SFR 36: "How I Broke Into The Industry"

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I realized a few years ago that I needed to stop asking people for permission to prove myself...

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

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels, and now here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Hey, how's it going, everybody? Hey, I am really excited for today...

First off, it is still freaking cold here. Oh, my gosh, it's so cold. I love motorcycles. I think some of you guys know that. I'm not a motorcycle connoisseur as far as like brand and all the little nitty-gritties of it.

What I know is, I like to ride them, and I love to ride mine. Right? I've got a, it's a 2001 Kawasaki Vulcan. It's a cruiser. I wish it was a little bit more powerful. It's only 500cc, but anyway. It's still crazy fun, right? And the snow has been melting here, and the roads are clear, and so in the mornings, I have been riding my motorcycle, and what was funny is, I woke up this morning, and I rode it a little bit last week, and ... Anyway.

It was fine, but this morning, I woke up, and I was like, "Oh, man, it's extra cold out. Oh, man, it's really cold out. Oh, my gosh," and since we moved new offices, we were only a mile and a half away at the other one, now I'm out four and a half miles away, which isn't that much difference, but it is when you're on a motorcycle and when it's that cold outside.

And I started riding, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, that is so cold," and I start driving, I start going, I start going, and now I have had a little bit of frostbite before in my life. I was a hardcore skier growing up. We'd go like 25 times in a single season. I started skiing when I was five years old.

I don't think you guys know that. I don't think I've ever told you that before, and my dad was going to go be an Olympic skier, and I'll tell you guys more about that stuff later, but ... So we skied like crazy growing up, right?

And my hands and my face and my feet are used to that kind of cold abuse. Right? And I was riding along, and I'm not going to lie, but about a mile in, I was like, "My hands are going to freaking fall off. This is ridiculous. I cannot feel anything anymore." I was like, and it starts to get dangerous, you know what I mean? Because your right hand controls the brake. Your left hand controls the clutch.

You know what I mean?...

Left foot is the gears, right foot, you got the back break. Right? I mean, riding a motorcycle's an involved process, you can't just sit there. And so I was like, "If I can't freaking feel the grip, this is going to be a scary experience," and it was about a mile and a half in, and my face mask starts fogging up.

I wear a full mask helmet, especially when it's this cold. I mean, my face would be falling off otherwise in ... That's what it was like when I was a skier, a hardcore skier, but ... Anyway, I get to the office here, and I cannot feel my hands at all, and if you guys have ever had that experience before, I don't just mean like numb, but it's where you got the actual cells in your skin, in your fingers, they start to freeze, and it's a very painful experience, until your hands go numb.

They go numb, but then you can tell they're getting extra stiff and hard. You can't really move them, and it starts to freeze, literally, and it's a painful thing to have happened, but it's like 12 times more painful to have them thaw. Oh, my gosh.

So I got here to the office and I was like, "Hey, I'm going to record a podcast. I want to jump out to you guys real quick," but I had to wait for like 15 minutes just pacing around the office quickly, because my hands are just throbbing as they start to thaw. It's a ... Anyways, it's an awful experience, and I was like, "Hey, Siri ... "

Let me see if ... Hopefully it doesn't turn on. Okay. And I was like, "Hey, Siri," hopefully Siri doesn't hear me, I was like, "What's the temperature?" And it was like, brr, 24 degrees. I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I didn't know it was 24 degrees outside," and I was wearing gloves, but they're these paper-thin little things, so like, oh, gosh, okay.

I'm not going to do that again. Anyway...

Hey, super excited for today. We are still about ... Gosh. I'm so excited. We're still about a few days away from Funnel Hacking Live, and I just wanted to recap real quick what happened last time. That was a life-changing experience for me.

At the time, I was about to ... So this is last February. I was still in college, but I only had a week left of school, and I was getting straight As, and I was ... I mean, I was a ... For the most part, I was a straight A student. I graduated with a 3.85 GPA, and ... Which is kind of a rare thing, but I feel like, because most people are straight A students, I feel like they're really, they're kind of tightwads, and they don't know how to sell stuff, and they're ... I just get really into all the subjects.

If something interests me, I'll go learn it and try and get good at it...

But anyway, so I was nervous because Funnel Hacking Live was basically during finals week, and I was excited to get there, though. All I knew is, I had to get there. I couldn't explain it, I didn't know why other than it was my tribe. You know what I mean? I knew my tribe was meeting.

I knew they were getting together, and I knew there were things that were going to happen there that were going to get taught that would not be taught otherwise. It would be hard for me to learn the things that I was going to learn there outside of the event. You know what I mean? That's why it's so exciting to go. That's why it's so important to go, and I didn't have any money, though. I knew that Russell's going to be opening the cart.

This is like, rewinding even more, the last time it was in March, so in like January, he was like, "Okay, I'm going to open up the ... "

I think that was in, he's like, "I'm going to sell some tickets and get this thing going," and I was like, "Crap, I got no money." I was a poor college student. I was in the army, I was in ... I mean, there was a lot of stuff going on, my wife. I was trying to just keep up with school, we had two babies. We had, there's so much stuff going on, and that's kind of cool to have met a lot of you guys since starting this podcast. A lot of you guys were in the exact same situation, or are still now. It's kind of cool to bond over that, for sure, but ...

And I was like, "Cool, I'm going to go find some guy that I can build funnels for who will, instead of paying me, he will just pay for me to go to the event," and this, it sounds cool, but it was like, man, the execution of that was rough, and so I went in ...

Some of you guys are making a mistake when you go build funnels for people, you're trying to prove yourself. You're trying to ask for permission too much. I've done a lot of coaching sessions with you guys recently, and one of the things I've noticed in there is like, "Hey," I'm like, "He...