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SFR 135: The Cash In Being Present... Apr 16, 2018

Show notes

It's been said that 80% of success is just showing up. If you haven't made a sale yet... that may be the issue!

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now, I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million-dollar business. The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.

Join me, and follow along, as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

What's up guys? Hopefully everyone's doing great. I've been outside today, it's a Saturday, putting together this episode. Been outside. A lot of you guys might know this, actually, most of you probably don't: I actually really like yard work, which sounds weird, as a teenager I would have never said that in my life.

But I do. I was the oldest, which meant I did a lot of the yard work. Oldest of six kids, so growing up I did a lot of yard work. And for a while I hated it and then, realize though, for whatever reason now, especially too, it's almost therapeutic, for me to just get outside, work with my hands. Almost all my jobs growing up were labor jobs; physical labor jobs, things like that. I like working with my hands.

Anyway, so I was outside, I just chopped a tree down in our backyard, which is awesome, I'm doing a whole bunch of stuff. Anyway, I'm fixing our pond, a lot of stuff. I really love doing that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I was outside just a few minutes ago, maybe like two hours ago, but I was outside. I was mowing the lawn, I was trimming the hedges, all the stuff I...

Usually I'll either listen to music and just zone out, which typically for me is just as advantageous as me listening to a chorus: the chance to have nothing going on in my head and just let my mind drift. And that's one of the reasons why I like it so much.

Anyway, so I was out there and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the most incredible opportunity start walking up to me. I love it when this happens. There was a door-to-door salesman, he was walking on up, all awkward like.

We saw each other, he was trying to ... does he call out from far away? Does he kind of sneak on up? I love talking to door-to-door salesman because I was one, right? So he starts walking up, and I'm listening to Foo Fighters. I'm blasting Foo Fighters, I'm trimming up the sides and stuff, and I'm just ... I was thinking ... I was thinking about a lot of different stuff. I was thinking, you know I'm a full-time nerd, and I'm very proud of it. I was thinking about offer creation and different things like that.

Anyway, bunch of fun...

Anyways, he walks on up, and he hands me this flyer. He just, I hate it when people just put things directly into my hands. Most people will take it, I don't. Whenever I'm in the mall, or whatever, and someone just walks by and just hands something to me, I don't take it. I put my hands up, I'm like, "What is this?"

Anyway, so I did that...

I was like, "Well, what is it?" He goes, and he starts talking. He's like, "Well, yeah, I do spot removal on like carpets, things like that. We're going to be here real soon, and want to see who else in the area wants to get it." I was like, "Sweet, that was very similar to the pitch I used to give, and it worked really, really well."

And I was thinking about it, I was like oh my gosh, this is so cool. My wife and I just barely were talking about how we want our carpets cleaned. Right, we've lived in this house for a year now, we should clean the carpets, you know. We got a new little one on the way, in like a month, and ... Or month and a half-ish. We're just trying to prep things around the house.

This our third kid, we know everything kind of goes into a coma. You're just trying to survive the first month or two with a newborn. Sort of like, hey, we should have the carpets cleaned. Oh, sweet. That's awesome, do you do full service? And he said, "Yes, yes, I do actually." I said, "Cool, how much do you charge?"

And he told me very briefly in just like one sentence what it was that he does, what's different about him, and how much he charges, and I was like, gosh, thank you for getting right to the point. I'm asking a buying question. The guy identified it, and he immediately gave me a very fast answer of what I wanted, and let me started asking the questions.

And finally, which is super cool, because he did not turn around, and he did not lead with his, he did not lead with this super expensive thing. And even then it wasn't actually that much money. He's gonna clean the carpets, and such, soon. And I almost was selling him on it, 'k ... He lead with what was the lowest barrier thing that he had, spot removal.

Right, it's not an even full out carpet cleaning. Spot removal, that's it. That's what he was doing, and if you think about it. That's really fascinating. We're talking about different value ladder steps, right?

Selling this really high ticket thing in the backend, that's awesome, but usually you got to sell it to really hot people. Hot market, right? Middle of the value ladder stuff, that's more usually the core of your business, but if you lead with something that's super pricey you cut out this whole other market, right? Which is eventually why we will go, and we will start doing smaller ticket things.

Well, when you're talking face to face with people, or even in a trip wire funnel, we don't lead out saying here's all the money that you're gonna spend in this funnel. We lead out with the smallest barrier, the lowest barrier, free, plus shipping. That's super low bare, even though the average car value could be 50, 60, 70, 80 bucks, right?

Right, it is free if that's the only thing they get. That doesn't mean we're not gonna take the opportunity to pitch them on other stuff, right, but we're leading with the lowest barrier product we have....

Anyway, I started talking to the guy more. Turns out he and I actually had a lot of stuff in common. I did door-to-door for a long time, so, did he for a while. He's around my age, and he's like, "I was working for this other company, I graduated only a little bit ago, and I just got to do my own thing, so, I'm just doing carpet cleaning for people." And so, I was like, "Sweet, I can totally relate with that." He's like, "Yeah, I had a sweet job." I was like, "Ah, me too." I just got this thing inside of me says, go do your thing, and so, I did, and it's been freaky.

Yeah, it totally freaky...

Anyways, we start talking for a little while, and struck up a good conversation. Anyways, he's coming back. I'm totally gonna talk to him about funnel building. It's what I do. I always talk with people. Talk about that with people. Gonna get my haircut, I always talk to the haircut person about funnels usually.

Anyway, so, here's the whole lesson though. This podcast maybe a little short. The lesson is ... I've been teaching a lot of people lately, right? Obviously, You guys ...

SFR 134: Questions Invite Revelation... Apr 13, 2018

Show notes

Good questions get good answers. Yet, the opposite is true as well. Solving marketing problems starts with checking that your asking the right questions...

I'm Steve Larsen. This is Sales Funnel Radio, and this episode is gonna just totally rock. It's pretty freaking awesome.

I 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'm very excited for this episode to be honest though. It's funny as I look back I officially got hired by ClickFunnels two years ago almost to the day of me recording this. Which is awesome. Super, super cool. And essentially when I look back and realize everything that's happened, and a lot of you guys come up and congratulate and stuff like that and that means a lot and I appreciate it. But what's been more powerful for me is to look back and see what I had to do personally to really start winning at the game.

You know what I mean? One of my favorite things that were said in this last Funnel Hacking Live is by Myron Golden, which he just said he'd get on the show, which I'm very excited about.

So when that happens obviously, anyway, super stoked about that. But he said that one of the things that he did to win is he just stayed in the game long enough to just know what the game was, you know what I mean?

He stayed in the game long enough to be able to actually win at the game. And sometimes people jump in like, "This is a scam." Right?

But they were in there for like three months. I've been going at it for like five, six years there, guys and been a ton of fun, really enjoyed it, specifically the Internet game anyway. Anyway, as I was kind of looking back, I've been thinking heavily along the time when we were broke. I mean we were just living paycheck to paycheck.

We're literally living on loans, you know what I mean?...

A lot of guys know my story, the way it started. We were getting these student loans because it was the way we were eating.

And then finally I was like, "Man, I gotta make some money...."

And so I started flipping real estate And there were some complexities with where I was living that weren't allowing how I was doing it. I was doing some double escrows and flipping it that way, it's tons of fun. Put out those street signs all over the place, had 300 people call me in a month and anyways, I was working my butt off. I've never really not.

I just keep moving and make mistakes of commission instead of omission, you know what I mean? so I was sitting back and I was thinking through and there are these times, I guess multiple times and I'm sure that if you really have been wanting this, you've had the same thought. And I guess I'm religious and I'd be kneeling down at night praying and I'm asking God like, "Why am I struggling so much? Like, why? Why am I struggling so much? How come I haven't made it yet? Right? How come I ...?"

Those are the questions I was asking and it took some internal maturing for me to sit back and realize that number one, that's a stupid question to ask. And number two, what was I doing about it? And I was active, I was in motion, I was learning like crazy. I hustled my butt off, went and joined the army so we could eat, you know.

And I had a ton of fun there and learned like crazy and a lot of self discovery for sure. I certainly enjoyed my time there. Glad to finally be out of it, but glad that I did it though. Anyway, I had this guy tell me about 10 years ago, I went on a mission for my church for about two years and you know, he's a guy, we call him the mission president and he's the guy over all of us and he always taught us this one thing.

And I had this come to my mind couple of weeks ago as somebody asked me, they were considering joining the Two Comma Club ex coaching program and it was at the Funnel Hacking Live event, if you know what I'm talking about, go buy your ticket for next year. Okay?

It's, it's one of the best investments you'll ever make...

That event solely has changed my life...

There's not a doubt in my mind. I've a marketing degree and four Funnel Hacking Live events, I can tell you I've learned way more doing that, than I have in the marketing degree.

Not that I'm not thankful for that either, but anyway. But I had this idea, this mission president, he reached out when I did a two year mission for my church. Because I'm talking about those guys were in the white tee shirt and ties with the name badges on bikes. I did that for two years when I was 20 years old. He always taught us that the questions invite revelation.

Now I understand that from a religious context, you can understand what he's teaching there, but I want to take that out of the religious context and let you know that that's still true regardless of any area of your life.

And so when I was sitting down and I was thinking the question, "Gosh, oh, why? Why is this not working?" You know, like, "Please God, how come I'm not making money here? Why are we struggling so bad? Why am I not making the cash? How come it's not coming in? I'm serving? I'm working hard?" It's funny, it's interesting, you know, hindsight 2020 And I look back and I'm like,

"Oh, it's because I wasn't doing this. I wasn't doing that. I wasn't doing this, I wasn't doing that." But one of the things that I realized though is that the questions invite revelation. And that is so true for every area of my life. And rather than sit back and think the question, "How come I'm not making it?"
Instead, I should totally have been asking the question,

"How do I sell this better?"...

You see what I'm saying? Totally different question, and the question affects the outcome. So you guys know why I like putting some dubstep on, taking some caffeine and stand in front of a whiteboard? It's because I'm standing up and most of my ideas will come during that because I'm asking a question....

But the quality of the question affects the quality of the answer and instead of me standing back, start asking yourself the questions that you're asking yourself. Become cognizant of what they are and step back and start saying to yourself, "What questions have I been asking myself?" And if you're like,

"Ah, I don't know why I haven't been effective in this game. How come I'm not making money here or there?"...

Those are valid questions, but is it the right one? You know what I mean? And so there was somebody I was chatting with right at the Funnel Hacking Live Event and there were like, one of the questions that they started asking was ...

I'm sure some other people do this. I know that they did. Righ...

SFR 133: Choosing a MONEY Audience... Apr 09, 2018

Show notes

I get asked a lot, "Steve, how do I choose what market to sell into?" Well, here's some of the basic criteria I put an audience through to see if I should sell to them...

Hey. What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my 9 to 5 to take the plunge and build my million-dollar business. The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

What's up guys? Hey. I'm super excited for this. I know I'm publishing a lot right now. It's because I have a lot of thoughts, especially after Funnel Hacking Live. That is like throwing gas on the fire for my brain, and I love it. Hey. I am very, very excited for what I want to share with you. I sat back a while ago, and I was sitting down. I was thinking through how many businesses I had tried before ever actually getting one that really started going off the ground. As I looked back and I started realizing it's like, I don't know, 14, 15, 16, 17. I mean, it's a lot. I was going through and I was numbering all the products I had created. I was like, wow, okay, I kind of first started with this one. Then I went to this one. I was like, wow, it's really fascinating.

To look back. I encourage you all to do this. I seriously, seriously doubt, and almost bet on my life that I am not the only one who's tried a billion different products, lots of different businesses and failed at a ton of them, meaning of this audience who listens to this. I encourage you to go sit down and start writing those down. It's kind of a neat thing to look back and realize, like why did that fail? Why did that fail? Why did that fail? One of the lessons that I've learned was tossed back into my head.

I've had a few people asking me a few questions lately, especially with the recent program, Two-Comma Club X Coaching, that I'm one of the coaches for and that ClickFunnel has just released. A lot of people have been coming to me saying, "Hey, Steven, is this a good idea? Is this a good market? Is this a good product?" Well, first off, I'm not going to know your industry like you are, okay, but I do know the models and patterns that show if it is something typically good to go into usually. Okay, okay.

When it comes down to it, like we can teach the models, we can teach the patterns and then after awhile it's guessing. You know, you just have to launch it after awhile and just see if it actually sticks. There's a lot of patterns and stuff that we can walk through to help shave off bad ideas. Anyway, I was recently talking with someone and I had this memory come to my head. Back before I started using ClickFunnels and I was building funnels inside of GetResponse, literally, like the email provider, right, GetResponse autoresponder.

They have a landing page software, and I was building essentially funnels on their landing page software. It was terrible. It was so jenky. Anyway, I would like sneeze and half of it would get scrambled. It was the weirdest thing. Anyway, but it's all I had, so I was trying to do that. It's very much part of my character that as soon as I start selling something or as soon as I've learned something and I know it can help other people, I want to go tell them about it. Say, did you know you can do this? Oh my gosh! Check it out? Right? Which is why I think I podcast the way I do.

Anyway, one of the people that I wanted to go present this to was a door-to-door company, okay, a door-to-door selling company. I had already done one summer of door-to-door sales at that time, and Vivint, like Vivint Home Security. They had a huge office near the place where I was living at the time. This was six years ago. It was quite a while ago. Five years ago, six years ago, something like that. Anyway, so I walked on in to Vivint and I sat down with some of the owners. It wasn't the "owners" of Vivint, but it was before their massive buyout.

They got bought for like $2.4 billion or something for only like 75% of their company. They still maintained 25%, which is crazy. Crazy! Oh my gosh! Can you imagine that? Anyways, it very well may have been some of the top guys because that buyout had not happened yet at the time.

Anyway, so I was chatting with them and I was telling them, hey, did you know, you've got these sales agents that are out there doing this and that, right, these reps that are going around. Think about the cost of supporting a rep. Think about this. I could build you this thing that I'm doing called a funnel and we could like totally ... and I started giving them my ideas of basically and front-end funnel, super awesome. I ended up buying like doortodoorsellingsecrets.com or something like that and a whole bunch of other tons of URLs for that.

I really like the door-to-door sales game. I think sales is one of the most prestigious, I don't know, careers ever. Call me bias, but I think it's true...

Anyway, so I was sitting there and I was telling them about it, and I was like, hey! To be completely honest, I know it would work. I know it would work. Right? It fits all the models. It fits all the patterns. I was like, think about that. This is like having tons of sales agents in lots of cities that you don't have to pay to support. It's all on a website. They were like, "Whoa. That's crazy." It turned out that like they just didn't want it. They just did not want it. Okay. I was like, okay. I was a little bit frustrated. I spent like a couple hours in there teaching them, pitching them, helping them realize. They were like, "Wow, that's amazing. Okay. Let us work this up the chain a little bit and we'll get back to you on that." If you guys have ever done any sales that basically means no. I was like, crap.

I walked out and I was like, why didn't they see it? How come they didn't get the value? Right? I guarantee every one of us has had that experience before in some fashion. Okay? You're looking at a customer. You're looking at somebody you know you could help. You can't help them for free because that negates progress rules and laws, okay, right, for the most part. You couldn't do it for free.

Anyway, you could not, however, sell them on the fact that this was something that they need, right, that it would drastically improve their life or their business. That's a frustrating thing to sit back and go through. I've been through that tons of times, tons of times, and you guys probably have as well. I recently had someone reach out and ask the question, hey, I've been trying to sell in this area to these people and I just can't sell to them. I don't get it.

Why isn't this happening? I had all those memories rush back into my head. You kno...

SFR 132: The Natural Flaw In 'Ask Campaign's' (and what to do about it)... Apr 07, 2018

Show notes

I LOVE 'Ask Campaigns'! But there's a build-in flaw...

What's going on, everyone? It's Steve Larsen and you're listening to a very energetic, high speed, fast-paced episode of Sales Funnel Radio. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my nine-to-five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

What's up, everyone? Hey, I'm super excited to dive into this episode today with you. I just wanted to go through real quick and help you understand one of the reasons ... I get a lot of people who reach out to me and they'll be like ... Well, here's an example. I brought 700 people so far, 700 about, it's like 680 or something like that, through the current Two Comma Club Coaching Program and, if you guys are part of Funnel Hacking Live, you know that there is a new program that is out, which is awesome, and there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who are jumping in as well.

Very, very excited to have you guys, by the way. I can help you guys set up your offers, things like that. Anyways, I'm excited to have you here, it'll be awesome.

And then I have my own students. Here's the scenario, you spend a ton of time, you build a funnel, you're spending time in the editor. You put together this copy and these videos and you're getting together the traffic, you're building up some buzz for it, and you go and you launch this funnel. You're running ask campaigns and you're reacting to what the market is telling you to do, and then suddenly you realize that, oh my gosh, the funnel's not actually gonna work. It's a scam.

Steve, one of those massive eyeballs. He's not delivering. You're like, what? I wanna tell you why that easily is. I don't wanna tell you why it typically is that even when ... When I was working at Click Funnels, when Russel and I would launch a funnel it wouldn't work the first time. Here's one of the reasons why. It has to do with the way that the offer came about. It has to do with the way, especially if you're creating an opportunity switch.

I had the honor and privilege to do a round table at Funnel Hacking Live and this topic came up, and I realized that I don't know if I've really talked or discussed about this with you guys and somebody asked, what do you do when your funnel doesn't work? I was sitting there and I was pretty much yelling for three hours. It was the fastest three hours of my life, by the way.

I love coaching. I just had no idea three hours went by. I had people around me the whole time and it was so loud in there I was yelling so that everyone could hear. My throat was killing me at the end but it was a ton of fun.

Anyway, it pretty much goes like this. When my wife and I were expecting our first child, meaning literally we went to the hospital and she was about to have the kid, we were in the delivery room, and I first of all want to give the caveat that I recommend you never do this, ever, men. We were in there and she needed to be induced. Nothing had started yet. We had already been in there, we'd spent the night in there, and nothing had started yet. We were just kinda hanging out. Sometimes it's kinda long waits inside those rooms before the delivery action actually happens. Super special and a great experience.

Anyway, I was sitting there and ... at the time, I can't remember what I was trying to sell, but I was trying to sell something or I was gonna go make a product. I didn't know about offers yet. I was gonna go make this product and at the time, Noah Kagan, if you know who Noah Kagan is, Noah Kagan had this thing at that time where he would help you make your first $1000 on the internet, but you could text him personally before you actually bought, with any final questions.
I was like, hey that's kinda cool. So I decided I would text him.

I'm sitting there in the delivery room. Nothing's happening yet, there's nothing going on. I'm not that kind of schmuck, but don't do this guys. I was sitting there and I decided that I would text Noah Kagan. I'm texting Noah Kagan and I'm like, hey man, I got this sweet idea and I would love to be able to go and build it.

Do you think it's a good idea? He goes, I don't know. I was like, what do you mean? Is this a good idea? He's like, look man, I let people vote with their wallets. I don't care what they say with their mouths.

I was like, huh. That makes so much sense. How come I never thought of that before? This is like four and a half years ago now. I was like, oh yeah, that makes complete sense. Why would I care about anything? You know?

Now, think about it. What's the thing we teach you to go do to start uncovering the false beliefs? We tell you to do an ask campaign. An ask campaign. That's people telling you, oh yeah. Right? How many times have you guys said ... We've all done it. Classic example is January 1st. We all make our New Year's goals, our New Year's resolutions. I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna do x, y, and z better.

Three weeks in, 99% of people aren't doing their thing anymore. So, same thing is true when you're asking people, ask campaigns and stuff, what's your number one question or challenge with x, y, and z? It helps you like crazy get a good baseline of what it is that you should be go creating. But you gotta understand that when you're creating it, you actually, by nature, have a gap in what people said they're actually starting with versus what they'll actually pay for to have a solution for. There's a gap there.

So, that's why you have to be reactionary so quickly. So that when you go out and you're actually building your funnel and you go out and you launch that thing, you've gotta understand that you are doing so with a sales message, an offer. You're doing so with a funnel that is based off of what people said they're interested in versus what they're actually interested in.

So, by nature, there's a gap. That's why you do and run what Russel calls an audible. A funnel audible. The moment you launch the thing, you do it with the expectation that it will fail because you've created it from this ask campaign based off of the ideas of what people said that they're struggling with. Do you think that people even know 100% of what they're struggling with? No. I can even tell you from when I coach people, most people have no idea what they're struggling with on their own phone.

They're like, I don't know what the problem is Steven, you gotta tell me. And I gotta look in and be like, this is the issue. I love ask campaigns, but it's the reason why I don't just do them once. I don't ever really stop them. I do them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. It's not always the same way that Expert Secrets talks about.

It's not always me legitimately...

SFR 131: Assets To Collect BEFORE Funnel Building... Apr 04, 2018

Show notes

Jumping straight into ClickFunnels after having an idea is actually the wrong order to go...

Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my 9-5 to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.

The real question is, how will I do it without VC Funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels.

My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.
What's up everyone? Hey, I wanted to ... This is a bit of a special episode, I did a Facebook live recently, it was crazy within like a few hours there was like over 600 views on it and it got shared and tons of comments.

Anyway, what I was doing is I wanted people to understand more about the order that I go through to launch my funnels, and this is important for you to understand because I feel like people do it backwards like crazy and it drives me nuts and this is one of those areas where I recently have had a lot of clarity and really has helped me to know when to suggest to people that they're ready to start the funnel building stage, okay.

Because I feel like one of the major errors people make is that the first thing they do is they jump into Click Funnels and start building something, but they don't even know what they're building and then when they build it they don't have the sales and so I'm trying to ...

What I want you to do is ... I would take notes on this. It's really just three steps, three phases that you'll be able to see clearly in this or here. So, what I did is, I did a Facebook live kind of deep diving into it, it's only like 10 minutes long or whatever. But, I feel like it's gonna help bring some clarity on when to build the funnel, and when to not build the funnel, when you're not ready to go to that stage yet.

If you wanna know how, "Stephen, how did you build so many funnels so fast?" Well, it's because ... Building a funnel was really step three every time, step ones and twos were already done and so I could just do step three build, build, build, build, build, build, build, build, Right, does that make sense?

Anyway, so, I hope that you will be able to enjoy this. Let me queue it over here right now and I hope that you enjoy more of ... I just hope that it helps you understand more of the order that I funnel build in. I know I've already said that but this will be powerful because the first time I every did this it did not go well on my own and it's because I did not understand these core pieces and elements of funnel building itself.
This is the order that I get my funnels off the ground, okay?

The first time I ever built a funnel that actually went really well, it was probably like my fifth funnel. And I went through and ... This was like four, five years ago and I went and I was building these funnels right? And I was putting this stuff out there and I originally was doing it in WordPress. Terrible, right? Terrible experience, it was awful.

I was building it all in WordPress and I was building funnels for ... Actually, I built this funnel for this artist and it actually went really, really well. It was technically an eCom site but the way we were trying to sell it was a little bit funnel-ish. It was before Click Funnels ever existed. And then I went through and I was building funnels for people with Get Response, their landing page software, okay?

It was ... It's rough, oh my gosh, like actually using Get Response landing page software in a funnel scenario. It was like, "Oh my gosh, it was nuts." So, when I saw Click Funnels like a few months after it came out, I was like, "This is freaking awesome, are you kidding me I've been trying to do all this stuff by hand and these other scenarios are super, super hard." I was like, "This is crazy."

So, we went out and my buddy and I Coulton, who's now my assistant, high-ticket salesperson. We're trying to come up with all the crazy names, part-time sushi chef, snake enchanter. I don't know. He's one of my best friends and he's in this game with me now, which is funny, full-circle it's been this way. But like years ago we built this funnel using Click Funnels, right?

And we didn't have money to get something like Click Funnels. $97 a month felt like this insurmountable amount of money and we're like, "Oh my gosh that's, are you kidding? $97? I see the value. I see, but I don't have $97 a month." You know? And I was like, "How do I do this?" And so what we did was we decided that we would, and I was like, "Grrr." I was reading a lot of Robert Kiyosaki at the time and I was like, "Robert Kiyosaki always says that poor people say, 'I can't afford it', and rich people say, 'how can I afford it?'" And I was like, "I'm gonna try and practice this." Right?

This was five years ago and I was like, we were super poor. We were living paycheck to paycheck mostly on student loans. You know what I mean?

I was just trying to figure the game out. I was hustling as hard as I could. I'd get all my homework done in a few hours and then I'd go hide in these box office seats in the basketball stadium and I'd wait for the security guards to not look at me and I would throw my bag through the front window of the box office, or sorry the box seats and then I would wait for the security guards to look away again then I would jump through the front window. And I did that for a year and a half and up there was it was quiet, the internet was fast, I could stay and hide up there, way past building closed and I did that every day for a solid year and a half.

What we did was, when Click Funnels came out, right? We were like, "We gotta have this tool. I want to build this funnel." This was the first real successful funnel that I'd built. We decided, it was really two funnels we built. The first one was we were like, "Okay, what we're gonna do is plan out the whole business.

Let's plan out the entire thing. Let's plan it all out and then we'll press go on our trial and when we press go on the trial we have two weeks to build the funnel, bring customers in and get them paying for Click Funnels so that we can have it and our customers would pay for it." And that's totally what we did.

And it worked. We both said goodbye to our wives for like two weeks, and we planned out the business and we pressed go. Boom and we just ran. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to like ... I didn't even know how to change colors of a column, like I was so new in Click Funnels that I quickly became 'that guy' to the support people, because I asked at least two questions a day, every day for like a year.

I was like, question, question, question, question, question, question,...

SFR 130:The CORE Of A Funnel... Apr 02, 2018

Show notes

This is the extended version of what I taught at Funnel Hacking Live 2018. There are TWO parts to a funnel's core...

What’s going on everyone? It’s Steve Larsen and you’re listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

I’ve spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now, I’ve left my 9 to 5 to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is, how would 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 learned, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's Internet best sales funnels.

My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. I am so excited for this episode. I've been dying to record it. I feel like it's going to be one of the episodes that I look back on and I'm like, “man that was one of the Hallmark, amazing episodes of sales Funnel Radio.” You know what I mean? 10 years from now, hopefully this show is still going, but I feel like I look back and be like, “man, that was one of them. That was one of the ones that made it click for a lot of people.”

It's one of the things that made a click for me, and anyway, I'm excited to share with you. It all kind of started honestly, well, how should I say this? How far back you want to go?

Lets see, I was born in 1988. No. So, it's been it’s been a lot of fun working with Russell because, what is fun about it is, I feel like he and I are probably some of the only people on planet earth that geek out at the level that we do. And so, every time we see each other it's like a show and tell, like, “hey dude, check this out.” And he shows me, and we go through all the cool stuff he's doing.

And I'm like, “yeah, check this out.” I tell him all the stuff I'm going through and doing, and the epiphanies that either or of us have had. And so anyway, I was chatting with him a little while ago, and that is when he was saying, “Hey, we want to get you on the funnel hacking live stage”, and I was like, “sweet.” Are you serious? Okay. That’d be awesome. And, which just ended, and I'm kind of backtracking a little, okay? I'm a little bit behind on recording these episodes. But I went and he said, “We want you to teach new offer creation in 10 minutes.” I was like, 10 minutes?!

What? Oh my gosh! That's what I teach in 3 days at the fan event.” You know what I mean? Are you serious? Okay. Oh my gosh.

So, I was sitting there in and the magic formula happened, which is caffeine and dubstep. I was pacing around my own office here and I remember. My head was just kind of subconsciously on this problem, and I love that. Because I will be in random places around the house, around wherever, and I'll have these epiphanies like, “oh my gosh!

It's easier like that...

Holy crap!” My head is constantly on these problems, you guys. I rarely think about anything else, which sounds like obsession, and it is, and I'm glad it is, okay. I sit and just kind of think. I told you guys a little while ago how I kind of brainstorm and come up with these ideas. I imagine them as these little threads and I kind of tug on them, see where they lead, and if it's like good then I just drop it and I go on to the next thing and try and find different possibilities for solving different problems.

Anyway, I was thinking through. I was trying to distill down the 3 days into minutes. It was rough, it was rough. I was trying to work the problem, and figure out the different angles to teach it. I went into click funnels at like 10:00 at night the week before Funnel Live happened. I sat there and I was trying to do it for about 2 hours. I was doodling. For some reason if I can doodle it I know that I can teach it, and I know that it's a clear thing. And so that's the reason why I draw so many pictures. So, I was doodling and I was like, “oh my gosh.” I started having these epiphanies and they start coming faster, and faster, and faster, on the way to teach this.

Well, next morning I'm back in the home office here, which is where I'm now, and I was standing in front of my white board and all of a sudden I had this, guys I don't know really how this happens but I will forget where I am. It actually makes me a little bit nervous because it's happening more frequently.

Whatever I'm thinking of, that's where I physically feel like I am at that time. I will forget where I'm standing and I get kind of lost, in my head. 20 minutes will go by and I'll suddenly come to and realize that I've been standing in the corner of the room for a while. But I’ve been deep meditation and thought. It's a little bit weird and it's kind of happening more frequently. I'm kind of trying to get used it.

So, I was in one of those little, I don't know what I'm going to call it, weirdness things. I was kind of zoning out a little bit. All of a sudden, I had this realization. One of the things that people struggle with the most when it comes to building funnels is, they think that the funnel is a series of pages, and we have had the hardest time trying to describe in this very small amount of words, the shortest amount of words, what a funnel actually is. Right?

My mom used to think that funnels, I was selling literally kitchen hardware. “You’re selling funnels, kitchen stuff. You don’t even know how to cook.” I’d be like, “yeah I know I should not be in that space.” Anyway, we’ve had a hard time getting people to understand what a funnel is without people seeing it, right? We've tried literally for years. We’ve tried to figure out how to explain what a funnel is in the shortest amount of time, where people are like, and “oh.”

A couple of years ago, that's honestly where this whole conversation started. We were trying to figure it out. It's a series of pages linked together to turn prospective customers into buying customers. Oh man, that's just a lot of a lot of, how do we shrink it down? What’s the core of funnel building? Suddenly, it hit me! That’s what I'm so excited about, you guys! Holy crap! What is it?! I figured out.

I was sitting I realized, I was standing in front of the white board and I realized, that at the core funnel building is the offer. For a long time I was saying that. It's the offer, it's the offer, and the core funnel building is the offer. But it's not. It's actually only half of it.

The other half of it is story. It's the sales message. It's the belief that carries the offer, and those two things is what makes a funnel. It's the reason why whether or not you decided to make a funnel, you have a funnel. If you're in business and you've made a sale, you brought them through a funnel.

Whether online or offline, intentional or not, you have a funnel. It's just better if it was intentional. It's the reason why people can go, it doesn't matter if it's online, offline. Doesn't matter what you're selling. If there was a sale that was made, there was some kind of offer. Most times people don't make an intentional offer, they have a product, but there's also a message, a belief that carried that into the heart and mind of that person when they purchased it. I was like, holy crap! Maybe I should find that box, because I sent Russell.

I...

SFR 122: My New Auto Webinar Stats… Mar 22, 2018

Show notes

Click above to listen in iTunes...

Yup, I just changed up the whole funnel. Here’s what happened

What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now, I've left my 9-5 to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is, "How will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch?"

This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.

My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up guys? I hope you like my new intro. Just had several of you guys reach out actually and say that you like it. And so, it means a lot. I take a long time to write those kinds of scripts when I know that I'm gonna hear them a billion times probably. But, I wanted to create more of a journey. More of a ... Anyway, I've talked about that a little bit in the past.

I wanted to share with you a little bit more about my webinar and what I've been doing to it. I did a lot of stuff this week. It's been a crazy week. There were two days this week where I almost stayed up a full 24 hours just getting stuff done and working on it and the different aspects that I needed to crank out. It was ridiculous. And, I do not recommend that.

In fact, I always think it's kind of weird when people are like, "Yeah, hashtag the hustle." You know? And, they stay up 24 hours all the time. But, it just wrecks your next day anyway. So, that never makes sense to me. Be smart with your health. Don't do that too often.

Hey, what I want to share with you though is more about the webinar and the actual stats. I automated it. I already automated it. I know that a lot of people will probably ask me, "Steven, you always say to do it for seven months." Well, here's the thing. Before I actually launched the webinar, I tested it like crazy. I knew the messages were gonna work. I knew the offer was gonna work. It was all already tested before I actually pushed the button. You know what I mean?

And so, I didn't start from complete scratch when I started to do my live webinars. I did it maybe 12 times and I still, that final time, I was still using the original script. And so, here's the thing guys. You gotta understand this. This is how I look at the webinar.

This is the three phases of launching any product. The three phases...

And, I didn't realize that this is what I do or even that Russell, that this is what he does, but this is what it is. We first ... This is three spots. We first figure out a sales message. Understand that I said, "Sales Message". I did not say, "Offer". I did not say, "Funnel".

Now, 99% of the time Russell already knows what the sales message is going to be. He's done it so well. He's done it for so long. But, he understands right from the get go without really even thinking about it. He kind of starts from this place of sales message. Meaning, if he can sell it then we'll go make the offer. And, he already starts from those places ...

So, this is how I did my webinar. My webinar. Phase number one is all about creating the sales message. I don't give a crap about the actual product or the offer until I know that I can sell the thing. Right? Does that make sense? And, I know a lot of people say, "Well, duh, Steven."

Well, most of us don't do that though. We actually turn around and we're like, "Hey, what am I gonna sell?" Wrong question. The question is, "How will I sell it?" And, the problem is that when you start with an offer, when you actually start with the offer, the problem is that you become tethered by the offer when you're creating the sales message. Does that make sense?

You create restrictions. You're not free. You're not liquid...

You're not fluid to create whatever sales message you want...

So, what I have been doing for a solid probably year before I actually launched my webinar, what I did is I actually went and I started testing the sales message. I created an entire second podcast show about it. And, I just started dropping out the stories. And, the ones that really resonated, I kind of took note of that.
And, I was like, "Huh. That's the one that did it over here. Huh.

Oh, that's interesting. That's the story that did it over here. Interesting. Oh, wow. They really like this one and they hated that one." And, I started testing sales message. Also, my story.

And, when we actually get the story down, when we get the sales message down, whatever it is that gets people's butts out of their chairs and their wallets, and credit card in your hand, then you create an offer that fulfills the promises that you made in the sales message. Does that make sense?

When you actually find the sales message that gets somebody off their butt and gets their wallet in your hand then you create the offer that fulfills whatever that sales message promised...

When you do it the other way and you create an offer, and then the sales message, and then the sales thing, you are tethered in your mind. And, you have this thing where, "Well, my product doesn't do this." Okay, well stop thinking about that. Figure out what it is that gets people into action.

People are inherently lazy. What is the thing? And, if you found out, "Oh my gosh. This is the thing that gets people into action, sweet. Then you create. Does that make sense? So, step number one, sales message.

Step number two is then the offer. And, both of them stem off of belief. Both of them stem off of belief. At the very, very bottom. Or, sorry. The very, very last one, that's when I start building a funnel. And, that's when I build the delivery mechanism that will serve up those two things. Funny enough though, people usually do the exact opposite. They build a funnel and be like, "Hey, I want an... funnel."

And, they think of it in terms of funnels. That's not how it works. You think of it in terms of what are you trying to deliver? And, you go and you put together a funnel. If you do that first, then you build them out an offer, then you figure out how to actually sell the thing, super scary.

Super scary. Right?...

And, so you guys know I'm already automating it, but it's because of the three steps that I take.

You do it the other way around and you say, "Hey, what's the sales message?" And, as part of that, you're figuring out where the traffic is. With step number one, what's the sales message? What gets people off the butt? It's like ...

I know I bring up this example a lot, but it's because it's true. Before Tim Ferriss even finished writing a book he was out there testing headlines and titles for the book. And, he would test tons of headlines and he would spend a little money, like 20 bucks on tons of different ... Like, "Hey, 20 bucks for this headline. 20 bucks for this title. 20 bucks for this title." And, he would go test it. And, whatever one they liked, that's what he named it.

And, there wasn't even a book written half the time. He was just seeing what people...

SFR 121: Personal Vs Impersonal Knowledge Mar 14, 2018

Show notes

Why learning from my podcast is LESSER than learning from ME…

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is how will I do it without VC funding or debt completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

What's up guys? I got a really cool episode for you guys here today. It is a crazy week, which means it's a normal week. There's a lot going on though. I mean we are in the pre-funnel hacking live stage and there's a lot to prepare for and a lot to go through. This week I am automating pieces of my webinar still, there's a whole bunch of assets I got to get to my traffic driver who I will interview here shortly for you guys so you can learn from her because she's amazing.

All the flash drives I told you guys if you run up to me and say the magic word, which you have no idea what I'm talking about go back and listen to a few episodes ago, or actually I think it was last episode. Anyway, there's paying bills, I got to build an affiliate program, which I'm very pumped about for my program. I figured out a cool model where I can buy people an iMac, like those brand new ones that are $5,000...

Anyway, we've got a cool affiliate program we put together, which is very, very awesome. Maybe I should tell you how I did that as well. Then I'm actually building out this really cool members area. I've been building out a lot of live funnels lately. One of the reasons why is because I was the lead funnel of their click funnels guys. I built almost one funnel a day. Literally that's what the numbers were.

Almost one funnel a day was the average, which is crazy. The last few months of me being solo I have build one funnel, you know what I mean, there's only been one, I guess two, there's been two revenue funnels. There's been a few management funnels, but my entire focus is just on one single sales funnel, my webinar one. It's been a little bit weird to go back and think through oh my gosh, I almost have the itch. I got to build something oh my gosh. It's been weird, I've shaved my focus down to just having this one funnel, and really, really enjoyed it though.

I'm really, really excited though for this. There's a lot going on and I'm excited to get you guys in the loop. I got one really, really cool announcement and I want to tell you why I'm excited about it.

Gosh, I'm joining Inner Circle, Russell's Inner Circle, and some of you guys might be like, "Oh my gosh, Steven you vox him almost daily, why, why would you do that?" The reason why is because I'm coaching now. Does that make sense? I'm coaching now. When you have a coach and if they're not being coached also you're getting cut short. Does that make sense? I'm getting coached, which means I will continue to be a good coach. Does that make sense?

That's the reason why I'm so excited guys.
I've told this story before, but I remember I wanted so badly, so badly to join Russell's Inner Circle. This was like three years ago, yes about three years ago now, and click funnels had just barely been out for just a little bit here and Russell sends this email out, and he says, "Hey, just wanted you to know that there's only a few spots left in my coaching program," and I remember I stopped dead in my tracks. I was on campus, I was in college and I stopped dead in my tracks. I was in the basketball stadium and I was walking through, passing through, going through some class I had or to the gym or something like that, I can't remember.

Anyway, I remember I stopped right there and I replied to the email. I don't think he read it of course, that's fine, but I replied to the email and I was like, "Hey, crap, no, don't shut it down, I want to get in this. I don't have the cash for that kind of thing yet."

The first year of marriage together my wife and I we only made $18,000 our first year of marriage. That's is $18,000, and most of it I think was loans. We were poor, poor. Guys I've been there, which is why I get so passionate about this when I see someone. I'm like, "I know you're close, I see you. I see your scenario. You are so close to this, just do it." I went through and I replied to the email. I said, "No, stop, wait."

I was like some day I'm going to join that. I had no idea that four months later I was going to be working for him in the capacity that I was. I was already moving, I was already in motion. I already had a little funnel building agency. I was building funnels for other people, other businesses, and it went really, really well. I've told that before, but the reason why is because here's what happened.

This is one of the most powerful lessons I feel like I could ever teach somebody is this right here. Is that there is a huge difference between personal and impersonal knowledge. Impersonal knowledge and personal knowledge are very, very different. They come at different values, they come at different weights, they hit harder. It was like Stephen, what's the difference between personal and impersonal knowledge? Well here you go. I get hired. I go and I'm sitting next to the man and I'm freaking out. I think I was mute. I literally did not say anything for the first two months I worked there because I was like I'm literally an arms length away from this guy who's already changed my life and now it's going to keep changing because my proximity is literally two feet from him. I could put my arm back and scratch his back, literally right there.

I was like oh my gosh. I had clearly understood the extremely rare opportunity that that was to do that...

I was sitting there next to him and for the first little while I would just sit and I was building funnels like crazy obviously, building whatever you needed to and just cranking stuff out. The deadline for getting things done was always that it needed to be done a day before whatever the day currently was. We were just hauling balls, we're just getting stuff done, it was tons of fun. As time went on and I started telling him like, "Hey, I got this podcast that I've started called Sales Funnel Radio." He'd be like, "Oh cool." Then he'd start giving some advice. I was like oh cool, "I'll totally go do it that way." Then I'd be, "Hey, I built this funnel" just kind of in passing and talk to him and he'd be like, "Oh that's awesome. Make sure you do this, this, and this." I'm like, "All right, cool. Yes I already done the X, Y, and Z. I added these things in." He's like, "Whoa, that's pretty cool."

Then in passing or sitting next to him again and building stuff out. He'd be like, "Hey, how about one, two, and three?" I'm like, "Whoa, how about A, B, and C?" Was I learning that from a book? No, no I wasn't. It was extremely tailored knowledge to whatever scenario I was currently in. There's a huge difference between person and impersonal knowledge, it is a very common ...

SFR 120: Seeing The $3 Million Pitch... Mar 12, 2018

Show notes

Here's what I learned while watching Russell in his $3 Million Dollar HOUR...

What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now here's you host Steve Larsen.

Steve Larsen: Hey, what's going on, everyone? Hey, so I just barely left ... Where was I? I was in Vegas. I forget where I go now. I'm traveling a lot right now. I'm going all over the place. I was home for a few days, went over and traveled. I'm only home for a few days again. I'm going to go travel again. I'm home for just a little bit, then I'll go travel again. It's all over the place right now. It's been fun. I really, really do enjoy it. Missing the family though a lot actually, but it's been really interesting. I had the very rare opportunity of watching Russell pitch. I was at Grant Cardone's 10X event and it was a great experience.

I got to go sit down and watch. Honestly my favorite speaker was Grant himself. Okay? Besides Russell. I'm going to talk about that in a second. If you've not heard the huge news with that, which is pretty amazing, but I was sitting there and I was listening to Grant Cardone and he was teaching amazing stuff. Absolutely love listening to him. Super dynamic speaker. Great guy to listen to. I got a lot of great things from other speakers as well. Frankly the whole reason I went down to this event, okay, I was not planning on going to this event for quite some time. It was about a month ago. I remember I woke up one morning and I started thinking ...

I don't know why guys, but I started thinking you know what? I've spoken on a lot of smaller stages now. I've spoken on a lot of smaller stages and smaller events, anywhere from 1 to 200 people, many times now, right, and several other events when there's supposed to be more people and there wasn't and there's a smaller amount. You roll the punches. A lot of fun, but I started to think. I'm like, "I want to see big people. Really huge influencers. I've got to see them go speak on huge stages with massive audiences and see what they do with their energy." The entire reason that I went to Grant Cardone's Growth event, right? 10X Growth event.

I actually did not realize how big of a deal it was. I'm going to be completely honest with you. I didn't realize how many people were going to be there until I think the day before ... Not even. No, no. Yeah, okay, the day before I went down there, there was 8,500 people. 8,500. I didn't know. I have never been in an event that has been that big, that huge. I had no idea it was going to be that big, which there was pros and cons to it. Obviously I'm a huge fan of ... Obviously the pro of a smaller venue is you get a little more of the personal touch. However, the con is you may not get to network quite as much. I mean there's no way I'm going to meet 8,500 people anyway.

Anyway, literally the entire reason I went to this event was to go watch massive, massive influencers speak to massive, massive audiences. I've spoken enough on other stages. I've taught a lot on other stages. Obviously not just on Russell's, but a lot of others. There is this vibe. Okay? Each presenter pulls different energies and relationships out of the audience, and it's fun to watch.

They will match and they will mirror to the personality of the one speaking. It was fun to watch. It's always fun to watch. If you have ever listened to Darren Stevens, he talks about universals and truisms, things like that, to bring the audience together to get them to do things that you want.

I love studying stage and I love studying stage presenters and what they do to actually control the audience. They have no idea most of the time that that's what's going on. Anything from small and OP things, down to the words you say, the gesture you use, the stories you tell. Stage to me is an amazing performance. I have a lot of respect for it because of ... If you go watch a movie, they can do a million takes, but like on a stage, you got to be an A game the entire time. It's all in one take. It's super, super amazing to watch what these guys do. It's honestly what I aspire to do. I want to go do that really bad. I'm really pumped.

In a few days, I get to go speak in front of 2,500 people and I'm so excited. It's going to be over in Dallas. That's the biggest group I've ever spoken to. I didn't realize that that actually is a lot of people until Dave Woodward told me it was. I was like, "Oh, I didn't realize that ... I thought everyone's ..." Anyway, I'm excited about that and that's awesome, but knowing that, knowing that that was going to come up, I wanted to go watch this event and it is the reason that I went. I don't know what I was expecting or what I was even thinking, but I wanted to show up and I wanted to go, like I said, to watch how these guys interact.

For some reason I had it in my mind, I knew that Russell was going to go and I knew he was going to pitch, and I knew that he was pulling off some very special things to be able to pitch to that many people. That is a skillset of its own, but I watched. I was like, "Yeah. I'm going to go." I didn't tell him I was going to show up for a while and I went and I showed up and got to listen. The shocking thing right from the beginning, I don't know why I was expecting anything different. I thought well, there's got to be some extra thing that he's doing for that many people. What is it? There's got to be some extra ... I knew he was going to use the perfect webinar script.

I knew he was going to go through it. That's what I teach guys in Two Comma Club Coaching. I go through and teach you how to actually set up a webinar and get it going, which is ... Frankly, it's one of the major reasons I left my job. I wanted to go prove out and who that that's actually something I knew how to do as well, not just teach it. I'm actually doing it, which I am. It's great. I'll keep accounting for what's been going on there in future episodes here. I don't know why I expected anything to be different. I sat down and I can tell you that he used the perfect webinar script just like he would anywhere else. What was fun for me because I love that script.

That script has made millions of dollars. I can think of very few of activities in my life that are worth studying that are that high leverage of an activity to go study than to learn how to pitch one to many, right? Instead of one to one, one to many like that. What I did is I started taking these notes and Russell got up and I was so excited. I know. I want to watch a master in his game, right? I got to watch him do that a lot of times sitting next to him face to face or right at his side or whatever in his office, but it was always over a computer, right or it was always over ... There'd be these smaller stages I go see him present of, but never one that big.

For some reason I kept thinking that there would be this extra X factor. I can tell you, I even wrote down, I wrote small audience versus large audience equals the same. I don't know why I thought it'd be any different. There was a few things though, little ex...

SFR 119: Preparing For FHL18... Mar 10, 2018

Show notes

WHY I get so excited for Funnel Hacking Live...

Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Oh yeah.

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 am so freaking excited for Funnel Hacking LIVE. It is coming up. Just to be clear, I've had a lot of people reach out and say, "Oh, Steve, now that you're leaving ClickFunnels, are you gonna keep podcasting and publishing and doing their podcast?" Please understand that this is my own show and it's not affiliated at all with ClickFunnels. I just happen to be a ridiculous fanboy of everyone over there, what they do. They're changing the world, and so that's why I talk about it so much.

Also, besides the fact that I've worked there. It's just a lot of part of my history, and I have massive, ridiculous respect and love for Russell and what he does. And, frankly, when you've made the kind of money he has, he obviously very easily could kind of drift off into the night, and he doesn't choose to do that. He decides to continue to go out and change stuff.

So, anyways, I'm excited for Funnel Hacking LIVE. If you are not going, please find a way to get there, okay? I'm not being paid to say that. I am trying to help you understand and get to the spot that changed my life. It changed my life for me when I got there, and it was amazing. It changed everything. To be around the right people, to be around the right information, to be around the most cutting-edge stuff ...

Anyways, there's my pitch for you.

Hey, I have for the last several episodes been teasing you guys with this idea that I've got something special for you who are coming, and I do. I'm sure we're gonna meet anyways, but I really want to meet you guys if you're listening to this, okay? And so, I've got something special for you. I went out and I grabbed these sweet little flash drives and these flash drives ... What I'm gonna put on them is pretty incredible. I have been going out ... And if you haven't been noticing, I've been building a bunch of funnels live lately. It's been a lot of fun. I've built, maybe, nine of them and each one of them is about five hours long. I build them from scratch and I record myself doing it, and I do it in front of a live audience.

And I've been doing that for the last, I don't know, four months, five months, something like that. And it's been fun. I've really, really enjoyed going through and doing that. It's a ton of work, oh my gosh. But I teach for the first fourth, the first third, something like that, and then I build from the ground up and everyone asks questions while I go. So it's extremely in-depth. Every single thing I place on there is on purpose. Everything has a purpose, and it's all part of the strategy.

Anyways, I hope if you've been able to watch those, it's been kind of awesome...

Well, when ... It's probably, like, what, three years ago? I built this funnel. It was probably the fourth or fifth funnel I'd ever built. The first funnel I'd ever built was, I told you guys, it was a smartphone insurance funnel. It went well. It was kind of a break-even business. If I had known more at that time, I would've kept it going and sold something more expensive on the back end because we were getting customers. Break even, which is awesome. That was our first funnel, first attempt, which is pretty cool when you think about it. It's awesome.

But, shortly after I started building all these funnels for all these other companies. I was ... A lot of you guys know, I am actually just barely leaving the Army right now. Paperwork in the government takes a long time to do what it's supposed to, I guess, and get the final signature. I don't know what it does. It must just sit somewhere and have a four or five month timer on it, and then someone walks up, signs the last thing, and hands it back. I don't know, but everything's out of my hands. I'm in the middle of leaving the Army right now. As soon as the last signature happens, I am completely out of the military.

Anyways, so I enlisted first, and I went through basic training and I loved it. It was hard. It wasn't impossible, though. I was actually hoping it'd be a little bit harder, but there were some challenging moments. There was some challenging aspects to it. I didn't eat that much. I still actually slept pretty well for the most part. We didn't really eat, though, that much, which was ... I lost 15 pounds, and I went in weighing, like, 170. I was really skinny when I came out of basic. It was crazy.

So that part was challenging, and there were some challenging aspects along the way. So I get out, and I was officially in the military at that time, and when I get in college and start building these funnels, build the smartphone insurance funnel, build all these other things. And what ends up happening is ... I was in a program called ROTC, and I became an officer when I graduated.

However, we wanted to put on a fundraiser. We wanted to put on a mud run. So what we did, was we put together this track. It was a 5K mud run, you know what I mean? Like, there was mud everywhere, obstacle courses all over the place. We had cool fire pits you had to jump over. We had spots where ... We made it military style, you know what I mean? You ran with M16s through all the stuff while we had simulated explosions going on around them. It was really, really cool.

And we put this awesome course together and they're like, "Hey, how are we gonna get people?" I was like, "I've got it. I've been learning about this thing called ClickFunnels. I know none of you know what it is. I'm gonna go build it, I'll be right back." And I spent probably 40 hours. I didn't totally know what I was doing at the time. I was just kind of figuring it out as I went, and I was talking to Support pretty much every single day. A couple times, actually. I became "that guy," you know what I mean, to Support, probably. Which is fine. I was learning.
And I went through and I was building all this stuff and I put together this event funnel. And it was the first time I ever did anything like that.

Well, from that event funnel, I went out and we started promoting it, and we got it on the news. We got it in newspapers. We got it on our school ... And we went, basically, the equivalent of what a Dream 100 would be. We ended up getting 650 people to my first time ever building a live event funnel. 650 people to a live event. We ended up raising ... We collected $7,000. We raffled off an AR-15. If you don't know what that is, it's like an M16, but the civilian version.

And we went out and we raised all this money and donated it to the Fisher House Foundation. Which, the Fisher House Foundation is the ... It's pretty awesome. When a soldier gets...

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