building this Facebook page and I was just on my Facebook and was like "hey we have a free support group" and people were going there and then I realized I don't have anybodies information. Everybody in the Facebook group, yeah it's cool if they see my post in my Facebook group but I'm never going to be able to get in contact with them. At all, besides that Facebook group. Then I created literally one page, right? That is for me, that says, you know they go there and they put in their information and then they get to click the button and it takes them right to Facebook page where they can ask to gain access. Then I have the information and I have a list that's like my Facebook group people that opted in for the free support group and I can build a list on that.  Having that functionality I think a lot of people discount the value that that can actually bring you in your business. It works great for social proof...  It works great for anybody building in a community or a lifestyle business. A lot of times people just go to "it's really important to sell." Just do like an opt in, take them straight to a sales page and for me it's been so much more profitable to do this lead page, add value, then more people buy. When they actually see my up sell and my down sell. That's like a totally different funnel and a totally different product that serves a different purpose. Steve Larsen: How are you breaking even on ad costs usually? Cause that's something usually that as far as funnel methodology goes is usually pounded into us upfront. I guess it sounds like you're putting them in a normal Facebook group itself.  Liz Tennyson: Yeah so I put them into the Facebook group itself but I also sell. Steve Larsen: Mm-hmm (affirmative)  Liz Tennyson: Right from my page I do have a running ad, for me, for my lifestyle company- Steve Larsen: Oh cool. Liz Tennyson: That is you know a recipe book, I have my- I even run ads to get people to know my page exist. I spend money on that every single day that doesn't make me any money except that it gets them to my Facebook page which then they can have a social group and....  Steve Larsen: I'm sorry we've got someone right out the window. Liz Tennyson: I'm looking around my room like, I don't think that's me.  Steve Larsen: Nope so I'm using, maybe I'll pause it in actual recording right here cause. It's the same lady, anyways yesterday, Russel was on a call with someone and he ... this lady always comes at the exact same time that we're always doing anything that has to do with recording at all, ever. She's always like trimming the hedges. It's never like she's mowing the lawn or something like that. She's trimming hedges- Liz Tennyson: On the other side of the window.  Steve Larsen: Literally- and she gives us the dirtiest looks on the other side of the window.  Liz Tennyson: Yeah, it is funny. You know if people don't know this is the way business works, they haven't been in business long enough. Like to have just like ... really? Like this is happening right now? That's just the way it works. Steve Larsen: She just stepped back into the parking and she like put her hands on her hips and she's like tilting her head making sure that it's all level. She doesn't know I'm in here right now looking at her.  Liz Tennyson: I'm pretty sure that she sees that you're in there. Let me see, is he still on that call? Let me go back and try it again.  Steve Larsen: I don't know she's wearing sunglasses and it's like dark out still. We're almost done, we're not done.  Liz Tennyson: That's just amazing. I feel like you need to go get a picture. Steve Larsen: And ... woo okay we're done.  Liz Tennyson: Okay she's done awesome. Steve Larsen: So for a 1:38, for a while. Anyways ... so- Liz Tennyson: I'm going to just really finish and say that I think that a lot of people, so they try to make things complex for two reasons. One they really don't, they just want to make money. Right? They're thinking of all the different ways. How are all these different ways that I can break even and make money right? Or two, they don't really have that idea of like, what is this function going to do for me? Like what is, if I build this funnel, what is it going to do for the person observing and what is it going to do for me? Where am I going to lead them? I think that that, being able to target correctly, saves me tons of money. Being able to do that research, spending time doing the research, if you don't want to spend the time yourself, pay somebody to do it. Right? Because you will save so much money on ad spent. Because I target the exact person that wants what I have.  Steve Larsen: Yeah.  Liz Tennyson: If you're not targeting that and you're just like "ah I don't know, like women would probably want this." You're going to waste so much money. Being able to target more specifically will save so much more money on the back end. Steve Larsen: That's awesome. I know we've been going a little while today and I just want to thank you so much for this. I actually wanted to ask, where can people find your book? That's not a small thing to go through and write a book. Liz Tennyson: So awesome. I want to tell you, although it was ClickFunnels that wrote the book. It was because I built an incredible funnel. It was before I even knew, like I didn't even know about free plus shipping. I just did a JV with somebody that wrote an original book and nobody had read his book and so he pitched me on it and I was like, "yeah that's exactly what I teach, that's what my books going to be about."   I built a funnel and I built it into a really easy group coaching program, that they got the book and they got the program and that first month, that first two weeks, I didn't even know how to like- we had it on Amazon. I didn't even know how to get it to people. When they were buying it, I literally using a gift card to in my Amazon account that was like shipping to someone else, so I have like 500 names in my Amazon account with their name addresses. Cause I didn't know. I didn't know how awesome the funnel was going to be... We sold over 580 books in two weeks and the only reason we didn't continue it is because I literally, I had two teenagers on different laptops, placing orders. I wasn't set up to be able to have 500 people buy. Because of that, the publisher was like, "Okay, we need to publish your book." They contacted me, which was awesome because two years ago they didn't care what I had to say. It was fun to actually prove like, "Hey I do know what I'm saying." I can help a lot of people and my book needs to be on bookshelves. That will be in mostly the Utah, Idaho area. Barnes and Noble does our book, Sams Club, Costco in the end December and in January. Of course it will be online, so I'm A Fit Mormon is the community and then of course I have my own personal Facebook page which is Liz Tennyson and yeah that's how they can find me.  Steve Larsen: Now what's the name of the book? Is it I'm A Fit Mormon.  Liz Tennyson: No so it's called Fit For Good. It's not even specifically for Mormons I just obviously have that niche that I speak to and help but it's Christian based, it's really with the premise to take anybody, not just women. Anybody from the idea of like weight loss and eating low calories right? Cause that's what the world tells us is part of like heath... To actually what's the intention behind wanting to get fit, what's the intention for me, I want to serve as many people as I can and I need a ton of energy. I need to feel good, I need to think clearly and so for me, that's my intention. That's the reason I stay healthy, that's the reason I stay fit. Taking people from the way the world tells people to be healthy, like the world tells you- Steve Larsen: A weird way to do it. Liz Tennyson: And to sabotage your body and beat yourself up and then don't eat anything, to okay, eat with intention with consciousness, pay attention to what you're doing functionality wise to be having your blood pump in your body and letting all your organs be able to do their own job. It's not like a boring holistic book, but it is a Christian based book... I talk a lot about being able to serve more people and being able to really feel and get inspiration from God that we can really go out and do a lot of good things and be healthy. It's called Fit For Good and it will be ready at the end of the year. Steve Larsen: Why is she back? She's looking at the same bush. Liz Tennyson: I just can't. Steve Larsen: This is crazy. Anyways, I want to thank you very much for jumping on this... I always take notes, I literally have a full page of notes. All the stuff that you said, "you focus on what is the actual funnel going to be doing for people", "build a culture around the product is really important", "do you know who you're selling to specifically and how it saves lots of money", you mentioned, which is awesome, "don't chase the shiny object", "stop, don't be so complex, be simple". Russell actually sat me down and had to talk about that a while ago cause I was all over the place. As soon as I did though and focused stuff started happening. It's fantastic.  Liz Tennyson: Yeah.  Steve Larsen: Anyways, thank you so much for all you've done. Fit For Good is the name of the book, they can go to I'm A Fit Mormon dot com  Liz Tennyson: Dot org Steve Larsen: Dot org. I'm a Fit Mormon dot org. Cool is there anywhere else people should go to follow you?  Liz Tennyson: Just on Facebook. I do all my stuff on Facebook or Instagram. Under Liz Tennyson and then I'm a Fit Mormon. Steve Larsen: Thanks so much Liz I appreciate you taking your time.  Liz Tennyson: Thank you. Steve Larsen: This was super fun.  Liz Tennyson: Thank you have a great. Steve Larsen: You too. Liz Tennyson: Bye bye.