How to Cultivate Gratitude, with Stephen Woessner

Speaker A: Get ready to find your recipe for success from America's top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Steven Wessner.

Speaker B: Holy bananas. Onward Nation. I am Steven Wessner, CEO of Predictive roi, your host for the last six years, uh, for Onward Nation. And today's episode is going to be a solo cast, actually, the next two, two episodes. So today, if you're listening to this, the day that it went live, um, it is Wednesday, November 17, 2021. And, um, the next episode, November 24, will also be a solo cast. So, um, I'm doing that for two, actually, multiple, um, really important reasons as far as doing the solo cast. Uh, first, let's think about it from a content perspective. One, I should also say too, that in addition to the audio version that you might be listening to right now, I've also recorded a video version. So recording the video and the audio at the same time, uh, for an, uh, important reason, the content that we're going to be stepping through, uh, I'm going to narrate it the best that I can, but it is also visual. Uh, so if you would like the video of, uh, this solo cast, it's available in the Show Notes, uh, for today's episode on our website, predictiveroi.com so you'll be able to see all of the illustrations and drawings and so forth, uh, models and strategies that I'll be describing, uh, in detail. But you'll obviously be able to see them visually as I'm drawing them out, uh, and stepping through the content. So there is a lot that we're going to cover in today's solo cast as well as in next week's solo cast. Why? Because we, uh, Eric and I, my business partner here at Predictive, um, we are trying to do everything we possibly can in order to provide the right teaching, the right lessons, the right models, the right frameworks, all of it in full transparency during the fourth quarter to put you in the absolute right position to be able to roar into 2022. So if you're watching, uh, the video right now, you just saw me put a lion on the screen, um, because that's what we want for you. We want you to be able to step this new year in in a way that you've never been able to step into a new year before. Sure. You know, as we wind down the fourth quarter of one year, we start thinking kind of, uh, emotionally or aspirationally or we start thinking, uh, ambitiously or whatever word you want to insert there as we think about the next year, that's coming up. And January 1st represents New Year's resolutions and a clean slate and all those types of things, both personally, professionally and whatnot. But so set all of that aside and let's think about, uh, how we can get super intentional about growing our audience, nurturing leads and increasing sales in the right way as we step into 2022. You know, here at Predictive ROI, we believe that most agency owners, business coaches and strategic consultants go about sales in the least effective, most painful way possible. And we believe there's a better way. We call that the Sell with authority methodology. And we've built a lot of different models around that and systems and processes and that we teach inside asm, uh, which is our authority sales machine, or during our free weekly Q and A's, or, uh, in sessions like Right Fit Clients, which if you're listening to this on the 17th, November, uh, 17th, right fit clients is going on right now, maybe, uh, so that's a three and a half hour intensive. That's, uh, private invitation only, but free, uh, that we teach a couple times a year and really do a deep dive and share all those strategies in full transparency. That's what we want for you in 2022, so that you can feel like you're stepping into this new year in such a prepared way that you never have experienced before. So that's why we're doubling down on the teaching. Okay, so what's the other reason why today is a solo cast, uh, or today's episode. Excuse me, is a solo cast and next week's episode is a solo cast. Okay, this might come as a surprise because, um, so Onward Nation has been a podcast now in this amazing audience, you, for the last six years. And that will continue, just not with new episodes. So here's what I mean. Um, it's amazing. Uh, I'm going to try not to get emotional here. That next week's episode is going to represent. Episode will be. Episode. Excuse me, episode 1031. Uh, amazing. Amazing. Why? Because we've built this really incredible community, uh, business owners, just like you, spread out, uh, across the globe in nearly 150 countries. What a tremendous blessing that has been. Uh, and we've been able to work, uh, in the trenches alongside business, business owners, uh, and our incredible guests for the last six years. And that has been awesome. And there's also a business side to it too. Uh, Onward Nation as our cornerstone content has been phenomenal business development for predictive. Uh, it has been. It didn't start out that way. Uh, that was not our Strategy. And many of you know the story of how we launched, or how I decided that we were going to launch, uh, Onward Nation back in May of 2015. And then eventually we got our legs under us, and then it became a very vital part of our business development. Um, but through that process, uh, through the last six years, it has dramatically changed our business and opened up so many opportunities. And I don't mean sales wise, but opportunities for Eric and I and other members of our team to be able to look at our business and see how it was changing and shaping and morphing and evolving and really niching down further. And it became amazing. Then Drew And I, Drew McClellan, uh, CEO of agency management Institute. He and I wrote the book, uh, Sell With Authority a couple years ago, which was a tremendous, uh, experience and really gave Eric and I the insight of, wait a minute, we can double down even further on the SELWITH authority methodology, apply it to our business, and teach it at an even deeper level. And you've heard me do that in Onward Nation episodes. So here's what we're going to do. November 24th. So a week from today is going to be our last Onward Nation episode. And rest assured, uh, coming to that decision was not an easy one. It's something that we have talked about kind of behind the curtain for many months now here at Predictive. But candidly, I just wasn't ready because I felt like. I felt like I was saying goodbye. And in an actuality, I'm not. So I'll tell you the plan here in just a second, or I'll share the plan here in just a second. Um, it was really, really hard to think about Onward Nation as a show, a community. This opportunity, this conversation that you and I get to have on a weekly basis. And we've been doing that now for six years. It was hard to think, gosh, I'm not going to do that anymore. But then quickly got past that when I realized, no, wait a minute. Actually, no, that's not the, um, if we're going to have our last episode air of Onboard Nation episode, um, 10:31 on November 24th, well, what's next? And then I got super excited realizing, well, there's a lot of cool things that's next. In fact, the Sell, uh, with Authority podcast is going to launch on Wednesday, January 5th. So what that's going to do is give us an even greater opportunity to take this conversation around authority and take that even deeper as Predictive ROI runs down the path of becoming the authority on what it takes to become the authority. So, uh, on Wednesday, January 5, 2022, in our commitment to help you roar into 2022, we are doubling down. We are, We're. Gosh, how do I want to say that? Um, because we're not sunsetting, uh, Onward Nation. I'm going to come back to that in just a second because there's a really cool strategy around that, too. Um, we're starting, uh, the Onward Nation podcast on January 5, and is a way to really take us further down this strategy. Okay, so I stumbled over the last piece about Onward Nation. Let me be more specific there. So if you go back to the episode where I interviewed Sandy Martini, uh, within the last couple of months, it was amazing. And she talked about different learning paths and opportunities, um, of ways to categorize and the ways to create special guides and knit together Onboard Nation episodes. And I walked out of that, uh, conversation thinking, oh, my word, that was incredible as a way to essentially create learning paths. Because with a thousand plus episodes, it can be overwhelming of where to start. Like, our guests are so amazing. Our Onward Nation guests are so amazing and sharing great insights. But where do you start? Who do you choose first? And so Sandy had some great recommendations for ways to create learning paths within Onward Nation. So that's exactly what we're going to do. Onward Nation is a gold mine. A gold mine of these incredible smarts from these super, uh, generous guests we've had on our show for the last six years. But what we've not done is we've not taken and grouped and categorized and created guides and learning paths of the best place to start. So let's say that you are most interested in growing your audience or increasing sales. So now what we're going to do is we're going to take all of those episodes, put them in Grow, nurture, sell categories, and we're going to create special guides and learning paths so that the Onward Nation episodes are even that much more helpful. So, rest assured, the Onward Nation episodes are going nowhere. They are staying on predictiveroi.com and we're doubling down on how to make that content even more helpful to you. And we're launching the Sell With Authority podcast on Wednesday, January 5, along with a brand new website. Why? Because, you know, hey, if we're going to push the big boulder up the hill, it's. We might as well make it as big as possible. Okay, so those are the couple of really exciting and kind of emotional, uh, things, uh, to share with you before we dive into today. Today's episode. So, one, one last thing. And I shouldn't say one last thing because it makes it sound like it's not important, and it's incredibly important. And that is a very sincere thank you. Um, there's no way, there's absolutely no way that I could be having this conversation with you right now if the last six years had not been this amazing, incredible, awesome experience. It is such a gift to be able to press record and to be able to have this conversation with you and to try to be helpful and to share insights and expertise that we've collected from our various guests or things, experiments we've taken out of the predictive ROI lab that we're sharing with you now, or in our Q&As, or however we have this opportunity to walk alongside you. It is not lost on me that of course, you have, uh, an infinite number of ways to invest your time. We all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. And I am incredibly grateful that you have chosen to invest some of your time, your precious time today with me right now. Um, whether this is your first episode of Onward Nation, or if it's your 700th episode of Onward Nation, please know I'm extremely grateful for the time that you and I have had to spend together, and I'm super excited for the time that we're going to get to spend together on the Cell With Authority podcast, uh, in how the experts, the special guest experts, I tell you, the list of people who are going to join us on that show, um, are going to be, uh, incredibly helpful, super generous, and help you again with this goal of roaring into 2022. Amazing. My first guest, as you might have guessed, uh, is going to be Drew McClellan, my co author in With Authority and amazingly, and we'll hopefully this is going to fit, uh, well into his schedule. Um, but every couple of months, uh, Drew is going to come back and be my guest on the show, uh, which will be a whole heck of a lot of fun. Okay, so that's what I wanted to share with you in the introduction. And I know that that was probably a little bit longer. It was a little bit longer than what I had intended. Now let's move into the three key pieces that I wanted to share with you, uh, during this solo cast. And they actually sync up well what Eric and I, uh, are teaching today. In fact, at right fit clients, uh, or RFC 2.0 is. We're calling it, uh, we're calling it 2.0 because the first time that we taught uh, Right Fit Clients was back on June 24th of 2021. Uh, and it was awesome. It was so great. Uh, it was just a ton of fun. Great turnout. Uh, yes, I think the content was helpful, but just the engaging and the questions and all of that from everybody who was in the room virtually, of course, was, uh, amazing. It so much fun. So as we were thinking about how we could be helpful in the fourth quarter, naturally we thought, oh, well, we certainly need to have Right Fit clients, but let's do right fit clients 2.0. Let's raise the bar of awesomeness. Uh, and I think that we did that. So, uh, really excited, uh, to give you a few of those highlights, uh, of what we're covering today. So first, let's, uh, take a quick, uh, look. Now, obviously, if you're listening, uh, this is one of those encouraging moments of go to the video in the show notes, uh, today. Uh, and so what we're taking a look at here right now is, even if you're listening, I'll do my best to kind of narrate this. There are three key strategies, pillars, if you will, that we focus on inside the Authority sales machine, and we call them grow audience, uh, nurture leads, and then increase sales. Okay? So if you're watching this on video, you see those three on your screen. Uh, so I'm going to highlight them now. Grow audience, nurture leads, and increase sales. And if you've seen our model before, if you're not watching on video and you're listening right now, if you've seen this kind of, uh, Venn diagram essentially, uh, before then, you know, at the center of the Venn diagram, uh, we place return on investment, and we place that there because that's our promise. That is our promise to you as a member of our community that if you give us this opportunity to teach and share, to teach around, Grow, nurture, sell, that the ROI is what comes when you take and apply. When you apply the strategies that we teach with excellence, you see, then return on investment. Okay, so let's transition into the three key pieces that we taught today at RFC and how they intersect with, uh, the Grow Nurture cell. Okay, so the first one, or the first strategy that we taught today is, is what we're calling the Infinity Loop. And I'll break that down here in just a second, but I also want to connect it into where it connects, uh, here on the diagram. But first, let me give some credit where credit is due. So a few minutes ago, I mentioned Sandy Martini, our guest, uh, On Onward Nation a couple of months ago. It really just blew me away in her generosity and sharing smarts with you on wardnation. Uh, it was just super awesome. Okay, so then after that conversation, um, Sandy, maybe it was like right before that conversation, I don't remember exactly the timeline, but either before or after, uh, the interview, she decided to join, uh, asm. So she stepped into the Authority sales machine as a member. And I think maybe it was a month or two, maybe a couple months. Then she raised her hand and said, hey, uh, tell me a little bit more about this 90 day sprint thing that you've got going on. And so we did. And so then she decided to join our 90 day sprint program. Awesome. Uh, and so she has become a very, very active member, uh, inside our community. Amazing. So you may have seen her or met her at uh, one of our weekly Q and A's, or maybe a specialized training if you happen to be, uh, an ASM member as well. Okay, so here's the point. So through the 90 day sprint process, uh, and that 90 day process is run by Eric, uh, my business partner here at Predictive. He said to me, he said, holy buckets. As I learn more and more about Sandy, like, I think that her business could really be helpful to us. I'm like, oh, how? And he said, I think she could help us take ASM to that next level. Uh, you know, she is a retention expert, she is a membership program expert, as you may have heard her describe, uh, ah, in our Onward Nation interview. Um, I'm like, well that sounds amazing, Eric. So let's chat with her about that. And so we started chatting with her about it. And then sure enough, uh, uh, we actually engaged her for a 12 month program where she is now helping us. Her and her team are helping us take asm, um, to a brand new level. Okay, so set that aside for a second. So during a strategy session every Friday at like 10 o' clock central, we get together for a strategy session. And during that conversation, you know, we're talking about, uh, you know, when somebody guests on an episode, we're thinking about kind of client, but then also thinking about how we can apply this for Predictive. So let's say that Steven and Eric, maybe we guest on a podcast and then, hey, we could take and create that, uh, or transform that episode of course into a blog post. But what if the topic of that episode was aligned with a golden nugget out of a training that in the Authority sales machine? Oh, now that's interesting. So we do an interview around that topic. That then interview becomes a blog post. We insert the CTAs for if you'd like to take that. If you're already an ASM member and you want that full training, go here so they can log into the platform and get that. The reader of the blog post, or if someone is not yet an ASM member, we show them how to become one. And then of course, there's scream Equal value exchange, and then new lead sequence, which I'm going to map out here in just a second. So when the three of us are going back and forth on that, I'm like, holy bananas. That creates, like, this really cool loop. And then we started calling it the Infinity Loop, like, amazing. Uh, so now it's become this thing. Uh, so we happened to be on site with one of our clients, uh, and had a break in order to do this strategy call and then hung up. And, uh, then just happened to be debriefing with our client at the time and mentioned that he's like, that's really cool. Could you do that for us? And then started having other conversations. And pretty soon the Infinity Loop was outside of the predictive ROI lab and we're taking it and applying it. So I want to share it here with you right now in full transparency. Right. So that if you and your team wanted to actually do it, you could. Uh, so that's one of the things we're going to cover. We're also going to chat a little bit during this episode about transitional moments and how important they are for your audience, and then a little bit about the power of three when asking questions with your prospects so that you can start sales conversations like a pro. All right, so that's what we're going to cover. Okay. Uh, thank you for hanging with me. We're 20 minutes in, and, um, I really appreciate, uh, that if you're still here listening, thank you. Because I know that that was 20 minutes of introduction and setting the stage and all of that. So thank you for your patience. Okay, so let's go back to the video and I will do my best to narrate it in the upper left hand corner next to the, uh, grow, nurture, sell model. I' written the words infinity Loop. So where does Infinity Loop help and where does it plug into the model? It plugs into, um, at least initially, we think it plugs into, uh, plant the flag, meaning, or plant your flag meaning that there, uh, are three essentials to planting your flag of authority niche, point of view in creating cornerstone content on A consistent basis. The Infinity Loop absolutely runs best or works best when it is a niche and it's not broad or when it's within your niche and not broad is what I meant to say. Uh, and it's all about creating content on a consistent basis. So as you'll see, it is uh, going to hook into cornerstone content as well. And also over on the right hand side are the words Apply accelerant part of the grow audience strategy. One of those strategies, uh, or accelerants is search, uh, engine optimization or SEO. Um, so you can see that Infinity Loop kind of hooks into a number of different aspects within grow ah, audience. And I think you could also argue that Infinity Loop is part of a transitional moment. And Infinity Loop definitely hooks into something to sell. Okay, so which, uh, the transitional moments is part of the nurture leads pillar strategy or core strategy and increase sales? The something to sell, the value ladder is part of the third pillar strategy that we focus on here at Predictive. So again, grow audience, nurture leads and increase sales. Infinity Loop kind of plugs into a whole bunch of those, um, which is amazing. So now let's uh, take and break down how this actually works. Uh, so that if you and your team want to take it and apply it, uh, I've given you a good framework that you can do that. Okay, so now let's go to actually look at the loop itself and then we'll talk about uh, how this actually works. Uh, just realize I have a very squeaky chair. I need to put some WD40 on my chair. Um, so hopefully that wasn't too loud. Okay, so uh, right now if you're watching this on video, you obviously see the loop. If you're listening to it again, I'll do my best to describe it audibly as we sort of move around the loop. So in the upper. So the loop is an orange loop, it's horizontal. Just describing that on the screen right now in the upper left hand sort of corner of the screen, not the corner of the loop obviously because it's got rounded edges. There's a little checklist icon. Uh, and what that represents is making a list of 30 to 50 topics, like topics that, where you have a depth of expertise, a list of topics where you could teach at depth for, um, and share golden nuggets that are really helpful for the audience who are listening to you teach on that topic. Like for example, Infinity Loop, um, would be a great topic, but also it's kind of a high level strategic topic. Right. So like, could I Take this portion that, uh, why it's important to create 30 to 50 topics as part of your thought leadership program to be able to teach at a granular level. Could I turn that into a topic and maybe do a 30, 40, 50 minute podcast interview on that like on somebody else's show? Absolutely. Could we do that as a solo cast on the Sell With Authority podcast coming up in January? Absolutely. So there's some depth to your knowledge and expertise around each of these topic areas. Okay, that's the first piece. The next piece, let's assume, in fact, let me back up for just a second and I'm going to switch this slide and go backwards because I just remembered something. See, this is so new that we don't really have sort of the teaching principles down yet. So I'm going to go backwards here. And now what we're looking at, again, if you're listening, uh, and not watching now, what we're looking at is, uh, essentially call it your value ladder, more of a kind of a traditional view, as well as some additional stages that we've built in. But essentially, let's call this a value ladder. We call this the authority business model, but I'm going to leave that description for a different time. Right now we're going to focus on the ladder piece. The ladder piece. Not ladder piece. The ladder piece. Okay, so here's the issue that typically is experienced, let's say, on the lower rung of the value ladder. So let's say that you have a course, or maybe it's a membership program or whatever. Um, the demand or um, sort of the revenue cycle of those tends to be like peaks and valleys. So again, if you're listening, just sort of imagine a wavy line with peaks and valleys. You know, at the peak, you know, each of these peaks, you know, maybe you did some sort of special event, right? Maybe it was a webinar or maybe it was uh, some sort of online workshop or maybe it was an in person workshop or in person event or something. There was some sort of event that you put into place, uh, and you had maybe some prospects in the room. And afterwards they're like, yep, I totally want to participate in that. Okay, awesome. What's interesting though is then you get on the other side of that is it declines, right? So whether that's member attrition or the growth is just stagnant, whatever. But you're looking then for the next sort of peak, right? And it's lumpy. It's lumpy at best. So is there a way to smooth that out. Nice, consistent, predictable growth. Yes. And that's where we think the affinity loop fits in really nicely. So instead of being lumpy like this, instead it'll be nice and consistent, a straight line up, and that would add some stability into the business. Okay, so now let's go back to infinity loop here. So again, in the upper left, we're talking about the 30 to 50 topics, right? So there's 30 to 50 topics. And this is what kind of jogged my memory and why we had to go backwards. Those need to sync in with, let's call it your course. Maybe you have an academy, or maybe it's a membership program like we have here at predictive. Uh, the ASM is our membership program. So those 30 to 50 topics need to sink in with the golden nuggets out of or within your course, your academy, your membership program. Right. So again, remember, the blog post is going to say is going to teach whatever that that topic is at, uh, some depth. These are not vanilla blog posts. This is in depth teaching. And then the CTA is going to be. If you're a member of asm, click here and get the full training module inside. Blah, blah, blah. Right? And then if somebody's not an ASM member, they'll have the opportunity to learn more about becoming an ASM member. So remove asm, insert your program, insert your course, insert your academy is a way to then take blog posts to connect it into the module or training where they can go a little bit deeper, a lot deeper into that golden nugget. Okay. Or into that topic. All right, so now let's go around, uh, kind of counterclockwise here on the loop. And we're gonna go around the loop here, make our first turn. That's kind of a really wavy line. Uh, and we're going to now look at podcasts. And so whether you want to be a guest on podcasts, you want to guest, contribute blog posts, you want to do video interviews, speaking at particular events, whatever, that's fine. Um, so don't get hung up on that. I have podcasts here listed. You know, this can be an absolute or this absolutely can be a channel agnostic strategy, depending upon your preference. Okay. But obviously I needed to include an icon for the illustration, so I chose podcast. Um, so let's say that you're going to guest four to six times on a monthly basis, and that gives you an opportunity to practice what we call here at Predictive, the siphoning strategy. And there's really, uh, there's several different elements that are super important about siphoning. Uh, and we actually have made this one of our fast eight strategies inside asm. Um, so if you happen to be listening, excuse me, if you're listening now or watching now, and you happen to be an ASM member. That's what I meant to say. Uh, please check out the fast eight, uh, series of strategies, uh, inside ASM and siphon others audiences is what it's called. I think it's actually number eight inside the fast eight, uh, is very detailed training inside asm. Uh, okay, so siphon is really important. When you're standing in front of or stepping in front of the right audience, teaching the right thing at the right time, you're going to be then creating some rapport and chemistry and all of that. Amazing. So you want to also be able to step into that audience and say, uh, listen, if you'd like to learn more about, um, X, Y and Z, we created a free guide on that. Uh, and you can go to predictiveroi.com whatever, uh, or your website.com whatever in order to download the free guide where we go even deeper into topic 1, 2 and 3 or x, y and Z. Okay, no sales pitch here. You're just giving them a free guide to where they can continue their learning. Amazing. So when that happens, I'm going to call this, I'm going to write in here siphon inside the loop. And then because a certain percentage of that audience is going to download the screaming cool value exchange.

Speaker A: Amazing.

Speaker B: Uh, so now a percentage of that audience now becomes your audience. Okay, so what's next? After you siphon, after you share your insights and wisdom, this gives you the ability to siphon. They opt in and download your scream Equal value exchange, uh, which is also a training inside the uh, fast state by the way. Then they continue to move around the loop and drop into what is called the new lead sequence. Now, now that does not mean it's this newfangled high pressure sales pitch thing or this really miraculous that once somebody receives email number two, then all of a sudden they're all in and they want to spend, uh, lots of money with you and your team. No, that's not what the new lead sequence is at all. What it is is a six part email series spread over 12 days that continues the learning in a super generous way. Okay, and what it does on email number six, yes, it does say, listen, if we can be helpful in solving this problem, you might want to check out this thing. Okay. Um, so that is going to give you an opportunity to sell More courses, academies, membership programs, whatever. I'll come back to that in just a minute. So now they're going to continue around. Oops, let me make that a little bit better. Let's continue around the loop a little bit further. And now that takes us to the blog component. And this is where we're going to take, or you're going to take, um, the episodes where you are a guest, get them transcribed. The typical 30 to 45 minute kind of episode, if you will, is generally about 5 to 6,000 words. A really rocking, awesome blog post. Ah, Google friendly blog post should be somewhere around, uh, 500 to 1,000 words. So let's say you write a thousand words on a particular topic. Remember this topic is tied back into golden nuggets out of a particular lesson in your academy, let's say. Um, so this blog post is going to be helpful. Even if somebody just read the blog post is going to be super helpful. They can take and apply some strategies out of the blog post. So then the blog post is a thousand, uh, about a thousand words. 500 to 1000 words. Is Google friendly. Anything more than a thousand words, it has to be so amazingly awesome in order to hold the audience. If it's less than the 500 words, it doesn't really give you enough meat and potatoes word count in order to be able to optimize that for search. So we're going to then be optimizing or you will optimize this blog post for search. Why? Because then that gives you the ability to attract very targeted traffic into your website, consuming the blog content. They can certainly go from the blog to link to the full episode to listen to the full whatever, but a thousand words that are going to be super helpful. And hey, if you're an ASM member, go here. And this is a full training on the fast date or the full training on the new lead sequence, for example, or how to create your screaming cool value exchange, whatever. And then they can go and consume that training if they're a member of your academy or program. And then if they're not a member, they go to the sales page. Sounds so crass to say sales page. They go to the page where they can learn more about, uh, the benefits of joining your particular program. Okay, then what that does is that moves people back into sort of the center of the loop where you're creating consistent revenue into your program. Why? Because, uh, organic traffic, it's always happening, right? People are searching on a daily basis. And so when you're doing this at scale across A number of interviews. Let's say you do five interviews a month, and you do that for an entire year, right? That is 60 blog posts that are following this recipe on a yearly basis. And let's say you do it for three years now you have almost 200 blog posts that are aligned with your smarts, that are optimized for search, and you start to see this nice, steady increase in course, academy program membership, whatever, sales. Okay. Should you still do those, uh, quarterly events or biannual events or like, whatever, in order to spike the number of people in your community or, you know, course, uh, participants? Sure. Absolutely. This doesn't replace the strategy. This augments that strategy. Okay, So I hope that you found, uh, that overview of the Infinity loop to be helpful. All right, so now let's go back to, uh, we're taking a look at, uh, again, if you're on video, you see this. If you're just. If you're just listening. Sorry, that sounds, uh, really bad. If you're listening, uh, to just the audio version, we're taking a look at the value ladder here. Uh, so it's the ascending staircase, if you will. And at each one of these stages, at, ah. Each one of the steps or rungs on the ladder. Steps in the staircase. Rungs on the ladder. Whatever visual metaphor you want to use, each one of those rungs represents, or steps represents an opportunity to do or to offer what we call transitional moments. Okay, so what are transitional moments? Let's think about it this way. So when you and your significant other went out on your first date, um, my guess is you had a great time. And afterwards you told that person, uh, I had a great time. And maybe you asked that person, did you have a great time? And maybe they said, yeah, I had a great time too. Uh, oh, awesome. I had a great time. You had a great time? Yeah, I had a great time. So you both had a great time. My guess is you probably didn't then say, hey, if you're not doing anything next Saturday, how's about we get married? Now, has that happened to some people? Like those sort of Lucky Strike extras where they meet somebody, it's love at first sight. After their first date, they knew, and then, you know, a couple weeks later they got married and they've been married for 60 years. Has that happened? Sure. Uh, the reason why those stories really stand out is because it's not typical, it's not normal. That doesn't actually happen very often. And so when it does, we're like, what? How amazing is that? Right. What is more typical is you have a first date, then you have a second date, then you have a third date, then you meet their friends, and then they meet your friends, and then maybe a family member, maybe a cousin, then there's the meeting of the parents, and then maybe it's a shared holiday, you know, uh, so there's all of these types of things that happen along the way in social circumstances, typically. Right. And in all of those different things, the holiday, the whatever, those are transitional moments. Transitional moments are opportunities to develop greater trust in order to make that process, that relationship not feel yucky. Right. You don't want to. You do not like, you don't like when this happens to you. When you walk into a store or you opt in for a thing or you want to download or whatever, and then all of a sudden you get some sort of call or an email and somebody pounces on you. That feels yucky. That feels terrible. So let's not do that. In our own sales process and our own business development process, let's respect sort of the laws of nature, if you will, and realize that we need to create a series of transitional moments that go deeper and deeper and deeper. The farther up we're asking somebody to move in our value ladder. It just, that is the fact that is the case. That is a law of nature. That's just the way we are as people. But we often don't have the intentionality around transitional, uh, moments. And it just sort of haphazardly happens, or worse yet, doesn't happen at all. And then we can't figure out why. So I was speaking at a conference, um, you know, a couple months ago, and one of the attendees in the room said, stephen, I am so frustrated because, you know, every time we share, you know, great content on a weekly or monthly basis, whatever it is, we see the same people over and over and over and over and over again. Clicking on the stuff, downloading the things, whatever. And they never ask for, like, a, uh, strategy call or a free consultation. I'm like, you know why that is? And no, I'm frustrated. Why is that? And you might not like this answer either, because, uh, it might be happening to you. The reason why that happens is because they don't trust you yet. They don't trust you enough to raise their hand and say, hey, can we sit down for that free consultation? They think it's going to be a sales pitch. Now, it may not be. It may not be that at all. But there's not enough trust yet in the relationship between you and them that says that it's going to be okay. And they don't know yet how you can be helpful in solving their business issue or challenge. And so what happens is they continue to consume your content. They might do that for a day or a decade and then eventually they may raise their hand if you've been intentional enough with transitional moments to help them see that. So let's go back to the diagram here for just a second. So each of these transitional moments, these could be courses, uh, and those are probably free. Uh, these could be free events like we just taught. Uh, right. Fit clients in full transparency, full on teaching for three and a half hours. And you know, there's probably going to be people, uh, who, you know, because I'm recording this before we've taught it, who may raise their hand and say, hey, uh, could you tell me more about becoming an ASM member? Yay. Awesome. It's not a three and a half hour pitch fest. That would be gross and feel really yucky to all the people who are coming. We would never do that. And so it might be free events. Maybe it's going to be like a live event that you host, maybe like at a trade show or something like that. Maybe you sponsor a cocktail party or something like that. Um, it might be something as simple as, you know, maybe it's a webinar. So I think you get the point, right? There's a number of different things that you can be doing that will help you teach at a deeper level and help you take that relationship and trust at a deeper level or to a deeper level. So that you then create these opportunities for somebody to raise their hand and say, hey, could you tell me more about that thing? Right? In a non schmutzy way, you never, ever, ever, ever want your prospects to feel like they were a prospect. And by creating the right amount of infinity loop content mixed in with transitional moments. Well then that's an amazing thing, right? And that's such a really, really cool opportunity to help somebody feel comfortable by stepping into a relationship with you. Okay, so now what I want to share with you is the third and final piece before we wrap up. And you'll see on the screen the 180 degrees. And this is the sales technique, uh, that I learned about 30 years ago when reading the book Gorilla Selling. And I have practiced it, uh, like militantly, if that's the right word, discipline. With great discipline over the last 30 years. 30 plus years. Uh, and it's called the about face and the about face harnesses the power of three, which is something we taught at.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Uh, fit clients, uh, this morning, or I guess on the 17th, I'm recording this a week before. And so it takes a conversation and moves it in the exact opposite direction and then goes down the path of helping your prospect actually answer their own objections through answering your questions. Uh, and it really helps you, uh, navigate the sales conversation like a pro. Okay, so here's what ends up happening, um, when we don't do something like this. Or maybe you might be inexperienced at sales or maybe somebody on your team, team who's in charge of sales and biz dev actually is inexperienced or creates all sorts of excuses around, um, why they're not being successful when they're in front of prospects. Here's the reality. Inexperienced salespeople, or people who are nervous about it, they do all the talking because they're uncomfortable with silence. They do all of the talking, and it shows. It shows the prospect that they're inexperienced, where the reverse of that. Great salespeople are quiet. Great salespeople ask great questions, and then they're quiet and they let their prospects do all of the talking. So the about face technique reverses that and keeps you quiet and keeps your prospect talking so that you can be helpful to them and solving their business issues and challenges. And we do that through, um, by asking really smart questions around their business issue and challenge. And we do that by harnessing the power of three. And so here's what I mean by that really quickly. Um, and then we're going to start to wrap up here because I, uh, know that this is turning into a longer episode than what I was originally intending. Um, so the power of three is asking the same question three different times in three slightly different varieties in order to peel back the layers of a prospect's true intent. And that's not being rude, that's actually being helpful when you knit that together. So let's say that, uh, somebody says, hey, Steven, um, I really want to plant my flag of authority in my particular niche. Um, tell me how you guys do that. Now, that might sound like an open invitation for me to say, oh, we do that with three different service levels. We actually have a value ladder here with three different stages. It starts with ASM, it moves then to 90 day sprint, and then we have our turnkey level of service there. Depending upon what degree of help you and your team might want, blah, blah, blah, somebody might think, like, that was the invitation to step into a sales pitch or deliver the sales pitch. And it's actually not. Well, to the inexperienced salesperson, it sounds like it is, but it isn't. So what you should do in that scenario is the about face and then start to peel the onion. So the person just told you that they want to plant their flag of authority in the niche. So then the about face might be. That's awesome. I'd love to share that with you. Tell me a little bit more about why you want to plant your flag of authority in your niche. Now, what I've done is I've gone completely 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Not in a rude way, not in an evasive way. I look forward to telling or sharing the details. Details about asm, Sprint and turnkey. Awesome. But the immediate answer, taking somebody into our turnkey level of service is completely inappropriate because now they'll feel like a prospect. But by me reversing this 180 degrees in the opposite direction, about face, something so easy to do, so subtle. Now the prospect says, oh, okay, well, so let me tell you a little bit more about that. All right, so, and then they go on to say and share more context. Maybe it's two, three, four, five minutes, right? And then you use the power of three by saying, okay, that sounds fascinating. Uh, why is that important to you and your business? Now what I'm doing is using the power of three. And so now that person has an opportunity to actually go a little bit deeper. And then when they do, you can say, okay, I think I'm tracking with you because you said X, then you said Y, but why are X and Y together? Like, why do you think that's going to be important? And now, holy bananas. You just ask the person, your prospect, in a very polite way, to actually take their strategy deeper. And I can almost assuredly guarantee you that whatever the third answer is is their motivation for making this decision. Now, once you have that third answer, you can now better say, great, okay, that, that makes a total. Or, uh, that makes a lot of sense. And based on what you shared with me, actually think our 90 day sprint program might be a decent fit. Is it okay if I share some details about that? And of course they're going to say, yeah, that's great, that's awesome. Please do. And now you have a bunch of context that you can knit together into your middle rung of your value ladder. And, um, share with them how your version of a 90 day sprint per se could be really helpful to them accomplishing their goals. Right. And then at the end, the person will say, yeah, that Sounds awesome. Or yeah. Or no. Uh, I think you're kind of off the mark there. Well, great. Let me tell you about asm, um, and see if that's a decent fit or awesome. It sounds like you need some additional support. Let me share with you our turnkey level of service, if that feels like a good fit. Um, so it gives you a lot of flexibility to move up and down your ladder by harnessing the power of three and the about phase. Okay, so that's what I wanted to share with you during this episode. I hope that that was helpful. I am super excited for the next, uh, for next week's episode as well. Um, so on, uh, November 24th, which, uh, will be the final episode of Onward Nation, uh, the final new episode of Onward Nation is not going anywhere. We're going to re categorize it and create these learning paths that I mentioned. It's going to be amazing and really harness the potential or harness all of Harvest, Harness, I don't know, all of the golden nuggets out of a thousand plus episodes. It's going to be so cool. As part of our commitment to helping you roar into, uh, and roar through 2022, and then we're going to be launching the Sell With Authority podcast on Wednesday, January 5th. So I, uh, hope that you found this conversation helpful. I greatly appreciate all the time that we have spent over the last six years. I look forward to continuing that, uh, in the Cell With Authority podcast. And I wish you great, uh, success in the week week ahead. Uh, until next week, Onward with gusto.

Speaker A: This episode is complete. So head over to onwardnation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.