Podcasts about well stephen

Follow along and create your own Value Ladder as I show you how I designed my personal one.   This is part two of this series.    First, I walked you through the principles I use to design and develop my value ladder.    And today, I wanna teach you MORE about my personal value ladder, (and give you a sneak peek into my EXCITING plans)...   VALUE LADDER  MARKETING   The value ladder is super important and very powerful.    However, sometimes, after reading the book DotCom Secrets, people try to design their ENTIRE business before they even have a product or a funnel.    *DON’T DO IT*   However, the value ladder is NOT something that I try to design, or feel that I need to have designed before I start moving.    I want you to know that the value ladder is very malleable; it's something that’s designed as you move forward.   It flexes as you go... and as you get further along the path, your value ladder starts to become more solid.   If you've not read Part #1, (shame on you), go check it out before you read any further, (it’ll make more sense - honest).   In Part #1: I teach you under what context I even try to develop a value ladder.    And I use the following definition from DotCom Secrets to define the function of value ladder:   A value ladder is where you want to take your client.   First, a quick recap of Part #1...   Before you can even think of starting to create a value ladder, you need to know:    What market we're serving   The Dream Customer that we're serving inside the Dream Market    What problems that they're having and what we can go solve for them    The Core Problem and Offer   How to launch    ... the value ladder starts in that whole five-step process.   I also talk about value ladder education being the easiest way to make MORE sales...   In fact, my team and I, have a funnel building template, and towards the bottom, there’s a whole section called value ladder tie-ins.    HOW TO CREATE A VALUE LADDER   So here’s a value ladder …   I’ve got…   A funnel at the top   A funnel in the middle   A funnel at the bottom with a little downsell…   All these funnels work together…   (... by the way, this might be one of those episodes that might be helpful for you to watch on YouTube).    The funnel at the bottom of the value ladder brings in new people faster than the middle.   The middle funnel brings in new people faster than the funnel at the top.    I have eight different mechanisms that we use to auto-educate customers and ascend them through the funnel.   People on the bottom of the funnel are ascended through email sequences, thank you page webinar, etc, which let them know...   "Hey, since you bought that, did you know you could go buy this?"    Now that we've already acquired the customer with a dollar in, I don't have to pay for them again (we've already paid for them).    Let's say it's $1.00 in and $1.30 back out on the bottom of the value ladder…    Now, if I can just automate their ascension, I don't have to pay money to do that.    Maybe they wanna go from the bottom all the way to the top.    Maybe there are people out there who are like, "I don't want the bottom or the middle, I wanna go straight to the top..."    ...and that's totally cool.    DIFFERENT BUYING STYLES   One of the most shocking things for me when I first attended an Inner Circle Meeting… (I remember it was an amazing day)...   Russell Voxed me, and goes, "Dude, do you wanna come to the next Inner Circle Meeting and just sit in?"    Honestly, I felt like I'd just died and went to heaven…   I was like, "What? I've wanted to be in The Inner Circle ever since I heard it existed, are you serious?"    Russell goes, "Yeah man, just sit on the side, you can keep working on stuff, but just so you can kind of get a feel for more of the thing."    I was like, "Absolutely man!"    What was crazy is that at that time, ClickFunnels was not that old; half of The Inner Circle had still NEVER read DotCom Secrets …       ... but they were paying 25 grand to be in his Inner Circle.    I remember thinking, “ ...are you serious?”  And at first, I was like kinda, like, “...that's dumb. Are you kidding me?”    But you have to realize that different people will buy different things from you.        So we have different places in the value ladder to cater to different buying styles.    For Example:   Right now, I would rather just pay the author to teach me their formulas, than go read the book.    You know what I mean?    And that's EXACTLY what Russell’s Inner Circle were doing.    In the beginning, when I had no money, the free plus shipping book and the bottom of the value ladder stuff definitely made more sense for me.    But now, I'd rather just go to the top and learn straight from the person…   Which is why…    There's a bunch of automated email series that ascend people immediately...    We put ads in EVERY single value ladder step...    ...but with the understanding that…     Some people are gonna come straight to the top of the ladder and NOT go down..       Some people are gonna go to the bottom of the ladder and NOT ascend.      MY PERSONAL VALUE LADDER   I  want to show you my personal value ladder…   ...and it's so you can learn how to develop your own.    Some of what you’re gonna see isn’t even launched yet… ...and it's to illustrate a principle.    Now I have two value ladders, and a few people have said, "You can't have more than one business."    And that's generally true... until you have teams.    There are a lot of funnels that I haven't touched in like a year... and they still cash flow really hard.   I can go build other stuff, as long as I have systems    And so I do have a second value ladder.    But what I’m gonna talk about today is *My Core Offer* value ladder…  (you can check it out on capitalistcoaching.com and stevejlarsen.com)   So when I start building my value ladder, the main thing I want to do is prove it’s core idea, and I actually have several steps with this.    Now, if you were at Funnel Hacking Live last year, (and if you weren’t, I would strongly recommend you go next year)…    It’s one of the purest forms of marketing knowledge that I believe is out there.  One of the reasons I love Funnel Hacking Live so much is because it opens your eyes to things that you didn't even know were there.    There are people not just doing it, they're really freaking successful - so you get to learn these powerful things right from the horse's mouth.        For me, it's the place where I get immersed, and I'm like:    “Holy crap, I didn't know that you could do that in that industry. Now that's NOT my industry, but what if I took that idea and pulled it into my industry?”    That's why I LOVE Funnel Hacking Live - it's like a decade of learning in a weekend.    It's all in one shot; there's no way you’d get all those HUGE people to teach you that for the ticket price anywhere else.    OfferMind, on the other hand, is very step-by-step on how to launch *YOUR* thing.   OfferMind and FHL are meant to be companions.        So, in the middle of my value ladder, I have OfferMind.    Now the reason why I put OfferMind in the middle is because I wanted to test out the idea of the value ladder.    I wanted to make sure that I had it ironed out all the places.    The reason it's worked so fast for me is that I've been teaching this stuff, .doing it myself, coaching people, and helping people make a million dollars for a while.    So last year's OfferMind was me reteaching it in my own format, and teasing out the sticking points in people's understanding.        I was like: “Oh okay, there, okay, I didn't know that that would be a sticking point, okay. Oh, there too, okay I didn't know that would be a sticking point either.”    … it was cool because I was able to go in and iron a lot of sticking points out.    It's was the same principles, I just wanted to make sure that I was teaching them well.   So, I taught that and I was like, “That's sweet!”    On my value ladder, above OfferMInd, I have a program called OfferLab…   TOP OF MY VALUE LADDER?     Now the purpose of OfferLab is to get my time and my team's time to help you launch your offer.    It's a year-long coaching program that includes a live event where we help you actually get your thing out the door.    There's a lot to this, but it's actually really simple when you just see it in one shot.    And people make a lot of money with it, which is great.    However, the top of my value ladder isn’t just OfferLab - there’s some other stuff too that you probably haven’t heard about because they’re NOT launched yet…   So at the Top of my Value Ladder, I have…      OfferLab     My mastermind, which is called Titans of Industry.    Business Syndicate - at the VERY top, (the thing that I'm moving towards, and I'm so stoked about)   Business Syndicate is the coolest URL I have ever bought in my entire life. What I'm doing with Business Syndicate is fighting against Shark Tank!        I wanna fight against the idea that I have to go get VC funding.    I love the show Shark Tank, but I hate what they do.   Shark Tank teaches that you need funding in order to grow your company.    *NO! YOU DON’T*    If you know how to build a front end funnel you don't; 99% of businesses do NOT need funding.    99% of people who take funding, usually don't need it.    Now I understand you might need a loan if you're building a big factory or some manufacturing plant. I get it.    That's why I'm saying 99% of the time, most businesses *do not* need capital… they just need to know how to build front end funnels.    So many people ask me to build their funnels for them, I was finally like, “Alright! Let's do it! “       We're actually gonna build a studio like Shark Tank, and people are gonna come pitch me and my team on building their funnel in exchange for a small portion of their business.    So we're not gonna given them funding, but we have skin in the game!    That's the difference, that's why I love it.    Because in Shark Tank, they don't have skin in the game!    They put their money up, but a lot of times, they don't do that much else.    I've seen the other side of that when we were building stuff for CNBC for The Profit … they'll help for a little while, but it's the cash injection that's their big input.    What my team and I wanna do is actually build funnels for all these different companies.    Anyway, stay tuned on that because it's NOT launched yet, but that's what we're doing and that's where I wanna go.      BOTTOM OF THE VALUE LADDER   Now, going down, I have a webinar that we're launching called Create Your Offer which will teach you what my book is gonna teach you, but far more handheld.    My book is called also called Your Core Offer.    There's one more piece we're actually coming out with which I'm super psyched about.    We're gonna start putting out a newsletter.    The newsletter is gonna be part of the continuity, and I want it to be cheap - because I do really high quality.   I teach you stuff that most people charge for.    So what I wanna do is make something that's really cheap, but just gets a few more how-tos, kind of more the tactical side.. because I can only get so tactical on a podcast episode, right?    So we have something called Offers For Profit, which is a newsletter.    It's gonna be super cheap, like nine bucks.    It's NOT really necessary to make a ton of money on - it's for other reasons, (which I'll talk about more when we start launching).    In continuity we have:   Offers for Profit   Me being a ClickFunnels affiliate   ...there are other things that are more of continuity, that I'm not really ready to disclose yet ;-) THE FREE ZONE Now, even further down, is what I call the FREE ZONE and this includes:   Sales Funnel Radio     Capitalism Swag     The new One Funnel Away Stories podcast (which is launching soon)   The Pursuit of Profit .tv - which is gonna be super cool, oh my gosh.   We have another show that's coming out soon called It's Monday, Baby. Guess which day that'll be on?    … it's a lot of stuff.    ONE-DAY EVENTS   Inside OfferLab there's actually all these one-day events that you’re gonna start seeing me do as well…   You can fly out for a day, and I'm gonna deep dive on just that one subject in a very, highly interactive and cool environment.    How I actually run my content team   How I built my funnel team   What are the campaigns I found are the MOST profitable   … just a straight day of me teaching you campaigns from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.    I’m gonna go deep on those days.  So, on my Value Ladder (and already in existence) there's…    OfferMind   OfferLab   Sales Funnel Radio, (that's the free zone)    All the rest of the things on my value ladder are NOT done.    A QUESTION FOR YOU!   Q: Why on earth would I tell you about all this stuff before it's ready?   A:  To create anticipation.   To help people see where I'm going.   To show you that I have a plan and that following and adhering to EVERYTHING I taught in the Part #1of this series.    If I wanna make sure that OfferMind is the most insane, ridiculous core of the whole value ladder - I need it to over deliver to the freakin’ hilt.    And so…    I can’t do that if I launch a million things at the same time.    For me to pull off Business Syndicate, that's agency model, I'm gonna have to change some business structure to handle that.    To pull off My Mastermind, there's some business structure I'm gonna have to adapt and adjust.    So, I'm NOT gonna say “Yes” to building someone's funnel yet.    I don't care how much money it is -  it has NOTHING to do with that.    It has everything to do with:     Can I handle it?      Can I over deliver?   ...because I built my name on doing that.    So all I'm doing right now is just focusing on OfferMind, while we buy an office, and actually, get an assistant….   Does that make sense?    Understand that this stuff comes in order, and because of that, it's actually a gift.    It means I don't have to think about it for a little while.     As of very recently, I know what my value ladder is gonna be, (like a week or two ago).    So while you're launching your stuff, just know that almost no one knows how all the pieces fit together at the start of their journey.    If you came to Funnel Hacking Live, I taught you a little bit about my methodologies on how I learn and move forward.    All I wanna know is the blueprint.    *My VALUE LADDER is the blueprint*   The book we're writing it right now, that's a blueprint.   Most of the stuff on the bottom in the free zone, that's all blueprint.    And what blueprint am I following?    I'm following the info product model and the coaching model - because that's what everyone wants from me.   There's some structure stuff that I'm still putting together, I'm not gonna go take on all this stuff and promise all these results, that'd be crazy.    THE 5 QUESTIONS   In Part #1, I talked about the 5 Questions I ask to see what I need to launch next… (go check it out if you need a refresher about the order that I launch and build this stuff in).    Do I need more leads? No.    “Okay, now I'm ready for my Titans of Industry Mastermind   Now I'm ready for the other things on my value ladder… I'm really really psyched about EVERYTHING we're putting together.   We're gonna be publishing even MORE than I am now - which I know might sound crazy, but we are.    It's not actually that hard if you see what's going on behind the scenes.    (Come to one of my one-dayers and you'll find out what that is ;-) )   I just wanted to show you what my value ladder is.    So, if you're sitting back and you're thinking, like, "Well Stephen, what's *my* value ladder?"    I wouldn't really worry about it too much…    Your goal is just to figure out the core idea.    Can ya sell it?   Can ya sell it for mid-tier product pricing as it relates to your industry?    … because once you can sell it, BOOM!   PROVING IDEAS    I have another whiteboard, (I have whiteboards all over the place), and it's just full of ideas.     And as we've moved forward, those ideas become more and more solidified. I don't worry about it.    You don't need a value ladder design before you start actually building and selling.    Stop worrying about it.    That's *EXACTLY* how I've done it right here, EVERYTHING that isn't built but is kind of an idea.    And then as time progresses, and I start to listen to the market, and  I hear them say things like, "Stephen, we've been wanting a mastermind from you forever."    I'm like, “Crap. Seems like they want a mastermind from me and they've wanted it FOREVER!”   I just listen to the market.    Then I'm like, “What would I call it that would be cool?”   I buy A LOT of domains    ...and it's because I'll be like, “...this is what it's gonna be called! Buy the domain, buy buy buy buy buy buy buy!”    Then a little bit later, I'll be like, “Crap. That's not it, dang it, it's this now! Buy buy buy buy buy buy buy buy!”    I'm trying to fish to make sure that it fits with the entire value ladder. We've also started to develop our own awards - much like the 2 Comma Club Award, but for different areas - it's really cool.    Different awards, different thresholds, different things for you …   There's a lot that goes into it…    It’s far more than me just saying:    This is what it's gonna be.    Here's the funnel.   Here's how I'll fulfill.    What's the core idea?    A value ladder sells an idea, as much as it does a product.    I've enjoyed this, I really like showing you more about how I actually put my value ladder together.    I'm super psyched about all this stuff going down, and hopefully, it's been helpful to you to see it.   Start thinking through this stuff... but put some horse blinders on.   Relax, bring it down, and say:   "You know what, I'm just gonna go make sure that this one idea on the value ladder works.  The whole value ladder isn't worth stressing about or even brainstorming on until you know that this idea is good enough to build out the rest of your value ladder with.    Hopefully, this has been helpful to you, and if you wanna see more get more details, go to capitalistcoaching.com    Same thing with stevejlarsen.com… click on Programs, and one of the options is value ladder, and you’ll see this…   BOOM!    If you're just starting out you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies, right? That's also good.   But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right?    That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula.    So I created a special Mastermind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it.    Wanna come?    There are small groups on purpose, so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days.  You can hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com.    Again, that's OfferMind.com.

One of the most frustrating things for me at the beginning of this whole game was that I didn't know what a market was... and there wasn't anybody who could really define it for me...   SALES STRATEGY SHORTCUTS?   Usually, I don't believe in shortcuts, but if you know your market, a lot of stuff just gets answered for you… and it’s much easier to pin down…   Your Messaging   What To Sell   The Funnel You Should Build. Existing companies I work with like this a lot because it helps them position themselves in relation to their competition   New people want this because it actually fills in a lot of the questions that get asked along the way.   For Example:   What should I sell?   Who am I talking to?   What kind of sales message should I create?   Choosing the right market is one of the major things that help to shortcut the game for real.   HERE’S THE PROBLEM…   There are some things that it's obvious that I need to teach; I can see everyone's struggling with X, Y, and Z…   However, there’s an area in my brain that I've NOT  quite uncovered yet and I keep trying to reach to it.   A few days ago, I woke up at five, 5:30 and spent three hours trying to figure out what question I should be asking…   I believe that questions invite revelation; therefore, I must be careful of the questions that I ask.   I always consider the questions and ask… and who I’m asking those questions to.   For example:   Am I asking broke people questions... or am I asking rich people questions?   In fact, I have a whiteboard where I list out the major questions that I feel I should start asking. I'm NOT trying to answer them, I'm just logging that I have that question.   Then when I get a little more clarity on what I need to be asking, I go to my bookshelves…   I buy a lot of books.   … and it's because I'm trying to create clarity on what question I'm hunting the answer for, so I don't get stuck in learning loops…   I just hunt the answer.   … and I've been hunting answers a lot lately.   Half of what I do is teach people, “Hey, this is X, Y, and Z -  I see a lot of people are struggling with this.”   The other half of what I do is in a discovery realm that’s super fun mentally, but exhausting.   And there's something that I’m trying to grasp, and I'm NOT quite there yet…   HOW TO GET MORE CUSTOMERS   I used to believe that in order to have success, you needed a good funnel.   Now before anyone poops a brick, let me explain...   Originally, I’d build a funnel and then I build an offer contingent with the funnel that I’d hacked... NOT based on what the customer needs...   Then I’d build a sales message.   Eventually, I realized that I needed to be doing the exact opposite…   Instead, I need to create the…   Sales Message Offer Funnel   ...and I started teaching it that way.   However, I  quickly realized that wasn’t where I needed to start   I was like, “Wait a second, I’ve gotta go even further back; way before the sales message and get to know the Red Ocean a little bit more.”   ...and that's when I started creating my Red Ocean Analytics Checklist.   It’s a living, breathing checklist of my actual findings; I'm not taking that from anywhere, it’s my stuff.   Red Ocean Analytics, Baby!   So before I’d create an offer,  I'd go through the Red Ocean Checklist…   But then I was like, “Crap, no! We can't start at the Red Ocean, we have to go back even further because there are other oceans and other markets…”   There are ghost markets   We have to think in terms of the customer   … I have to go back even further.   The further I've gone back, the more I see that when people just follow the framework, (and not even well), the chances of their success goes way up.   The challenge is that I can tell that there's another stage before friggin' market selection that’s starting to pop out. But I can't tell yet if it's a pre-market selection or something that’s in it…   Sometimes I feel like it's ‘The Beautiful Mind’ kind of thing, “Y'all here?”   It's like schizophrenia, “Aah, pictures, patterns everywhere...”   That's my unique ability. I'm not very good at many other things besides this.   ART VERSUS SCIENCE   It seems funny for me to say, (cause I'm the “offer guy’), but I'm at a spot now where I believe you can't even make a good offer until you know…   The market you’re selecting The customer journey and where they've been previously.   I can't sell something to a customer that they’ve already gone through - and that's what I mean by a ghost market.   It's the ghost of “marketing past.’   The ghost of the ‘vehicle past’ that they've already gone through.   It’s interesting to start looking at the journey the customer is on…   You have to understand that piece…   Market selection is still an art right now 'cause I'm still learning how to describe it as a science.   I'm trying to pull the pattern out so that it's not an art.   *I HATE ART*   I'm NOT saying that “I hate actual art…” I'm saying, “I hate depending on art because art is hard to calculate.”   I like science. I like patterns because I can say, “When I do A plus B, I get C.”   I'm still learning to pull out the science piece of market selection.   … and I've gotten a lot better at it.   ACTS OF MARKETINGThe last OfferMind Masterclass was the clearest I'd ever taught about market selection.   A lot of people have already created success with what I taught - that's why OfferMind is such a big deal.   I'm not just teaching fluffy junk you’ve already heard.   https://media.giphy.com/media/lwQjQawxKVrUc/giphy.gif   So let’s talk about market selection…   Market selection fuels acts of marketing Stick with me while I explain this…   There's market selection and then there are acts of marketing.   So what are the acts of marketing?   I spent three hours going through all my books…   I wrote down the question I'm trying to answer right now and I asked, “Could this book answer that question?”   … just from face value and kinda flipping through, I’d literally throw books in different piles in the corner.   I cleared out a bookshelf and labeled the shelves:   Offers and Market Positioning   Model, Scaling and Marketing Activities   ..and those are the things that I'm deep diving into to answer the questions.   What is a market?   What are acts of marketing?   ...'cause they’re NOT the same thing.   This is where people get screwed when it comes to marketing.   They say, “I'm gonna go do marketing, so I'm gonna go post stuff on Facebook…”   To that, I say, “Grrgh, tell me some context otherwise, that's NOT marketing…”   So what are acts of marketing?   An act of marketing is things like:   Creating A Sales Letter   A Webinar   A Launch Campaign   An Evergreen Campaign   Let me explain what I mean a little bit more…   MARKETING DESIGN   Let's say that you're gonna go do a launch campaign…   You all just saw me do that with my OfferMind funnel, (we already have 200 seats sold, which is crazy).   Let's talk about what market selection means…   (Maybe I should call it marketing design? I don't know... it's actually a good way to describe it.)   'Cause we're all very familiar with this world, let’s take ClickFunnels as an example…   Anyway, if you look at ClickFunnels…   ClickFunnels is selling wealth.   When they went straight to selling wealth, it didn't sell….   That's when ClickFunnels almost became an abandoned project.   Russell had to try and figure out how to sell ClickFunnels to the right market   …. that's a very natural thing for anything that you build. You're trying to learn how to sell it, right?   Check this out…   When ClickFunnels said, “We're not gonna sell the general wealth category, we're gonna sell to people who’re convinced that websites are the way to get wealth and become anti-Red in our messaging...”   … that's when ClickFunnels became ‘ClickFunnels.’   ClickFunnels talked about the death of the website.   ClickFunnels began to sell to the Red ocean of people who are convinced that building a website is what will give them wealth…   How big is that market?  It's friggin' huge, right!   And when ClickFunnels became the anti-Red in their messaging…   Who did it talk to?   It talked to the sliver of people who were using the websites as the way to get wealth, but who weren't having success.   These were the easiest people to sell to; you don't have to convince them there's a problem, because they already know there's a problem.   Watch the way ClickFunnels grew from this…   EXPANDING YOUR TARGET MARKET   Eventually, someone would say: “Well I'm in affiliate marketing, could this work for me?”   Well, of course, it could... so we'd be like, “Let’s add affiliate marketing to the pot,’ and then that would become part of the expansion...   … and that's one of the ways to grow.   Russell didn’t try to sell EVERYBODY, he sold to people who were in affiliate marketing and already experiencing pain…   That's very different to somebody who says,”Yeah, I'm interested,” but they never pull out their wallet.   These people are:   Problem-Aware Solution-Aware Buyers In the middle of pain   They're not having all the success they want.   This is a HUGE deal to understand.   Then after we’d added the dissatisfied affiliate marketers to the ClickFunnels customer base, we went to…   B2B   Retail   ...'cause they were also asking, “Can this work for me?”   We used the same strategy and sliver by sliver, we grew the ClickFunnels customer base.   And what's fascinating to understand is that it’s a mistake to try to target tons of markets at once.   You have to have one market that acts like a big ol' anchor…   Anti-Website positioning is one of the major anchors for ClickFunnels.   And this is the reason why most people fail, (right at the get-go), before they even get to:   The sales message   How do I write a sales letter?   How do I come up with the funnel?   What's my launch campaign?   One of the BIGGEST reasons why they fail is because they don't know what market they're selling to...   *You're selling to the Red Ocean*   WHERE TO FIND YOUR TARGET MARKET   If I wake up one day and I say, “Hey, I'm gonna go sell my stuff,” and I put my stuff in a little cart, where am I gonna push my cart to? ANSWER: To where everybody else already is.   I’m gonna go to where there are people, i.e., the Red Ocean.   The Blue Oceans don't exist by definition, they're not there. It takes a long time to grow an actual Blue Ocean.   So then, acts of marketing are things that you do in *that* market…   Does that make sense?   COMPLEMENTARY NOT COMPETITIVE   I know who my market is... for me, it's ClickFunnels.   However, I'm not anti-ClickFunnels in my messaging:   That'd be *STUPID*   I'm a diehard   You peel back that heart you're gonna see gears and the ClickFunnels' logo tattooed there.   I'm the offer guy, and if you want success with ClickFunnels, you should probably learn how to build an offer, right? That's how I’ve positioned myself…   I'm complimentary, NOT competitive   ...this is very key.   So for market selection a.k.a market design - (that's really what I call this piece)...   First of all, you identify the market and you somehow position yourself to become either the…   Companion to…   Anti of...   … you need to figure out which you want.   This is all stuff I’ve discovered on my journey PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER   There are not a lot of books out there on this subject, and that's why I'm writing a book.   That's also why I have almost an entire bookshelf full of books around this subject, I’ve had to piece it together.   There are a few books that have gotten close or really helped close a few gaps.   But most marketing books out there have been written, how my marketing degree was created -  for corporate and big massive analysts.   I didn’t learn any kind of direct response marketing material in college. That's not what you learn in a marketing degree… I didn’t know that.   What you learn in a marketing degree is marketing analytics.   You learn a lot of quantitative marketing research, (I hated that class), and qualitative marketing research.   I learned a lot of market research, but nothing that I actually use now…   So most of the material that's out there is about that.   There's NOT a lot of material out there that is about direct response marketers or specifically about offer creation like I talk about.   What I'm talking about is very much stuff I've discovered while I've been en route.   That’s a lot of what OfferMind was about last year:   How do you know that the market your selling into?   How should you choose a mature market?   Just think about it…   I'm over here positioning…   Myself   My messaging   My sales letters   My product   Everything is in relation to the market that I’ve chosen... and if that market leaves, I’ve lost my business.   That's why a lot of people fail…   They build a product with no thought on the market that they’re selling into and where they go to market…   ...and so they just friggin' wander the village and trying to follow the veins of gold…   In my honest opinion, that's very dangerous, and it's one of the reasons why people fail!   The offer, the sales letter, the funnel… all that crap gets waaay easy when you understand this...   MY MARKET I am in wealth and my market is the ClickFunnels market.   I've helped a lot of people make a million dollars.   I’ve helped a lot of people make hundreds of thousands... and thousands of people have made their first money online, (or offline), EVER.   There were a few signals that told me that ClickFunnels is a mature enough market to sell into.   I'm selling into the ClickFunnels space, but I’ve positioned myself as an accelerant to the vehicle.   ...and I've done that on purpose and a lot of design, (and I told Russell that)... I was in his office probably like two or three months ago, and I said: “Hey, You're not just the CEO and CMO of an insanely massive and very valuable SaaS software  company that’s explosive and almost worth a billion dollars…”   ( It definitely will be at some time, you know what I mean! It's amazing.)   “ … AND you're also running a massive coaching program. My goal is to take the burden off of you in terms of ‘nerd out coachingism’.”   And he's like, “Oh cool, sounds good.”   That's why…  that's how I positioned myself in the way I have...   I'm an accelerant to the vehicle.   I'm not the anti-Red, that'd be dumb. I love ClickFunnels, you all know that.   (I think it's crazy when someone doesn’t I have a ClickFunnels trial. You can get a trial at freecftrial.com.)   MARKET DESIGN NOT BRANDING   Usually, when I say ‘market design’ most people think logos: “No, no, no, bad! That's branding.”   Branding comes second   ... and when I say branding comes second, I mean it comes at no. 5,000 down the line...   Branding means absolutely zero in terms of how money is already flowing...   I’m like,” Hey ClickFunnels people:   Would you like to learn how to use ClickFunnels from a guy that was the lead ClickFunnels builder at ClickFunnels?   Would you like to learn from the guy who gets outsourced huge amounts of the coaching for what they're selling?   That's a pretty powerful position.   If someone's like, “Well Stephen, I can't be successful like you 'cause I don't have status.”   Yeah, you're friggin' right! It's powerful. Go earn your own path.   I got a few people with poopy-pants syndrome who reach out to me like, “Stephen, but I can't do that...”   Well, you're right…   You haven't worked your face off for the last six years with obsessive sacrifice to figure it out. ...but you've probably done something that I haven't, and if you haven't, it's time to cut out some things in your life...   Alright… ;-)   So there is market selection and then there are acts of marketing.   Market selection = which market is naturally akin to the thing that I'm going to sell.   Acts of marketing = what most people think marketing is.   Acts of marketing are…   Let's go create:   A Sales letter   A Sales Message   Different Kinds of Campaigns.   Most people NEVER do any market selection, and that’s why they're NOT making money…  (and that's a lot of what OfferMind teaches).   Until Next Time: Make Money, Do Good!   BOOM! If you're just starting out you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies, right? That's also good.   But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right?   That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula.   So I created a special Mastermind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it.   Wanna come?   There are small groups on purpose, so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days. You can hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com.

People don't buy a product because of the product. Learn to sell! Here's how...   MLM’S DON’T KNOW HOW TO SELL   Not long ago I was able to teach some high executives in an MLM. It was a lot of fun but it was  also intimidating.   I would ask them questions like,     How does it sell? Why does it sell? Who does it sell to?     Their answer was "Well Stephen, the reason why people buy our product is because so good."   That is garbage.   Nobody buys your product because it's that amazing. Products do not sell themselves.   There is so much more to selling than the product itself.   When you get into an MLM, you own zero assets.   You don't own the downline you're building You don't own the product You don't own any of the sales messages   Nothing. You're a commission based salesman.     Until you learn how to sell and the psychology of sales, you will suck at selling.   One of the first MLM’s I was a part of told me, "This product is so good. All you need to do is get it in front of people and it will sell itself".   GARBAGE   THE SALES DANCE   There's a waltz that's happening every time a sales message is going down.   Any sale is dependent on a sales message. Not the product.   There are four specific chemicals that the brain experiences during a sale. I want to show you what happens inside the brain every time you try and sell to someone. This is the REAL psychology of sales.   People like to buy. The reason why they're not buying from you is because you're not giving them the opportunity. You're asking them to marry you before even going on a date.   Uplines aren’t teaching this because they don't know it. If you’re still getting that weird feeling when you try and sell to someone, you need to learn how to sell.   Without sales, the world stops turning. Selling is the most prestigious profession on this planet.   THREE OPTIONS FOR MLM SUCCESS   If you want to be successful in MLM, you need to either one of three things:   A gigantic following ahead of time A huge budget to spend a lot of money in ads A knowledge of the psychology of sales   Not everyone has a ton of cash or a huge following sitting in their back pocket. The BEST option is to learn how to sell, get good at sales and duplicating your sales message.   I want to walk you through the psychology of sales (the sales waltz). The more you understand why people make decisions and behavioral tendencies, the better you’ll be at selling.   IMPROVE YOUR SALES MESSAGE WITH DOPAMINE     How many times you check Facebook a day? Social media has been engineered to give you a dopamine hit. Anytime you get a text message or notification, you feel good, right?   That’s a dopamine hit right there. It’s the same kind of dopamine that comes from any kind of drug. It’s very addictive and it comes naturally in the brain. This is the chemical of distraction.   What does this have to do with the psychology of sales?   I don't want to build up a funnel. What I'm seeking instead, is a feelgood chemical - distraction.   People get addicted to the dopamine, because it is a distraction chemical. When you sneak off to play video games instead of doing homework in high school. You’re I'm seeking distraction, rather than the pain of the homework. That can’t have just been me?!   OXYTOCIN IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SALES   Oxytocin is the connection chemical of the brain. This is the one that we seek the most. It's also the hardest to get. This is the chemical that’s released when we feel connection with somebody. This is what makes us fall in love. It’s the chemical that makes us want to procreate.   People want to feel connected. They want community. They want to feel like they're a part of something.   It's the hardest of the four to get, but one of the most important. Can you guys imagine what Secret MLM Hacks would be like if this community did not exist?   You guys get an oxytocin hit when I go live on Facebook. I know that. You plan your whole days around this, even though you could watch the replay. Why? I got oxytocin running straight through your noggin.   Do you see how important this is in the psychology of sales? This is going to help you learn how to sell. When you understand what's going on in the person’s head, you’ll be able to hit those feel good chemicals during your sales message.   LEARN HOW TO SELL WITH SEROTONIN   Serotonin is the chemical of status. What' status do you gain when you join me? You get a social status status increase. You become a maverick, baby!   I'm a maverick. I do things different. I do things smarter.   It's harder to switch somebody who's had a status boost AWAY from the current product. It means that they have to have an identity shift. You do this by giving them a new identity. I'm a maverick, son. I'm a maverick.   Do you understand how this is going to help you learn how to sell?   ENDORPHINS IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SALES   Endorphins are one of the easiest hormones to trigger but you still have to work for them. You don't really have to work for dopamine. That’s why it's so addictive.   Working out gives you an endorphin release, but you have to work for it. Dopamine and endorphins are the easiest two hormones to get.   Status (serotonin) and connection (oxytocin) are the harder ones to hit.   THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SELLING WITH STORIES   You're trying to hit each of those four hormones in the buying experience. THAT is the psychology of selling. But HOW do you hit those sweet spots?   ANSWER: STORIES!   If I tell these awesome stories, like, "Hey, man, I was really overweight until I took this supplement. Then I lost all this weight.", but in a more emotional way, I have a high likelihood of creating a connection with you. BOOM!   If I tell it in a way where you’re the protagonist, I give you a status increase. You can hit ALL these chemicals by telling you stories.   I can distract you I could make you laugh I could give you feelings of rapport I could make you like me I could be funny I could be powerful I could be a victim I could be in jeopardy   Buying is an emotional experience, which we justify logically, later.   We are not in a logical state when we purchase. We're so hopped up on freaking goofballs here!   If you want to learn how to sell….   LEARN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SALES   It is not about your product. Sales don't happen because you have the best ingredients from the most obscure places on the planet. That's not why anyone buys.     We have the best products We have all the crazy ingredients We have the best comp plan.     That's not the reason why anyone runs out the door saying, "Take my credit card."   THE SALES MESSAGE DANCE   There is a dance that happens in EVERY sales processes. People are buying more thing at an increasing rate. If you're not selling at an increasing rate, you probably need to learn how to sell. This is the dance:   I'm going to tell you a story, and then ask you to buy You're going to come back and give me a wall Then I'm going to challenge that wall You just acknowledge the wall, then put up another one Then I challenge your second wall with a story, and try and close again You come up with another wall I tell you one more story to challenge your wall   You buy     These walls (objections) follow a pattern. That naturally occur in the order of:     A product based objection - you don’t think the actual product will be any good An internal objection based on your insecurities - you don’t believe in you capacity as a human being to pull off what the product is An external objection based on resources - Not having enough time or money     This is the order of objections that the brain goes through during any buying or decision making process. The psychology of sales is fascinating!   Stop selling based on FEATURES. Fish slap the crap out of that.   You will always hear the same five or six objections to buying your product:   I have to talk to my spouse Not enough money Not enough time I don't know if I'm allergic   It's the exact same freaking objections. Your task is to understand the major objections that people have to buying your product. Know the objections and know how to combat them.   Write your sales message to tackle peoples false beliefs.     Isn't this fascinating? I love the psychology of sales.   My challenge to you is to write down all the objections you get when you sell your product or your opportunity.   List all the objections and false beliefs. Then write stories that change those false beliefs and challenge their objections. People want to buy from you. You just need to give them the chance. If you want to learn how to sell, understand the psychology of sales and weave it into your sales message.  

Hey, what's going on everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. It's kind of a special, unique episode. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up, guys? Hey, I am here at the JW Marriott over in Phoenix, Arizona at the Traffic Secrets event. It's been a ton of fun to watch Russell go in and teach traffic, which is interesting, I mean think about it... The dude's running an almost near billion dollar company and doesn't know how to run a Facebook ad... BUT he's doing a traffic event. The perspective of somebody like that that's really, really interesting. And so the things he's been teaching have been quite fascinating. The trip here though was pretty crazy: We're getting on an airplane, I was flying to Salt Lake. We get on this airplane at Salt Lake and everyone goes and they sit down obviously it's a full flight, totally loaded up.The time for us to take off comes, and then it goes, and we're still sitting there. The plane hasn't even moved at all. Pretty soon the captain comes on like all cliche captains; you know, "How you doin’ everybody?" It sounds like the microphone is in his face. Anyways he goes, "The update is that there's no update. I'll tell you when there's an update." I was like, "Okay, that was weird." A few minutes later, he gets back on and says, "Hey look, the luggage guy was filling up the airplane and there was a huge bulge coming out of the side of the airplane. And no one can figure out what it is. The maintenance guy is here and they can't figure out what it is... so we'll give this a few more minutes here. We'll see what needs to happen." And he leaves, and we're all just sitting there like, "What on Earth?"... And it's funny because a few minutes later he comes back on. (We now should've taken off like, 20-30 minutes ago.) "Hey, no one can figure out What the heck the bulge is coming out of the side of the airplane. We've got to get off and change airplanes. It will probably be another 10-15 minutes because that plane's not even here yet... go to gate C10." Those kind of scenarios are always fun because that is when adults turn into children, right? People start doing things like, "Oh, are you serious, ugh!" I was like are you freakin' kidding me? Like, "Let's see, Alive? Or dead with bad plane? Alive? Dead with bad plane?" It was like, "Come on, are you serious? What are the alternatives here? There's not many alternatives. Not many options. Chill out." Anyway, super funny!So I get to the actual event and last night, at like 5:00 a.m. somebody pulled the fire alarm for the entire JW Marriott - which is extremely alarming to wake up to! It reminded me of several basic training days. It's like "Whoa!" You wake up real fast  and you're like, "What's up???" And again, it's when adults become big kids and start complaining like crazy. I'm not saying you can't ever have a negative feeling towards things that are going on in life, but there's been this pattern that I started seeing in my coaching, and things that are going on in life. I'm not saying not to feel emotions, but holy crap, if you can't handle something unexpected in life, and react to it well... If you can't be response-able - "able to respond," like the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says... If you're not response-able I don't think you're gonna be a good entrepreneur. The set of problems that I woke up to today was different (and not foreseen) to the problems I woke up to yesterday. And that's the game of freaking entrepreneurship. So many people get so mad about stuff like, "Well, I didn't think it would be this way." "Give me a refund, this kind of treatment is unacceptable..." I'm like, "Really? Are you kidding? You could die." Like, "Shut up you big baby. Literally, you're a big baby." ...I always laugh at that. I'll be coaching somebody, and I'll be like, "Alright, hey, now it's time for you to start publishing," and they'll be like, "Oh man!" And they start doing all this crap... "   “Are you freaking kidding me? In the last episode, I talked about  Cash causing frameworks, and you're not willing to do it?  Holy crap!"It was interesting because I was sitting listening to Myron Golden... You know, I was doing my One Funnel Away Challenge stuff. I got up early, I went into the event room. No one was in there, just a few people setting up. I did my One Funnel Away Challenge coaching. Which is a challenge where I help people get a funnel out the door in one month...I wanted to sit around with the lights, and I wanted to sit around with all the noise and the music in the background and do my coaching right there...(Sorry, there's a big something coming. I'm gonna walk this way.)...But it was interesting because Myron Golden walked up. And he goes, "Dude, I just read the most impactful book that I've ever read in my life since Expert Secrets." And when somebody says a phrase like that you know it's time to shut up and listen... He said,  "It was a book called You Squared."  It's not long. It's actually a super short book, and I believe the audiobook is on YouTube for free. I'm excited to go listen to it.) But the basic principle and premise of it... (Sorry for the sound of that guy right there. I'm trying to walk away from him.) ...The basic principle of it is this, and it's so funny because this is exactly what I've been noticing is the reason people don't have success.  They don't have success simply because they're so fixated on seeing beginning to end. Myron walked up and he said, "The reason people are not successful yet is because... (There were several things that he said but the biggest thing that I remember...) He said, “The biggest reason they're not successful yet is because they have not decided to be yet." And you might be "Okay, okay, I've got it, and that doesn't sound very deep." But just think about it right? "They haven't decided to be successful yet." The word decide means to make an incision and cut out all other options. *Bird song*(What's up birds? You sound cool.) ...If you decide to be successful, you don't care what the paths are. You don't care about the roadblocks along the way. You don't care what things you're gonna hit. There's going to be unexpected stuff. The reason I wanted to be an entrepreneur, when I started realizing what marketers really do, is because I had an early mentor of mine tell me, "Stephen, to be a marketer is to solve new problems every day that you did not have the day before." To be an entrepreneur is to have a new set of problems every day. If you have an unexpected thing that pops up in your life and you're like "Oh wah, are you serious? This is unacceptable. How come no one told me about this? The startup guide didn't include this piece for me."  Man, you are the freaking problem! Does that make sense? It's the way that you're seeing this thing. You haven't married the outcome yet. #Step one: You figure out what you want. You put a stamp out there - stamping the ground. "Bam, this is what I want." You declare it, "This is it. Boom, this is what I'm going for." And then what you do is you just start taking steps. The most common thing I see that stops people in the game is this... In order for you to actually totally get this I want to tell you a little story real fast okay? I'm not that big of a hunter, but I love to shoot guns. Growing up, my dad took me hunting a couple of times. I love shooting .30-06. I like shooting big, heavy rounds. He's a lefty and I'm a righty. So I'd go out with this .30-06 with the bolt action on the opposite side which was really weird when you fired. We'd go out to this little spot. He gets me up super early, you know. It's way before the sun is even out. It's pitch black, it's freezing, and we go up to these super high mountains, and we get out of the truck, and we start walking for a little bit. Then we'd stop, and sit down. I can't see a thing.  I mean it is like pitch, pitch black. I can't even see my hand in front of my face; it's so dark.I'm sitting there and it starts to get super cold. When the sun is about to rise is when it is the coldest because all the cold starts to rise as the sun kinda chases it off the ground.So you're sitting there for hours, and because you're not moving, it starts to get super cold as all that cold starts to come off the ground - and you know the sun's about to come up in a little bit. And sure enough, a  little bit of light comes. If I extend my hand all the way, I can see it now. As we're sitting right there suddenly, the light starts to pop up just a little bit. And there's actually a peak, on the opposite side of where I'm sitting. I didn't even know it was there. The sun just barely hits the top of the peak. It was beautiful, it was absolutely amazing. The sun keeps going up, and the line where the light is popping up keeps going down, down, down, down. Suddenly I realized, we are sitting on the edge of this gigantic, beautiful valley. This huge, amazing valley. I had no idea it was there. I sat there for hours while I watched this thing pop up. And that experience always stuck with me. (I did not get an elk that day, which sucks but someone in our party did.) Anyway, so this principle I want you to know is like the major core mentality that all successful entrepreneurs have... I don't know what step #4 even is for me right now. I don't, okay? I know the macro level moves I'm moving. But there's a crap ton of micro things I don't even know exist, that I've never had to deal with yet. That I've never had to solve... But I know how to learn. I learned how to learn. There's this amazing person who knows everything named freakin' GOOGLE. And I can just go there and I can Google. It's gonna be right there. I can go to this amazing individual called YouTube. And you know what? I can learn so much on YouTube. It's insane how much I can learn on YouTube. Most of my early clients, I knew that what they were asking me to do was possible, but I didn't know how to do it. I knew others were doing it, but I didn't know how to do it. So what does that mean? It means I'm the variable. So I would go out, and I would say, "Yes, client, I can do X, Y, and Z for you." Then I would go to YouTube, and I would figure out how to do it. Literally, that's how I actually started. I did that a ton for years. Having to have a deliverable forced me to learn quickly. Forced me to learn only the most valuable pieces I needed to move the ball forward... The 80% that mattered versus the 20% to perfection. Don't worry about that last 20% okay? I don't care what step four is for me on this micro level. I don't care about it until I've taken step three. I hardly even know how to put my foot down in step two right now. That's the whole point though, okay? Most of the time, I've noticed... this is like the overlaying pattern I've seen. There's really two things that I've seen when I'm coaching somebody new in this game. I've now brought well over 2,000 people through this process of building a funnel and getting it out the door. The first mentality I've noticed is that people are waiting to take action for them to see beginning to end. Man, I didn't see the whole freaking valley forever. Hours, and hours, and hours of sitting there freezing my butt off, uncomfortable stuff okay? You never see beginning to end in this game, you don't. One other thing real fast on that: Stop learning generally. I've said that before on this podcast. I'm just saying it again, it's just on my mind. All these things wrap together again. It's like, "Man, I've got to stop learning generally. If I don't need SEO, why in the heck am I learning it?" For me to place the very next step I need to take today, do I need to learn SEO? Most likely not, right? Most likely I don't need to put my foot right there. There might be some other crazy, crazy thing way down the road, and even then I'm not gonna be the one doing it. Why on earth am I gonna study something like SEO? If it's your thing, great.. but only if it's the very next step you need to take. It would shock you guys how much I don't study books. It would shock you guys how much I don't just consume crazy amounts of podcasts anymore. It was good at the beginning. It was great, but as soon as I knew what I wanted as soon as I knew what I was going for it all became about learning with the intent to place the very next step in front of me. I don't care how much other cool information is out there. It doesn't do anything, okay? Knowledge is not power, knowledge applied is power. And so I'm gonna apply it with the most intense force that I can with just the next thing. So I practice "Just in Time Learning." I place my foot down, Bam I just learned just for that thing just in time for me to place that foot in the next place. Funny enough, as soon as I take step number one, a new step three always appears. It kinda comes into the light just a little bit. Not clearly, but then there's a new step one. I'm like, "Oh, okay. Let me place that foot  as best as my foot can be placed." Boom, there it is. "Oh, let me place a new foot down, Boom. Ah, wait, I don't know how to do that. That's okay, let me go read about this on YouTube."My foot's off the ground. I'm not placing the foot yet, foot's still up there. Let me go see, oh, okay I know how to place that one. And pretty soon, you start walking at a pretty brisk pace. And the better you get, you start to sprint, you start to run. Some of you guys have said "Stephen, you haven't even been graduated from college for three years yet. How the heck are you doing that?" That's how. I don't just learn for the sake of freaking learning. I learn for me to go towards the goal. I don't care about the path it takes to get to the goal. It's gonna look like that okay? Stop waiting for it to be straight. Doesn't work like that okay? So again, first thing I noticed from people is they want to see beginning to end. Doesn't happen that way, okay? Doesn't happen that way. You come to me, and you try and find anyone that it's happened that way for. The second thing: The number one  excuse that I get for not taking action is "Stephen, well how does that work for my product?" Man, freaking-A alright. If you're selling anything or you're getting leads, I don't care if the point of sale is on the freaking internet or if it's off of it. I don't care if you're just trying to make contact a little bit... but if you're selling anything, anything... I don't care if it's your product or if it's somebody else's. I don't care if it's info, if it's real estate it's real business, if it's brick and mortar stuff. I don't care if it's B2B, I don't care if it's retail... If you're selling anything at all these are the principles that make things sell. It doesn't matter if it's your product. Doesn't matter if it's someone else's product. Doesn't matter if someone else owns it. Doesn't matter if it's affiliate, okay? Guys, oh my gosh that one freaking drives me nuts... Stop thinking you're unique. You are way less unique in your business than you think you are. It's not a bash, it's the truth. My stuff, there's like a 30% area where it's my pure genius. The other 70%... Man, who was it that said, "If you think you're a hot shot, just look around and realize you've been standing on the shoulders of giants all along"? It's some quote like that. That's the truth.   That's the truth that you gotta understand. You are not unique. You are unique, but I'm saying your business, your product, it's not really that unique. You're not really that much of an exception to what I'm talking about because you're not at all, okay? So don't think like, "Oh, I've got to see it from beginning to end." First of all, that's garbage, no one follows that. No one follows that. It was literally the night before we sold the original Two Comma Club Coaching program that we actually outlined the offer. People were registered for the thing. People were ready, we already did the first full day. It was the second day, the night before that second day where we actually, "Okay, what should we sell them?" Just move, start swinging the bat. Too many of you guys have been focused on figuring out what the material of the bat is made out of. Who cares! Swing, Swing, Swing! Swing, and realize that you are NOT this like crazy exception to the things we're talking about, you're not. "Well, I think my scenario is different." Bull crap, Bull crap! I'm gonna make you feel uncomfortable and call that right now. That's a lie, and it's been a lie that you've been romancing so that you won't have to take action. What I've noticed is that in each one of my coaching programs it's always usually around anywhere from week two to six that's where I get the most push-back because those are the places where I force people to take the most action. So they start doing things like "Well, how much time does it take the average person to do this?" That's a symptom of you having a belief you're literally trying to find a way to release yourself from the good pressure you're feeling. You're trying to find a way to NOT do the thing and keep your pride on the way out. "Well people said that it takes about three months, and I only have two months and two weeks, so I'm not a good fit." You're trying to find a way to keep your pride and exit at the same time. Just saying, done it a lot. I've coached thousands of people through the process now. "Well Stephen, I don't know, how do you actually go create the product?" Man, I guaran-freakin'-tee if you just go out and freaking Google that you're gonna find the answer. If I start answering every person's little, tiny, baby question that could have been answered by Google! I  teach you to be a self-solver. My goal is to teach you a level of self-dependency. I want you to be self self-sufficient. There's a ton of stuff I can teach on all these different things, but the problem I've found is that people will use it as an excuse to not take action. Or they'll use it as an excuse to try and keep their pride and justify their actions or their inaction for doing things: "Well Stephen, I can't see beginning to end." "Well Stephen, I don't think that this is gonna be..." "I don't think my product and my scenario Is a fit for what you're talking about." Yeah? Bull crap! Garbage, not true at all.  A little tough love Stephen Larsen coming out right now because I'm so sick of people using those excuses. And I'm getting sick enough of it that I'm gonna get pretty forward about it. I was coaching this morning for the One Funnel Away Challenge in the event room again. (We're just on a break, so I'm gonna go back in here in just a few seconds.)   ...But someone asked like three times "Well I just don't know how this works for affiliate marketing" or  "Well, I'm in MLM so it's not really that way." "Well, I'm in retail so it's not really that way." I was like "Ugh freaking-A!" I'm talking about sales -  this is human psychology. Do you have a brain? Yes, you do. So does that person, and that person. Everyone in the audience does. These are things and principles that cause human persuasion and action in general.   You are not an exception to the rule. You are way less an exception to the rule than you've romanticized. And I'm just saying it because I care about you guys. You are my audience, I protect you like crazy. That's my mentality. A lot of people want to get on the show or stuff like that and I'm like "Meh, NO!" Because you guys are my tribe. I've sacrificed like crazy to try and reach out to you guys so you can hear my voice and my message. And so that's my message today: #1: Your business is way less an exception to the rule than you want to think it is. #2: Don't think you need to see beginning to end. #3: Understand that these really are frameworks that cause cash. #4: The variable, if somebody else is doing it successfully... if somebody else is out there making it happen, but you're not - then you're the problem.Something in the way that you perceive the framework is the problem. It's coming from your head, between your ears. Just telling you a little tough love. I appreciate you guys, you're amazing. If you have appreciated this episode and I spoke some tough, hard truth in this one - so I would love your honest feedback. First, we're gonna put this on YouTube - then we repurpose it for lots of other platforms so you guys to consume on those platforms if you want to. Anyway, please let me know, be brutal about it,  I would love to hear it. Thanks so much guys, we'll see you guys later, bye. Boom, thanks for listening. Please remember to write and subscribe. Hey, you want me to speak at your next event or Mastermind? Let me know what I can share that would be most valuable by going to stevejlarsen.com and book my time now.  

Boom, what's going on everyone?   It's Stephen Larsen. This is Sales Funnels Radio.   Today, I'm gonna teach you guys about my coaching contract.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up, guys? I'm super excited about this. I've actually been looking forward to this quite a bit...   So I am knees deep in the One Funnel Away Challenge at ClickFunnels right now. I have the complete honor and privilege of being the guy to literally daily basically go in and hold people's feet to the fire.   It was like two or three days before I actually started the challenge, I started thinking about every other scenario where I was coaching people.   I've coached well over 1,800 people through this process now.   Many have become millionaires, many have made hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a ton of people made money for the first time in their entire life ever as an entrepreneur. And I'm very proud of that when I say that.   And what's interesting, and what's been really cool about this is that I've been able to go through and figure out more about the patterns of why it worked, or why it didn't... And not just from a funnel perspective.   I've been really, I don't know if introspective is the right word? You guys know I'm a kinda introspective individual in general, but I've been able to go through and look, not just from a marketing standpoint...   Meaning not just from a sales message, or an offer, or this is what this guy did in this funnel that's why he made the million, but I've been able to step back and look more deeply into the individual, and look at some of the attitudes some of these people would of have about what I was teaching them.   So I thought it would be kinda neat in this episode to go through and teach you guys some of the rules that I've created as I continue to do more coaching. And if they don't abide by these rules, I don't wanna coach them. It's so cut and dry...   So, I just wanna teach you guys what those are, so you understand the mentality that I'm coming from, and why I have patience in some areas, and why I have absolutely zero, unapologetic, no patience at all in other areas. And so, I thought it would be kinda neat to go through and do this.   Now when I first started, this was like two or three years ago, that was the original 2 Comma Club Coaching program - which is coming up on two years. Holy crap! That's crazy.   Anyway, so I went, and I started looking at all the different patterns of how that got started. I remember when I first started as that coach we were coming up with the 2 Comma Club Coaching program, I was like, "This is so cool. Who's gonna do this?" And then I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm built for this man. Let me do this. This would be so cool".   And what was interesting, first of all, I was so excited, I was so stoked, I was so shocked to be the original 2 Comma Club Coach and get put in those roles, and it's just a bunch of fun. I really enjoyed it.   I guess it was an episode ago that  I talked about the way a customer comes into your product often determines if they're successful with it afterward.   It's not just a pre-frame. You can pre-frame somebody for a sales message, that's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about pre-frame for your actual product success. So, it's almost the exact same kind of thing. So, this has become a pre-frame. I have them written down in front of me here... these are some of the pre frames.   Like I said a second ago, when I first was that 2 Comma Club Coach, I went in, I remember I was so stoked. I was very nervous. I remember the first coaching session came up. If you guys watch, it was a three-day launch that we did - it was called The Seven Day Launch - but it was three days on stage.   I got on stage with Russell doing a part of it, and it was really fun to go and drop out these different questions and back and forth, back and forth, and then suddenly realize there are 600 students, and I'm the only coach. Whoa, right?   I was like "Holy crap! How I'm gonna do this? Alright here we go!" And I was starting to get all pumped up, and I was trying to get jazzed about it.   And what was fascinating about that is I remember that I went in with the belief and the expectation that I would be coaching simply on marketing. I thought that I was gonna go on and I was gonna teach funnels, sales messages:   "Here's how create the offer. Here's great places to get traffic. Here's how you create a publishing or content machine. Here's how you become the attractive character. Here's how you have a cause and a new opportunity." All of these pieces, I thought that that was what I would be mostly coaching on.   And it wasn't until a while later that I realized that that's not actually what happened.   A few weeks into the program somebody asked me a question that wasn't on one of these areas.  There are these live Q and A's that I do for four straight hours every Friday. Four straight hours, live Q and A with the person in front of the rest of the group. I would be diving into their stuff with them. Diving in, diving in, diving in, diving in.   And what was interesting was a few weeks in, I started getting questions about, "Well Stephen, I'm a little bit scared to do that?" And I was like, "Uh alright, that doesn't mean you still shouldn't, alright?" "Well, Stephen, I don't know what to say?" Or "I'm not actually that good on a camera yet?”... And what's funny is a lot of the questions... they weren't about marketing!   I think that's the thing that was most shocked me about what happened when I started doing this stuff.   Most of the questions had nothing to do with marketing. They had everything to do with beliefs. They had everything to do with mindset. (I hate the word mindset, we'll call it attitude.) It had everything to do with attitude. I think the term mindset is overused - people just make it fluffy.   Anyway, they had everything to do with the way the individual was approaching the task, rather than the task itself: Here's marketing, rather than here's how you actually how you attack it. Here's how to actually do it and pull off what it is I'm teaching.   And so what's interesting, what's been cool, is that I went in thinking and studying and geeking out and obsessing over the marketing because that's what was I was gonna go teach...   But in reality, about half the question that I still get today, have nothing to do with marketing. They had everything to do with the individual's beliefs.   So I've made it a goal in my coaching to teach people to do to themselves what I'm trying to teach them to do to their customers.   Meaning, if I can get an individual to look at their customer base and go, "You know what, these are like three or four or five or six or seven false beliefs that all these customers have about me and my product and what we're doing."  If I can get someone to identify that, the rest of that is cake.   Now, we can start structuring belief shifts. Basically, I'm gonna change the way the individual believes. (There's some serious freaking power in the marketing game you gotta be careful with it, okay?)   But, if they're doing that to the customer - what if I could teach them to do that to themselves? Now that's hard to do... Because let me ask you a question real quick. "Hey you, right now, listening or watching this. What are your false beliefs?" You don't have false beliefs! There's no such thing as a false belief? You believe it, right?   "Hey, what are your false beliefs?" "I don't have any. They're my beliefs!" Right? So, it's a little bit harder to do.   I teach how to find false beliefs. I teach them how to break and rebuild and shift belief patterns for their customers, but I also help the student identify their own belief patterns, false belief patterns. The objections and complaints of the student themselves.   I help them come to understand, "Look! Check it out. You have a false belief in this area about what I'm teaching. You don't think it's gonna work, you are fighting me on it. You're either complaining, or you've thrown up an objection. You don't wanna do it anymore... you're throwing in the towel."   If I get an individual to point out to themselves the false beliefs they have about the game that they're in... Guys, their progress goes through the freaking roof. It's insane.   They learn how to self-doctor. They learn how to self-medicate (not the right word). They learn how to self-assess... there we go. They learn how to self-assess,  "What's actually the barriers and the obstacles that have been keeping them where they are?"   This is huge to understand. This is a massive, massive concept.   So, some of the things that I do now... Like, part of the reason I have that mannequin... You guys have seen me bring in that mannequin? If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's a few episodes ago...   But, I have a mannequin, and it's a punching bag in the shape of a guy. And on that mannequin, I started writing down things that people are afraid of. But it ended up being me writing the things that I'm afraid of or me writing down the things that freak me out, or me writing down the things that are telling me about me that aren't true.   I have things on there like: "Shame. Guilt. Not good enough. Fear. Imposter. Dummy." I got "Loser" on the front of it. I've got all these things that are negative that are constantly pushing in on me.   I don't want you to ever look at somebody who's on stage, somebody super successful, or an entrepreneur, and think,  "Man, they got it all together." No! If they look like that, they've just gone through a long disgusting road full of mud that has been through this incredible, massive, self-altering, self-discovery, that you haven't gone through yet. That's all it is.   Yes, they made a lot of cash on the way, but first, they had to qualify to make that cash. So that's what I've been learning how to do in the past especially year is go in and help a student identify their own crap.   "Look, let me help you call yourself out on your own BS here. You got some crappy beliefs. That's a false belief! That's a false belief! That's a false belief, and it's not right. It's not true. It's not real. What story have you been telling yourself that's been keeping that belief alive?"   We go through, and they'll write it down, and they're like, "Here's all my fears and here's how I'm gonna overcome it." That's actually the very first day on the One Funnel Way Challenge. They go in, and they write down all their fears, how they're gonna overcome the things... and don't make a big old laundry list that'll stress you out.   It's so funny guys, my business has grown to the extent that I have.   That's been my biggest realization in the past six months. Like, "Holy crap!" The game's been even more fun for me because I've noticed that as I get more discipline, as I add positive restraint, (positive constraint in my body, in my mind, in my behaviors, in my habits), I actually become more wealthy or I bring in more cash, or I can help more customers. It's the weirdest relationship ever.   And so, with all that preface in mind, I what to read my rules to you. That's why I take this so seriously. I am not a friend to my students. I let them know first, that that is the rule: "I am first your coach. I'm not your friend.”   I'm not here to make it fluffy. If you're wrong, I'm gonna tell you that you're wrong.   If I can see you can handle more, I will push you, and I will make it uncomfortable.   That's all about what I believe as a strategic hardship - because of what it crafts the person to be, and what it crafts the individual to become and do. And so that's why I'm going through this right now.   What I've noticed is that when somebody follows these rules, I'm allowed to come in with my side of what I will give to them. If they follow the rule I will award them with more of me. And so these are some of the rules that I created for the One Funnel Way Challenge as well. But, if they do this, then I will do this. I call it my coaching contract, and we released it to everybody.   I just want you guys to know what some of these things are so that you're able to go in and see like "Oh, my gosh, that's why it worked when I worked with Stephen. That's why it didn't work when I worked with Stephen." Or "That's why it's never worked yet in general regardless of who I've gone to."   And please know it comes from a place of love. I'm just a product of the product that I'm trying to teach you guys about. I had to get honest with myself. I had to look at myself and go, "Stephen, you're dumb." I had to get honest, I had to be open, I had to be real.   I was 35% body fat in high school, I was a big kid: "Stephen, you're fat," and be open about that and be honest. "Okay, I accept that. That's okay, my self-worth is not based on that." I own where I am and bask in the reality of where I am? That is one of the biggest keys.   So, as you go through here and you understand, I'm very intense as a coach, and it's because I believe this changes peoples lives. And that's part of what motivates me to do it, and it's part of why I don't care if I offend your attitude a little bit. If it's truth, it's truth okay? If it offends you, it means it's probably ultra true.   So anyways, guys, I'm just gonna walk you guys through this right here real fast okay?   This is the sub-headline: I am first your coach (like I was just saying), I am not your friend. Man, this is such a big one. People get offended by that, but I don't really care.   Rule Number One: "If you will do the work then I will show what work matters."   I hate fluffy work. I hate busy work, I will never give you any. I will show you the path. I will show you exactly what it is that you need to be doing and what you should not do.   Number Two: "If you will show up hungry, then I will match your hunger. I will NOT push harder than you do."   If you guys went to Funnel Hacking Live 2017, (I hope you guys are all coming this next year because it's going to be ridiculous. Oh my gosh.) Sean Stevenson gave a speech in 2017, and he talked about the motto of the Coast Guard.The Coast Guard has this interesting motto. Here's the scenario:   A helicopter goes up into the ocean, there's a sea full, there are fifty people in the ocean, and the helicopter can only save like 16. Who do you save? That's a tough question. That's a tough question.   And I'm not trying to be all Debbie Downer here when you think about this, but I just want you to know what do you do? So their motto, and what they do, part of their motto, is they say that they "Only save those that are swimming to them, who are actually making an attempt."   You can't save somebody, you are not a savior to your customer, you're not. You can only help those who are willing to help themselves.   The biggest thing that I cannot teach an individual, I have tried to find ways, I can't figure it out. I cannot teach somebody to be hungry. I can't. If they don't want it, there's nothing I can do. It's not about going 50/50, it's about goin’ 100/100. 50/50 sucks, that's a stupid rule! I need all of their devotion, and I will match the level of their devotion.   Part of the reason why some people will be like, "Well, I don't know, Stephen.. did he fulfill for me?" I'm like, "Well, you never did anything that I told you to do on day one." I'm just being open, I'm gonna be real and real honest with you. If it offends ya, okay! Does that make sense?   Someone's like, "Well, this ClickFunnels game... Sales... in general. I don't know if this really works?" Like "No! You're just not working, okay?"   Number two, the rule is, "If you just are willing to show up hungry, then I will match your hunger." Because I can't teach hunger, I cannot teach somebody to be hungry.   The difference for any employee, or any entrepreneur, the difference in attitude in any area of life, is if they show up hungry, more doors open for them. If they don't, doors close. And that's exactly how it happens in every opportunity in your life. Opportunities don't stick around. They get passed onto the next person. If you're not hungry, they don't stick around to you.   That's rule number two. Show up hungry, then I will match your hunger.   Rule Number Three: "If you will NOT use your current or past situation as an excuse...   This is a heavy one. You guys like these? These are not normal rules - every one of them has a lesson behind them...   "You are not allowed to use your current or your past situation as an excuse, and when you do, I will help you call you out on your BS."   I need you to understand this one - it's a huge one.   Too many times I've noticed people will be like, "Well, my situations a little different..." No, it freaking isn't. It's different to you, but it's not different than the hardships, or the level of intensity that somebody else is in who is doing it.   "Well, my situation is a little bit different now, I don't have the time." Bull Crap, okay! I don't believe that one EVER! That one drives me nuts.   "I don't have the time." Or "I don't have the money." Yeah? Garbage! Stupid! I don't believe you! Prove it?   Go in, show me a time study of what you're doing in your life? I don't believe you, and I will NOT believe you.   If you ever walk up to a mic and you ask a Q and A like that, "Well, I just don't have time to pull this off." I will publicly make fun of you. That one drives me up the wall. No one's even saying this to me right now, but it's clearly a nerve. That one drives me nuts!   I was in college, fourteen credits baby. Almost getting straight A's every semester. I was in the army - Holy crap, that is a huge time commitment. Married, kids, doing my own funnels on the side, that's where I freaking learned funnels with two to three hours a day. That's all I could squeeze out - that's it.   Those were the most productive, ferocious three hours of my day. I made sure to give my best self.   I'm not talking family, time or things like that. But, every other thing that I had to go do. My best self was given to me learning funnels. I knew it was the way out.   So anyway, you're not allowed to use your current or your past situation as an excuse. Drives me up the wall! Absolutely not. It is a catalyst, NOT a hindrance.   If you do that, then I will help you call you out on your own BS.   What's nice about that is that a second set of eyes can help you better. That's what my role is, to go in and help you see look, you got this belief pattern that I think is really hindering you.   And sometimes we're so close to our thing, I'm the same way. Guys I have spent $75,000 this year on coaching, okay? And it's for that reason. It's so that somebody else can help call me out on the BS I can't even see myself 'cause I'm so freaking close to it. That's the benefit of it.   So sometimes people are like, "Wait, if I don't use my current or past situations as an excuse, you will help me call me out on my own BS? How is that?" I was like "It's actually a blessing." Anyway, that's number three.   Number Four: "If you will NOT make someone else responsible for your results, then I will promise I will NOT do any of this for you."   Now, that one might sound a little weird. Let me just explain that one:   If you will not make someone else responsible for your results - which means you own every success and every failure. Every time you did not do what you were suppose to that day. Does that make sense? I need people to understand this one. You are responsible for everything that happens in your life - even if you actually weren't responsible for it. Even if it wasn't a responsibility of yours to bear.   I can't remember, there was some situation that happened here at our home. Was it my responsibility in the first place? No, but I took responsibility. I was trying to take responsibility for anything: "No, yeah, that's totally my bad." Yeah, oh we had to cancel pictures 'cause it was raining, that wasn't it, but I'm just thinking... "Oh man, that sucks. Yeah, I should have looked at the weather." Wasn't my fault freaking rain came out. But, it's extreme ownership.   There's a good book called Extreme Ownership, it talks about this kind of concept, and if you come in with extreme ownership, I promise to NOT do it for you. That's a huge one.   Most of the time I see a lot of the coaches just so that they can help get results for the individual, they will actually go and start doing the task for the student. And the problem with that is that when the coach leaves, the student has not learned how to go through that mental jog on their own.   So, anyways, Number four, it's actually a big blessing as well.   Number Five: "If you'll be polite to your naysayers, then I agree to make a safe house for you."   I'm not here to belittle people. I'm not here to just shove down, "Man, you suck, you suck." I hate that, that's not my style at all. I'm real. I'm honest, I'm open, but I'm also a safe haven.   And so that's part of what I come to people's relationships with when I start doing coaching for them (or any kind of consulting). I should say coaching/ consulting contract, not just coaching. Anyway...   Okay, naysayers are actually a catalyst for you, NOT a hindrance.   When they come in, they're a natural byproduct of anyone who's actually in motion. Naysayers are a natural byproduct of anybody who's in motion. And so WHEN they come to you... "WHEN," NOT "IF"...   When they come to you, and they start saying things like, "I don't think you can do that. Isn't that risky? Why don't you just get a job?"   I've heard that one a ton: "Why don't you just get a job?"   You just go to them, and you just pat their little heads, and you say "Ah, bless you, my small minded person." And just walk on.   It’s a test when somebody says that to you, and you do not go nuts on them.   I did that, and I made that mistake for a while. At the beginning of this game, too much of my personal value was hindered on what I thought other people thought of me - and that was not correct.   Number Six: "If you will only compare you to you, then I will only compare you to you."   This is a fascinating one.   One of the biggest reasons I see that people fail in any kind of game ever that they go play. Meaning, in business, entrepreneurship or anything, is that they start comparing themselves to somebody else.   Now, you can use the results of an individual to motivate you. But do NOT ever base your self-worth on the results of somebody else.   When you start to do that, you are actually basing your self-worth on a ideals. And the issue with that is that ideals change with every moment. Every blink of the eye, the ideal has changed.   So, it's like pop culture. You can't define what it is to be cool in pop culture, because it changes every single freaking minute. And then when someone says "Well, I'm not cool..."   The problem with it is that there's no way to measure progress because it changes all the time. So there's no way to measure progress.   Instead, if the person just measures themselves against themselves - their history - their past - and where they've come from - it's an accelerant. It's an accelerant and they go nuts. They sprint forward like crazy.   They can look up, they can look up, and they can see, "Oh crap! Check it out. Oh, that's so cool. That guy's done that. I wanna do that." And then they put their head down, and they only compare them to them - and where they were yesterday. That's the only competition you really have. It's YOU against YOU "yesterday."   It's YOU "today" versus YOU "yesterday" - that's the only competition that's really there.     And when you base your sense of self-worth on that rather than where somebody else is, "Oh man," I've noticed that really speeds people along in the process in general.   Hey, wish you could geek out with other real funnel builders, and even ask questions while I build funnels live?   Oh oh, wish granted...   Watch and learn funnel building as I document my process in my funnel strategy group. It's free, just go to the scienceofsellingonline and join now.