Transcription
What do you do if you're known for one thing and you got an audience that loves you for that, but you want to launch this something brand brand new?
I kind of want to become the sort of the category king, shall we say, of the phrase lifestyle business. That's what was going on for Ali Abdal. And at one of our recent events, he grabbed me on the break and asked some advice. Luckily, Sean, the guy behind the camera here, recorded the whole thing. And so, in this video, you're going to see me working with Ali to really solve a couple of big ideas.
Most of the scale bros are after more more. Do I admire their business? Yeah, maybe. Do I want their life? [ __ ] no.
Number one, how do you go from launching a product to owning a brand new category in your market's head? So, an NBA teaches you how to run someone else's boring business. We want to teach you how to build your own.
Number two, how do you make sure that new product sells out every single month without needing a big team or sales calls? Cuz we nailed that. Sales calls versus offer doc. I've done hundreds of them. I've made literally millions of dollars doing it.
And then third, how do you get a market who are mostly beginners to get over their fear, take action, and win quickly? The countdown clock's ticking on this bomb. Doesn't have to be negative consequence. But if they get this thing done by X date and they pass that gateway that unlocks next thing, positive feedback reinforcement. That's what you're going to get in this video.
And about halfway through, you're going to see someone you haven't seen on camera before. She's my secret weapon. She coaches with me in boardroom. Jump in off the couch and go, I've got some ideas. And then just machine gun 10 or 15 of the most tactical, practical, useful things that Alli has probably ever seen in his life. Anyway, I think you'll love this conversation. Let's let it roll.
All right. So, Taki, I would love to build our coaching thing to $5 million in the next year. Help me out. How do I How do I do it?
Well, let's figure out where you're at and what the blocks are.
So, I need to give you some backstory first. I started my YouTube channel in 2017. And initially, I was selling courses helping people get into med school. Season number two is after a few years of doing that, I was working as a doctor and somehow I became known as this like productivity expert. And then sort of randomly in 2020 while this productivity arc was happening, loads of people were asking how do you grow a YouTube channel? And so I happened to turn that into a course. And so now we do like I don't know somewhere between 1 and 2 million a year in sales from my YouTube course.
But the thing I'm passionate about now is I actually don't really care about productivity that much. The reason I started on this journey of like building my own business was because I wanted freedom. I wanted the option to work like part-time, fun, freedom, flexibility, all of that kind of stuff. And the thing that I'm excited about now is kind of teaching business, like becoming a sort of business coach, even though I've never really used that phrase before.
No, but if you there's no difference between teaching business um because you've done it to teaching YouTube because you did it and teaching productivity because you did and teaching you how to get into med school because you did it. So that's kind of been my thing at every stage of the process. It's like I do a thing and then I want to teach the thing. So now I've done the business thing and I want to teach the thing. And so um we've got this idea for this thing like the lifestyle business academy. And I kind of want to become the sort of the category king, shall we say, of the phrase lifestyle business. You know, Tim Ferrris talked about it back in 2008 with 4-hour work week, but then no one's really put a flag in the ground as like being the lifestyle business guy. Your whole thing is like lifestyle empire. I don't even want to be the empire guy. I'm just like, you know, I I think for our audience, they're most mostly like educated professionals. They would love to just have like a six-figure lifestyle business where they've got flexibility and they can do what they want. They want to side hustle, get it to a point where they feel comfortable and then boom, they want to they want to quit job.
This is great. Okay. So far, we decided we we launched this after your help because I've been part of a boardroom for for a few months now. And uh we got 30 people into our first cohort like last week. Congrat. And so yeah, thank you. It's so good. But now we've got these 30 people. We built out a program trying our best to get them results. We're offering loads and loads of support. And so I'd really love to scale this. I love the idea of having like a better version of an MBA, like an online MBA for lifestyle entrepreneurs, cuz an NBA teaches you how to run someone else's boring business. Like we want to teach you how to build your own. And with an NBA, you graduate with like tons of debt and we want you to graduate with tons of profit. Like that's kind of how we want to counter position. Lifestyle MBA sounds kind of great by the way. Oh, that's Yeah, that's actually thought of that. That's good. It sounds amazing. And so traditional NBA gets you debt. And this gives you profit. That's a nice diagram as well. I like that. Yeah. Well, it's always like it can go bad or it can go good.
Often when we launch something, we launch it at like a founders price to get something started. Um, where's the price and how do you feel about the price moving forwards? Founder's price was 6,800 for 6 months and I would like this to be 10 grand. Um, in fact, loads of people in the interviews that I was doing uh said, "Oh, I expected at least 10k when I said 6,800 and I was like this is a good site."
Okay, so price is super elastic. The price objections are mostly in our head, not theirs. And so if it's 6,800 now, it could be 10k tomorrow. I think about it like, you know, you walk into a a coffee shop, there's a price of a cappuccino is $350 or five bucks or whatever it is in chalk. You can dust that off and change the price and the next customer will pay it. Um, so I don't think we need to wait until I like the we launch it at 30. If you want to ratchet it up, you can. This could be 10 this afternoon if it wanted to be.
What I'm scared about is that currently uh we have a guarantee on this which is an ROI guarantee, which is that if you do the work, we guarantee you will at least make back your investment or or we will refund you the difference. And I this keeps me up at night. That's a sign that we're making a promise that we want to fulfill on. Yes, I would love to fulfill on that, but I'm like I have to pucker a little bit. No, when I say that out loud. Yeah. Yeah. You're responsible to your clients, not for them.
What do you mean? When I first started, I I used to get that. freaked out like well what if they don't what if they don't implement what if they don't win and it comes from a good place and the place is I care not just about my reputation because I'm sure that's a part of it but really you want these people to win. 100% angle this money and doing the thing of course and so like if they do the stuff and it if they don't do the stuff and don't get the results that's on them but if they do the stuff how you prescribe it should work. I think I think a lot about who's responsible to and who's responsible for. You're responsible to them. they're responsible for them. They've got to take their end really seriously and you take your end seriously.
Um, so guarantee wise, I think the guarantee is amazing. It doesn't I don't think they want their money back. I think they want the outcome. So, let's just change the uh or I'll give you money back to a or I'll work with you until we do or I'll give you X until you do. Cuz really that's what they want. Yeah. That's what they want and they want to do it with you because if if you give them the money back they got to go find somebody else and there's nobody else like you're a one-on-one, right? That's of course. Yeah. So, I think I think the guarantee is fine. I wouldn't I don't want to water down the guarantee. Most people I mean you don't have to guarantee the end outcome. You could just guarantee All they want to know is like if I do this thing and I get in and it's [ __ ] Yeah. How do I derisk it? Yeah. So right now you've got a guarantee that is like hey do this whole thing and at the end you'll be this. We could just guarantee that bit.
So what might that look like? Okay. So we just spent three days together at a workshop. Imagine this was your first experience with us. I could have said hey come to this thing it's you know it's this much money. If you come to the event by lunchtime day one or end of day one you feel like this isn't the place for you and you haven't loved it and had your mind blown and blah blah blah. I'll give you your money back and I'll pay for your flights back home. But I don't have to I don't have to Yeah. In other words, I made it safe for you to spend. And so these guys don't need a guarantee for the whole journey probably. They probably just need a um an experience guarantee. We tell people when they join Black Belt, hey, in the first 60 days, let's call love it or leave it. Um, you know, if you sound like a great person, I sound like a great person. We haven't worked together yet, but in a month or two of working together, we're going to know. And if either of this isn't feeling, let's just tear it up, walk away as friends, no high feelings. Yeah. So, I haven't guaranteed what's going to happen over a year, but I can guarantee that it's safe to start. Yeah. I think that's worth considering.
And so, with love it or leave it, do you give them the money back for the first two months or is it just that Yeah, we just go, hey, um, they get to keep everything they've done so far and all the stuff they've learned. But I think the real point of the guarantee is to guarantee the transaction, not the transformation. Oh, that's one certainly one way to think about it.
So, we just want to make it easy. So, price point's cool. Uh, we've started with 30. In order for you to get to 5 mil, we want to think about delivery. Like is it going to continue to be cohort based? Does it go evergreen? Uh, we want to think, well, we could do we could do either or both. And I'll I'll show you how we do it in a sec. Um, and then we wanted to think about, okay, what does the marketing need to look like and the sales need to look like? Um, and there's probably going to be some delivery kinks to iron out along the way. How many weeks did you say it was? It's 6 months. Six months. Yeah. Initially I was going to do 12 months and then speaking to you guys and a couple of other people like uh for this kind of audience 12 months is a very long period of time. Feels like forever and so we slashed it to 6 months. Um, and seemed to be okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. What do you think about 6 months?
I mean I like short and I like long. I don't love middle, but I know a bunch of people who do six months and and it really really works. I think uh it wants to be long enough that we can get them an outcome. The problem with um we've we've done programs before which are a little bit a little bit too evergreen. So join this thing and it's just like stay as long as you want. Uh, but what particularly with beginners what helps beginners win is a super clear road map with with no confusion. Yes. Uh, this is going to sound ruded than I mean it. Um, they haven't earned the right to think yet. Your job is to like put them on rails. Step one we do this. Step two we do that. And then once the so your job is the rails and then your other job is to put some accountability in the timeline so that they can do the stuff fast cuz when they do the stuff fast they'll get results quickly and then they'll they'll win and that builds confidence for the rest. Makes sense. I'm cool with 6 months right now. Yeah, we'll definitely need to think about the delivery piece a little bit. Yeah, that's the bit I'm worried about. I'm like how I feel I feel fairly confident on the marketing and sales side because we have a massive audience and where I'm worried is on like how do we guarantee this outcome?
So, should we jump in there? Yeah, sure. Let's walk me through what happens over 6 months right now.
So, step one, figure out uh niched offer. Yep. Uh, step two, uh, get your first discovery call. Step three, get your first sale. Step four, get your first case study. And then at that point, they've got some revenue that validated the thing that people actually want the thing. Uh, and then we go into a sort of like um cyclical process of identifying bottlenecks and just working on the
Okay, this is great because I think like the onboarding wants to be as linear as as it can be. Yes. You know, there's these five steps or these six steps and then once people have got the basics, moving into a bit more of a choose your own adventure model I think is good. Uh, and it is like it's diagnosed this and it's prescribed, diagnose, experiment, test, iterate, repeat. Okay. So I like that. So then this bit here is super scalable right now. Uh, scalable as in well, if you've got 100 people in this second half um, we've got 100 people in the second half and there's a cadence where every quarter or every month or every every six weeks uh, we do this kind of diagnostic um, pick our experiment run the experiment test it. So whether I'm in my first cycle I'm in my sixth cycle that process just works. Yeah. Um, and so it doesn't matter if I've just joined or I've been with you for a while. This bit here, actually, let's call that monthly. I like I like the idea of every month. Something we do something every month wants to be short enough, like often enough that I can reset. Yeah. I like cycles a lot. Uh, I think quarterly is way too long. 6 weeks have been great for us. Um, it could be something once a month, but they're going to need to like bite off less. Yeah. Like a small thing, which is probably great for your guys to be honest cuz they're juggling a job. They they've got a job, they've got kids, they've got like Yeah. That's the biggest concern that like ah what if I don't have enough time and so I want to make make sure people are doing small things consistently. Yeah, that's good. So I like that. I think um regular cycles is good. Uh, and our job is to each month once they're through the launch tube that we make sure they show up to this experience. Is this currently we've just launched it, right? So is this currently delivered live the you know in calls or is it videos that they walk through or it's like a combination. So we have like uh every every student gets a their own like personalized notion page that has like a list of these different different quests for each different milestone and like action points and so they go they work through um some of the action points have videos associated with them that they can watch. Some of them have like tools like GPTs and stuff and so go through take off the action points and then it's all connected to our CRM on the back end so we can see how far they how far along through the road map they are.
One of the issues is that we have people in a wide range of niches who have never put out an offer before. Yeah. And so we're trying our best to give them feedback to be like, "Okay, does the offer make is it a painful enough problem? Does the person make sense, etc." Yeah. But unless they test it in the market, like no one really knows whether an offer is going to work or not. Yeah. And so my worry is that people will pick a nation's offer, they'll do discovery calls, they'll start testing it in the market, and then it's not going to work and then it's like, okay, let's go back to the drawing board. Yeah. So you And so I'm worried about this. Yeah.
Yeah. You want to make it We want to be able to have them like test it and get uh kind of a hot or not. Yeah. as early and quickly as as early and safely as we possibly can. Uh, I think any kind of live feedback session which is like um hot or not is super worth doing. At the moment what we've got in the road map is sort of an asynchronous feedback point where once they finish their niche stuff, they submit it for feedback and then once they finish the alpha stuff, they submit it for feedback. So I think what they need is they need a you say like this should take about 2 weeks. It should take about always takes longer. But if we give them a a ad deadline and a countdown timer that I don't know how your notion system works, but like let's say you grant a member access and this is milestone number one. Can we set up a timer that Oh, that's a great idea. Yeah, we totally can. Easy. Yeah. So, it's almost like, okay, you've just walked in and the the countdown clock is sticking on this bomb. And if they get this thing, it doesn't have to be negative consequence, but if they get this thing done by X date and they pass that gateway, that unlocks next thing. And so, it's positive feedback reinforcement. Uh, Vanessa on our team used to do if you can get your webinar scripted by week, whatever it is, let's call it two. Our team will build the webinar for you. Oh, wow. Nice. Yeah. Um, so it doesn't have to be we'll build this for you, but that might be the if you do this, you unlock this bonus extra thing. Yeah.
And right now on the coaching team, is it new or is it new and squad? Uh, it's uh squad and squad is sort of each student has their own coach uh kind of thing. So, we've got two coaches right now who are who've got their own students. Yeah. They're running accountability squad calls every week and like keeping in touch with the students. Yeah. Feedback on your stuff. Um, yeah. Feedback on stuff. That kind of thing. We've got uh against your advice, we we decided to go for the bat phone 101 WhatsApp group support. Um, thinking that like we'll throw the kitchen sink for the first cohort and see how it goes. Yeah. I love WhatsApp and bat phone as a support angle for people who are self motivating uh and have got moves and people in boardroom all have a a bat phone when you've got one and they use it when they need to. But when you're just getting started, everything is scary in an emergency and still use it a lot. Yeah, people are using it a lot right now. Yeah. It's just fine for now. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine for now, but let's not ever do that again.
Okay. So, I haven't hated anything I've heard so far except for the bat phone theme. Uh, I think if we go what are the milestones, we want to be super clear at the start of each module. Hey, this is important because reason. Uh, I want you to have a a draft done by X date so we can get it signed off by Y date. Uh, really important, particularly with people who are new at something to frame the level of quality they're aspiring to. Our guys, the goal is always a shitty first draft. That takes the pressure off them. And uh, I'd rather them shitty first draft that we can tweak quickly with, you know, team or AI tools because they can give you a shitty first draft in an hour or they could spend 3 weeks in their head not making progress. And we know that if we can get them through the the six steps early, we get them out the other side and winning. So I think like uh clear milestones with deadlines, something that unlocks when they do, and the unlock might be like the feedback call. Yeah, you're a ticket to this call that you do once a once uh whatever it is or your team does. Um, I think that's good. We want to get people out of the modular part, sorry, out of the linear part as quickly as we can and into the modular world where we can run the experiments.
That's good. And so this is currently built so it's not synchronous. Uh, so I do a live session every week. Uh, I mean I say I do I've done one so far and my second one is like 3 days from now. Amazing dude. I'm so this is really exciting. It's fun times. And then based on what we're seeing in the accountability squad and in the WhatsApp chats, I'm able to then like, okay, loads of people are struggling with like what makes a good niche. And also, we underemphasized the problem part of it. So, okay, cool. That's what the session on Sunday is going to be about. Like talking about problem. Yeah. And that's the benefit you've got of like running it sort of liveish with your first group is you get to find out, oh, I shot this in the content, but I missed that bit. And you might there might be an opportunity to re-record. Or if you think about that piece of content as a planet, we can shoot a little satellite which is fixes the problem and and gives like answers FAQs. I think that's good.
One of the questions we talked about before, I know we're bouncing around a little bit. Was evergreen or intakes? I really like um intake for you. Why do you like about it? Well, I like it because it allows you to focus the eye of your marketing on a particular program and a particular campaign. And if you just know that once a month we launch this group. Uh, and once a month there's a new experiment cycle happening on it gives you a chance to a talk about this in content should you want to and if this is two months to get through and then on month three I get to here. It would be nice for this thing to be also one month. If we can get it to a month it'd be amazing. Or even pick a niche launch an offer and start doing some discovery calls. Like that's a month one and then month two is like and I mean at that point we'll get a little bit of hot or not. And then month two is like, "All right, now let's really focus on month two on getting our first sale." Yeah. Because then we can like there's people who have been watching you for ages and hear about this new journey and they're like, "Okay, well that means within three months I could be making money." That feels really good. And so like month one, you know, this is what we do. Phase one, phase two is this and then phase three we're in the Oh, and we're in the cycle. Easier. Oh, I love it. That's nice. That feels good. And it means you don't have to be always promoting. It'll go to a wait list when it's not open and then Yeah. One week a month it opens. ready for the next cohort.
Sales calls versus offer doc. No, not sales calls. Not sales calls. No, but sales calls are so nice. You get such a good data. We can frame it as an interview. Like, yeah, you can, but then you've also got to have a sales team and you got to do sales calls and that's not fun. Dude, sales calls if you want. Um, all I know is I did I've done hundreds of them. I've made literally millions of dollars doing it and then I had a sales team which did them and they did fine. I don't think people want sales calls anymore. I really don't. What I'd rather you do because of the audience you've got is if you want each month when you do the open, I'd rather you do an hour to hour and a half. Here's how the here's what the journey looks like. Um, enrollments open. Yeah. Blah blah blah. There's this many spots because you're here with me live. You get first dibs. And if it sells out today, then I don't even need to open it to anyone else. And then you can just like you can just coach them and you can uh FAQ. Yeah. I'd rather you do that. Oh, I like that. Um, dude, you're the one to many guy. I like that. That's my Plus, I'm gonna upset the sales. Like, sales calls are fine, but uh, you're the lifestyle business guy. Does the lifestyle business guy have a sales team? No. Right. Yeah. Um, should they sell with calls? Of course, cuz they're just getting started. That's how they that's how they're learning. If you were brand brand new, I'd say yes. Do sales calls on the new market. You've been you've been coaching these guys through YouTube for years. Not sales calls. The fact that you got on that you or your team got on calls with people, told them the price, and they're like, "Oh, this is less than I expected, says A, they know you're valuable, b they think it's worth it, and C, the price was like surprisingly affordable for them." Um, you don't need every person in your audience to buy this thing. Uh, we need a certain number per month, and I don't think you need it. I would certainly run a couple of these experiment cycles yourself without it.
Okay. Yeah. Cuz for the next one, um, this next cohort we're trying to get 30 people in for, we don't have a sales closer yet, so we're just going to send out an offer.com on like Monday. Okay. Well, we should 100% do that.
Okay. So, at this price point, let's say we keep it at 6,800 and then over time raise it. Sure. Do we get put a stripe checkout link, pay in full, payment plans? Like, how do you think about what goes into an offer doc/s sales page?
There's a few key pieces. Um, we'll talk about the checkout page and the payment plan stuff in a sec. Really the the offer is a combination of five parts. There's like what's the promise which is really clear. It's like lifestyle business. Yeah. Build 100k your lifestyle business in under 12 months. So like that's solid. Uh, and it starts with phase one validate your offer. Phase two make your first sales. Phase three get you to 100 grandkid. Super great. Uh, next up risk reversal. We've talked about that. Yes. Guarantee I work with you until you do maybe. Yeah, we'll validate your offer in the first two months. uh in the first first month. After that, I I'll get you to 100 grand by the time we're done or I'll work with you for free until we hit that. I mean, that's clear. So, I like the the phase one and phase two outcomes for that bonuses. Well, there's a bunch of things that are currently in the program. Yeah. Like they get the WhatsApp group and all that jazz. They get the WhatsApp group, they get all of these GPTs you're building. They get the support calls. They get the blah blah blah blah blah. I think the bonuses are great. There's probably some things which are in the program that get taken out and then put back in as bonuses. Y uh, and then um, pay plan. I was talking about what's the pay plan right now? Uh, we have uh paying full, we have a three pay, and we have a 5 pay, but because it was on calls only if they asked for the payment plan, which was like 10% of people. So it's 6,800. What were the uh, we didn't add any interest for the 3ay or the 5. That's generous. Cool. I've done it both ways. Um, I think most people would tell you that if you're going to take the risk of the payment plan, you should collect more. I think I'd probably do that. That's like 20% more. And I'd probably just offer whichever the deal you think is the is the easiest cash flow option for people. A three pay or a five pay both. Fine. Yeah. Um, but I'd probably do one, not both. Uh, and then in your dock, you can say you can get started for just whatever the monthly number is. Yeah. And then they go to check out and they can they go to check out and there's like the um, the pay plan at X per month. You got one payment of this and then four more payments of whatever. or you can prepay and save. But if you use the language of like you can get started for just I think it makes it easier for people to get there and then the the smart people go all right, if I pay that, I save money. So I do that urgency and scarcity is the thing that's um missing. Yeah. I mean if we only have 30 spots a month 30 spots a month is super super clean especially when you're getting started. 30 is like a lovely is a lovely number and it feels like I'm going to be part of a small intimate group. Over time as the delivery gets dialed, you can add to that number. Yeah. Um, so the the scarcity is 30 limited number and the urgency is well, it starts like next week kind of vibe. Yeah. Yeah. It starts at the start of every month. Yeah.
I think that's great. So that's that's our current cycle. Uh, we'll open up the doors um for up to a week. Usually sells out earlier. And then in our in our calendar, okay, this is a month. Yeah. We um we sell it here. um this this last week of the month gives them a chance to like get their calendar in order and us to like onboard them and then they start like you said first week of the next month.
I mean the nice thing about evergreen is that then I what I was imagining was I was imagining sales calls sales calls and calendar like leads every day calls every day like customers starting every day and then not having almost this sort of spiky slightly spiky multi campaign. The the way you build a lifestyle business is you figure out the life you want first and then build the business around it. And most of the scale bros are after more more more. And then if you go, do I admire their business? Yeah, maybe. Do I want their life? [ __ ] no. Sorry to swear. Dude, it's my own YouTube. You could do that.
So if you could make the sales 30 a month, let's pretend it's 30 for now. Without the calls, would you want to do the calls instead? Maybe for a while we can get 30 a month with just a doc/s sales page. But what if in the future this number goes down and then we're having to do calls to cuz surely conversion rate on calls will be higher, right? Yeah. Conversion rate on calls like if you talk to 10 people, you'll sign X number. If 10 people see the dock, you'll get less, you know, let's say it's you get four here and you might get one or two here. Um, but the problem isn't conversion rate. The problem is not enough people see the offer. So with the callbased model, um somebody's got to like see some content or an ad, land on the page, decide to book a call. Yeah. Right. Fill out an application or not, book a call or not, show up or not. Each one of those points is a is a leakage spot. So, yes, the this the 10 people actually get here convert higher, but you lose all these dudes who never saw it in the first place.
So, what you're saying is like send all of the dudes in the first Yeah. Like, skip skip those four dumb steps in the middle and just go, "Hey, if you're interested, read how it works." Yeah. Um, also I think sales calls are built for a time when um when the seller had the power. There was a problem. Information was scarce. The sales person was the the only way to get the information you needed. And now we're in like they're on YouTube. How many people watch an average Aliad video? Obviously there's 100,000 150,000. Okay. 100,000 these days. 150 in a good month. Okay. That's ridiculous, man. It's amazing. And compared to this time last year, is the number bigger or smaller? It's identical. Yeah. Okay. It's smaller compared to the pandemic. Yeah. Okay. If I had 150,000 people watching one of my videos, there's no way in hell I'd run ourselves. Like we're new at this. We're not very good yet. We might like I think our best has got like 4,000 in a little bit and we're selling out 30 spots every month. This is a new offer. uh of your whole slice, are they all are they all about this? No. But there's a percentage who are. And to be honest, we've got 30,000 customers on our Hopspot. Like, dude, you're going to crush this. This is a good point. It shouldn't be hard to sell this on a off a dock. It's totally not. Plus, you create a video and if you want to stick a little video, I'll stick a loom on top of it. Yeah. Even you're going to do fine.
People have been asking what happens after the six months and I've been like, uh, I honestly I don't know. We'll let you know closer to the time because we're focusing on the first six months for for now. Y. What do you reckon? What should happen after the six months? So people are going to go through the program and then they're going to they're going to love it and they're going to want more. So the easiest option like at the end of a any course in this case it's a six-month program there's three options people can end. Y and that's what happens if we don't give them an invitation to do something else. They can extend. Hey this is great but I like to do more or they can ascend. Okay. I wouldn't worry about ascend for a while. We've got one product. Let's just sell this. And I just make it keep going. Uh, same price similar. How would you think about that in their mind and probably in yours? Most of the heavy lifting comes up front and so I would be tempted to either keep the price where it is for this and then go after that we just roll monthto month at slightly lower number. Y nice until you don't want to. That's nice. And and instead of making this uh an opportunity at the end where they need to like, you know, say yes to something I just say hey, so this is the process usually takes six months. I'm you can stop anytime after that point. But my business got where it's going because I've iterated continuously. And so we're just going to keep running this cycle and I'll keep showing what's new and keep supporting you until you get to, you know, um, 100k, 200k, 300k, and we turn this thing into as big as you want. And so rather than saying, join us for the next bit, I would just say, hey, and this is how the program works, and you can stay with us as long as you want after that point. Okay, nice. In our world, we call it a profitable addiction. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, people are great. The stuff's useful, the content's amazing. Yeah. Uh, how would this theoretically work with the guarantee if we're like so yeah, how do we think about the guarantee in the context of the first six months versus Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So very very simply, if we think about this timeline through the lens of guarantee, I think the easiest opportunity for you guarantee wise is just to guarantee like a love it or leave it type thing. Yeah. Guarantee the first two weeks. Yeah. Um, you because we'll validate you're off in two weeks and you'll know this thing's viable or it's not. Or you can guarantee it, you know, if you want to guarantee your six-month outcome, you can, but I think honestly I'd guarantee something shorter, two to four weeks. Um, and then this is a stay as long as you want. No commitment. Yeah, you definitely don't have to guarantee what happens in a year. Cuz if we get the start right, the finish will take care of itself.
What's What's cool about this as well is like I think in your stuff, I've looked at your products, you say it's X dollars for the first month and then after that blah blah blah blah blah. So we could almost be like it's X dollars for the first month after that love it or leave it etc etc and then it's blah blah blah for the next X. Yeah. So we basically break it down into phases. You know phase one is this chunk phase two and then phase three is kind of the scale part. And so this is what's the quick win which is like we validated an offer uh a niche and an offer that we think will work. Phase two is we start to sell it and phase three is we go and scale it and iterate. Uh, probably I'd probably do my guarantee point after phase one. Yeah. Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense because also if someone comes into the program and they just actually don't have Yeah. If you find out that they want to like do basket weaving for like people, then we can be like, "Okay, yeah, hey, we we've run the numbers. We don't think this is a viable market, but I'm super glad that we did this journey. Um, we can either find something new or you can decide that, you know, your dreams of becoming an underwater basket weaver are maybe not as viable as they can and then that's okay, too." And if they do want to find something else, okay, cool. Yeah, totally. Phase one just extends a little bit longer. It's perfect. And it's nice in a sort of monthly cycle kind of thing. Yeah.
Dude, this is great. Welcome. Thank you for hanging out. This is fun. That was great. Drawing boxes on iPad. Tony B come off the top rip like like I I have things I want to add. Yeah. Like not for the but Yeah. Let's go. Why not for the You want to Yeah. We've just been um we've just been joined off the top rope by Tony Bash. Off the top rope. I'm jumping. What does off the top rope mean? Is that a wrestling analogy? It's a wrestling analogy. I don't know anything about wrestling. I used to watch it when I was like five. Yeah. Well, I used to watch it when I was five, but it really made an impact. Um, no. I was just like as you guys were chatting, I was like making notes about like stuff. I was like, "Oh, and you know, this is some other ideas." And also based on some other convos we've had Ally as well. The things that I wrote down is like number one, um, don't underestimate like the importance of helping people with having like done for you and a deadline when they're starting out. Yeah. I think like we we've just done a lot of work on our clients program and when they're starting out, they're in their own way a lot and they overthink things and they're doing what you're doing now and like coming up with all the objections. Yeah, but what about Yeah. Yeah. And it's super normal. It's so normal. But I think like the more that you can say, "Hey, we've built this tool to help it get done for you, whether it's a GPT or a template or like something else," the more that you can take that decision making away from them or or make it help them get done faster. Like we call it done accelerated for you, like the the faster you can get help them there, the better because it takes away the decisions. And yeah, it takes away the decisions and they they get this like feeling of momentum. Yeah. It's like, "Oh, I've done it. I did something. It was a bit scary, but it worked out amazing. I'll risk you like I'll I'll do the next bit because I trust Ali now." And then the other piece is the deadline. Like I know you're giving them 6 months cuz you're like I want to give them time to get it done. But I think sometimes like with people that are earlier stage like forcing a deadline and making it bust is actually like a better gift for them because I think sometimes they're they're in the situation where they like they're given a bit too much time to think and then that makes them stop and overanalyze. And so giving them a deadline and actually like Taki had said earlier like rewarding them for hitting like we did. Yeah. We did this two weeks ago in 3 days. Mhm. And it was really scary for them. But like on day one they picked a niche. Like they assess niche options. They picked one. They designed a program and they build an offer and that was in 4 hours. Exactly. It was exhausting for like it was a lot. Yeah. It was it was intense but but they got it done and they wouldn't have got it done if I hadn't have pushed. Yeah. and and on day three they were making sales. So, you know, you talked about well like in maybe in day in month two like possibly hopefully they can make their first sales. Like we were doing that on day three. Um, and it was intense. Like I'm not saying you need to do it in 3 days but but I don't want to go through it again either. No, it was intense. But I think it's it's possible and sometimes the more you push the better.
It is. So, yeah.
Okay. That's nice. That's good. Um, the other note that I wrote was, um, overindexing in the amount of belief shifts that some of these folks need. Like, I don't want to call it mindset because that kind of dilutes what we're really trying to do, but there's a a lack of belief that it's possible. Like the same way you're saying, "Oh, well, I, you know, I need a bit of time to build up to that price," or "I, you know, I'm not sure if I can do this without a sales call," or, you know, etc., etc.
Um, yeah, it it's the same for them. So you need to help them have those belief shifts fast. So I think it's not just about giving them videos that teach them the practical tactical, "this is how you do the thing," but you, you know, do you do your brown pants thing? Like, so I think there's two ways to shift a belief. One is just by drawing, uh, a distinction between two different ways of thinking and acting. And so if you think about like the the three things that they're going to do because they're new to get in their own way. They're going to overthink things. They're going to worry about the value. They're going to, whatever. Oh, we have a thing about sort of like, uh, the good student versus the the good entrepreneur. Like that kind of thing. All of these, all of our guys were good students. They're all in fancy jobs. They went to fancy universities. Amazing.
100%. So, um, let me show you some really dumb pictures. So, we, we, um, ran this workshop the other day and we had a few like key frames. So, these are ones we used after. But, and this is the Taki sketch partway through a workshop just to make sure that people like, "This is like, you're going to be really tempted to get in your head. I don't want it in your head. I want it in the world." Oh, nice.
So, we're going to get it, uh, a rough draft in the world. Um, yes, this is scary. You need to be courageous. Courageous doesn't mean not shooting yourself. It means doing it with brown pants. And so, like, "Team Brown Pants" was a hashtag. And we just made it okay to be doing the thing scared.
"Um, this sounds great, but I'm going to reinvent the wheel." Oh, you could do that, or you could just roll the wheel we gave you. Um, and so if you just make a list of the the places where people are going to trip themselves up or get in their own way, and we just make some language about that. And while you're with me, is it okay if we behave like this? And then anytime somebody doesn't, we can go, "Hey, remember we agreed to do it with brown pants." Ah, we did. Okay, great. You got me.
Um, so that's one way to change behavior. And I think the other the way to shift belief is number two. Uh, number one, invite them to borrow yours. Uh, when we work with new people, it's like, "Hey, I know this seems like a big promise and maybe you don't believe it yet. That's completely okay. If ever you find yourself a bit low on belief, just know that we've done this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, thousands of times. So if ever you don't believe it, just borrow my belief and do it anyway." Uh, third, the funnest way to shift belief is to get them to do the thing, get the result, and then they just believe it because they just saw it with their own two eyes. And so these GPTs and forcing them to do the thing and get it out there in the are super great.
I have another counter to your sales call. So like, okay, of course there's going to be people that don't buy because they need the comfort of a sales call and they need objections and objections handled and whatever else. You could do that if you really wanted to do that with the people that you don't scoop up in the first thing. But my other counter argument is like, how many sales calls have you done in your life, Ally?
Like 40 so far.
Yeah. Which, how long ago did you start doing them?
Like a month ago.
So you're brand new at sales calls, right? But you've been doing video for a little while.
Yes. Long time. Potentially you could be better at selling on video than what you are on a sales.
Oh, shit. Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. She got you there, man.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. But Tony,
But objection, your honor.
Yes. But yeah, but me.
A big part of the sales call, like obviously we didn't call it a sales call. We called it an interview. It's me asking questions about their background to basically see, do they have a high ticket offer in them? Which, in fairness, I already knew from the application form, but I was just sort of running a. You already knew from the application form.
And then the call turned more into into a coaching session where we were ideating on this.
So we have the same thing. People fill in this lengthy application for us. We learn a bunch about them and we can like look and go, uh, to a a startling degree of accuracy. Marshalling degree.
Oh, this person is going to crush it with us.
Or this person's not ready for us, or a better for someone else. In like 95% of cases, we know really clearly yes or no. And in a couple of cases, we send back a couple of questions and they answer them, we're able to make a call.
And also that feels like a better opportunity to have during the love it or leave it when you're validating their offer, cuz that's when you're finding out if they've got a high ticket offer in them. So the whole thing is, "Come join us, and if you know in the first 14 days, we're going to help you validate your offer. If you don't have an offer that's right, like, we'll, we'll part as friends and we'll be really honest with you." Like, we always say, "We're not in the mill, we're not in the business of making sales. We're in the business of making million-dollar coaches. If we don't believe we can help make you a million-dollar coach, we will tell you before you even get approved. And if we get it wrong and we don't realize that before you get approved, we're going to have our coaches tell you during that love it or leave it period. And we tell a lot of people, like, we don't think this is the right thing for you right now." With love. Yeah.
Here's where you should go, or this is what you should do, or, you know, but that's what that whole onboarding.
This is so great.
Nice. I like it. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Like having having that point of, in a way, it's almost like a point of of of, uh, no return. There's there's like a, you can exit at the that point if you want if you realize that.
So you still get to do that. You still get to like make that judgment call. Most of it's going to be filtered by the application, and then the rest can be done in onboarding. And it's actually respectful to go, "Hey, you know what? I don't think this is for you." And if honestly, you feel like it's not for them, you got an option to do, do I want a refund? Do I want to do what? Um.
So we still have like that role, and it's just now it's in delivery, not in sales.
100%.
So they're buying on the offer doc, and then they're filling out an application form, or like, how does it work?
So they fill in the, they basically, they read the offer doc. At the bottom, it says, "Apply." And when they complete their application, they're paying their deposit. And if they don't get approved, then we refund the deposit. And if they get approved, then we take the deposit. And we do have like the love it or leave it, you know, like 30 days. What do you say? We sniff your butt. You sniff our butt.
Like two dogs sniff each other's butt in the park. Yeah. It's disgusting, but it's accurate.
Um, but if there's somebody that we realize, like, "Call one, this is not going to work." We just refund them. Right. Like, we're like, we are very ethical in the way we do business. And I know you will be too, cuz that's what you're like. We're not trying to take people's money and pretend that like.
There's no no benefit in collecting someone's money and exiting them from the property.
We want our reputation to be more valuable than any money we can take from those people. And it, it's, and and you're the same. I know that. So honestly, knowing your audience, knowing what you're going to build, knowing what we know is possible for clients, and we're just going after one tiny segment of the market. This is not a $10 million opportunity. It's a lot more than that.
Yeah. You're going to do really well.
100%.
Yeah. We just had to swap a camera card. I thought this might be a great opportunity to answer the question. You might have been wondering, "Who's this person and how is she so freaking epic?" So, this is Tony Bash. Uh, some people call her my boss. Uh, every client calls her their secret weapon. And, uh, she coaches our clients in boardroom. Uh, and she's really freaking good at this. So, now you know. Um, back to the episode. Is that cool?
Yeah, sure. Um.
Okay. So, yes. So, uh, you mentioned they fill out an application form, they pay a deposit. Yeah. Uh.
How does that work like mechanically on Stripe? Like, can you get someone to pay a deposit and then it sort of you automatically charge them once they're approved? Like, how how does that work?
Yeah. So, we've done it a few different ways. So, the reason we charge a deposit is cuz we, everything we do is around intent, right? Like, we, we're not trying to just get everyone to apply. We want to get the right people who are super qualified and super ready to buy. If people have too many questions, we're like, "Go back and consume more of Taki, right?" So, one of the reasons we charge a deposit, and it's a, it's a fairly beefy deposit, like, it's the same as what we charged when people were buying on a sales call and they were very sold. Um, the reason we do that is we want to make sure that they're all in, you know, and so we don't want people wasting our time filling out applications that they're not going to follow through on. So, we did start, um, initially, we've done a lot of iterations of this, but we started initially with doing like the deposit like at the very front of things cuz Taki was like, "No, like, we should really gate it." And that didn't work. Super well cuz people are like, "Wait, I don't even know what questions you're asking me and you're asking me for money." Um, so now we, it's the last step. And like, we do have some drop off at that step where it's like, "Now you're asking me for my credit."
But then there's a super simple abandoned cart. "Hey, you started, you haven't, you might have had some questions. Did anything go wrong? Blah, blah, blah."
100%. But then after that, we literally like take, we take the $1,500. At that point, you can.
We don't take, we receive.
We receive. We, we, uh, we take the in, we have received their investment.
Yeah. Cuz people are saying, "Hey, I want to do this and here's my deposit."
100%. But but in terms of transactionally, which is what we collect, we collect that $1,500 at that point and then we refund it if it's not a fit. Now, we could do, "Oh, we're just going to take a dollar and we've got your credit card on file and all of that."
Yeah, but it's easy to pay a dollar. It's this is, this is like, "I would like to buy this thing if you will have me."
Exactly. And and do you want to actually comment on that TX about like, "We're not selling, they're buying." Like this is.
Here's what's here's what's amazing about a doc, dude. Um, I think a lot of people when they're first getting started are worried about about you know, selling.
Yeah.
Um, the lovely thing about a a simple doc which explains how the program works with a video from you on the top. People read it and then they get to make their own mind up and then you're not selling, they're buying.
And so, um, uh, retention is way up. Um, the do stuff rate is way up because people, nobody feels like anyone's had their arm twisted.
Yeah.
Um, so I love, love, love this very, very much.
When you did sales calls, it was never a sales call. It was an audition.
100%. Like, um, we had a coach, Adam, years ago, was on a on a call with a a person who wanted to check us out and he was sensing a little bit of like friction and push back. Like this guy was a bit being a bit caging. He was like, "Mate, I, um," he's an Australian. This is Adam. "Mate, I feel like you think this is a sales call." And he's like, "Well, isn't it?" He goes, "No, this is a fit call. I don't care whether you join or not. Our only job right now is to work out, are we even a match or not? Because if we are, of course you'll join us. And if we're not, of course you won't. So, let's just figure that out. Is that okay?" And they go, "Doctor's defense." They had a conversation and worked out it was a match and he joined.
Um, so the frame is really, really important. The thing that's lovely about a doc is there's none of that dance. People read and they make their own mind up, just like they've been watching your videos for years and deciding, "This guy's amazing. I want to do more." And I'm 100% sure there's lots of people that, well, not, I am 100% sure that there's lots of people that read the doc and don't buy. But that's okay because they'll come back and buy later because we, in this, it's a trust economy right now. All right. And and they are trusting us because we are not trying to sell to them like that. We're not trying hard, which sounds so counterintuitive, but that's why it works because particularly with our market, they're more sophisticated. Like, they're not idiots. They know every tactic under the sun. So if we try to treat them like idiots, like, like they, they're going to not love it. And so we're, we're just really relaxing and letting them buy. It makes a huge.
Yeah. Like if the buyer has the power now, then let's give them the power.
Exactly.
It's great.
All right. I'm going through my list. We're like halfway through. No. Why am I? I'm like, this is turning out very long. Just.
Long is good. YouTube likes average average view duration. Um, for our offer, would you recommend we do application deposit or just application, uh, pay or just straight up pay and then fill out enrollment form to see if they're a fit and we can always refund the $6,800 if it's a really bad.
I think application, you can, if you counteract, that's completely fine. But I would say application deposit is how I would do it.
Agreed.
Uh, and when they land on the deposit page, uh, you can still give them like the pay plan. So payment one is the deposit.
Okay.
Or they can pay in full. Either way is completely fine. Um, don't do pay first. Um, yeah, that's like one extra friction step as I've learned. So, I, I would do application deposit. I give them a choice of, you know, should if it accepted, do I want to pay their balance in one chunk or do I do the installments? I think that's fine.
And it's actually a beautiful segue because the next thing I was going to say is I, I feel like you have too many pay options.
Yeah, I want him to have two. A pay and full. So, yeah. So, I feel like one or max two options. Um.
So painful or pay monthly or would.
Honestly, I, I would go with whatever feels right for you. Like, I think, um, there's pros and cons to everything. Like, you know, James Camp's a massive fan of weekly pricing and that works incredibly well for him. We tried it with our market, um, in clients, and it, and it didn't work as well because we had a lot of people that like would drop off because they couldn't, you know, afford to do it or whatever else, you know. So it depends what you want to sign up for. Like, do you want to sign up for higher volume? Cuz it's like, "Oh, it's $100 to get started." And.
He's only got 30 spots, though.
Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to do that, dude. Yeah. You don't need to.
So, in our world, public marketing, we open up, uh, open the doors to Black Belt, uh, one week a month.
Yeah.
But every month before the doors open, people have snuck in already. And they do that because they watch our YouTube videos. Um, often the YouTube video will mention, uh, another video which is like the explainer of how the program works, and at the bottom of that, there's a link to the doc that people can apply right away. And so we're focusing on the the open close for a week, but people like your audience who love your stuff and every time you upload a new video, come and watch it. They shouldn't have a chance to to like to find out how the program works on a video. And then you go to doc and join there.
And so like, I think it was last month there, you know, 30 spots available. Before the month even started, 12 were gone.
18.
Uh, 18 were gone, 12 were left.
Yes.
Yeah. 18 were gone, 12 are left before we even started. Um, which is the benefit of the.
Of the audience you've built and the reputation you built and the goodwill you give to the market.
Yeah. And even this month, um, and we've done zero, like zero, zero, zero marketing. Um, and we, I think we've sold 10 and we've not opened the doors at all.
I think we had four people join Black Belt yesterday despite the fact that I haven't sent the emails cuz I was busy here with you guys and I didn't write them into them. It's cuz I was an idiot.
Nice. Okay.
Um, bat phone. Other than me literally hurting my head from face palming, I'm like, Ally, why? Why? But, um, but it's not even just for you, dude. Um, because I think when you're an earlier stage entrepreneur, you actually need to, um, have that community around you and realize you're not the only one that's struggling with that. And so, the value they are getting is actually way more from their peers and seeing you coach in a group than what it is from like helping them out one-to-one.
M.
Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, people are actually, I've been surprised cuz people are posting more in their accountability squad WhatsApp groups with like six others in the coach rather than the one-on-one chat.
So what I would do is I would let people know in two days or three days when your next group call is saying, "Hey, it's been super great. We just wanted to open up the bat phone so you you had access to us as we got our feet wet. Uh, at the end of week two, when we're up to this milestone, then like some of you guys have already jumped on the, you know, figured this out. The wavy best loan is we learn together." And so, um, I'd probably in week two, phase out my that phone.
I feel scary because we've offered it now.
If you promised it, you keep your.
Okay, I'll keep it for the first cohort and then we'll just not mention it for that ever again.
And can I say Ally, like, um, I am very much like you. Like if I say we're going to do something, we're going to do something. And old mate over here, like, is always like, "No, they'll be fine." And they always are.
They always are. And I'm always like, "Oh, like, this gives me like anxiety." And they're always fine.
It's easy to add something that is to take it away. 100% get that. If we got these people in, totally cool. What I would keep an eye on on the batones. If you're getting bombarded, I just set some some rules around it. It's like, "Hey, just so you know, I run this thing. We're doing this stuff. Uh, my core commitment to you is that every week we do this call and the coaches do this stuff. Uh, uh, if you post something in the bat firm direct to, yeah, mess, I'll get back to you within X period of time." So give yourself some grace. Uh, and, uh, clients are like water. They'll always go downhill to the easiest easiest path. And if they can get a great answer quicker, faster, better in the group format or with their person than they do pinging you, then they'll learn that pretty quickly and the bat phone will win its way off.
Cool.
Yeah. I had three more sales call points there. I was clearly very passionate about it, but I don't need to go through all of them. It was it was just like hilarious looking like at my my.
She said stop it, no, and don't. No.
Um, yeah, I was just like, just when you had that whole thing with Taki like, "Oh, yeah, but you know, like, you've got this like, you know, smaller audience that."
Dude, it's so dumb. And I was like, I was like, Ali Abdal audience, and I understand everyone's not your perfect client. Like, I get that. But.
Yeah, you've still got way more people of your ideal clients in your audience than I do in mine on YouTube.
Yeah.
Cuz my total audience is 11,000 people.
Yeah.
Total.
My total audience.
And and some of those were from, you know, years ago. I don't think any are from Iran. I think that's just your Instagram.
That's just my Instagram.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I, I think you're going to be just like, and and you know, Taki treats everything as an experiment. So this is an experiment. Like, you experimented for this first round with calls and that's amazing and the perfect thing to do because it help you get a lot of data about those people and you learn a lot from that process.
But.
And you can also now teach your clients when they do their calls, "Hey, I did I did 40 of these to to get you guys to learn my market and that's what I want to do with you. So here's what I've learned." It's perfect.
Y. Um, but the other thing I said Taki touched on, like people don't love sales calls right now. And most people are attuned to sales calls. You know, you go back five years, 10 years, people like, it wasn't a big thing. Now, it's a big thing and people are like, you know, as soon as it's a sales call, they clam up. But the other thing I think you're forgetting is your ideal person has a full-time professional career. And like the ability for them to have a ton of spare time to fit in a call at a time that suits both of you or somebody on your sales team is is quite unlikely. And that's just creating, you know, talked about other friction points, but I think just getting on people like that schedule is a is a friction point. So.
Yeah. Yeah. That's all I had. Guys, thanks for allowing me to give off the top rope. Bam.
Have my strong opinion.
So, we're, we're losing light a little bit here, but we're not losing hope, Ollie. This is going to be amazing. You're going to do this. I mean, this is easily $10 mil and it's going to be significantly more. I think we start at the $6,800 because you don't want to put it up to $10. That's completely okay for now. We start at $30 a month. Uh, as you fine tune your delivery and you work out what's actually possible, I think the number can, both of those numbers can expand a little bit to your level of comfort. Um, I think you're going to do incredibly well. Um, you build an audience the size you have. It's not by luck. It's because you're really good at what you do and people trust you and you just want to trust yourself more, too.
Nice.
And you're one of the good guys.
Yeah, you, of course, you're one of the good guys.
Oh, thanks guys. This has been super help.
Yeah, man. But it is fun.