Income Expert: You Can’t Budget Freedom

So I made, you know, 6 figures my first year. Making more money was a big part, but whenever I really get down to it, I wanted to have the ability to choose what I do with my time.

Our guest today is gonna show you exactly what they've done over the last 5 years when they had that revelation about funnels, affiliate marketing, and how the two worlds combine.

Sarah was in physical therapy and living paycheck to paycheck even though her husband was working full-time.

I just feel like my biggest assignment in life was to be their mom. By the time I went to work and cared about how everybody else felt, I was exhausted. I feel like my job got the best of my day and my kids and my husband got what was left over. Here I am now trying to tell everybody, like, go for it. What you've been taught, the American dream, is not the full story. Failure was not an option because I gave myself 3 months, 90 days.

Our guest today is Sarah Thompson, and get ready, gang, this is gonna be a good one.

Welcome back to another episode of ClickFunnels Radio. I'm Chris Cameron, and joined with me as always is the man, the myth, the legend, Dante Torelli. What's up, man?

Dude, you are far too kind for me. Keep going. Don't stop. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

No, I'm going to stop because this is not about you, Dante, as much as you want it to be. I want to bring on Sarah Thompson. This is, uh, I'll just tell everybody, like, we had kind of a snafu with the recording the first time, but this is so exciting to bring her back because there's so many things we didn't cover. Sarah, I want to dive into, uh, where this kind of started. You were working, uh, in physical therapy. And still at a very, very good income are like, oh my gosh, I still cannot make enough. I'm paycheck to paycheck to paycheck. What was happening at that point?

Oh man. Well, I think, I think I'll, I'll say what so many people feel and just aren't willing to say. You know, I was working hard. I did everything I was told to do to have success, right? My husband and I worked hard. We had showed up early and got good performance reviews. And I got the job I was supposed to get, you know, and I was like, okay, well, you know, where are those vacations that are easy to pay for every year? Because I'm looking at my bank account balance and we're making it. I mean, we've never gone hungry, you know, paid my mortgage, but there wasn't any extra money. And I just wasn't willing to settle for that. It just wasn't what I wanted. And so I dove into a little side hustle, is what I like to call it, 5 years ago. And here I am now trying to tell everybody, like, go for it. What you've been taught, the American dream, is not the full story.

I think there was a point in your story where you, you're kind of the saver in your relationship. Your husband's working full-time, right? And, and, but you're saying that he's a spender?

Very much so, yes.

Like, what, just you get Amazon packages showing up every day? Or like, he's like, no, we're going on vacation, or we're going out to eat? Like, what do you mean?

Pretty much.

He's gonna love that I'm asking this too.

Oh yeah. Well, I mean, he would just, he would just laugh because he knows this about himself. I mean, you, if, if he has $20, he's going to spend $20. If I have $20, I might spend a dollar and I'm going to save the rest because something better might come along in 2 days that I might want. So, I mean you know, we stop at a gas station to get gas. I, being not a spender, would have never seen the inside of a gas station in my whole life until I met my husband. He goes in and I mean, you have to buy at least a drink and a snack. I mean, why even stop to get gas if you don't get a drink and a snack? And it's just, I'm just like, what are you doing?

We don't have to buy two different personalities. I mean, listen, I have to keep my wife like caffeinated to remain happy. And so I know if like that drink is getting low, like, I, I've got to pull over soon. But that's hilarious because I think there's two different mindsets. Were you, were you raised like on a scarcity mindset?

Very much so, uh, yes. And that, you know, when I tell this story, I always preface it by saying I had a loving— my parents are wonderful, they loved my brother and I. And I'm, I'm from Kentucky, so my dad was a coal miner and Unfortunately, like, that was a very up and down kind of job at the time, and he got injured in the coal mines. And when my brother was in high school and I was in middle school, he was injured. And money was a very— it was a big source of stress. Every decision we made was around money. My mom was stressed because of money. My dad was stressed because he couldn't make money. And my brother and I are both, I guess you could say, tightwads.. And I think it's because of— we saw what that did to our family dynamic. And so very much so, that's why I felt like I had to save everything I made, because I thought it could be, it could be taken from me instantly. Right. I never— until 5 years ago, never even knew about passive income. I didn't know any of that. Now, I knew how to work hard. I knew how to save. I read the Dave Ramsey book. But discovering passive income was like this whole new world to me. And so, and it actually, it kind of took a lot of work to get me out of that scarcity mindset. Even after making money, even after making the money I have, I can still go back to that place of thinking, oh, but this might not continue. So yes, it was very much a learned behavior.

Well, I recall you kind of talking about there's a shift kind of that happened. I was like, wait a minute, maybe the answer is not here saving, maybe the answer is making more. Yes. Tell us more about that kind of shift.

Well, I mean, you know, saving— and I commend people who save money, it's not a bad thing— but you can't, you can't save enough money to keep up with the cost of living. You can't. That's not a long-term plan, right?

If you have like a traditional job, you know, if you make like, if you make less than, if you make less than $170,000 a year and that's like your next 10-year plan, yeah, you can't save your way out of it.

No, and it's, it's good to save money. It's, it's smart to plan for the future, I think. But whenever you find this whole other world of ways to make money and ways to make money work for you and ways to make money without working more hours, like I said, I, I want to shout it from the rooftops. I want to share with everybody. Like, I couldn't believe nobody had told me about it. And so it was a big a big switch from my mind. And I still, to this day, I still live in the same community with coal miners and hard workers and farmers. And I don't really talk like that.

Still Jenny from the block, you know what I'm saying?

Yes, yes. But I still feel like people feel like I kind of like hack the system somehow, or like I'm living in this dream world, or I just got lucky when I just want to say like, no, it's— this is legit. Like, it really works for lots of people.

So, hold on. So, a lot of times we move and we make decisions based on two things, right? Moving towards pleasure, moving away from pain. Was this something, which track do you think you were? I mean, did you have this moment like, man, I'm just so sick and darn tired of this, or I know there's more out there and I'm gonna go for it 'cause I want more. Do you align with either one of those? And one more over the other?

When I got started, I think that I was moving away from pain because I was tired. I was tired of just the same old same old with no plan out of it. That was my thing. Short term, you can do anything, right? Like, I can make it work short term. But the longer I budgeted and saved, I was like, this is not a long-term plan. I cannot keep going like this. I don't want to work more hours to spend more time with my kids. Like, that didn't make any sense. But then once I discovered passive income and I saw other people having success, I'm a very competitive person. And so it was more of a, oh, if they can do it, I can do it too kind of thing, and I can do it better. So like, so it was kind of like towards pleasure, like what can I do? Like how much better can I do if I push myself? Like what can I reach? So a little bit of both. Now I know that Like, for my audience, I try to take them away from pain because I think that's what makes sense to them. Like, it's easier to say, you know, how would it feel if you didn't stress about going to the grocery store? Because that's— I think that's the stress most people feel. And to take them away from pain is what they want.

I really resonate with your story, Sarah. It's how you told it too. I have the same thing and I tell it the exact same way. My parents are just lovely, phenomenal people, and I couldn't have expected any more as a child growing up. I'm just blessed. But they also had a scarcity mindset, and I was brought up into that. It was like, it's just the mindset of like nothing ever more is coming. So we only have to work with what we have and anything else is out of the question. And when you live in that, it really puts your brain in a cage in many, many ways. So I'm curious, when you first started getting into business and you first started running your little side hustle, as you called it, was there some big scarcity mindset things that you were struggling with early on as you started getting more and looking at like, ooh, well, how do I actually build this into a business?

Definitely. I mean, which I didn't tell anybody what I was doing at first, mostly because I didn't want people to be negative toward me. Sure.

But that's real.

Yeah, I mean, and I'll tell you, it's one of the best things I did was not telling anybody I did it because I didn't want negative attitudes, because I didn't need anybody to rain on my parade, you know? Right. But I remember even like making my first, you know, my— with my side hustle, like making my first $5,000 extra a month. I thought, okay, but what if that never happens again? What if this disappears? What if, you know, what if— what if people stop spending money? That's pretty much what I was thinking. What if people stop spending money? It was there. And honestly, I don't know that I really even identified that it was a scarcity mindset until I went to this event called Faith Over Fear. I'm a Christian, and I listened to somebody break down that, like, the Bible doesn't even teach that. Like, we're— it was such a big breakthrough for me. But it's so learned. It's in your head. And, you know, whenever you Whenever you've lived with that for so long, it is really hard to break those thought patterns of, okay, this is good, but it won't last. Yep. Or, you know, good for you, but you're just lucky. So it is a whole mindset thing, and it does take overcoming it and getting over it to believe it. And honestly, you've got to listen to people and watch people who live like that's true, because if you don't and all you're listening to are people who don't believe it you're not going to believe it either.

So, and then, so, and you're really talking about your circles now, the people that you listen to, the people that you speak to, the people that you talk to about your real things. And that is unbelievably important because like, if you were to stay in the old circle, let's call it the coal mining circle just for this example, of all these people that don't know how to think like you, that don't know how to live like you, well, when you bring these new things to them, they're just going to challenge and they're just going to say, well, that can't be real. And that won't last. And you just got lucky and all the things that are absolutely false. So as important as it is to train our own minds and to challenge ourselves, we also need to challenge our circles that we live in and the people. Uh, what do we say? Your net worth is your network, right? So sometimes, I mean, we do, we grow out of some of the circles that we've lived in. And a lot of times, Sarah, people are scared to get out of those circles too, because that's the comfortable thing. That's the people that have known me the entire life. This world is full of a bunch of uncomfortable choices that we have to make constantly. But we make those choices when we actually do those things. I mean, it opens up avenues we never knew possible, opens up ways of thinking that we never knew possible.

And that's power.

100%. 100%. And it, you know, whenever you change, and change is uncomfortable, it is. I think it's uncomfortable for everyone. But I think You know, even you— I make— I don't want to say you make— I feel like I made some people uncomfortable when I do start talking about passive income or making more money that are, you know, just in my local friends circle. Why?

You think they feel small or something? What do you mean?

Yeah, yeah. Well, they just haven't done it yet, and I don't ever want anybody— I'm not ever— I'm not—

I'm—

I don't really even like to talk about myself that much, so I don't even talk about what I do. Like, if people— if someone approaches me about it, I'll tell them. But to my local people, you know, I don't do an MLM or anything like that. Like, I don't— that's my work, and my life is different from that. But even I just think their mindset is so fixed that when I do start talking about a little bit, I can see their faces like, hmm, sure, or like, good for you, you know, or even Even challenging things, like even saying, like, we've— saying something different, like things that you repeat out loud are what you become. Yeah, and that's been proven, like neuro research, like spells. Yes, but I mean, like, yes, yes, but you know, your, your brain, and that's— your brain can be rewired by the things that you repeat to yourself and that you think over and over. Like, it's crazy how neuroscience works, but if people haven't heard about that they kind of look at you like you're a little bit crazy at first. Um, and so that's kind of what I mean. Like, people, people get uncomfortable when it's new and different.

Well, there's— it's kind of a cautionary tale too. And I think we've got to do better in society in general, especially like these close circles like Dante's talking about, whether it's church groups, school groups, PTA friends, or whatever, right? Or yoga class, doesn't matter. Often we don't celebrate each other and we don't support each other in the ways— it seems like this competition, the only thing we seem to all get together around and truly, truly celebrate is if we all have a sports team that we like, we get together and if they win, we all celebrate together. But wouldn't it be cool if we're like, holy cow, Sarah just replaced her income in a couple transactions because she's going out and trying this. I wish, and I hope people who are listening are like, okay, as I step into this role of entrepreneur, I hope more people are doing that and cheering each other on. And that's what we found in the ClickFunnels community, Funnel Hacker community, is I had never experienced that to this level. It's like, no way you're doing this. And 2 Comma Club Awards and all the stuff we celebrate. But you gotta make an investment to get there. So I know you made a decision at one point to pull out your wallet, pull out your credit card, and make an uncomfortable purchase to kind of get going on this. What was that? Take us back there. What happened?

Yes, so I bought like a $7 training that was like, I think it taught like the 4 ways to make money online.

And through that, it's not too uncomfortable.

Yeah, it led me to the Legendary Marketer Business Blueprint. Okay, $2,500 investment. It was coaching program.

David Sharpe, right?

David Sharpe. Yes, yes. And I, you know, got on a call with my mentor and he told me about it. I had like, I think, 72 hours to buy. And when I approached my husband and said, 'Jay, I really think I want to spend this money,' he was like, are you okay? Because I'm such a tightwad. He was like, go for it, I know you can do it. I'm good with you spending the money. He was just shocked I wanted to do it. Yeah. Oh yeah, he would— he believes in me 100%.

Well, and he stopped at every Buc-ee's from here to Tulane, so he owes you one at this point, right?

Yeah. Do you, um— if he's sleeping when I go past the Buc-ee's, we don't stop. I mean, I'm filling up at the Marathon down the road. We're not stopping at Buc-ee's if I can help it. But I did end up making that investment. And even after I made the investment, I was a little bit sick in my stomach.

I was like, why?

Oh my gosh, because it was just money I had to replace, and I saw that scarcity mindset.

Yeah.

And even then, even then, my goal was only to make $2,500 back.

Yeah, like if I could just, if I could just break even, bare minimum.

Yep. And that's all I expected of myself. And And, you know, to go with that, which I feel like we're all similar ages, but in high school I was told, like, if you don't go to college, you're not going to be successful.

You guys are a lot younger.

You're only like 22 or 23, right, Chris?

Like, that's perfect. Yep.

Let's keep going. But I was, you know, told if you don't go to college, if you don't get a degree, you're pretty much going to be a failure your whole life.

Yeah, right.

So, you know, I went to college, I did that, but I was tired of my job 15 years in. I couldn't keep doing it physically. Until I was in my mid-60s. That's another thing, like, I was exhausted. I worked in physical therapy. I loved that career, but it's a very physical career. I was lifting people twice my size. At the end of the day, I was exhausted, and I just thought, I, I don't know that I can do this for 30 more years.

I mean, as much emotionally as physical too. In that place, you lift somebody up, but you're also lifting up all the burdens that they're carrying and coming in with, and it is, it's draining.

It's very draining. It is. It's a great career, though. I don't want to be negative about it, but people who do it as a career for the long term, I commend them because it's a lot. It's a lot. And so, you know, I had this whole mindset that that's what I chose, I can't change, so I'm stuck here, right? Like, this is it for me. I chose that career path, you know, when I was 17 or 18 years old, and this is it. And it's just not true. I think that so much pressure is put on us when we're young to decide, like, choose your career path or choose, you know, what you want to get your degree in and then don't change. Yeah. So that's where I was anyways. I'm not trying to put that on anybody else. But, and so even after I did start making money, when people started asking me, or not people I knew, like people who are doing what I did, they're like, Sarah, when are you going to quit your job? I was like, I don't know. I don't know if I can do that.

You know, it's still living in scarcity a little. Yeah.

Very much so. Very much so.

Going back to that purchase that you made though into Legendary Marketer, for example, most times people make a purchase in this case that is an emotional decision, right? Like, oh my gosh, I feel like I should. We got the 72-hour thing. I want to get the deal. Okay, I'm just going to do this. Other people maybe take a little more time and they're logical and they say, okay, my guess is, and tell me if I'm right, My guess is you made an emotional decision and then spent the next time like justifying it logically.

Probably. Yeah, you're probably right. I was— I made an emotional decision. I think I was nervous about it because I am a very logical person. I will say that, like, I'm very Type A. So I knew that the risk was really on me. You know, you can, you can buy a recipe book and if you follow the recipes, they'll be good. So I mean, the risk is on you, you know, you're the one who has to do the work. And I knew that, and it, it was just a lot. It was a big change for me purchasing that. And so I thought, okay, I just took this huge risk, now I'm— it's all on me. Like, the, the pressure's on me to make it work. So I think that's why I was nervous.

I love that recipe book because that is so true. People will do this and they think that it's a magic wand. Like, "Oh, okay, now I'm gonna get rich." And then, or they get mad. We've seen this. They get mad. And then a bunch of lazy people get mad and be like, "Well, that stuff doesn't work." You know, and then they all complain and whatever. And we've seen that. I also wanna ask you about like your desires. You know, we talk about this hero's journey, right? Yes. And usually there's two desires. One, we've already talked about. We talked about the fact that you wanted to make some money. I would call that an external desire. I wanna make X amount of money. But tell us what was moving inside you internally. Like, was this a calling? Was this like, I know that there's more out there. You alluded to maybe spending a little more time with family, et cetera. But like, what were the internal desires that were pushing you to pull your credit card out and say, all right, we're changing things?

Yeah, look, I can almost get emotional now thinking about it because at the time of this recording, I'm doing this today. I took off last week to go on my son's field trip. I'm taking off Wednesday. It's the last day of school. We're doing field day. I'm taking off Friday because my daughter's team has a fundraiser. I wanted my time back. My kids are, you know, I just feel like my biggest assignment in life at that time especially was to be their mom and to be present for them. And by the time I went to work and cared about how everybody else felt, I was exhausted. I feel like my job got the best of my day. And my kids and my husband got what was left over. I just didn't like that. And on the other side of that, I wanted to go on vacations. We love to travel. And it was always, if we save more, we'll be able to go in, you know, 3 years. And I'm like, yeah, but my kids will be older. Like, we don't have— and I hope my goal in life is that my kids still want to spend time with me even when they're moved out of my home. But my kids are here now. Like, this is when I want to make these memories. And so the making more money was a big part, but whenever I really get down to it, it wasn't the money. I wanted to have the ability to choose what I do with my time. That is the big one for me. I make choices, and right now I'm in a season where the choices I make are probably always going to lean towards spending more time with my kids or doing more for my kids because they're only with me for a little— I mean, my daughter's 16 now.

As crazy as that sounds, the, the hourglass is ticking, right? The clock's ticking here. And I, I feel you on this. I mean, my oldest is 18 and my youngest is 9, but it's wild, right? You, you put all this time in to make money, to try to like get more money, at the sacrifice of time. Exactly. And finding that balance is exactly what you're saying, Sarah, is key. So you jump in and do this. I mean, it sounds like you found that balance, but I wanna hear how we got there. How do you get to the point where you're like, okay, now I figured out the formula to turn a small amount of time into a lot of money to free up more time. What was the next step? You buy this course, did you start making commissions? Like, what happened?

Well, I bought the course and then I, you know, I told you earlier, I didn't tell anybody about it. I was laser focused. I was dialed in. If I could remember and bottle up and sell what I had going at that point in my life, I would make a lot more money because I was just focused on what I had to do. So took this training. It came with something called Decade in a Day, which was every other Friday somebody would build out a whole business. I took a day off work. I was on that call live. I watched everything they did. I had no idea what any of it was. I mean, I was— I felt really, really dumb. And then I watched the replay 2 or 3 times. I built a business around a dog offer because I didn't know what I wanted to promote. I was doing affiliate marketing.

Hold on, dog offer. Tell us about that. What's this dog offer?

It's called Brain Training Dogs.

What do you mean?

No, Brain Training. What's that? It was— it's a ClickBank offer. It was called Brain Training for Dogs. And I think it was like—

So hold on, ClickBank offer. You're telling me this was not a product that you went and said, okay, I got to put all this mindset of what can I sell? You went to an external source that has a lot of offers. This is what affiliates do, right? You go out and you found an offer and you picked brain training for dogs. Well, and they'll pay you commission if you sell it, right?

Right, exactly. Okay. So in that, in the blueprints, they had like done-for-you offers, and that was one of them. And so I didn't know what I wanted to promote, which is a big hang-up for beginners. I mean, sure, people stay stuck there for just way too long, and that's one of the things I didn't do. So I just, I was just like, I'll do the dog one. I have a dog, I like dogs, they're fine. And so I, I built my business that way, and after promoting it, you know, for, I don't know, a week, 10 days, I was like, I can't I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy making content about dogs. Like, this isn't my passion. But I learned more. I learned more from just picking something and getting started and failing at that than I ever would have learned staying stuck for 2 months trying to pick the perfect offer. Yep. I mean, I don't— people say stuck there way too long. I just got off the call with one of my clients and I was like, choose something by the end of today. I like, you have to choose something. We have to move forward because this is not a money-making activity that you're stuck on. Like, you're not making commissions while also trying to figure this out. You've got to move forward. Imperfect progress. Like, nobody is perfect when they first get started. Nobody.

So I love this.

Yeah. And then I just switched and I, what I was passionate about was passive income. I mean, I just got done telling y'all, I felt like I had unlocked a gold mine. I was reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, and I would, you know, my husband would be asleep in bed and I'd be like tapping his shoulder like, you're not gonna believe what this says in this book, because I was mind blown. And so I just pivoted, and I, you know, created a new social media account, I made a new funnel, I continued to mess up.

I gotta, I gotta get you in this. So you just picked something initially you weren't passionate about it No, no, no. But you were able to, at that point, pivot. I wanna just highlight this. Dante and I talk about this with people all the time, is like, stop spending this time in like, I don't know what, 'cause guess what you gotta figure out more than anything is how to market the thing. You don't have to learn the thing as much. You have to learn how to market that thing. And then a lot of times it may not work and then you pivot. That is two key things as an entrepreneur that we have to be incredibly good at is just get after it. And then when things, we get the data, we pivot and we move. But if you can find something that's like, okay, I know how to market that and I'm passionate. Oh God. Now we're really, really cooking. But the first couple might not be. That's why it's one funnel away instead of like your next funnel. No, it's you're one funnel away from whatever it is your goals are. Didn't mean to cut you off, but I wanna just, I know people are listening to this and going, wait a minute, I'm just like Sarah, but I don't know what to sell. And I love that you said that to 'em. Just flip and pick something by the end of the day. And then if you don't like it, pivot. It's not the end of the world.

Keep going with your story though, Sarah. Yes, Sarah, I'm curious if you had not done that, if you had not cycled as we like to call it here, if you'd not had those early-on failures or mishaps, do you think you'd be where you are today?

Hmm, you know, it's hard to say. I mean, I would like to think so eventually I would have, but here again, I was coming from this I have to make this money back space, you know, place in my life. And when I realized I could not continue on promoting dogs and I pivoted quickly because I was like, well, I can't give up. That's not an option. Failure was not an option because I gave myself 3 months, 90 days, and I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to look at what anybody else is doing. I'm not going to tell anybody else what I'm doing, but I have 90 days to make this work or at least show signs of success. Yeah, right. And so I pivoted quickly and, and that's what I was about to say. I pivoted so quickly that I did create a new funnel, but I forgot to switch the email campaign or the email workflow. And so people were opting in.

You're talking about passive income, but they're opting into dog brain training?

Yes, that's exactly what happened. That's amazing. I will— it's a little precious little friend on TikTok. He sent me a TikTok message. He said, Sarah, that's amazing. I appreciate you sending me emails, but like, I like dogs, but when are you going to tell me more about passive income? And I was like, oh my gosh.

I paid for Disneyland and I walked into Universal Studios. I'm a little confused here.

Yes. Luckily that happened fairly quickly, but it just goes to show I made mistakes as a beginner. Yeah. And but instead of just saying, well, I'm a failure, I suck, I'm a loser, this will never work for me, I maybe cried for 5 minutes and then I fixed my workflow and I moved forward.

5 minutes.

I apologize. I probably cried for maybe longer.

Yeah, but you gave yourself— I'm joking around, but you gave yourself a period of time and like, okay, let's get after it.

Yeah, because there was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could do to fix that. And luckily, this is another thing that beginners, I think, helps them to hear. Only 5 people got that wrong email address. Like, there wasn't 50,000 people saying, gosh, Sarah, you're an idiot, what kind of marketer are you? It was 5 people. Yep. Um, and I just said, guys, I messed up, sorry, here's the information on passive income. And then you just move on. And, and now I think that story helps my clients more than anything because Totally. You know, people— if I said I started promoting the perfect thing at the perfect time and I made money on my perfect plan, you know, good luck doing the same thing, people be like, oh crap, like, I've already failed, I'll never be able to do it. No, we, we all fail. Uh, I think Cody Sanchez— I don't know who she said quoted it, but successful people are just people who fail the fastest. So just go for it, keep failing. And then you'll eventually hit success, and then you keep going down that road.

Plus for us, it wouldn't be nearly as an interesting story if you're like, yeah, I just found this on ClickBank and crushed it. What's wrong with you?

Like, it sure does sound good though.

Yeah, there's like a human side to this. This is why there's the hero's journey. Look at every single Disney movie, and it's like, yeah, okay. You know, at some point there's this conflict where now they're figuring out this inner thing. Hey, if it was the dog thing, we just make money. We talk about this, internal, I'm sorry, that's like external. I can just go make money. But internally, you're like, I'm not passionate about this. So you moved and had a plan, and then you also still had a conflict, right? And then you had to resolve that. And now you've learned more and start to scale.

Yes.

So how long did it take you to replace the income that you're making in physical therapy to say, okay, we're done with that part.

So I mean, I always hustle, right? Yes, it was a side hustle. And it was— I mean, it was mind-blowing. I was not prepared for the money I made. It's weird for me to say that. So anybody to say that and be like, oh, it must be nice. But I was just not— I was not expecting the amount of success I had. I was just as mind-blown as everybody else is, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So I made, you know, six figures my first year.

And really quick, Sarah, I want to, I want to remind our listeners, someone who may have amazing loving parents who also was born in a scarcity mindset or born to limiting beliefs, and we never knew what those were growing up. You did all this while just staying a chapter ahead. You didn't have a college degree in financial literacy. You hadn't accomplished all the things in your own life. You just read Rich Dad Poor Dad a couple months prior. You did all of this by just doing and going and staying one chapter ahead of the people you are serving.

That's it.

That's it. That's powerful. I, I, I, if you are listening to this and you think about business, you look at yourself as a business owner prospectively. I need you to change your mind right now. Sarah is one of thousands upon thousands. That's just in our world of people who've had these revelations and these results. Pick whatever world you want. I'm not gonna tell you what software to use. I'm not gonna tell you what to do in your life, but do it in your You, you hear somebody like Sarah, please do not just roll over and go to bed. Do not wake up. Cause Sarah, I asked you early on, if you wouldn't have done these things, if you wouldn't have taken that chance, and if you wouldn't have put yourself in a vulnerable situation where you may have had a failure, would you be here today? You were in a position of massive pain. So it's really easy to keep running when that pain train is chomping right behind you and you're trying not to get run over. Right. But it's also equally as easy for somebody to get stuck, especially in affiliate marketing, which we're about to dive into some real tactics on, but it's so easy for someone to get stuck in the indecision prison early on. We get there. I don't know what offer I'm trying to promote. What is the perfect timing? A week goes by, 2 weeks go by, still stuck in the indecision prison. Well, guess what? A paycheck is hit. Some of that initial $2,500 that I was so scared to make back, I already made back a little bit of it and I took no action. And then 2 weeks go by again and I took no action. I still live in the indecision prison. Another paycheck comes. Ooh man, I'm not as broke as I was last month. I got a little something to me. Well, that pain train slows down a little bit and now we're not moving as hard, right? So I would argue it could be just as equal that you could have got stuck in indecision prison. And I just don't want that for anybody. I don't want it for any— if you're listening to this, you're amazing. You have amazing potential. You have amazing power built inside of you and you were given a special set of skills that is purposeful and intentional to the world. Just be like Sarah. Just be a doer, baby. Go, baby, go.

Sarah, like, be like, there was a time that you, you mentioned, um, a fireworks moment. You had a commission come in and you were like, what the heck, is this even real? Tell us about that.

Oh, that's a good feeling. So we— it was, it was June, but my little small town, like, we had our fireworks down by the river. So my family went down there to watch the fireworks show. There was no cell phone service down there. And, you know, I'd been getting little commissions like $2.80 or like $14, not much. So, but I mean, when you start getting emails like that, you like checking your inbox a little bit more often than you used to, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So we drove and where I knew we had cell phone service and I opened up my inbox and there was an email that said, you just earned a commission. I checked on it thinking it would be another little commission. And it said I'd made $1,000. And it was on a Saturday evening. It was like 10:15, I think, at night. And I was like, Jay, Jay, like, is this— do you think this is right?

Get yourself some snacks, baby.

We're going to Huck's. You're getting some gas station pizza. Uh, treating you. I couldn't believe it. Like, I literally, I was like, do you think this is right? And he's like, Sarah, I'm sure they didn't make a typo. You know, I made more on a Saturday. I had not worked that day. We'd been watching Fireworks at the River. I had not done anything. I'm sure I'd made a piece of content that day for my business, but I hadn't clocked in. I made more in a day than I did working one week full-time, like once, you know, like taxes and stuff were taken out. And that moment, I can't— like, I can feel it now. Like, that moment I was like, okay, this is legit. This is, this is the real deal. It's just such a good feeling because it was proof. Even though those small commissions were proof too, the minute you start making 4-figure numbers when you haven't worked all day for a little bit of work that you did that keeps paying you hour after hour after hour, yeah, it changes things. I've been making all this content online. I mean, I've been making content after content after content because that's what I was supposed to do. I was still in that 90-day window of, I'm gonna do this no matter what. I'm not gonna get discouraged. I'm not gonna get sidetracked or anything like that. And so I think it was less than a week later, I made another $1,000 commission. And I was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what's happening here? I mean, it was insane. It was insane. And yeah, that's the best— the fireworks moment. It's so funny that it happened after a fireworks show because it really was a firework moment.

I love fireworks moments. Like, that's really cool. It's like this big thing that happens. You're like, it's memorable, but it's also In your case, it's like, this is real. To get that commission though, we all talk about, okay, you bought the course, but there's other things that were happening. Being an affiliate is often about your audience and like building a list. Were you doing reels? Were you doing paid ads? Were you doing just email marketing? Did you have a lead grab different? Was it TikTok? Like, tell me what you were working on to like engage people. What were you doing day to day to get people's attention?

I was a, I was a TikTok girl. I call it the wild, wild west of TikTok back in 2021.

Well, yeah, yeah.

So COVID, you know, COVID is how I even got on TikTok.

And so are you doing TikTok dances and then be like, but you could make money online, you can do this? Like, is that what was going on?

I was never one to perform.

Uh, no, it's a nice way to put it.

Yes. And really, honestly, Chris, I made a lot of really bad content. I mean, I look back Oh, it's bad. But I was, I was, I was just saying, like you said, I was saying a chapter ahead of people. And I was still a busy working mom. My kids were playing sports. A lot of my content was made while my daughter was at softball practice and I would be walking around the track because I was exercising and I was just holding my phone and talking and telling people what I learned that day. I was, you know, I I know something I used to say a lot was, I would say, y'all, I thought a funnel was something that teenagers used in a cornfield on a Saturday night. I had no idea it had anything to do with making sales. I had no idea. I mean, and I was just being myself and I was just sharing what I learned. And I honestly, I think that's why I really grew so quickly is because people saw that in me. They saw that I wasn't trying to be something I wasn't. I was walking around, I was just like every other mom., you know, making the most of their time. And people will still say, they're like, I remember you being on a TikTok Live and you were sweating and you were going up a hill and you were like, okay, I've been on here for 30 minutes. I'm gonna go watch my daughter's practice now. She's about to start pitching practice. And because it was just me, it was just, I wasn't trying to be somebody. I wasn't, I was building a list. So I was doing list building, honestly. But the people I wanted on my list were people who were like me. People who were just looking for a little bit of wiggle room in their budget. You know, they, they weren't dreaming of Lamborghinis and mansions on the coast. We just wanted to go to vacation every now and then and, and get crab legs without getting sick because we were worried about how much it was going to put us over our budget for the vacation funds. Like, that's all we wanted. We don't, we don't need, we don't need a lot. We just want a little bit of wiggle room. And you said something earlier, it made me think of this: nobody wants to follow a victim. But people will follow a victor. And so I decided that I could either keep doing what I was doing like everybody else was, because that's, you know, normal. Go to college, get good grades, make a paycheck, and be happy that you have a paycheck. But at the back of my mind, in those nights where I was stressed about money, I was like, I can do more. It's like I knew, and that's a God thing for me, like, I can do more. I'm smart. I can do more. I'm resourceful. I can do If other people can do more, I can do more. And that's who I was trying to reach. I was trying to channel those people who feel like, "Man, there's got to be something else out there," or, "I can do this." And I don't know how to describe it. There was something in me that knew I wasn't supposed to just exist. Like, I wanted to thrive. I wanted more. Also with that mindset and scarcity mindset thing, for a long time I felt guilty for wanting more. I think a lot of people have some guilt around wanting more, but then you realize whenever you get more, you can help people more. That's the great thing about affiliate marketing is you're not being a sleazy car salesman. You're sharing solutions with people. You're helping people. You're not, you're not saying, hey, um, you know, here's this crappy product, please buy it. You're saying I found this, it helped me a whole lot. I think it's worth your time to look into it. Check it out. That's what affiliate marketing is. You're not an employee. You're not responsible for their outcomes or their results. You're not doing customer service. You're just sharing solutions to people like you who have the same problems.

Well, how do you do it, Sarah? How do you pick up your phone and how do you, how do you articulate that message to your people? Cause I love what you just said. You nailed marketing. Know thy customer. If there's 8 commandments of marketing, because 10 makes me feel like a heretic, commandment number 1 is absolutely know thy customer and then market to message match. You spoke the message that the market wanted to hear, and that's just Marketing 101. You read that in a book. It's called Dotcom Secrets. But how do you do it? You picked up your phone. What did you say? How did you say— first question, I guess, did you use a prompter? Never, never used a prompter. Then did you have a script ready when you went, or did you have a topic that you went on?

I've never followed a prompter or anything like that, especially my first videos. I just turned on the camera and started talking. That's what I did. But now, one of the best things that anybody can do, you know, the first 3 to 5 seconds is the hook of your video. You've got to make people want to listen to your video, and The best way to do that is call out your audience and their pain point. So, you know, for example, are you a working mom who lays awake in bed at night thinking they were meant for more? Listen to this. Like, that's, that's something I do pretty often. I call out a pain point and my audience quickly. That's—

you gotta call out the audience. So many people miss this. Instead of a pain point, they're like, oh, are you unhappy? Well, hold on. Everybody might have these moments. I think this is such a massive thing is because then somebody goes there, they're like, oh, Sarah's talking to me. So I love that you made that point because we skip over that a lot. We just go boom, hook. But calling out the person and then the pain point, the audience is awesome.

And you're saying instead of just saying, do you want to spend more time with your kids? Instead say, attention, busy fathers, do you feel like there's more for your children than the last hour of the day? Something like that to really call them out and hook them in.

Yes, because anybody could say busy fathers could be a lot of fathers. So if you want to get more specific, you could say, attention dads who have missed every single program this year because they have a job that they can't get off in the middle of the day, listen to me.

Who—

she is a marketer because you're calling out your pain point, right? So busy is just like an adjective, right? Or maybe that's wrong, but like it just describes a Yup. Whenever you can really get to that pain point, that's when you really agitate somebody. That's when, that's when people see your video and they think, oh my gosh, Sarah's talking to me. She is talking right at me.

That's— and you're not leading with the pleasure either. Like, hey, want to have— make a lot more money, want to do this? You're choosing pain more often than pleasure.

Well, I think that has a lot to do with the state of the marketing world right now. I think our industry was hit with a little bit of bad marketing tactics for the past 2 or 3 years, like people promising big results in 5 minutes of time. I don't like that. And so I feel like, I feel like people have to really trust you more. So I feel like those, you know, if you want to make $100,000 in your first year as a beginner, follow me. I feel like everybody's gonna be like, okay, sure, scroll. Yeah. I mean, even though that's the truth, that's not how I want to lead.

Like, you make a great point though, because a lot of times I'll tell you what I deal with. I help people with webinars all the time. That's one of my main roles here. And oftentimes, we're trying to get people to give hard results. How to do this without, you know, this pain. So you could reverse engineer this and say, hey, are you stuck in this pain? Let me show you how to get out of that pain without having to have a hard result. To give you an example, a hard result would be get 6-pack abs in 60 days, right? But if you're like, hey, change your mindset, that's harder to put like a hard result on. But I love this idea of leading with the pain because maybe you don't have to. We'll get into that, but come to my training or come to whatever, and, and I'll tell you more.

That's, that's how I like to approach marketing. Of course, everybody's different, and it also depends on the goal of your video, you know. So if you're a beginner and you're just trying to, you know, get a certain amount of followers, which I don't necessarily think that's the best way to do marketing, you know, you can adhere to a big group, a big audience. But if I want, if I want a bunch of leads that day, right, or opt-ins or whatever we're going to want to call them, I'm going to call them out and I'm going to tell them that I have exactly what they need and this is how to get it. And then you solve that problem. Like, it's— people make it so big. And I think it really— in a world where everyone wants to do more and more and more, I think if you do less, I think it sometimes hits better because it's not overwhelming. I mean, because my audience, burnout working moms, they're scrolling on their phone at night. They don't want stress. They're not going to respond to that. I want them to see my face and think, oh, there's Sarah. Like, she gives me hope. She's not lying to me. She's just telling me what she did. That's how I want them to feel.

Yeah, you got to be you. Too many people are jumping in and trying to be, you know, even Russell Brunson, right? But I mean, gosh, that's one of the reasons we have McCall Jones come in often is like, no, you got to be you because that's how people will be attracted to you. If you're trying to be somebody else, it can be cringy. But you also teach a framework. Like, if I'm an affiliate marketer and I'm starting out, what are the first things that you do? I think we covered a little bit of the first is like, just pick something, even if it's not the right product, pick something. What comes next?

Oh, so what you're probably talking about is my 7 steps of affiliate marketing. I didn't even really mean to make that up. I, I would go live on TikTok and I just started following this framework and people loved it. Uh, I mean, the 7 steps, number 1, pick a product. Number 2, get your— apply to be an affiliate. Number 3, get your link. Number 4, build your system. Number 5, create content online. Number 6, send emails. Step 7, earn commissions and repeat. That's the 7 steps, which I can break those down a lot more, but that's it. That's really it. It's not, it's not 100 steps, and you don't need to be worried about steps 5 if you're on step 2. Like, it is step by step by step.

Oh, we like that. Just simple like that. That's how I like things done. No guessing. No, like, oh, what do I do now? Just do this and then this and then this. That's simple stuff we can all follow.

Well, we live in the information age. People don't need more information. People need more clarity. This, this morning I got on a call with one of my clients, brand new, hasn't built anything. She knows she wants to promote a health product. And she was like, my question is about one of my Instagram posts. And I just stopped her. I was like, "But you shouldn't even be worried about Instagram right now. You don't even know. You haven't even gone through like this and this and this." And it was like a moment for her. She's like, "Oh my gosh, you're right. Like, I'm way ahead." I said, "Yeah, you're on week 3, thinking about week 3. You're on week 1. So let's stay on week 1 and then you can make progress and maybe you'll get there faster. And then we can talk about it. I'm happy to help you with that, but I can't help you with that until we master this step." Like, there's really no need to skip. It's just gonna hurt you in the long run.

People do this in our programs all the time too. Like, they'll say, "Oh, I see that there's a module 6 on Tuesday." It's like, dude, you joined on Monday. How about you start with grade 1? We're not ready for multiplication or division. Like, there's a reason that first grade, then there's second grade, then there's third. So I think you nailed it. Is there a spot where most people are making mistakes within these 7 steps? Like, what's the one they get hung up on the most?

Honestly, I hate to say it again, but it's choosing a product. I think, I think they get stuck there. Stuck there.

Yeah, because it's got to be the perfect product or it's not going to work, which is furthest thing from the truth.

People put a lot of pressure on themselves to be perfect the first time. That's the biggest. And so my biggest thing I tell people is you have permission to be imperfect. You have permission to suck. You have permission to mess up. So just start as messy as possible, but start as fast as possible. Just start, because being stuck here in indecision mode is getting you nowhere. So just choose something and go and then learn from it.

And it's a hard mindset to have for a beginner who's not done it before. Like, it's really— it's hard to wrap your mind around it. And I have a lot of grace for new people not being able to think this way. But like, thank God you sent the wrong email to 5 people, because if you hadn't made that mistake, I bet, I bet Every time you launch a funnel or swap a concept, you always check the workflow and you always make sure your marketing is in touch. Well, there, I mean, Sarah, I have so many stories of people that didn't make that mistake early on. It was all great, but they made that mistake 2 years down the line. And that email sequence actually hit 100,000 inboxes and actually did have a measurable impact. You getting to learn these lessons early on is a blessing for people. Don't be afraid to make a mistake. Go act unabashedly. Because when you make these mistakes on a small scale, they're going to save you. When you actually start scaling up, you won't make them there. It's it. And you're so right, Sarah. Gosh, how many people do we coach every year? Right. They all have that, that I have to be perfect at every turn on every single thing that I do here. And do you think that they take it personally? Like if I make a mistake, that means it's, there's something inherently wrong with me.

I think that they just think if they make a mistake that everybody in the whole wide world knows it and they're a failure and they're never going to succeed. Yeah, I think— and I, I say this with as much love and kindness as I can, I tell my clients, I'm like, nobody, nobody is thinking about you as much as you are. When you're online and you come to a video that doesn't hook your interest, you don't stay and critique that video. You don't say and think, wow, that video sucked. You just move on.

Just move along.

People don't think about it. Nobody's thinking about it as much as you are. You've got to kind of take the pressure off. You've got to, you've got to not be so serious about it because you just roll with it. And then, you know, a year later you laugh about it and then you use that story to inspire other people. And you, or, you know, if you've done 30 videos and you haven't gotten any views on them, well, you know what to do. Your hooks aren't good. You're not hooking people. That's why they're not watching your video. Then you can learn from that. But not doing anything doesn't get you any feedback. You don't know what to improve on.

Well, yeah, if you're doing these videos, have you figured out, like, that you could share with us? Okay, obviously you figured out how to get people to follow you and take action. If somebody's starting, should they be doing one video a day? How often they should be doing this? How long are the videos? Have you figured out, like, a cadence and, like, a game plan for like, here's what you should do online, you know, however many posts a day, however many per week? Like, do you do something like that?

I think that if there was a system for that, I could market it and sell it and make millions. Okay. I think that, I think that everybody's just different. I think it's more about which platform are you going to use first of all, because what I tell people to do on TikTok and what I tell them to do on YouTube or Instagram are totally different approaches. And I think a lot of beginners come in really excited and they make 3 videos a day for 3 days. And then if none of those videos do good, they think they suck. So they take 3 days off and then they've ruined their whole algorithm. Yep. And so I always tell beginners, start with 1 a day, like don't overwhelm yourself. 1 a day, 1 a day consistently. And then if you think you can do 2 after 30 days of posting, Try to, but I, I just think that consistency matters more than quantity in the beginning. I think that algorithms— well, we, we all know AI is getting smarter and smarter and smarter. They don't want robots using their accounts, they want real people on their accounts. And so don't post and ditch, you know, spend time on the app, leave, like, leave comments. And I don't mean to do this like, here's how you gain 100,000 followers. I just mean be a real person. Like, be a real person online. If you like a video, like it. If you don't like it, don't like it. Um, but the number one thing that I tell people to do that I think is the best way to grow online is to just be honest and to share your journey. What I see a lot of people do— how many times have y'all come across somebody who it says, you know, like Dante fitness expert. Dante has 5 followers and weighs 700 pounds. Like, he's not a fitness expert. He's not fooling anybody. Sorry, Dante, not personal, but don't pretend to be somebody you're not, you know? Yeah, true, true. But like, I had a client one time, they put like digital marketing expert. I was like, dude, you, you started posting videos 4 days ago. You're not an expert, so don't do that. Like, just be Julie, you know? Just be Julie, figuring this out, working mom. Like, Julie's not her name, by the way, but just be yourself online. That's what people want. People don't want brands. People don't want robots. People still, even in the AI age, want to interact with other people. They want, they want to, you know, like to think, oh, she gets me, she's just like me. It's connection.

My jaw just hit the floor from you saying that, Sarah, because I mean, for the past 2 years All I've heard all the gurus talk about is brand on how you need to make a brand. And here you are. And here's my view on gurus. I watch all of them and I look at all their socials and every single one of them has a social media posting framework and all of them have 27 views and 8 likes on their videos. So my opinion of gurus is absolute nonsense, just to be really clear on that. But like, they are all out there screaming, make a brand, make a brand. But you're out here in the trenches doing a thing every day. What do you think about that?

I just don't think a brand matters at all. I think a brand is something that develops, not something that you start with. Mm-hmm. I would have never— if I had spent any time at all coming up with a brand before I got started, it would have been way off. Like my brand. I have a brand now because I know who I am. I know who I want to be. I know who I can help.

Sure.

But I just don't think it matters that much. I just don't. And you're probably— you're probably gonna be like, oh, Sarah, you are so wrong. You need a brand. You need a brand. I just, I think that's all just side noise. I don't think any of that really matters. Truthfully, I think what matters is how you can help people.

Sarah, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I think far too many people when they're starting are really concerned about a brand. They will architect their entire brand. And then when they go online, they act in ways to try and reinforce the brand that they created instead of doing what you did, just starting, knowing who you are when you start, knowing what you stand for and being strong in your convictions and letting the brand materialize as time goes on. Now, if you were 5 years down the line, if you were here right now today and you were like, well, I've— Dante, I'm 5 years in and I have a list of this many people and I sell this much a day and my reach is this big and I've never even touched a brand, then I might be saying, okay, well, I think we should maybe start looking at it. But you didn't. You did it. You built it, you let it grow, and then you took the brand on and you made the thing. That's exactly the roadmap people should follow when starting.

That's what I think. I mean, starting with a brand is kind of like getting a tattoo when you're 15 years old. Probably not going to align in your 20s. I'm just probably not going to be the best idea. I don't know.

I couldn't agree more. I could not agree more.

Sarah, you also did— what was it, like a year ago? Almost. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's been almost a year ago. You did a training for us. Um, inside the Affiliate Academy. What were some of the things that you shared there that you haven't shared with us today? And I know I'm making you like go back in your brain a little bit, and if you can't remember, it's totally fine. But what's some of the other things that people should be really trying to do as they start out?

Yeah, no, that's okay. Yes, I went to Canton, got to meet— gosh, ClickFunnels staff is so, so awesome to do that. The training that I did inside of the ClickFunnels Academy was actually— I answered a question that a lot of beginners ask me. A lot of beginners ask me, you know, if I want to promote multiple products, even if it's in the same niche, do I have to build a new funnel? And so, and even sometimes when I answer it, I feel like people still don't really get it. And so I explained in that training, like, no, it really is just one funnel, because once you get somebody, once you capture their email address, then you can promote as many products as you want to through your email. And that's how affiliate marketing actually works. It's not posting random links online and changing your links all the time. It is really capturing an email address and then solving problems for people with as many offers as you want to send them. So that's what, that's what that training was about.

That's amazing. And I don't want to oversimplify what marketing is, but pick up a copy of Traffic Secrets, and that's what this is, is like create your own audience, right? My wife does affiliate marketing. Guess what happened to her a couple weeks ago? Something happened and she and one of her other fellow affiliates got locked out. And she's like, "No!" She's freaking out how to figure out how to get out of Facebook prison and everything else. And it went on for a couple days. She thought she was gonna be banned until the end of like July. Anyways, it all came back online within a week or something, but that's still real money, right? But you avoid that by saying, okay, even if something happens with Facebook or TikTok or anything, having your list is owning your audience. You say, hey, all right, well, that's okay, I'm just gonna send out an email.

Exactly. And that's the power of email, which, don't get me wrong, it really does stink to lose a social media account, but it happens to the best of us. But like I told somebody the other day, if you do lose it but you have an email list, you send out an email that says, hey, I lost my Facebook account, I created a new one, follow me here.

There you go.

And then if you really want to do what you said, tell them why. That's another thing, like if you tell people why to do it, like follow me here because I just did a video on how to promote 3 different products, blah blah blah blah, go check that out. You probably didn't see me talking about it exactly, You missed it because it's on my new page.

So, and I don't think anybody freaks out if something like that because it happens to all of us too. Because, you know, there's 3 or 4 other people doing the exact same thing she was, and she's an admin on a page. There's this big old group, but, you know, it happens to everybody. So when you say, hey, I lost this account, people can go, oh, you're Shady McShadester. I don't think— I think we're past that.

Yep, surely. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I like it.

That's Dante's nickname. You know, I didn't want to tell people.

Uh, it's a big marketing term, actually.

That's right.

Shady McShady. Well, there's a lot of them out there and we got to avoid them. But I think we're getting to where people can see it, people can smell it, and we're in an authentic age. You know, even though AI is here, we're starting to see the difference between that. Even though it's getting really, really good, we're seeing who the real personalities are and the people who are genuine. And, and that's why people follow you, for sure, Sarah. Hey, before we wrap up, we do something that is super fun. Dante always comes up with these super rapid-fire questions. So this is going to be the rapid-fire questions segment. Uh, and he'll ask quick, you answer quick, but this is brought to you by funnelhackinglive.com. If you haven't gotten your ticket yet for funnelhackinglive.com, it's September 21st through 23rd at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas, Nevada. It'll still be warm there, probably very warm, but they've got great AC and gambling and everything else that you want. Plus you're gonna come learn everything about marketing and AI at Funnel Hacking Live. So join us, go to funnelhackinglive.com/cfr. Once again, that's funnelhackinglive.com/cfr. So are we ready for rapid fire? Dante, you ready?

I'm ready. You ready, Sarah?

Sarah, you ready?

I'm ready. I love it.

I'm ready. Let's do it. Okay, Sarah, let's say tomorrow you lose everything. What's the first funnel you start?

An opt-in funnel to a free training or a free webinar.

Hmm. Opt-in funnel, meaning they opt in, you get their email, they're added to your list.

I'm going to, I'm going to make something so good that they cannot not give me their email address. It's going to be over the top good. Cause I need emails and you're going to give it away for free. Absolutely free.

Gold, Sarah. Okay. Now you can only use one advertising method, paid or organic. What do you go with?

I've never ran a paid ad, so organic.

Oh, hold on, I'm jumping on this.

That's awesome.

Uh, I've— I mean, I've ran a few, but I didn't track them. I need to, but I haven't yet.

Do you?

Yeah, maybe it's more of a—

I should, I should, I should. I need to expand. I need to— I need to expand, but I, I can only do so much, so I'm kind of in the in the hiring a helper phase, but it's also very hard to let my business go. It's my baby. It's hard to let parts of it go. So, but yes, I need to run paid ads. I want to run paid ads. I'm going to run paid ads. But organic is where it's at for beginners because I think you have to find your voice. I think, I think that people might think they know what a good ad is, but knowing who you are and who you can help first is going to help make a better ad, I think.

And when you're starting out, you may not have a big ads budget, right? I mean, I guess if you had a bunch of money to spend and like test, fine. But organic, you learn everything about yourself and your audience and your products.

Definitely. And it's a pretty nice method. Everybody else works hard to create a social media. They make all the Facebooks, Instagram, TikTok. You just go there. You just grab the customers. You get their email. That's traffic you own. It costs you nothing but time. Exactly. It's not a bad game, Sarah. It's really not.

It's worked for me.

Something we talked about earlier, I'd like your quick answer. How does a beginner get out of analysis paralysis or indecision prison, however you want to call it?

Number one way, if you can't make a decision and you have option A and B, you set a 5-minute timer, and at the end of that 5-minute timer, you either— if you haven't chosen one, you just pick one randomly and go. Just go.

5 minutes.

5 minutes, not 2 hours. Quit messing. You're wasting time. You will learn more from doing bad at something than you ever will not doing anything. Hmm.

Okay.

That's a social clip right there.

That is a social clip. Come on with it, Sarah. What makes you more money? What makes you more conversions as an affiliate? Talking about people's pain they're in or the pleasure that they want?

Pain.

Pain all day.

Because most people are living in pain, some kind of pain.

People get desperate and they'll take action.

Yes. Pain is a driver over pleasure for sure. Okay. What's better for an affiliate, a massive list with a ton of people or a smaller list that's very specific?

Smaller, more specific list.

Why?

Oh, well, because you can solve— you know exactly what they want. You know exactly how to solve their problem. And I mean, so one of the guys I did the ClickFunnels training with was Sean Osborne, and he's the perfect example of this. Y'all should have him on the show if you haven't already. A smaller list where you know exactly how to— you know what their problem is and they know how to solve it. But I would take both. If you have 100,000 emails sitting around somewhere, I'll take them.

I'll figure out— I'll segment that list myself, no problem. Okay. Uh, for a beginner, what's the best product or product category for them to sell in? Like, what do you see get the most conversions? Take passion out of it.

Like, is it relationship?

Yeah. Health, wealth, relationship. What gets the most conversions?

I would say health, if you're willing to take people on the journey.

What do you mean by that?

Well, so let's say, you know, you have a health goal. Like maybe you want to start the carnivore diet. If I decide to start the carnivore diet, I'm turning the camera on day one, documenting my journey. And then you do it. You live it for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. You show up every day and live it and you have success. People will buy that product over and over and over. They will buy your coaching program. They will buy the outfits you wore. They will buy the TV shows you watched. Like, if you live the product that you're promoting, I think that is the best way to make, to be successful with it.

That's beautiful.

And is it because we are showcasing the transformation for them?

Yes. I mean, I remember The Hills, that was popular when I was young, right? That's like one of the first reality shows I watched. And you just, people are nosy. You want to watch people in real life. You want to like see what they're doing. And if they have success, there's no, there's no better way for people to do it because they're like, oh, she, she had no idea what she was doing. 2 weeks in, she's lost 10 pounds. I'm going, I'm gonna go do what she's doing. I'm going on this journey with her.

If Sarah can do it, I can do it. And if we get our customers saying that, we get that credit card coming right out behind. Yep. Come on with it, Sarah. Last one: if I'm a beginner, what should I focus on first, building my list or making sales?

Oh, building your list, 100%.

Why?

Well, because you have to have a list to make a sale.

Uh, you know, chicken and the egg.

Yes. Yeah, that— now that is hard to say, but psychology— people aren't going to buy something the very first time they see it, right? Even, even the best offer. I'm, I'm— now, Jay Thompson might, my husband might, I'm not. I mean, I have to think about it. Yes, I want to do reviews on it. I want to I want to hear a story about it. I want to see if somebody else had success with it. And so you're going to do better to get their email address and then continue to email them every day than throw a link at them and hope they buy because they're probably not going to. And then if you don't know anything about them, you can't follow up with them. And so when they see the product the 7th time, it might be from the girl down the street and they're buying from them, not you. You got to get their email address.

Well, that was Rapid Fire Questions brought to you by funnelhackinglive.com/cfr. Go get your tickets if you haven't already. Sarah, I know people are going to be intrigued. They've listened to you, they love you. Where do they go learn more about you? You got someplace they can go to learn more, opt into something?

Absolutely. They can join me on school. I have a free school community where I do free trainings there. Or, I mean, I run— I do webinars really often, Chris. So if they want to get on my email list, yeah, they can join my school community. It's called Affiliate Marketing Made Easy, and I'll share the link so they can join Well, thanks for joining us on ClickFunnels Radio.

You are awesome, Sarah, and we'll catch all of you the next time.

See ya. Thanks, guys.