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3 episodes with traffic conversion
Visit thedigitalslicepodcast.com for complete show notes of every podcast episode. Join Brad and Mercer as they chat about how small business owners can identify key metrics and master measurement marketing to guide their decisions. Chris Mercer is an esteemed measurement marketing expert and the co-founder of MeasurementMarketing.io. With an unwavering dedication to helping marketers, marketing teams, and agencies understand and leverage data, Mercer has become a trusted name in the industry. Mercer's approach to measurement marketing is comprehensive and actionable. He guides his audience through the crucial steps of identifying key metrics, implementing measurement tools like Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4, and creating insightful dashboards. With his extensive knowledge and ability to simplify complex concepts, Mercer has become a sought-after speaker at prestigious conferences and events, including Traffic & Conversion, Social Media Marketing World, Content Jam, and more. The Digital Slice Podcast is brought to you by Magai, up your AI game at https://friedmansocialmedia.com/magai.
Scott Needham sits down with Ishan Soni, the founder of Ad Grants Genie, to discuss innovative strategies for reducing Amazon advertising costs while driving sales.Discover how to harness the power of Google's $10,000 monthly grant for nonprofits to generate free traffic and elevate your brand visibility.Learn the ins and outs of Google's ad grant program, including eligibility requirements and best practices for maximizing its benefits. Explore the steps in creating a nonprofit that aligns with your brand and effectively leverages the grant to drive Amazon sales.Don't miss this opportunity to revolutionize your Amazon selling strategy and unlock new growth opportunities. Tune in now!Episode Notes:01:25 - Ishan Soni Introduction 03:20 - Understanding Google Grants Program 04:35 - Establishing a Nonprofit for Amazon Sellers 06:00 - Examples of Nonprofits Created by Various Brands 06:55 - Implementing Google Grants for Amazon Sales 10:00 - Compliances and Guidelines 10:55 - Managing Taxes and Reporting for Nonprofits 13:50 - Granular Execution and Traffic Conversion 17:15 - What is an Advertorial? 19:15 - Leveraging the Nonprofit Setup 21:35 - Tools and Services Offered by Ad Grants Genie 23:20 - Giving Back Through Nonprofit 24:10 - Importance of Building Something Beyond Amazon Website: https://adgrantsgenie.com/ Related Post: The Best Financing Loans for Amazon Sellers
In this episode, I sat down with Deonnah Carolus of Ecommerce Savvy to chat about all things optimization. Deonnah specializes in all things Shopify & SEO! With Q4 Holiday sales right around the corner, now is the time to optimize your product listings leveraging modern ways of using SEO to drive traffic and conversion! What you'll hear in this episode: Tips to optimize your product pages and structure your website to get the most out of SEOLeveraging how modern shoppers consume information when browsing (and how to use that knowledge to your advantage)The importance of understanding your target customer for product positioning (and tips to get inside their mindset to know what to say to get them to buy)About Deonnah:Founder of Ecommerce Savvy™, Deonnah is dedicated to helping product biz owners on Shopify become savvy, successful, independent store owners.Deonnah has been building Shopify stores for over 5 years. She has built online boutiques selling $5k per month, all the way up to enterprise web stores making over $100k per month. Some of her clients have been featured in Disney+, NFL, Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, ESPN, GQ, Popular Science and more!Connect with Deonnah! Ecommerce Savvy PodcastInstagram @ecommercesavvyWork with DeonnahDownload her Free Shopify Optimization Checklist & WorkbookCONNECT FURTHER WITH KRISTIN!Listen to the private podcast series UNLOCKING FAIRE - Get instant access HEREJoin The Buyerside Club facebook community for coaching & connection in your product business. Join HERE!Website: kristinfishercoaching.comInstagram @kristinfishercoachingContact: hello@kristinfishercoaching.com
► Did SEO & Conversion Rate Optimisation become best friends? Sam was invited on the "From A to B" podcast to share:
Send us a Text Message.Today on the podcast, Nick is joined by Greg Landon (Head of Marketing at Leadoo) and this episode they are discussing conversions. Leadoo specialise in improving website conversions not traffic and how more personalised, streamlined experiences on sites can boost your conversions massively. They talk about what Leadoo do, how it works and some of the tactics Leadoo use that you can use on your site and in your ads to improve the way your campaigns perform. Thanks for listening! To join our Lets Run Facebook Ads Facebook group click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/letsrunsocialads Follow me on Instagram to keep up to date with all the latest hacks: @nickboddington You can now watch the episode on Youtube!
In this episode of the D2D Experts Podcast, host JP sits down with Will McGinness, Director of Sales at Full Throttle AI, to discuss innovative marketing strategies that can revolutionize your direct sales approach. Learn how Full Throttle AI's unique marketing tech platform helps identify and target potential customers without relying on outdated methods like cookies and IP addresses. Discover how they achieve a 19-20% increase in average ticket prices and effectively convert web traffic into loyal customers by using AI for sales. Key Points:Introduction to Full Throttle AI and its patented techStrategies to leverage existing web trafficSuccess stories from home services and automotive industriesAchieving a 19-20% lift in customer spendImportance of household decision-making in marketingROI tracking and data analysisThank you for listening! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You may also watch this podcast on YouTube!You may also follow Sam Taggart on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for more nuggets on D2D and Sales Tips.
Chris "Mercer" Mercer is an esteemed measurement marketing expert and the co-founder of MeasurementMarketing.io. With an unwavering dedication to helping marketers, marketing teams, and agencies understand and leverage data, Mercer has become a trusted name in the industry. Mercer's approach to measurement marketing is comprehensive and actionable. He guides his audience through the crucial steps of identifying key metrics, implementing measurement tools like Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics, and creating insightful dashboards. With his extensive knowledge and ability to simplify complex concepts, Mercer has become a sought-after speaker at prestigious conferences and events, including Traffic & Conversion, Social Media Marketing World, Content Jam, and more. Learn more here: https://ishusingh.com/
Infinity Media is embracing the AI revolution and wants to put your startup at the forefront of the race to building an army of loyal clients! With its AI-centered campaigns, you stand higher chance of realizing AI's potential and enjoying skyrocketing customer growth. Visit https://www.infinitymediala.com/digital-marketing-for-ai/ Infinity Media 12130 Millennium Dr Suite 300, Los Angeles, CA 90094, United States Website https://www.infinitymediala.com/ Phone +1-310-896-5542 Email prc.pressagency@gmail.com
On this episode of The Affiliate Underground Podcast, Galel and Derek discuss the effectiveness of Video Sales Letters (VSLs) for cold traffic, providing valuable insights into why VSLs work and how they can be used to engage and convert cold traffic into paying customers. They also share tips on creating compelling VSLs and where to find successful VSL examples for reference. Whether you're a seasoned affiliate marketer or just getting started, this podcast offers valuable information and practical advice to boost your marketing efforts.
This week I'm doing something a little different on the Podcast.I'm going to give you one strategy a day for 5 days in a row. It's a strategy that will get you closer to creating predictable, reliable sales every day, week month. All year round.Each episode is super short - and I'm going to give you one thing to do each day.At the end of the week, you'll be 5 steps closer to being able to count on the sales you want every day, whether you're just starting out, or you're looking for significant growth this year.Today I want to talk about your numbers. Here's a truth bomb: Numbers don't lie. You already know that, right?But what you might not know is that you can use your numbers to control your sales.You can use them to see what's working in your business. Identify opportunities. You can even use them to problem solve. To figure out why you're not getting the sales you want.Once I stopped being afraid of my numbers (I failed 11th grade math back in the day) I became a better business owner. Less emotional, and more strategic. Here's what I decided - I was going to track and measure my numbers every week. Because I knew that when I track results I focus, and when I focus, I can create real transformation.And I decided that I would only track metrics I could control. Doing that would give me the best focus and clarity So here are the metrics I track each week. I call them my key metrics, because they control my sales. Write this down Traffic Conversion rate Average order value Those 3 numbers control your sales. It starts with traffic - how many web visitors you get Conversion rate - the % of web visitors that place an order Average order value - the average amount each buyer spendsTraffic x Conversion rate x Average Order Value = salesYou can control your traffic - Supplement existing traffic with paid trafficYou can control your Conversion Rate - Create more returning visitorsYou can control your Average order Value - Add an in cart upsellSo here's what I want you to do Get a spreadsheet One line for each week this year One column for: Traffic, Conversion rate, Average Order Value, Returning Visitor % Fill it in every Monday morning Skip to the next episode - I'll give you some work to get you on track for Reliable Revenue
Hey there, digital marketers! In this episode, we're going to be discussing a common tactic that you might have learned in your marketing studies: building a list of names and emails to retarget cold traffic. But what if that's not really the goal of your business? No worries! We've got some alternative approaches to cold traffic that you might find more beneficial. And to really boost those sales, we'll be talking about how to increase your conversion rate. Want some ideas? How about adding some customer testimonials, trust factors, or offering payment through PayPal? And when it comes to your thank-you page, why not make it super content-rich with links to articles, podcasts, and even a Facebook group for customers? All of these strategies can help increase trust and show rates for your business. Let's get started!Topics Covered: 00:00:00 The Customer Acquisition Show: Acquiring Customers and Enhancing Lifetime Value00:01:50 Expanding Customer Acquisition Beyond Just Pressing a Button00:07:48 Growing a Business is not a One-Step Process00:10:55 Increasing Book Calls and Revenue Through Cold Traffic: A Case Study00:15:27 Using Traffic Harmonizer to Create Targeted Messaging for Customers00:18:07 The Power of Testimonial Mash-ups: A Case Study on Creative Content00:24:48 The Customer Acquisition Amplification Framework: A Guide for Deployment and Marketing Basics00:26:49 Tracking Conversion Events for Ad Success00:29:26 Optimizing for Conversion Thresholds with Increased Ad Spend00:31:43 Tune in Next Time for a Case Study and More Tricks00:35:54 Deep Dive Research and the "Dog and Pony Show"00:38:59 Extreme Commitment to Achieving Goals00:45:58 Alternative Approaches to Cold Traffic for Digital Marketers00:47:41 Improving Lead Quality Through Follow-up After Conversion00:53:16 Enhancing Trust and Show Rates with a Content-Rich Thank You Page00:58:43 The Customer Acquisition Amplification Super System: A Framework for Advanced Marketing StrategiesLinks and Resources:Connect with Ralph and Kasim on TwitterTiereleven.comGet your queries answered here: hi@tiereleven.com
Traffic & Conversion es una conferencia que se lleva a cabo cada año en San Diego y trata sobre cómo llevar tráfico a donde queramos y convertirlo en ventas. Son tres días completos de contenido estratégico probado y procesado por expertos que han sido pequeños emprendedores y han convertido sus negocios en grandes compañías. El contenido que debaten es de gran importancia para ubicarnos en el presente y en el futuro del mundo del e-Commerce. Stefano Gasperini, co-host del podcast de Wizards Of Ecom en español, nos los relata con más detalle, ya que ha estado presente en esta conferencia. Según Stefano, hay tres temas primordiales que se han tratado durante los encuentros, y el primero es entender que “hoy más que nunca es importante crear un negocio que no dependa de anuncios pagos”. “Al no depender de anuncios pagos vamos a tener un negocio mucho más sólido. Las plataformas de publicidad cambian mucho y un cambio que estás compañías hagan es un impacto tremendo para el negocio”, alerta nuestro co-host. Además destaca que el costo de la publicidad paga cada vez se incrementa más. “He visto muchas personas que crean un negocio 100 por ciento dependiente de estas plataformas, como Amazon PPC, y sólo dependen de ellas para mandar tráfico a ese producto nuevo que lanzaron. Amazon PPC es una parte muy importante del negocio, pero también he visto que muchas de estas personas no pudieron seguir haciendo crecer su negocio porque se está volviendo mucho más costoso. Hay que invertir en algo más sólido”, aconseja. Seguramente nos estamos preguntando… ¿cómo podemos construir nuestro negocio sin depender de los anuncios pagos? Una estrategia que sugiere Stefano es “crear una comunidad de clientes, con los cuales tengamos una relación directa, que sepan de nuestra marca y nosotros sepamos de ellos mediante, por ejemplo, correos electrónicos”: “Creas contenido, la gente lo ve y en algún momento tomas su correo electrónico y luego inviertes en fortalecer esa relación, en seguir ofreciéndole valor a ese cliente. Y el cliente es tuyo, no es de Amazon, Facebook ni ninguna otra plataforma”, recalca. Otra forma es que nuestros clientes les comuniquen a sus seres queridos sobre nuestra marca y producto. “Ese ‘boca a boca' es muy poderoso, y usualmente viene tras ofrecerle mucho valor al cliente con un producto muy bueno que el comprador quiera compartirlo con su entorno”, afirma Stefano, haciendo hincapié en que también es gratuito, por lo que genera más interés y poder como estrategia. El segundo tema que se ha tratado en la conferencia es que “Youtube es y va a seguir siendo fundamental para cualquier estrategia de contenido”. Stefano enseña que hay tres razones que le dan mucho mérito a Youtube. Una de ellas es que “tiene un tráfico enorme y es la máquina de búsqueda más grande, después de Google”. Otra razón es que, al tener un contenido en un formato como Youtube, “podemos utilizar ese video para hacer un sinfín de otros pedacitos de contenido”: “Puedes agarrar ese video y transformarlo en un podcast, un TikTok o short en Youtube”, propone Stefano. El tercer motivo es la compensación. “Tienes que llegar a mil suscriptores y 4 mil horas de video”, confirma nuestro co-host, para que Youtube nos destaque en su plataforma. También se habló mucho de Youtube Ads, que son los famosos anuncios de video no saltables y que se deben ver antes de poder acceder al video que deseamos. Se ha enfatizado mucho en el crecimiento de la importancia de Youtube Ads para el futuro. “Una cosa que sorprendió es que Youtube Ads te permite ser bastante específico al momento de decidir a quién le quieres enseñar tu anuncio”, cuenta Stefano. El tercer tema tratado en Traffic & Conversion es tener clara la importancia de “trabajar siempre en crear un nuevo producto o servicio y en identificar mejores maneras de venderlos”. En el caso de los emprendedores que recién comienzan a desarrollar su negocio, Stefano plantea “identificar cuál es la fortaleza de uno, si uno es mejor vendiendo o creando un mejor producto o servicio”. “Para crear un negocio y que crezca es necesario hacer ambas cosas. Uno tiende a ser bueno en uno y trata de volverse bueno en el otro. Eso funciona, pero tarda bastante y hay maneras de acelerar ese proceso”, asegura Stefano, y entre ellas está asociarse con la persona que necesita nuestra compañía, tener un consultor, crear una comunidad que ayude a construir un mejor producto, etc. En el caso de que ya tengamos nuestro negocio y queramos que crezca, debemos aprovechar al máximo la capacidad de venta o creación de nuevos productos. “Pero también hay que entender que una cosa muy importante es mejorar el producto, incrementar el presupuesto de mercadeo, agarrar ese dinero para invertir en desarrollo de producto y crear un producto que sea mejor”, remarca Stefano. Para lograrlo, nuestro co-host nos brinda dos tácticas finales. “Si estás en una posición en la que quieres hacer crecer tu negocio, es conveniente contactar a ex empleados de la competencia y pagar por su trabajo, ya que son personas que saben lo que tú necesitas saber para hacer crecer tu negocio”, recomienda Stefano. La segunda táctica se basa en el Email Stacking. “Si tienes una campaña de mercadeo de correo electrónico y quieres optimizar el porcentaje de personas que le dan clic a tu correo, debes ver el 100 por ciento de tu lista y agarrar un 20 por ciento. Tomas un 10 por ciento y le vas a enviar un correo con un título al 5 por ciento y otro al 5 por ciento restante. Lo único que vas a cambiar es el título para ver cuál funciona mejor. Al que funciona mejor le cambias el cuerpo del correo y creas dos versiones diferentes y se las envías al otro 10 por ciento de la lista. El mejor título y cuerpo los agarras y se los envías al otro 80 por ciento. Esto debería resultar en un mejor porcentaje de personas que le dan clic y que terminan leyendo el correo”, cierra Stefano.
https://pestcontrolmarketing.live Hal and Mike explain how traffic, conversion, and consistent patience is the formula for online and offline lead generation
Affiliated: ClickBank's Official Affiliate Marketing Podcast
Top-level affiliate marketing is all about relationships, because at the end of the day when the conversions are counted and commissions are calculated, people do business with people. In this episode, we discuss the best events to meet affiliates and build your network. The events Thomas and Kyle discussed: Traffic & Conversion: https://trafficandconversionsummit.com/ Affiliate Summit West: https://www.affiliatesummit.com/ Affiliate World: https://affiliateworldconferences.com/ Leadscon: https://www.leadscon.com/ FinCon: https://finconexpo.com/ Funnel Hacking Live: https://funnelhackinglive.com/order-fhl-2022-1 Platinum Summit: https://www.clickbank.com/clickbank-advantage/ Flight Club: https://flightclubmastermind.com/ Mimosa Mastermind: https://www.facebook.com/mimosamastermind/ War Room: https://www.warroommastermind.com/
During this video, I discuss some of the most important areas you should focus on in 2022 to help you grow your Amazon FBA business by improving your traffic and conversions. We'll talk about Amazon PPC, Listing optimization, Cataloging, and some bonuses that we mention near the end. USE COUPON: (VIN50) TO OBTAIN A DISCOUNT OF 50% ON YOUR FIRST MONTH OR (VIN10) TO OBTAIN 10% FOR LIFE
Sheila Farragher-Gemma moved to the states in 1989 for a job in Boston. She figured she would stay a few years before returning home to Ireland, but 30 years later, with a husband, two children, and a handful of successful businesses under her belt, she may be here to stay. Sheila has an entrepreneurial spirit which led her to the world of marketing consulting. Through her company, Connected Sponsor, she helps event promoters monetize their events by building long-standing relationships and partnerships with Sponsoring companies. Some events she's helped are Traffic & Conversion, ProfitCon, Underground, and MFA Live. Quote: "Networking is an investment in your business. It takes time and when done correctly can yield great results for years to come." -- Diane Helbig Website: Connectedsponsors.com Free Training: connectedsponsors.com/findingsponsors FB: Connected Sponsors how hashtag: #TrinaTalk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trina-l-martin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrinaTalk Instagram: @trina.l.martin Twitter: @TrinaLMartin
With everything we have to do... does podcasting really make sense? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. We've got three special episodes for you. The first one, well, actually all three of them are with my guest host, Josh Forti. We're going to be breaking down some cool things. The first episode... What happened in the first episode? It was really good. Josh Forti: Yeah. We talked all about podcasting, why podcasting is important. Russell: Yeah, podcasting. So episode number one, we learned about podcasting, why we do it, how we do it, the reasons behind it, and a whole bunch of other things. If you haven't been doing a podcast yet, it's going to sell you on why you need to do one. If you have done one, it's going to show you guys why and how to amplify it, and why it's so important and how to find your best buyers from it. I hope you guys enjoy this episode. We'll cue up the theme song, and we'll be right back. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Like I said today, the next actually couple episodes, I've got a guest host with me, which I'm pumped for. We actually did two podcasts. Well, technically, they were podcasts episodes for your podcast, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I ripped them off for my podcast because they turned out so good. One is after the Atlas Shrugged book, Josh Forti flew out, and we did... How long? We went for... Josh: It was three and three and a half hours. Yeah. Russell: Three hours. Yeah. Josh: Three and a half hours, yeah. Russell: Going deep into Atlas Shrugged, which was really fascinating. I actually just reread it recently, so if you want to do Round Two, we should totally do that. And then, after I read Atwood and the devil book, I freaked out, and then Josh flew out and we did one there. So you guys who have been listening to the podcast are familiar with him and his voice. But I asked him, I love doing the podcast, but sometimes I fall behind, and my brother who does our podcast settings, "Russell, any episode today?" I'm like, "Huh." I don't even know what to think. I want someone to help come up with ideas so it's not just me. And so Josh went out to the community, asked a bunch of questions and the next couple episodes are going to be some fun conversations. So I'm pumped, man. And thank you for doing this. I know this you're doing this pro bono to hang out and just to help me out, so I appreciate that. And I'm excited to find out what people want to know about. Josh: Yeah, for sure. I love podcasting. That's my life. If I could do one thing, it would just be, have a show that we just talk all the time. So this is fun for me. It's like asking you to come hang out and geek out about funnels. So I'm super excited, though. It's going to be super cool, and dive in further, and pick your brain, and open up a new world that I don't think a lot of people get to see. Russell: Yeah. It's interesting, because I feel that when it's me doing my own podcast, I pick a topic, I go into it. But it's fun when... Yesterday I had a chance to speak at a virtual event thing, and I did my thing and in the end people ask questions. It just opens up a different side that you don't normally do. And so I don't do a lot of Q&A stuff. So I'm excited to... Josh: Yeah. It's interesting. Russell: And maybe this is the only time we do this. Maybe it's a huge train wreck, and this is the only time it happens. Or maybe it becomes a thing. We'll find out. Josh: We'll try to make it not a train wreck. We'll try. We'll do our very best. I think one of the big things though that I want to start with and kick this whole thing off is why you spend so much time with podcasting. Because here's the thing, man. You're rich. We all know it. You don't have to do this. You have this company that you could. We all learned at funnel hacking live, you turned down a billion dollar offer, so clearly you're not doing this for the money. And you've got a company. You've got a team. You've got all these resources. You could spend money on ads. You could do whatever it is that you want. Yet, somehow you are calling me up and are like, "Dude, I need to do podcasts." And to somebody who gets it, and I get it. I have a podcast. I dedicate time when it doesn't make sense. I put money into a podcast that doesn't make sense. On paper, I get and I understand content and putting it out there, and I've never been at your level either. I don't think a lot of people understand. Why do you do it, dude? Why a podcast? And why are you investing so much of the time that you have now, which is limited, I'm sure? There's a lot of people trying for your attention. Why a podcast? And why is that such a core, fundamental piece that you actually spend so much time on, when you clearly don't have to? Russell: I could probably, in fact, I'll probably give you four or five reasons, because there's not just one reason. There's a lot of them. And I actually, I remember when podcasting started. I was at at Armand Morin's BigSeminar, and someone was on stage, Paul Collier was on stage. He's like, "There's this thing coming. It's going to be the greatest thing in the world. It's called podcasting. And you're going to put these things in your ears and listen to people talk." I remember, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. No one will ever listen to that." I just didn't get it. He's like, "No, this is the future." And I remember because I was my roommate at the time was Josh Anderson, some of you may know Josh, and Josh went and bought every podcast domain he could think of. And I was like, "You're dumb. That's never going to happen." But I do remember, "Well, if I ever did a podcast, I'd call it the Marketing In Your Car Podcast, because when I drive my car, I could record it. And I remember thinking that. And I remember I bought, at the time, Marketing In Your Car, and I did nothing with it for, I don't know, eight or nine years. I just had it. In fact, I even paid someone to write an intro song for it. So if you ever go back to the first episodes, the first hundred-something episodes, there was this really... At the time it was so cool, and now it's corny, but there was this theme song that some guy wrote for me. And I had it for five years, this theme song, and I never used it because I was like, "I don't get podcasting." Then in my business life, we had grown up my company at the time. We had a hundred employees. And then, the long story you guys have heard before, is the company crashed. Everything fell around, and it went from a 20,000 square foot office to 2000 square foot office. I felt like an idiot. I was embarrassed. My status was at an all time low. I was weird. And for some reason in that season of my life, I had this impression, "You need to start podcasting and talk about marketing." And I was convinced at this time I was the worst marketer in the world, because I had just crashed my entire empire. I'm an idiot. I didn't want to, but I felt this impression like now it's time to start a podcast. So I literally, from the ashes of my business, started this podcast, and I had at that time a four or five minute drive to the office. Okay, I can be consistent with this. It's going to happen all the time. I'm going to do it. So I got my phone out, I clicked record, and I would literally just drive to my office and I would just talk about what we were trying to figure out. "All right. Today, we're going in the office and working on this new offer, and this is what we're thinking and da, da, da." And then the next steps were, "Oh, we launched the offer and it worked." Or it didn't work. So we tried this. It was just me documenting. It's funny. I heard Vaynerchuk talk about, "Document your journey." And I didn't know. That wasn't a thing at the time, but that's literally what I started doing. And it was nice, because it was something that was so easy. It was easy to be consistent with. I think if I would have had to do a podcast where, for me, if I had a studio and a microphone, all those things, I probably wouldn't have done it because I wouldn't have gotten enough momentum to stick with it. But it was easy. And at first the way we set it up, we couldn't track stats, so we had no idea if anyone was listening, which was a huge benefit. Because had I known how few people were listening, I probably wouldn't have kept doing it. But I just kept doing it and doing it, not really knowing what kind of return was going to happen. It's funny now. I had someone, about a year ago, go through and start from the very beginning and listen all the episodes. I was trying to get some notes and trying to remember. And it was cool, because they started coming back, reporting. He's like, "Did you know on this day you talked about why you thought anyone who wanted to build a company over 10 million dollars in sales was a moron? You should never try to grow company that big. And then over here you talked about, you're never going to hire an employee again." All my thoughts at the time, which have morphed and shifted obviously. But it's this cool thing where I have this record now of this journey from the ashes to ClickFunnels and beyond. So it's been very special for me. Josh: Okay. Sorry. I want to continue down that path, I want to interject right there. The reason I started a podcast is because, literally, you told me to. You didn't physically be like, "Josh, start a podcast." But all your books, all your content, you're like, "Publish, publish, publish, publish, publish." And I'm like, "Okay." And so it started on Facebook. It started on Facebook Live, and then it grew. And then my friend Daxy, he is like, "Dude, turn it into a podcast. Way more people would listen." All right. So I have, I don't know, four or five hundred episodes now on my podcast that I have done with you and all these different interviews or whatever. But what I tell people is, and this is true in all areas of my life, I'm so blatantly honest on my podcast. I don't filter or mince my words at all. Shocking. Russell: You're filtered on Facebook and Instagram, you're telling me? Josh: Just a little bit. But what's interesting is one of the things that you pointed out there was you have this document. You have this record of exactly where you were at at the time. And so for me, one of the things... And this is bigger than just podcasting. When you're just blatantly honest with yourself and where things are at, and you just turn on the microphone and you just talk, you actually can go back and you can watch your progress. And you can see. Oh man, when I was 26 years old, when this happened, this is what I thought about life, or this is what I thought about this particular topic, or this is what I was learning here. When I'm building a funnel or I'm building something that I knew I worked on in the past and I talked about it, I can literally go back, and I can remember the struggles. And I think it was you. It might have been. It might have not been you. It might have been Gary. I think it was you, though. You were like, "Imagine if Jeff Bezos would've documented every single day or every single week building Amazon." How much people would pay for that. That would be so epically cool. That's what it's like. So I totally understand what you're talking about there. I feel like people are embarrassed to start, they're embarrassed where they're at now. And so they don't want to put it out there. I'll never forget Liz Benny. Obviously, you know Liz. She's amazing. I had her on my podcast. This is probably a year and a half ago. And she's like, "Josh, I've watched you grow so much." And I'm like, "Really?" She's like, "Oh yeah." I'm like, "How do you know?" She's like, "Because I listen to your podcast." And it was like, "Oh, this is a long term thing." It was at that moment that I realized it. Russell: Uh huh. For sure. It's interesting because, if I haven't publicly talked much about this yet, but I've been acquiring old books. I just bought this whole, literally, library of Napoleon Hill books and stuff. And it's been so fascinating because I'm reading through and these are the records of these people and their beliefs and their thoughts. I've got old magazines from early 1900s, late 1800s. I'm reading. I found articles from Thomas Edison, who were in the publishing these. I'm reading this stuff and it's so cool. And one thing, this is Russell guilt. In the Mormon church one thing they always talk about is, you need to keep a journal, so that way your posterity has this thing. And I've never been good at keeping a journal. And what I started realizing as I'm going through all the Napoleon Hill stuff, I'm so grateful that they wrote these things down and they have this journal. And I started from that guilt again. And all of a sudden I was like, "Wait a minute. I don't have a journal, but I've been podcasting now for seven years." This is my record. This is, when I'm dead, my kids or my grandkids or my posterity or people, whoever it is. This is how they're going to learn about me and figure out who I was. And hopefully I shortcut them some trial and error. Here's the journey I went on, but here's what I figured out. I can help them. I think all of us are always talking about wanting to leave an impact. I think my podcast episodes, I'm hoping these are my journals. These are my records. This is like what I just bought from Napoleon Hill. I'm hoping that this becomes something for the future generations that they can build their businesses off and their ideas and their plans. Because my podcast is... It's a marketing podcast, but I don't talk about marketing most of the time. I talk about my family and my kids, and I'm learning, and my personal development and all the things. Marketing is just the hook I got people in, but it's my life record. It's my journal, which is cool too. Josh: Yeah, that is super cool. It's funny. Quick side note, we have to shut down this indifferent theory, because Apple.... Russell: Just spell it different. Josh: Yeah. Believe me. We've tried some things. I'm not trying to push against the biggest company in the world. So anyway, we have a new name. I'm not going to say it yet, but it's coming. But anyway, in the last just couple weeks, I've had to pause doing podcasts. And it's weird because what you said right there is, "I don't keep a journal." But I know that I do keep a journal via that exact same thing. And it was weird. I went to my wife literally two days ago. And I was like, "I need you to, to help me create a system for the short term to be able to document my thoughts because right now I'm not doing it. And I have so many things that we're going through right now." So I totally get that. But I feel like there's got to be more than that. There's got to be another reason besides just the documentation process for the podcast for you. Russell: For sure. That's the first thing. Again, I got four or five that run in my head, so I don't know what the order they'll come out in. But the next one is eventually I wrote a book. And people were like, "These books are so good. How do you know all these stories?" And for me, I have an idea, and the idea percolates in my head for a minute, and I got to tell someone. So usually first person I tell is usually the podcast. I'm thinking about this thing and I talk about it. And so I tell the story the first time. The first time it may not even be that fleshed out. Then I get to the office and I see Dave over there. Dave's excited. I'm like, "Dave, check this out." And I tell it to him again. And then I tell someone else. And then I'm doing an interview and I say it again. And I tell the story four or five, six times, and I get better and better at telling the story. And then when I'm at a seminar and I'm on stage and I'm talking. I have no idea which direction I'm going. All of a sudden, this thing will pop up my head. I've told that story six times three months ago, and it appears. I remember Tony Robbins told me this. He said, "When I go on stage, I have a plan, but the plan, it never goes to plan. I start talking." And then he's like, "These downloads just come from God or from the universe, and they just show up." And for me, as I started podcasting and telling these stories over and over and over again, that's exactly what happens now. When I need something, I'm in a situation, I'm coaching someone, I talking, I'm on an event or a stage or something. I need something often that just, it appears when I need it. And I think it's because I didn't just think about it and forget about it. I think about it. I tell it on a story. It's published. I tell someone else. And then when I write a book, I've told the story 400 times. I know the best way to tell the story now. I've seen what people laugh at, what they don't laugh at, how to do it the right way. In fact, it's interesting, my next book is a personal development book. I've struggled with that one, because I don't have a personal development podcast. And I haven't tested these stories, these principles or these theories. I've been stuck, as you know. I sent you the rough draft eight months ago, and I haven't written a word since then. Part of it is I haven't had a chance to flesh these things out. So it gives me idea to flush out my ideas is another one of them. Another one that's interesting... I don't know the exact stats, but I read it somewhere. I think I talked about on Traffic Secrets.I put it in there. But conceptually, they talked about people who are podcast listeners versus the rest of humanity. And I'm going to tell you about the stat, and I'll tell you how the practical application of that stat, which is really fascinating. So the stat was something like the average person who listens to the radio makes, I don't know, $60,000 a year. And whereas the average podcast listener makes $120,000 a year. So the people you are getting and acquiring, they are people with more spending power. They're more affluent people that are the kind of people who are trying to develop their brain, their minds, things like that. They're more likely to buy a course or software or a Mastermind or things like that, because they're the kind of people who aren't just listening to the radio to numb themselves. They're listening to audio to grow. That's the fascinating thing that you're getting a better caliber customer who are listening. Number two, you are getting them in their most intimate moments. When do you listen to a podcast? It's when I'm working out and I'm by myself and it's me and them, and I have their full attention. I'm not listening to a podcast where I'm writing an email or texting someone. Or I'm in the car driving. I'm getting access to their brains and their minds in their most intimate moments. But it's just me and them. Even video. Josh: It's not even like that on YouTube either. Russell: Yeah. I'll watch a YouTube video while I'm cooking dinner, while I'm doing five other things. Josh: That's super interesting. Russell: I don't listen to podcasts with my kids in the room, because they're going to ask me a question. They're going to mess it up. It's when I'm separate and it's just me and them and that's it. I have a different level of intimacy with the podcast people that I'm listening to. So the higher quality customers, better level of intimacy, and then the practical application. The first time I really got this, it was after I launched my Inner Circle the very first time. And again, it was funny, because I always told everybody I never money on my podcast. I'm doing this podcast, I'm not making any money from it… And as I did it for four or five years, and I launched my first version of my first version of my Inner Circle, and we had a point where we had about 33 people in it paying 25 grand. And I remember at one of the events, somebody asked, "How did you guys bump into Russell?" And all of them were like, "Oh, I saw something, but then I got on this podcast, and I listened to him every single day while I was working out for six months. And he kept talking about this Inner Circle and talking about this thing. He's going to get all these things." And it was fascinating. Almost everyone in the room, they didn't hear about my podcast. Podcast isn't good for lead gen. It's never. Josh: Yeah. It's horrible for lead gen. Russell: You can't just buy ads and blow up your podcast. But people find out about you. They plug in to your podcast. And the people who make that transition from, "I saw a book." "I saw an ad." "I saw something." And they make that transition where they actually get the phone out, subscribe, and then plug you in. Those become your best customers, your highest buyers. They're the best. And so the practical application is yes, by doing this podcast, I'm taking... And I talk about this in Expert Secrets. And actually my Inner Circle meeting last month, we talked a lot about this. We talked about creating a new opportunity versus an improvement offer. And for the most part you want to create new opportunities. That's what gets people in the door. And I told everyone, your value ladder should be this new opportunity. There's opportunity stacking. The back of the value ladder, there's one section that's saved for people with ambition. New opportunity is all about getting people who have a desire to come in. But people with ambition, and the percentage of your audience is small. The percentage of people who have true ambition, it might be 15 to 20%, maybe. Josh: Yeah. Russell: But those are your most ambition. I told them my Master, I didn't sell you guys new opportunity. Do you want to come to Boise and talk to other entrepreneurs? Or are you going to get better and stronger and smarter, all the ER words? You guys are the ones at the top of the value ladder. You are ambitious. So I'm not selling you new opportunity. I'm selling you guys improvement. And it's the hardest thing to sell, but it's what one tier of your audience wants. I feel like same thing, the people who are listening to your podcasts, these are the people who want improvement. These are the ambitious ones. They're not the tire kickers. And so it's the best way to convert people in their highest ticket backing things as well. Josh: Yeah. And I also think, one thing that's very important to point out, I think here, is the style slash type of podcast that you particularly create. Because I've studied a lot of different podcasts. Joe Rogan obviously is a big inspiration of mine when it just comes to creating content or whatever. But what's interesting is that the type of content that a Joe Rogan creates, or that even a Logan Paul or any of the bigger mainstream podcasts, oftentimes it's much more for entertainment. And Joe Rogan, I think, maybe is the blend between the two. But a lot of podcasts, they're not specifically for solving a very specific problem. And so what I always say about specifically the type of podcast that you create, you or Steve or whatever, your type of podcast is horrible for lead generation, but is amazing for lead education. It's because once they're in there, you have that. And what's interesting is one of the times that I listened to your podcast most... I'm going to let you guess. I'm sure you're not going to get it. But what do you think one of the times I listened to your podcast most? Russell: When you're driving somewhere in your car. Josh: That's a time. Yeah. But it's when I'm in pain. When I have a specific pain around my funnel, I will literally go, "Russell has this podcast. He's got all these episodes. I bet you he's talked about it." And so I'll literally go on my phone and I'll keyword search for different things. And I'll specifically go. There was one time I was listening to, it was something about a webinar or something, and you were talking about how you wrote your headlines and basically how you came up with your framework for it. And I remember you did that one time. And so I was struggling with it, and so I literally searched it and I did it. And so the type of podcast that you create, in my head there's two different ones. There's one for entertainment. And then there's one for education. And you create one specifically for education. And when you do that, that's the type of podcast or that's the type of content that literally goes and educates your member. And when you have that, a hundred percent, my top buyers, anybody that gives me top dollar for my stuff, they all listen to my podcast or have been on my podcast and I'll pull something out of it. They're always the ones that pay the most money. For sure. Russell: For sure. It's interesting too. And there's, as you said, a lot of formats. When I did mine, I did a short form for a couple reasons. Number one is it was my drive to the office, so that's how it started. But number two, I love Joe Rogan and I probably listen to one of his entire podcast ever. Josh: Oh my gosh. I probably listen to a hundred of them at least. Russell: And I get overwhelmed, because each one's four hours long and there's all these different people. Everyone keeps talking recently about the Jewel one. "It's the greatest thing in the world. You've got to listen to it." Four hours. I could get a whole audio book, the entire book done in four hours. Is that worth the investment? I don't ever want to dive into it, because it's so big. Whereas mine, again, someone's in the car and only got a 10 minute commute. Boom. Throw it in. They get an episode. And then what happens is they get hooked, and then they'll listen for four hours. So it's different though, because if Joe Rogan's were broken up into even 20 minute blocks, I would probably listen to all of them. Josh: YouTube Joe Rogan clips. It's Joe Rogan experience clips. And it's literally 20 minute episodes. Russell: Oh cool. Josh: So if you ever want to. Russell: That's probably what I would do. And I think it's interesting. And then also another nice thing about short form is people come in, they listen to one... And I get this all the time. People are like, "I got your podcast, listened to three or four episodes, and I loved it. So I started at the very beginning and I binge-listened to all of them." It happens all the time as well. Whereas Joe Rogan, you're not going to binge-listen because that's 65 years worth of content you're going to go through. Mine, they're short. I'm going to go to the beginning. And they start and they binge listen. And then they've gone through your journey with you. And by the time they show up, they know everything that you've ever said. And they're so much easier to work with if they've got that stuff. I think everyone needs... It's one of the things where you're not going to see a big return or not initially. But over time, if you're consistent with it, it's the best thing. And then obviously, I don't use my platform for this, but you do and I think it's brilliant. It gives you access to all these people. Whereas the interviewing people, you get access to people you can't otherwise. Josh: Doors open that you literally can't even understand simply because you're like, "Hey, I have a podcast and hey, I've got these couple other cool players on here. You want to come?" Alex Hormozi is coming on my podcast. I literally reached out to him, "I have a podcast." And a hundred percent, I'm going to admit something to you right now. I was like, "Hey, I had a podcast, and Russell's been on a couple times. You want to come on?" He's like, "I love Russell. Of course I'll come on your show." Russell: That's awesome. Josh: Crazy big doors that get open simply because you have a platform to be able to allow someone to use their voice as well. Russell: I remember, before Tony and I were super close, we met a couple times and stuff, but I remember he was doing some launch. I remember Lewis Howes and him did a big interview. And three or four people they interview sound so annoying. Why is Tony hanging out with these people and not me? And now all of a sudden, I had the ahas. "Lewis Howes has got a big podcast. Oh my gosh. Okay, I need to be able to offer my platform to him to get in that door and really build that relationship." And that's one of the powers of it too. You have a platform, now you've got ability to access people you can't otherwise. As you know. Josh: All right. Two rapid fire questions here really quick. Because I want to move on to the next topic to keep us on track. But number one, what's the Joe Rogan episode that you listened to all the way through? Do you remember which one it was? Russell: Oh, I do know. Yeah. And I actually hate that I listened this one. It was the Gary Vee one. Josh: Oh. Yeah. Russell: And the reason why I listened, because I want to be on Joe Rogan's podcast someday. And I want to see what Gary talked about because... As you know, Gary and I have a... He probably has idea who I am. Josh: You have a light beef. Russell: We've got an interesting relationship. He's not my... Anyway. I've got to make sure I'm the next internet marketer who actually does a better job. Josh: Okay. Two things on that. One, anybody listening, I'm going to do this, so don't take it, but I'll beat you to it. If you ever can get Russell Brunson on Joe Rogan, that's a great Dream 100 gift right there. That would be amazing. Secondly, I've listened to so many episode of Joe Rogan. One of my favorite ones is actually with Kanye. I know everyone thinks Kanye's an idiot. But if you can, that's five hours. It's insane. It's one of the most intense episodes I've ever listened to. But one that is a must-listen to, seriously one of the best podcast episodes ever done is his first interview with Elon Musk. If you ever get the chance, just sit down and listen to it. It's three or three and a half hours, but understanding that dude's mind, Elon Musk, you will not regret that three hours of your life. It was a fantastic episode. So that's the one. Russell: Very cool. Josh: Okay. Last thing here before we move on, are there any other points that we didn't cover about why someone should have a podcast? Wrap up, make your closing arguments around why somebody should go setup a podcast. Russell: The last one I'll say, and I quote Nathan Barry, actually, in Traffic Secrets. And I'll probably mess up the quote, but it was interesting. He talked about how... I think the title of the blog post I share is, You Got to Publish Long Enough to Get Noticed. And he talks about how for most of us there's so much content out nowadays. There's all these things. It's hard to know what's going to be good. 5,000 podcasts launched today. How many Netflix episodes, all sorts stuff. He says most of us find out about a good show at Season Two or Season Three, because of this, we waited to see, our friends talked about it. All of sudden it gets a breaking point where everyone's talking about it, and then you become this overnight success. It's interesting. He said you have to publish long enough to get noticed. And I think that's the biggest thing to understand. Especially most people who are getting started and they're so scared. "I'm going to look like an idiot." "They're all going to make fun of me." "I'm just a beginner." Blah, blah. All these different excuses. The good news is, at the very beginning, no one's listening. Josh: No one's listening. Russell: It doesn't matter. Just do it. This is your chance to actually find your voice and learn how to speak and tell stories, and all those things. No one's listening. And if you keep doing it, I tell people all the time, if you publish consistently for a year, that doesn't mean once a month for a year, daily for a year, or three, four times, five times a week consistently for year. Two things will happen. Number one, you'll find your voice. Number two, your audience will have a chance and have enough time to actually find you. And so it's going out there and just setting it up, the ROI. And I'm a big ROI. You look at my DiSC profile, my number one value is ROI. If I can't see the return on investment on something, it's hard for me to do. It's why I struggled in school. It's why I struggle in awkward conversations. Because I'm like, "What's the point of this?" I don't get it. Podcasting was hard, because I didn't know what the ROI was. And luckily again, I didn't see the stats for three years. Josh: Is that how long it was? It was three years? Russell: Yeah, before we figured out how to get the stats on it. Josh: That's crazy. Russell: But because of that, because I didn't know what the ROI was, and I was just hoping and praying with faith that it would be good. Now I see the ROI. Now it's important. Now I do it twice a week. Regardless, it happens in the queue, in the can because it's that important. Josh: If your number one thing is ROI and you figured out the podcast is worth it, guys, there's your selling point. Go start a podcast already. Russell: Got a podcast. Let's go. Josh: Honestly, it's amazing. And it's so much fun too. You learn so much about yourself. And I think the one thing I'll say about podcasting is you've got to really find your own unique style. I was listening to, I know you know Alex Becker, but Alex Becker is probably one of the biggest influencers in crypto right now. Just insane. One of my friends who got his NFT, and he's up a quarter million bucks in three months. Just insane stuff. One of the things that he said is right now in the industry, everybody is trying to become an influencer. And so he says, "I see all these people trying to model exactly what it is that I do." And he's like, "I have no problem with you guys doing that because I get it." At the beginning, you don't know your voice yet or whatever, but he's like, "You'll never be me." And I won't use the language that he used. But he's basically like, "There's only one me, so eventually model me, do whatever you need to do. But eventually go find your voice. Go find your own thing, because that's why people are going to watch you. I'm going to make sure that you're irrelevant if you try to model me long term." And so it's giving you that permission to model somebody at the beginning, but then, people are not going to listen to you if they can go listen to somebody else that has the exact same style. So it allows you to really be yourself when you give yourself permission to just try different things. And at the beginning, like you said, no one's listening. Russell: Yeah. It's funny talking about modeling. I talked about this yesterday on a call I was on. It's fascinating because people, they're trying to copy or model somebody because they're trying to get those people to attract the right audience. And Myron said, "You don't attract who you want, you attract who you are." And so if you're trying to be someone else, you're not going to... Because you want those customers. It's going to be weird. I remember when we launched ClickFunnels, I was trying to be like all the other internet marketing guys, because I thought I was competing against Ryan and Perry and Traffic & Conversion. So I was trying to be more corporatey businessy, like they were. Wait a minute. That's not me. I'm not going to wear a shirt and tie on stage. I'm not going to wear a suit jacket. I'm going to wear my t-shirts and jeans. And I'm going to talk about my family and God and wrestling and things I'm excited by. And I don't care about agency, not that I don't care agency, but I don't care about... I'm going to speak to the entrepreneur, because that's who I want. Wherein Ryan and Perry, literally, one of their Traffic & Conversions were, "This is less for the entrepreneur, more for your teams and your staff." It's crazy now because you look at the... I thought we were in the same market, but as soon as I leaned into who Russell was, it's separated. And it's not that one's better or worse. They're different, but if you go to Funnel Hacking Live, it's my people. You're in the audience. Most of these people here are Christians, who are athletes, who've got kids, who are entrepreneurs, who are not doing this for the money, but doing it because they want to change the world. That's the overwhelming percentage of our audience. Not everyone. But as a whole we attract who we are. So lean into that, because otherwise you're going to attract people you don't like, and you're going to hate your life, and you're going to hate your business, you're going to hate your customers. But you put yourself out there, the people who do not resonate with you will leave on their own. You don't have to kick them out. They're be like, "Russell's annoying." I get people all the time, if I mention God on a podcast or anything, they're like, "If you're talking about God, I'm out." Sweet. All right. Bye. I'm good with that. I know people are like, "I don't believe in God, but I respect that you lean into it." They're cool too. But the people who are offended leave and the people who stick are the ones you want to hang out with anyway, because you attract who you are and not who you want to bring in. Josh: And I can talk about that topic super long, but I want to keep moving on the next piece here. Russell: That's it for the first episode then. Here with Josh on the Market Secrets Podcast. We're going to transition to the next one on the next episode.
Adam McChesney, Owner, and Partner at St. Louis, Missouri franchise of Hite Digital, a service digital marketing agency with 15 locations. Adam's agency provides logo design, branding services, website design, search engine optimization, paid advertising, and recently launched Hite CRM, a technology-based software based on GoHighLevel's white-labeled CRM. The goal? “To create an ecosystem that . . . helps us generate more business for them, . . . turn(s) those leads into customers, and then turn(s) those customers into walking billboards for our clients.” He wants to “turn a client's business into “a scalable model” that helps them reach their goals and helps them get more out of what they put in.” Adam says over 75% of his clients are in a home-service or contracting-type industry. Before Hite, Adam sold medical devices for around five years. When Covid hit, he decided he wanted to get into marketing. His background in prospecting, sales, and growing business gave him the skills he needed to get clients. He studied up on website building, ranking, and paid ad production so he could do the work. He started his agency in July of 2020 and grew it “from basically nothing up to 30 or 40 clients,” but then came the problems. A lot of issues – fulfillment, account management, and scaling – were breaking the agency and its business. Adam started looking for ways to outsource. After he became “official” with Hite in June of this year, he doubled his agency's monthly revenue in 90 days . . . jumping from $30K to $60k a month. Hite Digital at the corporate level handles processes, systems, fulfillment, and some of the prospecting and administration services, leaving Adam with the time and energy to focus on prospecting, selling, growing, and scaling his business. Daily franchise calls with other franchise owners cover different business topics – each week starts with sales, then progresses through mindset, general operations, product, and on Friday, family-oriented personal sharing – providing a rich source of franchise “lessons learned,” but, more importantly, supportive relationships. The franchise has allowed him to leverage the resources and abilities of about 150 full-time team members and 15 distinct locations, and do work at a scale that a small, independent agency could not. Adam feels the franchise certifications, high-profile sponsorships, and publicity have increased his “validity” . . . he no longer has to sell himself as an individual product. With Hite corporate providing the processes and systems (“Sales are not going to outperform and out-scale bad processes and systems,” Adam warns), he now has the time to be “hyper-focused on what's going to take this agency and continue to grow.” He then concludes, “The things that are happening behind the scenes – strategy, everything like that – have continued to stay the same One key to finding quality clients? Adam is in a number of mastermind groups where he meets with business owners from all over the country on a regular basis. Many of the people in his mastermind groups are his clients or become his clients . . . and those people refer new clients to him, as well. Adam feels personal branding contributes to his ability to get and retain clients, because people know, like, and trust him based on the relationship created before they even consider a partnership. Adam is available on Instagram: @adamlmcchesney or on his agency's website at: hitedigital.com/st-louis Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Adam McChesney, Owner and Partner at Hite Digital St. Louis, obviously in St. Louis, Missouri. Welcome to the podcast, Adam. ADAM: Yeah, Rob. Thanks for having me on. Super excited to be here today. Appreciate you having me here today. ROB: Excellent to have you on the podcast. Why don't you start off by telling us about Hite Digital St. Louis? Tell us what you all are doing, what's exciting there, what clients seek out. ADAM: Yeah, absolutely. Hite Digital St. Louis is a franchise operation of Hite Digital. Hite Digital has 15 locations as of this recording today, and I'm lucky enough to be the owner/partner here in St. Louis, Missouri. We're a full-service digital marketing agency. We do everything from logo and branding, website design, search engine optimization, paid advertising, and we've recently launched our own CRM as well. We do things a little bit differently over at Hite. Some really cool things that we have in the works. But we are a franchise model, so we leverage the resources and the abilities of about 150 full-time team members and 15 different locations. It has allowed us to do a lot of things at scale that, if you were basically your own little hyper-agency like I was before merging with Hite, you just couldn't do. Some really exciting things we have going on. ROB: It's a really interesting model, and I think it's one we really haven't encountered before on this podcast. How did you become aware of Hite, and how did you get drawn in? I'm sure that's a process; I'm sure there's some aspirations of what you can build on your own, what you can build together. It's probably a journey. ADAM: Absolutely. It's definitely been a journey. I've been an agency owner full-time now since July of 2020. Quick backstory on me: I was in the medical device sales field for about five years. Worked my way up through multiple companies and was pretty successful, but right as COVID was going on, I realized I didn't know if this was necessarily for me. I'd always wanted to take marketing full-time to see what I could do, helping local businesses – especially during such a unique time that we were seeing with the pandemic. So, in July of 2020, I left. My background, my strengths are really in prospecting and sales and growing business, so I never really had any issues finding people that were interested in allowing me to do their marketing and advertising. And then I was taught through courses and programs and a lot of self-teaching how to build a website, rank a website, do all the paid ads. So, I could sell and then I could also do it, which was nice, but it also brought its own set of problems for fulfillment and account management and scaling. As I took my agency from basically nothing up to 30 or 40 clients, I had a lot of issues that were breaking the agency and the business as a whole. I started looking into ways to outsource. Hite Digital was one of those ways that I was looking. Hite Digital in the past had been a white label fulfillment company for agencies that obviously didn't want to do the work internally. So, transitioning over to this franchise model – I had heard about it; never heard anything like it. I thought, “Wow, this is way too good to be true.” They handle the processes and the systems, they handle the fulfillment, they handle some prospecting and admin stuff. For me, it was a perfect storm where I was at in my agency to be able to continue and focus on what I wanted to do, which is prospect and sell and grow a business. ROB: It's really fascinating. It sounds like the whole delivery aspect of the business is something you don't really have to worry about on a day-to-day basis. ADAM: That's correct. ROB: But then with that also comes – you still do have to sell something that is aligned to what Hite can deliver as an organization. How do you think about the alignment between what you're selling and what's being delivered? ADAM: Luckily, I had a taste of what Hite was able to do before I came on as a franchise. I knew a couple other people that were already franchisees of Hite, I had seen it from a white label standpoint, and most of what I'm selling today was also what I had previously sold and also done myself. So, for me, it wasn't much of a transition. The biggest transition for me was to get out of a lot of the mundane tasks of the day to day. So, managing the accounts, managing the projects, building a website myself – all the things that in theory were good for me in the beginning to get access to knowing how to do it and be able to better sell what I was selling, but it got me very focused on the things that weren't going to grow and scale a business. ROB: What kind of territory do you have, then? Is it St. Louis in fact, and someone else might come in and do Kansas City or Nashville? You've got about 100 miles? What's your range? ADAM: Basically, right now I'm the only one in Missouri. I can't remember the specifics on the range. I want to say it's about 120 miles that I can remember. For example, in the state of Texas we have four franchisees down there. We don't really necessarily have a boundary of where we can do business, being digital marketing. There's not any caps on anything like that. But I want to say it's about 120 miles in terms of where another franchise would be opening. ROB: Got it. It reminds me – the NBA operates kind of like that too, and they seem to be doing all right for everyone there. [laughs] When it comes to prospecting, you almost get to go out and prospect a bit more unencumbered with the day to day of the operations, which is fascinating. Quite often in the medical sales field, it's I think a little bit similar. How do you think about which kinds of clients you're working with locally? ADAM: Where I really got my start was online networking. I'm in a variety of different masterminds where likeminded people are coming together. I'm meeting business owners all the time, and whether I'm working with people within those masterminds as clients of mine or they're referring people to me, most of my clients were all over the country. This has now given me an aspect to start doing some cool things locally in terms of networking, getting my name out there from a standpoint that actually means something. When I am the product, the service, and everything, and I'm telling people, “Hey, this is what I've got,” no one really understands that. Now I can send them over to Hite Digital, show them all the team members that we have, all the certifications, all the sponsorships, all the stuff that has been written about Hite Digital throughout the publications. It has a lot more validity. So, I'm more proud to be able to go and show that and do that, and it's given me access and more time to be able to do it. Personal branding is such a big aspect of where I've been able to get clients, keep clients and retain clients, because people know, like, and trust me based on the relationship that we've already created before even coming into a partnership together. ROB: Where does that lead you? Are there particular verticals or sizes of companies? Is there a typical client right now in St. Louis for you? ADAM: Most of the clients I have are in the home service or contracting space. That's really where I got my start and where I'm heavily involved from a client standpoint. But transitioning over to Hite, we've been able to work with clients of all shapes and sizes and a variety of different industries. Even started getting into the ecommerce space, which I had never been into before. There's really not a cap, but if I had to say, majority of my clients, 75% and above right now are all in a home service or contracting type industry. ROB: Got it. That certainly makes sense from a services perspective, whether you're talking about SEO, whether you're talking about paid search. All of those kinds of things, you need a certain kind of website; you need to be distributed certain places. You can definitely see how there's a lot of them, and you're prospecting probably looks a little bit similar on that side too, going to the medical. There's lists of these people. You can find them, you can build trust with them, and keep on going. Does that transfer? ADAM: Exactly. That absolutely does. ROB: You mentioned the CRM product, then. Is that a Hite central offering? What does that look like? ADAM: Yes. We partnered with GoHighLevel to create a technology-based software of their white label CRM. It's called Hite CRM. We launched it probably about two months ago right now. We've started to have some people adopt it. But essentially, we want to create an ecosystem that not only helps us generate more business for them, but able to obviously turn those leads into customers, and then turn those customers into walking billboards for our clients. The strategic part about what we do isn't just getting them more lead flow or more calls; it's how we turn your business into a scalable model that helps you reach your goals and helps you get out more of what you put in. ROB: That part makes sense. I do wonder – and this is always a little bit of a tricky art between that transition from sales to delivery in terms of relationship. You mentioned relationship, you mentioned retention. How do you think about the ownership of the relationship when a client goes from sales in your office to delivery, which is across the world, and certainly has to be at a level of quality – but it seems like the boundary of who owns the account is a little bit trickier than maybe if you had everything in-house. ADAM: Absolutely. Technically, we still obviously have it in-house. My account managers that I have are full-time. They just work with my clients. We have created the relationship and created that on a very high level. People obviously do business with me because they know, like, and trust me, and then I transition to not necessarily completely step away from the account, but “Hey, here is Kevin or Moe that's going to be able to take care of you on a daily basis.” The problem in agencies, as you grow and scale, and the issue I was having, is I was lucky if I was able to hop on a call with a client that was paying me a good amount of money once per month. In that, I wanted to make sure that the customer service was to a tier above where I had it and that we were still getting the results, that we were getting the correct reporting, that we were building efficiencies around how we do things for our clients. The aspect of the touching of each account and to the effectiveness we've been able to do it has completely gone through the roof in the transition. Obviously, that comes with me stepping back and delegating and putting processes and systems in place so I'm not the face of the day-to-day communication. But at the end of the day, the things that are happening behind the scenes – strategy, everything like that – has continued to stay the same. ROB: What does it look like? What's maybe the most extreme example of what it looks like to scale a city as a Hite franchisee? What's the limit? There's almost an unlimited amount of business. ADAM: Yeah, there's unlimited amount of business. Ideally, I think in the future we create physical offices, we have all these different things. Being able to work remote and pretty much anywhere in the world, I think there's a ton of opportunity just with one location. Just to give you an idea, I came into Hite officially June of this year, and by stepping away from the account management, by stepping away from the fulfillment and the admin tasks, I've been able to double my agency in 90 days. We went from about $30k a month to over $60k a month. And really all that is attributed to me being able to step away and not have to worry about “When's this project going to be due?” or “How am I going to figure out how to get all of these reports out to these clients and then hop on calls with them, and then hopefully for 30 minutes to an hour a day focus on my personal brand and also prospecting?” Those things tend to go in the backseat when you have to figure out the projects and the account management. For me, I've been able to be very hyper-focused on what's going to take this agency and continue to grow. ROB: A lot less fires to fight, for sure. A flipside of that, I would think, is maybe having fewer people around you when it comes to having a table of different opinions to help challenge the business, to move it forward, to think of what's next. How do you think about finding peer support and things to drive you forward in that way? ADAM: Luckily, the support system with the franchise model at Hite is absolutely phenomenal. We have a daily franchise call. Each day of the week is a particular sector or topic of the business. Today was sales, getting the week started off right. Tomorrow is mindset. Then we have general operations, product, and then family-oriented personalized stuff. So, we talk together on a consistent basis, even though we are completely on opposite ends of the country or the world or wherever we're talking. I think by having all of this communication and collaboration in the last 90 days, what's also taken me is I'm finding new ways to put different twists on my business based off of what all these agency owners are doing, because we're all in it together. If someone is finding success in a certain area, we're going to share it with the team because we want to grow and scale at its height. If you were to just have a daily call with 15 agency owners, I don't know how many people are going to start sharing their secrets every single day of the week to help you grow. You might get one or two things. But we're able to do this thing at scale and really help a ton of clients, a ton of people, and do it on a consistent basis. So that's been a really cool part. ROB: Right. From a geography perspective, there's no competition. You can be fully transparent. Someone can tell you exactly one account they're having a hard time with, they're weak, they're dying, the client's at risk, and you can't go steal that client. There's nothing you can do. That's their client, and they need the help to succeed, and you can learn from it. ADAM: Yeah, it's been phenomenal. To also give you an idea, we have one of our owner/partners who's in Nashville, and he's a real estate investor himself. He got into the space for being a real estate investor, to try to grow and scale his wholesaling company. He's jumped on calls with me to talk real estate with potential clients that he's never going to see anything from. No one's ever going to take time out of their day to do that if you're not a part of something like we have going on at Hite. ROB: One thing that seems like it would be tricky – and I'm sure they've solved it – how do you handle the question of product offerings and pricing? Because it seems like there's a lot of room for transparency there. There's a lot of room for you to try to mark up a service 10 times the rack rate. There's room for Hite to mark up a service 10% and tell you to just deal with it. How does that balance work from the pricing as it flows through to a client? ADAM: We have our fulfillment costs of what we pay per project or per service offering, what have you, and then we have “Hey, here's what we recommend selling it for.” You can sell it for what you want. If you want to package something together, if you want to offer X, Y, and Z free for 90 days or at a percentage off, you have the complete ability to do that. Clients are never really getting access to what our cost is on anything, so you then can go and say, “Hey, here's what I want to do in my business to be able to get to XYZ goal, and I'm going to reverse-engineer back knowing your costs.” So yeah, we haven't had any issues with it thus far. ROB: It's an interesting thing. It also allows you to be entrepreneurial because you can assess the market conditions locally, the competitive situation. It all makes sense. It still feels like selling, sounds like. ADAM: Yeah, it does. The huge thing for us is we've been able to get access to opportunities that we would've never gotten access to if we were just our little agency here in St. Louis. We were the VIP sponsor out at Traffic & Conversion. We got a ton of exposure there. We're a sponsor on Dave Ramsey's podcast. There's a lot of things you can now do when you have 15 locations that are all pooling things together. We have an opportunity generation department that helps out with our prospecting and even sets appointments for us. There's a lot of really cool things you're able to do when doing it at scale. ROB: Absolutely. That did ring a bell, actually. I have listened on the EntreLeadership Podcast. I have heard Hite Digital. It did ring a bell, and part of me wondered how much that sponsorship cost. I don't expect you to know that, but… [laughs] ADAM: I don't know it. [laughs] ROB: It's probably something you wouldn't do on your own. ADAM: Yes, exactly. ROB: Very good. Adam, you've done your own agency, you've chopped the delivery part off now and freed yourself to focus on some strengths; what are some lessons you've learned on your journey leading the agency that you might go back and tell yourself if you could rewind the clock and try to play Back to the Future and tell yourself what you ought to have known? ADAM: There's a variety of different things. It's only been 15 months of doing this full-time, and I've had a lot of success, but I've made a lot of mistakes, so the list could be very long. But I think the biggest thing for me, being a sales rep in my past, is sales are not going to outperform and out-scale bad processes and systems. When I first started running this full-time, I leave medical device, I leave a very lucrative industry, benefits, security, all those different things, and the shiny object is “Just go get sales. Take whatever product or service you can get in here and start selling it. Get people in the door.” Which was fine to an extent, but then my weakness – and why it's been such a great transition into Hite – is the processes and the systems. It's the organization. It's the fulfillment aspect. Trying to outsell bad processes and systems is never going to be the answer, and I think so many agency owners experience those problems where they're just focused on the shiny object, which is that next deal or that next month's worth of retainers, when not focusing on a process or system could set you back next month, 90 days, 6 months from now, and keep you from scaling to grow your business. ROB: Sure. A lot of the processes are handled for you. How do you think about the processes that are not handled for you? How do you think about keeping consistency? Is there a playbook you're pulling from Hite? Is there a playbook you're writing yourself? How do you keep those account managers locked and loaded? How do you think about the next zero on the size of the business? ADAM: There's definitely a playbook and framework from Hite, but with how we do our business – to give you an idea, not everyone is going to have an account manager based on where they're at in their franchise. I happen to have two of them due to the size of our franchise. There's different dynamics that are coming in. I'm doing things a little bit differently than someone else is doing them based on our comfortability and based on where we're at with our clients and what projects we have going on. I'm managing it and learning new things each day, because I've really never managed people in a full-time aspect, especially in the account manager role, and I've also never been just an account manager. So, there's a variety of different factors that are going on. The next level in my agency is to bring in an integrator type person with digital marketing experience that really knows how to grow and scale an account management team, eventually a sales team. That way, I can really focus on what I'm doing best, which is at the top, strategizing, growing, and scaling the franchise itself, and not in the day to day still when it comes to managing people and the operations aspect. ROB: That lets you focus also on bringing in a very interesting sort of integrator, because you're not talking about a full-scale ops and delivery integrator. You can think about it as a different sort of organization, probably bring a more specialized integrator into that role. ADAM: A specialized integrator, one that's done SOPs, one that's done the product and the service aspect of what you do, and that likes doing it. Because at the end of the day, I think a lot of people are put in positions or pivoted to be an integrator when really they could be a visionary type of person or someone that doesn't like “I'm going to check the boxes and do all these different things.” My mind races at 1,000 miles per hour, and I need someone to help reel that in, and when we do have a good idea or a new process and system that could take the business to the next level, have someone that can run and put it into place and actually make it work. ROB: Absolutely. You've mentioned there's different scales of these franchises; there's one-man/one-woman shows. You've got a couple people around you. With the visibility that you have, what's the biggest you've seen a franchise get so far, and what does it look like from a work structure? ADAM: The franchise model is actually not even a year old. It's super new. We have people that have come in with agencies of all sizes, and then also people that are brand new to running their own agency, which I think is really cool. I think on the spectrum of where things are at, our average agency – we just saw the numbers today – is doing almost $30,000 a month. That's between all the agencies that are out there. Our agency here in St. Louis is definitely the largest in terms of I have two full-time people. I think everyone else pretty much at least has another full-time person or is working towards that. From a monetary standpoint, those things are going to be on every which end of the spectrum. But the average is right around $30,000, which is pretty healthy for 15 and only being a year old. ROB: Yeah, and you're setting the pace then a little bit, creating what this looks like. I wondered up front what it looked like perhaps from a pride perspective, because you start your own business and then you're merging, you're rebranding. But it almost sounds like a way to think about it is it's a way of making a bet and investing in growth. You're saying, “I think if I take this path instead of another one, I'm going to rebrand, I'm going to gain this halo over me” – and I guess some podcast ads, and this conference, plenty of other lead routes. But sometimes a merger is an ego battle, and it sounds like this is a little bit more of an investment strategy. ADAM: Yeah. It was a concern for me, to be honest. I was a lot more concerned with the way that I thought it was going to go versus how it actually did. For me, it wasn't so much the ego, but it was that I was the product, the service, and the everything. Basically, taking feedback and taking how the customers at the time and eventual customers took it, I took all that stuff personally. Some was good, some was not so good, and there were areas of opportunity. But for me, it was more so we each have our own commitment at Hite, and we're committed to so many different things of helping people, empowering people. I am the commitment to live a more whole, well-rounded life. If I want to do that, the way I do that is by impacting as many people as possible. I can only impact so many people if I'm doing everything, and I don't have the support, I don't have what I have now at Hite. Now, in 90 days, I've already grown the business double to what it was already at before, which was helping a lot of people. It's really cool to see even what we'll have at the end of the year and then this time next year. We're able to fulfill our commitments at a higher level, and in the process of that we're obviously going to lose clients that maybe we wouldn't have lost if I stayed and did my little agency. But we have to look at the bigger picture. I have to look at the bigger picture and what's best for me, my family, my agency, and everything else that's included. ROB: For sure. When you're looking ahead, Adam, at the next year, if we were to catch up a year from now, what's going to be new from the Hite Digital fulfillment mothership, and what will be different in St. Louis? What should we be looking forward to? ADAM: I alluded to earlier, over the next three to six months, I really want to bring in an operations integrator type manager to help take this business and plug up the holes that are here. What I think that allows us to do is to grow our team here in St. Louis – adding that person that would be local here in St. Louis, potentially adding some sales managers, more account managers. But getting very strategic on the partnerships and the things we're doing, investing in relationships, investing in masterminds to make sure that we're impacting not only as many people as we possibly can, but the right people, the right clients to come in here. The more people we're able to work with on a consistent basis, it's really going to help everyone win. I think in terms of Hite, we have ambitions of taking it from 15 franchises – I don't know what the end goal looks like in terms of a specific number of franchisees, but I think the people we're bringing in are all quality. They fit the bill of what makes Hite, Hite. And the best part is we're attracting all of these people. We're bringing in agency owners that we're connected to in our market, we're in other masterminds together. There's just a uniqueness to what we're doing. I think that continues on over the next couple months and throughout the years. ROB: Excellent. Adam, when people want to find and connect with you and Hite Digital St. Louis, where should they go to find you? ADAM: The easiest place is going to be my Instagram account. That's @adamlmcchesney. That's where I'm probably the most active in terms of messaging back and forth with people. You can also go to hitedigital.com/st-louis and find our information there in terms of what we offer and everything we have going on here at Hite Digital St. Louis. ROB: Excellent. Adam, thank you for coming on. This really does uncover a model we haven't talked about a lot on this podcast. It's a different path. It's clear it's working for you, it's exciting, and I think we're going to hear more about it. Thanks for coming on and sharing your experience, sharing your vision and leadership thus far, and we can't wait to see where it all goes. ADAM: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to be on. Super excited for the future. ROB: Thanks so much, Adam. Take care. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.
EPISODE SUMMARY Join scientist and mindset & high-performance coach Claudia Garbutt and serial entrepreneur Sheila Farragher-Gemma as they talk about building leveraging strategic partnerships, the power of networking, and creating win-win situations. In this episode you'll learn about: - The role of mentorship & personal development for sustainable success - Leveraging strategic partnership & sponsorships to grow your business - Pushing through your fears to achieve your goals EPISODE NOTES Sheila Farragher-Gemma moved to the states in 1989 for a job in Boston. She figured she would stay a few years before returning home to Ireland, but 30 years later, with a husband, two children, and a handful of successful businesses under her belt, she may be here to stay. Sheila has an entrepreneurial spirit which lead her to the world of marketing consulting. Through her company, Connected Sponsor, she helps event promoters monetize their events by building long standing relationships and partnerships with Sponsoring companies. Some events she's helped are Traffic &Conversion, ProfitCon, Underground, and MFA Live. You can find her here: Website: https://connectedsponsors.com/findingsponsors FB: https://www.facebook.com/ConnectedSponsors ---------------- Claudia Garbutt is a molecular biologist turned mindset & high-performance coach who helps ambitious, mission-driven entrepreneurs ditch the hustle, overwhelm & busywork so that they can show up as authentic & confident leaders and build their legacy. She uses high-level neuroscience-based coaching to help ambitious high-achievers build their empires without sacrificing their health, relationships, or happiness along the way. She is also a mom of 2 kids and 2 cats, a cancer survivor, runner & environmentalist. You can find me here: Website: www.wiredforsuccess.solutions Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wired_for_success/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/claudia.garbutt.1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudia-garbutt/ ------------------------- If you enjoyed this episode, learned something new, had an epiphany moment - or were reminded about a simple truth that you had forgotten, please let me know by leaving a review and a comment! I'm always open to suggestions – maybe you have a specific topic in mind that you would love to learn more about or you know someone who would be a fantastic guest for this show – leave a comment and let me know! Oh, and make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss out on any of the amazing future episodes! --------------- HELPFUL RESOURCES Get my FREE “Prime Your Brain for Success in Less Than 5 min Each Day” audio file that is specifically designed for ambitious, mission-driven entrepreneurs who want to start their day more focused, inspired & energized! Wanna find out how I can help you leverage the power of your mind and tap into the wisdom of your body to feel fully aligned, trust your intuition, and achieve your goals with ease and joy rather than with constant hustle and pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion – book a free 20min Strategy Session with me: https://bit.ly/2YemfIe Are you too busy to enjoy your life and would like to free up more time to do all the things you love? Check out my “5 Days to Getting Your Life Back” productivity course that teaches ambitious, mission-driven entrepreneurs how to win back 1-2h of precious time each day
Mandy McEwen from ModGirlMarketing.com, brought the goods today as this episode has a boatload of tactics on how to connect and showcase your brand on LinkedIn. When Mandy told us that only 1% of users are actively posting on that platform, it really opened up our eyes to the possibilities. While LinkedIn may not be the answer for everyone, chances are your audience is on there. To be successful on LinkedIn, you really want to do what everyone else is not doing, i.e. acting like a human being without constantly pitching. Mandy talks about some cool tips to dial in your profile to make you stand out as an influencer leader and how there are different features on the mobile app which you can optimize. She also discusses how her own clients have grown without even posting, but just by engaging. You can create that closed-loop system with comments and posts, plus she got tactical in regards to what the LinkedIn algorithm really loves. There are also some tips on how to post documents, and use LinkedIn Navigator to fine-tune your feed. If you want to get additional reach, connect with the people you want and appear as a thought leader, check out all the ideas she shares. Afterward, round out your networking and LinkedIn know-how by checking out our previous episodes with Trevor Turnbull and Joshua B. Lee. “We all have personal brands, whether you want it or not, especially entrepreneurs. Really anyone with a LinkedIn profile has a personal brand so you might as well start owning it.” - Mandy McEwen Some Topics We Discussed Include: How to really succeed with LinkedIn (and it's not as hard as you think) The “Don't List” of what not to do reach LinkedIn outreach How to be seen as the industry expert without having to create a ton of unique content Leverage these hacks to curate your own content easily Which types of posts LinkedIn prefers the most How to use LinkedIn to make you look more like an influencer A super easy hack to make you stand out Yet another business idea that we would use if you create it The results that you can get just from leaving one comment on a post Mandy's key takeaways from her Traffic & Conversion talk Resources From Mandy McEwen: ModGirlMarketing.com Connect with Mandy on LinkedIn SalesNav.ModGirl.Social - Check it out to get a 60 day free trial for Sales Navigator LinkedIn.ModGirl.Social - Get the Ultimate LinkedIn profile checklist References and Links Mentioned: Are you ready to be EPIC with us?! Then grab our EGP Letter here! Check out our awesome YouTube Channel channel, made for digital marketers and business pros looking for actionable insights, where we dish out meaningful content, relevant topics, and transparent discussions with industry experts. Join the Facebook Community - be sure to hop in our Facebook group to chat with us, our other amazing guests that we've had on the show, and fellow entrepreneurs! We also have a new PodHacker YouTube Channel where you can learn how to build, grow, and monetize a podcast with our unique "PodHacks." We post tutorials, tips, and interview clips that help podcasters scale their show and make more money from their efforts. This episode is sponsored by Easy Webinar and Ahrefs - be sure to check out these special deals for our listeners. The Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn - Joshua B. Lee A Master of LinkedIn Shares His Real Secrets To Success - Trevor Turnbull
Sheila Farragher-Gemma moved to the states in 1989 for a job in Boston. She figured she would stay a few years before returning home to Ireland, but 30 years later, with a husband, two children, and a handful of successful businesses under her belt, she may be here to stay.Sheila has an entrepreneurial spirit which lead her to the world of marketing consulting. Through her company, Connected Sponsor, she helps event promoters monetize their events by building long-standing relationships and partnerships with Sponsoring companies. Some events she's helped are Traffic &Conversion, ProfitCon, Underground, and MFA Live.Connect with Sheilahttps://www.connectedsponsors.com/FindingSponsorshttps://www.connectedsponsors.com/10-secrets-to-quickly-find-sponsorshttps://sheilagemma.clickfunnels.com/affiliatehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilafarraghergemma/Connect with Russhttps://russjohns.com/https://thepiratesyndicate.com/https://nextstepnext.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/Live Stream Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZQLQJg1jSMPlease don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTz6TElo52gMGBrikwfj07A
Our team member Sanmeet is here with us to talk about CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). Alongside him, we've seen a lot of interesting activity in this area through the thousands of tests we've run. There are differences and similarities between markets, which has been quite fascinating to see. On this episode: Sanmeet's previous education and business experience. When Sanmeet joined AdKings Agency and why. Why CRO has gained in popularity in the past few years. How Sanmeet describes CRO from his perspective. The best way to go about CRO if your website already gets good traffic. What types of data are being gathered for CRO? What CRO is actually about at the end of the day. Why finding a good analyst is crucial for value. What good marketing cannot overcome. Groups that will benefit from a better customer experience. Why the need for this kind of optimization will never disappear. Why continuous improvement through CRO is so important. What happens when you start a business without considering the user experience. The reason why most CRO suggestions for improvement are so basic. How CRO ensures your website stays up to date. One common misunderstanding about conversion rate optimization. What is involved with CRO behind the scenes? What needs to be in place before you invest in CRO. --- Apply for a Discovery Call With Us: ➤ www.adkings.agency/intro - Want us personally to help to grow your eCommerce business to 8 or even 9-figures? Then check out our Boutique eCommerce Specialized Facebook Ads & Omni-channel Funnels Growth Agency - AdKings. --- Our Other Resources: www.adkings.agency/memos - Exclusive AdKings Memos Newsletter. Our best case studies, real test results, and bi-weekly actionable insights on what is working RIGHT NOW for our clients in their journey to 8 & 9-figures. Curated for business owners, CEO's, CMO's and delivered straight to your inbox. Must join if you love our content on the podcast! www.adkings.agency/community - Free eCommerce Community With 2000+ Members. Would love to chat, ask us some questions, or maybe even help us decide the next podcast topic? Join our free Facebook community of over 2000+ other eCom Entrepreneurs, CEO's, CMO's, and marketers. www.adkings.agency/careers - Are you living and breathing everything marketing & FB advertising? Extremely ambitious in driving tremendous results, love challenges, and want to help manage a portfolio of 7 & 8-figure eCommerce clients? Apply now.
Enjoy part two of this classic episode series where Andrew Warner from Mixergy interviews Russell on the ClickFunnels startup story! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Alright everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope yesterday you enjoyed part one of the Clickfunnels start up story interview at the Dry Bar Comedy Club with Andrew. I love the way he interviews. I hope you're enjoying it as well. So we are going to dive right into part 2 of 4 from this interview. And again, if you're liking these interviews please, please, please take a snapshot on your phone, post it on Facebook, Instagram or wherever you do your posting and tag me in it and use hashtag marketing secrets so I can see that you're talking about it. I'd appreciate it. With that said, we're going to queue up the theme song, when we come back we'll start in on part 2 of the interview of the Clickfunnels start up story. Andrew: You know what, I've talked to a few of your people because they're so good, that Dave could really be a leader on his own, start his own company, he's got his own online reputation, the whole thing. I keep asking him, “Why do you work for Russell? What is it that lets you be second to Russell who's getting all the attention?” And I've got some answers and would you mind coming up here and in a second I'm going to ask you. No, come back here and I'll just bring you up in a second. Actually, you know what, it looks like you can come pretty fast. I thought that it would be a little bit more, I thought it would be more of a thing to get mics on people. And I realized if Collette can do it…. Okay honestly, dig down deep. Why did you want to stick with him? Brent: Through all that stuff? Andrew: Yeah. Brent: I don't know. My heart was just racing. As he started telling that story, it just makes me sick to my stomach. As you scroll down and look at all those businesses of, for years, every 30 days it was a new business launch, it was crazy. Always why I stuck with him is, you know, Collette mentioned that spirit. He's absolutely different than anybody else I've ever met in my entire life, a friend…. Andrew: Of what? Give me an example. Let's be more specific. Back then, not today, he's got this track record, adoring fans, I asked him to do an interview, everyone wants him on his podcast. Back then when it wasn't going so well. Give me an example that let you know this is a guy who's going to figure it out eventually, and I could possibly go down, watch him go to jail, but I believe that it's going to go up. Brent: Well, at the time when things are crashing, I saw him as the income stopped. And he had started a program that he loves, obviously wrestling, and he brought an Olympic wrestling coach to Boise and he brought all these amazing wrestlers to Boise and he wanted them to be able to train and get to the Olympics, he wanted to help them get there and live their dream. And you know, he was supplementing, at the time the business was paying for these guys to do a little bit of work for us, they weren't doing very much for us. But I saw him out of his own pocket, be paying for these guys. And I knew how hard he wanted to support them. And there was a day when my wife and I, we were struggling because I just, I was concerned about him financially because he was supplementing and trying to keep this business afloat, and we talked about things and I came into the office one day and I asked if I could talk to him and sat down, and kind of spoke in language that I normally don't speak in, I might have dropped a bomb or two. It was, I was so concerned I pretty much told him, I can't keep doing this, I can't keep watching you every month pulling the money that you saved for your family to try keep jobs for other people. I said, I'll leave if that helps you. And the fact that he stuck with people, that was the true character of who he is. Andrew: He kept paying your salary, kept sticking with you, and also constantly launching things. Brent: Absolutely. Andrew: That you've never seen anyone implement like him. Brent: You know some people call it faith or belief. He has this inherit belief that he can truly change people's lives. Andrew: That's it, even when he wasn't fully in control of his own. Alright thanks. Thanks for, give him a big round of applause, thanks for being up here. I feel like this is the thing that helped get you out of trouble and potentially, and getting out of potential jail. What is this business that you created? Russell: So we, during the time of that and this there was time, probably a year and a half-two years that we were trying all sorts of stuff. And again, marginal success on a lot of them, nothing like….and this was the one, we actually, this is before….I've done a lot of webinars and speaking from seminars and stuff like that, but this is right when auto webinars were coming out and Mike Filsaime had just done an auto webinar and a couple of people, and I felt like that was going to be the future thing. So we're like, what do we do the webinar on? We didn't know. And we flew out to Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher's office for two days and picked their brains, went to Rich Schefren's office for a day. And then on the flight home, I'm just like sick to my stomach. I couldn't figure out what's the thing that we could serve people the most right now. And on the flight home I was like, all the internet marketing stuff we do works for internet marketers, but we're way better at like local business. Like if a chiropractor implements like two things it works. Or if a dentist does it. But I was like, I don't want to be the guy going to dentists, but we could be the backbone for that. What if we created an opportunity where people could come in, we train them, and we connect them with the right tools and resources, and then they could go and sell to chiropractors and dentists. And that's what the idea was. We turned it into an offer called Dotcom Secrets Local, it was a thousand dollar offer at the time. Did the auto webinar for it, and it launched and within 90 days it had done over a million dollars, which covered payroll taxes and then got us out of debt to the point now we could stop and dream again, and believe again and try to figure out what we really wanted to do. Andrew: Dotcom Secrets Local to a million dollars within 90 days. And how did you find the people who were going to sign up for this. A lot of us will have landing pages like this, we'll have these funnels. How did you get people in this funnel? Russell: And this was pre-Facebook too, so it wasn't just like go turn Facebook ads on. But you know, one thing that happened over all the years prior to this, I'd met a lot of people and go to a lot of events and get to know everybody. And everyone I met, you know, you meet a lot of people who have lists, they have followings, they have different things like that. I just got to know them really, really well. And in the past I'd promote a lot of their products, they'd promote my products. So we had this one and we did it first to my list, and it did really well. So I then I then called them and I'm like, “Okay, I did this webinar to my list, these are the numbers, it did awesome. Do you want to do it to your list as well?” and they're like, “Oh sure. Sounds like a great offer.” We did that list and it did good for them too. And we told the next person and then, if you have a webinar, it's kind of like the speaking circuit, if you're good at speaking then people will put you all over the place. Same thing, if you have a webinar that converts, then it's easy to get a lot of people to do it. So as soon as that one worked and it converted well, then people lined up and we kept doing it, doing it, and doing it, and it was really quick to get to that spot pretty quick. Andrew: I went on Facebook recently and I saw webinar slides from Russell Brunson, I went to the landing page, Clickfunnels page and I signed up and I'll talk about it maybe later, but I bought it and I know other people did. And I've seen other people say, “Russell's webinar technique is the thing that just works.” I'm wondering how did you figure it out? How did you come across this and how did you build it and make it work? Russell: Yeah, so rewind back probably ten years prior to this, when I was first learning this whole business. I went to my very first internet marketing seminar ever, it was Armand Morin's Big Seminar. Did you ever go to Big Seminar? Anyway, I went to it and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be like, I showed up with my laptop and I was going to like, I thought we were a bunch of geeks going to do computer stuff. And the first person got onstage and started speaking and at the end of it he sold like a two thousand dollar thing. And I'd never seen this before. I saw people jumping up and running to the back of the room to buy it. And I'm like this little 23 year old kid and I was counting the people in the back of the room, doing the math, you know doing the math and I'm like, that guy made 60 thousand dollars in an hour. And the next guy gets up and does his presentation and I watch this for three days and I was like, I'm super shy and introverted, but that skill is worth learning. If someone can walk on a stage and make 100,000 dollars in an hour, I need to learn how to do that. So I started that. And it was really bad for the first probably 8 or 9 months. I tried to do it. I'd go to places and I just, I couldn't figure it out. And then I started asking the people who were good because you go there and all the speakers kind of talk and hang out, and I'd watch the ones that always had the people in the back of the room. And I'd ask them questions, I'm like, ‘What did I do wrong? I feel like I'm teaching the best stuff possible.' And they're like, ‘That's the problem, it's not about teaching, it's about stories, telling stories and breaking beliefs.” So for about the next two years I was about once a month flying somewhere to speak, and then when I would go I would meet all the speakers and find out what they were doing and I'd watch them and I'd take notes on the different things they were saying and how they were saying it. And then I kept taking my presentation and tweaking it, and tweaking it, and tweaking it. And you know, now 12 years later, I've done so many webinars, it kind of worked. The process works now. Andrew: You are a really good story teller and I've seen you do that. I've seen you do it, and I know you're going to do it even more. What I'm curious about is the belief system that you were saying, breaking people's…what was it that you said? Russell: False beliefs. Andrew: Breaking people's false beliefs. How do you understand what, like as you look at this audience, do you understand what some of our false beliefs are? Russell: If I knew what I was selling I could figure out for sure. Andrew: If you knew what you were selling. Alright we're selling this belief that entrepreneurship does work. And I know we're all going to go through a period like some of the ones that you had where things just aren't' working, other people aren't believing in us, almost failure, what is at that point, the belief system that we have to work on? What do you recognize in people here? Russell: So usually there's three core beliefs that people have. The first is about the opportunity itself right. So like with entrepreneurship, the first belief that people have is could I actually be an entrepreneur? And some people who actually believe that, they're like, I'm in. And that's an easy one. But for those who don't there's a reason and usually it's like, they saw a parent that tried to do it. And the parent tried to be an entrepreneur and wasn't able to and they saw that failure. Or they'd tried it in the past and they failed or whatever it is. So it's showing them that even if you tried in the past and showed different ways, let me tell you a story. And for me, I could show 800 different failures. But eventually you get better and you get better until eventually you have the thing that actually works. So I tell a story to kind of show that, to make them believe that, oh my gosh maybe I just need to try a couple more times. And then the second level of beliefs is like beliefs about themselves like, I'm sure it works for you, Russell or Andrew but not for me because I'm different. It's helping them figure out their false beliefs, and if you can break that, then the third one is like, then they always want to blame somebody else. “I could lose lots of weight but my wife buys lots of cupcakes and candy. So I could do it, but because of that I can't.” So then it's like figuring out how you break the beliefs of the external people that are going to keep them. Andrew: And how would you know what that is? How would you know who the external influencers are, that your potential customers are worried about? Russell: I think for most of us it's because the thing that we're selling is something that, one of our, Nick Barely said “Our mess becomes our message.” For most of us, what we're selling is the thing we struggled with before. So I think back about me as 12 year old Russell, watching Don Lepre, like what would have kept me back? And I would have been like, I can't afford classified ads. Like if you showed me how I can, if you could tell me a story of, oh my gosh I could afford classified ads. Now that belief's gone and now I'm going to go give you money. It's just kind of remembering back to the state that you were in when you were trying to figure this stuff out as well. Andrew: Who was who I met when we were coming in here that said that they were part of Russell's mastermind and I asked how much did you pay and he said, “I'm not telling you.” I can't see who that person was. But I know you got a mastermind, people coming in. I'm wondering how much of it comes from that? working with people directly, seeing them in the group share openly, and then saying, ah, this is what my potential customers are feeling? Russell: 100% At this point especially. People always ask me, “Where do you go, Russell, to learn stuff?” and it's my mastermind, because I bring, all the people come in and they're all in different industries and you see that. You see the road blocks that hold people back, but then they also share the stuff that they're doing and it's like, that's 100% now where I get most of my intell. Because people ask me, “Why, you're a software company, why in the world do you have a mastermind group?” And it's because the reason why our software is good is because we have the mastermind group, where they're all crowd sourcing, they're doing all this stuff and bringing back to us, and then we're able to make shifts and pivots based on that. Andrew: Somehow we just lost Apple, but that's okay. It's back, good. There we go. This is the next thing, Rippln. Russell: I forgot I put that one in there. Andrew: I went back and I watched the YouTube video explaining it. It's a cartoon. I thought it was a professional voice over artist, no it's you. You're really comfortable getting on stage and talking. But basically in that video that you guys can see in the top left of your screen, it's Russell, through this voice over and cartoon explaining, “Look, you guys were around in the early days of Facebook, you told your friends, here's how many friends you would have had, for the sake of numbers, let's say you told 7 people and let's say they told 7 people, and that's how things spread. And the same thing happened with Pinterest and all these other sites. Don't you ever wish that instead of making them rich by telling stuff, you made yourself rich? Well here's how Rippln comes in.” and then you created it. And Rippln was what? Russell: So Rippln was actually one of my friend's ideas, and he is a network marketing guy so he's like, “We're building a network marketing program.” And I'd like dabbled in network marketing, never been involved with it. And he came and was like, “Hey, be part of this.” And I was like, “No.” and then he sold us on the whole pitch of the idea, network marketers are really good at selling you on vision, and I was like, “Okay, that sounds awesome.” And then my role was to write the pitch. So I wrote the pitch, did the voice over, did the video, and then we launched it and we had in six weeks, it was like 1.5 million people signed up for Rippln, and I thought it was like, “This is the thing, I'm done.” My down line was like half of the company. And I was like, when this thing goes live, it's going to be amazing. And then the tech side of it, what we're promising people in this video that the main developer ended up dying and he had all the code. So they had to restart building it in the middle of this thing. And it was like thing after thing and by the time it finally got done, everyone had lost interest. It was like 8 months later, and I think the biggest check I got was like $47 for the whole thing. And I was just like, I spent like 6 months of my life. It was like a penny a day. It was horrible. Andrew: I'm just wondering whether I should ask this or not. Russell: Go for it. Andrew: So I stopped asking about religion, but I get the sense that you believe that there's a spiritual element here that keeps you from seeing, my down line is growing, the whole thing is working. Is any of this, does it feel divinely inspired to you? Be honest. Russell: Business or…? Andrew: Business, life, success, things working out, so much so that when you're at your lowest, you feel like there's some divine guidance, some divine hand that says, “Russell, it's going to work out. Russell, I don't know if I got you, but I know you got this. Go do it.” I feel that from you and I… Russell: I 100% believe that. Andrew: You do? Russell: Every bit of it. I believe that God gives us talents and gifts and abilities and then watches what we do with it. And if we do good then he increases our capacity to do more. And if we do good with it, increases our capacity… Andrew: if you earn it? If you do good, if you use what God gives you, then you get more. So you think that that is your duty to do that and if you don't do more, if you don't pick yourself up after Rippln, you've let down God. Do you believe that? Is that it? Or that you haven't lived up to… Russell: Yeah, I don't think I feel that I've let down God, but I definitely feel like I haven't lived up to my potential, you know. But also I feel like a lot of stuff, as I was putting together that document, all the pages, it's interesting because each one of them, looking in hindsight, each built upon the next thing and the next thing. And there's twice we tried to build Clickfunnels and each one was like the next level, and each one was a stepping stone. Like Rippln, if I wouldn't have done Rippln, that was my very first viral video we ever created. I learned how to pitch things and when we did the Clickfunnels initial sales video, because I had done this one, I knew how to do this one. So for me, it's less of like I let down God, as much as like, it's just like the piece, what are you going to do with this? Are you going to do something with it? It doesn't mean it's going to be successful, but it means, if you do well with this, then we're going to increase your capacity for the next step, and the next thing. But we definitely, especially in times at the office, we talk about this a lot. We definitely feel that what we do is a spiritual mission. Andrew: You do? Russell: 100% yeah. I don't think that it's just like, we're lucky. I think the way that the people have come, the partnerships, how it was created is super inspired. Andrew: You know what, a lot of us are selling things that are software, PDF guide, this, that, it's really hard to find the bigger mission in it. You're finding the bigger mission in Funnels. What is that bigger mission? Really, how do you connect with it? Because you're right, if you can find that bigger meaning then the work becomes more meaningful and you're working with become, it's more exciting to work with them, more meaningful to do it. How did you find it in funnels? What is the meaning? Russell: So for us, and I'm thinking about members in my inner circle, so right now as of today I think we had 68,000 members in Clickfunnels, which is the big number we all brag about. But for me, that's 68,000 entrepreneurs, each one has a gift. So I think about, one member I'll mention his name's Chris Wark, he runs chrisbeatcancer.com and Chris was someone who came down with cancer and was given a death sentence, and instead of going through chemo therapy he decided, ‘I'm going to see if I can heal myself.” And he did. Cleared himself of cancer. And then instead of just being like, ‘cool, I'm going to go back into work.' He was like, ‘Man I need to help other people.' So he started a blog and started doing some things, and now he's got this thing where he's helped thousands and thousands of people to naturally cure themselves of cancer. And that's one of our 68,000 people. Andrew: See, you're focusing on him where I think a lot of us would focus on, here's one person who's just a smarmy marketer, and here's who's creating….but you don't. That's not who you are. Look, I see it in your eyes and you're shaking your head. That's not it at all, it's not even a put on. Russell: It's funny because for me it's like, I understand because I get it all the time from people all the time, “Oh he's this slimy marketer.” The first time people meet me, all the time, the first time their introduced, that's a lot of times the first impression. And they get closer and they feel the heart and it's just like, “oh my gosh, I had you wrong.” I get that all the time from people. Andrew: Brian, sorry Ryan and Brad, are either of them here? Would one of you come up here? Yeah, come on up. Because they felt that way, right? Russell: I don't know about them. I know who you're thinking about. Audience member: I think it's Theron. {Crosstalk} Andrew: No, no stay up here, as long as you're here. Theron come on up. Audience member: If it wasn't me, then I'm going to sit back in the seats. Andrew: Are you nervous? Audience member: A little bit. Is there another Ryan and Brad? Russell: Different story, another story. Do you want to come up? Theron had no idea we were bringing him onstage. Andrew: Come on over here. Let's stand in the center so we can get you on camera. Does this help? Russell: Do you want me to introduce Theron real quick? Andrew: Yeah, please. Russell: So Theron is one of the Harmon Brothers, they're the ones who did the viral video for us. Andrew: I heard that you felt that he was a scam. What was the situation and how did you honestly feel? Theron: I don't know that it…well… Russell: Be honest. Theron: I know, I don't think that I felt that Clickfunnels itself was a scam, Russell: Just Russell. Theron: But that it just felt like so many of the ways that the funnels were built and the types of language they were using, it felt like it was that side of the internet. So I became very, well basically we were kind of in a desperate situation, where we had a video that had not performed and not worked out the way we wanted it to work out. Andrew: The video that you created for Russell? Theron: No, another client. Andrew: Another client, okay. Theron: And so our CEO had used Clickfunnels product to help drive, I think it was attendance to a big video event. And so he had some familiarity with the product, so he goes to Russell and at the same time Russell's like, “I'm a big fan of you guys.” So he's coming to us and these things are happening. Yeah, it was almost the same day. So we're thinking like this and we're like, “Well, they seem to really know how to drive traffic, to really know how to drive conversion. And we feellike we know how to drive conversion as well, but for some reason we missed it on this one.” So we're like, “Well, let's do a deal.” Andrew: What do you mean missed it? Okay, go ahead, go through to the end. Theron: We were failing our client. We were failing on our client. We weren't giving them and ROI. So we said, let's do a deal with Russell and we'll have our internal team compete with his team, and we're humble enough to say we're failing our client. We want our client to succeed, let's bring in their team and see if they can make a funnel that can bring down the cost for acquisition, bring up the return on investment for our client, and they were able to do it. And then we said, what we'll do is we'll write a script, we'll take you through our script writing process, but we don't want to do the video because we don't want to be affiliated with you. Russell: The contract said, “You can't tell anyone ever that the Harmon Brothers wrote the script for you.” Andrew: Wow, because you didn't want to be associated with something that you thought was a little too scammy for… Theron: Yeah, we just didn't want our brand kind of brought down to their brand, which is super arrogant and really wrong headed. And in any case, so we go into this script writing training, and I wasn't following his podcast, I wasn't listening to enough. I mean, read Dotcom Secrets, those kinds of things are like, well, there's some really valuable stuff there, this is really interesting. A nd then as we got to know each other and really start to connect, like you said, heart to heart. And to feel what he's really about, and the types of team, the people that he surrounds himself with, I was like, wow, these are really, really good people. And they have a mission here that they feel, just like we feel that about our own group. And in any case, by the end of that 2 day retreat we're like, all off in private saying, “First of all we like what we've written and second of all, we'd really like to work with these guys and I think we're plenty happy being connected to them and associated with them.” So it's been a ride and a blessing ever since. Russell: We're about to start video number two with them. Andrew: You what? Russell: We're about to start video number two with them right now. Theron: Anyway, we love them. Andrew: Alright, give him a big round, yeah. Thanks. This was pivotal for you guys. Lead Pages, there's an article about how Lead Pages raised $5 million, and you saw that and you thought… Russell: Well, what happened was Todd, so Todd's the cofounder of Clickfunnels, and he was working with us at the time and he would fly to Boise about once a quarter and we'd work on the next project, the new idea. And that morning he woke up and he saw that, and then he forwarded me the article. And he's Atlanta, so it's east coast, so I'm still in bed. And he's got a 4 hour flight to Boise and he's just getting angry, because Todd is, Todd's like a genius. He literally, when he landed in Boise and he saw me and he's like, “We can build Lead Pages tonight. I will clone, I will beat it. We're going to launch this, this week while we're here.” He's that good of a developer. He, I've never seen someone code as fast and as good as him. He's amazing. So he comes in, he's mad because he's like, “This is the stupidest site in the world. We could literally clone this. Let's just do it.” And I'm like, “Yes, let's clone it.” And we're all excited and then he's like, “Do you want me to add any other features while I'm doing it.” And I'm like, ‘Oh, yes. We should do this, and we should do this.” And then the scope creep from the marketer comes, and we ended up spending an entire week in front of a whiteboard mapping out all my dreams, “If we could do this and this and what kind of shopping cart, and we could do upsells, and what if we could actually move things on the page instead of just having it sit there. And what if…” and Todd's just taking notes and everything. And then he's like, “Okay, I think I could do this.” And he told me though, “If I do this, I don't want to do this as an employee. I want to do this as a partner.” And at first I was like, ugh, because I didn't want to do the partnership thing. And then the best decision I've ever made in my life, outside of marrying my wife was saying yes to Todd. Said, “Let's do it.” And then he flew home and built Clickfunnels. Andrew: Wow. And this is after trying software so much. I have screenshots of all the different, it's not even worth going into it, of all the different products you created, there was one about, it was digital repo, right? Russell: That was a good idea. Andrew: Digital Repo, man. What was…. Russell: So I used to sell ebooks and stuff, and people would steal it and email it to their friends and I'd get angry. Andrew: Can I read this? How to protect every type of lowlife and other form of human scum from cheating you from the profits you should be making by hijacking, stealing, and illegally prostituting….your online digital products. Russell: Theron, why did you think we were…..Just kidding. So no, it was this really cool product where you take an ebook and it would protect it, and if somebody gave it to their friend, you could push a button and it would take back access. It was like the coolest thing in the world, we thought. Andrew: And there was software that was going to attach your ad to any other software that was out there. There was software that was going to, what are some of the other ones? It's going to hit me later on. But we're talking about a dozen different pieces of software, a dozen different attempts at software. What's one? I thought somebody remembered one of them. They're just the kind of stuff you'd never think of. There was one that was kind of like Clickfunnels, an early version of Clickfunnels for landing pages. Why did you want to get into software when you were teaching, creating membership sites? What was software, what was drawing you to it? Russell: I think honestly, when I first learned this internet marketing game, the first mentor I had, the first person I saw was a guy name Armand Morin and Armand had all these little software products. Ecover generator, sales letter generator, everything generator, so that's what I kept seeing. I was like, I need to create software because he made software. In fact, I even shifted my major from, I can't remember what it was before, to computer information systems, because I was like, I'm going to learn how to code, because I couldn't afford programmers. And then that's just kind of what I'd seen. And then I was trying to think of ideas for software. And every time I would get stuck, instead of trying to find something to do, I'd be like let me just, let me just hire a guy to go build that, and then I can sell it somebody else as well. So that's kind of how it started. Andrew: And it was a lot of different tools, a lot of different attempts, and then this one was the one that you went with. I think this is an early version of the home page, basically saying, “Coming soon, sign up.” The first one didn't work out. And then you saw someone else on a forum who had a version that was better. What was his name? This is I think Dylan Jones. Russell: Oh you're talking about the editor, yes. Okay, so the story was, Todd built the first version of Clickfunnels and Dylan who became one of our cofounders, I'd been working with Dylan as a designer for about 6 years prior. And he his hands, and we talked about this earlier, he is the best designer I've ever seen in my life, he is amazing. He would, but he's also, this is the pros and cons of Dylan. He, I've talked about this onstage at Funnel Hacking Live, so I have no problem saying this. He would agree. But I would give him a project, and I couldn't hear, he wouldn't respond back to me, and I wouldn't hear from him for 2 or 3 months, and then one day in the middle of the night he messaged me, “Hey, rent's due tomorrow. Do you have any projects for me?” and I'd be so mad at him, and I look back at every project we'd done in the last 3 or 4 months that other designers had done, and I'd just resend him all the lists, just boom, give him 12 sites and I'd go to bed. I'd wake up 5 or 6 hours later and all of them were done, perfectly, amazing, some of the best designs ever, and then he'd send me a bill for whatever, and then I'd send him money and he'd disappear again for like 5 months. And I could never get a hold of him. I'd be like, “I need you to tweak something.” And he was just gone. And that was my pattern for 6 years with him. And then fast forward to when Todd and I were building Clickfunnels, we were at Traffic Conversion and we were up in the hotel room at like 3 in the morning trying to, we were on dribble.com trying to find a UI designer to help us, and we couldn't get a hold of all these people, and all the sudden on Skype Dylan popped in, I saw his thing pop up. I was like, “Todd, Dylan just showed up.” And he's like, “Do you think he needs some money?” I'm like, “I guarantee he needs money.” So I'm like, “Hey man!” And Dylan messaged back. He's like, “Hey.” I'm like, “Do you need some money?” and he's like, “Yeah, you got any projects?” I'm like, “Yes, I do.” I'm like, “We built this cool thing, it's called Clickfunnels, but the UI is horrible and the editor is horrible and there's any way we could hire you for a week to fly to Boise and just do all the UI for every single page of the app?” and he kind of said no at first because, “I'm developing my own website builder. I might have spent 6 years on it, so I can't do it.” Andrew: It was this, he had something that was essentially Clickfunnels, right? Russell: No, no. It was just pages though, so it'd just do pages, there was no funnels. Andrew: Right, closer to Lead Pages. Russell: Lead Pages, but amazing. You could move things around. But he did tell me that, “I'm working on something.” So eventually we got him to come, flew to Boise, spent a week, did all of our UI, and then we went and launched our beta to my list. So we launched the beta, got some signups, and then a week before the launch, launch was supposed to happen, all the affiliates were lined up, everything was supposed to happen. He sends me, I don't know if he sent you the video, but he sends me this little video that's like a 30 second video of him demoing the editor he'd built. And I probably watched that video, I don't know, at least a hundred times. And I was just sick to my stomach because I was like, “I hate Clickfunnels right now. I can't move things on my pages, I can't do anything.” I was just, and I sent it to Todd and then I didn't hear from him for like an hour, and he messaged me back and he's like, “I'm pissed.” I'm like, “Me too.” And I'm like, “What do we do?” and I was like, “We have to have his editor or I don't even want to sell this thing.” And I called Dylan and I'm like, “Would you be willing to sell?” and he's like, “No, I'm selling it and we're going to sell it for $100.” It was like $100 this one time for this editor that designed all the websites. I was like, “Dude, it is worth so much more than that. Please?” and we spent all night going back and forth negotiating. And finally, we came to like, “I will give you this editor if I can be a cofounder and be a partner.” And Todd and I sat there, brainstorming and figured out if we could do it and finally said yes. And then him and Dylan and Todd flew back to Boise and for the next week just sat in a room with a whole bunch of caffeine and figured out how to smush Dylan's editor into Clickfunnels to get the editor to be the editor that you guys know today.
Learn what you need to know about working with celebrities when it comes to your brand. Advertising executives refer to celebrities as trust agents. When a celebrity endorses your business, it breaks down the barrier of the cold, unknown brand and gives your customers the sense of a friend telling them it's okay. If you know, like, and trust a celebrity, you'll buy the brand. Speaking of brands and celebrities, it's almost time for Traffic & Conversion Summit LIVE, the largest digital marketing event in North America. This year's event is being held in San Diego, CA on September 13th-15th. Thousands of folks come out every year to hear about the latest and greatest developments in marketing in the online space. The speakers are always phenomenal, the takeaways beyond valuable, and every year there's a really cool celebrity appearance as well. On today's episode, Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss have a BIG announcement about T&C. The one and only dynamic duo of Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart are coming to Traffic & Conversion Summit 2021! Find out how Roland and Ryan made this magic happen—and what you need to know about working with celebrities when it comes to your brand. All on today's episode! Making the Case for Brands Working with Celebrities Years ago, at Traffic & Conversion 3, Roland was a new partner in the business and adamant about getting a celebrity for the event. Ryan was just as adamantly against it. “This is a stupid waste of money” were his exact words back in the day. They went with Roland's gut, brought William Shatner to the event, and that changed everything. Shatner isn't just an actor; he's a brilliant marketer and a spokesperson for so many great brands. Just like the wildly famous mismatched pair, Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. They're very successful business people with a lot of expert advice to share. So why should brands be thinking about working with celebrities? It's that whole concept of celebrities as trust agents. Why pay cool celebrities to come to T&C? Because it draws people in who might initially be skeptical. If T&C is good enough for Martha and Snoop, it's good enough for me. It takes the risk out of the equation. It's also a signal. If T&C can get big celebrity names at their event, clearly they're legit. The brand elevation you get from that signal is off the charts. From a marketing perspective, it lowers your acquisition costs. The celebrity deals always pay for themselves. Not to mention the amazing energy that comes when you're in the same room with a bunch of people and some cool celebrities. You can't put a price tag on that. How To Do a Celebrity Deal So how do you get celebrities to work with you? Obviously, you don't just go out and hit them up on Twitter. There's a process. Do you (or anyone you know) already have a relationship with this celebrity? If you don't know them directly, you go to their agent. If it's a big celebrity, the agent won't return your call. You need a connection to their agent (a broker). You can Google “celebrity broker Los Angeles” or go to IMDb and register for a Pro account to find the agent's information. If you don't get replies, reach out to event coordinators at places they've spoken at before. A lot of celebrities don't have a set fee. You make a firm offer. The amount of money they command depends on their popularity at the time. Then you negotiate for weeks or months. If you're talking about a single event appearance, it won't cost you as much as endorsing a product. How much money are we looking at? The celebrities T&C wants are asking between $100k and $800k for an appearance. Not less than $1m for the Rock, $2m for J-Lo. Celebrities on reality TV are maybe $50k to $100k. Well-known authors might be $75k. How to Offset the Risk with Other Monetization Opportunities There are a lot of ways to make sure these celebrity partnerships pay for themselves. Find someone with a book coming out, and you'll get sweeter deals by doing book buys. You can also give them a piece of the event revenue (a part of the door) instead of paying the whole fee upfront. If the celebrity is selling something, you can offer them a custom advertising package for their product (like The Rock's tequila) in addition to their fee. A lot of B-level celebs, for an endorsement of your brand, will require a $50k test budget fee to see if the thing you're doing actually works. Then you'll pay them monthly or quarterly or royalties. If you're bringing a celebrity to an appearance, you can sell a VIP ticket that allows people to get closer to them. Front row seating. A speaker dinner. A meet and greet. Photo ops with the celeb + an opportunity to hang out in a group can be sold for $15k. Roland and Ryan will also interview the celebrities LIVE at the event for the Business Lunch podcast. That drives a lot more listeners to the show. And they do their research and ask amazing questions. They're not overly starstruck. They play it cool. Opportunities You Don't Want to Miss Speaking of cool, there are some great opportunities coming up for you. Like the EPIC challenge that teaches you how to acquire businesses for little to no money out of pocket. Next challenge starts September 23. Register now! There's also another cohort of the Scalable OS Accelerator opening up, for anyone who wants to scale their business without losing their mind. Learn how to grow and implement great operating systems into your business and get more free time back. Jump on the waitlist today!
Chris “Mercer” Mercer, Co-founder of MeasurementMarketing.io, is an in-demand measurement marketing expert. Mercer and his team have been helping marketers, marketing teams, and agencies evaluate their work, so they know how to adapt and improve. They create practical dashboards and pull actionable insights to begin forecasting and optimizing future results. In short, Mercer helps marketers measure their marketing, so they know what's working and what's not. Mercer spends countless hours reading, practicing, adjusting, and innovating to improve his skill set. He has a knack for teaching and is known for simplifying even the most complex ideas for his audience. He can be found speaking at conferences and events such as Traffic & Conversion, Social Media Marketing World, and TravelCon. In this episode… It's hard enough to collect data accurately, but how do you read it once you have it? E-commerce businesses are fully reliant on this feedback to make educated decisions in their marketing. Being able to measure it and utilize it is what separates successful businesses from struggling ones. Using services for this process can give your brand a leg up, but which services are worth the investment? MeasurementMarketing.io works hard to earn the trust of its clients. The team is made up of professionals who know how to make sense of all the numbers and deliver the powerful information you need to move forward. Their Co-founder, Chris Mercer, started the company in 2011 and has accumulated a decade's worth of knowledge from his hands-on consulting. He has developed a unique approach to marketing, which he's happy to explain for those who truly want to know their numbers. Guillaume Le Tual interviews Chris “Mercer” Mercer, the Co-founder of MeasurementMarketing.io, to find out his steps to measuring and understanding data in e-commerce. Together, they go through the three core principles for marketing and how to apply them to your business. Mercer also goes over the common mistakes he sees in the field, the most important metrics to follow, and how to properly forecast sales. Find out more by checking out this episode of the Ecommerce Wizards Podcast.
The Long Game - Sponsorship, this week we have Sheila Farragher-Gemma (FG) sharing with the podcast. Sheila has an entrepreneurial spirit which leads her to the world of marketing consulting. Through her company, Connected Sponsor, she helps event promoters monetize their events by building long-standing relationships and partnerships with Sponsoring companies. Some events she's helped are Traffic &Conversion, ProfitCon, Underground, and MFA Live. Sheila has gifted you our dear listeners an amazing free gift you don't want to give up! That's a Free 15 mins sponsorship training. Free Training click now. Along with the 15min training you are provided a one-pager from Sheila to help find sponsorships. Check out Sheila on social media platforms, her website to learn more :- Free Training https://www.connectedsponsors.com/FindingSponsors Flagship https://www.connectedsponsors.com/10-secrets-to-quickly-find-sponsors Affiliate Link https://sheilagemma.clickfunnels.com/affiliate Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/ConnectedSponsors Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilafarraghergemma/ Website https://www.connectedsponsors.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/forchangebebold/message
Through her company, Connected Sponsor, Shiela helps event promoters monetize their events by building long-standing relationships and partnerships with Sponsoring companies. Some events she's helped are Traffic &Conversion, ProfitCon, Underground, and MFA Live. Sheila Farragher-Gemma moved to the states in 1989 for a job in Boston. She figured she would stay a few years before returning home to Ireland, but 30 years later, with a husband, two children, and a handful of successful businesses under her belt, she may be here to stay. Sheila has an entrepreneurial spirit which leads her to the world of marketing consulting. Sheila can be reached at info@connectedsponsors.com Connect with us! WEBSITES: Speaking: https://www.cbbowman.com/ Coaching Association: https://www.acec-association.org/ Workplace Equity & Equality: https://www.wee-consulting.org/ Institute/ Certification: https://www.meeco-institute.org/ SOCIAL MEDIA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cbbowman/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/execcoaches Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CB.BowmanMBA/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?searc...
On today’s Let’s Talk Indianola we talk with Community and Economic Development Director Charlie Dissell about the one-way to two-way traffic conversion on the square and surrounding area.
BGBS 061: Beau Haralson | ScaleThat | Find YOUR Success In Its Season Beau Haralson has over a decade of experience launching products and building brands both big and small including Google, Traffic & Conversion, DigitalMarketer, OfficeMax, and many others. Over the years he's worked with celebrities such as Lebron James and Arnold Schwarzenneger, and entrepreneurs that deserve to be celebrities, doubling over 15 businesses along the way. As the co-founder of ScaleThat, Beau is the creative force behind all campaigns that ScaleThat Select works with. He regularly consults for brands and speaks surrounding his unique approach to marketing strategy, campaign architecture, and generating traffic and conversions predictably. In this episode, you'll learn… Be patient and pursue things fully, but don't pursue them all at once. You can have your definition of success in its own season. We think that our career and worldview have to be binary and put in a box, but there is so much we can do and learn in one lifetime. Get comfortable trying new things—you never know what you'll find. Small brands may want to be big, but big brands want to be small. A small brand's greatest advantage is that they're nimble and able to create amazing relationships early on. Big brands study that! Resources Instagram: @beauharalson Website: scalethat.com Quotes [31:40] I think success is iterative. I think that people think success is like, “Man, if I could just buy a Lamborghini one day…” That would be the marker of success for some people and that's great. If that motivates you, fast cars are cool, I get it, go for it. But I think like your definition of success can change every six months if it needs to. [38:17] I wanted to be a great husband and be a great dad. And if I had to be a “good businessman”, that was okay. I'd rather not be a great businessman and a good husband and a good dad, or maybe potentially a bad dad because I run out of hours. [44:15] A lot of people want success now and they define it in a certain way. But I think you can be patient and have your definition of success in its own season. Have a Brand Problem? We can help. Book your no-obligation, Wildstory Brand Clarity Call now. Learn about our Brand Audit and Strategy process Identify if you need a new logo or just a refresh Determine if your business has a branding problem See examples of our work and get relevant case studies See if branding is holding your business back and can help you get to the next level Book Your Brand Clarity Call Today Podcast Transcript Beau Haralson 0:02 And it all felt complicated at the time. But like, in hindsight, he was right, right, like life does have a propensity to get a little bit more complicated as you go on. I still encourage people that are that have that call to entrepreneurship, no matter the life stage, but but I'm glad I took the dive then. And you're right. It was admittedly scary at that time. I think I remember the first time I got like a 15 $100 check from our first client. And I felt like it was like, This is crazy. Just like felt so real to me. So scary. And then I was like, well, like, would I get the check to, you know? Just like it all gets real. Like, oh, yeah, there's no departments for anything. There we go. Marc Gutman 0:50 podcasting from Boulder, Colorado. This is the Baby Got Back story podcast. we dive into the story behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs. I like big backstories and I cannot lie. I am your host, Marc Gutman, and on today's episode of Baby got backstory. We were talking with Beau Harrelson, the co founder and brand strategist at Scale That and dedicated parent that the Harrelson family. Before we get into the show, here's a not so gentle reminder. If you like and enjoy the show, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over at Apple podcasts or Spotify. Apple and Spotify use these ratings as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on their charts. Today's guest is Beau Haralson. Beau has over a decade of experience launching products and building brands both big and small, including Google traffic and conversion, digital marketer, Office Max and many others. Over the years, he's worked with celebrities such as LeBron James and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and entrepreneurs that deserve to be celebrities, doubling over 15 businesses along the way. Beau is the creative force behind all campaigns that Scale That works with and is regularly consulted surrounding his unique approach to marketing strategy, campaign architecture in generating traffic and conversions predictably. But what is really fascinating about Beau, is his decision to put family first and build a company in life that supports that. A little side note, if you would have asked nine year old Marc what name he wished his parents would have chosen for him. They would have been Beau, inspired by Beau and Luke Duke fame. But I always wanted to be a Beau. Let's get back to today's Beau. Beau Haralson talks about working on the now famous of yourself campaign with officemax what big brands really want, and how small brands can compete in this is his story. I am here with Beau Haralson, the co founder and CEO of Scale That Beau, thanks for coming on. And let's get right to it. We're both digging out of snow and dealing with snow here in Colorado. So well, we're running a little late. But I wanted to start off with real simple thought of a question of what is Scale That? that's the name of your company. Tell me a little bit about Scale That. Beau Haralson Yeah, number one, thanks for having me. I'm really honored to be here. And Marc, it's been great to I felt comfortable wearing hat today. Because I know you love a good hat. And so anyway, thanks for thanks for that. But the name Scale That ultimately came from, I've been doing agency work and help them grow brands for the better part of a decade plus, and fortune 500 brands and everything in between. and the number one thing I see folks get wrong is they just scale the wrong thing. And as long as I want, like, it's not like we woke up that day and said, you know, let me just grow my business in the wrong way. We're all well intentioned people. But one of the things I'm really passionate is helping people find the right thing to scale. It's not a matter of if people want to scale, that's usually not the conversation, it's usually figuring out the right thing to grow. And the right way to grow a business and so, so getting a little bit cheeky with it, we're like yeah, let's call it Scale That. Beau Haralson 4:24 because those those are the moments we look for and conversations with folks and help them grow their business and go, Hey, hey, that's nothing skill that. So taking a bit of that excitement, and that's how we ended up the name. Very cool, you know, and I think that we hear this word scale all the time, you know, scale this, scale that I want to scale. You want to scale, let's all scale right. But I think that much like the genesis of your name, you know, it has different definitions. I think it means different things to different people. What's it mean to you? Like, how do you define that? Yeah, it's interesting. I think people Definitely romanticize the concept of scale. I mean, you know, I think it's definitely every entrepreneurs dream to find that that predictable path to revenue is words that I hear tossed around, there's a great book of that title, written by his name escapes, I think, is Aaron Rodgers, but one of the early guys at Salesforce and talks about this idea of predictable path to revenue, and everyone kind of caught on to that idea of like, Okay, if marketing can get predictable, if sales can get predictable, and we can scale, then like, that's the that's the golden ticket. And and to some extent, you know, marketing has gotten to be somewhat predictable. You can you can figure out your customer acquisition costs, and figure out some of the customer journey. But there's, there's part of this lightning and bottle that's just elusive. And I think, to answer your question, ideas, scale, to me means finding that as close as you can, finding that algebra equation, if you will, going, Okay, if we do this, and we do that, it'll cost us x, and the output is y. And if we, if we do that consistently, then we'll grow in scale. The challenges is those inputs change, marketing changes, people change, we're kind of complicated ourselves. So it's an ever-complex kind of system of variables. And then deep within that is the question of scale readiness, a lot of a lot of companies will get into it. And they'll find that path to scale. And then, you know, they'll break. we've, we've run a lot of folks out of inventory, we've broken some companies, and I think, like, part of our questionnaires we get to know companies is are you ready to scale. And you know, there's assumptions within that. And often in fixing those things and taking a half step back, you'll find more efficient ways to scale, you'll just get more exciting from there. But so I think, as much as I love to talk about scale, what I love to talk about is growth, readiness, and close proximity to that as well. Because that's the thing, you can control some of those variables, you can't kind of at the top of the funnel, but the things you can't control is like if you were to say, sell 500 units or whatever you're selling or fulfill, I have to fulfill five more contracts this this week. Would it break you? Are you ready? You know, so that type of stuff is stuff that it's not as romantic as romanticized. But a lot of the good answers are found within those questions. Such a great answer. Thank you. And as I think about that, you know, I also consented a twinge or a twin, if you will, in your voice that suggests that you're not necessarily you didn't you were born and raised here in Colorado. And so as you were, as you were growing up, why don't you take us a little bit back to where you were raised? And where you like, Did you think you'd ever be into this, this concept of scale and marketing and all this kind of stuff. So I was born in Texas, pretty good West Texas, which everyone's on particularly I'm talking about getting my oil changed, it comes right out. But most most of my accent, I think, is somewhat neutralized, but totally depends on who I've been talking to, particularly if I've talked to my mom that day, it comes right out, but or if you're applying a lot of snowbank and a truck, right like that, that gets as centralized as well. That's right. But um, but yeah, so I was born and if you'd read like, say, my high school yearbook, it would have said, like, hey, Bo, you're going to be a great youth pastor someday, and or you're going to be like, a park ranger someday, I've always been in the outdoors. I grew up in a home, where my folks were missionaries growing up. And so by the nature of that, by the time I was 13, I've been to I think, like, six different countries, all of them in very much Third World environments. traveled, the majority of the US just grew up. And really, I wouldn't say like, first class traveling very much a lot of places with not a lot of water. Had a knife pulled on me had a gun pulled on me in those travels, like had had a lot of interesting, you know, perspectives. I think by the time I was like, 1314, and I didn't realize how weird it was entirely compared notes for some some of my friends and was like, What do you guys do this summer? And they're like, we'd like baseball on I'd be like, cool. I almost got shot. Oh, that's different. Yeah. So I think on the other side of, you know, of that, I think, as scary as some of those experiences were, I'm really, really grateful for some perspective that gave me on just kind of, I felt like I got a small undergrad degree and anthropology, by nature of just getting to travel and go to places where, you know, there wasn't electricity, there wasn't running water, you know, just makes you grateful for for every day, and I'm grateful for that experience as well. So pastor, youth pastor or Park Marc Gutman 9:59 Ranger, you are neither right now. Like what happened? Like, like, we're, like you saw in the yearbook and you came out, you know, you're like, I'm gonna conquer the world as a youth pastor, or a park ranger, what happened? Oh, man, that's a great question. I think along the way, I met a girl. Beau Haralson 10:18 And, and I really, you know, like, there's some of that that was really good for me to be honest, there's some immaturity in the early on around this context of like, providing and protecting and figuring that out. And then using some skills. I saw a good movie called Amazing Grace along the way. And there's a scene with William Wilberforce. And, and, and it's pretty poignant for me, but he has an intervention from his friends, and they come together, and they say, Hey, we understand that you're really, really excited about like, becoming a pastor in his scenario. And we understand that you're really, really also excited about becoming a politician. And in his context, actually, changing the nature of the slave trade really being one of the early forefathers of that. And his friends hosted an intervention. And they basically say, Hey, we humbly suggest that you can do both, like, just just go do you, like go be you and pursue your interests, and you're going to like, maybe touch some people along the way, and help them out. And you're also going to, in his case, change public policy, where he can impact people on a different level, potentially, then he could have maybe from behind a pulpit. And so regardless of worldview, the thing that's interesting to me about that is, I think that we think that our career, our worldview has to be this binary thing that we put in a box somewhere, and I had a literally I, my friends, I was interviewing with me my junior year of school, and they're like, Hey, dude, I don't know if you know this, but you're good at other things, like you can actually help people out in the business world. You're halfway decent as a strategist, like you can go do other things. And I said, well, worst case scenario, you try those things for a little while, and I'm not good at them. And I go back to what is, quote, more comfortable for me what I grew up around and with, and it doesn't sound like a terrible way to go. And so I my friends, humbly suggested I do both. And I sat down and, and really reflected through that. And since then, I've been, you know, doing this thing called business and recognize as being halfway decent along the way. So I haven't stopped yet. So we'll see if one day I'll just retire into being a park ranger, though that's still the goal. So how did your parents feel about not carrying on the the line of work, and I imagine they probably had a lot of hopes and dreams for you, as you were thinking about being a youth pastor, or growing into the kind of a similar similar areas, then, you know, I think, I think, overall, my dad is still a great mentor of mine. And I think overall, they're wildly supportive. I mean, I think that if I had gone into nearly anything, they would have been pretty excited about it for me, so that I never felt any undue pressure from them. Let's be honest, and they've been part of the journey. They geek out on it when I release new commercial or import a new project. And so I'm really grateful for the support. Marc Gutman 13:05 And so like, how did you get into marketing? You know, that's still like for your friends to say, hey, like, you're kind of good at this stuff for you know, to get actually into marketing and start doing it. And, you know, what was that? Like? How'd you even get get involved in this space? You had a lot of choices. At that point. If someone says to you, hey, you're good at business? Beau Haralson 13:23 Yeah, no, it's broad. I mean, I graduated degree in communications, and second, second, whatever. It's called a minor in business from Texas a&m. And, and I remember I was walking to a career fair. I mean, it was just like, I was like, literally my last career fair, my senior year. And I'd already proposed to my girlfriend, then three years, we were in our one year engagement period. And, you know, I was like, Alright, I got to show up and make this thing happen. And I was knocking on doors and dial in and you know, trying to kick a kick, open whatever door I could, and I ran into someone, recruiter from officemax. I walked up in point blank said, Hey, listen, I'm not gonna. I'm not a geek on office supplies, like, but I've seen some iOS commercials and some of the stuff y'all do. And it's interesting. And they wrote me in and before I knew it, I was on a plane to Chicago and met a guy named Bob sacker. And Bob was the guy that brought Michael graves into target. And Michael graves was one of the earlier designers there used to be this store called Kmart. And there's kind of like these big three, there's Kmart, Walmart, and target. Were kind of duking it out. And Bob Thacker bra designers in to target and brought design to the masses, ultimately through target. And, and I said, I don't really candidly care about office supplies, but I want to learn from a guy like that. And so at the time, we wanted to move to Colorado and had opportunities out here and I punted on all of them, and I said, Hey, we're gonna go do this whole thing in Chicago, and give it a go. And so I went worked at officemax corporate headquarters, actually on the business side of things and then I reported in Because it's kind of a liaison from the business side to the marketing side, so is representing the voice of the business to the marketers and saying, hey, go and grow this accordingly. And I'd say we're like marketing kind of hit me hook line and sinker was I got to be part of the elf yourself campaign. So I don't know if you remember this campaign, but you got to like you pasted your face on a dancing elf when flash animations were saying and, and you share with friends. So Bob originated that campaign along with this team, and you got to be a part of that. And I was like, Okay, I yeah, this is it. This is the fun side of things. And then that was kind of that was it for me for marketing. Marc Gutman 15:38 And then where did that job lead you to? So eventually, you know, you got interested in marketing. And, you know, you're learning from one of the best at what point do you come to Colorado? Beau Haralson 15:49 Yeah, so we decided that for three or four years, and honestly, it was in the mid to late 2008. So you can do the math, not a great year to be selling much of anything much less like just but like discretionary office supplies and things like that. And so things did compress a bit in the market. And so that was like my first run through a recession, which was, which was really healthy for me from a professional standpoint, to navigate that we got created an innovative and being a part of the business unit that sold store within a store within a store solutions. If you imagine like, at one point time, Best Buy didn't have a designated Apple section or designated like Samsung section that was all like a new concept. And what we would do is take that similar concept and take it into say Kroger, or a Safeway and say, Hey, you guys are selling office supplies, can we just take over that run for you and do that, and so was wrapping up that was helping sell that solution and and got used to kind of selling and enjoyed that part of it and negotiating big deals and be a part of that whole thing and just innovative business modeling. And we're able to save a few jobs. I was like that was that was cool. We were able to actually put some bread on the table for the company gets maker mental funds and a really challenging time. And roundabout. Then Office Depot went to announce they were in they were they were actually going to buy out Office Max. And even if my number would have been called I would have been moving to Boca Raton, Florida. And nothing against Boca Raton. I just I was like, Yeah, I think I think this is our chapter change. And so I've been building a network out here in Colorado for seven years. At that point time, I'd flown out here and I'd ski a day, I'd bike a day. And then I'd go shake hands and have coffee with people out here for seven years straight, regardless of the year. I always just did. That was how I did spring break. And so called up some folks in the network out here and went to work for an agency out here for a little while. And so I got the bug for entrepreneurship. Marc Gutman 17:46 Yeah, what was that agency out here? Beau Haralson 17:48 So they're actually up in long on St. avocet. So is a company that I've interned for and so I knew them a bit and, and really enjoyed that part of the digital was happening at the same time. And a good buddy of mine named Mike Worley was and I had kind of geeked out through mutual mentors, kind of guys that were under the tutelage of Seth Godin, and we'd meet up for, you know, meet up once a month, and just kind of riff on digital marketing, what was happening and believe it or not, like, pay per click, and Google and all that stuff was still just then happening. And we were like, hey, this thing's happening at a fast pace. And he was like, Hey, you want to take the dive? Like, let's just go start something on our own. And so we started an agency ran that for three or four, four years. Yep. And then that was my first foray into entrepreneurship. quickly after quickly ish after moving to Colorado. Marc Gutman 18:40 Yeah. And so like, you know, I think like, because we remember things, it's like, Mike's like, hey, and let's start a business. You're like, Yeah, sure. But like, why did you really want to start your own business? Like, why do that? I mean, it's, it's not easy. You mentioned that you I'm assuming you, you know, you have a wife at this point. I don't know if your family situation, but like, you know, you're you got some responsibilities. So it's not like, nothing's happening, like, you know, why start your own business? Like, why go into business for yourself? Beau Haralson 19:06 Yeah, I mean, coming from a organization of like, 35,000 folks, where there was like, an HR departments and, you know, like, some, you know, cogs to the wheel all moving with or without me showing up like, it was, it was an interesting thing to make that transition. And I had, you know, felt like felt complicated to me at that time. But I had a good friend and another mentor, guy named Aaron McHugh that dropped this now, like this little nugget on me, and he said, Hey, like, to be honest, though, like, life isn't gonna get any more simple than it is right now. Like, I know you have a wife and obligations and all this type of stuff, but like, pretty soon you might have a dog, like a baby, girl family, bigger mortgage, like all the stuff he's like, if there's a time to be risk tolerant, and make a jump and if you feel like you have like a burning, you know, sensation in your heart to like, go do something and put your stamp on it. Like, I got news for you, it's probably in this, maybe in this decade, maybe even in this like two or three year gap that well, things are simple. And it all felt complicated at the time. But like, in hindsight, he was right, right, like life does have prevented you get a little bit more complicated as you go on. I still encourage people that are that have that call to entrepreneurship, no matter the life stage, but but I'm glad I took the dive then. And you're right, it was admittedly scary at that time. I think I remember the first time I got like a $1500 check from our first client. And I felt like it was like, This is crazy. Just like felt so real to me. So scary. And then I was like, well, so like, would I get the check to you know? Just like, it all gets real. Like, you're like, Oh, yeah, there's no departments for anything. There we go. Marc Gutman 20:51 Gotta do it all, I'm the everything person. Yeah. And those words from Aaron McHugh Wow. resonates so much with me. And it's just like, you just don't realize that even when you think how complicated Your life is, it just never seems to get less complicated. It just kind of keeps getting more and more complicated. So great, great advice, and great insight. Great mentorship. That's that's really cool. So that businesses that when I met you and Mike the first time, like when you were in that business? Beau Haralson 21:17 That is, yeah. up at Cloud camp, we had a I've been friends with people Argus for a long time we met at one of Pete's events. But yeah, that was I think that was year two year three ish for us. And decline. But yes, that's when we crossed paths. Marc Gutman 21:33 Yeah. And it was my impression at that time that that business was really strongly weighted towards digital marketing funnel building, working with other partners like digital marketer, can you can you tell us a little bit about that business? And did it? Did I have that right? I'm gonna make sure I read return on that a little. Beau Haralson 21:50 Yeah, you're 100%. Right. So we, I would say we were heavily influenced by HubSpot and some of their methodologies in terms of like, there's a big content marketing push at that time, which is great, and still is a valid marketing strategy. But we paired that with paid media, and that was kind of like the perfect Venn diagram of going, Okay, that's great that you can create content, but how do you amplify it? And then what's the creative behind it? And so that was, I think, what that linchpin between, I had a house rule, which is if you're going to spend, you know, $1,000, creating content, then you probably should, at least from one to one ratio spent $1,000, sending that content out, right, proliferate, like actually, like sharing that content, through paid ads, or whatever. And it's not a perfect role. But it ended up being a good rule. Because a lot of folks that were just in the content marketing game, at that point in time, didn't fully understand the power of paid ads, and advertising and amplifying that content. And so we, I think we quickly moved up in the rank amongst our peers in terms of like understanding and how to create an amplify a funnel, also under the tutelage of you mentioned Digital Marketer under the tutelage of Ryan deiss. And, and Richard Lindner and the crew there, so we kind of met up with them that stream throughout that and drank a ton of the digital marketer Kool Aid. And I'm glad I did it was it's been impactful for me and my career, went on have an opportunity to support them from the paid ads side of things actually run their ads for them in a later chapter, and really form a long, long term relationship with those guys. Marc Gutman 23:23 Yeah. And so you know, we'll fast forward a little bit. I know that you had tremendous success at this company, which was called Clymb Right? Is that the way it's spelled? Beau Haralson 23:33 Correct. Yeah, yeah. Marc Gutman 23:33 Yeah. Just really had a Yeah, the y threw me off. Right. And in your partner, you and Mike, I think Mike went off to do something else. You guys guys separated, but on good terms, and he went off to do something else. And you continue to, to grow the business? And then and then you sell the business? What happened there? Beau Haralson 23:52 Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting. So at the end of year four, we had an opportunity, unsolicited, actually, we had three opportunities coming on the business at the same time. And and just people saying, Hey, we love what you guys are doing. And we want to we want to buy it, we want to acquire it, we want to partner whatever. And we weren't hunting or shopping for any of this at the time, I'd read a book by john warrillow called Built to Sell early on which I highly recommended if you're creating anything, and you did, like, if you're a creative a bit like me, it'll drag you into systems thinking, which is great. And, and so I'd read that book, but kind of like, tucked it away, and also had to pull that book back out, you know, what do we do? And so Mike and I looked at each other, we had one of the opportunities was from a company down in Texas, and I love Texas, born in Texas, but I just wasn't in a hurry to make it transition back there. I'd worked pretty hard to get here in the state of Colorado and raise a family out here. And and so that was the that was the small minute detail that kind of introduced this idea of like, Okay, well, like we graduated our college and entrepreneurship we've been we've been doing this for four years, like cool. It's our senior year. So, so or excuse me, Mike and I had that conversation and like you said part of amicably and he ended up your work work with that company down in Texas for a little while. And that was great. And I took over complete ownership of climb, and ran it for a good another six to nine months, something to that effect, and one of those other suitors if you will continue to pursue me in that in that gap of time. And, and that was a local creative agency out here in Boulder called human and human ultimately acquired climb, I think six to nine months past that, that four year mark, where Mike and I separated. And it was, again, I got in, I think I'd had a dress rehearsal through of like, what the whole acquisition could look like, and, and got a taste of what the main act could look like. And, and really could see acceleration through through acquisition as part of my journey at the time. And I'm really glad that I stepped through that door. Yeah, and got through those conversations and had an exit. And, and, you know, I think it's not as common in the service industry. But I could write a, at least two or three chapters of a book on like, what I learned going through it. And, and I'm really glad I did, and was able to, you know, go through that process and provide for my family and get some level of, you know, like an exclamation point on, you know, four years of 60 and 80, and sometimes 100 hour weeks of just kind of pushing and working hard. Marc Gutman 26:35 This episode brought to you by Wildstory. Wait, isn't that your company? It is. And without the generous support of wildstory, this show would not be possible. A brand isn't a logo, or a tagline, or even your product. A brand is a person's gut feeling about a product service or company. It's what people say about you, when you're not in the room. Wildstory helps progressive founders and savvy marketers build purpose driven brands that connect their business goals with the customers they want to serve. So that both the business and the customer needs are met. This results in crazy, happy, loyal customers that purchase again and again. And this is great for business. If that sounds like something you and your team might want to learn more about, reach out@www.wildstorm.com. And we'd be happy to tell you more. Now back to our show. Yeah, you said you learned a ton. If you could share one thing that you learned out of out of that experience? What would it be? Or what do you share most often with people? Beau Haralson 27:45 Yeah, um, I mean, there's the really tactical stuff of like legal setups, and all those types of things, which I think you can you can google and find out and happy to do that. But more like a philosophical level, I think. The the way I learned this lesson was by nature of the birth of our first kiddo, so he Eli was born about two years into a four year stint, if you will, as an entrepreneur, and he was born two months early. And so we spent six weeks in the hospital with him. And it was a really intense six weeks, right, like, you know, I could answer emails, sometime at 10 o'clock at night. And it was, you know, we literally lived in the hospital with them. And it was really, really humbling, because I came out of that experience and thought, Man, I built this business for it to survive with me being in the room 60% of the time. And I can't be in the room 60% of the time, like, even if I want to, like there's life circumstances that come up. And so I sat down, and I wrote out all the things that I did on a week to week basis. And I literally just was like, Okay, what is that I can I delegate operationalize form, put a process around. And one of that's like the top 20%, that like, absolutely requires the, the me being in the room moment. And I cut out about 40% of what I did. And I operationalized it as best I could with Mike coming out of the hospital. And if I hadn't done that, I don't think we would ever accident to be honest. Because like, it just would have been a talent acquisition, and not like a company acquisition. And by nature building those processes. And they weren't perfect to begin with, but they got better and better. And we got better and better. We actually had something that was acquirable that people were interested in. And I think I had to lower some pride, right. I like to I like to be the Don Draper. I like to come in with creative ideas. I like to be that guy. And I think I have a knack for it. But but if that's the 20% and like, what's the other 80% that that is necessary, but not, you know, maybe a necessary evil is big. You know Like to that actually takes away from those creative moments or takes away from those impactful moments? And how can we, you know, so anyway, I could wax and wane on about that for a long time. But I think I'd encourage you, wherever you're at. No matter what business stage, I read a book called essentialism. Man, scrag McEwen. There it is, if you read the first chapter, it's great. But it just talks about the idea of writing yourself out of the job out of a job, and doing only the stuff that you're the best at, and delegating the best as the rest as best you can. So even if you're ever going to axe it or not, it's good practice. It's a good thing to get used to. And a good, good, good audit. And I'm glad that by nature of circumstance, I had to go through that audit the hard way to do it the easy way. don't end up in the hospital. Marc Gutman 30:54 Yeah, and thanks for sharing all that. I want to make sure we get to probably one of the more pivotal moments of your life in your career. And so you've, you've exited, you've been acquired by human at least from the outside, I'm you know, and I followed it. I was watching, I was like, How awesome is that? Right? Like you then like it elevated into some pretty sweet clients and opportunities and big name clients that I'll let you talk about if you want, but I'm looking at it. Like how cool is a strategist and a brand builder and a marketer? What an amazing opportunity exited into a really cool hit Colorado ad agency and brand building agency. But then, you know, life didn't get any less complicated for you did it? Beau Haralson 31:38 Sure. No. And I think like success is iterative. I think that people think that success is this like, man, if I could just like buy a Lamborghini one day, that would be like the marker of success for some people like some and that's great, man, if that motivates you, fast cars are cool, I get it, like, go for it. But I think like your definition of success can change every six months if it needs to. So you know, I'll start with kind of that, sign that human for, I think two years. And I think week one, I found myself like on a plane up to like Nike headquarters and stuff like that. And I was like, oh, okay, here we go. And I'd work with some like, fortune 1000 brands call it but not like fortune 50 or not like fortune 100. And I was like, Okay, all right, here we go. And so I bought a new pair of shoes, which was a good idea. And you know, like, just like, you know, all sudden were but it was what was ironic about the whole thing is that the conversations weren't that dissimilar of early stage startups. And I'll leave you with the I'll leave one concept one, one footnote of this whole experience is that the secret of what I think of working with big brands is that small brands want to be big. And big brands actually want to be small. And so like there's this interesting, like, kind of triangulation between these two things I saw on getting to work with small and big. And actually, I think that's pretty cool. But if you're a small brand, listening, and if you you know, maybe you're a challenger brand, or you're just kind of like in that early stage of creating that momentum, your greatest advantage is the fact that you're small. It's that you're nimble, that you can create these amazing relationships with your customers early on, and that's going to that's going to be what's creates raving fans. And the secret to the big guys, don't tell you is that they actually are kind of like, jealous might be the wrong word. But they, they study you and that's why you have these acquisitions of like Hormel and Justin's nut butter or watch Dollar Shave Club and what they've done over the last five to 10 years, they were a challenger brand not too long ago. Harry's fall we're talking about shaving has taken over like four feet of space and target they started as a DTC brand. But you know, I think small isn't a big, big, serious fall. Have fun with that one. But like I think that was the thing I learned is that I could take these small brands strategies, help them apply, apply them to bigger brands, and get them super excited about that. And here's the the one thing that was ultra exciting about that is that we could take some of those bigger brand budgets and apply those smaller challenger strategies to them and create a bit of jet fuel behind that success. So first, long I had the opportunity to work with I mean, World Expo and Dubai had an opportunity to inform a bit of the strategy behind the brand launched with LeBron James Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lindsey Vaughn, and Cindy Crawford, and got found myself in this really like interesting brand strategy role along with marketing in those hallways, and that was great. Here's the deal. I was in those hallways for a long time. And that's not a knock against the the brand specifically this agency specifically I have good friends across the agency environment and the hours are not normal hours. And a lot of that's just because a lot of folks and agencies care and they care about those brands, they're gonna they're gonna put in the hours to make sure that they show up. It is a competitive environment. There's about 15,000 small to midsize agencies in the US, there's probably about 100 200 Omnicom level, broader, bigger agencies, and every one of them that I've, you know, that I've had the opportunity to interact with, you know, in the trenches are all working dang hard. And I've got an amazing amount of respect for that. But to tee up the second part of that conversation, which is the transition of like, how to my version of success, my professional journeys been marked by my kids in a good way. But we got news at the 20 week appointment for our second kiddo, that she was going to be born with Spina Bifida. And there's a lot of different types of spina bifida, hers was on the spectrum of good to bad or like menial to like, not, hers is more on the not great side of things. So doctors looked at us in the eye and said, hey, there's 80% chance she's going to be born with some some level of cognitive cognitive issues and her hydrocephalus, she likely won't walk. And, you know, it's going to be a tough journey. And they asked us, they're like, do you want to go on this journey? I was like, Are you asking when I think you're asking like, yeah, we're in like, without hesitation, my wife and I like we definitely cried at the diagnosis, we had our moment. and work through that. And so we're working through that. But we're, we're in, right, and I'm kind of all in or all out type of guy. And and, and so let's see here tweeted, like 15 weeks later, 15 to 16 weeks later, she was a little bit early. We're on the roller coaster wife goes and labor. We just seen we just been in for an ultrasound that day. So I saw me in the womb, the day she was born. And and I actually asked the doctors like, hey, real talk. If Jenny goes and labor tonight, what do I do like burden at risk category, we live 45 minutes from children's, which is where the baby like person needs to be born with all the help and support available. Or we're like 20 or 30 minutes away from you. And she was like, didn't push it the extra 15 minutes, you'll avoid being on a helicopter and your daughter will avoid being on helicopter, like and being separated from mom. And I was like, Yeah, well, like that sounds great. So literally that night, Jenna went into labor. It's like 20 degrees out. If you live here in Colorado, you appreciate this. But there's a 470. And it's a toll road. Thankfully, and and so I pushed it 115 120 miles per hour on that thing and made that drive in like 2530 minutes. And and Jenna was I won't get into specifics, but she but she was it was it was time that Amy was nearly born in the car. So Amy was born, had surgery on her spine within 24 hours and then hung out in the hospital for another nine days. And my life changed forever. And the best of ways. And, and with that my career needed to change a bit too. But I knew that at that moment, you know, from a priority standpoint, in order, I wanted to be a great husband, and be a great dad. And if I had to be, quote, good businessmen. That was okay, I'd rather be like, I'd rather not be a great businessman, and a good husband and a good dad, or maybe potentially bad dad because I don't run out of hours. And so I reprioritize completely. And I don't regret a single bit of that. But I was working 80 hours a week at the time. And I just literally just started working 35 hours a week and hit my numbers and doing my things and it became apparent that you know, I needed to be in the trenches, we all need to be working on those light late night pitches together, etc. And I wasn't gonna be that guy anymore. And and so I just gracefully accepted stage left. And that was that was kind of our departure. And I don't regret a bit of that because I think a lot of people would say hey, like pursue the thing hustle like I love Gary Vee, I've had the opportunity to meet him and talk to him about work life balance, and, and he he actually is an inspiration for me in the context of I've asked him point blank, I said, hey, what would slow you down? And he said, If I had a medical need, or if there was something going on with my family that required me to be home, I said, Thank you, thank you. I didn't need his validation. But hustle culture can, I think get too turned up to too high. And so I turned my volume down. And that's been a good transition for me on the back end of that. So that's a bit long winded. But that's that's been my my journey. We can kind of end on the current chapter, if you'd like but any questions on that part of the journey? Marc Gutman 39:55 Yeah, no, I'd love to get into it. way deeper. We are running tight on time. I know that you have to To run along here. And so what I'd love for you to do is just let us know, you know, what's next for for Beau and Scale That like, what are you looking forward to? What are you most excited about right now? Beau Haralson 40:12 Yeah, um, so join forces with a good long term friend of mine, named Alex turned in about two years ago now. And we played to our strengths, right? So he's really good at paid media. I'm pretty good at creative. I've had the opportunity to shoot shoot national commercials and Facebook ads and all the things. And we said, hey, what would what would success in this chapter look like he had access to the agency prior as well. And so we kind of, you know, met up classic thing got out of napkin, and we said, hey, let's just take on a half dozen clients a year that have our cell phone number. And let's take really good care of them and say no to anything above that. And so we've got five or six private clients, private in the context that I can't share with you, I can share with you like one or two of their names. But I'm under NDA where I can't for the others, and we spend, you know, three to $5 million plus on advertising a month for those guys and take really good care of them. And when they have creative needs, and when they have other stuff that's coming up and business strategy stuff, we advise on those and take care folks as best we can. And so that's been a privilege to step into that it's right size, I get to be a dad, I get to be a therapy appointments, I get to be, you know, I've got to get my oldest to gym here in a minute. And that's I mean, that, for me is my definition of success. Ferrari or no Ferrari, I'm plenty happy with that. And we're moving the needle for folks and taking good care of our clients. And it's just been great. So I think there was like a, how can we help kind of nature of that, or what's kind of what's what's within that. So the business models pretty simple. Take care of a half dozen folks, we're moving in the consulting with whatever extra hours we have. So we're taking a group of clients that, quite honestly wouldn't be initial great fits for our direct service model. And we're gonna do some on ongoing coaching for folks that just need high level support, but have people in house to help execute. So we'll be unveiling that in the next probably 30 or 45 days. And we've built out some software in the background that helps people buy ads more effectively and efficiently, and took parts of Alex's brain and a bit of mine and had that all coated up. And so we'll be selling that software. Again, it's just about replicating what you can and, and then we're kind of in a mindset that if we don't share some of the success that we've been able to create for clients, it's actually been I mean, this was with no ego, but I had a good friend that was like, hey, it's kind of selfish not to share, you should start sharing how you help people. And that will help other people help other people. And I was like, Great, yeah, you're right, you win. So we're kind of pivoting to like, actually starting to share some of the stories that have, you know, typically been hidden in conference rooms and boardrooms of, you know, fortune 100 companies. And I'm excited to start sharing that a bit more and sharing how to how to make that impact. Marc Gutman 43:14 Great, well make sure you've let us know how we can help you share that where our listeners can find access to add or get more information or enroll in that in the ability to receive those stories and Beau as we come to a close here. You know, I'd like you to think back to that that boy in high school who is way in the the idea of being a youth pastor or a park ranger, and what do you think he'd say, if he saw you today? Beau Haralson 43:39 Hmm. He probably taught me to rest a bit more. But I think I think he'd also say like, um, you know, everything in it season is probably a good way to summarize that is like, hey, like, that's, that's great young Bo, that you have this, these these, like, your heart is excited about these things. Because oriented, be it like playing outside, but like, I think I've come to this conclusion that like, everything has its own little season, like, you know, dumped on us this weekend. And people were like, do you go skiing? And I'm like, Nah, man, I was hanging out with a two year old, like, that's fine. And I was happy to be. So I think a lot of people want success now. And they define it in a certain way. But I think you can, you can do both. And I think you can be patient and have your definition of success in its own season. And I think to be patient and that and to be discerning in that and to readjust and calibrate for that is probably what I would say to the young buck sitting there with this yearbook open was just like, Hey, be patient man, and pursue things fully, but like Be patient and don't pursue it all at once. Marc Gutman 44:51 And that is Beau Haralson, co founder of Scale That I've been following Bo's career over the years and in typical Beau fashion. He was very humble and understated about all the brands he's worked with, and his successes in the marketing space. Maybe we can get him back on the show for a round to brag session. There were so many nuggets in this one, but two that stood out to me. everyone finds their success in their own season. That is so true. And I think that if we just let that hang and resonate for a moment, you'll feel how impactful that insight is. And the other big standout idea was that big brands really want to be like small brands, and small brands have all the opportunity is there adaptable and nimble. You hear that small brands go out there and kick some big brand but a big thank you to Beau Haralson and the Scale That team I love your order of priorities and it is inspiring to hear how our business lives can be prioritized if we only ask, can I delegate this, we will link to all things Beau Haralson and Scale That in the show notes. And if you know the guest who should appear on our show, please drop me a line at podcast at wildstory.com. Our best guests like Beau come from referrals from past guests and our listeners. Well that's the show. Until next time, make sure to visit our website www.wildstory.com where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS so you'll never miss an episode a lot big stories and I cannot lie to you other storytellers can't deny.
In this episode of Metrics & Chill, John Bonini talked with Ben Sailer, Inbound Marketing Director at CoSchedule, about how the team at CoSchedule refocused their content strategy on driving trials and product signups, instead of just traffic.
Hey y'all! You're listening to a preview of our interview with Stu McLaren on the Membership Masters Podcast. Stu McLaren is a legend in the membership site space. Listen now to hear a preview of the full episode that was an amazing podcast interview where Stu and I ‘geek out' on membership sites. We take a role by role look at Stu's team, so you can learn what a high-level membership looks like.
Stu McLaren is a legend in the membership space. He got his start in the membership game as a co-founder of Wishlist Member, one of the most widely used membership plug-ins for WordPress. For the last 12 years Stu has been working intimately with tens of thousands of authors, speakers, coaches, consultants, and business owners. All, to help them transform what they know, love, and do, and transform it into a recurring revenue. In today's amazing podcast interview, Stu and I ‘geek out' on memberships. We dive deep into the three areas Stu believes membership owners must focus on to succeed. We take a person by person, role by role look at Stu's team, so you can learn what a high-level membership looks like. What You'll Learn: How content is free but curation is not. All about the membership model. How to go through your membership journey. External and internal marketing. Look at the fundamentals. High energy vs. Steady Energy. What does your team look like? Everyone can start a membership site with their God-given talents and experiences. Community 101. Content is free but curation is not. Curation is the step-by-step the blueprint. It's grabbing your audience's hand and shining the light on the path for them. Which, is exactly what a membership community offers people! Like Stu said, people are not paying for information, they are paying for clarity. They want to know what the next step is. They don't want to think about figuring things out for themselves, they want to be told what the next step is to get there easier and faster. The membership model. We kind of stumbled upon the membership model ourselves. When we launched our first products they were lesson plans. We did it the hard way living launch to launch and spending all our energy on making new sales each month. We were like, ‘hey, I'll make lesson plans for August if you'll buy them.' Then we met James Schramko. And he said, ‘show me what you're doing.' Sits there and he says, ‘that's a membership, silly.' Then it just dawned on us like, yeah it is! We just needed to get people to pay the first time, then they'll keep paying the next month. That year, our church launched ‘The Next Steps Station.' Which was like a barn-like structure by the door. So you couldn't get out of the building unless you walked by it. It was sort of like the Thank You page, you can't go forward until you go by it. It was basically saying your next step is to meet someone, then join a small group, then a class. This goes for both what our church was doing and what our membership needed to become. Your membership is a journey. Your goal as a membership owner is to figure out where they are and what their next step is. Once you do that your members are not going to leave. Stu does this through he calls ‘Success Path.' Which is basically accessing where members are when they come in and where they want to be in the end game. As he said people don't go from not knowing how to paint to becoming the next Picasso overnight. It is a journey. If you help them focus on the next step they'll make progress. External and internal marketing. Marketing does not stop when someone is in the membership. When we first got into the membership model we looked our retention position like a customer support role. If the last thing they did was a course in the membership check in and make sure they watch one that coorelates with it. If you can do that, the extends lifetime value. That has to be a part of your membership even if you don't hire a person to do it. Stu says one of the issues he sees people run into with this is membership owners who put content into their site very last minute. That is a problem because you cannot create anticipation for it. Look at the fundamentals. You want to look at how far your members are going based on that you want to be able to send them notification...
Stu McLaren is a legend in the membership site space. He got his start in the membership game as a co-founder of Wishlist Member, one of the most widely used membership plug-ins for WordPress. In today’s amazing podcast interview, Stu and I ‘geek out’ on membership sites. We dive deep into the three areas Stu believes membership owners must focus on to succeed. We take a person by person, role by role look at Stu’s team, so you can learn what a high-level membership looks like.
How to Set up Facebook Ads for eCommerce “We Deliver the results you hoped your last agency would” Rory F. Stern of RFS Media has been a best-kept secret working behind the scenes to help build, grow, and scale many successful online companies for the last 14 years. Today, he manages a small boutique media buying team that specializes in multi-channel traffic. He is best known for creating ads that convert and being able to get a lot of policy challenged offers approved and running on Facebook. Core business is growing a business with paid traffic. FaceBook is the most popular paid ad channel. But is Facebook the right place for ecommerce sellers? Google is the most important. But FaceBook is what most people want. And it's a great place to start. There are a lot of easy elements. Facebook has set up a very user-friendly interface. You can set up pretty quickly, target pretty quickly and get data pretty quickly. Getting free help Setting up Facebook Ads The Facebook Ads Blueprint - free training from Facebook! It is set up for brands not necessarily direct response marketers. Which is more Rory's starting point. It's a good starting point - it's free! For those who want to value their time more than money, there is a lot of good training. But there's nothing like getting your own money on the line. What do you need to start running Facebook ads? A Facebook Page under your brand A Facebook ad account You can just go through your personal profile - click on lefthand column and go to ads manager. This is not recommended. OR go to business.facebook.com and set up a business manager Business manager Link to your Facebook page One FaceBook pixel Business manager pros You can set up other people to help You can get extra help from FaceBook Every Facebook ad account has a FaceBook pixel - it is a snippet of code that communicates between your website and the pixel. The pixel is really important. If you're trying to DIY, find someone and ask for help. Basics of setting up Facebook Ads manager You'll need to set up a campaign type There are many types. Most important: Facebook Ad Campaign types Traffic Conversion objective Page post engagement Facebook Traffic campaign When you choose this, you're asking FaceBook to get them as much traffic as possible. This means that FaceBook gets people who will click on an ad Facebook Conversion campaign This means you are asking FaceBook to find people who take action and actual convert to something you want eg FaceBook will find people with a known history of clicking an ad You can even target “engaged shoppers” who have clicked on the CTA button eg “buy now; find out more” Facebook Page Post Engagement Campaign (PPE) This tells FaceBook to get people who comment, like, share etc. Which Facebook Ad Campaign Type is best for e-commerce? Simple answer: Facebook Conversion Campaign! The way you set things up is you want qualified traffic. You want highly qualified prospects. To do this, you select conversions. 6 years ago, you could run a traffic campaign and it would work. A certain amount of people would eventually click and buy. 6 years ago, you could run a conversion campaign and get better quality people. As FaceBook's algorithm (pixel/AI) has become more sophisticated, the traffic is also more sophisticated. If you ask for traffic, that's what it will give you. Rory has tested this with maybe $20M in ad spend. Conversions are what gets it done! When to consider Page Post engagement or traffic Campaigns As you start to scale, you can bring more of them in. Then you would retarget people. But if you're spending under $1000 a day, just stick to Conversion Campaigns Facebook Campaign budget Optimisation (CBO) The other popular thing you'll have to choose at campaign level. This has only been around for about 1 year. If you have the choice to turn it off.
All Selling Aside with Alex Mandossian | "Seeding Through Storytelling is the 'New' Selling!"
The concept of H2H or human to human selling was introduced to me at the Traffic and Conversion Summit in 2017. Ryan Deiss, a former mentee turned mentor, was speaking on the power of understanding the humanity of business. When you’re selling anything, you’re selling an emotion. When something goes wrong, it’s due to a human failing. When a sale goes right, it’s because of a human connection. So many times we get caught up in whether a company is primarily B2B, B2C, etc… and we forget that all sales are human to human interactions. Would you rather purchase a high-end product or service from a machine or from a human who has been in your shoes and understands the solution? Never forget that caring is the competitive advantage of the 21st century. In an ever more disconnected world, showing your followers, customers, and clients that you care is imperative. Listen in as I share: Why your business model is not about B2B, B2C, B2G… it’s H2H. Why living into H2H business modality accelerates your profits. Why H2H focus is the key to uncover motivated buyer patterns. So, what processes in your business need a more human touch? In This Episode: [01:39] - Welcome back to All Selling Aside. [05:04] - Learn the three key insights you’ll find on this episode. [07:02] - Listen as Alex shares his experience from Traffic & Conversion in 2017. [07:43] - The key point was about H2H interaction. Learn what that means. [10:56] - Why give credit where it’s due? [13:47] - Alex breaks down what various companies are selling with their products or services. [16:39] - How has status changed over time? [17:20] - What do people lack in business? Clarity Structure Influence Visibility Community [20:24] - Your level of community status is what counts most. [20:54] - Strengthen what you’re already stong in. [22:49] - Every organization has five dysfunctions as well. The aggregate of what individuals are lacking. [25:17] - Why caring is the competitive advantage of the 21st century. [27:30] - The Alexism is, “Don’t look for your business hero… just become one!” [28:00] - Hear a quick review of the key insights in this episode: Why your business model is not about B2B, B2C, B2G… it’s H2H. Why living into H2H business modality accelerates your profits. Why H2H focus is the key to uncover motivated buyer patterns. [29:36] - If you’ve already given Alex a review, write down your biggest takeaway from this episode on an index card. If you haven’t, though, please use that Aha! moment as your review for the show at this link! [31:15] - In honor of this episode, Alex gives listeners a final gift. You can get a 30-day free test drive of Kartra. Links and Resources: Alex Mandossian Alex Mandossian Fan on Facebook Alex’s Friday Live events MarketingOnline.com Marketing Online 4-Part Video Training Series Alex Mandossian on YouTube Alexisms by Alex Mandossian All Selling Aside on iTunes Alex Mandossian’s free live Friday show Roy H. Williams Patrick Lencioni Ryan Deiss Harvey Mackay
Ready to take your ads to the next level in 2020? In this episode Molly explains her 7-step system for campaign and marketing strategy creation called The Ad Grid™. Listen to find out how to hit home run after home run with your campaigns, match your message to your market, and 20x your success rate. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Tier 11 Swipe File Traffic & Conversion 2016 Closing Video Molly’s Traffic & Conversion 2016 Presentation Slides Episode 33: The Ad Grid: How to Build Campaigns that Convert and Scale Thanks for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Perpetual Traffic? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review. iTunes not your thing? Find us on Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or at DigitalMarketer.com.
Are you looking to grow your audience and sales? This episode of the DigitalMarketer podcast has been taken straight from the Traffic & Conversion stage and right to your headphones. You’ll hear from Kim Walsh Phillips, Founder of Powerful Professionals, to learn about the five step 24-Hour Thunderbolt strategy that she’s used to generate $357,000 from just one event. Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to The DigitalMarketer Podcast? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review! iTunes not your thing? Find us on Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or at DigitalMarketer.com.
Behind the scenes look at how I create 8 presentations in less than two weeks. On this episode Russell shares how he prepares for Funnel Hacking Live, and what kind of work goes into each presentation, including: How he organizes each presentation inside Google Drive. How he makes each slide, and who makes it look so pretty. And how he gets it all done in just 2 weeks time. So listen now to find out all that goes into each of the 8 FHL presentations that Russell will be doing this year. ---Transcript--- Hey what’s up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I’m driving home from dropping my kids off in the snow, and everybody’s driving so slow I thought we should talk. So with that said, let’s queue up the theme song, and we will be right back. Alright, so last week we were on the Two Comma Club cruise, which was so much fun. You should come next year if you didn’t come for some reason. Everyone should be there. But it was amazing, we had like 350 funnel hackers out on the sea for a week, locked in a boat, so I was locked on a boat with a whole bunch of people, and we had so much fun. I tried to put on my extraverted hat and go out and do stuff, which was actually really, really fun. I had a good time. But I’m not going to lie, they say the difference between extravert and introvert is not that you like to hide or not, it’s that, it’s how you recharge. Extraverts recharge by going out with a whole bunch of people hanging out, that’s how they recharge, whereas introverts have to go hide by themselves. So by that definition, threw on my extravert hat, went out there, went out there and partied like it was 1979 to 1999,what’s the Prince song, the artist formerly known as Prince? Anyway, I partied, and my battery got completely empty and I kept going and kept going, and kept going. And then we’d go back, Collette and I would go back to the room and just be like, (deep breath). In fact, one night it was like, we uh, it was like an intense day of networking and stuff, and we got back on the boat and we were going to go to dinner with everybody and she was like, “I can’t do it.” And I’m like, “Neither can I.” So we back to the room and ordered room service and we watched the bachelor on our laptop while we had room service, and then we passed out. It was amazing. Anyway, even us introverted nerds can party like the best of you, if we need to. So we did that on the cruise and it was really fun. It’s funny because every year we’re like, ‘We’ll never do this cruise again.” Then after the cruise everyone’s like, “Please do a cruise again.” So we may or may not do it next year, but if we do you should totally come. So you gotta be part of the Two Comma Club coaching program, though. So there you go, that’s the only way to get in and participate and hang out with all the cool kids. Anyway, so that was last week. Then we got home, two days ago to Boise, and it’s snowing. We went from cruise weather to snow weather, so now I just dropped the kids off at school, there’s snow everywhere which means everyone’s driving like a half a mile an hour, so we’ve got some time to hang out and talk. So that’s my game plan right now. Anyway, we are like 14 days away from Funnel Hacking Live, which is crazy. So by the time you guys listen to this, we’ll be even closer. Tickets are sold out for the sixth year, fifth year, sixth year in a row, which is amazing. And I’m grateful for all you guys for getting your tickets, I’m grateful to hang out with you guys in 2 weeks, and to serve you. And people always tell me, “Funnel Hacking Live’s coming up, are you so excited, the tickets are sold out and you get to relax now?” and I’m like, “Ha ha, I don’t get to relax now. You don’t understand what goes into the actual event.” Funnel Hacking Live, there’s a lot of other speakers, but I am a big fan of me speaking a lot. Maybe it’s just I like to hear my own voice, maybe I’m just conceited, I don’t know. I just know that there was an event I always used to go to and I loved it. I’ll just say the name, it doesn’t really matter, it’s the Traffic Conversion event. So I missed the very first T&C ever, and the next like 3 I went to and it was amazing. And I remember my favorite part was that Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher would be onstage and they would teach the entire thing. And those guys are brilliant, I love hearing Perry tell stories, and just I loved it. And the second year they started bringing more guest speakers and it was like, ‘Oh we got less Perry and Ryan, but the other speakers are cool.” And the next year they brought in, I don’t know, like 100 speakers and Perry and Ryan spoke once and they were off stage, and the rest was all these other speakers. And after that, I stopped going. I went because I loved hearing from the attractive character of the business, people who, that’s who I enjoyed. So when we started Funnel Hacking Live, I was very conscious of that. I remembered what stopped me going to T&C, and it was the fact that they brought in so many speakers that I didn’t get to hear from people I wanted to. So every year we have amazing speakers come in, but I always have this thing where, I know some of you guys will, I don’t know, some of you guys come because you want to hear me speak. So I don’t want to let you down, so I put a lot into that. So every year I have a lot of speaking slots. So I think 2 years ago I had 7 speaking slots, last year I did 6…no sorry. 2 years ago was 6 speaking slots, last year I did 5, and this year I’m doing, up to 7. I wanted to do more stuff. I’m doing a late night session that I’ve never done before, and a couple of other things. But I just, I don’t know, I love it. But the problem is there’s so much prep work that goes into it. I have so much work to do. So I have 2 weeks to do all my presentations. And people are like, “Russell, why didn’t you prepare ahead and do the presentations over the last few months?” Do you not remember? I wrote the Traffic Secrets book and rewrote the other 2 books. I think we were adding it up and it was it, not quite, but almost a quarter of a million words I wrote in the last 6 months, which is insane. Most books are like 50 to 60 thousand words, so it’s the equivalent of writing 5 or 6 books, that’s how bad it got. So that happened and then when that got done, I did that during the kids wrestling season. And then I had church callings and all these things. And that’s why I didn’t do my slides yet. And then as soon as I got done, I had a week off from Christmas and I was just trying to catch my breath, and then we had the Two Comma Club cruise and now we’re here and I’ve got 14 days to do all the presentations. So there’s a ton that goes into it. So I’m going to kind of walk you guys through how I do it, because maybe that will help you guys who are doing events or things like that. So what I do is I go into Google drive, I have become obsessed with Google drive in the last year and a half. I always hated it prior to that, and now it’s my obsession. So I create a new folder, I have a PowerPoint folder with all my PowerPoint slides from every event I’ve ever done, which is kind of nice to have. Then I have a folder that says Funnel Hacking Live folder and it has 2015, 2016, 2017, so all the slides from past presentations are in there. So first thing I did yesterday was create a new folder called FHL2020 and then you open that and inside there I created a folder for every presentation. So I know my intro presentation, which is my most important one to me, I talk about Funnel Frameworks. So I titled the very first one, first folder, “Number 1-Funnel Frameworks” and my second presentation is on Funnel Hacking. So “Number 2-Funnel Hacking” and my third presentation is story workshops, so “Number 3- Story Workshop”. Then number four is my presentation on emotion, logic, fear. So I did “Number 4-Emotion, Logic, Fear” and “Number 5-Funnelology” “Number 6 –Traffic Secrets” “Number 7-Unlock the Secrets of Two Comma Club” and “Number 8 –“ I can’t remember the title of the 8th presentation. I don’t think I have a title yet. Oh, “30 Days” So I have 8 presentations. Anyway, so I made 8 folders and inside each folder I create a new Google slides, and I’m obsessed with Google slides. Google slides is great because I can go and I can build slides and then I can have amazing designers, Leon on my team is an amazing designer and he helps me with my slides. So what then happens is I go to all 8 of these presentations and the first thing I need is the title slide, which is like the logo and looks awesome. So I have that, and the second slide I need is a headline. So its usually a headline and usually has a picture of me on the headline slide, so I do that. And on the third we have a slide template. So what that means is like the bottom 1/10th of the slide we’ll have my logo and the branding, and then the background slide will have some cool thing. So right now, yesterday, that’s what we’re working on. Okay, here’s my 8 presentations, what’s the branding for each one of them, so Leon’s been killing himself making the branding and it’s looking so good. And then I go through and write, “Okay, I need 8 headlines. What’s the headline for each presentation?’ So I give him the headlines. I didn’t get through all those yesterday, but I got a bunch of those done. Then he’ll design the tile slide with the headline, and then he’s designing the branding for all those. So he’s in the process now that I’ve kind of dumped those on him, he’s going through and designing each of the frameworks, excuse me, each of the slide structure for each of the 8 presentations. So he’s doing that right now, and then as soon as the first one is done, which I think I saw the first one last night, he got done. So then I go in and I start taking my outline, and I’ll start building out the slides. And in the past I would have to do all of the slide design myself. So if you think about it, there’s our right brain and our left brain right. So right brain I think is the creative side, and the left brain is analytical. It might be the opposite of that. But you get the gist. And the problem that most of us have is you create something, your smart brain that’s doing the content and creating it, then the other side of the brain is like, “Wait it looks ugly. Hold on, let’s make it pretty.” And so you’re designing and trying to make it pretty and you go back and forth. o in the past I was doing all my own slides, so I would have to spend so much time on the pretty side and the other side, so I’d be in focus mode of where is the story line going? And then stopping to go over and make the slide pretty, and back and forth, and you get out of state, in state, out of state, in state, out of state and it was really, really hard. So what’s nice now is having a slide designer. I go in the slides and I stay just in my left brain the whole time, like, “Okay, what’s the story?” slide number 1, slide number 2, and I start dumping content on it. And I know my slides are all simple. It’s usually a headline thing, an image, and like a little blurb. So what I do is write headline, the blurb to help me remember the story. Then I find an image, so I don’t put the image, don’t edit, I just link to the image, boom, next slide, next slide. I go through as fast as I can. So what’s happening is I’m doing that right now, that’ll be my big project for today, going through the slides and trying to take the process, the storyline that I’m going through in the slide, and I’ll start dumping those things in there. Some of you guys may wonder, how do you structure the storyline? If you listen to my, I did a podcast episode on how to teach your frameworks, if you go through there it kind of goes through it. But basically what I do is I tell a story about how I learned or I earned this concept, step number 1. Step number 2 then is I walk through the overarching strategy of it, here’s the step by step process. Step number 3 I go into the tactics of like, here’s how you actually implement it and how you’re going to actually do it. And step number 4 I show case studies of other people doing it. So that’s kind of the storyline, and I go through and I build that out, those 4 phases. And sometimes one slide presentation might have that 5 times, you know, where I’m teaching a concept, here’s the story, here’s the strategy, here’s the tactic, here’s the case study. Boom, boom, boom, I kind of go through that over and over and over again. So I’ll be doing that for probably the next 2 days, 3 days on my first presentation. And then by the time I’m done, Leon will probably be done with all the 8 slide designs. Then he’ll jump back on slide number one, and he’ll start going behind me and start cleaning them up, making them look nice, making the images look awesome, and going through like that. And I’ll go to presentation number 2 and he’ll follow behind me, and 3 and 4 and we’ll kind of go through the process like that. And hopefully by this time 2 weeks from now, all 8 presentations will be done and perfect and beautiful. And then I’ll go through them a thousand times and hopefully when I get onstage I will remember all the stories. So that’s how I do it. So hopefully that helps. You know, most people, it’s funny, when we teach the perfect webinar and people are working on presentations on people who work on their presentations for 6 or 8 months, I’m like, ‘You gotta move faster.” You know, I’ve got to 8 presentations in 2 weeks. You can do 1 in 2 weeks, but you have to get back to this process of fixing the left brain/right brain, where you’re going back and forth in your perfection, trying to make it look perfect, and you have to figure out where you’re at again, and remember what you’re talking about and all those things. It’s like no, you gotta move faster and stay in your, even if you’re doing all the design, that’s fine, don’t design the slides right away. Focus on your creative brain, or whichever side of the brain that’s telling the stories and map those things out, and fill in the slides as fast as you can, then come back later and design them. Or find someone that can login to your slides and do it. That’s the most amazing thing about Google slides is that you can 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 people all in the slides with you. So I can be in there dumping things in, I can have an editor behind me cleaning things up, making sure my words make sense, have the designer go in behind that and make sure it’s clean as well. It’s really powerful, really simple, and really awesome. So anywho, I hope that helps. I’m back home now and that’s what I’m going to be doing for the next 2 weeks. So if you’re wondering what’s Russell doing? That’s what I’m doing. And if you want to see me do it, I highly, highly recommend following me on instagram if you don’t right now. If you just go to Instagram.com/RussellBrunson, there’s my instagram profile and you can follow me and I’m always showing on my stories, behind the scenes of me doing the slides, and working on things, pulling late nighters, and early mornings, and all the insanity that will be ensuing from now until after the event. Plus everything happening in the event. I document the whole event on insta-stories. So if you want to see what’s happening make sure you follow me on instagram, and follow my stories because you’ll see behind the scenes of what’s actually happening. Alright everybody, with that said, I gotta get to work. Appreciate you all, thanks for listening, thanks for your support, and we’ll talk to you guys all again soon. Bye everybody.
Apabila anda menjalankan bisnis online, maka 2 hal ini adalah bagian penting dalam pemasaran. Tapi mana yang lebih penting?
I don't think there is a topic we're more passionate yet equally in the dark about as CRO. For every dollar a business spends on Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) they get nine back – which is a staggering statistic. You immediately see ROI if you use a CRO expert who is good at what they do. There is an entire user journey that happens with CRO, and those businesses that embark on the journey can massively grow their business quickly. Jon MacDonald is the CEO and founder of The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization firm. The Good uses data science to help brands turn their traffic into customers by tracking everything on their site and using the data they collect to come up with solutions for growth. Some of the world's largest companies convert their website visitors into buyers through their services. Jon is here to talk to about this little known powerhouse toolkit for both buyer and sellers. Episode Highlights: What Jon looks at before starting a CRO project for a client. Where CRO fits in for buyers and sellers in the e-commerce space. The four key areas of data to be looking at to optimize e-commerce conversions. Why CRO gets ignored so often. Helpful dashboard elements for the three types of online businesses: e-commerce, SaaS, content-based sites and how those elements improve business. How microgoals can add incrementally change your flow. What CRO advice Jon has for someone who may be getting ready to sell a business. Where The Good gets their information and what they do with it. AB testing tools Jon recommends for a new business owner getting started. How much time an entrepreneur should spend studying and preparing for a good CRO approach. How CRO practice can increase asset value exponentially for sellers and buyers. The benefit of working with an outsourced CRO team. Transcription: Joe: Mark, one of the things that we see happen often is people—we go to these events that we sponsor, meet some amazing entrepreneurs, and sometimes in little pockets of them you hear people talking about their top line revenue. It's really not what the focus should be. In many cases, it should be about their gross profit, their processes, and what they do to optimize and maximize their bottom line revenue. Because ultimately that's what the value of these businesses are based on. And as I understand you had Jon MacDonald on from The Good talking about CRO; Conversion Rate Optimization and how important it is to drive that up and what a great return on investment that can be. Mark: Yeah, that's right. I don't think that there's a topic I'm more passionate about yet equally horrible at than I am CRO; Conversion Rate Optimization. It's such a phenomenal field and when we look at what you can do using CRO techniques and methodology with a business it's rather remarkable. In fact, Jon quoted me a statistic in here that for every dollar a business invests in conversion rate optimization on average they get $9 back which is really, really amazing. I know that in the past I've hired a conversion rate optimization expert. And they cost a lot of money, right? So I was paying out I think like $2,000 a month. But you know what the first thing they did was? They saved me like $6,000 a month in advertising costs. Joe: That's incredible. Mark: I mean it's a net win. You're immediately seeing an ROI if you have somebody good at what they do. And when we think about CRO oftentimes we think okay we're going to change the color of this button bar, we're going to change the title on this, we're going to increase our sign-ups. What Jon and I talked about quite a bit more is the fact that CRO is much, much bigger than this. There is an entire customer journey, there's an entire user journey here, and there are all sorts of points along the way where this journey can be optimized and can be made more efficient for our clients. I know I've talked to clients in the past who have grown businesses massively by just spending literally years doing this and their traffic doesn't substantially change. But their revenue changes and their bottom line earnings change as well. It's a discipline that most of us ignore; low hanging fruit for almost all of our businesses. We should be doing it. Jon and I got to talk about some of the methodologies that you need to implement in order to really get going with some CRO optimization of any business for that matter. Joe: I think it's going to be a fascinating podcast. I'm going to listen to it myself. Before we jump to that folks be sure to tell us what the movie quote is. Send us a note so we can give you a shout out on the podcast. Alright, let's jump to it. Mark: Jon thanks so much for joining me. Jon: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Mark: If you could can you provide a quick background on yourself to all the listeners? Jon: Sure. So I am CEO and founder of The Good. We are a conversion rate optimization firm. Now what that means is we help brands to convert more of their existing website traffic into customers. So we do that through data science. Helping brands to track every click and movement that's happening on their site and using that data to understand where people are dropping off in the process, why they're not converting, what's engaging and not being engaged with, and how to solve those problems. Mark: That's great. CRO is something of a—I wouldn't say a hobby of mine, I'm not very good at it but it's something that I'm fascinated by. I love the idea of being able to grow and sometimes pretty significantly grow a business without adding more traffic and scrapping forward for that more traffic but basically by improving that customer experience to the point where everything just kind of smoothens out and it just opens up more traffic internally but with the revenue of course; the conversions and everything else. Now in my understanding with your firm you guys have done some work with private equity firms as well that are coming into an acquisition of a web-based company and want to find some of those opportunities. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe some of the scenarios that you've looked at there? Jon: Yeah. So typically when you're buying an e-com company the first thing you're looking to do is optimize the return on the investment you've just made. And that's why a lot of folks end up with us. Typically these brands have a lot of traffic coming in already. They're spending a bunch of money to drive traffic to the site but perhaps that's just not converting at the level they'd liked or they're not seeing as high of a ROAs or return on ad spend as they would like to see and they see that that's an opportunity for optimization. And that's typically how we end up starting those conversations. It's not unfamiliar with us. A few brands we've worked with have increased their conversion rates, gotten their ROIs up and then made an exit right after. So it happens on both sides. Brands who are looking to make a purchase and or have made a purchase come into us to help them to kind of optimize a little bit and then also companies who are looking to improve their site and optimize it as they get ready to sell and want to increase the value of their company. Mark: I often think that the CRO portion of a marketing mix is one of the items I think it's ignored the most often and is often one of the lowest bits of hanging fruit. And one of the things I think people forget about; I forget about it myself but CRO actually has kind of a double whammy effect for you, right? I ran an experiment on another business that I owned outside of Quiet Light Brokerage for getting people to sign up and I know my numbers pretty well. I know that every person that signs up even though they're signing up for free the value of that client is about $10, right. So I said okay I want to increase these free sign-ups more. But the result was I did increase the sign-ups, I did increase that conversion rate pretty significantly but the other benefit of that is that my cost of acquisition dropped. So not only was I getting more out of what was being sent to me but my advertising dollars dropped at the same time. And so I had this double effect of seeing an increase in my ROIs on both sides just from focusing on one thing. When you're talking to somebody who is preparing to sell; let's say it's an e-commerce business, what are some of the areas that you start to look to see where can you—what are you sort of tracking at a CRO project? Jon: Well, the first thing is are they tracking the right data? True conversion optimization should not be about going down a checklist of best practices. You can find those and Google those online and I can tell you that really the most effective way to optimize a site is to base it on every click and movement of your specific sites visitors and to make data back decisions on those actions that are being taken. So the best way to do that is to make sure you're tracking the right data. Now, of course, you want to follow GDPR and all of the other privacy regulations that are in place. So all the types of data that you really should be tracking are done in aggregate meaning it's not personally identifiable information. And really you don't need personal identifiable information. But there are really four key areas of data that you should be looking at. The first of course is Analytics. If you're looking to sell you're likely going to have Analytics and the buyer is likely going to dive into those Analytics. So if you're looking at something like Google Analytics out of the box let's be honest here it's meant to help you buy more Google Ads. So it's not that helpful in terms of optimizing your site. Now the best way to do that is to build some dashboards in Google Analytics that are more focused on conversions. And also make sure that you're tracking the right events on your site to get that data in. So that's one of the first places we look. The second pieces of data are interactions on your site in terms of content. So looking at things like heat maps; where are mouse movements happening around the site, click maps where are people clicking on a page, perhaps they're often—we almost always find that people are clicking on things that aren't clickable, and that's a good indicator that they should be. So it could be as simple as that. You know we also want to look at scroll maps; how far down the page are they going. We do eye tracking as well to understand what people are looking at and how long they're looking at that content. Lastly—well third I should say you want to do what's called user testing. So we've just talked about all these quantitative pieces of data that really tell you what people are doing. But it's really hard to get the why behind that from all of that data we just talked about. So user testing comes in and helps us understand why. Now, this is where we send people to the site who match the ideal customer profile and we ask them to complete tasks. And while they're completing those tasks we are recording their screen and their audio and we also have trained these people ahead of time to talk out loud about the experience that they're having. So they're going through a site and they're saying hey I'm trying to find this page and I can't find it in the navigation or understand how to get to that content that I'm looking for, I don't understand what the value proposition is here, or just common struggles that they might be having. And that really kind of coincides with the numerical data to tell us not only what they've done but also why they're doing that and it gives us some context behind that. And we really we do what's called remote unmoderated user testing. And what that is is a software tool we use usertesting.com most often. And what that means is it's a piece of software that lives on their home computer that allows us to collect all this data so they can do it in the comfort of their own environment as opposed to somebody standing over their shoulder. Now we've done both. We've been optimizing sites for over 10 years now and we've done both. And what we found is that we get much better data when its remote unmoderated. The people are comfortable and they don't feel pressure to come up with something on the spot and always be telling us what they're thinking. We just find it naturally happens when it's remote and unmoderated. So that works a lot better. The last piece of data is A-B testing or multivariate testing. This is where you say you have 100 people coming to a site, you can segment those visitors and show 50 the current version of a page or even small change on the site, maybe moving content around on a page, or adjusting some headlines things of that sort. And then you would show 50 the alternate page and you test some metrics out of that to understand which one is doing better; the page that exists or the changes that have been made. And we can get really large tests like changing entire pages or we can go really, really small like just changing one headline and seeing what the differences would be and then stacking a lot of those tests and the variations of those tests to truly understand how to optimize each step of that funnel again based on data. So instead of just guessing and launching those changes with this piece of data you're actually letting the consumer's actions, your specific sites visitor's actions and tell you what should be done to permanently change on your site. Mark: Okay. So I think that explanation was just great. I love the framework that you set up here but I think you just explained why CRO gets ignored so often. And that is there is a lot of stuff to set up here and to configure and I just let's start right at the beginning with Analytics. You're right right out of the box how useful is Analytics. It's interesting. You get to see how many people are coming to your site. You can see what pages are popular and some decent information out of the gate. But really Analytics starts to blossom when you start building dashboards and segments and everything else. But getting into that; I mean that's kind of a discipline in and of itself. Jon: Of course. Mark: I know we could probably talk about this all day and different dashboards for different types of businesses, what are some things that are some useful elements with a dashboard that somebody might want to consider building? And I want to break this up into maybe three different types of sites. And if you don't work with any of these types of sites that's fine, just let me know. But e-commerce would be one, SaaS would be another, and then content-based sites that are really looking more for that user engagement and reading and how much are they digesting the information. So what are some dashboards that you would recommend people look into for each of these? Jon: Well, there's a couple built into Google Analytics that get ignored pretty quickly. On all three of these sites it would be helpful. But the first is page flow. What is the flow that people are taking through the site? And most people ignore this because in Google Analytics the view is one where it shows the funnels but then has lines drawn between them and it looks extremely complicated at first. So most people see that, they get overwhelmed, and they leave and don't really pay attention to the data. But there's so much rich data there you can dive into. And you don't have to do anything other than have the snippet on your site. So it's not requiring you to set anything else up necessarily. So that's a great place to start. For e-com businesses we often find one tidbit; a lot of companies no matter what their size is when they first come to us one of the first things we always check is do they have the e-commerce tracking engaged. It's one button to turn on and off. So many brands don't have that turned on and they lose so much rich data that Google automatically starts sorting through and looking for. So for e-com just having that turned on could be amazing. And it's so easy. Now in terms of metrics that we're looking for on e-commerce conversion rate in terms of to purchase but also what are the other metrics that you're looking for? We call them micro conversions; things that you know people are doing that influence that purchase. Is it signing up for an email? Is it where they visit certain pages on your site? So we know that if they are visiting or even just like a great instance of this is if they're visiting a product detail page but then they click to read more of the user reviews. That's always a great indicator because what we find is consumers who read reviews convert much higher. Because often consumers are going to trust the content that's in reviews much more than what the brand even says about their products because it's coming from people like them. They also; for a clothing site for instance or shoe site, it's really helpful because they will use that to better understand sizing, especially relative sizing. So a medium runs a little larger you're probably going to want a small things of that sort. That's really, really helpful for people who are really there to dive deeper and answer specific questions that are all buying questions. Mark: Let me stop you on that real quick because let's say that you start measuring these micro goals. What does that give you? I mean I would imagine a lot of the people that are taking those actions already have a high user intent. Jon: Right. Mark: In my head I'm thinking okay let's say sizing options, you said I want to increase the number of micro-goals of people checking out the different sizing options. Does that really increase each individual user's intent or you're really just more making the flow easier for those that are already there? Jon: Both. If you're finding that out of 100 visitors that 50 of them are looking at sizing and of that 50, 25 convert you really want to try to influence that metric. So if you know that people are looking for sizing then make that information surface at higher so it's easier to find. Now people only visit websites for two reasons. This is outside of Facebook or anywhere that you're just trying to maybe perhaps spend some time; kill some time. Now they are there because they have a pain or a need and they think that your website can help solve that pain or need. And two once they realize that it can or they believe that it can, they want to do research on how to convert as quickly and easily as possible. And that means that they've done that research and now they're ready to purchase. So you need to make those two things as easy to do as possible. Now it sounds pretty simplistic but understanding as you go deeper on those what people are looking to research and then surfacing that information as high as possible is really important. So making that as easy to find and do that research. So if you know that people who convert always are looking for sizing information but they have to go into the reviews to find it. That's a problem. So instead make it easier for people to understand what size they should wear. And if that's the case they're going to convert much easier. And then when they're ready to convert it'll make that checkout flow, that conversion process as easy as possible. And when you look at lead generation sites which is the second one of this one that you've mentioned, it's the same thing with form completions. We often work with companies who have made it very easy for somebody to come to the site and do research about what particular products or offering that that company has that aligns with their need. But we also see at times the consumers come to the site and they're looking at the home page and the value proposition is not clearly stated. And so how many times have you been to a B2B service page website and you look at it and you said I have no idea what these people do. So that can be a big challenge; just understanding is the consumer in the right place and allowing them to do that research. But then once they get to the form they're asking for a ton of information that isn't really necessary at that first step. So they might be asking how many employees do you have, or what industry are you in; all these things that could have been filtered prior to them filling out a form by just saying this product is best for people who have this many employees, this much revenue, this industry, and things of that sort. So trying to help people understand if they're in the right place and how to convert as quickly and easily as possible can apply to both e-com and lead gen. Mark: That's helpful. Let's go on to one of the other ones here and that's the scroll maps and click data. A, where do you get this sort of information? Do you have any servers that you recommend? And then B, once you get in what do you do with this information once you start to get it? Jon: Yeah. So Hotjar is likely your best fit. Now there are tons of different heat mapping softwares out there right now. Crazy Egg is another good one. There's a few of us who—we find Hotjar has the most reliable data and also for the cost has the best benefits. So I believe it's about $9 a month and it's totally worth the data you get back for $9; easily a large return on your investment there. Now, what should you do with that data? Well, Hotjar will let you track again all the mass movements that happen on your site and give you a heat map of those. Now for those people who aren't familiar with the heat map it just shows you from red to—and then cools off from there; so red, yellow, green, blue, and then the lack of colors where people didn't use their mouse at all on a page. So it allows you to really look at that and say where are people interacting. Now, a quick tidbit on this; on desktop, your eye will follow your cursor. So heat mapping is not so much about the cursor movement as it is about a good indicator of where people are looking and what they're engaging with on your page. Understanding just where a cursor is going on a page is not as helpful. So that's a better way we think to look at it is what content are people engaging with. And that's what's really helpful there. Now, what can you do with that data? Perhaps you find that there is a piece of data that you had found earlier that people really engage with every single time they purchase. Well it's really helpful to surface that content up higher on the page and then track whether or not people are engaging with that over time; so testing that by understanding what content to engage and moving that content to a different area of the page and then looking at the heat map to see if it's being engaged with. Mark: So let's move on then to A-B testing and this is a personal pet peeve of mine because all the tools out there just feel—at least that I've used feel expensive and kind of shoddy and maybe I'm not using them right. Are there tools that you particularly recommend? What do you think about let's say Google Optimize as a free option there? And we'll start with that. I would also like to get into setting up experiments that actually make sense. Jon: Right, of course. Mark: Let's talk first about the tools. Jon: So there are a numerous number of tools for optimization as you mentioned. It's pretty common now to try to sell a whole optimization platform; so one tool that can do everything. The great thing about Google Optimize is that it doesn't do that. It focuses just on running those tests. And it also integrates extremely well with Analytics so you can pull segments out of Analytics that you've set up and run tests just for those segments. Now it is free and it does have some limitations in the sense that you can run a limited number of tests at the same time. There are some ways to get around that. I would be happy to chat about that with anybody at some point but really the idea here is Google Optimize has come a really long way over the past year. It has in terms of pure testing the same functionality as a platform like VWO or Visual Website Optimizer which is another one that I would tend to recommend if you want to get over the number of tests limit that Optimize has VWO is a great tool. It works extremely well for the testing side. It has a whole bunch of other functionality that at The Good we don't typically use. But if you're looking for a full platform it could be okay. And then if you're in the enterprise space Optimizely is really the gold standard. They were the first really solid tool. They made a shift about two years ago to focus exclusively on the enterprise side. So we still have some clients that are on their legacy plans from five to six years ago that are paying 200 bucks a month. They don't offer anything like that anymore. It's now probably closer to 10,000 a month just for their platform. But if you are looking to optimize every experience; your mobile experience, and your app experience, and your desktop or web experience as well Optimizely is really where you'd want to play. But you need to have the budget and the traffic levels especially. This is another thing and I think most companies tend to want to jump into running testing but they don't have enough traffic to do it. And they sign up for something like VWO and start paying the fees for the platform and they aren't seeing the results very quickly. That's where it can get frustrating. You really need to make sure you have enough traffic to be able to see statistically significant results in a meaningful timeframe to get the return on that investment. Mark: What would you recommend for sites that have low traffic amounts? Jon: I would recommend playing around with Google Optimize but running bigger tests. So what do I mean by bigger tests? Try changing an entire page content; don't just change one piece of content on a page. So the bigger the test the quicker you're typically going to see some results positive or negative. Now it's hard to get fine-grained but testing even bigger tests like that you will see increases in the key metrics that you should be tracking like conversion rate, average order value, things of that sort that really are going to drive impactful meaningful improvement for your brand. Mark: Yeah, that's great. I've noticed the same thing in the testing that I've done there where—and this leads to the next segment that I wanted to talk about that and that is saying that meaningful tests where the whole sale page changes. I just ran a test on another business I own where we did a whole sale page difference and the lift was significant. It was almost definitely the conversion rate on a completely different page design. When you're setting up a new test especially if you're coming in cold and say that you bought a business and you're now working on different ways to be able to grow that business that you just acquired, where are some places that you would typically start with testing? Let's assume that there is enough traffic there to be able to run more of this fine-grained sort of tests. Would you recommend some of these bigger tests to begin with or maybe a more nuanced approach? Jon: I would typically recommend a little more nuanced approach that is based on the results from that user testing. So by starting; I mentioned four areas and I mentioned the A-B testing last because the other three are really going to help you determine what you should be testing. And that's almost as important as running tests at all. So if you are going; there are so many brands that we see that just sign up for these platforms to run tests and start running tests and they just randomly cherry pick ideas to run but they don't have any hypotheses behind them or data to back those up. So really again understanding the data has to come first so that you can make some data back decisions about what to test. Now, what's going to be impactful? I'll tell you that if you start reading general articles online about testing the first thing they're going to say is things like button colors, or maybe a headline change, or image change. Those very rarely actually move the needle. So you need to find that balance between a whole site or a page change and changing one small element on the page because it's in the middle where you're really going to see the results. But also the best way to be thinking about this is the testing needs to be a three or six-month plan. So that doesn't mean that you should expect one test to run that long but you should be thinking okay I'm running this test to make what learning do I want out of that test; positive or negative change? That's fine but you should always be learning something. In fact when a test doesn't have the outcome that we want here at The Good or that we were expecting I should say we don't call it a failure; we call it a learner. Because we're always learning something out of that. That will influence what the next test is that we want to run. And then you continue to stair step that. Conversion optimization should really be thought of as an iterative compounding effect over time. There's nothing that you're going to change on your site that is going to double your conversion rate overnight short of massive discounting. And I just call that margin drain. That's not an optimization. So you really want to be thinking about this in small incremental gains. That each test is going to help you get that will have a compounding effect over those three to six months. And so impactful tests are ones that you know are building the foundation for a larger change that you would like to see. Mark: Talking to about this it seems so clear that you're setting this up into almost two distinct steps, right? The bulk of what you suggest of these four suggestions really relies and rests first on having good data and a good data framework for understanding your site and your business and knowing what sort of metrics you want. And once those metrics are set up then you can take a look and say okay well let's look at this or what would happen if we were to change this micro goal? Does this micro goal really have a correlation with revenue or is it just something that we're kind of seeing right now? Maybe there is no correlative effect. Maybe we can increase a micro goal and it doesn't change anything at all. But I think the challenge then becomes not necessarily how do you run a really great A-B test but how do you set up a really good framework of data and data collection and those dashboards as well. What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who's thinking about their business and saying okay I know I need to get data on my business, I know I have Analytics set up maybe I turn on the e-commerce tracking but I've not ever created segments. I don't really know how to use segments; 10,000-foot view, what's a way that we can instruct the entrepreneur here to just start understanding what they need to start setting up for a good data framework? Jon: Well I mentioned the other three areas besides A-B testing and you don't have to go super deep on those. I know there's—you could. As you mentioned earlier we could spend a whole hour just talking about each of those individually perhaps. I think you need to start somewhere but just having that data tracking in place and then paying attention to it; look at it once a week spend; set an hour side on your calendar, just spend an hour once a week looking at that data. You will start to see trends. You will start to see things that help you to better understand how people are engaging with your website. And just giving that that hour per week will put you miles ahead of the competition because you're going to start to see those trends and the actions that people are taking on your site. And you'll start to have empathy for how they use your site. Now I often like to say that it's really hard to read the label from inside the jar. So many site owners or brands or e-com managers what they do is they build the site and all the content and the navigation for them because they know the product. But what happens if somebody comes in via Google to search in a topic. Google thought that site might be the best answer they send them there. They're missing all of that knowledge about the products they sell. So when they go to the navigation and if it's not set up appropriately the consumer has no idea what they're looking at or how to figure out what product is the best one for them. So that's another way that user testing can really kind of help. It's brief empathy for the end user and helps you see it from that perspective as opposed to somebody who built the site or is on the site every single day. So I think two things; one, just have the data and look at it and you'll start to build up that empathy. And that's really going to help you understand what you should test and where you should go from there. Then secondly you can really start to dive deeper. You can then say oh I want to run scroll tracking on these pages because I'm finding that people aren't reading this type of content that's further down the page and I want to verify that. So you start to post questions. It's not about the data; it's really about asking the right questions once you have that data in place. Mark: You're echoing exactly what I heard at Traffic & Conversion this past year. I went to a CRO talk and one of the bits of advice that he gave was to start with the questions that you want answered because then the reports will build themselves. If your question is how many people are signing up for this email list and then taking a second action well now you know the report that you need to build there is a report that shows just that information. The other thing that you're saying that I think is fantastic and this is the trend in marketing in 2019 and frankly it started I think as early as 2017 and has been building steam and that is this personalization; both of the user experience but also in the way that we think as far as marketers and the internet is no longer just a big cold faceless place. Let's start putting a face to those numbers that we're seeing in Analytics and understand those are real people, real eyeballs and what is their experience like. And what you said you have some empathy for the user and what they're going through because then you can start asking those questions and building the reports. And then once you build the reports, you've answered the questions, now you can start forming the thesis of okay this is what we're seeing as far as the answer to this question. Now finally once we get all this in place lets A-B test. Does that summarize it? Jon: Yes; very, very well. Mark: Awesome. Alright, let's talk about wins. Jon: Yes. Mark: I could do your job. Jon: I'm looking forward to it. Mark: I know that for a fact. Let's talk about wins. Let's talk about some of the—without getting and divulging clients or anything like that, let's talk about this is what you want to put on your site as far as the testimonial because it's eye-popping and then also the realistic sort of wins that you would see say over six to 12 months from a CRO campaign. Jon: Yeah. You know on average we see about a 9:1 return on investment. So for every dollar that's put into conversion optimization on average, you're going to see about a $9 increase in revenue. Now there is not one single metric that you can do that's going to have a bigger impact on your site than focusing on conversions. But I think the industry of conversion rate optimization gets shoehorned often into that one factor which is conversion. We've talked about a lot of different metrics today that really need to be improved and optimized and that all goes back into conversion optimization as a whole. Of course, average order value, cart abandonment rate, we talked a lot about ROAs and return on investment of ad spend. I think in a lot of that is what needs to happen there. Now specific wins, I have a bunch of case studies up on our site. They're public so I'm happy to talk about some of those. For instance, Easton Baseball; if you don't know who Easton Baseball is they make aluminum baseball bats mainly and softball bats. About 99% of college swings are done with an Easton baseball bat. They pretty much own baseball bats for Little League. And if you're a Little League player you're going to use one of their bats. Now, having empathy for the consumer; what we found when we came into their site was you go to their product page and it would be a wall of bats. Now if you imagine what a bat looks like online and you see a whole bunch of them. You have no idea what the differences are, right? And they're just maybe different colors but you really don't know because you can't feel the weight difference or really see how the size differences of the bats online that well. And especially if you're a parent with a kid in Little League, you have no idea what bat you should be buying. And we did a bunch of user research and what we found was that consumers were coming to the site to buy a bat for their kid and they would buy the bat take it to practice and had spent a couple of hundred dollars on this bat and then the umpire tells them they're not allowed to swing with that bat. Now the reason is that all these different Little Leagues have certifications for their bats and if their bat does not have that certification stamp on it you can't use it. Also, either your kid swings for the fences or he's just trying to get on base. And there are different types of hitters, and different bats fit with different types of hitters. There are also different price points that parents want to spend. So there's some that might want to spend $100, some are willing to spend 500. It really varies. Using just those three metrics what we found was that so many parents are buying the wrong bats that they were getting frustrated and there was a high return rate. They were calling customer service quite a bit. Well, what we did after learning all of that is we built up bat finder. So instead of having parents navigate through all these bats and look at all of them and spend time trying to figure that out, they simply just answer three questions and those three questions kicked out three or four bats for them. And so these are the ones you should really look at. Now once you got to those bat pages they often had; Easton had put in a ton of technical terms that were branded around what the bats did. So I can't remember the names exactly but instead of just saying this bat reduces sting because with an aluminum bat if you hit it really well and you're hitting for the fences you can sting your hands really bad. And Easton has some wonderful technology that eliminated that bat sting and still let you get the great pop of the bat to hit it over the fence for a home run. Well, what we found was they had branded that term instead of just saying it reduces bat sting they came up with some random term for that. And consumers didn't know what it meant. So we helped them solve that problem. And that was found through user testing and just having empathy for what the consumer is going through. So we fixed those two things on their site and they saw over 600% increase in revenue year over year and their conversion rates skyrocketed. I think it was 187%. And you know when you think about it just having a little bit of empathy and making those two small changes can have such a big impact. And that's really what conversion rate is about. It's understanding what people are doing, what they're not doing, and how they're engaging, and using that data to then inform what should be changed and tested on a site. Mark: Yeah. And just to put this in terms of acquisitions; bringing it back to really the subject of this podcast here, I want people to think about this in terms of what I mentioned earlier on the podcast. If you're seeing a 600% increase in your revenue which is phenomenal you're also seeing a reduction in your cost of advertising to acquire a client which means your bottom line margin is actually probably improving more than that 600%. And that's an assumption on my part. But let's for the sake of argument just say that it also is increasing by 600% at a minimum, it might be even increasing more. And now you're taking the multiple approach of maybe for an e-commerce business 3, 3.5, maybe 4 and you can start seeing how much you're growing the asset value of a business that you own; maybe you acquired or you're preparing to sell. You are seeing significant gains in that asset value of what you're hanging onto to the point where the numbers really become kind of silly to even say it because it doesn't sound believable. But that's the low hanging fruit of CRO is the money that you said 9:1 investment to payback ratio. That's phenomenal and for preparing to sell or buying and trying to grow a business asset value you're not only getting that 9:1 you're getting the multiple on top of that as well. That's phenomenal. Jon: Yeah. And I've specifically mentioned Easton because it's a public knowledge but after about 18 months to two years after we helped them optimize their site and then moved in and help them optimize their mobile as well for even larger gains there they did sell to another private equity firm and had a very good return on their investment there overall and that was almost entirely fueled by the digital side and the effort they'd all put in there. Mark: That's awesome. Where can people learn more about you and more about your company? Jon: Sure. Yeah. So The Good you can find us online at TheGood.com. That's just TheGood.com and you can sign up for our insights there. So if you liked a lot of the tidbits and helpful tactics I talked about today we do produce one great article per week about learning. There are no sales pitches involved it's truly just educational content about conversion optimization; things that you can take home and do to your site and start thinking in this way. We fully recognize that it is really hard for one person to have all of the skill sets at their company to do conversion optimization. I think you talked about this earlier when you said hey you just mentioned all these things and that's the challenge most people have around optimization. It's true. It's really hard for one person to do all of that. And so we try to help educate as much as we can around all of this type of things. But TheGood.com is the best way to get a hold of us. Feel free to email me directly if you have questions. I'm happy to answer questions that come my way it's just jon@thegood.com. And I do try to read and respond to every email. So I will do my best. Mark: Yeah. That's great. And as far as the task list, I mean you're exactly right. The fact is CRO is a mix of being somewhat of a data scientist and there's also a technical side to it as well being able to get all the integrations right and then there's also the creative side as well to understand how to really understand the user testing and how that empathy and then be creative with the tests and ask the right questions. It's very difficult to find somebody who can master all three of those skills and those abilities. So working with an outsourced team; I think CRO is one of those things where doing it alone is probably not the best approach unless you're just really, really some sort of a renaissance man who can have these multiple disciplines. Thank you so much for coming on Jon. This has been an awesome discussion I'd begin maybe because I just love CRO but I appreciate you coming on and sharing some of the tips. Jon: Well, thank you so much for having me, Mark. I really do appreciate it. Links and Resources: The Good Jon's Email Hotjar Optimizely
As a former rodeo bull rider, Justin has always had a knack for accomplishing the impossible and he is now solving one of the biggest problems facing marketing: conversion rate. He found early on in his career that split testing is the key component to helping clients connect with their audience, in turn, that has helped over 200 of his clients generate over $100 Million in additional revenue. He is also the #1 bestselling author of Conversion Fanatic: How to double your customers, sales and profits with A/B testing and he is a contributor to Forbes. During the interview we discuss: - Justin shares how and why he became an entrepreneur and what led him to launch Conversion Fanatic. - He shares the top strategies that he is using to get new clients for the agency. - We talk about how more traffic is not always the solution to growth and how CRO can save you time and money while increasing your revenue. - Justin shares how important of both quantitative and qualitative data is to making good decisions that drive better conversion. - He shares some of the common mistakes people make that causes lower conversion and the key to increasing your conversion. - The importance of social proof when it comes to CRO - He shares an example of how by removing friction for the buyers increased conversion by 75%. - Justin shares his favorite growth tool/software that he uses with all of his clients. - He recommends one of his favorite books and recommends it to the audience. Justin's websites www.conversionfanatics.com www.clyxo.com/justinchristianson ——————————– If you enjoyed this episode, please RATE / REVIEW and SUBSCRIBE to ensure you never miss an episode. Connect with Dennis Brown AskDennisBrown.com LinkedIn Twitter
It's a jungle out there. Today we invite you to reflect on the state of the internet world we live in as entrepreneurs and the impact e-commerce can have on hundreds of thousands of people. One of the most interesting trends we are seeing in the arena is the service companies popping up to support the thousands of Amazon merchants out there. Today's guest, who quickly turned his back on a career in engineering in his twenties, started dabbling in Amazon sales until he came up with the idea for Jungle Scout just before taking off on a three-year world tour. He talks to us about how he spent those years living the true entrepreneur experience while actually building his now 100 person company. Jungle Scout searches, captures, analyzes and refines billions of data points from Amazon to deliver the most accurate data in the industry. His 200,000 plus customers were all clearly in need of his merchant scaling tools. Jungle Scout also offers numerous free educational resources to give young entrepreneurs everything they need to succeed. Episode Highlights: How Greg convinced his wife to give everything up to travel the world. The hesitation, the results, and the payoff of that path. The employee structure of Jungle Scout. The company's original design and what it has evolved to today. Stories that stand out as models of success for Jungle Scout. The Five Minute Pitch – what it is and how it's helping entrepreneurs succeed. How the Jungle Scout scholarship program is motivating young entrepreneurs. What's coming up for Jungle Scout. The company's new initiatives for bringing ease into scouting suppliers and merchandise. How his products have created friction with people in the business but also brought them in as clients. Transcription: Mark: Alright allow me to relax philosophically here for just a minute and I invite you to reflect on just how impactful our current era is with the Internet. Back at Traffic & Conversion in February, I actually hear Richard Branson talk about what they would do to get attention and PR; crazy stunts, parachuting into places and doing these incredible things just to be able to impact large volumes of people. Well as online entrepreneurs we have that at our fingertips and can do that often from our bedrooms just by putting up a good marketing campaign online. But we have the ability to impact thousands of lives and have this network effect as well of these thousands of lives impacting other people's lives. And I looked at where we're at with the Internet today and I think one of the most influential areas are all the service companies that are popping up and SaaS companies popping up to service the Amazon merchants that are out there. And I'd say by far one of the leaders of the pack is Jungle Scout. They—most of everybody that is in the Amazon world, you know who Jungle Scout is. They're kind of ubiquitous with this idea of product research. Joe, you got to talk to Jungle Scout in this week's podcast. Joe: Yeah. Greg Mercer founded Jungle Scout just a few years ago; 4 ½, 5 years ago, an interesting story. Look we talked all about how he came up with a concept, even where he met his wife Lisa, how we started the business, travelled with his wife Lisa for 3 years overseas while growing Jungle Scout. He has only settled back in Austin for the last year and a half, and the size of the company. And then really it was about his entrepreneurial journey. And then we touched on some of the key features in Jungle Scout and some of the other things that Greg has done with his good fortune like scholarships that you can find on the Jungle Scout website and in the show notes here. You know being entrepreneurs and having an easier time impacting people one on one or directly is something that we know here at Quiet Light because we're fortunate enough to be in a situation where we do work one on one with most people. And we know what it means when they sell their business or buy a business and get to stay home and see their kids more. We talked about that a little bit with Greg and like most entrepreneurs he started Jungle Scout to make money. But now that he makes great money that relieves the stress, right? We all want to have money in our bank account to relieve the financial stress but the big thing that fills his cup is the impact that he's having on individual lives. And he gets to hear about that impact when he goes out to conferences and they have a booth like out at Prosper and people come up to him and say listen this is my story, this is how Jungle Scout changed my life. And Greg says quite honestly look it wasn't Jungle Scout; it was you, it was your effort, it was your risk, your reward. Jungle Scout was just a tool that you used. So he's very humble about that but a great guy. Just a good human and I think that there are 2 or 3 things that come out of this podcast. First and foremost you get to hear a great entrepreneur story. He didn't go to school for business yet here he is running a business with 100 the least. What it's like to travel all over the world with your wife? It's right for some people, it's wrong for others. And then just the good things that he's doing with Jungle Scout Scholars and then all the features that Jungle Scout has, and the scariest one. And folks you've got to listen all the way through because we talk more about it at the very end. This is not a pitch for Jungle Scout. It's more of a story of entrepreneurial success. But you can literally find—can I give this away Mark? Can we give it out, too much information; what do you think? Mark: Oh no it's a great tease so get to the end. Joe: You can find your favorite product on Amazon and then use the Jungle Scout tool to find out who the manufacturer is in China. It is scary. But like Greg said it doesn't mean you're going to be successful. We know that all great ideas don't achieve success. There's lots of motes around these great listings on Amazon so it's no guarantee of success even though you find them in [inaudible 00:05:10.9]. But, great podcast, great guy, looking for to get to know him over the years as well. Mark: So he's down in Austin, right? Joe: Yes he is. Mark: Is he going to come to our meet-up coming up at the end of May? Joe: Yes he is. Mark: And when and where is that meet-up? For anyone in the Austin area or who has always wanted to go to Austin area, this might be an awesome opportunity to meet Joe. I probably won't be there. Amanda will be there as well and some really, really good people are showing up to this as well. Joe: Yeah everybody that we've worked with over the years that's down in Austin are getting an invite and hopefully [inaudible 00:05:44.1] groups is going to go. Actually, one person replied today and said thanks for inviting all my friends. It's like you're throwing a party for my friends. I appreciate it. It was pretty funny. And that was RJ at 101. It's going to be May 29th at Oasis at Lake Travis from 6 to 9 pm and it's just drinks nor dares and coming out with friends. Mark: Awesome, and we're going to have a page up on the Quiet Light Brokerage website. We're going to make sure it's included in the e-mails that get sent out. And also on the show notes for this podcast so that you can RSVP if you do want to attend. We would love to see, we'd love to host it for the night; bring a friend, bring lots of friends. It should be a few hours of just really good networking and getting to know some really key players in the space. So please do show up. But now let's get to the good stuff [inaudible 00:06:27.7] Joe: Let's do it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe here at Quiet Light Brokerage and today we've got another great guest on the Quiet Light Podcast. His name is Greg Mercer. Greg, how are you doing today? Greg: Joe I'm doing fantastic. Thank you very much for having me on and it's going to be fun to talk to you. Joe: Founder of Jungle Scout and many other things; a very impressive guy at a very young age. I just looked at your LinkedIn profile, listened to a couple of things on YouTube, and I saw your wife talking about you as well which was all positive by the way. Greg: Oh, that's good to hear. Joe: Well you know the drill, we don't have a whole lot of fancy introductions. So for those that don't know you and don't know the Jungle Scouts can you give a little bit of background on yourself and the business itself? Greg: I'd be happy to. So it's probably most relevant to rewind back to my college days real quick. I went to school to be a civil engineer and graduated. I got a job working as a civil engineer and I just didn't like it at all. I want to become an entrepreneur so I tried a number of different things. But the 1st thing I had a little bit of success with was selling physical products on Amazon. And that's ultimately what led me to quit my job. I was able to kind of replace my income by doing that. My wife and I actually at that point sold all our belongings and started traveling around the world and living out at Air B&B's and running our business from there. And one thing led to another and I—the biggest problem that I had with scaling my Amazon business was finding new products to sell. So I had a number of products up, some of them are doing really well, some weren't doing really well. I didn't really know why some were doing well and some weren't. And what it came down to was the amount of demand there was on Amazon for these products. So being kind of an engineer by background and a very data driven person, I was able to create some algorithms to estimate how well all products on Amazon sell. And that was ultimately how Jungle Scout got started. So I'd never started a software company before but I 1st built a simple extension. I was like no one will probably ever buy this thing but if nothing else I can just use it for myself. And it turns out we were able to get people to buy it because if you fast forward all the way today there's about roughly 100 people that work in Jungle Scout. We have over 200,000 customers so it's grown quite a bit since the 1st day when I didn't think anyone would buy it. Joe: That is absolutely crazy; 100 employees and did you say, 200,000 customers? Greg: Yup over 200,000. Joe: That's amazing. So I want to talk about a few things, I want to talk about you travelled the world with your wife while starting Jungle Scout so that's probably the most important thing. I love the fact that you went to school for civil engineering and then took a completely different path in the sense as an entrepreneur. But then you were able to start it as an entrepreneur while traveling the world and with your wife of all things. And then I want to talk a little bit about what Jungle Scout does and a couple of the other things that you're doing because of the good fortune you've had in the business through Jungle Scout. But let's get personal for a minute. I mean you are what 30, 31 years old I'm guessing? It looks like— Greg: 31. Joe: Right. So you've been at this for a long time. Did you meet your wife in college? Greg: I did actually so yeah we both went to school at Auburn and that's how we met. Joe: Amazing. And she actually was willing to sell everything and travel the world with you or was it her idea to do that? Greg: I think it was my idea. I had read Tim Ferris' book 4-Hour Workweek and I was like well this is pretty cool. Instead of living here we could go live in all these cool exotic places in much less money. And so I was like Elizabeth we should go and try this. And she was like yeah you're an idiot. We're not doing that. But I kept on bringing it up over the months and she's always really enjoyed travel. I think her biggest hesitation at the time was she was working for Target and was on a pretty fast crew path. And I think that's where she envisioned her career moving forward. So I think that was her biggest hesitation. It was like man I'm kind of going to give up my career a little bit, or at least put it on hold if we're going to do this for a year or 2 or 3 years or whatever. So I think that was her biggest hesitation but she's like you only live once let's go for it. And yeah we both ended up loving it. We did it for 3 whole years so we both ended up loving it a lot. Joe: And you launched Scott but just before you took off for a while you were over in Southeast Asia? Greg: Yeah it was actually just before I took off. I like the week before we took off. Joe: And how many years ago was that? Greg: That was is January of 2015, so 4 ½ years ago. Joe: So really you've run the business for the 1st 3 years of its existence by traveling. Greg: Yeah. Joe: That's incredible. Now the 100 employees that you have are they mostly remote, mostly they're in Austin, whereabouts in the world are they? Greg: When we started the company it was fully remote. I was traveling around so I didn't have an office to hire this people in. So we are fully remote. In January of 2018 is when I moved to Austin. That's where I live now. Since then we've been doing a lot of our hiring in Austin. So I think about maybe 40 of the people are in Austin now and the rest of the team is either remote. And then we also have an office in Vancouver. And then we opened up an office in Shenzhen in China about 6 months ago. So some of the team is there now. Joe: Amazing. So we'll talk about what some of those offices do for Jungle Scout and the subscribers in a bit. Now that you've gone through college, marriage, travelled the world, entrepreneur, you worked with directly and indirectly and inspire a lot of young entrepreneurs all over the world. Is selling everything, packing up, and traveling the world something you would say you got to do to that young man or woman that has the opportunity and is not tied down to things of this nature? Greg: You know I'd say it's not for everyone. And for me, it'll probably be like one of the most fond memories of my whole life. I kind of go in through a period. I think I learned a ton about myself. I met a lot of really interesting people. I learned a lot about different cultures. I think we visited roughly 30 different countries. We would spend about a month sometimes 2 months in each country. So when you spend like a month or 2 somewhere sometimes a little longer but you get like a pretty good sense of just kind of like what day to day life is and what the culture is really about much more than like on a weeklong vacation. So during that, I got to just learn a ton about all these different countries, fascinating things that a lot of countries do like very well. I was able to bring back individual things. I think certain countries do very well so that was really cool. So I'd say it's definitely not for everyone. I think to a lot of people it's very stressful. You're moving all around the world and you don't have any kind of—or we didn't have any kind of a home base. So with all that being said it's definitely for everyone. But if you're interested in it and that seems like something that you'd enjoy I would definitely recommend for you to try. Joe: Is there a particular book that you would have and go to? Is it Tim Ferris' 4-Hour Workweek or is there a great travel one? Greg: Probably. Joe: Probably; okay. Greg: Yeah I'll probably just do the Tim Ferris' 4-Hour Workweek. It's a little bit outdated now. I think it was written over a decade ago now but the spirit is still the same. Joe: I'm reading one of his books now and I'm looking around like my office here. I don't see it but it's the tools to tighten switches. It is one giant book. The great stuff all from the podcast off from those he's taken over the years and a lot of the 4-Hour Workweek stuff as well. It's funny we've had Bill D'Alessandro on the podcast. Do you know who Bill is? Greg: The name rings a bell. Joe: He's from South Charlotte and he runs a consumer products group down at Charlotte. He does a lot of speaking, very close friends with Andrew Youderian from eCommerceFuel and Bill had that same 4-Hour Workweek life at one point and do the same thing working from a beach in Southeast Asia or somewhere. And we talked about this on the podcast now he has staff, an office, a warehouse; in many ways just like you. And he finds that he actually has more freedom now than before because he's got people that can actually do everything for him instead of having virtual assistants that he has to check in with every day. Greg: Right. Joe: So it is not for everyone like you say but certainly something to explore. It's not for me and my wife. I was in your shoes once upon a time when I was living in the frigid cold of Portland Maine for those folks that are listening out from Portland Maine. And this is back in the day when I heard a commercial for GoToMeeting.com I'm like what? What is that? And I went across the hall—I signed up for a free trial. I went across the hall to my other office and log in get the free thing and then go to my PC is what it was. It was a derivative of that. And I log into my PC from across the hall, this is 2nd nature now but I was amazed. I was like this is incredible. I went home and I told Christiana and said hey we're going to Florida for the winter. And she said we are not, you're an idiot. [inaudible 00:15:35.1] we did it for 5 years and then we got the hell out of Maine because it was too cold. Sorry for those folks that are still there. Were in North Carolina now and do love it. But this isn't about me it's about Greg Mercer and Jungle Scout. So let's talk about Jungle Scout and what it does. I know what it does. I've used it a little bit in the past. I know a lot of clients that bought and sold business with Quiet Light have used it. So can you just touch on what it does—let's talk about the progression of it; what it originally did and what it's evolved to today. Greg: Yeah. That's a good way to frame it. So it started out as just a Chrome extension. So most of the listeners are probably familiar with Chrome extensions which is a little add on that you install into your Chrome browser. And what it did is when you were visiting Amazon and you were on the listing or on a search page, you'd click this little Chrome extension and you'd see a little pop up. And on that pop up there was a number of different pieces of data. But the one that people care about the most is the estimated sales data. So that's what I was talking earlier; developing these algorithms that can estimate how well any product on Amazon is selling. Back then it was pretty poor accuracy, today a pretty high degree of accuracy. So that's how it started. Shortly thereafter we launched a web application and the primary functionality in there was again to find good opportunities on Amazon or find out how well things were selling. And that's kind of been transitioning over the years. We now have keyword research functionality. We now have functionality to help you find high quality suppliers or factories. Actually launching in 2 weeks is functionality to help you launch your product on Amazon. And then by the end of the year, it's going to be everything to help you kind of like manage and optimize your Amazon business as well. So the way we like or our mission here at Jungle Scout is to really empower and inspire Amazon entrepreneurs with the tools and resources they need to be successful. So we're building all that into our software but then we also have just tons of free resources in education and a whole bunch of other stuff just to help people be more successful on Amazon. Joe: Yeah I've looked at some of that both on your website on LinkedIn on YouTube. You are all over the place. It's pretty impressive the reach that you've got and the folks that saying you are praising Scott Voelker is somebody we know in common does that well and does it all the time. I love the empower people approach and to fulfill their dreams not only the staff that you have but the people that used to program, the 200,000 or so subscribers that you have. A lot of people in your—let's call your world, I want to call you an influencer because I think that's what you are Greg. So in your world, a lot of folks say I've made X many millionaires. You've heard a lot of stories over the years of the way that the tools that Jungle Scout has and provides to people how it's changed their lives, can you think of anything or anyone that stands out and what an impact it had in terms of with their Amazon business and how it changed their lives? Greg: I can think of a whole bunch of stories. And actually, I was—I think the last time we saw each other was at Prosper Show. And going to conferences and stuff like that it's always a great chance that I talk to all these customers in real life. So like probably a dozen times throughout that 2 or 3 day conference whatever it is like someone came up to me very emotional a few different times in tears but like just telling me this life story about how they found Jungle Scout and how it helped them create this business. And that's like a really, really special thing to be a part of. I never would've thought that in a million years like starting this business that people would come up to me in tears being like—just telling a story about how they were at a really low spot or they hated their job or whatever else and especially starting the business is what changed their life. A lot of them kind of attribute or say like Jungle Scout is kind of what caused that or encouraged them to do so or empowered them with the tools to have the confidence to do so. So yeah I mean there are tons of stories but I think most of them have like a ton of things in common, at least the ones that are most memorable are impactful to me. Joe: And it's the impactfulness I think that is most interesting. I think that with success and some of the things that we do, and you do, and Scott does and Mike Jackness another friend in common it's A. being a good human and helping people. There's peace of mind that you get with money in your bank account but there's pure joy, satisfaction, and other things that are so intangible by helping others and having people come up to you like that and say what you've created has changed my life, what you did changed my life, what you said, the way you helped me change my life and very impactful stuff. Greg: Yeah very much so and if you would have kind of—if I would really listen to this podcast not that long ago, just like 4 or 5 years ago, I would've been able to really like understand that at all. I don't think—at the time this seems like super shallow. But if I'm just being honest with myself, my only goal was just to make money. And the reason that was my goal at the time is like that's how I kind of like saw freedom. It's like okay I can quit my job or I have the security so I don't have to worry about it or I was always like—my 1st few years being an entrepreneur I was always so scared. [inaudible 00:20:59.8] like go back and get a job. Now it's like the most terrifying thing to me. So honestly—when I'm being honest with myself all I cared about was like the money at the time. And then kind of like as I felt like I was financially secure and kind of like no longer have those worries. That's when you're going to start asking yourself those questions like man what really does bring me the most happiness or like the most joy? And for me helping entrepreneurs is like very, very high on the list if not the top thing. So I would do these different case studies or free educational piece of content or whatever else. And people often say to me why are you giving all this away for free or why are you doing this it's only creating more competition for you or whatever else. And when I hear that it would just remind me of like yeah okay 5 years ago I would have said the same thing. I wouldn't have understood it but then I talk to these other people who are like successful entrepreneurs or whoever else and they're the ones who kind of like can understand that a lot better. It's like okay once you get to a certain point it's about okay what really brings you a lot of joy in your life, a lot of happiness and you want to optimize for doing those things. Joe: Yeah and that free content and everything you're giving it away for free but you're helping people and if you're in this for the long term it's going to come back around. And I think you're in this for a long term. Absolutely, yeah. Some of the things that you've done over the past are overflowing into other things that you have ventured into. And I want to talk about a couple of them. You and a group of friends have started something called the 5 Minute Pitch. I took a look at an episode or 2 of that. I've talked to Mike about it. I saw the one with Andrew from ECF on it. Do you want to talk about what 5 Minute Pitch is and how you're helping entrepreneurs? Greg: Yeah. So this kind of goes back to what brings me joy. And helping entrepreneurs is definitely one of them. It's also fun to hang out with other people I enjoy being around. So this was like a nice mixture of the 2. 5 Minute Pitch is shark tank style pitch competition where anyone with a small internet business who hasn't raised institutional money is eligible to pitch; so different people with all different types of businesses. Everything from a small software business to an e-commerce store to just developing a product and selling it through Instagram ads or whatever else. They pitch their business to myself and 4 other judges. And at the end of the season, the season actually ends in just a few weeks; we're giving the winner a $50,000 prize. They don't have to give up any equity in their business or anything. It's just prize money to help grow. So yeah it was a—we've only done one season of it. It was really fun and we'll probably do a few more seasons in the future. Joe: That's great now everybody that listens to the podcast knows that we don't pitch products and services. But I think that they all should look closely at Jungle Scout and 5 Minute Pitch. Take a look at it if you've got a product that's just taking off and you want to get more into the e-commerce world. Take a look maybe you could be on season 2. Who is Kevin O'Leary in the 5 Minute Pitch? Who's—and have you said you're dead to me to anybody? Greg: You know I've been watching some Shark Tank before thinking about these different lines and me and most of the other judges I think most of us are all just a little too nice to be Kevin O'Leary; which in results probably makes it a bit worse for television. But we're kind of just ourselves on the show. Joe: We had the founder of Happy Feet on the podcast a few weeks ago and he said that—and he did a deal with Robert on Shark Tank. Greg: Okay. Joe: He said that when you're on shark—and I've talked to 5 or 6 people over the years that have been on, when you're on Shark Tank when you finish up they make you go sit with a psychiatrist for an hour. You can't leave 10 minutes n. It's at least for an hour because they want to make sure that you're not going to kill yourself because of some of the things that some people have said about your business; so pretty rough. Alright so let's talk about something else I looked at before we jumped on the podcast here and that is the Jungle Scout scholar; JS scholar. What are you doing there man? Greg: Yeah. So it's just a scholarship program that we started just over the years I'm thinking of different ways and kind of like give back to the communities especially things I'm kind of passionate about. So that's one that we're doing. Each semester we're giving a scholarship to someone who's kind of like in business school or maybe computer sciences or something in that area who also has kind of like an entrepreneurial spirit. So it's pretty easy. Just create a little short video and submit it. Each semester we choose someone to give the scholarship to. And then with that also comes some mentorship for me to help them get their business off the ground. Joe: That's awesome. I mean it really is. A lot of people talk about giving back and helping others, young entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs themselves but you're actually doing it. How long have you been doing that program? Greg: I think we've given away 5 scholarships now so that would be about 2 ½ years I've been doing it. So it's cool. Joe: That's impressive. Now I'm going to talk to my 17 year old when we're off. He's applying to college next year and— Greg: Tell him to apply. Joe: He is not going to business school. He'll probably be an engineer or maybe an art student, who knows we're still working that stuff out. They change their minds a lot. They really do. Greg: Yeah I do too. Joe: I did as well. And we've actually had people that have put their kids through college and then bought them a business when they graduated which is very interesting. It's almost like they shouldn't have spent that's $200,000 on college [inaudible 00:26:30.4] part of the business but kids get to grow up a little bit. What's down the road, what's in the future for Jungle Scout? What things are you going to add that are going to help those 200,000 plus subscribers and fend off some of the competition down the road? Greg: Yeah we have quite a few product initiatives going on right now. We've really grown our product team a lot over the past 6, 12 months. We're going to really build out a lot of this stuff but most of it is around kind of what I spoke about earlier about right now the Jungle has got a tool at least that gets you up to until you launched your product on Amazon. We have a few other businesses that we have acquired or built over the years but we're kind of combining those into a singular tool. So by the end of the year, the additional functionality you can expect is like the stuff from those other tools. So helping you manage your business in our PPC and optimize it; all these different areas is kind of like what we're building in this year in 2019. Joe: That's great I know that finding a great PPC company is often hard for folks, managing products we've got folks that buy businesses and just—I am looking for a great company that managed the entire thing for me so that's fantastic. One of the biggest issues people have Greg as you probably know is sourcing great products. Is that down the road or is that part of Jungle Scout at all now? Greg: Yeah so we actually just released—so our newest feature is actually probably the one I'm most proud of called supplier database. And we actually just released this like a month ago. So it's pretty cool Joe. So we—I guess you've seen this too that a lot of people have a lot of problems finding high quality suppliers. And I did too. And I also found like this was one of the biggest pain points of our audience. And when I really started to get into this, it's like okay what's the problem here because there are tons of factories on Alibaba. That's how I used to find all my factories, just on Alibaba. There's tons of them and what it really comes down to is it wasn't like a shortage of factories or finding the factories or being able to communicate with them what it really came down to was finding a quality factory and vetting the factory before you did a production run. So like most of the horror stories that you hear are that the quality didn't come out as expected or every once in a while you hear a horror story about someone who a factory just ran off with someone's money or whatever else. And so there's a few ways I used to try to combat this; one was ordering a sample at a time. However, the problem is that when you're only ordering one unit, of course, they're going to give you the nicest one. They're going to like polish that one up extra but it's like oh can I do that on a production run of a 1,000 or 2,000 units and that's oftentimes not the case. So that was one way I tried to combat it. The other way was to get an inspection once the production run was finished. The problem there is when it didn't meet the quality sometimes you weren't able to get them to really fix what you wanted or is like sometimes a little bit too late at that point. So anyway the ways to try to combat it, the list was long but [inaudible 00:29:30.6] that effective. So what we did is we collected all of the US import trade data. So when you import something in the US you file some paperwork, yo give it to the government, and through this law called the Freedom of Information Act in the US, we're able to get access to that data. We put it into a database. We made it easy to filter and search through. And the way that it's able to solve this quality problem is you're able to find factories on there, you're able to see who their customers are, how often they import into the US, and how long they've been importing to US, the quantities; a number of different factors like that. So that's really cool but we kind of took it one step further by being able to essentially search for any Amazon product or any brand on Amazon in here and you could find out who are their factories. Joe: Holy cow, that's amazing and almost offensive in some ways. I would think if you're an Amazon seller and you're able to scrape through their manufacturers. That's pretty incredible. Greg: Yeah it's really incredible. It's like the old way for me of finding factories was when I found product idea I went to Alibaba, order a bunch of samples, whatever else. My new way of finding factories is like when I find something that I want to sell, and like sitting next to me right here is a little espresso. So if I want to sell espresso cups, I would just go to Amazon, I would search for espresso cups, I would see who gets the highest ratings. So who has like 5 out of 5 stars with a whole bunch of reviews and I just find their factory. Because then like right away then you know that there's a high quality factory. Joe: And you did that through sheer tenacity and hard work. What you're doing at the Jungle Scout is you're giving a tool to do it for them. Greg: Yeah. That what— Greg: And that's what I do now; I just who the factory is of the highest quality product on Amazon and I just contact them and I buy from them. So it's a much easier way to do it. Joe: Wow that's amazing; that's scary and amazing. Still, though I think for those that are going oh my God I'm never going to sell on Amazon because of that; it's that moat that you build around with thousands of reviews. I did a valuation today for something that is a fairly competitive it's in a very competitive niche but they've guy 17,000 reviews and the closest one has maybe like 1,100. That's an enormous gap in reviews. So there's a pretty big moat there. Greg: Right, and you know this Joe it's—when we launched this there was definitely—we probably got a dozen emails of like really pissed off people because now everyone can find out who their factory is. But you realize this because you deal with people who are buying business all the time but it takes a lot more than just knowing a factory to create a successful business, right? [inaudible 00:32:09.4] like a lot of other steps. Joe: A ton of a lot. Greg: So just because people can find out who your factory is that doesn't mean that they can just copy your whole business. There's a lot more steps to it than that so I wouldn't be too worried about it. We actually saw this exact same thing when I originally launched Jungle Scout because prior to Jungle Scout no one knew how well products on Amazon were selling. And now all of a sudden you could see how well every product on Amazon sold. So same thing I got like dozens of people emailing me pissed off because I was telling the whole world about how well their products were selling on Amazon. Joe: That was—they were pissed off shortly before they subscribed probably though, right? Greg: Right. So we've kind of seen a little bit of a similar thing with the supplier database. And then to your exact most people are like wow, well I'd rather have all this data and the whole world be able to know who my factory was than this type of thing not exist out there. Joe: Yeah I hate you but I'm going to give you my money every month because you created a great product. That's awesome; fantastic. I didn't know that it went to that depth and level where you can find the products manufacturer. That's incredible. Alright, Greg, we're running out of time, obviously, Jungle Scout is how do they find it? JungleScout.com? Greg: Yeah JungleScout.com if you're not familiar with it you can read up all about it on the website. If you're interested in just selling on Amazon too, I might be a little bit biased but I think we have like the best educational content out there and it's all for free. You can find all of it under the free resources section of the website. So any format you like learning in whether that's on audio or video or written it's all on there. There's a lot of—a bunch of end up guides. We do this thing called the Million Dollar Case Study where we launched 4 products from start to finish. You get to see the products and everything along the journey. So yeah that's tons of stuff on there if you just [inaudible 00:33:52.5] on Amazon too. Joe: Fantastic; a great educational tool and a great product. And for those out there with kids that are going to college in the next couple of years how do they get to the JS Scholarship or scholar site? Greg: JungleScout.com/jungle-scholar and you can find in the footer of the website too. Joe: I got it. I found it on LinkedIn. And then there's the 5 Minute Pitches well we'll put all this in the show notes as well. Greg Mercer, thank you very much for spending time with us. I know you're a very busy guy. I appreciate it. Greg: Thanks again. I'm glad I'm here. Take care. Links and Resources: Jungle Scout Jungle Scholar The 5 Minute Pitch
Exclusive Resource: The Rocket Demo Builder™ – Never give a boring software demo again and close up to TWICE as many deals by this time next week - http://bit.ly/31oUb4c -- I recently spoke at Traffic & Conversion in San Diego when the topic of product demos came up. And what I realized was quite simple but profound: Everyone has a demo problem. I mean… ev-ery-one. And I’m willing to bet that if you were to look at your own business right now, you’re either lacking enough demos to really make a dent in your growth… … or you’re super overwhelmed and inundated with crappy leads that don’t even have a puncher’s chance at converting. aka. a soul-crushing waste of time with a massive opportunity cost. That’s what inspired me to create this week’s episode to show you how to not only get more demos on your cal… but how to get the RIGHT leads on the zoom line that have at least a 65% chance at converting. At a high level, here’s how to book more high quality demos out of your existing traffic: 1. Pepper your CTA 2. Match the message 3. Sell the time 4. Filter your funnel5. Warm the demo I’d love it if you could start with the first one right away. It’s the ULTIMATE demo hack that can literally double the number of calls on your g-cal by next week. Essentially it comes down to this: What high-traffic pages do you have right now that aren’t “working hard enough” to turn a page visitor into a demo appointment? We’re talking about your most highly-traffic’d entry pages as well as any major thank you pages (ie. lead magnet download, webinar sign up, etc.) Peppering your CTA across these pages (and matching the message as I teach in step 2)… can significantly boost your appointment flow with just a few hours of work and not a single extra dollar in ad spend. Watch the full vid here and then drop me a comment letting me know how you plan on implementing over the next week or two to get more qualified demo calls. -- Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome. + Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell + Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell + Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell Exclusive Resource: The Rocket Demo Builder™ – Never give a boring software demo again and close up to TWICE as many deals by this time next week - http://bit.ly/31oUb4c
In this episode we talk to Chris Dayley, VP of Testing and Site Optimization at Disruptive Advertising. Want to get a no-fluff email that boils down our 3 biggest takeaways from an entire week of B2B Growth episodes? Sign up today: http://sweetfishmedia.com/big3 We'll never send you more than what you can read in < 1 minute. :)
#62 Mastering Mastermind Groups - Brad Hart & His Partners Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi & Russel Brunson + Traffic & Conversion Conference Tips and Managing a Hedge Fund with Brad Hart New SDL Podcast #62 Brad is currently partnered up with Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi & Russell Brunson for the biggest webinar in history (with 250k people watching live & they did 12 million$ in first few hours and acquired 6000 new customers - if you want to watch that webinar it’s on Brads FB page now or at Https://buildamastermind.com/dean-tony-russell We did this recording before this massive product launch and in this interview we talk about the power of masterminds, his experience running a hedge fun & tips from Traffic & Conversion Confernce and how to network efficiently at events & much more... Listen here @ iTunes ▶️ https://apple.co/2Pz1zXo Android & Spotify / Utube ▶️ https://anchor.fm/self-developed-life (Share & Subscribe for future interviews, next episode I’m dropping this weekend is about my own Mastermind I’m hosting in Hong Kong next week with FB & Uber employees, stay tuned
Traffic + Conversion = my 2 favorite words right now. Seriously! Can you name a better feeling than having your voice reach millions of fans? I know that there are people in the jewelry biz struggling to get their content consumed by the people actually BUYING their products. Which is why it’s becoming sooo important to diversify our revenue streams. Especially for those of you who are selling to stores and at live events. You have to have inventory for the shows, you have to show up, set the booth up, stand outside in sideways rain or blazing hot weather or something in between and go, go, go. All your weekends are given to the shows. At a certain point, it's exciting because that's how you're building your business… But eventually it gets… Exhausting. That’s exactly why it’s so important to be able to diversify your strategy so that you're leveraging the tools that you have and you're training your customers to actually buy from you online. Building a biz is a full time job. I’m constantly learning more and more content marketing strategies from the master, Ezra Firestone. And many of these strategies are really great for training your customers to buy from you online. I’ve also learned from Brendon Burchard how to secure recurring revenue and repeat customers — something Ezra Firestone talks about as well. Which is why I’m always reminding folks that your website really is your BIGGEST tool. That’s where all of the traffic and conversion magic happens. For those of you who are selling wholesale, selling direct to consumer, or for just about any business model if you're doing custom work or working with a production line. It will work for any strategy; it's just about tweaking it to match your business model! And it’s so much easier than you think. I’m dishing ALL of the secrets. Listen to episode #192 The Best in Content Marketing Strategy from Traffic & Conversion 2019
On today’s episode you will hear part 2 of 4 of Russell’s interview with Andrew Warner about the Clickfunnels start up story. Here are some of the awesome things you will hear in this part of the story: Find out from an employee of Russell’s, Brent, why he stuck with the company through potential bankruptcy and jail time for Russell. Find out who thought Clickfunnels seemed like a scammy company and therefore didn’t want others to know they’d worked with them. And hear how Clickfunnels actually finally came to fruition after many other failed software company attempts. So listen here to hear how Todd and Dylan became cofounders of Clickfunnels and together got the project off the ground. ---Transcript--- Alright everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope yesterday you enjoyed part one of the Clickfunnels start up story interview at the Dry Bar Comedy Club with Andrew. I love the way he interviews. I hope you’re enjoying it as well. So we are going to dive right into part 2 of 4 from this interview. And again, if you’re liking these interviews please, please, please take a snapshot on your phone, post it on Facebook, Instagram or wherever you do your posting and tag me in it and use hashtag marketing secrets so I can see that you’re talking about it. I’d appreciate it. With that said, we’re going to queue up the theme song, when we come back we’ll start in on part 2 of the interview of the Clickfunnels start up story. Andrew: You know what, I’ve talked to a few of your people because they’re so good, that Dave could really be a leader on his own, start his own company, he’s got his own online reputation, the whole thing. I keep asking him, “Why do you work for Russell? What is it that lets you be second to Russell who’s getting all the attention?” And I’ve got some answers and would you mind coming up here and in a second I’m going to ask you. No, come back here and I’ll just bring you up in a second. Actually, you know what, it looks like you can come pretty fast. I thought that it would be a little bit more, I thought it would be more of a thing to get mics on people. And I realized if Collette can do it…. Okay honestly, dig down deep. Why did you want to stick with him? Brent: Through all that stuff? Andrew: Yeah. Brent: I don’t know. My heart was just racing. As he started telling that story, it just makes me sick to my stomach. As you scroll down and look at all those businesses of, for years, every 30 days it was a new business launch, it was crazy. Always why I stuck with him is, you know, Collette mentioned that spirit. He’s absolutely different than anybody else I’ve ever met in my entire life, a friend…. Andrew: Of what? Give me an example. Let’s be more specific. Back then, not today, he’s got this track record, adoring fans, I asked him to do an interview, everyone wants him on his podcast. Back then when it wasn’t going so well. Give me an example that let you know this is a guy who’s going to figure it out eventually, and I could possibly go down, watch him go to jail, but I believe that it’s going to go up. Brent: Well, at the time when things are crashing, I saw him as the income stopped. And he had started a program that he loves, obviously wrestling, and he brought an Olympic wrestling coach to Boise and he brought all these amazing wrestlers to Boise and he wanted them to be able to train and get to the Olympics, he wanted to help them get there and live their dream. And you know, he was supplementing, at the time the business was paying for these guys to do a little bit of work for us, they weren’t doing very much for us. But I saw him out of his own pocket, be paying for these guys. And I knew how hard he wanted to support them. And there was a day when my wife and I, we were struggling because I just, I was concerned about him financially because he was supplementing and trying to keep this business afloat, and we talked about things and I came into the office one day and I asked if I could talk to him and sat down, and kind of spoke in language that I normally don’t speak in, I might have dropped a bomb or two. It was, I was so concerned I pretty much told him, I can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep watching you every month pulling the money that you saved for your family to try keep jobs for other people. I said, I’ll leave if that helps you. And the fact that he stuck with people, that was the true character of who he is. Andrew: He kept paying your salary, kept sticking with you, and also constantly launching things. Brent: Absolutely. Andrew: That you’ve never seen anyone implement like him. Brent: You know some people call it faith or belief. He has this inherit belief that he can truly change people’s lives. Andrew: That’s it, even when he wasn’t fully in control of his own. Alright thanks. Thanks for, give him a big round of applause, thanks for being up here. I feel like this is the thing that helped get you out of trouble and potentially, and getting out of potential jail. What is this business that you created? Russell: So we, during the time of that and this there was time, probably a year and a half-two years that we were trying all sorts of stuff. And again, marginal success on a lot of them, nothing like….and this was the one, we actually, this is before….I’ve done a lot of webinars and speaking from seminars and stuff like that, but this is right when auto webinars were coming out and Mike Filsaime had just done an auto webinar and a couple of people, and I felt like that was going to be the future thing. So we’re like, what do we do the webinar on? We didn’t know. And we flew out to Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher’s office for two days and picked their brains, went to Rich Schefren’s office for a day. And then on the flight home, I’m just like sick to my stomach. I couldn’t figure out what’s the thing that we could serve people the most right now. And on the flight home I was like, all the internet marketing stuff we do works for internet marketers, but we’re way better at like local business. Like if a chiropractor implements like two things it works. Or if a dentist does it. But I was like, I don’t want to be the guy going to dentists, but we could be the backbone for that. What if we created an opportunity where people could come in, we train them, and we connect them with the right tools and resources, and then they could go and sell to chiropractors and dentists. And that’s what the idea was. We turned it into an offer called Dotcom Secrets Local, it was a thousand dollar offer at the time. Did the auto webinar for it, and it launched and within 90 days it had done over a million dollars, which covered payroll taxes and then got us out of debt to the point now we could stop and dream again, and believe again and try to figure out what we really wanted to do. Andrew: Dotcom Secrets Local to a million dollars within 90 days. And how did you find the people who were going to sign up for this. A lot of us will have landing pages like this, we’ll have these funnels. How did you get people in this funnel? Russell: And this was pre-Facebook too, so it wasn’t just like go turn Facebook ads on. But you know, one thing that happened over all the years prior to this, I’d met a lot of people and go to a lot of events and get to know everybody. And everyone I met, you know, you meet a lot of people who have lists, they have followings, they have different things like that. I just got to know them really, really well. And in the past I’d promote a lot of their products, they’d promote my products. So we had this one and we did it first to my list, and it did really well. So I then I then called them and I’m like, “Okay, I did this webinar to my list, these are the numbers, it did awesome. Do you want to do it to your list as well?” and they’re like, “Oh sure. Sounds like a great offer.” We did that list and it did good for them too. And we told the next person and then, if you have a webinar, it’s kind of like the speaking circuit, if you’re good at speaking then people will put you all over the place. Same thing, if you have a webinar that converts, then it’s easy to get a lot of people to do it. So as soon as that one worked and it converted well, then people lined up and we kept doing it, doing it, and doing it, and it was really quick to get to that spot pretty quick. Andrew: I went on Facebook recently and I saw webinar slides from Russell Brunson, I went to the landing page, Clickfunnels page and I signed up and I’ll talk about it maybe later, but I bought it and I know other people did. And I’ve seen other people say, “Russell’s webinar technique is the thing that just works.” I’m wondering how did you figure it out? How did you come across this and how did you build it and make it work? Russell: Yeah, so rewind back probably ten years prior to this, when I was first learning this whole business. I went to my very first internet marketing seminar ever, it was Armand Morin’s Big Seminar. Did you ever go to Big Seminar? Anyway, I went to it and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be like, I showed up with my laptop and I was going to like, I thought we were a bunch of geeks going to do computer stuff. And the first person got onstage and started speaking and at the end of it he sold like a two thousand dollar thing. And I’d never seen this before. I saw people jumping up and running to the back of the room to buy it. And I’m like this little 23 year old kid and I was counting the people in the back of the room, doing the math, you know doing the math and I’m like, that guy made 60 thousand dollars in an hour. And the next guy gets up and does his presentation and I watch this for three days and I was like, I’m super shy and introverted, but that skill is worth learning. If someone can walk on a stage and make 100,000 dollars in an hour, I need to learn how to do that. So I started that. And it was really bad for the first probably 8 or 9 months. I tried to do it. I’d go to places and I just, I couldn’t figure it out. And then I started asking the people who were good because you go there and all the speakers kind of talk and hang out, and I’d watch the ones that always had the people in the back of the room. And I’d ask them questions, I’m like, ‘What did I do wrong? I feel like I’m teaching the best stuff possible.’ And they’re like, ‘That’s the problem, it’s not about teaching, it’s about stories, telling stories and breaking beliefs.” So for about the next two years I was about once a month flying somewhere to speak, and then when I would go I would meet all the speakers and find out what they were doing and I’d watch them and I’d take notes on the different things they were saying and how they were saying it. And then I kept taking my presentation and tweaking it, and tweaking it, and tweaking it. And you know, now 12 years later, I’ve done so many webinars, it kind of worked. The process works now. Andrew: You are a really good story teller and I’ve seen you do that. I’ve seen you do it, and I know you’re going to do it even more. What I’m curious about is the belief system that you were saying, breaking people’s…what was it that you said? Russell: False beliefs. Andrew: Breaking people’s false beliefs. How do you understand what, like as you look at this audience, do you understand what some of our false beliefs are? Russell: If I knew what I was selling I could figure out for sure. Andrew: If you knew what you were selling. Alright we’re selling this belief that entrepreneurship does work. And I know we’re all going to go through a period like some of the ones that you had where things just aren’t’ working, other people aren’t believing in us, almost failure, what is at that point, the belief system that we have to work on? What do you recognize in people here? Russell: So usually there’s three core beliefs that people have. The first is about the opportunity itself right. So like with entrepreneurship, the first belief that people have is could I actually be an entrepreneur? And some people who actually believe that, they’re like, I’m in. And that’s an easy one. But for those who don’t there’s a reason and usually it’s like, they saw a parent that tried to do it. And the parent tried to be an entrepreneur and wasn’t able to and they saw that failure. Or they’d tried it in the past and they failed or whatever it is. So it’s showing them that even if you tried in the past and showed different ways, let me tell you a story. And for me, I could show 800 different failures. But eventually you get better and you get better until eventually you have the thing that actually works. So I tell a story to kind of show that, to make them believe that, oh my gosh maybe I just need to try a couple more times. And then the second level of beliefs is like beliefs about themselves like, I’m sure it works for you, Russell or Andrew but not for me because I’m different. It’s helping them figure out their false beliefs, and if you can break that, then the third one is like, then they always want to blame somebody else. “I could lose lots of weight but my wife buys lots of cupcakes and candy. So I could do it, but because of that I can’t.” So then it’s like figuring out how you break the beliefs of the external people that are going to keep them. Andrew: And how would you know what that is? How would you know who the external influencers are, that your potential customers are worried about? Russell: I think for most of us it’s because the thing that we’re selling is something that, one of our, Nick Barely said “Our mess becomes our message.” For most of us, what we’re selling is the thing we struggled with before. So I think back about me as 12 year old Russell, watching Don Lepre, like what would have kept me back? And I would have been like, I can’t afford classified ads. Like if you showed me how I can, if you could tell me a story of, oh my gosh I could afford classified ads. Now that belief’s gone and now I’m going to go give you money. It’s just kind of remembering back to the state that you were in when you were trying to figure this stuff out as well. Andrew: Who was who I met when we were coming in here that said that they were part of Russell’s mastermind and I asked how much did you pay and he said, “I’m not telling you.” I can’t see who that person was. But I know you got a mastermind, people coming in. I’m wondering how much of it comes from that? working with people directly, seeing them in the group share openly, and then saying, ah, this is what my potential customers are feeling? Russell: 100% At this point especially. People always ask me, “Where do you go, Russell, to learn stuff?” and it’s my mastermind, because I bring, all the people come in and they’re all in different industries and you see that. You see the road blocks that hold people back, but then they also share the stuff that they’re doing and it’s like, that’s 100% now where I get most of my intell. Because people ask me, “Why, you’re a software company, why in the world do you have a mastermind group?” And it’s because the reason why our software is good is because we have the mastermind group, where they’re all crowd sourcing, they’re doing all this stuff and bringing back to us, and then we’re able to make shifts and pivots based on that. Andrew: Somehow we just lost Apple, but that’s okay. It’s back, good. There we go. This is the next thing, Rippln. Russell: I forgot I put that one in there. Andrew: I went back and I watched the YouTube video explaining it. It’s a cartoon. I thought it was a professional voice over artist, no it’s you. You’re really comfortable getting on stage and talking. But basically in that video that you guys can see in the top left of your screen, it’s Russell, through this voice over and cartoon explaining, “Look, you guys were around in the early days of Facebook, you told your friends, here’s how many friends you would have had, for the sake of numbers, let’s say you told 7 people and let’s say they told 7 people, and that’s how things spread. And the same thing happened with Pinterest and all these other sites. Don’t you ever wish that instead of making them rich by telling stuff, you made yourself rich? Well here’s how Rippln comes in.” and then you created it. And Rippln was what? Russell: So Rippln was actually one of my friend’s ideas, and he is a network marketing guy so he’s like, “We’re building a network marketing program.” And I’d like dabbled in network marketing, never been involved with it. And he came and was like, “Hey, be part of this.” And I was like, “No.” and then he sold us on the whole pitch of the idea, network marketers are really good at selling you on vision, and I was like, “Okay, that sounds awesome.” And then my role was to write the pitch. So I wrote the pitch, did the voice over, did the video, and then we launched it and we had in six weeks, it was like 1.5 million people signed up for Rippln, and I thought it was like, “This is the thing, I’m done.” My down line was like half of the company. And I was like, when this thing goes live, it’s going to be amazing. And then the tech side of it, what we’re promising people in this video that the main developer ended up dying and he had all the code. So they had to restart building it in the middle of this thing. And it was like thing after thing and by the time it finally got done, everyone had lost interest. It was like 8 months later, and I think the biggest check I got was like $47 for the whole thing. And I was just like, I spent like 6 months of my life. It was like a penny a day. It was horrible. Andrew: I’m just wondering whether I should ask this or not. Russell: Go for it. Andrew: So I stopped asking about religion, but I get the sense that you believe that there’s a spiritual element here that keeps you from seeing, my down line is growing, the whole thing is working. Is any of this, does it feel divinely inspired to you? Be honest. Russell: Business or…? Andrew: Business, life, success, things working out, so much so that when you’re at your lowest, you feel like there’s some divine guidance, some divine hand that says, “Russell, it’s going to work out. Russell, I don’t know if I got you, but I know you got this. Go do it.” I feel that from you and I… Russell: I 100% believe that. Andrew: You do? Russell: Every bit of it. I believe that God gives us talents and gifts and abilities and then watches what we do with it. And if we do good then he increases our capacity to do more. And if we do good with it, increases our capacity… Andrew: if you earn it? If you do good, if you use what God gives you, then you get more. So you think that that is your duty to do that and if you don’t do more, if you don’t pick yourself up after Rippln, you’ve let down God. Do you believe that? Is that it? Or that you haven’t lived up to… Russell: Yeah, I don’t think I feel that I’ve let down God, but I definitely feel like I haven’t lived up to my potential, you know. But also I feel like a lot of stuff, as I was putting together that document, all the pages, it’s interesting because each one of them, looking in hindsight, each built upon the next thing and the next thing. And there’s twice we tried to build Clickfunnels and each one was like the next level, and each one was a stepping stone. Like Rippln, if I wouldn’t have done Rippln, that was my very first viral video we ever created. I learned how to pitch things and when we did the Clickfunnels initial sales video, because I had done this one, I knew how to do this one. So for me, it’s less of like I let down God, as much as like, it’s just like the piece, what are you going to do with this? Are you going to do something with it? It doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful, but it means, if you do well with this, then we’re going to increase your capacity for the next step, and the next thing. But we definitely, especially in times at the office, we talk about this a lot. We definitely feel that what we do is a spiritual mission. Andrew: You do? Russell: 100% yeah. I don’t think that it’s just like, we’re lucky. I think the way that the people have come, the partnerships, how it was created is super inspired. Andrew: You know what, a lot of us are selling things that are software, PDF guide, this, that, it’s really hard to find the bigger mission in it. You’re finding the bigger mission in Funnels. What is that bigger mission? Really, how do you connect with it? Because you’re right, if you can find that bigger meaning then the work becomes more meaningful and you’re working with become, it’s more exciting to work with them, more meaningful to do it. How did you find it in funnels? What is the meaning? Russell: So for us, and I’m thinking about members in my inner circle, so right now as of today I think we had 68,000 members in Clickfunnels, which is the big number we all brag about. But for me, that’s 68,000 entrepreneurs, each one has a gift. So I think about, one member I’ll mention his name’s Chris Wark, he runs chrisbeatcancer.com and Chris was someone who came down with cancer and was given a death sentence, and instead of going through chemo therapy he decided, ‘I’m going to see if I can heal myself.” And he did. Cleared himself of cancer. And then instead of just being like, ‘cool, I’m going to go back into work.’ He was like, ‘Man I need to help other people.’ So he started a blog and started doing some things, and now he’s got this thing where he’s helped thousands and thousands of people to naturally cure themselves of cancer. And that’s one of our 68,000 people. Andrew: See, you’re focusing on him where I think a lot of us would focus on, here’s one person who’s just a smarmy marketer, and here’s who’s creating….but you don’t. That’s not who you are. Look, I see it in your eyes and you’re shaking your head. That’s not it at all, it’s not even a put on. Russell: It’s funny because for me it’s like, I understand because I get it all the time from people all the time, “Oh he’s this slimy marketer.” The first time people meet me, all the time, the first time their introduced, that’s a lot of times the first impression. And they get closer and they feel the heart and it’s just like, “oh my gosh, I had you wrong.” I get that all the time from people. Andrew: Brian, sorry Ryan and Brad, are either of them here? Would one of you come up here? Yeah, come on up. Because they felt that way, right? Russell: I don’t know about them. I know who you’re thinking about. Audience member: I think it’s Theron. {Crosstalk} Andrew: No, no stay up here, as long as you’re here. Theron come on up. Audience member: If it wasn’t me, then I’m going to sit back in the seats. Andrew: Are you nervous? Audience member: A little bit. Is there another Ryan and Brad? Russell: Different story, another story. Do you want to come up? Theron had no idea we were bringing him onstage. Andrew: Come on over here. Let’s stand in the center so we can get you on camera. Does this help? Russell: Do you want me to introduce Theron real quick? Andrew: Yeah, please. Russell: So Theron is one of the Harmon Brothers, they’re the ones who did the viral video for us. Andrew: I heard that you felt that he was a scam. What was the situation and how did you honestly feel? Theron: I don’t know that it…well… Russell: Be honest. Theron: I know, I don’t think that I felt that Clickfunnels itself was a scam, Russell: Just Russell. Theron: But that it just felt like so many of the ways that the funnels were built and the types of language they were using, it felt like it was that side of the internet. So I became very, well basically we were kind of in a desperate situation, where we had a video that had not performed and not worked out the way we wanted it to work out. Andrew: The video that you created for Russell? Theron: No, another client. Andrew: Another client, okay. Theron: And so our CEO had used Clickfunnels product to help drive, I think it was attendance to a big video event. And so he had some familiarity with the product, so he goes to Russell and at the same time Russell’s like, “I’m a big fan of you guys.” So he’s coming to us and these things are happening. Yeah, it was almost the same day. So we’re thinking like this and we’re like, “Well, they seem to really know how to drive traffic, to really know how to drive conversion. And we feellike we know how to drive conversion as well, but for some reason we missed it on this one.” So we’re like, “Well, let’s do a deal.” Andrew: What do you mean missed it? Okay, go ahead, go through to the end. Theron: We were failing our client. We were failing on our client. We weren’t giving them and ROI. So we said, let’s do a deal with Russell and we’ll have our internal team compete with his team, and we’re humble enough to say we’re failing our client. We want our client to succeed, let’s bring in their team and see if they can make a funnel that can bring down the cost for acquisition, bring up the return on investment for our client, and they were able to do it. And then we said, what we’ll do is we’ll write a script, we’ll take you through our script writing process, but we don’t want to do the video because we don’t want to be affiliated with you. Russell: The contract said, “You can’t tell anyone ever that the Harmon Brothers wrote the script for you.” Andrew: Wow, because you didn’t want to be associated with something that you thought was a little too scammy for… Theron: Yeah, we just didn’t want our brand kind of brought down to their brand, which is super arrogant and really wrong headed. And in any case, so we go into this script writing training, and I wasn’t following his podcast, I wasn’t listening to enough. I mean, read Dotcom Secrets, those kinds of things are like, well, there’s some really valuable stuff there, this is really interesting. A nd then as we got to know each other and really start to connect, like you said, heart to heart. And to feel what he’s really about, and the types of team, the people that he surrounds himself with, I was like, wow, these are really, really good people. And they have a mission here that they feel, just like we feel that about our own group. And in any case, by the end of that 2 day retreat we’re like, all off in private saying, “First of all we like what we’ve written and second of all, we’d really like to work with these guys and I think we’re plenty happy being connected to them and associated with them.” So it’s been a ride and a blessing ever since. Russell: We’re about to start video number two with them. Andrew: You what? Russell: We’re about to start video number two with them right now. Theron: Anyway, we love them. Andrew: Alright, give him a big round, yeah. Thanks. This was pivotal for you guys. Lead Pages, there’s an article about how Lead Pages raised $5 million, and you saw that and you thought… Russell: Well, what happened was Todd, so Todd’s the cofounder of Clickfunnels, and he was working with us at the time and he would fly to Boise about once a quarter and we’d work on the next project, the new idea. And that morning he woke up and he saw that, and then he forwarded me the article. And he’s Atlanta, so it’s east coast, so I’m still in bed. And he’s got a 4 hour flight to Boise and he’s just getting angry, because Todd is, Todd’s like a genius. He literally, when he landed in Boise and he saw me and he’s like, “We can build Lead Pages tonight. I will clone, I will beat it. We’re going to launch this, this week while we’re here.” He’s that good of a developer. He, I’ve never seen someone code as fast and as good as him. He’s amazing. So he comes in, he’s mad because he’s like, “This is the stupidest site in the world. We could literally clone this. Let’s just do it.” And I’m like, “Yes, let’s clone it.” And we’re all excited and then he’s like, “Do you want me to add any other features while I’m doing it.” And I’m like, ‘Oh, yes. We should do this, and we should do this.” And then the scope creep from the marketer comes, and we ended up spending an entire week in front of a whiteboard mapping out all my dreams, “If we could do this and this and what kind of shopping cart, and we could do upsells, and what if we could actually move things on the page instead of just having it sit there. And what if…” and Todd’s just taking notes and everything. And then he’s like, “Okay, I think I could do this.” And he told me though, “If I do this, I don’t want to do this as an employee. I want to do this as a partner.” And at first I was like, ugh, because I didn’t want to do the partnership thing. And then the best decision I’ve ever made in my life, outside of marrying my wife was saying yes to Todd. Said, “Let’s do it.” And then he flew home and built Clickfunnels. Andrew: Wow. And this is after trying software so much. I have screenshots of all the different, it’s not even worth going into it, of all the different products you created, there was one about, it was digital repo, right? Russell: That was a good idea. Andrew: Digital Repo, man. What was…. Russell: So I used to sell ebooks and stuff, and people would steal it and email it to their friends and I’d get angry. Andrew: Can I read this? How to protect every type of lowlife and other form of human scum from cheating you from the profits you should be making by hijacking, stealing, and illegally prostituting….your online digital products. Russell: Theron, why did you think we were…..Just kidding. So no, it was this really cool product where you take an ebook and it would protect it, and if somebody gave it to their friend, you could push a button and it would take back access. It was like the coolest thing in the world, we thought. Andrew: And there was software that was going to attach your ad to any other software that was out there. There was software that was going to, what are some of the other ones? It’s going to hit me later on. But we’re talking about a dozen different pieces of software, a dozen different attempts at software. What’s one? I thought somebody remembered one of them. They’re just the kind of stuff you’d never think of. There was one that was kind of like Clickfunnels, an early version of Clickfunnels for landing pages. Why did you want to get into software when you were teaching, creating membership sites? What was software, what was drawing you to it? Russell: I think honestly, when I first learned this internet marketing game, the first mentor I had, the first person I saw was a guy name Armand Morin and Armand had all these little software products. Ecover generator, sales letter generator, everything generator, so that’s what I kept seeing. I was like, I need to create software because he made software. In fact, I even shifted my major from, I can’t remember what it was before, to computer information systems, because I was like, I’m going to learn how to code, because I couldn’t afford programmers. And then that’s just kind of what I’d seen. And then I was trying to think of ideas for software. And every time I would get stuck, instead of trying to find something to do, I’d be like let me just, let me just hire a guy to go build that, and then I can sell it somebody else as well. So that’s kind of how it started. Andrew: And it was a lot of different tools, a lot of different attempts, and then this one was the one that you went with. I think this is an early version of the home page, basically saying, “Coming soon, sign up.” The first one didn’t work out. And then you saw someone else on a forum who had a version that was better. What was his name? This is I think Dylan Jones. Russell: Oh you’re talking about the editor, yes. Okay, so the story was, Todd built the first version of Clickfunnels and Dylan who became one of our cofounders, I’d been working with Dylan as a designer for about 6 years prior. And he his hands, and we talked about this earlier, he is the best designer I’ve ever seen in my life, he is amazing. He would, but he’s also, this is the pros and cons of Dylan. He, I’ve talked about this onstage at Funnel Hacking Live, so I have no problem saying this. He would agree. But I would give him a project, and I couldn’t hear, he wouldn’t respond back to me, and I wouldn’t hear from him for 2 or 3 months, and then one day in the middle of the night he messaged me, “Hey, rent’s due tomorrow. Do you have any projects for me?” and I’d be so mad at him, and I look back at every project we’d done in the last 3 or 4 months that other designers had done, and I’d just resend him all the lists, just boom, give him 12 sites and I’d go to bed. I’d wake up 5 or 6 hours later and all of them were done, perfectly, amazing, some of the best designs ever, and then he’d send me a bill for whatever, and then I’d send him money and he’d disappear again for like 5 months. And I could never get a hold of him. I’d be like, “I need you to tweak something.” And he was just gone. And that was my pattern for 6 years with him. And then fast forward to when Todd and I were building Clickfunnels, we were at Traffic Conversion and we were up in the hotel room at like 3 in the morning trying to, we were on dribble.com trying to find a UI designer to help us, and we couldn’t get a hold of all these people, and all the sudden on Skype Dylan popped in, I saw his thing pop up. I was like, “Todd, Dylan just showed up.” And he’s like, “Do you think he needs some money?” I’m like, “I guarantee he needs money.” So I’m like, “Hey man!” And Dylan messaged back. He’s like, “Hey.” I’m like, “Do you need some money?” and he’s like, “Yeah, you got any projects?” I’m like, “Yes, I do.” I’m like, “We built this cool thing, it’s called Clickfunnels, but the UI is horrible and the editor is horrible and there’s any way we could hire you for a week to fly to Boise and just do all the UI for every single page of the app?” and he kind of said no at first because, “I’m developing my own website builder. I might have spent 6 years on it, so I can’t do it.” Andrew: It was this, he had something that was essentially Clickfunnels, right? Russell: No, no. It was just pages though, so it’d just do pages, there was no funnels. Andrew: Right, closer to Lead Pages. Russell: Lead Pages, but amazing. You could move things around. But he did tell me that, “I’m working on something.” So eventually we got him to come, flew to Boise, spent a week, did all of our UI, and then we went and launched our beta to my list. So we launched the beta, got some signups, and then a week before the launch, launch was supposed to happen, all the affiliates were lined up, everything was supposed to happen. He sends me, I don’t know if he sent you the video, but he sends me this little video that’s like a 30 second video of him demoing the editor he’d built. And I probably watched that video, I don’t know, at least a hundred times. And I was just sick to my stomach because I was like, “I hate Clickfunnels right now. I can’t move things on my pages, I can’t do anything.” I was just, and I sent it to Todd and then I didn’t hear from him for like an hour, and he messaged me back and he’s like, “I’m pissed.” I’m like, “Me too.” And I’m like, “What do we do?” and I was like, “We have to have his editor or I don’t even want to sell this thing.” And I called Dylan and I’m like, “Would you be willing to sell?” and he’s like, “No, I’m selling it and we’re going to sell it for $100.” It was like $100 this one time for this editor that designed all the websites. I was like, “Dude, it is worth so much more than that. Please?” and we spent all night going back and forth negotiating. And finally, we came to like, “I will give you this editor if I can be a cofounder and be a partner.” And Todd and I sat there, brainstorming and figured out if we could do it and finally said yes. And then him and Dylan and Todd flew back to Boise and for the next week just sat in a room with a whole bunch of caffeine and figured out how to smush Dylan’s editor into Clickfunnels to get the editor to be the editor that you guys know today.
Bill D'Alessandro believes that one of the most fulfilling things in life is working on hard things with smart people. The allure of the 4-hour work-week mentality can easily take over when starting out as an ecommerce entrepreneur, but might not be the smartest tactic for all businesses. There is now a trend gearing businesses towards something more lasting. Bill was living the 4-hour work week dream until he decided to change it up and “grow up” in his business. Since having made the decision to hire, Bill has seen business grow as his company, Element Brands, grows. He's now able to step away less often but more easily because he runs his business with quality people, that he pays well, and who are motivated to help him grow. Bill is based in Charlotte, North Carolina and currently owns a portfolio of nearly 10 e-commerce sites primarily focused on household goods and personal care. Though Bill started the entrepreneur life as a digital nomad, he recently made the the switch to a corporate warehouse/office location in Charlotte and has 22 full time employees. Episode Highlights: The building of the Elements portfolio and how that process came about. Using in-house vs. a broker for brand acquisition. How Bill came to the choice of creating this more traditional business style. What Bill's typical day is like. An example of when an employee saved Bill money as a result of their loyalty to the company. How the structure allows Bill to disconnect thanks to the competent team he has in place. Tips on hiring, vetting, and finding the cream of the crop. Bill's own hiring process. Preferences for outsourcing people vs in-house training them. Noncompetes Bill has in place and how they work well for him. There are plenty of people out there interested in not being entrepreneurs but are interested in helping build great brands. Transcription: Mark: Okay one of the most popular business books that I can remember coming out in the past 15 years has been the 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. And I'm going to admit I was a little annoyed when this book came out because all of a sudden everybody tried to become Tim Ferriss juniors where they were having their 2-hours per week that they were setting aside to answer e-mails and take phone calls. And so if I needed to reach out to them they would explain to me … they would say well I only answer e-mails during this time or I only take phone calls during this time and of course if it didn't work with my schedule tough luck because they had their 4-hour workweek and they only had half of that dedicated to e-mails. And I think a lot of people went to that 4-hour workweek. During that time there was this allure of I can sit on the beach, I can take vacations and have this business that's completely automated. That still has some allure today but more and more I hear people talking about being grownups in their business. Changing the way that they're going about their business, hiring staffs instead of just doing pure outsourcing, building something that's a little bit more lasting than what we've seen with some of that 4-hour workweek sort of business structure. So, Joe, I know you talked to a friend of ours Bill D'Alessandro. He was living that dream of the 4-hour workweek for a long time and then so to speak and Bill I would not say that you are a kid by any means but he grew up in business. Joe: Yeah, he did and let me say right now folks that I'm having my house power washed so you're going to hear the people in the background. Mark: That's why I was talking so long I was hoping that it would stop but it did not stop. Joe: We're all entrepreneurs, right? Life of an entrepreneur, I'm working from home. These guys already took a lunch break and they're back and so you're going to hear them every now and then. Anyway lunch … I had lunch with Bill D'Alessandro. He lives in Charlotte … I live just north of Charlotte a couple of months ago and we were talking … Bill just got married and we were talking about the honeymoon and he said yeah no it was great because I hardly checked in. I was gone for two weeks and I hardly checked in at all. And then he goes back when I was a digital nomad I went to the same country, the same beach, but I felt like I had to work all the time because it was me and me only. I had to tell my VAs what to do and I had to do certain things every day. On this vacation I turned it all off because I had good quality people working for me, running my business while I was away on my honeymoon and I was making money. And it just sort of clicked. Like you said, you just said grown up right? And that's really… I mean it is what it is but you don't mean it to be and I don't mean it to be offensive to those that choose not to run a business that way. I've sold many businesses where there's one owner operator and that's it doing his thing. Look at that you can actually see the people power washing in my window in the background. Mark: You know what it looks like? It looks like a scene from Oceans 12 where the guys on the background can really be is just setting up a big con on you Joe. You better look out. I hope you did a background check on these guys. Joe: It's hilarious they actually have giant trash bags on and just the holes cut out for the sleeves. And literally, I've got a house … the entire house right now they're choosing to do right in front of my office in the windows outside. So if you want to see it and see the trash bag folks go to the actual video instead of just listening to the audio. Mark: And we'll make sure we put this one video up; at least this clip. Joe: At least this clip. Anyway, it just sort of … it was an epiphany with … Bill has an interesting story. I first learned about him back in 2015 in Savannah at the eCommerceFuel event and Darren was there with us; Darren Harden a former broker at Quiet Light. [inaudible 00:04:19.8] Joe you got to meet this guy he's raised like 20 million dollars and he's building a portfolio of e-commerce companies. I don't know if that dollar amount was right. I didn't feel the need to ask but I got a tour of Bill's facility down there in Charlotte. He's got an actual warehouse. He ships it all himself. He's got rack space, he's got staff, he's got warehouse employees that he pays really well and they found ways to make him more money by cutting costs. And that's really what this is all about, it doesn't make sense to outsource all of this stuff two of 3PL, two VAs or does it make more sense for you in your business to bring it out in-house and run it and go to work every day, take vacations and not worry about it because you've got good people in place to do the job for you. Mark: Yeah, he talked on this topic if I remember right at eCommerceFuel last year and let's give a shout out to Andrew Youderian from eCommerceFuel Live. Anybody that is in e-commerce I always recommend, take a look at eCommerceFuel as a community to join. That's a fantastic community. But he gave this talk in eCommerceFuel Live and I remember being struck by it because it was something that we haven't been hearing. And I'm going to double down on what you said, Joe, if you choose that lifestyle sort of business which was the business where you are running just remotely and maybe not four hours but maybe eight hours a week that's a really good and viable option as well. I think a lot depends on your personal priorities but sometimes we'd look down at those businesses that require an office and going in and having employees and stuff like that. It is a really good alternative as well for a lot of people. I'm interested to listen to this one. Again hear what Bill has to say about this and kind of how he made that transition over to a fully staffed business. Joe: I'll tell you right now there's no doubt we'll have Bill back on some day and we'll be talking about his 50, 60, 70 million dollar exit because that's the path that he's going down. Now quickly before we go to that Mark we talked about eCommerceFuel, we talked about Rhodium, right now I'll just name three or four other conferences that we're going to and then we'll go right to the podcast. Mark: We can actually name them. So Prosper Show is coming up if you do anything with Amazon … that's in March and if you do anything with Amazon go to Prosper Show for sure. We're going to have a presence at T&C at Traffic & Conversion. Joe: San Diego in February. Mark: That's right and then we're going to be doing Blue Ribbon Mastermind with Ezra Firestone; an awesome marketer. Everybody knows who Ezra is. We're going to be at that event as well. Joe: Miami in January, there's one more in there right? Mark: Capitalism.com absolutely … Ryan Moran's conference. We're going to be there and I'm looking forward to that as well. That's in Texas right? Joe: Yes, it's going to be in Dallas. So we've had Ryan on, we've had Ezra on, we've had [inaudible 00:07:01.8] on, we've had James on; we've had them all on. They're great folks and we'll be at each of those conferences and we'd love to get together with you guys for dinner, for an event that we might put on, something along those lines. Please let us know if you're going to go to those conferences so we can connect. Mark: Sounds great. Joe: All right, off to the podcast. Joe: Hey, folks, it's Joe Valley from Quiet Light Brokerage and on today's podcast, I've got Bill D'Alessandro. A lot of folks from eCommerceFuel know Bill very well. Bill is from the Charlotte area right here in North Carolina and owns a portfolio of e-commerce sites and is a regular guest on the eCommerceFuel podcast. Bill, how are you today? Bill: Doing well Joe. Good to see you, man. Joe: You too man, you too. So I saw you a couple of months ago, I got a nice tour of the warehouse and you're moving to a much much bigger one. And we talked a little bit about your experience and what you've gone through over the last several years but I want you to tell the folks that are listening who you are and what you do and give them a little bit of background. So we can start with that and then we'll go from there. Bill: Yeah, sure. So for the folks that don't know me … Hi, my name is Bill D'Alessandro. I'm the CEO and founder of Elements Brands. Elements Brands is a portfolio of consumer products brands. We focus on what we call household goods and personal care. So that's everything from sunscreen, shampoo, body lotion, lip balm, laundry detergent; all sorts of things like that. We own nine brands today and are under LOI to acquire a 10th. I started life as sort of your classic 4-hour workweek digital nomad entrepreneur but since then the business has evolved and I've kind of made a conscious choice. And now we're located … Elements Brands is located in Charlotte, North Carolina. We have as of this day of recording 22 full time employees and growing. And as Joe mentioned we are moving into a new 51,000 square foot office/warehouse kind of facility. So it's a far cry from my early digital nomad days. Joe: Yeah, it's definitely a far cry but one of the things that was interesting is that you kind of have more freedom in terms of when you want to take off from work. You can take off, turn your phone off and you've got a great staff there. So let's talk a little bit about that. I want to talk a little first though Bill about how you managed to build a portfolio of nine brands and you've got one under LOI. Did you start with one small brand and kept adding them on? Did you raise some funds? Did you go to family and friends? How did that work out for you? What was your process? Bill: Yeah. So I started the 1st brand in 2010. I got it up to low hundreds of thousands of revenue; basically just enough to fund my digital nomad lifestyle. And at that point … you know I kind of did that for a while, and I realized that as I wrote on my blog Thailand will not make you happy. And I realize that it was fun but you go to Thailand, you sit on the beach and you're still you. You're sitting with you on the beach and all of your hopes, dreams, aspirations, problems, demons; all those things come with you to Thailand. And I also felt like I was kind of wasting my potential. So I thought all right how do I make this thing a lot bigger? And I come from an investment banking and M&A background so my thinking was I know how to run an e-commerce brand, I also know there are a bunch of people out there selling e-commerce brands, why don't I go buy … I mean roll them up onto a single platform. So that led to our 1st acquisition in 2013 for which I basically used my entire life savings at the time and borrowed some money. And we bought that company and then in 2015 basically based on cash flow from the 1st one and we bought the 2nd one in 2015. And then we bought two in 2016. Then we bought another one in 2017. And then as I mentioned we'll do another acquisition this year. So … and then also I was fortunate enough doing work with you to sell one of my other distracting side businesses too so I can focus on Elements Brands full time. Joe: Yeah. You know it's funny because I don't think we've mentioned that at all when we had lunch a few weeks ago. You've built these brands and we have a relationship … Quiet Light Brokerage is a business brokerage firm but we haven't sold any of these to you. You've sourced most of these deals on your own through building networks and buying smaller troubled brands and turning them around directly for the most case wouldn't you say? Bill: Yeah for the most part we … you're always number one in my heart Joe but we do talk occasionally with some other brokers who shall not be named. And we also have fulltime staff here at Elements that is going out calling brands all the time to see if they're interested in selling and to see if Elements Brands would be a good home for them. I have a guy and he's an ex private equity guy and he spends his all day every day talking to new brands. Joe: So let me say right now, anybody that's listening, you can go to ElementsBrands.com and find Bill and his staff. If you've got a household brand of … what size Bill? Does it matter what size if they've got something that might be a good fit do you think they should reach it out to you? Bill: Yes, so we look at basically between half a million to a million in revenue in the low end to probably about 10 million on revenue on the high end. Joe: Got you. Now if you want to save Bill the trouble call me and I'll put together a great package and then I'll call Bill. Bill: Exactly which we actually love Joe. Because on a lot of times when the seller does have a broker, it makes the whole thing go a lot more smoothly so call Joe first. Joe: The guys at 101 commerce, RJ Jalichandra from 101, they're buying literally 101 FBA businesses. He said the same thing on a panel of buyers a couple of months ago at the Brand Builders Summit. He said look we've done this, we've done a lot, we'd prefer to work with a broker because all the vetting is done, the package is put together. It makes our buying process much smoother and much quicker. So please go with a broker and they're going to choose a select few that they'll work with and that's it. It does make it quicker for you guys for sure. Why don't we talk about a little bit of the advantages of a guy like yourself who I have to classify as a grown up in a sense. And I say that in the nicest possible way in putting myself down because I'm sitting here in my home office and I have no employees. None of us do at Quiet Light. We're all independent contractors brokering from different parts of the country in some cases we all live here talking to Bryan. He's usually in a different location. You, on the other hand, you've got 21, 22 employees that you are responsible for. You have a warehouse, you have offices. You are building a real business that maybe someday components of it will be sold off to private equity or the entire thing will be. How was that choice other than you just saying you're limiting your potential by not doing it, how has that choice come to and what has it been like for your lifestyle as opposed to that 4-hour workweek that you started off with. Bill: Yeah so it was very intentional. I'm sitting here in my office right now and to my left here are 22 folks. I've just got my door closed in recording with you but I come in every day. I'm in typically before nine o'clock and I leave at six-ish. I take lunch. I only work about a mile off from my house. I kind of … the realization came to me while I was doing the digital nomad thing that one of the most fulfilling things in life is working on the hard things with smart people. And you know just as humans we love to solve hard challenges and it's really rewarding to succeed with other people. And I realize that as a digital nomad a lot of the times I was working with VAs or contractors who were basically just pictures on Upwork profiles to simplify but I didn't really have a relationship with these people and they … even if I had a full time VA I couldn't grab a beer with them after work. And frankly when you're hiring VAs oftentimes you're operating on a shoestring and there's a language barrier and you're generally … and I will generalize here but I will say if you are operating a whole business on VAs and you may love your VAs but there's a whole other level of caliber of employee that is out there that you've closed yourself off to because you're not willing to give them a W2 and health insurance and their office that they're meant to. A lot of really really brilliant people want that. Joe: Can you give an example of that? I know that we talked a little bit about your warehouse workers and how you pay them higher than average, there's no turnover and they find ways to save you money and increase your profit. Can you give an example of maybe what we talked about there? I don't remember the specific details … a thing to do with honestly this cardboard boxes so- Bill: Yeah. Joe: [inaudible 00:15:12.13] I might have tuned out a little but the overall picture was you took care of your people and you paid them well. They appreciated it and I think that they saved you a fair amount of money just by being loyal to you. Bill: Yeah so Joe what you're referring to is we do all of our own warehouse and logistic. So instead of using a 3PL, we've got a warehouse and we've got a crew here that packs boxes. We ship them out of here. And if I talk to other e-commerce entrepreneurs either A. they outsourced their 3PL and complain about how much their 3PL sucks. Or they operate their own warehouse and complain about turnover and how hard it is to manage a warehouse. So going into it we pay our folks here in the warehouse easily 30 to 40 or more percent more than the minimum wage that they can get somewhere else. And occasionally we bring temps in and they go oh my God for less money I was putting chickens in bags in an unconditioned warehouse last week this is amazing. And we've had … unfortunate to say because we pay well we have had zero turnovers in our warehouse. And our warehouse crew they're not packing Elements Brands orders in between packing other companies orders. So they're thinking about our problems all day. And we had our warehouse manager, she came to me and said I've been looking at the way all the laundry detergent comes in on pallets and I think it's not optimal. If we switch from eight packs to 12 packs I can fit X% more bags on a pallet and stack it higher and use more the footprint and it's going to save us 20 plus percent shipping per bag. And we did it and we saved five figures because of that. And a 3PL would never do that for you or a VA that is not physically present could never see that stuff and even notice it. What I love about having employees is having people that think about Elements Brands all day every day. Like they think about it in the shower, think about it on their commute to work, like it's the thing that they do. It's their job and their career and they want to be good at it so I just love it a lot. Joe: So by taking care of them and putting a good environment together, a good employment package for them what does it do for you and the other folks that are focused on building the brands and building a larger portfolio? Are you able to put more focus on that and less nitty gritty on some of the other things? Bill: Yeah I mean I at this point … so I just went on my honeymoon that for two weeks we went ironically to Thailand. Joe: You sat on the beach but you weren't alone, that's good. Bill: Yeah so I'm not alone I was [inaudible 00:17:39.6] yeah thanks. And while I was there you know I was halfway around the world and spotty cell service and I was basically fully disconnected and the team ran the business in a fully … to use a digital nomad term fully automated way. But it's not automated because I've got 22 people that come in here and they want to be good at their jobs. And they've got their own managers who come in to work every day and see them and if they don't come and there's … everybody says hey where are you I didn't see you today, is your stock end gone? So for me, I found that when I was working with VAs because there is no senior person who the buck stops with, that person is you. You can never really unplug. You might be able to travel or you might be able to unplug for a week but when you unplug for a week everything kind of stops; like nothing moves forward. It might be in stasis but nothing moves forward. So when I was gone for two weeks I came back and we had launched the targeting marketing campaigns and we wrote a new product and it had progressed pipe on. Stuff actually moves forward without me because we've got senior people with accountability and a bonus structure that incentivizes them. As such they come into work every day without me. So I think in a way being really committed and put down some roots and commit to not just being in one place but also commit to your people they commit back to you and it lets you have even more freedom than if you pursued this digital nomad thing hardcore. Joe: And the reality is that it's not just the digital nomad thing where you're having more freedom because you're not doing that. You can disconnect and recuperate on your honeymoon in Thailand on the beach for instance. But the beautiful thing is that while you are away you're not stressed about it and other people are working hard to make money for you. Bill: Yeah. Joe: They're getting paid for it and getting paid well for but that's really truly a beautiful thing. So you have 21, 22 people on staff. That can be one of the hardest things to do; it's to find good people. Do you have any secrets or tips on your process on how to find the right people and your interview process or techniques or just vetting them in getting to the cream of the crop? Bill: Yeah so as you alluded to hiring is the most important thing in business. And the more people I hire the more I realize how critical it is. Like the bigger, we get every time we hire somebody if I introduce one toxic person or one slacker into this group it poisons the whole well. So it gets harder and harder to get a job here as we get bigger and bigger which I don't know if I would get hired at my own company today. So we do a series of written application with there are some gotchas in there where you have to follow directions extremely precisely and if you don't you are disqualified. If you make it through the written application without stepping in it you get a phone screen. I try to keep those phone screens to 15, 20 minutes and during that time what I'm trying to figure out is A. do you really want this job or do you just apply to everything on the internet, B. are your salary expectations in line with what we intend to pay for this job, and C. are you somebody just off the top that I think has a positive personality that I want to work with. And you can do that in 15, 20 minutes if you would cut out the small talk; if you get right to it. Joe: And are you making every hiring decision or do you do the initial vetting or somebody else does it? Bill: So it used to be that I did everything. Now where at a point where my employees do the written application, phone screen, and the next bit of the process is a written assignment where it will say like in the case of if we're hiring somebody to work on Amazon we'll say here's one of our Asense what do you think could be improved? No length limit, go and we'll see when you get back. Or if we're hiring a graphic designer we'll say something like make an info graphic about go … something anybody can do, something that's pretty broad but you're going to know if somebody is a good graphic designer based on the effort that they put in and then the quality of that work output. And make sure homework assignments are good we typically bring in two to four for in person interviews and I sit in on the in person interview. And if you do well in the in person interview you're hired. And my message to the team is I'm never going to tell you we have … I'm never going to force you to hire someone you don't want to work with but I might veto somebody that I don't think is right for the company. Joe: Okay, so you get that certain veto power for sure. If they're not reporting directly to you, you let others make the decisions. Bill: Well up to the final interview, yes. Joe: Up to the final interview; got you. So if you're sitting with a group of e-commerce entrepreneurs that have physical products are you generally advocating bringing on staff and having your own warehouse as opposed to outsourcing or are you simply saying it's got to be right for you and you got to do what's right for your situation? Bill: Different models are good for different people. I think the … what I see myself as doing and the model that I've become convinced is very good in a lot of situations and people don't fully give a fair shape to is hiring full time employees and not hiring gig based contractors. And those full time employees … I think it's awesome if they're in the same physical location as you but even if they're not, if they're full time and you have video with them one on one every day and you create this personal relationship such that they don't have any other clients and such that they begin to build up a confidence about your business so you don't have to explain to them the task you want done at the beginning of every task. You want to build up this surf of confidence where they just know about your business and you can say hey do that and so much as widen it because they already work for you. So what I tend to advocate for is people really want to create this web of outsourcers or gig based people, I can say find a person … like you probably live in a town or near a town of a sizable amount of people and sizeable would be 100,000 or 200,000. Try to find somebody … consider finding somebody locally that's talented that's not a bottom of the barrel price type of person. Find a quality person locally and it will unlock you as a CEO because your time is way too valuable to be spent typing into at a box on Upwork in describing to someone how they should scrape locations from a website that you should not be doing that. So if you're willing to pay somebody $50,000 a year which if you're in the in the freelance world they're like holy crap it is like [inaudible 00:23:49.8] the money, right? But $50,000 a year buys you a college educated American in your town likely or less even who is probably pretty smart and got a good GPA. And he will come in every day and you can teach them. That's a good requirement. Joe: And be very very well. What about finding experts in certain areas that may not be available in your town? If you want to outsource your Facebook advertising and your Google advertising are you training and doing that in-house and putting them through courses and programs or are you hiring agencies to do that type of work? Bill: Yeah, so we … the answer is both with the preference for hiring and training. So when we're absolutely pinched we use agencies but we have hired and trained a bunch of people in Amazon specifically. I've put people through courses on Amazon. I put people through courses on Facebook ads. I put people through courses on YouTube because if you hire a smart person who did well in school you just say guess what this is graduate degree. I'm going to spend a couple thousand dollars, I'm going to put you through these courses, and I'm going to train you then on the fly. You're going to do … you're going to learn for 4 hours in the course and you're going to learn from the person you report to for 4 hours a day and before you know it you're up the curve in a month, maybe two. I find about two months is before is the curve until someone can be dangerous. Joe: Is there any particular online programs and courses that you always dwell that you go to? Bill: I've used Ezra's courses a fair bit; Ezra Firestone. I've used the guys at amazing.com, they operate a 40 bucks a month kind of subscription and there's a bunch of courses in there so I picked out a few. I've used the copyrighting course by [inaudible 00:25:29.4] for some people to just kind of learn and write e-commerce copy that converts. Those are ones that come to mind. Joe: Yeah for the folks that are- Bill: I basically look- Joe: I'm sorry Ezra's course is the Smart Marketer. We sat Ezra on the podcast. We actually just had a podcast go off, it will be a few weeks back once this airs with Bret Curry who created another course with Ezra on monetizing YouTube; smartmarketer.com you can find a lot of great courses there. I'm sorry, continue. Bill: There are others but if you invest a couple of thousand dollars in hiring someone you can create talent that you can't find in almost any city. I mean we live in this world where there is incredible amount of information available on the Internet in courses and it's relatively cheap. I mean a few grand you can … if you … people complain oh there's no Amazon expert, you can't hire them anywhere. Well, you can you should train them though. Joe: I love what you just said; you can create talent that you can't find by spending a couple thousand dollars on a course and finding the right person to go through it essentially getting their graduate degree. And you know what it does? It makes them employable for the rest of their life either with you or remotely if they decide to move on some day or maybe they'll become an entrepreneur themselves. That last point though, become an entrepreneur themselves, what do you do if anything in regards to non-competes? Because you're teaching a lot of people how to compete with you and they could step out of Elements Brands and perhaps go and launch their own business that might be competing with similar products. Do you have NDAs in place when you hire people? Bill: Yup, we do. We have non-competes and NDAs. I view it as once I train them and make them great it's now my responsibility to make sure they want to keep working for me. I want to give them access to nine soon to be 10 brands that they can work on. I mean I'm sure all the entrepreneurs out there listening remember you're like God I read all these articles but I can't do AB testing when I have 100 hits a week. Well I can teach them how to AB testing on a site that has 100 hits a minute. And you can do … pull in big leverage is just fun. So I got to make sure that they're having fun with me. And if somebody wants to go out and do their own thing I mean at this point nobody is running the whole business. My marketing folks are running marketing, they have no idea how the warehouse works. They have no idea how supply chain works. So it's harder than you would think for some of your employees to kind of see the whole business. And also … and this is the thing that I've really come to realize, I used to be of this mind that entrepreneurship is for everyone and everyone should be an entrepreneur and it is the best thing you could possibly do with your life. And I've started to realize that that's not true. There are a ton of people out there that don't want any part of this entrepreneurship thing and think it's stressful and uncertain and lonely and all these and they're just not cut … I don't even want to say they're not cut out for it. I'm saying their personality type is not fulfilled by it. So there's lots of really bright excellent people out there that are not entrepreneurs and they want to be employees and they want to be employed by a great company. And sometimes I interview people that I think they're to entrepreneurial and it makes them not a good fit. Joe: Right. And you know just to summarize everything I think you've done just that Bill, you've sort of … you're pulling big levers but you've checked all the boxes I think to someday have a sizable exit if you ever choose to do that. It could be 40, 50 years from now. It will be the one in buffet of the e-commerce world right there at Charlotte, North Carolina. But you're building amazing brands. You're really focused on building brands with great quality products and you're taking control of the whole process from beginning to end from the marketing to the fulfillment of it and you're taking care of your people. You're creating a local base of people that are going to focus on and think of your company first and helping building more value for the company, profits for the company that I have the feeling you go ahead and pay them back for through better facilities and more vacation time and bonuses and benefits and all that type of thing. You seem like a great guy to work for. If I ever decide to move on I might just try to fill up one of those applications but I think you'll probably stump me and I'll get thrown into the trash. Bill: We got a room in [inaudible 00:29:34.9] Joe. Joe: I won't pass. I won't pass, I know for sure. I'll just come down and have lunch with you instead. Bill, listen I know you've got to jump to another call. I appreciate your time thanks for sharing your story, your success on building a great brand, company environment, and not living that digital nomad lifestyle and creating more freedom for yourself. Hopefully, the folks will take some nuggets from this and do that as well. Bill: Yeah thanks for having me on Joe. Good to see you, man. Joe: Talk to you soon. Links and Resources: Element Brands Bill's Blog Bill's Twitter Upcoming Quiet Light e-commerce conference attendance: Prosper Show T & C Summit Blue Ribbon Mastermind CapCom Conference
Behind the scenes at SalesForce’s DreamForce event in San Francisco. On this episode Russell talks about being in San Francisco for the Sales Force event and what he has learned. Here are some of the insightful things on this episode: How going to the Sales Force event was similar to seeing the state championship when Russell was in 8th grade. How Sales Force showed Russell why it was necessary to build an ecosystem to solidify your place as category king. Why Russell believes Clickfunnels could be as successful as Sales Force only faster. So listen here to find out what kind of things Russell is learning at Sales Force, and how those things could help you in your own business. ---Transcript--- Good morning everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I am streaming from the Golden Gate Bridge. Hey everyone, so welcome to this episode. I am literally 100 feet away from the Golden Gate Bridge, we snuck down past the “Do not walk past this spot” signs. And we snuck down here to get some videos and some footage, and we’re waiting for the sun to rise on the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s all cloudy and foggy and it’s starting to appear, but there’s like 15 or 20 minutes until the sun pops, so I thought, I need to just bring you up on some cool things I want to share with you guys. So a couple of things, I am out right now in San Francisco, obviously, at Sales Force’s big, huge event, it’s called Dream Force. And when we decided to come out here everyone kept asking, “Why are you going to Sales Force’s event, what’s the point of it?” So I wanted to kind of tell that story so you understand why we’re here, and the reason why I got excited, because hopefully it will help you guys as well. So Sales Force is the biggest company in my world. I think they said that last year they did 13 billion dollars in sales, this event had 171,000 businesses that came to it. So my little Funnel Hacking Live, that I thought was so cool and so big, is tiny in comparison. Anyway, it’s funny because as we were talking about coming out here, and thinking we should come, I remembered a story that I thought was really, really important. So when I got started wrestling, I was in 8th grade when I started wrestling. So I started a little older than most people, most people start when they’re kids. But for whatever reason I started in 8th grade and I remember in 8th grade I kind of liked wrestling, it was okay. But the end of the season there was a state tournament, my Dad took me to the state tournament. So we went there and I remember sitting in the stands and watching the people in the state of Utah, the best of the best, wrestling and competing. And I remember in the finals, two guys from my high school ended up in the finals, and they both ended up winning. One was named Matt Wood, and our heavy weight, I can’t remember his name off the top of my head right now, but they both made it to the finals and they both won. And I remember sitting there watching it and I was like, “Oh my gosh, there’s these guys from my high school who won a state title.” I remember going back home and I was like, “I wanna be a state champ.” Like that just, that thought went through my head and I was like, “I’m gonna be a state champ.” And I set that as my goal, I set it as a target and I started going and started running and started moving. And fast forward now a couple of years, my junior year in high school I won the state title. It was awesome and amazing and everything and it was kind of cool. And fast forward I went to college, and some of you guys know in high school I took second place in the nation, I was an All-American and then I went to college. In college I never went to the NCAA tournament, I never went to nationals, I never saw those things. I had it as a goal, I was like “I wanna be a national champ.” But I’d never actually seen it. In fact, the first time I actually went to the NCAA wrestling championship was after I had graduated from Boise State, which means I never actually made it to the tournament. I missed my goal every year, I never actually made it. And I remember thinking one day, I actually had a friend, BJ Wright, and he told me his dad used to always take him to National tournaments, and because of that he didn’t care about being a state champ, he just wanted to be a national champ, he kept going trying to be a national champ. That was his goal. I remember thinking, “Gosh, I love that my dad took me to the State Championship, he gave me a goal and I was able to see it and I was able to go run and achieve that thing.” But because I’d never seen a national tournament, I didn’t know what it looked like. It’s hard to run towards something you haven’t seen. You know what I mean? And I remember always thinking, “Man, I wish I would have went in high school to the NCAA wrestling tournament. So I could have seen it, because then I would have known what the goal was.” I would have seen, this is what I’m trying to get to. So fast forward now until this event. Last year a bunch of guys from my team came out to this event, and they were telling me, “there are 170,000 businesses, they shut down San Francisco, there’s like 50 different place….” I think they said there’s 2600 keynote speakers that are happening this weekend. It’s massive, it’s like a whole different level. And as they were telling me about it, I was like, “Oh my gosh, that’s the next level.” I was like, I look at the market that I’m in and I was like okay when I got started and we were looking at things, who was out there? Bill Glazer had GKIC and that was the biggest event company. And then Ryan Diess had Traffic and Conversion, and Infusion Soft was there and Lead Pages….I had these known people and I was able to see who the other people we’re trying to..not compete against, I guess in some situations compete against. But I saw those things. I’d seen GKIC with 1200 people, I know what that event looks like, so I was able to go out there and build a company and get to a 1200 people event. And then I saw Ryan Diess and those guys had done Traffic Conversion with like 3000 people, so last year we’re like, boom, we got to 3000 people. But now it’s like, we surpassed all these people, it’s like what’s the next thing? I don’t know where to go. So we found out Sales Force had 170000 businesses here, they do 13 billion dollars a year in sales. I was like, that’s the next level. I need to go and witness, go see it, just like I needed to go to the national tournament. Because as soon as I could see it, then it becomes real, then I got a goal in my mind. In some of the podcast episodes in the past I’ve talked a little bit about this, how I’ve just, it’s been harder and harder for me to see the vision because we’ve kind of surpassed everything, all the known things, all the known levels that I was aware of that I knew I wanted to try to get. I had seen those levels, and we worked toward them and we surpassed them, and we had accomplished those goals. Now it’s like trying to figure out, okay, now we got these goals what’s the next goal? So we came here to be able to see here’s the next target. And it’s funny because even on the way here, literally we’re coming here and I’m like, in my mind I’m like, it’s so big. 170,000 businesses, I don’t even know if I want to go that path. It just seems so hard and so big and so far away. And then yesterday we got here. So we flew in, in the morning, and after we got here, we started and we went and got our name badges and we started experiencing it. We started walking around and I noticed some really, really cool things. So if you’ve read the Expert Secrets book, you know a lot of my beliefs on how to build your own culture. And we talked about, your tribe has to call themselves something right, they have to be something like a future based cause they’re all moving towards, all these different things. And I started as we were going around, I started noticing and watching all these things. I looked at, Sales force is the name of the company, Dream Force is the name of the event, and then when you come inside of it, all the themeing and branding for their company is all around this camping theme. So they had this thing called Trail Head, and Trail Head is their company success platform. Someone comes to Sales Force they go to Trail Head and Trail Head walks you through the steps you need to go on to be successful. So you have Trail Head. So then you have, they call their people Trail Blazers, so everyone is like, “I’m a trail blazer” so you look at all the success story videos that they showed, “Here’s so and so, a trail blazer.” They show all the companies that use Sales Force, “Here’s this company, they’re a trail blazer.” And associating everybody, if you look at all the signage everywhere it’s interesting. All their sponsors, instead of having a sponsorship sign, they took the sponsors and had their designers match it. Let’s say IBM was one of their sponsors, “IBM is a trail blazer.” And then they have all the design and branding of IBM but mixed in theirs, so it’s like this co-branding opportunity. So now it’s like all these companies almost taking credit for their success. Like, “Oh IBM is a trail blazer. So and so is a trail blazer.” Similar with what we do with our Funnel Hackers, right. Lady Boss is Funnel Hackers, all the different companies we work with are Funnel Hackers. So that was really fun to see. It’s interesting, in each of their core departments, so they have their service delivery department, they’ve got their…I can’t even think off the top of my head, it’s too early in the morning right now. But each department has an actual character. So they have these characters who are on the trail head, and they’re all trail blazers, it was just cool the way the branding all synced together. So it’s fun to see some of those things. Alright, so that’s the first thing. The next thing is I’ve been talking more about this, I don’t know if I’ve talked about it much on the podcast, but there’s a really cool book that I had my entire team read called Play Bigger. And Play Bigger is this book about creating your own category, I could probably do a whole podcast episode on it. But the basic gist is that in every market there is a category king and the category king sucks up like 90% of the business, and then the last 10% is fought over by everybody else. If you look at, for any of us, when we’re developing a business, a company, you don’t want to be one of the 10% that is fighting over the scraps inside of a category. You want to develop your own category. So that book, Play Bigger is all about how to design and develop your own category, it’s really, really good. A lot of similarities to the Expert Secrets and creating your new opportunity, which is interesting. But I digress, we’ll come back to that another day. But one thing that’s interesting is that first phase of becoming a category king is you create the need to find a category, the second phase then is you build an ecosystem to support the category. So you’ll notice in Clickfunnels in the next month or so, us launching things that will be all about us building an ecosystem for the category that we own. We are the sales funnel category, so we’re building this ecosystem. So it was cool here as well, to see the ecosystem. If you read Marc Benioff’s book called Behind the Clouds, you’ll see strategically he is like, “We’re building this thing that’s the Sales Force, but we need to build an ecosystem for the people who can build off our platform. Our product isn’t a product, our product is a platform.” And you start looking at what you’re creating as a platform instead of just a product. That’s when you can start building out your own ecosystem. So I know for some of you guys, you’re just in a spot where you’re just building a product and you’re selling it and that’s awesome. But I want you to start thinking, I want you to open your vision of like, what’s a platform I could create? You know for me, obviously it’s a software platform, but there’s platforms that aren’t just software platforms. There are training platforms, anything can be a platform if you just shift how you think about it, right. So anyway, they built this platform, Sales Force, and then they built this ecosystem where people could plug into the platform and businesses could be built on top of it. In fact, it’s funny when we launched Clickfunnels, I remember thinking about Infusion Soft, where Infusion Soft has built this ecosystem of people that all these jobs have been created because of Infusion Soft. So when we were building CLickfunnels we were like, “We want to do the same thing. We want to build this really cool platform where there’s this whole ecosystem, this whole, all these companies pop out and become companies because of CLickfunnels.” In fact, a little while ago we were doing the math on how many jobs have been created because of Clickfunnels and it’s fascinating. There’s the jobs of our employees, then there’s the jobs of our customers, all the 65000 customers, all their employees. Then there’s the external jobs, the copywriters, the designers, the programmers, all the other things. I think we were doing the math and we were trying to be conservative, and our conservative guess was 250,000 jobs were created because of Clickfunnels. We’ve created a whole ecosystem of people. But what Sales Force has done, they’ve taken it to the next level which is like, it was blowing my mind. We’re walking through these things and we see, they had vendor booths right, and the vendor booths were like tiny. I think some of the booths people were paying, the small ones were 3 or 4 feet wide, it was like 20 grand a booth. The bigger ones were like 150-200 grand. The really big ones were like a million dollars for these booths. They were beautiful booths right. But each of the booths, they all integrate with Sales Force. It wasn’t just like, “Here’s the sponsor.” It was like, “Here’s the sponsor, a Sales Force company.” Everything is cobranded back to it. So all these people are building products that plug into sales force and now it’s like, Sales Force is expanding its reach with all these other companies, even though they don’t own those companies. They don’t hire the employees, they don’t hire the developers, but every time a new company plugs in, Sales Force grows because they built this platform. They are the category king of CRM’s, so anybody else who builds anything that’s related to CRM has to plug into them. So all those 10% of people who are fighting over the scraps, instead of not having part of that business, you open up the ecosystem and plug people into your platform and now when those people grow, you grow. Everybody grows together, which is how you maintain your status as the category king. Ah, so much fascinating marketing theory I could go into if I had more time. But alas the sun is rising over the Golden Gate Bridge and it’s looking beautiful, so cool. Anyway, what was cool watching this, as all these companies who were there, they weren’t just sponsoring the booth, they were all people who were part of the ecosystem, they’re all Sales Force partners. And you know, I don’t know how many hundreds of millions of dollars they made just on the booth space alone, but it was really cool to see that. Alright, I’m going to share one more thing and then I think I’m going to wrap it because my nose is starting to run and it’s getting cold, my fingers are cold. But Dana Derricks who is one of my favorite people, he was at Inner Circle meeting last week, and he shared something that was really, really powerful that relates back to what we’re talking about here. So he was talking about, if you read Dotcom Secrets, you know I talk a lot about the concept of the Value Ladder, right. Someone comes in on your value ladder, if they receive value they naturally want to ascend up to the next level of the value ladder. And if they find value there, they’ll naturally ascend to the next one, and they’ll keep going up this value ladder. So Dana drew this value ladder, he’s like, “Russell’s been preaching this for 10 years, here’s the value ladder. What’s interesting if you look at this value ladder on the left hand side, what’s happening? All the marketing, all the selling, all the things that you are currently doing, it’s increasing desire for a thing.” So if you think about the books I’ve written, the webinars I do, the products I sell, everything I’m doing, I’m trying to sell my products, but what’s really happening is I’m creating desire in the marketplace for sales funnels and for all the things around sales funnels. I’m creating this huge desire. So that’s the left hand of this value ladder. What Dana did, at the top of the value ladder he went down the other way and built the backside and went down, so it looked almost like a mirror image of the value ladder. So it ended up looking like this pyramid that goes up and goes back down the other side. He said, “What’s interesting, if you look at it from what Russell talked about earlier,” I had talked about this concept of category kings and building your own ecosystems, “If you look at it from that standpoint, the left hand side we’re creating desire,” and this is the whole supply and demand, “so it increases the demand for it. So the left hand of the value ladder is all about increasing demand and desire for the thing you’re selling, the category that you’re developing and designing, and then the right hand side of the value ladder…” I wish I could draw this out for you because it would be more clear, but this where because of the demand the left hand side is going up, it’s creating this whole market place. There’s now demand, I just look at my world, because of everything we talk and teach about, now there’s demand for copywriters, for logo designers, for graphic designers, for funnel builders, for traffic generation. All these new jobs and opportunities and things have become more desirable. There’s more desire, there’s more need for it, the demand has gone up. So the second side of your business now, the backs of the value ladder is where you create the supply, you create the ecosystem. Sales Force comes out and does 13 billion dollars in sales talking about CRM, they have this huge market place of 171,000 businesses who are here, who knows how many are actually using their platform, it’s insanely big, they’ve created this huge demand for it. So now the second side of their business is they fill up the supply. So now all these other companies are able to plug in to Sales Force’s machine and Sales Force is tied into all these things, and Sales Force is getting paid on every sing interaction. Somebody with, every single booth that was there at this place, any of these booths, when they plug into Sales Force, they become a Sales Force company. They’re not necessarily getting purchased by Sales Force, some of them are, but they’re plugging into it, their platform is integrated with the other platform. They plug into it, now all those people when they plug in, and I think Sales Force calls their’s the app store or something, similar to apple, what apple does with their app store. But their platform it’s like, you plug into their platform and then you get access to the whole sales force universe. So all this huge built up demand, then you are creating, the people who are plugged into the other side of the ecosystem are creating the supply to feed the demand and it’s interesting. Man, for me to go really deep on this topic for you guys, it would take like an hour to kind of map it out on a white board. So hopefully I’m not doing it too shallowly or missing out on anything. But understand as you define your category, like “I’m going to become the category king in this business, in this market.” Then on the other side it’s all about you can now create things that fuel this demand. You can make money on both sides of the value ladder. For us we’re launching Funnel Rolodex, which is this whole ecosystem of providers, and we’ll make a tiny transaction on it, every of the services that happens on this thing, but we’ve created a demand for it. We have 65,000 customers who are demanding sales funnel services and people are trying to find them now and it’s just not been organized. We’re building this unified marketplace where everything is together and then we’ll plug that supply into the huge demand we’ve created, and we make money on both sides of the transaction. Then our customers become more successful because they have access to this huge supply and then more customers come in and then it just kind of keeps building itself I think. It helps building your dominance as the actual category king. So cool, so fascinating. So there you go guys. So that’s why we’re here. We’re here because I wanted to see Sales Force. I wanted to see what the next level was. And it’s funny because coming in yesterday I was a little intimidated. But after sitting in that room with I don’t know, 5,000 other businesses and watch Marc Benioff deliver his keynote and seeing the people, and seeing the software, and seeing the innovations, seeing the ecosystems, seeing all the stuff, I don’t know about you but me personally, I look at that and I was like, “This is doable.” In my head ahead of time it was so big, it was just like the wrestling national tournament, I’d never been there so in my head it was this huge deal, so because it was this huge deal I was freaking out, I was stressed out and I choked every single year trying to get there because in my head it was a bigger deal than it was. I remember when I actually went to the national tournament for the first time, I remember sitting there and I was watching it and I was like, “This is just another tournament. It’s on a bigger stage, but I could compete at this level. I wish I would have seen this 5 years ago because I would have shifted everything, I would have had more belief, because when you believe you can actually accomplish.” So for me it was the same thing. I flew in here to San Francisco yesterday scared and nervous and awkward. And after seeing it, I was like “Oh my gosh, what they’ve created is amazing but it’s doable.” I see the path now. For us to create something like this, we could do it, we can do it. The path has been trail blazed for us, we use their terminology for it. It’s there, and even from a financial standpoint. When Sales Force went public they had the same sales revenue as Clickfunnels does today. So it’s like, and I think they’re like 8 years ahead of us. So in like 8 years from now, this could be Clickfunnels. I’m going to do it a lot faster though because we got funnels and they don’t, so we’ll speed up the process. But now I see the vision, I see the direction, I see it’s possible, and now I know it’s possible we can go and we can accomplish it, because now we believe. So that’s why I came here. So for you guys, hopefully there’s a bunch of lessons here in this for you guys. Lesson number one, first lesson for you is to go see, whatever you’re aspiring to become like, go and find that and experience it so you can see it, so it’s not this scary weird thing, but it’s tangible like, “Oh my gosh, that’s what it is. I can do that.” Once you see it, you can believe it. Then you can go and do it. So that’s number one, number two I would read the book Play Bigger to figure out what your category is. We were talking about this as a team, we didn’t understand these principles when we launched Clickfunnels, but at the time, if you look at this, if we would have come in and said, “Clickfunnels is a CRM.” Sales Force was, is the category king. And if you look at what’s fascinating throughout history and throughout time, almost never, very rare does a category king ever get disrupted. Once you define your spot as the category king, you’re pretty much there unless the government interaction comes and shuts you down, or something like that. But other than that, if you define the category and you become the king, you’re there, you’re not losing it. So if we would have come in and been like, “Clickfunnels, we are the best CRM in the world.” we never would have had success. Infusion Soft has been marketing automation. If we came out like, “We’re the best marketing automation platform in the world.” We wouldn’t have succeeded. If we came out, “We’re the best landing page builder in the world.” We wouldn’t have succeeded because there were defined category kings in each of those categories. When we came out we said, “We are the best sales funnel builder in the world.” We were the only sales funnel…well, there were some crappy ones. But for the most part, we were the only sales funnel builder in the world. We define the category, then we created the category and now we are the category kings. And we’re in a spot now where unless I screw up or the government shuts us down or our servers explode, we’re not leaving. We have carved out our spot there. So for you, it’s like you gotta figure it out. We easily could have positioned ourselves as a landing page builder, we could have positioned ourselves as a these other things. But we didn’t, we transitioned and we created our own category. So for you, if you’re in this spot where you’re like, “Oh my gosh, there’s a category king in my market.” You can keep fighting over the 10% of the scraps or you can say, “How do I redesign this category where I am the only one there? Where I can become the category king?” It’s the shift from CRM to sales funnels, from Marketing Automation to sales funnels, from landing pages to sales funnels, you know what I mean. That was the shift for me, that was the shift for Clickfunnels, what’s your shift? That’s the next thing. And the third big take away from this hopefully is, after you figure out the category and you’re creating all this demand and desire for the product and services you’re selling, then the third step in this process is how do you come back and how do you create the ecosystem to support yourself as the category king? If you build a strong ecosystem there’s no way you can crumble. I think the strongest thing that Sales Force has, is not their software, their software is not that good. I think their movement is pretty cool, a lot of their branding is cool, but I think honestly, the most powerful thing that Marc Benioff did when they built Sales Force was they opened up their app store and they built their ecosystem. When I look at this thing here in San Francisco, and I wish I could take you all on this journey with me and you could walk around and see this thing, it’s insane. 171,000 businesses are here, the entirety of San Francisco is shut down, literally. I can walk into any restaurant in San Francisco and if you don’t have your Sales Force badge on they will not let you in. And if they let you in, all the food is free. Sales Force paid for all the food in San Francisco this week. They shut the city down. It’s literally insane. If I look at, what was the core thing that actually caused that, again, it’s not the software. The core thing I believe, what has maintained them as the category king and continued to level them up, is the building of the ecosystem, the focus on the ecosystem. The ecosystem is the foundation that solidifies your spot in the market. So think about that for yourself. What is the ecosystem for what you’re building? You’re building up all this demand and desire through the products and services you’re selling through your value ladder, and the back side of that, what are the things you can create and orchestrate to create an ecosystem for people to plug into? An app store for people to plug into? Whatever that is to fulfill the demand that you’re creating. For some of you guys it’s going to be, you’re going to certify people to do the training that you do. That’s an ecosystem. Some of you guys are going to be building, you have your software, opening your platform. That’s one of our big initiatives over the next year is open form platform, so that everyone can be building on Clickfunnels. We want 100, we want 1000, we want 10,000 app developers developing amazing apps that plug into Clickfunnels. That’s part of the vision because that’s part of the ecosystem. I want to open up the marketplace so that there are jobs that we’re facilitating. We’re taking this pent up demand and desire we’ve been building and plugging it into all the people who want to be doing the services, and plugging those things in, as we do that those companies will grow dramatically, the software companies will grow, all these people who could be our competitors will all become our partners. And it will solidify us even stronger as the category king and keep us stable. The same thing you should be thinking as well. So this was a long one. There’s a lot of cool things in there. I hope you guys got some value from it. Go and figure out who your Sales Force is, and go to the big stage and check it out and be inspired and see the path of where you gotta go next. Alright guys, with that said, my fingers are frozen. I’m going to go and watch the sunrise here on the Golden Gate Bridge. We appreciate you guys. If you haven’t, if you don’t follow me on Instagram, you totally should because I’ve been Instagramming all this. You would have seen me today sneaking past the “Do not trespass” sign, sneak down to where I’m filming right now, you’d see us doing all sorts of crazy stuff. We’re filming our life in the Instagram stories all the time. You get to meet my daughters, my kids, my wife, everyone. So if you want to hang out with us in real time as we’re going on these journeys, you should go follow me on Instagram. Just go to instagram.com/Russellbrunson, if you have the app on your phone just log on 5 times a day and just check in and see what we’re doing. A lot of fun stuff is happening every day. It’s basically my reality show. So if you want to know what in the world I’m doing day by day, you want to see while we were at Sales Force, you could be watching us behind the scenes, see me at Benioff’s keynote, all those things are happening. Tomorrow, actually tonight, tonight we’re flying to Chicago and then we’re going to be jumping in Grant Cardone’s new Gulf Stream Jet, and we’re flying and we’re going to be building a funnel for him, with him, 30,000 feet in the air, it’s going to be insane. And all that stuff will be Instagrammed. So if you want to like follow these things in real time, come join our reality show over at Instagram.com/russellbrunson go watch our stories, because we’re living this marketing lifestyle and there you can kind of follow me on these journeys. Alright guys, appreciate you all, thanks for listening to the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, take a screen shot of it on your phone and then go and share it on Instagram, share it on Facebook, and tag #marketingsecrets, and tag me that way I can see as well, that would be really cool. Appreciate you guys sharing, appreciate you listening, and we’ll talk to you guys soon. Bye everybody.
Behind the scenes of what I’m currently doing to simplify and sexify my messages. On this episode Russell talks about how much time he spends simplifying his presentations so that even his kids could understand his concepts. Here are some of the other things to listen for in this episode: Why it’s so important to cut out the techno babble and complex concepts from your message. Why you need to make your message sexy or intriguing to the audience. And why its important for your audience that you spend an enormous amount of time learning a concept and then simplifying it for them. So listen here to find out why Russell thinks its so important to simplify and sexify your message. ---Transcript--- Hey what’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets Podcast. It’s Saturday and I’m getting ready for the big Funnel Hacking Live Event. Hey everyone, just wanted to jump on, I know that this last week and next week I’ve been working so much on presentations and slides and getting ready for Funnel Hacking Live, I haven’t done many podcasts and I just wanted to kind of communicate and connect with everybody because I’ve been thinking about you a lot. There’s just so much stuff happening. Anyway, there’s a lot that goes into events. The venue, the people, the speakers, there’s so much stuff, the organization, the schedule, the timing, everything. So for the last six months or so we’ve been spending time doing everything else, and now it’s like, it was two weeks away last week, now we’re 10 days away as of right now. So for me it was like, okay it’s the last two weeks, it’s all about I need to get my presentations done. And it’s interesting, most, I don’t know, it’s weird. Most people who do their own events nowadays, they don’t speak very much at their own events, which is weird to me, it doesn’t quite make sense. But that’s what people do. A couple of ones I went to this year, and they were great events, nothing against that, it’s just the promoter didn’t speak as much. I went to Ryan Rand’s event, which was really neat, and I asked him, “Are you nervous? What are you speaking about?” and he’s like, “I don’t speak at my own presentations.” I was like, “Oh you don’t?” He’s like, “Yeah, at my event I like to bring people in and then I let them speak.” I was like, oh that’s interesting. Then I was at Grant Cardone’s event and he came and didn’t speak hardly at all either and I was like, I would die….If I had a stage like Grant Cardone’s I would have been on stage like 20 hours a day every single day, just leveraging that because that’s such an important thing, you know what I mean? And then if you look at just different ones. For me, I feel like.. I know that when Traffic Conversion, when it first came out I used to go because I loved hearing Ryan and Perry speak. Both those guys are geniuses and I loved hearing from them and as Traffic Conversion grew, they started speaking less and less and less. Now I think the last T&C had like 50-60 speakers and they maybe spoke once each. And it was just like, I don’t even, this isn’t worth me going anymore because I wanted to hear from them. I look at people who’ve got tons of longevity, someone like Tony Robbins. When he does his events he’s on stage for 50 hours in a weekend. I feel like, I don’t know, I always want to be there. I want to be the one inside of it. So because of that, for this event I’ve got 6 presentations I’m creating. And of course I’m not someone who can just make a, I don’t want to go just off the top of my head. I want to make these impactful and emotional and strong. So every presentation the design I’m spending on each one, that alone is amazing. The last podcast talked about figuring out the hook, the headline, and the framework and I spent a week just doing that on the six presentations. I’m only about half way through all the framework, which is sad because I was trying to get it all done this week so next week I could work on slides. But as I was doing this, I was trying to think, I’ve been talking to a lot of people on my team, people at the event, a lot of people just trying to figure things out. I think the reason why I’ve been successful, so I’m saying this for people who are creating courses or content or products or events or slides or presentations or anything, because I think it’s a hint and I hope it helps because that’s the whole point of why I wanted to jump on here. I wish you guys knew how much time I spend trying to figure out how to simplify concepts. I think that the biggest thing that keeps people back from success when they’re presenting is techno babble. If you’ve read the Expert Secrets book, I talk about techno babble. We use these huge vocabularies, and my vocabulary is very simple, it’s very easy. I’m always trying to simplify. If you look at these standing whiteboards here and here, those who are watching. And here and here, and then I’ve got papers all over the ground here. This is me taking a concept and writing it out, writing it out again, and again trying to simplify it so it’s so simple that I could explain it to my kids. So simple I could understand it. And I don’t think people spend the time. If you knew, it’s Saturday night at 6:24 pm, I’m sitting here trying to simplify this one section of a presentation because it needs to be so simple that people understand it. I think that instead we think that we’re so smart and we use our techno babble and our learning to show how intelligent we are, but all it does is alienate the audience and pushes them away from you. So I think that’s one of my super powers, but it’s not something that’s magical. It’s me sitting here for 10 hours trying to figure out one presentation, how to simplify it and make it simpler and simpler until it’s simple. For all of you guys out there, I’d spend more time on that. Try to simplify things. Simplify your vocabulary, pull the big words out, pull the complex things out. See if you can explain what you’re doing in a doodle graph. If you can’t then it’s too complex. Some of you guys are like, “Well mines, I couldn’t do mine in a doodle graph.” No, you could. When I, we did a thing in network marketing program a while ago and they wanted me to do a video explaining the comp plan and it was way over my head anyway. So I had John on my team go through and he watched, I don’t know, 12 plus hours of video of people explaining the comp plan from the lawyers and the marketers and all sorts of stuff. He went through and tried to explain it to me and it took like 4 or 5 hours for him to explain to me. Then I had it all on a whiteboard and I was like okay, how to make this simple? And it took me another 2 or 3 days to simplify it to a point where it’s like, “Oh, that’s really, really easy.” So I just wanted to, I don’t know, for you guys who are, and this is kind of to the audience who’s presenting and experts and things like that. First off, continue to publish your stuff. That’s one big key I want to put out there. Don’t, I don’t know, your longevity of you as a person, as a personality, has to do with how much time you put out there. Now, a tangent on that, I’m very strategic. At my events I spend a lot of time on people coming there. I don’t speak at many other people’s events anymore because I want, I also don’t want to be the guy who’s at every event speaking, because you lose your supply and demand type thing there. But my own event, I want to be the one there. I want to make it so this is a venue people come to and they’re going to come because “I’m going to hear six whole new presentations from Russell that I’ve never heard before, that he’s never talked about on the podcast.” It’s this unique thing and I want to give that experience to people. And so, I think for your own things, do that kind of stuff. Be willing to do it. Second is simplify things as much as you can. And then third, I don’t know how to teach this, but try to make things sexy. I could have said, “This presentation is how to get traffic to your website.” Or “How to increase your social media profiling.” Or whatever. But instead we made it sexy. I read these headlines to you guys during the last event. Like, “Conversation Domination. How to get your dream clients addictively binge watching you on every platform that they live on. Warning, this aggressive approach is only for those who truly believe in their message.” You look at that and you’re like, okay that’s a cool headline Russell. But we sat here for like 3 hours going back and trying to make it easier. So for you, you’ve got to put the time in to simplify your message and make it sexy and figure out the hook. Spend time doing that. I wish you guys could all get a glimpse at how much time I spend on that part of it, because I don’t think people understand that. They just put something together and go out there. And it’s like, no, that’s the valuable part. That’s what makes you valuable to your audience, your ability to go through and collect information, ideas and things like that. I did a podcast before how your job is to think for a lot of other people. You’re doing that and then bringing it back to somebody in a simple format and they’re like, ‘Oh, cool. I could actually do that.” So that’s what your job is to do. You’re curating all this stuff and then bringing it back in the most simple form possible to give to people. But you’ve got to spend the time doing that. You have put in the energy, the effort to think through those things for them, simplify them and give them in a way that they can do it. I don’t know how to teach that other than, I want you guys to be aware of how much time I spend doing it because then you might realize, “Oh I don’t spend any time doing that. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I should spend a Saturday here in my sweats in my office just thinking through how to simplify this for people, because it’s meant the world to me, and I think it’s helped me to build an audience and get followers and people listening to me because I’ve been good at that. I hope that helps. I don’t know, I’m not the best in the world. I still talk to fast, I mumble, I have all sorts of quirks and things that are strange. I know some people don’t like me at all, which is totally cool. But that’s one thing I’ve been good at and it’s helped a lot of people. I look at my books, Dotcom Secrets, Expert Secrets, they’re not my original ideas, it’s me reading a billion things, trying a bunch of stuff, and then putting it into a format that’s as simple as possible. That’s why I doodle things out. I’m trying to doodle it so you’ll be like, “Oh there’s the doodle, that’s what he’s thinking.” So for you, it’s figuring out simplify, simplify, simplify. Cut out the techno babble, make things sexy, make things interesting, spend that extra time to do that because it’s worth it. If I can do that for 6 presentations in a 2 week period of time, that’s doing it for all of them, plus then creating slides for all of them on top of everything else I’m doing for this event, I guarantee you can do for one presentation or with your perfect webinar that you’re doing. I’m guessing a lot of times if your webinar’s aren’t converting it’s because you’re too complex. Simplify the story, simplify the process, simplify those things for people so they get it. Make them sexy, make the hooks good, make it intriguing and curiosity driven because those are the keys. Anyway, that’s it you guys. I’m going to get back to work. I gotta make this thing sexy and simplify it so hopefully sometime today I can go take a nap. Alright appreciate you all, for those coming to Funnel Hacking Live, I cannot wait to see you. It’s going to be amazing and hopefully this event will change your business, but more importantly I want it to change your life. So I’ll see you guys there. Bye everybody.
A few people have asked me what my takeaways are for attending events like Grant Cardone’s 10X GrowthCon, Traffic & Conversion, or Social Media Marketing World. These are my thoughts :)
My guest today is Jared Warner from 123 Get Found. He helps people grow and scale their companies with effective online marketing. He basically helps companies get found on the busy, crowded web. It’s all about Getting Found, Getting Results & Getting Smart, but what does that all mean? As Jared says there’s only three things that really matter in business: Am I getting found online? Am I getting results from getting found online? Am I getting smart as I move forward with my online campaigns? Step 3 is really about understanding the economics between steps 1 and 2 and this is something many companies overlook. Are you getting value out of their online campaigns? You have to know your cost per lead and lifetime value of those leads. Without knowing this information it’s not impossible, but it’s very difficult to scale your business accordingly. Getting smart teaches you where you should stop putting your money, and where you should put your money. In the end you’ll get far better results with the exact same budget you previously had. You end up spending your money more effectively. GETTING FOUND is about your sources of TRAFFIC. The more traffic you can create the more often you will be found. Being a guest on podcasts and webinars, attending live events, creating links and referrals, ADWORDS, SEO and even print advertising are ways of being found. You need to be able to measure your results and this is difficult to do with print advertising, which is why Jared is not a huge fan and does not delve into this area for his clients. The next step is to what extent have you been found? Did we get 10,000 or 100,000 visits to our website. How many phone calls did we get? How many downloads occurred, or how many opt in requests did we receive? You then need to work out how much did we spend to bring in 10,000 or 100,000 visits to our website? From this information you can work out the cost per per lead. Jared has attended BNI and other networking events, and he points out that it doesn’t cost you a lot of money to attend, but it does cost you a lot of time, and time is money, but in the end it comes down to how many referrals did you get? What was your ROI, not just for your money, but also for your time? How did Jared learn these techniques? Jared learnt how to do this effectively by actually doing it in his own business. It’s not just theory. Many business people make the mistake of thinking just because they have a business and a website, they’re in business, but this is wrong. This is simply step 1 of a 100 steps. Going Out Of Business Signs Why do people spend money on billboards telling people they’re going out of business? It’s dumb decisions like this that put people out of business in the first place. What they spend on billboards could be used effectively using online marketing and they may have been able to save their business. Ideas Lose Momentum Jared acts quickly and never lets and idea sit in his head too long. Ideas lose momentum if you don’t take action on them immediately. Enthusiasm for an idea can be lost if you don’t take the first few steps to make it a reality. If Jared has an idea, he immediately buys the domain name, because domain names are like real estate, once you have it it’s yours. He then builds a website around the idea, but if he doesn’t like the idea after a period of time, he moves on to his next idea. Not every idea is worth pursuing past the initial first few steps, but you have to take those steps to work this out. What’s more important, having a website that looks really good, or having an average website and being found? Both are important. First, you’ve got to have a clean polished image, because this is a reflection of you, but you’ve got to build specific landing pages to a specific offer. Forget about trying to build SEO, that’s almost out of date. For example if you’re advertising a specific service or product, you don’t send people to your homepage, that’s old thinking, it must go to a specific landing page that gives them the exact information they were looking for and the information you promoted. It takes a lot of time to do it right, but it’s worth the effort. What do people WANT? More importantly though, what do people really NEED. People say they want to be found, but actually they need cash in their pockets, so just getting found is not the full story. It’s about making the phone ring, selling a product, etc. Study Everyday Online marketing changes that much you need to keep up and Jared has attended 12 events so far this year (2017). He usually attends digital marketing, personal development and business events. But do you have the time to attend 12 events? If you don’t, this is why you outsource to someone that does, like http://www.123getfound.com/ For example he attends the Traffic & Conversion conference, but this is such a high level event, it’s not for the business owner who wants to learn a little bit more about FACEBOOK advertising. This is why some business owners should stay in their business and do what they’re good at. Use your skills to make money and use a company like 123 Get Found to do all the other stuff for you. When To Outsource When Jared started his own business he was doing everything, nothing was outsourced. He did his own coding, made his own videos and images, designed his own website and did all his own graphics. As a small business owner there are many hats you have to wear initially, from being your own graphic artist to being your own bookkeeper, but at some point you have to decide if you’re going to keep doing these non-money making activities that consume your time, or outsource to others with more skill. Outsourcing means things are done faster with better results However, you need to start bringing in revenue before you start outsourcing. You need customers, proof of concept and most importantly you need income. You need to get through the early stage growing pains. Your sales pitch needs to be in place, you need to know who your customers, before you contact someone like 123 Get Found. There’s no point getting found until you’ve got something in place to offer or sell. Getting Smart is about knowing how much revenue your generating from your leads. Ad Scent is about keeping the ad on the same trail, just like a bloodhound. You can’t direct people to your homepage when they’ve clicked a link that said you’re offering a 2-For-1 Sale. You had better be telling them the message they were chasing; otherwise they will leave your website quickly and never return. Just directing people to your homepage is not good enough anymore. Keep Videos Short A human’s attention span is less than that of a goldfish – therefore you need to have shorter videos. No one is going to give you 4-minutes, therefore 15 – 45 second videos are excellent and have been proven to work best. One thing all small business owner should do tomorrow? Start shooting short videos and use ad retargeting programs. Here is a link to Jared’s FREE Landing page where they can opt for more details: – the URL is: http://www.123getfound.com/rt Connect with Jared Warner socially Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JaredPPC You can send him a message and say you heard Jared on this show. Website: http://www.123getfound.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/l123getfound/ I’m sure you’ll agree that online marketing can be a mysterious and sometimes confusing place, but that’s why most businesses need someone like Jared Warner. If you have any question please feel free to email me directly at tf@tysonfranklin.com My latest book It’s No Secret There’s Money In Small Business is now available from all online booksellers, and if you live in Australia it can be ordered from most bookstores. Also, Book Depository deliver freight FREE worldwide.
In this podcast, I will be explaining a new product from AutoHook called Traffic Conversion Analysis (TCA). With real-time integration with dealership CRM platforms, TCA will inform dealers when consumers in their CRM have purchased a vehicle. This will eliminate waste and allow sales leaks to be addressed. TCA will also dealers to update CRM records to move from sales marketing campaigns to service marketing campaigns. Here is the press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/09/prweb14686223.htm Here is the Morrie's Automotive Group case study: http://bit.ly/TCA-Morries
Whether your business is in startup mode, reputable and well-established, or somewhere in between, traffic, conversion, and retention are essential elements to making it sustainable and profitable. In this episode, Adam walks you through the simple 3-step TCR advantage marketing strategy that gets you more traffic, more conversions, and better retention to generate more customers, sales, and revenue for your business. Episode Discussions: How to identify which segment of TCR you need to focus on One of the most valuable tools any business can have to convert traffic into leads The key premise behind an effective lead magnet Landing pages: What they are and why they’re the best way to deliver lead magnets Why retargeting ads are so effective and profitable Adam’s top 2 traffic source recommendations Reasons why email marketing remains to be well-worth the investment How content marketing boosts the effectiveness of Facebook Ads 3 important things to remember when creating lead magnets Ways to nurture your leads The biggest mistakes to avoid when focusing on customer retention 2:04 Identify which area of your business needs attention Laser-focus efforts on where the greatest opportunities are and what will provide the biggest impact Focus on traffic (step 1) if… You need more people to know about your business, visit your website or store, or call you. Focus on conversion (step 2) if... You have enough traffic and visitors but aren't turning them into paying customers. Focus on retention (step 3) if... You have traffic and customers but want to maximize revenue by increasing their lifetime value and selling them more of your products and services. 3:19 Step #1. Traffic Niche down and focus on your ideal target market. Ensure they're able to find you, learn about your business, and do business with your company. Find how to leverage it, how to get the best results, and the amount you're able to pay for it and still break even or return positive ROI Top 2 traffic source recommendations: Facebook Ads - short-term win content marketing - boosts effectiveness of Facebook ads, provides more sustainable and long-term approach. "When you combine these tools together, you create an unstoppable force destined for marketing domination." 4:57 Step #2. Conversion Offer something of value in exchange for prospect's contact information. Key premise behind an effective lead magnet: Drill down the needs of your customers Find out what information they're looking for their problems and how you can help Keep it simple, easy to digest, and positions you as an authority in your market Use a landing page to deliver magnet in exchange for their contact details. 6:53 Nurture leads via: email nurture sequence retargeting ads sales call webinar 7:13 Step #3. Retention Continued service and offering of new things for customers to buy. Use a combo approach of email marketing and retargeting ads. Retargeting ads ensures you stay top-of-mind allows you to advertise to a smaller area of the market Email marketing Provides remarkable return (some ROI numbers: 3800% and 4500%) Biggest mistakes: not providing a call to action (CTA) or opportunity to learn about your other products and services. Contact Adam: Adam@AdamErhart.com Click here to subscribe via iTunes Modern Marketing on Stitcher Modern Marketing on Pocket Casts
I apologize in advance, but on this one I get a liiiiiittle bit violent. On this episode Russell talks about reading the Amazon reviews of his first book and getting angry about the few negative reviews and relates it to an experience he had during his wrestling days. Here are some of the other interesting things to listen for in today's episode: Why Russell chose to read the Amazon reviews of his first book. How being angry at the negative reviews made him want to do something he did to a fellow wrestler years earlier. And why the human race is too high maintenance these days and why we need to stop complaining. So listen below to find out what one and two star reviews have to do with wrestling. ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, this is Russell. I hope you guys are doing awesome today. I am leaving my house for the first time and it's almost 4:00. I'm actually leaving my house and heading over to my buddies gym because I'm going to do something that nobody wants to do. It's going to force me to be accountable to myself and to other people. I'm going to get fat rolls pinched; it's called a pinch test. He pinches me and says, “Russell, this is your body fat percentage.” And as much as I do not want to know that, because I assume in my mind it's 7% like I was back when I was wrestling, when I find out that I'm probably at 20, 21, 22 I gotta admit I'm gonna cry a little bit. But then I'll at least have a standard to know where I'm at and then I'll have something to work against. A lot of us I think, our biggest problem in life is we just are winging it. We're like, “I feel like I'm doing good. I don't know.” But we don't have something to measure it against. Not gonna lie, I'm one of those people. In fact, that's probably why it's easier to cheat a lot of the time. Whether you're cheating on eating or exercise or whatever. You're like, “I'm not really measuring against anything, so I have no idea if I'm getting better or worse, therefore I might as well just eat this candy, because who really knows.” So this is gonna hold me accountable. I'm gonna do this right now, then I'm going to party it up all through Christmas vacation and then on Monday, the day after Christmas it begins. And I'm gonna be strict and it's gonna be awesome. So that's kind of my game plan of what I'm doing right now. But the reason I'm leaving today at 4:00 is because I'm in book writing mode. I literally, if you saw me right now, you would laugh. I look like a hermit, I have not shaved, I'm in my sweats/jammies. I've been in my room just writing, writing, writing and I got three chapters done today which is a lot of work, but it's turning out awesome, which means I probably have 5 left and I'll be done with this book. We'll have it over to the editors, actually the editors' editing while I'm writing. I finish a chapter and send it to the editor, because I'm not gonna lie, way beyond my deadline. I had to be extra to be like, “Hey do you mind just doing this weirdly, as I get them done.” So I sent her three chapters today and keep on moving forward. Hopefully I can get two more done tonight, that's my goal. Then I get out of being grounded. I'm literally grounded. I told my kids….they're like, “Dad, why aren't you going to your office.” “Because I'm grounded. I'm not allowed to leave. Too many friends at the office, they just talk. I have to be in this room locked down.” So that's what I've been doing. It's funny, as I'm writing this book, and one thing that inspires me to write this book is the response I got with the first book. How many people have told me so many good things? People, even my peer and mentors. I was so scared for some of friends to read my book. In fact, the person I was most scared of to read my book was, Rich Schefren, someone I totally look up to and respect. He's probably read more marketing books than anyone on Earth. In fact, if you Google Rich Schefren, book reading process….you will see a dude who is insane. He has a video on YouTube, 20 minutes long, totally worth the watch, but basically he reads the book and speed highlights it all. Then he goes and cuts the binding off the book. After the binding is done, he scans the book and sends it to the Philippians and the Filipinos' go and transcribe the highlighted portion because that's the only portion that he cares about. From there they make this other book file that he takes that book file and puts it on his iPad, and he's done that for the last ten years. So he's got like 50 thousand books like that. Then what he'll do, in the morning he'll be like, “Hey, I'm going to be giving a presentation on sales today. What are the top 10 sales books in the world. The top 20, top 50 sales books. So then he'll go and pull his notes from the top 50 sales books, load them into his iPad and then reads it in ten times speed. He'll sit there on his treadmill for an hour or more in the morning and re-read the 25 top sales books in the history of the world, that morning. At two or three times, and then he goes out and knows everything on earth about sales. It's the coolest thing ever. I wish I could just hang out with Rich for a week and do that. It would be so cool. But I can't because I just am not that structured, but I wish I was. I remember when I sent him my book, actually I didn't send him one. I sent it to a bunch of my friends and I specifically didn't send it to Rich because I was like, he's gonna read this and he might not like it. He's read everything so I was so scared. So I saw him a couple of months later at a Traffic Conversion event before we launched the book. He's like, “Everyone keeps talking about your book. I want to get a copy.” I'm like, “I'm scared of you reading it, not gonna lie. If you don't like it I'm gonna be crushed.” So he's like, “Give me the book.” So I gave it to him and he read it on his flight home and he loved it, which was cool. He sent me a cool video of him in a smoke lounge talking about it and it was, for me, validation from my peers that I did something good. Which for me, is harder. I assume my customers will like my stuff, but a lot of times my peers…it's scares me because I want them to like me. We all have the same fears. We want to be liked, and I want them to like me. So that was the big thing. And then I put it out there and people liked it and it transformed people's lives, which is cool. So cool. It just makes me so happy. So today I was like to give me motivation to keep reading, I'm going to go to Amazon and look at my reviews and read it. And it's like 4.9 stars or whatever. I'm like, “yeah, everybody loves me.” And I'm reading them all. And there's a little graph, it's like 5 stars, 4 stars, 3 stars, 2 stars, 1 star. And there was a little percentage that clicked on 1 star. I was like, “What? Who doesn't like my book?” So I clicked on the 1 star and it went there and I was like, these people, I'm glad that Amazon doesn't give you their address because I'd be in the car and drive to their house. People were like, “That book was a 250 page sales pitch.” I'm like, are you kidding me? Literally there is a page and a half in the very back where I mention Clickfunnels, that's it. This is…..I've read books that are 150, 200 page sales pitches. This was not, in fact I specifically I don't want this to be a sales pitch. I'm going to write an amazing book and hopefully if I've earned it after 250 pages I can mention one cool thing I do in a page and a half. And all the thing I was mentioning was, “by the way, these funnels I'm talking about, you can do it really easily in Clickfunnels, you should go get an account for free.” I saw a couple of those, people who were like, “This book is full of fluff.” I'm like, “Fluff? Are you kidding me? That was twelve years of my life, reading over a quarter of a million dollars in books and courses. And then breaking them down and putting them into an actual, logical step by step system. The time it took me to write that book, was ten years of trial and error and like a year of writing to give this book to you. And it was like, it was all fluff. I wanted to just jump at that person. If they were in my wrestling room right now, it would be….. Okay I probably shouldn't tell this story, some of you guys will lose respect for me. But it must be told because this is what would happen to the person had they been here with me. So there was this guy that used to wrestle with us and he was unfortunately a good wrestler. In fact, he beat me one time and I can't stand that guy and I won't mention his name, but for those of you guys who are in my wrestling world, his initials are WW. So I'll leave that for the few people who will know what I'm talking about. So he was this guy, super annoying wrestler. Nobody liked him. But unfortunately he was kind of good so he beat people. Like I was saying, he beat me once in a Greco match where I was cutting weight and it was just a fluke, but he beat me. And then I beat him like a little girl every time after that, including in college when I had a chance to beat him. I was wrestling in a college match, he was in a different college and I started wrestling him and in the first period he went and did a two on one arm bar on me on our feet…..what's it called? Baseball grip, he hid my hand under his stomach so the ref couldn't see and started trying to break my wrist, pushing my wrist in towards me. So I reached back and punched him in the head and shoved him off, to get him off my wrist. He was literally trying to break my wrist. The ref's like, “Whoa, what are you doing? You can't punch him in the head.” I'm like, “He's trying to break my wrist.” So then I went ape on this dude, I ended up in that period getting up by 14 points and then I pinned him because I wanted to humiliate him and pin him just so it was a double humiliation. I digress, the initial story, this is years of my life beating this guy but he deserved it, so it was fun. So anyway, we were at a wrestling camp, and if you knew him, some of you guys will think, Russell you're so mean. I'm really not mean. If you understood the situation, who he was and how he treated people. And there was only a couple of guys who were better than him so we had to make sure that he, oh man, I can't believe I'm telling this story, we would humble him. So at the freestyle and Greco wrestling camp he was at with us, our goal was to pick him up and slam him down on the ground over and over and over again so that he knew that we were all better than him. So three of us guys and him and we were wrestling… and I'm not saying we were doing this against a defenseless guy, he was a good guy, we were just better. We just made sure he knew and he'd feel it. Anyway, that's what I would do to these guys if they were here. I'd pick them up and slam them down and as they get back up I'd pick them up and slam them down again and just keep doing that until my, like my friend WW, wasn't able to walk off the mats because he was so sore. Anyway, he recovered and is probably why 5 years later in college he tried to break my wrist, if I think about it. Maybe Karma was coming back to get me. There you go, I was doing the wrong thing as a high school thing. Anyway, my wrist didn't break, so it all ended up good and I won that match. So there you go. Holy cow, there's my Russell tangent for the day, so sorry. Anyway, I repented for that, I'm a nice person now and I don't beat people up. But if I wasn't and I could see these one star people, that's what I would do. One and two stars, both. They were just like, one guys' like, “I got no value. In fact, I stopped reading the book after the first ten pages.” I'm like, “It's because you stopped reading the book after the first ten pages. Read page eleven, there's some amazing stuff on that page. And thirteen and fourteen and all the rest of the pages. I don't know what else I can give you. The book was free, you covered shipping and handling. Or you went to Amazon, it was $10. Seriously.” It made me go crazy. It reminded me of something Tony Robbins taught me. So this is for me, I'm mostly telling myself this to get me, make me feel okay with continuing writing my book. But he was talking about how high maintenance human beings are in today's day and age. And what will happen is that people will go out there and risk tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to make a movie for you. They'll hire the best actors and screen writers and script writers and spend two or three years of their lives and hundreds of millions of dollars to go and to write a story, create it, build an environment and a fantasy and make this thing amazing and produce this movie, and then they give us this movie and they ask us $10. That's all, $10 for you to go watch this movie, and look at 2 or 3 years of these guys' life and hundreds of millions of dollars risked on their side and all their asking is $10. And then they come and entertain you for 2 or 3 hours of a movie. And Tony talked about how, if you look at that, kings back in the day would have Court Jesters and things like to be able to be entertained. They didn't have a fraction of what we can get for $10 today. Yet we'll be so pompous and arrogant as to go to a movie that, I'm just going to use this as an example because I really liked this movie and a lot of people didn't. But the Batman vs Superman, we pay our $10, we go there and at the end we say, “That movie sucked. It was a waste of my money, a waste of my time.” Are you kidding me, these people risked hundreds of millions of dollars to entertain you and it cost you $10 and two hours of your time and you're complaining it was a waste of your time and money? Oh people. With that said, I want something for all of you. First off, is when you got people like that who come back to your amazing-ness that you create, that you are putting out there, risking your time and energy and your time away from your family to create and to do, there's gonna morons out there who complain and say, “Look, it was a waste of my ten bucks.” And for those people, guess what you should do to them, you should freaking WW them. Pick them up, that's kind of funny. WW Wrestling…but that's not what I'm talking about. You pick them up and slam them down in your mind over and over again until they can't walk and then you move on with your life because they don't really matter. Then you go back to the people you're serving and worry about them because that's who does matter. This is like the worst moral of the story ever. So that's half of it. Just forget about those people that are gonna be the complainers. The second half is don't be that person that complains. The people that do that, you're not a good person. Somebody is risking all this stuff to give you a gift. Don't complain about it. If you don't want to go to the movie, and if you didn't like the movie, it wasn't……but don't complain about it. The thing that they are giving you and the return of what they're asking you for, is insanely low and we should be grateful. I'm grateful for people who risk and do these things for us. I'm grateful, after writing now my second book, I'm grateful for anyone who's written a book, it is not easy. The time, the stress, the headache, pressure that goes into that, I'm grateful. Even if I didn't like your book or agree with your beliefs or point, it doesn't matter. I'm grateful that you put the energy and effort into it and gave it somebody because you believe it'll change their life for $10 or $5, whatever a book cost. I just want everyone to be thinking it that way. Because I think that makes all of us better people and makes the world better and gives the creators less fear to go and create. Because that's it's. If you're not creating then what's the point. So I hope that helps somebody, I don't know. At least it'll help me to forget about those one and two stars. And hopefully no one lost respect for me because of what I did to my buddy, WW. But he totally deserved it, so it's all cool. Don't worry about it. I didn't do anything that was outside of the bounds of what someone should do in a wrestling room. So it was all good. Anyway, with that said, appreciate you all, I'm about two minutes away from my pinch test, pray that I'm not over 25% body fat. If I am though, it's okay. I'll get back to work and get back to where I need to be. Thanks everybody. Talk to you all again soon.
I apologize in advance, but on this one I get a liiiiiittle bit violent. On this episode Russell talks about reading the Amazon reviews of his first book and getting angry about the few negative reviews and relates it to an experience he had during his wrestling days. Here are some of the other interesting things to listen for in today’s episode: Why Russell chose to read the Amazon reviews of his first book. How being angry at the negative reviews made him want to do something he did to a fellow wrestler years earlier. And why the human race is too high maintenance these days and why we need to stop complaining. So listen below to find out what one and two star reviews have to do with wrestling. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody, this is Russell. I hope you guys are doing awesome today. I am leaving my house for the first time and it’s almost 4:00. I’m actually leaving my house and heading over to my buddies gym because I’m going to do something that nobody wants to do. It’s going to force me to be accountable to myself and to other people. I’m going to get fat rolls pinched; it’s called a pinch test. He pinches me and says, “Russell, this is your body fat percentage.” And as much as I do not want to know that, because I assume in my mind it’s 7% like I was back when I was wrestling, when I find out that I’m probably at 20, 21, 22 I gotta admit I’m gonna cry a little bit. But then I’ll at least have a standard to know where I’m at and then I’ll have something to work against. A lot of us I think, our biggest problem in life is we just are winging it. We’re like, “I feel like I’m doing good. I don’t know.” But we don’t have something to measure it against. Not gonna lie, I’m one of those people. In fact, that’s probably why it’s easier to cheat a lot of the time. Whether you’re cheating on eating or exercise or whatever. You’re like, “I’m not really measuring against anything, so I have no idea if I’m getting better or worse, therefore I might as well just eat this candy, because who really knows.” So this is gonna hold me accountable. I’m gonna do this right now, then I’m going to party it up all through Christmas vacation and then on Monday, the day after Christmas it begins. And I’m gonna be strict and it’s gonna be awesome. So that’s kind of my game plan of what I’m doing right now. But the reason I’m leaving today at 4:00 is because I’m in book writing mode. I literally, if you saw me right now, you would laugh. I look like a hermit, I have not shaved, I’m in my sweats/jammies. I’ve been in my room just writing, writing, writing and I got three chapters done today which is a lot of work, but it’s turning out awesome, which means I probably have 5 left and I’ll be done with this book. We’ll have it over to the editors, actually the editors’ editing while I’m writing. I finish a chapter and send it to the editor, because I’m not gonna lie, way beyond my deadline. I had to be extra to be like, “Hey do you mind just doing this weirdly, as I get them done.” So I sent her three chapters today and keep on moving forward. Hopefully I can get two more done tonight, that’s my goal. Then I get out of being grounded. I’m literally grounded. I told my kids….they’re like, “Dad, why aren’t you going to your office.” “Because I’m grounded. I’m not allowed to leave. Too many friends at the office, they just talk. I have to be in this room locked down.” So that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s funny, as I’m writing this book, and one thing that inspires me to write this book is the response I got with the first book. How many people have told me so many good things? People, even my peer and mentors. I was so scared for some of friends to read my book. In fact, the person I was most scared of to read my book was, Rich Schefren, someone I totally look up to and respect. He’s probably read more marketing books than anyone on Earth. In fact, if you Google Rich Schefren, book reading process….you will see a dude who is insane. He has a video on YouTube, 20 minutes long, totally worth the watch, but basically he reads the book and speed highlights it all. Then he goes and cuts the binding off the book. After the binding is done, he scans the book and sends it to the Philippians and the Filipinos’ go and transcribe the highlighted portion because that’s the only portion that he cares about. From there they make this other book file that he takes that book file and puts it on his iPad, and he’s done that for the last ten years. So he’s got like 50 thousand books like that. Then what he’ll do, in the morning he’ll be like, “Hey, I’m going to be giving a presentation on sales today. What are the top 10 sales books in the world. The top 20, top 50 sales books. So then he’ll go and pull his notes from the top 50 sales books, load them into his iPad and then reads it in ten times speed. He’ll sit there on his treadmill for an hour or more in the morning and re-read the 25 top sales books in the history of the world, that morning. At two or three times, and then he goes out and knows everything on earth about sales. It’s the coolest thing ever. I wish I could just hang out with Rich for a week and do that. It would be so cool. But I can’t because I just am not that structured, but I wish I was. I remember when I sent him my book, actually I didn’t send him one. I sent it to a bunch of my friends and I specifically didn’t send it to Rich because I was like, he’s gonna read this and he might not like it. He’s read everything so I was so scared. So I saw him a couple of months later at a Traffic Conversion event before we launched the book. He’s like, “Everyone keeps talking about your book. I want to get a copy.” I’m like, “I’m scared of you reading it, not gonna lie. If you don’t like it I’m gonna be crushed.” So he’s like, “Give me the book.” So I gave it to him and he read it on his flight home and he loved it, which was cool. He sent me a cool video of him in a smoke lounge talking about it and it was, for me, validation from my peers that I did something good. Which for me, is harder. I assume my customers will like my stuff, but a lot of times my peers…it’s scares me because I want them to like me. We all have the same fears. We want to be liked, and I want them to like me. So that was the big thing. And then I put it out there and people liked it and it transformed people’s lives, which is cool. So cool. It just makes me so happy. So today I was like to give me motivation to keep reading, I’m going to go to Amazon and look at my reviews and read it. And it’s like 4.9 stars or whatever. I’m like, “yeah, everybody loves me.” And I’m reading them all. And there’s a little graph, it’s like 5 stars, 4 stars, 3 stars, 2 stars, 1 star. And there was a little percentage that clicked on 1 star. I was like, “What? Who doesn’t like my book?” So I clicked on the 1 star and it went there and I was like, these people, I’m glad that Amazon doesn’t give you their address because I’d be in the car and drive to their house. People were like, “That book was a 250 page sales pitch.” I’m like, are you kidding me? Literally there is a page and a half in the very back where I mention Clickfunnels, that’s it. This is…..I’ve read books that are 150, 200 page sales pitches. This was not, in fact I specifically I don’t want this to be a sales pitch. I’m going to write an amazing book and hopefully if I’ve earned it after 250 pages I can mention one cool thing I do in a page and a half. And all the thing I was mentioning was, “by the way, these funnels I’m talking about, you can do it really easily in Clickfunnels, you should go get an account for free.” I saw a couple of those, people who were like, “This book is full of fluff.” I’m like, “Fluff? Are you kidding me? That was twelve years of my life, reading over a quarter of a million dollars in books and courses. And then breaking them down and putting them into an actual, logical step by step system. The time it took me to write that book, was ten years of trial and error and like a year of writing to give this book to you. And it was like, it was all fluff. I wanted to just jump at that person. If they were in my wrestling room right now, it would be….. Okay I probably shouldn’t tell this story, some of you guys will lose respect for me. But it must be told because this is what would happen to the person had they been here with me. So there was this guy that used to wrestle with us and he was unfortunately a good wrestler. In fact, he beat me one time and I can’t stand that guy and I won’t mention his name, but for those of you guys who are in my wrestling world, his initials are WW. So I’ll leave that for the few people who will know what I’m talking about. So he was this guy, super annoying wrestler. Nobody liked him. But unfortunately he was kind of good so he beat people. Like I was saying, he beat me once in a Greco match where I was cutting weight and it was just a fluke, but he beat me. And then I beat him like a little girl every time after that, including in college when I had a chance to beat him. I was wrestling in a college match, he was in a different college and I started wrestling him and in the first period he went and did a two on one arm bar on me on our feet…..what’s it called? Baseball grip, he hid my hand under his stomach so the ref couldn’t see and started trying to break my wrist, pushing my wrist in towards me. So I reached back and punched him in the head and shoved him off, to get him off my wrist. He was literally trying to break my wrist. The ref’s like, “Whoa, what are you doing? You can’t punch him in the head.” I’m like, “He’s trying to break my wrist.” So then I went ape on this dude, I ended up in that period getting up by 14 points and then I pinned him because I wanted to humiliate him and pin him just so it was a double humiliation. I digress, the initial story, this is years of my life beating this guy but he deserved it, so it was fun. So anyway, we were at a wrestling camp, and if you knew him, some of you guys will think, Russell you’re so mean. I’m really not mean. If you understood the situation, who he was and how he treated people. And there was only a couple of guys who were better than him so we had to make sure that he, oh man, I can’t believe I’m telling this story, we would humble him. So at the freestyle and Greco wrestling camp he was at with us, our goal was to pick him up and slam him down on the ground over and over and over again so that he knew that we were all better than him. So three of us guys and him and we were wrestling… and I’m not saying we were doing this against a defenseless guy, he was a good guy, we were just better. We just made sure he knew and he’d feel it. Anyway, that’s what I would do to these guys if they were here. I’d pick them up and slam them down and as they get back up I’d pick them up and slam them down again and just keep doing that until my, like my friend WW, wasn’t able to walk off the mats because he was so sore. Anyway, he recovered and is probably why 5 years later in college he tried to break my wrist, if I think about it. Maybe Karma was coming back to get me. There you go, I was doing the wrong thing as a high school thing. Anyway, my wrist didn’t break, so it all ended up good and I won that match. So there you go. Holy cow, there’s my Russell tangent for the day, so sorry. Anyway, I repented for that, I’m a nice person now and I don’t beat people up. But if I wasn’t and I could see these one star people, that’s what I would do. One and two stars, both. They were just like, one guys’ like, “I got no value. In fact, I stopped reading the book after the first ten pages.” I’m like, “It’s because you stopped reading the book after the first ten pages. Read page eleven, there’s some amazing stuff on that page. And thirteen and fourteen and all the rest of the pages. I don’t know what else I can give you. The book was free, you covered shipping and handling. Or you went to Amazon, it was $10. Seriously.” It made me go crazy. It reminded me of something Tony Robbins taught me. So this is for me, I’m mostly telling myself this to get me, make me feel okay with continuing writing my book. But he was talking about how high maintenance human beings are in today’s day and age. And what will happen is that people will go out there and risk tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to make a movie for you. They’ll hire the best actors and screen writers and script writers and spend two or three years of their lives and hundreds of millions of dollars to go and to write a story, create it, build an environment and a fantasy and make this thing amazing and produce this movie, and then they give us this movie and they ask us $10. That’s all, $10 for you to go watch this movie, and look at 2 or 3 years of these guys’ life and hundreds of millions of dollars risked on their side and all their asking is $10. And then they come and entertain you for 2 or 3 hours of a movie. And Tony talked about how, if you look at that, kings back in the day would have Court Jesters and things like to be able to be entertained. They didn’t have a fraction of what we can get for $10 today. Yet we’ll be so pompous and arrogant as to go to a movie that, I’m just going to use this as an example because I really liked this movie and a lot of people didn’t. But the Batman vs Superman, we pay our $10, we go there and at the end we say, “That movie sucked. It was a waste of my money, a waste of my time.” Are you kidding me, these people risked hundreds of millions of dollars to entertain you and it cost you $10 and two hours of your time and you’re complaining it was a waste of your time and money? Oh people. With that said, I want something for all of you. First off, is when you got people like that who come back to your amazing-ness that you create, that you are putting out there, risking your time and energy and your time away from your family to create and to do, there’s gonna morons out there who complain and say, “Look, it was a waste of my ten bucks.” And for those people, guess what you should do to them, you should freaking WW them. Pick them up, that’s kind of funny. WW Wrestling…but that’s not what I’m talking about. You pick them up and slam them down in your mind over and over again until they can’t walk and then you move on with your life because they don’t really matter. Then you go back to the people you’re serving and worry about them because that’s who does matter. This is like the worst moral of the story ever. So that’s half of it. Just forget about those people that are gonna be the complainers. The second half is don’t be that person that complains. The people that do that, you’re not a good person. Somebody is risking all this stuff to give you a gift. Don’t complain about it. If you don’t want to go to the movie, and if you didn’t like the movie, it wasn’t……but don’t complain about it. The thing that they are giving you and the return of what they’re asking you for, is insanely low and we should be grateful. I’m grateful for people who risk and do these things for us. I’m grateful, after writing now my second book, I’m grateful for anyone who’s written a book, it is not easy. The time, the stress, the headache, pressure that goes into that, I’m grateful. Even if I didn’t like your book or agree with your beliefs or point, it doesn’t matter. I’m grateful that you put the energy and effort into it and gave it somebody because you believe it’ll change their life for $10 or $5, whatever a book cost. I just want everyone to be thinking it that way. Because I think that makes all of us better people and makes the world better and gives the creators less fear to go and create. Because that’s it’s. If you’re not creating then what’s the point. So I hope that helps somebody, I don’t know. At least it’ll help me to forget about those one and two stars. And hopefully no one lost respect for me because of what I did to my buddy, WW. But he totally deserved it, so it’s all cool. Don’t worry about it. I didn’t do anything that was outside of the bounds of what someone should do in a wrestling room. So it was all good. Anyway, with that said, appreciate you all, I’m about two minutes away from my pinch test, pray that I’m not over 25% body fat. If I am though, it’s okay. I’ll get back to work and get back to where I need to be. Thanks everybody. Talk to you all again soon.
A 20 Storey mixed income development that is envisioned for York Boulevard is the first in a wave of proposals that will see city owned land turn into affordable housing.Jason Farr. City Councillor, Ward 2, City of Hamilton Ontario's human rights commissioner urges for sports reporters and news outlets to not use the Cleveland team's full name during its series against the Blue Jays. She argues that the name is an offensive caricature of indigenous people. Theo Selles, Registered Family Therapist, President of Integrity Works. Councillor Terry Whitehead has called for a two way traffic conversion for Queen Street, from Aberdeen to King St W. He plans on putting forward the motion later this month. Would making Queen a two way street be a positive game changer or will it disrupt the flow of traffic in the city? Ryan McGreal, Editor of Raise the Hammer
Greg Davis is the expert who trained the experts in Affiliated Marketing. Greg is a graduate of Penn State University, he holds a degree in electrical engineering. Working part-time he grew his affiliated marketing business from its humble beginnings, working part time and losing one hundred dollars per day to generating over one hundred thousand dollars per month and becoming a rock star in the affiliate marketing world. His income numbers just continue to rise. In 2009 Greg surfaced from the affiliate marketing underground to start SuperAffiliateRockstar.com, a private coaching program that has helped his clients generate upwards of one hundred thousand dollars a day. Greg is known to many as Mr. 50K-a-Day because of his ability to bring in tons of revenue in one day, consistently! Greg owns Rockstar Revenue Media, a private affiliate network, and he puts on the Super Affiliate Rockstar Conference, as well as provides private coaching and consulting on a limited basis. Greg has worked for years to become ‘an overnight success’. He shares with us his journey to success through traffic generation techniques such as SEO, Safe Lists, and bulk e-mail before he found the sweet spot in pay-per-click advertising focused on Google and Facebook. In this episode Greg walks us through the ins and outs of the affiliated marketing world, the research, the luck, the science, the methods, and even some of the bad boy moves that have made him such a rock star. In this week’s episode: 3:03 – Greg tells us about his secret to success…testing everything! 4:00 – Greg tells us how he has used cash, credit, and loans to build his business, as well as encouraging us to start small (like he did) and build your way up to larger and larger affiliate deals. 7:17 – We hear the Greg-ism “If the ad is good enough, key words are irrelevant.” 8:05 – Learn about the two-to-one female-to-male bias in Google searches. 10:27 – After discussing Google Display Networks, Stephan reminds the listeners about his interview with Tommie Powers about YouTube advertising killer content. (Check out that episode here) 10:54 – Greg gets into the nitty-gritty of ‘cloaking’. 16:55 – We discuss poor Google quality scores. 17:49 – Details about costs per-click are revealed, as well as an evaluation of Google vs. Facebook ads for value. 20:07 – Greg shares that he often spends seven figures a month for ad revenues. He gets into the pros and cons of leveraging those buys with points on credit cards versus simply using his bank account. 22:44 – Gain insight from the many ways that Greg has been able to grow his revenue in the Affiliate Marketing world, including: negotiating larger and varied fees with merchants, capturing market data, and more. 26:05 – We talk about building and using email lists. 27:39 – Greg tells us when SMS marketing works well, and when it doesn’t. 29:35 – We hear Greg discuss how being able to grow your volumes is the secret to seeing your offers grow as well. 31:15 – Learn how building quality relationships helps to increase your revenue stream, and how conferences like Ad Tech, Affiliate Summit, Leads Con, and Ryan Deiss’s Traffic Conversion can help you do that. 33:59 – Find out about Greg’s Facebook group, as well as a few other Facebook groups he likes: Internet Marketing Super Friends and Super Affiliate & Internet Marketing. 35:52 – Greg talks about his coaching and consulting. 36:29 – Greg goes in depth about how he does testing and tracking on his ads to optimize their effectiveness. 41:17 – We learn about the program he uses for testing called Landing Page Genius, which is available here. 43:15 – Hear why Greg thinks some people quit too soon on campaigns because they are not looking at their testing data. “Some people call it losing money, I call it buying data.” 45:30 – Greg shares his secret of success – Don’t give up! Find out more about Greg Davis at: www.superaffiliaterockstar.com or join his Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/gregdavis/ Links and Resources Mentioned in this episode: Ad Tech Affiliate Summit Leads Con Ryan Deiss’s Traffic Conversion Internet Marketing Super Friends Super Affiliate & Internet Marketing Tommie Power’s Episode Landing Page Genius
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My wife Veena and I spent the last 3 days at one of the biggest internet marketing conferences in North America, called Traffic & Conversion, put on by Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher and the awesome team at Digital Marketer. It was really good. 3 days of non-stop sessions and talks. Of course, Veena and I, because we live in San Diego, just had to drive like 1/2 hour to get to the hotel where the seminar was being held. And on the 2nd day, we even took off early, came back home, watched most of a basketball game between Lebron James's Cleveland Cavaliers, and Kobe Bryant's LA Lakers. And then we went back to an awesome party later in the evening, which I'll tell you all about in a minute here. So here are some of my thoughts and ideas about the event itself, as well as my spiel on how to do an internet marketing conference well. #1) It was very telling that a room with seating for 500 was jam packed for a session about how someone is killing it with Periscope. And in the very next rook, it was mostly crickets where someone was talking about Podcast monetization. Now, I know for a fact that most people with podcasts aren't making money. In fact, out of the few thousand shows that are launched each month, most of them will not get past episode 10, most won't ever grow their audience, they won't get traction, the host will eventually lose interest or get discouraged that no one's listening or just find the next shiny new thing, and they will all eventually "podfade" - that's the term used to describe podcasts that just fade slowly over time. So why were there more people in the Periscope session than a Podcast session? Isn't that amazing? That just tells me that most people still don't get it, that Podcasts are the single greatest medium for establishing authority, proving your expertise, building really deep connections with your audience, because you are literally inside their head while they're listening to you, they cannot fast forward, they are the most attentive because they're probably multi-tasking as they walking the dog or do the dishes or laundry or clean the house or going out on a run - by the way, those are the times I listen to podcasts as well. Recently I was at the dentist, for a cleaning session that lasted more than an hour. And I had to do that twice in a week. And my dentist has a very posh set up - they have a TV screen on the ceiling, so you can be lying down, getting your teeth drilled into, and watch Ellen Degenres at the same time. But guess what I did instead? I asked them to turn off the TV, I put on my behind-the-ear bluetooth headphones and listened to podcasts the entire time. Alex Blumberg from Startup and Sarah Keonig from Serial were inside my head the whole time. Some of the people whose fan I've become lately, are all podcasters whose shows I regularly listen to - like James Schramko from superfastbusiness, or Dave Jackson from school of podcasting, or Daniel J Lewis from theaudacitytopodcast. Podcasting is such an intimate, personal platform, that it just blew my mind to see just a fraction of the audience for a podcasting session compared to a session about Periscope. You know why? Periscope is the shiny new thing that everyone's and their dog is creating content with. And at the end of the day, do you know what is the same ol same ol problem that everyone's going to have on Periscope? It's building an audience. Doesn't matter what platform you are on. The platform can only go so far in helping you get some free traffic. Whether it is blogging on Medium, or getting your show on New & Noteworthy on iTunes (Dave Jackson, if you're listening, I just threw up in my mouth just a little bit). Whether is is creating videos on youtube or scoping on Periscope or Blabbing on blab, the age-old problem that will haunt 99% of the content creators, is that they will not find an audience, they won't be able to grow an audience, they won't be able to get traction, they won't be able to monetize it. And then they'll simply move on to the next new shiny thing. And those who stay, pick maybe just a couple of platforms, and go really really deep into it, and figure out how to reach more people, keep more people, provide tons of value and also figure out how to influence that audience to go do whatever it is that you want them to do - whether it is to inspire people or educate or entertain or sell books or sell ads, those are the people who will go on to win, regardless of the platform. And whichever platform you go to, it's the same case - it's the 1%ers versus the 99%ers. #2) So I did start by going to the Podcast session first. But the speaker was such a deadbeat, he was from a podcast monetization company - I won't name any names here. But he just absolutely killed it - as in, not in a good way. He was actually killing the audience with boredome. He was speaking on a low, monotonous tone, had the abolutely worst slides I have ever seen, with horribly lazy images that looked like he probably spent no more than 1 minute finding the right image for each slide. No energy, no excitement, and the worst thing? He worked for the company that was doing the presentation that taught you how to monetize your content. See the blatant conflict of interest there? Yeah, it sucked. So Veena and I skipped out after 15 minutes, and that's how we ended up at the neighboring Periscope session. So, it's not just about getting the audience, but you have to be good enough to keep them. And this guy couldn't hold our attention because he sucked big time, and lost us very early. And it's going to happen to you too with your audience, whether you're doing a podcast, or a blab or a periscope. So focus on the hook, on the message, and delivering great content and delivering it in a really good way. The platform is secondary. And you'll be a fool if you ignored podcasting just because it's not as sexy and exciting as Periscope. #3) If you are going to spend time, money and effort on going to a seminar, then don't waste it all on just going to the sessions. I mean, sure, pick and choose a few, like I did with the Gary Vaynerchuk session at the end of day 1. Gary Vee absolutely rocked the place. Check out his podcast ask gary vee, and he might be an acquired taste for some, but just stick with it for a few episodes, and there's a good chance you'll become a huge fan, like me. So feel free to handpick a couple of sessions, but don't waste all of your time just shuttling from session to session. The biggest gold is out there in the hallways, running into folks, crash conversations if you have to, just don't be a jerk and start handing out your cards. Join the conversation quietly, as long as it's a large enough group, wait for someone to talk to you, just invite yourself. Don't say "Hi, I'm Ravi Jayagopal, Co-Founder & Co-Developer of DigitalAccessPass.com, one of the leading membership plugins for WordPress". Don't do that. Say something like "Hi, my name is Ravi Jayagopal". And wait for someone to ask you what you do. Then say something low-key like "I own a software business. It's called digitalaccesspass". In my case, most people would say, "Oh, DAP, I know you guys" I use DAP or I used to use DAP. And some would say Oh, so what does digitalaccesspass do? And then you give them just a little bit more. You say "it's a membership plugin for WordPress". See how I'm giving it piece by piece, and only when asked. That's the way to enter a conversation with a group of strangers and not be shunned as a jerk. So hang out outside in the halls more than the sessions. You can always pay for the recording of all the sessions. You'll anyway not be able to go to all of the breakout sessions. So if you think you want the content, then order the recordings. And focus as much as you can on networking and making connections. So in our case, Veena and I were invited to a very exclusive party of who's who, so we went home early, got refreshed and drove back for the party. And I'm telling you, it was an incredible group of people that we rubbed shoulders with. Yes, I'm going to drop some names. So sue me. Chris Farrel, Andrew Lock, E Brian Rose from JVZoo, James Dyson and team from Optimize Press, John Lee Dumas from Entreprenuronfire, Jaime Tardy from eventual millionaire, Luria Petrucci, formerly known as Cali Lewis from Geek beat TV and the Leo Laporte show, wow, it was absolutely amazing. In facdt, if you go to the show notes for this show at subscribeme.fm/19, you'll see a cool selfie of me and John Lee Dumas outside the women's restroom. No, we weren't doing anything crazy. Just figured out outside the men's room as we were leaving, that I didn't have a selfie with John. He's such an incredibly down-to-earth guy for someone who's such a big name. In fact, every single one of them there were such movers and shakers, and they were all so incredibly human and humble, that it was just mind blowing. And by the way, John Lee Dumas has also given me an amazing testimonial for my book at SubscribeMeBook.com. Here's what he said about my book: Ravi is one of the foremost authorities on membership sites & online courses. Every bit of his writing comes from years of selling online and helping others set up membership sites. If you want to learn from the best about recurring income and IGNITE your brand, this is THE book to read. - John Lee Dumas, EOFire.com Check out my book at subscribemebook.com, also on amazon - just search for subscribe me - one words or two words, and both will bring up my book towards the top. So that was my mini-soapbox rant about conferences and audience building and platforms. If you take away just one thing from this episode, then make sure to go deep, then wide. As in, go really deep into your niche, or your marketing platform, before you go wide and move to the next big shiny thing. If you get into podcasting, stick with it. If you write a Kindle book, go deep and don't just launch your book and forget about it. Promote it, get the message out. Go as a guest on other people's shows. Do your "book tour" before you fall for the shiny object syndrome. There's going to be something new everyday. Videos, youtube, kindle, podasting, blab, periscope, and snapchat - man, Gary Vee is so into snapchat, it's just crazy. There's facebook, pinterest, instagram, on and on and on. Don't get caught up with trying to be everywhere all at the same time. You can't. Nobody can. So pick one or two platforms where most of your target audience hangs out, and just go deep into it, and crush it till the cows come home. Thank you so much for listening to the SubscribeMe show at SubscribeMe.fm. And if you want to offer me any kind of feedback, or check out the John Lee Dumas selfie with me in front of the ladies room, or for to contact me, go to http://subscribeme.fm/19/ Cheers and talk to you on the next episode.
Jim Boykin and Ann Smarty are discussing Facebook for businesses: How to make the most of your Facebook marketing efforts, what you can and cannot do on Facebook, etc Please read the details here: http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/social-media/facebook-ads-facebook-authorship/
Things I thought about after talking to Tony Robbins today. On this episode Russell talks about finding level 10 opportunity after years of having level 10 skills but only level 2 opportunities. He discusses a recent phone call he had with Tony Robins to help him with his business. Here are some interesting things you will hear in today's episode: Why Russell had a phone call with Tony Robins and how he was able to help him. How talking with another marketing friend made him realize he was putting level 10 skills into level 2 opportunities. And why focusing on a level 10 opportunity (Clickfunnels) has been so rewarding. So listen below to find out why having a level 10 opportunity is the key to success. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone! This is Russell Brunson and welcome to a late night… a very late night Marketing In Your Car. Hey everyone, so I've actually just jumped in my car, and I'm heading to the gym to go wrestle because that's what I want to do all day. If it were up to me, I would go back to when I was in college and just go back to wrestling. But I live in the real world, and unfortunately, it means I have to work and have a business, and all those other fun things — which I love, which it is not bad. But if it were up to me I'd be wrestling all the time, so when I get an opportunity to wrestle someone I am there. So that's where I'm at right now, and I've got like a 15-20 minute ride to the workout room, so I'll just hang out with you guys for a little bit. I hope you don't mind. Today was a super fun day. We've been working on a lot of really cool projects and stuff as always. Man, I don't know if you guys are loving ClickFunnels like I am, but I literally built out our entire seminar funnel inside of ClickFunnels. Yesterday, I built out one for our book launch. My book launch is coming up where I'm giving away my Ferrari. I built out, anyway, like three of four funnels in the last 48-hours. It's just so exciting and so much fun — and I love it! It's like a second, close to wrestling. Let's just put it there. If ClickFunnels was a sport… man, it might even beat wrestling, but it's close. It's a close call right now. So anyway, it's a ton of fun. And I had a really cool chance… Today, I actually had a call with Tony Robbins. Some of you guys, I'm sure, probably saw it. He recently did his big book launch for his MONEY Master the Game book. Which is an amazing book, and we promoted it and everything, and before the book launch, I saw what they were kind of doing and I messaged him. I was like, “Hey Tony, do you know there's some things we can do to help tweak the sales process so it will do better for you?” But he just ran out of time. They were so busy with the launch and with him speaking at, you know, every T.V. station in America for a month or two that the book was rolling out. But he just didn't have the you know, the bandwidth to be able to make the changes and adjustments he needed to, and because of that their funnel really suffered. You know, obviously, he's not going to be able to share stats, numbers or anything, but he didn't do as well as they had hoped. And so, I had to email them a couple days ago basically saying, “Hey, now that you kind of done with the whole whirlwind book tour thing, if you'd like, I'd love to give you some feedback on some pretty simple changes you can to your funnel to help things out.” He emailed me back and said let's talk Tuesday at 4:30, and it was kind of fun. So I had a chance to talk to him and just talk about his funnel and his goals. One thing that I can say that was just really, really cool from my phone conversation, you know, we talk a lot in business about staying focused and having like one goal and one thing you're working towards and being very myopic on that. And it's been interesting — I've watched over my 10-year career here in this business, it's 12 years now. Wow. Anyway, every time that I focus on one project and we start making a whole bunch of money, and as soon as I start making a bunch of money, my first tendency is to go and start doing like 30 different projects, and once I do that my whole business collapses. And then I get back, and then I have to cut everything and focus on one thing, and it grows again, and then I get excited and I start doing it. You know, I talked earlier on a podcast about cycling, and that's one of the main reasons why I've cycled a couple times is because of that. And it was interesting because when I first talked to Tony, I assumed that he wrote the book because he wanted to open up, you know, a back-end financial division and all these things and he kind of indirectly did. If you read the book, you'll kind of see kind of what he did. But it was interesting talking to him because the whole time he kept bringing it back to like what his core message is and his core focus and his reason why he's here on earth. It was really interesting. He talked about, you know, bringing these financial buyers is like…“But we don't have a financial back-end.” he's like, “I don't have a desire to build one.” He's said, “My only goal, my only focus, my life's mission is to change people's lives through, you know, my personal development stuff.” He's like, “And I want to get people over to that.” And I thought: Man, how powerful is that, that someone who spends four years writing a book, going on a mission to change this piece of the world, even though he did that to fill a personal mission? Like his only goal for that still is to come back to his core — his core focus. And that was just a real big lesson to me about, you know, having your one thing that you're passionate about and you want to be best in the world at, and focusing all efforts there. You know, it's been interesting, since we did launch ClickFunnels, I'm thinking a lot about that just because, you know, we've been trying to grow that and making it the best it possibly can be. And as lot of you guys know, I have my hands in a lot of different projects and opportunities and things like that, and it has been always tough for me over the last, you know, however many years of my career to focus on like, on a great opportunity because there's so many good ones, right? For example, a lot of you guys know about my supplement that's doing… you know, it's still doing great. But the problem is, I'm not focusing on it. Like it's sad, you know, like I shared numbers in the webinar to get people excited. Those numbers are actually really low, from what should be happening. Like that's something that should be at two or three million dollars a month. Like if I was to focus 100 percent of my effort on that, it would be there in a very, very finite short period of time. But it's not my passion, it's not my focus, it's not my thing, and so in spite of myself — just the fact that it's there — it's doing anywhere from $250 to $500 to $600. I think our swing, between like the high months and the low months, by $250,000 up to $600,000 a month, just consistently, without me doing really much of anything. Because I have no focus or effort there, it just kind of sits there and doesn't really do much. And so, for me, I'm looking at trying like how can we sell this? And I've been grateful that one of my friends and one of the guys in my mastermind group is looking at purchasing it right now. Which I think it can be a huge deal. A great deal for him and a great deal for me because he'll be able to have it, and actually put 100 percent focus on it, and give it the care that it needs and to be able to grow it. And it gives me the ability to start, you know, to take one more distraction away from me, so I can focus more on my core message. I also look at like our DotComSecrets Company. You know, for years my business model was: We need to create new offers. You know, just to create new offers to make more money, right? Like what's something cool people will buy? Okay, let's create this and create this, and we created some cool stuff. But it's been interesting. As I've come back and look at how we transitioned that company, how we're continuing to transition (and you guys will see that more and more throughout this year), that the DotComSecrets Company, the only goal of it is not so much to create new products and sell more stuff. We'll do that, but the reason why that's happening: You'll see everything that we're creating is very strategic to get people into ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels is my Level 10 opportunity, right? It's the thing I want to focus on, and the thing that I want to dedicate my life to. You know, we've had people already ask us like, “Well, you know, are you going to sell it? How much are you going to sell it for?” And it's been the funniest thing because any other business I've ever had if people asked me how much I'd sell it for, I've always had a number, instantly, in my head and with this one I don't. It's funny like… I would almost rather do anything than sell it. Like people… I don't know like, it's just so exciting for me that I literally want to be doing this in the next 10, 15, 20 years. I've never had a business where I can see myself doing it in 20 or 30 years, but I can with this one. That's how passionate, how excited I am. And so, when people talk about selling it, it's just like so far from my mind like it makes me sick to my stomach. Because I'm like I don't know if there's a number that I would say… I'm sure there would be a number I would say yes to, but if I did I think I'd always — you know, I have so much I want to do with it, in so many cool directions and things we're going to be doing — and so, anyway, it's just kind of interesting, Another really cool thing that I kind of think about, it's kind of related, but I've got a friend who's brilliant, one of the smartest marketers I've ever met. His name is Bill Harrison, and if you get to know him, him and his brother — Brad and Bill — they run a publicity company and it's really cool. About two years ago, actually, I was at Traffic Conversion with Bill Harrison, and we were talking about opportunities, and he was talking about him, and it was interesting, if you look at him, he's one of, like I said, one of the most amazing marketers I've ever met. If you go to his house… I haven't been in his house, but I've seen pictures of it where, literally, every room in his house is covered from the floor to the ceiling in marketing and sales books, and it's crazy. He's actually been sending me like boxes of books as gifts, just randomly, because he's got too many books that his house, literally, cannot fit them all. It's not like a library or a room. It's the entire the entire house is covered with them, and he knows marketing probably better than anyone on earth. And I was talking to him, and he said, “You know, it kind of drives me crazy. I have these friends who are horrible marketers, but they step into a Level 10 opportunity and their Level 2 skills. “Because they're a Level 10 opportunity, you know, some of these guys have sold their companies for hundreds of millions of dollars,” and he says, “You know, me, our company is doing well.” I don't know if they're doing $10- or $15-million a year, but he's like, “I felt like I have a Level 10 skill set, but I'm stuck in a Level 2 opportunity. And I remember when he said that I started looking again at myself, looking internal. I thought, you know, I feel kind of like the same way. Like I'm in a Level 2 opportunity, with all my little things out here, and nothing for me was like that thing that was passion — that drove me. You know, I was dabbling in a lot of things that I really loved and I cared about, but there wasn't anything that was really like my driving force. And I look at ClickFunnels as like something where I can take my Level 10 skills and apply it to a Level 10 opportunity and so for me it's exciting. So, anyway, I just wanted you guy thinking about that a little bit today. You know, it really impressed me when I was talking to Tony, just hearing him just keep pushing things back to that, and maybe kind of re-remember my focus and my goals in my company, in my business. And everything is to push people back to my core opportunity, and I just want to encourage you guys, as well, to think about that strategically, and don't just put out things to put out things, but think about like what's your mission in life? You know, think about what's Tony Robbins' mission? We know that, right? We've seen it. We've seen him changing millions and millions of people's lives around the world. Like that's his mission. My mission is to help people to build sales funnels and to take their message out to the world, and be able to do it in a way that they can be profitable. You know, what's your mission? What's the thing you were put on earth here to do in your business? Because I promise you guys that you can change people's lives, and you'll be able to change a lot more people's lives if you're focused 100 percent on that thing. So, anyway, that's about it for tonight, you guys. I am almost to the gym. I'm excited to go wrestle and… this is cool. So I appreciate you guys all listening. It's fun having someone who listens to my random thoughts. I get messages on Facebook, randomly, from you guys all the time. Tell me you listen to the podcast. It just makes me happy. So keep on listening. Share it with your friends if you like it, and outside of that, I appreciate you guys for listening, and we will talk soon.
Things I thought about after talking to Tony Robbins today. On this episode Russell talks about finding level 10 opportunity after years of having level 10 skills but only level 2 opportunities. He discusses a recent phone call he had with Tony Robins to help him with his business. Here are some interesting things you will hear in today’s episode: Why Russell had a phone call with Tony Robins and how he was able to help him. How talking with another marketing friend made him realize he was putting level 10 skills into level 2 opportunities. And why focusing on a level 10 opportunity (Clickfunnels) has been so rewarding. So listen below to find out why having a level 10 opportunity is the key to success. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone! This is Russell Brunson and welcome to a late night… a very late night Marketing In Your Car. Hey everyone, so I’ve actually just jumped in my car, and I’m heading to the gym to go wrestle because that’s what I want to do all day. If it were up to me, I would go back to when I was in college and just go back to wrestling. But I live in the real world, and unfortunately, it means I have to work and have a business, and all those other fun things — which I love, which it is not bad. But if it were up to me I’d be wrestling all the time, so when I get an opportunity to wrestle someone I am there. So that’s where I’m at right now, and I’ve got like a 15-20 minute ride to the workout room, so I’ll just hang out with you guys for a little bit. I hope you don’t mind. Today was a super fun day. We’ve been working on a lot of really cool projects and stuff as always. Man, I don’t know if you guys are loving ClickFunnels like I am, but I literally built out our entire seminar funnel inside of ClickFunnels. Yesterday, I built out one for our book launch. My book launch is coming up where I’m giving away my Ferrari. I built out, anyway, like three of four funnels in the last 48-hours. It’s just so exciting and so much fun — and I love it! It’s like a second, close to wrestling. Let’s just put it there. If ClickFunnels was a sport… man, it might even beat wrestling, but it’s close. It’s a close call right now. So anyway, it’s a ton of fun. And I had a really cool chance… Today, I actually had a call with Tony Robbins. Some of you guys, I’m sure, probably saw it. He recently did his big book launch for his MONEY Master the Game book. Which is an amazing book, and we promoted it and everything, and before the book launch, I saw what they were kind of doing and I messaged him. I was like, “Hey Tony, do you know there’s some things we can do to help tweak the sales process so it will do better for you?” But he just ran out of time. They were so busy with the launch and with him speaking at, you know, every T.V. station in America for a month or two that the book was rolling out. But he just didn’t have the you know, the bandwidth to be able to make the changes and adjustments he needed to, and because of that their funnel really suffered. You know, obviously, he’s not going to be able to share stats, numbers or anything, but he didn’t do as well as they had hoped. And so, I had to email them a couple days ago basically saying, “Hey, now that you kind of done with the whole whirlwind book tour thing, if you’d like, I’d love to give you some feedback on some pretty simple changes you can to your funnel to help things out.” He emailed me back and said let’s talk Tuesday at 4:30, and it was kind of fun. So I had a chance to talk to him and just talk about his funnel and his goals. One thing that I can say that was just really, really cool from my phone conversation, you know, we talk a lot in business about staying focused and having like one goal and one thing you’re working towards and being very myopic on that. And it’s been interesting — I’ve watched over my 10-year career here in this business, it’s 12 years now. Wow. Anyway, every time that I focus on one project and we start making a whole bunch of money, and as soon as I start making a bunch of money, my first tendency is to go and start doing like 30 different projects, and once I do that my whole business collapses. And then I get back, and then I have to cut everything and focus on one thing, and it grows again, and then I get excited and I start doing it. You know, I talked earlier on a podcast about cycling, and that’s one of the main reasons why I’ve cycled a couple times is because of that. And it was interesting because when I first talked to Tony, I assumed that he wrote the book because he wanted to open up, you know, a back-end financial division and all these things and he kind of indirectly did. If you read the book, you’ll kind of see kind of what he did. But it was interesting talking to him because the whole time he kept bringing it back to like what his core message is and his core focus and his reason why he’s here on earth. It was really interesting. He talked about, you know, bringing these financial buyers is like…“But we don’t have a financial back-end.” he’s like, “I don’t have a desire to build one.” He’s said, “My only goal, my only focus, my life’s mission is to change people’s lives through, you know, my personal development stuff.” He’s like, “And I want to get people over to that.” And I thought: Man, how powerful is that, that someone who spends four years writing a book, going on a mission to change this piece of the world, even though he did that to fill a personal mission? Like his only goal for that still is to come back to his core — his core focus. And that was just a real big lesson to me about, you know, having your one thing that you’re passionate about and you want to be best in the world at, and focusing all efforts there. You know, it’s been interesting, since we did launch ClickFunnels, I’m thinking a lot about that just because, you know, we’ve been trying to grow that and making it the best it possibly can be. And as lot of you guys know, I have my hands in a lot of different projects and opportunities and things like that, and it has been always tough for me over the last, you know, however many years of my career to focus on like, on a great opportunity because there’s so many good ones, right? For example, a lot of you guys know about my supplement that’s doing… you know, it’s still doing great. But the problem is, I’m not focusing on it. Like it’s sad, you know, like I shared numbers in the webinar to get people excited. Those numbers are actually really low, from what should be happening. Like that’s something that should be at two or three million dollars a month. Like if I was to focus 100 percent of my effort on that, it would be there in a very, very finite short period of time. But it’s not my passion, it’s not my focus, it’s not my thing, and so in spite of myself — just the fact that it’s there — it’s doing anywhere from $250 to $500 to $600. I think our swing, between like the high months and the low months, by $250,000 up to $600,000 a month, just consistently, without me doing really much of anything. Because I have no focus or effort there, it just kind of sits there and doesn’t really do much. And so, for me, I’m looking at trying like how can we sell this? And I’ve been grateful that one of my friends and one of the guys in my mastermind group is looking at purchasing it right now. Which I think it can be a huge deal. A great deal for him and a great deal for me because he’ll be able to have it, and actually put 100 percent focus on it, and give it the care that it needs and to be able to grow it. And it gives me the ability to start, you know, to take one more distraction away from me, so I can focus more on my core message. I also look at like our DotComSecrets Company. You know, for years my business model was: We need to create new offers. You know, just to create new offers to make more money, right? Like what’s something cool people will buy? Okay, let’s create this and create this, and we created some cool stuff. But it’s been interesting. As I’ve come back and look at how we transitioned that company, how we’re continuing to transition (and you guys will see that more and more throughout this year), that the DotComSecrets Company, the only goal of it is not so much to create new products and sell more stuff. We’ll do that, but the reason why that’s happening: You’ll see everything that we’re creating is very strategic to get people into ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels is my Level 10 opportunity, right? It’s the thing I want to focus on, and the thing that I want to dedicate my life to. You know, we’ve had people already ask us like, “Well, you know, are you going to sell it? How much are you going to sell it for?” And it’s been the funniest thing because any other business I’ve ever had if people asked me how much I’d sell it for, I’ve always had a number, instantly, in my head and with this one I don’t. It’s funny like… I would almost rather do anything than sell it. Like people… I don’t know like, it’s just so exciting for me that I literally want to be doing this in the next 10, 15, 20 years. I’ve never had a business where I can see myself doing it in 20 or 30 years, but I can with this one. That’s how passionate, how excited I am. And so, when people talk about selling it, it’s just like so far from my mind like it makes me sick to my stomach. Because I’m like I don’t know if there’s a number that I would say… I’m sure there would be a number I would say yes to, but if I did I think I’d always — you know, I have so much I want to do with it, in so many cool directions and things we’re going to be doing — and so, anyway, it’s just kind of interesting, Another really cool thing that I kind of think about, it’s kind of related, but I’ve got a friend who’s brilliant, one of the smartest marketers I’ve ever met. His name is Bill Harrison, and if you get to know him, him and his brother — Brad and Bill — they run a publicity company and it’s really cool. About two years ago, actually, I was at Traffic Conversion with Bill Harrison, and we were talking about opportunities, and he was talking about him, and it was interesting, if you look at him, he’s one of, like I said, one of the most amazing marketers I’ve ever met. If you go to his house… I haven’t been in his house, but I’ve seen pictures of it where, literally, every room in his house is covered from the floor to the ceiling in marketing and sales books, and it’s crazy. He’s actually been sending me like boxes of books as gifts, just randomly, because he’s got too many books that his house, literally, cannot fit them all. It’s not like a library or a room. It’s the entire the entire house is covered with them, and he knows marketing probably better than anyone on earth. And I was talking to him, and he said, “You know, it kind of drives me crazy. I have these friends who are horrible marketers, but they step into a Level 10 opportunity and their Level 2 skills. “Because they’re a Level 10 opportunity, you know, some of these guys have sold their companies for hundreds of millions of dollars,” and he says, “You know, me, our company is doing well.” I don’t know if they’re doing $10- or $15-million a year, but he’s like, “I felt like I have a Level 10 skill set, but I’m stuck in a Level 2 opportunity. And I remember when he said that I started looking again at myself, looking internal. I thought, you know, I feel kind of like the same way. Like I’m in a Level 2 opportunity, with all my little things out here, and nothing for me was like that thing that was passion — that drove me. You know, I was dabbling in a lot of things that I really loved and I cared about, but there wasn’t anything that was really like my driving force. And I look at ClickFunnels as like something where I can take my Level 10 skills and apply it to a Level 10 opportunity and so for me it’s exciting. So, anyway, I just wanted you guy thinking about that a little bit today. You know, it really impressed me when I was talking to Tony, just hearing him just keep pushing things back to that, and maybe kind of re-remember my focus and my goals in my company, in my business. And everything is to push people back to my core opportunity, and I just want to encourage you guys, as well, to think about that strategically, and don’t just put out things to put out things, but think about like what’s your mission in life? You know, think about what’s Tony Robbins’ mission? We know that, right? We’ve seen it. We’ve seen him changing millions and millions of people’s lives around the world. Like that’s his mission. My mission is to help people to build sales funnels and to take their message out to the world, and be able to do it in a way that they can be profitable. You know, what’s your mission? What’s the thing you were put on earth here to do in your business? Because I promise you guys that you can change people’s lives, and you’ll be able to change a lot more people’s lives if you’re focused 100 percent on that thing. So, anyway, that’s about it for tonight, you guys. I am almost to the gym. I’m excited to go wrestle and… this is cool. So I appreciate you guys all listening. It’s fun having someone who listens to my random thoughts. I get messages on Facebook, randomly, from you guys all the time. Tell me you listen to the podcast. It just makes me happy. So keep on listening. Share it with your friends if you like it, and outside of that, I appreciate you guys for listening, and we will talk soon.
The two invisible lessons that I learned, that they didn't want me to know, while at the traffic and conversion event. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to a very slushy Marketing in your Car. Today, I woke up and came outside. It's kind of raining but it's freezing cold so we have this slush all over the road. My kids were running around in their clothes before school and got soaking wet, so we've had a fun morning but now I'm heading to the office to get some work done. I'm super fired up for today for a lot of different reasons. I just want to talk to you guys today about something I saw last week which was awesome. I was very impressed with Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher, their Traffic Conversion Summit. I just wanted to share with you guys something really cool that I learned from it. It wasn't so much the teaching. The sessions were great and everything. The reality is the bulk of what they shared was a recap of the best stuff from Perry's Secret Selling System so the content wasn't really new or anything from that side, but watching the event orchestrated was amazing. I think there's a lot of things to be learned from anyone doing any kind of event. It can be online events, offline events, anything. I don't know how much they actually sold at the event but if I was to guess, I would say probably sold anywhere from three to five million dollars from the event without anyone ever feeling like they got sold. It was really interesting, so some really cool stuff that all of us can learn from for our own businesses. One thing, if you watched the way they ran the event, there were about 2000 people there. They had a lot of different sessions and things that they were teaching but there were two core things they were selling. One was their war room which was their mastermind group. The other was their funnel consultations. War room was between $15,000 and $25,000 depending on at what level you get in. The funnel consulting was $17,000. What they did was they got up there and taught a session on tripwires for example which is a super cool concept they're talking a lot about over the last few times. At the end of the tripwire presentation, they said, “Look, if you want one of our funnel consultants to look at your funnel, run to the back, fill out an application, and we'll set up a private one-on-one meeting with you during the event to meet with one of our funnel consultants.” People run to the back and fill out the form for their funnel consultation. The next session, Frank Kern spoke about something. At the end of it, he's like, “Hey, by the way, if you want us to critique your funnel, run to the back and get your free funnel consultation.” Every single presentation for the most part was talking about their free funnel consultation. They had huge monitors in the main ballroom that show people whose turn it was to do funnel consultations. Literally, the entire three days, there were probably 60 people up on the board at any given time, saying, “You guys, report for your funnel consultation,” boom, next ones, next ones. Of the 2000 people in the room, unless they were horrible at closing, I would say they closed anywhere from 100 to 200 people in their $17,000 consult package. Again, that's between 1.7 and three million bucks. As I started thinking about that, in my business, can I do a lot more cool free stuff where I'm just giving, teaching, and showing stuff for free, and at the end, “Hey, if you want me to look at your stuff, go fill out this application form.” In our business now, we re-set up a mini call center. We got two people who are calling and consulting, and then selling people on our higher end services. I look at every blog post I do, every teleseminar, every interview, everything I do, I could be pushing people to go get their funnel consult, or whatever it is that I'm selling and just keep pushing people to this thing. I thought that was really interesting. I think for all you guys, we're always putting out content, YouTube videos, podcasts. All the different stuff you're putting out there, every one of them, if you just focus on giving amazing content and then push people somewhere where they can get a consultation, it's a very powerful zero resistance way to sell. That's one thing. The next thing is their war room, which is their mastermind group. If any of you guys have any kind of masterminds or groups that you're running, I learned this originally from Bill Glazer. He did the same thing when I was in his titanium group. You go to his events, and the whole time, they're talking about their titanium group and having people from their titanium group get up on stage and talk about what they're doing and how much success they're having. By the end of it, all you know is you want to be in the titanium group. It's the same thing they did with the war room. They just kept bringing people up from war room and case studying, talking about them. Every presentation would reference the war room. People are just like, “What in the world is the war room?” Finally, “Okay, we got some spots in the war room. If you're interested, there are applications in the back. You can go apply.” Again, it's very zero selling, just talking and putting those people up on a pedestal and making you want to ascend to that level. I'm not going to lie, they closed me on a $25,000 war room package so it worked for me. Think about it guys, if you have a group, the biggest key is to talk about your students, talk about success stories and that will get more people to want to ascend and become like them. Those are some of the cool stuff that happened in Traffic Conversion outside of the actual seminars as far as watching them do. I usually learn more from watching people do stuff than I do from them teaching stuff. I definitely got a huge education watching them run and manage that event. It was very impressive. I hope you guys got some ideas from what I shared with you today. Give away free content, put your success stories and your students on a pedestal. If you do that, people will start flocking to you. I saw it this weekend and I've seen it in my own business. We're going to start doing a whole bunch more of it. I guarantee you guys will see a lot more of it coming through. Hope you guys enjoyed this. If you like this podcast, people go to iTunes and tell people you like it. Go comment on all that fun stuff. I'd really appreciate it. I hope you guys are doing awesome. We'll talk again soon.
The two invisible lessons that I learned, that they didn’t want me to know, while at the traffic and conversion event. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to a very slushy Marketing in your Car. Today, I woke up and came outside. It’s kind of raining but it’s freezing cold so we have this slush all over the road. My kids were running around in their clothes before school and got soaking wet, so we’ve had a fun morning but now I’m heading to the office to get some work done. I’m super fired up for today for a lot of different reasons. I just want to talk to you guys today about something I saw last week which was awesome. I was very impressed with Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher, their Traffic Conversion Summit. I just wanted to share with you guys something really cool that I learned from it. It wasn’t so much the teaching. The sessions were great and everything. The reality is the bulk of what they shared was a recap of the best stuff from Perry’s Secret Selling System so the content wasn’t really new or anything from that side, but watching the event orchestrated was amazing. I think there’s a lot of things to be learned from anyone doing any kind of event. It can be online events, offline events, anything. I don’t know how much they actually sold at the event but if I was to guess, I would say probably sold anywhere from three to five million dollars from the event without anyone ever feeling like they got sold. It was really interesting, so some really cool stuff that all of us can learn from for our own businesses. One thing, if you watched the way they ran the event, there were about 2000 people there. They had a lot of different sessions and things that they were teaching but there were two core things they were selling. One was their war room which was their mastermind group. The other was their funnel consultations. War room was between $15,000 and $25,000 depending on at what level you get in. The funnel consulting was $17,000. What they did was they got up there and taught a session on tripwires for example which is a super cool concept they’re talking a lot about over the last few times. At the end of the tripwire presentation, they said, “Look, if you want one of our funnel consultants to look at your funnel, run to the back, fill out an application, and we’ll set up a private one-on-one meeting with you during the event to meet with one of our funnel consultants.” People run to the back and fill out the form for their funnel consultation. The next session, Frank Kern spoke about something. At the end of it, he’s like, “Hey, by the way, if you want us to critique your funnel, run to the back and get your free funnel consultation.” Every single presentation for the most part was talking about their free funnel consultation. They had huge monitors in the main ballroom that show people whose turn it was to do funnel consultations. Literally, the entire three days, there were probably 60 people up on the board at any given time, saying, “You guys, report for your funnel consultation,” boom, next ones, next ones. Of the 2000 people in the room, unless they were horrible at closing, I would say they closed anywhere from 100 to 200 people in their $17,000 consult package. Again, that’s between 1.7 and three million bucks. As I started thinking about that, in my business, can I do a lot more cool free stuff where I’m just giving, teaching, and showing stuff for free, and at the end, “Hey, if you want me to look at your stuff, go fill out this application form.” In our business now, we re-set up a mini call center. We got two people who are calling and consulting, and then selling people on our higher end services. I look at every blog post I do, every teleseminar, every interview, everything I do, I could be pushing people to go get their funnel consult, or whatever it is that I’m selling and just keep pushing people to this thing. I thought that was really interesting. I think for all you guys, we’re always putting out content, YouTube videos, podcasts. All the different stuff you’re putting out there, every one of them, if you just focus on giving amazing content and then push people somewhere where they can get a consultation, it’s a very powerful zero resistance way to sell. That’s one thing. The next thing is their war room, which is their mastermind group. If any of you guys have any kind of masterminds or groups that you’re running, I learned this originally from Bill Glazer. He did the same thing when I was in his titanium group. You go to his events, and the whole time, they’re talking about their titanium group and having people from their titanium group get up on stage and talk about what they’re doing and how much success they’re having. By the end of it, all you know is you want to be in the titanium group. It’s the same thing they did with the war room. They just kept bringing people up from war room and case studying, talking about them. Every presentation would reference the war room. People are just like, “What in the world is the war room?” Finally, “Okay, we got some spots in the war room. If you’re interested, there are applications in the back. You can go apply.” Again, it’s very zero selling, just talking and putting those people up on a pedestal and making you want to ascend to that level. I’m not going to lie, they closed me on a $25,000 war room package so it worked for me. Think about it guys, if you have a group, the biggest key is to talk about your students, talk about success stories and that will get more people to want to ascend and become like them. Those are some of the cool stuff that happened in Traffic Conversion outside of the actual seminars as far as watching them do. I usually learn more from watching people do stuff than I do from them teaching stuff. I definitely got a huge education watching them run and manage that event. It was very impressive. I hope you guys got some ideas from what I shared with you today. Give away free content, put your success stories and your students on a pedestal. If you do that, people will start flocking to you. I saw it this weekend and I’ve seen it in my own business. We’re going to start doing a whole bunch more of it. I guarantee you guys will see a lot more of it coming through. Hope you guys enjoyed this. If you like this podcast, people go to iTunes and tell people you like it. Go comment on all that fun stuff. I’d really appreciate it. I hope you guys are doing awesome. We’ll talk again soon.
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