Selling The Vision, Not The Product

In another episode from the recent "Ecomm Vs Expert Smackdown" event, Russell and Alison discuss the importance of selling your vision and how doing that will actually sell your product.

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---Transcript---

Russell Brunson:

Welcome back to The Marketing Secrets podcast. Today we got another Q&A for you and this is one, I need to set this one up a little bit so you guys can understand it, but during the e-commerce experts' smackdown, Alison gave an amazing presentation where she showed some of the things she sells, e-commerce products, right? And one of them were wood blocks and she's like, "Who here would buy wood blocks?" And nobody...everyone's like, "They're wood blocks, why would I buy it?." And then she shows, she's like, "I didn't sell wood blocks. I sold the vision of what these wood blocks can become." And she showed pictures of the kid's faces painted, glued on these wood blocks, and put on the mantle, and what they look like, and how it works. And then she sold a bajillion dollars worth of these wood blocks, right?. And then she showed example after example, here's these french fry holders where you hold french fries in it. She's like, "That's the product. No one wants that, so I have to create the vision." So she creates a vision where here's the french fry cover and you design it, and you put your pencils in it and your notebooks, and anyway, sells the vision on it.

I think it's something that most of us, as creators, entrepreneurs, business owners do, is that we think we're in the business of selling a product and we're not. We're in the business of selling a vision behind the product. That's what gets people to buy. It's interesting because if you study copywriting and things like that, they talk about these things, but typically, most copywriters... I don't know, I think the way Alison described it and showed it was really, really powerful. And you don't think about it as copy or copywriting, but it's just they stop selling the product and start selling the vision of what the product can do, and how it serves you, and things like that. So anyway, we had talked about it and then someone came on and asked a question about their product. And their product is interesting, when they shared it, they talked about the product and the vision and it was really cool. But then you look at the marketing, and the marketing had defaulted back to the product. I think a lot of you guys do that.

And so, I wanted you guys listen to this Q&A because it's something that, my guess is for any of you guys who are struggling, like "No one's buying my stuff." You could literally plug in yourself into this conversation and then ask yourself the same questions like, "What am I doing? Is this my product? Is it the vision? What does that look like?" And so, I hope this helps because for most of you guys, if you were to have Alison consult you, I bet you 50 bucks that this is what she would do with your business. So, please take this as a private, personal consultation from her and from me about shifting you from selling your product to selling the vision of what can happen because of the product. So, with that said, we're queuing up the theme song. When we come back, you have a chance to listen in to the next question from the e-commerce experts' smackdown.

Brent Coppieters:

All right, we are back to our VIP room, and we've got Andrea Lister, there's our next question. And she says, "What is your best advice for somebody like me who is trying to teach parents the importance of cooking for our kids, and to bring back the value of cooking at home? I am selling an e-book with an order bump as my first product. Thanks."

Russell:

Very cool. So the question is, is it how to bring it back to the parents?

Brent:

Yes.

Russell:

How to get the parents excited?

Brent:

Yes. The question is, "What advice do you have?" So, she's trying to teach parents the importance of cooking for our kids and bringing back the value of cooking at home. She's selling an e-book with an order bump. So, I guess, it's maybe talking about... yeah.

Brent:

Andrea is on here. Andrea, do you want to unmute yourself, maybe?

Alison Prince:

Wait, I think I got it though.

Brent Coppieters:

Okay.

Alison:

I think I got it. Okay. So, I hear you selling a product. Again, most of the time when people come to me and they tell me what they're selling, I'm like, "This is a product, this is a product." What I see the vision of is I've got teenagers and they're running around a million miles a minute, and we get to the end of the day and we say family prayer. And I'm like, "What did you do today?" And I'm missing that opportunity. And what if you were able to talk about the pain of not being around your teenagers enough, right? They're off, they're going, but you have this beautiful time at night to connect. Where you are teaching, and you're talking, and the smells that they're going to remember into adulthood help them to just really dive into the memories of the family. And so I think....and am I getting this? Is this the question you had? Am I answering it correctly?

Andrea Lister:

Actually, actually, that's exactly what I do.

Alison:

Okay.

Andrea:

That's funny because I have four kids: two girls, 14 years and two years old, and I have twin boys, 10 years old.

Russell:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrea:

And I grew up with that, with memories in the kitchen with my mom, with my grandmothers. And that's the way...because that is my passion, my love. Thinking, "I want the people grow the same way when I was little." Thinking, "Oh, I can't wait for be at home and be with my mom, and my family, and cooking together." And that is exactly what I want for the parents. For the most, that's my niche right now.

That has been really hard because all my people is Latin moms. They only speak Spanish right now. And I don't know if it's because I already built my click funnel, it's in Spanish, but converting is really hard. The conversion, I don't know if it's because click funnel is new for them and they don't know when they open it. I've been doing live in Instagram. I gave a lot. I mean, you can go to my Instagram account right now, I have a lot of followers. But all the time, I give, I give. And in my videos, I always say that.

Alison:

Okay, so...

Andrea:

My thing is eating at home from the kids is an act of love. Make great memories.

Alison:

Okay. I love it. So you actually just told us what the problem is. The problem's the hook's off, right? If you've got all these people watching you and all these people doing this thing, the hook's off. Do you want to brainstorm some hooks?

Russell:

Yeah.

Alison:

Because it sounds like you've got a community, you're talking to them, but you're not pulling in the emotion. Russell was talking about the challenges. Maybe start with the challenge and you give them the secret number one, right? And then you show them how to do it. And you're like, "But wait, you need this part, this part, this part, join me and we'll do it." So I wonder if it's....from what you're talking about, it sounds like it's the hook and maybe the offer.

Russell:

Yeah. When you're teaching it, how do you sell it right now? Is it a video sales letter or is it written sales letter, what's the process right now?

Andrea:

Yeah, my process is exactly, my backups increase through the video. I have a video doing exactly the same day in action, take action, book this. I've given a lot of things for free, bonuses. In my e-book, you can click and two recipes, actually it goes straight to a step-by-step video. I give recommendations before you start cooking. I'm a professional chef as well. So, I know a lot how you can do the cooking at home easier.

Russell:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrea:

Because I teach people how to follow easier and they love the idea, but I can see in my Facebook ads that they go. But so far, I only have 10 people buying my book without the other book.

Russell:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrea:

So, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. So for that I'm here and you guys can help me with that.

Russell:

If you translate the headline, what's the headline on the page say?

Andrea:

Okay.

Alison:

While she's pulling it up, remember how you were talking about Maslows?

Russell:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Alison:

What if....I guess we'll have to see it, but maybe it's not the pain, maybe she's selling an improvement offer.

Russell:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Alison:

We're having this dialogue, you guys are all listening.

Andrea:

Actually, I was trying to do the link magnet too, but I was trying to make it as easy for them. They just go straight and can buy my e-book.

Russell:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrea:

And so it's "Discover how you prepare...," because it's breakfast. In my e-book, my first one is all about breakfast. That is, I have breakfast, I have side dishes, I have extra information, how you make the perfect omelet. It's really, I'm so proud of my product right now. And it's "Discover how you prepare delicious, simple breakfast for your family, even if you have zero experience in the kitchen."

Russell:

Boom, that's wrong.

Alison:

Yeah, it's an improvement offer.

Russell:

Yeah, so what you just did. So we talked about the vision ahead of time of this amazing vision of cooking with your family, cooking your kids. You just taught me how to cook breakfast. That's what the hook was.

Andrea:

Okay.

Russell:

Right? And especially if you got people who like cooking they probably in their head, in their mind, they know how to cook. It sounds like what they're coming to you...or you want them to come to you for is about creating this experience. Right? So the messaging I always have is instead of racing your kids out the door, giving them a bowl of cereal. Imagine having this window in the morning where you can actually sit down, have a conversation, build this food with them. They can eat healthier but also connect with them before they're taken out into the day, and send them to school where all the chaos of the world's happening and the storms are beating down upon them.

You get this moment to connect with them, to strengthen them, and then send them on their way. That would be more the hook that I think is going to get....because learning how to make breakfast, especially for someone who thinks they know how to cook is going to be a difficult sell. Right? My wife would see that, she'd be like "Oh, I know how to make breakfast, I cook eggs every day." It's not the how to make breakfast, it's how to reconnect with your kids, right?

Andrea:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Russell:

You said that in your lives and stuff, but that's going to be the message of the product. Alison did the product and the vision. Your sell, you're talking about the vision here but you're coming back and the sales letter is going back to product. The sales letter's got to be the vision. Here's what the whole thing is.

Alison:

I think you could even pull in too, "You only have a limited time with your children. You only have so many Saturdays that you get to spend with your children and then they leave the house." I heard another thing where 90% of their life you're face to face, and then when they move out of the house you only get 5%. And the rest of the 5% that you get to see them face to face. Does that make sense?

Russell:

A 100% percent, yeah. Those stats, having that in there at the very beginning of when people understand, "Oh my gosh, that's what..." Right now, my twin boys are sophomores and I'm like, "I have two more summers with them and then they're gone."

Alison:

That's so painful.

Russell:

And that gives me fear and scared. And even when you're saying that I was like, "Man, I should be cooking dinners with my kids, we should be doing more of that." That got my wheels in my head spinning as you were saying that, that's the messaging that's going to get people to spend more money. It shifts it for me to a commodity of how to make breakfast to "Here's this unique opportunity you have of reconnection with your kids." And the vehicle happens to be through food, which is amazing because a lot of people don't know how to cook or they don't know...That's where I'd be like, "Okay, cool! But I don't know how to cook. And oh cool, you've got a cookbook, that's going to make me actually be able to do it." But it's the bigger, it's the vision, which I love how you turned that into a funnel by the way. I was freaking out backstage. That was really cool.

Alison:

The alligator mouth.

Russell:

Yeah. So you said you talk about those things on Instagram or Facebook Live. Where do you share that message traditionally?

Andrea:

Instagram. I have a big following on Instagram of 56,000 people.

Alison:

Woo-hoo!

Russell:

And then do you drive those people to the book too?

Andrea:

I've been trying to, but it's not really...I don't know. They love that I have actions, but when it's time to buy, I don't know if they're...On Instagram is hard because you can't send people as straight to your click funnel. You have to tell them go to my video please and do click here. And I don't know if it's one of the problems. I just did a live two, three days ago and I cook super easy recipe from my book and I'm telling people, "Just do this." I show them in my iPad how you do it, and how easy, and it's still hard.

Alison:

So you're talking about the easy, right? It's so easy, it's so easy. You got to go back to...easy isn't the vision. You got to go to, "Did you talk to your kids today? How did today go? Was it kind of rushed? You know you've only got two more summers with them? Let's treasure these moments." So I think you do...and this is something that you got to practice over and over and over again, right? So maybe before you start, you write down the true vision, not the product. The pain of missing out on your children, the pain of not connecting, the pain of having your kids walk out and the storms of the world are coming down. That's what you lead with because it sounds like you're starting, and then you go back to the product. And I think it's just you practicing that because you have it, I think you just go back. Yeah, just go back to the product each time.

Russell:

And I would try to figure out a way, cause if you're doing Instagram lives talking about that...Instagram's a weird platform because it's hard to get people from Instagram to something, especially straight to a sales pitch, we struggle with that as well. So there's got to be some in-betweener that gets them excited. Traditionally, what we do a lot of times is Instagram is where I'm pushing some kind of free lead magnet, something where it's just getting them on email. Because email is a much better platform to sell. I've been in this business 20 years now, we've tried every platform, every single thing, and still to this day...this event alone, we spent a lot of money on Facebook ads, Instagram ads, but 90% of ticket sales came from email. So, when all is said and done, email is still the best selling platform that we have on this planet.

And so I'd be thinking about Instagram as a way to grab someone's attention, hook them. But you're on Instagram, typically you're scrolling through things. It's a faster mindset. I'm not going deep on Instagram, right? So I got...what's a quick thing? You used to do your "Get this one page guide! Go get your email address." Even if it's like, "This recipe or this guide," or something to get them off Instagram to go put an email address in to get that thing. Because the actual selling, the actual money for most of us is actually made an email not through the social platforms. So looking at your 56,000 Instagram followers, how do I get 56,000 of them to come to page and give me the email address? Maybe I only get 1,000 of them but those 1,000 people that I get are going to be the actual buyers. What do you create? So every day as you're showing a recipe, or showing a thing or whatever, she's like, "Oh, go get this recipe, go, click link in my bio, go and get it." And they opt in, you get the recipe and now the selling happens off platform. You know what I mean? And so that'd be kind of my recommendation.

Andrea:

I have 730 people in my email list.

Russell:

Cool. How often do you email them?

Andrea:

But I been...I deal with a link magnet with the air fryer.

Russell:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrea:

And because I was sick for a while and I was...I'm trying to get engaged again with my email people. So what I'm doing right now is trying to do the cold selling thing right now. But my goal is to start selling through my email as well. That's a really good idea.

Russell:

How often do you email your list?

Andrea:

For how long?

Russell:

How often do you email them?

Andrea:

Oh yes, I started only two weeks ago, twice per week.

Russell:

Okay. Yeah, I'd say I think a minimum of at least three times a week is a minimum of emailing us. Otherwise, they forget who you are really, really quickly. And it can be just, it can be selling, it can be sharing, it can be showing like, "Here's a cool YouTube video I posted." Just whatever to get stuff, but, if you look at it from that standpoint, most of my sales is actually going to happen through email. You got to make sure you're contacting, you're communicating, keeping things just consistent. I had this fear one time, Brent was actually here for part of this way back a decade and a half ago, where I was working on a project. I'm like, "I'm not going to email my list because I want them to be ready to buy it from me when the project's done."

And the project went from a month, to two months, to six months. And so six months later I'm like, "Okay, I haven't bugged these guys in six months, they're going to be so excited." And I emailed the list to go buy my new thing and it was crickets, no one even remembered who I was. The list was dead and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is something I got to figure out." So I had to come back and then start building the list over, and then the second time I got to keep emailing them consistently. A minimum of three times a week and probably more just to keep that consistency. Because I'd rather have people opting out and leaving because I'm annoying them too much than people who don't know who you are. And so it's being really consistent as number one. Then number two is understanding that that is the fuel of your blood, it's the lifeline. This is for everybody by the way, I'm speaking to everybody.

If you look at what is the KPI? So key performance indicator that I focus on is how many people join my list today? That should be something that's always top of my mind and that drives and fuels everything else in the business, right? Because if it's like, "Okay, how many people joined today? Oh, I only got two people to join today." Okay, well I need some of you Instagram people to join, I knew some on Facebook, these people join. It gets me in the mindset of I got to do something to get people to join, and the people that are joining, that's the lifeblood of your business. If you don't have people coming in, eventually your business atrophies and dies. I've seen some people come into our world, they build an email list, they start selling stuff and then they stop doing the thing that built the email list.

Because they're like, "I have a list!" They keep selling stuff, they're making money, and their business starts atrophying and atrophying and ends up dying. And they come to me like, "Ah, I don't understand. I'm not making any money." I'm looking at the whole thing, I'm like, "Your funnel works, everything works. Oh, you stopped getting new people in." That's the problem. So you got 750 people now, so my next metric I'd start looking for a fuse. How many per day can I get from Instagram onto my email list? Maybe it's 10 a day, maybe it's 20 a day, but making that the goal. Can we make a new lead magnet, and they make something cool, and they make a new video. But you're trying to harvest the people from here, get him on the email list and just focusing on that and making that thing. Every morning you wake up like, "How many people joined the list yesterday?" And that becomes the key metric in your business, it'll transform everything else.

Andrea:

Okay.

Alison:

And then just so you know, I don't know if you know this, but I have a whole bunch of email templates in the two CCX program. I took some of my top converting headlines, some of the copy, because sometimes you go and you sit down and this is what we're talking about. Power hours to help you stay consistent. You just don't write an email the day and then send it and then the next day. You sit down and you write emails for an entire month because then you can tell an entire story behind it and you get it done. And sometimes when you sit down, you look at the blank screen and you're like, "I don't know what to write." We're just going to help you with that. And then just to reinforce what Russell said, I always call my email list my ATM.

It's like my personal ATM. And Instagram, Facebook, we don't know when the algorithm's going to...well, we do know when the algorithm's going to change. Every day, right?

Russell:

All the time.

Alison:

And email, it really hasn't changed over the years. And so I feel like email keeps my sanity because I can't keep up. All the team is over here. And I know that email...and we can create this very intimate relationship because emails, people go to shop, right? They click on the links and then they go shop. Instagram, they're there to look at pictures. And some people do great on Instagram but what if Instagram changes their algorithm? What if Instagram shuts your account down? And we will be yelling at you all the time, "Build your email list, build your email list, build your email list!" Because it's so crucial to your business.

Russell:

In fact, practical application, this week we know. We had 20,000 of you guys join the Facebook group. I did the very first live in the Facebook group talking to everyone. 13 people showed up. Zuckerberg only showed it of the 20,000 new people had joined in seven days, only 13 people saw me go live. And then Alison, she had 33, so it had doubled for her. Right? So we were freaking out like, "No one's going to come to this live event." So guess what we did? The day of the event, what did you guys get? You got emails pushing you to come to the thing to be live, right? Email was the thing that saved us. We almost were like, "Okay, well we should just fly back to Puerto Rico and you got your Chick-fil-A you should be good, right? So you never know what's going to happen.

Traffic Secrets, the whole premise of that book is we have to convert all this other traffic and traffic that we own. And the email list is the traffic that you own. So 56,000 people on Instagram is awesome. You're renting that, you're borrowing that. How do we get those people off? Get them into your world, now you can start communicating with them and things like that. And then I say coming back to yourselves with the letter and just changing the messaging from how to cook breakfast, to how to have this experience. In my vision, I'd have the headline of like, "How to have this amazing experience with your kids." And then the stats you talked about, like, "Did you know that your kids are only home, blah, blah, blah, blah." The four or five...the fear-based stats like, "Oh my gosh, we're going to help you to make those 3,600 hours life changing for them and for you or whatever." And then you go into the sales letter of like, "We do that by, here's this book." But the initial vision is that it's capturing them...where they're feeling. Because again, I'll spend 10 bucks on a cooking book, but I'll spend $10,000 on a way to have better experience with my kids. And so that's just changing the perceived value by how you do the messaging upfront.

Alison:

How are you feeling? That answer your question?

Andrea:

Yes! Actually big help. Thank you so much because I was feeling stuck and you been working so hard. Building my own ClickFunnels, learning about everything. Thank you for the guys that...the tech support and ClickFunnels because you guys are amazing. Thank you so much.

Russell:

Aw, thank you.

Andrea:

They've been helping me a lot

Russell:

So great to meet you. Good luck in the future. We're cheering for you over here.

Alison:

Yeah, we want to see updates. Please.

Andrea:

Yes. Thank you.

Alison:

So good, so good. And just wait, before you get off...will you pull the stack back on? In that Ignite session right there, we really dive into the importance of email. Why you need to do it, how you need to hook it up. I know that some people just have a lame signup box on their website. The only people that sign up there is your mom, right? And so there's ways to be able to entice people to get your email, or to get their email. Because email's just consistent and you need that in your business. And then I've gone on to sell a business and the business actually sold for more. We were able to get more because our email list was so big and it was converting really, really well.

So think long term too, but we really talk about that in the Ignite section. Of just how to do that, how to build that strong email list, and have that consistency over and over and over again. Because we don't want you to build it and then go...I don't know, disappear.

Russell:

Six months. Yeah.

Alison:

But learn how to tell your story, and what stories you should tell, and the order of it. So you don't feel super pushy but you're not giving away the farm. So we really dive into that.

Russell:

Oh, cool.

Alison:

That was fun.

Russell:

That was fun.