Eben Pagan 7 Years From Scratch To $25Mill...These Days over $100Mill
"You can't convince anyone of anything. You can only give them the right information so that they can convince themselves" - Eben Pagan
Oh boy, just listened to a Tony Robbins Money Masters collection where he interviewed the famed US Internet Marketer Eben Pagan. Such wonderful take-aways and I am needing to share if you want to scale up or better your business. Are you ready... read on!
"Success Leaves Clues..." - most of us have heard this regurgitated Tony Robbins quote, but if really understood, you'll be the one that is watching how others grow over time and achieve their current status. And if you were really focused on creating more inner change, they will become mimicking and creating their own cookie-cutter template on what foundations do they need to set up, highlight the major turning points they need to occur when ready and get their mindset aligned to think similarly to grasp the opportunities as they surface.
Who is Eben Pagan?
Well known to the Internet Marketing field and investor to technology. Tony Robbins likes to describe him as the man who is really committed to growing and evolving over time. He has one mission to help people live better and greater lives. From going from scratch to operating a $25 million a year business enterprise in 7 years and today is worth more than $100 million, he has life lessons we all should sit up and listen to.
From Eugene in Oregan US, he came from humble beginnings working in a copper factory. By age 20-21, he was a guitarist in a band and also working a part-time job. He noticed people who were making it (or so it seemed) were in Real Estate - so he obtained his Real Estate Licence. In his first year, he sold 1.3 homes where he made a grand total of $2500 for the year.
He thought, what is missing?
Deciding to get more help, he signed up with a Real Estate trainer specialising in 'How to mortgage and sell businesses'. This was really more to do with marketing and sales and that is where he noticed he had a passion for and was actually quite good at it.
He began to really try and interpret the quote "Success leaves clues" and started to notice that when people get given a windfall - i.e. win the lottery, inheritance, have a boom year, if not prepared and in the right mindset, they lose it just as fast.
He realised that when people with a scarcity mentality look for how to make money - it is usually from a place that can make a fast buck - scam people, join a scheme, they want it now and once they hit the big time, they say to themselves that they'll never work again.
On the opposite scale of mindset is the truly successful achievers that ask themselves everyday:
- How can I improve myself today? - How can I become more valuable to myself and others? - How can I add more value to other people's lives? - How can I consistently keep improving overtime? - How can I accrue and build the tidal wave of wealth in my life?
And he also noticed that they actually love what they do - meaning they do it all the time, even when they don't have too.
Simply put - they love playing the game.
Learning perfectioning marketing as opposed to dirty manipulating marketing and sales, he created what he calls 'Professional Marketing' - really finding out what another person wants or needs, what they are trying to accomplish and help them achieve their goals. From here, he did some consulting 1:1 work in helping others learn who their customers were, set up their own marketing and sales funnels and ad campaigns.
But a turn of events came when he met a marriage counsellor called Dean Jackson. Dean had written an e-book and was selling it online and spruiking on how he had a life but Eben did not being a slave to work.
Eben watched his strategy at work actually helping the people who bought his e-book and decided to do the same.
He locked himself off in a room for 3 weeks and emerged with his very own e-book - this is a book that is on file and not put to paper. For his first year of being published online, he had numerous people call up and let him know of his typos and misphrasing, but he was too busy doing everything from creating the webpage and marketing himself and he was selling it for $29.95 with approximately 3-5 online sales per week. He thought that there is something to this even with all of its upfront problems. Spending some time with virtual help fixing his e-book, he thought now was the time that he would test the price point that people would pay, so he raised the price of his e-book to $10 more. He was astounded to realise that he actually had the best peak week he ever had at 10 sales. Doing the maths quickly in his head, 40 x 10 = $400 a week x 52 = $20,800 extra for the year. What if he could get good at it? Fast forward to today, he has 80 staff (correction... virtual staff) and makes over $25 million per year by creating training programs both video and audio on core products concerning the niche of 'Dating Advice for Women' and 'Relationship Advice'. Plus over 5 million arising from 'Business Advice from Startups to $10 million Companies' and 'How to Publish Informational Products'. He has written 2 books - 'How to Win At Life' & 'Opportunity - How to Win In Business & Create A Life You Love'. This is some of his wisdom: #1 People perceive 'value with money'. If you focus on something long enough, most times this is where you'll expand within your life, but the same cannot be said for money. Money is a symbol rather than a desired object. It is the thing you use to get what you want. If you want to change to be more successful, you must look at both inner and outer layers. 1. Listen to the way people speak, use exact words others are using, what is the current topics of conversation. People like people like themselves. 2. Change the way you view the world. Rather than being a value-extractor, be a value-creator. Overcome your self-serving mechanism set up from the fight or flight days and evolve to being more generous. Eben explains an experiment that outlines this superbly being the scarcity mentality and the value perceived rational; A restaurant owner welcomes his diners in with two glasses and points to his bar with the best bottles of wine. He says, instead of buying a bottle or two, just tell me at the end of the night how much you drank and we'll account for that. A man at a table nearby overhears this and grabs the restaurant owner and says, mate, aren't you worried about being ripped off as you know they will? The owner points outside and says nah, just look at the line up outside each and every night! The perceived value mentality has reasoning that says I want it as long as it is equal or better than what I am currently getting. Seen in this experiment:
Person A and Person B both get $100 each, but the rules are Person A gets to identify the split each will get and Person B says whether you both get the money or not.
If person A says 50:50, generally Person B will go with both. Win:win
But if person A says something more greedy like 70:30, instead of Person B being richer for it, the perceived value mentality will say No, I'd rather go without because he is not getting more than me. They did the same experiment in a third world country where the same $100 could have fed a whole family for a month. The money would have been a big deal even just to get your hands on some of it.
But the outcome was no different from the first experiment. So, how can I get 10,000 people to give me $100? Simply put, give away a $1000 worth of value. This is where Gary Vee similarly developed the 80/20 rule - I get you to a position to earn 80% of the profits and my fee will be 20%. Create a video, a training, a book, whatever - give people a taste of your business and they'll perceive it as more and want to freely come back to trial something more at a cost.
#2 By changing your inner beliefs of mindset opens you up to receiving more.
External changes you can make would be to have an online strategy and an offline strategy. 1. You first have to learn by experience on how to give value and ask for payment 1:1. 2. Put yourself in a position to learn sales and marketing. 3. Being to sharpen your communication skills and write a blog. 4. Become an Associate Partner with Amazon.com, Clickbank or Commission Junction or other big brand and match products to people who like them. Or, there are plenty of you-tube videos online that simply trial out a product and see if it is good and depending on their advice, people can click the link to buy directly from the provider via your affiliate code. There are other people who simply run ads and get paid by how many clicks directed to a website it gets, bringing new potential leads to big business. By utilising your blog, just talk about a product and have a link displayed a few time to check out more. Watch YouTube of the many people demonstrating how to use a new product to the market. It can be that easy!
The way to be the go-to person that sells comes from 3 pieces of criteria of your lead:
1. Are they willing to take some action (click a button, ring a number, etc.) 2. Are they proactively looking for a solution to their issue, pain or problem? 3. Do they have fewer options? Is their back against the wall?
If you get a yes on all three questions then you have a hot buyer. If not, you need to work on making your product or service cover more of the above. Then, just like having a conversation with a buyer, get yourself a CRM email responder and add emails just like a portion of the conversation to facilitate a sale that works even when you are not present. Reach out and say thank you for them spending their time/subscribing to this email list. Give them great value - "...from here on, I am going to send you a free tip/action point to help you out each day for 30 days...Firstly, let me know what is one of your greatest frustration, or what is it you need to move ahead?" You got the picture.
Remember, you are the sum of the 5-6 people you most hang around. If you do not like the status where you are at, begin to introduce more talented, more curiosity, more successful people to your life. Compliment others and recognise where others do a better job than you do and seek to learn more. Look for the performers, not always the smooth-talkers, but the ones where you can see their experience has led them to where they are now and that includes the good and bad of it. Let the game begin...!
Meg Hogan x
Meg Hogan is an Amazon #1 Best Selling author in Australia and US for 'Get Rich Be The Voice' and a Business Coach helping owners maximise their business potential to be in the best possible position to reap more revenue and retain more personal wealth. With her 100% money-back guarantee of satisfaction, she gives certainty to her clients that their best interests are at heart. "My door is open or anyone who may wish to discuss their business challenges in hopes of finding some practical solutions. Book a free call to chat on what I can offer you, and walk away with at least 3 things you can do now to improve your situation."
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