Business
Intro[Upbeat Intro Music]00:09 Topher: I’ve spent the last 12 years building websites for people that looked great, but didn’t sell. That changes today as I take you on my journey learning from the best sales and marketing people in the world. I’m Topher Fangio, and this is the How 2 Funnel Podcast.[Music Fades Out]00:27 Topher: What's up everybody! Topher here from How 2 Funnel!Today, I'm going to be talking about Mission #2 from the One Funnel Away Challenge which changes your life and changes your thinking about business so that you can make money online.Again, I'm just doing this to share my experiences with you so that you guys know what this is all about and just to open this up, and be really transparent, because I want to show you guys a little bit more about me.I've always wanted to help people, and I had a friend of mine, D Grant, encourage me recently to just get out there and show myself a little bit more. He said, "I really think that once people get to know you; obviously they like you. And they want to do things with you; they want to partner with you; they want to see what you have to offer. So you gotta put yourself out there. You gotta get in front of people to show them who you are."So that's what I'm doing with this podcast, specifically this is about the One Funnel Away Challenge.Mission #2 - Failure01:22 Topher: And today, I'm going to talk about Mission #2 which is interestingly all about failure. So many times, we hear all of these stories of success. Like this guy made $100,000,000 in one year; and this guy made $10,000,000 in 2 weeks; and this guy, man he made $1,000,000 in 24 hours. And those stories are amazing, and they show you what is possible when you really know what you're doing and you follow the right way of doing it; you follow the framework and you make it happen.But, there's also a lot of failures that the salespeople don't like to talk about a whole lot. So I was really excited to see this one from Russell where he's being really transparent and open and honest with us, to tell us about all of his failures and how over the years, that has transformed him.But it's also been really really hard. And I don't know about you, but I think we've all had failures; I know I have. I have tried multiple times to do things, and it just never worked out. I've bought software thinking, this is going to be the one thing that helps me make money online. And it totally flopped.Or you invest in some business and maybe it's a new cryptocurrency, I don't know. But you invest in something and it just doesn't pan out like you want it to. And so you fail; and that weighs on you, and so just hearing what Russell had to say about this was amazing.Success as Failure02:53 Topher: One of the things that he said that really struck me was when he was talking about one of his successes and how it was kinda a failure. He wasn't doing that great, he made like a couple thousand here, he made like $10,000 over here and he wasn't doing a ton of money, but he finally figured out one thing that worked! And he started hiring his friends, and they got together; and they were like, "Dude! I want to do what you're doing! You're so amazing! Give me a job and I'll work for you. I'll help you do this."He said, "Cool; yeah; come on over!"So he gets this one employee and then his friends come over and he's like, "Yeah sure, absolutely you guys can have a job too! We've got $100,000 it's all good!"And so he starts this and he has like 6 or 7 employees, and one day, he's realizing; holy crap...these guys want to be paid and stuff; every 2 weeks! It's like a job or something. I can't just make the money when I make the money and pay them...they want this money up front.And so he's paying them, and he's giving them this money; but he's not making any money, because he's just hanging out and talking and doing fun stuff. And building funnels that aren't really doing anything yet. They're talking about funnel building, but haven't really built one to actually make the money.And he's talking about, okay guys; I don't know what to do...And one day it's around Christmas time and he's putting up the lights on his house. And he doesn't have any idea what he's doing...they turn out horrible. Whenever you hire a professional, there's people that actually do this and get paid to do this, and they make them all straight and perfect and pretty and match the colors and things. He didn't do any of that, because any time you're doing something yourself; you just don't know what you're doing...So he's tacking these up, and he's using a stapler or something...and he's even putting the staples through the wires and he's shorting the lights and it's horrible.And he can't figure out what he's going to do because he knows that he's about to go bankrupt, and he's gotta call of his employees and tell them, like, "Hey guys...there may not be Christmas for you; I'm not actually going to be able to pay you guys." And that's just weighing on him heavily. Because those people depended on him, and I think as business owners, that's something that we all fear. Getting people to depend on us, but not being able to take care of them.So, he's sitting there just trying to think of what to do, and I honestly don't remember what he said the idea was but he had this idea that came to him.And so he thought through this, and he keeps thinking and he gets more energy about it; and he's like, "Yeah...this could work! I think this could work!"And so he calls and texts all of his employees and says, "Hey, by the way; you don't know this, but we're about to go bankrupt, and there's no money left, and I've got this really awesome idea; I think it's going to save us! I need everybody to be there early tomorrow at 7:00am. We're gonna go through this, and we're gonna figure it out. Hope you have a great night!"Of course, they're all like, "Wait, what!? We're going bankrupt?! Why didn't you tell us sooner?" And being kinda scared like people do when you say, "Hey, there's no more money..." I've been in that position before; it's not a cool position.Anyway, they all get together the next day; and they start working through this, and the idea pans out and it saved their company. And not only did it save their company, but they went on to do great things! And they started this call center and he wound up having like 100 employees at one point; where they were making tons of money, and things were going great...and he kinda looked at it and said, "Is this really what I want to be doing? Is this the kind of business that I want to build?"And, some things happened and the merchant accounts that they were using got locked out, and so they had made the money, but the merchant accounts weren't giving it to them, because there were some new laws in place or something. Whatever it was, it froze all of their assets. And he had 100 employees that he couldn't pay.Long story short, it went way down hill from there. All of his employees left basically, all but 6 of them, left and went to the call center across the street that was making money. And he had to start all over; and he had money that he owed to the IRS. I think he owed like $150,000 to the IRS. And he had to figure out a way to pay that.So just the stories there of coming back and building new businesses and just picking yourself up after the failure, and making sure that you build something that you actually care about, that you're invested in. That you want to support and that makes you want to get out of bed every day and go into the office and do the work to make something awesome.What are your goals?07:39 Topher: So that was the thing that really stuck out to me in Mission #2. This idea of making sure that whatever you're working on, you're actually cognizant about the goal, the mission; where you're headed. And saying, "Yes! That is where I want to be! That is the company I want to build! That is the company that I want to go to work for every day because I'm helping people; I'm uplifting people. I'm doing the things that I want to do. It's making my life better; it's making my family's life better, it's making my friends' lives better. It's making the world a better place."You've got to be cognizant of your goals as you're building your business to make sure that you're always on track. So, the challenge for this mission was to come up with something that helps you in that process. For me, it was making sure that you track your goals.So I came up with this image that has this guy on this mountain top. And he's looking out, and you can tell that he's just climbed the mountain. He's taking a rest because he was successful and he's done really well, and he's made his goal!So I just put some text next to it that says, "Stay True to Your Goals." So that's what I want to encourage you guys to do. This is also encouraging to me. I want you guys to hold me accountable. If you ever look at me and say, "Topher, man, this is not at all what you said you were going to build. This is not what you said you wanted to do!"I want you to call me out on it! Because I want to build a business that makes the world a better place. That helps people to make the world a better place.So as I'm going through this, I want you guys to stay to true to your goals; figure out what they are. Make sure you always have them in mind. Write them on a sticky note. Write them on the white board in your office. Write them on something you see every single day, so that as you're going through this and you're building your business, THAT is what you're working towards, and you never lose sight of that.So Stay True to Your Goals!Alright, that's all I have for tonight. Thank you guys so much for listening. Join us tomorrow for Mission #3! I'm so excited, I can't wait to keep this going and see how you guys like it!Leave me comments or feedback, wherever you guys can find me! You can email me, you can Facebook, Twitter, whatever. I want to hear what you guys think about this, and how I can make it better, how I can make it more relevant to you guys.Thanks so much![Upbeat Outro Music]10:09 Topher: If you liked this episode of the How 2 Funnel Podcast, get subscribed; checkout my website how2funnel.com for more info and join our How 2 Funnel Community on Facebook so you can tag along on this incredible journey with me.[Music Fades Out]