SFR 197: HINT-The Path Doesn't Matter...

Hey, what's going on everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. It's kind of a special, unique episode.

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.

The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.

Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.

My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

What's up, guys?

Hey, I am here at the JW Marriott over in Phoenix, Arizona at the Traffic Secrets event. It's been a ton of fun to watch Russell go in and teach traffic, which is interesting, I mean think about it...

The dude's running an almost near billion dollar company and doesn't know how to run a Facebook ad... BUT he's doing a traffic event.

The perspective of somebody like that that's really, really interesting. And so the things he's been teaching have been quite fascinating.

The trip here though was pretty crazy:

We're getting on an airplane, I was flying to Salt Lake. We get on this airplane at Salt Lake and everyone goes and they sit down obviously it's a full flight, totally loaded up.

The time for us to take off comes, and then it goes, and we're still sitting there. The plane hasn't even moved at all.

Pretty soon the captain comes on like all cliche captains; you know, "How you doin’ everybody?" It sounds like the microphone is in his face. Anyways he goes, "The update is that there's no update. I'll tell you when there's an update." I was like, "Okay, that was weird."

A few minutes later, he gets back on and says, "Hey look, the luggage guy was filling up the airplane and there was a huge bulge coming out of the side of the airplane. And no one can figure out what it is. The maintenance guy is here and they can't figure out what it is... so we'll give this a few more minutes here. We'll see what needs to happen." And he leaves, and we're all just sitting there like, "What on Earth?"

... And it's funny because a few minutes later he comes back on. (We now should've taken off like, 20-30 minutes ago.) "Hey, no one can figure out What the heck the bulge is coming out of the side of the airplane. We've got to get off and change airplanes. It will probably be another 10-15 minutes because that plane's not even here yet... go to gate C10."

Those kind of scenarios are always fun because that is when adults turn into children, right?

People start doing things like, "Oh, are you serious, ugh!"

I was like are you freakin' kidding me? Like, "Let's see, Alive? Or dead with bad plane? Alive? Dead with bad plane?" It was like, "Come on, are you serious? What are the alternatives here? There's not many alternatives. Not many options. Chill out."

Anyway, super funny!

So I get to the actual event and last night, at like 5:00 a.m. somebody pulled the fire alarm for the entire JW Marriott - which is extremely alarming to wake up to!

It reminded me of several basic training days. It's like "Whoa!" You wake up real fast  and you're like, "What's up???" And again, it's when adults become big kids and start complaining like crazy.

I'm not saying you can't ever have a negative feeling towards things that are going on in life, but there's been this pattern that I started seeing in my coaching, and things that are going on in life. I'm not saying not to feel emotions, but holy crap, if you can't handle something unexpected in life, and react to it well... If you can't be response-able - "able to respond," like the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says...

If you're not response-able I don't think you're gonna be a good entrepreneur.

The set of problems that I woke up to today was different (and not foreseen) to the problems I woke up to yesterday. And that's the game of freaking entrepreneurship.

So many people get so mad about stuff like, "Well, I didn't think it would be this way." "Give me a refund, this kind of treatment is unacceptable..." I'm like, "Really? Are you kidding? You could die." Like, "Shut up you big baby. Literally, you're a big baby." ...I always laugh at that.

I'll be coaching somebody, and I'll be like, "Alright, hey, now it's time for you to start publishing," and they'll be like, "Oh man!" And they start doing all this crap... "

 

“Are you freaking kidding me? In the last episode, I talked about  Cash causing frameworks, and you're not willing to do it?  Holy crap!"

It was interesting because I was sitting listening to Myron Golden... You know, I was doing my One Funnel Away Challenge stuff. I got up early, I went into the event room. No one was in there, just a few people setting up. I did my One Funnel Away Challenge coaching. Which is a challenge where I help people get a funnel out the door in one month...

I wanted to sit around with the lights, and I wanted to sit around with all the noise and the music in the background and do my coaching right there...

(Sorry, there's a big something coming. I'm gonna walk this way.)

...But it was interesting because Myron Golden walked up. And he goes, "Dude, I just read the most impactful book that I've ever read in my life since Expert Secrets." And when somebody says a phrase like that you know it's time to shut up and listen...

He said,  "It was a book called You Squared."  It's not long. It's actually a super short book, and I believe the audiobook is on YouTube for free. I'm excited to go listen to it.) But the basic principle and premise of it...

(Sorry for the sound of that guy right there. I'm trying to walk away from him.)

...The basic principle of it is this, and it's so funny because this is exactly what I've been noticing is the reason people don't have success.  They don't have success simply because they're so fixated on seeing beginning to end.

Myron walked up and he said, "The reason people are not successful yet is because... (There were several things that he said but the biggest thing that I remember...) He said, “The biggest reason they're not successful yet is because they have not decided to be yet."

And you might be "Okay, okay, I've got it, and that doesn't sound very deep." But just think about it right? "They haven't decided to be successful yet." The word decide means to make an incision and cut out all other options.

*Bird song*(What's up birds? You sound cool.)

...If you decide to be successful, you don't care what the paths are. You don't care about the roadblocks along the way. You don't care what things you're gonna hit. There's going to be unexpected stuff.

The reason I wanted to be an entrepreneur, when I started realizing what marketers really do, is because I had an early mentor of mine tell me, "Stephen, to be a marketer is to solve new problems every day that you did not have the day before."

To be an entrepreneur is to have a new set of problems every day.

If you have an unexpected thing that pops up in your life and you're like "Oh wah, are you serious? This is unacceptable. How come no one told me about this? The startup guide didn't include this piece for me."  Man, you are the freaking problem!

Does that make sense?

It's the way that you're seeing this thing. You haven't married the outcome yet.

#Step one: You figure out what you want. You put a stamp out there - stamping the ground. "Bam, this is what I want." You declare it, "This is it. Boom, this is what I'm going for." And then what you do is you just start taking steps.

The most common thing I see that stops people in the game is this... In order for you to actually totally get this I want to tell you a little story real fast okay?

I'm not that big of a hunter, but I love to shoot guns. Growing up, my dad took me hunting a couple of times. I love shooting .30-06. I like shooting big, heavy rounds. He's a lefty and I'm a righty. So I'd go out with this .30-06 with the bolt action on the opposite side which was really weird when you fired.

We'd go out to this little spot. He gets me up super early, you know. It's way before the sun is even out. It's pitch black, it's freezing, and we go up to these super high mountains, and we get out of the truck, and we start walking for a little bit. Then we'd stop, and sit down. I can't see a thing.  I mean it is like pitch, pitch black. I can't even see my hand in front of my face; it's so dark.

I'm sitting there and it starts to get super cold. When the sun is about to rise is when it is the coldest because all the cold starts to rise as the sun kinda chases it off the ground.

So you're sitting there for hours, and because you're not moving, it starts to get super cold as all that cold starts to come off the ground - and you know the sun's about to come up in a little bit. And sure enough, a  little bit of light comes. If I extend my hand all the way, I can see it now.

As we're sitting right there suddenly, the light starts to pop up just a little bit. And there's actually a peak, on the opposite side of where I'm sitting. I didn't even know it was there. The sun just barely hits the top of the peak. It was beautiful, it was absolutely amazing.

The sun keeps going up, and the line where the light is popping up keeps going down, down, down, down. Suddenly I realized, we are sitting on the edge of this gigantic, beautiful valley. This huge, amazing valley. I had no idea it was there.

I sat there for hours while I watched this thing pop up. And that experience always stuck with me. (I did not get an elk that day, which sucks but someone in our party did.)

Anyway, so this principle I want you to know is like the major core mentality that all successful entrepreneurs have...

I don't know what step #4 even is for me right now. I don't, okay? I know the macro level moves I'm moving. But there's a crap ton of micro things I don't even know exist, that I've never had to deal with yet. That I've never had to solve... But I know how to learn. I learned how to learn.

There's this amazing person who knows everything named freakin' GOOGLE. And I can just go there and I can Google. It's gonna be right there. I can go to this amazing individual called YouTube. And you know what? I can learn so much on YouTube. It's insane how much I can learn on YouTube.

Most of my early clients, I knew that what they were asking me to do was possible, but I didn't know how to do it. I knew others were doing it, but I didn't know how to do it. So what does that mean? It means I'm the variable.

So I would go out, and I would say, "Yes, client, I can do X, Y, and Z for you." Then I would go to YouTube, and I would figure out how to do it.

Literally, that's how I actually started.

I did that a ton for years. Having to have a deliverable forced me to learn quickly. Forced me to learn only the most valuable pieces I needed to move the ball forward...

The 80% that mattered versus the 20% to perfection. Don't worry about that last 20% okay?

I don't care what step four is for me on this micro level. I don't care about it until I've taken step three. I hardly even know how to put my foot down in step two right now. That's the whole point though, okay?

Most of the time, I've noticed... this is like the overlaying pattern I've seen. There's really two things that I've seen when I'm coaching somebody new in this game. I've now brought well over 2,000 people through this process of building a funnel and getting it out the door.

The first mentality I've noticed is that people are waiting to take action for them to see beginning to end.

Man, I didn't see the whole freaking valley forever. Hours, and hours, and hours of sitting there freezing my butt off, uncomfortable stuff okay? You never see beginning to end in this game, you don't.

One other thing real fast on that:

Stop learning generally.

I've said that before on this podcast. I'm just saying it again, it's just on my mind. All these things wrap together again.

It's like, "Man, I've got to stop learning generally. If I don't need SEO, why in the heck am I learning it?"

For me to place the very next step I need to take today, do I need to learn SEO? Most likely not, right? Most likely I don't need to put my foot right there.

There might be some other crazy, crazy thing way down the road, and even then I'm not gonna be the one doing it. Why on earth am I gonna study something like SEO?

If it's your thing, great.. but only if it's the very next step you need to take.

It would shock you guys how much I don't study books. It would shock you guys how much I don't just consume crazy amounts of podcasts anymore. It was good at the beginning. It was great, but as soon as I knew what I wanted as soon as I knew what I was going for it all became about learning with the intent to place the very next step in front of me.

I don't care how much other cool information is out there. It doesn't do anything, okay?

Knowledge is not power, knowledge applied is power.

And so I'm gonna apply it with the most intense force that I can with just the next thing. So I practice "Just in Time Learning." I place my foot down, Bam I just learned just for that thing just in time for me to place that foot in the next place.

Funny enough, as soon as I take step number one, a new step three always appears. It kinda comes into the light just a little bit. Not clearly, but then there's a new step one. I'm like, "Oh, okay. Let me place that foot  as best as my foot can be placed." Boom, there it is. "Oh, let me place a new foot down, Boom. Ah, wait, I don't know how to do that. That's okay, let me go read about this on YouTube."

My foot's off the ground. I'm not placing the foot yet, foot's still up there. Let me go see, oh, okay I know how to place that one. And pretty soon, you start walking at a pretty brisk pace. And the better you get, you start to sprint, you start to run.

Some of you guys have said "Stephen, you haven't even been graduated from college for three years yet. How the heck are you doing that?" That's how.

I don't just learn for the sake of freaking learning. I learn for me to go towards the goal. I don't care about the path it takes to get to the goal. It's gonna look like that okay? Stop waiting for it to be straight. Doesn't work like that okay?

So again, first thing I noticed from people is they want to see beginning to end. Doesn't happen that way, okay? Doesn't happen that way. You come to me, and you try and find anyone that it's happened that way for.

The second thing: The number one  excuse that I get for not taking action is "Stephen, well how does that work for my product?" Man, freaking-A alright. If you're selling anything or you're getting leads, I don't care if the point of sale is on the freaking internet or if it's off of it. I don't care if you're just trying to make contact a little bit... but if you're selling anything, anything...

I don't care if it's your product or if it's somebody else's. I don't care if it's info, if it's real estate it's real business, if it's brick and mortar stuff. I don't care if it's B2B, I don't care if it's retail...

If you're selling anything at all these are the principles that make things sell.

It doesn't matter if it's your product. Doesn't matter if it's someone else's product. Doesn't matter if someone else owns it. Doesn't matter if it's affiliate, okay? Guys, oh my gosh that one freaking drives me nuts...

Stop thinking you're unique. You are way less unique in your business than you think you are.

It's not a bash, it's the truth.

My stuff, there's like a 30% area where it's my pure genius. The other 70%...

Man, who was it that said, "If you think you're a hot shot, just look around and realize you've been standing on the shoulders of giants all along"? It's some quote like that. That's the truth.

 

That's the truth that you gotta understand. You are not unique. You are unique, but I'm saying your business, your product, it's not really that unique. You're not really that much of an exception to what I'm talking about because you're not at all, okay?

So don't think like, "Oh, I've got to see it from beginning to end." First of all, that's garbage, no one follows that. No one follows that.

It was literally the night before we sold the original Two Comma Club Coaching program that we actually outlined the offer.

People were registered for the thing. People were ready, we already did the first full day. It was the second day, the night before that second day where we actually, "Okay, what should we sell them?"

Just move, start swinging the bat. Too many of you guys have been focused on figuring out what the material of the bat is made out of. Who cares! Swing, Swing, Swing! Swing, and realize that you are NOT this like crazy exception to the things we're talking about, you're not.

"Well, I think my scenario is different." Bull crap, Bull crap! I'm gonna make you feel uncomfortable and call that right now. That's a lie, and it's been a lie that you've been romancing so that you won't have to take action.

What I've noticed is that in each one of my coaching programs it's always usually around anywhere from week two to six that's where I get the most push-back because those are the places where I force people to take the most action. So they start doing things like "Well, how much time does it take the average person to do this?"

That's a symptom of you having a belief you're literally trying to find a way to release yourself from the good pressure you're feeling. You're trying to find a way to NOT do the thing and keep your pride on the way out.

"Well people said that it takes about three months, and I only have two months and two weeks, so I'm not a good fit." You're trying to find a way to keep your pride and exit at the same time. Just saying, done it a lot.

I've coached thousands of people through the process now.

"Well Stephen, I don't know, how do you actually go create the product?"

Man, I guaran-freakin'-tee if you just go out and freaking Google that you're gonna find the answer.

If I start answering every person's little, tiny, baby question that could have been answered by Google!

I  teach you to be a self-solver.

My goal is to teach you a level of self-dependency. I want you to be self self-sufficient. There's a ton of stuff I can teach on all these different things, but the problem I've found is that people will use it as an excuse to not take action.

Or they'll use it as an excuse to try and keep their pride and justify their actions or their inaction for doing things: "Well Stephen, I can't see beginning to end." "Well Stephen, I don't think that this is gonna be..." "I don't think my product and my scenario Is a fit for what you're talking about." Yeah? Bull crap! Garbage, not true at all.  

A little tough love Stephen Larsen coming out right now because I'm so sick of people using those excuses. And I'm getting sick enough of it that I'm gonna get pretty forward about it.

I was coaching this morning for the One Funnel Away Challenge in the event room again. (We're just on a break, so I'm gonna go back in here in just a few seconds.)

 

...But someone asked like three times "Well I just don't know how this works for affiliate marketing" or  "Well, I'm in MLM so it's not really that way." "Well, I'm in retail so it's not really that way." I was like "Ugh freaking-A!"

I'm talking about sales -  this is human psychology.

Do you have a brain? Yes, you do. So does that person, and that person. Everyone in the audience does. These are things and principles that cause human persuasion and action in general.

 

You are not an exception to the rule. You are way less an exception to the rule than you've romanticized.

And I'm just saying it because I care about you guys. You are my audience, I protect you like crazy. That's my mentality.

A lot of people want to get on the show or stuff like that and I'm like "Meh, NO!" Because you guys are my tribe. I've sacrificed like crazy to try and reach out to you guys so you can hear my voice and my message. And so that's my message today:

#1: Your business is way less an exception to the rule than you want to think it is.

#2: Don't think you need to see beginning to end.

#3: Understand that these really are frameworks that cause cash.

#4: The variable, if somebody else is doing it successfully... if somebody else is out there making it happen, but you're not - then you're the problem.

Something in the way that you perceive the framework is the problem. It's coming from your head, between your ears.

Just telling you a little tough love.

I appreciate you guys, you're amazing.

If you have appreciated this episode and I spoke some tough, hard truth in this one - so I would love your honest feedback.

First, we're gonna put this on YouTube - then we repurpose it for lots of other platforms so you guys to consume on those platforms if you want to.

Anyway, please let me know, be brutal about it,  I would love to hear it.

Thanks so much guys, we'll see you guys later, bye.

Boom, thanks for listening. Please remember to write and subscribe. Hey, you want me to speak at your next event or Mastermind?

Let me know what I can share that would be most valuable by going to stevejlarsen.com and book my time now.