SFR 131: Assets To Collect BEFORE Funnel Building...

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, question, and I was like, "Crap, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, hook this up, here the, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I was like trying to go as fast as I could because the timer was going, right?

That kind of good pressure is fantastic for the soul and for your progression. And so I .... But you gotta be willing to experience it, know what I mean. You gotta say yes to it. And that's what we did. And I'll tell you that we built the funnel, we got it out there, and it was for this insurance, smart phone insurance funnel. And we didn't make money but we didn't really lose money either. We both kind of broke even. And it paid for Click Funnels, it paid for our stuff and that's really what got us going. And it's really what got me the tool.

Now that I have the tool, I was like, "What do I want to go build?" And what I did was I went through and I launched out and I created this funnel for the MLM space, right. A lot of you guys know that. A lot of you guys know the story.

But I was like, "Oh my gosh. I got this idea for this sweet product no one's ever pulled off before, it's going to be freaking awesome. Aahh!" And so I build this product and I'm spending ... because I was in the army ... I was in school. We had a kid. You know what I mean? Life was busy. It took me about eight months to build the actual info-product, okay, and put it together. And write the scripts and Funnel Hack the crap out of people, you know what I mean, put all the pieces together.

And then what I did is I went through and I launched it and then put it out there. Nobody bought it. I was like, "What's wrong with you guys? This product is freaking incredible! Are you serious?" I just spent tons of time making the funnel. Lots of time putting the product together and then when it was all said and done, after eight months. No one was buying it. I said, "What's wrong with this?"

This was now four years ago. That's the amount of time that's gone ... And I was like, "Oh my gosh, are you serious? What's going on with this thing?"

One of the issues that I learned over the last few years, I've now coached over 700 people through the 2 Comma Club coaching program. I've coached a whole bunch of people through my own and the pattern is always this. Is that people will start by jumping in and they're like, "What funnel should I build?" Right? And then when they get in, they get into to create funnels they're like, "This is freaking awesome. Oh my gosh", right? What funnel am I going to build?

And then they build this funnel of what they think it should look like, because they've seen other peoples, and that's great. They're funnel hacking. But then, they're like, "Crap! What should I sell?" And they get like, oh man you know what, maybe on this page we'll sell this. Maybe on this page we'll sell this. How 'bout this page we'll sell that. Right? And then they're like, "Crap! Now the products are in there, how do we even make this thing sell?"

Now I know I have a funnel. I've got the products. How does it sell? And I will tell you, that's exactly what I did and it took another solid 3-4 months for the thing to actually even sell well. When I finally figured out that last piece it was $1,000 a week, no ad spend, for a year. About 50 grand then. Right, crazy cool.

But looking back on how that whole thing went, it's exactly the opposite of what you should. It's unfortunately the natural tendency of everybody that comes into the funnel world. They start over here at the funnel side. Then they figure out what they should sell. Then they figure out how to sell it. Wrong order entirely. Start the other way.

So when I launched, and one of the reasons why I felt like I could leave my job, which I was super sad to do but I realized I needed to. You gotta go the other direction. And this is one of the reasons why I knew I could leave the security of a 9-5. My very cushy, plush, amazing job next to the Russell Brunson, you know what I mean?

I just love the guy like a brother. It hurt me personally to leave, I didn't want to leave. But I felt like my own personal progression I needed to, so I did.

But this is why I felt like I could, one of the reasons why. There's a few things that I was looking at that I knew was going to be the reason I would be okay. Because I left with no product, no funnel, no script, there was nothing. I had nothing created.

And within four days, I had already cash-flowed $3,700 and then within another three weeks we were at $6,000. But the product wasn't even made....

And this is what I did first. This is what we're going to go through with all of you students as well, super excited to have you guys. We're going to dive through. I think we have eight of you today, eight, nine of you today. Something like that.

Number one you've gotta start instead with the message. The sales message. What gets people off of their butt and they're wallet is like flying through the air. Whoosh! Take my money! Right? That's all you should care about. What is the sales message that breaks and rebuilds the beliefs, and gets them to you and saying, "Yes, I am willing to buy. Take my cash."

The issue is that people, instead they'll start over on the funnel side. And when you start on the funnel side, you end up creating an offer tethered by the funnel that you created. Does that make sense? And then you come over here to offering, you're like, "Cool. I made this sweet thing. I made this cool product. This awesome offer." And then you end up creating a sales message tethered by the offer that you put together. You immediately are going into an improvement based offer when you do it that way.

Instead you do it the other direction. Figure out, and actually figure out the sales message and actually be collecting cash. And when you are actually collecting cash, then you create the offer that fulfills whatever promise your sales message made. Does that make sense?
When you do it in that direction, oh my gosh, it's so much easier. Your customer is creating the offer with you.

The book, Innovators Dilemma. Innovators Dilemma talks about that. Since you're creating a new niche, the problem with markets that don't exist is that since they don't exist they can't be analyzed. And since they can't be analyzed, right, you're not going to be able to go ... You're going to make it based off of your own precepts. The issue with that is you are immediately going into an approved base offered.

So let's fix, the fix, the way to fix all of it is to sell. Figure out what message sells. What message gets people off their butt, because people are inherently lazy, and money in your hand. Then you create the offer with them. You create the product with them. So that they are helping you discover at the same time, in tandem, it has to happen at the same time.

They're helping you create this new niche, together. It's not made off of your own precepts. It's not made off the precepts of just a single customer. You're doing it with the people that you've been selling. And when you do that, oh my gosh, it's so much easier. Number one, because you're not going to over shoot the bounds of what they need to feel fulfilled. Number two there, you're going to be able to go in and they will literally help figure out ... You're going to get cash in your pocket before you ever start doing it.

And when I did they said ... I didn't get out there and say like, "Hey, here's a bait and switch on you. Oh, gotcha it's not made yet." No. I was very clear and open. Look, it's not done yet. Because of that, I'm going to give you early bird pricing. Ezra Firestone just talked about this in an interview with Ryan Moran. He does the exact same thing.

He goes out and he sells a little bit cheaper to his beta group. I didn't. And then they help him create the product. Then when you know what offer sells and fulfills the message that you promised in your sales message, then you're going back and you're doing all the ninja crazy stuff with the funnel.

My funnel right now is limping along. I know it is so broken. I know it is. I don't care. For the first three months of me doing this, I have not cared. I don't even have a consumption, I don't have all the ... I don't have the bells and whistles in my funnel, because I know it is not what makes the sale.

The sales message makes the sale. Your product never is good enough to sell it by itself. So stop caring about it. It's not what puts cash in your pocket. Figure out what the sales message is. Then go out and then fulfill whatever that promise was in the sales message, fulfill that with the customer. Help them, have them help you make it. And then you go out and then you start doing all the funnel stuff.

I'm finally at a spot now where I just proved after the funnel works and now I'm going back, I'm circling back to the actual sales message itself. I'm fixing my script. A lot of stuff's wrong with my script. It's still the original script that I wrote, pretty much, three months ago. A lot of stuff I'm going to fix there. Then I'll go back to the offer, sexify that out, make that even more attractive. Really, really cool.

Then I'll go back to the funnel. Add more cool stuff, more ninja stuff and I'll go back to the script, back to the offer, back to the funnel, back to the script, back to the offer ... does that make sense? That's how I do that and that's the way you do it where you're not waiting like over a year to get paid like I had done the first time.

Anyways, I am ... We're going to drive through some sweet peoples' funnels today. Make sure you got a solid plan and then help you implement that and then we're going to ... Then we're going to go ahead and help you get a plan.

So month one for you guys, just so you know, is all about getting that thing off the ground. Month number two, and you can do it faster but this is generally how I focus on it, month number two's all about traffic. And reacting based on what the market is telling you. The reaction area. Like I said before, this game's about you becoming a good detective rather than this brilliant innovator. That's not true. That's not how that works at all. People stress out like, "I'm going to be this big creative", no you don't. You gotta funnel hack first and then create something new and you do them in tandem. Funnel hack and be creative second, not first.

I was taught very wrongly in college about that. That I gotta make something that's brand new, something totally prolific, oh my gosh it's gotta be something amazing, something nobody's ever seen before. Are you kidding me? That's the most risky crap on the planet and you will lose cash.

Anyways, do it this way it works out. I don't care if you're selling eCom, info products, retail, B2B, doesn't matter. That's the model that I use that I go through it.

First sales message, what actually gets cash flowing. What are you going to do to fulfill on the promise that your message made? And then you obsess over the funnel and then I repeat it several times until it's amazing and then, then I feel like I can automate it, walk away and be like, "Sweet! Boom! Done. This is awesome. That's epic."

Anyways, that was a rant. I should've podcasted that, maybe I'll rip it out and toss it in a ... Alright guys, super excited for this. Thanks so much and let's dive into you students. Boom.

Hey, thanks for listening. The most common question I get is, "Steve, will you look at my funnel?" Of course. Whether you want me to coach you, give some hand holding and guidance during your funnel build, or simply review the one you have; head over to coachmesteve.com and book your session now.