SFR 46: A Product Vs. an Offer

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THE thing I changed that actually started making me money...

Hey, what's going on everyone. This is Steve Larsen and you are listening to a absolutely very special Sales Funnel Radio because today is actually my birthday. What?

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 your host, Steve Larsen

Hey, you guys. What's going on? Hey, so it's my birthday. I am actually not home right now. It's been an absolutely insane week and I super bad ... I had this written down. There's a podcast that's been in my head for a while. It's been like oh, my gosh. This is such cool value. I've got to share this, but it's been so intense that I've not been able to do it. I'm so sorry.

To recap, it was about a week ago, right. Today's Saturday, April 22nd, it's my birthday. What? Super cool. About a week ago last Friday, so a week ago Friday, we actually started building the Expert Secrets book funnel.

Now, we started that a little bit before that. We knew what it was, but we really didn't dive into it until two days before the thing was supposed to launch. It was supposed to launch on April 18th and it did, but we didn't start until two days before. I remember sitting there, I was like, "Dude, Russell, what is the funnel? What am I supposed to be building for you?"

You know what I mean? He was trying to figure that out and we were putting the offer together and stuff like that and it was high, very high pressure, very high pressure, very high stress.

It's cool. It's funny. That used to really freak me out, but what I've learned is that the more I embrace the fact that it might suck a little bit or things are going to be hard or whatever, I actually grow so much from it that I actually embrace those hard things now.

I don't know, but Russell totally knows what I'm doing every time, but whenever he's like, "Dude, it's going to be so crazy," I always go, "Cool, bring it on. Make it hard, coach. Make it hard, coach."

He doesn't ever say anything back. I don't think he knows what I'm talking about, but it's basically goes back to some things I learned where it's like basically my reactions determine my experience.

If I immediately can ... If I sit around and just like "Oh, I'm so sad." Like, "It's going to be so hard, eh." That's what most people do. If I can just turn around instead and say, "Hey, you know what, I'm just going to rock it, then it's going to be awesome."

Anyway, back to the story. We get there and it's 9 AM and I work the whole time. I get home Friday night, a week ago, Friday night before the book launch and Russell's like, "Dude, I'm so sorry, man, but is there any way you can get this piece of custom coding done before Monday starts?"

I was like, "Oh, I just want a break. I'm so tired. I'm so tired." I was a little bit annoyed at first like, "Oh, I get it, I get it," but the pace that we move at, I don't think you guys realize, is exhausting. It is exhausting, but it's super awesome too at the same time, right. It's like it is ...

Somebody asked me recently and I think you guys saw on Facebook too someone asked me like, "What's it like sitting next to Russell and building his funnels out?" I was like, "Imagine you're flying the fastest fighter jet on the planet. It's got all the bells and whistles. You got all these missiles sticking on the side and you're going as fast as the thing will actually let you go," right.

Mock 4, something ridiculously fast, way past the speed of sound. Then all of a sudden, not that you do on this in a plane, but you roll down the window so to speak and stick your head out like ahhh. That's what it's like. It's so fast paced and I'm constantly digesting as much information as I possibly can just so that I can keep up with what he's doing. It's awesome. It's more value than I ever got anywhere else for anything. I get to sit and pick his brain constantly, which is such a treat.

I was tired. It was Friday night. I was tired. I wanted to spend time with my wife. It was the first week in our new house and we're still setting things up and we're making it our own home and I was like, "Oh." I decided I'd stay up super late. I stayed up 'til 3 AM two nights in a row doing two things because there's so many things going on right now, not just the book funnel, right.

Number one, what I did is, and I'm just telling you guys the story just so you know what ... I know I'm sporadic with these podcasts, but whatever. Number one, I was trying to get some custom coding done for this funnel, stuff that Click Funnels doesn't do out of the box, but also allows you to do, which is cool, which makes Click Funnel so unique.

Really, really cool. I was getting the stuff done, but at the same time, I was trying to finish my slides for the presentation at Ad Con, which I just did a few hours ago and it went so, so, so well. Oh, my gosh, it went so well, but I was trying to finish, right, the whole presentation, get it all together.

It was like 74 slides and I was teaching about e-commerce funnels and successful funnel strategies in the e-commerce areas, which my gosh, it went so well. So excited. I love speaking on stage. By the way, that's my shameless plug if any of you guys want me to come do that. I don't charge anything, be a lot of fun.

Anyway, so I was juggling all these things going on. I was trying to put the actual house together and build furniture and put things ... It's been hectic. I have barely slept. I have such a headache right now while making this. I can't even tell you. I actually got a little bit worried. I was like, "I'm on so much caffeine right now."

That's okay. It's super, super awesome at the same time though...

We go through and I finish his custom code piece, and Monday comes along so a week, it's about what, five days ago. Monday comes along and I had finished slides. I sent them over for the presentation and everything to Dan Henry. Monday comes along and I was just thinking to myself like I've built over 160 sales funnels in the last year and I was looking at what we had and I was like, "There is no way that this funnel is ready, even nearly ready for the amount of traffic that we're going to send to this thing the next day." I was like, "Oh, my gosh."

I sent a message to my wife and I was like, "Babe, I'm so sorry, but I seriously doubt I'm going to be home tonight and maybe hardly even at all tomorrow." As long as I let her know in the future, as long as I let her know, then she's usually fine.

She knew. I was like, "Hey, the book launch is coming up. I'm sure it's going to be sporadic. It might be here. It might be not." As long as I let her know, she's fine with that. Russell cued me in on that tip on how to do it, every once in a while it happens.

We went and we start working, and I start doing some more of this custom code thing. We're using Jamie Smith's expertise and I was doing stuff on my own as well and we were putting pieces together and I was putting the other membership area and it looked so good. Oh, if you guys got the Expert Secret book yet, go get it for sure. I'm actually going toss my link if you're okay with that down in the description here just because might as well, right.

We were pushing. We were pushing, and it's so funny because Russell's always, "Dude, I'm so sorry, man. I know you never used to really drink caffeine until you worked for me," and I was like, "That's how it works though."

I had so much caffeine. I was shaking, but I had to stay up...

I had to get this stuff done and I was going 'til 3 AM. About 3 AM, everyone was on the floor and we're like, "Oh, so tired," and I was like, "There's more to do, there's more to do. We're trying to launch this thing at 2 PM tomorrow. There's more. I can't stop. I can't."

Russell's like, "Bro, we're going to make better decisions if we're rested." He's like, "We got to go home." I was like, "Gah, like he's right. Dang it."

I got most of the things done, custom coded a whole bunch of stuff, and it went really, really well. I was so tired, so tired. The next day, we left at 3 AM and I was back at work at 9 and slammed a whole bunch of caffeine again and just cranked and cranked and cranked. We actually almost hit the deadline.

We were only 9 minutes launching. We were supposed to launch at 2 PM Mountain Standard Time and it was actually 2:09 when we made the final call out and it actually started going.

Guys, the success has been insane. If you've not had the Expert Secrets Book, you should probably get it. This isn't like a pitch like, "Oh, it's 'cause I work there." No. I've read his book over five times now. I have one of the original spiral bound copies. I have the original files on my computer as I was vetting it back and forth with him during inception of the concepts of this book.

I've been a part of this book pretty heavily and it's super, super fun. I've really enjoyed it, hashing out some of these main topics and ideas and core concepts behind why this book is so good.

I was really, really shocked and honored to find out that he put me in the acknowledgements and it's super awesome. It's the last paragraph in the acknowledgements. I was so excited, I couldn't believe it. He goes, "The last one I want to thank Stephen Larsen for being a constant sounding board during this project. Without your excitement for this book, it would never have been completed."

I was like, "What? Oh, my gosh. Man, that's so awesome. That's so cool." I got in Russell freaking Brunson's book. It's crazy.

In the first 24 hours, we sold 10,000 copies, 10,000 copies. Now by comparison, I want you to know that DotCom Secrets sold about 80,000 total-ish and last I checked ... That was the first day and last I checked, we about surpassed 20,000 copies total. It's insane, absolutely insane. The amount of pressure in the market right now is insane for this book and we could feel it.

People were going crazy for it and really, really, it's been such a great experience.

Anyway, the whole purpose of this episode is that I had this huge ... I already knew it, but it was just a big confirmation, right. It is not about your main product. Let me try and say that it again. The sale is not about the main product. Expert Secrets is a absolutely insane book. It is so awesome, right.

The book launches and we put it out there, but we didn't just sell the book, right. You got to wrap it. You got to wrap your main service, your main business, your main product. If you can do that, your income will go through the roof.

Are you guys following when I'm saying this? Give a little nod with me as I'm doing this. The reason I'm bringing this up is because so we built this book funnel and there's other funnels that we want to go through and build and put together, but we didn't start with, "Okay, what's the funnel look like? What does the automation sequence look like?" That's what I feel like 90% of people do and it's wrong. That's not how you start.

The way that you start is by sitting back and going, "What's the coolest offer on the planet?" I have this core thing. Let's take the book, for example, right, the Expert Secrets book. I have this core book. I have this core thing. If I try and sell it directly, there's a hundred other people that are out there that are doing what you're doing, at least a hundred, right, a thousand, thousand. I should've started with thousands, thousands of other people.

The easiest way for you to actually get out there and separate yourself from competition is to make an offer out of your product. An offer can encompass many products, all right, and his book actually goes through this.

Actually, I have my fingers right now in the book. I'm holding the places for it. I'm looking at a page ... Wow, that's a coincidence. I'm looking at page 79 and 179. Oh, that's kind of cool. What I wanted to show you guys and tell you guys about real quick is the absolute ... I want you guys to know that we use this.

Here's some examples. Yesterday. Wait, what is today? Today's Saturday. It's Friday. Yeah, so it was yesterday. I'm losing track of my days like crazy. Something's going too fast. Yesterday, we were like, "Okay, this book funnel, it's killing it. It's awesome." There's a few tweaks we had to make. I totally forgot to stick a rule inside of our action [inaudible 12:24] sequences and what it is it made people get the "Hey, looks like you didn't purchase," emails when they did purchase and I was like, "Oh crap, sorry, dude, 3,000 people totally got that." That was my bad. Super late at night. I take full responsibility to that, but it's all right. We make mistakes, too.

Anyway, so right afterwards, we're like, "Okay, what's this thing we're trying ... " We know there's this area where people are wanting to get more training in and it's this area that Russell said that ... It's really super fun, man. It's my own program that I'm doing with Russell, kind of co-hosting it. It's so cool. I get to be on stage with Russell Brunson teaching his stuff. It's so awesome, you guys.

There's this place that we're trying to get people on. I'm not going to reveal anymore about what it is than that, but what we did is we literally spent three hours brainstorming the offer, brainstorming the positioning, and brainstorming the actual message, right.

People are like, "Wait a second, Stephen, you already have Click Funnels. You already have the message." Like well, yeah, for that product, but how does this, right ... You guys are going to learn about this in the book.

There's a thing called opportunity switches, which is when there's a brand new thing and the thing called opportunity stacks.

Remember when we came up with those two concepts. He and I were sitting side by side and we had this huge piece of paper in front of us, it's like oversized butcher paper, and we were going through different offer styles and I was taking out a lot of my notes from previous people I had learned from.

He was taking a lot of notes he had previously learned from and side by side, we were figuring this out and we realized that it boils down to two different offer styles. One is an opportunity switch and the other's an opportunity stack.

What Russell and I along with Dave Woodward 14:06, the three of us, we started brainstorming was an opportunity stack. There's an area that people are not very good at that we're trying to put an offer in, right, or a product. We've realized, it was two or three days ago, we realized, "Dang it, that doesn't sell very well on its own. It's a great product, but it doesn't sell. How can we make it an offer?"

Think about that. In your marketing, think about that with your sales funnel, that's what a sales funnel is.

A sales funnel lets you string out the offer inside of the actual funnel, right, so you don't hit them with all these things right at once, depends if it's an e-commerce product or a webinar or whatever, that changes, but let's say it's an e-commerce product, you're not going to hit them with this big, "Hey, buy this huge kit all at once." No. First you offer this. Then you offer that. Then you offer this. Then you offer that, right. It's complementary the whole way through.

Guys, think about the offer itself.

That's what I realized when I was in college that I was missing. I told you guys I was biking home one day and I was so depressed. I was like, "Gosh, why isn't this working? I am learning so much. I'm learning like crazy." This is probably three years ago. I was like, "Why am I not making money? I feel like I know more than a lot of these other people, but I'm not actually making the money that they are. I'm making way less." It's like, "What is it? Why am I missing this?"

I realized that I was not asking for people's credit cards as often as I should be, right. I was not and it was really painful that I wasn't. I realized that I was very good at making funnels look good, but I was not yet good at creating offers. That's what sales is.

You're pitching an offer, which doesn't necessarily mean a product or a service, right. That's singular. Offer is plural. There's many things that make up an offer. You guys understand what I'm saying? I hope that you guys understand what I'm saying because it's so key. If you can nail the offer, the funnel's cake. It's so easy, right.

All right, let's look at this real quick. All right, this is on the opportunity switch chapter. That's page 79. Russell's talking about how you can run an ask campaign and you just ask your market what do they want, right? What they do is they give you all this data and you create a master class out of it, right. Let's say that you guys tell me the top six things that you guys struggle with, with building funnels, which I've done with you by the way and I do for a reason.

It was an ask campaign and I got tons of response and I know exactly what you guys struggle with. I did that for my podcast content so I know what I can help you guys with. I did it for a product that I was thinking about doing. I don't know. I might not, but just to understand who's listening to this podcast better and I know what those things are, right.

If I was to go create a product about that, an info product, that's one product...

That's not an offer...

An offer and a product are not the same thing...

Let's fast-forward then to page 179 when he's talking about what's called ... He's talking about the offer basically. He calls it the stack slide, but there's all these little elements that get brought into it at that time, tons of them.

You're going to get the six-week master class.

You know what I mean?

You're going to get the ... Does that make sense? It's all the pieces that make it up, the six-week master class and you could see the whole list on page 192. You can get the six-month enterprise account level of Click Funnels, right. You're going to get Instant Traffic Hacks. This is all making up what is called the offer. Inception Secrets, you're going to get the Soap and Seinfeld secrets.

You'll get unlimited funnels to your account, first 50 people only, right. That is an offer. You put it all together. I feel like I'm explaining it, but maybe I'm not. I don't know.

What we were doing yesterday was we were creating an offer. What's funny is that this presentation I just did at Ad Con, I'm still here. I'm in the hotel room right now. Crazy tired. My head hurts. My throat hurts from talking so much. There's a huge line of people who wanted to take pictures, which is really fun. That was really fun. Even in my presentation where I wasn't pitching anything, I still was using an offer structure, right.

What I did is I literally sat down and I wrote down all the things that I knew, right. These are Facebook ad agency owners, right.

Dan wanted me to talk about e-commerce. I was like, "Whoa, that's a little bit weird," but I'm so grateful that he did. What I did is I sat down and I thought through all the knee-jerk reactions people were going to have to me telling them that they need to create an e-com funnel.

I was like, "What are they going to say?" Do this to your own people too, right. What are they going to say? They're going to say things like, "I don't have an e-commerce product. They're too hard to make. I don't want to ship things out to people. I don't like spending ads on small little things like that. I wish it was bigger," right, tons of stuff. I made a huge list of I knew of the false beliefs that they would have about my topic.

Then what I did is I orchestrated my topic to directly address the false beliefs that they were having. I swear if I put a pitch at the end of that, people would've bought. All right. I got offered $60,000 worth of business right after that presentation today, 60 grand at least. If I had actually tried to close, I know I would've made a lot of money.

People were on their seats...

It was freaking awesome...

Gosh, it went so good...

I'm not trying to pat my own back, but I know that the process that I'm telling you right now where you write out the false beliefs and you make products that directly address those false beliefs so that they're no longer false beliefs, guess where I got all that? All right, that's in the book, Expert Secrets. It's not so much about making webinars. This is how to sell. This book taught me how to make it. I already knew how to, but this is yeah, really, really awesome stuff you guys.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. This started as a long podcast and it's a bit tactile, but I hope that you guys are taking the time to sit back and go, "What is my offer? What am I actually offering people?" If you're sitting back and it's these onesies, twosies product, I know I have that on my personal site. I know that I needed to change it. I just have not had the time to do it. You know what I mean? I know that you guys are in that place as well, some of you guys as well. Some of you guys, just don't be lazy about it. Think through.

You don't need to come up with that. I'm doing this right now with my dad and his own webinar and he just launched his podcast and it's going great and he's interviewing these industry leaders in the financial area and financial investing and it's going awesome.

We're about to launch his webinar and the thing that I'm doing with him right now is offer creation. He's like, "Maybe we should go focus on the webinar a little more, a little bit more on the funnel." I was like, "No, no, it's not time. We have not yet nailed the offer."

Just today, I was reviewing the offer...

I was reviewing all the things going in there. I think it directly addresses the things that people are going to have the knee-jerk reactions about, I think. I'm pretty sure that it's going to. We went through and the thing we got to do next is we'll probably run an ask campaign and make sure, but the products themselves is what helps change people's false beliefs using what you'll learn in here, using what is called the epiphany bridge.

That's what I'm doing. I'm helping my dad map out all the stories. I'm helping him map out all just some tactile pieces that he's got to teach on the webinar, but I'm helping him map out the stories, all the products that will directly help correct the false beliefs and that's it.

You guys start doing that. Don't offer just onesies, twosies. How come people will sell ... This works even on e-commerce. Amazon products, why will people buy a pack of three socks versus a pack of one? Because it's an offer.

It's an offer...

That may not apply directly to sock selling, but that's the basic concept though and that's what I want you guys to do and start putting together. Know that it's all about offer structure and the way that you present that offer inside of the funnel.

The funnel gets really easy afterwards because then you have the first product that goes for the first page in the funnel that helps you sell the first thing. The second page helps you sell the second thing. You know what I mean? You're literally offering upsales throughout and by the end, they've gotten the whole offer.

Funnels give one offer...

Whenever you have more than one offer inside of a funnel, usually the conversions drop because they have not actually had time to digest the first idea.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense guys. Get the book. I'm going to drop the link down there. I'll drop my affiliate link for sure and I made a little deal on a email that I dropped out there and there's quite a few guys that actually took up on it. It was really, really fun. Basically, if you get the Expert Secrets book through my affiliate link, I would love to just do a 10-minute overview of your funnel live. I would love to do it live.

It's been a while since I've done one of my funnel feast episodes where I ... If you go to funnelfeast.com, I go through and I build live, but it would be fun to have a little critiquing session. That'd be really awesome. If you guys are okay with me going through your funnel live, just send me all the pages. That's my little thank you.

What I'm thinking about doing is I'll stack up probably 10 or 15 people and just 10 minutes each just go through and show what I would do just right off the bat to change in the funnel, things like that. Why do you think I can do that? I'm not an expert in real estate. I'm not an expert in stocks. I'm not an expert ... It's because it's sales. Sales is all of that. That's the blanket that I'm talking about here.

Anyways, guys, so sorry for talking so long, but go get the book. I'll post the link in my blog and also toss it inside of the description as well in here. If you want me to do that, just reach out to me on my Facebook page and I am happy to gothrough a little critique of your funnel. That'd be really, really fun.
All right, guys, talk to you later. Bye.

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Book Link:  https://expertsecrets.com/freebook?cf_affiliate_id=52291&affiliate_id=52291&aff_sub=&aff_sub2=&nopopup=false&noautoplay=false&cookiepreview=false