As the buzz builds around Funnel Hacking LIVE, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how to afford a ticket to Funnel Hacking LIVE on a budget. And I knew exactly who to turn to for the best advice – the incomparable Steve Larsen! Would he be willing to divulge his top tips for rapidly generating an extra $2000 to cover the costs of attending? The answer was a resounding yes!

So a few days ago, Steve revealed his strategies in an electrifying live session and the content was so valuable, I knew we couldn't keep it to ourselves. So I decided to bring it to you in podcast form, so that no one misses out on Steve's expert guidance.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn how to secure your spot at Funnel Hacking LIVE. We are eagerly counting down the days until we can welcome you in person at the event. Join us for this special podcast episode and take a step closer to being part of the excitement at Funnel Hacking LIVE!

What problem do you want to go solve that's valuable for a company to have solved? Number two, what types of companies do you want to do this for? Number three, kick up those leads. Four, follow up with leads. Number five, deliver and then circle back around and keep serving the person who said yes to you, because my guess is it's going to open up some new doors in your life.

Russell Brunson:
Hey, what's up everybody? This is Russell. I wanted to do a quick impromptu episode of the Marketing Secrets podcast, mostly because this is your last possible shot to get tickets to Funnel Hacking Live. We are either selling out this weekend or we're doubling ticket prices, whichever comes first. And so there's only a few more days, and then your ability to buy tickets is gone forever. And this weekend, Steve Larsen came and did a whole presentation for those who were like, I want to go to Funnel Hacking Lab, I can't afford it. And we called it the, How Can I Afford This Masterclass? And walked through ways that you could quickly earn the 2K to cover your flights, hotels, and ticket costs. And it was awesome. It was really good training from mindset, from a psychology, from a how to raise money quickly, just so many cool things.

I'm going to throw that episode in here right now so you can listen to it. Again, you can use this as a tool for so many things, for yourself, for your own business, but also as a tool to figure out how to get to Funnel Hacking Live. Because you guys need to be there, this is FHL number nine. We sold out every year, and we'll sell out this weekend, or the ticket prices will double, whichever happens first. And so now is your last shot to get tickets. If you don't have your tickets yet, go to funnelhackinglive.com, go and get them. With that said, I hope you enjoy this presentation from Steve Larsen. I think it'll inspire you, it'll motivate you, it'll give you tools, it'll give you a plan, it'll give you all the things you need to be successful in getting tickets to Funnel Hacking Live, or honestly, for any of the offers or promotions or campaigns that you're working on.

With that said, thank you Steve for doing this presentation. And thank you everyone for listening. I hope you enjoy it. And I'll see you at Funnel Hacking Live in less than two weeks. Let's go.

I'm pumped to be here with you guys today. As you know, my name is Russell Brunson, and we're talking today about something really, really exciting. When we were coming up with the name for this, I titled this presentation you guys about to hear the, How Can I Afford This Masterclass? And the reason why I called it that, some of you guys have read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Have you not read that book before? Who hasn't read it? Or who has read, I should ask? It's probably a better question. In the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki says something that was so profound to me. He said, "The difference between rich people and poor people. They're same people, they have the same brain, same everything. The difference between people who are rich and people who are poor..." Sorry, I'm so excited, I'm stuttering.

He said it's the way they look at things, the way they ask questions. He says, someone who's poor will look at somebody and they'll say, "I can't afford that." And someone whose rich mindset looks at something and says, "How can I afford that?" It's a little shift like, oh, I can't afford that. To, how can I afford that? And it's this little shift. And so many guys have been messaging us as we're coming closer and closer to Funnel Hacking Live, like 20 days away or something. Saying, "Oh, I wish I could come. I wish I could come." And I wanted to grab everyone, say, "Hey, real quick. What you need to understand is that there is a way to do it." Instead of saying, I wish I could come, I can't afford that. Say, how can I afford that? So we nicknamed this, the How Can I Afford That Masterclass?

And to be here today, I wanted to invite you to a special event, and I have a special guest who's going to come and speak to you guys tonight, which I'm really excited for. And I'll tell you the story of how I met this person. It was actually at Funnel Hacking Live number two, in San Diego. And I met him at the back of... This is the back of the last day, right?

Steve J. Larsen:
Yeah.

Russell:
We'll see a picture here in a minute. But the back of the room, after the event was over, he came up to me and I met him. And he was in a suit and tie, very professional, very business like you should be, right? Nowadays, you can't even see him wearing socks. He's come a long way. But he was there at Funnel Hacking Live number two, I had a chance to meet him. And I didn't know the story. I know the background, I knew he was there. I talked to him for a while, we shook hands, hit it off. I thought the guy was awesome. A little while later, we had a chance to work together. He sat next to me for a couple of years building funnels. And then after that he went on his own, and I've watched him build this huge empire and this huge business.

And I didn't know then, but I found out a little while later the story about how he got to Funnel Hacking Live. And I'm not going to ruin the surprise, he's going to have a chance to tell you that story. But he could not afford tickets to Funnel Hacking Live. But he knew, he's like, this is the room where it happens. You seen Hamilton, you know that saying, the room where it happens? He's like, "This is the room where it happens. I need to be in that room. I got to figure out a way to do there." And so instead of saying what broke minded people do, "Oh, I can't afford that." He said, "Well, how can I afford that? What can I do to be able to afford that so I could be there so I wouldn't have to miss it, so I could be part of it?"

And I watched him do that. He got there in the room. He'll tell you the story. I want to tell it, but I'll mess it up. So he'll tell you the story. But he got there in the room. He learned how to build funnels, became one of the best funnel builders in our entire community. Went on to take the skillset he learned to go build his own funnels and launch huge business, huge empire. And it's been such a huge honor watching him over the last few years. He's spoken to Funnel Hacking Live three or four times now. He's going to be speaking this year again with me on stage, that I'm excited for. He's someone who I consider a friend and someone who I'm just pumped to have here with you guys.

He's going to be walking us through a process for those who are like, I wish I could come, but I can't afford that. He's walk through the process he went through to be able to get tickets to Funnel Hacking Live so he wouldn't miss it. He's going to be serving you guys like crazy today. He's doing this out of love of his heart, so I'm grateful for him coming and being willing to serve you guys before the weekend. I hope you guys enjoy it. With that said, without any further ado, I need you guys as we do this in the comments, wherever you're at. If you're on Zoom or if you're in Facebook, wherever you're at, I need you to blow up the chat and give him some love. Let's put our virtual hands, our fingers together for Mr. Steve Larsen. Let's go. Yeah.

Steve:
Thanks, man. Thank you.

Russell:
Thank you.

Steve:
Oh, what's going on everyone? I am very excited to be here today. I'm going to open up the chat here and make sure that I can interact with you guys. This will definitely be interactive. Wow. Oh my gosh, there's a lot of you. But you guys can see me, right? You guys can hear me? Everything cool? Yes. Capital's big oink. Excited to be here. Yep. Two screens are very distracting. Apparently there's two of me. You know what? What's better than one Steve? Two Steves right? You got two of me now just yelling at you. That's like surround sound Dolby. Don't worry, it's not going to be the yelling. Hey, excited to be here with you guys today. Can we click over to my slides? And that might get going. Okay, there we go. Is that better? You guys good?

Twice as nice. Please fix it. Awesome. Double the fun. Love it. Awesome. Okay. Hey, I'm pumped for today. I'm excited to walk through this with you guys today. I woke up this morning super early asking myself, how can I help as many people as possible get a quick 2K in order to come to Funnel Hacking Live? And with the traveling to Funnel Hacking Live, travel's gone up. Obviously, Funnel Hacking Live itself was two grand. That fast, little quick 2K payday, we got to be able to pull that off. I went, and I think it was on Wednesday, I got a message from Russell. And who here watched the last time I did this about four years ago, five years ago, something like that? Was anyone here and watching that four or five years ago? You think you saw it?

Yep. Okay. I rewatched it on Wednesday to prep for this, and I'm very excited to be back here because I love what I did. But man, I promise I'll not be yelling like I was back then. Okay, let's do this. You look richer. Oh, thank you. You're talking dirty to me. Okay, let's do this. Now, I want you guys to get a piece of paper out, and this is the 2K payday. And this is the, I couldn't afford my first Funnel Hacking Live. Here's what I did to trade funnels quickly to make a quick $2,000 and cover my flights, hotels, and costs. And it actually got me in the room, it changed my life forever. And that picture on the left is when Russell and I first chatted. I went over and I saw him. And who there has been to Funnel Hacking Live, first off?

I hope to see you guys there. I really am psyched. Okay, cool. Help you. Okay, sounds good. Yeah, a lot of you guys come give me a high five. We'll do it in slow-mo. I'm excited for this though. You haven't been? Okay. Now I want to understand more about the room, so to speak. Who do I have with me here? Could you put "going" if you already have your ticket, and "goal" if you're trying to get your ticket. Going, goal, goal. Strange looking at two screens. I know, me too.

Going, going, going. Goal. Going, goal, goal, goal. We got probably, I'd say 50/50. Seems like 50/50 people. Going, goal. Make it back the cost quick. I have a ticket, but need money for the hotel and airfare. Awesome. Going, help me get there. Okay, cool. Sounds good. It seems like 50/50. Awesome. Now, I don't know if I have ADHD or what. I put headphones on while I'm talking a lot, especially in workshops though. Sound good? Here we go. Okay, you guys are in the right spot then. I found myself in a situation where I couldn't afford anything. I was living on loans, I was in college, family, was in the Army. In order for me to learn any funnel building, I just made a contract with myself that I would be tired. I was okay to be tired.

And I remember looking myself in the mirror and saying, "I am willing to be tired. I'm going to go learn funnel building." And I remember one year in particular, sorry, one month in particular. I looked in front of the mirror in their bathroom, freezing little apartment we were in. And I looked at myself and I said, "I'm going to be the best funnel builder in the world."

And that was my goal. And I have no idea, but the pursuit of it is what matters. And so first off, you need to have a goal. You got to have the thing that's willing to go get you out of bed and go through all the craziness. And I remember I sat there and I looked at myself and I just got really serious with myself. I realized that what I was doing in school is a dime a dozen. And that if I didn't learn any tangible skillset set on my own, I wasn't probably going to have the career and the life that I actually wanted.

Who here is a funnel builder? I found my people. Yes, you did, Shelly. Absolutely. Me, me. Okay. You guys are funnel builders? Awesome. How many of you have a sellable skillset already? Funnel builder here, I came here to learn. Me, me, me. I do, me, me. Okay, good.

Okay, then you definitely can do this then. All right. Funnel Hacking Live in a couple of weeks here, you guys got this. Not yet. I'm a funnel builder. Yes. Yes. Yeppers. Copywriting here.

Okay, good. Now that was the first thing that I checked off with myself. I started by reframing my brain, because I was very broke. And if you don't know, military people don't get paid a lot. And I was in school and we were living on loans, basically. We'd get, I think it was $6,000 to live on for three months. For three and a half months. That's what we were living on. And so there's just no extra cashflow in life, right? There's no extra cashflow. Oh, video's fixed. Very good, very good.

And if you guys are like, "Ah, I'm broke," that's different than saying I'm broken. And I want to make sure that you understand a very key difference between those two here, because I had to do some little games in my head. I had to get some different mentalities and mindsets going to actually get this to work out. All right? Okay, let me keep going here. The first thing I want you to recognize is that in this life we see exactly what we look for. If you're broke and it becomes a reason for you to not do anything, that will become true. If you're broke and you start seeing opportunities and ways for you to move forward and change your life, that will also be true. You will see exactly what you look for in this life. Exactly. Okay, so with your permission, I want to talk about myself a little bit here for the next little while to really just to explain how I did this.

And I'm actually going to share how I did it rather quickly. It's only going to be just a couple of slides here. I make slides because I'm very visual. But what I'm going to do at the end of this is I'm going to go and give you guys five steps that I want you guys to write down. That if you just do them and repeat them, the chances of you getting 2K payday, the chances of you having success only shoot through the roof. Sound good? Awesome. Yeah. How did you pitch your funnels to people? Fantastic question. I'm actually going to give you the script. Yeah.

Who's leaning in? Who wants this? Please get a piece of paper out. Stick with me, lean into this. And I dare you to go straight into the storm. You guys know... This is going to sound really stupid, and it's actually going to sound backwards.

First off, let me tell you the answer is not a pig. Can I tell you what my favorite animal is? It's not a pig, but it should be. All right, here's my favorite animal. Did you guys know that the buffalo is the only animal that turns directly into a storm to shorten the time that it's in the storm? Every other animal flies away from the storm and actually keeps it in the storm longer. Buffalo are the only ones who turn straight into it, and thus, actually shorten the time in the storm. I'm going to dare you to look at some honest truths about yourself. And during this, I'm actually going to dare you to challenge some beliefs you have and recognize the true nature that everything, good and bad, is your fault. And I had to do that for myself and get brutally honest with myself.

And I remember looking at myself in the mirror and saying, "Son, Steven, you're broke. Stop pretending that you just have a little bit of... You're broke." And I had to get brutally honest and tell myself that. And recognize that, okay, let's be brutally honest where I am. Therefore, I can actually navigate my next steps easier. Let's move forward here. I want to give you guys some more permission. First of all, I call this the legal crap section. I have to do this because of lawyers and garbage now. Hey, everyone raise your hand. Repeat after me. Steve, you're not my financial advisor. Steve, you're not my financial advisor. And this is not financial advice. And this is not financial advice. This is just some cool stuff for you to think about. Just some cool stuff for you to think about. Cool. Everyone feel disclaimed? Sound good. Alrighty. You like that? Awesome.

Hey, I'm going to give you guys three quick ways that I bootstrapped. These are three very fast ways that I used to stand my business up off the ground. One of them is how I got to Funnel Hacking Live, but I'm actually going to share with you two others very quickly. And these are three ways that I was able to pay for the cost of what it takes to get something like ClickFunnels, or get something like different softwares to start getting traffic, hiring people and hiring help. Here's three quick ways, and I want you guys to write these down. Steve is going to write me a check. Not. No, I'm not going to Timothy, I'm going to invite you to do that for with someone else. You're right.

I was in my marketing degree and I started walking around between classes reading, and I started doing that because I started recognizing that what I was learning in college was not actually what I wanted to learn in college. And anyone ever notice that? And so I started opening up books and I would read between classes while I was walking. Don't really recommend that. Did run into a few things every once in a while. And in this book, Robert Kiyosaki says that rich people have the mentality of "How can I afford it?" And so I remember sitting down in an empty classroom on campus and putting this problem in front of me, and I wrote down on this whiteboard, "What resources do I have available to me? How could I get to Funnel Hacking Live?"

And I actually asked this question quite a while before figuring out the answer. I made it too complicated. And what I'm hoping, is by me being here with you guys today, I can shorten and collapse some time for you. Not saying that you won't have some other challenge or figure out something else in your life or whatever, but it took me a while to figure out how to do this. Because I didn't have anyone to model. Except maybe Robert Kiyosaki and Rich Dad, Poor Dad. There was no one else in my life who was doing funnels. Is anyone else like that?

You're the only person you know who's doing this stuff. Russell, yeah, okay. All these… Russell Brunson was the only other person I knew in the entire universe that was doing this other thing called funnels. There were family members of mine who thought I was doing kitchen funnels, like selling kitchen funnels. And I'm a terrible cook.

And so I didn't have anyone to relate to with this stuff. And I would get into little fights with my college professors and such as well. Your whole family's doing funnels. That is awesome. That's a blessing too. That's awesome. I had no resources. And I was like, I got to get resourceful. This is actually a picture of the very gymnasium where I would... See that arrow?

The end of that arrow, I should have made it brighter, sorry. But at the end of that arrow right there, there is a box seat. And it was an open window. And what I would do is I would jump through the front window and hide up there from security studying funnels. It's where I learned most of the funnel stuff was in that room right there. And I did that because of the fast internet. I could stay there past building close, and I would hide from security up there.

And that's where I started learning things about the webinar, and where I drew the first funnels that I was going to go build. And learning how to create cash and cash flow, and get traffic for the first time. And it was in that room right there. And so I was sitting there, maybe feeling like how you might be feeling. I had a skillset, I was doing it with other... I was practicing the skillsets with these other small businesses, but I hadn't had a big success yet.

Anybody? You're learning the thing, but you haven't quite gotten that story. You haven't quite gotten the proof yet. Feels like I was right on that cusp trying to figure that out. And all the while you're playing these mental games going, am I just crazy? Is this a real thing? Are these people just blowing smoke on camera? All those questions were running through my head all the time.

It's usually what would occupy my mind during Army PT. We'd be running, I'd be thinking, is Russell Brunson full of crap? Is this real? And I remember one time we were doing some sprint tracks. I'm saying that weird. We were sprinting around a track and the phone chimed, this is back when Periscope was a thing. You guys remember Periscope? And I picked it up and it was Russell. And he was like, "I've got some cool thing for you today." And he's blasted on into his phone. And I just remember so much wanting it to work. And so I really leaned in to the reality that there's things I just don't know. And there's no room for me to be prideful and act like I have all the answers. This guy Robert Kiyosaki says, rich people ask, "How can I afford it?" And this guy, Russell Brunson is saying, "Funnels work and can change your life."

And I'm like, please, I hope one of those... At least make one of them true. And so I was very much in that spot, negative cashflow. And I was coming up at the end of college, so I had to figure out what I was going to be doing with my life as well. Here's what happened. Here's three ways that I was able to bootstrap my new business, and I wanted to share each of them with you very quickly. I'm not going to hold stuff back to the end, or whatever. But at the end of this, I am going to walk through five steps. If you just keep doing them, it's going to help you kick up leads who are open and possibly willing to trade something like a plane ticket or a funnel or a hotel night to get there. And that's exactly what happened to me.

First off, here is how I actually got ClickFunnels. Now, back then, I think it might be a 30-day trial now, but back then when I got ClickFunnels it was July 2015 was my first bill to ClickFunnels. July 2015. And I went to the 2016 Funnel Hacking Live. This is the year before.

And I was broke. I didn't have any money. I couldn't get something like ClickFunnels. Stick with me, because there's a huge point to this. I couldn't get ClickFunnels. And so that Robert Kiyosaki, man, that line was just sticking in my head. Rich people ask, "How can I afford it?" Rich people ask, "How can I afford it?" I also would have these other motivational videos sticking in my head all the time. How bad do you want it? How bad do you want it? How far are you willing to go? You're going to do some weird stuff for some weird outcomes. And I would just keep these lines in my head.

And I remember looking at ClickFunnels, realizing I needed it. And what I did is this. That's the first funnel I ever built. That's the first funnel I ever built right there. And this is how I did it. First of all, the week before I got the ClickFunnels trial, I was like, what if we take the next week, I'm going to do all the funnel hacking? I'm going to do all the research, I'm going to write all the copy, write the scripts. I hadn't done anything like that in my life before ever. This is the first funnel, think of all the things you got to do for your first funnel. You don't know. I remember writing into support to ask how to change the background color on the editor. I didn't even know how to do that. I started from absolute scratch. Now I'm telling you this for a lesson, stick with me. And it's in that little arrow, that's why I put the little stadium right there.

I was in that room. I was in that room where I was doing this stuff. Oh man, I look back on this just such empathy, and that's why I have so much passion when I speak to people who are trying to figure out how to make it. Because I'm like, man, I was there. Oh, I was there. This freaking sucked. But you guys got this and just stick with it. Just lean into the discomfort.

Discomfort doesn't mean it's a no. This is what happened though. I decided that I would take a full week and plan out the funnel, and I would funnel hack. I would write copy, I would shoot the videos. And I was literally renting the... I was going to the library on campus, and I would check out one of the cameras. Because I didn't have a camera. And I would go to just this empty... I would always sneak into the classrooms when they were closed, and I would set up the camera and I would film.

And I ended up filming my first course five times before I felt like it was good enough. But I didn't have video editing software, I couldn't afford it. I was broke. What I did, is I would go turn the camera back into the library and I would keep the SD card. And I would go over to the library, a computer lab, because they had software. And I'd go plug it in there. And I watched YouTube videos on how to edit video. That's how I learned all Adobe basically, was like that. And so I get it. And again, it's another reason why I get a little feisty when someone's like, "I can't afford it." I'm like, I don't care. I don't care. That's your goal. The constraint in front of you is what's going to qualify you for the thing you're wanting in the first place.

No one's coming to save you. And it was one of the things that I had to get honest with myself about. No one's coming to save me. And people will say, "Jesus is." And I was like, "He already did. This one's on you." No one's coming to save me financially. This one's on me. I'm not going to get someone sending me some random DM going, "Oh, here, let me drop a line down so that I can save you." I had to be very honest about that. I'm just passing this gift of a hard mallet lesson onto you saying, look, no one's coming to save you. Which means you're going to have to do things differently than you probably ever have, and you're about to grow. And I cannot wait for the first time epiphanies you're about to have with it. And please, come ,give me a high five.

Let's take a selfie or whatever when you come to Funnel Hacking Live, because I'm very excited for what you're about to go through. I leaned into the discomfort, and I came up with my own plan. That's a big key piece of this. I came up with my own plan and I said, "I know I need ClickFunnels." Week zero, I'm going to plan it out, plan all these pieces out. I'm renting the camera, I'm writing the copy. I'm funnel hacking, I'm drawing it all out. I would write all the plans out on the whiteboard, all the email sequences, all the followup stuff. I didn't know what I was doing. It's the first time I'd done any of it. And so once I felt I had a good plan, then I clicked go on the ClickFunnels trial. And I remember the first week, all I did was focus on building the funnel.

This is still while I was in classes and in the Army, and all this stuff. I was doing most of this from midnight to 2:00 AM and I would build the funnel. I built the whole funnel the first week, and then I focused on week two of the trial on selling. And so by the time week three came around, week three was actually I paid four ClickFunnels with the customer's money. Sweet. I'm going to go ahead and give myself an amazing stanky pat on the back right there. That's some good move. Good job Papa Larsen. Does that make sense? I hope that you feel that. Good job. Oh, thank you very much. But that's how I got ClickFunnels. A trial period that someone's giving you, that's not a bad constraint, that's a good constraint. Change your relationship with constraint.

That's what I had to do. That's what I'm trying to get to. I want you write now to sit, and whatever piece of paper you got in front of you, or wherever, write down the number one constraint you're running into. Don't make it this vomit. What's the one? Write it down.

Because what you're going to practice is creative problem solving, and that's all I'm trying to help you see. That's all it takes for you to have a totally different outcome from life that you're wanting creative problem solving. And that while you can get insights from me, from Russell, from other people who've been there, done that, absolutely. We'll help show you the map. A map still doesn't show terrain. You're going to execute this map, but of course the steps are going to look a little bit different. I'm going to... Hey, step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

I'm just trying to pre-frame these steps right before I start. They're in a few minutes here. As you execute these, I'm showing you the map, but maps are not terrain. So you're going to experience it slightly different than even I did. And so just know that, going on into it, that all you're doing right now is flexing. You're flexing creative problem solving, and you're doing it
in a way where it applies to the scenarios you have in your life trying to answer that one constraint. And I'm going to start by changing my relationship with constraint and go, Ooh, this is good. This is powerful. A lot of people think that having no rules is freedom. It's not, it's chaos. Constraint is a good thing. You actually get freedom from constraint. You grow, you learn, you progress. Think about a gun. If there was no barrel and gunpowder goes off, it's actually super anticlimatic. The only reason a gun is powerful is because of the barrel.

All right, let's keep going. I hope you guys know how much tremendous love and empathy I have for you guys. And if you're trying to figure this out, what you're going through, because I felt super alone. And that was the biggest reason I knew I needed to go to Funnel Hacking Live. I just wanted to know that there were other people with hearts and blood in their bodies that were doing this stuff. And I was like, I know if I just go to this thing, my life will probably change. Just being in the room, just being in the environment. My dad taught me that when he was trying to get a job out of college. He's like, "I walked down the biggest tech people and said, "Hey, I will take out your trash, I just need to be in the room."

Let's keep going. That's how I got ClickFunnels, how I started getting more cash when I was still broke, but... Well, I wasn't broke, but I also didn't have any money. You know what I mean? It was not like I was... I guess that's the definition of broke. Okay. This is how I did it though, is I just became an affiliate. And I created all these pages. This is me when I had hair on the other side of my head. I created all these pages with affiliate links and I created extra little bonuses, and I put out tons of these different funnels and I became a funnel spreader. And I did a lot of this stuff, obviously on the right. Anyway, I'm just trying to share with you examples that trying to make more money in your life happened by using the route of building a new offer is powerful, but it also can sometimes make the distance to success longer.

Sometimes it's easier just to learn to sell other people's stuff. Just be an affiliate and get your way that way. And I did that a lot. There's several times that I've fallen back on being an affiliate when I was trying to figure out my next business move, or things like that. Does that make sense? Okay. Did you use paid ads or organic? I used all organic. Did you already have web design and editing experience? No, I didn't. That's the reason ClickFunnels is cool, it's just a drag and drop editor.

And I also want to call out though another question I'm hearing. Notice that I'm saying a piece and there's a knee-jerk reaction coming from people's brains. So please know this is a safe environment. I'm not going to yell at you. But notice that immediately, as soon as I say, "Here's the route," someone will say, "Yeah, but Steve. Okay Steve, you say this is the right... Yeah, but..." And that's exactly what I'm talking about. That little inner voice that constantly looks for reasons what I'm talking about won't work is what you kind of have to backhand and say, "You're not serving me anymore, false belief."

I did this just like last week in this cool guided session thing that I was in. What are the beliefs I have right now that are no longer serving me? Right? And so, that's what I'm trying to say, is there's an element, this is totally a faith-based game. And you're going to go out on a limb and you're going to do things that are going to feel possibly a little bit scary. But I challenge you to be aware of the inner self-talk that pops up when I give you these five steps. It's the other reason I'm not giving them right now because I'll call it out. Does that make sense?

So I want you to have right now on your piece of paper, what your goal is, "Go to Funnel Hacking Live" or whatever, right? "I want to go to Funnel Hacking Live." And then right underneath it, I want you to write, "Here's my number one constraint," right? The constraint that if it was no longer there, you would come to Funnel Hacking Live, or whatever that goal is for you. All right. "Here's my number one constraint." Is it money? Is it time? Is it support from your own community around you? Maybe you really do feel alone and no one really is around you or whatever. What is that one thing?

And as you begin to look for possible ways to answer the problem, you're going to have a few dialogues in your head. And one of them is going to be this creative genius that will awaken inside of you, "Ooh, I'm a creative genius. I'm going to go solve this problem." And then, you're going to have the peanut gallery based on your experiences, based on your memories, based on past failures, based on things that are trying to look out for you. It's the crock brain trying to look out for you. But really, it's just keeping you from doing the thing, right?

I had that. I got to know those voices real nice. Oh yeah, they're jerks. So I want you guys to just call that out. I'm trying to call this out in a place of safety, but recognize that if you're asking, "Well, Steve clearly had web design experience ahead of time." No, nah, WordPress. If you look at it, it sucked, right? So just recognize that if there's this piece of you that's going, "Yeah, but Steve can but I can't, because he's Steve, but I can't because I'm not Steve."

Immediately call that crap out for what it is, crap. It's garbage. It's the inner crock brain going, "Are we going to be safe as we make these new steps? This is new territory. I've never done this before." And thank that part of you, but tell it to shut up. Okay?

All right, so let me keep going here. Let me show my slide here and we'll keep going. All right. So I was just an affiliate, right? I was just bootstrapping. And one of the key pieces, I'll tell you also while I was really doing this, was I made sure to put my head down and not look at the clock. Because it was very easy to start comparing myself to other people, especially when you start to see the highlight reel of other marketers lives where they're like, "I made a million dollars in four seconds" or whatever thing they're out there claiming. And you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm worthless." I totally went through that. Anyone else? Right? Like, "Oh, I'm a worthless piece of garbage. How come I can't figure this out? They're figuring it out." And you do that. I totally did that and that's why I'm trying to keep you from. I know the amount of time it took for me to be successful was longer, because that's stupid internal dialogue, right? So I'm broken because of it. Right. Yeah.

So remember this one. I want you to write this down also. "It's you against you, and it's you against yesterday." That's it. Don't look at the clock. Don't look at anyone else. Celebrate the Two Common Club Award winners, but don't you dare compare yourself to them. You're on your own journey and most of you are living your future hook. Russell Brunson wouldn't have put me up on the stage if I had the money to go to my First Funnel Hacking Live.

Isn't it interesting what doors have opened in my life because I didn't have money? That's what I'm trying to help you guys get. Your constraint is exactly the meaning you assign it. If you lean into it, I dare you to, but it's probably going to be this thing that it's going to cause a flip. And actually, what's happening is you're saying, "I want this goal, I want this goal, I want this goal." And you have a constraint coming along and you're like, "I can't because of this. I can't because of this. I can't because of this." But in reality, you can. Because of it, you just can't see it yet. Yeah, yeah? Yeah. You against you, you against yesterday, mind-blowing.

Exactly right. A hundred percent. You guys are living your future hook. You look just like me up here, right? I fully expect to keep going. I wanted you guys all on that FHL stage, right?
All right. So let's keep going. So this is how I actually bootstrapped. This is really how I got to Funnel Hacking Live, was I sat back and I recognized that I was broke. I was honest about it. I stopped hiding from that reality. I recognized that there were patterns in my life that were no longer serving me and beliefs, internal beliefs that were no longer serving me.

I also recognized that I was going to probably experience a small amount of discomfort as I made new moves. I recognized that there was going to be internal voices in my head that were well-meaning, but ill-informed, right? And I was going to have to tell them, "Look. Shut up. I'm going to go make a new me. I need some new software to run up there. Otherwise, I'm going to get stuck where I am." Red Bull? No, it's not Red Bull. I don't drink as much caffeine as I used to. I drank a lot when I worked for Russell. I didn't really drink caffeine until I worked for Russell. That's funny.

All right. Let's keep going though. So here's how I did it, though. What I did is I'm going to tell it to you very fast and then we're going to break it down. Up until that point, and again, hair on the other side of the head, where did you go, hair? That's the funnel though that I designed and drew for this specific business. What I'd run into was I started building funnels for other people while I was in college still. And I was finding these little startups. And it was easy for me to find startups to build funnels for. And I was a pretty new funnel builder. I'll tell you why this is important in a second, but I was a pretty new funnel builder. I really was not great at it, but I worked for it. I was willing to suck and that was okay.

And what I did was I was working with all these brand new businesses, and what was happening was I would build a funnel and sure, there were things that were not great with it. I was new. I was going to make new mistakes. I was a new. Who cares, right? But their business was new, so it didn't really matter. It lowered the risk.

And as I was building funnels for these different businesses while in college, the companies I was building for were so new that it was very easy for them to point at the funnel as the reason their business wasn't working. Does that make sense? I don't know if you guys are trying to build a funnel for other people right now, but if you're trying to build a funnel for other people, if the business you're trying to build for is too new of a business and you're trying to do it as a service, it can be very easy for you to be the reason everything doesn't work.

And I started looking at it, and I was like, "You don't have a company, but your fulfillment sucks." "I think it's not, but what are you talking about?" "You have no customer support." You know what I'm saying? And so, listen to me on this. What I recognized I needed to do, and what I want you to do, and this was a key reason I was able to make it to Funnel Hacking Live, is I realized I needed to upgrade my customer. The customer that I was trying to build funnels for and do services for, and I was open about the fact that I was also learning under their wing, that I was new, the company, it needed a little bit further down... It needed to be a business. It couldn't be a startup, at least a year old.

And so, what I did is I sat down and I started writing down what my criteria was for my dream customer. I was like, "Okay." And this is what I did. I said, "My criteria that tees the most cards in my favor, I want them to sell..." And there's no right answer here. They were just my decisions. So I was like, "I want them to have a product that's at least $1,000, no more of these $7 knick-knacks." That means I can go get them a couple extra sales every month, and it's significant. If I sell a couple extra $7 knick-knacks, it's not going to be significant. They might think I'm not important on this. I was like, "All right. So the product's got to be a little more expensive than what I've been doing." It's like, "Second of off, they've got to have a customer list. I need to be able to talk to the people that have been buying from them." Right? I was like, "Third, they've got to have some kind of internet asset, something already built."

And so, I wrote those down on a piece of paper. I still remember kind of where I was on campus when I was doing these, because these were key moments for me. And what I did is I started looking through LinkedIn for businesses that kind of matched that. And I started writing down all of the businesses that matched that criteria and that looked like they were internet, looked like they were a little bit young but not too young, they had a product that was a little more expensive. And what I did was I just sent them this message. I said, "You don't know what funnels are. I'll build one for you. Just pay for the software. If it works, you can pay me. But if it doesn't, I'll walk."

And I shotgun blasted that message out to... And that one's a little bit, I shouldn't put quotes on it, there was probably another paragraph in there, but that's the nuts and bolts of what I said. And that was my deal. And I shotgun blasted that out while I was on campus to, I don't know, a hundred businesses. And I got two people to respond. And one of them in particular, I was like, "Ooh, I think I can go crush that one."

Keep in mind at this time, the only thing that was available information and education-wise back then was the book Dotcom Secrets. There was no One Funnel Away. There was no Expert Secrets. There was no Traffic Secrets. There was Two Comma Club coaching. There was none of that stuff. And that's the other reason why I really want you to understand how much easier it is to win now compared to what I had when I started, which was just about eight years ago, which is crazy.

So anyway, so I shock and blasted out all of these businesses, just emails, LinkedIn messages. And I got one to respond back to me. It's funny, because two years later, another one responded to me and I didn't realize they was someone in Russell's Inner Circle. And so, they're like, "Oh, you're the one that got away. Russell hired you."

And so, this company responded back and they're like, "Hey, I'm totally up for that. Let's do it, whatever that is." I was like, "Yeah. Just go pay for ClickFunnels." And I sent them my affiliate link. Why would I not? Right? And so, I'm logging into their ClickFunnels account with my affiliate link, so I'm getting a little extra cut of cash there, which is nice. And I went and I did what we teach. I talked to their customers. I surveyed them. I asked them what their experience is like, "What do you wish we were providing more as a business?" representing the company.

And I started reading the responses. I just sent out this Google form survey, and I got all these responses back. And I was able to see from these responses that there was a strong theme in what the customer was wishing that company was providing and they weren't. So what did I do, baby? What do you guys think I did? I built a funnel.

I built a funnel, and I dropped out a quick email sequence. All right? And I was new, I didn't really know what I was doing. I was just kind of following the Mad Libs templates that everyone passes around. And I increased the sales of that company, and my funnels collected like $50,000 in the first month. And so, I turned back around to them and I said, "Hey. Remember how I said..." I'm doing this all for free. I was making money through my affiliate link. That was it, though.

And I went back to them and I said, "Hey. You know how I said if this works, we can talk about me getting paid. If it doesn't, I'll walk?" I just want you to buy my ticket to Funnel Hacking Live and my plane and hotel. And the dude was like, "Are you serious?" I was like, "Yeah." And that's how I got it. And so, he went and he bought it. And I was still really freaking poor, right? So Funnel Hacking Live comes, I get on the plane, and I didn't barter enough nights in the hotel. I didn't know that. I misjudged the number of nights I needed. And so, I stayed up the whole last night in the lobby.

But I was such... I just want to back up. Think about what happened when this company said yes to me. I had no choice but to learn ClickFunnels. I had a client. And so, I messaged ClickFunnels' support, I don't know if they're listening. I messaged ClickFunnels' support twice a day for six months. I decided also to become known in this space that I would become of the best service I could to the community. So for that six months, I also spent about an hour every day pretending that I was ClickFunnels support. Am I allowed to say this? Yeah? All right. Pretending I was ClickFunnels support, because when people were asking questions in the ClickFunnels community, the Facebook group, I would just go look up the answer and show them the article, didn't ask for anything. Did that for six months. I was like, "I'm just going to show up and serve, show up and serve, show and serve, show and serve." And that's it.

So when I showed up to Funnel Hacking Live and I landed, I didn't have enough money for a taxi, so I rented one of those city bikes. This is in San Diego. And I literally had my luggage over my shoulder and I rode a freaking bike through San Diego to Funnel Hacking Live, threw the bike in a bush because I needed it to get back to the hotel. And I walked in to go register for the event, and the head of support was standing there and he goes, "All right. What's your name? Welcome Funnel Hacking Live. Excited to have you. What's your name?"

I was like, "My name's Steven Larsen." And he looks up and he goes, "You're that guy pulling off all that Star Wars ninja crap on our software, right?" That's exactly what he said. I'll never forget it. "You're that guy pulling off all that Star Wars ninja crap on our software." And I was like, "Oh, I don't know. What do you mean?" He goes, "You message our support a lot." I was like, "Yes, I do because I have to learn it because I have a client. That's how I got here." And he goes, "I want you to work here." And I ended up getting five job offers throughout the remainder of the event from ClickFunnels' different staff.

And I just really want to lean into the reality that there's a lot of reward that comes to somebody who doesn't look at the clock, doesn't compare themselves to other people. Of course I do. No one's perfect at it. Okay? But who really takes the time to get good at something without looking at an immediate reward. I hustled my face off to get to Funnel Hacking Live. And guess what happened as a result? I got to work next to Russell Brunson.

And what's interesting also to note is that I wouldn't have worked for Russell Brunson if I had the money to get to Funnel Hacking Live, bringing that up again. And so, that's why I say when you have this constraint, it's important for you to recognize that it's actually an accelerant for your future. If you treat it like a proverbial weight room, right? You're going to the gym. I'm practicing my creative problem-solving skills. I'm practicing my mental toughness skills. You're telling me that a little $2,000 thing is going to keep me from my future?

I had all these little tiny self-talk chats with my head to make sure that I was in this mode of problem-solving of, "Am I actually worth it? Well, yeah, I am. Okay, then freaking prove it." Right? "Prove it." And so, I did. And I made a contract with myself to be tired for a little bit. I was like, "That's going to be fine." And I would work on my own funnels and projects for people as fast as I could every day, usually from midnight to 2:00 AM, and I just made it happen.

And sometimes there's nothing more to it than that. And sometimes it can be a disservice to yourself to think it's more complicated than that. I found a client. I said, "I'll trade you funnels instead of payment for a flight to Funnel Hacking Live and the event ticket" and then I read support docs. To be honest, that's it. That's what I did.

And so, what I want to do is I want to walk through these steps to make it crazy simple so you guys can go do this as well, because you don't have to do it exactly as I did. And they feel like, "Steve, I'm not trying to be a funnel builder." That's fine. Swap out any skill you've got with funnel building and pursue it that way. Okay? "You're awesome, Steve." "You're awesome." "I'm just excited to hear." "No, thank you very much." I know I'm talking about myself a bunch, but that's what Russell asked me to talk about, so hopefully that's cool. Oink.

All right. Let's go into this next piece here, if we can go back to my slides now. So that's kind of how I bootstrapped the business, but it's also how I got to Funnel Hacking Live by trading funnels and getting there like that. In fact, the real way that I was building funnels for companies was I would rent the camera from campus library, and I didn't tell them I was traveling with it. And what I said is, "I'll go film your event. I'll film your event. I'll bring my camera," library camera. I don't totally recommend this, but this is what I was doing and I was recording someone's small little in-person, small little hotel room event. I'd record it and then I'd take a bus six hours back to campus, turn the camera in, keep the card, edit the video, learn how to put it on a page inside ClickFunnels.

And all this is is solving the single next problem in front of you. And where anxiety and overwhelm come from is when you try to consume and solve and learn how to solve every single step all at once, right? Like, "I've got to do everything in my future and pull it all... It's got to be now." It's like, "No, no. What's the next one step? Just do that, single step." And I would tell myself, "I need to do three things a day." And I've built my entire company like that. And these times, it is actually where I started that, three things a day, three moves, that's it. Okay? Build the plane while flying. Yeah, exactly right. Alrighty, let's do it.

All right. So yeah. My point is that you're first going to solve the problem of how to get to Funnel Hacking Live by understanding that you've got to switch everything to, "It's possible" mentality before it's actually going to get solved in real life, right? Redefine your relationship with constraint. And I promise you, that if you start looking for ways what I'm telling you won't work, you will find them. And if you look for ways that this could work, you also will find them. It's exactly what you look for. It's exactly what you make it. Make it nothing more than that and just move.

I'm the least likely success story. It took me 34 product tries to make one to work. Half of those were while I was working with Russell. How bad do you want it? Okay? Just go. Right? "I'm clay, baby. Mold me." And I put myself into environments that I know are tough because environment grows me faster than my willpower ever could. And right now you're being presented with a tough environment. This environment is this gymnasium, orchestrated specifically, tailored to you. Even though there's other people who are trying to figure out how to get to Funnel Hacking Live, yours is tailored specifically to you and asking you to grow.

Very few adults are willing to put their own back against the wall, burn the boats on their own accord and say, "I will figure it out. I will figure it out." Just figure it out. Make nothing more of it than that. Keep it simple in your head. Next step at a time. And that's just how I drove the train, right?

All right, let's do this. Okay. So the other thing I would ask myself is, I ask myself this a lot. "How would the person I'd like to be do the things I'm about to do?" That makes me shut off Netflix faster or whatever. "How would the person I'd like to be do the things I'm about to do?" And I would keep that line in my head a lot. Also, I did it so more at the beginning. I kept so many motivational YouTube videos on just replay during that period of my life, too, because I was living on faith, man. There was no evidence, and there wasn't another soul around me for me to have camaraderie with, right? There wasn't anyone else. And so, I get that.

And so, your mentality, that's why I'm spending a little bit of time on this and I know I've been going on for 45 minutes already. But the reason for that is because if your mindset is wrong, you will fail anyway. And I really wish mindset wasn't part of the answer. I used to make fun of mindset. Even when I was working next to Russell right over there, I remember looking at him one day. I was so afraid that I was going to get found out as a fraud, my first two months working next to Russell, that I didn't really say anything.

And I remember when I finally started saying stuff, by month three. He was coaching someone, and we sat this far from each other, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, back-to-back in the office before this one. And he's coaching someone on some mindset stuff. And I was still of the mindset that success is just a formula. I was like, "Just give me the 1+1=success formula. Stop telling me the mindset has anything to do with it."

You don't have to raise your hand, but anyone else ever run into that? Okay? And that's totally a false belief, by the way. And he leaned back from who he was coaching, and he leans back in his chair and was like, shows you how far I've come also, by the way. And this is while I was working for him, this is after FHL, right? And he leans back in his chair and he's done with his coaching thing and he sits back, and he says, "Man, that was a good session. That was good with all mindset stuff." And I kind of took my headphones off and I was chatting. I was like, "Ah, cool." I was like, "I got to tell you though, man. I'm really tired of this mindset crap. Just give me the formula." I was like, "Mindset, what does that even mean? It's so fluffy."

And he didn't say a word. He looked at me with just this, "Well, son. Life's about to smack you upside the head." And it did, right? I will tell you, mindset matters. And it is easily 51% of the formula. Okay? So let's keep going into this. All right. Let's do this.

All right. There we go. I want you to make an internal commitment as we dive into these next five steps here to just commit to the unseen costs that are going to be required for your growth. It's one of the exercises I do mentally. A lot of times, before we take on any endeavor we want to see beginning to end. All right? "All right, Steve. I see step one. I need to see everything all the way through step 99 to make it work," when it really doesn't work that way.

Entrepreneurship as a whole is this idea, you see the next three steps in front of you, and then you see nothing. And it's totally, there's nothing there. And then, you see the peak. I see the goal, I see where I am, I see maybe the next few moves, and then nothing. Even when I have a map, I still don't get to see every rock, bush, and crevice, and river I'm going to have to cross, and bridge. And I'm not going to be able to see up ahead that, "Ooh, there's a storm I'm going to encounter that the person who made this map didn't have to encounter. Therefore, is this a good map?" And you start freaking out about it.

And a lot of people will not make any moves because they're like, "What should I do on step 87?" And I'm like, "Are you on step 86?" People say, "No." And I'm like, "Then why do you even care about it? Besides that, you've got 85 steps worth of experience that's going to influence what you'll do on step 87. So how on earth can you even judge what steps you'll be making that far in the future?" It's just this idea that you're going to go, knowing everything ahead of time. You're not. Just make moves. You can't steer a parked car. You've got to drive to move it, right? You can't steer parked car. You've got to move. It's the only way to do it, so just get moving. Just move. Just do something.

Do you know that most people are so stuck in analysis paralysis they're not going to do a thing anyway? So actually competition is actually a lot less than you perceive. Just doing something already puts you in the top echelon, I'm not saying that word correctly, of entrepreneurs. Just doing something, doing something, doing anything makes you more likely to succeed than you probably perceive. "I've got to be perfect. My offer has got to be like Steve Larsen's was. What's the exact copy that he emailed out to get those clients?" Stop. Stop. Okay? So commit to the unseen costs of the journey. Commit to the unseen costs that you'll find out about after you've left step one. Now they're going to be there. Whatever, right? Whatever.

Okay. Here's something else, last little piece here, and I'll go into these five steps. I forgot about this. Okay. So you want to find someone to model, though, obviously. It obviously shortcuts a lot of the guesswork. But your journey's going to be different than anybody else's, so you can't compare it. Don't compare it to me, don't compare it to Russell, don't compare it to anyone else you see at the Funnel Hacking Live stage. Your journey is your own, and you are just as powerful as anyone you're going to see on stage.

I tell my little girls, they're little star seeds. I have three little daughters. They're little star seeds. And I'm like, "Your job is to pass me." How cool of a thought? Same thing that's true with you guys. Your job is to pass me. Pass me. Do it. I'm going to high-five you on the way. I've got water for you as you round the corner. Okay?

So one of the things that I did, this is actually what Russell did with me the first day I worked for him, and I thought it'd be valuable to share this story and then we'll get into the real meat here. I'm sorry that I keep saying that. Sometimes I forget what's coming up next.

So I sat down next to Russell Brunson, right? Oh my gosh, I was so scared, just huge imposter syndrome. And I sat down next to him, and I was already a pretty good funnel builder by that point, obviously. And I did some design work in high school, and so I understood some layouts and things like that. But I'm not a designer. You can clearly tell when Russell hired an actual designer and we started building funnels together. You can tell when a designer came into the scene.

But anyway, but at the beginning it was just Russell and I. There was no copywriter. There was no videographer. There was no email person. There was a paid traffic person, but it was just Russell and I. So literally, thank you, YouTube and Google, I would videotape Russell with a phone, right? This is how we would build funnels, even back then. I'd videotape him. Sometimes, you guys ever see when I'd hold like three phones? You'd get all those different angles.

Then what I'd do is I would take the footage and I would put it into Adobe, and I would look up how to do a transition in Adobe. I'm just relentless, right? It's just a trait of mine, just relentless. I'll figure it out. No pressure. I'll figure it out. Just keep going, right? Make the moves. And so, I would film it and then I would edit the video. And I'd put it up on the the funnel. And then, I would write the first stab of the copy. And Russell would look at it and be like, "Great job." Right?

Make me start totally all over again, destroy 80% of it. And the first thing he ever had me go do though was clone pixel for pixel this funnel. This funnel was, it's not up anymore, but it was the original funnel, university funnel. And look how it's long. I had to take two huge screenshots just to stitch it together. What I used for video editing doesn't really matter, doesn't really matter. I don't want you to get caught up on a tool. I just edited videos. And so that's a long page. And so day one of my training with Russell, what he had me do is I'd sit next to him. I mean, I always did, but he said, "What I want you to do is I want you to remake by hand this entire page."

So, I open up a brand new page in ClickFunnels, Editor, totally blank. And I had to remake this entire page, and it's a big page, and I spent the whole day remaking it. He said, "What I'm going to do is at the end of the day I'm going to look at mine and I'm going to look at yours. Don't tell me which one it's. I'm going to try to guess." This is how he started doing the finer point training on me. And so I spent the whole day rebuilding this funnel. And at the end of the day I handed it back to him and he looked for a while, he leans in and he's scrolling through the funnel and he's looking at both versions. Which one is his? Which one is mine? He's like, "Really?" You can imagine that's pretty intimidating. It was super intimidating for me.

And I was like, "Okay, okay." I was just super nervous. And he goes, "This one's fine." And he was right and he had figured out some little weird piece of code I didn't know how to do. And the point is, I learned that day that I needed to remain extremely trainable, extremely trainable. That I had gotten to a certain spot, but man, I knew nothing still? And that's a key attribute to anyone who's going to be in a hypergrowth state. That you're going to go after.

And I expect to see all of you at Funnel Hacking LIVE. And if you're like, "Steve, but it's only in a few weeks," constraints a gift. How would you do it, right? Pavlov's law, something takes the amount of time that you allot to it. So here you go. How are you going to do it? I always kept in my mind that I would submit myself like clay to the environment and it would mold me, which was uncomfortable a lot.

But it was very fast. I'm only 35. I'm just remaining very pliable, calling out my own false beliefs, spot checking my own internal dialogue that wasn't serving me anymore. That's a big key piece to this. All right, let's keep going here. My goal is I'm going to share with you guys these next five steps here, and this is how I earned my way to Funnel Hacking LIVE 2016. Did you guys see on the registration page for this? Russell has this thing that says, "If you don't go, the only logical reason is as Russell says, you must hate money." I started making shirts with his face on it when I worked for him, which in hindsight is a little creepy. But anytime he says, "You must hate money," I'm like, "No, I don't." Anyone else get offended by that. I get so offended anytime you would say that, "You must hate money." I'm like, "Don't tell me I hate money. I'll throw this mouse on the wall. It's not my problem. And my guess is you don't hate money either. We just need some more steps to this first 2K pay date, right?"

It's in the email too, okay? Okay, so here is the five steps to create a quick 2K for FHL, or have someone else help pay your way. I would use this if you're trying to get a quick cash boost, or if instead of getting paid with money, you're going to get paid with a ticket. Make sense? So, however you choose the medium of exchange to be here. All right, let's do it. Step number one, I want you to write these down. This similar steps that I even walked through a lot of you guys with the original One Funnel Away Challenge. How many guys did that? Any One Funnel Awayers from the OG days a long time ago when I was super hypey and kind of hurt your eardrums just a little bit more? You were mean. I was a little bit mean. I'd like to formally apologize, all right-ish? All right, here we go.

Okay, sweet. Okay, here we go. Step one, what I want you to do is I want you to write down, what problem could you solve or learn to solve for a successful business? And recognize already the question that it's bringing in some constraint. Please do not try to solve a problem for a business that does not exist yet. You're going to have an easier time having faster success for your own wallet or whatever you're trying to get when you upgrade your customer. Upgrading your customer is the answer to 90% of marketing problems. Upgrade the customer, solve so much.

First off, what you're going to do is you're going to ask what problem could you solve? And I want to walk through a little bit of a workshop style with you right now, okay? And so let me dive through the questions and I want you to answer them as we go through. I'm going to lay out each of the steps, and in each of the steps I get a little extra explaining I'm going to do with each one of them. Again, step one, remember I'm saying, "What could you solve? What problem?" I didn't ask what skill do you have? Some of you even feel like you don't have a skill yet. We're going to start by thinking about the customer, not you. You don't fill your own wallet, so at some point your opinion doesn't matter.

Let's think about the customer. What problem does the customer have that you could solve or could see yourself learning solving? It's the first question to write down. Now, I really learned a lot of this from my dad. My dad's awesome, love my dad, it's my own event there he's hanging out at. And he came to one of my events. And I remember it reminded me of a time though back in high school he said to me ... He's been very successful in his career. And he was like, "Steven," I think I was in high school. I started asking him more about his career and I was like, "How did you make these moves? Why are you in what you're learning? Why are you in what you're doing?"

And he said, "If you want to make more money, you need to be where the money is." I was like, "Okay." He's like, "That sounds obvious, but it's not." If you want to make more money and have more security, only go learn the business roles that are related to generating cash for a business. Those aren't the roles that get the ax during tough times. He said that to me kind of almost off the cuff. I was like, "That's an interesting move."

He's like, "If you want to go really far in your career, learn the business skill sets that are right next to the money. Anything that revolves in bringing new cash or renewing cash but really bringing new money into a business, go learn those skill sets." Does that make sense? Think about all the things it takes to run a business. Think about all the roles you could go apply for a job for. Now, filter them by the ones that bring new revenue into a business. Learn those. Those are the best skill sets that we typically take you the furthest. I was like, "That's some gold, Papa Larsen, that's some good stuff. Hand for Papa Larsen, good stuff." I was like, "Okay, cool."

Now, what I want to do is I want you to think about what the core roles of any of core systems all businesses have. Now, there's a lot of different, what does my T-shirt say in the last one? It says, "I got 99 problems, but my pitch ain't one." That's one of my favorite shirts. I got a lot of edgy shirts. Anyway, so what I want you to recognize is that there is a ... There's all businesses have the same problems that they have to solve. Now, 80% of companies are the exact same. You got to get leads, you got to get sales, you got to fulfill, you got to resell. And there's dispute out in the world on whether or not it's three core systems or steps or functions or if it's like eight. So I whittle it down to these four or five, all right? Every single business, every single business needs leads. The two things all businesses need or they die is consistent lead flow and cashflow. All companies need those two things, lead flow and cash flow.

And so think about the lifeline of a customer inside of really any business, whether it's a product or a service, online or offline, that crap doesn't really matter. I'm talking about what all companies must solve. Got to solve the problem, how are you going to get leads? How are you going to sell some of them? How do you fulfill and deliver really well to the people who bought the thing? And then how do you sell them again? Whether that means to resell the same thing or upsell or downsell, it's easier to resell existing customers than to get new ones once they're in there and you've delivered. When you think about this, I want you to remember we're asking the question, "What problem will I help solve for an existing business? What problems out there that I could either go learn to solve or can or do know how to solve for an existing business?"

Are you helping companies? Are you helping companies get more leads? Are you helping companies get more sales? Are you helping companies fulfill more? Are you helping companies resell or upsell or retain? Now what I'm trying to do is help you give language on what you can say in an email, or a post, or social media, or whatever as you try to go barter in exchange for tickets or $2,000 or whatever price point you choose. I don't really, if someone starts talking to me about bring everything back to the money, bring everything back to them, especially we're talking to a business owner of an existing business, bring it right back to the cash, right back to how it affects the bottom line. So thinking about what Papa Larsen is saying here that we want to learn to solve the things that are related to cash, I'm going to urge you that the problem that you choose to go help an existing business solve is probably on those first two, probably something to do with numbers one and number two, leads, sales.

The purpose of marketing is lead gen, so all you should measure marketing by anyway. Don't really measure marketing by likes, subscribe shares, comments. That's just metrics, not marketing. The point of marketing is to kick up leads and then you go pitch them and then sell, right? And so those two pieces right there, I would encourage you, if someone came to me and said, "Hey Steve, I'll help you fulfill. All I want is a ticket." I'm like, "Okay, that's cool." It's not to say that it's bad, but I'm just trying to, the things that are hot on a business owner's mind all the time until they're at a certain phase, it's very much like, how do I get more leads?

How do I get more sales? And that's very much the tone that I took with the business that I pitched as well. Need a prospect first. Well first you should actually define the problem you want to solve. We will talk about how to get that in a second. All the steps here.

And on that note, actually, did anyone still get on clubhouse? I know people still do, but it was really big and then pulled away back for a little while and I guess it's never really researched very much. I was getting interviewed on this clubhouse probably three years ago and it was a big room that I was in and the guy, it's time for open my Q&A a and I was in as this guest speaker and this guy gets on and he asks me this question, he goes, "Steve, I've been trying this entrepreneurial game for a while, which probably a lot of you guys have as well. My guess is I seriously doubt this is round one attempt for you."

And that's fine, that's great. It took me several tries and there's a lot of honor in that, to be honest. And so this guy says, "I've been doing this for a while, I've been studying for a long time. I've been working really, really hard. When am I good enough to make money?" That was his question. What's wrong with this question? What's wrong with that question? It's a natural question to ask, but it's actually the wrong question altogether. "When am I good enough to start making money?" Because I kind of fell into that trap myself, and it's one of the reasons I'm bringing it up for you guys as well. What do people buy? What do they pay for? I love this. He presumes he's not good enough. There's self-pity going on. When you believe in your self-confidence, not feeling good enough or right enough, it's about him, not the customer.

Ooh, yeah, getting close there. Dena like that Eric, his focus is on the customer's needs. You're good enough already. But the honest truth is maybe you're not. I had to be honest with myself and some of these skill sets I was learning and look at myself in the mirror and go, "Man, I still suck at this." and there's a lot of this that's good. What's interesting is when you start asking the question, this is a common question I got in one phone away also, which is why I'm bringing it up, because you're probably trying to do that.

And when am I good enough to start making money? The issue I have with this question, it's a very natural one. I asked it for a long time and then I had to repent and change the error of my ways here. You are not paid to be an expert. That's not what people buy. Offers are about solving a problem, not being an expert. Let's dig into this. This means you're closer to success than you probably realize. Probably like, I don't know, five years ago I came home from work here and our ceiling was three feet lower. I was like, "That's not normal." One of the pipes had burst and it flooded our ceiling full of water and it bowed way, way down, sucks. Anyone ever been, it's terrible, like way, way, way, way down. And then it broke and water was coming down. I was like, "That sucks."

And pipe had burst and frozen. And I then he had to go through the garbage of calling an insurance company and all that stuff and a big headache and pain or whatever, and we got it fixed. But I'll tell you, when the plumber showed up at my house, knocked on the door and I opened the door, what I did not say to him was, "Are you number one in the world?"

I didn't say that. What I said to him was, "Can you fix my problem? I have a problem I need fixed." Makes sense? Very natural for brand new entrepreneurs to assume that making money has to do with being the best in the world. That it's similar to school. I got to get a C in entrepreneurship before I can start making money. That's not how it works at all. It's the reason that we are starting number one, "With what problem do you want to be solving for your future dream customer? What problem?" Not, "What's your skill?" Not, "Do I need to be this amazing? Do I have to be this tall to ride this ride?" We start looking for these qualifiers to disqualify ourselves as a way to not move forward, okay? I'm taking that away from you and I'm helping you realize that's not the first question to ask. You actually don't have to be the best. You actually don't have to be good at all.

A lot of entrepreneurs are good just by pulling someone together who is good with someone who has a need. And they don't know how to do it at all, and they just aggregate problem with solution and they step back, okay?

They give it like that. And so what we want to do is be very specific on the problem that you are trying to solve for your future dream customer. That's actually the true first place to start. Not, I know I asked you being like if you have a skillset, the real first question is, "What problem, valuable problem could I solve or learn to solve for a business?" If I can do that, I'm off to the races. If I can do that, I'm off to the races. Because now I'm building an offer and a solution around a customer rather than me. That was definitely one of the reasons I failed for so many years is I kept building things for myself. What would I buy? I'm not the one buying it, so I shouldn't be asking me. That's a dumb question to start with. Shot myself on the foot for years on that one. Okay, so its offers are about problem solving, not being an expert, meaning yourself. You don't have to be, someone else already is. You could just put people together.

Here's number two. The second thing is that now you are thinking about the problem to solve, got to design your dream customer. Who is this customer that you want to work for? Anyone else drive themselves crazy with this question? I forgot why I put a picture of me graduating basic there. There was a story I was going to pull out, but I ... Oh, I think it's just because this is what I was asking throughout all of basics, keep myself occupied. What should I sell? What should I sell? What should I sell? Anyone else ever drive themselves nuts with that question? Drove me nuts and it becomes like this whip.

And I was like, "Oh man, everyone else can figure it out, but I can't." The guy on stage seemed to figure it out and I feel like I'm better at him than the skill set than he is. Why did he figure it out, and I can't?" Anyone else? And still I am. I totally get it. And I've been there and it was totally like this thing I would use to grind my own self and psyche to powder. And I was like, "Oh man, they can figure it out. Why can't, what should I sell? What should I sell? What should I sell?"

And I kept coming at it from this idea that I needed to be a creative genius rather than again, solving a valuable problem. It's not what should I sell? It's who should I sell? And it wasn't until I learned the difference in that question really on try number 30 something that everything's changed for me. Because again, I'm not selling myself. My opinion really doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter. Avatars changed around 57 times. Same. It's not what do I sell? It's, who should I sell that has this problem? You're looking for a match between a dream customer and the problem they're experiencing. You're going to someone in the middle of pain. That's awesome. That's one of the reasons it was so easy for me to find someone to do this with and pay my way to Funnel Hacking LIVE. What should I sell? No, no, no. It's who should I sell? Who should I sell is way easier, it's way easier.

Okay, and here's how I want you to think about this. I'm going to walk you guys through something I call a core problem planner. I do this in my own stuff, and by the way, Russell was gracious enough to, he actually gave me an affiliate link.

If you guys are liking this stuff, go to fhlbonus.com and you get a BOGO on events so you can come to mind about launching stuff after that for free. Alrighty, it's down on the bottom left there. Now, the core problem planner. Now, here's what I want you to think about creating a product, or a service, or an answer to a problem. Really that's all entrepreneurship is we're solving a valuable problem for a specific person. I want you to think about your dream customer. They're over here on the left and they're consuming material in the marketplace.

They're listening to podcasts, they're watching these, they're consuming posts on social media. And they've got this goal already, like, "Oh man, if only I could reach my goal. I'm trying to get to the spot. I guess the arrows are that way. Okay, I'm trying to get to that spot."
What you want to do is, as you think about the problems your dream customer is experiencing, not all of their problems are worth solving. That's one of the big key pieces I want you to understand as well just as a principle in life. Not all problems are worth solving. Same thing is true in business. Not all problems are worth solving. I want to solve a valuable problem for my dream customer. And so here's how I envision it. I think about my dream customer as already en route to a goal. I'm like, "Cool, what's the dream customer? What's their goal they're already walking towards?" What now, that's where I want to think about problems. The problems that they're experiencing while trying to get to their goal. Those are valuable problems. Those are valuable problems. And those are the types of problems where they're like, "You got my attention. This is what you're going to come do for me. I'm trying to get there. You can help me get to that spot. That's way easier, way easier than trying to solve anything."

Oh, that's a problem. Doesn't mean you should solve it. We want to categorize problems to the ones that are tied to leads and sales that are also the ones that are encountering while en route to a goal. You guys following me? I don't drop them like a ton of stuff. We good people asking for replays if there's going to be one available, I'm sure there is. I'm in the ClickFunnels studio here. Sure that they'll email it out. This is some good crap though, right? I mean, come on now. All right, let me keep dropping this week. Let me keep going here. What I do, and this is my own stuff, I call it the core problem planner, and it's a way to filter problems. Not everything is worth solving. What I do is I think to myself, "Self, what are the problems that they are experiencing on the way to a goal? Let me just rifle out the things that they're probably running into."

And so in that first column, and I want you guys to write this down. In this first column I just write down the problems my dream customer is likely experiencing. You know what? They probably need more leads because they're running into this. My guess is that they're wondering how to use AI. They're also probably wondering if social media has the same reach, they probably or whatever. And I'm writing problems and I just dump as many as I can. Problem, problem, problem, problem, problem, problem.

Then I go to the next column and I just really briefly think about how I could solve it. I'm not committing to anything. This is just on a whiteboard on my own, or on a piece of paper. I'm like, "Well, okay, if that's the problem on the Ver-tex call, I could solve it like this. I could solve it like this. I could solve that one like this. Ooh, that's an easy way to solve it. That's a fast way to solve it." And then the next thing that I do is I want to look at the money. That's that gray column there where there's cost, price, and value and cost is what it's going to take for me to provide that solution. Price is what I could probably charge for that out in the marketplace. And value just means usefulness. Value doesn't mean money, how useful something is.
This drink right here is very useful to making me not be thirsty, or whatever. So what I do is I fill this out. I use this as just a brainstorming tool to figure out what problems are actually worth solving in my dream customer's life. What are those?

And I did this when I was thinking through how I would get a ticket to Funnel Hacking LIVE is I would think through, "Okay, what are the problems my dream customer is probably experiencing? Oh my gosh, they're going to want to funnel. How could I solve that? Ooh, by getting ClickFunnels. What's the cost of me doing that? You know what? I don't think it's actually that much because I'm going to have them pay for it just going to be no cost to me. What price would I charge? I'm going to tell them nothing. Blow their mind. Let's talk about after the fact. If it works, let's talk about me getting paid, but I'm actually going to pull the rug out for a second time and have them just get my Funnel Hacking LIVE ticket in plane. Okay?

You guys get that? That's where you want to harvest problems from. Not all problems, again, are worth solving, and you want to choose the problem in your dream customer's life that they are feeling, right? Meaning it's a problem they're aware of, that they're willing to pay for, and you're going to come out and say, "Don't even pay me. Just get me to Funnel Hacking LIVE." That's interesting. That's new. That's different just right there. That's probably a hook that they'd be interested in the first place. I want you to recognize that your income flows in direct proportions of the types of problems you solve. You want to make more money? Solve better problems. Does a grocery store bagger, you pay for the groceries and they're putting groceries in the bag? Are they solving a problem? Yes, with respect to all grocery store baggers, thank you for your service.

However, "Is it a valuable problem?" "Not really." "How much do they get paid?" "Not that much." "You want to get paid more, solve better problems." And so I started recognizing that that was a huge reality in my life with this.

So, all right, let's go into step number three. So step number one, what problem do you want to solve for customers? Step number two, who's your customer? Step number three. Now what we need to do is we're going to go out and we're going to start kicking up some leads, right? You got to start pitching people. That's the metric to track here, everybody. If you're trying to figure out, "Steve, teach me a way to measure if I'm actually progressing with the strategy." You got one KPI. Right now it's pitch volume. How many people are you asking to buy your Funnel Hacking LIVE ticket and plane and hotel in exchange for whatever problem you're solving? That's the only metric to really track right here is pitch volume, only KPI.

Let's get some leads. Now, I wrote these out. I want you to screenshot this, and this is a bit of a Mad Libs style way to start kicking up leads. If you don't know the difference between inbound and outbound lead gen, really all outbound is, is you going directly to a person and pitching them. And inbound is they see something on the internet and they reach out to you. And so we just do both. I probably should have named them different. Think of it this way, inbound. That's what you're going to put on social media. On the left, that's what you're going to email out to specific people. Left is email, right is social media.

What I want you to do is, and this is what I did. I did this in campus library. I did this in the campus library, and what I did is I said, like I said, I'm going to go through LinkedIn looking for who matches my criteria. And so I did. I found the businesses, again that had a product that was a little more than $1,000. And my next criteria was that I would find a business who already had a customer list that I could email out to. And then my third criteria was that they were already on the internet somehow. I didn't want to teach them the importance of tech.
Those are my three criteria, and I started coding through LinkedIn and I sent them the equivalent of this message/DM on the bottom left. I'm going to read it right here. And put it in your own words, but this is basically what my pitch was.

"I'm sure as a business you've run into problem. It's the problem that you chose during step one of this. I know you don't know me, but I'd like to offer you solution for your business until you get X, Y, Z results. I'm not asking for normal payment for this. I'd like to just go to an event happening at the end of the month if you'd be willing to pay ... Sorry, it's supposed to say, pay me. Pay me by buying my ticket and travel, I'll be sure to return and give you X results." I'm sorry, my grammar got a little jacked up on there. "I'll make sure to get X result for you before I leave. And also, I'll do X, Y, and Z for you after I come back from the event." That's it.

Hein said, "How can you tell if they have a customer list?" I didn't. I had to kick up a conversation with them. I also could tell based on their LinkedIn profile if they were truly a business or not. So you can just tell, use your own judgment. You'll figure it out. I just went and just basically blasted this to a 100 different businesses. And I actually didn't do anything on social media. I didn't do what was on the right. You guys are actually probably going to get the results a lot faster by doing the thing on the right as well. On the right I also at the same time would put this on every single social media platform that you have access to.

I would say post on all social medias that you have access to. And think about what the internet is, it's just free distribution. You can reach tons of people really, really easily. So just basically that, "Hey, I'm looking for businesses who are running into," problem that you choose. "I'm looking for one business who'd like solution and wants X, Y, Z result. I'm not going to ask for normal payment. I'd just like to go to an event happening at the end of the month. If you'd be willing to pay by buying my ticket in travel, I'll make sure to get results before I leave, and also X, Y, Z after I come back," make it a deal for them.

Now, there's a lot of people who have heard my story on how I got there the first time, and there's actually people, I don't think I saw this. If you guys go to the ClickFunnels Facebook page right now, you'll see that there are people doing the strategy right now. There's people who are saying, "Would someone sponsor me to the Funnel Hacking live event and I'll do X, Y, Z in turn." People are doing that right now and it's so cool to see the comments. "Yep, totally, got you." "Yep, 100%. Get it." "Oh, pulling off the Steve strategy, 100%." So I don't want you to think you're disqualified.

You can also just ask people in the community, "Could someone pay for my Funnel Hacking live? In exchange, I'll do X, Y, and Z." And if you think about it, $2,000 is a pretty cheap Funnel. So if you're going to go build a funnel for someone and they only have to pay $2,000 for it, first off, make sure that you do a bang up job. You rock it, you overdeliver super hardcore, make it a story. Just get the success for them, crush for them. But then when you come back from Funnel Hacking Live, gaining all these insights, honestly I would just go back to them and say, "Hey, I learned X, Y and Z one, two, and three.

Now let's talk about me getting paid and if you haven't noticed, I hope you get sales," or whatever the result has been so far, "I'm going to install the linchpin for you," or whatever. Funny enough, when I did this strategy for myself, it turned into a job opportunity and what I was going to do before going to work for Russell was I was going to go be a CMO for the business that I traded funnels for because it worked, and so it actually opened up the job opportunities where I could continue to learn funnel building and internet marketing skills under someone else's business, which is awesome. How cool is that? I just want to know how to get the t-shirt. It's sweet.

Actually, if you look at the link on the bottom left, I'm pretty sure that's part of it. Alrighty. Does everyone have a screenshot of this? Because I want you to see how simple it is to do this. The market will treat you exactly as you train it, so if you need more leads, ask the leads. If you need more answers for whatever you're doing, put it out there and you'll start to attract and pull things into your life and opportunities into your life. Nothing will happen if you don't do anything, which it sounds like a no duh, but honestly I don't want you to overcomplicate it. Just literally do exactly the steps I'm telling you.

Step one, what problem do you want to solve that you can see yourself solving? It's a valuable problem that's tied to leads and sales. Step number two, to find more about who your dream customer would be for this type of solution, who do you actually want to work with? So you don't want to work with e-comm then don't message e-comm people. My point is that you can choose that stuff and you design the business that you're working in. Number three, kick up some leads. I forgot this was in here. That's nice of you guys. Very cool. So I forgot this is in here. I'm going to go really fast through this.

I screenshotted this list of business types and industries from the ClickFunnels homepage like, four years ago, and what I want to do is I want to walk through what you... This is total stereotypes, okay? I'm talking absolute blanket statements right now, but this is what you tend to see in terms of product or business margin per industry. If you're an agency or a freelancer, usually it's around 30% in what your take home would be. If you're an info products, there's not a lot of cost in providing an info product. If you're an e-commerce, there's a lot of cost in e-comm.

You got to pay to build the thing, then you got to pay to box it, then you got to pay to put shipping label on it, then someone puts it on a truck, then it goes on another truck, then it goes back to the mail person, then it gets scanned again, then it goes to your door. It's a lot of cost with e-comm, right? Usually some smaller margins with it. Coaching and consulting, usually higher margins, more input on your side, but more margins. Network marketing and affiliate marketing usually is quite small. SaaS or software takes a lot to get up, but once you got it up, 35% margins-ish, and again, total blanket statements here. Lead gen, I don't know, that's all across the board.

Blogging affiliate, 100%, but you got to have a lot of people to be able to pull it off. My point in sharing with this with you guys by the way is to show you that most likely the shortest distance to your success in getting to Funnel Hacking live is not lying and you going and building one of these, it's most likely in services. Most likely. You're going to go learn a skillset and pair it with someone who's having that problem in a successful business and do a trade, do a little barter form them. Yay. Cool. So you guys with me? You guys with me? We got two more steps and then I think I'm out of slides to that point, we got two more steps.

One, problem you want to solve, do you even want to solve that problem? Don't choose a problem you don't want to solve, but that's why I have you guys brainstorm that. Number two, who do you want to work with? Number three, you're going to kicking up leads, madlibs style. "Hey, this is what I'm putting out there. This is the offer." I just asked. You don't get anything you don't ask for, and so ask. I even said that to Russell when asking you if I could put my affiliate link in the bottom left of this and I was like, "Hey, I know this might be weird, but I also understand the prin…

You’re totally feel free to say no, but if I'm going to come do this thing, don't get what you don't ask for. What if I put my link in the bottom left?" Until you ask, the answer is always no. Oh, I love that, Walter, that's awesome. 100%. Alrighty. Now what you've done is you've kicked up some leads, so what do you do next? You follow up and close, and I weirdly want you to understand that there is two different mentalities that you need to have in order to really be successful on the internet. There's others, but there's two core ones that unless you have these two core ones, you're probably not going to go anywhere.

What does it mean to be an entrepreneur? Now, I'm not saying some ethereal answer, let's start pontificating on whatever. But what is an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is somebody who finds and solves a valuable problem. That's it. It's also the broke person's role. There's a lot of entrepreneurs with dusty offers sitting on shelves who never learned the second part, you don't make money as an entrepreneur. That's not the expectation of entrepreneur. Entrepreneur means that you are solving problems using existing materials. You're finding and solving a valuable problem.

That's all the word means. Number two is a marketer. Now, marketer is the moneymaking role and in my opinion, it is the reason I have never missed the Funnel Hacking live. I get the top of the line strategies, what's crushing in every industry, the marketing and attention getting and lead gen strategies that are dominating across everything, organic and paid. Why would I not go? It's literally better than my entire five-year marketing degree. In fact, when I finally got to Funnel Hacking live, speech two, I stepped out, I called my dad and I was like, "Dad, I just learned more about marketing in the first two speeches than my entire five years in school."

So there's no other place where you get better education, so that's why I always go as well. So marketer is the moneymaking role. It is the role that makes noise in order to get attention and kicking up leads. All you're doing in marketing is measuring and getting lead gen. That's all. A lot of ways to do it. Not really about a platform. Does Facebook work? Yeah, there's people on it and if you're a marketer... And so the reason I'm bringing this up is because where you are in these five steps is you've kicked up leads and take off the entrepreneur hat.
We need to be a marketer, we need to put on the sales role, follow up, close them. It might feel like a little bit of a new territory for some of you, and that's fine. Lean into it. It's really knowing that arrows are animating in the wrong way for me, but whatever. The reason I'm saying this is that you remember that you are the funnel. You don't need to go build a funnel for this. You are the funnel. What is a funnel? A funnel is nothing more than an automated offer and message. When I was a door to a sales guy, I was the funnel. I had a message and an offer. Don't complicate it beyond that.

The fact that we put it on the internet and ClickFunnels is a method, very powerful one and you should all do it, but don't misplace thinking like, "Oh, Steve's saying I got to go build a funnel to do the strategy." No, you do not. You don't need to go find people to do this with building a funnel, that only lengthens the distance to success. You are the funnel. You're the 2K payday funnel. So I want you to focus on the role of marketing. Once you know the problem you're going to solve and you know the customer that you want, spend your time in step three, kicking up leads, following up, kicking up leads, following up.

There is someone out there who's going to say yeah, most likely. So follow up hard, market hard, meaning lead gen really hard. And I want you to realize what a sales funnel truly is as well. A sales funnel is not a marketing funnel. We don't call it a marketing funnel for a reason. There's a huge difference between sales and marketing. Marketing is lead gen. Really marketing is everything you're doing pre page one of the funnel. It's everything before page one of the funnel. The noise you're making, paid, organic, yes, it doesn't really matter, it's anything you're doing before page one of the sales funnel. How do you measure sales?

Closing. That's the role of the sales funnel, and my point of that again is just to help you see and get the mentality in mind that the moneymaking skillset for you is to be able to drive attention. Can you get that mad lib style pitch in front of as many people as possible and follow up with all the leads individually one by one saying, "Can I, will you, does this work for you? Should we do it now? I want to do it now. I want to go to Funnel Hacking Live. Let's do it. Come on now." Follow up is where I'll see most of you guys at FHL. A follow-up is where I'll see you at FHL, not in taking forever to come up with the perfect offer.

Just get out there and start pitching. That's what I did. Now step five, what I would do is bring the notes back from FHL, certainly over deliver, always over deliver. Make sure it's an incredible experience. Your reputation and story sticks with you wherever. Plus it's just the right thing to do. And over deliver, this person has paid your way to Funnel Hacking live, and then what I would do is I would circle back around and close the loop and say, "Hey look, I did this thing for you. How cool is it? By the way, I went and learned a ton. What if we do another deal?"

Can I tell you right now the computer that I'm on, I traded funnels for, I built a funnel, I traded for a computer and I just keep upgrading the guts of this computer. How funny is that? I've gotten so much stuff in my life with the skillset of funnel building. I barter all the time. It's so fun. Why not? Seriously, there's so many things in my life because I built a funnel, not even for sale, just traded it. So just lean into the skillset, understand where it's going to bring you and the fact that it's going to open a ton of doors for you. I didn't finish writing out the slide here, but I wanted you to know, so this is my sister Marie.

She's awesome. I'm the oldest of six kids. The youngest is 17 years younger than me. She's awesome too. My parents are barely empty nesters, which is kind of funny, and my sister wanted to go to Funnel Hacking Live, I think it was 2018. So I'd already left college. I had been working for Russell and then I'd left working with him and she called me and she was like, "Steve, I want to go to Funnel Hacking Live. I want to go to Funnel Hacking Live, but I can either pay my bills and buy food or buy a Funnel Hacking live ticket. What should I do?" What advice would you give her? What advice would you give my sister?

I can either pay my bills and buy food or go to Funnel Hacking live. Buy the ticket. Listen to your brother. Interesting. I said, "I want you to understand the gift of the environment that life has just handed you." Remember, our environments grow us bigger than our willpower. This is no different for her and you are in one right now. So I said, "I can't tell you what to do and I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I just want you to consider that you have two options here and let's both play them out." Option number one, you pay your bills and buy food. What are the chances that life has handed you an environment where you will figure out how to get to FHL?

You might. I said, "What do you think is going to happen if we play out the other scenario here? What do you think's going to happen if you buy your Funnel Hacking live ticket and you no longer have money for food or bills? What are the chances that you starve and die in a gutter?" So I asked her and she goes, "I think I'd figure it out because I'm not going to let myself die." And I was like, "Yeah," I'm talking about that level of put your back against the wall. Guess what she did? She bought a Funnel Hacking live ticket and over the next month or two, she built an agency and she got five or six people each paying $1,000 to $2,000 a month while she was in college, which is more money than I was ever making in college.

That's a lot of money as a college student, and she built this little agency around content, help people put their podcasts out. Now she's left with the experience and an asset. That's my point. Whatever is being asked of you, whatever that thing that constraint in front of you, if it's tugging at your heartstrings, I can't tell you, but you know. You wouldn't be on here otherwise, you just wouldn't. What is that experience pulling at you going, 'Hey, you know you should go do this thing," and then you're like, "But I have a barrier. I have a constraint. I can't because of whatever." What's actually happening to you is you're being called up. That's what I call it anyway.

You're being called up, you're being given an upgrade and if you take a certain path, what are the chances you're going to die? You're going to figure it out. And so she leaned in and that's my challenge to you one of you guys is to lean in, so here's the five steps in one slide so you can just see them. Step number one, what's the business problem that you want to solve for an existing business? What do you want to solve that existing businesses value? You don't get to choose what's valuable, they do. What's a valuable problem to an existing company that you want to go solve?

Number two, what type of customer do you want to work with to do that? Number three, kick up some leads. Email if you can. If you can't, that doesn't mean you can't do this. How else can you reach people? I didn't have an email list. I'd messaged people on LinkedIn, use social media, go into the Facebook group of the ClickFunnels Facebook group and say, "I'm looking to do a swap with somebody. I'd like to get the Funnel Hacking live, in exchange I'll return from Funnel Hacking Live and I'll build you this funnel and whatever Russell's top..."

You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense? Start bothering, start making trades.
Number four, follow up with leads like crazy. You're going to repeat steps three and four like mad people for the next few weeks. Just do it. It'll work. Just do it. Step number five, obviously deliver on your deal, whatever that deal is that you chose on. And then come back and create a situation where you get to serve them even more and they get to serve you even more. My guess is it opens more doors for you. Maybe it possibly changes the train tracks in your life. That was something that I said to someone close to me. As soon as I got hired by Russells, I sent a message and I was like the train tracks of my life, I just hopped tracks.

I didn't scoot further down the train track. I actually leaped whole tracks and that's what you have an opportunity to do here as well. So I want to give you guys one more step and just to spot check you as you go here. Is that all right? I know I've been going for a bit now. We're wrapping up, coming up to the very end here. Very end here. Children say, "Am I?" Adults say, "I am." What is that inner voice inside of you being? If you get somebody inside your head, that's you. You get a little voice in your head that's going, "But Steve could do it because he blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," whatever that thing is, I want you to challenge the voice in your head and say, "Who said that?

Who said that? Was it my inner child? Thank you well-meaning child, but go play somewhere else. Or was it the adult?" Was it the child or was it the adult? Children wonder where they stand, adults declare and own it and see it through. I make I am statements. I am a funnel hacker. I am a capitalist pig. I am rich. I am going to be very big. I am very positive of all those statements. I am an amazing father. The I am statements that you make is what is really pulling things and opportunities in front of you. And right now you probably have said something like, "Ooh, I want to be a funnel hacker." It doesn't work like that. I am.

It's not confidence, it's certainty, and that's how you declare and move. You're not at the whims of this life. It's for you to come in and make whatever experience you want because it's your experience. See exactly what you're looking for. So I call this the five-year-old Ferrari. I don't want you to get to be a five-year-old Ferrari. I run into this in my own events sometimes. I do a lot of events, a lot of events, and I do a lot of training. I teach people a lot, all this stuff as you can tell, and there's this idea that I talk about a lot called the five-year-old and the Ferrari, what I've just handed you is the Ferrari.

And what happens sometimes is someone gets the Ferrari for the first time, they get to understand it mentally, they see the model, they're like, oh my gosh, and they start seeing where it could bring them and look how far I could go in this Ferrari, but they get in it as a five-year-old emotionally. Their emotional intelligence is only the emotional intelligence of a five-year-old. And so what do you think happens? They get inside the Ferrari and they're like, "I can't reach the pedals, therefore this car must suck. And Steve's lying," and I always tell people, "Beware of it, it'll get you."

Beware of the five-year-old and the Ferrari. Is there anything really wrong with the Ferrari? No, it's a Ferrari. What's wrong? You haven't grown. Don't blame the vehicle because it's asking you to grow. Beware of the five-year-old in the Ferrari. You're being given a Ferrari and so check yourself. And that's why I keep saying that inner self-talk that's going, "But can I? Am I? Will I?" Those are all children phrases. That's the five-year-old in the Ferrari. Am I? I can't even see over the steering wheel. Am I, can't I, will I? No, I am. And accept the growth and watch yourself become someone that you would never be able to create on your own.

So be open and honest. If you're struggling to have $2,000 to attend an event that you know should be at, you're probably just living your future hook. I know I am funny, I'm a goofball, but I want you to understand how powerful these are, that these are frameworks that keep in my head and sometimes I've asked myself like, "Oh, there's nothing wrong with the car I've been given." Especially when you're at Funnel Hacking Live. Do you think it's going to be any different when you're at Funnel Hacking live and then suddenly someone who's very rich stands up on stage and says, "Here's how I did it and here's the model," and then you hold it and you're like, "That's cool, but they can do it because they're big and I'm not."

It's not going to stop. You got to have a plan for that kind of crap and say, "All right, this is a Ferrari. I'm still an emotional five-year-old in this skillset. I'm not going to blame the messenger or the Ferrari for being a Ferrari. What's the variable here? Me." And that's not a bad thing. Entrepreneurship is the fastest personal development, most tailored personal development course you didn't know you were enrolling in when you said yes to it. You're going to have this feeling a lot. It's not just going to start or stop with this one. It's going to happen all the time. And so I'm trying to prep your brain for it.

You want to go figure out how to get a Funnel Hacking live, come up with a plan, do it. No one told me how to go... I didn't have anyone tell me this stuff. I said, "You know what? How can I afford it? I got the skillset. I don't have money, but I got a skill. Let me go find someone and I'm going to borrow my way there. It's as simple as that. And just do it. It's as simple as that. I shall find you and I shall hug you. Sounds good. I look forward to it. Seriously, I want to see you guys there. I so look forward to seeing you guys there. Now, one last thing I'll tell you guys is I want you to lean on the community also.

I would go and make this kind of a post and I would say, "Hey, I want to get the Funnel Hacking live. I am solving problem for dream customer. I want another client or I want my first client." Whatever it is, tell the truth. None of the pretending crap the internet marketers do. Tell the truth whatever scenario you're in. "I want my first client, I want my next client and I want it during the month of September. I'll take a plane and an event ticket as my payment instead of money. Please help me find you. I am a funnel hacker." And you'll be shocked at how many people are already doing this, by the way.

I'm just trying to help you guys get aware of it, but people doing this right now because people seeing me do it. So I'm hoping that this has brought you belief. Do you have all the tools? I'm hoping that it helps remove some fog, but just look at it as an opportunity to grow and be grateful for that, that this is going to be something that changes you. And it's going to change you faster than you ever could. I was so shy when I was a kid, I went to therapy because I couldn't speak to other adults. I couldn't do this. Everything you see now of me doing what I am now is something that I crafted, and I crafted it by saying yes to environments that freaked me out.

And the freakout leaves within minutes. You just have to get through the first two steps. You know what I mean? And then you're like, "All right, that's fine. Nothing's coming to attack me. There's no giant shark that's going to come bite my legs off." You know what I'm saying? All the scary scenarios in your head, I'm going to jump out of a plane and I better build that parachute before I hit the ground. The funny thing is, the ground never comes. It's this imagined thing and it creates anxiety in you. And so I really hope that this has been some real talk so you can understand how to do this. So just again, real fast, recapping the steps.

What problem do you want to go solve that's valuable for a company to have solved? Number two, what types of companies do you want to do this for? Number three, kick up those leads. Four, follow up with leads. Number five, deliver and then circle back around and keep serving the person who said yes to you, because my guess is it's going to open up some new doors in your life. Guys, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Appreciate your time.

Hopefully this has been helpful for you. I believe in you, and even if no one else in your life knows what the heck you're doing or what a funnel is, let's say hi to each other at Funnel Hacking Live. I always meet you guys who have been coming.

Last year I met a guy who was sleeping under a table in the hallway, bootstrapped his way there because of following the story that I've just laid out. Every year I meet somebody who's bootstrapped their way. The year before that, a guy ran up to me on day three of Funnel Hacking Live and goes, "Steven, I bootstrapped my way here. I'm so excited to be here. But I launched my first funnel on day one because I've been sleeping in my truck.

I just got my first sale. I'm booking a hotel night. I get to sleep in the hotel tonight." I hear those all the time and they make me cry. I'm tender on the inside, very hard exterior, but I'm totally jelly on the inside. You guys are awesome. Keep going at it. The world changes because of you, not because of the government, and I will see you guys at Funnel Hacking Live. Bye.