Freedom Maker - SoundSage

View Details

Disclaimer: The contents of the book Expert Secrets, which is referenced to in this podcast, is owned by Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels LLC. You can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below.

Secret #9: The Epiphany Bridge Script

Let me tell you the story about how two major heartbreaks became the seed of a 7-figure business blueprint.

[insert story and framework]

So that’s it for Secret #9: The Epiphany Bridge Script. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the Expert Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com?cf_affiliate_id=3063032&affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #8: The Hero’s Two Journeys

Have you ever sat at family gatherings and wished that the person telling a story could get to the point? Or, what about the manager at the meeting who seems to never run out of things to say? You know you would never bore your listeners, but are you sure?

Here’s how to stop being boring: you simply have to internalize how to tell great stories. Specifically, you need to understand story structure.

Maybe you’ve heard of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, but I’d like to present a more simplified and relevant version based on Christopher Vogler’s book The Writer’s Journey. This simplified story framework has only 12 stages:

The Ordinary World
The Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Meeting the Mentor
Crossing the First Threshold
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Approach the Innermost Cave
The Ordeal
The Reward
The Road Block
The Resurrection
Return with the Elixir

[insert 4 phases of the story framework]

In the next chapters we will look at a proven story structure adapted from 15 years of Russell’s experience, and how you can use it to generate sales for your funnels.

So that’s it for Secret #8: The Hero’s Two Journeys. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the Expert Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com?cf_affiliate_id=3063032&affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #7: The Epiphany Bridge

I still remember that day like it was yesterday. I was too energetic to sleep at night. I was waking up at 5am to check my phone, smiling myself to sleep, only to wake up before the alarm rang at 7:30 to check my phone again. I would have breakfast with my business partner and I low-key asked, “guess how much we made last night?”. “I dunno, 2k?” I said, hiding my smile, “3.2k” Because we lived in Singapore, and were measuring our sales based on Pacific Standard Time, we were 15 hours ahead. That means that every business day began at 3pm, 4pm if we adjust for Daylight Savings. We still had 7 more hours to go, and already we’re north of 3 thousand dollars. To me, that was life-changing. I could quit my job. I could scale this thing as hard as I can and finally get 6 my figure income. I could live anywhere. Heck, I could even travel.

It was the day where I found my winning funnel. All the struggles, all the pain, all the losses, all the doubts, all the regrets, were washed away in one day. Because a winning funnel changes lives. It changed mine forever.

[insert 3 Principles of Storytelling]

So that’s it for Secret #7: The Epiphany Bridge. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the Expert Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com?cf_affiliate_id=3063032&affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #6: The Future-Based Cause

For centuries, people believed it was impossible to run a mile in under 4 minutes. Doctors disproved it, athletes didn’t even get close to the timing, and coaches said it was simply undoable. Scientists even said it wasn’t just that it’s really hard, it was physically impossible. But on May 6, 1954, an Englishman by the name of Roger Bannister crossed the finish line in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds! The crowd went crazy at the announcement, because he did what was widely considered impossible.

But the record only held up for 46 days before it was broken by John Landy. Since then, it has created belief that other runners can do it too. As of today, more than 1,497 runners have broken the 4 minute mile.

[insert 4 principles]

So that’s it for Secret #6: The Future-Based Cause. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the Expert Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com?cf_affiliate_id=3063032&affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #5: More Money for the Same Framework

“Gosh, am I glad I bought the e-book”. I said to myself as I finished the first 3 chapters of Todd Brown’s E5 Method Book. The thing is, the physical book was part of a F+S offer. If I wanted just the physical book, I could cover international shipping for $19.95 and get it in say, 3 weeks, which I did. But there was an upsell for $10 to get the e-book instantly. Why did I buy the e-book, when it’s basically the same thing? Of course, people will say “it because you’re gonna get it instantly”, or “you can share it around”, or “you can now read the book anywhere as long as you have your phone with you”. Yes it’s all true, but what I’m about to share with you will blow your mind.

If I can pay $30 to get something that is essentially $19.95, will I be paying much more, like 10 times more to get the same thing? Answer is yes. And it’s happening all the time.

Back in 2017, I attended Peng Joon’s Internet Income Intensive for about $900. I realized that I bought his book Platform Closing for $9.95 for almost the same content. Well, if he swapped out a few chapters here and there, it could have been the exact content for 100 times the price. A hundred. Did I feel scammed? No. In fact, I was thankful I attended his course. In this episode, I’ll explain why, and how you can charge more money for the same product.

[insert episode content]

So that’s it for Secret #5: More Money for the Same Framework. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the Expert Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com?cf_affiliate_id=3063032&affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #4: The New Opportunity

On 23 October, 2001, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod. It’s not any MP3 player, it’s not a walkman, it’s a music player completely redesigned. With the iPod, you can carry a thousand songs in your pocket with you anywhere. The audience never heard of anything like it before, and they went nuts over it. 6 years later in 2007, Steve Jobs created another new opportunity for his dream customers. They completely reworked, redesigned and rethought the concept of a phone, and packed it with so much advanced technology that this phone only had 1 main button. Everything was done via touchscreen. It was insane. It was overwhelming. It was revolutionary. It was the iPhone. A few years later, Apple would do the same for the iPad in 2012, the Apple Watch in 2015, and the AirPods in 2016.

Jobs knew his customers didn’t want a better CD player, or a better phone. They wanted something new, so he created it for them. In the words of Henry Ford, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Our goal is not to fix what’s not working. Our goal is to replace what’s not working with something altogether different. Don’t build a better mouse trap. Get your customers to adopt a cat and open a veterinary clinic.

When you create your own category and offer your followers a new opportunity this gives you the chance to become the category king and have the biggest impact on peoples lives.

There are 4 reasons why people don’t want a better mousetrap, or improvement offers.

Improvement is hard
Desire VS ambition
Memories of poor past decisions
Commodity pricing

There are 4 reasons why people love new opportunities.

New discovery
No pain of disconnect
Dream replacement
Greener pastures

So how do you create a new opportunity?

Step 1: ask yourself, what is the dream result your customers are trying to achieve?

Step 2: What is the vehicle they are currently using to try to get to the dream result, but are unsuccessful in doing so?

Step 3: Where is the opportunity switch?

Step 4: The Opportunity Stack

So that’s it for Secret #4: The New Opportunity. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the Expert Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com?cf_affiliate_id=3063032&affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #3: The Three Core Markets or Desires

I realized it was the tagline “Health, Wealth, Love, and Happiness” that made me pull out my credit card and pay $67 for Tai Lopez’s 67 Steps. Who could say no to solving all issues of “Health, Wealth, Love, and Happiness”?

There is a book called “Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters” by Alan S. Miller, and it pretty much sums up the 2 universal goals for any living thing. First, an organism must do anything stay alive. Second, it must live long enough to reproduce. If an organism fails to do either, its genes don’t pass down, representing permanent death. Those that succeed in the 2 goals get to pass on their genes for as long as their successors succeed in the same 2 goals as well. Hence, you can almost say everyone will want “Health, Wealth, Love, and Happiness”, everyone will want to get rid of the issues that prevent them from having “Health, Wealth, Love, and Happiness”.

Russell Brunson’s take is not “Health, Wealth, Love, and Happiness”, but just “Health, Wealth, and Relationships”. It’s a little similar, and I assume if you want to succeed in marketing you have studied Russell’s work carefully. These are called the Three Core Markets or Desires.

Every product or service must fit into these Three Core Markets or Desires.

Obviously, with more people selling in the market, the more competitive the 3 core markets become. If you’ve read the book Blue Ocean Strategy you’ll understand what I mean. A “blue ocean” is an unsaturated market. There are fishes in the ocean but there’s no sharks and there’s enough food for everyone. But when more fish enter the ocean, the sharks come, and it starts becoming bloody, forming a “red ocean”. The market is now saturated.

What do you do? People have to create, and enter the submarkets.

But as you’ve probably guessed it, the submarkets that are “red oceans” splinter into niches.

How do you dominate the market then? In the book, Play Bigger, the authors observed a “category king” in every market. They suck up 80% of the profits and leave the remaining 20-30% for every other player to fight over. The question we should always ask ourselves is this: “what category can you create and become the category king?”

One way is in market selection and positioning. Now I’m going to reveal 4 concepts that will help you with finding your own category.

The market is a location, not a person.
Fishing strategically in red oceans.
Competitive or Complementary
Do a ton of research

If you remember nothing from this episode, remember this quote from Joe Polish: “there’s no relationship between being good and getting paid. However, there’s a huge relationship between being good at marketing and getting paid.”

So that’s it for Secret #3: The Three Core Markets or Desires. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the Expert Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com?cf_affiliate_id=3063032&affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #2: Teaching Your Frameworks

How do you know you’re an undervalued expert? It’s easy. You ever get the feeling when you explain a topic you’re really passionate about and you’ve immersed yourself in it for years, your audience just doesn’t get you? Like explaining why Michael Jordan is the GOAT of basketball, period. Like explaining how Salvatore Dali changed the world forever. Like explaining why Dota 2 is such a great game.

Today, I’m going to reveal 3 things:

I’m going to show you how to get people to pay attention and appreciate your expertise
I’m also going to show you how to make it possible for your audience to not only understand, but memorize large chunks of your presentation.
Finally, I will show you how to persuade people that what you’re saying actually works.

So that at the end of the day, you can transition from an undervalued expert, to a highly paid expert.

The way your audience can “follow” you is if you give them a map. Russell likes to call them Frameworks. There are 5 steps to teaching these frameworks.

In Step 0, or the Introduction, you Introduce the Framework. You give your map a name.

For example, “This is my Hook, Story, Offer Framework” or “This is my Funnel Formula Framework”.

Then, you describe the framework in terms of the number of steps and the results it will give, like “My [insert number]-step framework for [insert result]”

Then, put it together. When I talk about my Funnel Formula Framework, I’ll say “This is my 5 step framework to crush the competition in selling any product online”

In Step 1, you share how you earned it or learned it. The biggest mistake most experts make is to give their audience their most precious knowledge without letting them know the context as to how you got it in the first place.

In Step 2, you share the strategy. This is the “what” of your framework. I’m going to go ahead and bring in Step 3, where you share the tactics. This is the “how” of your framework.

In Step 4, you show that it works for others. This is to overcome objections like “but it won’t work for me”. The more testimonials you gather and the more varied they are, the stronger your case.

So that’s it for Secret #2: Teaching Your Frameworks. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the Expert Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com?cf_affiliate_id=3063032&affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #1: Finding Your Voice

Why do so many people go to Starbucks? Do they make the best $7 coffee?

Why do so many people buy Apple products? Do they make the best $1000 smartphone, $200 bluetooth earphones, or $700 smartwatch?

Why are so many people crazy about Tesla cars? Do they make the best $50,000 electric car?

The answer is no, but yet people are still crazy over these brands. What is the common denominator, and more importantly — what is the secret?

One way to answer this is a quote from Howard Schultz, CEO and founder of Starbucks, who said, “We are not in the coffee business serving people, but in the people business serving coffee.”

At the end of these 19 episodes, if I do my episodes right, you’ll no longer look at your business as a product, service, or even an offer. Instead, you’ll look at it as a movement of people you’ve been called to serve.

[insert How to build a following by become an Expert]

So that’s it for Secret #1: Finding Your Voice. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the Expert Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com?cf_affiliate_id=3063032&affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Disclaimer: The contents of the book DotCom Secrets, which is referenced to in this podcast, is owned by Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels LLC. You can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below.

Secret #28: Funnel Audibles

So let’s say you launched your first funnel and it’s not working — what do you do next? Should you change the ad copy? Should you change your price? Should you change your ad? What exactly should you do?

Russell calls the solution framework Funnel Audibles. Now, I’m not exactly sure how Russell and his team came up with the term “audibles”, or what it is referring to, but my first impression was Russell on his Voxer sending voice messages to his Inner Circle coaching group on feedback on their new funnels.

The thing is, even a marketing titan like Russell Brunson doesn’t make a funnel go to the moon on first try. It takes multiple iterations, buying data, analyzing where the funnel “holes” are. This applies in my experience as well. It might take 10 tries, but once you hit a winning funnel or a winning product, it can generate more revenue than the 10 previous funnels in a day.

[insert Audibles]

To recap:

Figure out exactly who your Dream Customer is
Where are your DC’s already congregating?
What hooks can you throw out that will reel in your DC’s? What stories can you tell that will increase the perceived value of your offer?
After getting their attention, how can you build a relationship with them using your Attractive Character so that you can ascend them up your value ladder and serve them at the highest level?
Pick a spot in your value ladder to serve your DC’s and select which funnel type to create
After you have the funnel structure built, plug in your videos, headline, and scripts into the pages
Launch your funnel with the same amount of money it would take to acquire one customer.
Do A/B testing to push for more profitability
Keep creating new ads
After your first funnel hits a million dollars in revenue, work on the next funnel in your value ladder. Email your existing customers about this next funnel and include this as your funnel stack on top of your first funnel
Repeat steps 6,7,8 until it makes another million dollars.
Pick another funnel in your value ladder to create

In this trilogy,

Book 1, DotCom Secrets, is the framework. It was written to help you with the science of funnel building.

Book 2, Expert Secrets, is the fire. It was written to help you master the art of sales and persuasion tactics you will need to change the lives of the customers you’ve been called to serve.

Book 3, Traffic Secrets, is the fuel. It was written to help you fill your funnels with traffic.

In our next episode, we will begin Book 2, Expert Secrets. If you’ve enjoyed the journey so far, get ready to unlock the expert within you over the next 19 days.

So that’s it for Secret #28: Funnel Audibles. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #27: Funnel Stacking

[insert millennial story]

This episode is very much about what to do after you get your fundamentals right. After you’ve found your winning funnel, don’t just stay there, expand your value ladder sideways. This can be done by adding a link to your next funnel right at the very end of your current winning funnel.

Let’s say you’re selling a $67 program with a challenge funnel, then think of ways to upsell your audience with a $197 course through a webinar funnel. Have that link to the webinar funnel be right at the end of your challenge funnel. Also, if you set up a Survey Funnel, you can link the qualified candidates to your challenge funnel by placing that link at the end of your Survey Funnel.

Can you see how this will explode your business if executed well? Now, you’re not just selling 1 item. You have multiple offers but instead of putting it on a website, or a store, you can organize them such that only the most qualified candidates will take up the next offer as they ascend your value ladder.

Let’s stretch that example further. At the end of your $197 course, you place a link to the Application Funnel for your $5000 high-ticket coaching program.

Think of how much money this funnel can generate potentially. If you only had your $67 program, you can only make $67 per customer. But with this complete funnel, not only can you potentially make $5264, and more with your order bumps you can add so many more people into your email list with your front-end survey funnel.

Of course, there will be people who tell me “But Tyler, do I really have to do this? Will customers really spend that much on me?” My initial reaction is “if you don’t love money, you don’t have to do this. You really have to hate and reject money in order to say no to such an amazing strategy.” But in all seriousness. Give people the ability to spend. At least give them an option to. Some will come in, take your survey, and then nothing happens for 3-4 years. But suddenly, they are in pain, and they are looking for someone to fix their problem. And because you’ve kept the emails coming, they remember you as the expert. They come into your funnel again and buy buy buy. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people that come in and spend $6000 with you within a week. Now you are more profitable, which means you can spend more to acquire the same customer compared to your competitors, which means you can scale faster and more aggressively in today’s landscape.

So, always think of how you can serve your customers at a higher level. Build out your value ladder for them, and stack those funnels together.

So that’s it for Secret #27: Funnel Stacking. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #26: ClickFunnels

That’s right! This episode will be what ClickFunnels is about. I can’t show you what it’s like in audio form, so this is what you need to know.

First, there’s a 14-day free trial. I’ve used 3 different emails to sign up for ClickFunnels, and was only charged once before I was ready to commit. I asked for a refund, and their support team gave a no-questions-asked full refund. So you really have nothing to lose by trying.

Second, they have an extensive library of templates. My estimate is that they have at least 200 templates. This means that you can take a few hours to browse their library, and when you’ve decided which template looks good for you, just click “Use Template”, and the template will be copied to the funnel you’re creating. And if you need any help, their Help section is super comprehensive, with YouTube videos attached to most of their pages. If all else fails, just do a search on YouTube. Many other content creators upload videos on how to use ClickFunnels as well.

Thirdly, the entire platform is a complete marketing platform, with its own A/B testing and email autoresponder. If one of your webpage has a green banner, but you’d like to find out if blue works better, the best way to find out is to do an A/B test. What we mean by A/B testing is splitting the traffic into 2 groups, sending one group to your green version, and another group to your blue version. Then, going by the stats of the funnel after a statistically significant number of visitors, say 1k, you determine which is better going by what you’re trying to achieve with that funnel page. If your objective is to get sales, you see which version generated more sales. If your objective is to get your visitor to click to the next step, you measure the click through rate.

There’s so much more that can be shared with CF but the best way is to experience it yourself. So click the link below to get your 14-day FREE trial of CF.

Before I conclude this episode, here’s a bonus: I’d like to continue my thoughts on my previous episode opening about success, and that Tibetan quote.

[insert bonus content]

So that’s it for Secret #26: ClickFunnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #25: “Setter” and “Closer” Scripts

When I first bought my accident insurance, I remember meeting my insurance agent, Samuel, at Starbucks and was soon joined by his colleague. When I bought my hospitalization insurance, it was just Edmund explaining the terms and premium amounts to me.

If you’ve been to direct selling or affiliate marketing presentations, or if your insurance agent is looking to sell you a new policy, you might have been at a setting where you’re facing 2 salespeople, instead of just 1. I realized Samuel and his colleague closed me faster than Edmund did, because they followed a variation of the “Setter” and “Closer” script, which I’m about to share with you now.

The thing is, your time is limited. So it makes more sense to hire the right people to close for you. It’s killing 2 birds with 1 stone: first, you save time so you can focus on creating more revenue for the company, and second, you increase the company’s closing rate.

Let’s look at the Setter’s script.

There’s no hard-and-fast rules about this, but the main idea is to open the conversation naturally and pull out any emotions related to the topic you’re discussing. The Setter must find out where the prospect is right now and how he/she feels about where they are.

Your questions should be centered around finding out the “what” is it that the prospects want to achieve. What are their hopes and dreams? Then find out the “why”. Ask additional questions to extract the emotions out of the conversation. Does the prospect have kids? If yes, how old, and how many? Is there a school or college your prospect wants to send them to? Help your prospect paint a picture of the feelings behind their dreams.

The setter ideally can get all the information within 5 minutes. Once your setter has a good idea of the emotions behind the decision, he or she can press on with “What’s holding you back? Why haven’t you achieved your dreams already?”

Expect some version of “I don’t know how”. The prospect doesn’t know how to build an online business. They may not have the money but have the time. The prospect needs to admit they don’t know what they are doing in some way, shape, or form. Once the prospect realizes it’s simply a lack of knowledge that is preventing them from success, and that you can provide them with that knowledge, the setter should ask “If you had an exact 30-day blueprint to build your online business, would you do it?”

Then, the setter should give the prospect a taste of what’s to come.

[check podcast for complete content]

So that’s it for Secret #25: “Setter” and “Closer” Scripts. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #24: “Four-Question Close” Script

Once you’re on the phone, most people will want to small talk. But the more you join in the fun, the less valuable your time and hence you lower the perceived value of your products and services. So, you want to set the tone right from the start by saying:

“Hey this is Tyler, and I’m excited to be on the call with you. So here’s how these calls work: I’m going to ask you 4 questions. Depending on how you answer them and how well we get along, we’ll decide whether to move forward. Sound fair enough?”

“Imagine you and I were to start working together today. I teach you everything I know and do everything I can to help you get results. Now imagine we’re sitting in a coffee shop a year from now. What would’ve happened in your life, both personally and professionally for you to feel happy with your progress? What would make you believe that this was the best decision you ever made?”

You are fishing for internal and external goals here. If they don’t have clarity over their goals, there’s no way you can help them.

For question 2, you say:

“Ok, clearly you know what you want. You’ve painted a really great picture for me. So let me ask you this: why don’t you have it yet? What’s been standing in your way or holding you back?”

Here you are fishing for their obstacles and objections. You want to find out the reason why they haven’t got what they wanted.

For question 3, ask:

“What resources, talent, connections, or skills do you have that you’re currently not using to the fullest potential that we could use to overcome your obstacles and achieve your goals?”

When they finally run out of ideas, say:

“Ok, so let’s recap:

it looks like you know exactly what you want you told me you want [insert goal] because [insert desire]
you haven’t been able to achieve that for primarily because of [insert obstacles] and [insert objections]. right?
and lastly, it looks like you have all these resources you could leverage that you’re not leveraging them yet, right?

Then ask:

“How much more money do you think you’d make if you were able to eliminate the obstacles and leverage those resources?”

Then transition to the final question:

“So I only have one more question: do you want me to help you achieve your goals?”

Stop talking here and wait for the “yes”. Then here’s the easiest part:

“Great! Here’s how it works: my fee is [insert price]. For that money, you get [insert deliverables]. I’m here to help you. I can transfer you over to my assistant to take care of the financial details right now. Would you like to do that?”

So that’s it for Secret #24: “Four-Question Close” Script. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #23: “Product Launch” Script

If you remember the Product Launch funnels we covered in Secret #16, you would see how it all fits together as a sideway sales letter. The way this is structured is so elegant: it has 4 videos, and inside each video, we have 4 sections. If you know me, you know I love symmetrical structures. I absolutely love it when things come together. So, this is one of my favourite frameworks to present.

Video #1 is called “Wow + How”, and your 4 steps are:

Introduce the New Opportunity
Kill False Beliefs
Let’s Look at Others
Hook to Video #2

Video #2 is called “Transformational education”, and your 4 steps are:

Over the shoulder
Your framework
Framework proof
Hook to Video #3

Video #3 is called “External forces”, and your 4 steps are:

Future Pace
What roadblocks?
Hinting to the offer
Hook to Video #4

Video #4 is called “The Offer”, and your 4 steps are:

Here’s what I’ve got
Here’s what you’ll do with it
Here’s what it’ll do for you!
Here’s what you need to do right now!

So that’s it for Secret #23: “Product Launch” Script. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #22: “Perfect Webinar” Script

Introduction

Big Promise: This is the “ruler” which your prospects will measure you by. If your promise isn’t big enough, or not exactly new, they won’t be interested.
Hook to end: Give your prospects a reason to stick to the end.
Command attention: Get rid of unnecessary distractions.
Qualify yourself: Establish yourself as an expert.
Future-pacing: Paint the picture of how amazing life can be, by implementing your strategy

Content: 6. The One Thing: This is the key centerpiece that will topple the dominos. This will be further explained in Book 2, Expert Secrets. 7. Three Secrets:

Secret #1: False belief about the vehicle

Secret #2: False internal belief

Secret #3: False external belief

Stack & Close: 8. Let me ask you a question: Hardest part of the webinar to transition. Disarm with “let me ask you a question”. 9. If all: Justify the value of your offer with “if all” statements 10. Reveal the real price: real price should be much lower than the stack 11. CTA: Tell them exactly what to do to get your product. 12. Post-selling: make your prospects feel like they might be left behind if they don’t take action immediately 13. Takeaway selling: explain that it doesn’t matter to you whether they order or not, because it will be business-as-usual for you 14. Close with reminder: summarise your offer.

So that’s it for Secret #22: “Perfect Webinar” Script. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #21: “OTO” Script

Depending on which part of the world you come from, if that person is someone you aren’t very close with, usually when you that person’s room, like either an office or hotel room, you’ll knock ask, “is it a good time to talk?” But if that person was your family or your spouse, you’ll just go in and say your mind.

Imagine treating the people that already bought from you like they were complete strangers by applying the WWWH Script or SSS Script. It’s just like asking your wife “can I stay in this room for a while?” It’s completely crazy, I know! What you need is to use a shorter script that’s designed for customers that actually trust you. This script is called the OTO script.

If you haven’t already listened to my SSS Script in Episode 46, pause the audio right now and go back to understand what I’m about to present.

Confirm initial decision
Smart —> why
Question (next or more)
Exclusive
Results, Fast, Speed
The One Thing
Future-pacing
CTA
Guarantee
Value stacking
Scarcity
Second CTA
Testimonial rush

So that’s it for Secret #21: “OTO” Script. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #20: “Star, Story, Solution” Script

Today I’m going to give you the script that made Vince James $100 million in 23 months selling supplements. You might know him as the author of the book, The 12-month millionaire. Of course, I’m not going to give you the exact script, I’m going to give you the framework of the script.

We start off by introducing the “Star”, or your Attractive Character.

Hook
Core-desire questions
Agitate past failures
The One Thing

Now, we enter the “Story” section. 5. High drama 6. Backstory (wall) 7. Identify the problem 8. Epiphany 9. Your path to the ultimate solution 10. First sign of success 11. Conspiracy 12. The big lie 13. Common enemy 14. Rapid growth 15. Case studies 16. Hidden benefits

Now that you’re done with the Story, introduce the Solution. 17. Formal introduction 18. Pain and cost 19. Ease 20. Speed 21. “So you can” benefits 22. Social proof 23. Make the offer and build value 24. Price anchor 25. “If all” Emotional Close 26. Reveal the price 27. Guarantee 28. Inject urgency and scarcity 29. Future pacing 30. Call to action 31. Post-selling 32. Takeaway selling 33. Close with reminder

So that’s it for Secret #20: “Star, Story, Solution” Script. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #19: “Who-What-Why-How” Script

I’m going to make this the most value-packed episode ever. Ready?

[insert shaver script]

This is called the “Who-What-Why-How” Script.

You start with “Who” - you introduce your name and who you are

Then you say “What” - what offer do you have for your audience

Follow up with “Why” - why they need what you have. You can follow the PAS formula. Problem, Agitate, and Solve.

And finish with “How” - how can they get what you have and what do they have to do to get it.

While the above forms the meat of the script, you can finish off with 3 more sections:

The first is the catch: if something sounds too good to be true, you have to let your audience know if it is. If it is simply an amazing offer, just let them know that there’s no catch!

Next, is urgency and scarcity: include the real elements of urgency and scarcity into your offer to get people to take action.

Then, give a guarantee: reverse any risk in ordering the product.

Finally, remind them of what they’re getting and why.

This is the script that works in literally a million scenarios. You can sell almost anything with this script.

Let’s say I’m a tennis coach. I’ve never played tennis before but I’ll apply the “Who-What-Why-How” Script and let’s see what happens.

[insert tennis script]

So that’s it for Secret #19: “Who-What-Why-How” Script. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #18: “Curiosity-Based Headline” Scripts

How would you like to have your sales team work 24/7, 365 days a year for you, without asking for breaks or a pay raise, and yet guarantee the same exact delivery of the presentation you set 100% of the time? Sounds too good to be true? Not in this day and age. The fact is, ClickFunnels, Shopify, WooCommerce, and many other platforms that make online sales possible are your team of salespeople. Your conversion rate might be lower compared to a real estate or insurance agent, but the revenue you will make will be many times more just because everything is automated.

[insert Jim's story]

So now you should be wondering how to craft great headlines. Because this is episode is so short, I’ll just summarise my top 3 tips.

Tip #1: Your headline is the conversation starter. Don’t aim to sell with your headline.

What people mean by “sales-y” is when you start by saying “Hey, buy this product! It’s really great for you! We are having an offer now!” Don’t do that. Think of your headline as the first words you say when you meet someone. If that person is new, you have to start a conversation, give a reason to, or set the context.

Tip #2: Model your headlines from tried-and-tested sources

If you’ve spent money on some product or service, especially if its from clicking on an ad on FB or YouTube, copy the headline, and change it to suit your needs. For example, I probably spent $2000 on Tai Lopez’s courses. In one of his emails, it said “Your $9903 discount is about to expire soon”. How I used it was to put it into my email marketing, “Your 50% discount is about to expire soon”. Once I plugged it in, it recovered sales on the first day. There’s no need to guess.

Tip #3: Use Scripts Instead

After years of testing, failing multiple times, there are a few tried-and-tested formulas for headlines, and sales copy in general. We call them Scripts. There are over 100 scripts that can generate headlines and ad copies for everything: selling on Amazon, Video Sales Letters, E-commerce, Coaching, and so on. If you want to gain an unfair advantage over other marketers, join me at FunnelScripts.com and get your free trial today.

So that’s it for Secret #44: “Curiosity-Based Headline” Scripts. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #17: Application Funnels

If you’ve stuck with us since Secret #7, congrats! This will be the last funnel type, called Application Funnels. This is reserved for the highest level program you have to offer, like a mastermind, private group or coaching in some way, shape, or form. This funnel will break past the single most limiting factor of all previous funnels: the environment. How so? Note that no matter how persuasive or attractive your ad copy or VSL, your customer can always choose to pause the video, get a push notification from some other app, or their kids might be crying in the background and they need to go over to tend to them. The aim of application funnels is to get your customer to be on the phone. As simple as it sounds, when your customer is on the phone, you have more control over what happens during the sale than all other funnel types.

[insert Russell's "raising the dead company" story]

Page 1 is your “Success Story” or “Free case study” landing page. Show them the big picture of what could happen to them if they signed up. Or, this is where you show one of your successful customers as a case study. At the bottom of the page, have a form where you can collect their email address.

Page 2 is your “Application page”. Since you’ve collected their email address, you’ll be able to follow-up with them until they’ve completed the application on this page. This is where you have another video showcasing what Russell calls a “testimonial rush”. Flood the entire video with testimonial after testimonial of all your successful customers. The key difference in this page from all the other funnels is that it’s a “takeaway” sale: instead of you selling to them, they have to sell to you why you should work with them.

Page 3 is your “Homework Page”. On this page, have one final video showing 3 things: first, your story that helps build connection with your Attractive Character. Second, tell them what to expect and give them homework to do. Third, get them to initiate a phone call. Russell found that the group of applicants who initiate the call generate 4 times the revenue compared to those who don’t. The advantage here is two-fold: instead of spending $1 million each month on 60 salespeople, Russell managed to generate 10 times more gross revenue with just 2 people. This is the power of qualifying leads, flipping the selling direction, and positioning. This is the power of Application Funnels.

So that’s it for Secret #43: Application Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #16: Product Launch Funnels

Every now and then, we get a front-row seat to see how Hollywood do a movie launch. They start by whetting our appetite with a trailer, where they reveal enough to make us curious, but not so much that we understand the entire plot. At the end of the trailer, they drop the date. If you’re really excited about the movie but it’s only coming out next year, you’ll probably go “I can’t wait to see this!”, or if it’s something you’re not interested in, you’ll go “meh, not for me.”

Then, as the movie draws nearer, the frequency of the ads increases, and it starts showing up on YouTube, TV commercials and billboards. People start buying tickets. Then the stars go on morning talkshows, the late-night talkshows, the press conferences — all to build up hype about the movie. This causes even more people to buy tickets. And finally, on the opening night, if the hype is real, word-of-mouth will continue to spread about the movie. This causes weekend sales to go up. On Monday, if the sales numbers are good, people usually keep buying tickets for months to come.

Whenever your business launches a new product, don’t you want to be able to build up as much buzz as Hollywood does? The good news is that you don’t need a huge marketing budget, all you need is a ClickFunnels account, and follow the Product Launch Funnel format.

On Page 1, you offer a free online workshop. This is very much like the lead funnels you learnt in Episode 34, Secret #8. Instead of the lead magnet being a PDF or a book, this time it’s your free workshop.

On Page 2, this is your “Wow and How” video page. Basically, you will “wow” them with an amazing idea, and then you will show them “how” others and yourself have been doing it using this concept. Don’t worry, we will cover the content here in depth in Book 2 Expert Secrets.

Page 3 is your “Transformational education” video page. You will let people watch you doing the actual “how” described in Page 2.

Page 4 is your “External forces” video page. It is an objection-rejection page. This is where you break external limiting beliefs, and deal with all the external roadblocks that will keep your audience from achieving success.

Page 5 is your offer page and order form. After the video from Page 4 has been released, you can release the 4th video where you make the offer. You’ll send them an email with a link to a simple page with you in the video making the offer and the order form below. As with all previous funnels, always include order bumps and upsells that will help get our customers to a higher lever of success.

So that’s it for Secret #42: Product Launch Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #15: Webinar Funnels

If you’ve attended webinars before, you would have noticed the real pros have already prerecorded their presentation. Their webinars may be closing offers in the $1000-4000 range, and it’s happening like clockwork. Just imagine if this was done manually - no salesman can ever keep up in the long run.

Learning how to sell online is probably one of the greatest skillsets anyone can have in today’s world to be financially confident. In Secret #22, which will be live exactly 1 week from now, I will share with you what Russell calls “The Perfect Webinar” script.

But for now, let’s get into the technical details of a Webinar Funnel.

On Page 1, this is your registration page. If your YouTube ad has done most of the heavy lifting, you don’t actually need a fancy video reiterating your message. All you need is the form for your audience to enter their name and email. If you haven’t you’ll need a really attractive headline that inspires curiosity, something that raises a lot of questions but gives no answers. Something like “How to make $15,783 per day passively while travelling the world”. If you want to nurture and build up suspense for your audience, you can send them to a Soap Opera follow-up sequence. If not, make sure the 1-2 emails you send them before the webinar is sufficient to warm them up.

Page 2 is your thank you page. This is where you thank your audience for signing up, and then tell them what to do next. You can say that since this is a live event, it’s best to bring a pen and paper, block out your calendar for the event, and turn off your phone notifications.

Page 3 is your webinar room. This is where you’ll present your offer to your audience. It usually is about 45 mins to 2.5 hrs in length. At the end of the webinar, you should have an order button which takes them to the next page

Page 4 is your order form page. Summarise what they’re going to get if they make the purchase today. This is also where you can include upsells, and links to your other funnels as well.

Page 5 will be your replay page. Regardless of how hungry your audience is for your offer, there will always be a percentage of people who don’t show up. Usually that number is 80%. To get them back and view the presentation, send an email saying that there’s a 48- or 72-hour time limit on the replay page. The element of urgency will get your audience to come back and view your presentation.

So that’s it for Secret #41: Webinar Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #14: Video Sales Letter Funnels

I remember back in 2017 when I was scrolling through YouTube and saw an ad by Tai Lopez. I really like his offer, which is about changing our habits to succeed in the “4 pillars of life” - Love, Health, Wealth, and Happiness. This ad was set in his garage, or library, with his house in Beverly Hills. He talked about how the habits he cultivated made him successful - which was getting a home in the Hills and multiple sport cars. Eventually I clicked. I remember I landed on a page with just a video presentation, with him speaking about how he’s going to change my life through the 300+ habits and concepts he’s summarised in 67 days. This program is called The 67 Steps. When he finished presenting his points and asked for the order, the “Add The 67 Steps” button appeared magically! With that, I was pretty convinced, so I bought his program, including his upsell for a lightweight version of MBA.

From then on, I remember buying more courses from Tai, along with others such as Dean Graziosi, and eventually, dropshipping courses. Usually, the purchase isn’t straight-forward, neither is it low-ticket. It usually is around $100, usually less, but the upsells start from $197 and above. All in all, I probably spent at least $5000 buying all these courses from 2017 to 2020.

So, if you’re an expert and you can provide great value to your audience, this is the funnel you can sell to your audience. It’s called a Video Sales Letter Funnel. The funnel structure is very simple, it’s just 3 pages:

On page 1, you have your sales page. You place the video on top, a 2x2 matrix in the middle summarises the 3 main features, and the 4th box is the call to action. The bottom of the page is your Order button.

Page 2 is your upsell page. This is where you sell your higher ticket products. This can also be a bundle, a subscription, or whichever product your dream customer needs in his/her journey.

Page 3 is the thank you page, where it contains instructions to your other funnels up the value ladder.

The main chunk of the work is in the Video Sales Letter, where we will cover the step-by-step scripting in Book 2, Expert Secrets. If you don’t want to wait, you can get a FREE copy of the book with the link below!

So that’s it for Secret #40: Video Sales Letter Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com/expert-secretsr81amw6a?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #13: Challenge Funnels

If you’re dying to completely change one area of your life — be it your health, wealth, or relationships — you’d wish someone would hold your hand and guide you through the process, right? You know you can’t read a couple of books and expect the problem would go away, and signing up with expensive mentors usually isn’t the best thing to do when starting out.

For me, when I was starting my e-commerce business, I bought courses and paid for mentorships to make sure I was going down the right path. While the content was helpful, the tasks weren’t necessarily arranged in a sequence — well, it’s just a course, right? What I needed then is a process. I want my coach to post videos day by day, and I would just do the homework for that day. This format is called a Challenge.

Firstly, we need to design the challenge well. Anything shorter than 14 days doesn’t build enough trust with your tribe. Anything longer than 30 days will cause people to lose interest.

Next, decide where to host your challenge. Usually, we can host it in a private Facebook group, since usually the members that signed up for your challenge have an account anyway, and you can archive the group when you’re done, and open another group for the next challenge.

Third, decide your medium to deliver the content. We usually find live video to be the best, because it has a sense of urgency for people to tune in at a designated time. This encourages people to show up, and their commitment to the day’s task becomes higher.

Lastly, at the end of your challenge, this is your chance to move your customers up the value ladder. Usually, it can be priced around $997, depending on what you’re offering.

On page 1, you need to clearly tell your audience that you’ll get X result in Y days. The result must be simple and believable. Show that you’ve done it before to establish credibility. The process must be clear. Paint a picture of your participants after the challenge where they accomplish the result. Where possible, feature their video testimonials, get them to talk about how they feel, what they accomplished, and exactly what problem or pain went away.

Lastly, your sales page needs to include your order bump. Your order bump should enhance your participants’ experience of the challenge. This can be audiobooks, additional assets or printouts.

On pages 2 and 3, this is where you upsell your customers. The best upsells are the ones that our customers believe will help them to complete the challenge. This can be accountability coaches, journals, or workbooks.

The last page is your thank you page, where you’ll summarise their purchase, and tell them exactly what to do next to access the members’ area.

So that’s it for Secret #13: Challenge Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #12: Cart Funnels

If you’ve ever landed on the home page of a traditional e-commerce store, you may be overwhelmed by the range of choices you could make. It’s no wonder most e-commerce stores have conversion rates of around 1%. As Russell would always say, “a confused mind always says no”.

How is our approach different? We will use a very similar template to Book Funnels which was featured in last episode, make some tweaks, and it’s now called Cart Funnels. We will take the best seller, usually the lowest ticket item, and place it at the front page.

Again, begin with an attention-grabbing headline, using either the offer, or an element of intrigue. Then, on the left half of the page, you place your explainer video, and on the right hand side of the page, you have the same 2-step order form. The only difference with the Book Funnels is that you can have multiple options using what is called a Product Selector. For example, if you have 5 types of quantities available, like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 units you can make the centre option the best, which is in quantities of 3. In ClickFunnels, this is where you can make it pop out.

Again, the bottom portion of the order form will contain your order bump. This is where you can open up options for expedited shipping, gift wrap, extended warranty, or any complimentary products to go along with it.

On page 2, unlike in Book funnels, where you never sell the same product in the OTO, you CAN sell the same product again. In fact, you’re encouraged to. This time, you don’t have to have another explainer video, since it’s the same product. You can have 1, 2, or 3 bundling options. But remember to have a “no” option that emphasises the huge offer that they would lose out on, like “No, I don’t want to save an extra $39.97 on 3 extra boxes of product XYZ. I understand that I will never see this deal again, and if I want to purchase more boxes, I will pay an extra $39.97 at full price.”

On pages 3 onwards, you can have as many upsells as long as it’s logical to the customer. If I were buying Christmas lights, will I also want a cool Santa windshield wiper? Will I also want some Christmas themed projector lights? As long as customers are happy buying your upsells, you don’t have to stick to the rule of 2 upsells per funnel.

The last page is your thank-you page, or offer wall. This is where you thank them for their purchase and let them know what to expect next. The next section of your page is to direct them to other funnels. Place products here that are not inside the funnel, but have some chance that your customers will want to buy. This will increase your sales from your hyperactive buyers.

So that’s it for Secret #12: Cart Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #11: Book Funnels

If you compare today’s McDonalds burgers with the ones from 10 years ago, did you notice they’ve shrunk? Like Big Mac was really big. Either that or I’ve grown so much in size. When I was younger, I actually ate it like 2 cheeseburgers: the first cheeseburger is the top bun, top patty, middle bun. And the second cheeseburger is kinda incomplete, it was the bottom patty with the bottom bun (I’m not sure where exactly the cheese are but that’s not my point). My point of telling you this is, I’m reluctant to swallow a Big Mac if I can’t bite the whole bun top to bottom. It’s easier to eat something big if I break it down.

What’s my point? If you are an expert in a particular field, and put all your knowledge into one ultimate course, you’d have to price it above couple of thousand bucks. If you go to 10k random people on the street and ask if they would pay for your $10k course, maybe one person would say yes.

But, if you break your course down into a couple of offers, some of them will sell really well to this same group of strangers. These are usually the no-brainer low-ticket offers. And if you continue delivering value to these buyers, eventually they’ll buy something slightly more expensive from you, and eventually you’ll have more people that would have paid the complete $10k at the end. You’ll probably have 10 people out of this 10k strangers instead of just 1.

Today, we’ll talk about a funnel that’s aimed at selling a no-brainer, low-ticket offer. This is called a Book Funnel. Usually, you’ll sell a free book through this funnel, provided your audience covers for shipping. You don’t always have to sell a book with a Book Funnel, you can also sell Swipe Files, Templates, and anything that is low-ticket to your market.

The first page is the sales page. On the left side of the page, you tell your story through a video and make the offer for the product. On the right-hand side of the page, you have the 2-step order form. The first step of the order form allows your customer to enter his email and shipping address. As soon as he clicks submit, the second step will appear, asking for credit card information.

After someone purchases from you, they’ll be taken to page 2, the upsell page. Now, for e-commerce, usually we just sell more of the same thing. But for info products, don’t do that, because if I want six pack abs, and I bought the workout plan, that itch has been scratched. You have to think in your customer’s shoes: what do I need next? Every problem creates a solution and every solution creates a problem. What further problems will your customer encounter?

Lastly, your customers will land on your thank you page. This is where you congratulate them on getting that amazing offer you have. Also, this is a chance to invite them into your next funnel up the value ladder.

So that’s it for Secret #11: Book Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #10: Summit Funnels

If you lost your job, and had to build back your income in 30 days, what would you do?

No email list.

No authority.

No credibility.

No testimonials.

No profit reports.

If you were like Russell and many other internet marketers, you’ll organise in a virtual summit. A virtual summit is a free online conference, when organised and executed correctly, can bring in tons of qualified leads by leveraging other speaker’s email lists and driving them to your funnels - all without spending a single dollar on ads!

First, a person who organises the summit, known as the host, invites a group of colleagues in their niche to be interviewed and make presentations. The ideal interviewee is a colleague in your niche who has their own email list of your ideal clients. A good-size summit has about 30 speakers.

Second, the host prerecords interviews with these guest speakers, which will be broadcast at a limited period of time later during the summit event.

Third, motivated by affiliate commissions and the prestige of being a featured speaker at the event, guest speakers promote the virtual summit in advance of the interviews being broadcast. If the summit is well-constructed, the host can collect email addresses of everyone who opts in to watch the free summit event, as well as sell products to the attendees.

There are 3 pages in a Summit Funnel.

The first page is the registration page. The aim is to get people to enter their email to watch the free summit. It should contain a good headline which intrigues your attendees. Below the headline, is your presentation video explaining who you are, what are you offering, why they should attend, and how do you attend. The registration page should contain further details about the summit, like date and times, and content covered. More importantly, the faces of your speakers should be featured so that you’ll gain the trust of their subscribers.

The second page is the special offer page. This is to confirm that attendees have registered for the summit but will be given a special offer to get a lifetime, unlimited access to the summit recordings. This is very attractive, because the attendees doesn’t have to watch all the interviews at one go, but can watch and re-watch at their own pace.

The third page is the broadcast page. Regardless of how many people purchased the special offer, you still have to deliver the free event. On Day 1, attendees enter the summit page via a special email link. They get access to interviews on Day 1, but not Day 2 or 3. On Day 2, you remove the interviews from Day 1, and upload Day 2’s content in. The same goes for Day 3. Of course, at the bottom of every broadcast page, you should give the option for your attendees to purchase the lifetime access pass.

So that’s it for Secret #10: Summit Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #9: Survey Funnels

Don’t you just love it when your smartphone and devices gives you exactly what you want? With just a few taps, Google can give you answers to where the nearest Starbucks is; you can say “hey Alexa”, and order anything off Amazon; and with a few swipes and taps, you can launch apps to work, play, and relax all from the same device.

Because people get what they want from their devices, it’s very easy to build a relationship with it. You can do the same as well with Survey Funnels.

A Survey Funnel contains 3 pages. In the first page, you’ll display your survey. So depending on what you sell, you’ll want to ask questions relating to:

Self-identifying questions (Gender, age etc.)
Self-identifying questions based on subject (Do you want to start your online store? Do you have problems losing weight right now?)
Self-declare level of skill (How much money have you made with your business? How many weight-loss problems have you tried in the past?)
Self-declare biggest challenge with subject (I struggle with finding the right products to sell, I struggle with changing my diet for too long)
Educate and clarify (Those who tried drop shipping typically struggle with one of three problems. Tell me which problem is bothering you the most [list 3 choices]
Surprise/random curiosity-based question (Are you an early-riser or a night owl? Because that might affect your [insert result])

One of these questions will trigger the system to show the “correct result”. This is usually called the Bucket Question. This is the most relevant question and the one that counts. For example, in the Educate and Clarify question type, depending on which problem that my audience is bothered with, my results page will address and answer just that.

But before that, page 2 is usually a page with some animation to show that the page is “calculating” the results. This page isn’t necessary, but it usually increases conversions because it feels more realistic. Once the progress bar is finished, ask your audience for their email so that you can email them the results. If you have a Soap Opera Sequence, this is usually where you send them to. With that, they’ll be taken to page 3.

Page 3 is the results page. This will be dependent on the Bucket Question. It usually has an explainer video as the Story, the headline as the Hook, and an Offer below to take your audience up the next step in the value ladder. The more you customised each results page and follow-up funnel for each of your audience buckets, just like those smart devices, the better the answers, the higher your conversions will likely be.

So that’s it for Secret #9: Survey Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #8: Lead “Squeeze” Funnels

Secrets #1-7 are classified as Section 1 of the DotCom Secrets book, where we learnt how to use hooks, tell stories, and create offers. You understood how we ascend our dream customers up the value ladder and how we communicate with them through our Attractive Character. You’ve also learnt the 7 phases of a funnel and how to use follow-up funnels to move people up the value ladder. In Section 2, we’re going to dive deep into the tactics of the different kinds of funnels you can use to generate sales.

If you’re born around the 80s, you’ve probably visited websites with pop-up advertisements. They usually asked for your email in exchange for something free. Those were extremely annoying, but they were an easy way for internet marketers at the time to build email lists and make money. Soon, Internet Explorer and other browsers started making pop-up blockers.

Luckily, there were some brilliant marketers who thought, “what if we made the pop-up the landing page itself?” They soon found that if they had a good enough offer, more people were giving away their emails, even though much less people saw the actual website. The result was that people were able to make more money because of such a landing page.

These landing pages are called Lead Funnels. There are 3 types:

Lead “Squeeze” Funnel
Survey Funnel
Summit Funnel

In this episode, we will go through what a Lead “Squeeze” Funnel is.

In case you’re wondering, a Lead “Squeeze” Funnel is called that because they “squeeze” the email out of the people going through it. There are only 2 pages. For page 1, let’s break down the Hook, Story, and Offer:

You’ll need an amazing offer, usually called a “lead magnet”, because it attracts leads to it. It could be an ebook, a coupon, a video, a membership site, or anything you can imagine. What you create is usually less important than what people want at that stage of the funnel. The better the offer, the more people will sign up. And the better that offer delivers, the more people will remember you and open your emails.

With regards to the Hook, you just need a headline that inspires curiosity. Make your audience feel like they’ll lose out if they don’t give you their email in exchange for this lead magnet.

And as for the Story, keep it as a simple sub headline. If the Offer is already easy to understand, there’s no need for a sub-headline that describes the Story.

On Page 2, this is your thank you page. This is where you direct your customers to the next products up your value ladder. If this is your only funnel, that’s alright, just keep nurturing your customers with Soap Opera Sequences and create your products along the way.

So that’s it for Secret #8: Lead “Squeeze” Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #7: Follow-Up Funnels

In our last episode, we covered the 7 Phases of a Funnel. In the 3rd phase, we qualify subscribers, which means that the people that landed on your page gave you their email. Between the 4th to 6th phase, you nurture your subscribers and keep building relationships with your email list, so that they can ascend the value ladder. This chapter will show you how Russell Brunson and many other internet marketers have generated well over 6 figures a month just by doing 1 thing right. And that thing, is called follow-up funnels.

Imagine at every level of your value ladder, you have diagrams of your funnels. As soon as people give you their emails, you have an arrow pointing down to a sequence of emails. Let’s call these Soap Follow-up Funnels. At the end of the sequence of emails, a percentage of customers will ascend the value ladder and give you their email one more time. There is another arrow that takes them down to another sequence of Soap Follow-up Funnels. And a percentage of them will ascend the value ladder again.

From the top of the value ladder, imagine there is a sequence of emails raining down on your subscribers. These are called Seinfeld Messages. I understand if it’s hard to image the whole image, but you can get your free PDF doodles and diagrams at DotComSecrets.com/resources under “Additional Resources”. I am referring to Figure 7.2.

Before I explain what these email sequences do, let’s touch on the concept of traffic. We will dive deep in Book 3 of this series, but for today, let’s look at the 3 types of traffic.

Traffic that you control
Traffic that you earn
Traffic that you own

Five-email Soap Opera Sequence:

Email #1: Set the stage.

Email #2: Open with high drama.

Email #3: Open with your epiphany moment.

Email #4: Mention the Hidden Benefits.

Email #5: Urgency and a strong CTA.

The goal of Soap Opera Sequences is to push your customers into the next funnel. If this is your only funnel, we will push them into the Daily Seinfeld Email list.

If you’ve watched Seinfeld, it’s basically just a show about nothing, but they entertain millions while doing just that. That’s what you can do in your Daily Seinfeld emails as well. You don’t have to write essays; nobody has the time to read those nowadays. Generally, there are 3 types:

Episode Style
Epiphany Style
Educational Style

So that’s it for Secret #7: Follow-Up Funnels. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #6: Seven Phases of a Funnel

There are 7 phases of a sales funnel.

In Phase #1, we determine traffic temperature. Generally, traffic is classified into: cold, warm, and hot. Depending on who you talk to, you’ll get different definitions. In Russell’s book, hot traffic is made up of people that already know you exist. They know their problem, the solution, and that your product is the solution to their problem. Warm traffic is made up of people who don’t know you yet, but they are aware of potential solutions to their problem. Cold traffic consists of everyone else that has a problem, but aren’t aware the solution. In the immortal words of Eugene Schwartz:

“If your prospect is aware of your product and has realised it can satisfy his desire, your headline starts with the product.

If he is not aware of your product, but only of the desire itself, your headline starts with the desire.

If he is not yet aware of what he really seeks, but is concerned with the general problem, your headline starts with the problem and crystallises it into a specific need.”

For Phase #2, we need to set up the pre-frame bridge. Did you know that just by changing how an emcee introduces Russell, his closing rate can vary from 15% to 40%? First impressions really do count, which is why Russell never leaves the pre-framing to chance. He has a special video that he sends to the speaker’s emcee team to play it for the audience right before he appears on stage, and his closing rates have never fallen below 40% since.

For Phase #3, it’s time to qualify subscribers. The goal here is to find out who is willing to give you their email in exchange for some information. Usually this would be something like a free report.

In Phase #4, we qualify buyers. After we get their emails, we don’t have to wait a week. We qualify buyers right away. A buyer in motion will stay in motion. Once they gave you their email, you can send them to an order form to get something for extremely low ticket priced at $7-10. Those who buy are your most qualified customers and I would spend way more money marketing to them than anyone else.

Now we’re at Phase #5. We identify the hyperactive buyers. If you’ve set up your value ladder properly, your buyer will just keep buying. For example, if I’m selling a course, I would sell a 108 high-converting landing page templates for $7, then I would upsell with a 30-day One Store Away challenge for $297, then a 3-day seminar for $1997, then a 12-month coaching program for $5000, and finally, a joint-venture agreement for my most premium clients.

For Phase #6, this is where we continue to nurture the relationship with your customer using follow-up emails, so that they can keep ascending the value ladder.

Finally, we’re at Phase #7. This is where we change the selling environment. Typically, it’s difficult to sell a high-ticket product on a website. People don’t just take out their credit cards and make a $1000 purchase. This is when you have to get them on a phone call, a zoom call, or even a live event. When we change the environment, we can communicate at a higher level and serve our customers even better.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #5: Funnel Hacking

I’ll never forget the day when I was tuning in to the Pivot podcast, and I heard Scott Galloway, who was one co-hosting the podcast with Kara Swisher, said “The second mouse gets the cheese”. I don’t remember the exact content, but the context can be very much summarised in the quote “The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.” Scott Galloway and Kara Swisherwere discussing business news, the ups and downs, and this insight that being the market leader isn’t always advantageous. This is a huge insight and huge confirmation for me. It pretty much sums up the conclusions drawn based on my current experiences.

At that point in time, I was building my 7-figure online business, but things weren’t always so smooth sailing. My first 3 months of my e-commerce journey involved burning through all of my savings, and I was still breaking even, not making any profit. Then, I signed up for Alex Fedotoff’s course, who is one of my mentors now, and in his first 2 lessons, taught me this same concept: look for existing stores that were already selling what you’re trying to sell and model after them.

In contrast to that, I spent about 4 weeks designing a beauty brush store, sinking thousands of dollars into ads and video editing, with nothing to show for it. I was working really hard - why wasn’t I successful? Simple. Because I wasn’t modelling off the proven winners and leaders in the industry. Contrast that with how I built Bald Shaver, which is modelling off the biggest dog on the block, the difference in workflow was day and night.

Note that I said “modelling”. It’s not the same as copying. Copying can get you in legal trouble and potentially cost you your business, but modelling is fine. People do it all the time. If you’re trying to model after your competitor, here’s what you do:

If there’s a headline here, put a headline too
If there’s a photo of a person holding the product, take a photo of a person holding your product
If there’s a button here, place a button here too, and so on.

For people using ClickFunnels, Russell calls this process Funnel Hacking, and calls these people Funnel Hackers.

So, my question for you today is, who can you model after? Who are the biggest dogs on your block, and what aspects of their product/service can you model after?

that’s it for Secret #5: Funnel Hacking. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #4: The Attractive Character

“I can show you how to get more women to approach you. Notice how I didn’t say “you can pick up more women”. Big difference.” These were the words of John Alanis, one of the top relationship coaches of the time. “When I start working with a guy, the first thing I teach them is the concept called the ‘Attractive Character’. If you want to attract someone, you have to be attractive. and I’m not talking about your looks. I’m talking about your personality.”

To get more people attracted to you, or close more sales, we need to understand the concept of “The Attractive Character”. It’s really funny that the same person can attract totally different people just by showing different sides of his Attractive Character. When Russell learned about the Attractive Character, he started infusing his stories with his wrestling experiences, as he was a wrestler in school. He noticed that most of the people who signed up for his programs were male athletes. They would usually say “I played football in college”, or “I’m a lacrosse player”. The funny thing is, when Russell switched to his story about the pains and the struggles in trying to start a family, specifically because his wife was having trouble getting pregnant, the male athletes didn’t buy the programs. Russell shared their struggles and finally with the help of the right doctors, allowed them to have 5 healthy kids today. Guess who signed up? Wives and mothers, even whole families.

Let’s look at the Elements of the Attractive Character. There are 4 of them.

A backstory
Parables
Character flaws
Polarity

Let’s now look at the 4 Identities of the Attractive Character

The Leader
The Adventurer
The Reporter
The Reluctant Hero

Let’s continue with Storylines. There are 6 of them:

Loss and Redemption
Us vs Them
Before-and-after
Amazing discovery
Secret
Third-person testimonial

As mentioned, we will go into detail for every aspect of your Attractive Character in book 2, so don’t worry. Treat the ideas you have for your identity or brand today as a working draft. Anyway, we learnt that it’s better to be imperfect, so it’s completely okay where you are right now. To quote Ernest Hemingway: We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in.

So that’s it for Secret #4: The Attractive Character. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com/expert-secretsr81amw6a?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #3: The Value Ladder

Do you know of a friend who went to the dentist for free teeth cleaning but ended up buying whiteners and new retainers for over $2,000? In Singapore where I come from, most clubs charge for entry, but there’s a club called Get Juiced which has free entry but you have to pay for the drinks and food. If Get Juiced launched a members’ program - which is perfect because the world is slowly opening up now - where members get additional services like reserved tables, or valet services, or even drivers to drive you home after you’re completely wasted, that’s what Russell calls a Value Ladder.

Now, from this chapter onwards, it will be impossible to get the full benefit from just the audio. So get your free PDF doodles and diagrams at DotComSecrets.com/resources under “Additional Resources”.

What’s a value ladder? It has a Y-axis for Value and an X-axis for Price. It goes in a stair-stepper diagonally from the bottom left to the top right. For the dentist’s value ladder, imagine 4 steps: the lowest step is free teeth cleaning. The next step is whitening. Then, it’s retainers/Invisalign. At the highest level to the top right, it’s cosmetic surgery. To top it off, there’s a continuity program where clients are billed every 6 months but they get regular dental checkups at a discounted rate.

Every business will have a different value ladder. And of course, some will say, “I don’t need a value ladder, I’m doing just fine!” Actually, businesses who claim they don’t need a value ladder, and feel they’re “doing just fine” are selling just one portion of the ladder, usually the one in the middle, where margins are enough to cover for costs but the price is not too high for customers.

The more I look at business plans, the more I understand that what Russell said is right: if you don’t have a value ladder, you’re just selling a commodity ie you don’t actually have a business plan. Selling a commodity is a race to the bottom. If you have an offer, one where the value way exceeds the price, you actually get to charge more, and gain permission from your customers to sell them something up the ladder.

If you’re already selling a product or service, you’re usually got your middle sections of your value ladder covered.

Now let’s work our way up to the top of the ladder: what is the best way to serve your customer at the absolute highest level?

To help you build your value ladder, we need to use the Value Ladder Mission Statement (VLMS). It goes like this:

We help [insert dream customer] to achieve [insert dream outcome] through [insert new opportunity].

What’s your VLMS? Take a minute or two to brainstorm and write it down.

So that’s it for Secret #3: The Value Ladder. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Secret #2: Hook, Story, Offer.

Let me tell you a story about how Russell Brunson sold his $600 iPhone for more than $100,000 in 10 mins.

There are two ways to be the lowest priced product in your market. One is to decrease price, which eats into your margins. The other, is to increase the value, such that the price seems inexpensive compared to what your customer is paying for. Russell explains that he used the Hook, Story, Offer framework on his audience to sell his iPhone at $100,000. The hook is “in the next 10 mins, someone is willing to pay at least $100k for my phone”. Then, he told stories on how valuable all the assets in his phone are. Then, he made an offer, which is a live auction, starting at $600. And within mins, he was selling his $600 for way over $100k.

So, how can that work for you? Let’s work on things that are actionable.

Hook, Story, Offer. Let’s work backwards and start with the last section, Offer. Brainstorm with your team all the things that you can offer your customers to guarantee success. What are some of the things they wish they had with you? For example, with my shaver store, we are selling extended warranties, replacement heads, and more accessories to guarantee the ultimate shaving experience. If you’re a coach, can you include PDFs of swipe files, templates, and other assets in your offer? The bigger the difference between the value and the price, the easier it is to make the sale.

Now let’s look at Story. What stories can you tell that present the value of your offer stack in the best way possible? Continuing with the coaching example, can you tell stories of how your swipe files helped your clients 10x their revenue? List down and generate all the stories you can, and be actively looking out for new stories to tell.

And finally, let’s look at Hook. A Hook is what stops people from scrolling through their phones. If you’ve listened to the previous episode and understood the concept of the dream customer, then you’ll know what will hook your customers. What kind of headlines will they respond to? What video footage can you put in the first 2 seconds to get your customers to stop and click on your ad? I was once scrolling on IG, when I saw a person sawing a phone on his balcony. I was like “OMG. What?” Turns out, it was an ad for a mobile game app. I’m sure this scroll-stopper was very effective and they must’ve gotten a lot of video engagement.

So that’s it for Secret #2: Hook, Story, Offer. If you got tons of value from just this one episode, you could get so much more with the full original copy of the DotCom Secrets book. The good news is that you can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from, and I will see you in the next episode.

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

Disclaimer: The contents of the book DotCom Secrets, which are referenced to in this podcast, is owned by Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels LLC. You can get your FREE copy of the book, and a 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below.

[insert Russell's story]

What is a funnel? It is not a website. When companies hire agencies to make a website, what you usually get is a logo here, a few nice pictures there, many links, but there’s no clear way to actually schedule an appointment or make a purchase. It’s like making our customers walk into a brick wall. A funnel doesn’t do that. Instead, it is very specific set of webpages with a specific format that guides the customer through the buying process. There’s only one thing to click on, and only one thing to read at a time. Then there are upsell pages, that offer complementary products or services that help serve the customer at a higher level.

Why is this important for you? Because 2 things happen:

The customer has a better experience: they never get confused, and they can find exactly what they’re looking for.
The owner makes more money: because you don’t confuse them, you get to upsell them and make more money on the same customer.

If you’d like to see what ClickFunnels can do for your business, you can get your 14-day FREE trial of ClickFunnels with the links below.

Here’s Secret #1. It consists of 4 questions:

WHO is your dream customer?
WHERE are they congregating?
What is the BAIT you can use to attract them to you
What is the unique RESULT that you can create for them?

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

ClickFunnels 14-day Trial:

www.clickfunnels.com

View Details

In the last episode, I was so excited to share the framework about how I was able to tell my story in a way that sells, as compared to Episode 1, which has the same engagement level as a history lecture. But, let me tell you why I can’t share it for the next 14 episodes. In fact, let me tell you where I got the frameworks from.

If you’ve been watching the online marketing space for the past 20 years, you would have heard of “Russell Brunson”, or ClickFunnels. After 20 years of online marketing, speaking, consulting, and coaching, he’s written 3 epic books to help anyone get started with their online business. These 3 books are called DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets, and Traffic Secrets. The first book helps people with mastering funnel structure and framework, the second book helps people to master persuasion secrets, and the third helps people get a lot more people to go to their website. How I managed to tell my story with so much more impact was just applying the concepts of 1 chapter from the 2nd book Expert Secrets. I would have shared all of the 14 steps with you, but it wouldn’t make complete sense in the first place why we’re doing that.

Rather than read the books on my own, I’d like to document, and share the journey with all of you. In this journey, we will cover 67 secrets that made ClickFunnels a 100m company, processing 5B in sales per year for their members, and how lives of members and their families have been permanently changed since joining the family.

Now, for those of you who would like to get a head-start, you can get your FREE copy of any of the books with the links below:

DotCom Secrets:

https://www.dotcomsecrets.com/dotcom-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

Expert Secrets:

https://www.expertsecrets.com/expert-secretsr81amw6a?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

Traffic Secrets:

https://www.trafficsecrets.com/traffic-secrets?affiliate_id=3063032&cf_affiliate_id=3063032

This will be a short episode, but I’m so excited to start the journey with you for the next 80,100,200 episodes, so if you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from.

View Details

Let me tell you the story about how two major heartbreaks became the seed of a 7-figure business blueprint.

[insert story]

If you’ve enjoyed this story, go back to Episode 1, and just pay attention to how these two stories, which is the same story, just hits differently. If you’re interested, stay tuned to the next 14 episodes, where we will dive deep into the structure I used, so that you may use it to tell your story. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from.

View Details

In this episode I’m going to give you 3 tips based on this concept to make all future hirings more productive for your company. The effectiveness of these 3 tips will depend on the business model, cost structure, legal issues, and your position to make the calls.

Secret #1: insist on paying a fixed price per project.

I hire a lot from UpWork and Fiverr, and usually, freelancers and contractors love to be paid per hour. What you do is to communicate, in your job posting, that you want to reward efficient freelancers. Because they will be paid the same amount if they finish ahead of time, on time, or behind time, it’s best for them to finish ahead of time, collect the payment, get a 5-star review, and move on. If they insist on hourly pay, agree on the total amount of hours needed, multiply that by the proposed hourly rate to get a fixed rate, and stick to that. Do mention that hourly pay means as an employer you’re paying for the freelancer’s mistake, and you do not have such a culture in your company and neither do you wish to work with people like that. If they still refuse to budge, move on to the next applicant. Sticking with an hourly rate can inflate your costs as much as 5 times over, as has happened to our company. [insert CS story] Insist on paying fixed price.

Secret #2: where possible, give a commission, or performance-based bonus on top of the fixed pay.

This is really an easy way to get the most stubborn hourly employees to agree to fixed pay. Say you have a target, let’s say you have a videographer, and that his KPI to turn around quality video edits within 48 hours. Every week he is able to do that, he is given $100 bonus at the end of the week. Always tie your desired result with an incentive. [insert CS case-study]

Secret #3: where possible, increase the percentage of commission with increased performance.

Think of this like a progressive tax structure - the more you earn, the higher the tax bracket, the larger the percentage of your income you pay in taxes. However, when it comes to commissions, my experience is that a lot of companies do the opposite, especially agencies. [insert agency story - where is the incentive to produce?] What we do is to reward performance and have no limits on the actual bonus. This motivates our team members to max out their productivity. [insert GAM case-study] In the long term, you can expect them to mention that they took charge of their own professional development in that they paid out of their own pockets to attend seminars and courses. As the employer, depending on the return on investment, I think a subsidy of up to 100% is reasonable. Let’s say your media buyer went to attend AWC. He came back and increased your monthly revenue by 100k. If he paid any amount up to 20k to attend the seminar, it would be a no-brainer to subsidise it. Personally, any investment that generates a >5x return is a worthy investment.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you’d like me to send you a Google Sheets document I personally use in my company to calculate how to structure commissions, drop me an email with subject line Episode 24 to admin@theecomstandard.com.

View Details

This is part 3 of me reacting to Jeff Bezos’s last shareholder letter

I decided to do a reaction episode, because 1. Jeff Bezos is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time 2.His shareholder letters since his first one in 1997 have been extremely consistent, and 3. This will be his last shareholder letter as the CEO of Amazon.

While the first part of the shareholder letter focused on the “numbers” side of things, the second part was focused about Amazon being a “force for good”. Here are my key takeaways:

Even though Amazon won against the union in Alabama by a huge margin, Jeff Bezos isn’t particularly satisfied and instead shifts the focus to having a vision for their employee’s success.
Amazon rejects media’s claims on mistreating employees by stating:
- Amazon said that 94% of their fulfillment center employees would recommend Amazon to a friend as a place to work.
- There are informal breaks in addition to the 30-minute lunch and 30-minute break built into their normal schedule.
In addition to being Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Amazon also aims to be 2 more things: Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work.
- One such example is this: from 2019-2020, overall musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) decreased by 32% through the use of AI to rotate employees among jobs that use different muscle-tendon groups to decrease repetitive motion and help protect employees from MSD risks.
Keeping with the $15/hr minimum starting pay, has resulted in a 4.7% increase in the average hourly wage among other employers in the same labor market.

If you’d like the detailed explanation, head over to the previous episode, Episode 22.

Now, let’s continue with the third and final part of the shareholder letter:

If you’d like to get a copy of all of Amazon’s shareholder letters from 1997-2020 in PDF format, drop me an email with subject line Episode 23 to admin@theecomstandard.com. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from.

View Details

This is part 2 of me reacting to Jeff Bezos’s last shareholder letter

The previous shareholder letter focused very much on the “numbers” side of things. This is Jeff Bezos’s “CEO scorecard” - not only it is expected in Wall Street, it’s a pretty good way to communicate and objectify what was done during his tenure as CEO of Amazon. Here are my key takeaways:

Amazon’s stock price in 1997, split-adjusted, was $1.50. Since then, it has increased to $3372 at the time of this recording - about 2250 times.
Huge returns helped shareholders to pay off debt, pay for college, buy a house, a car, or used for emergency purposes.
Amazon created $126 billion in value per year for its 200 million Prime members by saving them time from going to the grocery store.
Combining all the figures in 2020 alone, Amazon created 21B for its shareholders, 92B for its employees, 25B for its 3P sellers, and 164B for its customers. The total figure is 301B.

If you’d like the detailed explanation, head over to the previous episode, Episode 21.

Now, let’s continue with the second part of the shareholder letter:

If you’d like to get a copy of this shareholder letter in PDF format, drop me an email with subject line Episode 22 to admin@theecomstandard.com. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from.

View Details

Because the whole shareholder letter takes at least 20 mins to read, I will do this in multiple parts. Here’s part 1:

If you’d like to get a copy of this shareholder letter in PDF format, drop me an email with subject line Episode 21 to admin@theecomstandard.com. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from.

View Details

We as a society cannot truly be free if we cannot overcome hypocrisy. We cannot protect the truth if we maintain double standards. And if a society cannot protect the truth, we cannot be on the path towards freedom.

I want to begin this episode with 2 stories: an article from Business Insider Apr 6th 2021 writes that Amazon has an Unregretted Attrition Rate 6%. What this means is that they let go of 6% of people without regret every year. This number was based on analysing data and it creates a sweet spot for the company to lose the blubber and still grow. People’s reaction? Too high. Cut-throat. Pee in bottles.

The next story is from the NY Times, dated April 13th 2021. After vaccinating 7.4 million Americans, the J&J vaccine caused 7 women and 1 man to develop blood clots. The reaction? Slow it down.

In the heat of the moment, every fibre in our body would green-light all emotional statements. But when we lay the facts down, we can be hypocrites.

Would you pay more for the same product/service/experience? Under what circumstances should we pay more? Usually, the organisation responsible for your experience can be traced back to the founders, the entrepreneur. How would you define an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is someone who sees someone else’s problem and takes personal responsibility for it. They solve problems at scale. That’s how companies stay in business.

To me, an entrepreneur is the most noble job title ever. You are a person of gratitude. And you repay your gratitude by being a producer and contributor to society. You create jobs. You help your people on payroll put food on their families’ table.

But the picture is never so rosy. For the benefit of those who haven’t listened to Episode 2, let’s talk about Business 1.0 VS Business 2.0.

Even though the world is slowly moving towards Business 2.0, there is still a way to impose a penalty on Business 1.0.

Should we tax the rich more? Cost-push inflation - Would you pay more for the same product/service/experience?

Maximum tax? Socialism? Communism?

[Crab story]

[Eye for an eye story]

Probably says why communism can’t make everyone equally rich, but it can make everyone equally poor - crab logic?

Why do we root for underdogs, but when they become the biggest kid on the block, we try to pull them down? Apple VS Epic Games

When industry turnover rate is 10-15%, why do we bawl at Amazon’s 6%?

When the odds of developing a blood clot are 1 in 1000, why do we want to slow down vaccination when the J&J vaccine caused 8 people in 7.4 million - effectively 1 in a million?

Let’s get our facts right. Let’s be in Business 2.0. Let’s uphold the truth and be more rational about our opinions because they ultimately lead to decisions which will shape our society.

If you have any questions or opinions, submit a voice recording to admin@theecomstandard.com and we will cover it in the next episode. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from.

View Details

Legal disclaimer: this podcast is in no way, shape, or form financial advice. The statements expressed are purely of my own opinion and are for entertainment purposes only. Listeners should do their own research before taking action based on any of the information in this podcast.

According to an article from The Economist dated April 10th 2021, house prices have started to go through the roof - pun intended. In the US, prices increased by 11% in the year to January, their fastest pace in 15 years. In New Zealand, prices are up by 22%. Among the 25 countries that The Economist tracks, real house prices rose by 5% on average in the latest 12-month period, the quickest in over a decade.

This comes from both “push” and “pull” factors. With record-low interest rates and record-breaking savings rates - the “pull” factors - and the fiscal stimulus and money-printing of many governments of the world - the “push” factors - housing prices are now at their all-time high.

The US printed so much money that Fed’s balance sheet surpassed 5 trillion dollars for the first time in history. If you’ve listened to the previous episode on how doing business with Jesus Christ, our question pointed out how bad our brain is at math when it comes to understanding large numbers. How big is 1 trillion? If JC deposited $1mil every day since his birth into a bank account until today, April 17th 2021, it would still be less than $1 trillion. And the Fed’s balance sheet has 5 trillion dollars. Let that sink in.

Meanwhile, according to an article from Pew Research dated August 7th 2018, today’s real average wage has about the same purchasing power as it did 40 years ago. The bottom 10 percent of earners has seen wages rise by 3%; the bottom 25% has wages rise by 4.3%. But among the top 10% of earners, they’ve seen their wages rise by 15.7%. But if average purchasing power has remained the same, the gains in real wage growth has been eroded by inflation. With the Fed and most of the world continuing to increase money supply, we are experiencing inflation on a global scale.

What does that mean for us on our road to freedom? If you’re in the middle or low income group, the government has just turned their back on us real hard. I don’t believe in protests or taxing the rich - I will explain why in the next episode. The only thing you can control is your own actions. All your extra cash, excluding savings and necessities like food, housing and insurance, you have to buy assets. Assets are things that can’t be duplicated, have intrinsic value and can increase in value over time. These are stocks, real estate, cryptocurrency, baseball cards, artwork, etc.

But if you feel like you don’t have that much cash left over at the end of the month to invest, you don’t have a money allocation problem, you have an income problem. You need to increase your income. How do you do that? You invest in yourself. You buy books to read. You listen to audiobooks. You listen to podcasts. You find mentors. You buy courses. You sign up for training. I did all that, and am doing so now. It’s a never-ending journey, because our world population is closing in on 8 billion as opposed to 6 billion at the start of this millennium. Where you needed 6 billion reasons to exist on Planet Earth, now you need 8 billion.

The pressure is up. But there are solutions. My solution is e-commerce. If you’d like to find out how you can get a 2nd source of income without having a product or technical skills, drop me an email to Episode 19 at admin@theecomstandard.com. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from.

View Details

Let’s pretend you entered into a business contract with the man JC himself, where he deposited $1 mil/day into a bank account since the day of his birth until the day you die. Which amount is larger, the one in that bank account, or 1 trillion dollars?

The answer? Let’s work it out together. If you make $1 mil/day, that’s 365 mil/year. The year of this recording is 2021, so take 365 and multiply by 2021 and you get 737.665 billion. It’s still 270 billion short of 1 trillion. So, if you guessed 1 trillion, congrats, you’re either great at answering these type of questions, or you have a really good sense of numbers.

The point is, our human brains start breaking down after the 1000’s. If it was 1900s and you had a million dollars it was an unimaginable amount of money. To some of us, a million dollars is still unimaginable. But if you want to make a million dollars a year, what must you do?

Let’s do some math. Assume you work 50 weeks a year, and take 1 million divided by that, that’s 20k per week. Assume you work 5 days a week, take 20k divided by 5, and that’s 4k per day. If you’re in business, and you’re calculating your daily revenue target, 1 mil/365 ~ $2,740. Same concept for profit.

Do you have your daily revenue targets in place? Or do you have something similar for a key metric you track in your business? Do you have a spreadsheet to see if you’re on target, or if you’re behind target? If you don’t have one and would like to get one, drop me an email with subject line Episode 18 to admin@theecomstandard.com and I’ll send you a Google Sheets document I use personally to track my daily metrics and help me with my projections.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you’d like me to send you a Google Sheets document I use personally to track my daily metrics and help me with my projections, drop me an email with subject line Episode 18 to admin@theecomstandard.com.

View Details

In this episode, we will talk about the mindset required to truly persevere. Common advice is from people is to remain positive. Some recommend repeating affirmations many times in the day. In this episode, I’m going to tell you where the limits of staying positive are, how it can kill perseverance, and even cost you your life.

Why is perseverance important? Because if you’re on the path to freedom like many listeners of this podcast do, you’re doing something different by definition. While most of the world is running a rat race, living the 9-5, TGIF, chill-on-the-weekend lifestyle, you’re probably building, or creating something. You understand that there is a price to pay for freedom, and you’re willing to pay that price. Because the ultimate prize is true freedom.

There’s no getting around it: beyond a certain amount of money, we can have almost any lifestyle we want. But to get to that point, most of us build businesses. We work our asses off to increase our income. But building a business is almost like taking care of a big house that catches fire at random places every single day. On top of that, pressing issues keep us up at night. How do great entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and especially Elon Musk persevere till the end?

I’ll tell you a story about a Medal of Honour recipient named James Stockdale. During the Vietnam War, he was a captured POW for close to 8 years. When Jim Collins, in his book, Good to Great, asked him “who didn’t make it out?”, he said, “the optimists”. Now that shocked Jim Collins, myself too. As Stockdale explained, the optimists were the ones who said ‘we’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come and go. Then they’d say, ‘we’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come and go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.

Now the strange thing is, how did Stockdale know that he’s going to survive, despite all the odds being against him? Stockdale said, “you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end … with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

This is the Stockdale Paradox. You have to retain faith that you will prevail in the end regardless of the difficulties. And at the same time, confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. My version of the Stockdale Paradox? “Have faith that you will prevail, but be a realist about it and embrace the suck”.

To all the people out there who are building something meaningful, who are part of a movement, or that you’re on your path to freedom, this episode is for you. I want to remind you that no matter how hard things can be, it’s just a matter of time before you prevail in the end. Screw positivity. Embrace the Stockdale Paradox.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you’d like me to send you a PDF poster of my version of the Stockdale Paradox, drop me an email with subject line Episode 17 to admin@theecomstandard.com.

View Details

Let me explain the context of the statement here. This is a book review about a book I just finished, and I just happened to have experienced something the author did as well. I’m sitting by the window, looking at a small fly burning the last of its short life’s energies by trying to fly through the windowpane. In its mind, when it gets stuck, the solution is to fly towards anything bright, or towards the colors green or blue. But in this situation, despite its efforts being futile, its wings keeps buzzing. The strategy can be summarized in 2 words: try harder. If it had more intelligence, more information, or a higher level of consciousness, it would have made a 180 degree turn and regained freedom in 10 seconds.

The point of this story is not that we should all stop trying so hard and take the contrarian stance. Rather, the point here is doing “more of the same” usually gets you more of the same. That’s what “trying harder” could mean. If you’re already experiencing exhaustion, “trying harder” usually increases how exhausted you are. There are times when we try harder, but the increased returns justify the increased effort less and less - in other words, diminishing returns.

To quote Einstein, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Similarly, if the tools you’re using didn’t change, if your mindset didn’t change, if your beliefs didn’t change, how can we expect life to get drastically better? I want the people who listen to this podcast to actually achieve freedom. I want you all to be on the path towards freedom. I want us all to be Freedom Makers. We can’t be on the path if we are “trying harder” all the time. There must be a better way.

If you are the proverbial fly trying to fly through a windowpane, what can you do to gain the awareness and make a 180 degree turn? You need to increase your awareness by meditation, reflection, journalling, and getting mentors. I’ve engaged 2 mentors so far, and every time I spent money on hiring one, it has always resulted in at least a 10x return.

I’m grateful that I’m having this experience now because of the book. If you’d like me to send you the link on where I got the book, drop me an email with subject line Episode 16 to admin@theecomstandard.com.

For the past two years, I feel like I’ve been lobotomized. If there was an Operating System for my brain, it has been upgraded at least twice over. My goal for the next 60 years of my life is to experience 1 metamorphosis per year. Being able to reinvent myself and unlocking potential is my best path to freedom. And I’m honored to document and share the process as much as I can with you.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you’d like me to send you the link on where I got the book that I referenced to at the beginning of this episode, drop me an email with subject line Episode 16 to admin@theecomstandard.com.

View Details

If you’ve tried running ads to generate sales but ended up making a loss, then this episode is for you. We will look at the 7 key metrics to understand how e-commerce businesses have been printing money (legally) by putting in $1 and getting $2 and much more in return.

Assuming you already have a product that people are buying, and you have a functional online store, we can start talking about the logic of running ads. Your ad only has 1 purpose: getting people to click on it and visit your website.

Let’s start with FB ads, as it is the most important and largest platform for media buyers. Most of the key metrics I’m going to talk about will deal with cost and rate - like “cost per click”, and “click through rate”. You generally lower “cost” metrics and increase the “rate” metrics

So, when you place an ad, the first thing you will be charged for is impressions. Impression is a way for FB to tell you how many people are shown the ad. The key metric here is CPM - Cost Per 1000 Impressions. If your CPM is $10, then it costs $10 to have 1000 impressions. That means it costs $0.10 to show to one person. How to print more money? Lower your CPMs by targeting a broader audience, or having fresh, engaging and unique creatives.

The next metric is called CPC, or Cost Per Click. This is highly related to the third metric, called CTR, or Click-Through Rate. This is calculated by taking the number of clicks divided by the total number of impressions. Normally, the higher the CTR, the lower the CPC, which is great for business. Depending on your industry, CTR can vary between 1-5%, and CPC can be between $0.50-$1.50. How to print more money? Lower your CPCs and increase your CTRs by having your creatives be relevant, persuasive, and sometimes, clickbait. To quote Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather movie, make an offer they can’t refuse!

The 4th metric is called conversion rate, or CVR. This is calculated by the number of orders divided by the number of clicks. Depending on your industry, CVR can be between 1-5%. My personal best was around 7% and it was a great day. A 5th metric closely related to CVR is called CPP, or CPA, which refers to Cost Per Purchase, or Cost Per (Customer) Acquisition. This is calculated by taking your ad spend divided by your number of orders. How to print more money? Increase your CVR and decrease your CPP by having persuasive ad copy to increase the value, adding discounts where applicable, and de-risking your customers by offering MBG or a hassle-free returns process.

The 6th metric is called Average Order Value, or AOV. This is calculated by taking the your sales revenue and dividing by the number of orders. How to print more money? Increase AOV by starting with a high-ticket item, or use upsells, downsells, and cross-sells. We will cover increasing AOV more in depth in a future episode.

The 7th metric is called Return On Ad Spend, or ROAS. This is calculated by taking your revenue divided by ad spend. If you spend $100 on ads and got $200 in sales, then $200/$100 is 2 which means you got a 2 ROAS. If you spend $5k and got $30k in sales, you’ve got 6 ROAS, which is incredible. This is the holy grail of buying ads. How to print more money? Increase ROAS by doing all of the things mentioned previously: lower CPM, CPC, CPA, and increase CTR, CVR, and AOV.

[Example: Posture corrector, cost $10, price $40. CPM of $10, 2% CTR. Target CVR?]

If you’d like to increase your online presence, or maximise online sales, drop me an email with subject line Episode 15 to admin@theecomstandard.com and we can set up a call with my team to take your business to the next level. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from.

View Details

This statement basically says that you’re in a place where you’re either

a. Working remotely and don’t have to attend meetings, or that you can have your camera turned off most of the time, or

b. Your company’s rules for attire is very much inline with what you like to wear for work.

c. You are the decision-maker, and you get to make the rules for attire.

That’s when we’re reading this statement literally. If we generalise this statement, and extend it “I come in and leave whenever I want all the time”, “I can decide the compensation structure”, and so on, we are aiming for becoming a decision-maker in our work lives. This is great, because there’s more incentive to work well, and if you understand how you work best, and your freedom is tied to how well your company performs, then by all means, make your own decisions.

We’ve already covered scenario a in the previous episode. As for scenario b, company attire rules isn’t something you can easily change without being some decision-maker, and you do need a majority buy-in. So the easiest way to achieve freedom is to actually become a decision-maker. In other words, Scenario C: Become an entrepreneur. So in this episode, we’re going to go deeper and look at some avenues to start your own company.

If you’re already working a day job, don’t quit your job and put everything into your new venture. Keep your day job, and spend 2-3 hours after dinner time working on your business. Dedicate your weekends to meeting people, reading and researching the market. Let’s be honest here: most people aren’t actually looking to spend time productively after dinner. Most people just chill. But you’re different. Give yourself a time frame, say 6 months, to do everything you need to get your business off the ground.

To start a business, my general litmus test for a good business, is if it can make money while you sleep. If your answer is no, you should probably drop it. I’m not saying that you can’t work on a design agency, but look at design related businesses and you’ll find examples like Adobe or Canva which actually revolutionised the designing industry. Move towards products. Partner up with people who can code.

If want to start a business that is completely remote, makes money while you sleep, and you don’t need to invest more than $5,000, you should do what I did and start an e-commerce business. Specifically, drop shipping. It really doesn’t matter if you don’t have any product ideas or website coding skills. It’s changed my life completely and it can change yours too.

If e-commerce sounds like a good idea, go watch everything that YouTube has to offer. Then, if you still want to move forward, you can get a free 30-min discovery call with me by dropping me an email with subject line Episode 12 to admin@theecomstandard.com and we can see whether we can work something out to guide you on your way to starting your online business.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you want to get a free 30-min discovery call with me, drop me an email with subject line Episode 12 to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

As a Freedom Maker, there are 10 things I must do to know I’m successful. These are:

I can wake up and ask, “What would I like to do today?”
My passive revenue exceeds my lifestyle needs
I can live anywhere in the world I choose
I’m working on projects that excite me and allow me to do my best work
I can disappear for several months with no effect on my income
There are no whiny people in my life
I wear my watch for curiosity only
I have no time obligations or deadlines
I wear whatever I want all the time
I can quit anytime.

If you’d like to pick my brain on any one of these statements, be sure to go back to episodes 4-13 and dive deeper into each and every one of these statements. If you’d like a PDF document of these 10 manifesto statements, drop me an email with subject line Episode 14 to admin@theecomstandard.com

So, what are some income streams to strive for, and what income streams should you avoid? As a general rule, avoid anything that has an hourly rate to it, no matter how high. Why? Because it places a cap on how much you can earn per day, per month, per year. Let’s say you have an hourly rate of $10k. It will take you 10 years, working 24/7, 365 days a year, to pay for a $365 mil mega mansion. Even if you don’t want to live in a mega mansion, you’re effectively tied to your job: if you work, you get paid 10 grand. If you take the day off, your opportunity cost is 60-100 grand. How will you feel when you’re on vacation with your family? My guess - it’s terrible.

If you’re still not convinced, there are many things in the world that are infinite, for example, money. There are a couple of things in this world that are finite, like time. Any person who knows how to do a deal will know that you never trade finite resources for infinite resources. You want to reach a point when you never have to trade money for time.

How? Here are some examples:

Entrepreneurship: start a business
Trading: your income is not tied to time, but more of the quality of decisions made
Investment: appreciation of stocks, bonds, cryptocurrency. Real estate, as a bonus, generates cash flow in terms of rental income.
Licensing: Minority of population.

The 4 categories above all have 1 thing in common: you can make money while you sleep. If you know how to manage and limit your risk, you can trade limited risk, limited time, for relatively unlimited income. This is why I transitioned from Piano Teacher to E-commerce. In the next episode, I will talk about the breakdown and anatomy of every e-commerce business.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you’d like a PDF document of the 10 Freedom Maker manifesto statements, drop me an email with subject line Episode 14 to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

Quitting is not difficult. Quitting while feeling a sense of closure and contentment is hard. In other words, how can we quit without having feelings of regret? How can we live so that we can truly quit?

I think Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, described the three phases of life:

The first phase is where we are dependent, when we are young. We need our parents and society to nurture and feed us for us to grow.

The second phase is where we are interdependent, when we are in our adult phase. We contribute to society and enjoy its benefits.

The third phase is where we give back to society. This is when we put all of our excess wealth to growing our legacy.

These phases are not necessarily dependent on age, though they correlate. Meaning, while only a small minority of people past 50 years old get to the third phase, some are stuck in the first phase, depending on government aid and allowance from children and relatives.

I personally think, if we get to the third phase, we can quit anytime. Any day can be the last day of our lives and we would have lived a good life. We could have looked at ourselves in the mirror and said “you lived to your fullest and you gave back more to your society than society provided you with.”

So today’s episode will be based on getting to the third phase. I will take a page (literally) off Alex Charfen’s program The Billionaire Code. This page contains a table that describes the 9 stages of wealth, and how to get to one stage to the next.

[insert page]

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you’d like my PDF copy of the table from The Billionaire Code by Alex Charfen, drop me an email with subject line Episode 13 to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

Isn’t it amazing if your work doesn’t have deadlines? It almost sounds fake. Honestly, there aren’t many jobs or positions people can take where there are completely no time obligations or deadlines at all. Every CEO has some form of deadline where he has to make company level decisions. Even Presidents of countries around the world have time obligations and deadlines.

Of course, the easy argument is retirement, or financial freedom. Both of which are still realistic goals to have. Most people get to retire but not many reach financial freedom. Even less reach financial freedom before retirement age.

In this episode we will examine how to progressively move away from time obligations and deadlines. I actually want to define time obligations and deadlines as restrictions imposed on by others, not by yourself. I think it’s actually good to give yourself personal obligations and deadlines - it keeps your brain and psychological health in a good place, and makes you move towards a goal with self-chosen levels of constraints. That usually activates creativity, and it guarantees growth.

So, if you’re working a job where you get paid by the hour, you have some obligation to spend a specified amount of time on a certain task, maybe at a certain place, all decided by your employer. Here are some ways to get out of the arrangement:

Instead of a pay-per-hour agreement, negotiate a pay-by-result agreement.
Instead of a pay-per-hour agreement, negotiate a pay-per-performance agreement.

Of course, the end goal is to reach financial freedom. Again, legal disclaimer: this podcast is not financial advice in any way. The statements expressed are purely my opinions and is for entertainment purposes only. To reach financial freedom, we need to make sure our passive income exceeds our lifestyle expenditure. Go back to episode 5 if you’d like to go deeper into the 4 types of income to truly understand what’s passive income.

What happens when you don’t have any time constraints? If you go back to episode 3, where we visualised the “perfect day”, you’ll know that being on the beach the whole day is miserable. I would go crazy by the third day. Go back to your passion. Relive it. For me my passion is playing the piano, which you can find about more about in episode 7.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you’d like the script I use to hire all my VAs and full-time staff overseas for free, drop me an email with subject line Episode 11 to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

In this episode I will explain why this is the most underrated statement of the mindset of a person who is truly free.

To start off, let’s be inclusive, and imaginative here. Don’t take this statement too literally. What this reflects is an attitude.

What is a luxury item? According to Investopedia, a luxury item is not necessary to live, but it is deemed highly desirable within a culture or society. Luxury items tend to be sensitive to a person's income or wealth, meaning that as wealth rises, so do purchases of luxury items.

You may be familiar with AP watches, Burberry scarfs, Cartier diamond necklaces, … there’s a luxury brand for every letter of the alphabet, you can find it on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Luxury_brands

Luxury items are a way for us to signal to the people around us that we’ve made it. In a later podcast, I will be doing weekly book reviews, and one book goes deep into modern biological theory - which basically says all of life have just 2 goals: survive and propagate. Nothing else matters, if you’re not going to survive or propagate. Everything people do is to achieve either or both of these goals. Even when people do crazy things to be remembered. Because being remembered is a way to “survive” in that your memory or identity survives the passage of time.

Why do people buy luxury items? Even though it’s overpriced, and you don’t need it intrinsically to live? It’s just to signal that if I can afford this, I have enough resources and capabilities to survive and propagate. The more extreme my wealth, the more I’m proving this. This is why Apple can charge such steep prices for their products. Because they have solidified themselves as a luxury brand. If I wear an Apple Watch, I’m signalling to all the ladies in the room that If you mate with me, the chances that our offspring will survive is much higher than the dude who uses a Pixel phone. No hate on Google, but if you don’t get my point, notice what happens at high school gatherings when people pull out their phones.

Let’s go back to the statement and examine the other part: Wear … for curiosity only - not trying to extract any value or function out of it.

This is essentially the mindset equivalent of “luxury”, or the other way round, you get it. Just like how you don’t actually extract any value or function out of luxury items, wearing your watch for curiosity only is the same: you’re not trying to use it in any way to survive. You’re just curious.

This is such a mindset to strive for: “mindset goals” anyone? This is when you’re not bound by society’s expectations. You’ve made it, but you’re so over your friends pressuring you into joining them with their next big purchase.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you’re stuck in a day job, and want to win a free 30-minute call on how to start your own e-commerce business, email me with the subject line Episode 10 to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

I’m going to give you 3 quotes. If you’ve heard of them, this episode is for you. If you haven’t, you need this episode even more than those who have.

“Your network is your net worth”,
“you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” and
“show me your friends and I’ll show you your future”

Whiny is interpreted as negative.

A circle of people that supports you not only makes the path to freedom enjoyable, it makes it more possible. How did I find out? I learnt it the hard way.

Both parents work a day job, worst idea to emulate.
Musicians have different priorities (episode 7). Mastery of their craft > freedom in the physical real world
Dated a violinist. Remained arrogant and small-minded.
After breakup, went to China for business courses
Dated Penang girl, different SES
Befriended her friends, changed brains, met my business partner, Ecom Machine was born.

The strategy here, is to become the person who is on the path to freedom, and is in the company of those who are on the same path.

The tactics are in 3 steps: work on the self, let go of people not on the path, and join those on the path.

Work on self:

Dedicate the end of the day, before you sleep to this journalling exercise. Write down everything you want to have, everything you can become, and more. This can take 30 mins, can go longer than an hour.
Journal everyday. Reflect on what you have done, plan to do, and what you have (gratitude).
Get a calendar that has boxes for every day of the week. When you’re done journalling, strike out the box associated with that day (today is day 97). If you want a copy of the calendar, email me with the subject line Episode 9 to admin@theecomstandard.com

Letting go:

Subconscious, time-wasters: easiest thing to do. Don’t hit them up again.
Conscious, potential, close friends: test waters. You may have to make a tough decision. They can watch the ride but they can’t join you.
Conscious, already there: keep and engage when possible.

Joining:

Listening to podcasts like these.
Reach out. Facebook groups.
Networking events.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to share, download or follow this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you want a copy of the calendar, email me with the subject line Episode 9 to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

In episode 3, we went on an exercise to clarify what success means. Because, the clearer the vision, the more likely it would become reality. I had a list of 10 criteria, that I know if I’m doing those, the closer I am to success. Here’s what we covered so far:

I know I’m being successful when:

I can wake up and ask, “What would I like to do today?”
My passive revenue exceeds my lifestyle needs
I can live anywhere in the world I choose
I’m working on projects that excite me and allow me to do my best work
I can disappear for several months with no effect on my income

If I had to pick my favourite out of the 10, which 5 more are coming soon, this is my favourite because it oozes freedom.

Freedom is why I started my journey. It’s why we do what we do. We work really hard, get an MBA so that we can get a better job, get promoted, get a raise, invest here, buy a house there, and so on. So that we can one day be free. Free to do whatever we want, free do say yes to anything, and free to say no to anything.

Find out how you can disappear for several months and have no effect on your income in this episode.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, share, subscribe and follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from. If you want to find out how you can start your own e-commerce business without any product or coding skills, drop me an email with subject line Episode 8 to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

Notice how this statement does not talk about “following your passion”, or reach goals like “win an olympic medal” or “become a millionaire”. This statement instead specifies excitement as a condition, and double-checks that with a self-actualising term, “do my best work”.

Why shouldn’t we follow our passion? Why is “excitement” more important than “happiness”? And, how much does it matter to us that we are doing our “best work”?

I went through a couple of drafts, and thought that the best way to answer the above questions is with the my actual life story.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, submit your questions to admin@theecomstandard.com and I will answer it the next episode.

View Details

“If you could live anywhere, where would that be?” Sounds like an ice-breaking question. But most of us, especially our parents’ generation, are rooted to where we live now. The number one thing that limits a person’s mobility, is his job. As adults we spend most of our lives working, even more time is spent on work than with family. The more attractive, competitive, or crowded your city, the more hardworking you are, the more this tends to be true. In this episode, we will dive deep and see how it’s possible to uproot ourselves and embrace the digital nomad lifestyle.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode so far, drop an email with the subject line Episode 6 to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

Passive income … who wouldn’t want that right? Exactly what counts as passive income, and, is it really possible? In this episode we will discuss the different types of income, I’ll give you some ideas to increase your passive income, and how to cut your living expenses without compromising on your lifestyle.

If you’d like me to send you the link to a book on how to sell your business, email me with the subject Episode 5 to admin@theecomstandard.com.

View Details

In the previous episode, we looked at clarifying what success actually means when you make the transition from a postcard concept to a movie concept. I have a list of 10 criteria of achieving success, the first of which is this: If I can wake up and ask myself “what would I like to do today?”, I know I’m being successful.

Implies certain degree of freedom. Freedom of time, money
No time obligations and no deadlines. You’re in charge
Implies vacation. Significant time off. Or, you’re deeply in love with your work.

Let’s go through each of them

Freedom of time and money: results-based work. Automated systems. BOAF (Build-once-and-forget) processes is a large part of revenue generation. Higher perceived value than the actual total cost of supplying the product.
You’re in charge: Entrepreneur. Owner of the business. Take risk or save to buy businesses?
Time off/Love the work:
1. Time off: You’ve built a team. You’ve completely replaced yourself in the revenue-generating aspect of the business
2. Love the work: You’ve hit jackpot. Self-actualizing. In the zone of genius.

Top 3 skills

Leadership/Team-building: understand you need people. You need talent. People better than you to make the pie larger.
Sales/Persuasion: you might not be in sales, but you’re always selling. Recognise the importance of sales. A business cannot survive when revenue is less than cost. An individual cannot survive if his income is less than his expenditure.
Self-actualization: If you need a break, then don’t come back. Subset of knowing yourself, is being rational. Look at the data. Play both sides. Set aside feelings and reassess from a 3rd person perspective.

So if you enjoyed this episode, and you’d like me to send you the book title and the exact page number, drop an email with subject Episode 4 to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

Tyler Jordan clarifies what success means to him and what it could mean for you. He walks you through a visualization exercise, and foreshadows the next 10 episodes. If you like what you've heard, drop an email with the subject line "Episode 3" to admin@theecomstandard.com

View Details

In this episode, Tyler Jordan describes what he means by Business 1.0 and Business 2.0, and how things will turn out long term.

View Details

Tyler Jordan shares his backstory.

Freedom Maker: Recent Episodes

Tyler Jordan