SFR 135: The Cash In Being Present...

Sales Funnel Radio

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 know that one of the things that I ... One of my isms is to just publish.

Just publish, and one of the reasons why, is this principle about just being present. Did this guy have to sell me at all on carpet cleaning?

No, no, he didn't. He didn't have to sell me at all. I literally, I basically, sold him. I had to ask him like two times. So, you can just come do the full thing? He's like, "Yeah, totally." I was like, "Sweet, so, you will, when can you come by?" I was selling him, why, right?

You have to understand that one of the things that's always shoved down our throats when I was a door-to-door sales guy is that, if we go out and we knock on a hundred doors a day, or if when I was doing telemarketing, if we called a hundred people a day, one or two of those people, of those hundred, there's just gonna be one or two that just say, yes, just because they're just interested naturally.

They're just ...

You didn't have to sell them. This is the part of the market who likes to buy stuff. This is the part of the market, who actually was just talking about getting something similar that you actually sell, something similar to that. Right? This is the part of the market who just, you know what, yeah, I would, sure, whatever, come on, do it. Does that make sense?

There's this principle...

There's this principle of just being present that I feel a lot of people miss. They get this façade of needing to be perfect. That's actually ... It's good enough to just be present to your market. You don't even have to be a hundred percent right. Your offer doesn't even need to be a hundred percent the best.

Right, just being visible is huge power, massive power, and it's very, very important for people ... For example, right, I always tell you guys, right, go publish. Are you serious about this? You go publish. There's this correlation I'm finding between those who actually have successful funnels, and those who don't. Those who do, 90% of the time, they also, go figure, are also publishing regularly. Whether that's a podcast, a blog, whatever it is. They're regularly getting out there.

Why?...

Why? Even if I'm just putting this stuff out there, right now, this episode, this very one I'm recording right now. I know that it is getting in front of people. I'm getting about 500 downloads a day right now. I've got this cool strategy to go grow bigger, and I'm excited about that, but I've got this cool ...

Right, I'm gonna go stay present. I'm staying in front of you right now, right? And I know that next episode, you are going to want to listen to it. It is incredible. It is an interview I did with somebody who is very prestigious. You guys all know who he is. He's an absolutely amazing. It ended up being an hour long.

Tons of fun. I had lots of fun with him, right?

Salting the oats, letting you guys know what's going on, but that's the very point of what I'm trying to make. Just being present, just being in front of people. There will be lay down sales. There will be people who walk up to you.

That's the reason why I hardly ever work with a startup ever. The answer is pretty much always no. And the reason is because if someone is a startup, and they're not getting any sales, and they've never sold ever.

To me that means that they're not even trying because if they're just being present to the market that they're trying to sell to, they should get with enough repetition some sales. With zero sales skill. With zero, even marketing ability. Just by finding people, talking to the right people, who are like, "You know what, yeah, I was thinking about carpet cleaning. Yeah, I was just talking about this. Yeah, totally." And I was like, "Price? Yeah, okay, let's do it awesome. Hey, can you come back in like six months?" He's like, "Yeah." He actually said 12 months. Oh, yeah, I'll come back in a year. I was like, "No, I want it faster than that. We've got kids. There's like ...

Our Carpets are nasty a lot. Yeah, right. Come faster, right? I was selling him. How interesting is that? Think about this, right? We always teach, right? That a new offer, like a new opportunity, goes and it sells to the masses. An improvement based offer, sells to those who are ambitious, and since most people are not ambitious. We don't create improvement based offers. Right?

We try and we go and create new opportunities, but you have to understand that just by being present, you will find people like myself, who are ambitious, and asking to be sold. Does that make sense? We always knew those people who were slacking off on the phone. Those people who are slacking off on the door ... Because there sales just totally stopped. Just by them walking around with this pest control badge on their shoulder, right? People would ask to buy. Right?

Be seen. That's all I'm trying to tell you. Be seen. Be in front of people. Be there. Be visible...

Right?

Now, there might be a lot of people out there who are not quite at the opportunity ... The opportune moment in their mind to purchase. Right? They should buy from you. They should buy from you, but they're like it's not quite time yet. Right? I've got a few other people that are trying to sell me stuff right now, and I'm like, well, it's not quite time for me to get this. It's not quite time yet for me to do this. Right? But there's a huge market, right?

Out there. Bigger than I know. I shouldn't say huge, but bigger than I realize, right? Who are the ambitious people, who are just gonna say yes, frankly because they know it's an improvement, frankly because the opportunity is there, frankly because we are just talking about getting our carpets cleaned. Is this making sense? Are you guys getting this? I hope it makes sense.

And so, I'm like stop obsessing so much over the actual product, and just be out there talking about it, selling it, right? Even if the pitch isn't perfect. Who cares. Just be out doing it. Right? That will perfect your pitch faster than you sitting in a room days for doing it.

Okay. It's funny because I'm in this cool place in my webinar building right now, where I'm actually recreating the entire thing. Okay, and that's what I've been doing basically this last week. I feel like my momentum has been a little bit slow, as far as output because I'm solely focusing on my webinar script.

I am destroying it. I did it live quite enough times, talked to a lot of customers, talked to a lot of people realizing that, oh, my gosh, this is what they liked. This is what they didn't like. This is what they didn't buy. This is why they did buy, right? And understanding what those things really were. This is a progression beyond a simple ask campaign to people who have never bought from you.

I'm talking with people who have bought from me, right? People who did start filling out their credit card, but end up pressing purchase, right? Those people. That's way more amazing data, and I'm going to them, right? And I've just been present. I know my pitch wasn't perfect, but my funnel is still limping on a single leg. I know it is.

There's so much that's wrong with it, okay, but I've not obsessed over it so much yet...

I know I will...

I know it's gonna be amazing, but what I'm waiting for is this awesome blend between what I know people are struggling with, right? Not just there needs, but what they want, and what I'm offering, and the sales message that delivers that offer. And it's coming. It's real close, it's real close, okay?

I just spent six hours yesterday going through and ripping apart my webinar. Ripping apart the script. Tearing apart my offer. I'm basically restructuring the entire thing. I'm very, very excited. Probably in like another week, we're gonna be gone for a little bit here, but probably in a week, I'm gonna turn back around, I'll redo the whole thing.

All that mattered for me, phase number one though. Right? If you're like "Steven, I don't get it." When you say "Steven go out, Steven go out and just start selling first," but I don't have the product totally perfect yet. Another way to think about it is just go be present. Just be there when people are looking.

Some of the power of publishing. Some of the power of you being out there, is just merely, right, just whenever their eyes look when they're like, okay, I'm finally ready. Okay, I'm looking. You know what? We just talked about how it'd be cool to do this, you know what I mean. You know what we talked about ... You know ... You know what I mean?

Boy, if somebody walked around here and says "Hey, we do sprinkler service." I'm hiring them on the spot. Right? There's stuff I need done with the sprinklers. I know how to do it, I don't want to do it. Okay, I dug sprinkler trenches by hand for a whole summer. I put up false sprinkler lines up, that was, I know how to do it, I don't wanna. Okay, if some guy walks up, does that make sense?

There are things that I see inside my life that I just not need, but also want. And same with you, and you're actually selling stuff, guys, it is ridiculous how many people are asking me for my product right now.

Coming to me, asking me, without me selling them. That means I have found a want, not just a need. I am hitting directly on the pain point. I am hitting directly on the spot where it is an insatiable blue ocean.

And just by me publishing, just by me being present, I am getting sales...

That's the whole point. If you still have not had any sales yet, I dare say you are not present. No one knows about you. No one has any clue that you exist if you have zero sales and you have been in business for awhile.

Just be visible...

It doesn't matter if it's not perfect, it doesn't matter if it's not ... anyway...

Okay, that's all I'm trying to say in this episode, be present. Okay. Publish. Okay. Be out there, be talking with people, be understanding who you're actually selling, okay. Your dream customer, not who could buy it, the dream person of who you want to buy it. Okay? And actually get intimate with that individual, understand who they are, understand that their needs, wants, and desires and go forward that way.

Anyways, guys, hopefully this was helpful to you. Hopefully it simplified things and it's keeping you from, I don't want you to over complicate things. I don't want you to over ... okay, because there's a lot of stuff we teach, especially those of you guys who came in the Two Comma Club Coaching Program, the new batch that we just got, right?

You guys represent my now twelve hundredth person, that I've taken through this process, okay? And understand that, the way the whole game is played, there's so much that we put out there, we know that. I don't want overwhelm to happen. Keep it simple, understand that just being visible with something imperfect is going to be so much better than waiting for something to be perfect. Every time, bar none, every time.

Anyway, there's a cool book, just the title that even says what it, it's call "The Consuming Instinct". That's exactly what this is playing in to. I'm actually looking at it right now. But it's called "The Consuming Instinct," right? Just got it. Very, very excited to start reading through it. Right? This is another reason why you go and sell wants, because eventually you walk into somebody and they're like "Oh, yeah, I've been wanting that lately. Yeah, I really do. I've been looking for something like this." We've been looking to get our carpet cleaned. Right? It's a consuming instinct.

People want to buy from you. So half you guys just aren't talking about your stuff enough, and being loud enough...

Final thing I'll say, there was a teacher that I had, a professor that I had. He was one of my first real mentors. It was probably about four years ago. He and I were chatting', a lot of you guys heard me talking about him, he was the CMO of Denny's, and of Pizza Hut.

He invented stuffed crust pizza. I was running a business at the time, we were doing three grand a week, and it was cool. You know, it was a fun business, it was like training wheels for me, for a lot of different things. Anyway, I started talking to him, and I was like, "Yeah, you know, I feel like I'm just annoying people from what what I'm doing. I'm saying the same things and I'm getting the same messages out there. And I feel like I'm just trying to annoy people."

And he brought me to the side and he goes "You've got to start understand that like" ... It's funny that Russell started telling me this too, but this is the guy that I learned it from, and he goes,

"You've to to understand that you're going to get so much more tired of your thing before other people. Like when you start being annoying, when you feel you're being annoying, that's when people are even starting to notice you exist. Right? You're gonna get tired of your stuff way before the market is, because the market really has no idea who you are for awhile. Right?

You've got to shake them, you've to to grab their shoulders and say "I'm here." Right? I'm here. When you, right, even if there is no pitch or sale, right, you're just being open and present. Anyway, just know that this is going to happen to you, and expect it to. And if it's not that way, you're not marketing enough, right? I'm tired of the things that they teach over and over again. Okay? I am. But I know that people barely starting to know from me, or know me for what I do. So why the heck would I ever stop? Right? I'm just being present.

It takes awhile for a whole mar...it takes, right? To think that an entire market will have your attention, too, is also ludicrous. It's ridiculous. I'm not gonna sway 100 percent of the market. To think that I'm going to have 100 percent of the market, that's not true. I'm just looking for my sliver, that I can go serve, that I can effect positively, that I can bless in their life. And in turn, they will support my life. Right? Like 90 percent of it is just getting out of the door and just talking about it. Just being where people are looking.

Anyway, you guys are awesome. Thanks so much for listening and I appreciate you guys being on here. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the last podcast. That topic, oh man, Questions that Invite Revelations is one of my favorites. I got a sweet one coming up for you next, as well, It's ready, it's ready to rock. I'm just salting the oats, here, okay.

Get ready to listen to it, it's very, very good. It's one to take out a piece of paper and listen with. It has blessed my life immensely. As soon as I learned what you guys are going to learn in the very next episode, I ran home and taught my wife, and I taught tons of people, because it was one of those things I learned that I said "Oh my gosh, this, this is life changing." And it has been already.

So, anyway guys, thank you so much, and I'll see you on the next episode...

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