SFR 153: How To Pay For Expensive Things With Your Business...

Boom, what's goin' on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and this Sales Funnel Radio.

 

Today we are gonna talk about how to pay for expensive things with your business.

 

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.

 

All right, guys, hey, I'm excited for this episode. This has been kind of a long time in the making. This is gonna be one of those episodes that have kinda been on my mind for a long time as something that I wanna  share with you guys and teach you something really interesting.

 

I wanna tell you a story, okay? We were planning Funnel Hacking Live 2017. I remember being on cloud nine, I could not even believe that I was in the planning sessions for Funnel Hacking. I was freakin' out about it, I was super excited. I was with Melanie, Dave, and Brent. It was just fun to be in the room. Russell's like, “Dude, what if we ask Tony Robbins to come?”  We're like, “Oh my gosh, that's crazy.” So they started doing some research and reaching out to his team.

 

Tony's team reached back out and said, it's gonna cost about this much. I am not privy to say the amount... I'm not even gonna allude to it... but I will tell you that it was a lot of cash. It was a butt ton of money. It was so cool to watch how Russell handled it…There is a lesson that I picked up... I was watching him like a hawk. I always do.

 

First of all he goes, “Oh my gosh”, with this face. “Huh, oh my gosh, huh, oh god, I feel sick, huh.” What was interesting was what he did next...

 

There was a moment where he freaked out, and that's appropriate and everyone can feel free to do that when you wanna buy something expensive. But then, he just said “Yes.”

 

Then he was very careful to structure the FHL event in a way that would pay for Tony. Isn't that interesting? The event literally liquidated the cost of Tony Robbins.

 

If you go look at any time he's ever had someone really big on - that's how he structures it. That's really fascinating.

 

We started doin' some pretty interesting things that were very expensive. Things like the Harmon Brothers.The Harmon Brothers, they're the ones who did the viral video...

 

Hopefully you guys are cool with me telling all these stories? I wanna link it back to what I'm doin' right now and hopefully you'll take something cool from this.

 

The Harmon Brothers, it's public knowledge, so I'm just gonna say it... they charge half a million dollars to do a video. One video! A three, four, five minute video. Half a million bucks. They're expensive, but they get results. They're really cool, so they can charge that money.

 

Instead of Russell going, “Gah, are you kidding? Half a million dollars?” Which was appropriate (and we all did that at first)... what he did was start figuring out a way to liquidate the cost with some kind of campaign, event, or product.

 

So that at the end, he is left with both the asset and with his own cash in hand. Meaning he doesn't let his own cash out, he created something else to pay for the expense. Does that make sense? This is the smarter VC funding way.

 

You guys know I'm pretty against things like VC funding, but it's because of this very principle right here.

 

Think about a free plus shipping book funnel. A free plus shipping book funnel or even a webinar funnel... A lot of times in a webinar funnel there’s a self-liquidating offer before somebody even gets to the webinar.

 

There’s a product to purchase even before someone gets to the webinar - that way, an average of 10%  - 15% purchase the product, then it liquidates most of the ad cost. So everyone who comes and buys during the main product during webinar is actually pure profit. Does that make sense?

 

That's how it works in a funnel, and the same principle can apply your business and the way you run it. This is the principle that I’ve been  applying to my business.

 

I told you guys about the story at this last Funnel Hacking Live, someone was like, “oh man, maybe I can get a discount on the 2 Comma Club X Program. Maybe I can split it with a few other people!” and I was like, “No, wrong question!’  Questions invite revelation...  So you need to change the question.

 

Instead of asking “How do I get a discount?” ask the question: “How can I afford the most expensive things in life?”

 

Solve that problem, not the question: “How can I get a discount?” You'll solve either question... but most people don't ask questions with intent.

 

So what I said to him was: “Look, go figure out how to pay for the most impressive, most expensive things in life, and at the end of it, you'll be left with the thing that you wanted that's very expensive, and you'll be left with a paying asset.”

 

If  you just go out and say: “Oh man, I guess maybe we'll have to get someone cheaper” or “I guess we have to take this cheaper option over here.” What ends up happening is you get a much cheaper experience and there's no asset!

 

Usually you end up paying out of pocket. Does that make sense?

 

So start thinking about how to liquidate costs... this is something most entrepreneurs end up getting pretty good at as they go down the road.

 

I would watch Russell, and it's  an active theme. He goes and figures out what he wants to do and then figures out what he can create to pay for it.

 

And so I started applying this strategy too.

 

About two years ago I launched a funnel explicitly to do this. What eventually started happening was I started making more money off that funnel than I was getting paid at my job.

 

In essence, I replaced my income with this funnel that was running on the side while I was working at Clickfunnels. Isn't that interesting? I'm always looking for some kind of asset to do that.

When I finally left ClickFunnels, I didn't take a paycheck from my business for almost three months. We were living on savings through March. It wasn't until April that I got paid. It was fine - we had cash, it was just I wanted to make sure the funnel was awesome. I wanted to make sure the business had enough cash flow. So I was like, well, “How do I remove the cost of me?”

 

I launched my funnel, I got it off the ground. Things are doin' awesome. It did a lot of money.