Creating an AMAZING Customer Experience You want to stand out in the marketplace? Create an amazing experience. Near the end of 2016 I spoke at a conference in Brazil and it was one of the most epic experiences I’ve had in my career. I can’t even begin to describe the spirit and the energy and the passion of these people. If you ever get a chance to go to Brazil, do it! And yes, there was a language barrier, so my presentation was literally translated in real time. As if presenting to the largest audience of my career wasn’t a wild enough experience already! But that’s a story for another day. Anyways, near the end of the event there was a presentation that I really wanted to listen to, so my translator and I went out to the one of the top balconies where we wouldn’t interrupt too many people and she translated the presentation in real time for me. Boy, am I glad we went, because this presentation was AMAZING. I literally took pages and pages of notes. The presentation was all about gamification. The presenters, Tatiana Gabrael and her husband Renato Gabrael, sell an online course which helps participants to improve their eyesight, and they include a game as part of the course to keep students engaged and progressing. So Tatiana and Renato are experienced with gamification, and what I want to share with you today is the ingenious way they gamified their presentation. During their presentation, about halfway through, they encouraged audience members to open up a secret envelope that everybody was given when they registered. FYI this was a three day event; people were given this envelope on day one when they registered and on the envelope it stated that they couldn’t open it until they were instructed to. When it was time for Tatiana and Renato’s presentation, it was the end of day three. People had been holding on to this secret envelope that entire time, so it created all this anticipation until they finally revealed that that envelope was designed for their presentation and people could now open it. Of course, it turned out that the envelope contained a game to help the audience participate in the presentation and experience the theory of gamification in action. It helped them implement what they were learning right on the spot, as they were learning it. The experiment was a hit and everybody was smiling and having a good time. It was a great great example of how to design an experience so that people not only get the value from the information itself but from the way the information is presented. It’s the little things that count and I think, more than anything, the audience appreciated the fact that Tatiana and Renato poured in so much thought in terms of how to involve the audience and how to create an amazing presentation that was three dimensional. In addition to the game components, one of the things that Tatiana and Renato talked about was incorporating characters in the games you create. To demonstrate this, they actually had characters in their presentation, real people dressed up as the characters they were talking about! These “characters” went out into the crowd and engaged with the audience. It was really really cool. It was just an awesome example of how to take information and turn it into an experience. The bottom line: The bottom line is I will not forget that presentation. Yes, the information Tatiana and Renato presented was very valuable, but that’s not why I’m telling you about their presentation today. I’m telling you about their presentation today because they presented the information in a way that was MEMORABLE. And this is where you and I have the same opportunity. We can look beyond the information we’re sharing and focus on HOW we’re sharing the information. By getting intentional about this, we can create an unforgettable experience that people will want to tell their friends about. This might apply to the content you share on social, to how you structure your webinars, to your email autoresponder when somebody signs up to your list, and it definitely applies to the experience you provide for your paying customers. Whether you offer a digital or physical product or service, there are always opportunities for you to tweak the experience you are providing customers and turn it into something special, the same way Tatiana and Renato turned their presentation about gamification into an experience that I wanted to share with you today.
Marketing is SIMPLE Marketing is simple. Too often I see business owners making it way more complex than it really needs to be. The fact of the matter is, it boils down to three specific things: The first thing is getting attention. How do you get attention? Well, there are a ton of free and paid ways to get people’s attention. There’s content marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, affiliate marketing, direct marketing, email marketing. There’s mobile marketing, pay-per-click marketing, there’s point-of-sale marketing, referral marketing, SEO marketing, street marketing… Man, the list goes on and on. The point is there are a LOT of ways to get people’s attention. Let’s take content marketing as an example. What’s the whole point of creating content? Well, we want to create high value content so that it grabs people’s attention and gives them value up front, in the hope that they’re going to want to continue to hear from us. Maybe they connect with us on social or join our email list, and if we provide them with high value content on a consistent basis creates a tremendous amount of trust. It’s all about getting attention in the beginning because once we’ve got the attention, we can earn the trust. If we look at email marketing, it’s the same thing. What are we trying to do when we email our prospects? We’re trying to get their attention with a catchy subject line and then hook them with the opening line. It’s all engineered to get attention. What about in an actual store? As soon as you walk in you are bombarded with signage and marketing displays, and even as you check out your attention is being fought for by point of sale displays. So just remember, the very first objective of our marketing is to capture people’s attention. After capturing someone’s attention, we want to convert that attention. This could mean turning a prospect into an email subscriber or social follower, or perhaps even a customer if you are making a direct sale. How do we go about converting attention? First, you need to have a great offer that people actually want. This ensures that they have a reason to convert. Second, you need to make use of sales triggers such as scarcity and urgency. This ensures that they have a reason to convert right NOW. Like capturing attention, there are many methods you can use to convert attention. On the web, we typically make use of landing/sales pages that are simple and direct visitors to a clear call to action. It’s on these pages that we make focused use of hooks and triggers, using copy, creative and layout to make it ultra appealing for the visitor to convert (and making it easy to do so). Webinars are a popular method of converting attention because they allow us to share immense value with the prospect and compel them to buy all within the same presentation. Then, of course, there’s traditional salesmanship via the phone or in person, where we use conversation to make our pitch. Regardless, once we’ve captured someone’s attention, we need to deliver the goods in order to convert that attention. The third part and final element of marketing is keeping that attention. Again, this is really, really simple. It’s all about loving on your tribe. It’s about continuously over-delivering and maintaining that high level of trust. It’s replying to comments and emails. It’s delivering unexpected bonuses. It’s finding out what your audience is trying to accomplish and helping them get those results. Regardless of how you do it, always think about how you can continue to be of service to your customers/audience. As business owners, we are problem seekers. We want to be aware of the problems our market is experiencing and create solutions for them. If we continue to create solutions, people are never going to want to go anywhere else. As long as we continue to identify problems and provide solutions, people are going to want to continue to buy from us. Here’s the final thing I want you to think about, though. Think about the experience your customers have when the buy from you and consume your product. Because the marketing process doesn’t end once someone buys. It’s really like the pre-launch to whatever you plan to sell next. So you want to engineer that whole buying experience to be a ‘WOW’ experience. You want people to be raving about the experience of buying from you, because that’s what’s going to set up the long-term relationship and repeat sales. And it’s going to allow your business to continue to thrive because your customers are going to come back and buy from you again and again and again. So that’s it. Marketing is really simple. It’s all about 1) getting attention, 2) converting that attention, and 3) keeping that attention. Your turn: What are you doing to simplify your marketing?
One email that produced MILLIONS I do NOT like commuting. Getting stuck in traffic sucks. That being said, the one thing that I actually do enjoy about commuting is it gives me time to listen to podcasts. A podcast I listened to recently tells the story of one email that produced MILLIONS of dollars of sales and generated hundreds of thousands of amazing responses online. …using a simple marketing tactic that you and I can copy in our businesses. Here’s the story: Derek Sivers founded a company called CD Baby which he sold in 2008 for $22 million. In this podcast episode, Sivers talks about the time he rewrote the automatic email that was sent to customers after they purchased a CD. Initially, the email basically said, “Hey, your CD has been shipped.” Sivers was looking at that email and thinking that it didn’t really reflect the personality of him or the company, so he rewrote it. It took him 20 minutes or so to rewrite this email. Because of the personality and the humour he injected into this email, it became an online sensation, producing millions in sales and hundreds of thousands of great responses. Here’s the email: That one silly email was sent out with every order and customers LOVED it. And the buzz and goodwill that this email created generated millions of dollars in sales. Now, you and I can use the exact same strategy. It’s just a simple marketing idea, right? Make your autoresponders engaging and fun! Here’s the awesome bigger picture that this story represents: We have a tremendous opportunity to identify these touchpoints in our business – the mundane, forgettable aspects of the buying experience – and instead turn them into an experience that people will never forget. We have the opportunity to turn these “boring” aspects of our business into an experience that people want to share with their friends, family, coworkers, and the vast digital public, the same way that Sivers’ email offered such a unique experience that it soon became a viral sensation. The bottom line is that you and I can have a huge impact with our marketing just by challenging ourselves to take the aspects of our business that we take for granted – such as a purchase confirmation – and transform them into a reason for customers to tell others about us and and our products. The amazing part of this strategy is that, besides a few minutes of your time, it’s completely free to implement. It’s not a huge marketing play. It doesn’t require a big, expensive campaign. These minor details and touchpoints in your business are already there, waiting to be improved. It’s a cheap, relatively simple improvement, but if can have a profound impact on the success of your business. Sivers says, “When you make a business, you’re making a little world where you control the laws.” I LOVE that thought process. When Sivers re-wrote that email, he made his little world a more memorable place. The word got out and suddenly everybody wanted to visit! That’s the beauty of being entrepreneurs… you and I get to control how we do business. We get to control the experience we provide. Anyways, I loved this story from Sivers. It inspired me and I hope that it will inspire you too.
How to sell me a $1000 dollar bag There are two MUST-HAVE components in every effective marketing message. Do you know what they are? I first learned about these two components from a gentleman by the name of Don Miller. At the beginning of his workshop, Don presented a picture of a beautiful leather bag and he asked us, “how much would you pay for this leather bag?” There were about fifteen of us in the room at the time and the consensus was that we would pay anywhere between $250 to $400 for this bag. Then Don showed us a video. It was only about four minutes long but, by the end of the video, we were so emotionally moved that we all wanted the bag. We didn’t care what the price was! Because now we were viewing the value of the bag from a totally different lens. We connected with the bag on an emotional level. Don then revealed to us that the bag sells for over a THOUSAND dollars, which was, in many cases, four times higher than what we were willing to pay for it in the beginning. Here’s the kicker… they CANNOT keep that bag in stock! It is constantly sold out! And the primary driver behind those sales is this emotional video. It was fascinating to me because, on the surface, the product itself did not change. It’s the same leather bag. What did change was the connection I felt with the bag. It was an incredible demonstration of how you and I, as business owners, can change the perception of our products simply through our marketing. The video is effective because it makes perfect use of the two key ingredients that must be included in every marketing message. Those ingredients are the INTERNAL and EXTERNAL CHALLENGES faced by your customer. The external challenge is what your customer is likely going to type into Google when they are looking to solve a problem. It’s their literal need. The internal challenge is what your customer is feeling on an emotional level to motivate their purchase decision. Internal challenges include things like fear, shame, embarrassment, recognition, the desire to be loved or to belong. These could be limiting beliefs that are holding your customer back. Internal challenges are often related to confidence; your customer wants to be likeable, they want to be a good spouse, or a good parent, or a good friend. They want their life to stand for something. For example, an advertisement for a kitchen cleaning product speaks to a logical external need – to clean the kitchen. Yet the imagery, tone, and language of the ad might include themes such as love, happiness, and togetherness, because the desire to keep a clean kitchen can be connected to a deeper desire to provide a safe, comfortable shelter for your family. In short, internal challenges run deep. When you appeal to these in your marketing, you open up the hearts of your audience in a much bigger way than when you appeal to external challenges alone. Now, the real marketing magic for you and I is when we blend the two of these together. When you go too heavy on the external, your customer might understand why they need your product on a logical level, but they feel no emotional compulsion to buy. On the other hand, when you go too heavy on the internal, your customer might feel connected to your product on an emotional level, but feel no logical reason to buy. I’ll give you an example from my own business. I recently launched the TRIBE course, in which I share everything I’ve learned from years of working with membership site owners. The external challenge faced by my customers is that they want to know the best strategies for running a membership site. However, just beneath this lies a more powerful internal challenge – the desire to have true financial stability in their business and life, to eliminate the stress of living from sale to sale. Membership sites generate recurring revenue, and recurring revenue creates financial stability. So it was my job to combine these external and internal challenges in my marketing when I was launching TRIBE, to show potential buyers not only what they would literally learn from the course, but how it would actually feel to implement my teachings. This snippet from one of the TRIBE launch videos is a good example of this: Do you see how the literal promise – to launch and grow a thriving membership site – is juxtaposed with words and images to convey the freedom that a thriving membership business would bring? This is exactly what I want you to strive for in your marketing – a combination of appeals to external and internal challenges, the perfect mix of logic and emotion. If you truly understand your audience and you master the combination of these elements, your marketing campaigns will be unstoppable.
“Why are you settling?” “Why are you playing small?” “Do you not believe in what you’re doing?” When he first asked me this, I felt myself getting defensive. Almost angry. Of course I believed in what I was doing. But the moment he said it, my heart started pounding faster. He was openly challenging me, and I felt like I had to respond. So I blurted out… “YES! I absolutely believe in what I’m doing.” Right after, there was an awkward moment of silence. He could tell that he had touched a nerve. But he pushed again… “Then why aren’t you willing to talk about what you’re doing?” Instead of reacting, I stopped for a second. This was a friend. Someone I considered a mentor. Was there any truth in what he was saying? Was I hesitating? Here’s what I realized… This wasn’t an attack. It was coming from a place of love. He knew what I had would change a lot of lives. But he could see that I wasn’t confident enough to share it with more people. And he was right. And BTW – what he was talking about was my charity. I hesitated telling anyone about it because I didn’t want people thinking I was guilting them into contributing to our cause. I didn’t want to be seen as selling the cause. I was hoping people would just naturally want to help. But here’s the lesson… If you don’t intentionally get the word out, people will never have the opportunity to join you. And if he didn’t challenge me, we definitely wouldn’t have built 8 schools to date (with two in construction). We wouldn’t have raised over $1.5MM for our cause. And, thousands of kids wouldn’t have a school to attend. That’s why I want to challenge you. There is a COST OF NOT GETTING THE WORD OUT about what you have to offer. So let me ask you… Do you have a product, a service or message that would change a lot of lives? If yes (which I believe you do)… Then why are you hesitating? The #1 mistake I see entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, coaches or consultants making is they don’t have an effective strategy for sharing what they have with the world. It’s a shame. So much good sits idle. It never sees the light of day because people are afraid of selling (just like I was). Now is the time for you to draw a line in the sand. No more “hoping” that people will find you. It’s time for you to intentionally make it happen. Here’s my simple 3-step plan… 1) Pick One Platform and Master It That could be Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SnapChat or whatever feels best for you. But pick ONE. Learn it. Master it. Can you expand to other platforms later on? Yes. But in the beginning, keep it simple and manageable. ONE platform. Got it? Next… 2) Become Known For Something Specific When people introduce you, what will you be “known for”? If you want to gain a lot of traction fast, then become known for something specific. Solve a particular kind of problem. For example, I want to help ALL entrepreneurs. But I realized that trying to help everyone with everything is a LOT more difficult than building momentum in one specific area. So I started with solving a specific problem where I have established credibility and expertise – recurring revenue. Will that lead to other things? You bet. Will that lead to more “generic” offers? You bet. But I’m intentionally staying hyper focused on a specific problem first. It’s the fastest way to build an audience. And then finally… 3) Get Consistent Once you’ve picked a platform and identified where to get specific, now it’s about consistently staying on message. Consistency is the key. You HAVE TO produce. You have to stay in front of people. Now hear me when I say this… It doesn’t mean you have to produce a TON of stuff. It does mean though that you need to consistently stay in front of your audience. So commit to a schedule. That could be once a week, twice a week or more. But establish a schedule you can easily maintain. If you follow this simple plan, the effects will compound over time. Your momentum will start small but over time (because of your consistency), you will find your results begin to skyrocket. The world needs what you have. Now it’s time to get it out there.
How to do less and make more in 2017 How was your year? I hope it was FANTASTIC, and if not, I wish you strength, luck, and momentum to charge forwards into 2017 and beyond. I want you to know that, in 2017, you can do less and make more. How the heck can you do less and make more? That’s what I want to outline for you here today, because that actually was my plan in 2016 and it turned out spectacularly well, so I’m going to be repeating it again in 2017. Here’s how this post came about: Just last week we flew in our two executive assistants; Summer, who helps me run my business, and Carrie, who helps my wife, Amy, run our charity. What Summer, Carrie, Amy and I did was we mapped out all of 2017. In fact, we even mapped out some of 2018. I HIGHLY recommend you do the same, if you haven’t already. I’ll give you some tips about how to do this efficiently. Planning an entire year can be overwhelming, so when you are planning your year, I want you to break it down into three areas of focus: Number one, you’ve got to get clear on your PRIORITIES. I know that that sounds obvious, but it’s SO important. This means getting clear on people and projects that are most important to you, as well as getting clear on the LIFESTYLE you want to live. For me, obviously my amazing wife, my incredible kids, my team, my sister, my parents, my friends and business partners – they are all a huge priority to me. What can I say? I’m a people person! I bring this to your attention because, when people are a priority to you, you’ve got to be INTENTIONAL about incorporating them into your planning process. Next, it’s extremely important to decide which projects are your highest priority. For example, last year I had just one project that was the highest priority for me. This allowed me to engineer the entire year around that one project, which allowed me to be uber creative. After people and projects comes lifestyle. Outside of your business, what aspirations do you have? For example, in 2017 I really want to exercise my creativity in some new and different ways. Playing guitar is one. Doodling is another – I know it kind of sounds funny and weird – but doodling and calligraphy is another thing that I really want to do. I’d also like to learn Swahili, because in Kenya where our charity operates, the kids speak Swahili, and I want to be able to interact and engage with them. I want to be fluid so when kids are talking back and forth, I can just jump into the conversation and blow their minds. Number two, get clear on your PRIMARY FOCUS. You’ve got to have a primary focus. Everything else you do falls around this one thing. This relates to prioritizing your projects in step #1. Your primary focus combines the project you chose as a top priority, and the outcome you’d like to see from that project. It’s your guiding light throughout the year. Here’s an example: one of my clients, Mastin Kip, is an incredible speaker and author. His primary focus is releasing his new book in the fall of 2017, so we are engineering the entire year around that focus. Other things are going to come up, of course, but the primary focus is getting that book to top of the New York Times Bestseller list. Let your primary focus be the most important, most ambitious accomplishment you’d like to achieve, and then give it the attention and resources it needs to come true. Number three is to identify your BIG ROCKS And start mapping them out on the calendar. That’s exactly what I did with Summer, Carrie, and Amy when we planned our year. We first started with our big rocks. What are our big rocks? When you’re mapping out your calendar, these are the most important events and deadlines in your year. Some are deadlines that you set for yourself, and others aren’t so flexible, but they are all important. For example, last year my family vacations got tacked onto business or charity trips. If I was going to speak at a conference, I would take the family, and we would spend a few days after the conference exploring that location. This year we decided to let family trips be family trips, so those were the first big rocks we added to our calendar. The next big rocks we added were dates that are already set. For example, next year we’ve got a big trip for our charity where we’re taking 50-60 of our top donors over to Kenya to see the schools they helped build. There’s also conferences that I’ve committed to speak at, mastermind groups that I’m a part of, and so on. It’s important that your big rocks get laid out on the calendar. Because too often as entrepreneurs, we end up taking on more than we can handle because we get so excited about opportunities. You and I have to concentrate our efforts, because if we try to do too much in 2017, we’re going to do a whole bunch of things in a half-assed way. But if we focus on a few big rocks, and we pour all of our creative energy into those things, we will experience a lot more success. When I talk about the big rocks, here’s what I would encourage you to do: Think about one big promotion that you’re able to do every quarter. One big promotion every four months. Everything else gets filtered around those four promotions. And if you can do less than four, that’s even better. In summary: For you and I to make 2017 a spectacular year, here’s what I recommend: Number one, get clear on your PRIORITIES. When I say priorities, I’m talking about people, projects, and lifestyle. Second, get clear on your PRIMARY FOCUS and engineer your entire year around that. Number three, map out your big rocks. What I recommend for my clients is four big promos per year, one per quarter. Everything else gets filtered around those big rocks. Your turn: What are you going to do to make 2017 your best year ever?
Product Launch Formula Explained (The #1 Way to Make a LOT More Sales in a Lot Less Time) Note: For those of you who are savvy to Product Launches, I’ll save you some time and let you know that we are currently helping Jeff promote his new free video workshop where he goes in depth about PLF, with an optional paid course afterwards. If you’re interested, click here to check it out! If you’ve never heard of Product Launch Formula before, you can read the post below and if it interests you, you are more than welcome to check out Jeff’s workshop. How do you sell a whole lot more of your products or your service in a fraction of the time, regardless of whatever market you’re in? Listen, if you’re an entrepreneur, chances are you have a product or a service that you’re selling, or perhaps you are an author or a speaker where you’ve got a message that you want to share and you want to get that in front of a lot more people. How do you do that with a lot less effort? How do you make a lot more sales in a fraction of the time? Well, I’m going to share with you the secret to that in just one second. Before I do, I want to share a quick story: Back in 2004, I witnessed a revolutionary development for entrepreneurs like you and I as it relates to selling products and services online. At that time, I was online and I was eagerly anticipating the release of a product. I had been waiting for this product for literally weeks. I was champing at the bit, and could not wait for the opportunity to finally click the buy button and purchase it. …It was a thousand dollar product. Now, during this time, there was so much hype. There was so much excitement around this particular product – which was completely brand new to the marketplace – that when it finally became available for sale, it generated over a MILLION dollars in sales in less than a 24 hour period. That product set a whole new precedent. What we’re talking about is creating an orchestrated Product Launch. Now, many people might ask, “Why do I need a creative product launch? Is that really necessary?” The reality is if you don’t create anticipation, you’re hoping that people are going to come and buy your product. You’re hoping that people are going to find you to buy your product and service. There are three big reasons why a product launch is a HUGE tool for you and I as entrepreneurs to sell a whole lot more of what we have in a fraction of the time, regardless of the market. 1. More Reach What do I mean by that? Well, it means that you are going to get what it is that you have in front of a lot more people in a much shorter period of time. I was listening to an interview the other day with Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx. She’s been voted by Time Magazine as one of the most influential people of our time. She’s one of the wealthiest female entrepreneurs. One of the things that helped her really launch her product was that she got an endorsement in the first month from Oprah Winfrey. Can you imagine? Oprah Winfrey putting her stamp of approval on your product and then boom, now you’ve got sales coming out the wazoo. That’s the same type of momentum that you can create with a product launch. Whereas if you try to do it the old way of just putting it out there and hoping people are going to come and find it, it’s a much slower approach. 2. More Authority A product launch creates tremendous positioning in the marketplace. When there’s a lot of buzz around you and your product or service that you’re offering, it gets people talking. The more people that are talking, the more it establishes you as the go-to resource, or the go-to company, or the go-to product for whatever solution that they are seeking. 3. More Sales When you’re reaching more people and you got more authority, you’re going to make a lot more sales. Why wouldn’t you want to launch your product? Why wouldn’t you want to get your products, your service, your message in front of more people in a shorter period of time? All the PLF does is it just speeds up the timeline in terms of your ability to be able to grow your company, to grow your business, to increase your impact. That first product launch I told you about was for a product called Traffic Secrets, helping entrepreneurs generate more traffic to their websites. One of the people behind the strategy of that particular product launch was a gentleman by the name of Jeff Walker. Now, Jeff Walker is like the godfather of launching online. He’s helped thousands and thousands of people launch products online. I’m one of those benefactors. In fact, this last August, we went from nobody really knowing who I was, to gaining over 50,000 Facebook likes, 50,000 emails, and multiple seven figures in sales, in just a few WEEKS! Because of PLF, we were able to serve thousands of people with the product we were offering. It was an incredible jump start to building an entirely new business, all orchestrated by a product launch. We couldn’t have done it without the amazing strategies created by Jeff Walker. Now, there are many things that go into a successful product launch, and – despite having years of experience running multiple seven figure launches – I could never attempt to explain the strategy behind a launch as well Jeff can. The good news is that Jeff is currently offering a free workshop where he goes in depth about the core strategies and blueprint behind every successful product launch. After the workshop has ended, Jeff will be offering a more detailed paid course, but even if you have no interest in that, I want you to go sign up just to see the launch process that Jeff takes you through. I highly recommend you go check it out because you’re going to learn a tonne about how to apply the Launch Formula to your business to help you generate more sales in a fraction of the time. It doesn’t matter what market you’re in. You’re going to see examples from a bunch of different markets and types of products. If you know another entrepreneur that could benefit from the magic of launching a product or service online, or you know somebody who’s got a message that they really want to share, tell them about this video. Click here to access Jeff’s free PLF workshop. Your turn: Have you used PLF before? What was your experience? Let me know below.
How to Make it BIG by Starting Small Let’s face it. You probably have a really big idea. You want to start a big business. You want to change the world in a big way. But how do you even begin to accomplish such big feats? My proposal to you is to start small. Here’s the bottom line. When you have a huge idea, it can feel tremendously overwhelming. You don’t know where to start. When you don’t know where to start, you don’t create any momentum. When you don’t create any momentum, you’re standing still. It can feel so daunting when the rest of the world seems like they’ve got it figured out. It feels like the world is passing you by and you don’t know what to do. It can be frustrating. Here’s the advantage I want to share with you. When you’re trying to start something big, there’s actually an advantage to starting small. Here are three examples: Think about Facebook. Facebook started really small. First, it was just an idea that Zuckerberg and a few of his friends put together. When they first released it, Facebook was only available for Harvard students. Then did they go to the world? No! They released it to institutions in the Boston area. Then they released it to Ivy League schools. Then they finally opened it up to everyone else. But it first started as a tiny idea for Harvard. When we look at Facebook and the behemoth it’s become, realize that it only began as a little project for Harvard students. Think about Gary Vaynerchuk. When he was young, Gary loved trading baseball cards. Then he got into his family’s wine business. It was similar because he saw that people collected wine like they did trading cards. There was value there. He studied wine and became obsessed. He helped grow his family business and then he started small in terms of marketing and growing his business. He started his online show. That picked up a ton of momentum. That was the one thing that he focused on. From there, he leveraged that momentum to start VaynerMedia. He’s now got a sports agency and so much more, but it all started small. Here’s one of my favorite stories. Think about Dollar Shave Club. I remember seeing the Dollar Shave Club video for the very first time in March 2012. Have you seen the Dollar Shave Club video? If you haven’t, go watch it on YouTube. It’s hilarious. This was back in 2012. What did they start with? They started with one video and one product. ONE PRODUCT! They only delivered razors to your door. One video. One product. Guess what? They took off like a rocket. They were SUPER focused. A few years later, they introduced a few more products. A few months ago, they sold for a billion dollars. BILLION with a B! They started in 2011. They really started going public with their promotion in 2012. They recently sold their company for over a billion dollars in CASH to Unilever. That was not even on the radar for them when they began. They started small and built momentum. So what’s the takeaway for us? There’s an advantage to starting small. Reason number one to start small is that it’s easier. When you start small, it’s easier to think about what you need to do to begin a project. When you start big, that can feel daunting. It can feel overwhelming. You don’t know where to begin. You don’t know what to do. Starting small is easier to break down. It’s easier to see what your next steps are. Reason number two to start small is that it allows you to create momentum. Momentum is your friend. People are drawn to momentum. For example, I have big ambitions to help entrepreneurs all over the world. That’s the big idea. But when I broke it down, I realized I could build the most momentum with the one thing I am really good at which is helping people launch and grow recurring revenue streams. That’s where I have the most experience. For years and years, I’ve been helping tens of thousands of people with this. Instead of trying to help ALL entrepreneurs, first I start with helping this smaller market I know I can dominate and really serve. That creates a ton of momentum. That creates a lot of opportunity. Reason number three to start small is that momentum creates opportunity. Momentum creates opportunity that we can’t even see at the present moment. When you have momentum on your side, you start attracting all kinds of new opportunities. This is happening right now in our business. We’re just getting started. Things, projects and people that want to do business with us are coming out the woodwork that we wouldn’t have even imagined. It’s because we have momentum on our side. Instead of trying to accomplish the big idea right out of the gates (and I am all for big ideas), I propose that you break it down. What are the steps leading up to that big idea that you can focus on and dominate right now? The key here is PATIENCE! If we’re patient in the beginning, the momentum is actually going to make it easier for us to speed up the success that we want in our lives. When we try to do the big idea first, it’s slow. It’s heavy. It’s like pushing a boulder up a hill. What happens is that we get frustrated. We give up. We don’t do anything. We stand still. And when we stand still, it feels like the rest of the world is passing us by. If you start small, it’s easy to create momentum. With momentum comes opportunity. Think back to the Dollar Shave Club. Think back to Mark Zuckerberg. Think back to Gary Vaynerchuk. These are all good examples of people and companies starting small and then using their momentum to create new opportunity. Your turn: What is your big idea? And what is the first small step you can take?
“The #1 Way to Attract World-Class Clients” ft. Strength Sensei Coaches, thought leaders, and expert consultants… How do you find clients and continue to attract new clients year after year? I had a chance to speak with Charles Poliquin, aka Strength Sensei, aka the number one strength coach in the world. He’s been at the very top of the game now for 38 years, coaching some of the most elite athletes on the planet in over 17 different sports. His clients include Olympic gold medalists, Stanley Cup Champions and NFL superstars, to name a few. Great company yesterday, I had a lot fun with these guys. Thank you Vic Thériault for all the mentoring you provided us. #georgestpierre #gsp #rush #ufc #ultimatefightingchampionship #strength #jujitsu #martialarts #mixedmartialarts #mma #montreal #canada A photo posted by Charles R. Poliquin (@strengthsensei1) on Oct 14, 2015 at 10:15am PDT Recently, Charles’s client Helen Maroulis made history by becoming the first American woman to win a gold medal in wrestling. With such an impressive roster of clients and equally impressive results, I think the number one question all of us have for Charles is: “How do you continue to attract world-class clients?” Charles: The best way is to actually get results. You may start small – you may have somebody win their local championships, provincial championships, state championships, etc. But the key is to focus on the results. Most people focus too much on marketing but your best marketing is your results. People love to work with people who have a consistent reputation for producing results. Stu: How do you go about helping your clients? Charles: Well, the first thing you have to do is an evaluation. I’ve got a battery of tests I do and then I say, “Okay you’re good at this, terrible at this, pathetic at this” – I mean, I don’t mince words (laughs). And what I do is I establish a plan. For example, Helen is starting her training for the 2020 Olympic games. What she’s going to do the first year is not what she’s going to do the last year of Olympic preparations. With @helen_maroulis for her Strength training prep. The road to the Tokyo Olympics starts now #olympicwrestling #helenmaroulis #wrestling #Olympics #roadtotokyo A photo posted by Charles R. Poliquin (@strengthsensei1) on Oct 12, 2016 at 11:11am PDT What I do is I lay a foundation, and the height of the pyramid is a function of the width of the base. So the first two years are about building a big base. She’s going up a weight class so she’s got to put on 5 kilos of lean body mass, so that’s what we’ll focus on for the first two years. Stu: So the key lesson here is that you need an easy way to assess the client. And you were sharing with me earlier that sometimes clients come in with a perception of what they want, that isn’t what they should actually be working towards. Charles: It’s very true. For example, Gary Roberts is a hockey player I rehabbed; he stayed in the league an extra 14 years beyond what he was supposed to. When he came to see me his perception of what he needed was completely skewed. He thought that my plan for him would make him slower when in reality it made him faster and it went on to extend his career for many years. A lot of it too, is, people don’t really know where they can go, and my job is telling them “you can do this.” If you go on my website www.strengthsensei.com there’s an endorsement from Helen and she explains that I’m very strict about certain things. I tell athletes, “you can fish for somebody every day, or you can teach them how to fish.” My approach is to teach the athletes ‘how to fish’ so they are independent and they can rely on themselves. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So we’re very structured in what we do. Stu: So there you have it. The number one way to attract clients is to get results. Have an assessement and a clear plan for your clients, and get at it. Any last words Charles? Charles: Thank you for listening, and I hope to see you on my website www.strengthsensei.com. Your turn: How do you attract new clients to your business? Let me know in the comments below.
A Recent MISTAKE That Nearly Cost Me Millions It was crunch time. We were less than a week away from the biggest promotion we had ever done… … and we realized we had made a FATAL mistake. Picture this: We have nearly 100 people ready to promote. We’re talking about the biggest names in our industry. They had all blocked off their calendars to promote our course. Hundreds of thousands of people would be seeing our promotion. Thousands ready to buy. And yet, we wouldn’t be able to make any sales. Why? The short story is, we needed to use Stripe to process our sales. And the mistake we made was thinking that the big name shopping cart we were using could integrate with Stripe. It didn’t. And that meant we were scrambling. My stomach was flipping. To make matters worse, it was too late to get another merchant account that would work with our old shopping cart (especially one that could process the volume of sales we were anticipating). I was sweating over this… bad. There was SO much on the line. Over a year of planning. TONS of anticipation. All of our partners were ready to go. And now, one FATAL assumption could bring the whole thing down before it even got going. I was feeling so stupid and embarrassed. I mean, it sounds so obvious to double check probably the most important thing of all… that you can actually process the sales. But I made the rookie mistake of assuming everything would integrate. It wasn’t good. And, with everything scheduled to start in less than a week, we needed a solution FAST. We also needed something that would be EASY to set up because we had a million other things to get ready for the promotion. So what did we use? This: https://samcart.com/jv/vid1a/988193 In no time at all, we had our account set up and our checkout page ready to go. (I’m talking within the hour) And everything integrated so easily with Stripe (which is what we were using to process the sales). So our biggest headache ended up becoming the easiest part of the whole process… … THANKS to SamCart. Here’s the happy ending to this story… The promotion was a massive hit. In fact, we far exceeded our goals and welcomed thousands of students into our new TRIBE course. And, because of the way the checkout page was set up (thanks to SamCart’s optimized process), I know for certain that our conversions were higher too. So less stress and more money. That’s a GREAT combo! The crazy part was, the whole thing was nearly a total disaster. We’re lucky we had SamCart. My advice, make your life easy. Go watch this this video. A last minute scramble is never fun. Trust me, it would have been a LOT easier to just start things off the right way. Take care. Stu P.S. If you’re just starting out, this is exactly what I’d use. If you’re a seasoned pro, you definitely want to check this out because there are a few subtle tweaks to the checkout process that are getting massive results. It’s worth a look: https://samcart.com/jv/vid1/988193 Your turn: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your business? How did you recover?
