Module 1: Zero in on 1 Result (Focusing on a Single Service)

Before you can set up your customized funnel, you should know what service you're going to provide to the people who journey through your funnel. 

Chris and Taylor recommend having a singular, specific high-ticket product or service. 

Module 1 has two major points and they both involve focus.

Some business owners want to sell all their products through a single funnel.

Why is that a bad idea?

Funnels are too small of a structure to accommodate that many items. 

So, the Number One Rule in creating an awesome sales funnel is...

1. Learn to Say No: Finding Your One Service 

Later on, you'll learn that Chis and Taylor literally 10X'd their business by reducing the number of services they offered. 

Here's how I applied what the "Smartest Guys in Marketing" taught before I even knew them:

I started promoting my lead generation service through this kind of funnel.

Why?

To qualify my leads even more.

That way when I scheduled a phone call with them, they were already pre-sold on using my service. (often I'd focus my funnels on limousine rental businesses and tree services, but more on that in Module 2). 

How did I pick my lead gen service?

Initially, I was offering all kinds of services while running my agency after I got home from work. 

Ultimately I was trying to do too much and that wasn't working. 

I picked lead generation because it would bring in a lot of recurring income, help me quit my 9-5, and travel the world like I had always dreamed. 

2. Take the Time to Optimize the Funnel.

At first, I tried to set up a funnel for my lead gen service addressing my prospects as a group.

That didn't work so well. 

After watching a training by Russell Brunson, I learned how a focused funnel is just a much more effective one.

Why bring that up?

Well, I listened to a few of the recorded lessons in the course again and heard a student complaining about the same situation I was in.

Chris ended up recommending that the student tweak the funnel so that it appealed to a specific genre of his target audience.

He explained that if the student adjusted his funnel's copy to appeal to the middle range business, smaller businesses who couldn't afford his services wouldn't bother reaching out.

After, Chris share some helpful tips regarding the copy.

Here's 3 of them:

Look, building a funnel is more of a process than an event. 

Some funnel gurus make it seem like all you need to do is slap each page of your funnel together in a matter of seconds and be good.

They're wrong.

The majority of work on a funnel happens AFTER all the major pieces are in place and traffic is flowing through the sales funnel. 

Also true with search engine optimization, the best funnels are those that have been edited, edited and edited again... 

Now, if you want a funnel building service to make yours and speed up the optimization process, check out Steve's Marketing Funnel Academy.

Steve not only educates you on the the funnel building process but his team also builds and optimizes it for you. 

Module 2: Zero in on 1 Target Audience (Developing Your Client Avatar)

Once you've decided which service or product you'll use your first funnel to promote, it's time to get more details on your ideal clients.

Taylor covers what those are such as...

Below is a sheet that will become your friend throughout this module.

The course includes a similar one. 

Notice how there's a section for each part of your research?

At this point in the course, Taylor shows you how to fill up each section.

At the time I'm writing this, we have more information available to use than ever before thanks to the internet. 

In this module, Taylor shows how to use Google and Facebook to get the info you need.

Looking up this info via the search bar as well as using the Audience Insights feature in the FB Business Manager is a great way to scope out the population in detail. 

You don't want to be showing your ad to everyone.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

I'll give you a little hint for your Facebook ads:

Be Specific

You need to really zoom in...

Then zoom in some more to target particular sectors of the population using the demographics in the form above.

You must narrow down your audience and then put ads in that population to see if you get results.

Module 2 Conclusion:

The moral of the story is that your ad budget needs to correlate to the size your audience.

If you have a broad audience, you need a huge budget. 

Tiny budget, narrow audience. 

Take the necessary time to get this right and you'll see a great ROI.

Module 3: Build Your Feeder System (Creating Webinar Funnels)

This module is all about setting up your funnel and recording your HQ webinar.

Taylor drops some truth bombs here and explains what the 3 main mistakes funnel newbies make. 

Here's a basic layout of a sales funnel:

Sales Funnels are a very simple way to get either more clients or sell more products. 

Typically, they're made up of three pages. 

Below is an infographic of the process your prospects go through as they enter your funnel through either Google, Facebook or LinkedIn. 

After laying out the structure, Taylor dives into the 3 common mistakes rookies make:

To conclude Module 3, the advice is simple, go the extra mile when you make your funnel, because as Grant Cardone has said, "there's no one on it."

Module 4: Turn on the Faucet (Setting Up Your Paid Traffic) 

Every funnel has two main parts..

The funnel itself and the traffic that's following through it. 

Taylor and Chris teach you how to fill up your funnel by targeting such a specific slice of the market via the Audience Insights section. 

They then show examples of some of their ads, diving into the best practices of copywriting and using attractive images.

Things to keep in mind and implement in your FB ads:

At the end of this section, they include some information on the different types of feeds that your ads need to be optimized on, such as the desktop news feed.

By far, the most important part that this training helped me with was developing a great offer.

In the digital marketing world, an offer is a summary statement of the value you bring to your clients if they hire your services. 

An offer like above will have 3 main pillars:

1. Risk Reversal (often in the form of money-back guarantees)

2. Bonuses (i.e. 20% discount for signing up now)

3. A Sense of Limited Supply (sometimes, a bit of scarcity will give buyers the motivation to take action now)

Module 4 Conclusion:

Once you've created your ad campaign down to your ad set, it's time to turn on the flow, tweak the copy as it runs, and hop on all the sales calls that your funnel generates. 

At that point, it's time to close some deals!

Module 5: Automate & Leverage Your Time (Using Systems that Run 24/7) 

At this point in the game, you've reached your max capacity of what you yourself.

In this module, Taylor and Chris, chime in on how they scaled their business and suggest some things they would have done differently.

They focused in on the consulting service they were offering and cut out the content and funnel creation services they used to build their case-studies that showed their expertise. 

The result?

Their revenue went from 0 to $1 million dollars a month in 4 years. 

Taylor shared the proof in the FB group...

One of the mistakes that Chris shared was that they didn't keep their sales funnel optimized.

From 2016 to 2018, this made them reduce what they could charge their clients.

Now, their marketing gets updated annually. 

A second mistake they made was thinking that they needed to work more to earn more.

Since then, they've learned that scaling should be like a flywheel, it gets easier the larger it gets. 

Moral of the story?

Try to use something like an automated on-boarding system where prospects fill in a Google form and then added to an email list, then given access to the course.

Chris and Taylor are excellent examples of entrepreneurs because they made mistakes, realized them, and then implemented solutions.

It's all about finding ways to move forward and not make the same errors again. 

Bonus: 5 Steps to The Mindset You Need Growing from 0 to a Million in Months not years

Chris starts off by saying that the only thing holding you back from 100k a month, is yourself.

He states that without the underlying mindset, "strategies and tactics are garbage."

He then goes on to share 5 fundamental steps to keep in mind so that you can build a successful business.

Step 1: Correct Your Belief System

Shift from negativity to positivity.

Instead of thinking that X amount is too high for your services, believe that it's the right price.

Think about what can you do with the additional money? Who else can you help?

Book recommendations:

Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Summary of Psycho-Cybernetics:

Maltz reveals that the key to succeeding in business and in life is self-awareness, the ongoing management and development of your self-image.

He then walks through a variety of practices that you can implement to improve your future founded on your positive past. 

The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz

This is a classic mindset expander.

Chris found this book helpful early on in his career because he often felt guilty about wanting more money.

Schwartz walks through the process of how you can change your mindset from negative to positive, and then achieve your dream lifestyle. 

Definitely a bit idealistic, but if you know you need to revamp your thinking, this book is a pretty light investment of less than 10 dollars. 

Step 2: Know Your Numbers (Classic, but an often missed point)

Take the emotion out of the decision. 

If you want to make 100k a month, how many clients do you need?

If your service costs 5k a month, you'd need 20 clients.

To get those 20 clients, how many prospects do you need to get on sales calls?

With a closing rate of 1 out of 3, then you need to talk to 60 interested business owners. 

To get 60 biz owners on sales calls, how many leads do you need to cultivate in your funnel?

Discover this number by calculating the conversion ratio of your marketing funnel(s)

(If you have multiple funnels, calculate the average)

By repeatedly going over your numbers, you'll ingrain them in your mind and then over time, your actions will take over and you'll be close to your target. 

Grant Cardone, talks about Doing the Math, which basically comes down to working backwards from where you want to be in 5 years to see what you need to be making today.  

Here's GC's 5 Step Program: (Details are in the 30 minute video below)

1. Set Your Target

2. Save 40% of Your gross Income 

3. Store Your Money (to then Invest 100k at a time)

4. Invest in Assets which are Guaranteed Not to Lose Money #realestate

5. Repeat until you're a Millionaire

Step 3: Offer Less, Not More

It's a good idea if you audit your business.

See what you're doing and how much time each service takes to do.

Chris's business revenue blew up when they niched down and focused on their consulting service.

They also eliminated most of their done-for-you services. 

I can relate here, because when I started my agency, I tried to do it all too.

But, I wasn't able to scale to the levels I dreamed of until I zoomed in on the single service that offering reliable recurring income: local lead generation.

Chris shares a book that helped me through this period in expanding and fine-tuning Traffic and Funnels:

The One Thing, by Gary Keller.

Keller begins with the classic:

"you can only do a few things well or you will end up doing a lot of things poorly."

One of the primary illustrations Keller uses is the one below.

It shows how your priorities, productivity and profits are all founded on your sense of purpose. 

He encourages you to eliminate a lot of the time-wasting activities and focusing on the main task that you're best suited, hired, and most skilled for.

Then he takes you through his process for delegating and outsourcing.

Finally, he helps you focus in on your purpose.  

Step 4: Knowing Your Value

Chris talks about raising your prices.

Often times, business owners charge way less than what they're worth to their clients.

Many just don't value themselves as much and that reflects in their pricing.

This usually happens when you're new to entrepreneurship.

Therefore his suggestion is to go back and revisit your self-image. #psycho-cybernetics

When how you view yourself and your skills improve, your pricing will go up. 

You've got to believe in what you can offer your clients.

Step 5: 10X Your Business through Comparison

Chris' primary encouragement in this step is be practical. 

When you hit an obstacle, don't let yourself get stuck.

Keep moving forward by analyzing people who have bigger problems than you. 

Let's say things going well for you.

Awesome!

Someone else is doing better than you though.

It would be wise to see what they're doing and imitate them.

Don't judge yourself for what you're doing wrong.

What's important is that you fix the problem.

No, you won't learn this overnight.

The point here is to put things in perspective and realize that the it's not the end of the world.

Like my business partner says, "be a problem solver".