May 23, 2024

Jason Fladlien  10:50  

Yeah, that’s a good point. So you want to work in the media that you’re good at naturally or that fits you naturally, if you can. But I will tell you, if you had to pick and choose one, I’m picking and choosing email for a variety of reasons. But here’s the analogy I get: conversing with a prospect on Facebook is like trying to have a conversation in a noisy nightclub. Whereas if you’re conversating, with a prospect via email, it’s like having a coffee date with them. Or it’s like them inviting you into their home. So the same person, even in two different situations, is going to respond differently. And I do believe that the conditions that the prospect is surrounded by can influence the decisions they make at that moment. So on Facebook, you know, what does Facebook conjure up in your mind like political battles and people arguing and being controversial and sharing means, whereas email is a lesser chaotic, and I believe that brings into the decision making process, what is surrounding the person? So email tends to be cleaner in terms of an actual conversation that can occur versus social media. But I digress. 

Okay, so here’s the beta launch now. So the conversation continues, I don’t like to think about marketing campaigns. I like to think in conversations and stories. I want to create a story, not a campaign, a campaign seems to be more static, a story seems to be more interactive, a campaign seems to be more finite. And the story seems to be more finite. So the story initially, was a Dan did this? Can he teach other people to do it? Well, he could. But could he teach them to do it in a group setting, as opposed to a one on one setting? So the story continues, you fill me. And the story continues, and the audience is along for the ride the whole time. We’re building on these things, we’re building on these things. It’s not just a point of sale, we’re creating an extended story. Here’s what also is great. Those people over there pay $10,000. You’re not going to pay 10,000. Yeah, now it’s a different modality. It’s group versus one on one, we just closed that, of course, but the information is exactly the same. So now people are going to get a discount of $7,500. 

And I’m going to pay $2,500 See the psychological difference there? So that was for the audience. And then what we said internally is just how quickly can we launch the son of a gun, we gotta get it going fast. And that’s when we rolled out that beta, which I’m going to break down here. Now, you want to talk about Eugene Schwartz, level of sophistication in the market or the cycle of the market, right? It goes in five cycles, and it’s a circle. So the market starts out very unsophisticated, overtime goes ultimately super sophisticated. And then that sophistication breaks upon itself. And it goes back to being simple again. It’s fascinating. I’ve seen it a million times. And so this is what we did. So I wrote all this copy here. This was the original webinar invitation we sent out. If you’re in crypto or thinking about investing, you must attend this one of a kind web event. Out of context, just in general as a headline on a scale of one to 10. What would you rate that headline? Knowing what you know about copywriting, knowing what’s supposed to be in a headline, and knowing what a good headline is a great headline and a bad headline on a scale of one to 10 you will not hurt my feelings. What’s the quality of that headline? If we put this up against 100 other classic headlines, it would not score very well. Yeah, it’s a five. 

Yeah, exactly. I agree. Maybe five. Okay. Or it’s like an LA three. I don’t know. It’s not that good. Okay. From a technical standpoint, it’s not that good. Because good headline writing needs more of it. It needs more excitement. It needs some sort of innovation. Ideally, some sort of thing that makes it stand out and maybe you pull and call an audience out and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, but this was stage one of the markets Stage One of the market, especially who we were reaching, it was mostly people that were in crypto and had no idea what the hell they were doing, or wanting to be in crypto because they didn’t want to miss out. So the best way to do it is not to dress it up is to hit it straight on. Sometimes I think a lot of us, we outsmart ourselves. And that’s a tragedy. We outsmart ourselves. We sometimes do the best thing to do. I used to do some webinars for years. I’d say, Hey, today, I have two intentions. Attention number one, I want to show you how to do XY and Z. And then and then intention number two, I want to sell you a product at the end of this webinar. Now, I don’t want you to buy the product in the end, unless I can make good on showing you how to do XYZ. 

But if I can make good on showing you XYZ, then Do I have your permission to sell you this product at the end? And they’d say yes. Wow, how simple was that? Okay, now I just got to hopefully be able to teach XYZ, if I can do that maybe I can make some money. It wasn’t like, Oh, I’m pretending that I’m doing this thing out of the goodness of my heart. And really what I’m doing is creating reciprocity. Now, it wasn’t that complicated. We make it complicated. So you start the easiest way possible. And that’s what we did. Basic Page, plain Jane, nothing fancy about this, just get it out there and hit the market with where they’re at, meet the, you know, meet the prospect where they’re at, start into the conversation in their mind, this is what it was. Now, here’s what we did, when we sold beta, here’s a massive mistake that I see people making in their marketing all the way from the top to the bottom. It doesn’t seem to matter how successful you are or aren’t, give me 10 marketers, at least nine of them are going to be making this mistake. And it’s called incongruency. So we’re launching in beta. So even though we could build a beautiful-looking page, it would look lovely and wonderful. 

And it could be like eight pages long in terms of the copy and really break down everything they get. What’s the problem with that? If this is in beta? Don’t you see how that’s incongruent. But sometimes we just send it through marketing. And marketing is like, well, it’s got to look this way. Because this is what a page looks like. And it’s got to do these things. And we have the capabilities because we’ve been doing this for years. So let’s make it look really nice, then it doesn’t comply with beta positioning. Whatever your position is, the more you are in congruence with it, the better. And the more you are out of congruence with it, the worse. It should look rough if it’s in beta. That’s right, at least you’re absolutely right. So this is it. This was the pitch, the plan beta course access, we had to define this. So this is something we learned early on, people didn’t know what beta meant. Okay, good. This is why I like webinars, because we can make changes in real time. It means you should, this is what we said, I mean, you should not expect the course to be polished, nor expect it to flow flawlessly. Instead, you should expect it to be rough and bumpy. At first, however, rest assured Dan will teach you everything you need to know to implement phase one of the plan and see its benefits firsthand. Dan may also run subsequently. 

And I didn’t write this because if I did, I would have not used subsequent in the copy. But nonetheless, whatever it doesn’t matter, Dan may also run subsequent beta versions of the course. And if he does, you will be able to attend each time when he releases the finished course. Although we cannot promise If and when that will happen, you will also get access to that completed course. So you know the sentences are too long. They’re too running on the right. They use big words like subsequent and the copy. But this goes to show you because this is beta. That’s all okay. Just get it out there. And then why should you join the beta course? A few reasons. One is you save money when we release it, it’s going to be more in the second, the sooner you do this, the better the results. Okay, when I would sell this on webinars, I say listen, I don’t care, you can wait. Some people need to wait six to eight months before they decide that a good idea is worth pursuing. Other people are okay doing it. Now. If you know, as I would say things like that I would do them, right? 

Like if you’re somebody who cares about the gift wrapping of what’s inside the box, if you equate the gift wrapping of it as just as important than wait, because we’ll give you the best of both worlds. But right now, if you’re okay with taking a brown paper bag, I got you, right. And so this is what beta looks like. So beta originally was 20 501 times or three installments of 1000. And here’s what’s interesting. So some of this is calculated but some of this is observed and then adjusted over time because in beta it made sense to have no refunds. Because we’d say listen, don’t expect it to be polished. So only join us if you’re ready. So we’re only taking people who are already in later on if you need to, you know if you need the insurance policy or a guarantee, if you’re one of those dip your toe in the water type of folks, when we launch this in full we’ll probably put that in there. Okay. Now what happened was when we sold this with the no refund policy, we discovered that we fell based on how people showed up and based on people interacting with the offer, that it was probably in the best interest of the market to keep it with a no refund policy.

Psychologically, we felt that was in for this offer, not for every offer. But for this offer, we felt that that made sense. So we ended up staying No refunds the whole way. Crazy. So you know, I’ve seen big launches, not as big as ours. If I go up or above it, right, forgive me, I’m only human. And I’ve seen launches that have done really well, but have 20% refund rates. That’s pretty typical in this type of market, this type of environment, especially with this type of economy. And you know, when it’s all said and done, we had a sub 3% refund rate, when it was all said and done. And so not only do we do big numbers, we got to keep most of what we had. And even on the payment plans, we make people sign agreements. So when they sign the NDA, they also say to us the agreement, the user agreement, they take the payment plan, it says, Hey, listen, you’re on the hook for all four of these payments. This isn’t something you just cancel out after a payment or two, if you don’t like it, you have made a commitment, and you’ll see it through. 

So our collection on the installments is so damn high, too. It’s way higher than industry standards, because you know, it’s kind of cool to put it on the marquee, 57 million. But at the end of the day, my bank account only does net it only after all things are collected. And that’s more important to me than the marquee number. So we do both, we get a big number on the marquee. And we keep as much of it as humanly possible. Now, here’s what’s funny about this. I don’t do the first half of the webinar, the formal portion of the webinar, Dan does, and he does a wonderful job. Because we have sharpened the ax so much that the webinar doesn’t have to be like every word calculated tons of slides, any of that stuff that it normally needs to be. So here’s the structure. Dan says, here’s how I discovered and then perfected these things called crypto bots. 

Here’s what happened when I started showing it to friends and associates. Pretty good stuff. Now here’s why I’m going to show this to you on the webinar today. By the way, I see this missing in most people’s webinars. Like, are you Santa Claus? Are you just giving stuff away for free? No, you got to explain the context of why you would be willing to kill yourself to build a whole webinar and put yourself out there to help somebody else out. Why share it, how it works, specifically what crypto automations are, you know, even what Bitcoin is, all that kind of stuff, Dan’s own results. And then the thing that makes the thing, here’s all 18 of our one on one results. All of these people take 10,000 for the same information that we’re going to offer you later, at a lesser price. Here’s all of their results. And we’ve shown this, and we continue to show this for the next launch coming up when we start doing webinars, which is like I think may 4 is our first one, or may 3, something like that. We will still show all 18 of these. This is like fine wine, the more we show them, the better it gets. Because they continue to have done them now. 

About a whole year in insane. And then here’s where I come in after Dan does the formal clothes of here’s the product. Here’s what it’s about. Here’s where you can go to get it. Here’s, here’s the particulars of the delivery. He hands it over to me, he says okay, now, Jason, you’ve been watching questions in the chat as well. I’m going to hand it to you, so let’s answer some questions. And then what I will typically do I leave points on this, sometimes I bring will in sometimes I bring Dan back in. But usually Dan’s done by then. And I will close for hours. So it takes Dan about 90 minutes to get through the presentation and hand it over to me. And then I will typically close for two or three hours after that. Which sounds like a lot, because it is a lot. But it’s worth it. I mean, there’s a lot of other things that I could be doing. So to choose to specifically stay on and close. Like that means that it’s worth it. I don’t know a better activity that I could be doing at the time. Now. If I may explain a little bit why this is important. And forgive me, Brian. I’m probably going to run a little longer if that’s okay.

Brian Kurtz  24:25  

Yeah, I mean, we’re recording it and so yeah, people need to leave, they leave but we’re gonna get the most I’m gonna suck you dry. 

Jason Fladlien  24:35  

Okay. So, closing is important for a couple of reasons.

Brian Kurtz  24:39  

And this is awesome, by the way, Jason. 

Jason Fladlien 24:41

Thank you. 

Brian Kurtz 24:42

After seeing this in 10 minutes. What a crime that was.

Jason Fladlien  24:45  

I know, right? Not like

Brian Kurtz  24:47  

They pay twenty…Now, I want these people to know. People pay $25,000 In Genius Network to get 10 minutes for a $57 million lunch. You pay in this group. Between 15 $102,000 and we get the best of the best. How good is that, man? 

Jason Fladlien  25:07  

You’re just an awesome individual there, Brian. That’s why? 

Brian Kurtz 25:10

Well, because you’re an awesome individual. 

Jason Fladlien 25:12

I mean, awesome attracts awesome. So cool. All right, let’s talk about closing. So in my first year in my career as a webinar, I wanted to be a webinar guy, there was no manual, there were no Eugene Schwartz books of webinars back then we had all made it up. And so what my biggest breakthrough ever on webinars was, I was on a webinar one day, and about 40 or 50 people on and I was selling a product, it was like 300 bucks, something like that, right. And my close was done. My slides were over with, I don’t know what the hell else to do. But the chat was kinda like this chat. People were there. They were communicating. And they were saying things, right. And I’m like, Well, what the hell. So I’m going to let me see if I can close one or two more. So I went for an hour answering every question and when there weren’t questions, poking and prodding to get more questions, all of that kind of stuff, right. And after an hour, I close to more sales. 

So I just made like, 600 bucks an hour back then. And for most of you today at 600 bucks, an hour is a lot of money. And so I’m like, well, there’s still people on the chat. Let me go for another hour. So just ad hoc, just conversing I closed with another person after an hour, no, I made 300 bucks an hour. So I was thinking at the time. Well, that was fantastic. What I didn’t realize is there was something even more important happening than the point of sale money that I was making. What do you think that was? What do you think really was the value? There were two things actually. Okay. The first one was I learned how to communicate and how to handle objections, and really how to understand my market and what the problems and what the challenge is, they were on those extra hours. That’s when it really gets real. That’s when you go deep. That’s when you say, Listen, I’ve done the same price objection, close. 100 times is boring. Let me just make up new ones. Because I have nothing else to do. That’s when the real good closest started coming out of me. 

That’s when a lot of the things that now, you know, people have studied me, and have modeled me because the closest that I’ve come up this, you know, that’s when the close comes up. When somebody says to me, Jason, I’m afraid I’m going to fail. I said, Are you afraid you’re gonna fail? Are you afraid you’re going to succeed? Because you know what failures like this are, I would tell people this. So you know what failures like, you don’t like it, but you’re comfortable with it. It’s like a security blanket to you, you have no idea what success is going to be like? So are you afraid of failure? Are you afraid of success? Because success is something completely new to you for this? And they say, Well, I never thought of it that way. And that sometimes can shake the butts a person loses. And then they can be more receptive to seeing if this is the right thing for them or not. So I learned all kinds of words like that, right? I learned empathy closes, I learned it’s easier when somebody says it costs too much. Or you say absolutely, it cost too much to the wrong person. Are you the wrong person? Now all Damn, that’s a good one, isn’t it? Right? That’s when you pick up on some of those other ones. Or somebody says it’s expensive. 

And you say, yeah, it’s expensive. Yet, is it worth doing? Because my mom had told me that it’s worth doing something even if it’s hard to do, if it’s the right thing to do you do it even if it’s hard. So yes, it’s expensive. And you’re going to do it anyway. If it’s the thing you need to do. So is it the thing you need to do? And we’d break that down? Okay. Yeah, that’s when you learn to speak and visuals because Eric says failure, you know, a comfort blanket like I would use a clothes one time, I’d say Listen, your fears are not gonna go away when you do this. But here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna put fear in the passenger seat and put that damn seatbelt on fear. It’s going to come along for the ride, but it ain’t steering the car anymore. Now you’re driving it. Tell me how does that feel? And that’s when that’s when sales happen. That’s when you understand the fears and you understand the limitations of the market and you can’t get that market research anywhere else. You also get really good at your craft to do what a couple 1000 times. 

Do it a couple 1000 times and then you’ll be amazed at how good you get at it. Okay, but here’s the other thing that happens. Here’s what happens in the prospect’s mind when you close like this. They say Damn, nobody else in my market does this. Nobody else hangs in there with me like this. Nobody else is willing to go the extra mile like this. So if I’m going to put My faith in anybody, it’s not going to be those who left me. I gotta be those who stopped. It’s going to be those who went the extra mile. And that’s showing, not telling. You can tell somebody you care about them. Or you could show it. You could tell somebody you understand them, or you could show it. And that’s, you know, where I shine. So I would do the closest and we made so much money there, I’ll never forget it. He almost had a damn heart attack because we made a huge blunder on day one of the big launch. We had two webinars back to back, we had a webinar at noon, and we had a webinar at 4pm Pacific Time. And the webinar for was a big one, it was Bob Proctor. 

And unfortunately, he’s passed. So rest in peace. God bless you, but I think we might have been the last webinar that he did. And so we had Bob scheduled out for a big webinar, Bob, just to tighten right. And we had our noon webinar. Now our new webinar was our general webinar. So instead of a private webinar with an affiliate, we just had every affiliate who wanted to mail a general webinar. So we had 11,000 people on this webinar 11,000 and some change. And we get to our four, and I’m still closing and there’s 3000 people on the call still, we lost a million dollars that day. I know we did. Okay, because we had to close it and start the next webinar that was on the same account. I mean, I didn’t. I didn’t have too many regrets over it. It happens. Well, on the other hand, he was just brokenhearted. Yeah, it is hard for him. But that closing also helped us realize when we’re off the mark. So if the key questions keep coming up over and over again, we’ve missed something in the presentation itself. We’ve missed something in the emails, we’ve missed something in the positioning, blah, blah, blah, get it right. So that’s the structure of the webinar not wet when you go as big as we did.

Outro 32:11  

Thanks for listening to the timeless marketing podcast with Brian Kurtz. Visit briankurtz.net, and click podcast at the top of the page for a full transcript and show notes. If you’re interested in working with Brian personally inside of Titans Xcelerator, go to Briankurtz.net/help to see how Titans can help you grow and scale your business. That’s B-R-I-A-N Kurtz [dot] net [slash] help.

About the author 

Brian Kurtz

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