How To Close In The DM’s For Effortless Sales

Foreign. Welcome to the Success School podcast. Today we are on episode 27. Thanks for joining us. How are you feeling today, Steph?

I am excited because if you are watching us on YouTube or maybe you're going to watch the reel back, then you will see that we have a new podcast set up and I'm pretty in love with it. I think this is really nice.

Yeah, it looks great. How's my face look?

Yeah. Okay, so you do have a slightly puffy exterior around the chin and lower cheek area.

Yeah. I woke up this morning, looked in the mirror, and my face looks like I'm 150 kilos.

Right. Just to be clear, guys, Tim did just have wisdom teeth removal surgery, had all four wisdom teeth pulled out, and so that is why he is looking a little bit puffy.

I was super concerned for the podcast today for that reason.

Some of the inflammation went down, though, so you don't look as bad now.

So if you're on the 27 subscribers on YouTube and you guys are checking me out, leave a comment there and tell me how about it looks.

We appreciate you, Steph.

Do you want to kick us off with the lesson of the week?

This week, I learned the meaning of a word. Now, it's a word that I probably really don't use very often and. But I have heard around. I. I guess I just didn't really understand the power of it or what it really meant. And the word is fortitude. And I know that this sounds like a really basic lesson of the week, but it landed for so many ways on the day that I read it. So fortitude is the ability to keep pushing even past pain, and to keep pushing even when things get hard. And that's when you have fortitude. And it really landed for me because I realized that in life, sometimes I probably don't practice fortitude as much as I would like. And so going into 2024, one of the standards I wanted to hold for myself was to have more fortitude. And the minute that I learned that word, understood what it really meant, I started kind of replying it in different areas of my life. So, you know, I was on the ski eggs of the day at the gym and I was dying, and it was really hard. And I just kept repeating the word fortitude over and over and over again in my head because I was like, steph, you. You're not going to die on this skier. You can push through this pain. You can keep going. Just keep putting in the work. And this week, I've also seen Tim display a Huge level of fortitude. He's had his wisdom teeth out, he's in a lot of pain, but every day he shows up and he gets the work done that he needs to get done so that he can then take the rest of the afternoon off to rest and recuperate. But even still, we've done 75 hard. He's been doing the workouts, he's been doing the things, and that takes fortitude. And I think about. When I think about really where, you know, successful athletes, successful entrepreneurs, the people who can really push through, it's like every single one of you that is listening is going to go through some element of pain in your life, whether that's physical pain like Tim's going through, or whether that's emotional pain and your ability to have fortitude, to have to push through that pain and to be able to continue to show up and be consistent, I really think that's where legends are made. And I loved learning that word and I loved witnessing you with your fortitude this week, Tim.

Do you think that's where entrepreneurs or small business owners go wrong? Like, with fortitude, with the thing?

I think that a lot of people think that fortitude and resilience are the same thing, and resilience is being strong and, you know, being. Being brave in. In the face of. Of pain. But fortitude is different. It's like it's pushing through, it's digging deeper, it's finding that extra gear. And I think that your ability to go further, faster will rely on fortitude. For sure.

Yeah. Cool. Last question. And that's just your lesson of the week. But do you think people that are more successful have more fortitude?

Yeah, I do. I think that if you look at any of the people who have built incredibly huge companies, like, big bad shit happens a lot. And we can either sit in the pain and we can say, you know, sit there and go, I wish it was different, or I wish that, you know, it didn't have to be this way. I wish this didn't happen to me, but it has and it does. And all you can do is take with you, click forward with you, like the facts and the. The reality of the situation, and then change it. But sitting in there, I wish I had, or I wish it wasn't happening, or, you know, I wish this wasn't happening to me, or I wish it could have been different. Like, that's such an unhelpful energy because it's really only making the pain worse. I think people who have fortitude see the Pain for what it is, can quickly assess. Is this damaging and dangerous? To me? Yes. No. And if it's not, then I think they have the ability to push through. And I think that that's a really incredible skill to have.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, it's super insightful.

What's your lesson of the week?

Yeah, my lesson of the week. I was reading Patrick Bet David's book, and in the introduction he goes through, he says he's read 1500 books in his entrepreneurial career. And I thought, that's a shitload of books. So I went to my Audible and I've got 98 downloads. So I've listened to all 98 of those books on there, and we've probably got about 200 books in our bookshelf.

So not all of them read.

Yeah. So I'd say I've probably have consumed about 200 books. And I thought, imagine seven times that or seven and a half times that. That's how much that guy has read. And then I got to start thinking about, like, there's a difference between reading and actually, like, taking it in. Because I think a lot of people just, you know, quote, unquote, read, maybe for, like, the status of the cloud of it, but, like, are you actually taking it in? And what is a process for doing that where you actually taught me this or is in another book that we read. And it's basically how I got through my entire, like, two university degrees. And it's read, write, and recite. So what you're going to do is you're going to read 10 pages, 20 pages, 30 pages, and then you're going to write notes throughout. So the key points or the quotes or something that really sticks out at you, you're going to write it down. So you really, like, lock that in your brain and then you're going to recite it back. So oftentimes what I do is I'll read 10 pages, I'll write notes, and then I'll teach staff at night what I've learned on that day. So read, write, recite. That's the acronym, the way I remember that. So rather than just reading going forward, if you're someone that just mindlessly reads and you feel like you're not actually taking the information in, maybe you should try that process going forward. Because imagine if you did that for 1500 books over the next 10 to 20 years in your entrepreneurial career, you're going to be pretty incredible. All right, Steph, do you want to let us know what we are talking about today?

So we are actually on track for our biggest ever month, our highest ever revenue month. We've just smashed a goal of ours in successful, which was to get 200 clients which we did not think that we would get here as fast as we have. So we are so friggin thrilled. And thank you to every single person who is in our world, who has supported us, who shares, who tags, who likes, who has joined, who has trusted us. We're so, so freaking grateful. But one of the things that I think we are exceptional at and something that we see our clients crushing at all the time and something that we want to teach you guys is the ability to have conversations with people because we really believe and, and not just believe, but have proof of the fact that conversations do equal conversions. And we really genuinely know you can hold and have incredible conversations with people either in dms, on phone calls, wherever that might be, that you are going to close at a much higher sales rate and be able to really help and impact more people. So today we wanted to talk through. Cause getting people on sales calls is pretty tough. Like, you know, it can be pretty tricky. And so we wanted to talk through how to close in the DMS for effortless sales in 2024. Some of the tactics that we used not just to close, but to have conversations where people actually self opt in. Like this month we've seen more and more people than ever before see self opting into success school, which is so incredible without us having to do any of the icky that you see in DMS sometimes. I know some of you are getting flooded with just the icist dms. We're not talking about that sort of stuff. We want to break down for you how you can have these conversations without it being icky.

So Tim, all right, so we have an intro into selling in the DMs. We're going to give you guys a full process today for free on this podcast. Before we get into that, Steph, we know our clients come up against some mindset blocks when they are selling in the dms. Do you want to talk through, you know, the mindset blocks or limiting beliefs they might have before we get into it?

Yeah, because obviously guys, if your mindset's not spot on and you don't think that you can do it, or you think that it's gross, or you don't think it suits you, or you don't think it's going to work for you, then guess what? That's 100 of what's going to happen. It's not going to work, it's not going to feel good. You won't take action on it. And so you do have to choose to believe that this will work. You do have to choose to believe that this can be done. And so, first of all, I would love for you to come into this conversation with an open mind. The biggest mindset block that I see affecting most sales, and we've had conversations about sales before, is the fact that people think sales are icky and gross. And we've done an episode on this before, so please go back and listen. We'll link it in the show notes below. But the reality is that if you believe that they're icky and gross, they will be. So again, we have to look at that, reframe that, you know, not just from a sales perspective, like, this person is going to make me money. Because I think a lot of the time when we go into sales conversations and we think that that's why it becomes really gross. If you just think about the fact that by having a conversation and by listening and by hearing somebody's problems, you could see if you could help them solve it. That is going to be the best intention for you to go into these conversations with so listening, understanding their problems, remembering that conversations do equal conversions, but do it because you want to help somebody. And if you're listening to this podcast and you didn't get into business to help somebody, then please get out of business because you're in it for the wrong reasons and you won't last for very long. And so I think that in order to build that know, like, and trust, you really have to understand that the more that you show of yourself, the more that you show that you care, the faster people are going to buy into what you have. And so you do have to make that reframe in your mind. Anything else to add to that, Tim?

No, I think, you know, perfect.

So what would be a good process? So now that they believe that they can do it, now that we're sitting here, we're like, yep, it's not icky, it's great. I'm really open minded. What is the best process to follow for DMs?

So before we get into the process, I'm going to give you guys the five steps of it, but you need to have a plan and you need to follow the plan. Okay? So there's no point having this amazing sales process or this amazing tech structure or this amazing system to get someone from prospect to client if you don't follow it. And I feel like that's where it goes wrong with business. In business for small business owners, they have this marketing system, they have a sales system, they have a scale system. They just don't follow it. Okay. That's just rule number one is like, after you build this out. And you could probably use my read, write and recite here. So listen to this podcast. We call it Listen, Write and recite site. Listen to this podcast, write out your process and actually follow it. Okay? So if you're listening to this and you've committed the time to this podcast, I would suggest going the full way and getting this process dialed in for your business. So the first step on how to structure your conversations is you need an intro message. And the intro message needs to be a little bit passive and not super aggressive. Okay. So where I see intro messages go wrong, it'll be like, hey, Tim, thanks for downloading my thing. What's your top three business goals? How long you been in business? You know, how's your day? Where do you live? Like, all this crazy stuff, you want to think about it, like dating. It's just a really, really simple yes or a really simple reply. So it could. An example of this could be, hey, Steph, what are your business goals at the moment? Or hey, Steph, how did you come to follow me? Or what would some examples be of some other intro?

Yeah, I mean, the one that we use is, hey, how did you stumble across me? And it's super passive and really easy. The ones that the ICUs, the ones where people get the ick is like where people are like, hey, would you like a closer to be able to close? Can you handle another 50 clients? Like, they go in so hard, like they're going in fourth base and they need to go in first base.

Yeah. The second one is after you've got a little bit of buy in and you've got a conversation going with them, you want to ask them about their goals. Okay. Because everyone follows someone for a reason. On Instagram, we're talking about specifically, you can transfer this to LinkedIn or, or Facebook or wherever you want to get down in the DMS and make sales. But you want to open up with like, what are your goals? So usually in like a fitness context, I'll be like, what are your top three fitness goals for a business context? Like, what's your sales goal? What's your marketing goal? So, yeah, like a bookkeeping example could be what is your goal in regard to knowing your numbers, taxation or having your 0 updated or something like that? Really simple. But you just want to relate it to your service. The next questions you want to ask her about their problems. Okay, so everyone has problems and then you're going to offer the solution. This is the key here. So what are the top three problems or what's the number one problem you're coming up against in your business at the moment? I'd love to give you some insight on how we can help that. That's a little bit long, but we're going to be drafting out and structuring a sell by chat or a DM process here. So I'm not saying the first process you ever build is going to be the one, but it is going to help just to have a structure and then you're going to refine it and get better over time. Hours took us quite a while, but.

You know, years, Honestly it's taken years. It's been backwards and forwards for years. And I was the person that was like what Tim was saying before. Like, there have been so many times where I have not followed our process and what do you know, stuff stops working eventually. So get a process and follow it. But yeah, keep going. So we have, so we have our intro message, we have goals, we check.

In with their problems and then we ask them what their current roadblocks are. Okay, so what roadblocks are experiencing right now trying to achieve X. And then they will give you an answer and that's where you can offer a solution. And the solution can be send them over to a landing page, you can send them a PDF, you can send them a call link, you can send them whatever you want after that. So the five step process here guys, is intro message, goals, problems, roadblocks and offers. Steph, where do you see this going wrong besides just being too hectic and too full on?

So I think the thing you have to really keep in mind when you're following this process is that you're in a discovery phase with this person. So don't try and just sell everybody and don't go into the conversation being like, how can I quickly turn this into a sale? Like, actually if someone tells you their goal and a goal is something that you cannot help with. Like, so for example, if we had someone in our DMs and they were like, hey, yep, I'm really pumped to grow my E commerce business to a million dollars, we'd be like, sick. Well, good luck. And here's why I'd recommend following, right? Because it's just not what we do. And if somebody was like, here's my problem. And their problem was how do take their $8 million company to a $10 million company. We'd probably recommend somebody else rather than us to be able to help them solve that problem. If you get to the roadblock and everything that you teach is everything they've already nailed, and the roadblock that they have is something that you don't understand or know about, then don't offer them a solution to the problem. So I think it's like, you wouldn't offer to help somebody change a tire if you've never changed a tire in your life, right? And so I think this is really good opportunity for you here. When you're looking at this structure where things go wrong is that people are so focused media on social selling that you actually stop listening and in this case, reading, Right? And so I think it's like, if. If they're not, every single person is going to be the right fit for you, and that's okay. Do not offer your service, do not offer your product, do not offer your thing unless you know that you can actually solve the problem that they're looking to solve.

So I've got a little bit of a pro tip here. So I own a gym, and we get a lot of leads. So we get a lot of leads by Facebook and Instagram ads. So we've used this process on that before. But a lot of the times you get to imagine, like, someone that opts into a Facebook or Instagram ad at the time, let's hypothetically say you want to lose 10 kilos in 10 weeks, they have a problem at that time point, and then sometimes they don't get back to you because, you know, the next day they haven't replied. And then they've, you know, they've fallen out of love with the concept of losing 10 kilos in 10 weeks, which is fine. But then, Steph, I don't know if you remember what we send to people that don't reply to text messages. So we'll try to flash some on the screen here or I don't know how we guys can show you. We can show you below, but I have about six or seven memes that we would send to people that wouldn't reply to us. And one of them, it just is a picture of a skeleton on a park bench, and it says, just me waiting for you to get back to me.

So good.

And there's heaps of funny ones, like guy behind. Behind a tree, just looking at another guy, being like, okay, you know, that's me stalking you, type thing. So that always gets people to replies. Like the comedy aspect of it. When the conversation does go a little bit flat, you just want to maybe think about the rapport you've got with people. Obviously that can come off a little bit hectic. I don't mind coming across hectic. That's fine by me. I was just going to say depends on your brand. But you know, if you like quite a, like a, you know, cool B2C or B2B company where you don't want to come across active, maybe don't do that.

But if you do, then it's probably not on brand for brave endeavors, like for the coaching company as much, but it's definitely on brand for anything that Tim runs. And so it's awesome. And so I think. But like finding those things for you, like for us, you know, if somebody stops replying, we might just react to a couple of their stories and just bump ourselves back to the top of their inbox. Like there's lots of little things that you can do that do feel more on brand. And we're not saying this is the, like, this is the exact process you should run. But like the way that you have those conversations and the questions that you ask and the way that you get back to people and the way that you build rapport and the way that you follow up, like you guys are gonna have to figure out what that looks like for you because you know, Tim and I have very different methods personally as well. Like on Tim's account, you would have a very different conversation to the conversation that you would have on my account. And so that's okay. It's about finding your version of this. A lot of thumbs up, one word replies for Tim, which is the best.

Last thing, guys, just another little pro tip here is like, like at any one stage in, in your business or talking to prospects, et cetera, only about 2 to 3% of them will be ready to make a buying decision at that time. So if you're going into every conversation expecting everyone to buy a book and a call or jump on a landing page, you're going to be sorely disappointed. This DM strategy or selling in the DMS or getting down in the DMs is a long term play. Okay? You're building relationships and nurturing relationships in the dm. You're not going for, you know, a home run on the first time you chat to someone.

If somebody doesn't book this the first time, like we. But literally this week someone just came back to me and I can See that? We started our conversation in 2021 and it's now 2024 and they're ready to sign and we, you know, there have been 18 months in between times that we've chatted. Thank you, Ray, for coming back to us. And Ray's also known Tim for like ever, like literally for such a long time. And now was the time that she decided that success school was right for her. So I think that, you know, it's not. I think guys don't get so hyper focused on the quick wins. Like this is a really compounding. Like sometimes you'll get quick wins. Like it happens a lot. We get calls booked with people who have just followed us like that. But there are some times where it is a slow build and, and those seeds that you plant will turn into trees at some point. And so don't, don't rush it and don't, don't rush through it. How would you recommend tracking DMs, Tim? Because like, obviously in my account things get pretty crazy. Pretty crazy in my account. But for someone who maybe doesn't have a lot of DMs but still wants to be able to track. Because obviously guys, if someone reacts to your story or whatever, like, you know, your DMs can fill up really quickly. How do you manage it?

It? Yeah. So Instagram have just come out with some lead tracking features in the DMs where you can move stuff around, mark them as a lead, mark them as a sale, et cetera, which works really well. The other way is just like an old school lead tracking sheet on Google Sheets. So anyone that you would take from, I would say like follower to prospect, which would be somewhat interested in what you do, you could add them to a lead sheet. So like name Instagram handle, you know, have you pitched them a call or whatever it is, and you could have like a little bit of a check system that could work really well. You could just enter that in at the end of the day. Or if you have someone helping you with the dms, you could enter that in. But I think tracking these things is key. If you're not assessing, you're guessing and you want to make a concerted effort to send a number of DMs every day, the last way you can do it is with software called GoHighLevel. There's a bunch of other softwares you can use. So essentially that connects up to your Instagram and then you can track and turn them into opportunities or add them to your CRM, et cetera. The people that you are speaking to, which is a really easy way of doing it digitally. If I were you, and you were probably under like the $500,000 mark, I would probably just consider doing it like on Google Sheet or in. In Go High Level. It'd probably be a little bit more advanced to go to a CRM. Once you get like, you know, Steph's having, you know, 100, 200, 300 conversations a week in the DMs, it gets quite a lot to manage, as you guys could imagine. So just think about it from like a lead flow point of view rather than I need to use this crazy system to track my DMs, you need to find what works for you.

Totally. Like, I, before, when had the business before Tim joined me, you know, we were doing over a million dollars, and we were still tracking in a lead in a spreadsheet. We were still tracking all of our leads in a spreadsheet. So I think that, you know, and eventually we kind of realized that there was probably an easier way and so. And so we implemented Go High Level. But that probably wouldn't be my recommendation for you if you, if you're not probably at, yeah, $500,000 or more. And also, DM conversations were your number one. And we talk about Master of One a lot. But, you know, this is our number one sales process is like our sales. Our sales funnel, effectively our sales, you know, conversion tactic is like, you know, we, we have conversations, we get them onto sales calls, we, you know, move them through into success school or not if they're not the right fit. And, and that's the process. Whereas if you guys have a different process, that's also totally fine. It's just that if you're, if this is going to be a process and you're earning more than $500,000 a year, it's probably time to look at a system to invest in.

Yeah. All right, Steph, so how would you recommend structuring your days for selling in the DMs?

Yeah. So what can happen when you start to have a lot of conversations is that you can get really, really trapped in the DMs, which we do not want, because marketing and sales have got to be, of course, a big focus for your business, but also running a business, delivering exceptional client work, you know, really helping people, not burning out. Like, there has to be some structure to it. And the problem with DM conversations and, you know, your time is that they are dopamine hits at the end of the day. And so you're going to be getting lots of little dopamine hits when they reply, when you're having conversation with them, when they're like, yes, oh my God. Like, oh my God, this could be so fun. Like, it's, it really is quite. It can be quite addictive. Right? So I think for anybody who's running this process, you should definitely be really methodical about it. And I would be sending all my conversations in the morning, first thing in the morning, and then I would not be jumping back into my DMs until later that afternoon. So I would be sending all my conversations out in the morning to start all my conversations or following up from the previous night. And then I would not be checking, let's say at 9am and then I would not check it again until 4pm and then I would finish off those conversations. It's going to take you a few days. It's going to take you a few days to get them across the line, and that's okay. The best thing about letting it take a few days is the fact that if they decide to then get on a call, they're really keen. Right? You haven't just got them in a moment where they're feeling weak or, you know, a moment where they feel like they need help. Like, if they're having a conversation with you over many days and they're consuming, you're giving them a good opportunity to consume more of your content, then you've got a much, much warmer lead on your hands as well. So I would definitely be doing morning and evening and nothing in the, in the middle so that you can stay focused on your work. I would also focus and give myself little KPIs to hit. So things like, you know, for us it's like a minimum of 10 conversations per day. For you guys, it might be a lot more. I think I was actually 20 conversations per day now. And so, you know, but when you're first getting started, I would be looking at, you know, 10 conversations per day would be what I would be trying to start. So five days a week, 10 conversations per day would be where I would be sitting. How would. So if we're having 10 conversations per day, how would somebody get 10 leads per day? Because I think about some of our clients who are probably just getting started and maybe don't have the biggest following or the biggest audience yet on social media. So how would you recommend, Tim, that somebody can get 10 leads a day to speak to?

So we'll do it in. I'll give you the example of how we do it in our process. Okay. Which is just going to make this a lot easier. So as we have discussed on the podcast and if you haven't listened, go listen to last week, we do talk about about ads, but we do, we run a bunch of lead magnets. So middle of funnel stuff. So that builds no like and trust. But we get people's Instagram handles. Okay in that ad. So we're getting anywhere from 20, 30, 40, 50 Instagram handles a day which we are messaging. Okay. So that obviously meets our quota for starting 20 conversations a day. So if you think about this on a continuum of, of warm to cold. So someone that downloads a lead magnet is, is relatively warm for a conversation. Okay. So I like to you know, obviously pick the low hanging fruit or the warmest conversations first because they have more of a tendency to convert to a prospect or a lead or an application form, et cetera. So any like lead magnet downloads, we're going to message them first. Then second we're going to message any new followers. Third we're going to message any likers and then fourth we're going to message any commenters. We don't really do likers or commenters but if you don't have a lead magnet that's running on ads, you might not be meeting the volume required to hit 10 conversations or 20 conversations a day. So you might need to go down to likers or comments. But new followers definitely would be my number one. If you're not running anything like that depends how viral you are. So then it becomes a little bit of a challenge or a marketing or strategic marketing play on how do you get new followers that are the right target market for you? Another way you can do that is with the boosting method. Okay, really simple. You can boost one of your high performing, high quality reels for $5 a day, get a bunch of new followers and then start a sell by chat process with them or down in the DMs chat with them. A lot of our clients in successful have done that very successfully over the last six months. Just $5 a day. Anyone can afford that boosting of real and you could start a bunch of conversations with them. But my advice to you would be to jump into my Facebook course coming up on the 24th Facebook ads for coaches and service based businesses and I'll teach you guys how to run lead magnets and get endless amounts of Instagram handles that you guys can chat to every single day.

Will we have a link for that in the show notes? We might we might.

Okay, I need to go to www.successcool.IO and apply for Successful to get access to it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I thought.

If you guys want to stack cash, get rich and learn Facebook ads from me, then jump on something that.

Just a pro hack here, guys, and something that's working really well. When we talk about commenters, the only comments that we would ever send DMS to are the ones where we actually tell them we're going to give them something for free. So really good thing. That's really hot right now. So this is a right now tactic. If you are listening as Of January or February 2024, this is worth a shot. Just tell them to comment a word below and that you will send them a Freebie in the DMs. Okay. That is by far one of the hottest ways to start a conversation right now. I don't know how long it's going to be hot for, but it's working right now. Give it a shot. But they're the kinds of commenters that we're actually sending DMs to and then we're starting conversations, which is. Is phenomenal and is working like a treat right now.

All right, let's get into listener questions. So we have Christy V. I would love to know if successful principles can work in all businesses, not just service led businesses, I. E. Retail, products and manufacturing. Over to you, Steph.

Yes and no. There are some crossover, but at the end of the day, we actually couldn't probably tell you wholeheartedly because Tim and I have never done retail, product or manufacturing style businesses. So the reason that we focus on service based businesses is because we really believe that you should learn from people who have done what you want to do. So because we haven't yet done retail, product or manufacturing, it's something that we are super interested in getting into E Comm at some point, but because we haven't done it yet, it's not something that we teach. And so at the end of the day, business is business. So there's going to be a level of crossover from, you know, tracking finances, KPIs, sales and marketing. There will definitely be crossovers, but there will be things that work better for E Comm businesses that we just don't know. We know nothing about manufacturing, cost, shipment, import, export. We don't know anything about that. And so for us to be able to wholeheartedly sit here and say that, yeah, it's gonna be a fit for you, we'd be lying. And so. And that's so out of integrity for us. So, you know, successful principles can. I think there are a lot of the principles that can work across all businesses. But to be completely honest, we couldn't wholeheartedly tell you. What do you think?

Yeah, I think yes, more than no. I think successful is about building the entreprene, like as the entrepreneur, not so much the business. So anyone that comes into our program, their business crushes because they crush, not so much the other way around. We don't build their business into something amazing, we build them into something amazing. Okay. Which is quite a different way of looking at business, I think. You know, if we talk about the analogy of like the jockey and the horse, the horse is your business, you are the jockey. A lot of the time we are spending time working on the jockey. A lot of the things we do are sales and marketing. So we do landing pages, we do do organic, we do ads, we do all that type of stuff which works in service and product base. But to get in successful, you need to be a coach or a service based provider. Not saying, you know, we can't.

We do have some E Commerce, we.

Have some, but you know, it's not, it's not our thing.

Yeah, we have some E Commerce and the reason that we have some E Commerce is because, you know, they need systems or they, you know, they've already got a great business, they've already got a great E Commerce brand, they've already got, you know, their, their marketing's already working. They're looking for systems, they're looking for team, they're looking for being surrounded by like minded people. And in that case, yeah, definitely that's something can help with. So it's not a no, it's just a, you know, we take it as it comes. But I do love what Tim was saying about the jockey and the horse and the fact that in successful one of the things that we see a lot is that people even do change business. They change business midway through success school because they realize that it's not working or it's not aligned or you know, it's very rare that somebody will. I actually think there's only one example of it in, you know, basically like most of what I know, but that they will start their first business and that will be the one that they do for the rest of their lives. And I think the only person that's ever done that is like Jeff Basil. Yeah, I think I heard that that was his first business. Which blows my mind by the way, that his first business was Amazon. But most people don't like, this is not my first business. This is not Tim's first business. Even the gym isn't Tim's first business. So like, I do think that when we have the skills, you can crush in any business, in any economy, in any market, anytime. And that's what we teach our clients.

All right, question two, gsw. Do you believe in having referral partners with referral fees or just a mutual agreement that you'll both just send people each other's way with no fee? Over to you, Steph. We've probably got two different answers here.

I think I have two different answers.

So I think I got five answers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that this, I think this is nuanced. Yeah, I don't think there's a rule. So, you know, I think that it depends on for me personally, it's probably a volume game and the size of the other business. So I, we're just about to set up a referral partner with an E commerce coach who is phenomenal. And I would say that in that case she has a really large multimillion e commerce brand. We have a large multimillion dollar service based business brand. And so for us, referral fees make sense. Right. And so I think that that works. However, if, you know, I don't for a long time. For most referral partners that we refer out to, like our mindset coaches, our accountants, our financial planners, like people that we send people to all the time in success school, our clients, we don't have any referral partnerships set up. And that's because most of the time we just do a good thing. We just want to help people win. Like the people that we love, we want to help them win, both our clients and the people who are helping us. And so I think it's nuanced and I think that at some point the volume becomes enough where you're like, I actually think that we need to put something in writing here because I think that there is, I'm offering a lot of value to your business, but I personally think improve. I personally think you probably want to prove that value first rather than go. Because referral partnerships are also hard to track like you have. You really have to think about the fact that they're not easy. Like if you send someone their way, how are you going to manage whether that person signed or didn't sign? Is it a trust thing? Is it a, like, how's it look? And so unless there's, you know, gateway set up and there's affiliate program set up and the other business has the capacity to do that. And then you're willing to check the invoices at the end of every month and you know, if you have 15 of those set up, you're going to be spending a lot of time doing admin on someone else's business that you don't even really need to do. And so I think it's like if the volume is there, it's well. And it's well and truly worth setting up a referral partnership. But if it's one once or twice here and there, I personally think that. But just do it because it's the right thing to do.

Yeah, I think my answer is pretty similar to yours. It's nuanced, just depends what your outcome or goal is. If you're, you know, an influencer, which jsw, I don't think you are, you have a massive audience of a million people and you're setting up referral partnerships and you're making six figures, you know, sending referrals to other people, then it works. If you're a business owner, which I know you are, and you've got shit to do, then tracking, referral fees, et cetera, percentages, reoccurring payments, it doesn't really make sense. It's not going to get you where you want to go. Okay. So I would just look at it from that nuanced approach. A lot of the times the juice is probably not worth the squeeze. Steph and I probably more look at this thing as like a trust thing as well. So we will send people to people because we know like and trust them. We want to show our faith in them as well. We don't ask for anything in return. But if the time comes in the future where we need something from them, we're not going to be shy about asking for it because we have sent a ton of business their way. So you know, we do have, we do have courses coming up in successful with other people where there will be like a split with a, you know, affiliate type deal in the future where it makes sense, where there's like a lot of money on the line, but just depends on what, what is worth it for you?

Yeah, definitely. I think figuring out like what. And I think this is where it's nuanced at the beginning because if there's a lot of volume coming through then it's worth it. Right. But if there's not a lot of volume coming through then it's probably not worth setting up because the tracking and it's Just it's an, it's a logistical nightmare. So I think think you'll know when is probably my gut instinct to make that work. Like you'll know when you know. And like I sent probably 12 people in the last two weeks to, you know, this E Commerce coach and I was like I should probably just reach out and see if, if we can tease something up because that's, that's, that's volume. That's big money for her, you know, so it was one of those things where and I really believe in her. And so I was, but I was like, okay, if we're going to keep doing this and it's going to continue being this volume, it makes sense to both of us to be rewarded. It just makes sense, right? So I think you will know when it to comes makes sense.

Yeah. So the, you know, we'll do the gym example here. Like someone, a referral fee for someone signing up to a gym is probably not worth doing or tracking, you know, because the money is so low. But you know, with this. Jess is a VA business. It, it might make sense. It just depends what the percentage is etc. But like for us it probably wouldn't be worth it.

No. No.

All right guys, if you got some value, as always, subscribe, follow the show. If you're wanting to grow your business in 2024, you want to take it to seven figures and beyond. Steph and I are the coaches for you at Success school. Go to www.successful.IO apply for it book in a time to speak with one of our team members about the program. And then lastly guys, if you got any value from the show, please share it with someone. Okay? Our show growth comes from mainly word of mouth, so we would appreciate that. And finally, leave us a five star review. We would appreciate it a lot. Final thoughts, Steph?

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Thanks guys.