SFR 150: Competing With Your Attractive Character...

What's going on, everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and today, we’re gonna talk about how to compete with your Attractive Character.

 

I just 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.

 

Guys, I'm pumped for today. This could be a bunch of fun.

 

A lot of guys know, I was really shy for a long time, right? And I've mentioned that many times, and some of you guys have said, that's not true, Stephen. No way that's true, right?

 

But I was. I was really shy for a long time. I would say I even had a near-clinical fear of adults. You know, I would see an adult, and I would physically move in a different direction - I did that for a time.

 

Even into my early 20s, I was pretty shy. It's not that I was like cowering, or  that I wouldn't speak to anybody else...

 

It's just that I was doing everything that I could to not engage with human beings. I don't know why I was that way. It’s not that I was really reclusive… or that I was sitting back all the time, going, “ugh, it's a person.” That's not how I was at all. But there was no way I would be getting on stage now. There was no way I would ever do something like a podcast. Just the thought of that would freak me out. To have a camera on my face right now, there's no way.

 

When I finally became cognizant that I was this way, I started noticing all these business people who were amazing leaders. I’d be, “oh my gosh, check out those guys... Look at him, he's so impressive. He speaks and things sway. I wanted to develop that skill.

 

I started doing things like door-to-door sales for the explicit reason of learning how to sell in scary environments. I started doing telemarketing, for the explicit reason of going in and learning how to sell hard in environments where you're constantly getting rejected.

 

I don't know that everyone has to go through this kind of thing, but for me, I chose to start molding who I was... and who I was trying to become. It was a really challenging thing to go through.  As I started getting more into it, I noticed that my ability to speak and to give sales messages started improving.

 

Several years before I started working for Russell, I realized that I needed to get even better at this whole stand and deliver concept. I wanted to work out how to become… I don't wanna say, ‘a leader’… How to become... a ‘follow-able person’. It's kind of like saying leader.

 

Anyway, but I was trying to figure out how to do that. Because from my background, and where I was coming from - that was an insanely hard thing to do!

 

I would take my computer and find videos of people on stage. I did this specifically with Russell Brunson's stuff. This was way before we ever knew each other personally. I would take his videos - videos of him on stage, and I would go in front of a mirror, mute the video of him, so I could see him, but not hear him. And he'd be making all these gestures and I would mirror him. I would mimic him.  

 

I’d be moving around all over the place, mirroring and mimicking everything he was doing. It was so weird. It was awkward. I know that it’s weird, but it was what I needed to start breaking out of the shell I was in.. It’s how ‘Steve Larsen’ was born.

 

Fast forward, I was working for Russell, sitting next to him; I was about 40-ish episodes into Sales Funnel Radio...  We were running this thing called the FHAT event - the Funnel Hackathon Event. People would pay 15 grand for three days, and I would teach for hours. I mean, man, it was a long freaking time!

 

Well, the very first FHAT event, we were vetting out the content, we were making sure that everything was awesome and solid. Then, right before Russell goes on stage, he turns around at me, and he goes, "Hey dude. Do you wanna introduce me?"

 

I always make it a habit to say “YES’ - especially when someone with a lot of influence asks me to do something…  My knee-jerk reaction is to say “YES!” and then figure out how to do it later. This attitude has brought me to some cool places in life.

 

At the FHAT event, the room's filled with loads of people - very successful people.There's like 60 people in there, and many millions - tens of millions - hundreds of millions of dollars, collectively inside of that room.

 

There's a lot of Russells inner circle - and they know what the heck they're talking about, right? I was like, crap, I gotta get on and introduce…

 

The whole role of somebody who introduces somebody else is merely to raise the state of the room so that when the speaker comes on, they don't have to raise the state of the room. They can just walk on and start presenting.

 

Otherwise, the speaker spends a whole bunch of time to do that. Russell told me, “that's your role.”  I was like, crap! How can I do that? It's not like Russell's low energy. How do I introduce Russell Brunson in a way that suits who he is? That suits his audience?

 

It was very challenging for me. I remember sitting there. I mean, he asked me three minutes ahead of time, to go on and do this. Immediately I was like, okay, is there a script? Is there like a format that good introducers use to bring on other prominent people? There's gotta be something. What can I do?

 

Russell walked over, and he said, "Hey, just make sure you raise the state of the room- that way, I don't have to."

 

I was like, oh crap. Okay, another huge task. Okay, sweet. Inside, I was like, oh, crap! He could tell I was stressing out. He knew that I had done all that stuff, like stand in front of a mirror with his videos muted,  just moving around and mimicking what he's doing.

 

He knew I’d done door-to-door. He knew I’d done telemarketing. He knew I’d done a lot of stuff and become good at them so that I could break out of my shell.

 

Instead of fight the fact that I was in a shell, I accepted the fact, and just did things to come out of it.

 

Knowing this, Russell turned to me, and this is what he said, and this is the reason why I wanna share this with you... Because it really, really, really matters:

 

He turned to me, and he said, he said, "Dude, "You model me. It's quite impressive how you model me. You model me to the ‘T.’ You do everything that I do. You model me so well, but you’ve got to have your own voice eventually. Just do it how you’d introduce me."

 

It's funny because I knew that answer, but for Russell to say it ‘in that way’, I really took notice.

 

At that time, I'd already been publishing. I'd already been doing a whole bunch of stuff. I would already say that I had, quote, unquote, found my voice.  However, when he said, dude, you gotta have your own ‘isms’, you gotta have your own character, you gotta have your own thing, I started thinking through, what makes ‘me’ me?...