10 Steps to Launch your business

This is your ten step game plan to launching your business and growing your platform in 2018. Today I want to talk to you a lot about the power of declaration. The power of declaration. One year ago, I was at a conference and I declared to this cross crowd, the jam packed crowd, it was a conference called Life on Fire. It was in San Diego, and I got a free ticket to it, and that's why I attended. And I got fortunate that during this conference, they actually called me up on stage and they interviewed me about my business and about my dreams and my plan for my future in front of all of these people. I don't know how many people there. It was packed house, maybe a thousand, fifteen hundred, I have no idea. There was a lot of people there. And they interviewed me in front of this crowd and they asked me about my business, what I wanted to do. And that day I made a declaration that I wanted to help in 2017, I wanted to help 40 entrepreneurs. I was just, you know, I'd been doing this for about two years and I sort of was struggling and I felt like, okay, if I can make a declaration to help 40 people, then I can put a game plan to help 40 people and maybe I can make enough money to at least make a living. I wasn't trying to get rich or anything, but maybe I can make a living. So I made that declaration and I said I wanted to do it a little bit different. I wanted to use what I called the give method. Now, once again, today, I'm not going to break down everything about the give method. That's another training for another day. But what the give method was, it was based on the biblical principle, give and it should be given unto you, pressed down, shaken together and running over. And I was a guy who grew up in a very religious home, a Christian home, and my mom would literally quote the scripture over and over and over again. And I was a guy who actually worked in the church, actually was a pastor for a while, and I would teach this premise. And I got to the point one year ago where I asked myself, do I really believe this? Do I really believe in the power of generosity? Do I really believe that if I give, it'll be given back to me, pressed down, shaken together and running over? And if so, it's probably time to, you know, to put my money where my mouth is. It's really time to put my belief on the line to see if I really, truly believe this, and if so, would it come to fruition for me. So I made a bold statement Right in front of all these people on camera being interviewed, I made the declaration that I was going to help 40 people using the give method, which basically means I'm going to teach people how to give all of their products away and get paid handsomely for it. I know it's a novel concept, but. But really, if I believe the principle was true, then this was going to be an easy proposition. Well, come to find out, the GIVE method works. So in 2017, I started on this process of helping people give all their stuff away and getting paid for it. And I've been blessed not to work with 40 people this year, but to work with over 200 entrepreneurs directly in 32 countries, six continents, and indirectly with hundreds, if not thousands of more people. Why? The main reason is because I made a public declaration. And if you know me, I wasn't about to let my word be tarnished. Okay? If I told you I was going to do something, I was going to do it. And not only was I going to do it, but I was going to be a perfectionist about it, and I was going to do it well. So, as this new year approaches, many of you are going to be setting goals, and you're going to determine this year that this is going to be your best year ever. Okay? I mean, here we are, we're in the month of December. You know, the holiday, Christmas is right around the corner. And then we're going to be focusing on 2018. Many of you already are. And some of you are going to be determining that you're going to be losing weight. Some of you are going to be determining that you're going to get in a healthy relationship. Some of you are going to determine that you're going to leave an unhealthy relationship. Some of you are going to determine that you're going to start that business or you're going to get a promotion or whatever it is you're going to do. You're going to set some kind of goal to increase your life. And what I want to encourage you to do is I want you to wrestle with the semantics. I literally want you to take a pencil and a piece of paper, and I literally want you to wrestle with the semantics. And I. And I want you to write out a declaration. And what I want to encourage you to do is I want you to go on Facebook Live, and I want you to make a public declaration of what you're going to do in 2018. I want you to publicly tell the world, and then I want you to have the integrity and the accountability to back that declaration up, okay? To back it up, Up. Okay. Why? Because declarations help us become incredibly realistic with our goals. For instance, I was working with someone the other day, and this past year they had only made about $7,000 on their business. And then they had a goal over the next 12 months that they wanted to make $50,000 a month. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not a realistic goal. And if you went public with that, people would laugh at you. Because it's unrealistic, okay? It's unrealistic. So a declaration helps you become realistic. When you with your goals, a declaration gives you the momentum to just go for it, right? Because when you make a public declaration, especially to friends and family, and you don't want to let them down, you just go for it, don't you? Hey, come heck or high water, I'm going to do this. I remember the very first time I went on a roller coaster. I had told a group of teenagers that I brought to Six Flags that I was going to do it, right? And I procrastinated all day long, okay? We were at this theme park all day long, and it was 10 minutes till 10. The theme park closed at 10. And I still had not gone public. I still had not fulfilled what I went public on. And these teenagers began razzing me and they're like, hey, are you a liar? What's going on with you? And that little agitation gave me the exact motivation that I needed to go for. And I got on a roller coaster and I had so much fun on that roller coaster, I sort of began to wonder what the big deal was. See, because that's what a declaration does. Declaration gives you the power to go for it. Declarations also have consequences if you don't achieve them. If you create a declaration and you don't achieve it, there's some kind of consequence. The consequence may be as simple as you sort of have a little egg on your face because you said you were going to do something and you didn't accomplish. The consequence may be that you may have invested in something and then you didn't put the action behind it. So now you've lost a little bit of money, I don't know what your consequence is. But declarations have consequen if you don't achieve them. That's why you should make them. Declarations provide the motivation needed to take the next step when Uncle Status Quo is telling you to slow down or quit. And you know, we get that all the Time. You know, we get a lot of momentum in our business and we go, go, go, go, go. And then one day, there's no momentum or there's no forward progress, and little uncle status quo sits right here on your shoulder and begins to tell you, oh, it's okay. You know, you can miss a day. You can slow down a little bit. It's not that big of a deal. And what happens is you slow down so much that you lose all the momentum. We'll talk about that in a moment. You lose all the momentum in your business. We'll see. A declaration provides the motivation to avoid that. So I want you to get a pencil and a piece of paper, and I want to give you the ten step game plan right here, right now to launch your business or to grow your platform in 2018. And to me, it starts with the declaration. So I want you to declare to the world. Do it right here in the chat room if you want to declare to the world what you're going to do in 2018. And here's the game plan to move you forward. Are you ready? Number one, this is a ten step game plan to launch your business or to grow your platform in 2018. First, you have to have a vision for your future. You have to have a vision for your future. What do you want your life to look like? In my opinion, it all starts by understanding how God created you to help others. Now, think about this just for a moment, okay? You know, God sort of made you brutally terrible at almost everything. I mean, for real, okay, let's be honest just for a second. If you were to be brutally honest, you would have to say that you suck at almost everything. Let's be real, okay? You suck. I suck at almost everything. But he made you and I great at two or three things. Okay, so we're brutal at almost everything, but he made us great at two or three things. What are those? Identify those and then begin to implement those to change the world. Create your vision around your gifts, around your talents, around your passion. Create your vision around the thing that you are good at, not around the thing that you've got to go spend $100,000 on to become good at. Develop your vision around something that you're good at. Okay? It's the Hebrew word. I've used this illustration before. It's the Hebrew word chazon. Now, you've got to sort of act like you're throwing up to say that word correctly, but it's the Hebrew word chazon, and it means vision. And there's A biblical principle that says, without a vision, the people perish. Well, it doesn't really mean they die. What it means is without a vision, the people just wander around aimlessly. If you don't have a vision for your future, you're going to go in multiple directions. You're just going to wander around aimlessly, and every time something new comes your way, you're going to chase that and you're going to end 2018, and you're not going to have accomplished anything. So it starts with a vision for your future. Make a public declaration about what you want to do. Yes. But create a vision for what you want your life to look like and build your business and your platform around that. Second, you need a game plan. What's the map strategy blueprint that you're going to use to implement your vision? You may need to hire a business coach or a launch strategist to help you create this. Some of you need to sit down with a pen and sheet of paper, and you need to create a game plan on how you're going to fulfill your vision. What are you going to do? What is that game plan? What is that strategy? And do it. One of the reasons why you and I get very defensive. I don't know if you've been in a relationship and somebody asks you a question and you were caught off guard by that question and you got really defensive in your response. I don't know if that's you, but I know that's me. I get incredibly defensive when I'm not prepared for something. I get blindsided. So I always tell people, if you want to win with me, don't blindside me, okay? Don't blindside me. The reason why we get defensive when we're blindsided or when we weren't prepared for something is just that we weren't prepared for it and we didn't have a chance to marinate on it. We didn't have a chance to formulate our response. So defense is the. Is our natural response. Well, the same is true with your business. If you aren't prepared to move your business forward, anytime any turbulence comes against you, it's going to halt you and it's going to stop you right in your tracks. Okay? You're going to get blindsided by something, and if you don't know how to move forward with it, you're going to lose all momentum and you're probably going to give up on your vision, on your dream. Okay? So you need to have a game plan. I recommend that if you invest Any money into your business this year, Hire someone. One, hire a business coach or a launch strategist who can help you create a game plan for your future. And then you can follow it to a T. The third thing is you need a product. You need a product. I can't tell you how many people that I've coached this year that are trying to make money online and they don't have a product. Well, hang on a second. That's a very difficult proposition. If you don't have something to sell, you don't have something to sell. If you don't have anything to sell, you cannot make money. So ask yourself, what do I have to sell? Now, if you've been following my teachings for any time at all, you know that in my opinion, you have to start with your high ticket offer. Literally, in my experience, it takes more expertise to sell a $97 product than it does to sell a $10,000 product. Now why is that? I know it sounds backwards, but I've proven this time and time again. The reason is if you have a $97 product, that product needs to get to the masses in order to make you living. But if you have a $10,000 product, it's only got to get to five or six or seven people in order for you to make a living off of it. So what's easier? To sell a thousand $97 products in order to make six figures or to sell ten $10,000 products to make six figures? For my money, if I'm spending 40 hours a week trying to sell a $10,000 product, I bet I can do that 10 times this year. But to sell $1,097 products, I'm not sure if I can or not. So you need to create a product, and in my opinion, start high ticket. Now, in addition to creating a product, here's some things that you need to do in order to make your product successful. 1. Your product needs to be good. We all know that. Okay, so you can't have a shabby product trying to get an incredible amount of money from it. So you have to make sure your product's good. But once you've got your product good, here's what you need to do in order to ensure that it's successful. First, you need to give your product or service a name. Giving your product or service a name allows your potential clients to purchase a tangible product as opposed to buying something theoretical or hypothetical. And this is a powerful psychological component, and it's very congruent with how you and I purchase things. Each and every day when we go to the mall and we can see something and we can hold onto it, it's easy for me to purchase it because it's tangible. But if somebody just says, hey, this is a Lacroix water and what it is, it's really water that has bubbles in it, it's a little bit more difficult. But if you give it a name, if it has a name, then it takes a digital product and it makes it tangible. It's almost as if I can hold it. By the way, thanks to my clients Scott and Ashley Minor for getting me addicted to this stuff. I bought a case of this on their recommendation the other day and I cannot stop drinking. I literally drank 12 of them yester. So thanks guys. I'm going broke because of you. So you need to give your product or service a name. Second thing is you need to create a product summary. A product summary fills in the gaps for your potential audience by giving them a few sentences of what your product or service consists of. If you can answer their question before the question is asked, what it does is it builds your credibility and ultimately it will increase your conversion rate. You see this happen all the time. When I go to sell a high ticket item, if I can answer the question in my product description and they don't have to ask it, it sort of elevates me as an expert. It sort of shows that I know what I'm doing and more times than not, people purchase. So the first thing when you've got a product is give it a name. Create a product summary. But this is probably the most important part. You have to state the expected outcomes when you create a product. Emphasize the transformation that your potential client will have. See, it's not about what you're offering. And that's where a big mistake that many of us make. A lot of us spend a lot of time talking about what we do and about what we offer and how good we are. But that's a mistake. What you need to do is emphasize the transformation or life change that your audience is going to experience. And you need to write your expected outcomes from their perspective. What is this going to do for them if they purchase the product? Tell them about the life change. Because in the end, your product is designed to solve a problem. Tell them what their life is going to look like after they purchase your problem. Tell them how great it's going to be and your chances of conversion will be higher. Then you need to give your product a price. This is incredibly important. Predetermine your rate before you get to the negotiations, predetermine your price for the product and don't feel the need to negotiate. This happens all the time. Okay? Research that I've done with students, with the students that I've worked with, tells me that if you can see the price as opposed to simply hearing the price, then your potential clients are less likely to want to negotiate. Now, we've all seen this. I don't know if you've ever been to Mexico, but there's two places that I've been where negotiation was a lot of fun. One was at a market in Mexico at Rocky Point. They've got these street markets and they've got all of this, all these goods out on the street, and none of them are priced. So what happens is you go and let's say they have a sombrero, and you ask, hey, how much is that sombrero? And they give you a rate. Well, they may give you one rate, they may give somebody else another rate, they may give somebody else another rate, but they give you a rate higher than what really they want because they know that you're going to negotiate with them and bring them down to really the amount of money that they want to receive. And they do that by simply letting you hear a price as opposed to letting you see a price. I was at a place called Babzilla in Cairo, Egypt, and the same exact thing. It's one of the world's largest outdoor markets. And this place was crazy. I mean, just crazy. Just imagine roads with hundreds of thousands of people on them just trying to buy all of these goods and products. Well, something that I found fascinating about this market was nothing was priced. Why? Because everything was negotiable. So if you can hear a product, you feel like you can negotiate it. But if you see a product, research tells us that we feel less apt to negotiate with that price. So give your product a price and put it in writing. My recommendation is don't negotiate on your rate. Don't lower your rate. But if you feel like you need to do something in order to close the deal, then I'd recommend adding an additional bonus or some kind of payment plan. But don't negotiate on your rate. Here's why. Now, you can have sales. That's a whole different ballgame. But if you negotiate your rate and one person can get something at one rate and somebody can get it at a lower rate without any type of sale or deal going on, it's going to cause you some heartache in the long run. So if your Product is worth it. Give it a price. Do not negotiate on your price. Simply add a bonus or payment plan to close the deal. And finally, with your product, you need to have a call to action button to allow someone to purchase. Okay? I can't tell you how many times somebody creates a product, especially a high ticket product. They'll put a name on it, they'll give it a summary, they'll give the expected outcome, they'll even tell you a price, but they don't give you a way to buy it. Okay, now this is where we get hung up because many times we feel like we need a full blown funnel in order for somebody to purchase our product. And I'm here to tell you that you don't. And this is odd coming from a guy who's a Click Funnels Top 30 designer who loves funnels, who sort of makes my living off of funnels, who. You do not have to have a funnel in order for you to sell a high ticket item. All you need is an order form and a call to action button. Okay? If somebody can click a button, let's say in an email or in a proposal and they can move to what we call the perfect order form, they can purchase your product without a funnel. The perfect order form, if you've ever seen my trainings on this, it basically consists of like an image at the top, okay? An image of your product. Even if you're selling a digital product or coaching service, put some kind of image up there that represents or some kind of graphic that represents your product or service. Why? Because you're trying to make it tangible. You're trying to give them something to hang on to, okay? So it's got to have the name of the product, it's got to have an image of a product, it has to have a little bit of your product description and it has to have the expected outcome statement right on your order form. Then over on the right you can have a bulleted list of your offerings, a testimony or two from someone who had purchased it, where it did them. Some, well, some risk reversals, okay? Whether you have a 30 day money back guarantee or you're going to offer some free coaching to them or whatever your risk reversals are, you need to have assurance badges, okay? So like this is secure, so padlocks work really well on that. You know, you need to have these badges that look official that, that make your product look, look official and that it's going to be okay for them to purchase it, okay? You need to have a place for them to contact you, whether it be phone number or email. And most importantly, you need a way for them to pay, A place for them to put their name and their address and their credit card and push a button and actually pay you. You have to have that in order for product. So if you're going to make the, you know, if you're going to make 2018 your best year ever, first, you need a vision for your future. Second, you need a game plan. And third, you need a product. Fourth, and this is a very powerful step that I want you to consider today. The fourth thing is, is you need what I call the other one. The other one. You know, we get into entrepreneurship because many of us want to leave our 9 to 5 job, or we don't want to have a boss, or we want to have the freedom and flexibility to either be a stay at home dad or stay at home mom, or we want to have the flexibility to be able to travel the world and use our laptop in order to work from anywhere in the world. Some of us just want to go on more vacations. And so we don't like the two weeks of vacation that we get in the corporate world. So entrepreneurship affords us that. But there's a difference between entrepreneurship and solopreneurship. And many of us are solopreneurs. Right now I'm doing this from my home. I'm giving you this teaching from my home here in Mesa, Arizona. And I'm the only one here. Besides these three dogs I have, I'm the only one here. And I can tell you from experience that if you're not careful, solopreneurship can cause you to be very isolated and very lonely, perhaps even depressed. And this happened to me a little bit more than a year ago. I became incredibly depressed. As an entrepreneur, I had the freedom and flexibility, yes. But I didn't have anybody to talk to. And I'm an extrovert. Okay. And I missed the corporate world. I missed having staff meetings. I missed having. I miss being able to walk down the hall and talk with my assistant. I miss being able to pick up an actual telephone and hit a little intercom button and speak to someone on the other side of the campus. I missed all of that isolation really did me some damage as a one man band. When you're a solopreneur, you sort of feel like the one man band and you feel like that you have to do everything on your own. So I felt like I had to be an expert at funnels and I had to be an expert at email copywriting. And I had to be an expert at automation and I had to be an expert at integrating. I had to be an expert at technology and I had to be an expert at payment gateways and I had to be an expert at everything. Right. Why? Because it was a one man band. What I find as a solopreneur, if you're not careful when you isolate yourself that you sort of become a jack of all trades and you'll become average at so many things and not great at any one thing. When you're average at a lot of things, your business becomes average and you don't see the financial returns. So what I recommend is take the old stuff, Tony Soprano approach and just forget about it right now. That's a terrible impression from a guy who's an Italian. Okay. I don't know how to say that, but just forget about it. Okay? Here's my recommendation. My recommendation is move out of solopreneurship and get a partner. Get the other one. What you need to do is you need to identify your expertise and strive to do what only you can do and outsource the rest of the. Assess your skills, assess your passions. Then consider finding someone that complements your personality. But they have a skill set in other areas where you're weak and you need to hire them or partner with them. Give them a little piece of the action if they'll come on board and help you take your business to another level. Now, be very careful here. You need to vet these people thoroughly. Make sure they haven't screwed anybody over in the past. Make sure that their talents really are what they say they are. There's a lot of great talkers out there. Make sure that they're actually good at what you want to do, what you want them to do. Put them through a thorough interview, bring on a third party to interview them. Get someone who's an expert to interview them in the areas that you're wanting them to work on and make sure that they're the right person. And if they are, this one action can literally earn you the freedom to focus on what you love to do and literally can restore the passion and vitality to being a business owner. I know in my own personal life I've had many partners. And when I first started this, I had a lot of people on board and they were really good people, but they were the wrong people. And what I found was having the wrong people on the team actually drained me. Like, literally, like, I'd rather just do it on my own. It drained Me. But as I'm beginning to get the right people on the team, I find passion. I know that, you know, I have a partner in my business, Kendra. And when I speak with Kandra about something about my business, I can't tell you what it does for me. It just fills me up right when I know that she's got what I can't do covered and I know that my backside is covered and I know that she's going to make me look incredibly good to the world. There's just something that it does for me, just elevates me to a whole other level. I have people like Melissa who do the same thing and people like Christine who do the same thing. People like Randy and Rashad who make my videos. You know, when I go do professional videos, they make them look great. See, I've got somebody else to do what I stink at then. Therefore I can do what I'm great at. And it increases the quality of being an entrepreneur. So don't be afraid to get the other 1/5. You need to resource your vision. Think about a mechanic. Okay, mechanics can be great, but if they don't have the proper tools in the toolbox, they're not so great. Because a mechanic can only be as good as the tools in his toolbox. Well, the same can be said for entrepreneurs. Now be cautious here because you don't need a ton of resources to be successful, but what you do need is you need a few vital ones. And what I recommend is a few vital tools that you need in your tool belt is first and foremost, you need a solid funnel builder. Now I'm biased, but I recommend clickfunnels. I think clickfunnels is the best funnel builder out there, but there are others. Okay, one that's up and coming is a program called Builder All. There's one called LeadPages which is out there. It's more of a landing page software, but you can hack it in order to do it. There's some really incredible WordPress themes out there that are beginning to catch on and there's some drag and drop editors that you can use for webfill. Just invest in a solid funnel builder. Then you need a good autoresponder. Okay, there's some really good ones. Now if you have clickfunnels, I would just say use clickfunnels. They've got an actionatic program that you can use in there. But you know what, if you're not being real complicated, you can just use a built in autoresponder directly in Click Funnels on their order form and it'll sort of do the work. Just get a program called SendGrid to integrate it and it'll do the job for you. But if you got a little bit of money to invest, then get something like ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit or, you know, there's plenty of them out there. Just go do your research and get a good autoresponder. I would also recommend that you need a decent camera, okay? A decent camera. A smartphone will do the job, okay? Most smartphones have an incredible camera built in that you can film almost all of your information on with your smartphone. Now, why do I tell you to get a decent camera? The reason is, is because we live in a video world, okay? Nobody reads anymore. They want to watch, okay? And so videos get higher conversions. They make you more of an expert, and they're a lot easier to create than something in writing, okay? Because when you write something, you feel like you have to be incredibly polished. But when you do video, you can sort of stumble along your words and people are very forgiving. So get yourself a decent camera, even if it's simply smartphone. Now, if you only have a smartphone, then invest in a few tools. Get yourself a tripod, a stabilizer, and a really decent microphone. Now, I'm really struggling with my teaching right now because I've had two things break on me because the next thing I'm going to tell you to do is get some lighting. And my lighting is broke. You'll see a backlight, but my front lighting here is broken. I need to invest in it. And my cam, my microphone that I typically use, my blue Yeti, it's got a broken piece on the back of it. So I've got to use this thing. I don't recommend this, but if it's all you got, then use it. It's better than just using the static microphone built into your computer or in your phone. Use some kind of professional microphone. So get yourself a decent camera with a decent microphone in it. Get a little lighting. You need some video editing software, something simple like Camtasia or Screencast, Flow or shoot. Even GarageBand if you have Mac, will work for you. Get a decent payment gateway stripe. If you're using ClickFunnels, it's a little more difficult. But PayPal is good, or FreshBooks or whatever. Get some kind of payment gateway where people can pay you. And then I recommend investing in one highly rated and reviewed online course that will help you specifically in your niche. Now, be really careful with what I'm going To tell you here, because don't chase the latest and greatest. The reason why I don't want you to chase the latest and greatest tools and resources is because if you're not careful, you can literally break the bank on tools and you're not going to have any budget remaining for traffic. And I would tell you, if you've got to invest money in an online course or into Facebook ads, I would tell you to say to save a little bit of money and invest in Facebook ads. But if you have to invest, in my opinion, if you have, and I'll talk about this in a minute, if you have to invest in an online coach versus an online course, I would tell you to invest in an online coach, okay? Because a person can decipher your exact situation and create a blueprint and you can YouTube and Google your way through the process until you learn enough. But be careful not to break the bank on tools and resources. Also be careful with online courses because there are so many or not. But if you're not careful, every time an expert or so called expert creates a new strategy that resonates with you, you may be tempted to abandon your current path to pursue another. One I'd rather have you do is simply focus. Sixth, if you want 2018 to be your best year ever and you want to create a game plan for launching your business and building your platform, well, then sixth, you have to sustain pressure on what works. So sustained pressure, that's number six. Casey Graham, a great digital marketer, I was doing a phone call with him and I was talking about that I wanted to create a, what I call the set it and forget it business. Because, you know, I was told that, you know, you watch online all the time, that, you know, you need to create passive income. You need to create a system where you can just sort of set it and forget it. And that system makes you money 24, 7, 365. And so I was going to hire him. He wanted to charge me $10,000 for one day. Now, many of you think my coaching is expensive. Casey's coaching is $10,000 for one day. And you have to get in an airplane on your dime. You have to fly to Atlanta. You're going to be with him for six hours and you buy lunch. Okay, six hours and you buy lunch and he's going to invest in you for one day. It's $10,000. And I was doing an onboarding call with him to do this, and I told him what I was trying to do and he made this statement that just sort of resonated with me. He said, Chad, he says passive income has a very aggressive approach. And I couldn't agree more to that. Okay? A lot of times we think that we can just do a set it and forget it type of business. And I'm telling you there's no such thing. Do not believe that lie. There is no such thing as a set it and forget it business. I promise you there's not. You ask anyone who's making any money in the online world, you ask them how much time they invest in their business. And it is a lot. Okay? There's no. I mean, we've got this thing called the Four Hour Workweek and Tim Ferriss, it's an incredible book. But I promise you that nobody works four hours a week and makes millions and millions and millions of dollars, okay? They had to work their tail off to get to where they are. Why? Because passive income must have a very aggressive approach. So don't feel like that you can just get into this industry, throw a few hundred bucks into Facebook ads, have some kind of funnel, have a little product offer, and all of a sudden you're going to be in the 2 comma club. It does not work that way. To keep your business on a consistent upward trajectory, you have to find a strategy that works. And you have to do that strategy over and over and over and over and over again. And just as you always must apply pressure to a gas pedal for your vehicle to move forward, you have to always apply sustained pressure to your vision to keep your vision moving forward. So here's what I say. If you have a funnel, your funnel must always be on. Your link should be tested daily and you should be sending paid and organic traffic to your lead magnet. 24 7, 365. If you have an email subscriber list, you need to send a broadcast email with helpful content at least two times every single week. And in the PS section of that email, give them some kind of call to action to join a list or to buy a product. Every single week, you need to update your social media with helpful content and phrases at least two times every single day. Participate in large social media forums like the official Click Funnels Group or Digital Marketing Group or go find some where your niche audience is. And you need to help people at least 30 minutes to an hour every single day. And I'm telling you, if you're not making any money on the online world, I tell you to do that three or four hours every single day because it will help increase your visibility to potential clients and establishment as an expert in your niche. Help, help, help, help, help. That's part of the Give method. You need to send out at least one proposal for your high ticket offer each and every day. Yes, send a proposal out every single day and work hard until you can find somebody that needs your high ticket offer and give them a proposal. Teach on Facebook Live Just like I'm doing. Teach regularly. I try to do this at least two times every single week. Why? Because 1. It keeps my sharp, my saw sharp. Makes me do the research to make sure that I remain sharp at what I do. It keeps me providing the latest and greatest information to you in order to grow your business. 2. It helps me establish my brand and grow my brand. I get a reputation of providing positive, quality content to you free each and every week. If not twice per week. Another thing too is every time I do a Facebook Live, more and more people sign up for my online training. So teach on Facebook Live regularly. Put sustained pressure on it. Publish your blog. If you blog, publish it consistently. If you podcast, podcast the same day and time every week. And most importantly, do not miss, don't miss a blog. Don't miss a podcast. Create an appointment for yourself to write your blog. Create an appointment to do your podcast. Like if you were watching your latest sitcom on tv, let's say you're watching NBC or ABC or CBS and they said that that sitcom comes on every Thursday night at 7pm and you tuned in at Thursday night at 7pm and it wasn't there, you would lose a lot of interest in the sitcom and the network would lose a lot of credibility. Well, this is what happens when you don't block consistently and when you don't podcast the same day and time, you lose a lot of momentum. You lose a lot of credibility, okay? And people don't know what to expect from you. Okay? So publish it. Make it reliable. Schedule yourself to be interviewed on other people's podcasts every single week. Do an interview with someone else every week. Now this may sound odd to you, but as a guy who's got a podcast, I'm always on the hunt for really, really, really good talent. Okay? I want to bring the latest and greatest people on my show all the time. So I'm on a hunt to find the greatest people to be on my show. And you know what? So is everyone else. Everyone who's got a podcast. One of their biggest struggles is how do I find a guest. So what you do is you find a podcast who has a target audience. Just like Yours. And send them an email and tell them that you want to be on their podcast and you want to invite them to be on your podcast. Literally, schedule yourself to be interviewed on that podcast every single week. And when you're on that podcast, deliver incredible content and give something away where you can take some of their audience and move them into your funnel. If you do this, if you put sustained pressure on it, your business is going to trim upward. However, you're going to have bad days, you're going to have bad weeks, you're going to have bad months. Don't give up. Don't give up. Seventh, create momentum. Create momentum. You know the hardest race to win, or. Let me rephrase that. Do you know the most difficult race to be in? Imagine a bike race where the winner was the last person to cross the finish line. That's right. Imagine a bike race where you had to go as slow as you could, and the last one to cross the finish line wins. What you learn very quickly is that if you aren't moving forward, it's literally impossible to gain the momentum needed to stay upright. See, you can only balance on a bike if you have forward momentum, if you're moving forward, and the moment that you stop moving forward on a bicycle, you lose your balance and you tip over, okay? And balance is incredibly important for your business. And you can only have balance if you're moving forward, if you're having momentum. Andy Stanley, one of my favorite teachers, says, momentum is forward motion fueled by a series of wins. Momentum is forward motion fueled by a series of wins. And for your business to have the fuel needed to propel forward, you need to incur a series of wins, even if they're little. You see this principle play out in pretty much every aspect of life. Imagine if you're beginning to date someone, okay? And I mean, like, literally, you met him online, you met him or her online, and you met. And the coffee meetup or the drink meetup or the dinner meetup was really good. But you're wondering if you're going to be able to garner enough momentum to move that relationship forward. You know what it's like, ladies, when he sends you a text message, oh, man, he gets all giddy. And when he sends you a text message, that's kind. Or he sends you an email or he picks up the phone and calls you, okay? That's a little wind that you use to propel your relationship forward, okay? And as long as there's a series of wins, okay, your relationship can move forward. You see, this in relationships, you see this. In the business world, you see this. In weight loss, you see this in any aspect. You need to achieve a series of wins in order for you to have forward momentum. For me and my business, I've determined what a win looks like, and I create an action plan to achieve them. And that's what I recommend you to do. Determine what a win looks like in your business or with your product or with your service, and then create an action plan to achieve them. So for me, when someone asks to join my Facebook group, or I get an email confirming that someone made a purchase, or I receive a positive text from someone that I help, or I'm asked to be on somebody's podcast, or I'm asked to speak at somebody's conference. Okay. Or if someone gives me a shout out in a public forum, those things make me feel fulfilled. And those fulfillments act as little wins that fuel me and propel me forward. Okay? Therefore, my action plan is. Is if that helps me, then I help somebody for free. And I work hard to provide so much value. But they seem extremely grateful. And I'm telling you that if you do this, I promise that if you. If you help somebody for free and you blow their mind, I promise you that they're going to make you incredibly popular online. I promise you that's what happens. So what can you do to create a series of wins? Well, first, what does a win to you? And create an action plan to do this? Perhaps a win is getting your first email subscribers. Or perhaps a win is hosting a webinar. Hosting your first webinar and selling something or getting that first sale. Perhaps a win is creating a flash sale to increase volume. Or perhaps a win is getting a rock star to agree to be on your podcast. I was so excited last night, two o' clock in the morning. Liz Benny agreed to be on my podcast. And I just sort of was giddy about that. Why? Because I love Liz. Liz is one of the rock stars in our industry. And I noticed that she liked. Well, first, she accepted my friend request, which was a huge win. Second, she liked, like 10 things in my Facebook page, which means she stalked my Facebook page, which was sort of incredible. And so I just sent her a private message and said, kapow. That's her little phrase. So I used her terminology. I complimented her. I said, liz, I love you. I love what you love, everything that you teach and what you stand for. You've helped so many lives, it's incredible. How can I get a little. I said, when can I get a little of your mojo on my podcast. She goes, let's do it. And it was awesome. She agreed to be on my podcast. And so we're working out the details today. Well, that's a win for me. Okay. Whatever you do, keep moving your business forward. Keep it propelling forward. Don't stagnate. One thing that happens is when we stay in research mode or we stay in build mode is we stay stagnant. Do something to move your business forward. That's why I tell you to start your business with a high ticket item. Why? Because it's the easiest thing in the world to build. Because you can give a little bit of your time and you can charge a lot of money for it. And you don't need everything. You don't need all the bells and whistles to do that. What you need is simply those things that we mentioned earlier. You can do that and you can move your business forward. 8. You need to invest money in your vision. Invest money in your vision. And this is one of the biggest things, because so many people that I work with tell me that they don't have money in order to propel their vision forward. They don't have money to invest in their business. So a lot of times people ask me, hey, Chad, can you help me for free? And then what I'll do in return, what I'll do in return is, you know, I'll give you a percentage of the sales. That's a big thing. Stephanie, can you let the dog up, please, so he doesn't interrupt my. My training? Thank you. So they'll ask me, well, I don't want to invest any money, so can you do all your work for free and you take the risk, and then I'll make you a deal. I'll give you a little bit of profit on the back end. And at the very beginning, that's exactly what I did. Why? Because I thought that's what the give method was to just me take all the risk. They take no risk. And what I learned is that's not a very good way to go. The reason is because those people didn't have anything vested or invested in the process. They weren't invested in their vision, therefore they didn't do a lot of work. And what I'm going to encourage you to do is listen, invest in your vision, Chad. Well, I don't have money. Yes, you do. Turn off cable. Stop eating out. Eat ramen noodles. Wrap your Christmas gifts in newspaper this year. Okay? Don't buy the bags. Okay? In fact, Cut your Christmas budget in half and use half that budget to invest in your business. Turn off your Netflix subscription, stop drinking Starbucks and drink Folgers. Unsubscribe from any paid memberships that aren't bringing you value. Okay. And invest in your business. Now, where would I invest if I were you? Okay. I'm going to encourage you to do the same thing that I did. First, find a way to hire a good coach. Find a way to hire a good coach. A good coach will help you create a game plan and work with you step by step until you accomplish that game plan. To me, it was the best investment that I made in my business. And many people that I work with tell me that I am the best investment in their business. Why? Because a good coach can help move you forward. Second, find a good. Find a way to spend $20 per day on Facebook ads. Okay? $20 a day on Facebook ads can make a world of difference in your business. Third, find a way to get Click Funnels. Click Funnels is, in my mind, the premier software for creating a business. Find a way to get it. Find a way to invest it. It's $97 a month. If you can't afford $97 a month, get the $20 a month version. It's only going to give you three funnels. It's going to be limited, but at least we'll get you started. Find a way to purchase a really nice funnel template. Okay? If you're not great at design, don't spend all of your time on design. Purchase a really nice funnel template. And in my opinion, there's a group of us, we're called the top 30 click funnel designers that do incredible work, I would encourage you to purchase one of theirs. Now, I will tell you, when I'm in a hurry and I need to get a funnel created quickly, I go to a guy by the name of Blake Noubar. Okay? Blake Noubar. You can Google him or you can look at him up on my. My friendship. Okay? I buy all of his funnels. Why? Because he's incredibly good. Okay? He's very gifted. And even though we design a little bit different, I can take his work and I know that I can make a few tweaks to it, and it's going to be incredibly nice, and it's going to save me hours and hours and hours of time. Now, I'm a very good funnel builder. I'm a very good funnel designer, one of the best in the world. And I don't say that braggadociously. I say that because I have a credential behind my name. I was selected by one of the best funnel designers in the world as one of the best funnel designers in the world. Blake Noubar is a guy that I, As a top 30 designer, buy funnels from. Why? Because he's incredible. So if I can do it as a really good funnel designer, you should do it as well. So find a way to purchase a really nice funnel template. They're going to cost you somewhere between 1. 47 and $397. You need to find a way to get. Get to one really good event this year. Get to one. And what I'm going to encourage you to do is don't go for the content, Go for the networking. Don't go for the content, but go for the networking. Yes, you're going to learn some stuff at these events. But to be really honest with you, when I go to these events, very seldom do I even go and listen to these speakers. Why? Because most of the time, I can buy the DVD and consume the content later. But what I'm doing is I'm rubbing shoulders with experts in the field in the lobby. What I've learned is speakers who speak at these events, they don't go and listen to other speakers. They hang out at Starbucks in the lobby, and they just shoot the breeze with each other. So what I do is I skip the content. I go out there, I grab a cup of coffee, and I sit down at the table with Russell Brunson, and I pick his brain. I find Grant Cardone, I find Tai Lopez. Actually, I don't, because you know my opinion on Tai Lopez. But I find these gurus, and I sit down and I introduce myself, and I have courage to go up and talk with them. And actually, what I do is I offer my services for free to them, and I say, hey, I'm a really good funnel designer, and I'd love to be able to build a funnel for you absolutely free. So I give first, and what happens is it opens up conversation for me and we're able to talk. I was at an event not too long ago with Daymond Johns, and I got a chance to run into Daymond Johns in the hallway, and I shook his hand and told him, hey, man, I love your stuff. You're my favorite guy. You're my favorite guy on the shark tank. But really, you're my favorite guy. Not because you're great at what you do, but you're my favorite guy because you started from nothing and worked your way up that really resonated with me because I have nothing or I had nothing, and I'm beginning to build a pretty decent life for myself. He was super nice. He gave me a fist bump, and I just stopped him and I asked him and I said, hey, is there anything that I can do that would help your business tremendously, and I want to be able to do it for free. And I just said, hey, I'm a pretty decent funnel designer. I'm okay with copy, but I'm also a really good intern as well. I said, anything that I can do to help you. And you know what? He didn't take me up on my offer. He didn't say, yeah, you know, hey, go build a funnel for me. But you know what? He looked at me in the eyes and he goes, you know, that's one of the very first times that somebody came to me and asked something like that. He goes, most people come and they want something from me, but you were willing to give something to me. And he gave me knuckles and said, thank you for that. And he took a picture with me. And I really. I was really grateful for that. And I do that often online is I try to network with folks. So when you go to an event, invest good money into an event with your target audience and go for the network, don't just network with the experts, but network with people that could be your potential clients. The majority of the clients that I got before I became a top 30 designer, I received when I would go to an event one year ago, I told you, I made that declaration. And almost every client that I had for the first 90 days of my. Of my new year came from that particular event. So go for the networking, not for the content. Find a way to hire out what you aren't good at. That's incredibly important. We talked about that a little bit earlier. But you need to invest in yourself and work hard to create an incredible return on investment. Ninth, you need to be fearless. Okay, Fearless. I'd like for you to just simply put the word fearless in the chat room. Okay? Put the word fearless in the chat room. That's an incredible word. You just sort of feel good just writing that. Okay, writing the word fearless. Here's what happens with fear. Fear keeps so many of us from going after what we really want and need. Fear causes us to ask questions like, what if it doesn't work? Or we allow fear to give us a scarcity mindset. And we ask things like, well, what if I lose all my money? And if we were brutally honest, with ourselves, we'd have to admit that most of our fear barriers can be boiled down to the fear of failure and the fear of what others think about us. Okay, gentlemen, you and I, you and I fear failure often. When I was in the ministry, I remember talking to a lot of men, really good looking guys who had a lot going for them that were just dating ladies that literally weren't on the same level as them, okay? They didn't have the same goals in life, that didn't have the same drive and same ambition and they just weren't, they just weren't on par. But they felt like that they had to sort of date down, so to speak. They had to date down. Why? Because they were afraid of being rejected. They didn't feel like that they could go after the, you know, the power, the power lady, so to speak. They didn't feel like they could go after the educated lady or the lady who took care of us. They didn't feel like it. Why? Because they were afraid that they would get rejected. Because rejection is a big deal for us. Why? Because we feel, we fear failure. Ladies, you have to admit that many of you fear what others think about you, okay? And so some of you are solopreneurs or entrepreneurs right now you're going after your dreams, but you're doing privately and you're doing silently. You don't want to let anybody know because you're afraid that they're going to say something negative and it's just going to sort of pop your bubble. My encouragement to you is this. Remember, failure is never a person. Failure is an event. Some of you need to write that down. Some of you, this is going to transform your life today. Failure is never a person. Failure is an event. So in other words, chances are you're going to fail at many things. You may start your business and it may just fizzle out and it may fail, but you're not a failure. The business was a failure, okay? The launch was a failure, okay? Failure is never a person. You are not a failure. You cannot be a failure. Even if you've done some horrendous things in your life, you are not a failure. Failure is an event. It's a moment in time that marks itself on the calendar. But failure, think about this. Failure will always be in the past. Because failure is in a moment of time that you can mark your calendar, but guess what? One second later, failure is in the past. So you need to let failure be an event. Failure is not a person. And what you need to do is you need to feel the disappointment of failure, but don't feel the disapproval of failure. One of the things that holds us back and keeps us moving forward in what we want to do and going after our vision is we've allowed people to be disappointed, okay, in our failure, and therefore, we allow them to disapprove of what we do. And what you need to do is you need to get over that, okay? Feel the disappointment of it. Yeah. Man, that stuck. Boy, I hated that. Learn from it and move on. But do not feel the disapproval of failure. You are incredible. You have greatness inside of you, and you overcome fear by having faith that everything is going to be okay even if you do fail. So don't allow failure to get the best of you. You need to be fearless. And then finally, number 10 is you need to take massive action now. Everybody put the word now in the room. Take massive action. When? Now. Have you ever wondered what the difference is between someone who's making money with their online business and someone who's not? The difference between someone who's making money with their business and someone who's not is one started and the other is still perfecting. The other is still tinkering. Okay? And you've heard me say this a million times, or you've heard the phrase said a million times that done is better than perfect. Well, I take a little exception to that because I happen to be a little bit of a perfectionist and I'm not a fan of that phrase, but I totally agree that you cannot sell something, you cannot make money until you make your product available to the marketplace. So you have to get your product out there, even if it's fugly, even if it's ugly. Get it out there. Get it out in beta mode and you can fix it and test it on the fly. Okay? So just get it out there. Okay? You can't make any money until you offer the world something to purchase. So just get your product out there. I was talking with someone this morning about. She was texting me about an online product project that she's doing. She's creating an online course. And I said, wow, you really need to get my training on how to launch an online course in seven days. And she said something really kind, but, wow, that's a really noble endeavor. But I could sort of just sense a little bit of trepidation in her writing that, yeah, that really, really can't be done. Well, you know what? It can be done. It can't be done perfectly in seven days, but it can be Done well enough where it will help people in seven days and then you can begin making money. Let me leave you with this thought. If you really believe that you have a life giving product inside you or a life giving service inside your life giving message inside of you, and that if you could just get that product or that service or that message out to the world, that it would help people and it would make a positive difference in society and it would make a positive difference in your life, then you are robbing, and I'm using that word intentionally, you are robbing people from a life giving message and you are robbing yourself from an incredible income. When you believe that you got to tinker, tinker, tinker, tinker until it gets perfect, you literally are doing you and your family a disservice. Okay, get your product out there and get it out there today. Put it in beta mode if you have to. Okay? But get it out there today. You can fix it on the fly. So let me recap. If you're going to make 2018 your best year ever and you're going to grow your business and launch your platform. First, you need a vision for the future. Second, you need a game plan. Third, you need a product. Fourth, you need the other one. Fifth, you need to resource your vision. Sixth, you need to put sustained pressure upon your business. Seventh, you need to create momentum. Eighth, you need to invest money into your vision. Ninth, you need to be fearless. And tenth, you need to take massive action. Now, I promise you that 2018 can be your best year ever. But it all starts with a declaration. So what does your best year ever look like? Declare it to the world. Hey, I want to encourage you guys to let me know in the chat room what this does. Okay? What did this do for you? Okay. Is it helping you? I'd like to see that. Now, I can't follow all of the, I can't follow all of the comments because, you know, it cut me off. But I can't see a few of them. But let me know how can, how can I help you? What questions do you have? Okay. Karine says I'm waiting for my lighting set. That is the part missing here. Karine, I will tell you. There's a guy by the name of David Shrine. He's on my friendship or he's on my Facebook friendship list. You can google him. He's got a little video, just a little short video that you can watch that really helps you with that. He shows you how to go to Ikea and buy like $10 lights and create an entire lighting set for you for about 10 bucks. Okay. It's really awesome. You should look at that. Rochelle crock pot business. Set it and forget it. I love it. She says, I'll burn it or it'll burn. I love that. Karin says, thanks for saying that about passive income. I'm sick of this BS about passive income and to make money when you sleep philosophy. Making money is not done by sitting on your sofa watching Netflix. Amanda says, I watch you every day. You always have great advice. Thank you Amanda. I appreciate that as well. Says eat ramen noodles and wrap Christmas gifts in newspaper. Absolutely. As though you got to do that. David says, fearless. Rochelle says, fearless. Kathy said it three times, baby. Karine says, haha. Not me. Not afraid. My business name is Script Teases. I love that. Script Teases effects. So no shame. I love that. Amanda says, I had more events than I can count. Kathy says, now. Dave says, now. Right now. Now. Counting my blessings. Michelle says, now. Dave says, powerful. Thank you. Amanda says, been independent. Being independent is the only way to go. Paula says, dang, looks like I missed a good one. We'll be watching later. We'd love to have you on. Watch it, Paula. That'd be great. Dave says, so much help. Thank you. Karine says, I live in a small city, so no ikea. Good thing. Karine. IKEA has a little thing called a website and you can go and you can purchase all that stuff online and it'll ship it to you. But also Amazon has almost everything that IKEA does as well. Olga says, hooray for Melissa and Kendra. Olga says she's fearless and unstoppable. She says, ladies and gentlemen, never ever dial yourself down to fit in or please others don't do that. Period. I love that. See what everybody else says. Mary says from Kenya. She says, hey Chad, what's up? Mary, I think it's the middle of the night there, so thanks for being on. Tracy says, I totally agree that isolation caused a negative impact. Tracy says, feel it, Fearless. So he says now. Tracy says now. Very good, Very good. Well, as always, guys, I hope that you really enjoyed the training today and that this was helpful. Helpful for you. And if you think that this will help somebody, will you do me a favor? Will you just take some time right now and just hit the share button and share this on your personal page. I want to help as many people as I can and I truly believe that this can help them and this will help them. So do me a favor and help me get the message out. I love you guys. God bless you. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak truth into your life. And until next time, have a blessed day.