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You can create a persona to attract certain people to you
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Starts with “What can I GIVE” and “What am I PASSIONATE about”… it never starts with the money.
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Jacob Hiller - TheJumpManual - How to jump higher (makes $1/K per day)
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Gary Vaynerchuk - WineLibraryTV - PASSION for Wine
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Attaching an attractive character to anything that is selling… and it’s like putting it on steroids.
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Opera Winfrey - “The Opera Effect” - Her public endorsement of a product drove so many sales it could crash a business (overload)
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Build a Distribution Channel (your brand’s audience on a platform)
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Email List = Distribution Channel… YouTube… Blog… Podcast.
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With a Distribution Channel you can plug in any product and make money instantly.
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Neil Patel - KISS Metrics - Blogs about Marketing Principles so well everyone shares it.
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Jared - Subway - Reinvented “Fast Food” into a “Weight loss plan” through Jarod’s weight loss story and character.
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Oceans 12 - So many awesome A-Level Stars… sells a movie just based on the actors (regardless of what the movie is about)
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Rachael Jackson - Visalus - attached her character + distribution to an existing weight loss product - makes millions.
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Don’t sell the company. No one follows a company. They will follow you because of YOU.
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With a Distribution Channel you can sell ANYTHING.
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Howard Stern - Controversial, but because he has an audiences attention can sell any product.
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You create The Distribution Channel through The Attractive Character
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It’s now possible to be Internet Famous
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Q: “What do you have specialised knowledge in?” (comes second nature to you - a Super Power)
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e.g. “Lazy ways to cook vegetarian food that is delicious”
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… or… another angle is that you only need to know a little more than the general population.
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You don’t need to be the best in the world at it… you just have to be better than the majority of people out there
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Movie: Catch Me If You Can … character went to university, and as a student tricked everyone into thinking he was a lecturer and taught an advanced class just by reading a chapter ahead.
FYI There are more than these … but these are the core ones.
Blend these things together e.g. an Us vs Them, that ties in a Backstory…
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“I aspire. I achieve.” … my primary school moto. It still sticks with me today.
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Was always the smart kid in school. But then one year there was this one other kid named Anthony, he wanted to be a pilot. He was always one step ahead of me in class, coming first while I came second. It made me super competitive.
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In year 4 I got put in a mixed 4/5 class. It became a crazy advantage. I got to see all the work the year 5 kids were doing while I was in year 4. Not only that but I had an awesome teacher that rewarded great work with a competition to win a gigantic block of honeycomb Cadbury chocolate. I won the chocolate. In in year 5 I dominated because I already knew the work that was coming up… this one year gave me the edge for many years in school.
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Sister gave me the book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki for my ? birthday. I read it and got hooked - I was never the same again. The concept of build assets and cashflow really resonated with me. It also instilled in me a burning desire to never get stuck in the Rat Race… but instead to move through the quadrants of Employee -> Self Employed -> Business Owner -> Investor. The way he contrasts the rich dad vs the poor dad is pure genius. It highlighted to me that being well educated doesn’t make you rich, and neither does “fancy things”… what you need is financial intelligence. To this day I’ve had an odd sense of pride in having a crappy car while I try to prioritise assets over liabilities. But alas, I feel trap to one of the biggest liabilities of all - a huge mortgage that now makes me feel trapped to a paycheque as an employee.
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Moved schools in year 10. Away from my best mate who I use to hang out with every day. My grades dropped significantly as I prioritised being social over study. After getting really poor scores in year 11 my dad sat me down and grilled me. The harshest thing he said tho was “you’re wasting your potential”. He said that I was better than this. I knew he was right… this effort, these results, it just wan’t ME and it wasn’t who I wanted to be… It lit a fire in me. In year 12 I worked my ass off and the same commitment continued into university where I graduated with High Distinction.
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In university I was always looking forward at what the next wave of technology is going to be - only to be frustrated by the university system being unable to stay up to date will the speed of change online and in the tech industry. This is where I learnt that you can’t just rely on the school system you need to take ownership of your own learning if you’re ever going to get ahead.
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In my first term of university (Batchelor of Multimedia) I did one thing that set me up for success in the next 3 years. I took the requirement given for an assignment, I broke it down to figure out exactly what the lecturer wanted, exactly where each score was being given, I learnt the academic formats, and I busted my arse on my very first project. I completely aced my first project. And guess what. Every single project after that I could look back at my first project - which I knew was a success - and it became my blueprint for every single other assessment. It was a template for success. The content may change but the structure and the process passed on from project to project and it became easier and easier to have success. Every other iteration was a minor improvement… it was that every first burst of extreme effort to make something score 100% perfect carried me through with great results.
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Working a part time job while I studied, doing software technical support, I got introduced to The Purple Cow by Seth Godin. This book made me fall in love with how marketers think and the genius behind great products. This job also taught me the value of time and charging by the minute. I left because my highschool sweetheart Mindy and I were committed to traveling overseas - so we packed everything up into storage and backpacked through Thailand and Cambodia. I proposed in Phi Phi Island (she said yes of course! 
)
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All that effort to get great scores in high school to get into a great university. Then all that effort to get great scores in university to get a great job paid off when I got hired as soon as I finished uni. It also made me realise how insignificant my university scores were after a got hired into a job … that was now behind me and I had to again step up an prove myself. I quickly realised how the theory in university doesn’t translate into real-world experience. You learn SO much more by DOING.
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Straight out of university I got hired by one of the worlds top advertising agencies (M&C Saatchi). I was just some young kid, living in a rural coastal town, and they hired me over the phone without even seeing me. Two things made this possible: 1) I put in the hard work to get great grades 2) outside of university I took a keen interest in Ruby On Rails which at the time was a fairly cutting edge framework that not too many people in Australia had experience with… this made me really stand out with the Tech Lead that was doing the hiring. Passion & Results matter. Side hustles matter.
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Being in the city I now had the joys of commuting to work on public transport for an hour a day. This is when I got a passion for listening to audiobooks and podcasts. I would study while others sat there staring blankly out the window. I would write in my notepad tons of ideas and sketch out app ideas. You’ve got to make the most of every minute.
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Advertising agencies taught me the importance of building a good reputation based on the quality of your work. As people left and went to other agencies in latter years when I was freelancing those people would reach out to me to hire me for their new project in a new company. I never had to chase work because of my reputation.
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Moving to the city was a real shock. A tiny studio apartment. Sleeping on a mattress on the floor that went mouldy after a few days if you didn’t lift it up. The tiniest kitchen you’ve ever seen. Looking out of window directly onto a building wall only a meter way… when the surprise of our first child came along we knew right away we had to move back “home” to be around family, open spaces and beaches.
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Freelancing from home let me charge more than I was making previously (even though I was doing the same work for the same company). I also discovered that when you start work for another client this is the perfect time to increase your rate … moving on not only brings you new challenges to make you grow but can also bring financial benefits.
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Buying my first house taught me the importance of timing and negotiation.
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Pat Flynn’s “Smart Passive Income” podcast changed me as an entrepreneur. It opened my eyes (and ears) to what’s possible as an affiliate… and also how to be vulnerable, honest and transparent in an industry filled with smoke-and-mirrors, secrets and boasters.
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Joined community “Fizzle.co”. Their 30 Day “Just Ship It” challenge made me hustle like never before building out a business called heard.fm - I hired professional narraters to turn popular blog posts into audiobook podcasts. Business challenges are a great way to boost focus and get results faster.
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Joined “The Foundation” and discovered the value of accountability, how to structure a course and the business model genius of Software As A Service (Saas) high margins and recurring revenue. Also discovered I’ve got a crazy fear of cold calling.
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Worked so hard (to the point of obsession) that my fiancée Mindy and I broke up. But because of our son and our house we stayed living together. We were always best friends first. So it was never awkward. I just kept putting “being an entrepreneur” first and rightly so she couldn’t take it any more. This is when I discovered the importance of balance and making the people you love always feel loved. Over a year our relationship mended and we’re now happily-ever-after.
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Made my first product (audiobook) and first sales. You can get it for free here: https://gumroad.com/l/heardzen1b. But pretty quickly the business fizzled out. My costs far exceeded my revenue. I realised I had no clue how to sell something profitably online.
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Built codehunt.io (like producthunt.com but for open source code) and tried promoting it on twitter. Got some traction but not much. Realised that producing content doesn’t bring you traffic… it’s the strategic promotion of that content that makes a difference. See https://twitter.com/codehuntio
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On the side I built a Shopify website for a friend that is a local business owner… I signed them up under an affiliate link and for years now it’s made me money while I sleep. It’s only ~$30 in my PayPal every 3 months … but I’ve always wanted to duplicate this. It’s “free money” every day without any effort. This is a true “asset”… I’m more proud of making $100 passive income per year than $100K as an employee.
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Got “cabin fever” freelancing from home. So became an inhouse contractor for local software company called Janison (on a fulltime basis). Rejected several offers to become an “employee” due to “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” always being stuck in the back of my mind… I didn’t want to take a step backwards from “self employed” to “employee”. Worked hard, but struggled with not feeling like I was progressing as an entrepreneur. So with our second baby on the way I quit to join a high risk startup in the pharmacy industry building a project called “Falcon” that would connect pharmacies with doctors, and doctors with the dosing of patients. I was sold on this being a multi million dollar opportunity.
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Falcon suffered from failing to launch - trying to complete feature-for-feature with competitors that had been in the industry for decades - and only having a development team of me (doing frontend in Ruby on Rails) and another dev doing the backend. Without customers, and money coming in, the project got shut down… literally days before our baby girl Tigerlily was due PLUS we were selling our house AND weeks out from moving back to live with parents while buying land to build a new home.
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With some serious financial liabilities and responsibilities of being the only income source in our family of 4 I finally become an employee back at Janison … but this time switching from the role of Developer to Product Owner. I now focus on apps and product, specs and client requirements, and help lead a team of developers. While I still enjoy getting my hands dirty with code from time to time, I really feel that other people will always be far better coders than me… but if I can take my technical knowledge and my love for building products and apply it at a higher level than I can bring more value.
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Was sent over to England twice to gather requirements and run workshops - really put me out of my comfort zone and made me “growup”.
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Recent startup attempts (rate.us.com - to help restaurant’s build a review funnel, and then epicwin.io for SaaS companies to joint-venture giveaway a free yearly subscription per month for lead generation) taught me that even simple ideas can take a ton of time to build out as a solopreneur. Startups come with a ton of risk. EpicWin was going to monetize through affiliate commissions… which lead me to discover ClickFunnels.
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ClickFunnels blew me away. I’ve studied/followed SaaS Startups and Growth for years. I’ve NEVER seen a SaaS company market the way ClickFunnels does. I knew right away that I HAD to be around this. I HAD to learn what they were doing. Then I looked deeper into their Affiliate program and discovered a suite of products people are CRAZY for… and the Bootcamp training that teaches you exactly what they do so you can take this blueprint and apply it to your own affiliate business (or any online business)… and they give you a Dream Car when you hit the 100 active customers milestone! It’s just insane.
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Started following Russell’s podcast Marketing In Your Car and all the other content ClickFunnels produces and It totally resonated with me. His “attractive character” charmed me. The business model of being an affiliate (low risk and can sell something immediately without spending months and months building something myself) was too good to be true. Before doing any more SaaS ideas I realised I need to know how to market a product profitably. Russell has the formula for this covered and has a prove track record. I know I can learn a ton from him.
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My local council offered to pay for a ticket for me to attend StartCon 2017 in Sydney to be part of a team representing Coffs Harbour as an awesome place for startups and entrepreneurs to live. I worked my arse off to build my first funnel in ClickFunnels to try and capture leads at the event… here is how my very first funnel looks (focused on SaaS Startup Entrepreneurs):
DotCom Secrets - Loss and Redemption. Before, During, Now… my mental shift. Loss of time trying to build a startup from scratch on my own and on the path to Redemption as an affiliate with a team for accountability. Mix in Us vs Them.
How To Retire In 100 Days As A ClickFunnels Super Affiliate
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