SFR 135: The Cash In Being Present...

It's been said that 80% of success is just showing up. If you haven't made a sale yet... that may be the issue!

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

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now, I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million-dollar business. The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.

Join me, and follow along, as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business, using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

What's up guys? Hopefully everyone's doing great. I've been outside today, it's a Saturday, putting together this episode. Been outside. A lot of you guys might know this, actually, most of you probably don't: I actually really like yard work, which sounds weird, as a teenager I would have never said that in my life.

But I do. I was the oldest, which meant I did a lot of the yard work. Oldest of six kids, so growing up I did a lot of yard work. And for a while I hated it and then, realize though, for whatever reason now, especially too, it's almost therapeutic, for me to just get outside, work with my hands. Almost all my jobs growing up were labor jobs; physical labor jobs, things like that. I like working with my hands.

Anyway, so I was outside, I just chopped a tree down in our backyard, which is awesome, I'm doing a whole bunch of stuff. Anyway, I'm fixing our pond, a lot of stuff. I really love doing that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I was outside just a few minutes ago, maybe like two hours ago, but I was outside. I was mowing the lawn, I was trimming the hedges, all the stuff I...

Usually I'll either listen to music and just zone out, which typically for me is just as advantageous as me listening to a chorus: the chance to have nothing going on in my head and just let my mind drift. And that's one of the reasons why I like it so much.

Anyway, so I was out there and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the most incredible opportunity start walking up to me. I love it when this happens. There was a door-to-door salesman, he was walking on up, all awkward like.

We saw each other, he was trying to ... does he call out from far away? Does he kind of sneak on up? I love talking to door-to-door salesman because I was one, right? So he starts walking up, and I'm listening to Foo Fighters. I'm blasting Foo Fighters, I'm trimming up the sides and stuff, and I'm just ... I was thinking ... I was thinking about a lot of different stuff. I was thinking, you know I'm a full-time nerd, and I'm very proud of it. I was thinking about offer creation and different things like that.

Anyway, bunch of fun...

Anyways, he walks on up, and he hands me this flyer. He just, I hate it when people just put things directly into my hands. Most people will take it, I don't. Whenever I'm in the mall, or whatever, and someone just walks by and just hands something to me, I don't take it. I put my hands up, I'm like, "What is this?"

Anyway, so I did that...

I was like, "Well, what is it?" He goes, and he starts talking. He's like, "Well, yeah, I do spot removal on like carpets, things like that. We're going to be here real soon, and want to see who else in the area wants to get it." I was like, "Sweet, that was very similar to the pitch I used to give, and it worked really, really well."

And I was thinking about it, I was like oh my gosh, this is so cool. My wife and I just barely were talking about how we want our carpets cleaned. Right, we've lived in this house for a year now, we should clean the carpets, you know. We got a new little one on the way, in like a month, and ... Or month and a half-ish. We're just trying to prep things around the house.

This our third kid, we know everything kind of goes into a coma. You're just trying to survive the first month or two with a newborn. Sort of like, hey, we should have the carpets cleaned. Oh, sweet. That's awesome, do you do full service? And he said, "Yes, yes, I do actually." I said, "Cool, how much do you charge?"

And he told me very briefly in just like one sentence what it was that he does, what's different about him, and how much he charges, and I was like, gosh, thank you for getting right to the point. I'm asking a buying question. The guy identified it, and he immediately gave me a very fast answer of what I wanted, and let me started asking the questions.

And finally, which is super cool, because he did not turn around, and he did not lead with his, he did not lead with this super expensive thing. And even then it wasn't actually that much money. He's gonna clean the carpets, and such, soon. And I almost was selling him on it, 'k ... He lead with what was the lowest barrier thing that he had, spot removal.

Right, it's not an even full out carpet cleaning. Spot removal, that's it. That's what he was doing, and if you think about it. That's really fascinating. We're talking about different value ladder steps, right?

Selling this really high ticket thing in the backend, that's awesome, but usually you got to sell it to really hot people. Hot market, right? Middle of the value ladder stuff, that's more usually the core of your business, but if you lead with something that's super pricey you cut out this whole other market, right? Which is eventually why we will go, and we will start doing smaller ticket things.

Well, when you're talking face to face with people, or even in a trip wire funnel, we don't lead out saying here's all the money that you're gonna spend in this funnel. We lead out with the smallest barrier, the lowest barrier, free, plus shipping. That's super low bare, even though the average car value could be 50, 60, 70, 80 bucks, right?

Right, it is free if that's the only thing they get. That doesn't mean we're not gonna take the opportunity to pitch them on other stuff, right, but we're leading with the lowest barrier product we have....

Anyway, I started talking to the guy more. Turns out he and I actually had a lot of stuff in common. I did door-to-door for a long time, so, did he for a while. He's around my age, and he's like, "I was working for this other company, I graduated only a little bit ago, and I just got to do my own thing, so, I'm just doing carpet cleaning for people." And so, I was like, "Sweet, I can totally relate with that." He's like, "Yeah, I had a sweet job." I was like, "Ah, me too." I just got this thing inside of me says, go do your thing, and so, I did, and it's been freaky.

Yeah, it totally freaky...

Anyways, we start talking for a little while, and struck up a good conversation. Anyways, he's coming back. I'm totally gonna talk to him about funnel building. It's what I do. I always talk with people. Talk about that with people. Gonna get my haircut, I always talk to the haircut person about funnels usually.

Anyway, so, here's the whole lesson though. This podcast maybe a little short. The lesson is ... I've been teaching a lot of people lately, right? Obviously, You guys ...