ASA 18 | Marketing Funnel

 

All entrepreneurs want to triple their profit, but not all are cognizant of the process in achieving the target. The secret sauce is to convert clients. In understanding the buyer’s journey, it is essential to grasp the concept of marketing funnels. Alex dives into the strategies in tripling your profit as he reveals methods and formulas that actually work.

Learn why every client conversion funnel involves two vital overlooked steps and discover the most significant mistake coaches and consultants make with marketing funnels.

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Listen to the podcast here:

How to Sell Less & Net More

In this episode, you’ll learn three key insights which I believe are critical to making you a highly skilled ethical influencer. You’ll discover the big mistake coaches and consultants make with marketing funnels. You’ll learn why every client conversion funnel involves two major overlooked steps and you’ll learn how to triple your product launch profits after your cart closes. This episode could have a significant impact on how you can quickly and easily win the hearts of others.

I’m going to tell you a story about my friend, Ryan. The year was 2016. He called me and he asked me if I would support him for his product launch. It was this first one and it was for the ASK METHOD. It was a method I’m familiar with because I started the ASK Database and the ASK Methodology back in 2002, although mine was the 1.0 version and Ryan’s is the 3.0 version.

I supported him in his launch but more importantly, I supported him in something much more interesting and profitable. This was his first launch and the launch was called the ASK METHOD Training. It generated over $3 million in revenue. The problem was his profits and that’s true in any product launch.

After you look at the fees and expenses of advertising, the merchant fees, the joint venture payouts and commissions, refund request and the affiliate contest payouts to get your JV partners motivated to email their list and by advertising and be at the top of the food chain with the top ten producers, typically the profit margin is about 20%.

The P.L.U.S. Method

Imagine you do about $3 million in sales and your net profit is $500,000 to $600,000. That’s a lot of money, but 20% of profits in information marketing aren’t what we’re looking for. I like to be more in the 50% to 60% range. There was an opportunity which I had worked on with my own launch. It was called the PLUS Method and it is still called the PLUS Method.

What PLUS stands for is Post-Launch Upsell Strategy. It was coined by one of our top producers of sales and the way it worked was simple. The front end of a product launch formula which was developed by a genius, a friend of mine, Jeff Walker. It’s called the Sideway Sales Letter and he’s been doing it since 2010.

He handled my final launch of TeleSeminar Secrets back in 2010 to 2009 but this formula and his mastermind he has assisted other marketers in creating in their own businesses are stunning, the number of sales generated. He’s done a lot of good for a lot of digital marketers. That is what I would call the front end. It’s two weeks of creating pre-launch content, typically three videos and it’s followed by a final video that is the sales letter that leads to the cart opening and the cart closing.

Here’s the problem. When the cart closes, you’re done, you’ve built your list and you have all these joint venture partners who’ve given their heads, hearts and hands to your cause. When all is said and done, a 20% profit is good. It’s closer to 15% depending on your refund rate and how much you’re paying out for affiliate contest. Joint venture partners who give out $200,000 for first place. Sometimes the affiliate payouts are about $350,000.

That’s eating away at profits. It does motivate and inspires your joint venture partners to mail for you, to advertise for you to go all in and hammer their list. What happens when the cart closes? Game is over. That’s when it stops.

There was something better because I’m a marketer and I know with marketing there is the front end and there’s the backend. I teach a five-day event called Guerrilla Business Intensive and we call it FEBE, Front End/Back End and it’s something I do in collaboration with my good friend T. Harv Eker and my number one joint venture partner of all time.

We’ve made millions of dollars together. I came up with a concept called PLUS and I came up with it for my own launch because my launch failed. I expected to make $2 million with my former partner. We made less than $350,000. I did it out of desperation and what PLUS stands for, Post-Launch Upsell Strategy, is to offer the same result but doing it with a done-with-you and a done-for-you process. At least that’s my model.

For me it was a $100,000, $30,000 and $12,000. We’ve had a bunch of $100,000 sales, we’ve got a bunch of $30,000 sales and we got no $12,000 sales which were root coaching but on a done-with-you basis. Imagine doing $350,000 in a failed product launch formula launch which was 100% my fault because I’m the veteran and I should have known better and then we generate over $1 million on the backend.

[bctt tweet=”Clients are great, but they do bog you down when you’re attempting to scale.” via=”no”]

If you look at the net profits, the net profits on a PLUS campaign are 60% to 70%. The net profits on a product launch formula front end campaign. If you’re doing the affiliate contest and all the major payouts, 50% commissions, the after refund request, merchant fees and all the other expenses, it’s closer to 20%. I’ve seen as low as 13%.

My friend Ryan Levesque, a dear friend of mine and a genius, a Georgetown graduate. He’s perfected the process of surveying and asking questions. He’s got it down to a science. His offer was a $35,000 mastermind that meets several times a year and a $10,000 intensive, a three-day event. I attended and that was teaching the ASK Methodology on a done-with-you basis where he had many mentors and coaches in the audience and they were assisting the attendees.

One of the key processes that I teach is that your funnel has to be cumulative. What does that mean? That means if you have something that is $100,000, then your $30,000 and $12,000 has to be included. If you have something that’s $30,000 then your $12,000 has to be included. That’s my offer. That’s called my diamond platinum and gold offer for Clear Path Mentoring.

With Ryan, he had a $35,000 ASK Methodology mastermind and a $10,000 intensive. The offer was $35,000 if you went for the mastermind and the $10,000 was included. If he didn’t go for the mastermind because it was out of your budget, then the $10,000 intensive was a three-day done-with-you. You wouldn’t get the same community that you would have with the $35,000 mastermind. That wasn’t good enough for me.

When he first asked me to assist him, I told him, “I don’t want to do it,” and he said, “Why not?” I said, “I want to preserve our friendship. What if it doesn’t work?” He said, “Alex, we’re both big boys. We can make this work.” I said, “I know but I haven’t done it. I can lend you my sales team, but I don’t know if my funnel is going to work for you.”

It was a function of intimidation on my part because when you know someone is smarter than you, I don’t like to risk their future on my thoughts and on my past experiences. Ryan had a lot of faith in me. He’s been kind and said that his mentor once studied with me which I don’t know if that’s true or not but it sure sounds good on a webinar.

I accepted and we trained our team. I had another partner at the time and we had a sales team that we assembled, they were about four or five people. When I say sales team, I don’t mean we’re doing it online. We’re doing it via audio and video conferencing because that’s important. You can’t get a $35,000 sale by clicking a link that says, “Add To Cart.”

You can’t get a $10,000 sale by clicking a link that says, “Add To Cart.” If you can, I would love to pay you and coach me how to do that because I haven’t figured out how to do that. That is a lot of money for someone to do that and you need a much higher level of intimacy.

You have to set it up properly as the cumulative funnel does that which means that everything at the top includes everything at the bottom as bonuses. It’s not $35,000 plus $10,000. It’s $35,000 mastermind and you get the $10,000 intensive for free.

Over the years, having been in direct response television, direct response radio, direct response on the internet with digital marketing, buy one get one free has always out pulled two for the price of one. Why? Who cares? I’ve tested it again and again, maybe two for the price of one cheapens the product that it sounds and feels like its half price but buy one get one free or bonuses to outsell the primary offer.

Focus on your bonuses and make sure the primary offer is good enough. I know it sounds counterintuitive but it’s true. Post-Launch Upsell Strategy, what ended up happening?

Here’s what we did. After the cart closed, I reached out to Ryan. I said, “I need something to frame against that $35,000 mastermind because that’s what we want to sell,” and he said, “Yes.” I said, “We need something to frame against that.”

ASA 18 | Marketing Funnel

Marketing Funnel: Over the years, “buy one get one free” has always outpulled “two for the price of one.”

 

He knows what that means. We need to set a frame or a context so that $35,000 doesn’t seem as much. I said, “If you were to consult a client and do the ASK Method for them, first of all, have you ever done it?” He said, “Of course.” I said, “What have you charged?” He said, “About $250,000.” I said, “Can we have our sales team offer that?” He said, “No.” I said, “Why not?” He said, “I don’t want any more clients.” I don’t blame him because I understand what that’s like.

Clients are great but they do bog you down when you’re attempting to scale. I said, “I’m not going to sell it.” What I’m going to establish is, if we were to be at the highest level, it would be $250,000 and although it’s not available to you, we’ve done it before and here are the results we’ve gotten. That is unarguably true. Nothing is persuasive as the truth. That is an Alexism but that is not the Alexism for now but I want you to remember that.

When I’m on stage and I’m enrolling people to run to the back of that room or if I am doing a webinar and I’m getting them to click Add To Cart or to enroll, then I am always clear about the truth because I don’t tell the truth because my mom said, “It was the right thing to do.” Carol Mandossian. I tell the truth because I make more money. I’ve got my students, my members, my clients to believe me that I’m telling the truth because I make more money that’s self-serving benevolence.

We would frame the sale at $250,000 and then we take a deep dive down to it’s a precipice drop to $35,000 for the mastermind and $10,000 for the intensive. If they got the mastermind they would get the $10,000 at no cost. If the $35,000 was not in their pocketbook then the $10,000 was the last ditch effort or the down sell. Can you imagine $10,000 is the down sell?

His core offer during the launch was $2,000 and that was a lot of work. That was a Facebook group, that was having coaching, that was having a curriculum and that was having a membership site.

It’s all worthwhile and it’s using the genius of Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula of which Ryan Levesque is a mastermind member of along with many other friends and colleagues of mine. What’s important is that this backend didn’t involve affiliate commissions. It didn’t involve affiliate prices because the affiliate sales were done. That was his list.

He paid out the affiliate prices. I got tenth. I did well. There was an all-star cast. I felt good about that and I made good money. All the JV payouts, all the ads, all the refund requests, all those things are gone. In the PLUS methodology, Post-Launch Upsell Strategy, there are no refund requests. There are no joint venture payouts or affiliate contest payouts. There are merchant fees but there are no ads.

Sometimes we will do some retargeting on Facebook and Google but rarely and most people don’t have the bandwidth to do it. What were the results? We did $1.2 million in sales in six weeks. It didn’t take two weeks. It took three times as long but we did it with about 65% net profit to Ryan.

Here’s what’s amazing, 40% of the people who purchased didn’t even buy the primary product during the product launch of the two weeks that came previously but they wanted the solution. This birthed for Ryan Levesque a counterintuitive strategy where you have PLF, Product Launch Formula, equaling the front-end and PLUS, Post-Launch Upsell Strategy, equaling the backend.

It doesn’t only have to be after a Product Launch Formula launch. It can be after a physical event where you have salespeople at the back of the room and you have some interactions with the coaches where you have lunches and dinners with them.

Suzanne Evans, if you’ve heard of her, you can look her up on Google. A brilliant strategist and a brilliant marketing mind. She has what’s called the Coaching Zone. In repurposing that, there are other ways of interacting with people at an event where you can seed through storytelling and then end up having rejection-free or almost rejection-free high-end sales. Those were the results. Imagine 20% on $3 million and then 65% on $1.2 million. Do the math. It is an additional ton of money.

The Alexism for this episode is this. Entrepreneurship is like skydiving. You don’t need a parachute to skydive. You just need a parachute to skydive more than once. If you have a parachute and let’s say you let the PLUS methodology pack your parachute, then you have both the front end where you build the list. You have the backend where you get the high-end clients and you’ve gone to heaven without the inconvenience of dying.

The RFM Principle

There’s a principle in direct response marketing called the RFM principle. It’s counterintuitive but the old pros know all about it. It’s time-proven and it’s called Recency, Frequency and Monetary value and here’s how it’s stated. The customer, the client, the student, the member, whatever you want to call them who have purchased most recently. Who has the highest frequency of purchases over the years and has the highest monetary value of purchases?

[bctt tweet=”Nothing is as persuasive as the truth. ” via=”no”]

Your most valuable customers are most likely to buy now even though they’ve given you the most money and that’s the principle that PLUS, Post-Launch Upsell Strategy, works with. 60% of the people who purchased the $2,000 front end product for Ryan purchased his mastermind at $35,000. We gave them a $2,000 rebate for making that decision but that is what great marketing looks like and that is how you sell less and net more.

That is a marketing funnel that most coaches and consultants overlooked. That’s how to triple your product launch profits after cart close day. For most people, it is the beginning of the end. With PLUS, it’s the end of the beginning.

The Five Levels Of Client Conversion

With traditional client conversion, you’ve taught that there are three different levels. There’s a cold prospect, a warm prospect and a hot prospect. I disagree. I’m an old codger. I’m a dinosaur. I am BG, Before Google, I came onboard in 1995 with digital marketing and I came onboard with the infomercial marketing business in 1990. Back in the days of Kevin Harrington and all the Ron Popeil products.

Most of you, if you’re reading, you probably don’t even know who Ron Popeil is or Suzanne Somers with the Thigh Master. These were the things I was involved with. Tony Robbins you’d know probably, Personal Power One back in 1991.

I go back and I believe its five steps. First, you have a block of ice and then the ice melts. You have more intimacy then you have ice cold water like the Titanic temperature, super cold. You’ll die if you sit in it for a while. You get warm water, maybe like the Gulf of Mexico or the Mediterranean, 80 degrees.

You get hot, that’s like a hot tub, a Jacuzzi that’s about 105 degrees, 104 degrees. Some people can endure 110 degrees. We’ll say about 105. The fifth level is steam. Steam is at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 degrees centigrade and that’s when you’ve gone from a block of ice to steam.

With ice, you can freeze food. With cold water, it tastes good. Warm water, it doesn’t taste as good but it’s better for you if you’re working out. With hot water, it can keep you hot for a shower or for a hot tub. Steam, you can drive a locomotive. It’s five different levels of conversion, not three. It’s not cold, warm or hot. It’s ice, then it’s cold, then it’s warm, then it’s hot, then it’s steam.

If you want a premium client, you’ve got to take them through those five stages because if you only take them to three it’s not enough in my experience because it’s not likely that they’re going to say yes to you.

Here’s a quick review of the insights you and I have discovered in this episode. Number one, there are five steps to conversion. There’s a block of ice which turns into ice cold water and melts. That’s a good thing which turns warm which gets hot and then turns to steam. It changes consistency from a block of ice to liquid water to steam.

Next, the PLF that Jeff Walker has developed and has sold with his brother John Walker, Product Launch Formula. If you do a product launch whether it’s a one-week webinar series or it’s a Product Launch Formula two-week to three-week series. I call that the front end and the purpose are to build your list and to make money. I have joint venture opportunities and relationships.

PLUS, Post-Launch Upsell Strategy, is the backend and that’s where you build and make more profits thanks to the RFM principle. R equals Recency, F equals Frequency and M equals Monetary value. Designing your Product Launch Formula offer and your PLUS offer.

Product launch formula offer is about to do it yourself. It’s a course. It’s a membership site. Maybe there’s some coaching but you can afford to give too much because the price is around $1,000 to $3,000. With a Post-Launch Upsell Strategy, you can have done with you group, done with you one-on-one and then the highest level which I sell for $100,000 is done for you.

ASA 18 | Marketing Funnel

Marketing Funnel: Entrepreneurship is like skydiving. You don’t need a parachute to skydive; you just need a parachute to skydive more than once.

 

These strategies can only work for you if you work them. I want you to go to AllSellingAside.com/iTunes and type in your biggest takeaway or a-ha moment you experienced during this episode. You can do this in the review section and when you do it, iTunes asks you to rate the episode and I hope I’ve earned five stars from you.

If I haven’t, read another episode and give me five stars on that one. I like five stars. Go ahead. Declare your one big takeaway in the iTunes review section by visiting AllSellingAside.com/iTunes and it will take three minutes out of your day but what you declare could provide you a lifetime of learning.

If you’ve already done this, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Write down you’re a-ha moment on an index card and keep it because All Selling Aside is all about seeding through storytelling. That is the new selling.

I have one final gift to give you in honor of this eighteenth episode and that’s a complimentary copy of my book, Alexisms: Useful Lessons from a Recovering Serial Entrepreneur, that’s me. You can instantly download it at AlexismsBook.com.

That does it for this episode. I hope our paths cross again next time for All Selling Aside. The show dedicated to making an ethical influence within your reach so that you can achieve and even exceed your sales potential.

Please do whatever it takes to join us next time because our topic is going to be The Four Ways to Play the Game of Life and that’s in your personal and professional life. I encourage you to invite a friend or bring a study buddy and I can’t wait to connect with you then.

If you want to share this episode or any other episode and pass it on and refer it to a friend, a colleague or a loved one, go to AllSellingAside.com and click on the tab that says Swipes. You will see the email, pre-written swipe files, Facebook swipe, Twitter tweets, social media swipes and it’s all there for you and I recommend sending them out Thursday, Friday and Saturday so they can get the next episode. I’ll see you next time. All good wishes.

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