SFR 20: Mental Shelf Space

Sales Funnel Radio

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I'm all about confidence, acting like the "bees knees", and the "cat's meow". There's a balance though. Here's how I find it.

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

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.

All right. I got off an airplane. I left the airplane. Walked off the tarmac. We got ... Started walking through the terminal, and I get over to the car rental place. They're like "Mr. Larsen?" I was like, "Yes." They go, "For $30 more would you like to drive our brand new Ford Mustang for the next 3 days?"

I said, "uh, yes." Anyways, I'm just sitting in a brand new Ford Mustang. Usually I'm not a car guy, and usually I'm not even a Mustang guy, but these new ones, the new models look pretty sick. It drives like a dream. It's amazing. This is not a Ford Mustang promo, I'm just saying.

They got these seat ... You know seat warmers? These have seat coolers. I couldn't figure out forever how to turn off the seat cooler. It was on full blast.

My butt was so freaking cold...

Anyways, I did not start this podcast to tell you guys that. I don't know why I just said that. Anyways, I've been over at a little email conference. Email copywriting conference.

I had a lot of message to market match stuff. I mean super nerdy stuff if you're not into this world at all. But it's been really helpful. I've been hanging out with Travis.

I met a lot of cool guys...

Been over at Travis's house the last couple of days. He's been teaching us the deep dark secrets of email copywriting and how to get more opens and how to get more clicks when they open.

Retainability and deliverability rates...

Anyways, it's like ... That's like brain candy for guys like me. Absolutely love it, super fun. Really enjoyed it.

But, yesterday I was sitting there. We kind of ended and we were all sitting there still though. There was only 5 or 6 of us, kind of small intimate groups so we could ask questions and get better.

He's like "What do you guys need? I've been talking a lot but what are some more of your questions also from what we've been talking about?"

Everyone went through and went through. I was like "The problem I'm having is that every time I go look at someone else's sales funnel, I know what to do. I look at their stuff, I see the leaks. Every time I go see someone else's process or whatever, I look through it and I see the leaks...

...I know exactly what they need to do and how they need to fix it."

The entrepreneur is always like "What? Oh my gosh, why didn't I think about that?' The weirdest thing has been happening. This happens every time I go build my own thing.

I always ... this happens every time, and it's frustrating but it happens to literally every entrepreneur who's out there. As soon as you get ... Well, I mean, we're all prone to it anyways. It's easier to see what people are doing wrong in other people's business because it's not your business. Right? You stand up from a 50,000 foot view and you're looking down on top of it and you're going...

"Oh, I totally see what that guy is doing wrong. If he would just add this sequence. He would add another 20% to his bottom line." Or, "If he would just add this, he would go to this traffic source. It's so obvious. Why isn't that guy seeing it?"

In the group I was like "You guys literally all day long, all I do is look at sales funnels. I build them. I'm literally building them and working with them for about 12 hours a day right now. I've been doing that for a long time. Couple years."

I was like "The problem I'm having is that I don't know where to go next, which is the weirdest feeling, because I always know where to go next when I'm looking at other people's things."

Now that it's in front of my face literally, there's so many decisions. You're wading through all these things. Decision after decision. It's not that the decision making is hard. Its like, what's the ramification from this one.

If I go down this path does that mean I'm giving up the other path? I only have so much time in the day, and I don't want to sabotage what I'm doing over here.

I mean, for me, it's overload because ... I don't know. I'm probably a little bit weird like that...

But my brain just goes all over the place, and I don't know what to do sometimes. I'm sure you guys have felt that way. I told everyone in the group "I'm learning right now. Not that I haven't known that before, but I'm relearning it. The importance of having a coach.

Someone that just looks at your stuff and says, all right, you got to ... I know you're so close to it, you can't see everything that I can because you're making the decisions day to day." That's fine. Never feel bad that you're in that situation.

I've been in that situation a lot...

That's the first thing I realized. Number one, my progress just went through the roof as soon as I got a coach...

They're like "Hey, here's some strategies you can do to cut the noise down. Here's some things you can do to "... It's really interesting, really fascinating. I was like "Oh yeah. It's so true. I would have said that somebody else. Why didn't I think about that?"

It's because you're so close to the project. All these things ... You're not just making decisions, you're managing. You only have so much mental shelf space before your head starts to get all jacked up and you'll make stupid decisions.

No matter how much of a boss you think you are, everyone's prone to that.

Anyways, that's the first thing. Hey sorry by the way if the sound's a little bit different. Usually I record on a really nice mic so that the sound quality is awesome, but I am driving back to the airport to fly home. Thought this would be a good time for me to do this.

Anyways, that was the first one. Number one, to clear away the noise you've got to get a coach...

Which leads me to the second point. The scenario is hey I've been going through and been listening what the coach is saying.

I'm fixing my business, fixing my life...

You should get a coach for really every aspect of your life if you can.

I certainly have several mentors in one space. I ask all of them the same question. I'll get different takes from every single one of them, but after awhile, a story, a flavor starts to come out. I'm like "Okay, this is kind of where they're all saying I should go and where my gut is saying I should go." Hopefully they match up and I start moving forward.

After awhile, sometimes the apprentice can become like the master.

What do you do then? What do you do then? How do you keep the progress going and how do you keep fast ridiculous speed?

It's all about producing results as quickly as possible...

That doesn't mean you have to do it. You're right. You just orchestrate it. It's more of a brass tacks episode also. Here's the 2nd step.

First step, you have to get a coach, and the 2nd step, be a coach...

Holy crap. I learned so much stuff. I remember, I first started mentoring people in their own business actually when I was in college, and I was conscious about my age. I was like 'uh, I'm still in college. If these guys know that I'm in college, and I'm mentoring and teaching what they should do in their business, maybe they'll discredit me."

It was all these woes. "Am I qualified? Is somebody going to come through and give me a certification to be a coach?" You don't need any of that crap anyways.

If you're like a doctor or a lawyer, please don't skip school or anything, but in the internet marketing space, you definitely don't need all that stuff. You can just go learn.

Anyways, number one, getting a coach, and constantly too. It's not like you can graduate from getting a coach. That's why athletes who are in the Olympics still have coaches. They continue to after they win a gold medal.

They continue to ... Anytime you're at the peak of something, always have a coach. Then the other way around is things that to solidify stuff in your mind, especially with business or whatever, just be a coach.

Turn around ... For free even. My periscope channel, I've got over 600 followers on there. For a long long long time, I just kept recording these videos saying "Hey, I just learned this sweet trick. Oh hey, I just learned how to target a single person with Facebook ads, and put their name in the ad. It kind of freaks them out."

Or, "Hey, I learned this cool traffic technique. I made this tweak and I got three times the subscribers for email." Which is true.

Anyways, that's when it just started exploding, right?

What's funny is that when you start offering out advice like that, or you start doing ... You get more clients anyways. That's how I got in so many industries in the first place with internet marketing is I just started working for them for free.

I didn't even ask them sometimes...

I just produced the result and gave it to them.

There's couple times I've gone and just built a funnel for someone and brought it to them and said "Hey I built this for you. Do you want it?" That's way more valuable than dropping a resume on the desk.

Resumes are crap...

Just go produce a result. Actually solve that person's problem or help on it. Or at least show interest and produce something that normally they would pay for. Then, you're in.

I've done that tons of times and it's amazing what happens when you do that.

Anyways, that's really all I was thinking, and that's kind of what they were saying to me also. They were ... I was asking for coaching. It was helping to clear my mind up. "Hey, here's where you should go. Here's where you should go." I was like "Okay. It was okay." I was taking all of their advice in. It was like "Eh, I don't know. I don't know."

Then today, I was sitting down and I was thinking about all the things they were saying. Then boom. It hit me really hard. I was like "Oh my gosh. That's it. I know how to build the next part of the funnel that I'm working on right now."

I'll show that to you guys sometime...

It's because of them coaching. Then I was able to coach some of these other guys on some stuff. It's ... That's why masterminds are a cool thing, because you sit around and you get to be a coach and also get coached at the same time.

Anyways, that's all I was thinking. Get a coach. Be a coach.

I don't now if I've said that to you guys before. That's kind of one of my things. If I've said that in a different podcast, I'm sorry.

But when the noise starts to get really really high, because for all of us, it almost always does at some point. The noise gets really loud.

Every path feels like it's cloudy...

Travis very wisdomly, profoundly, he said "Dude, sometimes that's just life telling you that that path hasn't quite been hashed out yet." It's like "Oh that's a good point." I went home ... Or, I went back to the hotel room. I was thinking about that. I didn't ... On purpose, chose not to work on stuff last night. I just kind of hang out and it was awesome. Kind of let my mind germinate on it.

I always thought the whole subconscious thing is kind of bullcrap but it's not. I've been learning more and more that it's actually the majority of your thoughts.

It's the whole 80-20 principle...

80% of what you do is that subconscious...

Anyways, I did not mean to make this a hard core ... But whatever. We're telling these different stories and putting it into email. I was talking about how sometimes with your programmer or your developers or certain members of your team, or things that are cankering on you, you've got to get rid of them.

Anyways. I'll stop right there. I want you guys to know that if you guys want me to coach at all, this isn't like a ... I'm not hard pitching you at all, but I get an average of 1 to 2 requests per day from people ... For me just to go look at their funnels.

I got to go do that here soon also. Someone just sent me their email address and they're like "Hey just check it out." If you want me to do that, just let me know. I do ... I charge $500 for it. It's not as much ... $500 is not that much money. The whole reason I charge it is because free advice gets ... Even if it's good advice, you stack it in the free advice section of your brain.

It's like "ah well, that was free advice. He's not really working for me anyways."

I charge $500 for it.

We sit down for an hour and I un-stuck you. Let's go find the leaks in the funnel that can cause huge percentages in return.

It sucks to be stuck, when you know your dream is there and you're not progressing towards it...

That is the worst kind of hell for an entrepreneur.

Non movement. Being stuck...

Anyways guys, I'll talk to you later. I'm super excited to go home. Play with my little girls. Keep putting in practice what I've learned this weekend. All right guys. Talk to you later. Bye.

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