$100M Leads

Advertising, the process of making known, lets strangers know about the stuff you sell. If more people know about the stuff you sell, then you sell more stuff. If you sell more stuff, then you make more money. Having lots of leads makes it hard to be poor.

Advertising lets you have a terrible product… and still make money. It lets you be terrible at sales…and still make money. It lets you make a ton of mistakes and still. make. money. In short, having this skill gives you endless chances to get it right.

“If you cannot explain something in simple terms, then you don’t understand it.” - Dr. Richard Feynman,

A lead is a person you can contact. That’s all. If you bought a list of emails, those are leads. If you get contact information from a website or database, those are leads. The numbers in your phone are leads. People on the street are leads. If you can contact them, they are leads.   But what I came to realize was - leads alone aren’t enough. We want engaged leads: people who show interest in the stuff you sell.

A lead magnet is a complete solution to a narrow problem. It’s typically a lower-cost or free offer to see who is interested in your stuff. And, once solved, it reveals another problem solved by your core offer. This is important because leads interested in lower-cost or free offers now are more likely to buy a related higher-cost offer later.

A person who pays with their time now is more likely to pay with their money later.

Every problem has a solution. Every solution reveals more problems. This is the never-ending cycle of business (and life).

We start by picking a problem that’s narrow and meaningful. Then, solve it. And, like we just learned, when we solve one problem, a new problem reveals itself. Here comes the important part- if we can solve that new problem with our core offer, we’ve got a winner. This is because we solve this new problem in exchange for money. That’s it. Don’t overthink it.

First, if your audience has a problem they don’t know about, your lead magnet would make them aware of it. Second, you could solve a recurring problem for a short amount of time with a sample or trial of your core offer. Third, you can give them one step in a multi-step process that solves a bigger problem. All three solve one problem and reveal others. So your three types are: 1) Reveal Problems, 2) Samples and Trials, and 3) One Step Of A Multi-Step Process.

These lead magnets work great when they reveal problems that get worse the longer you wait.   ○   Example: You run a speed test that shows their website loads at 30% below the speed it should. You draw a clear line between where they should be and how much money they lose by being below standards.

David Ogilvy said, “When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents of your (advertising) dollar.” What that means is, five times more people read your headline than any other part of your promotion.

Give Away The Secrets, Sell The Implementation   The marketplace judges everything you have to offer - free or not. And you can never provide too much value. But, you can provide too little. So you want your lead magnet to provide so much value people feel obligated to pay you. The goal is to provide more value than the cost of your core offer before they’ve bought it.

Good CTAs have two things: 1) what to do and 2) reasons to do it right now.

If you sold 1000x the customers tomorrow, could you handle it? If not, you have some limit to how much you can sell. Maybe you’re limited by customer service, onboarding, inventory, time slots per week, etc. Don’t keep it a secret - advertise it. This gives you ethical scarcity. If you can’t handle more than five new customers per week, say so. Draw attention to the natural scarcity in your business. If you have limitations you may as well use them to make money.

Your reason doesn’t even have to make sense, and it will still get more people to act. In fact, Harvard ran an experiment showing that people were more likely to let someone cut in line if they only gave a reason. The number of people that let others cut increased if the reason made sense (like scarcity and urgency). But any reason still works better than no reason. So I always try to include one. Think ‘the stuff you say’ after the word because. Examples:   ●   Because…moms know best.

A good lead magnet does four things:   1) Engages ideal customers when they see it.   2) Gets more people to engage than your core offer alone   3) Is valuable enough that they consume it.   4) Makes the right people more likely to buy

Warm audiences are people who gave you permission to contact them. Think “people who know you” - aka - friends, family, followers, current customers, previous customers, contacts, etc.   Cold audiences are people who have not given you permission to contact them. Think “strangers” - aka - other peoples’ audiences: buying contact lists, making contact lists, paying platforms for access, etc.

1-to-1 to a Warm Audience = Warm Outreach   1-to-many to a Warm Audience = Posting Content   1-to-1 to a Cold Audience = Cold Outreach   1-to-many to a Cold Audience = Paid Ads

Warm reach outs are when you make one-to-one contact with your warm audience - aka - the people who know you. It’s the cheapest and easiest way to find people interested in the stuff you sell.

Warm reach outs usually come in the form of calls, texts, emails, direct messages, voicemails, etc.

Grab your phone. Inside you have contacts. Each contact has subscribed to communication from you. They have given you the means and permission to contact them.   Pull up all the email accounts you’ve used over the years. Pull your contacts and address list from each. Bingo! Look at all them leads.   Now, go to all your social media profiles. See your followers, subscribers, friends, connections, or whatever kids call ‘em these days…eureka – you got more leads!

Use something you know about the contact as your actual reason to reach out. If you don’t have much personal info, you can check their social media profiles etc. to learn a bit about them first.   Don’t be a weirdo. Pay your social dues. Remember, you haven’t asked for anything. You’re just checking in and providing value. So…relax.   Ex: Saw you just had a baby! Congrats! How is the baby doing? How are you?

“To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want.” - Charlie Munger

Reach out to 100 of them per day with your personalized messages. You’ll call, text, email, message, send a postcard, etc. And you will reach out to them up to three times. Once per day for three days* or until they respond. Whichever comes first.

  Reply using the A-C-A framework:   Acknowledge what they said. Restate it in your own words. This shows active listening.   Ex: Two kids. And you’re an accountant…   Compliment them on whatever they tell you. Tie it to a positive character trait if you can.   Ex: …Wow! Supermom! So hardworking! Managing a full-time career and two kids…   Ask another question. Lead the conversation in whatever direction you want. In this case, to a topic closer to your offer. Examples:   Therapy/Life Coaching: …Do you get time for yourself?   Fitness/Weight Loss: …Do you have time to get workouts in?   Cleaning Services: …Do you have anyone who helps you keep the house tidy?

Get through a ‘normal’ amount of conversation. Think 3-4 exchanges if on the phone or messaging and 3-4 minutes if in person. Then, you’ll make them an offer to see if they’re interested.

Value, as I define it, has four elements:     1) Dream Outcome: what the person wants to happen, the way they want it to happen   State the best possible results your product can get. Big bonus points if those results come from people like the one you’re talking to.   2) Perceived Likelihood of Achievement: how likely they think it is for them to achieve their goal   Include results, reviews, awards, endorsements, certifications, and other forms of 3rd party validation. Also, guarantees are huge.   3) Time Delay: how long they believe it’ll take to get results after they buy   Describe how fast people start getting results, how often they get results when they start, and how long it takes to get the best results possible.   4) Effort and Sacrifice: The bad stuff they’ll have to endure and the good stuff they’ll have to give up in their struggle to get the result.   Show them the good stuff they can keep doing, or get to do, and still get results. And show them the bad stuff that they can get rid of, or avoid doing, and still get results.   The goal is to maximize the first two and minimize the second two.

We’re not asking them to buy anything. We’re asking if they know anyone. And of the people who say yes, most say they are interested. This entire thing is engineered to boost their perceived likelihood of achievement. It’s why we show struggles and results from people like them who have struggles like theirs. But, we let them connect the dots.

After people show interest, make your offer easy to say yes to. I like to start with the easiest offer enhancer in the world - FREE:

Whenever you launch a new product or service - make the first five free. The exact number matters less than knowing why you benefit from it. Here’s why:   You get the reps in and become comfortable with making offers to people. It’ll calm your nerves knowing you’re just helping…for free…for now (winky face).   You probably suck (for now). People are far more forgiving when you haven’t charged anything.   Because you probably suck, you need to learn how to suck less. You suck less by doing more. It’s better to have a few guinea pigs to get the kinks out. You’ll learn a ton from the people you help for free, I promise. Even though it may not feel like it now, you’re getting the better end of the deal.   If people get value, especially for free, they’re far more likely to:   Leave positive reviews and testimonials.   Give you feedback.   Send their friends and family.   And if that’s not awesome enough, free customers can make you money in three other ways:   1) They convert into paying customers.   2) They send you paying customers via referrals.   3) Their testimonials bring in paying customers.

Hidden costs are the time, effort, and sacrifice it takes to get results from the thing you sell. In other words, the bottom part of the value equation. If you struggle to give your stuff away for free, it means either people don’t want it (dream outcome), they don’t believe you (perceived likelihood of achievement) or the hidden costs (time, effort and sacrifice) are too high.

So when someone says “no” ask “why?”:   “What would I have to do to make it worth it for you to continue?”

Failure is a requisite for success. It’s part of the process. So rack up failures as fast as you can. Get them out of the way to start paying down your “no tax.”

This is your litmus test to know when you’re “good enough” to charge. Once people start referring, start charging. When that happens, swap out ‘… free…’ in the script above to ‘80% off for the next five’. Then ‘60% off for the next five.’ Then ‘40% off for the next five,’ and so forth. The “I increase my prices every five” rule also adds urgency because prices actually go up. And if you’re curious, you don’t have to stop raising your price. Feel free to keep raising it by 20% every five until you find your sweet spot.

The smallest amount of material it takes to hook, retain and reward attention is a content unit. It can be as little as an image, a meme, or a sentence. Meaning, you can hook, retain, and reward at the same time.

We increase the percentage of people who pick our content by picking topics they find interesting, headlines that give them a reason, and matching the format of other stuff they like.

Topics are the things you make your content about. I prefer to use personal experiences. Here’s why: there’s only one of you. The easiest way to differentiate is to say something no one else can say.

Far Past: The important past lessons in your life. Connect that wisdom to your product or service to provide huge value to your audience. Give them the story without the scar.

Recent Past: Do stuff, then talk about what you did (or what happened). Any time you speak with somebody, there’s a chance your audience can get value from it. Look at your calendar for the last week. Look at all your meetings. Look at all your social interactions. Look at all your conversations with warm reach outs. There’s gold in these conversations. Tell stories from them that would serve your audience.

Present: Write down ideas at the exact time they come to you. Always have a way to record your ideas in arms reach.

Trending: Go where the attention is. Look at what’s trending right now and make stuff about it. Apply your own experiences to it. If you have relevant commentary or it touches your expertise in some way, talk about it. Talking about trendy stuff is very effective for gaining the attention of a broader audience.

Manufactured: Turn your ideas into reality. Pick a topic people find interesting. Then, learn about it, make it, or do it. Then, show it to the world. This costs the most time and effort since you have to create the experience versus talking about one you already had. But, it can have the biggest payouts.

A meta-analysis of news revealed headline components that drove the most interest in stories. They are as follows. Try and include at least two in your headline.

Recency - As recent as possible, quite literally the ‘new’s

Relevancy - Personally meaningful

Celebrity - Including prominent people (celebrities, authorities, etc.).

Proximity - Close to home – geographically

Conflict - of opposing ideas, opposing people, nature, etc.

Unusual - odd, unique, rare, bizarre

Ongoing - Stories still in progress are dynamic, evolving, and have plot twists.

People consume content because it’s similar to stuff they’ve liked in the past. And matching the popular format of the platform gets the most people to interact with it. So,

My favorite way to get the audience curious is to embed questions in their minds. Unresolved questions can be explicit or implicit. You can directly ask the question. Or, the question can be implied.

Lists: Lists are things, facts, tips, opinions, ideas, etc. presented one after the other. Good lists in free content also follow a theme. Think “Top 10 Mistakes” or “5 Biggest Money Makers” and so on. Giving the number of listed items in your headline, or in the first few seconds of your content, tells people what to expect.

Steps: Steps are actions that occur in order and accomplish a goal when completed. Provided the early steps were clear and valuable, the person will want to know how to do them all to accomplish the overall goal.

Stories: Stories describe events, real or imaginary. And stories worth telling often have some lesson or takeaway for the listener. You can tell stories about things that have happened, might happen, or will never happen. All three drive curiosity because people want to know what happens next.

You can use lists, steps, and stories on their own or interweave them. For example, you can have lists within steps, and a story about each list item. You can have stories to reinforce the value of a step. You can have a list of stories or many ongoing storylines.

We can increase the chance reward happens by:   Hooking the right audience with proper topics, headlines, and formatting   Retaining them with lists, steps, and stories to get them curious and wanting more    Clearly satisfying the reason the content hooked them to begin with.

Rewarding your audience means matching or exceeding their expectations when they decide to consume your content. Here’s how you know if you succeeded: your audience grows. If it’s not growing, your stuff isn’t that good.

So to create a longer piece of content, we simply link content units together.

So what do growing platforms do? They display lots of content without many advertisements at all. In short, they give give give…give give give…give give give…give give give…maybe ask. They dramatically over give and under ask. Why? Because the more you reward your audience, the bigger it gets. So if you want to grow an audience, give far far more than you ask.

People are always waiting for you to ask for money. And when you don’t, they trust you more. They share your stuff more. You grow faster, etc.

If you give enough, people start asking you. It makes people uncomfortable to continue to receive without giving back. It is core to our culture and DNA. They’ll go to your website, DM you, email you, etc., to ask for more. Not only that, when you use this strategy, you get the best customers. They are the ones who are the biggest ‘givers.’ They are the ones who, even as paying customers, still feel they get the better end of the deal.

The moment you start asking for money is the moment you decide to slow down your growth. So the more patient you are, the more you will get when you finally make your ask.

Integrated: You can advertise in every piece of content so long as you keep your give : ask ratio high. You will continue to grow your warm audience and get engaged leads. Win-win.   For example, if I make an hour-long podcast, having 3 x 30-second ads means I’d have 58.5 min of giving to 1.5 min of asking. Well above the 3:1 ratio.

Intermittent: The second way you can monetize is through intermittent asks. Here’s how it works. You make many pieces of content of pure ‘gives’ then occasionally make an ‘ask’ piece. Example: You make 10 ‘give’ posts, and on the 11th, you promote your stuff.

The difference between the first way and the second way depends on the platform. On short platforms, the intermittent way will dominate. On long-form platforms, integrations are often your best bet.

Depth then width: Maximize a platform, then move onto the next platform.

Width then depth: Get on every platform early, then maximize them together.

Switch from “How to” to “How I.” From “This is the best way” to “These are my favorite ways” etc. (especially when starting out). Talk about what you’ve done, not what others should do. What you like, not this is the best. When you talk about experience, no one can question you. This makes you bulletproof.

We Need To Be Reminded More Than We Need To Be Taught: You’re a silly goose if you think 100 percent of your audience listens 100 percent of the time.

Puddles, Ponds, Lakes, Oceans. Narrow the focus of your content. If you have a small local business, you probably shouldn’t make general business content. Not at first, at least.

Content Creates Tools For Salespeople. Some content will perform well and get more people interested in buying your stuff. That content helps your sales team. Create a master list of your “greatest hits.” Label each ‘hit’ with the problem it solves and the benefit it provides.

Somebody who buys your stuff is more likely to consume your free content. This is why it’s so important to make your free content good - your customers will include it in how they calculate their ROI from your paid thing.

People don’t have shorter attention spans, they have higher standards. Repeated for emphasis: there’s no such thing as too long, only too boring.

Cold outreach has one key difference from warm outreach: trust. Strangers don’t trust you.

There are three different ways I get my targeted lead lists. First, I use software to scrape a list of names. Second, I pay brokers to assemble me a list of targeted leads. And if neither of those work, I manually scrape a list of names myself.

Here’s an important point. If you can search the database, so can everyone else. But if you assemble a list of names yourself, it’s less likely that person has already received many cold reach outs from other companies. So they’re the freshest. Downside: it takes the most time.

They Don’t Know Us→Personalize (Act Like You Know Them). To get more leads to engage, we want the message to look like it’s from someone they know. The best way to do that is to actually know something about the person you are contacting. In essence, we want our cold reach out to look like a warm reach out.

They Don’t Trust Us→Big Fast Value. The key difference between people who know you and strangers is…strangers give you far less time to prove your worth.

The more ways you try to contact someone, the more likely you are to contact them. People respond to different methods. For example, I never respond to phone calls. But, I reply to direct messages far more.   Contacting someone multiple times multiple ways shows them you are serious. And doing so quickly communicates you have something important to discuss. Curiosity increases because they fear they’re missing out.

Bottom line: Act like you’re actually trying to get ahold of these people, rather than going through the motions, and you probably will.

One, because they simply may not have seen your first series of messages.

Two, even if they do see it, it may not have been a good moment to respond.

Three, their circumstances may have changed. They might not have needed you then, but need you desperately now.

Most people dramatically underestimate the amount of volume it takes to use cold outreach.

You don’t need to create lots of content or ads. You focus only on one perfectly crafted message you convey to all your prospects. Your only goal is to make that one message better every day.

Your competition won’t know what you’re doing. Everything is private.

It’s incredibly reliable. All you have to do to get more is do more. A certain amount of input creates a certain number of responses.

Fewer platform changes. Private communication is rarely subject to platform changes. Whereas public platforms change rules and algorithms every day.

Compliance is less painful. Many platforms have stringent rules around claims you can make about the stuff you sell.

No spokesperson = Sellable business. If an investor can buy it from you without worrying your business will stop getting customers if you leave….your business is far more valuable.

Hard to copy. Even if someone wants to copy your entire cold outreach system, they’ll often need to learn how to do each step. And, many steps are invisible.

Paid ads work by paying another person or business to put your offer in front of their audience. Think of it like renting eyeballs or earballs. And because you don’t need to spend time building an audience, paid ads are the fastest way to get the most people to see your stuff– You trade money for reach. A considerable advantage when you know what you’re doing.

If an ad isn’t profitable, most of the time, it’s because the right people never saw it. So to make an ad profitable, the right people have to see it. This keeps our ads efficient.

You have only one goal when targeting–get the highest number of people you think will buy your stuff to see your ad.

We did our first round of targeting by selecting our platform. We do the second round within the platform itself.

Target a lookalike audience. Modern platforms can show your ad to an audience that is similar to, and much bigger than, a list you provide. Advertisers call this a lookalike audience.

Target with factors of your choosing. Targeting options include: age, income, gender, interests, time, location, etc.

The wins from smaller specific audiences now give you the money to advertise to larger and broader audiences later. This is how you scale.

I want to consume the ads. I want to see how businesses do three things. 1) How they call out their ideal customers. 2) How they present the value elements. 3) How they give their audience a call to action. When I look at ads this way, it turns what was once an everyday nuisance (ads) into a continuous learning experience.

Call Out: People noticing your ad is the most important part of the ad…by a lot. The purpose of each second of the ad is to sell the next second of the ad. And the headline is the first sale.

A callout is whatever you do to get the attention of your audience. Call outs go from hyperspecific - to get one person’s attention - to not at all specific - to get everyone’s attention.

Labels: A word or set of words putting people into a group. These include features, traits, titles, places, and other descriptors.

Yes-Questions: Questions where if people answer “yes, that’s me” they qualify themselves for the offer.

If-Then Statements: If they meet your conditions then you help them make a decision.

Ridiculous Results: Bizarre, rare, or out of the ordinary stuff someone would want.

The best ads make the benefits look as big as possible and the costs look as small as possible.

The What: Eight Key Elements

Dream Outcome: A good ad will show and tell the maximum benefit the prospect can achieve using the thing you sell.

Opposite - Nightmare: A good ad will also show them the worst possible hassles, pain, etc. of going without your solution.

Perceived Likelihood of Achievement: Because of past failures, we assume that even when we buy, there’s a risk we don’t get what we want. Lower perceived risk by minimizing or explaining away past failures, emphasizing the success of people like them, giving assurances by authority, guarantees, and how what you have to offer will at least give them a better chance of success than what they currently do, etc.

Opposite - Risk: A good ad will also show them how risky it is to not act.

Time Delay: A good ad will also show them how slow their current trajectory is or that they’ll never get what they want at their current rate…

Opposite - Speed: To get things we want - we know we have to spend time getting them. A good ad will show and tell how much faster they will get the thing they want.

Effort and Sacrifice: A good ad will also show them the amount of work and skill they’ll need to get the result without your solution.

Opposite - Ease: To get things we want - we know we have to change something. But we then assume we have to do stuff we hate and give up stuff we love. And ease comes from a lack of needed work or skill. A good ad disproves the assumption. It tells and shows how you can avoid the stuff you hate doing, do more of the stuff you love doing, without working hard, or having a lot of skill and still get the dream outcome.

Talking about the value elements from someone else’s perspective shows all the ways it’ll improve the status of your customer. So we want to outline two groups of people. The first group is the people gaining status, your customers. The second group is the people giving it to them: Spouse, Kids, Parents, Extended Family, Colleagues, Bosses, Friends, Rivals, Competitors, etc.   All of these perspectives give us different opportunities to show how the prospect’s status may improve.

If we want to be extra compelling (and we do), we should also explain what their decisions led to in the past and what their decisions could lead to in the future. We do this by getting them to visualize through their own timeline (past–present–future). This way, we help them to see the consequences of their decision (or indecision) right now.

Putting the What, the Who, and the When together, we answer WHY they should be interested.

If your ad got them interested, then your audience will have huge motivation… for a tiny time. Take advantage. Tell them exactly what to do next. S-P-E-L-L it out:

After they take the action–Get. Their. Contact. Information. My favorite way to get contact information is a simple landing page. Don’t overthink it. The simpler your landing page, the easier it is to test.

And make your landing pages match your ads. People click an ad because you promised them some benefit. So carry that same look and language over to your landing page.

Get more people through more steps. In Robert Cialdini’s seminal work, Influence, he shows that people like to think of themselves as consistent. So, if you remind them of the action they just took (CTA), and show how taking the next action aligns with it, you’ll get more people to take the second action (Contact Info).

Phase One: Track Money. Before spending a dollar on ads, set everything up so you can accurately track your returns. If you don’t track, you’re gonna get cleaned out.

Phase Two: Lose money (half-joking). I prefer to call it ‘investing in a money printing machine.’

To win big, you have to see the winners and double, triple, quadruple, 10x down on them.

I budget two times the cash I collect from a customer in thirty days (not LTGP) when testing new ads. I wasted tons of money letting ads run too long before I realized they sucked. But on the flipside, I’ve lost even more money by giving up on ads before I gave them a chance. Eventually, I hit a sweet spot by budgeting two times the cash I collected from a new customer in the first thirty days to test a new ad.

Phase Three: Print Money. If you’re making back more money than you spend - the answer is simple - spend as much as you can.

I measure paid ad efficiency by comparing the lifetime gross profit of a customer (LTGP) with the cost to acquire a customer (CAC). I express this ratio as LTGP to CAC.

Lifetime gross profit is all the money a customer ever spends on your stuff minus all the money it takes to deliver it.

Gross profit is important in general because it’s the actual money you use to acquire customers, pay rent, cover payroll, and… everything else to run your business.

What’s a good LTGP to CAC ratio? Every business I invest in that struggles to scale has at least one thing in common - their LTGP to CAC ratio was less than 3 to 1. As soon as I get it above 3 to 1 (either through decreasing CAC or increasing LTGP), they take off. This is a pattern I personally observed, not a rule.

The cost to acquire customers, between competitors in the same industry, is much closer than you’d think. The difference between the winners and the losers is how much they make off each customer.

So how do you know if it’s your ads or your business model that needs work? I use the industry average CAC as my guide.  Research your industry averages for the cost to acquire customers. If your CAC is below 3x your industry average (good), focus on your business model (LTGP). If your CAC is above 3x the average (bad), focus on your advertising (CAC).

If your customer spends more than it costs you to get and fulfill them–in the first 30 days–then you have the funds to scale now and forever. I call this client financed acquisition.   I pick thirty days because any business can get interest free money for thirty days in the form of a credit card. And if we make more than the cost to get and fulfill the customer in the first thirty days, we square our balance.

If your engaged leads have the problem you solve and the money to spend, and they’re not buying, then your ads work fine–you have a sales problem.

If you make a free content piece that generates sales, or performs very well, nine times out of ten it’ll make a great paid ad.

I recommend doing paid ads last for two reasons. First, skills from the other three methods transfer to this one. And second, paid ads cost money. Money you will have if you start with the other three methods first. So learn the skills and make the money from the other three methods, so you have the shortest learning curve on this one.

More, Better, New.   Simply stated:   1) You can do more of what you’re currently doing.   2) You can do what you’re currently doing better.   3) You can do it somewhere new.

Even with no improvements at all, if you double your inputs, you’ll get more engaged leads. Make twice the reach outs, post twice the content, run twice the ads, double the ad spend, etc.

You do more and more… until it breaks. Then, you make it better. In other words, if you do more for long enough, your CAC will eventually get too high to sustain.

Every action a lead takes before they become a customer is a potential “drop-off” point. So I do the most testing at whatever step the most leads drop off.

I test one thing per week per platform. And I do it for four big reasons.

If you test multiple things at a time on one platform you never really learn what worked.

Steps affect each other. A single change can affect results at other steps.

You make a bunch of changes…good luck trying to figure out what worked (or didn’t).

It forces you to prioritize what will get you the most engaged leads.

Maybe the most important, you run the test for long enough to see if you actually get an improvement.

At a certain point, the effort you put into making it better brings lower and lower returns. At some point, it makes more sense to invest your effort into something that will bring higher returns. Only at this point, do we try something new.

The order I pick my next ‘new’ comes down to one thing: what will get me the most leads for the amount of work?

No matter how you advertise, you could do it in new ways (different styles of content) or in new places (think other platforms). Then finally, do a new core four activity altogether.

Leverage boils down to how much we get for the time we spend getting it.

People can find out about the stuff we sell from two sources. We can let them know using the core four. Or, other people can let them know using the core four. I call these other people lead getters.

Lead getters start out as leads, then get interested in the stuff you sell and become engaged leads like anyone else. The difference is they get other people interested in the stuff you sell, too! And ideally, every lead becomes a lead getter.

Referrals are important because they grow your business in two ways:   They’re worth more (higher LTGP). Referrals buy more expensive stuff and buy it more times. They also tend to pay in cash upfront. Lovely.   They cost less (lower CAC). If one customer sends you another customer because they like your stuff, that new customer costs you nothing. And free customers are cheaper than customers that cost money. So free customers = good.

The number of engaged leads you get from the core four depends on how much you do them. The inputs to outputs have pretty linear relationships.

With word of mouth, one customer brings two. Two bring four. Four bring eight. And so forth. It’s not linear, it’s exponential.

Referrals (in) minus churned customers (out).     If referrals are greater than churn: you grow without any other advertising (yay!)   If referrals are equal to churn: you need other advertising to grow your business (meh)   If referrals are less than churn: you’ve got to advertise to break even (boo - most folks)

Most businesses don’t get referrals for two reasons. First, their product isn’t as good as they think it is. Second, they don’t ask for them.

You sell direct to consumers and they are not bringing you more customers, your product has room to improve.

This means that price not only communicates value, but it’s also how we judge value. Economics dorks call it ‘customer surplus’. But I’m just gonna call it goodwill. You want lots of goodwill.

There are two ways to build goodwill with your customers. You can lower your price or you can give more value.

Call outs → Sell Better Customers. We want to sell better customers because they get the most value from our products. Customers that get the most value have the most goodwill.

Dream Outcome→Set Better Expectations: The fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to make your product remarkable - make it better than they expect.

Increase Perceived Likelihood of Achievement → Get More People Better Results: The customers with the best results get the most value from your product. Figure out what they do to get the most value, and you can help your other customers do the same.

Here’s the process I use to get more people better results:   Step #1: Survey customers to find the ones who got the best results.   Step #2: Interview them to find out what they did differently.   Step #3: Look at the actions they had in common.   Step #4: Force new customers to repeat the actions that got the best results.   Step #5: Measure the improvement in average customer results (speed and outcome)   Step #6: Match the conditions of your guarantee to the actions that get the best results to get more people to do them.

Decrease Time Delay→Make Faster Wins: I define a “win” as any positive experience a customer has. Faster wins increase their perception of speed, increase the likelihood they’ll stick, and increase how much they trust you. Triple win. To make wins feel faster, we give them wins more often.

Decrease Effort & Sacrifice → Keep Making Your Stuff Better: If the customer does less stuff they hate to benefit from your product, you’ve made it better. If the customer gives up fewer things they love to benefit from your product, you’ve made it better.

Call To Action→ Tell Them What To Buy Next: If you have an amazing product, they’ll want more. You have to satisfy their desire to buy. If you don’t, they’ll still buy… but from someone else.

Asking for referrals only works when you treat it like an offer. The referrals come when you show the value the customer gets when they refer their friends.

There are three components to a referral program: how you give the incentive, what you incentivize with, and how you ask.

One-Sided Referral Benefit: I’d rather pay customers than a platform any day of the week. Pay your average cost to acquire a customer (CAC) to the referrer or the friend.

Two-Sided Referral Benefits: This is what Dropbox and PayPal used. We pay our CAC to both parties. Half goes to the referrer (in credit or cash) and half goes to the friend (in credit). This way, they both benefit.

Ask For A Referral Right When They Buy: On the sales contract or checkout page, ask for some names and phone numbers of people they’d like to do this with. Show them how they will get better results when they do it with a friend.

Add Referrals As A Negotiation Chip: On top of that, you can ask for referrals as a way to negotiate a lower price. In other words, if someone wants to pay $400 and your price is $500, you can give them the discount in exchange for an introduction to three friends.

Referral Events: Where people get points, credits, dollars or even just bragging rights for bringing friends within an explicit time period. Referral events typically last from one to four weeks. Whenever you run one of these events, sell everyone on the benefits of working with others. Use some stats (internal or external) to show high success rates and the selfish benefit to bringing friends.

Ongoing Referral Programs: Instead of running a limited duration referral promotion, you talk about the benefits of doing things with others all the time. Think: in your free content, outreach, paid ads, etc.

Unlockable Referral Bonuses: Create bonuses for people who 1) refer and 2) leave a testimonial. A few examples: Unlock VIP bonuses, courses, tokens, status, training, merchandise, service levels, premium support, additional hours of service, etc.

If the business only makes money with you in it, then it’s a bad investment for anyone else.

If you have an asset that makes millions of dollars without you then that means somebody else could use it to make millions of dollars without them. In other words, your business is now a good investment.

You get rich from what you make. You become wealthy from what you own.

Customers → Employees   Warm Outreach→Asking Your Network Cold Outreach→ Recruiting Post Content→Posting Job Openings Paid Ads→Promoting Job Postings   Customer Referrals→Employee Referrals Affiliates→ Associations, Guilds, Listservs etc. Agencies→ Staffing firms etc. Employees→Employees (unchanged)

I think about and actually approach training with this 3Ds mental model: document, demonstrate, duplicate.

Step One - Document. You make a checklist. You already know how to do the thing. Now you just need to write down the steps exactly as you do it. You can also have other trusted observers watch you and document what you do.

Once you’ve got everything put into the checklist, bust it out on your next work block and only follow those steps. Can you do an A+ job only following your directions exactly? If you can, you have the first draft of your checklist for the job.

Step Two - Demonstrate: You do it in front of them. Just like your parents taught you how to tie your shoes. You sit down and walk them through the checklist step by step.

Step Three - Duplicate: They do it in front of you. Now it’s their turn. They follow the same checklist you followed. Except this time, they’re the one doing, and you’re the one observing. We just want them to duplicate what we did. So if the checklist is right, the outcome will be the same.

If they get it wrong or get confused then we got it wrong or made it confusing.

If they only appear to “get it” after a longish explanation or multiple demonstrations then, again, we’ve got some work to do.

There is a difference between competence and performance. In other words, they can know exactly what to do and not be that good at it yet. If that’s the case, then your instructions are fine and they just need practice.

Focus on your employee’s ability to follow directions more than whether they get the right result.

Everytime they do a step successfully–let them know they did it right.

If they follow your directions exactly and get the wrong result–still praise them for following the directions. Praise them, then make the corrections to your checklist on the spot.

Avoid punishment or penalties of any type for doing stuff wrong during training. As a rule of thumb–reward the good stuff you want them to do more of and they’ll do more of it. Learning a new skill is punishing enough, we don’t need to add to it.

It’s hard to fix multiple things when you’ve never done something before. Give feedback one step at a time.

Whenever there is a major dip from normal performance, retrain the team. They stopped doing an important step in the process (often because they didn’t know it was important).

It’s your job to advertise and sell the vision of your company. You advertise it publicly and privately to employees and customers alike. That’s the job. And once you get good at it, you become unstoppable.

Advertising agencies are lead-getting service businesses. You pay them to run paid ads, do outreach, or package and distribute content.

Good agencies cost money. So if you have no money, then agencies are out of the question. You’ve gotta learn through trial and error. And that’s no big deal. We all start that way. But if you do have some money, I suggest using agencies for two things: learning new methods and learning new platforms.

Hiring an agency is all about investing in important skills you can’t really learn anywhere else. That is, unless you go through all the trial and error to learn it yourself. And if you did, you lose the time, and attention you could have used to learn the other important stuff that scales your business.

“I want to do what you do in my business, but I don’t know how. I’d like to work with you for 6 months so I can learn how you do it. Plus, I’ll pay extra for you to break down why you make the decisions you do and the steps you take to make them. Then, after I get a good idea of how it all works, I’ll start training my team on it. And once they can do it well enough, I’d like to change to a lower cost consulting arrangement. This way, you can still help us if we run into problems. Are you opposed to this?”

Somebody I know got good results working with them.

Prominent companies got good results working with them.

A waiting list.

A clear sales process that makes a point to set realistic expectations.

No short term hacks. They keep the talk on long term strategy.

They tell me exactly what they need from me, when they need it, and how they use it.

They suggest a regular schedule of meetings and offer several ways to update me on their progress.

They are expensive.

You get affiliates by advertising and then making them offers just like you would customers. But, affiliates demand a unique type of offer. Instead of offering your product, you offer a fast, simple, and easy way to make commissions promoting it.

The ideal affiliate has a business with a warm audience full of people like your customers. Start making a list of those businesses. If none come to mind, answer these questions about your best customers:   What do they buy? → Who provides that stuff?   Where do they go? → What businesses are in those surrounding areas?   What do they like to do? → Who provides those services?   If direct to consumer–the employers of your consumers could make great affiliates:   What types of businesses do they work for? What kinds of jobs do they have?

Since affiliates are businesses, or start a business by signing up, you offer them a new way to make money.

Most affiliate money making offers show value like this:   Make more money from your current customers and get more leads than your current offer (dream outcome)…with a high chance of working since your customers already want the product (perceived likelihood of achievement)…without needing to build, deliver, or provide customer support for the product yourself (effort and sacrifice)…so you can start selling it tomorrow (time delay).

Way #1: Make Them A Customer: Make them buy and preferably use the product to keep affiliate status. This is the lowest barrier investment that’s worked for me.

What exactly do I want the affiliate to do? Once I figure that out, that is what I pay them for. Then, more often than not, how much they get paid and how often they get paid nearly solve themselves. I pay affiliates for two basic things: new customers, and repeat customers.

I suggest paying affiliates based on your maximum allowable cost to acquire a customer (CAC).

Whisper: Think “Call Outs.” Like an ad, the key to the whisper phase is curiosity. Keep the product itself mysterious and hint at how big of a deal it is. Keep whispers short. And bonus points if you show behind the scenes of making your product.

Curiosity comes from wanting to know what happens next. So embed questions about the product in their minds. We need to tell them about something they want to know more about, then say…not yet.

Tease: Think “Elements Of Value.” It’s time to start satisfying all the curiosity you created during the whisper phase. Reveal your product, make the date of the launch public, and start showing the elements of value. Use the What-Who-When Framework

Shout: Think “Call to Action.” Give specific actions for the audience to take when the product launches. Now you start pounding the audience with bonuses, scarcity, urgency, and guarantees around being “the first ones.”

They give away your lead magnet for free, which makes their core offer more valuable for no extra cost. Then, you upsell your core offer and every offer thereafter.

The best lead magnets give away a free trial or sample of your thing, reveal a problem, or offer a single step of a multi-step solution.

People getting enough value from one step will fear missing out on the rest of the steps. So the more they think the other steps will help solve their larger problem, the more likely they are to buy them.

They sell their core offer. Then, they upsell your lead magnet. Then, you upsell your core offer and every offer thereafter.

  …then you split the money. Either you split the upfront cash, all cash for a certain period of time, or all cash forever. I prefer to pay forever so my affiliates stay motivated to keep my customers forever. And, I never cap payouts.

Integration is the long term strategy for using affiliates to get enduring lead flow. Treat affiliates like customers. Make your offer make sense for their business. Make it so good they’d feel stupid saying no.

We spend money to get affiliates, sure. But we don’t really make much back from affiliates themselves. Instead, the money we spend to get an affiliate comes back from the customers they bring us. So to calculate returns, we compare how much it costs us to get an affiliate with the gross profit of all the customers they send to our business.

With affiliates, you now have at least two layers of customers. Your customers, and the people who get you customers. And if you’ve got super-affiliates you add a third, the people who get you the people who get you customers! This adds complexity, but if you can manage it, it’s worth it.

Whether it’s 1%, 5%, or 10%, set some percentage of your advertising budget aside to try new things without expecting a return. Consider it an investment in your education.”

You either win or you learn.

Your speed to making big money depends on how fast you learn the skills to making big money.

You don’t just commit to doing something a specific number of times… you commit to the work until you hit a specific number of outcomes–no matter what. So it means you unlock a whole new level of effort you never even realized you had.

Waking up early, getting right to work, and working 8 hours straight has been my highest ROI “habit stack.”

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” - Leonardo Da Vinci

You cannot lose if you do not quit.