Internet Marketing

Private Behind the Scenes Interview with Eben Pagan Reveals…

How to Create a Future-Proof Business in the New Economy

I loved doing this interview with Eben. It’s awesome and speaking to someone of his caliber is refreshing because he “gets it”big time.

Which is probably why he has been able to sell well over $100,000,000 in products and coaching online in a wide variety of markets.

So if you’re serious about building a long-term coaching business online (yes, it may not be all roses all the time – but it’s something that we both believe is future-proof) then you owe it to yourself to learn more about his Virtual coach program.

Start by checking out this video of the ‘coaches secret’.
Virtual Coach Part 1 The Coach's Secret

===> Watch the Coach’s Secret Here <===

Interview Transcript

Ryan Coisson: Hey everybody, this is Ryan Coisson, thanks so much for checking out this interview. I am just so excited to have an opportunity to talk to someone that I’ve been following behind the scenes for well over a decade now, his name is Eben Pagan, and one of the things that has always fascinated me about Eben is he is someone who has really done an amazing job at positioning and standing apart from the rest of the crowd. He’s built many, many different businesses, but these days he’s a father, he’s an investor, he’s an art collector, he loves to travel, like myself, and I’m just so excited to have the opportunity to share some of the insights that I’ve learned with him over the years, and kind of grill him a bit about some of these really important topics with the new economy. We’re going to be specifically talking about creating a future-proof business in the new economy, so Eben, thanks so much for hanging out with me here for a few moments and sharing your wisdom.

Eben Pagan: Yeah, it’s great to be here Ryan, thanks for having me.

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, of course. Well, I just want to give folks real quick a little context, because I started following you years and years ago, and it was when you started to talk and make this transition into kind of educating folks about what you were doing with your primary business, and back then it was a business in the dating world, but what really stood out to me, Eben, was kind of your understanding and the concepts that you had that were vastly different from other folks, and one of those came down to positioning, but more importantly the concept that really stood in my mind when I started to think back was this idea of moving the free line. I’m curious, just kind of starting out, as you made your way into this world and building a business online, where did you start to understand the difference of really making yourself set apart from other folks?

Eben Pagan: Well, when I started studying marketing, I learned some important lessons. Marketing taught me that it doesn’t matter how much you want to be successful, or doesn’t matter how much you love your customers, it doesn’t matter how much you love your product, what matters is communicating with people in a way that causes them to take action. If they’re not motivated to come and buy your product, they can love you and you can love them, and you can be putting all of your time, effort and energy in, you can mortgage your house and take all the money and invest it in your next design, you can do all these things, and you can still wind up with a business that doesn’t work out.

Eben Pagan: And by learning direct marketing, I learned this more pragmatic or empirical way of looking at things, which shows you that you have to get results. That’s what you have to do, you have to get out there and you have to get results, and I don’t… I guess sometimes I do think about differentiating myself, I do think about that sometimes, but I think more in terms of just really almost relentlessly trying to figure out what the customers want.

Eben Pagan: You know, what people really want, what they want to know, what they want to learn, what they want to buy, what their needs are, what they fear, what they desire, and I’ve found that by really diving deep into those things, by asking lots of questions, by being curious and by actually being legitimately interested, really being fascinated by the needs of my customer, I can always find something that is like a big insight or breakthrough, and then when I create marketing, or products or services, or coaching, or whatever I’m creating for them, it kind of stands out by itself because I was the one that took the time to be interested enough to understand what their motives really were, and then to create product or service that really was a good fit for it. Yeah, and then that kind of differentiates you all by itself I think.

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, that makes total sense, and I agree, it really helps you to set yourself apart by actually understanding the true needs of the customers, not maybe what you think they want, or sometimes even what they initially might want on the surface, but you’re speaking to more of a… Almost like a deeper meaning that they’re after. And I’m curious, one of the things that I think really helps with that is the research process, the digging in, the understanding of that, and I’ve always found that there’s sort of this great debate, do you follow the money or do you follow your passion, and providing value within those different kind of aspects of it.

Ryan Coisson: It’s always been easier for me to follow the passion, because I then understand the actual need of the person much, much greater because it’s something that generally I have had, and I know that you have kind of gone down that route first as well when you first got started, but do you feel that’s necessary in kind of this day and age, or do you feel it’s better for folks to follow the money?

Eben Pagan: Well, it depends on where you are in your life, but generally I like to look at… I like to look at career and work and entrepreneurship, I like to think more long-term if possible, and what I mean by that is you want to do things that you’re not going to abandon and then have invested a year or two or five years, and then you abandon all that work and you have to start over. I like to do things where you can build. I sometimes joke that… Jay Abraham says, “Big mistake is to find something that works and stop doing it.” I’m actually pretty good at that, that’s like a hallmark for me, is I start a business, I get it growing and I… It gets working, and then I [inaudible 00:05:51], “Okay, I learned how to do that,” and then I go learn something else.

Eben Pagan: But there’s another side to it, another side to it too, where I do synthesize and I combine, and kind of take these different things I’ve learned and have them collaborate in my mind and kind of synergize, and so the… I think the answer to your question is I think that you have to follow the things that you’re passionate about that also are things that your customers are passionate about. This will create a structure that will motivate you long-term, because if you do things that you’re interested in, that you actually find interesting in your life, then you will keep at them.

Eben Pagan: I’ve got a little daughter right now and she’s six, and she’s learning how to read. I mean, she’s been learning how to read for a while, but she’s really into reading and she picks up books, and we’re trying to help her become not in a relationship with books where she’s doing them for some reward, where there’s an intrinsic motivator, and we sit together and we all have family read time where we sit in our bed and the three of us get a book and we read, because we want our daughter to see us reading and we want to see her reading, and making this kind of something that lasts for the long term.

Eben Pagan: And so if you want to be sustainable and you want to do something that really is going to… You’re going to wake up in 10 or 20 years and be really glad you did it, I think you have to have some passion involved in it. I meet entrepreneurs… I know I’m kind of going on here, but I meet entrepreneurs a lot who are just opportunists, okay? And as you know, I like the concept of opportunity, I wrote a book about it, but I meet entrepreneurs… I met some today in fact, who you can see they’re just focused on the opportunity, they can see there’s a place where they can make money, maybe they can build a business, make some profit, flip it. That isn’t that interesting to me. It doesn’t have that… What Steve Jobs called like… You’re not going to be making products that have that spirit of enlightenment, where they feel like… Where you feel grateful to the person that made it, and where they really make the world a better place, if that’s where you’re coming from.

Ryan Coisson: Right, and I think that kind of idea is also fleeting in that you start to lose this equity that you’re building with the customers when they can clearly tell that maybe you don’t have the passion for it, or the product is not world class as it should be, you’re starting to erode your ability to have that trust with them that you’re providing great quality products. And I feel like you’re someone who over more than a decade now, you have been able to continually build that sort of customer equity, that trust, that value, based on what you actually put out there and the results that it gets folks, so again going back to sort of that longevity, you can seek the shorter-term opportunity, but if you play that long game, in my opinion, and I’m assuming you’re on the same page, it makes everything else so much easier for you to the extent that if you start to offer new programs, coaching, et cetera, it really becomes a no-brainer, because you earn the trust of having that sort of super fan.

Eben Pagan: Yeah.

Ryan Coisson: [crosstalk 00:08:59] would you agree with that?

Eben Pagan: Yeah, yeah, I do. And what most entrepreneurs don’t do is they don’t… They don’t fall in love with their customers, they don’t fall in love with what they’re doing, they don’t do it in a way where you, when you look at their products, when you look at their services, when you have an experience with them, where you say, “God, I just… I love being around this person because they’re so enthusiastic, they really love what they’re doing.”

Ryan Coisson: Right, right. And it’s interesting, kind of falling in love with your customers, in the online world they can just seem like someone that isn’t real, right? But I love to do some coaching, and I love to actually do some calls that are sort of random sometimes with my customers, and we’re going to talk more about coaching here in a moment, but one of the reasons I love it is I love doing a little video chat with them, I was literally doing one right before this, and that person becomes so real to me.

Ryan Coisson: Now I see their face, I see where they’re living, I get to talk with them, understand the problems they’re having, understand the successes they’re having, and it becomes so abundantly clear to me that I’m working with real people who are dealing with these types of issues, or seeking this type of result, and it just ignites me to provide even more value, to make a better impact, and something that’s more usable, which of course is what we’re all I think after, at the end of the day.

Eben Pagan: Yeah, yeah, agreed.

Ryan Coisson: So I want to talk to you, before we kind of dive deeper into coaching, is… You know, have this kind of concept of creating the perfect business and doing something that has longevity, and you mentioned your book Opportunity, I’ve got my copy here. As you guys can see, I’ve got it all marked up with Post-it Notes, that’s how I like to take notes on things so I can easily reference back to it. But one of the things that I’ve always felt was a missing opportunity for a lot of folks comes with naming. You’ve done an amazing job at studying the ability to name products that not only sort of encapsulate the idea, but also the vision of what you’re hoping to accomplish for that individual, and I remember the first time I heard about your product which was in the dating space, Double Your Dating.

Ryan Coisson: I thought it was just kind of fascinating, you went on to create other products of Altitude, and many other products in the productivity space like Wake Up Productive, and can we talk a little bit about kind of your history in studying how to actually create a good, strong name for your product that helps do a lot of that heavy lifting for you?

Eben Pagan: Sure. Yeah, the name is probably the most important marketing that you’ll do for your business or for your product, and this is because the way human minds work is we associate things to each other, and we use representations to kind of represent things to… To kind of have placeholders in our mind to connect up meaning, and because there’s so much information going through our minds all the time, and so much coming through our experiences, we have to figure out a way to stand out. We can’t just drop into that flow of the matrix of numbers that people are living in, just be another number, we have to stick in some way.

Eben Pagan: And so I’m really interested in the use of icons and visuals, and words, and sounds, and all of these things. I’m a musician, and I never went anywhere as a guitar player, but I’m really interested in… So over in music, they have what are called hooks, right? So a little catchy melody that once you hear it, you kind of can’t get it out of your head. You ever listen to a song and you can’t stop thinking about it, right?

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:12:54]-

Eben Pagan: You can’t stop singing it to yourself, right? Well, over on the words side of things, you can put together combinations of words that have the same effect where they bounce around in the mind of a person, and they’re very memorable, they’re very hard to forget. You can also use icons and symbols, and other combinations of these things, so that the pictures stick in the mind as well, like you just… You had that book Opportunity right there, can you just hold that up again for a sec? Right, so notice what it is, right? It’s a hand grabbing a lightning bolt, and I did that cover with the amazing artist Android Jones, and I was telling him about the book, and he started drawing and this image came to him, right?

Eben Pagan: This was his idea, because I was talking about how opportunity is exciting, but it’s also a little bit dangerous, he said, “Hand grabbing lightning bolt.” And it was like, “Yes, that really captures the spirit of it,” right? And the word “Opportunity” is just a word that everybody loves when it comes when it comes to opportunity, when it comes to finding it, you know? So naming is a big deal, okay? So the frame is what you name things is a big deal, there’s a way to name things in such a way that the name sticks in the mind of your customer, that they remember it, and even that you become the label on the category inside of their mind.

Eben Pagan: A lot of this I learned from Al Ries and Jack Trout, who originally wrote the book Positioning, and from them and some of these other great teachers I’ve learned that for example, if you have a repetitive sound, it’s much more memorable. Something happens where when a person hears a sound that sounds consistent or repeated, it bounces around in the phonological loop, and so this is typically alliterations or rhymes. So if you have the first letter be the same of multiple words, like Double Your Dating, “DD,” or a rhyme like YouTube, or you can have alliteration and rhyme in Coca-Cola, which is one of the most powerful names ever, one of the greatest names ever, because it also has this rhythm, “Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh, Coca-Cola,” right?

Eben Pagan: For example, when I made Double Your Dating, I knew this, and when I first wrote the book it was called something like, How to be More Successful with Women in Dating or something like that, and then I said, “Okay, I need a better name here,” and I started thinking about these combinations and I came up with Double Your Dating because it was something that a guy could relate to. Anybody would like to… Who’s socially awkward and so forth, they liked Double Your Dating. People used to say, “Yes, but what if they have zero dates?” And that’s a different problem, right?

Eben Pagan: But Double Your Dating, and then I also picked a pen name that I used back then when I wrote these books, because my name, Eben Pagan, I thought it was a strange name and nobody would be able to relate to it, and so I was writing this book, I was 31, and I thought, “Okay, I need a better name, I just need a normal name,” and so I came up with the name David DeAngelo, which was kind of regular guy, but also had this… There was something a little unusual about it.

Ryan Coisson: [crosstalk 00:16:02]-

Eben Pagan: But it’s all “D”s, Double Your Dating, David DeAngelo. And it’s so interesting, I never thought like, “People are going to think that that’s this cool thing later on,” but it keeps coming up over and over and over when people realize that there was a strategy there, that “Wow, there was something going on there,” then it means something different.

Ryan Coisson: Well yeah, I think that’s part of my whole point in that you are someone that takes the time to actually step back and think about that strategy. We see too many folks these days, it’s so easy now to start an online business, it’s so easy to go out there and start to create something, that people are too focused on, I think, doing things quickly instead of just taking a few moments to step back and come up with the right strategy, and the name in and of itself is so important, and just… I don’t know how long it took you to craft that name together, but taking the time to sit down and actually think about these types of things I think is very, very important when longevity is in mind. We’re not just after creating something that we can take advantage of quickly, where “Oh, bitcoin is at new highs, let’s create a product around it and try and leverage something,” you know? We’re after the long term.

Eben Pagan: Yeah, the name that I’m most proud of coming up with is my daughter’s name. My daughter’s name is Love, L-O-V-E, and I reasoned that your name is the most important word you’re going to have in your life, because it’s the word you’re going to hear the most, it’s the word that’s going to be… You’re going to associate with your identity, and I thought about it and I was like, “Huh,” and I realized most people don’t really think about the name of their child so much.

Eben Pagan: I remember when I told my wife, who’s a love coach in fact, that I think we should name our daughter Love, she was like, “That’s lame, that’s cheesy, no way, we can’t do that.” But we kept talking about it, I was like, “But honey, you know if there was one thing you had to remember in your life to get you through the most situations successfully, and you can only have one word as your talisman to move through this adventure of being a mortal human, what would it be?” And it’s love, I think. You know, if you just remembered “Love,” and so I thought that was a pretty good affirmation to be going through life with having everyone say, and… Yeah, so yeah, yeah. Yeah, think about names, they really matter.

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, they do matter, and to go back to that concept and idea of you learning sort of direct marketing, I think one of the things that is so interesting about direct marketing to me is it’s really designed to help trigger sort of emotional responses and help people make decisions, and really kind of get into their psyche, and there’s a lot of people that talk about kind of trigger words or power words. When it comes to naming, you’re not so much utilizing, I guess, words that trigger maybe direct emotional response, or maybe a power word, but more something that is creating an image in their mind, can you maybe talk a little bit about that? Specifically one that I think is interesting is as you started to make your transition into sort of the business education space was “Altitude.” It’s like when I think of “Altitude,” it puts a picture in my mind, and it’s just one word. I thought that was always so interesting.

Eben Pagan: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was a pretty good one. I’ve even been thinking of going back and maybe using that some more as part of the name of our… A business or something. Marketing is such a fascinating puzzle, you know? One of the things that I like to say is that every marketing project is an ethical dilemma, and the reason why it’s an ethical dilemma is because you have to decide how hard to pitch, like how hard to sell, and you have to… If you’re empathizing with your customers and you’re really trying to tune into where they are, you realize that if you sell too hard, you’re going to potentially hurt people, you’re going to mislead them, and marketing is well-known, advertising and marketing, for misleading a lot of people, and it… You know, it can go into propaganda and deception and all this kind of thing, and so… Let’s see, I lost my train of thought, what was the question again?

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, so we’re just kind of talking about trigger words and [crosstalk 00:20:34]-

Eben Pagan: Oh yeah, yeah.

Ryan Coisson: [crosstalk 00:20:34] response for [crosstalk 00:20:35] that picture in someone’s mind.

Eben Pagan: When I teach marketing, one of the things that I have people do is make a list of all the fears and frustrations of their customers, and then all the wants and aspirations. So you want to know what they’re moving toward and what they’re moving away from, what they desire and what they fear. And so you write all these things down, and you really try to imagine what it’s like to be a customer to get to this list, and then you go back through the list and you ask, what are the words and phrases that they use to describe these things, and then what are the words and phrases that are the most emotionally-loaded words?

Eben Pagan: And so sometimes when I teach it I say, “There’s such a thing as a $100 word and there’s such a thing as a $1 word.” If I’ve got a $1 bill and a $100 bill here and I hold them up and I say, “What’s the difference?” You’re going to say, “Well, you know, not too much, except that one says ‘one’ and one says ‘100.’” They cost the same amount, they’re made with the same materials, they’re… So why is one of them worth $100 and one of them worth $1, right? And it has to do with meaning, and it has to do with what we ascribe to it. Well, it’s the same thing with words. If I say to you, “Which one of these words has a more powerful emotional element to it, fish or shark?”

Ryan Coisson: Right, shark.

Eben Pagan: Right? Clearly, or car or Ferrari?

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, yeah, Ferrari.

Eben Pagan: Right, they’re these words, and so if I’m going to write a headline and I want to grab someone’s attention, if I write “Fish” as a big word on the page, it’s like nobody’s going to care, but if I write “Shark” and I’ve got the jaws of a shark coming out, I’m going to get a lot more attention. But then back to the ethical dilemma, which is do you really want to write “Shark” and put jaws coming out, and kind of re-traumatize every single person that sees your ad just so that you can get some sales?

Eben Pagan: And so part of the artistry of advertising is playing that game in a way that you can feel good about long-term, and of course there are people in the world who have no sense of empathy or conscience, and so that small fragment of the world is walking around and they don’t care whether they traumatize or scare people or whatever with their marketing, because they… It doesn’t register for them, and so you have to deal with that as well, because if you are being ethical, you’re always going to have to compete against people who are not, but there are long-term advantages to being ethical.

Ryan Coisson: And I think part of that, being ethical over the long term, you’re also building that trust like we talked about, some social capital and equity with the customers, and you just become synonymous with certain things, and I think of big luxury brands like Louis Vuitton or Hermes. Part of the reason that someone could say, “Oh, I have this Hermes bag” or “This Louis Vuitton thing” is that brand stands for something, and it stands for luxury in that space, and it’s above… You know, like say Hermes is above maybe Louis Vuitton as a status symbol, but they’ve been doing it for so long that they’ve built that kind of trust and that kind of equity within the space to command that, it’s not something that I guess happened overnight.

Eben Pagan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Ryan Coisson: One of the things I want to talk to, I want to kind of start digging deeper into the idea of coaching, and it’s been really interesting to me in that looking at where we’re at in the current economy, in the current situation that’s going on, we’re moving into 2020 here soon and there’s lots of things happening on a global scale. I mentioned right before we jumped on here that Hong Kong is talking about moving potentially into a recession due to what’s been going on with all of the riots there. The kind of new economy is forming, but certain types of businesses are really thriving, and as you kind of mentioned and you talk about, one of those businesses is coaching.

Ryan Coisson: And the coaching, consulting worlds have always been very, very popular, they’re growing quite strongly, and I believe personally that it is a future-proof business, and for a lot of folks it can be a really great opportunity. Now, I’m curious though from your perspective, from the guy that wrote the book Opportunity, why do you think kind of coaching is such an amazing opportunity right now?

Eben Pagan: Yeah. Well, there are kind of two perspectives on this. One is what’s happening in the world. Right now, we are going through an acceleration of change, that’s what’s happening right now. Things are changing faster and faster, and as technology and software and knowledge just distribute themselves and permeate everywhere, people are learning, they’re growing, we’ve got automation that’s happening, there’s just more change happening, and our lives are more complex. Because we’re now aware of self-help and personal development, and we know that we can work on our health and we can work on our relationships, and we can become more conscious, and we can mediate, and we can work on our money, and we can do better in all these places, everyone now is… Has become kind of more interested in how to be the best version of themselves that they can be.

Eben Pagan: Maslow came up with this idea of self-actualization and people are saying, “Yeah, I want to do that, I want to be self-actualized, I want to be a higher version of myself,” and so now we’re working on all these areas, but now that we’re aware of all these areas and they can be worked on… I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that you did… There was no awareness that you could eat healthier food, or that you could learn a way to interact with your partner that would make your relationship better, like most people, that wasn’t on their mind. Now that we know this, now there’s an endless amount of this stuff, and so we’re always in transitions in our lives now. There’s always a transition that’s going on somewhere. Either we’re getting into a relationship or out of a relationship, or we’re starting a family, or we’re getting a new job, or we’re moving, or… Now that we have these more rich lives, there’s always some change happening in one of them, so that’s one factor.

Eben Pagan: The other side of the coin is that we have less social support. Paradoxically, even though we’re more connected on the internet, it’s these virtual connections, so we have less friends, we have less time with our friends, less face-to-face, which actually is very deeply emotionally nourishing to us. And so we’ve got more change happening and we’ve got less support, and these two things intersect at coaching as far I’m concerned, right? That need right there, where we… We’re going through a change in our life, we look around and we say, “Wow, I don’t know what to do, I need some help here,” but we don’t have a friend who is available, who understands that, who knows how to support us, who’s sophisticated with these social tools, and so onto the scene comes the coach, and it’s rising and growing very rapidly.

Eben Pagan: I just did some research, just kind of like my superficial research, 100,000… Over 100,000 coaches right now, $17 billion a year, right? This is like, a real… This is a real thing, and I’m not talking about consulting here or any of the other things, we’re just talking about coaching, and… So we’re finding ourselves in these situations where we need help, we need support, and the professional coach is there to do it. They’re kind of the… Sometimes I call coaches “A professional friend,” because they’re a professional with the social aspect of friendship, but they also know how to help you get focused, help keep you on track, hold you accountable, help you get results.

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, I think that’s an interesting way of looking at it, because I think a coach… When I do coaching with folks, I think part of my job is to be gentle with them, but also bring lots of things to light and truly hold them accountable, because I find that in this day and age, especially with social media and kind of shiny objects and all these different types of things, people really struggle with holding themselves accountable to anything. Whether it’s just waking up at a certain time, or eating a certain type of diet, or going to the gym, it seems like more than ever we are… People are struggling with that accountability factor, and I think that’s something that stems too from kind of the emotional things, and I believe issues that are sort of happening with kind of how our technology has paradoxically, as you said, kind of made us less and less connected individually, versus kind of how we are kind of more from a global scale.

Eben Pagan: Yeah. There’s something called the Hawthorne effect. It’s a psychological kind of principle, and what’s interesting about this is we basically, we become better, more productive versions of ourselves when someone’s watching, by just being observed, it’s like an observer effect, sometimes they call it the observer effect, right? And so one of the things that makes coaching work so well, and this is outside of the coaching skills and actually giving care and attention, is just attending to the other person, just them knowing that someone is watching.

Eben Pagan: I mentioned my little baby daughter, she often will just be like, “Dada, watch.” And I have to stop what I’m doing and watch, because she’s going to do a somersault, or she’s going to do a piece… She’s going to write something down or something, and it… There’s something sacred about being observed, about having the attention of another living being on you, and yeah, coaching kind of harnesses some of that value.

Ryan Coisson: That made me laugh, because I can remember being a kid and being like, “Hey dad, watch my dive, watch my dive,” you know, as I go off the diving board, it’s like it’s almost part of this validation too, the like “Oh, and you did a great job” kind of thing, it’s very interesting concept. I think coaching, a lot of folks might have a specific idea of what coaching is, and maybe they’ve heard other folks talk about it. I think you kind of encapsulate coaching into a greater depth than what most individuals might consider, so can you kind of even define a little bit, when you talk about how you look at coaching and how coaches are sort of out there helping other people?

Eben Pagan: Sure. If we talk about professional coaches here, people that are life coaches, business coaches, let’s get into that category, coaches basically, they help you get results, they help you take action in life, they help you become a better version of yourself. I like a little bit more, I don’t know, awakened version of coaching, or a little more enlightened version of what it is, and so the way I define coaching is coaching is supporting another person through a transition in their life. Supporting them through a transition. Someone can just call somebody up and get a coaching session. You know, “Hey, will you jam with me or help me?” You know, “Give me some information.” But the kind of coaching that we teach, I recommend that people do at least three to six month packages with people so that they’re with the person through that whole transition.

Eben Pagan: Now, when the client shows up, they may not be interested in hiring coach for six months or 12 months, they think, “I just want a couple of coaching sessions to help me get myself on track,” and so part of the coach’s job is to turn that initial consultation into a package of coaching where they can support the person through a transition, and then if you can do that, then the person sees that value, then they can… Then they’ll want to go on and work with you potentially even for years, so that’s more the frame right there.

Eben Pagan: Now, another piece is when you’re coaching and when you’re doing it in the way that I think is the right way to do it, you’re offering support, but you’re only offering the minimum amount of support that you need to so that the client can do it themselves. Okay, so a distinction that I draw between coaching and consulting is a consultant comes in and usually does it for you, the coach comes in and supports you while you’re doing it so that you can learn the skill, right? You can get the growth, and you can walk away with the self esteem from it, and so with a coach…

Eben Pagan: With consults, typically what a consultant’s doing is trying to get a consulting gig and then expand that for the long term, whereas a coach wants to get a coaching relationship through a transition, maybe three months, six months, maybe 12 months, sometimes a little bit longer, but the coach is proud when the client stands up on their own and says, “I can do it.” That’s how we kind of define ourselves, that’s what our success looks like. If there’s a moment, I can tell a story about how I really figured out what coaching is.

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, please do.

Eben Pagan: And I’m talking about my daughter a lot here, we’ve been hanging out a lot, and I really love her. When she was two, our family, we went to London, and for the last few years here we’ve been traveling like seven or eight months a year, which has been kind of intense, but it’s been cool. Anyway, my wife has lived in different parts of the world and she said, “We have to travel more, you got to get out of the house,” so we went to London, she used to live there, and we stayed in an Airbnb apartment, and when we walked in, it had this huge flight of stairs, all wooden, and they were the shiny, slippery ones.

Eben Pagan: And you get up to the next level, and there was another flight of stairs with a twist on it, shiny, slippery ones, and my daughter, who was two at the time, had just turned two, was like… Loved these stairs, she just wanted to be on them, and I… We were blocking them and putting suitcases and trying to figure out what to do. And so back then I would wake up with her every morning and take care of her, and so we wake up that first morning and she’s just like, “Dada, I want to climb those stairs.” And I was horrified, I’m like, “No, you’re going to fall down and break your neck.” And then I saw how serious she was about it and I realized, “Okay, she hasn’t really learned to climb stairs,” so I said, “Okay, let’s go learn to climb stairs.”

Eben Pagan: And when we were going up and down the stairs before, what we would do is grab her arm and hold it up above her head, and we would kind of walk her down the stairs and walk her up them to hold on to make sure she didn’t fall, and that was my instinct at first, but then I realized, “No, she’s not going to learn to climb the stairs if I’m holding her arm above her head and walking her up and down the steps.” I was like, “Okay, she’s growing as a human here, she needs to learn to balance,” and so I said, “Okay, we’re going to do this.”

Eben Pagan: So I thought about it, and then what I did is I ducked down, and she was, I don’t know, two and a half feet tall or something, and I ducked down and I put my hand maybe a foot above the ground, and instinctively she put her hand on mine and rested it. I was over here on her left and she was on my right, so I put my right hand down and she put her left hand, her little hand right on my hand, and I didn’t close my hand around it, I left it open, and she didn’t grab my hand, she just put her hand on and she rested it there.

Eben Pagan: And I had to duck down, it was this really awkward position, I had to hold onto the banister, and there was… You go up like three or four steps, then you had to make a turn, and it was… It was dangerous. If she were to slip or fall, I don’t know if I’d be able to stop and grab her, so it was a lot harder to do it this way, but she started climbing, and she’d climb up. And then if she needed support, she would push on my hand herself, and she would only push as much as she needed, because she was actually trying to learn, she wanted to learn on her own, and we made it all the way up to the top and then she’s like, “I want to go back down,” and she just wanted to kept… You know, keep climbing up and down those stairs.

Eben Pagan: And in that moment, it just… It all came to me, like what coaching is. Coaching is offering the minimal amount of support so that the other person can do it themselves, so that they learn the skill, they get the esteem, and that’s why even in my Virtual Coach program, underneath the logo is a hand holding it, because that’s the symbol, that’s when I really got it.

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, I love that. I mean, it reminds me too of even when I was a kid learning to ride a bike, kind of having some assistance, some assistance, and then just kind of this minimal assistance to where all of a sudden you’re doing it on your own, and anybody who’s ever learned to ride a bike, you can remember that moment when all of a sudden you realized you are riding the bike by yourself, and you talk about self esteem, like I can just think of how excited I was just as that moment in that simplest of things, you know?

Eben Pagan: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you never forget that, right?

Ryan Coisson: Right, yeah. And you mentioned Virtual Coach, let’s talk about that.

Eben Pagan: Sure.

Ryan Coisson: I know that we’re getting tighter on time here, but I want to talk about this because I really do believe that creating a coaching business is an amazing opportunity for folks. I’ve utilized it many times to build six-figure businesses literally in transition in a matter of a week, and really have had some amazing results, and also been able to really help and encourage folks to get the results that they’re after in a wide array of things in life.

Ryan Coisson: And again, we’re not just talking about business and dating and health, there’s so many things, I’ve done coaching in finance, I’ve done coaching in rock climbing even. I have a table tennis coach who was an Olympic hopeful and competed in the Olympics many times, and there’s so many different opportunities there, but your Virtual Coach training is really something that I think folks are going to be very interested, talk to me a little bit about that and why you guys are really putting so much effort into making this just absolutely world class?

Eben Pagan: Yeah. Well, I believe that coaching is a future-proof skill, truly. I think it’s a cornerstone skill for the future. Most people are not learning skills and asking, “What skill can I learn that will take everything that I’ve learned in the past and make it more valuable, and every skill I learn in the future and make it more valuable?” And that’s the key here. So many of us have reached a point in our lives where we’re in a transition, it’s time for a professional reinvention, we need to do something new, and we sense, we can feel inside of us that we have to graduate and go to another level in our careers, and coaching is such a perfect thing for this, because it allows you to take all the things you’ve learned and all your experience, and use them at a higher level for some higher purpose that supports other people, helps them achieve, and that also has really great income and earning potential.

Eben Pagan: I’ve been doing case studies with some of our virtual coaching students and members, and like you said, it is… It really is incredible. It’s a set of skills that you can learn in 90 days, you can get certified, you can start a business and you can start getting clients. You don’t need to buy a bunch of inventory, you don’t need to lease anything or rent anything, there’s very low risk to get started, and most importantly when you start coaching, you grow yourself. You literally get on the fast track to your own self-actualization. I mean, you know this, when you start coaching on a topic where you used to just be the practitioner or the learner, you start learning it in this whole other way. You mature as a person, you really go up to the next level.

Eben Pagan: And ICF did a study a few years back, the average coach, the average professional coach earns $214 an hour, and that is something… There aren’t a lot of places that you can go where you can start charging a lot of money, you can start selling packages, a lot of my students start selling packages for thousands of dollars. And I don’t want to make any income claims or promises, I mean these are the exceptions, these are the ones that really take action here, but I mean, I just talked to one of my students here who’s got coaching programs, he has a group coaching program that’s $40,000 a person, and a group coaching program that’s $100,000 a person, and so this keeps scaling in your life because you can start coaching individuals, you can coach groups, you can go on then to create memberships and create online courses. It gets you into the digital economy, it gets you into the virtual economy, it’s like the portal or the doorway that opens up, and then creates the platform to build a career.

Ryan Coisson: Yeah, and you know what’s fascinating is you talk about… I think a lot of times people have this frame in their mind that when they’re doing coaching that they’re charging $20 an hour or $40 an hour, but it really depends on who you go after, and that’s why it’s so important to target the right audience, which I know you dive into really, really deep.

Ryan Coisson: To be super brief, I know someone doing coaching, and their specialty is they only do coaching with billionaires, and they focus really specifically on people who live in the East, and… You know, Asia and things like that, and these people are paying them over $1 million a year per client. You know, you don’t need that many clients to have an absolutely amazing business, so I really, really encourage folks to consider this idea that coaching could be really a great business for you, especially if you’re in transition, or it could be a really amazing complement to what you’re already doing with the primary skill that you have.

Ryan Coisson: Going to be talking a lot more about what Eben is doing with Virtual Coach, it’s something that I 100% endorse and recommend. You can find out more about it below this video as well, but Eben, I know we’re tight on time here, but I just really want to say thank you so much for taking the time to chat here and share some of your insights that you’ve experienced over the last decade-plus building out digital businesses, coaching and working with other people, and I’m so excited to be able to share your Virtual Coach program with folks, because I know it’s going to really impact a lot more lives.

Eben Pagan: Yeah, thank you, thanks for the opportunity, thanks for jamming with me.

Ryan Coisson: You’re very, very welcome.

Ultimate Guide to Profit Engine

In this ultimate guide, you’re going to learn everything you need to know about Profit Engine, the creators of the Profit Engine program, and whether or not this is the right program for you.

Quick Sidebar: I do know all 3 of the guys behind the Profit Engine program and have for years so I have a bit of an inside track here.  There is some information they’ve asked me to hold back, however, I’m making this as complete as possible and will be updating it more later down the line.

Let’s start…

What is Profit Engine?

Official Profit Engine Logo

Profit Engine has been specifically designed to be the ultimate program for teaching you the exact A to Z steps on how to build a profitable business online by selling affiliate products with paid traffic.

Now if you are new to affiliate marketing there are usually 3 main types of affiliate marketers:

[+] SEO/Content Marketing Affiliates

[+] Email Marketers

[+] Paid Traffic Affiliates

That said none of these are right or wrong or really good or bad.

In fact eventually, an affiliate could do all of them.

What I can tell you is that when it comes to making money as an affiliate you can do it a lot of ways yet the one that has always been the fastest for me is related to paid traffic.

When I say fastest that means the one to get you the fastest results :-).

And that’s what the Profit Engine program is all about.

How Does the Profit Engine Program Work?

As I mentioned above the Profit Engine program is fully comprehensive and teaches you everything from A to Z.

This makes it totally ‘noob’ proof yet extremely powerful for those who are more advanced affiliate marketers.

The Profit Engine Program  – Part 1

The first part of the program is the ‘newbie’ level.

Here you are going to start with one of the most important aspects of any affiliate marketing campaign, which is finding profitable niches because trust me not all niches are created equal.

And it’s a lot easier and I mean a lot easier to make money online when you are in the right niche.

Next, you are going to cover a lot of ground diving into really important things like:

  • Creating high CTR (click through rate) ads
  • How to create high converting presell pages
  • Why you want to create a presell page in the first place (most people don’t do this by the way)
  • Choosing the right offers to promote (get this wrong and your job becomes 10x as hard – get it right and the money can just start flowing in)
  • And so many other foundational training things

The Profit Engine Program  – Part 2

Now that you’ve built a foundation you are going to be ready to start running simple and easy ads at a very low budget.

Now from my own personal experience years and years ago, I know it can be a bit scary to spend money on traffic right out the gate.  That’s why they focus on helping you run ads with a super small budget until you are comfortable and find a winner.

Afterward, this is where it can start to get really exciting because you are going to learn how you can test, which is a major key to any promotion.  And through that testing, you can start to scale up as quickly as possible.

Now let me give you some ‘real talk’. Most people are scared to scale.

Why?

Because they don’t want to take the risk of losing money.  Understandable, right?

Well…through the Profit Engine system and protocols, you’ll learn how to scale without risking a lot of cash by only scaling when your small budget ads are bringing in a good ROI.

More on that later though.

The Profit Engine Program  – Part 3

I can’t give any more details on this just yet, but I promise as soon as I’m allowed I will :-).

Get more details by registering for this upcoming training class here.

Who is the Profit Engine Course Right For?

Let’s be honest not all training programs are right for every single person and the same holds true for Profit Engine.

So who is this for?

Well, the program is specifically designed to help both total newbies and those who are more advanced.  The focus is on generating profits by being an affiliate of high converting offers and running simple and easy to setup paid ads.

The way the program has been laid out it truly is perfect for anyone wanting to get started on the journey to replacing their income so they can quit their job.

That’s just the starting point though because it can take someone way beyond that too.

Click Here to Secure Your Spot in Profit Engine

Who is the Profit Engine Program NOT for?

Here’s the deal if you are looking to sell physical products, build your own brand of products, or create your own information product this is probably not right for you.

If you are also thinking it’s better to start out with supposed ‘free’ traffic through SEO this is the wrong training for you.

However, if you are looking for a simple and easy to implement a process that has been proven year after year that leverages simple presell pages + easy to create ads this could be just what you are looking for.

Who is Behind the Profit Engine Program?

The folks behind the Profit Engine program are Rob Jones, Gerry Cramer and Mark Ling.

Profit Engine Creators Rob Jones - Gerry Cramer - Mark Ling

Rob Jones | Gerry Cramer | Mark Ling

What Exactly Comes with Profit Engine?

The best way to get all the details of what comes in Profit Engine is by going here.

Throughout the years of running all different types of online businesses I’ve made quite a few mistakes.

Now, in my opinion there is nothing wrong with making mistakes. The key is to make sure that you learn from the mistakes that you are making and act on those lessons.

I think the biggest key is the acting on them.

It’s great to learn from them, but you also have to do something about it. That comes from action.

As a way of giving back, I thought I’d do a blog post on the 5 biggest mistakes I’ve made so you can hopefully avoid these on your journey to running a successful business, whether online or offline.

What Are the 5 Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made in Running My Business?

  1. Not focusing on building assets soon enough.
  2. Focusing too much on 1 traffic source.
  3. Trying to do too many things at one given time.
  4. Not outsourcing enough.
  5. Working too much.

You may have made some these mistakes yourself or maybe you are making them now. Either way, I encourage you to dig in below and really understand my reasoning behind the top 3 of these mistakes.  I’m pretty sure the last two are very self-explanatory, but most of all remember that while work is important, you also need to refuel, re-charge and re-energize so you can be at your best.

So…without further ado:

#1 Not Focusing on Building Assets Soon Enough

One of the biggest issues with the online marketing world is that the barrier to entry is so low.  I’m mean, really low. You can get a new business up and running for almost nothing these days.  Even the tech barrier is incredibly lower since when I first started.

Now that has it’s pros and cons–one of which is distraction  (but I’ll get to that in a minute).

The other major thing this leads to is a lack of treating your business like a real business.

What I mean is real business that has a focus on building assets.

Things like:

– Email lists

– Customer databases

– Systems and processes

– Employees, staff and outsourcers

– JV partners

– Relationships with customers, vendors, service providers, JVs

– Products (information products/courses, physical products, intellectual property)

– and the list can go on and on.

The biggest mistake I made early on was NOT focusing on my email list. This mistake alone has cost me a massive amount of money and I would say definitely 7 figures.

If you are not focusing on building a list, fostering a relationship with that list and monetizing it with their interests (found out from surveys), you are missing out big.

With simple tools like Aweber ($1 trial), LeadPages and Survey Monkey you can be up in less than an hour.

Action Step: Focus on building a list, fostering a relationship with that list and monetizing that list with offers that match their needs/desires/wants.

#2 Focusing Too Much on 1 Traffic Source

In the online world, traffic can be king.  Without traffic, you don’t have a business.

The bottom line is you need traffic to make money.

And there are tons of ways to get traffic.

You can do:

  • SEO
  • PPC
  • PPV
  • FB ads
  • Email
  • Video
  • Forums/Communities
  • PR
  • and the list goes on and on.

Here’s the thing, though. A lot of these traffic sources are fantastic, but the problem lies in focusing too heavily on one particular traffic source.

For me that was SEO. I focused on SEO for a long time and still do. SEO traffic is a big part of my business and it converts like crazy.

However, I came to realize the hard way that being too reliant on one traffic source can be very damaging to your business.

Very damaging.

Especially when you don’t have control over the traffic source.

I think there is a fine line here though. If you can get really good at just one traffic source you can still make boatloads of money.

So it gets tricky, but I still think diversification in traffic sources is the smart and solid long-term play.

My advice to my past self would be to get really good at one type of traffic source. If I could make a recommendation I’d have to say paid traffic and email marketing are the two sources to highly consider. If you need help finding a course that teaches these things, just email me.

These are skills that can pay dividends for you over and over.

Action Step: Focus on one traffic source, but diversify into other traffic channels. If you don’t have the skill set for a particular traffic source, learn it or hire it out within your team.

#3 Trying to Do Too Many Things at One Given Time

It seems like entrepreneurs are attracted to shiny objects, doesn’t it?

We are always seeing the opportunity in things and in doing so, we’re always getting ideas and wanting to start new businesses.

It doesn’t matter if we are making a lot of money in our primary business–it seems like everyone wants to build out other projects.

Now is this a good thing or is this a bad thing?

Well, it’s hard to say really because sometimes distraction can be good and a new project can take off. But more often than not, it’s bad.

In my opinion, distraction does a few things that are worth noting:

  1. Distracts you…duh!
  2. Limits your focus and allotment of brain power
  3. Pulls you in different directions
  4. Honestly I could list dozens of things, but if you think about how distraction works in your life, you’ll get a good idea of what I mean.

So the moral of the story is that for me, doing too many projects at one time cost me a lot of money. It made me distracted, pulled me in all kinds of directions, cluttered my brain, and a whole host of other things, causing me to be stressed/frustrated and also lose time and money.

Action Step: Think about how distraction is altering your business. Plan how to eliminate it and be able to focus on one business. You’ll be amazed at what can happen.

What Now?

Now that you know my biggest mistakes I’d ask you to really consider any mistakes you are making right now in your business.  Post them below in the comments and if you don’t know how to solve them let me know and I’ll see if I can help.

Also, I’d encourage you to make an action plan on what you need to do in your business to improve now that you know this information.  The faster you can go and implement these types of changes the better off you’ll be.

Speed is very important here.

In fact, speed of implementation is critical to running, growing and maintaining a successful business.

Ryan

 

 

When it comes to setting goals there’s sort of this tragedy.

We’ve all been told that we should set goals.  That we should write them down and that we should review them.

Right?

I’m guessing at some point in your life you’ve heard this.  Just about all of us have.

Well, if that’s the case then why do very few people actually do it?

Seriously.

I mean companies like Nike tell us to ‘Just do it’…so why don’t we?

I think a major part of it has to do with the process people think about going through before they start setting their goals and planning their life in the first place.

So from the beginning it is flawed for them and that in turn is the tragedy.

From the get-go they don’t stand a chance.

But I believe there is a solution and no, it’s not a silver bullet or magic pill.  It’s something that takes actual work, so if you don’t like to put in effort you can stop reading now.

goal-without-a-planIf you are ready to have the best year of your life, keep reading because that’s why I’ve created what I believe is the ultimate guide to goal setting.

Not only will this post help you to set your goals, but more importantly it’s designed to help you actually ACHIEVE your goals.

At the end of the day that’s what is most important to you, isn’t it?

I sure hope so because in my opinion, it’s all about results.

Sidebar: I reference several different people and websites in this post including videos that they have created.  All of this is designed to help you with your goal setting and goal achievement so I encourage you to check them out.  I’ve also created action items for each step to make it easier for you to start implementing these ideas and strategy.

Execution is the biggest key and my business partner Daniel and I follow Todd Herman’s 90 Day Year program.  Highly recommend you check it out. It’s the only researched backed execution based system I’ve seen and it flat out works.

However, and this is an important note: I think you should take this process very seriously and at the very least, spend a whole day (if not two or three) going through this process.  I know a lot of you are saying, “is he kidding me? I don’t have a whole day let alone multiple days to do this”.  Honestly, if that’s what you are thinking you are looking at this all wrong.  It’s by setting this time aside now that you are going to make the major breakthroughs over the next 6 months.  This process will make crystal clear exactly what it is you need to do to reach your goals.

Below you will find 6 tips on getting the most out of this post.

How to Get the Most of This Goal Setting Guide

Here are 6 things that will help you get the most out of this guide to goal setting:

  •  Buy a fresh legal pad for this entire process.  I personally use a Moleskin Journal for this.
  •  Set aside at least one full day to do your planning (2-3 days are recommended)
  •  It’s highly recommended that you do your planning in a big open space. I find it helps you think clearer and expands your mind to have much bigger thoughts and goals.  Last year I actually did all my planning from my friend’s cabin in the mountains so I could be fully secluded (see the picture to the right).
  • If you don’t have a big open space available to you I seriously recommend you go to a resort for a day in your area or rent a place on Airbnb or a related site for a night or two.  If you do rent a place or go to a resort, try and bring all the supplies you might need.  For example, when I went to the cabin I took my Vitamix blender, superfoods for smoothies, snacks, and all the supplies I would need.  The key is you want to be able to stay focused and not have to be running around to the store, restaurants, etc.  I got this tip from Kevin Wilke and it’s been working great for me ever since.
  • Whenever you sit down to plan out any goals, you really need to look at what you’ve already done and how it’s worked for you.  It would take too long to look over the last 10 years, 5 years and even one year in my opinion.  Depending on what your goal is, I think it’s a good idea to look at the last 3-9 months.  Now, I will caution you with this warning: the 3-9 months guideline is a little industry dependent.  What I mean is that if you have a goal based around a fast-changing industry like online marketing, your time frame may be short because things change so much in that industry. Here’s what I would look at: Write down what you set out to accomplish, what you did accomplish, what you didn’t accomplish, and analyze how you think you did overall. Lastly, list what you could have done differently.  It’s great if you can look at your businesses profit loss statements, previous plans/goals, and any type of reporting you have in place (might be good idea to print these things out).  This process should be completed for more than just your business goals, but look at things like personal finances, relationships, physical fitness, etc.

The goal is to learn from what you’ve done in the past.  By looking at your past you’ll pick up the mistakes you made and what you could have done to avoid them or have them resolved faster, cheaper and/or in a less stressful manner.  You’ll learn about what you did well and where you really need to improve.  The list can go on and on, but it’s important to not let the past alter what you can accomplish in the future.  Always remember that your past is simply your past and your future is what you make it.  Don’t let your past, no matter what it is, effect what you can achieve and become in the future.

  • While this process seems very detailed, long, and maybe like a lot of work, it is by far the best time you’ll spend for your life, business, finances, relationship, and more.  Without a vision, goals, and overall action plan for your life, you will most like just go aimlessly through the next 6 months and year.  Spend a small bit of time now to craft your ideal and best life.  I promise it’s worth it.

Let’s get started.

Step 1 – Starting With the Big Picture

think-biggerWhenever you are doing any type of goal setting or planning, I recommend you always start with a big picture or a high level view as some call it.

For goal setting and achievement, I look at this as whatever my end goal is.  At the end of the day what do I want to accomplish, how do I want to feel, etc.  It is important when you think of this end goal that you apply a date to it.  You MUST have a timeline in your head.

The problem that most people fall into is they are very vague on what their goals are and they almost never attach a timeline to it.

To give you an idea of what I mean, let’s look at an example:

Bad Goal Example: I want to make more money.

Good Goal Example: By March 1st 2014 I have earned $150,000 in profit from my Amazon business.

Do you see the major difference in these two goals?

Goal #1 is very generic and has no timeline or method attached to it.  Make more money could be simply earning an extra $1 and I imagine the person setting that type of goal wants to earn more than that.

Now in goal #2, the person is very specific on exactly what they want to accomplish. They have given themselves a timeline of when to accomplish it by, an exact dollar amount that they want (note that it states profit not revenue), and the business in which that goal is set for.

Making sure you have all this detail is extremely important.

Also, understand that you should set all of your goals like this whether they are spiritual, financial, social, physical, business, or emotional goals.

Before we go any further, let me give you some more examples of a few kinds of goals.

Example of a physical fitness goal: By February 1st, 2014 I am 160 lbs. of lean muscle with a body fat percentage of 7%.

Example of a financial goal: On June 1st, 2014 I have earned a cumulative 150% profit on my options portfolio from trading stock options no more than 20 times a month.

Example of a marketing goal: By January 15th, 2014 I have setup at least 25 Facebook advertising campaigns and have achieved a positive ROI of at least 35% on 10 different campaigns.

Example of a secondary goal: By February 1st of 2014 I have taken 1 of my positive ROI Facebook campaigns and have scaled it to $1000 a day profit.

As you can see, all of these goals are very specific, have deadlines, and you are 100% able to track them.  For example, if on February 1st you were to get on the scale and you are 168 pounds with 12% body fat, you’d know that you missed our goal by quite a bit.  At that point, you can reevaluate the actions that you took and where you made mistakes.  This also allows you to recalibrate your goal and adjust your actions to reach it (more on this later).

Action items:

– If you haven’t already, get some type of legal pad or a moleskin journal.

– Make sure you have already analyzed your previous results as stated above.

– Make a preliminary list of your top 5 – 10 specific and measurable goals for the next 3 – 6 months in all areas of your life including:

  • Business/Marketing
  • Health and Fitness
  • Relationships/Family/Friendships/Social
  • Spiritual
  • Recreation/Hobbies
  • Life Experiences (think of all the experiences you want to have over the next 6 months)
  • Personal Finances

Some questions that can help get the juices flowing that I learned from Ryan Moran are:

  •  What are you most excited about right now and why?
  •  What are you most grateful about right now and why?
  •  What are you most frustrated about right now and why? What would be the ideal result in place of the frustration?

Step 2 – Creating Your Vision

The Rules for being amazing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that you have a preliminary list of your top 5 – 10 goals over the course of the next 3 – 6 months, you now need to create your vision and a detailed goals list so that you can get back into what needs to be done to accomplish your goals.

I would really like you to think about this.  You should spend time designing exactly how you want your life to be.

Here’s how to create your vision and design your life in a few simple steps

First, decide what values you want to stand for.

Next, decide how you want to live your life.

Then think about exactly how you want to spend your days.  What are you going to do with your time?

You really should become very clear on these things and I’d even encourage you to do the following exercise:

In your journal or notebook write down what your exact ideal day is.  Simply start from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep.  What would you want the average everyday events of your life to look like? How do you want to feel? What do you want to do? Who do you want to see?

Once you have your ideal day written down be sure to read it daily.  I like to read mine every day and every night.  Keep in mind that it is OK if your ideal day changes.  Just rewrite it and follow the same process.

This is a very simple thing to do, but it’s also a very simple thing not to do.

I recommend that you do it.

Action items:

– Create your vision

– Know what you want to stand for

– Create your ideal day and read it every morning and every night

Check Out This Video on Someone Living Their Vision (Great Insights on Gratitude as Well)

Learn more about Louie Schwartzberg and Moving Art at http://www.movingart.com.

Step 3 – How to Work Backwards to Plan for Achieving Your Goals

At this point you should know exactly what your vision is for your life and have in detail the goals that you want to accomplish over the next 3- 6 months.  It is critical that you complete these two steps before you move onto this section and that you’ve actually written this out.  Don’t just have it in your head and don’t type it out on your computer.  There’s something different and powerful about actually writing it out by hand.

Now in the previous section we talked about lifestyle construction and how to figure out what you don’t want and what you do want, which is really important.  Most people only focus on what they want, which is important–but you really need to know the things that you don’t want in your life as well.

I hope that you also figured out and realized how little you actually need to change, achieve or do to live your best life.

It’s important that we now work backwards into each of our goals and figure out exactly what needs to be done on a monthly, weekly and daily basis to reach that particular goal.  You see, just setting the goal isn’t enough. You need to build a clear, granular action plan on exactly how we are going to get there.

Don’t skimp on this part.

By having this crystal clear action plan, we know the things that need to be accomplished in order for our goals to be reached and at that point, it simply becomes a matter of execution.

The good thing about executing our action plan is we can simply focus on the stuff we want to do and outsource the rest (more on outsourcing in a minute).

Monthly

Start by strategically breaking down what needs to be accomplished every single month to reach your end goal.  These can also include what your Key Performance Indicators need to be to stay on track.  You really need to list this out for each of your goals as you’ll be using this in the next two steps.  As always, be detailed.

Weekly

Once you have what needs to be accomplished monthly you can simply break this down to what needs to be done on a weekly basis.  Basically, you need to include everything here that you have to do to reach your monthly KPIs and objectives.  If you created a detailed list for your monthly objectives then this will be very easy to do.

Daily

After you know your weekly plan of action, you simply structure this into what you are going to be doing on a daily basis.  I like to use the attached document below to plan out my weekly to-dos, deliverables, goals, etc.  The document also allows you to keep track of your daily exercise, diet, things you are grateful for, and a few other things.  Using something like this is really important as it allows you to review your sheet every Sunday to see how you did.

Robin Sharma Weekly Design System

One of the major purposes of this exercise is to help you get 100% clear about what you need to do and what you need to focus on to achieve your desired outcome.

When it comes down to it, there are going to be a few major things that you need to focus on to achieve your individual goals.  As an example, if you have a weight loss goal, really the two major things come down to nutrition and fitness.  Or if you are looking at getting out of debt, it comes down to saving and spending.  Of course, there are lots of things that support all the major actions and steps you are going to be taking.

But what’s important is to understand that you are most likely going to need help with some of these things.  Seek help from your friends, families, business partners, your network, and most likely for some things, you’ll need to look into hiring people to help.

Now, a lot of people can get scared or nervous when they first start to hire people and outsource.  They have this fear that the person they outsource it to will mess up, they won’t be able to do it as well as they can, they’ll give bad advice, etc.

Here’s the real deal, though. Outsourcing can be a little bit tricky at first, but once you start to get the hang of it, it can be one of the biggest blessings in your life.  Understand that this post isn’t a training on outsourcing (though I do plan to do one soon), but when you are starting out you can use sites like OnlineJobs.ph, Odesk & Elance, Freelancer or even sites like Fiverr.  Obviously, this is just a sampling of all the sites that are out there to help you outsource. You can also even look at sites like LinkedIn or Monster.com to find people or businesses to help you.

If you are really serious about outsourcing, and you should be I, recommend you invest in some simple training by an expert in outsourcing.  One option is Replace Myself by Jon Jonas.  Whenever you get started with outsourcing, start small and realize you can outsource things like cooking, grocery shopping, book keeping, paying bills, website design, content creation and tons of other things, too.

Figuring Out Your Key Performance Indicators

Once you have the clarity on what you need to do and why you need to do it, you now need to figure out what your Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are.

When you know what your KPI’s are you can quickly and easily tell if you or anybody else on your team are on track to reach your desired outcome.

Most KPI’s are going to be measured weekly, but some can and should be measured daily or monthly.

For example, if I’m selling my own physical products on Amazon some of my KPI’s can be:

  1. The number of daily product sales.
  2. How much traffic I’m getting to my Amazon listings on a daily basis.
  3. The ROI of my weekly advertising budget.
  4. The number of reviews I’m receiving on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

These are just a few examples and you should be tracking your own KPI’s for each of your goals. You can include the main KPIs on your one sheet as discussed below if you like.  It depends on your goal, but most of time a simple Excel spreadsheet and the normal reporting tools you use will work. But depending on everything that you are looking to do you may want to look into KPI-specific software especially if you have a lot of business and financial goals.

Action items:

– Develop detailed plans for your goals by working backwards to your desired end results.

– Read through your goals every morning and night.  This really gets your subconscious working.  Another way to get your subconscious going is to ask yourself questions throughout the day.  A few examples are: What can I do today to earn $1500 in profit?  What can I do to be 160 lbs. of lean muscle and 7% body fat?  I know this may seem a bit weird but it works.  If you do it often enough you’ll start to notice a lot of opportunities that pop up to help you get to your desired outcomes.

– Weekly Planning with the Robin Sharma Weekly Design System.

– Start Outsourcing even if you start with simple tasks.

– Figure out your Key Performance Indicators.

– Use resources like the app Lift to keep yourself accountable.

Step 4 – Analyzing Your Resources

analyze your resourcesThis is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make when they are creating their vision and planning their goals.

Everything we’ve discussed so far is important, but now you need to do an inventory of what you have available to you already that can help you accomplish your goals.

By making a detailed list of everything you have available, you are doing a few important things.

  1. You are making list of all the assets you have that can help you accomplish your goals.  The amount of things on this list will surprise you and to give you an idea, I’ll do an example below.
  2. It will also help you realize what you don’t have available to you and what or who you need to get access to for additional help in achieving your goals.
  3. It’s going to help you get results faster.

Let’s look at an example.  Keep in mind that your lists should be much longer and much more detailed than this.

For our goal let’s stick with the $150,000 in profit from Amazon by February 1st.

Resources I Have Available to Me

– Amazon Seller Central Account

– 5 Products Currently Selling on Amazon (I’d include exact stats and conversion percentages as well)

– Proven Amazon Business Model Training Course

– Software Tools to Help Me Communicate with My Customers

– Amazing Graphic Designer for Label Design, Logo Design, Site Design, Banner Ad Design and More

– Budget for Paid Advertising

– 5,000 Person Email List in My Niche Market

Hopefully this helps you get the idea of what you need to be doing to build up your list of available assets and resources.  Again and I know I’m really emphasizing this, but it is critical that you be as detailed as possible on this.  You may consider even writing next to each item exactly how it will help you.

Next, we need to know what we are missing.

Resources I Need to Gain Access To

– An E-Commerce Site Setup

– A Bonus for 2 of my Products

– Premium Packaging for My Existing Products

– A Supplier for My Next 4 Products

– An Outsourced Employee to Collect All My Lead Data

– A Customer Service Person to Phone All Customers and Respond to Customer Support Tickets

– A Package Insert for One of My Products

– Copywriter for Direct Mail Campaign

– Mailing House for Direct Mail Campaign

– A Proven Model for Driving Facebook Traffic that Converts for Physical Products

Depending on the goal, you may have a very long list especially if it is something that is completely new to you.  Don’t let this deter you one bit.

As soon as you know what you have available to you, you need to inject these assets into your overall vision and goals.  By that I mean simply go through all of your goals and list in the margins or below the goal the assets you have and how you’ll use them to help you reach your goal.

Next, take a look at your list of resources that you need to gain access to and spend some quality time thinking about how you can get access to these things.

Some examples of questions you can ask yourself are:

  • Do I have anyone in my network that can help me with any of these tasks?
  • Can I hire someone to do one of these tasks for me?
  • Where do I need to go to get access to X resource?
  • Is there some type of training program or consulting program that can help me with this?

What’s important is that you do this right away as these can be some major roadblocks for you. The sooner you can gain access to these, the better off you’ll be.  I will say that if you are going to leverage your network to help you with this remember to be tactful in how you approach people.  Always do your best to provide them value in some way as well and don’t be afraid to compensate people for their help and time…whether that compensation is with money, time, trade, or something else.

Also, don’t be afraid to invest in outsourcing/hiring employees/trainers/nutritionists/etc and definitely don’t be afraid to invest in additional training or consulting to help you get access to these resources.  Remember that you just built an incredibly detailed plan of everything you need to do reach your most important goals in the next 3 – 6 months.  Imagine how different your life is going to be when you’ve accomplished all those goals.  Don’t let fear stop you from investing a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars or even more into training, consulting, exercise equipment, supplements, whole foods, financial advice, attorneys, trips, experiences, etc.

Action Items:

– Develop a list of all the assets and resources you have available.

– Write down how each of these assets and resources will help you achieve each individual goal.

– Develop a list of all the assets and resource you don’t have available to you.

– Think about exactly how you are going to gain access to these resources and assets (be tactful).

– Take immediate action on getting access to your needed resources and assets.

Step 5 – How to Make Sure You Stay Focused

power of focusIf you made this far then you’re almost home free. But it’s important not to miss these next few steps.

I’m going to be honest with you.

There are going to be times when you don’t want to keep moving forward on your goals.  You are going to hit hurdles, you will have setbacks, you will fail at certain things, but (and this is a huge but) you MUST keep pushing forward.

I look at all of these things as tests and trust me they are normal.  We all go through them and really, you can just look at it as part of your character development.  Don’t even worry about proving to others you have what it takes to keep going and not give up, but just prove it to yourself.  You’ve already invested a lot of time and effort up to this point.  Not to mention you have just designed your absolute ideal life and all of the things that you need to do to make that happen.

That’s huge.

And you need seriously remember that every time you want to give in.

Whenever you want to give up or move on.

Remember this process and remember why you set that goal to being with.  This should allow you to refocus and get yourself on track.

However, there is a way you can stack the deck in your favor so to speak.

Would you like to know what the secret is?

Of course.

Well, it’s really simple and it has to do with your behavior.

You see, your behaviors actually drive all of your beliefs and belief system (more about beliefs in a video at the bottom of this page).

So by focusing on your beliefs you can shape your behaviors to be more resilient to tough times.  Not to mention you can shape your beliefs to help you do more, love more, achieve more, and be more.

Now before I share 4 ideas with you that will help you with this, I want you to understand something.

If you realize and fully comprehend that no matter what you do you are going to have struggles, setbacks, and failures on your way to achieving your goals, then you are already 100% ahead of the game.

What I mean is if you come to that realization, all you have to do is prepare for it and when you recognize or meet those struggles, setbacks, and failures, just simply do what you’ve prepared for.

It’s as simple as that.

So here are 4 ideas that will help you shape your beliefs that I learned from Robin Sharma.

Sidebar: Sharma is seriously one of my favorite authors.  His wisdom and teaching ability is unlike anyone I’ve seen in the personal development space.  I highly recommend you pick up his books here.

4  Simple, Yet Incredibly Powerful Ideas

1) Gratitude – it’s the antidote to fear.  Everyday consciously focus on the things you are grateful for.  Think of everything and not just surface level things.  Really dig into what makes you feel blessed and grateful.  If you struggle with this at first, I encourage you to think of simple things to begin with like your friends, your family, shelter, transportation, electricity, running water, a bed, etc.

2) Affirmations – the words you use shape your beliefs, so use words of excellence.  Most people think affirmations are kinda strange, but they are so powerful and they are something most people do already…just most of the time now they are not positive.  I highly encourage you to watch this video about the Strangest Secret in the World (even if you’ve already seen it you should watch it again).

watch_this_video

Download the Strangest Secret Here

3) Peers – focus on surrounding yourself with people who are world-class and that are like what you want to become.  I can’t emphasize this enough. The people you surround yourself with is absolutely critical.  If you need to find better people to hang out with, here are some ideas: go to live events (I wrote a post about events here), get involved within Facebook groups and connect with like-minded individuals there, join BNI or the Chamber of Commerce, go to Meetups, travel and meet new people, and the one thing that had the biggest effect on my business and life is being a part of a mastermind group.  These are just a few ideas to get you started, but if you need more suggestions feel free to email me (ryan at ryancoisson.com–replace at with @).

4) Diet and fitness – your diet affects your moods and the food you eat should be treated as fuel.  We’ve all heard it before and we all inherently know the importance of eating well and exercising.  If you need some help getting on track check out my buddy Drew Canole’s Fitlife.tv, Foodbabe’s blog. Start eating healthy foods like you see here and if you need a total reboot do a cleanse.

Important: if you are going to cleanse, I highly recommend you only do a whole food cleanse.  Don’t buy some crap cleansing pills or anything like that.  Yuri Elkaim is an expert at this and has a great product called Total Wellness Cleanse that teaches you how to do this properly.

Now as far as fitness goes, I believe you don’t have to be absolute gym junkie, but first thing in the morning just get moving.  Whether it’s a 30 minute walk in the park, a quick Pilates or Yoga class, some cardio, a session at the gym, or my favorite, 12-15 minutes of bodyweight exercises at your house, just do some exercising to get the blood pumping.  You should also try and start drinking this first thing in the morning (article).  If you have big fitness goals you should definitely start with some who is an expert and nutrition. I work with Brian Johnson.

Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.  -Cavett Robert

 Action items:

– Plan and be ready for your failures, roadblocks, setbacks and struggles.

– Work on developing your behaviors and belief system.

Step 6 – Creating a One-Page Plan

We are now on step 6 and you may be wondering if this is ever going to end.

Stay with me! You are almost finished with having the absolute best chance at successfully achieving your goals.

At this point your vision and goals/plans are very extensive and you most likely have pages upon pages of information, which is absolutely fantastic.

What you need to do now is create some one-page plans or one sheets as I like to refer to them.

Why?

Simply put, this is going to be something that you can read through quickly anytime you are getting distracted and need to get focused.  When you are having an off day (which is 100% normal by the way), you can take 2-4 minutes and read through your one page plan and it should give you an instant boost of motivation and drive to keep moving forward..

What should you put on a one page plan?

  • First, take the top 3 values from your vision you created for your life and put them up top.  These are really the 3 values that you want to live your life by.
  • Second, write down what 5 things need to happen for this next 3 – 6 months to be the best of your life.
  • Third, write down your core affirmations. By the way you shouldn’t have 100 affirmations I like to keep it to 3-5 things.
  • Fourth write down 3 reasons why you can accomplish your goals.

Action items:

– Create one-page plans for each category of your goals.

Step 7 – Putting it All Together

First off, congrats on getting this far.  This blog post is pretty epic in length and even more detailed in what you need to do, so again, congrats on making it this far.  I firmly believe that following the advice in this blog post can help you in so many ways and I cannot encourage you enough start this process as soon as humanly possible.

As we wrap this up I want to give you some final advice on putting this all together.  Once you’ve followed all the 6 steps above I want to do a few final things.

  1. Create some positive pressure for yourself by sharing your goals with at least one person close to you.  The objective is for them to keep you 100% accountable to your goals.
  2. Set rewards for yourself.  We are doing this entire process to have our best lives and along the way you deserve to be rewarded.  So I encourage you set rewards for yourself relative to the goal you set.  A reward could be something as simple as a dinner, new toy, trip, a massage or spa day, an experience, etc.  The rewards should be there to provide a little treat for achieving what you set out to do.
  3. Watch Sharma’s video below to learn how to achieve your biggest goals and start implementing Robin’s advice.
  4. Be ok with change.  As you start to implement your action plan you will experience a lot of change.  Embrace the change and adapt as needed to keep in line with your desired results.
  5. Now that you have your entire plan in place, you need to execute it. But you need to also make your decisions based on these goals.  Whether someone asks you to do something, if you are going to go on a trip, if you have an opportunity to take on a business partner, or anything else, ask yourself if it fits into your plan.  If it compliments your goals and plan, then do it. If it doesn’t, then say no.  One of the hardest things for people to do is say no.  To be successful though you have to become really good at saying no to things that are going to take you off your path.
  6. Follow this plan and create a new set of goals and vision at least every 6 months.

How to Achieve Your Biggest Goals

Action items:

– Create positive pressure for your business.

– Set rewards for achieving your goals.

– Watch the above video by Robin Sharma and learn how to achieve your biggest goals. Start implementing his tips

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post.  I promise you that if you go through this entire process and spend the time necessary to do it right you’ll be amazed at what can happen.  If you enjoyed this post, please share it by clicking on the buttons below.  I’d also love to hear what you think so please comment below and tell me your thoughts.

Ryan

Looking to Go to an Internet Marketing Event? Read This First!

Internet marketing events SUCK!

I’m just being honest.

Most events for internet marketers just flat out suck.

Seriously, they are horrible…

They are overpriced, filled with outdated content, usually have speakers who just pitch garbage training and who don’t even make money outside of speaking, and a lot of times are boring as all hell.

But, and this is a big BUT…

There are some really, really good conferences out there.

Now before we get into that, let’s just talk frankly about IM events and conferences for a minute because I know a lot people have questions about them–especially if they are new to the industry.

Should I go to an online marketing event/conference?

A lot of people have this question because they may not be making a lot of money yet online or they are tired of the events that are just about getting you pumped up.

Well…

Let me just say this: going to live events has been one of the absolute best things I’ve done for my business.

No joke.

Outside of joining a mastermind, live events and training programs have always been my best investments.

You see, at live events a few things happen:

  1. You meet other online marketers in person
  2. You get to see real people who are having real results right in front of you (super important if you are new, struggling, or looking to take your business to the next level)
  3. You get to network and build relationships with others who are doing exactly what you are doing
  4. You can learn cutting edge material (depends on the event, but more on that later)

Whenever I go to live events, the material that they cover at the event needs to be what I’m interested in, but more importantly, I look at the caliber of people that are going to be there.

Let me repeat that.  I look at the caliber of people that are going to be at the event.

This is SUPER IMPORTANT.

I want to surround myself with people who are making money and I mean making really good money.  Six figures at the minimum, but I prefer if they are making 7 figures or more.

What that means is that I’m not going to free events or events that are all about getting pumped up and full of fluff.

I’m going to well-known industry events that are going to have successful people at them who are serious about their business and are there to GSD.

As an example, look at this survey from the Underground Seminar by Yanik Silver.

Yanik Silver Underground Seminar

As you can see, at this event the caliber of people is really high and that’s why I’ll be there.

How to Get the Most Out of an Online Marketing Event?

I think I approach going to live events a little bit differently than others, but here’s what I do to get the most out of live events.

STEP 1

Look at the itinerary of the event and mark off the exact talks/presentations I want to see.  I like to go to those that interest me, but more importantly, those that I think are going to have the biggest impact on my business.

– FYI: If I end up in a talk/presentation and it just sucks, I leave the room and go network. This doesn’t happen very often though.

STEP 2

Network, network, network.

In my opinion, you are wasting your time if you are trying to connect with 50 million people at a live event.  You don’t have a lot of time and you are better off to connect and network with a handful of people who you want to build relationships with.

By keeping the number small you can focus on what you can do to provide value to that person and help them improve their business.  I always try to help and serve first, and my end goal is really making friends as opposed people that I can get something out of.

I think this is a major difference in how I approach things.

Remember that one connection can make a massive difference in your business.

STEP 3

Recognize that the biggest deals, networking, and secret sharing happens at dinners and bars.  Get in there and have fun (don’t become a sloppy drunk), but buy people drinks, network and enjoy yourself.  This is where people always make the best connections as they are relaxed and just having a good time.

What Are the Best Internet Marketing Events to Go To?

There are a lot of events for internet marketing that are happening all the time.  This is a short list of the events that I personally think you should check out, and I’ll do my best to keep this updated as time goes on.

Super Charger Seminar by Matt Lloyd –  Date: 12/13 – 12/15 Arizona

Traffic and Conversions Summit by Digital Marketer – Date:  01/23/14 – 01/25/14 San Diego, CA

Underground Seminar by Yanik Silver – Date: 02/20/14 – 02/24/14 New Orleans

If you end up coming to any of these events I’d love to meet you.  Just drop me a message here and we will connect.

Talk soon,

Ryan