13 Lessons from Funnel Hacking Live 2019

BusinessMindset

Mar 7

Going to a conference isn’t easy.

In fact, it is straight up inconvenient.

Buying the tickets, packing, taking off of work, getting on a plane, and showing up in a strange place with strangers...

None of it is easy.

Last month I went to a 4 day conference called Funnel Hacking Live in Nashville, Tennessee.

And let me tell you…

Leading up to the conference, I didn’t think it would be worth all of the effort.

Funnel Hacking Life is a marketing conference where over 4500 people attend.

That is a lot of people.

Not only was I feeling my typical social anxiety, but I was also feeling skeptical of the event.

...Would I really learn anything?

...Would it be valuable?

...Would the strategies being taught feel unethical?

...Would it just be a sales pitch for software or coaching the entire time?

Those were honestly thoughts I had (and even said aloud to family members) before the event.

To be extremely honest with you… I wasn’t really that excited.

The whole thing felt terribly inconvenient and uncomfortable.

But despite all of these fears, anxieties, and worries, I showed up.

I got on the plane. I checked in to the hotel. I registered for the event.

And when I sat down in my chair in a room of 4500+ people for the first session, I wasn’t sure what would happen next.

As the emcee got on stage and started dancing and playing loud music, it was overwhelming. I was uncomfortable. I felt out of place.

But in that moment, I made a decision to stay open to the experience.

As Russell Brunson got on stage to be the first speaker, I had my notebook and pen ready.

And boy was I glad I did!

Russell didn’t waste much time at all on stage… almost immediately he was drawing diagrams, breaking marketing principles down, and teaching.

I was writing so fast I could barely keep up.

Just a few minutes into the first speaker and all of my doubts faded away.

Because I allowed myself to be teachable.

I made notes of what was interesting to me:

...What mindset changes I might need to make.

...What strategies might work for me.

...What changes I need to make in my own life and business.

...And so much more.

What I really learned from this experience was more than just the tips and tricks:

I learned that we get out of an experience what we put into it.

If we show up and are open to learning new things, we will learn something new every time.

Even if we don’t learn from the teachings, we can learn what we don’t like. What doesn’t feel good or impactful.

Or in the best case, like the one I had, we learn what you do like. What was impactful. And what we want to change afterward.

So we have to show up.

We have to be okay feeling uncomfortable.

And we have to be teachable.

When we do those things, we will walk away from any experience will lessons learned and stories to tell.

And because I did actually learn a ton from the conference, I wanted so summarize the lessons that I learned from Funnel Hacking Life that I hope will help you too!

13 Lessons I Learned at Funnel Hacking Live:

Lesson 1. Sharing stories is essential to growing a business.

If we want to grow a business, build a community, and make money then we have to tell stories. That includes the embarrassing, the painful, and those filled with mistakes. We have to tell our stories and be vulnerable. That is the only way a community can form.

Story telling is also very important when it comes to making sales. It is how we can teach complex ideas or principals and make them easy to understand. It helps demonstrate how important our offer is. Regardless of what you're doing - an email, an Instagram story, a webinar, a sales page, etc. - you have to tell your stories.

Lesson 2. We have to believe in ourselves, our offers, and the results we provide.

If we don’t believe then why will anyone else? Not only does this help us to have a more successful business, but it ensures we feel good when teaching and selling. We have to know, without a doubt, that our products bring results to our clients and students. This isn't selling just to sell. This is how we make an impact.

Lesson 3. We have to put out a lot of different hooks.

Just like a fisherman puts out a lot of hooks to catch a fish, we have to do the same with marketing. In order to grab someone’s attention, we have to try multiple headlines and hooks to see what works. By creating more content we will see what works and what doesn’t work. But we can’t just put out one thing and expect it to work.

Lesson 4. Create and understand the “yellow brick road” our community is on.

We shouldn't focus on building a value ladder or product suite. Looking at how to “fill in the gaps” just to generate money won’t work.

Instead we need to understand where our community is trying to go… where their destination is or what their “Oz” is. Once we know that, we can help create a “yellow brick road” to help get them there. We don’t have to worry about knowing every brick needed, but instead focus on one at a time.

Where does our community need to start?

How can we help them get there?

We have to use the feedback we get and see what the next step in the journey is for them and create it. We create one brick at a time to help them get to their Oz.

This is done from a genuine desire to help and serve and get them to Oz. It isn’t about making sales or sending someone through your value ladder. We have to understand what struggles they will have along the way and who they need to become at each point in the journey.

Lesson 5. We have to accept that challenges are going to happen.

We will never be in a situation where there aren’t challenges. Each stage of our life and business will have challenges. So we have to suck it up, accept that truth, and decide to overcome and master each challenge as it comes.

Lesson 6. None of this is about us or making money.

It is easy to become focused on revenue in a business, but none of this will work in the long run if that is our focus. Our focus has to be on genuinely serving and helping our community and getting them results.

Not just satisfactory results, but results that exceed their expectations. We need to blow them away at each step of their journey. If we don’t get them results, we aren’t running an ethical business and we can’t sell and market confidently.

Lesson 7. We have to understand our audience and be obsessed with them.

In order to serve our audience well, create products and offers they need, and feel happy doing it, we need to love who we serve.

Whenever we feel frustrated by our audience or feel like we aren’t serving who we want to be serving, that is a sign that we don’t really know our ideal audience or the audience we’ve built isn’t the right one.

We should be obsessed with understanding every detail about our audience… who they are, what they struggle with, what their goal is, their personality, what they don’t like, how they communicate, where they hang out, and more! That passion for our audience can be a game changer and a difference maker.

When we love our audience, we feel excited to teach and help and sell and create. It feels different.

Lesson 8. Focus first on who we serve and what they need, not the product we want to create.

When we create the product we want to create first, it won’t be as successful. It puts the focus on us and not what our community needs. Understand your community and then create the product that can genuinely help them on their journey.

Lesson 9. We WILL mess up. Accept it.

This is a tough one but a good reminder. We are all going to make mistakes. Ideas or products will flop. We will mess up. We can’t let it stop us. We have to keep going and keep trying and push through this. It doesn’t mean we are on the wrong track.

Lesson 10. Repurpose what you create for free and turn it into a paid product.

People will pay for the same information in different formats. If we have a free video series, someone will pay for an ebook version of it so that they can consume it how they want to.

If we’re doing a live training for free, it is okay to package that up for sale afterwards. When our audience invests in something they are more likely to complete it and get results. Don’t feel guilty about this.

Lesson 11. Email marketing isn’t dead but our relationships with our audience might be.

There are people in our lives that we will communicate with no matter the medium. If they reach out to us, we will read it and usually respond. We have to build that kind of relationship with our audience.

If we show up in our audience’s inbox as a pick up artist, a player, or Mr. Nice Guy we will lose their trust. We can’t pop in just for promotions and sales. We can’t be scammy. We can’t just give give give and never make an offer.

We have to show up, consistently, like we would in a long term relationship. We have to build trust and show mutual respect with our community. We have to challenge them. We have to let them into our world. We have to consistently provide motivation, inspiration, and value. We have to lead by example. And we have to provide opportunities for our audience to work with us and learn from us.

Lesson 12. Watch/read/listen to what we create and take notes.

It can be uncomfortable to watch, listen, or read what we create. We don’t want to see the flaws or awkwardness. But we have to. We have to see what our community sees. We have to act like athletes and performers do. We have to watch our own film, take notes on how we can improve, and then work on improving.

Lesson 13. Last but not least… we have to take action.

Almost every speaker of the week touched on how important action is. Action is more important than words. We have to avoid getting caught up in the mental game and overcomplicating things.

Action creates clarity and we have to take action or we’ll never get anywhere. We have to create the things, share the stories, send the emails, go live, give value, and just consistently take action. Take risks. We won’t be perfect but we will get better.

The only person who doesn’t see results is the person who doesn’t do anything.

The person who refuses to learn. The person who is caught up in trying to be perfect.

So there are the 13 lessons I'm taking away from Funnel Hacking Live.