SFR 84: Value Ladders Do's And Don'ts...

I just realized I have TWO FULL Value Ladders running right now... NO NO!

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

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

Hey guys, hope you're doing fantastic, hope you're having a great week, great day wherever you are. Thanks so much for tuning in, really appreciate it. This podcast I believe just passed 70,000 downloads. 70,000 downloads, that's crazy, never in my life, I first started this only a year ago, did I think I'd have that many downloads, that's amazing.

Anyway, thanks so much for being a listener, thanks so much for being a subscriber and tuning on into this. 70,000 downloads that's awesome guys, and I really appreciate it, appreciate the support and hopefully you are getting some nuggets and things you can use inside of your sales funnels, both online and offline to increase your revenue.

There's these sayings that I continue to put out in my head, these sayings that repeat in my head over and over again, and one of them that I say in my head all the time is like, I believe, one of my ism's is that I believe very much that one of the purposes of entrepreneurship ...

One of the purposes of business in general is to pump as much value into the marketplace as you possibly can. Now I realize a lot of people will disagree with me on that, I'm not saying that it's not to make money, it is. It is to turn dollars, sales keeps the economy going.

Make money, charge money, you know what I mean? Don't be afraid to sell, but you do that by pumping value into the marketplace.

So anyways I just hope that my little ism there, like pump value into the market, pump value into the market. Like that's my thing, and hopefully this podcast has been helpful in some aspect to you, in some way. I would love if you wouldn't mind, I got on iTunes a little bit ago, and there's several reviews on there. Those are awesome, those are fun to read. If you wouldn't mind I would love to have a review in iTunes of this podcast, that'd be really fun.

So anyway, don't feel pressured, but man I would love that, it'd mean a lot...

Hey I'm really pumped, I love speaking on stage. I was on stage a lot growing up, I actually sang in a band, I played drums for four years, the full kit. I played piano for about six years, I sang, whether it was in choirs or in musicals or something like that, a lot of you guys probably don't know that about me. I sang a lot, ever since fourth grade, and I had the lead in several things growing up and anyway, really, really enjoyed it.

I have the privilege of getting on stage yet again, several more times. I'm excited, I just got asked to go speak at James Smiley's B2B event, very excited about.

If you guys don't remember him, he was on an episode probably about 10 episodes ago, he was talking about his B2B funnels and from that one podcast, I don't know how much it was he made, but it was a lot, which is very exciting. I had no idea, and from that one episode all this stuff has stemmed out, and I just really appreciate him as a friend and buddy. They ended up asking me to go over and speak at his event here in Dallas next month. So I'm really, really pumped to go do that.

Then I'll be speaking at another one in January, called Authority Maker, that'll be exciting as well, that ones in Vegas. So anyways, I'm pumped and there's actually several more already lined up next year.

I love talking, I love speaking from stage, luckily feedback has been that not bad to listen to either, which is kind of nice. But hey I have been revisiting my Value Ladder, and it was a few days ago, I sat down at my white boards here.

I stood and I was jamming to music, I was in state, I was in flow, and I was really excited and I realized that I have two value ladders.

If Russell saw that he would slap me, because it means I have two different businesses. Anyway I sat down, I started mapping through my Value Ladders, you know so I was putting the first thing in there. Right, Sales Funnel Radio, the next thing on there, and the next thing on there, and the next thing on there, and there's all these other things and I started putting them on. I was like those don't fit in that business, like what on earth? I went and I was like, wait those all create their own Value Ladder in a different Value Ladder, it's their own business.

For those of you guys who don't know what a Value Ladder is, all we do is we start with cheap and or free things up front, and they give a lot of value to the customer or the person who's visiting. Then all we do is as a business we try to age and ascend customers. So as we give away that first thing, and we try and solve legitimate problems for the person, that lets us create a relationship with them.

Well that means that I can now start charging money and the more value I'm bringing to that person, the more money I can start to charge them.

So there's multiple steps in that Value Ladder, and the farther up the Value Ladder that you move, you get into areas like done for your products. Implementation and coaching products, the products that are more high tier, high ticket, more time intensive for the entrepreneurs personal time, and you obviously charge more for things like that.

Usually when someone has not, does not feel like they can ... Usually when someone doesn't feel like they can charge enough money, it's usually because they're actually not pumping enough value in there. Or the person hasn't felt enough value come from the entrepreneur yet. So there's this weird awkward feeling that comes from it.

So it doesn't necessarily matter where someone comes in, what level they come in to your Value Ladder with, but it's important to be purposeful about it. So think through, like what's your Value Ladder. I encourage you after this episode to go write that down, what are the free things, what are the free pieces of bait. What are the free things that people should be paying for, that you've got out there, right kind of your region of things, or things that help identify hyper buyers and things like that. Usually there's a whole funnel dedicate to just that front end product.

Okay now what's the next thing? Is it a 47 dollar thing? 297 dollar thing? 497 dollar thing? 1000 dollar, 2000, you know what I mean? There's usually standard kind of price points throughout, that can be a whole episode. But anyway, think about what your actual Value Ladder is, and be purposeful about it, and don't get dissuaded from it.

I don't know about you guys but I repeatedly suffer from shiny object syndrome, or at least I did for a long time. There's so many cool things out there, that I could be doing, that you could be doing. That ClickFunnels and Russell could be doing, I mean opportunities ... You know what's funny, I was actually talking to Russell about this the other day, and I was saying dude how funny is it that when you're in college, the mentality of every person in college typically, stereotypically, is oh my gosh I just hope that I get a good job.

Please just get me a good job, I have to have a good job.

You know hopefully there's at least one person out there that can give me the opportunity to have a good job, and I'll just work till I die there. I was like dude how funny is it that, that's the mentality in college, yet for an entrepreneur it's the exact opposite. It's like oh what opportunity should I chose? There's too much crap going on, there's too many things that I could go do. We were just laughing about how funny that is.

If you're not feeling that yet in your life, my guess is that you've not been pumping enough value, you've not been solving enough legitimate problems out there for people. Solve legitimate problems, and you'll be pumping value out there.

Opportunities will come knocking at your door like more than you can handle, and just trust me on that, go test me on that, tell me how it goes. I dare you to go give something away for free that you should have charged for, if you have nothing for free to actually give away, and watch what happens. I was watching, I was listening to Dayna Derek's on stage the other day, it was awesome, and he was like hey yeah, this book of mine, you know he's selling it for a lot of money, he's like I realized it was in a separate Value Ladder.

So all I did, I just took this book that was a lot of money and I just made it for one of my free things in the front, and it brought in all these extra customers and now it's reinforcing my one Value Ladder.

I was like hey that's really cool, it's sweet, it's a cool approach to it. He's like yeah now I just have tons of cool front ends, lots of cool front ends, but it still supports the core Value Ladder, the core business. I'm not chasing new shiny objects all over the place anymore.

I was like, that's interesting, that's cool. It's been interesting because Russell went back and he started looking at his Value Ladder, he's like hey now this is our business and this is all we do. We're getting more focus there, and I realized like crap I have two separate Value Ladders, and they're similar enough that I feel like I can't get rid of them but they are as different enough that I feel like they're not the same thing.

I don't have the answer, I actually it's kind of been the thing that I've been going through right now, is trying to figure out how to split the two. I don't really know yet where that split is, and I've committed to both, and I'm not telling you what the other one is yet, I will at some point here shortly.

So you guys can go check it out, because it's killing it, the first funnel, the first page has got a 68 percent optime rate. There's been like 400 people that have hit the page, 68 percent, it's ridiculous. Tons of other ... So anyway, I'm testing it right now, I'm making it all awesome. It's this little side fun thing I've been doing on my own and it's killing it, and I'm so excited.

Anyway I'm going to go turn ads onto it here shortly, and it's not hot traffic, it's not ... This is warm traffic, but still 68 percent optime rate, I'm like what the heck, so exciting. Anyway, but my encouragement to you though is to not have too many Value Ladders, and in fact just have one.

So what's the core of your business? Typically the core of the business, this is what we teach in Secrets Master Class from the 2 Comma Club coaching. What we teach, what I teach is that really the middle of the Value Ladder, mid tier right, somewhere around 1000 dollars, could be more 2000, 25 hundred, five grand. Could be a little bit less, maybe down to like 500 bucks, usually not a whole lot less than that, usually, there's exceptions.

But the core of your business, what is it?..

I hope that you have one, that something that is kind of mid tier right there. Why? Because it doesn't take a lot of mid tier Value Ladder level products to change your business. It doesn't, because they're higher ticket, you don't have to sell as many of them to help your wallet.

How many smaller, free plus shipping seven dollar books do you have to sell to actually make a dent in your wallet and actually see? A lot, right? A ton, so they're great for front ends, but that's why we don't want to try and make money off of them, they're just to bring people in. We'll make money on that middle value ladder area, and then we'll double our business with a high ticket thing in the back.

Do that to each Value Ladder, do that to each funnel, do that to each, and that's the formula right there. There's a whole bunch of other things you can do with it, and it's a lot of fun, it's a lot of deep strategy depending on what industry you're in that we could go through right now.

But I'm trying to not go too deep ... Its fun though, I really, really enjoy it, and the only thing I'm trying to say is that if you feel like you've been spinning your wheels ... 'Cause I remember feeling that way, I felt that way for a long time, years, and the problem was that I didn't have one Value Ladder. I had tons, I was going to do ... There was a piece of real estate that I had a contract on, it was 3.5 million dollar piece of commercial real estate. I was flipping the contract, and that was one deal with one dude, and then I was writing, I can't even remember what else I was doing. I was like totally unrelated businesses, I can't even remember now that was probably like about five years ago.

Holy crap that was five years ago, I don't remember every else that was going on, what I do remember is that there was a lot of things I was doing, but none of them to the full extent. I was spread too thin, and it's because I didn't have one Value Ladder. That's why I was laughing so hard when I sat down here the other day and I started looking at it, I was like crap I have two freaking Value Ladders.

So my answer to it right now has been that I'm just not even working on one of them, and I'm only working on the other. I'm not touching the other, I'm not doing anything with it at all. Soon I'll reveal to you guys everything of what all those things are, so you can check them out, you can see what I'm talking about. See examples of the stuff that I know is converting, it's been fun, 'cause I've been able to test stuff before you guys will ever see it.

So I can you actually numbers, which is exciting too, which I think you guys will enjoy.

Anyway that's the whole point of this, it's fun for me to listen to Russell as he coaches his inner circle, one of the biggest things that he yells at them for is when he can tell they have more than one business. He can tell ... You're just not going to do more than one business very well, you're not. That's the thing I was kicking myself for, I was like crap.

This other one snuck in so well I didn't even notice it, you know. That was just this little side hobby turned into this actual thing, and I was like oh crap, I have to actually support this thing now, like dang this is working. Oh gosh it's working, wait a second I already have a second business here now, oh, oh. So I've been trying to figure out what to do with it, again don't totally have the answer, I'm just only working on one at a time I guess.

So I won't even touch the second for months, but it's going well. I'll tell you ... Again I know it's kind of, I'm being elusive but that's okay. Anyway guys go back restructure the business, think through what your front end free things are and what's cool about this is that you can have tons of cool free front end things. You know that part of the fun of it, when you know your Value Ladders converting, you know and you got a mid tier thing that's converting that well, and you've got a high ticket thing that's converting really well.

I mean you get to go create all the cool front end products and multiple layers of it, as much as you want. As long as it's all part of the same business, all fueling the same part of the core. That's so fun, but the moment you take your focus and you shift over to, which is the medicine I'm trying to take right now too, and I'm like crap. Shiny objects, I just want to do this one thing.

I'm trying not to take on a third that I really want to go do, but I shouldn't do it.

Every time you go do that though you spread yourself too thin, and it takes a lot of mental mojo just to get a single funnel up, and I think everyone on this podcast probably knows that. So if you go do that and you're skipping from understanding one market and one person really well, and you're trying to skip over to a different profile, and understand that person really, really well. It's the whole reason why when I was ... I built a lot of funnels for my own clients for a while, I don't currently do that right now.

I wouldn't take on more than one, because I couldn't handle more than one, because I had to understand so deeply just that one customer, right, for that one business, for that one Value Ladder. So that I could make the copy, I could make the sales letters, I could put the funnel together. I could make the follow up sequences, I could make the higher ticket thing and the front ...

I mean there's so much that goes into it, right? Some guys making his whole career out of it, you think I can go do three or four of these at the same time? There's no way, that's why I was like, I got to just one of these things at a time. It's the same ... I'm trying to take my own medicine. I feel like I'm preaching to the choir now, you guys probably already know that, but I encourage you to go back and really think through what your Value Ladder actually is. Let's say you don't have the back end yet, ask your market.

Let's say you don't know what the front end is, ask your market. I encourage you to not start by creating a front end product, and if you already have, that's fine. I encourage you to start with a mid tier product, thousand bucks. Why?

'Cause you only need a few of them to really break even, right? It's way harder to throw everything up against the wall and hope that something works when it's a free plus shipping offer, it's like oh. I know for E-comm people they might not like to hear that, well you can start with something that's even higher. You know, make an offer out of it, package a few things together and sell it in a package, as an offer.

Or sell more higher ticket items at first, that'll at least get the cash flow going as you figure out how and what to sell.

What are you selling? How do you sell it? You figure out those things the core of the business right there in the middle of that Value Ladder, boom, I guarantee you, you're going to start getting feedback. As you start getting feedback, guess what happens? Patterns will start to emerge, oh you know what everyone's asking for this one thing, that would be a really cool free plus shipping front end.

Or a really cool free download front end, or a really cool 17 dollar physical thing front end. Does that make sense?

Let the market tell you what front end to make, it's way less risky. Then guess what, a lot of people after they're consuming your core product, your 1000 dollar thing, around that area. Guess what's going to happen? A lot of them are going to go, oh my gosh I wish I had more Steve in my life, oh my gosh I wish I had more of you, your business, whatever it is. They're telling you what back end thing to go create. It's way easier to do this game when you take a lot of the guess work out of it, let the market tell you.

You only have to kind of guess once, you're not really guessing 'cause you're going to run an ask campaign for that mid tier product. They're telling you everything to make, the market will tell. That's the whole point I'm trying to make with this, have one Value Ladder, let the market tell you what those front and back end products are, and create a new niche based off of the core product, that mid tier product.

Anyway, I chattered a lot with this, and it did get a little bit techy, but I hope that, that helped. I hope that it simplifies a lot in your head, for years my head was spinning. I could do this, I could do this, I could do this. No, no, cut away everything else, cut away, cut away. Don't worry about those things, what's the one mid tier product, the 1000 dollar thing that you could go create right now, and actually go sell it? If it doesn't sell doesn't sell round one, tweak it.

Figure out how to sell it, what are you selling, how does it sell? The core of the product, and then the market will start to tell you what to do in those back end and the front end products. The market will tell you what they don't like with your core thing. The market will tell you, it's all about iterations, just keep it going.

Launch, figure out what's broken, go back fix it, and relaunch. Boom, boom, boom, that's how we do it. That's how I do it, that's how Russell does it, it's how ClickFunnels does it. It's how every person I've ever seen be successful in this stuff, all of the hundreds of people who've come through the 2 Comma Coaching Program. All the people in the Secrets Master Class that I've coached, that's how it happens. I feel like there's this paralysis that starts to happen, oh I better have the back end before I launch the front end.

Like no, just launch the freaking, do the core, go launch the core. Oh I got to have this and this in place, no you don't. No, you don't, half the time we don't have the actual product built yet when we sell it. Like what? Oh my gosh, what? Well we're trying to see if the thing is right, if it sells, then we'll go build it real fast. Does that make sense?

Take the pressure off, go figure out the one funnel, it'll simplify everything in your head. Go figure out the one Value Ladder, it'll simplify everything in your head. Have fun with the thing, gosh it's so much fun, if I'm not having fun with it I usually suck at it.

Anyways guys thanks so much, hope this has been helpful, thanks for tuning in to this episode. I'm very, very excited for everything that's coming up, both in the internet marketing world. Whatever's going on in your life I hope that it's going awesome too, and if it's not go orchestrate it that way as well as your business. I'll talk to you later, bye.

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