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Who have you helped?

Andy Black

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I had a chat with Tony who describes how:
  • One simple question got him unstuck.
  • He's only been on Quora for 30 days helping people.
  • He's only posted 29 times but is now top ranked for his subject matter.
  • His bio sends people to a survey where he asks opened ended questions (as per the Ask book by Ryan Levesque).
  • He's had 300 surveys and email addresses.
  • He's done 5 free 30 minute coaching calls.
  • One free coaching call converted on the spot to a $400 coaching package.
  • His advice to people who want to start by building a website and autoresponder series.
What he's done is such a short space of time is inspiring.

I spent over 2 hours personally chopping this call down to only 25 minutes so it's no fluff and actionable. Do yourself a favour and give it a listen.

Well done @arobinson04


> Click here to access the recording <


What were your takeaways?

What will you do differently going forward?



EDIT: Wow... I didn't realise this recording was so old. Almost exactly 4 years later I've created a video out of it and published it to YouTube. It's tighter too (down to 17 minutes from 25 minutes).


View: https://youtu.be/8YBY0r2Hb1g




(For other recordings click HERE.)



TRANSCRIPT:

TONY: I think you messaged me on thefastlaneforum cos I followed you, and you said "Hey, thanks for following me."

And then I think I mentioned to you what I was working on, which was this new kind of website in the job hunting niche.

And your first question back was "Who have you helped?" And I was just dumbfound, I was like "Well, well, nobody yet."

And just that one question shifted my whole perspective on how I should go about doing this.

Cos I had a blog that I ran a few years ago in the personal development niche and I was focused on the wrong thing then which is why I don't think I got the results I was looking for.

That small change in perspective opened up a new approach of how to get things done.

ANDY: You read something of mine, and you liked it enough to follow me. So it's enough for me to go "This guy's raised his hand. Something I've done has interested him." So I just thanked you, and then I just asked a simple question of "How are you doing?"

And then I ask another little question. "Who do you help?" or "Who have you helped?" or "How are you gonna make a sale?" cos often people are off building stuff. I find it interesting watching people, go "Hmm, I haven't helped anyone. It'll be another 6 months before I can help them."

TONY: And from there, the next thing I started asking myself was like, man, how can I just get out in front of people and start trying to answer questions.

My first thought was let me find a forum where there's a lot of people that are talking about this topic that I'm trying to help people in. But I struggled to find an active forum about job hunting.

You're only in that phase for a short period of time. Most people if they've got a job they're happy with, they're not looking, they're not really worried about how to find a job.

So I struggled to find a community. And then I think I Googled a question related to LinkedIn and job hunting and it took me to Quora. And I was like, man, there's a ton of people in here just asking questions that I know I can give really good answers to. So I just started doing that. I was just spending a few hours every night when I got home from work, just answering different people's questions.

And within the first month I went from no answers on Quora ever to being the most viewed writer on anything related to LinkedIn profiles.

So that's how I started helping people. Just answering a ton of questions on Quora.

But the response to that was crazy. I didn't even really think that I would get people to join my email list. I just had a little tagline at the end of all my answers.

"Hey, if you wanna learn more, go here."

My list grew by about 300 people in that 1 month all through Quora and the lists are growing from there.

And then I layered this survey on top of my squeeze page where before you could opt in you had to answer4 or 5 questions about who you are, what you're struggling with, things like that.

I've almost 300 really detailed answers of what people are struggling with. And everyone's pretty much saying the same thing. "I'm applying for jobs or I'm reaching out to recruiters. And I don't know why I'm not getting a response." So I added something at the end of my autoresponder series when you first signed upoffering a free 30 minute coaching session.

"Hey, here's free 30 minutes. I'll walk through what you're struggling with and I'll just give you some advice."

So the very first one that I did, there was this lady from Texas and we're talking, I'm giving her all this advice. And then at the end, I said "Hey if you're interested I've got a coaching package." I was like "I'll sell it to you for $400." And she was like "Done."

ANDY: Wow.

TONY: Yeah, I was like "Really, that's it?" So that's how it happened. I got my first client, I've got a few more of these free chat sessions coming up, so hoping I can land some more.

And just yesterday I finished a little 15 page action guide that I'm gonna sell as a trip wire for everyone who signed up for the email list. Answering all those questions on the front end was huge.

Helping all those people on Quora. They were so willing to share what they were struggling with through that surveyand then taking that data with talking to people and now I've got a really good idea of what this market is struggling with and where I can help them.

ANDY: I love it, I love it. In one month, just one month?

TONY: One month flat. And it was crazy because when I was running my last website in the personal development space I spent so much time trying to get my websites to look great and doing all these plugins and I just focused a lot of time on the website.

And this time around I think I've got 3 blog posts up there and that's it.

And I wrote those in that first week haven't really touched it since but my email list is growing faster than it was before. And it's because my focus wasn't on "How can I make my website look great?" or "How can I get this plugin to work?" it was like "Man, how can I just go out connect with someone, help them and give them something of value?" And it's made all the difference.

ANDY: How many times have you posted do you think in Quora?

TONY: I think I've got 29 answers on there.

ANDY: Only 29 and you've got this amount of volume.

TONY: Yeah and the other people that are in that LinkedIncommunity that are answering questions, they've got like hundreds, and one guy even has well over a thousand answers so it's definitely more about the quality of the answer than the quantity.

ANDY: I presume you didn't go in saying "Hi, I'm Tony, I'm a LinkedIn expert." You just started answering questions?

TONY: Yeah I was just in there was like "Hey, I can answer that" or "Hey, I can answer this one too". And then once I got a few under my belt I was like "I should probably put like a tagline in here so people can at least find my email list."

ANDY: So you did that afterwards. I approve of that as well. It's like just go out and do it and then you go "Oh damn, I wonder if I've lost a few people? I wonder if a few people might have been looking for a bit more information? I'd better are now gonna create it."

Whereas other people do it the other way round. "In case people want to find more information, I'll go and create a really good looking website and a lead magnet."

Then they go and do something and it's all tumbleweeds and nobody would've found it anyway.

So you might as well just go out, help people, become known as the LinkedIn guy because you HELP people with LinkedIn not because you say "I am the LinkedIn guy". It's that whole "Show don't tell" which is great.

And I've just remembered when we were messaging in the forum before you went off looking for communities to help you were coming up with your tagline, llike who you help and what you help them with. And I remember it was quite big and we condensed it quite a bit.

TONY: Yeah, so when I first started off, and this is something I struggled with before, iit's just like casting the net too wide. I think initially I was talking about you know, I just, "I, I help everybody with LinkedIn. Um, and then, you know, you and I going back and forth as like "Who specifically can you help?"

And I was like "I know what industry I'm in so I can help people in my industry." And we were able to keep paring that list down. But I guess what I've discovered through all this is that there's two ways to define who you are and who you help.

You can help a specific, segment of people right? "I help people who are 5' 11 that wanna play basketball but can't dunk or whatever." Or you can help, people with a specific problem, right? "It doesn't matter who you are, but if you want to get really, really, really good at using your LinkedIn profile so that when you submit an application people respond I'm the guy to help you."

And as I've, talked to all these people I realized, okay that's what people are asking for and I know that's what I'm good at so let me focus on this one very specific problem.

ANDY: That's really interesting because we boiled it down previously to who you help, what you help with, how you do it. It was slightly demographic based. It was like people in a particular type of job. We help those people to get jobs through LinkedIn

TONY: Yeah, using a good LinkedIn profile

ANDY: Whereas your other way of doing it is more down to the intent of the person.

TONY: Yeah, they want to create a good LinkedIn profile.

ANDY: I like both ways, but I like that way particularly because I can see my search engine brain is instantly "I don't care what size you are or height you are whether you like basketball or not. If you searched for this then you're interested in that thing I can do."

The demographics don't matter it's just your intent.

TONY: Yeah, and again it all came down to me not thinking "This is what people want to hear." But reading survey after survey and everyone saying the exact same thing "I don't know why I'm not getting responses to my application.

I don't know why people are looking at my profile, but not reaching out to me." That just opened my eyes up to say "Hey, here's what I'm meant to go after."

ANDY: It's really interesting you put the survey on before people submit their email. Did you notice that affected the amount of people entered their email or not?

TONY: No, and it's crazy, if anything, more people have been signing up since I added the survey on. And I've got two different squeeze pages, one has the survey on there, one doesn't. And the one that has the survey is converting higher than the one that doesn't.

I don't know if it's this market that I'm looking at specifically where people are just really engaged and want to be able to give me all the information so I can help them. But, I guess building that relationship up upfront has been pretty helpful.

ANDY: Yeah, it's kind of what they call the micro commitments isn't it?

TONY: Right.

ANDY: They filled in that then it's like "Damnit, I'm gonna fill all the thing in."

And are you studying the “Ask” book by Ryan Levesque?

TONY: Yes yeah, so I just finished that and that's where I got the whole survey idea from and that whole concept just really clicked with me.

Between what you told me about helping people, and then what you learn from the Ask book about getting to know your audience and your customers. Those two concepts that's what's really enabled me to get off to this good start so far.

ANDY: That's really interesting cos he studied Dr Glenn Livingston's stuff and I think he was his top student, and he's took that survey method, and he's grown a $10m a year company with 50 people in it. He's got the book and software and all that kind of stuff.

I remember studying it as well. I've got a little company just me and a couple of freelancers. But the main thing I took out of this course is if you put up a survey you'll get a lot of people filling in the open-ended things like "What are you looking for today?", "What are you struggling with?"

And a lot of people will reply with "Oh, I just need to pass an exam."

And then somebody will write a load, and that "hyper-responsive" person is writing a load of information in a form to a complete stranger because they are super frustrated.

The reason they're super frustrated is they've been around looking for a solution for a long while and looked at everything on the market and they can't find it and it's really bugging them.

Glenn's thing was like "50 people said this, that's important. You want that on your sales page.But the things you're gonna learn from the few people out of the 100 who write a tonne is potentially more useful than 50 people all saying the same thing. Because those people are possibly more educated about the market."

TONY: And that concept, about going after who's really hungry. That client who paid me the money for the coaching,she reached out to me not once but twice. Asking me like "Hey, I'm really interested in working with you. Can you please get back to me?"

And then, just to your point about the hyper-responsiveness, when I got on the phone with her and I was of hearing her story, I'm taking notes and now I'm using the exact phrases that she was saying about how she was struggling, in my copy, as I'm now getting ready to launch this ebook.

One of the things she told me was that she had been looking for so long that she had lost confidence in herself as a candidate. And I can't imagine how many other people are feeling that same way. So if I'm this person and I feel like I've lost confidence in myself, and then I open up my email inbox and I see a headline that says "Has your job search made you lose your confidence?" or something along that line I'm gonna open that up and I'm gonna be engaged.

So it's been a really cool experience.

ANDY: Yeah, using the language they give you and then give it back.

TONY: It was the easiest email subject line I ever had to write, just copy and paste.

ANDY: You're getting all these responses. I presume people are still trickling in.

TONY: Absolutely.

ANDY: Some of those are going to the free phone call, which by the way is a hyper-responsive thing.

When I send someone a thank you in the forum for following me I get a great little interaction and then sometimes I end up with a big long conversation.

Like with yourself, it was quite a lot of backwards and forwards and we honed in on something. I wasn't surprised that you popped up later on having done something because you wouldn't have continued that conversation for so long if you weren't hyper-responsive yeah?

TONY: Absolutely.

ANDY: It's like when I send visitors to a website, if they were searching for something I don't need to make the website look really pretty. In a way if it looks a bit ugly and I'm not selling too hard then the people who ring my clients they're more likely to convert because they don't care what the website looks like they're just that annoyed. So you're getting people coming through. Some of them are frustrated enough to wanna speak to a complete stranger for 30 minutes.

Even though you're giving it away for free, you can't give it away to everybody because it's their time that they're giving to you. And then also some people are shy and whatnot. That's one of the best things I've been doing is if people are stuck with something

I'll go "Oh look, why don't we just jump on a call and have a chat?" And I might spend 30 minutes chatting about something, but then I learn so much. I can help them, they can go off. Most of 'em don't turn into a client and that's not the intention, but the amount of stuff I learn like "Wow, so many people are saying they've lost confidence in the such and such."

How many of these free phone calls have you had?

TONY: Just five, so I had my first one about nine days ago,and then I've had four since then. I've had one convert out of those five.

ANDY: And if you start recording some of those, obviously let them know beforehand like "Are you happy I record this? I can give it to you and maybe use it for training later."

Then you might take out two minute segments or five minute segments. It can be a YouTube video. It could be a Facebook video. It would work pretty good on Facebook I think. How many people might not be looking for a job at that moment in time but they're in the market?

"Lost confidence in da da da da? This is a quick solution." could work really well.

Are you planning to continue doing the 30 minute conversations with people?

TONY: I think so just cos there's so much value in it. I mean it's beneficial to me because I'm getting to know the customer even more, right? You get a lot of insights from a survey, but being able to talk on the phone to someone and ask them that follow up question in the moment. It's invaluable just learning about my audience.

And then two, I am helping people, even in those 30 minutes I'm able to in the same way that you just asked me one question and it completely shifted my whole paradigm on how to get this thing started, I've heard that same thing in people that I've talked to. "You're doing it this way, but if you just change this one small thing I guarantee the results will get better." Definitely something I'll keep up with.

ANDY: And if you can see it in video, you get to see that aha moment. I've seen people sit back and go "Ohhhh."

You'd hear it in the phone as well if it was just audio, but when they sit back and go "Ohh" it's like they're doing a face palm.

I'm looking for those little twists, little twists that'll help people just get unstuck.

You've answered 29 things. You might find your repeating yourself and you might go "I've seen this before, where is it?"

You go and copy/paste and then you go "I must stop copy/pasting."

And then you go and write a nice article on it, and that article is battle tested. It got created because you did it once to answer somebody, then again, and then you're like, I'm done creating this loads of times, I'm gonna create an article.

That article is gonna help loads of people cos it's already helped a few people. Versus if you sit and write a blog post with a blank screen and go "What should I write about?"

TONY: Exactly.

ANDY: You've got no idea whether it can help anybody and then nobody's gonna find it, whereas this way... it's just a better way to do it.

And then once I got speaking to people I knew what they were stuck on, but I then could figure out WHY they were stuck on it. They all kept saying the same thing, the patterns were always the same.

And then once I figured that out, then I ended up creating a course, and then who did I sell that course to? But all the people who already know me as the AdWords guy. I *released* it, I didn't *launch* it with a big fanfare and a fancy countdown timer like it's gonna go up in price and all that stuff. Just released it slowly into the forum, had sales over 18 months and there we go.

And now I know that course will sell to people who already know, like, and trust me. The sales page worked for those people. All I need to do is get people who don't know me to know, like, and trust me, and then I can present it.

TONY: That's what I'm focusing on a lot right now too. So taking all those questions that I'm answering on Quora... and doing a lot of what you just said too but, instead of putting them on my blog, I'm adding them to my email responder. Once you get on my list, you'll go through just like a short indoctrination series where I tell you a little bit about who I am and my story.

And then I'll start sending you strictly content pieces and I'm just repurposing all these different answers that I'm giving on Quora and then just throwing those into the email responder. Cos maybe one person found me on answer number one but they haven't seen answers 22 through 28 right. That's my goal in kind of, building that whole know, like, and trust piece.

Now when I do start offering more of these products and services they know who I am and what I'm offering.

ANDY: You've got one sale now…

TONY: It happened I don't wanna say effortlessly because there's definitely a lot of work that went into making that happen, but when I think about how I started before I invested all this time front "Okay let me build all these lead magnets." "Let me build all these sales pages." "Let me write this copy." "Let me create these email autoresponders."

I did it the wrong way. Let me talk to people first, let me understand what they're struggling with first. Let me help somebody. And then from there, once I have a really good understanding of what the market's struggling with then I can go back and be really focused with what I'm making because I know it's gonna convert because this is what they told me they want.

ANDY: And have you had your coaching call yet? The paid one?

TONY: Yeah, we actually just had it yesterday morning. That was the first paid one that we had and it went great. It went so well. She told me that she took so much away from that first session. So there's a buzz there of just helping.

ANDY: I'm doing the same thing, I'm helping people put a roof over their heads. That's what you're doing. You're helping them. You're helping their immediate family. You're helping their extended family cos their mom and dad are worried about them if they haven't got a job and all this kind of stuff.

What would you recommend to somebody now if they were like "I've got this idea I'm gonna go build a website an autoresponder series and blah, blah, blah?"

TONY: The first thing I would say is just find someone that you feel you can help. If they're asking a question on a forum, or even someone from your personal life like if someone's personally struggling with what it is you feel you can bring value with just go out there and help someone.

See if what you have to offer is actually solving a problem for them. And if it is, get to know that problem on a very intimate level right? What is it exactly that they're struggling with? What are the thoughts that are running through their minds? What are the mental hurdles they feel they have to jump through to get to that solution.

And once you've done that then all the other work is laid out already.

You've already got the framework that you need to go follow.

Find someone to help. Help 'em. Pay attention, ask good questions and everything else takes care of itself. But it's just so strange cos you hear a lot of the internet gurus who talk about super complex marketing strategies and techniques. "You need this one click upsell" and "You need this multilayered funnel" and "You need to remarket people who opt in for your lead magnet but don't buy your trip wire" and "You need this email series for this and this email series for that."

But when you really just break it down at it's core. All you have to do is find somebody to help. And once you hear it in those super simple terms, all of the other auxiliary things you're hearing, they just fade away to the background and you can get super focused on that one thing.

ANDY: Yeah, if somebody had not read any of that guru stuff online they wouldn't know any of that stuff. They'd just literally do it. I just think of the 16 year old kid coming around with a lawnmower. "Do you need your grass cut?" "Actually I do, yeah." And then that's it. Did he need to get a book on cold calling? Did he need to get a logo and a website?

TONY: There's definitely a time and place for all of that. But when you're first getting started the concept is super simple. And I gotta thank you again Andy for giving me that clarity.
 
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The-J

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Some takeaways

1) Find people you can help

How do you do that? They're everywhere. For professionals, quora, linkedin, facebook, reddit are good options. Or go out and meet people! Go to a board of trade event and get plugged into the scene. Ask people what they want to get out of the board, and that will help you drill down what their business problems might be.

2) Don't sit around and ask how you can help people: just do it

It's better to just go out and answer people who need help, it might be as simple as googling your question lol



Find a question you can answer. "what's the best way to advertise on facebook" i can answer that in three sentences.



Start with your business goal. Know your target audience. Advertise to them in a way that makes them want to consume your content and take your offer.

It's nebulous but hey, it's about as good as i can give to such a shitty question. lol

"What's the best way to advertise on google" i'd probably say 'give them what they're searching for'

'plumber in dublin' something tells me that they probably want a plumber in dublin + you should make an ad that makes it clear that you are that plumber + you are available + you can fix their problem.

3) If they want more help, give it to them for a price.

Your time isn't free and neither is theirs. Neither is mine, for that matter.

4) if you've gotten nowhere, helping people should be your first priority.
 
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WillHurtDontCare

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Well worth your time. A good reminder that your job isn't just to finish some project but to help someone. For example, don't just make a beautiful website, make a website that solves a problem for others. Like you mention on the call, you can do a lot when you develop the reputation for being a problem solver.

This call also provides another example of Pareto principle at work. That one person who gives you a mountain of information when describing their problem can be worth more than all of your other feedback combined.

I am also curious about Ask by Ryan Levesque. Has anyone else here read it? My reading list is already very long so I am curious if it is worth bumping another book down the list to read.
 

Andy Black

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I am also curious about Ask by Ryan Levesque. Has anyone else here read it? My reading list is already very long so I am curious if it is worth bumping another book down the list to read.
I've got it on the Kindle and on Audible. It was recommended that I read it from Chapter 12 onwards (because the first half of the book is stories and from 12 it's the nuts and bolts). I've not got too far into it, but I think I already know the first deep-dive survey having studied Dr Glenn Livingston's stuff back in 2009. (Ryan has other surveys too.) I'll be surveying folks shortly, then might go back and continue reading/listening.
 

WillHurtDontCare

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I've got it on the Kindle and on Audible. It was recommended that I read it from Chapter 12 onwards (because the first half of the book is stories and from 12 it's the nuts and bolts). I've not got too far into it, but I think I already know the first deep-dive survey having studied Dr Glenn Livingston's stuff back in 2009. (Ryan has other surveys too.) I'll be surveying folks shortly, then might go back and continue reading/listening.

That was my takeaway from Amazon. A few reviews showed that some people weren't interested in the first half.
 
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Andy Black

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Ryan has his "Ask/Survey funnels" where he finds out what people are stuck on and how to help them (plus more I'm sure).

As discussed in this call, my main takeaway from Dr Glenn Livingston's stuff was to be more interested in the hyper-responsives. However, I decided not to survey people, but to engage them in PM immediately. Not so I can sell them anything, but so I can figure out what people are stuck on, and how I can help them get unstuck. I also want to help people immediately, and not assume I know what help they need.

I'll move to the surveys in good time, especially when I run Google Ads campaigns to opt-in pages. Currently I'm "doing things that don't scale".
 

roguehillbilly

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I've got it on the Kindle and on Audible. It was recommended that I read it from Chapter 12 onwards (because the first half of the book is stories and from 12 it's the nuts and bolts). I've not got too far into it, but I think I already know the first deep-dive survey having studied Dr Glenn Livingston's stuff back in 2009. (Ryan has other surveys too.) I'll be surveying folks shortly, then might go back and continue reading/listening.

I was recommended this book to help me with building my Facebook communities. I'll be checking it out soon.
 

RoadTrip

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I actually listened to this call based on your recommendation in our email conversation. Thanks for sharing!

The main takeaway for me is that nothing really matters unless you start helping a real person. No fancy websites, funnels or tripwires, just plain old helping fellow humans with their pain points. After that, the rest will follow automatically. It's pretty similar to what MJ refers to as a productcracy.

Also, the part about short vs long responses in surveys is interesting. I have conducted some surveys in the past in the health niche but never really made the connection. Looking back, the people with the longer responses definitely had bigger unsolved problems.
 
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Andy Black

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This call also provides another example of Pareto principle at work. That one person who gives you a mountain of information when describing their problem can be worth more than all of your other feedback combined.
100%.

This was my biggest Aha moment from going through Dr Glenn Livingston’s $2k course back in 2009.

The people all giving us the same short answers to what they want and why are giving us what’s required to *enter* the market.

The tiny % of hyper-responsive are giving us the points of difference for our offer.


The most common objection to focusing on the hyper-responsives is that they’re a small % of the market.

However, because they are the most educated and frustrated about their problem, then helping the hyper-responsives means you automatically have the sales page/offer and solution that helps everyone else.


Think about what I do in TFLF.

I send a short PM to people who follow me, thanking them and asking how things are going.

I get into conversation with people who reply.

I try to figure out what they’re stuck on, why they’re stuck on it, and why it’s important to them.

I try and help them to the best of my ability ... there and then!

If the conversation continues for a long time then I don’t begrudge giving lots of free advice. I see this as a sign this person is frustrated, likely from trying many different things and not getting the results they want.

Some people aren’t frustrated enough yet to ask in depth questions. Some people I can already help by pointing them to content I’ve already created in TFLF. In either case it doesn’t take much of my time to help them, and it wears a deeper groove for that particular path from “need to solution”.

Sometimes the problem is too new or the PM back and forth is too slow. I offer to jump on a call. If they agree this is a big sign they’re a hyper-responsive. Not already of course, but they’re willing to spend some of their precious time to chat about their problems with some dude they’ve not met in person.

Make sense?


If you want to watch a good example of a call where I’m trying to help a fellow forum member then check out this one:
 

arobinson04

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4) if you've gotten nowhere, helping people should be your first priority.

This is the biggest lesson. I ran a blog/fledgling business in the personal development space. I started the blog to try & help people live happier lives.

And I wrote all these blog posts...

And I created all these lead magnets...

And I tried to sell different products...

But after two years, I hadn't really gained much traction.

I realize now, that even though the goal of my blog was to help people, I wasn't really helping anyone.

Instead, I was focused on what to sell next.

My whole perspective was warped. Helping should be everyone's first priority.

Because, if you're not helping anyone, you're probably not making any money either.
 

arobinson04

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I actually listened to this call based on your recommendation in our email conversation. Thanks for sharing!

The main takeaway for me is that nothing really matters unless you start helping a real person. No fancy websites, funnels or tripwires, just plain old helping fellow humans with their pain points. After that, the rest will follow automatically. It's pretty similar to what MJ refers to as a productcracy.

Also, the part about short vs long responses in surveys is interesting. I have conducted some surveys in the past in the health niche but never really made the connection. Looking back, the people with the longer responses definitely had bigger unsolved problems.

++++
 
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AgainstAllOdds

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Here’s a recording of a chat I had with Tony who describes how:
  • One simple question got him unstuck.
  • He's only been on Quora for 30 days helping people.
  • He's only posted 29 times but is now top ranked for his subject matter.
  • His bio sends people to a survey where he asks opened ended questions (as per the Ask book by Ryan Levesque).
  • He's had 300 surveys and email addresses.
  • He's done 5 free 30 minute coaching calls.
  • One free coaching call converted on the spot to a $400 coaching package.
  • His advice to people who want to start by building a website and autoresponder series.
What he's done is such a short space of time is inspiring.

I spent over 2 hours personally chopping this call down to only 25 minutes so it's no fluff and actionable. Do yourself a favour and give it a listen.

Well done @arobinson04


> Click here to access the recording <


What were your takeaways?

What will you do differently going forward?



(For other recordings click HERE.)

Maybe I'm missing something, but the numbers are inconclusive - and at the moment bad.
  • 5 calls at 30 minutes = 2.5 hours of work.
  • $400 coaching package
  • A lot of extra time not counted for preparing for the call, etc; but let's exclude that for this example.
Now let's say the coaching package is for the following amount of hours, then that's how much you get paid per hour:
  • 1 hour: $114
  • 5 hours: $53.33
  • 10 hours: $32
Any success is worth celebrating, but this model goes against what @MJ DeMarco 's books teach.

Until you pivot the model, you're not creating a scalable business, but a pipeline to trade time for money.
 
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Andy Black

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Maybe I'm missing something, but the numbers are inconclusive - and at the moment bad.
  • 5 calls at 30 minutes = 2.5 hours of work.
  • $400 coaching package
  • A lot of extra time not counted for preparing for the call, etc; but let's exclude that for this example.
Now let's say the coaching package is for the following amount of hours, then that's how much you get paid per hour:
  • 1 hour: $114
  • 5 hours: $53.33
  • 10 hours: $32
Any success is worth celebrating, but this model goes against what @MJ DeMarco 's books teach.

Until you pivot the model, you're not creating a scalable business, but a pipeline to trade time for money.
It’s a start. Engage people and find out what they want. Then figure out how to get paid. Then figure out what everyone who *pays* you is stuck on, how to continue helping them one-to-one, then at scale, then taking it from there.
 

Andy Black

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Bump for the engineers who like building stuff, and never get round to “launching” or talking to people.
 

maikooo

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Here’s a recording of a chat I had with Tony who describes how:
  • One simple question got him unstuck.
  • He's only been on Quora for 30 days helping people.
  • He's only posted 29 times but is now top ranked for his subject matter.
  • His bio sends people to a survey where he asks opened ended questions (as per the Ask book by Ryan Levesque).
  • He's had 300 surveys and email addresses.
  • He's done 5 free 30 minute coaching calls.
  • One free coaching call converted on the spot to a $400 coaching package.
  • His advice to people who want to start by building a website and autoresponder series.
What he's done is such a short space of time is inspiring.

I spent over 2 hours personally chopping this call down to only 25 minutes so it's no fluff and actionable. Do yourself a favour and give it a listen.

Well done @arobinson04


> Click here to access the recording <


What were your takeaways?

What will you do differently going forward?



(For other recordings click HERE.)
This is GOLD @Andy Black !! Thanks for pointing me to this
 
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Timmy C

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Here’s a recording of a chat I had with Tony who describes how:
  • One simple question got him unstuck.
  • He's only been on Quora for 30 days helping people.
  • He's only posted 29 times but is now top ranked for his subject matter.
  • His bio sends people to a survey where he asks opened ended questions (as per the Ask book by Ryan Levesque).
  • He's had 300 surveys and email addresses.
  • He's done 5 free 30 minute coaching calls.
  • One free coaching call converted on the spot to a $400 coaching package.
  • His advice to people who want to start by building a website and autoresponder series.
What he's done is such a short space of time is inspiring.

I spent over 2 hours personally chopping this call down to only 25 minutes so it's no fluff and actionable. Do yourself a favour and give it a listen.

Well done @arobinson04


> Click here to access the recording <


What were your takeaways?

What will you do differently going forward?



(For other recordings click HERE.)

Having a listen.

it's really helping my mindset change and adjust. It's a very foreign concept to me but this is great. Learning alot.
 

Andy Black

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I think the name of the thread might be deterring people.

I may change it to “Who have you helped?”

For those who’ve listened, do you think that makes sense, or do you have a better suggestion?
 

Timmy C

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I think the name of the thread might be deterring people.

I may change it to “Who have you helped?”

For those who’ve listened, do you think that makes sense, or do you have a better suggestion?

That's a good name I think yes.

Executing this as we speak I'll update my progress thread tomorrow for y'all on the inside.
 
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Title changed from:
  • 300 surveys & emails, 5 free calls, one $400 sale (in 30 days)
to:
  • Who have you helped?
 

Andy Black

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it's really helping my mindset change and adjust. It's a very foreign concept to me but this is great. Learning alot.
I'm curious. What was a very foreign concept?

What’s your main takeaway, and what will you do different going forward?
 
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Timmy C

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Giving Value for free, who have you helped? was foreign.

Not that it hasn't been said here many times but it's more the fact that entrepreneurship and starting a business is foreign to me as a whole. So i guess I have just been conditioned to think money first.

Even when you said the other day to cook someone a nice tasty lunch, i new what you where saying but at the same time thinking is this even gonna work? who does work for no money?

I guess it's just a mindset change i am going through, never had to think in this way before if that makes sense.
 

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if you've gotten nowhere, helping people should be your first priority.
^^^ THIS.

For the love of God. Please just start already and stop with all the action faking and “building stuff”.
 

maikooo

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Title changed from:
  • 300 surveys & emails, 5 free calls, one $400 sale (in 30 days)
to:
  • Who have you helped?
Good change! "Who have you helped/Who can you help/How can you help" Been in my mind since you sent me the PM and helped me figure out my next focus area! Thanks again
 
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maikooo

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Since @Andy Black wrote me a PM after I followed him (thx to his valuable posts on this forum), I have been pondering on "Who have I helped recently / Who can I help?"

This question has been in my head ever since he wrote me "Can you start sooner and simpler?" This was his answer to my elaborated plan of finding out real needs in the market with identifying some niche that interests me and following up with perfectly worked out cold calls.

It was one of those questions that just don't let go. I had to take action.

I went on to listen to his awesome recordings with TFLF members (still binge listening) Andy Black to understand better ...

This one was especially interesting because of the speed of execution - Who have you helped?

I wrote down everything I helped people with in the past year - tasks, goals, inspirations.

First hiccup in the analysis came up - I love executing, instead of just going to Quora and answering people's question. I just love making things happen, instead of long talks [I guess it's my hate for long and useless meetings I had to go through in my corporate career].

Not saying I don't stop in the beginning to come up with a proper strategy and plan, but I love making ideas happen! Insights, research, gathering as much info as possible in the shortest possible time frame and making it happen - throw it out there for the market mind to evaluate & reward you with value exchange. It's about learning on the go - very influenced by Lean Startup - build - measure - learn. Just to clarify, "build" doesn't mean building in the dark room for x days and then [fanfare] launching only to experience tumbleweeds [sad trombone sound]. It's about building MVP/S getting it in front of the market mind, get feedback, adjust and cycle goes on ...

So I decided to help people in my network who are small entrepreneurs, doing honest business, focusing on what they do best - helping their customers. Opened Linkedin and found at least 5 of them. All of them have a lot of room to improve in terms of getting quality leads and more sales so they can help even more people.

Instead of complicating things, like "what if they misuse my good will, what if they are the worst type of clients, what if there is nothing out of it", I'd rather say - "what do I have to lose?" I will do my best work, learn tons of new stuff in real market conditions and as a bonus I can get future referrals ... so get the f*ck out there and help somebody! You have tons of skills and knowledge to share!
 

Primeperiwinkle

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While on this forum I typically feel overwhelmed or humbled by the knowledgeable advice OR I’m utterly annoyed by the massive flow of new people who ask stupid questions and pray to God I won’t be like them.

But this? This post made me happy. Since reading MJ’s books (I’m at 87% on Unscripted !!) I’ve thought over and over on how to help more people doing new stuff or how to inspire my children to be problem-solvers. But I never actually sat back and thought, “I belong here, I’m an entrepreneur.”

Because it’s kinda terrifying thinking that, for me, even though I own a business.

But. I help people every single day. My clients love me, they refuse to go to other people, they get on a waiting list to see me.. huh.

Anyhoo.. I had a bit of a eureka just now.. and I wanted to say thank you. It IS about helping people and doing that is a wonderful thing.

Hugs. (If you’re ok with hugs. Lol)
 

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