Home · Book Reports · 2024 · 100 Million Dollar Leads

designates my notes. / designates important. / designates very important.

Thoughts

The table of contents and “chapter” layout is madness. There is no rhyme nor reason to its layout. Sections that are sometimes top level, sometimes sub sections of non-sections. There are no chapters, but sub (sometimes) sections of sections that may or may not be sub sections of… pages? It is honestly the most maddening TOC I’ve ever seen. So much so that I simply reworked it for these notes. What you see below is not what is in the book, but a close (sane) representation.

The part on posting free content to grow your audience seems perfectly valid, but he talks about posting 3, 5, 10 times per day. I don’t doubt this works, but it feels spammy. What can you possibly be saying of substance? I am guessing there isn’t much substance and it is the same stuff repeated over and over. He even lays out that lists and steps (almost the same thing) get the most views. Again, I don’t doubt that this strategy will work. It will almost certainly work the best at building an audience.

Almost everything in this (and the other books on these topics I’ve read) is laser focused on selling something over and over again. Like a service or subscription. I feel like people are (or should be) getting tired of this bullshit. I have a product that I want to sell you once. It will solve your problem and then you never have to think about it or me again. A losing battle in the “milk everyone as long as you can” modern economy (see: live service video games, streaming subscriptions, “you will own nothing an be happy”).

Note: I’m still going to bring my product to market even if I can’t repeatedly milk my “audience”.

There is a nice breakdown of the various ways you can reach your customers and step-by-step instructions on how to execute each of the channel strategies. Advertising is a numbers game. You should do enough of one campaign to get a real feel for how it performs. Double down on the good ones until they dry up. If you can get you advertising cost below you customer aquisition cost (CAC), ramp it to the moon. Shoot for at least 3:1 and you will be able to grow like a weed.

The information on affiliates was very valuable to me as I plan to use affiliates as my primary sales force.

Exceptional Quotes

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. For example, I post about my book every single day. I surveyed my audience and asked them if they knew I had a book. One in five that saw the post said they didn’t know. Keep repeating yourself. You’ll get bored of your content before your whole audience even sees it.

Let’s imagine you have a product that takes a week to deliver. The customer can get one win at the end of that week or win every day with daily progress updates. Same amount of progress, seven times the wins. On top of that, if someone said seven things would happen, and all seven do, I trust them even more. Referring a friend is now lower risk since seven promises were made, and all seven were kept.

I had trouble making cold outreach profitable when selling for my direct to consumer business. Cold outreach teams are expensive, and my average ticket wasn’t high enough. But, I learned I could make a low ticket product -> a high ticket product, if I sold a lot at once. So I switched from using cold outreach to get customers, to using cold outreach to get affiliates who got customers for me. There were two ways that worked. Either I’d sell the affiliates lots of products in bulk up front, then they’d sell my products to their customers. Or, I’d use cold outreach to recruit them, then get them to sell my products to their customers and receive a commission after the sale.

Give everyone a gift card for one-third the cost of their program. Tell them they can give it to a friend of theirs if they sign up with them. Give the gift card an expiration date within seven to fourteen days from the date you give it to them→it’ll force them to use it. This gives the referrer status when they give it to their friend. Rather than saying “hey join my program for $2000 off” they say, “I got this gift card for $2000. Do you want it? I don’t want to waste it.” It’s seen as a much bigger deal for them and you.

So the next step is training your employees on how you do those lead-getting activities. I think about and actually approach training with this 3Ds mental model: document, demonstrate, duplicate.

A very successful gym chain allowed their sales managers to make their own schedules. But there was a catch–they had to sign up five new members per day no matter what. So if they did it by lunch, they could cut out early. But if it took 18 hours, so be it. They called this type of work schedule open-to-goal’.

Table of Contents

Section I: Start Here


Section II: Get Understanding


Section III: Get Leads


• Warm Outreach
• Post Free Content Part 1
• Post Free Content Part 2
• Cold Outreach
• Run Paid Ads Part 1 - Making an Ad
• Run Paid Ads Part 2 - Money Stuff
• Core Four on Steroids - More Better New

Section IV: Get Lead Getters

• Customer Referrals - Word of Mouth
• Employees
• Agencies
• Affiliates and Partners
• Get Lead Getters

Section V: Get Started

• Advertising in Real Life - Open to Goal
• The Roadmap - Putting it all Together

Section I: Start Here

Section II: Get Understanding

page 049:

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

page 053:

• 1. Reveal Their Problem. Think “diagnosis.” These lead magnets work great when they reveal problems that get worse the longer you wait.
  • Example: You do a posture analysis and show them what their posture should look like. You draw a clear line to what their pain-free life would look like if their posture were fixed and how you can help.

page 054:

• 2. Samples And Trials. You give full but brief access to your core offer. You can limit the number of uses, time they have access, or both. This works great when your core offer is a recurring solution to a recurring problem.
  • Example: You give a free adjustment for their bad posture and they experience relief. To get permanent benefits, they must buy more.

page 055:

• 3. One Step Of A Multi-Step Process. When your core offer has steps, you can give one valuable step for free and the rest when they buy. This works great when your core offer solves a more complex problem.
  • Example: You give away a free wood sealant for a garage door. But the sealing process requires three different coats to protect from all weather conditions. I do the first one free, explain how it only gives partial coverage, and offer the other two in a bundle.

page 069:

• Urgency in your Call To Action. Make up a reason for your offer.

• 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.
  • Because…your country needs you.
  • Because…it’s my birthday, and I want you to celebrate with me.

page 070:

• Step 0: If you’re struggling to get leads, make an amazing lead magnet.

• Step 1: Figure out the problem you want to solve for the right customer

• Step 2: Figure out how you want to solve it

• Step 3: Figure out how to deliver it

• Step 4: Make the name interesting and clear

• Step 5: Make it easy to consume

• Step 6: Make sure it’s darn good

• Step 7: Tell them what to do next, why it’s a good idea, do it clearly, and do it often

Section III: Get Leads

page 076:

· Warm Outreach

page 090:

• So let’s do just that with a real-life offer: …By the way, do you know anybody who is (describe their struggles) looking to (dream outcome) in (time delay)? I’m taking on five case studies for free, because that’s all I can handle. I just want to get some testimonials for my service/product. I help them (dream outcome) without (effort and sacrifice). It works. I even guarantee people get (dream outcome) or I work with them until they do. I just had a girl named XXX work with me (dream outcome) even though she (describe the same struggle your contact has). I also had another guy who (dream outcome) and it was his first time. I’d just like more testimonials to show it works across different scenarios. Does anyone you like come to mind? (Pause if on the phone) …and if they say no…Haha, well…does anyone you hate come to mind? (ha) This helps break any awkwardness.

page 091:

• There’s an important feature here. 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.

page 100:

• 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.

page 101:

• After the person agrees to buy, you say “would you rather pay less today or get all your money back?” Paying less today = payment plan, so less money down. Get all your money back = prepay and you get a guarantee that you will get the results you want.

• Ex: “Pay Less” = $2000/mo for 3 months = $6000 (no guarantee)

• Ex: “Get all your money back” = $6000 up front with a guarantee

page 105:

• You’ll learn more in the first ten days of doing 100 reach outs than you did from everything you’ve ever read or watched.

· Post Free Content - Part 1

page 115:

• a) Hook attention: get them to notice your content.

• b) Retain attention: get them to consume it.

• c) Reward attention: satisfy the reason they consumed it to begin with.

• 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.

page 116:

• Topics. Topics are the things you make your content about. I prefer to use personal experiences. Here’s why: there’s only one of you.you

page 117:

• The easiest way to differentiate is to say something no one else can say. And no one else has lived your life but you. I divide topics into five categories: Far Past, Recent Past, Present, Trending, and Manufactured.

• a) 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. It’s why I write these books.

• b) 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.

page 118:

• c) Present: Write down ideas at the exact time they come to you. Always have a way to record your ideas in arms reach. I’ll even pause meetings to make note of, text, or email ideas to myself. People don’t mind when you ask to take notes anyway, so it’s not weird. Then, when you make content, you have a bucket of fresh stories to work with.

page 119:

• d) 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.

• e) 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.

page 124:

• My favorite driver of retention is curiosity.

• My three favorite ways to embed questions are: lists, steps, and stories.

page 126:

• 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.

• So there is no such thing as too long, only too boring.

page 128:

• If you recall from earlier, the smallest amount of material it takes to hook, retain and reward attention is a content unit. So to create a longer piece of content, we simply link content units together.

page 129:

• Make content for people that have never consumed your other content. Inside jokes only work with your existing audience and will exclude newcomers.

· Post Free Content - Part 2

page 131:

• the give : ask ratio has been well-studied. Television averages 13 minutes of advertising per 60 minutes of air time. That means 47 min are dedicated to ‘giving,’ and 13 min are dedicated to ‘asking’. That’s roughly a 3.5:1 ratio of giving to asking. On Facebook, it’s roughly 4 content posts for every 1 ad on the newsfeed. This gives us an idea of the minimum give : ask ratio we can sustain. After all, television and Facebook are mature platforms. They care less about growing their audiences and care more about making money from them.

• So they give less and ask more. Which means “give, give, give, ask” is the ratio that gets us closer to maximally monetizing an audience without shrinking it. But, most of us want to grow, so we shouldn’t model them. We should model growing platforms.

page 132:

• I’ve got a slight tweak on the traditional give-ask strategy that puts it on steroids: Give until they ask.

page 142:

• 7 Lessons I’ve Learned From Making Content

• 1. 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.

page 143:

• 2. 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. For example, I post about my book every single day. I surveyed my audience and asked them if they knew I had a book. One in five that saw the post said they didn’t know. Keep repeating yourself. You’ll get bored of your content before your whole audience even sees it.
• 4. 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. Then, your sales team can send it before or after sales calls and help people decide to buy. They work especially well if the content resolves specific concerns prospects commonly face.

page 144:

• 5. Free Content Retains Paying Customers. How a customer gets value from you matters less than where they got it. Imagine a person pays for your thing and then consumes your free content. If your free content is valuable, they will like you more and stay loyal to your business longer. On the flip side, if they consume your free content, and it sucks, they will like your paid product less. Here’s something you may not know. 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.
• 6. 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. Streaming platforms have proven that people will spend hours binging long form content if they like it. Our biology hasn’t changed, our circumstances have. They have more rewarding stuff to choose from. So make good stuff people like and reap the rewards rather than whining about people’s “short attention spans.”

· Cold Outreach

page 165:

• 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.

• Step #1 Softwares: I subscribe to as many softwares as I can that scrape leads from different sources. I search them all based on my criteria. The software then spits out names, job titles, contact information, etc. I try out a representative sample, say a few hundred from each software I use. Then, if the contact information is up to date, the leads are responsive, and they are the type of person the software claims them to be, bingo! Then I get as many leads as the software will give me. But if I can’t seem to find the right audience, I move onto step two.

page 166:

• Step #2 Brokers: I go to multiple list brokers and ask them to make me a list based on my audience criteria. They then send me a sample. I test out sample lists from each of the brokers. If I get good results from one or more brokers, I stick with their lists. And if I still can’t find who I’m looking for, I move to step three.

• Step #3 Elbow Grease: I join groups and communities that I think have my audience. When I find people that meet my qualifications, I check to see if they have ways to contact them in the group’s directory–like links to their social media profiles, etc. If they do, I add them to my list. If they don’t, I can reach out to them within the platform hosting the group. I prefer to find contact information outside the group so I don’t come off as someone solely trying to milk the group for business but I will if I have to.

page 168:

• …Imagine your phone rings from an unknown number and area code. Are you likely to pick it up? Probably not. What about if the number is from your area code? A little more likely. Why is that? Because it might be someone you know. So to take this concept further, imagine you pick up the phone…

• …The person says “<Your name?>” then pausing (like a normal person). You’d say, “yea…who’s this?” Now, if that person then went on to say, “it’s Alex…then pauses…I watched a few of your videos and read that recent blog post you wrote on dog training. It was killer! Really helped me out with my doberman. She’s a beast! That peanut butter trick really helped. Thanks for that.”

• You’d still be wondering what’s going on. But you know what you wouldn’t be doing?…hanging up. Then you hear, “Oh yea, sorry, I got ahead of myself. I work for a company that helps dog trainers fill up their books. We like to partner with the best in the area. So I’m always on the lookout. We worked with someone about an hour north from you…John’s Doggy Daycare…heard of them?”

• You’d respond yes or no (it doesn’t matter), and they’d say, “Yea, we ended up getting them 100 appointments in 30 days using a combination of text email and some ads. Do you offer similar services to them?” To which you’d probably say yes. Then they’d say, “Oh that’s perfect. Then we’d be able to use that same campaign in your market and drive leads over to you. If you got a boatload of high paying new dog training customers you wouldn’t be upset with me would you?” You’d laugh lightly. “Okay great. Well…tell ya what…I can walk you through the entire thing soup to nuts later today. Will you be around at 4?” And you’d say - sure - or whatever. The point is, if that person had started the call with “hey man, wanna buy some marketing services?” you’d probably have hung up.

page 169:

• I took out cold outreach template and re-wrote it below a third grade reading level. The results: 50% more leads responded. I recommend running all scripts and messages through a free reading level app online.

• b) 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. And, they need a lot more incentive to move towards you. So make your life easier by “giving away the farm.” We’re not trying to tickle their interest, we’re trying to blow their minds in under thirty seconds.

page 171:

• Phone and chat scripts are never more than a page or two, and cold emails rarely more than half a page.

page 174:

• First, you try to contact them more than once. Shocker. But wanna know something crazy, most people don’t.

page 175:

• 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.

• Personally, I like to email first. You know why? Because most people don’t respond. If someone doesn’t respond to one of your reach out methods, use that as a reason to follow up with another method. “Hey I’m calling you to follow up about my email.” We either get a response or a real reason to reach out again. We win either way.

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

page 176:

• Second, once you finish contacting your list, start back at the top again. This actually works for three reasons.

• One, because they simply may not have seen your first series of messages. Only a fool would think one hundred percent of people see what you put out one hundred percent of the time. So we make up for that discrepancy with follow up.

• Two, even if they do see it, it may not have been a good moment to respond. People’s schedules change every day. And there are times when people can’t respond to you even if they wanted to. So the more opportunities you give them to respond, the greater the chance they will.

• Three, their circumstances may have changed. They might not have needed you then, but need you desperately now. Imagine a person you message about losing weight before the holidays. At that time, they fit into their ‘skinny’ jeans, so they feel no pain. They probably wouldn’t respond. But after they gained ten lbs over the holidays, they may all of a sudden be in desperate need of what you offer.

page 177:

• try again in three to six months and get an entirely new group of engaged leads from the same list.

page 178:

• I had trouble making cold outreach profitable when selling for my direct to consumer business. Cold outreach teams are expensive, and my average ticket wasn’t high enough. But, I learned I could make a low ticket product -> a high ticket product, if I sold a lot at once. So I switched from using cold outreach to get customers, to using cold outreach to get affiliates who got customers for me. There were two ways that worked. Either I’d sell the affiliates lots of products in bulk up front, then they’d sell my products to their customers. Or, I’d use cold outreach to recruit them, then get them to sell my products to their customers and receive a commission after the sale.

page 181:

• Let’s imagine we have a team doing cold calls:

  • We pay them $15 per hour and $50 per shown appointment or “shows.”

  • We have $3600 in profit per sale.

  • Leads cost us ten cents.

  • They call 200 leads per day.

  • We would likely get about two shows per day from one rep.

  • If they worked eight hours per day, we would pay $120 in labor and $100 in show commissions per rep and $20 for the leads.

  • This means we would pay $240 for two shows or $120 per show.

  • If we closed 33% of shows, our cost to get a client (excluding commissions) would be $360.

  • Since we get $3600 profit per new client, we would make a 10:1 return.

page 182:

• Give each rep an explicit number of leads to work every week.

• They should care for these leads like they are their children. If you give a rep too many, they will waste them. If someone can work 100 leads at full capacity, I’ll give them seventy-ish. That way, they have time and energy to squeeze everything they can get out of the leads they’ve got. And since all reps get the same amount of leads every week, you can give them absolute quotas for deals. Ex: I give you seventy leads. You give me back seven appointments.

• An advantage of cold outreach:

• Your competition won’t know what you’re doing. Everything is private. By that fact alone, you can continue to operate in secrecy. You are not educating your competitors about how you acquire customers. They don’t know what you’re doing, or even, that you exist.

page 183:

• 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.

· Run Paid Ads Part I: Making An Ad

page 191:

• This chapter reveals how I create more efficient paid ads by finding needles in the haystack. I start with the entire world as my audience (haystack) then narrow down to get a higher percentage of engaged leads (needles). First, I pick a platform that contains my ideal audience. Second, I use whatever targeting methods that exist within the platform to find them. Third, I craft my ad in a way that repels anyone else. Finally, I tell whoever’s left standing to take the next step.

page 196:

• To this day, I don’t change the channel when I see an ad. I rarely mute ads or skip ads. In fact, I have no premium subscriptions that remove ads on any media platforms either. Main reason: 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. Consuming ads on purpose, with the core elements in mind, makes me a better advertiser. And it will make you a better one too.

page 197:

• The purpose of each second of the ad is to sell the next second of the ad. And the headline is the first sale. As David Ogilvy says “After you’ve written your headline, you’ve spent eighty cents of your advertising dollar.” Focus your effort front to back.

page 198:

• 1. Labels: A word or set of words putting people into a group. These include features, traits, titles, places, and other descriptors. Ex: Clark County Moms Gym Owners Remote Workers I’m looking for XYZ etc. To be most effective, your ideal customers need to identify with the label.

• a) People automatically identify with their local area. So with local ads, the more local, the better. A local ad with “LOCAL AREA + TYPE OF PERSON” callout is still one of my all- time favorite ways to get someone’s attention. It worked two hundred years ago, it works today, and it’ll work tomorrow. So think: Americans < Texans < Dallas Residents < Irving Residents. If you live in Irving, you’ll immediately think this ad could affect you. So, it catches your attention.

• 2. Yes-Questions: Questions where if people answer “yes, that’s me” they qualify themselves for the offer. Ex: Do you wake up to pee more than once a night? Do you have trouble tying your shoes? Do you have a home worth over $400,000?
• 3. If-Then Statements: If they meet your conditions then you help them make a decision. *If you run over $100,000 per month in ads, we can save you 20% or more… *If you were born between 1978 and 1986 in Muskogee Oklahoma, you may qualify for a class action lawsuit…If you want to XYZ, then pay attention…
• 4. Ridiculous Results: Bizarre, rare, or out of the ordinary stuff someone would want. Massage studio books out two years in advance. Clients furious. This woman lost 50 pounds eating pizza and fired her trainer The government is handing out thousand dollar checks to anyone who can answer three questions Etc.

page 199:

• Here’s what I look for with nonverbal callouts- using the setting and spokesperson to get attention:

• 1. Contrast: Any stuff that “sticks out” in the first few seconds. The colors. The sounds. The movements etc. Note what catches your attention. Ex:

  • a) A bright shirt almost always gets more attention than a black or dull shirt.

  • b) Attractive people almost always get more attention than plain looking people.

  • c) Moving stuff almost always gets more attention than still stuff.

• 2. Likeness: Think visually showing labels–features, traits, titles, places, and other descriptors that people identify with.
  • a) People want to work with people who look, talk, and act in ways familiar to them (and you may not look, talk, or act in ways familiar to them).

page 200:

• If you want to attract plumbers, dress like a plumber, talk like a plumber, be in a plumbing environment. Even with the same message, your ad will do far better if you look the part

• Mascots also work well because they don’t age, never ask for more money, and never take days off. Think Micky Mouse for Disney. The Geico Gecko. Tony the Tiger for Kellogg’s. The Michelin Man. etc. A mascot is a great way to create an enduring spokesperson for your business.

• Advanced: Whichever likenesses you choose to use, if it’s not you, the business becomes less dependent on you and therefore more sellable. You also may just be an ugly son of a gun. Plus, pretty people convert better anyways. Good news is, it doesn’t cost much to get a pretty person to say stuff to a camera.

page 201:

• 3. The Scene: Think showing the Yes-Questions and If-Then statements. Ex: An ad with…

  • a) A person tossing and turning in bed calls out people with sleep troubles.

  • b) A pear next to an hourglass can call out people with a pear shaped body.

  • c) A room full of stuff stacked to the ceiling calls out people with too much junk.

  • d) A rock hitting a window calls out people with broken windows.

  • e) A local landmark. Locals think - “Hey, I know that place!” and pay attention.

page 202:

• Here’s one of the highest ROI tips I can give you about making ads. Record 10 or so new ads every week. But, record 30 or more first sentences or questions to the ad. Think 5 second clips. These are the call outs people consume before deciding to watch more.With 30 call outs and 10 main ads you can make 300 variations in a matter of hours. Once you know you best call out, you apply it to all your ads.

page 203:

• So let’s start with The What: Eight Key Elements

page 204:

• Dream Outcome: A good ad will show and tell the maximum benefit the prospect can achieve using the thing you sell. It should align with the ideal prospect’s dream outcome for that sort of product or service. These are the results they experience after buying the thing.

• Opposite - Nightmare: A good ad will also show them the worst possible hassles, pain, etc. of going without your solution. In short - the bad stuff they’ll experience if they don’t buy.

• 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. What will their life be like if they carried on as they always have? Show how they will repeat their past failures and how their problems will get bigger and worse…

• 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. And, how they’ll be forced to keep giving up the things they love and continue suffering from the things they hate. Or worse, that they work hard and sacrifice a ton right now… and have gotten…nowhere. In other words, they waste more time and money doing what they currently do than if they just bought our darn 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.

page 205:

• We now go to the next W - The Who.

page 207:

• The When

• When: People often only think of how their decisions affect the here and now. But 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.

• Let’s use the weight loss example from earlier from their perspective. We’d show them getting teased as a kid (past) struggling to button their favorite pair of jeans (present) or moving up yet another belt loop (future). What does that nightmare look like to their spouse? To their rivals? How embarrassing!

• Remember, we can also run the same timeline through someone else’s perspective. Their kid asking why other kids make fun of them (because they passed on bad food habits) (past), or how their kids complain now that the other kids’ dads participate at practice when they don’t (present), or how their doctor said they might not walk their daughter down the aisle at her wedding (future). Note: this is all the bad stuff they want to avoid. Our next copy elements would contrast those with the good stuff that could happen (present and future) if they buy our thing.

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

page 208:

• make your ad as specific as possible but no more.

page 211:

• 3. CTA - Tell Them What To Do Next

• 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: Click this button. Call this number. Reply with “YES.” Go to this website. Scan this QR Code (wink). So many ads still don’t do this. Your audience can only know what to do if you tell them.

• Make CTAs quick and easy. Easy phone numbers, obvious buttons, simple websites. For example, a common CTA is to direct the audience to a website. So make your web address short and memorable:

page 212:

• you can also use all the tactics like urgency, scarcity, and bonuses from “Step 7” from the “engage your leads” chapter to make even stronger CTAs.

• So we can now pick a platform to advertise on, target who we show our ads to, make the ads they see, and tell them what to do next. All we have to do now is get their contact information.

• 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. Focus on the words and the image. Here are my three favorite templates. Pick one and start testing.

page 213:

• 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. Make sure what you promised in your ad is what you deliver.

· Run Paid Ads Part II: Money Stuff

page 215:

• efficiency matters more than creativity. All advertising works. The only thing that differs between advertisements is how well they work.

page 216:

• 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.

page 217:

• Phase Two: Lose money (half-joking). I prefer to call it ‘investing in a money printing machine.’ After all, when running paid ads, you pay first. So your bank account has to go down before it comes up.

• I emphasize this because I’d rather prepare you: you’re gonna lose money. In fact, I’ve lost money more times than I’ve made money running paid ads. But every time I make money with paid ads, I make back everything I lost, and then a bunch more. So the number of times I lose is high but the amount I lose is low because I know when to shut it down. And my number of wins is low but the amount I win is very high because I know when to hit the gas. So, think of it like this.

• Imagine I spend $100 on ten ads - $1,000 in total. Nine of them lose all $100. Then, one of them makes $500 back for the $100 I spent. I’m still down $500. Many people stop here because they see a $500 dollar loss. But not us. We see a winner. So now we buckle up and 100x down. We spend $10,000 on the winning ad and make $50,000 back.

• I budget two times the cash I collect from a customer in thirty days (not LTGP (Life Time Gross Profit)) when testing new ads.

page 218:

• 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. For example, if I know I make $100 in profit from a customer in the first thirty days, I’ll let an ad go up to $200 in spend before shutting it off (as long as I’m getting leads). If I’m not getting any leads from an ad at all, before I spend 1x thirty-day cash I shut it off ($100 in the example).

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

• Instead of asking “How much money should I spend on an ad?” I ask “How many customers do I want?” or “How many customers can I handle?” So once ads break even or better, I reverse my budget from my sales goals. If I can only handle 100 customers next month, and customers cost me $100 to get, I‘d need to spend $10,000 to get them (100 x $100). But since ads get less efficient as they scale, I usually pad the budget by twenty percent. So that means $12,000 over thirty days, or $400 per day in ad spend. I reverse my daily ad budget from my lead-getting goal. Then, I commit to it. If the number terrifies you, then you’re doing it right. Trust the data.

page 221:

• 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.

page 228:

• 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.

· Core Four On Steroids: More Better New

page 232:

• First, you reach out to people who know you. Then, you start making free content. Then you start reaching out to people who don’t know you. Then you start running paid ads. This is how you do the core four to get engaged leads. And there’s really nothing else a single person can do on their own to get them.

page 238:

• Here’s how I get better: I test one thing per week per platform. And I do it for four big reasons.

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

  2. Steps affect each other. A single change can affect results at other steps. For example, if you change step one, and more people optin, but fewer people apply, no bueno. But you wouldn’t know that if you changed both steps. If you make one change you can see what happened. If you make a bunch of changes…good luck trying to figure out what worked (or didn’t).

  3. It forces you to prioritize what will get you the most engaged leads. You can do an infinite amount of tests. But, time is limited. So you must choose your tests wisely. For example, if you only do one “big” test per week per platform, don’t waste it on a color change from red to bright red.

  4. Maybe the most important, you run the test for long enough to see if you actually get an improvement. Too short and you won’t get enough data. Too long and you waste time you could’ve spent improving the next constraint. With the size of my team and the amount of money I spend on advertising, one week is typically long enough for me.

page 239:

• In every company I own, I set up a testing schedule. Every Monday we run one split test per platform. We give it a week. And the next Monday, we do three things:

  1. Look at the results, and pick the winners for each platform test.

  2. Then (important), we write down the results of the test in a log of all tests. So the next time we do something, we start a zillion improvements later, not at square one.

  3. Come up with our next test to beat our current ‘best’ version. If we can’t beat the version we’re currently running in four tries (or one month), we move onto the next constraint.

page 240:

• When talking to businesses less than $1,000,000 per year in profit, I usually advise them to to more first. They haven’t done enough volume for the percentage changes to make a big difference.

Section IV: Get Lead Getters

page 251:

· Customer Referrals - Word of Mouth

page 271:

• Let’s imagine you have a product that takes a week to deliver. The customer can get one win at the end of that week or win every day with daily progress updates. Same amount of progress, seven times the wins. On top of that, if someone said seven things would happen, and all seven do, I trust them even more. Referring a friend is now lower risk since seven promises were made, and all seven were kept.

• Here’s five ways I make wins happen faster in the real world:

  1. If I have seven small things to deliver, I deliver them at shorter intervals rather than all at once.

  2. Updates are wins. If it’s a bigger project, I share progress updates as frequently as possible. You can never give someone too much good news. And regular updates, progress or not, is better than leaving your customers hanging.

  3. Customers form their lasting impression of a business within the first forty-eight hours after they buy. Force a good impression. Force as many wins as you can in that window. Set many expectations. Meet many expectations. Repeat.

  4. They should always know the next time they’ll hear from you. I got a slick saying from a public CEO friend of mine - BAMFAM: Book-A-Meeting-From-A-Meeting. Again, never leave a customer in no man’s land. They should always know what happens…next.

  5. Never expect customers to forgive you. Ever. So act like it. For example, you can deliver early, but never late. I add fifty percent to my timelines so I always deliver early. That makes “on time” for me early for them.

page 276:

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

  1. 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. Make them aware of the incentive.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

     • Don’t ask IF they know someone, as WHO they know.

  4. 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. You can ethically charge a different price for the same thing because you changed the terms of the sale.

     • And to address the question you didn’t ask - if a full-priced customer finds out you gave someone else a discount (which I’ve had happen), here’s all you say: “Yea - Stacy got $100 off because she referred three friends. I’m happy to give you $100 if you refer me three friends. Who do you have in mind?” They either back off or they give you three friends. Win win.

  5. 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. I use names like:

     • “Bring-a-friend” Promotion

     • “Spouse Challenge” Promotion

     • “Accountability Buddy” Promotion

     • “Coach Challenge” Promotion where you create teams with your employees and customers. This works well in coaching style businesses.

  6. 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. After a buddy did this, he saw a 33% boost in total sign ups.

  7. 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.

• Give everyone a gift card for one-third the cost of their program. Tell them they can give it to a friend of theirs if they sign up with them. Give the gift card an expiration date within seven to fourteen days from the date you give it to them→it’ll force them to use it. This gives the referrer status when they give it to their friend. Rather than saying “hey join my program for $2000 off” they say, “I got this gift card for $2000. Do you want it? I don’t want to waste it.” It’s seen as a much bigger deal for them and you.

· Employees

page 289:

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

• Selling products and services vs selling the business (that “runs itself”). Similar advice to Millionaire Fastland.

page 291:

• Remember the core four? Well, they work for getting employees too. Imagine that. By changing the frame from “letting potential customers know about your stuff” to “letting potential employees know about your stuff” it immediately turns into something you already know how to do.

page 292:

• 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)

page 293:

• So the next step is training your employees on how you do those lead-getting activities. I think about and actually approach training with this 3Ds mental model: document, demonstrate, duplicate. Here’s how it works.

• 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. Bonus points if you record yourself doing the thing multiple ways and in multiple shifts. This way, you can watch yourself as an observer rather than breaking your flow by pausing to take notes while you go. 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. This may take a while depending on how many steps it takes to complete the thing. If they stop you, or slow you down to understand something, adjust your checklist for that. Now you have the second draft ready for them to try.

• 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. And if the checklist is off–you’ll find out fast! Fix your checklist until it’s right. Then, have them follow it until they get it right.

• Most entry level advertising jobs aren’t complex. It takes grit more than skill. If you trained someone properly and they’re still below expectations three weeks in, cut them.

page 295:

• Focus on your employee’s ability to follow directions more than whether they get the right result. This is super important because if you train your employees to follow directions then… they will follow directions. And, if they follow directions and get the wrong result… then you know it’s the directions. That’s good. You have a lot more control over that.

page 296:

• Everytime they do a step successfully–let them know they did it right. And if they respond to praise, praise them! And if they goof, that’s OK too. That’s what training is for. Don’t take over for them when they mess up–simply pause, take a step back, and let them try it again. Fast feedback cycles to get people to learn faster.

• Avoid punishment or penalties of any type for doing stuff wrong during training.

page 298:

• If your CAC is more than 3x industry average then you have a sales problem or an advertising problem. We diagnose this with a single question:

• Do my engaged leads have the problem I solve and the money to spend?

  • If no, then they’re not qualified–that’s an advertising problem.
  • If yes, then they’re qualified and:
    • They’re buying but you don’t have enough of them– advertising problem.
    • They’re qualified but not buying–sales problem.

• Don’t fire your sales guy if you’ve got advertising problems. And equally, don’t fire your advertising employees if you’ve got a sales problem. That little question can help you identify which employees to focus on.

page 299:

• I find at this current stage, it’s actually a better use of time, to hire and train anyone willing. Then, when you find winners, and with this method you will: treat them well, don’t burn them out, and give them what they deserve.

· Agencies

page 308:

• Here’s how I use agencies now. Rather than believe the lie that “I’ll never have to learn this stuff because they can do it,” I start every agency relationship with a purpose and a deadline to fulfill it. I open by saying:

“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?”

page 309:

• I’ve used this method again and again. I hire one “good enough” agency to learn the ropes of a new platform. Then, I hire a more elite agency to learn how to maximize it–and I cannot recommend this strategy enough.

· Affiliates and Partners

page 319:

• Now, 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.

page 324:

• We make the affiliate-offer and advertise it the same way we would any other offer. We call out our audience, show our value elements, and then call them to action.

• Call outs for potential affiliates often include:

  • The affiliate business owners themselves - ATTENTION SPA OWNERS
  • The affiliate’s customers - Do you work with busy professionals who spend all day in meetings?
  • Results the affiliate businesses promise - To the heroes who heal the stress of others…
  • Products and services the affiliates deliver - If you sell lotions or scented oils this is for you…

page 325:

• 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).

page 326:

• 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. I’ve found the more money an affiliate invests in your product, the more money they make. This should make sense. If they don’t believe in your stuff enough to buy it, they probably shouldn’t sell it. You can tell them I said so.

page 327:

• Way #2: Make Them An Expert: I make them pay for the onboarding and training that certifies them as a product expert. If you have them buy a product to become an affiliate, you can have them use that as credit towards a certification. As in, the certification comes with the products they bought. Now, aside from actually making the affiliate useful, certifying them does two things. First, it covers some of the costs of advertising. Second, it means I can afford proper onboarding and training of every. single. affiliate.

page 328:

• How much do I charge? I recommend 10-20% of what the average active affiliate makes in the first twelve months.

page 329:

• 2. How Much They Get Paid

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

• Example: choosing your maximum allowable CAC. Let’s say we sell a single-use product for $200 and it costs $40 to fulfill. This gives us $160 to pay the affiliate and run the business. If we want an LTGP:CAC ratio of 3:1 then three parts goes to the business–$120. And one part, $40, goes to the affiliate. This means we will pay up to $40 for an affiliate to get a new customer.

page 334:

• this is how you launch anything, not just affiliates.

• 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.

• If you have something in the works, you can start the whisper phase a few years out. The further out you start whispering, the bigger deal it becomes to your audience. We start this early because, the longer something appears to take, the more an audience will value it. For example, all other things being equal, an audience will value a product that took ten years to make more than one that took ten days. So - show your work.

• For example during the whisper phase of my book launch: I posted content, reached out to friends, emailed my list, and told potential affiliates about major updates to the book. I showed what draft I was on. I took pictures behind the scenes of me printing out drafts. I showed the many versions of the frameworks I drew. I shared videos of myself editing the book early in the morning and late at night, etc…all of it made people who want leads get curious and pay attention.

• Action Step: Start whispering every four to six weeks until you get sixty days out. Then whisper every two to three weeks until you get thirty days out. Then, start teasing…

page 335:

• 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 from the paid ads chapter.

• For example during my book launch, the tease phase: I was more specific and revealed more “hard” information about the book. I started advertising how the book satisfied the dream outcome of limitless leads. Of doing less work, and getting it done faster than they could imagine. I also showed dozens of examples using the book to its potential.

• Action Step: Start teasing once per week until fourteen days out. Then tease twice per week until three days out. Three days out, it’s time to shout from the rooftops.

page 336:

• 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.” You shout to get as many people exposed to your offer as you can.

• For example during my book launch, the shout phase: I gave specific calls to action. Short, sweet, clear reminders to register for the book launch. I reminded everyone of the exclusive bonuses only for people who bought during the launch.

• Action Step: Shout at least twice a day starting three days out. On the day of, start shouting every few hours until two hours out. Then shout every thirty minutes until you launch the product.

page 337:

• Action Step: Get your affiliates to launch. Set them up with everything they need to do the whisper-tease-shout right. They do the advertising. You get the engaged leads. Everyone gets paid.

• I’ve got three ways you can integrate your product into their offer. I order these from easiest to hardest. First, you can get them to give away your lead magnet with every purchase of their stuff. Second, you can get them to sell your lead magnet separately to their audience. Third, you can get them to directly sell your core offer.

page 338:

• 1) Affiliates Give Your Lead Magnet Away When Somebody Buys Their Stuff. The idea here is for your lead magnet to make the affiliate’s offer more valuable. This allows them to charge more for it and get more leads than they could without it. Remember, 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.

• Samples And Trials: Say I sell massages and recruit the personal training studio next door as an affiliate. Now, everyone who buys personal training from them gets a free massage from me. The personal training studio now has a stronger offer they can charge more for and we get more massage leads. Everybody wins.

page 339:

• One of my favorite strategies is to let them use the lead magnets I’ve already made for my audience, for theirs. Just make sure your affiliates agree with how you give value and understand your call to action. At most, a few tweaks in the copy will make your lead magnet work for them. For example, for gyms, I made white-labeled (no logo) meal plans, grocery lists, and food prep instructions. I gave them to the gyms to use as lead magnets for their customers. All they had to do was slap their logo on it - and boom - their audience got to benefit from my work instantly. And, we both go more leads.

• 2) Affiliates Sell Your Lead Magnet. Basically, the affiliate can sell anything of yours that turns their customers into your customers. It could be a book, an event, a service, software, a sample product, etc. Also, giving affiliates all the cash from selling a lead magnet you fulfill becomes all profit and no work for them– an attractive proposition for any business. Your money comes by selling your main thing for more than it cost you to deliver your lead magnet. And if you do it this way, you don’t need to split any money with them on your core offer. Another win-win.

• Example: They sell each of those things we gave away for free in the step above. They sell your massage at a discounted price.

page 340:

• 3) Affiliates Sell Your Core Offer. An affiliate sells your core offer directly to their customers and adds another source of income without extra work. For some affiliates, this is their entire source of income! Many companies offer this structure as either a new business opportunity or a bolt-on to the affiliate’s existing business. Either way, anything you sell, they can sell. When you do it this way, the affiliate will get a higher percentage of your lifetime gross profit - but - you won’t have to do anything but deliver.

• Example: They sell your entire massage package. They sell your entire program or services. They bundle their services with your paid services and charge an even higher price.

page 349:

• Advertise your affiliate offer until you get ten to twenty affiliates. Get results with those affiliates and use their feedback to work the kinks out of your offer, terms, launches, and integration strategy. Then, scale like crazy by turning their results into your first batch of affiliate lead magnets.

· Get Lead Getters

Section V: Get Started

· Advertising in Real Life: Open To Goal

page 363:

• A very successful gym chain allowed their sales managers to make their own schedules. But there was a catch–they had to sign up five new members per day no matter what. So if they did it by lunch, they could cut out early. But if it took 18 hours, so be it. They called this type of work schedule open-to-goal’.

page 364:

• If I had to pick the three habits that best served me in my life - they would be:

  1. Waking up early (4-5 am)–Pro tip, this actually means going to bed early…

  2. Getting right to work–No rituals. No routines. I drink coffee and get to work.

  3. No meetings until noon–No interruptions. Nothing. Fully focused work time.

· The Roadmap - Putting it All Together