Cody Lister
How Deadline Funnel Doubled Conversion for a Virtual Summit
I recently had an awesome interview with Cody Lister from MarketDoc about creating his first summit and how Deadline Funnel helped him double his conversions.
Watch the video, listen to the audio interview or read the transcript below!
CL: Thanks for having me
JB: So, I’m going to kick it over to you to talk about your business. You’re also going to share how you use Deadline Funnel in your business. I just want to mention that I was at an event recently in Orlando and it’s just so great … I forget how awesome it is to just get out from behind the computer screen and meet other people who are in the same business. It’s especially wonderful when I meet someone who’s like, “Hey, by the way I’m a client of yours and I love what you’re doing”. So that’s kinda how Cody introduced himself to me. And so I said, “Oh really, tell me how are you using Deadline Funnel?”, and when he shared the results he was getting, just a few of the details, I said, “Man, I really would like to get you on an interview and share that case study”. And, here we are.
So, Cody, thank you so much for being here. And, why don’t you tell us a little bit of background about what you do and who you serve.
CL: Yeah. So, I run a paid traffic agency managing Facebook ads and Google AdWords for both local businesses as well as businesses that are trying to sell online courses via webinars through launches. So, it’s primarily focused on local and national businesses but I do work also with online entrepreneurs as well.
The other part is I teach online entrepreneurs how to start Ad Agencies. So that’s a whole other program that I sell. But that’s only a recent development. In the past, I’d just been running my paid traffic agency and then I decided to launch a summit called The Content Promotion Summit. And, that came to be just as I saw other people taking an interest in content promotion and I noticed with myself I was publishing content on my blog and it really wasn’t taking off. So, I saw people like Derek Halpern and Brian Dean who were talking a lot about content promotion. So I figured, “Okay, there’s something here” and so I started doing content promotion for my articles and started writing about it and I started to see some awesome results in terms of subscriber gains and even … You know, those subscribers became warmer traffic so I was better able to convert them into buyers of another program that I was selling at that time.
They also turned into people that bought my coaching programs and other stuff like that. So, I had my blog at that time and I was thinking about how effective this is. No one had done a summit on content promotion and so I figured, “Well, this seems like a great one that would make a splash”, because not many people are … Really, they’re just starting to talk about it. It’s just starting to become a trend and now you even see Eric Siu at Single Grain that has a weekly webinar talking about his paid content promotion funnel. And then, everyone else afterward seemed to … There seemed to be a domino effect of everyone else right after the summit started talking about content promotion on their blogs and it really kind of proliferated the entire internet marketing for a few months after the summit.
So, I decided to go balls out on this and I did it really fast. I got somewhere around a hundred and thirty or a hundred and forty affiliates in about a month and a half. And, I prepared the summit in about a month and a half, two months. I’d only started deciding I wanted to do the summit about two to two and a half months before that. I’d been thinking about it for a while but then I just started to execute very quickly.
JB: Sounds fast.
CL: Yeah. It was really fast and it was pretty overwhelming for such a short period of time because a lot of the interviews ended up being recorded for the summit while I was also managing my Infusionsoft account and working out Deadline Funnel and dealing with the designer and all this other stuff. So, it was a lot going on at once, and also still running paid traffic as a paid traffic agency owner.
It was a lot of craziness for a short period of time… And it paid off because I built a lot of new relationships with people that I didn’t … You know, that I’d admired from afar before but that I’d never gotten to speak with. And, it also paid off because we made a fair amount of revenue from it. In total, gross revenue to-date it’s been at least $150,000 or $200,000 just from the after-effects and during the summit too.
During the summit itself … During that core period we generated at least 50 or 60 grand and then a lot came afterwards. So, we sold an all-access pass on the front end for $67 that was discounted down from a $397 offer. And I had tested a lot of different offers. I’d spoken with another online entrepreneur, Liam Austin, who said he was using Deadline Funnel and he said, “You know, I don’t know if I’m going to keep doing this using a $67 offer”, but he had seen results with it and I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do it; you can do whatever you want to do man, but I’m going to do it and I’m going to test this”.
Because what I was finding in the beginning when I was running promos, promo emails to my list internally before I got affiliates on board, was that the sales page was converting so-so. It was okay but it wasn’t going to move the needle and so I ended up coming into contact with Deadline Funnel as per Liam’s recommendation, and then I started split-testing pages with it, with that, with a video on the page, without a video on the page, with and without Deadline Funnel, with Deadline Funnel at different times. All different things. Then I found the combination that worked really well.
It’s also the combination that then Neil Patel ended up using for his summit and that Navid ended up using for his summit as well, The List Building School. And the Growth Marketing Summit or Growth Summit, whatever it was, by Neil Patel last year. And then everyone else started using it. That was because I was telling Navid, “You have to use this”.
This thing works and it really did make a huge difference in at least doubling or potentially even tripling my conversion rates on just adding it to my thank you page after opt-in and then also adding it on the other pages. If they didn’t initially buy at $67 we raised the price to $97. If they didn’t buy at $97 we raised the price again to like $127 or $147. And so, we just kept going up over time. I think I had multiple Deadline Funnels at one point set up and then I scaled it back afterwards because I’ve now put my summit on evergreen. In fact, I am setting up ads now, right after this call, to continue running it on evergreen mode because I have this great lead magnet I’m just going to send people to that I ended up creating after the summit and it works really well to convert. So that the initial landing page converts at like 40% to 50% on cold traffic which is pretty great.
The initial landing page converts at like 40% to 50% on cold traffic which is pretty great.
JB: Yeah.
CL: And then after opt-in the conversion rate to a sale is, I think it’s like 10-12%. Something like that. It may be … It was higher during the actual event but even when I’ve driven cold traffic afterwards using other buyer lists direct from Facebook it’s converted really well. At least 8-10% just from cold Facebook traffic. Which I know when I took off the Deadline Funnel for a little bit and tried it, it converted like 2% or less. So, it’s made a huge difference in my business.
JB: Wow. I’m just doing some quick math here. So if we … There’s a lot to unpack in what you just shared.
CL: Ha!
JB: So, one of the things I wanted to cover is that it sounds like at a 10% conversion rate, if you’re doing a $67 sale using Deadline Funnel after the opt-in then your leads are worth $6.70. Somewhere in that …
CL: Yeah. You are a smart guy. [laughs] It’s actually dead on.
JB: I can do that math. I can do 10%. So, you can pay, like before any other sort of upsells or any additional backend sales that you make, you can afford to pay money where you’re spending $6.70 to get an opt-in without even losing money. Essentially you are building your list for free. Right?
CL: Yeah. Except I’ve even lowered the offer recently. Like today I lowered it to $47 because I’m going to try to use it as a trip wire for something else to upsell into another higher-end product afterwards.
JB: I see.
CL: But yeah, at $67 it was at least … I think it was like $6.88 or something per lead because I use segmetrics to figure that out and I could have calculated too. But, yeah. You’re absolutely right. That was the lead value.
JB: Okay. So man, you took such massive action in such a short period of time. You’re running an agency business and at the same time in 2 months you decide I’m going to launch this summit. You get a hundred and I think it was thirty affiliates.
CL: Yeah.
JB: And, you had a crazy number of interviews too, right? What was the number of interviews that you did?
CL: It was probably 75 to 80. I don’t know how many we posted. I think we posted 70 something.
JB: Right. And you told me at the event, that you would recommend not doing that many for someone starting out. So, it would probably be something like two dozen is enough. Do I have those numbers right?
CL: Yeah. Because what I noticed was during the event, on the first day, the first day converted really well. That was the bulk of our … The interviews that I felt were the strongest, not because of the people we were interviewing but because of my development as an interviewer up to that point. Those were some of the stronger interviews. But also because of the relative influence and popularity of some of those people we had on the first day made a big difference too. And, because of the subject matter which was I think, content strategy. We had like Jeff Bullas and a bunch of other people on there of that stature. So, it really did make a difference. That first day or two was huge.
But the biggest driver was absolutely affiliates and then retargeting. So I was running a lot of retargeting ads. But as I said, when I first started I was just doing internal list testing and it became abundantly clear, because I was heat mapping stuff, I was click tracking, I was doing everything that you can imagine. And using even Optimizely to really see how things were converting. It was a massive difference in conversion rate because of Deadline Funnel.
JB: Oh wow. That’s fantastic. And so I would imagine some of the benefits that you got from doing this type of huge event in such a short period of time … After you recovered from this and the dust settled, you had these relationships. You had a much larger tribe/list that you could then continue to communicate to. And then … But, on the downside, I would imagine when the dust settled the income from that event dropped almost to nothing which is why you went to evergreen. Correct?
CL: That’s absolutely right. In fact, that’s something I’ve advised Navid to start focusing on more for his summit and … For his existing summit so that he can then teach other people how to put their summits on evergreen effectively. Because it’s not that easy running cold traffic and trying to get people to convert well. Especially if you don’t have the understanding of what a value ladder is or certain, just, fundamental pieces of being an online marketer. But, if you’re doing a summit … A lot of times the people that run a summit the first time, they’re just starting out. So they’re not even thinking about the value ladder. They are not thinking, “Oh yeah, I should be upselling them”. That’s one of the biggest mistakes I made. I did an order bump with my friends at BestSelfCo. That’s a really successful fast growing e-commerce company and they promoted their stuff to my number one partner. But, I didn’t even have an upsell. So, there is a lot that you can do to double down on your lead value by adding upsells and downsells. One-click upsells and downsells on the backend definitely. But yeah, as you said, things died down unless you keep running traffic to it.
JB: So there’s benefits of doing both. I tell people all the time, I’m not anti-launch, but I’m a firm believer that if your entire business is 2 or 3 launches a year, you’d be doing so much better if in between the launches …
CL: Yeah.
JB: You had evergreen going on. We’ve mentioned … You’ve mentioned Navid a few times. So, just give a little bit of context because I don’t think we’ve given his full name or who he is. I want to give a quick shout out to him.
CL: Yeah. Absolutely. Navid Moazz is the founder of Virtual Summit Mastery which is a program dedicated to teaching entrepreneurs and people who are starting out online how to launch successful summits from scratch. Or virtual summits. And he has a specific system that he’s created after advising people like Chandler Bolt on Self-Publishing School and advising all the people that have gone through his program that are hundreds of people that have launched successful summits at this point, on how to launch a virtual summit from scratch. Really there’s no program out there like it. I’m very happy to give him a shout out and he actually travels all over the world and he first launched a summit called The Branding Summit and then he later decided this past year to launch List Building School which made a very big splash all over the internet because he got a lot of the really big list affiliates on board.
Which is one thing I would really recommend if you’re planning to launch a summit. Or two things. Really focus on affiliates, especially ones that have sizable engaged lists. And then, really focus on just … Well, I would also focus heavily on optimizing your landing pages and making sure that they’re converting if you are going out there getting affiliates. And then retargeting them. Because, if you don’t do that you’re gonna be doing yourself a huge disservice. A lot of people don’t focus on that for whatever reason.
JB: Right. Okay. I gotta ask, in such a short period of time, how did you book so many affiliates and so many speakers that quickly?
CL: I just used Contactually to reach out to people. There were sometimes where … I just had a really strong email that I wrote that was short and to the point. I think it was … I had gotten the idea to write that type of email from Jon Morrow because in his guest blogging program he talks about reaching out to people for getting guest blog posts for writers or editors at different blogs and how to approach them. And so I thought, “Okay, there are a lot of people out there that used videos to try to woo people, there are people that use really long exhaustive emails, or they’ll ask people if they’ll promote”, and stuff like that.
I was super casual about it and acted more like a friend and more just like, on the same level and playing field as opposed to making them feel like, who’s this guy reaching out to me wasting my time. Because the reality is everyone gets … I get so many people reaching out to me for things all the time and I’m sure you do too. It just happens when you’re on the internet and so you can only get back to so many people. And so, I tried to keep it short and to the point because I figured that would catch people attention. I didn’t try to drone on in my email. That made a big difference where I was able to use that email in bulk to reach out to influencers and other people in the marketing space. Pretty much, all of them responded favorably. I didn’t get a single one, I think, on my end, that said no. Except for one maybe. One actually, but I won’t mention their name …
JB: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
CL: Because he was just busy with other stuff and whatever. But it was really easy. Then I built relationships with affiliates by not even focusing on the speakers at first but going out there and finding people who I saw on leader boards for other programs. I basically took the advice of Matt McWilliams that he talks about in his blog and executed on it as much as possible. And we even scraped Pinterest. The top influencers on Pinterest. And we went to the top Facebook groups of other programs, the JV programs, which may be borderline unethical, I don’t know. But we basically did everything we could to hustle and find people and identify them based on the leader boards, Facebook groups for JV programs, and Pinterest influencers and added them all to a list, estimated their list size and figured out what the click rates would be on their emails and everything and then made a plan to reach out to them. Even one of the people that I got on board as a partner, which was the biggest partner, I met her for the first time and we became friends afterwards. I went out to lunch with her and I actually met her in person just because I felt that they would be really strong as a partner for the program and because I wanted to meet her and I hadn’t gotten the chance to do that.
JB: Wow. Wow. Man, really, congrats to you for taking such massive action. I mean, it’s clear that you’re motivated and also a very disciplined guy. I love it.
Why don’t you go ahead. I think you said you were willing to share some of the ways that you implemented Deadline Funnel. I’d love to get a view of your screen and just take a peek behind how you actually implemented it because that would be great to see.
CL: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, just switch over. Hopefully. Can you see that screen?
JB: I sure can. Yup.
CL: Okay. Perfect. So, this is the summit landing page. Let me try to move that. Okay. And you can just claim … Originally it was just claim your free ticket but then later, after the event, I added this e-book that I had created that is just re-appropriated blog posts. So, you fill out the information and opt-in. I’m going to use a different email to make sure that it works and assuming everything’s working. Actually, I may have to reset it because I just opted in earlier today. Hold on, let’s see. In this case, you’re going to get an experience to learn how to do that. Let’s see. Yeah. I have to a …
JB: To get a Deadline Funnel. Well, at least the technology is …
CL: It works. Oh, it definitely works and so … We tested all different things. Like, trying the technology from mobile phone on one email to desktop. We tested everything so … It is a seamless technology and you can enable certain things in there to make sure that it works the way you want it to. Meaning, that someone gets an email and they click through it and it’s the same deadline that’s going on or that they get pushed out of the opt-in form – that they can’t re-opt-in. There’s a lot of things that you can do with Deadline Funnels that make a big difference. You’re just gonna reset the tracking. I’m going to do it the wrong way. So, let’s see. Thanks for bearing with me.
JB: Yeah. No sweat.
CL: So, let’s try this again. It should work. I don’t think it really matters. Infusionsoft now has these captcha’s which is really not fun.
JB: You know, Aweber started doing that as well.
CL: I don’t know why they are doing this. Okay. So, you can see that after optin … Now, originally our offer was $67 so just bear in mind that today I lowered this down to $47 because I’m going to be trying to put this on evergreen and I want to test the $47 tripwire offer because I know other companies like Digital Marketer are using the $47, $37 tripwire successfully and I know that $67 can be a bit of an ask for that initial “after optin” especially when you don’t have “know, like, and trust”. But, when you are driving affiliates, $67 works fine because that “know, like, and trust” from their partners and being on their list, people … $67 was a sweet spot. So, I tested $97 on this page. I tested one something. I tested $47. I tested all different things and then … I got it to the point where I felt that it was most profit maximized at $67. So, that offer just works really well. I believe Neil Patel used $77 on his initial optin and Navid used $67 per my advice and per the data that we got because we just found that it worked. But, if you’re driving cold traffic from ads, I would definitely test multiple price points and see what works.
This is just the sales page, or thank you page after optin. It just reiterates the value and presents the offer. Shows what you get inside. Just has a bunch of call to actions. It has, like, four different call to actions throughout the page. In fact, it was not like this above the page. I definitely borrowed ideas from … Because I figured Neil Patel tests everything, or his team does. So, I saw what he was doing with his summit on the thank you page. Originally it was a lot muddier here. It was a lot harder to digest. So, if you are setting up a summit and you are setting up the thank you page, I highly recommend using the three bullet or four bullet max, short, short, to the point benefit bullets above the fold. If you can, even getting this button above the fold. Because it’s just gonna boost your conversion rates significantly. The CTA was below the fold, a lot lower, at one point and I tested it. I already knew that above the fold CTAs convert better typically, not all the time. Like on a long form sales page they probably wouldn’t, but on this type of low end offer, it works really well having that CTA above the fold.
So, benefit bullets. A simple headline. I would still improve this headline. It’s not the most amazing headline ever, but it gets the point across. And here I reconfirm for people that opted in that they now get the e-book on the way too. So, you are giving away something as a lead magnet.
I would definitely let the people know that it’s on the way or that they’ll get it soon so that they’re not … They don’t wonder what’s going on. Like, “Where’s the lead magnet that I just opted in for?”. And then just have this simple headline. Have three or four short benefit bullets. No more than 9 words, to 10 words per line I would suggest. Including value stacking which is a Russell Brunson technique which makes a big difference too. Stating a perceived value or estimated value for each thing makes this $47 or $67 offer look really valuable.
You can see we did strike outs for the full retail price which also makes a difference. So, you click through this and it sends you to our order form page hosted in Infusionsoft. At one point I did use Deadline Funnel on the order form page but I took it off, for whatever reason, I don’t know why I did that but I was testing different things and for this one I wanted to keep it clean. In fact, for my courses, I use Deadline Funnel directly on my order form page and in fact I’ve noticed that it converts higher as a result. Even if you don’t have a sales page and you use Samcart’s one click, one page funnel, you add the Deadline Funnel to it and it makes a pretty big difference in conversion rate increases.
JB: The other nice thing that I’ll mention is that whatever time, so 4 minutes and 48 seconds, if you did have it on the order page, that would be the same time. So everything would be all nicely synced up.
CL: Yeah. And I did test that and it does sync up perfectly and it does sync up perfectly in the emails as well because we did use it in the initial email after optin, I believe, which I can show you that as well.
JB: So, while you’re bringing this up, let me ask you, what is something that you’ve learned from … What’s something else that you’ve learned? Was a big take away from doing the summit that you didn’t know when you first started out?
CL: I think, how to have a funnel that converts. Frankly, that was a huge takeaway. Figuring out what works. It really opened my eyes to the idea of funnels.
JB: Mm-hmm
CL: Because, at that point, I hadn’t read any of Russell Brunson’s books. I hadn’t read anyone’s funnel secrets or funnel hacking books. I didn’t know much about funnels at that point. All I was doing was looking at people like Brian Harris who were running these multi-six figure launches in awe, just saying, “Wow, how do I do that?”. And, I tried to replicate that with guest blogging program at some point that didn’t … It didn’t have a lot of traction because I didn’t really have a name in that space and I didn’t … I wasn’t really a good authority to be teaching that subject, as opposed to teaching how to start an agency, which I can definitely teach well and get people results for.
But I think … That’s another thing, if I were to redo and when I launch a new summit on paid traffic later this year, I will focus intensely on getting people results. I think when I first started out online, I was just like, “Okay, this is sweet; let me make money”. Right? Because that’s where so many people, when they’re in that mode of maybe desperation or they are just starting out, they’re thinking, “Okay”. Well, at least if you are a hard core entrepreneur marketer and you’re just thinking, “How do I make money”. Right. And then my whole thinking just evolved from there. How do I get people results? That’s a big thing that I learned … And it even took some time after the summit to finally come to that realization that, oh wait, all the successful programs out there, and even just feeling better about yourself as an entrepreneur and as a person, is about getting people results. So, if you can structure your summit that gets people results and doesn’t just slap them in the face with a bunch of videos, then you’re going to be well ahead of everyone else. So that’s something I’ve really learned. Not to just slap content in peoples faces, but to interview people strategically and put things in a strategic order that will get your people that sign up results. And give them maybe cheat sheets in addition to the transcripts and whatever else that will help them and guide them on getting results. So it’s more like a course as opposed to just a podcast with a video component.
JB: Right. Because, the number of … Just the sheer volume of video content that you created. It’s pretty unrealistic that somebody would be able to go through that in a short span of time. So, helping someone discern between, “Okay, of all the videos, which ones are most appropriate to me?”. And even inside of that, having the cheat sheets and checklists and action steps so that they can … Even if they don’t have time to watch the whole video, at least they can take action on it.
CL: Yeah. I’m wondering if I actually removed the Deadline Funnel from my email.
JB: That’s fine.
CL: I think I’m still using the links. But, I originally did have the countdown timer and I’m not sure … There it is. Okay. So, I do have it. I don’t have it linked, I just have the picture, but …
JB: Gotcha. So, when you’re … How long was your follow up sequence? Let’s talk present tense. For your evergreen version of this, how long is your follow up sequence via email?
CL: So, and actually I did notice I am still using Deadline Funnel links in there. So, the sequence starts … It has this three day … Um, or emails every two days because that actually aligns with the other sequence which is the main event sequence. It’s 17 days long or something.
JB: Wow.
CL: Yeah, because I added … I added even an extra video segment with “Vlog like a boss”, Amy Schmittaur and Vincent Landino, that was an extra last 13 day … The 13 launch day here so … It’s a pretty long sequence, but it works and people are still getting the sequence today. So, people are going through this right now.
Things that I would change, if you are using Infusionsoft for drip is to use the contacts time zone because, I’m sure that the emails will convert higher. And to really get into the psychology of copywriting when you’re writing some of those emails where you’re trying to sell people. But modeling other stuff that works. Like I modeled stuff off Chandler’s summit and other successful summits because I figured … I looked at the space and I said, “What do the best people do?” because I have to do that. Because that’s how it’s going to work, because these people have already done it and now they’re doing it again and clearly they’re doing something right so … I just looked at … Okay, Chandler had a lot of affiliates. His emails had a certain structure to them. And so, let me model that and do that for myself. I even had a cart abandoned recovery sequence so if they hit the checkout page, they would get hit with these really … And because I had no idea what I was doing with Infusionsoft at the time for the most part, people were getting these endlessly throughout the summit even though they were on other lists. I would definitely use a tool like myfusion helper or something to ensure that people aren’t getting thrown into multiple sequences at the same time and that it’s more coordinated.
JB: But that underscores something that I talk about a lot which is … I mean, I didn’t come up with this but I’m a big believer in the idea of get it done rather than get it perfect. I mean, you made mistakes but still it was a successful summit.
CL: Yeah, I’m all for just getting it done. I work with a lot of … Not only with 7- 8- 9- figure business owners for them to scale to the next level, I also work with solopreneurs and what I noticed with solopreneurs, because I’ve noticed it with myself, is that it’s too easy to talk about ideas and it’s too easy to not make a call to make a sale. To not to reach out to someone to sell. But, I was just on the phone with a multi-7-figure entrepreneur, like minutes before this conversation, and they were selling me on a program, on a mastermind, and that’s what I realized … I mean, I already knew this, but they have no hesitation just going out there and just executing and selling stuff. That’s really key. If you are a solopreneur, seriously and you don’t have a team, you just need to get it out there.
There are so many people in the VSM group who get hung up on certain details that … And they’re kind of in awe of what I did with my summit and they always reference it as an example again and again. But really, they think I put a lot more thought into certain things than I did. I just executed like a madman as quickly as possible. Because I knew I didn’t have that much time and the results were there. I even set benchmarks for how much revenue, how many optins I wanted to get, and I revised them over time. I set them … Even based them down to the weeks and the days based on how many affiliates we would need to get each day leading up to the event and get them to agree to promote just so we could get a certain number of optins at the end and how many sales as a result of those optins estimated.
We were really focused on … And my strategy is to really focus on the key things that will move the needle and nothing else.
JB: How much traffic did you … I’m not asking for a specific number, but … I’m trying to get down to the question of, “Did your speakers promote as well?”.
CL: Yes they did. Pretty much, yeah. Pretty much the majority of them promoted and a lot of them we didn’t even need to ask. People like Johnathan Dane who was a speaker promoted to Client Boost list multiple times. You know, we had a lot of … We didn’t get … I didn’t ask Jeff Bloss to promote because I felt like that was going to be a big ask. It was the first time that I met him and, you know, he has a massive list and I don’t like using people for their list. I don’t like using people in general. People can be very transactional and it’s a huge turnoff. So, that’s another thing I can advise people who are trying to launch a summit is to not be transactional. If you are transactional then don’t launch a summit because it’s not a way to build relationships or friendships with people and no one wants to walk away feeling like they got used in return for promoting your stuff. Realize, an affiliate promoting your offer, unless you’re Russell Brunson and you’re giving away books for free and have an upsell into a lifetime value of $497 or higher and you have your funnel down pat, the offer is going to be $67 so for them to want to promote you, you have to really go above and beyond to be a friend and not just use them for their list. That’s another key takeaway I would recommend.
JB: Gotcha. Well, this has been incredibly insightful. I could talk to you for hours about this …
CL: Yeah.
JB: But I really appreciate you sharing your results and your … Being so transparent with how you run your summit and how you use Deadline Funnel. This is fantastic. It’s a huge eye opener.
Is there … Besides the … you’ve dropped a whole bunch of, sometimes I call them knowledge bombs, on us, is there any last parting bit of advice that you would give someone? Something that has been a big a-ha for you in the past 6 months to 12 months? Maybe it has nothing to do with marketing. Maybe it’s more business-related.
CL: Yeah. Actually, I do have something and in the last, let’s say, I really came to the realization that when you start … You hear people like John Lee Dumas and other podcasters, Pat Flynn, always talk about delivering value before making the ask for anything. And, I think, when … There are a lot of entrepreneurs out there who, you know, they’ve heard that but they don’t really hear it. Like it goes in one ear and it goes the other. And I get it. It’s too easy when you’re starting out as an entrepreneur, especially when you’re in the extreme hustle mode which can last for at least two or three years when you’re starting out and just trying to figure things out and figure out how to run a business. It’s a lot to figure out. The idea of delivering value, or giving people value first before making the ask. So, in the last 5 or 4 months, I’ve built up a Facebook group that’s fast growing and I’ve been delivering knowledge bombs in there every day. Doing tutorial walkthroughs and all different things.
I’ve gone to events and met other people. I did that in another industry and I just got tired of it. Now I’m starting to do that again in the marketing industry. Not even intentionally, just people inviting me to stuff. So, like Chris Winfield had an event that he invited me to and I met a bunch of cool people there. And I went to Todd Brown‘s event. What is really key, and the key take away is delivering value first.
Like, I went up to Jack and I said, “Hey, like I love your … “. I mean, like, it was a genuine compliment. Other people were in the room with Jack too. I felt like I walked away getting … Building a new friendship with Jack that I didn’t have before and it’s someone I would love to meet. I’m sure a lot of other people in the room would love to meet Jack as well and pick his brain, whatever, but I would recommend not doing that. Not picking people’s brains but finding a way that you can deliver value to people first. Whether it’s an influencer, a business owner that you could potentially partner with down the road. Something Selena Soo told me a couple months ago is that she … because I referred her to a potential partner that would be big for her. She said, “You know” … And I was giving her advice on how to approach him, not that she needed my advice but just because I wanted to make sure that she didn’t make the ask too quickly because the people on the receiving end were a little sensitive. She completely gets it and she said she doesn’t make an ask … In many cases she’ll wait for the perfect opportunity and she’ll even sit there and wait for years before ever making an ask and only when the time is right. So, it’s really about building relationships and friendships first. As a result, a lot of people are going to start contacting you and asking you for advice and wanting to do business with you just as a result of other people seeing that and talking about you as a result of delivering value that’s real to other people.
JB: That’s really great advice and sometimes the most important things we hear are things that we’ve heard before.
CL: And you don’t listen to them, right?
JB: Yeah.
CL: Like a lot of times we don’t listen. It goes in one ear and out the other.
JB: Right. But then it finally sinks in and actually …
CL: Yeah.
JB: Thank you very much for sharing that and Cody I really appreciate your time. I want to make sure that for those … I know that there are going to be people watching this who are interested in contacting you about your PPC agency so how can they contact you? How can they reach out to you?
CL: Yeah. So, you can reach out to me at cody@marketdoc.com. You can google me. You can reach me on Facebook via messenger. I’ve been getting intense on messenger lately. I’m sure you’ve noticed that as well that messenger’s been picking up a lot. You can reach out to me through that or you can go to my website marketdoc.com.
JB: Awesome. Well, thank you very much Cody, this has been fantastic …
CL: Yes, this was great.
JB: And I really appreciate you pulling back the kimono and showing us exactly how you set up your successful summit. Thank you.
CL: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Resources Mentioned:
Virtual Summit Mastery:
http://virtualsummitmastery.com/
Chandler Bolt:
https://blog.deadlinefunnel.com/interview-chandler-bolt/
