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SFR 63: The ONLY Time To Partner

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Content provided by Steve J Larsen. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Steve J Larsen or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

Approaching someone with nothing but an idea doesn't put you in a position to start partnering with someone. Here what you need to have before going to others...

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and in this episode I want to share with you guys when it's actually really cool to partner with somebody, but also I want to share with you when it's completely inappropriate.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

All right. Now when I first got started in this business, I started getting a little bit of traction, I was studying a lot of traffic strategies, and I didn't know it at the time but I literally was taking this piece of paper in the middle of my internet marketing class, and I was drawing out a funnel, a sales funnel. And I was drawing from a squeeze page, to a thank you page, over to an affiliate offer, and there was an email sequence.

And I was learning how to put all this stuff together. I had no idea that I was drawing what is now commonly known as a sales funnel. And it was super cool, and there was all these really cool things that I was drawing, this really detailed little map of how this was going to be all working out. And I walked up to my internet marketing professor, this was about two and a half, eh, this was way longer than that. This was probably three and a half years ago now, four years ago.

And I walked up to him and I said, "Hey, you know what? Hey, great class. I never want to come back." And he's like, "What?" And I said, "Look, it's like day two and you just asked me what SEO stands for. Like, I've been studying this stuff way longer than you probably have been." I didn't say that part. But I was like, "Look, I don't want to come back."

And he's like, "All right, fine." And I held up this piece of paper, that funnel, and I said, "I'm gonna go build this instead," and he, I thought he was going to say no. But he said something that probably changed my life. He said, "Okay. You can leave, don't come back the rest of the entire semester. And what you're going to go do is you're going to hold a class on your own. And at the end of the semester, I expect some kind of deliverable."

And so what I did is I looked around in class, and I looked for the other kid that looked like he was just bored out of his mind because he just knew this stuff already, and I was like, "Hey, let's go." And we left class for the rest of the semester. And we, every single day, held class for three hours. We called it class, but literally all we were doing is we were trying to make as much money online as we possibly could. And that's what our class was. And it's super unique, it was really, really cool, I can't believe he actually said yes to that. And so that's all we did.

We sat down and we just started executing the plan. I said, "Hey, okay, here's the plan." And I, his name's Ben Wilson, he's one of the first interviews on my podcast, by the way. He's about to launch his own. Anyway. And he ... I was like, hey, here's what this is. I didn't know it was a funnel that I was drawing. But I was like, first we're going to send it to this and then we'll go do this, and then we'll go do this.

You know, it was all this cool automation and I was kind of patch working together these different systems that weren't really supposed to work together but I somehow in weird ways got them to.

And we went and we got a Clickbank offer and the coolest thing happened. We went and we grabbed this Clickbank offer and we put basically together an affiliate funnel. Using some free software for some crappy landing page thing. And we thought through all the lines of copy and we thought through the headlines.

All that we could, we were just focusing as hard as we could on when to say this line, and when this line. And we took this video from here. It was just really, really fun.

And I was like hey, I have no money. We're gonna put fifty bucks in, let's say, on ads, and I learned some really awesome traffic driving strategies. This is literally before I even learned who Russell Brunson was by like a month before I learned who he was. And it was really, really cool. I went and we put fifty bucks in and I was like, okay, let's see if it works.

And we went to bed. And that night, I woke, the next morning I woke up and I was really, really excited. I had a hard time sleeping because I was so excited to see what would happen.

I was like, we're gonna be rich! We're gonna be rich! This is gonna be amazing!

And not from fifty bucks, but just to prove the concept and knew we could scale afterwards.

And so we put fifty bucks in, and I open up my account, and there was fifty dollars in there. It was like fifty-something. Anyway, we basically, we broke even. And I was like, God! No way! Oh my gosh, we broke even, we broke even! Dude! And I called him up and I was like, "We freaking made it!" And he's like, "Are you kidding me man?" And I was like, "Yeah, meet me there."

So we go and I get on my bike, because we only have one car, and I wanted to like, to have the car for the kids. And I'm riding my bike as fast I can, rah! Go as fast as I can. I get to campus, get to the room that we always stole from the other people so that we could try to make money every day.

And I pull my computer up and he comes running in and I show it to him and we were like, "Oh my gosh, it worked!"

Well the news of that spread. And part of me was like, yeah, whoa! And the other part of me was like, eh, we broke even. We had 17 people opt in and one person bought and then bought the upsell which made fifty bucks. And I was like, huh. Well, it looks like we failed on that, I guess what else should we try?

And it's so funny because until I just kicked myself. We made a break even funnel our very first try, which, just so you know, in the sales funnel world, is not a small feat. It was huge. And it was mass ... Anyway. What was funny was this onslaught of people with these deals that just started coming out of the woodwork for us. And news of that spread. And we were just excited. We weren't thinking. We were just like, "yeah, check this out! We did this, this, and this!" It was like, aw, so crazy cool!

Well, pretty soon everybody was a deal maker. And I was in the middle of my marketing classes and I'd go from class to class and these people would come out and be like, "hey, you want to do this?" "Hey, dude, I've got this great thing. Hey, you want to drive traffic for me and do x, y and z?" And I was like, "Yeah! Totally!" And I was just saying yes to everything. And we were saying yes to all this stuff, thinking, oh my gosh, this is huge, we've learned this cool little skill, we've just proved it, we have a case study now, let's go do, it's an actual business. And let's see if it works, you know? And I can't even remember what we did next.

Oh! We started doing all these little small businesses. And trying to drive, you know, driving traffic for them, and it was really, really fun. It was cool. And then one day ... I mean, we were just saying yes to everything. And then one day, this company called Paul Mitchell came and they asked the school for some help. And they said, "hey, we don't know what these kids are doing but you gotta go work with them. Their fame is spreading all over the place for whatever they're doing online."

Well, it was me and my buddy. It was Ben and I. And Ben and I went, we went out and we started driving traffic for these guys. And what was funny was just the ridiculous onslaught of deals, all right? We technically were not even that successful with it yet. I mean, we had just proven the concept. But the motion created attention.

Because most people won't even make any kind of action. They won't even get into motion because they're so afraid that they're gonna mess up. And so what ended up happening, it's kind of a short lesson for you guys today, but this is really, really powerful. What ended up happening is all these deals started coming out of the woodwork.

Just, I mean, I can't even believe it. And I went ... We were talking to tons of tons of people. We had 15 businesses on a waiting list to drive traffic for. Fifteen! It was nuts. We had investor wanting to help us create a platform where we could do our system that we had, you know ... Some of it was ours, some of it was proprietary, some of it was from other people, some of it was ... You know, like, we had an investor who was willing to place like, a lot of money.

Hundred of thousands of dollars into putting together this little system. And we were like, Holy crap! What did we make? Why is this happening so much?

And I remember sitting back and thinking, dude, we are just gonna be rich! Oh my gosh! And I remember getting really excited about it. And Ben and I would sit back and we'd talk about it and we'd have super late nights and we'd be on whiteboards drawing out all this stuff. I still miss those days. It was so fun. And always reminds me of it whenever I do it with Russell, you know?

And we would draw it all out and we'd put all these things, all these pieces and systems together. Big mastermind sessions and things like that. Really, really fun. And we'd go meet with these business owners. Millionaires. Even some billion dollar companies.

And we'd go show them the system and ... I mean, it was working by that time. It was pulling in lots of traffic, and it'd pull in more leads, and we were proving the system as we were selling it, basically. Which is a lesson in that alone.

And again, just deals and deals on deals from students, from teachers. Lots of teachers. And it was really awkward when I would tell them no. But that wasn't my initial knee jerk reaction. What ended up happening is that there were so many deals that started coming out of the woodwork, all these people saying, "Please, help with, do this with me, do this with me."

And I was just ... My resting state is nice guy, although I can get pissed off in very specific scenarios. My resting state is nice guy, so I'd say yes to everybody. And I was like, "Yeah, we could totally do that with you!" Pretty soon, I'm running ads for construction people, I'm running ads for someone's pizza company, and we're running ads for some guy's networking agency. And we're running ads for ... I mean, it was all over the place.

It was nuts. And this was literally in the middle of college. Okay? In the middle of my internet marketing class that was supposed to be Internet Marketing 101. And we had our own, like, freaking agency.

And we were building sites for all these people. I mean, it was really, really fun. Really, really enjoyed it. But what was funny, again, is how many deals were just popping out of the woodwork. And what was funny is that never stopped. But, but I did. I did it out of necessity. What ended up happening is I had to remember, okay. In this guy's business, he has this scenario going on, but over here it's different because of this.

And this guy's headline is this, this. And it caused so much noise in my head I could not sleep. It was so hard. There was so much pressure and this thing that initially was very exciting ended up being very, very, kind of demoralizing almost. It was like ... It kind of became depressing.

It became this thing that I did not want to work in anymore. And for months and months and months, it was this beast that we couldn't turn off very easily. And I learned just like so much from that. What honestly stopped it is Ben graduated before I did and he left. So I was like, well, I guess I'll just drop all these clients too and just, years were ... What money or ads didn't spend, here you go, here's it back.

And here you go, here you go, you know what I mean? And that's kind of how it went.

And ... But the deals never stopped. And one of the major points I wanted to put on this podcast is that guys, when you start to get into motion, motion attracts people. Motion in general attracts people.

Action attracts people...

I mean, the TV and its effect on humanity is a case in point of that very statement right there. You know whenever there's a car crash, everyone stops and looks. The crash is over. But something happened, right?

When you get in motion there are things that happen for some reason in other people's brains as they begin to look at what you're doing. And they begin to assign value to your action. And there's real power in it, but there's also a gigantic façade and mirage.

The power is that you're gonna get a lot of people who start to follow you because of the action. "Wow, this guy has the guts and, quite honestly, the straight-up cajones and balls to just do something with his life. And be vulnerable and go try and make some money and do something new and creative and be a business owner and entrepreneur and marketer." Right? That's where the power comes from.

The mirage comes though, by you thinking and mistaking action and progress with achievement and accomplishment. Action and movement is not the same thing as accomplishing. Right? I can jump up and down all I want, but I'm not gonna grow my lats until I actually start lifting them. "But wait, I'm in motion! How come I'm not ... "

You know? You know what I mean? It's very, very true for marketing in general. This is what I've learned.

People will go take motion, and they'll go take this action, thinking that it's achievement and accomplishment. And what they'll do is they'll go market it. As if it is accomplishment and action. And in my opinion, I think that's false. I think that's wrong. I don't think you should ever do that.

If you haven't actually accomplished something, what ... You're marketing a mirage, which is very scary because people are gonna find out about that.

We just had a guy who got caught recently in my Two Comma Club coaching group. We caught him lying and he was saying that he had built all these funnels and he had built all these funnels for entrepreneurs that I personally built.

Or these other million dollar funnels, saying that he was the one that was actually the one behind him.

And we caught him on recording and it was so sad, because I kicked him out of my community. I literally kicked him out. And I sent a message to him, I said, "I hope you learn from this.

Like, I have no room for that in my community...

I worked too dang hard for someone who's a fake, a mirage, a façade, to be in my community. You're not allowed in here anymore." And I kicked him out and I locked him out.

And ... That's a classic example of somebody mixing up motion and movement and action with accomplishment and achievement. You know? You're not done ... It's like when we, I'm a do, it's kind of ... here's a kind of like bridge, okay? It's kind of like when I would do sprints, you know? And we would do what we'd call 61 20s or we would sprint, just dead sprint, as hard as you could, like a cougar was gonna eat you alive.

We would sprint as hard as we could for 60 seconds. And then we'd walk for 120 seconds. And then we'd sprint for 60 seconds, and walk for 120 seconds. And we'd do that for like 50 minutes in the army. It sucked. Guys would throw up by the end. It rocks your lungs. It is not easy. Especially after round two, it's like, oh my gosh. It's just full out dead sprint like you're going to die straight to nothing.

Really, really intense...

Anyway, what was interesting about that is that when we would do laps, we had to actually do the lap itself. If I had done the entire race and the whole sprint perfectly, but then ended up walking out at the end, you know, the last turn ... Well I didn't finish. It's the exact same thing. You can't mix motion and action with achievement and accomplishment. They're not the same thing. You have to cross the finish line.

And so it's great that you get started. It's great that you get out and start doing something. But that's not the point. You guys, what I'm trying to tell you is that as you get started in your entrepreneurial journey, or as you're moving along currently, deals will continue to find you because it is attractive to humanity.

You will find so ... Opportunities are not something that you're gonna be in need of if you are a person who's in motion. People will find you. And guess what? Not all opportunities are made equal. Most opportunities are made really poorly, actually. Most opportune ... And you should ...

I have made far more money by saying "no" 90% of the time than "yes" 90% of the time. That was the biggest lesson I learned back in the story I was just telling you. We were saying yes to everything. The problem is that you really are saying yes to nothing. Because you've said yes to everything.

Just by definition almost. Like, yeah, we could do, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well it turns out, spreads your focus so thin that you end up dying. You can't dive in, really, on more than one thing. You know what I mean?

You gotta be tricky if you can do two. It's not easy to do more than even two things. Even more than one. Okay? So don't go and confuse those things. When we were going and we were doing ... One of the biggest powers that I started realizing ... We started having these deals come out, I'm trying to remember some of them specifically.

This is easily three years ago, I mean it was ... Anyway. We have these deals come out of the woodwork though.

Like one of them was for a construction company. And they're like, "hey we want to drive ads." It was like residential construction for residential pools and stuff like that. And we said yes at first, but around that time, that's when there were so many people who wanted the service. Which A, really solidified the value that I thought we were bringing to market, I was like, wow, people actually want this, that's really cool. But B, it became a little bit stressful.

And it was a side thing that I wasn't expecting to happen...

What, stress? Because of too many opportunities? What? That's real? I thought that was a joke. That's actually very real! Well, I just had that happen to me again today. It literally happens to me at least three times a week, I think? Where somebody reaches out and it's very flattering, but they're always like, "Steven, I got this sweet thing, I really want you to be a part of it. Please, please, please, will you build my funnel? Here's the idea. If you build the funnel and kind of help me create the product and drive the traffic to it, dude, I'll give you 50% of this awesome idea."

What's wrong with that? It means I'm literally building their entire business. And I get 50% of it? Like, no, no, no, no.

There's a guy who reached out to me, it was actually today. I won't say the name. Anyway, he was trying to pitch me on this idea and I was like, "hey, no. I have a ... My full time attention is working with ClickFunnels and as Russell Brunson's funnel building assistant. You know? It's really, really awesome and I really love what I do," and I was happy to do an interview or something, but I've had more success by saying no to the bountiful opportunities than saying yes.

Most of the time when someone wants to partner with me, I could've just done the idea on my own. Not trying to be rude here, but I'm just saying. Sounds like you want me to ... sounds like you want to pay me to build you a funnel, not partner with you. And then he jumped over and he said, "well, hey, I've made $8,000 a month. I've made $8,000 this month. Is that not proof enough?"

I said, "hey ..." I said, "if it's not mainstream ... " Anyways. He said, "I need a marketer, a marketing partner, not a funnel builder."

Okay, first of all, you all know my position on entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are marketers! If you're not, you really need to get in behind the marketing wheel. All right? You already have lost control of your business if you're the entrepreneur and you're not also the marketer. Anyway. Ugh! That always drives me just bat crazy.

Anyway. But I said, "hey brother, there's more opportunity than I can handle. My focus is here and on my own projects. I appreciate the reach out." And I was just trying to like, nicely, back him off. He said, "all right buddy, at least I tried to get you on board." And he kind of, he kept saying all of this stuff, saying hey, this is super trendy right now, but I'm gonna adapt.

And he was trying to guilt me into saying yes. And to get into ... and to say ... I cannot tell you how many times this happens to me. And you're gonna get it too, if you're not already getting it now, opportunities are going to come out of the woodwork, and they are not all good! Okay?

And I said, "hey, what I'm saying is this, meaning you need to come out with, you need to come at me with more than just an idea. You need to already have brought it to life. Know how it sells before you partner or hire. The entrepreneur is the marketer." And he went through and whole, all this other stuff. And I was like, "hey man, I'm already partnered with Russell and the Two Comma Club Coaching Program. I'm not really for hire right now, but either way ... "

Anyway. What was just making me totally go nuts and actually really frustrated was the fact that this guy had not put two and two together, that just having an idea is not value. You guys, you buy your customer somehow. You either buy them with your time or you buy them with your money.

I prefer to do it with money. You know? Or some kind of value.

It's the exact thing when you guys go partner and you go hire. You only hire when it hurts. You bootstrap that crap. You don't go get VC money, you figure out how to sell it on your own. And you will have a way better, more sustainable business because of it. It's the same thing when you go partner with somebody. You don't partner somebody for the sake of getting a partner.

It's like getting a board. You don't go put a board together for the sake of having a board. It's the dumbest thing on the planet. Don't go just get a board because it's the MBA crap to do. That's not, that's not how bootstrapping business ... That's not how having your own business works. You don't just go get people in the business and try to pay them money for the sake of it. You know what I mean?

That's like me paying you allowance for crap you didn't do. That's like me paying allowance period. I don't pay my kids allowance, I don't plan on it. They're gonna work. You know what I mean? Anyway I get really fired up about this topic because deals will come to you, and they are not all good.

When you want to go partner with somebody, you do the exact same thing that Russell teaches in his books, which is the Dream 100 concept. You go provide value. I remember there was a guy who came out to me once and he was like, he reached out and, you know ... I get about at least a hundred messages a week, just on Facebook alone, let alone the billions of other platforms that are out there.

And it stresses me out. And anytime I go and I try hook up with somebody else who's also kind of farther along the path, and I want to do some kind of JV thing with him, I don't just reach out straight to them. Unless I know that they know who I am. And that there could be value and it could be awesome.

You know what I mean? But usually I don't just reach straight out to somebody. I try and figure ... I, I ... essentially date them.

And that's what this guy did to me too. So cool. What he did is he went out and when I was creating the Sales Funnel Broker website inside of ClickFunnels, I was like, "well I still want the SEO capabilities that WordPress brings." And so what I did was I hired this coder and basically she created this custom WordPress theme that synced up with my ClickFunnels website.

So it looked like you were on the same website even though you were really on a blog page, just for one of the pages. It was really cool. Super awesome. And I was like, hey this would be super cool if I sell this. I was just gonna use it for myself but it's awesome.

Well, I started selling it and it's awesome and it's this cool little upsell and I can't believe the amount of money that it's brought it. Totally, you know, to buy a product. Like the book Rework says, I'm still in my buy products and it's awesome.

Well, one day this guy reaches out to me and he's like, "hey I bought your thing." Notice he didn't even ask for it for free. He's like, "hey, I bought your thing. Your WordPress, your custom WordPress theme that's ... " He's like, "it's totally awesome." And he's like, "But by the way, I've got all these coders, and they're sitting on the side. And I just thought it'd be kind of cool, I saw a few holes inside of your WordPress theme. I thought it could be even cooler. And I thought you'd maybe want a start-up guide." He's like, "so what I did is I bought your WordPress theme, I handed it over to my coders, and for the next, last while, they went in and they ... I had, I paid for my coders to go make your thing even cooler.

Here you go, it's yours. And by the way, here's a video start-up guide so that these people don't, stop bothering you with questions on how to hook it up."

And I was like, "Who are you? Oh my gosh, you're the man! Are you serious? Whoa!" Right? He provided value to me first. And I had no idea that, later on, he was planning, he wanted to ask me for a ... all he wanted was an interview. And you know, I might have just said yes to the interview anyways.

But now I know anytime he comes out and he asks me anything, I'm gonna say, "hey, what's up?" And I'm gonna respond to him. He provided such deep value to me and my community. Why would I not give time and the day for him?

It's the same thing when you go partner. When you go walk up to somebody and you're like, oh, my gosh, you know what, I really don't want to do Facebook ads. Or you know what, I really don't want to be the guy who builds the funnel. I don't want to be the guy who's gonna do ... whatever. Whatever role it is, you do it yourself as long as you can. Unless you just truly cannot. But what you do is you go hire somebody and partner with them for that specific role.

You know what I mean?

This guy wanted me to build his entire company and then just him take 50% of it. That sounds like a great deal for him. Oh my gosh. Anyway, it just drives me nuts when people come out, they're like, "hey I've got this sweet thing, it's awesome." It's like, cool. You know how many sweet things there are out there? A billion.

So what, why is yours any different? Why am I gonna take it on? You've gotta have ... Why are you so unique? You know what I mean? What's the thing that you already have built?

When somebody comes to me, it's literally the entire reason I stop focusing on start-up businesses when I was building funnels for people. It's because their business wasn't proven yet, they hadn't created value in the marketplace. No one in the marketplace knew who they were. And so how can I partner with somebody who's not done that? And I made that mistake for years. And I went and I was building these funnels for people who hadn't actually made it.

And as I build the funnel, if the funnel didn't work, they thought it was the funnel's fault and then I'm like, no! You haven't proven yourself in the market! Why did I ever partner with you? Ah!

And it took me years to realize that lesson. So if you're gonna go partner with someone, oh my gosh, only do it when it hurts. Same when you hire. But second of all, you don't just approach people and just say, "uh, I've got this sweet thing."

Here's the reality. If somebody approaches me ... This is gonna ... I'm not trying to be conceited, you know what I mean? But like, I have worked my butt off for the last, like, seven years. I said in a recent podcast I'm a seven year overnight success story. I've worked my butt off. And people who are successful are typically in motion, right? They're accomplishing things. They're getting out there, they're doing things.

They're in motion to get the accomplishment. They're already moving. You don't have to get them moving. They already are. You know?

If you walk up to me, and you say, hey I've got this sweet thing. And let's say I drop everything and I turn and I start focusing directly on the one thing that you have, what does that say about what I was originally doing? It means it probably wasn't that good in the first place. You know what I mean? So you ... quite honestly, when you want to go partner with somebody, expect to sell them a little bit.

Court them, so to speak...

Figure out how you can provide value for what they're doing. Show them how this is amazing. You're gonna need to sell them. It took us a long time to get this totally awesome person on the ClickFunnels team. It took us a long time to get them. Because we had to quote and quote date them. You know? We had to ... And that's exactly what happened.

I'm not just telling you crap, you guys, this is how we actually do it. This is how I do it. When you create cool stuff in the marketplace, there's gonna be people that come out of the woodwork who are asking for your services and who bring you opportunities. I'm just trying to tell you that not all of them are good. In fact, 99% of them are not going to be good. And it's because they haven't even proven the idea. They haven't even started it. Why would I jump ship on all the other crap that I've got going on that I just absolutely love?

Why would I just drop all that stuff and go to an idea that is barely proven? No, thank you.

And so what I did is I started focusing on businesses that already had, you know, x amount of cash flow and customers. And my strategies would bloom up. And that's quite literally what got me in a position where Russell noticed me. That's it! And I started focusing on all these other businesses that are already blowing up and I knew ... I still, you know ... I knew that hey, what I was doing, that was, what, three years ago? When I started doing that? And all I did is I changed my bait. I changed my customer. And the opportunities changed.

Which is super key. So if you have all these opportunities coming in, you've got all these people who are just hounding you, you probably aren't putting up the right message, A. B, please don't accept all of them. In fact, you should say no to all of ... I have made more money by saying no to things than yes. Seth Godin has got this great book called The Dip.

And in The Dip he talks about that very same principle...

He's like, look. There's this really stupid misconception in the planet that quitting is a bad thing. That is, and I'm just echoing him right now, that is complete, utter, ridiculous bull crap. I quit stuff all the time. And that's exactly what he said. He's like, he's like, the thing is that winners quit more than losers. They just quit the right stuff. You know?

When I decided to really get focused on stuff, I quit certain ... I quit watching Netflix all the time. I quit watching, I quit doing all sorts of, I quit so many things in my life so that I could say yes to the thing that was important. And that's all I'm trying to tell you, is that these people who are gonna bring you all these deals.

It's not that they're crappy deals. Some of them are just not fleshed out enough for you to go jump full, you know, full bore into. And it's gonna be a complete, utter waste of your time.

And so I urge you, if you're not ... If somebody comes to you with an idea and they don't have a history with a business that has any cash flow. If they have zero history of ever being successful in any kind of marketing, if they've zero history of the idea itself or it's in such a blue ocean that's so crazy and out there that no one's ever done it before, man, you should have so many freaking red flags going off in your head. And you should say, "thank you. Have a great day."

And you should walk away. Just literally turn around and walk away. Don't, don't ... No small talk. Don't try and make them feel good. Don't, just ... You literally turn around and you walk the other way.

And it's only because that kind of person is looking for somebody else to prove their idea. They have not, honestly, they hadn't had the balls to do it on their own. And so, I don't, personally, ever want to work with a person like that. And it's the reason I don't. And so this person who reached out to me, like "I got this great thing," it's cool, yeah. He already had cash flow, he was already doing cool stuff with it. I don't even know who he is. And his first thing he comes out to me with is, "hey! Bleh bleh bleh bleh! Bleh bleh bleh bleh!"

That makes me feel like he's a door-to-door salesmen. You know?

And I don't ... those deals come around, how many, so many times every week. So the Dream 100, you know, I can tell when I'm on someone's Dream 100 list because I receive packages in the mail every once in a while. And I get these things and I'm like, oh, cool little toys! Like, cool! Aw! That's this person. I get more than enough messages and emails, you know, so how do they break through all the noise? They send me packages, you know?

And I'm beginning to do the same kind of stuff. It's just a lot of fun. That's what people do to Russell, that's what Russell does to other people to let them know that they're serious. Anything that makes them stand out and guys, it's kind of like on Shark Tank.

Have you ever seen, I'm sure you've seen this show Shark Tank.

In Shark Tank, there's this super classic scenario that seems to happen at least once every episode where ... or every thirty minute episode. Where some guy has this fantastic idea. And he's poured in all this money and he's gone and he's done all these things and then it gets to the spot where they all want to know the numbers. And they're like, "hey that's really cool. Hey, hey, how much is it selling?" And they're like, "oh, I, I, it actually hasn't started selling yet." It's like, "oh. Dead already."

It doesn't matter if you had the idea to cure cancer. You know what I mean? Man, well, it depends on who you talk to I guess. But the thing is that like when it comes to these different business ideas and these different opportunities, it doesn't matter how good you make it sound, you have got to have some numbers behind it. So when you go partner with somebody who actually could be a heavy hitter, who actually could do great things for your business, man, you better have some numbers behind you.

Know your numbers!

And get to know your own weaknesses. You know what, I've done this and I've tried this, we sold two or three this way, but it didn't work that well. I mean, go door-to-door if you freaking have to. You've got to get results or nobody who actually could help you is even gonna look or blink an eye at you. Because you haven't proven it.

And so, anyway. That's enough on that. But I just wanted you to know that you guys, more money's made by you saying no than yes. Just get focused. And know, it's the weirdest thing. It's funny, my wife and I were just talking about this. Every time I put my foot down on something else that I'm gonna go start doing, and I'll be like, okay. That's my project for the next two years! I'm just gonna go do it. Every single time I do that I always get this onslaught of deals. It's almost like the world subconsciously is trying to test me.

"Are you sure that you're committed to that? Are you sure that you want that really bad?" You know, and it's the weirdest thing that happens, it happens every single time. It just happened again.

So I was like, cool, I'm gonna go do that thing. And I wrote it all a plan, I pulled stuff together, and I was like, cool. That's, wow, I could totally do that and it's actually not gonna take that long and I think it could provide some insane value in the market. It literally is the exact same thing, just deal after deal after deal every day for the last several weeks has just been hitting me and I'm like no! Just go away! Stop distracting me!

It's the biggest killer of me finishing. Of you too, anything.

Anyway. Guys, hey, thanks so much. Remember to stay focused and go prove your idea. It's very, very fun. It's very exciting. And if you have the nuts enough to just go do it, you're already gonna set yourself apart from so many people who are not willing. All right guys, talk to you later, 'bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio! Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnels for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

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SFR 63: The ONLY Time To Partner

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Approaching someone with nothing but an idea doesn't put you in a position to start partnering with someone. Here what you need to have before going to others...

What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and in this episode I want to share with you guys when it's actually really cool to partner with somebody, but also I want to share with you when it's completely inappropriate.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

All right. Now when I first got started in this business, I started getting a little bit of traction, I was studying a lot of traffic strategies, and I didn't know it at the time but I literally was taking this piece of paper in the middle of my internet marketing class, and I was drawing out a funnel, a sales funnel. And I was drawing from a squeeze page, to a thank you page, over to an affiliate offer, and there was an email sequence.

And I was learning how to put all this stuff together. I had no idea that I was drawing what is now commonly known as a sales funnel. And it was super cool, and there was all these really cool things that I was drawing, this really detailed little map of how this was going to be all working out. And I walked up to my internet marketing professor, this was about two and a half, eh, this was way longer than that. This was probably three and a half years ago now, four years ago.

And I walked up to him and I said, "Hey, you know what? Hey, great class. I never want to come back." And he's like, "What?" And I said, "Look, it's like day two and you just asked me what SEO stands for. Like, I've been studying this stuff way longer than you probably have been." I didn't say that part. But I was like, "Look, I don't want to come back."

And he's like, "All right, fine." And I held up this piece of paper, that funnel, and I said, "I'm gonna go build this instead," and he, I thought he was going to say no. But he said something that probably changed my life. He said, "Okay. You can leave, don't come back the rest of the entire semester. And what you're going to go do is you're going to hold a class on your own. And at the end of the semester, I expect some kind of deliverable."

And so what I did is I looked around in class, and I looked for the other kid that looked like he was just bored out of his mind because he just knew this stuff already, and I was like, "Hey, let's go." And we left class for the rest of the semester. And we, every single day, held class for three hours. We called it class, but literally all we were doing is we were trying to make as much money online as we possibly could. And that's what our class was. And it's super unique, it was really, really cool, I can't believe he actually said yes to that. And so that's all we did.

We sat down and we just started executing the plan. I said, "Hey, okay, here's the plan." And I, his name's Ben Wilson, he's one of the first interviews on my podcast, by the way. He's about to launch his own. Anyway. And he ... I was like, hey, here's what this is. I didn't know it was a funnel that I was drawing. But I was like, first we're going to send it to this and then we'll go do this, and then we'll go do this.

You know, it was all this cool automation and I was kind of patch working together these different systems that weren't really supposed to work together but I somehow in weird ways got them to.

And we went and we got a Clickbank offer and the coolest thing happened. We went and we grabbed this Clickbank offer and we put basically together an affiliate funnel. Using some free software for some crappy landing page thing. And we thought through all the lines of copy and we thought through the headlines.

All that we could, we were just focusing as hard as we could on when to say this line, and when this line. And we took this video from here. It was just really, really fun.

And I was like hey, I have no money. We're gonna put fifty bucks in, let's say, on ads, and I learned some really awesome traffic driving strategies. This is literally before I even learned who Russell Brunson was by like a month before I learned who he was. And it was really, really cool. I went and we put fifty bucks in and I was like, okay, let's see if it works.

And we went to bed. And that night, I woke, the next morning I woke up and I was really, really excited. I had a hard time sleeping because I was so excited to see what would happen.

I was like, we're gonna be rich! We're gonna be rich! This is gonna be amazing!

And not from fifty bucks, but just to prove the concept and knew we could scale afterwards.

And so we put fifty bucks in, and I open up my account, and there was fifty dollars in there. It was like fifty-something. Anyway, we basically, we broke even. And I was like, God! No way! Oh my gosh, we broke even, we broke even! Dude! And I called him up and I was like, "We freaking made it!" And he's like, "Are you kidding me man?" And I was like, "Yeah, meet me there."

So we go and I get on my bike, because we only have one car, and I wanted to like, to have the car for the kids. And I'm riding my bike as fast I can, rah! Go as fast as I can. I get to campus, get to the room that we always stole from the other people so that we could try to make money every day.

And I pull my computer up and he comes running in and I show it to him and we were like, "Oh my gosh, it worked!"

Well the news of that spread. And part of me was like, yeah, whoa! And the other part of me was like, eh, we broke even. We had 17 people opt in and one person bought and then bought the upsell which made fifty bucks. And I was like, huh. Well, it looks like we failed on that, I guess what else should we try?

And it's so funny because until I just kicked myself. We made a break even funnel our very first try, which, just so you know, in the sales funnel world, is not a small feat. It was huge. And it was mass ... Anyway. What was funny was this onslaught of people with these deals that just started coming out of the woodwork for us. And news of that spread. And we were just excited. We weren't thinking. We were just like, "yeah, check this out! We did this, this, and this!" It was like, aw, so crazy cool!

Well, pretty soon everybody was a deal maker. And I was in the middle of my marketing classes and I'd go from class to class and these people would come out and be like, "hey, you want to do this?" "Hey, dude, I've got this great thing. Hey, you want to drive traffic for me and do x, y and z?" And I was like, "Yeah! Totally!" And I was just saying yes to everything. And we were saying yes to all this stuff, thinking, oh my gosh, this is huge, we've learned this cool little skill, we've just proved it, we have a case study now, let's go do, it's an actual business. And let's see if it works, you know? And I can't even remember what we did next.

Oh! We started doing all these little small businesses. And trying to drive, you know, driving traffic for them, and it was really, really fun. It was cool. And then one day ... I mean, we were just saying yes to everything. And then one day, this company called Paul Mitchell came and they asked the school for some help. And they said, "hey, we don't know what these kids are doing but you gotta go work with them. Their fame is spreading all over the place for whatever they're doing online."

Well, it was me and my buddy. It was Ben and I. And Ben and I went, we went out and we started driving traffic for these guys. And what was funny was just the ridiculous onslaught of deals, all right? We technically were not even that successful with it yet. I mean, we had just proven the concept. But the motion created attention.

Because most people won't even make any kind of action. They won't even get into motion because they're so afraid that they're gonna mess up. And so what ended up happening, it's kind of a short lesson for you guys today, but this is really, really powerful. What ended up happening is all these deals started coming out of the woodwork.

Just, I mean, I can't even believe it. And I went ... We were talking to tons of tons of people. We had 15 businesses on a waiting list to drive traffic for. Fifteen! It was nuts. We had investor wanting to help us create a platform where we could do our system that we had, you know ... Some of it was ours, some of it was proprietary, some of it was from other people, some of it was ... You know, like, we had an investor who was willing to place like, a lot of money.

Hundred of thousands of dollars into putting together this little system. And we were like, Holy crap! What did we make? Why is this happening so much?

And I remember sitting back and thinking, dude, we are just gonna be rich! Oh my gosh! And I remember getting really excited about it. And Ben and I would sit back and we'd talk about it and we'd have super late nights and we'd be on whiteboards drawing out all this stuff. I still miss those days. It was so fun. And always reminds me of it whenever I do it with Russell, you know?

And we would draw it all out and we'd put all these things, all these pieces and systems together. Big mastermind sessions and things like that. Really, really fun. And we'd go meet with these business owners. Millionaires. Even some billion dollar companies.

And we'd go show them the system and ... I mean, it was working by that time. It was pulling in lots of traffic, and it'd pull in more leads, and we were proving the system as we were selling it, basically. Which is a lesson in that alone.

And again, just deals and deals on deals from students, from teachers. Lots of teachers. And it was really awkward when I would tell them no. But that wasn't my initial knee jerk reaction. What ended up happening is that there were so many deals that started coming out of the woodwork, all these people saying, "Please, help with, do this with me, do this with me."

And I was just ... My resting state is nice guy, although I can get pissed off in very specific scenarios. My resting state is nice guy, so I'd say yes to everybody. And I was like, "Yeah, we could totally do that with you!" Pretty soon, I'm running ads for construction people, I'm running ads for someone's pizza company, and we're running ads for some guy's networking agency. And we're running ads for ... I mean, it was all over the place.

It was nuts. And this was literally in the middle of college. Okay? In the middle of my internet marketing class that was supposed to be Internet Marketing 101. And we had our own, like, freaking agency.

And we were building sites for all these people. I mean, it was really, really fun. Really, really enjoyed it. But what was funny, again, is how many deals were just popping out of the woodwork. And what was funny is that never stopped. But, but I did. I did it out of necessity. What ended up happening is I had to remember, okay. In this guy's business, he has this scenario going on, but over here it's different because of this.

And this guy's headline is this, this. And it caused so much noise in my head I could not sleep. It was so hard. There was so much pressure and this thing that initially was very exciting ended up being very, very, kind of demoralizing almost. It was like ... It kind of became depressing.

It became this thing that I did not want to work in anymore. And for months and months and months, it was this beast that we couldn't turn off very easily. And I learned just like so much from that. What honestly stopped it is Ben graduated before I did and he left. So I was like, well, I guess I'll just drop all these clients too and just, years were ... What money or ads didn't spend, here you go, here's it back.

And here you go, here you go, you know what I mean? And that's kind of how it went.

And ... But the deals never stopped. And one of the major points I wanted to put on this podcast is that guys, when you start to get into motion, motion attracts people. Motion in general attracts people.

Action attracts people...

I mean, the TV and its effect on humanity is a case in point of that very statement right there. You know whenever there's a car crash, everyone stops and looks. The crash is over. But something happened, right?

When you get in motion there are things that happen for some reason in other people's brains as they begin to look at what you're doing. And they begin to assign value to your action. And there's real power in it, but there's also a gigantic façade and mirage.

The power is that you're gonna get a lot of people who start to follow you because of the action. "Wow, this guy has the guts and, quite honestly, the straight-up cajones and balls to just do something with his life. And be vulnerable and go try and make some money and do something new and creative and be a business owner and entrepreneur and marketer." Right? That's where the power comes from.

The mirage comes though, by you thinking and mistaking action and progress with achievement and accomplishment. Action and movement is not the same thing as accomplishing. Right? I can jump up and down all I want, but I'm not gonna grow my lats until I actually start lifting them. "But wait, I'm in motion! How come I'm not ... "

You know? You know what I mean? It's very, very true for marketing in general. This is what I've learned.

People will go take motion, and they'll go take this action, thinking that it's achievement and accomplishment. And what they'll do is they'll go market it. As if it is accomplishment and action. And in my opinion, I think that's false. I think that's wrong. I don't think you should ever do that.

If you haven't actually accomplished something, what ... You're marketing a mirage, which is very scary because people are gonna find out about that.

We just had a guy who got caught recently in my Two Comma Club coaching group. We caught him lying and he was saying that he had built all these funnels and he had built all these funnels for entrepreneurs that I personally built.

Or these other million dollar funnels, saying that he was the one that was actually the one behind him.

And we caught him on recording and it was so sad, because I kicked him out of my community. I literally kicked him out. And I sent a message to him, I said, "I hope you learn from this.

Like, I have no room for that in my community...

I worked too dang hard for someone who's a fake, a mirage, a façade, to be in my community. You're not allowed in here anymore." And I kicked him out and I locked him out.

And ... That's a classic example of somebody mixing up motion and movement and action with accomplishment and achievement. You know? You're not done ... It's like when we, I'm a do, it's kind of ... here's a kind of like bridge, okay? It's kind of like when I would do sprints, you know? And we would do what we'd call 61 20s or we would sprint, just dead sprint, as hard as you could, like a cougar was gonna eat you alive.

We would sprint as hard as we could for 60 seconds. And then we'd walk for 120 seconds. And then we'd sprint for 60 seconds, and walk for 120 seconds. And we'd do that for like 50 minutes in the army. It sucked. Guys would throw up by the end. It rocks your lungs. It is not easy. Especially after round two, it's like, oh my gosh. It's just full out dead sprint like you're going to die straight to nothing.

Really, really intense...

Anyway, what was interesting about that is that when we would do laps, we had to actually do the lap itself. If I had done the entire race and the whole sprint perfectly, but then ended up walking out at the end, you know, the last turn ... Well I didn't finish. It's the exact same thing. You can't mix motion and action with achievement and accomplishment. They're not the same thing. You have to cross the finish line.

And so it's great that you get started. It's great that you get out and start doing something. But that's not the point. You guys, what I'm trying to tell you is that as you get started in your entrepreneurial journey, or as you're moving along currently, deals will continue to find you because it is attractive to humanity.

You will find so ... Opportunities are not something that you're gonna be in need of if you are a person who's in motion. People will find you. And guess what? Not all opportunities are made equal. Most opportunities are made really poorly, actually. Most opportune ... And you should ...

I have made far more money by saying "no" 90% of the time than "yes" 90% of the time. That was the biggest lesson I learned back in the story I was just telling you. We were saying yes to everything. The problem is that you really are saying yes to nothing. Because you've said yes to everything.

Just by definition almost. Like, yeah, we could do, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well it turns out, spreads your focus so thin that you end up dying. You can't dive in, really, on more than one thing. You know what I mean?

You gotta be tricky if you can do two. It's not easy to do more than even two things. Even more than one. Okay? So don't go and confuse those things. When we were going and we were doing ... One of the biggest powers that I started realizing ... We started having these deals come out, I'm trying to remember some of them specifically.

This is easily three years ago, I mean it was ... Anyway. We have these deals come out of the woodwork though.

Like one of them was for a construction company. And they're like, "hey we want to drive ads." It was like residential construction for residential pools and stuff like that. And we said yes at first, but around that time, that's when there were so many people who wanted the service. Which A, really solidified the value that I thought we were bringing to market, I was like, wow, people actually want this, that's really cool. But B, it became a little bit stressful.

And it was a side thing that I wasn't expecting to happen...

What, stress? Because of too many opportunities? What? That's real? I thought that was a joke. That's actually very real! Well, I just had that happen to me again today. It literally happens to me at least three times a week, I think? Where somebody reaches out and it's very flattering, but they're always like, "Steven, I got this sweet thing, I really want you to be a part of it. Please, please, please, will you build my funnel? Here's the idea. If you build the funnel and kind of help me create the product and drive the traffic to it, dude, I'll give you 50% of this awesome idea."

What's wrong with that? It means I'm literally building their entire business. And I get 50% of it? Like, no, no, no, no.

There's a guy who reached out to me, it was actually today. I won't say the name. Anyway, he was trying to pitch me on this idea and I was like, "hey, no. I have a ... My full time attention is working with ClickFunnels and as Russell Brunson's funnel building assistant. You know? It's really, really awesome and I really love what I do," and I was happy to do an interview or something, but I've had more success by saying no to the bountiful opportunities than saying yes.

Most of the time when someone wants to partner with me, I could've just done the idea on my own. Not trying to be rude here, but I'm just saying. Sounds like you want me to ... sounds like you want to pay me to build you a funnel, not partner with you. And then he jumped over and he said, "well, hey, I've made $8,000 a month. I've made $8,000 this month. Is that not proof enough?"

I said, "hey ..." I said, "if it's not mainstream ... " Anyways. He said, "I need a marketer, a marketing partner, not a funnel builder."

Okay, first of all, you all know my position on entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are marketers! If you're not, you really need to get in behind the marketing wheel. All right? You already have lost control of your business if you're the entrepreneur and you're not also the marketer. Anyway. Ugh! That always drives me just bat crazy.

Anyway. But I said, "hey brother, there's more opportunity than I can handle. My focus is here and on my own projects. I appreciate the reach out." And I was just trying to like, nicely, back him off. He said, "all right buddy, at least I tried to get you on board." And he kind of, he kept saying all of this stuff, saying hey, this is super trendy right now, but I'm gonna adapt.

And he was trying to guilt me into saying yes. And to get into ... and to say ... I cannot tell you how many times this happens to me. And you're gonna get it too, if you're not already getting it now, opportunities are going to come out of the woodwork, and they are not all good! Okay?

And I said, "hey, what I'm saying is this, meaning you need to come out with, you need to come at me with more than just an idea. You need to already have brought it to life. Know how it sells before you partner or hire. The entrepreneur is the marketer." And he went through and whole, all this other stuff. And I was like, "hey man, I'm already partnered with Russell and the Two Comma Club Coaching Program. I'm not really for hire right now, but either way ... "

Anyway. What was just making me totally go nuts and actually really frustrated was the fact that this guy had not put two and two together, that just having an idea is not value. You guys, you buy your customer somehow. You either buy them with your time or you buy them with your money.

I prefer to do it with money. You know? Or some kind of value.

It's the exact thing when you guys go partner and you go hire. You only hire when it hurts. You bootstrap that crap. You don't go get VC money, you figure out how to sell it on your own. And you will have a way better, more sustainable business because of it. It's the same thing when you go partner with somebody. You don't partner somebody for the sake of getting a partner.

It's like getting a board. You don't go put a board together for the sake of having a board. It's the dumbest thing on the planet. Don't go just get a board because it's the MBA crap to do. That's not, that's not how bootstrapping business ... That's not how having your own business works. You don't just go get people in the business and try to pay them money for the sake of it. You know what I mean?

That's like me paying you allowance for crap you didn't do. That's like me paying allowance period. I don't pay my kids allowance, I don't plan on it. They're gonna work. You know what I mean? Anyway I get really fired up about this topic because deals will come to you, and they are not all good.

When you want to go partner with somebody, you do the exact same thing that Russell teaches in his books, which is the Dream 100 concept. You go provide value. I remember there was a guy who came out to me once and he was like, he reached out and, you know ... I get about at least a hundred messages a week, just on Facebook alone, let alone the billions of other platforms that are out there.

And it stresses me out. And anytime I go and I try hook up with somebody else who's also kind of farther along the path, and I want to do some kind of JV thing with him, I don't just reach out straight to them. Unless I know that they know who I am. And that there could be value and it could be awesome.

You know what I mean? But usually I don't just reach straight out to somebody. I try and figure ... I, I ... essentially date them.

And that's what this guy did to me too. So cool. What he did is he went out and when I was creating the Sales Funnel Broker website inside of ClickFunnels, I was like, "well I still want the SEO capabilities that WordPress brings." And so what I did was I hired this coder and basically she created this custom WordPress theme that synced up with my ClickFunnels website.

So it looked like you were on the same website even though you were really on a blog page, just for one of the pages. It was really cool. Super awesome. And I was like, hey this would be super cool if I sell this. I was just gonna use it for myself but it's awesome.

Well, I started selling it and it's awesome and it's this cool little upsell and I can't believe the amount of money that it's brought it. Totally, you know, to buy a product. Like the book Rework says, I'm still in my buy products and it's awesome.

Well, one day this guy reaches out to me and he's like, "hey I bought your thing." Notice he didn't even ask for it for free. He's like, "hey, I bought your thing. Your WordPress, your custom WordPress theme that's ... " He's like, "it's totally awesome." And he's like, "But by the way, I've got all these coders, and they're sitting on the side. And I just thought it'd be kind of cool, I saw a few holes inside of your WordPress theme. I thought it could be even cooler. And I thought you'd maybe want a start-up guide." He's like, "so what I did is I bought your WordPress theme, I handed it over to my coders, and for the next, last while, they went in and they ... I had, I paid for my coders to go make your thing even cooler.

Here you go, it's yours. And by the way, here's a video start-up guide so that these people don't, stop bothering you with questions on how to hook it up."

And I was like, "Who are you? Oh my gosh, you're the man! Are you serious? Whoa!" Right? He provided value to me first. And I had no idea that, later on, he was planning, he wanted to ask me for a ... all he wanted was an interview. And you know, I might have just said yes to the interview anyways.

But now I know anytime he comes out and he asks me anything, I'm gonna say, "hey, what's up?" And I'm gonna respond to him. He provided such deep value to me and my community. Why would I not give time and the day for him?

It's the same thing when you go partner. When you go walk up to somebody and you're like, oh, my gosh, you know what, I really don't want to do Facebook ads. Or you know what, I really don't want to be the guy who builds the funnel. I don't want to be the guy who's gonna do ... whatever. Whatever role it is, you do it yourself as long as you can. Unless you just truly cannot. But what you do is you go hire somebody and partner with them for that specific role.

You know what I mean?

This guy wanted me to build his entire company and then just him take 50% of it. That sounds like a great deal for him. Oh my gosh. Anyway, it just drives me nuts when people come out, they're like, "hey I've got this sweet thing, it's awesome." It's like, cool. You know how many sweet things there are out there? A billion.

So what, why is yours any different? Why am I gonna take it on? You've gotta have ... Why are you so unique? You know what I mean? What's the thing that you already have built?

When somebody comes to me, it's literally the entire reason I stop focusing on start-up businesses when I was building funnels for people. It's because their business wasn't proven yet, they hadn't created value in the marketplace. No one in the marketplace knew who they were. And so how can I partner with somebody who's not done that? And I made that mistake for years. And I went and I was building these funnels for people who hadn't actually made it.

And as I build the funnel, if the funnel didn't work, they thought it was the funnel's fault and then I'm like, no! You haven't proven yourself in the market! Why did I ever partner with you? Ah!

And it took me years to realize that lesson. So if you're gonna go partner with someone, oh my gosh, only do it when it hurts. Same when you hire. But second of all, you don't just approach people and just say, "uh, I've got this sweet thing."

Here's the reality. If somebody approaches me ... This is gonna ... I'm not trying to be conceited, you know what I mean? But like, I have worked my butt off for the last, like, seven years. I said in a recent podcast I'm a seven year overnight success story. I've worked my butt off. And people who are successful are typically in motion, right? They're accomplishing things. They're getting out there, they're doing things.

They're in motion to get the accomplishment. They're already moving. You don't have to get them moving. They already are. You know?

If you walk up to me, and you say, hey I've got this sweet thing. And let's say I drop everything and I turn and I start focusing directly on the one thing that you have, what does that say about what I was originally doing? It means it probably wasn't that good in the first place. You know what I mean? So you ... quite honestly, when you want to go partner with somebody, expect to sell them a little bit.

Court them, so to speak...

Figure out how you can provide value for what they're doing. Show them how this is amazing. You're gonna need to sell them. It took us a long time to get this totally awesome person on the ClickFunnels team. It took us a long time to get them. Because we had to quote and quote date them. You know? We had to ... And that's exactly what happened.

I'm not just telling you crap, you guys, this is how we actually do it. This is how I do it. When you create cool stuff in the marketplace, there's gonna be people that come out of the woodwork who are asking for your services and who bring you opportunities. I'm just trying to tell you that not all of them are good. In fact, 99% of them are not going to be good. And it's because they haven't even proven the idea. They haven't even started it. Why would I jump ship on all the other crap that I've got going on that I just absolutely love?

Why would I just drop all that stuff and go to an idea that is barely proven? No, thank you.

And so what I did is I started focusing on businesses that already had, you know, x amount of cash flow and customers. And my strategies would bloom up. And that's quite literally what got me in a position where Russell noticed me. That's it! And I started focusing on all these other businesses that are already blowing up and I knew ... I still, you know ... I knew that hey, what I was doing, that was, what, three years ago? When I started doing that? And all I did is I changed my bait. I changed my customer. And the opportunities changed.

Which is super key. So if you have all these opportunities coming in, you've got all these people who are just hounding you, you probably aren't putting up the right message, A. B, please don't accept all of them. In fact, you should say no to all of ... I have made more money by saying no to things than yes. Seth Godin has got this great book called The Dip.

And in The Dip he talks about that very same principle...

He's like, look. There's this really stupid misconception in the planet that quitting is a bad thing. That is, and I'm just echoing him right now, that is complete, utter, ridiculous bull crap. I quit stuff all the time. And that's exactly what he said. He's like, he's like, the thing is that winners quit more than losers. They just quit the right stuff. You know?

When I decided to really get focused on stuff, I quit certain ... I quit watching Netflix all the time. I quit watching, I quit doing all sorts of, I quit so many things in my life so that I could say yes to the thing that was important. And that's all I'm trying to tell you, is that these people who are gonna bring you all these deals.

It's not that they're crappy deals. Some of them are just not fleshed out enough for you to go jump full, you know, full bore into. And it's gonna be a complete, utter waste of your time.

And so I urge you, if you're not ... If somebody comes to you with an idea and they don't have a history with a business that has any cash flow. If they have zero history of ever being successful in any kind of marketing, if they've zero history of the idea itself or it's in such a blue ocean that's so crazy and out there that no one's ever done it before, man, you should have so many freaking red flags going off in your head. And you should say, "thank you. Have a great day."

And you should walk away. Just literally turn around and walk away. Don't, don't ... No small talk. Don't try and make them feel good. Don't, just ... You literally turn around and you walk the other way.

And it's only because that kind of person is looking for somebody else to prove their idea. They have not, honestly, they hadn't had the balls to do it on their own. And so, I don't, personally, ever want to work with a person like that. And it's the reason I don't. And so this person who reached out to me, like "I got this great thing," it's cool, yeah. He already had cash flow, he was already doing cool stuff with it. I don't even know who he is. And his first thing he comes out to me with is, "hey! Bleh bleh bleh bleh! Bleh bleh bleh bleh!"

That makes me feel like he's a door-to-door salesmen. You know?

And I don't ... those deals come around, how many, so many times every week. So the Dream 100, you know, I can tell when I'm on someone's Dream 100 list because I receive packages in the mail every once in a while. And I get these things and I'm like, oh, cool little toys! Like, cool! Aw! That's this person. I get more than enough messages and emails, you know, so how do they break through all the noise? They send me packages, you know?

And I'm beginning to do the same kind of stuff. It's just a lot of fun. That's what people do to Russell, that's what Russell does to other people to let them know that they're serious. Anything that makes them stand out and guys, it's kind of like on Shark Tank.

Have you ever seen, I'm sure you've seen this show Shark Tank.

In Shark Tank, there's this super classic scenario that seems to happen at least once every episode where ... or every thirty minute episode. Where some guy has this fantastic idea. And he's poured in all this money and he's gone and he's done all these things and then it gets to the spot where they all want to know the numbers. And they're like, "hey that's really cool. Hey, hey, how much is it selling?" And they're like, "oh, I, I, it actually hasn't started selling yet." It's like, "oh. Dead already."

It doesn't matter if you had the idea to cure cancer. You know what I mean? Man, well, it depends on who you talk to I guess. But the thing is that like when it comes to these different business ideas and these different opportunities, it doesn't matter how good you make it sound, you have got to have some numbers behind it. So when you go partner with somebody who actually could be a heavy hitter, who actually could do great things for your business, man, you better have some numbers behind you.

Know your numbers!

And get to know your own weaknesses. You know what, I've done this and I've tried this, we sold two or three this way, but it didn't work that well. I mean, go door-to-door if you freaking have to. You've got to get results or nobody who actually could help you is even gonna look or blink an eye at you. Because you haven't proven it.

And so, anyway. That's enough on that. But I just wanted you to know that you guys, more money's made by you saying no than yes. Just get focused. And know, it's the weirdest thing. It's funny, my wife and I were just talking about this. Every time I put my foot down on something else that I'm gonna go start doing, and I'll be like, okay. That's my project for the next two years! I'm just gonna go do it. Every single time I do that I always get this onslaught of deals. It's almost like the world subconsciously is trying to test me.

"Are you sure that you're committed to that? Are you sure that you want that really bad?" You know, and it's the weirdest thing that happens, it happens every single time. It just happened again.

So I was like, cool, I'm gonna go do that thing. And I wrote it all a plan, I pulled stuff together, and I was like, cool. That's, wow, I could totally do that and it's actually not gonna take that long and I think it could provide some insane value in the market. It literally is the exact same thing, just deal after deal after deal every day for the last several weeks has just been hitting me and I'm like no! Just go away! Stop distracting me!

It's the biggest killer of me finishing. Of you too, anything.

Anyway. Guys, hey, thanks so much. Remember to stay focused and go prove your idea. It's very, very fun. It's very exciting. And if you have the nuts enough to just go do it, you're already gonna set yourself apart from so many people who are not willing. All right guys, talk to you later, 'bye.

Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio! Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnels for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

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