Dane Maxwell AMA-- SaaS, Membership Sites, The Foundation

[D. Maxwell]

Thanks for doing this Dane its been awesome.

I followed your launch closely last year and had a question.

I remember two applicants you profiled last year, one had sent a looong handwritten letter to you about why he wanted in the program, another chased you on FB trying to get accepted into the program. What were their results with the program?

The long letter was a guy from Slovania. He borrowed money to get in the program from friends and family. He has not built software, but instead is becoming a software consultant to completely build your MPV in 3 months or your money back. He's working with foundation clients as a coach. He joined the VIP tier and worked personally with me and reversed some serious limiting beliefs.

One limiting belief: He had trouble asking for money... asking for the sale was almost impossible. I applied some of my intuitive skills and found something dating back to age 14 where he asked him mom for something and got totally burned by her for asking. This fear came up subconsciously every time since he's asked for money. "It's not safe to ask for what I want." We cleared that. Now he can do it with no problem.

He's very happy. Here's his FB if you wanna chat: https://www.facebook.com/?q=#/leban.matej?fref=ts&ref=br_tf

The other guy who chased me on FB flaked out in month 2, dropped out, and is now working as an employee for a start up.

 

[InMotion]

I bought sourceofsuper.info from buysellwebsite.com - it was advertising $200 a day in adsense income, $6k a month profit for a sale price of $12,000. The guy wanted a fast sale to build his deck. Name was Phillip Shinnen.

Website maker pleads guilty to wire fraud

Looks like the person you mentioned Dane....he is now heading to sentencing

 

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[D. Maxwell]

Website maker pleads guilty to wire fraud

Looks like the person you mentioned Dane....he is now heading to sentencing

BAD a$$!

I hated being scammed. Woohoo!

 

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[D. Maxwell]

Not sure if you're going to be back online Dane but I have some questions if you get the chance, feel free to answer whatever you feel is the most important or useful if you are limited on time:

Could you shell out a general timeline for a product launch such as one for the foundation or even just talk more on launching the course.

What did the year leading up to launch look like? What were some unforeseen problems you encountered at launch that you learned and will avoid if you were to do it again, etc? How big of of a core team did you have working on this? What were some marketing tactics that killed it and others that didn't work so well?

Anything on the actual launch of the foundation really, I don't think anyone could disagree that your launch seemed VERY well done from the outside looking in.

general timeline for launch:

3 months before launch: Throw up key desire video with opt in to the bonus, in this case, a case study. Start getting leads by sharing on Facebook. Then start blitzing interview sites with links back to TheFoundation.com. Make people wait for the case study to build tension.

1 month before launch: release case study

The launch month, 30 day timeline: release one video weekly.

video 1 - channel existing desire from your customer into our world - while creating the desire to learn more - The Secret Language Of Millionaires | The Foundation
video 2 - authority and likeability - Behind the Scenes of a $500,000/Year Business | The Foundation
video 3 - origin story about your company - Why Do We Fail? Answer: These Three Pillars | The Foundation
video 4 - addressing objections - How To Discover The Hidden Blind Spots Crippling Your Potential | The Foundation
video 5 - show proof - Shift Your Mindset. Shift Your Life: The Proof | The Foundation

Video 4 and 5 were done in one week. Monday video 4, thursday video 5.

There's a lot more going on, but that's a rough idea of how we thought out the timeline.


Your Questions: What were some unforeseen problems you encountered at launch that you learned and will avoid if you were to do it again, etc? How big of of a core team did you have working on this? What were some marketing tactics that killed it and others that didn't work so well?

My answer: Our merchant froze our account the day of launch, they held over $200,000 for 6 months. We had little to go off of. That sucked.

Core team was 3 people last year. This year, it's 10!

Marketing tactics that killed it: Offering a bonus at the end of the interviews we did around the net instead of just sending people to TheFoundation.com - however we are being lazy this year and not doing it as much as we should. Oops. Overwhelmed

None of the marketing tactics we did, didn't work last year. It was all on fire.

Facebook CRUSHED it, over 20% of our traffic was from shares. Give away PDF's for shares instead of opt in's.

 

[D. Maxwell]

Dane, is this something you can share with me? I made my first IE call yesterday and need some guidance.

How do I become a better listener?

Wow. What a beautiful question. This is probably the most powerful skill on the planet. Listening.

With listening, you can SELL to anyone.
With listening, you can find the path of least resistance to getting what you want.
With listening, you can get all the nookie in the world from your girlfriend or wife

Ok... ok... third one is true. I admit it.

But if you listen with a pure heart, everyone feels it, and the world opens up to you.

Sarah, to become a better listener here are a few guidelines. Idea extraction is about 4 qualities/states of being.

1. Being present.
2. Asking questions.
3. Listening intently.
4. Understanding.

Let's talk about becoming a better listener.

First, you have to get out of your own way. What is your agenda for listening? Is it to get something, or to give... to help the person figure out an issue on their own?

Second, get out of your own way again. Are you worried about anything while you are listening? Like if you're talking to a CEO of a huge company, do you feel intimidated and unimportant?

Third, get out of your own way, yet again. Are you thinking about the next question you're going to ask before the person finishes talking?

During idea extraction training in The Foundation students are always looking for the questions... 'what are the questions? give me them!' they think...

But Idea Extraction is not about asking the question... it's about how you respond to their first answer.

I've critique roughly 5 idea extraction calls in the last year painstakingly, and the students who fail ALWAYS miss what the person is saying, they miss the gold and just ask another random question.

One call I critiqued... the customer on the phone said "Well, I can't really get to that task because my email inbox is overflowing"

Student asked "Great, can you tell me now about the greatest problem in your business?"

I wanted to jump out of my seat. "DIG INTO HIS EMAIL! ASK HIM TO LIST OUT HIS MOST PAINFUL EMAILS. That is where you will find your idea. In the deep specifics of a problem.

And you can't get to the deep specifics if you screw up those three rules above.

 

[D. Maxwell]

Dane- Thanks again for answering all questions!

I am also interested in this idea of using webinars to get sales. Do you have a sample of a successful webinar you, or one of your students have used in the past that you would share?

This is difficult to teach in a single forum post, but I'll do my best. And I'll give you an actual webinar script that CRUSHED it.

200 registrants
130 attended
30 sales
$8,000 upfront and $1,600 recurring
From 1, 1 in a half hour webinar.

They are money machines.

Here is the entire script. You're welcome

---> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1feL6gNvKiZFGoT77yDW32HeOpbS8gJpuEl1dloPrc18/edit

Mindset:

When I'm on my A game, I use Cialdini's 7 triggers of influence in a webinar.

Webinars are not for presentations, they are for discussions. Don't talk at your customers, engage the CRAP out of them. Ask them where they are from. Ask them what their current situation is like. For me, I'd ask, "how many agents you have guys recruiting in 90 days before, what's the highest number?"

Then I'd read out the names and answers. Social proof.

Tactics:

Run your webinar with an "End Result Customer Wants In Specific Period Of Time While Addressing Objections."

Mine? How To Recruit 10 Agents In 90 Days

If I added "without cold calling or rejection" I'm guessing the webinar would have pulled even better. But I didn't put objections in this headline. It was 3 years ago, don't remember why.

Email sequence:

This webinar I sent out emails one week, three days, two days, one day, and day of. Yes. 4 Emails. In a week.

If that feels aggressive, I kind of agree as I write this, but send at least 2. Ideally 3.

The Handout

People forget webinars, to increase your attendance do a fill in the blank sheet and tell them to print it off and put it by their computer. It rocks.

Handout example: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PE1mQ9UVmF-8ES5DymkrtrOaQFcMTKH0KFc5gG_BLeQ/edit?usp=sharing

 

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[Vigilante]

When you kick out people. Do you do refund a payment?

If you are worried about getting kicked out (for any reason) this probably is not the right program for you.

A better question might be :

"If I am the best student you ever have and you down the road want to use my story and my name to promote the foundation…"

That's the attitude of winners.

Expect more of yourself.

I would not personally engage in anything that I didn't expect to win.

"Coffee is for closers."

 

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[ZDigriz]

Hi, everyone.

Thanks for saving me several thousand dollars - and more importantly - several months of my time in regards to The Foundation. I've listened to a couple of Dane's podcasts and been impressed with the quality of the information and his approach to building a successful SaaS business. The process he advocates works and it's the same way I've built my own software company.

But being a successful entrepreneur doesn't automatically quality you to run a successful coaching program. I've been involved in four paid programs overs the years - real estate, marketing and fund raising. Two of them were excellent, two of them mediocre.

We live outside of Boulder and I've met many people (founders, mentors and students) from the phenomenal Tech Stars accelerator program. It's similar in scope, but is a free, highly competitive program that guarantees $100K+ in funding for every graduating company. You can imagine the quality of everyone involved and how much time and effort goes into making it work.

There's several consistent themes from this thread. Dane needs to seriously improve his coaching skills, hire better instructors and put the program content in a better format.

1. Show up on time. The comments about Dane showing up late or skipping sessions entirely are a deal breaker for me. After the 2nd or 3rd time, I'd have left and gotten a refund.

It's a perfect example of what Tom Peters calls the dirty tray problem on a commercial airline. You board the plane, look down the aisle and see it littered with garbage. The tray tables aren't even clean. His point is what does that indicate about other aspects of the business? If they can't even complete basic tasks like properly cleaning the plane between flights, what does that say about the engine maintenance? Or pilot ability? Or emergency procedures?

Most people have heard the phrase "90% of success is simply showing up." The "on time" piece is implicit. If the instructor can't even show up as scheduled once or twice each week, what does that say about his commitment to other aspects of the program? It's a complete lack of respect to the several dozen students who have explicitly PAID FOR HIS TIME. He's promising to reinvent your mindset and life, but can't pick up the phone at the right time? All the other promises immediately become suspect.

2. Outsourced mentoring. It doesn't work in general and especially when the sub-coaches haven't even started their own successful businesses using the same material. If he wants to pocket big money for coaching students, that requires showing up and doing the hard work personally until the staff is trained well enough to take over.

3. Unanswered questions. I really can't understand this at all. Two of the critical skills for creating an automated business are building systems and delegating. The successful mentors I've had replied to every call, email and forum post. It might not have been them personally responding, but every question got answered. The Foundation clearly doesn't have such systems in place.

Graduates are promised a functioning SaaS application with "at least one paying customer" after six months. That sounds great, but one of the fundamental principles is getting prospects to pay up front (pre-sell) to fund the development and avoid personally coming out of pocket. It's pretty unlikely any single customer is funding 100% of the development (although that's certainly possible with custom work), so where are all the rest of them after six months? Who paid for all the development work? Did everyone find a developer willing to trade their time for future profits?

It's easy to blame TF students for lack of effort, but only about 5% actually launched after six months. That means after spending $300K+ and tens of thousands of man hours, TF was able to create five businesses which cumulatively generate $5K monthly. Not my idea of a good investment and hardly a successful accelerator program. In contrast, 95% (sometimes 100%) of Tech Stars graduates launched by graduation. I like the concept of The Foundation, but will find other resources until the problems are worked out and it becomes a two-way revenue stream.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

OK, since everyone appears to be shy, I'll start...

1) How do you avoid having your students compete in the same space? Or do you?

2) The business you bought for $12K and got "scammed" -- how exactly was it a scam? Please provide details so as someone here might not repeat the same mistake, or so we will know how to spot the red flags.

3) Was the business found at Flippa?

 

[exige]

I've got lots of questions ;-) I love The Foundation's website and your sales video is awesome.

First, the tough one: Why package and market your system as opposed to scaling one of your existing SaaS offerings to 7 figures a month or building a portfolio of 6 figure SaaS apps?

How do you approach growing MRR while minimizing churn and building a loyal customer base? E.g., do you find that you put just as much or more into retention as you do into acquisition? Do you find that retention is easier because of the specificity of the idea extraction process? Have any of your students built a partner channel?

Are most of the apps that you and your students produce aimed at the small business market? Have you or any of your students broken into the mid-market or enterprise space? Have any of your students grown into or past mid 7 figures annual revenue? What about in terms of subscriber count, whats the largest you or your students have achieved? 1k, 10k, 100k, a million?

How do you handle outages? Do you credit customers for downtime or throw them perks or anything to offset the pain of an outage? What works best in your experience?

How do you set up your students to deal with operations, do you outsource it or are most of the apps of small enough scale that they are just running on a basic hosting account? Do you teach your students how to setup an operations team and tiered customer support processes?

What is your opinion on data portability, APIs and integration? Are you an advocate of the walled garden approach or open access? Do you put up barriers like fees for a data extract, etc. to slow folks from fleeing to competitors?

Have you run into compliance issues with differing laws in different countries or are your apps focused on the US market? Do you explicitly block users from countries with potentially "difficult" laws like Germany, Belgium, Ireland, etc.? Do you have any students using cloud platforms and how do they deal with this issue?

Do you teach your students anything about scaling, and scaling the technical stack as the business scales? Or is the focus of your course just on the "entry" and launch? Any plans to do a follow on course for your graduates to deal with the next stage of growth of their apps?

On business scaling, do you advocate doing as much as possible "virtually" over the internet, or have you used an in house solution sales team to sell subscriptions? Have you found that businesses are more accepting now of cloud based solutions or are you facing a challenging sales process?

Whats the highest ROI marketing channel you/your students have used for your apps? LinkedIn driving to webinars? Direct mail postcards?

 

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[DennisD]

Answer: By far, webinars. Cold emails to webinars, PPC to webinars, landing page to webinars. Webinars drive on average 50% of my software revenues.

I want to hear a lot more about this.
So you've got a SaaS app built.
You have a target market, and you know how to reach them (FB, email lists, ads, whatever).
How is the webinar structured?

Is the entire webinar an overview on how to use your software?
Do you present a problem, give a few tips, and present your software as a solution?

 

[D. Maxwell]

How did you started, did you always wanted to be a entrepreneur, or was something that just naturally happened?

I was working towards a college degree and doing computer hacking. I wasn't very good at it and I didn't get accepted into the program so I went into auditing with Ernst & Young. I was miserable, got fired, and in the last year of college I picked up a book Rich Dad Poor Dad. That is what started me on the entrepreneurial path

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Or am I missing something?

Yea, you're missing something.

 

[D. Maxwell]

Hey Dane,

2 quick question about selecting industries to target:

1. Your criteria for number of businesses in the industry is 5k+, ideally 10k+. Is there a maximum number here also? I found a couple industries that look interesting, but they have 150k+ businesses, so I was wondering if that meant that I needed to get more targeted. Or, if it just meant that it might be a nice, big market!

2. How are you determining if businesses in a given industry already pay for software of some kind? I saw the one example about that chiropractor marketing businesses with 100 employees being an indicator that chiropractors pay for their software. If you can't find something like this, is there another way to find out about this?

Thanks for this AMA, I've been loving it so far. Just what I needed... it just makes so much sense!

Bernie it depends, but it sounds like an awesome market. The bigger the better.

How to determine... I'm not sure... it depends on the industry. Just try to figure it out with some genius hack you can think up.

You could seriously run a survey of "the top tools X industry uses to run their business." and contact people asking them to share and in return you'll share the entire list of results. Value add, relationship builder, and a great way to start idea extraction.

My next question after getting those submissions is which of these software cause you the most pain? That's more or less how I built www.paperlesspipeline.com

 

[D. Maxwell]

Hey Dane,

Thank you so much for doing this AMA and giving your advice. Your freedom=kindness philosophy makes me think that someone being kind (and giving advice) also pushes me to being kind and giving advice to people around me.

Say I have found my market and have several pre-sales that validated the idea. Now I have to build the software.

Now what are specific steps to take here?

From what I understood:

1- Sketch out on paper how the software will work. Every screen every action. (ok, done)
2- Translate these into HTML/CSS to have the UI ready
3- Hire a coder and build it

Could you go into details on the steps 2 and 3?

Where do you hire the coder? What programming language to develop my app in? Once I hired the guy, what should I tell him to do first?

In your projects, when the coder is working, what is your involvement? Do you let him 100% freerange as long as it's in the budget and timing, or do you tell him things to do 1 by 1?

What is the typical breakdown of the 12 weeks of programming, in terms of milestones and tasks?

I have 8,400€ of "6 months advance" presales in my hands, is that enough to start and focus on dev?

Dane thank you so much for doing this AMA and take care

Cheers,
Valentin Van Nhut

PS: If you come to Paris, you're always welcome at my place!

So that is NOT exactly how I would go about it.

The five step framework I folow is this

1 - Idea Extraction
2 - Sketch The Solution
3 - Pre-selling
4 - Building the product
5 - Scaling

Under sketching the solution, this is where you draw on paper, get buy in, then go NOT to html or CSS, but something like www.keynotopia.com - then make a clickable demo, then show to the customer, then get them to pay you in advance.

After a pre-sell, then hire HTML/CSS and the dev.

 

[Vigilante]

Can you profile 10 successful students and companies they have started using your material?

 

[D. Maxwell]

Dane,

In Andy's interview with Peter Shallard, Peter talks about a 2 year cycle that entrepreneurs go through before they're able to really "get it" and move on with building a successful company. How is The Foundation able to compress that timetable for people who have never started their own company before and have other demands on them, such as a job and family?

By focusing all of the energy into a 6 month period, an added element of magic is added. When you are by yourself I can see it taking 2 years, when you're surrounded by hundreds of people all taking action, your mindset growth is accelerated.

I think we compress it by focusing on the 80/20 rule. By focusing on deep mindset, limiting beliefs, and identity issues that come up about who you think you are. Once those are removed, it's can be like rocket fuel for action.

I'd say it takes 3 months in The Foundation for the mindset to fully kick in, and then at 6 months your mind is really concrete at starting to see the world through the eyes of an entrepreneur.

 

[D. Maxwell]

Dane, thank you for doing this AMA.

Questions:

What is your refund policy, and what percentage of each Foundation class has asked to be refunded?

Last year our refund policy was 2 fold "build a software company with 10 paying customers in 6 months or your money back" and... "If you're not happy with where you're at in your life... get a refund."

We had somewhere between a 10 and 15% refund rate. This was a terrible number, we think this year it will be closer to 5%.

We screwed up a a number of things last year that we are correcting for this year.

 

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[Vigilante]

Just got an email from MJ asking me to look at this thread? Just looks like a load of questions and NO answers? Or am I missing something?

You are missing something.

Something significant. Something so large that even though I don't know you, I question your reading comprehension.

MJ emailed you?

 

[decaobr]

So far this is my favorite threat on the Forum, great answers from Dane.

 

[JackTackett]

In the '80s I and a partner sold and installed an office practice software called The Medical Manager into doctor's offices. While the Doctor usually attended a part of the sales meeting - we found the big decision maker was the office manager - get that person on your side and you are usually golden. They are the gate keepers. The doc may sign the checks - but this person runs the day to day affairs. I've been out of the industry for many years so don't know if this is still the case - but maybe you can try a test with the office managers instead of the doctors themselves...

Best of luck,
---Jack

 

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[D. Maxwell]

Thx for these great replies?

I have already send 1000 mails to doctors, and got around 80-90 answers. However, the answers are roughly,

I do not use the computer, however, I have problems with not paying customers, Time managment.

Software building is not the problem for me, I can build everything. For me the problem is to convert somebody who is interested in a paying customer?

So my question is:

How to convert an interested customer into a paying customer?

I really appreciate your answer Dane!

Hahaha pisco. That is the most challenging question in ANY INDUSTRY! Pisco, with the right mindset you could probably create a solution around this. Here's how I would go about doing it.

Assuming people have an interest in the product, sales is nothing more than removing the barriers people have to buy.

STEP 1

I would email every single patient who has not purchased a one line email.

Subject: Quick Q

Body:

Hey Pisco, just curious why you have not decided to move forward with hip replacement surgery?

Reply back and let me know,
--
The Doc

STEP 2

I would create a sales brochure that addresses all of the common objections you get to the email from above. I would hand that to patients on their first visit.

That is one idea off of the top of my head to increase conversions.

Doctors are amazing at their craft. They suck balls at marketing.

 

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[D. Maxwell]

Dane,

1.) I realize you have designed the foundation for people with no software experience but have you considered spinning off an in-depth software course; working with developers (getting sites built) etc., possibly as a precursor to the foundation? A course like this would be valuable as a stand alone course.

Wouldn't it make more sense to take this course first, before a person gets into the foundation, if the are a total software newb?

I realize this may conflict somewhat with your current advertising material of "no software experience needed" but I believe that this has come up as a concern from past students...mainly in the form of course over load.


2.) At what point in the Foundation do you see the highest number of students dropping out?


3.) You mentioned that you want the Foundation to be able to run without you someday, and for your name not to be attached to the Foundation (loosely worded/quoted)...if this is your "calling" why would you want step out of the Foundation in the future...or do you?


4.) What was lacking in last years Foundation that you have significantly improved on in this years Foundation?

Thanks.

1) Maybe in the future for people who just want to learn software. But it's not having the skill in software that makes you successful, that's actually just secondary. The money making skill is not learning the skill of software.

2. Idea extraction is the highest dropout, 30% the first month usually. And then, those that stick are total ballers.

3. My calling changes as I move through life. I will always have my heart in the Foundation, but I may move into something else in the future. I'm staying open to anything. Maybe I'm not really sure what I want here. Presently, it's the foundation, and that's what I can say for sure... as for the future... I'll just rest in not knowing for sure

4. TONS OF STUFF. We have designed a completely new course outline based on the biggest struggles of past students. We interviewed over 50 past students about their experience going through the 6 months and have re-vamped the entire course to support them during the most difficult times.

We are also launching a brand new software platform to deliver the content in an action based, community based, interactive learning environment. If that sounds a tad messy that's because I'm not really sure how to explain it. Basically, it's a totally bad a$$ membership website that's gorgeous like an apple product, and simple like a flip camera.

 

[D. Maxwell]

I had something similar happen to me with a local developer. Bad experiences like this make you want to learn the skill and develop everything yourself. Unfortunately it seems like the learning curve is very big and time consuming. So I feel your pain buddy.

I feel sad hearing you jump to this conclusion. You may have an issue with control that is worth examining. Or you may not and just enjoy building it yourself. My guess is it's the first.

What's wrong with wanting control? Nothing at all.

The downside is feeling like you have to do everything yourself, which I could relate too in the past, and it sucks :-(

When I got burned, I got better at hiring - I didn't decide to build it all myself.

 

[FreeMan]

Dane,

I really enjoyed your interview with Pat Flynn as it opened my eyes to a new way to identify SaaS opportunities.

I started doing a number of idea extraction calls (following up from a cold email) but it was getting a bit tricky to schedule the calls around my full-time job. I previously have done prospecting calls before/after work and during lunchtime, but the idea extraction calls can be quite long (30 minutes) and the recipients usually offered a time during their business hours downtime as opposed to after-hours.

I know I could take some time off to batch the calls, but what are some other ways your students have managed their idea extraction calls around a full-time job?

And have you or any of your students had success with idea extraction without making calls (e.g. emails or another asynchronous method)?

Thanks.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Dane, if you could take a look at this as well.

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/ge...on-dane-maxwell-willing-answer-questions.html

 

[Vigilante]

Since what you are selling is a replicate-able process, the material for you is scaleable. If someone doesn't succeed following your material can they get their investment back? In essence, do you back up your claims with any sort if guarantee? Is it true that only a small % if people that buy your program ever recoup their investment? How much money does a student invest with you on average, and do you have any metrics that can validate what the average ROI is? How many people have taken your courses?

 

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[RogueInnovation]

Instead of working on your own ideas and doing your own work, you had this instead...

Instead... you'd own a 100 person company that runs without you, and it's really up to amazing things in the world. Your whole mission is not to DO anything in the company but love your employees and help them become the most amazing people. Your value shifts from doing things and coming up with ideas, to developing people to be awesome... and these people can do that work for you. Then when greatness happens, you humbly give them all of the credit, and all of the credit goes to God.

How does that picture sound? Maybe I'm off. But to me, it sounds sweet.

(rogue: it is sweet)

"My value comes from God, and was given to me at birth, nothing I do can take away or add to that value."

What's even worse Rogue, is that because of this belief, it could be driving you to do things you don't even want to do! What if your heart wants to play the piano all day, what if you just want to write a book, what if you want to hang out with and show orphaned kids they are lovable, but to feel valuable you have to come up with ideas and work.

That's a life not fully aligned... not fully alive :-(

What I've really noticed about your style of giving insight, is that you see value in others, see value in a broad base of opportunities, and aren't at all closed off to how people can make money together through business. Its like you are the opposite of the "hoarder". Its such a valuable and humble perspective, so you really have come far from your limiting belief into something I believe is very right, and also needed.
Maybe thats why you are so passionate about the foundation and its work, and I can really see the glistenings of its greater potential you are working on there.

I loved the above bolded quote. Its about bringing out the value in our world and refusing to doubt that value in ourselves.
Also, regarding the section I underlined, I'm glad you say that because it happens to be something I believe in. I always try to push myself to do what I am about, rather than hassle myself with the pressure of "just making it". I try to keep steady as I work on myself, take breaks, help friends and stuff, because, whilst I can't do biz exactly how I want to yet, I believe I will sooner or later cuz I won't give up.
And having seen me not give up is pretty awesome.

I guess my limiting belief comes from "just barely" not giving up, rather than having limitless patience with it and being totally cool about it.
I guess I was like that because everyone around made me a bit sceptical. And that sceptecism crept into me and I couldn't fight it off. That led to competetiveness, that lead to being more guarded, and that led to me feeling a lot of pressure on my business' success. THAT led to unrealistic expectations, and that led to me protecting those expectations... Which is what then made me "feel like they would steal my value".

Its true that I want to make my products as valuable as they can be, for the benefit of the world, but the strategy is the wrong one. If I want to create a STANDARD that I live up to, I need a motivating factor that gets me up and going better than pressure does. IO don't know what that is yet, but I'll try to find it by keeping my mind open (thanks so much).

Also, its cool that you point this all out, because I was unsure as to whether I would be understood as I haven't been in the business scene. I'm mostly self taught, and had a mentor whom was more like a yoda, and consequently I am a little bewildered by how the guys in the scene talk. I'm glad there are guys out there like you who appreciate the little guys, because in my experience that is where all the potential comes from.

You know what Dane, I think that your past experience with this closed mentality is a good thing, because, now you really know what it means to fight for the little guys. Because you WERE the little guy, and you didn't armor up when getting into the fight, you just did it conan loin cloth style. I admire that, and I guess I'll take a glass of wine and reflect on it/remember it when I get petty (its better to say it than hide it too).

Hmm, sitting back and thinking about it, I think that limiting belief led to a strange sense of entitlement which really handicaps my ability to not only communicate but to EXPRESS value. It leads to repression of not only me but my product and its value. (light bulb) Sh*t, I think I've had it for like 6 years, going back to well before I got into business, and I think it was the reason my "passion" based businesses failed. Ewww... Man, now I understand your disgust, I just realised that I couldn't pursue my dreams for 6 years BECAUSE of that hidden belief. I've had everything I needed, but was crippled by it.

Gah, screw that man.
Time for a new attitude. So here goes.

"Everyone is awesome and they don't need to prove it to me"
I think they just get a bit mixed up, and that most people don't notice, can't help them out.
"If there is a solution to the world it is going to come from multiple angles, loads of people because it isn't about one mans value but value itself not being closed off".

We've been closed off too long. Linkin Park - Breaking The Habit full hd - YouTube
Time to break that habit, and champion worth itself, even if its covered under a bit of dirt and hard work.

You know what is interesting man, as huge of a tangent what you said made for me, it gets back to my exact question.
How to be comfortable with outsourcing like you did... I think I know.
I can't word it, but, I know.

"You shared in the worth others fed back to you".
Oh I get it! Worth is about a mutual exchange and NEVER about an individuals deeds. Deeds in themselves are weak, but the presence of mutual exchange creates a feeling of self worth.

Man, that is pure gasoline! You walked that path like a boss.
F'n cheers! Thank you so much for that little chat
It was unexpectingly F*cking awesome.

You've got a very solid purpose Dane. It shines through in what you do.


Thanks for having the patience to talk TO me, it means a lot.
Also, I like what you did when structuring your formula, it was really smart.
Have you thought about really differentiating yourself from self help stigma's, because (I hope I can be honest) my first impression was "ooh, really cool, but I might need to assume its just one of those biz sharades". I now KNOW it isn't.
(hang on I'll find out exactly what triggered me to be suspicious of that) Ah yes, it was the group session, it came across to me like "I want to show you a group of happy people to show you I'm the real deal" and I thought "everyone gets social proof from a seminar group", and for me it sucked some value away from what I was expecting.

Having said that and now knowing different, I wonder if you are purposely targetting a thinner selection of people than your potential target audience because of how much work is involved in running these groups.
Hmm, I wonder if you can refine the process by identifying some key issues within your groups.

For example: Lets say joe is sitting in a corner when you speak about the topic of value for all, can you then assume that joe is having an issue here?
If yes, then it would pay off time wise to select a few key times when this happens and have some ready made plans for side instructors to swoop in with. It would "reduce drag" and help you streamline the process which would allow you to rely on the strength of your main program with less deviation (less effort spent pleasing people), which might end up cutting down the time it takes to teach groups, which might then allow you to take on less personal responsibility and hand off some responsibilities to others, which will enable you to purposely reach out to an even larger audience with your promo stuff.

What experience do I have behind that?
I guess its down to training people. I always found that people hide away, when they are needing of teaching the most. Its impossible if you stop classes to talk to them, so I'd often get someone to run front of shop so I could come in and address things from the back.

Martial artists used to create coreography for roughly this purpose, the same with salsa dancing etc.
I just have a feeling that if you come to those guys on the edges one on one in a more formalised way, it will increase the percieved value of your program. "If you don't sell your strength it isn't real to them" is something I think of when seeing this, cuz I'm sure you do it, but you do it out of the good of your heart so much that maybe no one sees just how skillful it is (and it is).

IMO, sell THAT (what you just did with me) a little bit surer, and whoa.

 

[D. Maxwell]

It looks like all the current questions are answered. Keep them coming.

I am here to serve.

 

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[Nick]

Not having any questions at the moment, just wanted to say that this AMA and the way you addressed all the questions added a lot of credibility in my eyes to you as a person.