In this interview, Dr. Steven Greene outlines his “Triangle of Success,” a three‑point framework he believes is essential for any thriving business, whether a startup or a corporation. The first point is a viable product that meets market demand at an acceptable price. The second point is an automated system that generates leads, funnels prospects, qualifies them, and schedules conversations, reducing the founder’s time spent on manual prospecting. The third point is mentoring, which he argues is the most undervalued component, accelerating skill acquisition and saving time. Greene illustrates how the triangle works in practice by describing the fastest way to generate revenue: a one‑to‑many webinar or live event that drives sales through high‑value content and a limited‑time offer. He acknowledges common obstacles such as camera shyness, lack of tech, and fear of mistakes, suggesting alternatives like simple landing pages while emphasizing the importance of developing presentation skills through mentorship. Greene backs his advice with personal experience, citing roughly 400 podcast episodes and over 2,000 webinars he has produced, positioning himself as a seasoned mentor who can teach others to replicate his success.
this. What is the triangle of success and how has it helped entrepreneurs? Oh, I love it. Triangle of success.
Incredible, incredible question. Um, listen, here's what— here's the way I try to structure my offerings and my business is this. I believe there's— there are 3 critical pieces to a successful business, and I'm focusing mostly on entrepreneurs, but I think this is true even at a corporate level. Number 1, the one point of the triangle, one vertex of the triangle is your product. And, and this is the thing, it's so obvious, but how many companies out there, how many entrepreneurs are selling something that nobody wants? They believe it's a good idea, but it's like, why isn't it selling? Well, maybe it just isn't something people want. Okay, so you have to have a viable product that's priced in at a point where people are willing to buy it. Again, it all sounds so logical until you start breaking it down. When I start to consult my, my people. The second vertex of the triangle is a system, preferably an automated system that can, with, within reason, automatically generate leads, put them through a funnel, qualify them, and eventually set up a conversation. Because I still believe— I'm a little bit old school— that the best way to build relationships is through communication. And ultimately, while you can sell automatically You're going to keep clients better through some kind of eventually having a meeting. But, but the point is you have to have a system. Nobody wants to sit there and spend 23 hours a day on lead generation. The third vertex of the triangle is mentoring, and this is the place people don't— they skimp the most. They're willing to invest in developing products. They're usually willing to invest in systems, sometimes overpaying thousands of dollars for somebody to promise them they'll be on First page of Google in 6 minutes, SEO, whatever. That's, that's just is. But mentoring, people undervalue it. And I'm not saying that because I'm, I'm a mentor and I'm a consultant, maybe in the same way you might be. I'm saying it because your time is your biggest asset, right? Everybody agrees with that, right? You only have so much time. You only got so many seconds on this planet. So if you can save a week, a month, a year, and accelerate your ability to progress, accelerate your ability to, to, to, to sell, to make money, Isn't that worth investing in a person or a group of people or mentors that can get you there? Sometimes you need more than one. My specialty is the content. My specialty is, is like one and two, like the product development and the messaging. Uh, there are people that are coaches on all kinds of things— public speaking, um, all these ancillary skills that you need to have, presentation skills. There I could— you want to hear something? It's in, in 2023, and I think it's going to be the same in '24. The, the quickest way to make money online, like if you had nothing, you woke up one day and said, oh my God, I need 10 grand by next month or something bad's gonna happen, right? Quickest way to make money is you, you build a— you drive people to a mass event, a one-to-many event like a webinar, whether you do it through a landing page, whether you do it through social. You drive people to a webinar, you do a webinar, you teach them a bunch of stuff, you give them tons of value, whatever you feel like you can provide, and then you do a, a product offering at the end. So whatever it is, you know, you know, you gotta— I don't know what I got here. You gotta, uh, you gotta, you got a piece of metal, you got a silver coin. It's my, one of my lucky coins. It's a cat, it's a tiger. Anyway, so I'm lucky. It's, it's a— in Korea, cats are considered good luck.
I don't know why. Is that one, is that a panda coin they call? No, it's, it might might be.
It's, uh, it's from Korea. It doesn't matter. The point is, I want to sell this, right? Right. What's the fastest— I got 100 of these. I can sell them for $100 each. I can make 10 grand. What's the fastest way to do that? Is you get the word out that you're doing a webinar, and I say, let me show you this, it's incredible, it has this, it does that, it cures this, it cures that, it'll make you, you know, whatever. And it's— if you do it today, it's normally X. Today it's $20. And you can walk away, you can only buy as many as 5. That's how tremendous it is. But the fastest point between nothing and resolution is to do a webinar. Well, what's the biggest problem with doing a webinar? Some people are afraid to be in front of a camera, right? Some people don't have the technology. Maybe they gotta— they got the free Zoom, and I'm not knocking Zoom, I love Zoom.
I ask people to come on the podcast and they're like, there's video? And I'm like, yeah, there's video.
Hey, come on, we're good— look, two good-looking people here, right? We can, we can, we can flaunt it a little bit now. But what I'm saying is that The fastest way to do it may not be the most suited for that person. Well, I'm a little shy, I'm not comfortable speaking on a camera. Uh, what if people don't like me? What if I make a mistake? What if I start coughing? What if my hair's all— I don't know. Uh, so that, well, instead I'm just gonna make a landing page with an offer. I'm like, okay, nothing wrong with that, but you're probably not gonna sell as much and you won't sell as quickly, but you can do it. So the, the point is that you also have to develop skills, right? And this is where mentoring is critical. So I can come to somebody and say, listen, I've done 400 podcasts.
I've done—
I don't know how many webinars, probably 2,000, I lost track. And I can teach you how to do it if you're willing to learn and you're willing to practice. Nobody's going to get great in 5 minutes, right?
Yeah, well, that's the guy who mentored me about podcasting. He's like, your first 100 podcasts are going to be horrible until you figure out— till you get You find your voice, you know, and you figure it out. But don't be horrible because most people start a podcast and they give up before they even hit 10.
