59: Shrinking My Downline App Process... - a podcast by Steve Larsen: Automated Downline Recruiting

My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. What's up guys. Hey, I am very excited for this episode actually, very pumped about it. Let's pass a little bit here, been a little bit busy, as normal, and had a lot of late nights and a lot of just working my guts out. I mean, come on, that's really what it's been.
I'm very, very excited, though. Please understand as I say this, I'm not bragging or trying to beat my chest or say, "Look how good I am." I'm just excited. This is me helping everyone know and realize that this whole process works, all of it. All the stuff that we're doing, we're going through, it doesn't just work for me, it's working for other people as well, for recruiting for your MLMs.
I just barely passed 140 people asking to join my down line, asking me, people I don't know. That's incredible guys. The first time I ever did this game, I was running around like crazy. I recruited 13 people and they didn't do anything. It was hard for me to get them to do anything.
With this whole process, what's cool is I can go through and pretty much literally interview people. If they're not a good fit I say, "No." I see what their process is to promote the down line and promote our products and promote the things. You guys know, I don't ever tell you the name of the MLM I'm in. I'm trying to that on purpose so that everyone can let their guard down and not feel like this a pitch fest on this podcast. It's not the purpose of this podcast.
Anyway, so it's been a whole lot of fun though. As I've been looking through, though, the process that I've having people go through I'm changing it. This is what I've been seeing, and I'd thought I'd just kind of drop this out to you guys. You guys know that I build sales funnels on the internet. That's what I do. That's what I'm known for. I've done it for a lot of big people and done it for myself. This whole MLM game and the funnel thing, it works so well that I left my job eventually. It's been coming up on two months here for me being solo, which has been fun. There's certainly some nerve wracking aspects to that every once in a while, but it's been fun though.
I've been focusing like crazy on this whole application process. When somebody comes in and they apply to join my down line, they go through a little bit of an application process. There's an actual application. They fill it out, and what I've been doing in the past is at the end of the application process I say, "Okay, thanks. Give us a call here, we'll reach out." What I do then is I go, have them walk through some pages afterwards where they get to watch my presentations as if I was going to do a presentation in your home or you came to a home party or whatever it was. I took that and it's on the internet. It's literally like a webinar basically. I built pretty much a webinar that does that process for me.
What's been cool is that it works. It works quite well. What's been rough, though, is going from one funnel, application process, the application funnel, and then pushing them again to another funnel where they go through basically a webinar. What I've been figuring out, what I've been learning, is in the past we'll be doing things like sending an email. Emails, I hate email. Emails sucks. Email drives me crazy.
First of all, I hardly ever read my emails. Why do I expect my people to? You know what I mean? Facebook's the place where I go. Facebook's the place to be for me. I go in and I can communicate with my team through Facebook and our Facebook group, our closed groups, things like that. Emails are rough, so I try and after someone applies I'll be like, "Hey, go check out this presentation. If this seems like it's a good thing that you want, let's actually chat, or if you even know the questions you can just join right there."
If they've made it that far through the application process, like I know that typically they're the kind of individual that I want to work with, that they'd be interested in the kinds of things that we do because I give them the very process that they just walked through so now they have a thing to go blow their down line up with. Does that make sense?
That's part of the beauty of the thing that I've built is I have actual lead in tools, lead in processes, actual training and actual members area for my team. When they come in they go through that training and now they have a plan. That's part of the sexiness of what I've done.
What I've been learning, what I've been realizing, is that in the past I've been having people go through the application process and then I do something to get them to the next thing, which is to watch the live presentation. It doesn't work very well. It's not that it doesn't work, meaning I am relying on things like email, which has terrible deliverability and I don't read. I'm relying on maybe a text message or just got the wrong phone number or maybe someone put the wrong digit in there. You know what I mean?
It's been rough because there's all these people that have asked to join my down line, but sometimes because of just the way zeros and ones get crossed and stuff and technology will hiccup and things like that, I won't be able to go talk with all of them. I want to talk with all of them.
This is what I've been doing. This is what I want to help you get. Anyway, there's a whole purpose of this episode, by the way, is all I'm trying to do is I'm trying to help you see that what I've been focusing on this last little bit is shrinking the length of the funnel. I'm trying to make the whole funnel, the entire psychology, still happen, but in a shorter duration so they're not going through all these pages. They're not waiting for this email to come to them. They're not waiting for this. They're not waiting for all that stuff.
Instead, what's happening to them is it's the very same thing that they came for, apply to join Steve Larsen's down line, can get accomplished during the same mental session. The first page they go through, they say, "Yes, I want to apply." The second page is actually do the application. What I've changed is that on the third page I actually put the presentation so now they're going to another funnel. I'm not sending them to another spot. I'm not sending them to another place. I'm not send- ... They're not going on the third page right after they submit the application they can watch the presentation. If they know they're a good fit they're like, "Fine." They can go in and they can join right then, right there.
This is a change and just barely made last night. It's been cool already. I've got a few messages from people, people giving feedback. It's far better for me to do it that way than to go send them through another four web pages while they register to watch the webinar, they register to watch my live presentation, then there's a confirmation page and they wait for it to start, then they actually watch it.
Instead I just shrunk and condensed the entire funnel, and it's been working way better. What's cool about that is about half the people come through, they're like, "Look Steve. Man I'm ready to join you man. You got a system, you got a plan, your people work it. It is working."
I just asked to speak at my MLM's event, which is at 2,500 people, which is exciting, and teach a lot of the things that I talk about here on the podcast. This stuff works guys. People come to me like, "Hey, this is awesome." They're like, "Look, just dude, just let me join right now. Just let me join right now." They'll click and they can go join right then right off that third page.
Or there's a second group that they're like, "Hey, this is still good but I just have a question or two." They can click and they can choose a time in my calendar through calendly.com, and they can choose a time on my calendar and reserve a time in my schedule and I'll jump on a call with them and chat and whatever last few questions they have, just for 10-15 minutes. They're already watched the presentation by that point. They've already watched the ...
Anyways, I've been shrinking the length of the funnel and I've been making it smaller. Anyway, that's all I'm trying to say.
There's a guy, the reason I'm saying this is there was a guy I was learning from once that he was saying that, he said, "Every time you add a product to your SKU, every time you add a new SKU, every time you add a new product to your whatever you offer, you 12 X your back end complexity." Let me say that again, every time you add a new product to your product line you 12 X the amount of complexity on the back end, whether that's through support or how do you sell it or let's learn a new script. Is that interesting?
Number one, the reason I like MLM is because I don't have to worry about the product that much. The corporate's the one that's shipping them out. Corporate's the one that's doing this customer service. I don't have to worry, so that's nice. It may not be pure 12 X, but I'm thinking from a funnel standpoint that that's also probably a little bit true, that if I'm trying to have this one outcome happen, if I add any extra pages, it's probably not 12 X, but there's some level of complexity that gets thrown in there, when I could've just got it done in, A, a short amount of time, but B, it may it more simple.
Think through. There's a whole process, the whole reason I'm trying to bring this up guys is that I want you to look at the processes that you make people go through in order to buy from you. There's a percentage of people who just want to buy from you right then. You don't want to listen your thing. They're like, "You know what? My hands are dry. I just want your little lotion thing anyway."
What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to adapt to what the market has been telling me, which like, "Hey Steven, we love the fact that you have us apply. We love the fact that you vet out to the individuals that are joining through some kind of process. We love that, but oh my gosh, sometimes it's a little intense and there's this huge percentage of us who just want to freaking join your team because we see you're on this path."
They're the exact same way for you guys. Start looking through the process. Start looking through. Number one, you guys know that I love automation and I like to automate as much as I can. I'm not trying to take the human out of this business at all. The human element has not been removed from my MLM at all, but there is very much room for me to look and see, okay, now at least the process is there how do I make it better so that it caters to the individuals who are just like, "Look Steven, I just want to join you."
Start doing that though and start looking through your process. Are there extra hoops? Start looking at the different pl- ... Are there rough patches on the road that you're making people run through that are like totally unnecessary? You know what I mean? There really may not actually be helping at all.
Anyway, that's what I'm doing right now. I'm in the middle of testing out that process. I'm like 99% sure it's going to be better. I've already been seeing the responses from it a little bit and it's better. It's definitely better. It's been more realistic to how you and I would communicate in general. These automation pieces are literally just supposed to automate how you and I would normally communicate. They're not supposed to make us feel weird. They're not supposed to add extra processes or complexities to life. They're supposed to simplify things.
I was looking at it and I was realizing like, "That might be a little bit too complex to send them from an application process up to a webinar process. Let's just mash the two together. Let's shrink the length of the funnel." So far it's been great.
Anyways guys, thanks so much. Appreciate it. We just screamed past 15,000 downloads, which is awesome. Appreciate the listens and thanks so much for being in the community. I truly believe that the kind of things that we are talking about and I'm trying to teach here has the power to change the MLM industry. Let me bold enough to say that that's my goal. That's what I'm trying to do, so there's a lot of cool things coming down the pipeline and I've really, really enjoyed just getting a chance to share the journey with you guys as I do this.
Anyway, if you've not had a chance to go check out secretmlmhacks.com. That's the program that I kind of teach that it works for any MLM. If you've not had a chance, go do so. If you're like, "Hey Steven, I just want to see what kind of stuff you have in general," and you're like, "Ah, I don't know yet. Steven, I'm not falling in love with you enough yet," then go to secretmlmhacksradio.com. You can download some pretty cool stuff for me helping you train your team on duplication strategies. Anyway, thanks so much guys. I'll talk to you later, bye.
Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback for me. If you have a question you want answered live on the show go to secretmlmhacksradio.com to submit your question and download your free MLM masters pack.

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Further podcasts by Steve Larsen: Automated Downline Recruiting

Website of Steve Larsen: Automated Downline Recruiting