151: Offer, Promise, Platform, Big Idea: Create Proven Funnels that Convert with Marketing Medic Mike Caldwell

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert plank Show episode 151 offer promise platform big idea, create proven funnels that convert with marketing medic Mike Caldwell Hey everyone and welcome back to the Robert plank show we're talking about making money. Our guest today is Mike Caldwell. Now online marketing is very similar for most people, they think they need all these special computer language codes and integrations in order to make sales online. But by focusing on all the flashy gizmos and gadgets, they lose sight of the basics. A marketing funnel basically needs three things traffic, a killer offer and decent copy. And we have Mike Caldwell will talk to us about all those things today. So how are things today Mike?

Unknown Speaker 0:47 Things are really good. Thanks for asking.

Robert Plank 0:49 Cool. So can you tell us about what is it that you do on the internet how you got started and with this funnel so specifically, what makes you stand out what makes you different special with funnels?

Speaker 2 1:03 Okay, so I think the first question was how I got started. And I got started because I actually met Russell Brunson, the founder of Click Funnels and.com secrets on a bouncy castle obstacle course in the Caribbean Sea. So we became friends, I found out what he was doing. I I'm an entrepreneur, I had some home based businesses that I needed to promote more heavily online. And I end up enrolling in his one of his mastermind programs. And so I was able to learn directly from Russell Brunson, the master himself. One of my one of the first things we did is I live off grid here at the place we call The Ark. And we were trying to in Russell build a funnel for me, but it wasn't converting very well, I was responsible for the traffic and I was getting just insane traffic coming to into into the funnel, but wasn't really converting. And most funnels don't convert right out of the box, they require numerous iterations to, you know, to make sure you have the offer right in the messaging, right. So that so that it converts. Well, before we're able to do that word kind of got out, but I was really ridiculously good at driving traffic from Facebook. And so I was hired by a bootcamp gym to drive traffic for them. And so I was driving traffic again, same thing happened, I drove traffic to their to their website, but it wasn't converting. So they allowed me to rebuild their entire bootcamp funnel for them. In our first month, we spent $300 in Facebook ads, and we did $11,000 in gross revenue. Awesome. And yeah, and from there, things just sort of things just sort of snowballed. And what I've always done as I just always, I'm a paramedic, primary, I was a paramedic, and firefighter for 12 years. And what I was actually Canada's top paramedic for training, I was the I was the air ambulance manager for the helicopter base in Ottawa, Canada. And so I had more skills, and probably anybody else in the country. But what I learned is that as the airway is the ABCs, airway, breathing, circulation, the basics that save lives. So I apply that same foundation to all my marketing campaigns. And I find that just by sticking to the basics, you're able that accounts for like 80% of your traffic and sales.

Robert Plank 3:17 And would you say that was that the big reason why you were able to, to turn around that one clients funnel like you said that, or you said that been Brunson build a funnel for you. And it first didn't convert, and you kind of had to go back to the basics, follow the steps and kind of see from the beginning what wasn't working?

Speaker 2 3:37 That's right. Yeah. And so that's where I've sort of come up with, like, I wish it was three, but it's, it's four things. Because three would fall my ABCs. But for, like for a landing page, funnel to work, I think you need four, four things. And the first thing you need is an offer. And what a lot of people don't understand is that they want to provide the offer that they want to give, instead of the offer that their audience wants to receive. So if you can do your research and know what the audience wants, and create that for them, then you're gonna be in a lot better shape than if you just have some document that you prepared. Like four years ago, you've never done anything with like, hey, I'll just give this away for free because I've already I already have it. And that doesn't have the value that's required to get somebody to take that next step in, ascending in your funnel. So the first thing you need is is the offer. And that offer has to come with a promise what what does that offer what what pain does that offer promise to relieve? And so that the second thing is a promise. Okay, so if I give you my email, that you're basically promising me that you're going to relieve me of some sort of pain. Now, it's great for me to promise that to you. But there needs to be a platform that supports that promise, we can make promises at the ying yang, but if there isn't the platform to support it, then you don't have the credibility necessary. So I usually break The prompt the platform down into three things, it's usually different for each each niche, but generally comes down for most people it comes down to, what does the client have to believe in? In Me? What does the client has to believe in my product? And what does the client have to believe in themselves. So if we're talking about the weight loss niche, for example, then the, the client has to see that I'm fit myself because they don't want to learn how to lose weight from some fat gut, right? So like, I have to show the credibility that one, I'm a fit guy, myself, and I practice what I preach, then we need to show that my process work. So okay, I'm fit, but I might be, you know, some sort of new guy that was born with a six pack. So I have to prove my platform works. And that's usually done through testimonials. So if I had like a dozen people saying that, you know, I joined Mike, I follow his programs, and I lost like 12 pounds my first week, then that gives a lot of credibility to my promise. And then the third thing is, what do they have to believe in themselves? So most people have some, again, in a weight loss space, like, oh, you know, I'm big boned. It won't work for me, or, you know, I'm allergic to gluten, so it won't work for me. So you have to address reasons why the people think that whatever you're selling won't work for them. Because whatever product it is, there's always a reason why people will say, Oh, it works for other people. But it won't work for me. So right now we're at two, you need an offer, you need a promising a platform. And then the fourth thing that is required is a big idea. That's your headline. And a big idea is more than a headline. It's a it is a headline. But it's something that incites curiosity, and hopefully demonstrates your unique mechanism. So usually, my headlines are my big ideas. They're useful. So the client has value to the client. It's unique, nobody else is offering it. It's ultra specific. And then sometimes they use this and sometimes they don't it depends on the market. But there's also might off also incorporate a sense of urgency. So it's for us useful, unique, ultra specific, and urgency.

Robert Plank 7:05 So are those the and you said that there were there are three things or there are four things as far as

Speaker 2 7:11 those four things and the four things that I use whenever I build a funnel landing page, and that is offer, promise platform and big idea. And then the big idea has for us assigned to it that is useful, unique, ultra specific and urgent.

Robert Plank 7:28 Okay, so promise was the second one there awesome. So and so and I like like you were you thinking, like you said, like used to be an EMT, you're all about the ABCs. And it's one of those things where, I don't know, like, when I, when I look at people making web pages, or I'm looking at the webpage that I'm making, like, it's so easy for me to get kind of bogged down or overwhelmed, or when I do with a copywriter. Like they make it a certain way, right, and a copywriter like slave and spent all this time whatever, like finding the perfect sentence or word and kind of like you said, you mentioned there a little bit with the offer and the and the freebie and things like that the things that you think are impressive and cool and useful, are not necessarily the things that those those customers are going to find useful and things like that. So I mean, have you have you come across that where someone just kind of wrote a web page without a process, but kind of like almost like a starving artists mentality? And it's just like, set in stone, they refuse to change it? Have you ever dealt with stuff like that?

Speaker 2 8:31 Yeah, and and for copy, there's two points, there's two components to copy. People make decisions, primarily based on emotion, right? Like, I want that, how many things in a day do we see that we want, but we don't, we don't get everything we want, unless there's a rational backing for it. Right? Like I might want a 65 Ford Mustang, but I might not be in a financial position right now, to purchase a car like that, especially given I live on a gravel road. So any copy that you write has to address the emotional wants of the person but then able to support that one with the logical reasoning for why they should move ahead with it.

Robert Plank 9:14 And and so that's cool. So if you see a landing page that's, that's not converting or could be better instead of just kind of eyeballing it and saying, well maybe I'll just change some stuff you can you can actually see some real concrete reasons why maybe something's not quite landing and and so have you ever come across some with you know, people building funnels, landing pages and things like that, where if they're, they're stuck about what kind of decision to make, as opposed to just like going with like some kind of best practices or advice. They say, Well, I'm just going to split test it right. I don't know what my headline should be. I'm just kind of I'm going to split test it. And what I've seen and I've seen people talk about funnels landing pages like in this way. That advice is split tested is seemed like kind of a cop out, have you come across something like that before?

Speaker 2 10:03 Yeah. And that's why everything I do in this, like so many things that I do in my marketing goes back to my firefighter paramedics. Everything I did as a firefighter, and as a paramedic had a standard operating procedure. When faced with this situation, this is what we do in these steps. And so that's why like, my funnels have four steps to them, right? The offer promise platform, big idea. My headlines have, they're unique, they're useful, they're urgent, or there's ultra specific. So I always go back that stuff. And so yeah, I will split test. Two different split testing is awesome, because like you say, you know, what resonates for me won't resonate for everybody. But everything I split test is based on principles that have been proven to work.

Robert Plank 10:50 So you're not just wasting your time on on goofy stuff. You're actually I guess, I guess what I'm trying to say is that based on everything that you you've been saying so far about these different, you know, copywriting principles and your checklist and things, I mean, you have a pretty good idea at what is going to sell right? You can, you can make a pretty decent stab at it and might need some tweaking later. But you have a pretty good idea of, you know, have the headline be this font and this size, and kind of use sort of that template. I mean, I guess what I'm asking is, do you do you have some sort of a template that you use? I mean, I know that you mentioned these different principles, but do you have like a starting point for the funnels you create?

Speaker 2 11:28 Oh, definitely, like say it's those four things. I usually use Oswald font for my for my bold headlines, and I use railway for my copy within. So and that's, that's based on knowledge that I've got from past funnel builders from past website builders from past copywriters are like, this is what's worked before. So when you find a system that's working, I tend to stay with it. A lot of everything I've talked about today, I didn't invent any of this stuff. Because had I invented it, then, you know, I haven't been in the business that long to have proven it all out. Everything I'm talking about is stuff that I've got from people like Russell Brunson from Todd Brown from Todd Browns team, from Dan Kennedy, like Rick Sheffield's, all these guys. So it's just a combination of what worked for them. So we're talking like dozens of years of experience culminating in a system that ultimately works.

Robert Plank 12:22 I mean, yeah, why reinvent the wheel, right, just go with what others have done before you and kind of build on that.

Speaker 2 12:29 Yeah, like a big mistake that a lot of people make is, again, just going back to the motion. And quite often, we think if we just pack like, all these features in, like, the more features we get, the more we overwhelm somebody that they're going to want to buy. But I don't care about the features, I care about the end result, if it only has one feature, like one feature that's going to allow me to lose 12 pounds in a week. Well, that's awesome. If you lets me like 50 different features, but I don't know that I'm gonna lose any weight after I go through all these features. And who cares?

Robert Plank 13:01 Right? I mean, it's Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a lot of beating on on your own chest, but nothing about what's in it for me. So have you noticed that lately? And like in the past, maybe like five years or so that a lot of these web pages have had less text and less information on them?

Speaker 2 13:18 Yeah. And so again, I've done a lot of work with Russell Brunson, and I'm in I'm in his camp. And what I see happening a lot is people are cloning the Guru's like Russell. Okay. And what they don't understand is that someone like Russell, when you come to a landing page of his that has minimal text or minimal copy. That is not your first exposure to Russell, like, you've been following Russell for like, weeks, months, years. And so by that, you get all the emails from you know, what he offers, you know, what his past his track record has been. So when you get to one of his landing page that has minimal comp copy on it, that's because he knows that you've been you've already spent like, dozens of hours in front of them. And what too many funnel website builders are doing now is they're just like cloning, one of Russell's minimized landing pages. And nobody's like, you know, Ted Smith, like launches a funnel, and it has no, you know, no, no, sorry. No copy on it. Because he's like, Well, that's what Russell did. Well, yeah. We all know who Russell is. We know he provides I've never heard TechSmith before. So you've got to, you've got to resort go back to that platform for the three biggest objections people are going to have for not wanting to buy from you. Russell's already dealt with those objections in like the weeks he's been corresponding with you. So that's why I like to have that platform for and I said it's, what do they have to believe in you your product and themselves? I say those are the three biggest things. But I always go back to if I walked up to you on the street and I made you an offer. I don't care what offer it is. You're going to reject it right? Just right at the beginning. You're gonna say no, yeah. So I want to know the top three reasons you're going to say no No to what I'm offering you, and then I'm going to address that on that landing page. So I removed the objections before you can even bring them up.

Robert Plank 15:08 Cool. And that's that's a cool way of going about it in that, in that you can, you can basically get caught up I guess, to where, where a Russell level guru already has someone you can get caught up but you're also not writing 50 pages on a webpage also,

Speaker 2 15:25 right? Because you don't want to overwhelm the person, like say, you just I want to know, I want to do my research. And I want to know what your objections are going to be. Usually the objections are that usually your site looks like somebody else's on the on the call right here. But usually the objections, sorry, I lost my track. Or was that usually objections or money based, right? Oh, I can't afford it. And so what I like to do is before they say they can't afford it, I'd like to show them what the benefits are. If they don't buy it. Right.

Robert Plank 16:00 Yeah, like the takeaway selling?

Unknown Speaker 16:02 That's right. That's right.

Robert Plank 16:05 So I mean, we've been mentioning for the past few minutes about different mistakes that you've seen on the landing pages that you know, that you come across, or laying or mistakes on landing pages. Well, there's a certain list guy in our podcasts, the mistakes that you've seen other funnel builders make is your luck. One big huge one.

Speaker 2 16:25 It is actually it's the one that we just mentioned. I'm like, well, it's two, it's two things. Somebody will say like, give me your email, and I'll give you my three secrets to financial freedom. All right. So there's so many, and they just think that that's going to do it for them. Right. And there's so many problems with that. The first is you're going to give me your secrets to financial freedom. I have no idea how financially free you are. Right? I have no idea how your system could apply to me, do I have to make more money? Do I have to save more money? Do I have to start buying stocks? So are you are you wanting me to like start flipping houses? I don't know what your product is. And then there's nothing unique about your offer. If I wanted to have financial freedom, what if I type how to have financial freedom into Google? How many? How many answers am I going to get to that on Google? Like 10s of 1000s. So what separates you from anybody else? So that person would like need a unique mechanism so that I can't google it. And that's, that's the biggest thing. So most things most funnels, I see the only copy is above the fold. There's minimal stuff in there. There's no platform for why I should believe in you, your product, or how could apply to me.

Robert Plank 17:43 So it sounds like so I guess Yeah, so out of those two things, that's just have a better freebie to give away, in general. And then kind of make that freebie as sexy as that can be.

Speaker 2 17:56 Yeah, um, because the freebie has to be like we're covering our emails more and more every day, right? Because our we're just getting bogged down with all the all the spam that we're getting in our inboxes. And so, again, if you're going to be three secrets to financial freedom, those there, you have to intrigue me in some way that I don't that I believe that what you have works. And that what's your offering, I can't just Google and get for free with my free me without giving my email on Google. And so yeah, the offer, The offer has to be really good. And again, I like to go back to wrestle all the time. And one of the one of the things that actually got me to sign up with Russell, is when I got his free plus shipping book offer. So I signed up, I sent away for his 108 split tests, for whatever, like $7.95 and shipping. And then he sends me like this 200 page, high gloss, every page book. And every page had just like killer content killer value on it. And had I seen this book at a bookstore, I easily, I wouldn't have any problems like paying 50 bucks for a book like that. And Russell gave it to me for the cost of shipping. And so what that leads me to believe is that if he's if he's gonna give me that much value for free, how much value is he going to give me when I pay more. And what most people do is they come up with like some like Word document that is basically worthless that they spent like five minutes researching, and they're trying to give that away in exchange for my email address. And so even if they do, like trick me and get me to give me their get me to give them their email address, once I get this one page Word document with generic information, what are the odds of me ever buying anything from them down

Robert Plank 19:38 the road? Almost nothing.

Speaker 2 19:41 Yeah, so you've got to like people kind of give some thought to that offer, and how they say how can they make it intriguing and sexy and then once they get it, how can you make them say wow, like, that's what when I got that book from Russell, I wasn't expecting I was like, wow, like, I can't believe I just got this book for the cost of shipping. And that's that's Tell the prime that's how a funnel has to work because that free offer. That's your first impression if you blow that first impression you're done, so just

Robert Plank 20:07 give them a huge Wow when they get that thing for free.

Unknown Speaker 20:11 Exactly. Exactly.

Robert Plank 20:13 So um, so speaking of Click Funnels mean, I've known, I've known Russell for years and years, and but I haven't been paying as close attention to him in the in the past few years. So I know about Click Funnels, I've seen a bunch of funnel pages. I've seen a demo, but I mean in your work, but I don't have an account. So in your words, like, what is click funnels? Exactly, and how is it different from all the other page builders out there?

Speaker 2 20:41 Yeah, well, yeah, Click Funnels is that it's a it's a page building, online software, where it's they've just made it, they're all pretty much drag and drop now, but Click Funnels has just made it very intuitive for how to build a page. And then what they've done is they've with a click funnels account, you get all the integrations that you would have to usually use like third party providers for so all my I got rid of my AWeber account, like my autoresponder, because now everything goes through kick Click Funnels, they call them action funnels. And the action funnels are better than what I had with AWeber. Before everything's just segmented, a lot better, I can move people around on my list. So if you come to my page and give me your email, then you'll get one sequence of email blasts from me. But if you buy like one thing, you'll get a different sequence. If you also go for my one time offer, then you'll get a different sequence, there's just really easy to set that up within Click Funnels, then at the same time, they have all the E commerce also integrated. So I don't need third party providers for that I can have my forms right on the page, you don't have to go like to a page, a separate PayPal page to buy it or whatever. And then they've made it super easy. This is where the true value comes in. If you decide to you know buy my tripwire for 795, I can clewd like it's called an order bump for like $4 more, I'll give you the checklist that supports the document. And all you have to do is like click this one little button. And that's added to your to your order. It's very painless for you. So you'll probably do it. And then once you go to that page, click funnels also makes it super easy to have like a one time offer. So you bought my document for 795, you went for the order bump for $4. Now I'm gonna give you a one time, one time offer on the next page. But again, you just have to click the button, and it's added on to your cart. Again, completely painless for you. And it just makes the sales process so easy. And it kind of defines what a funnel is. And it

Robert Plank 22:40 sounds awesome the way that you describe that. Because I mean, if you can cancel your AWeber account if you don't have to connect, you know, a PayPal button to web page if it's all handled all in one place. And it's all drag and drop. That's that. I mean, that seems like that clears up a lot of the extra time that people would have been otherwise spending on all the technical stuff.

Speaker 2 23:01 Yeah, and then what's really cool as as they say, you've been following Russell for a while. So Russell gives so much value away again, his one his upfront offers are so awesome. Like you can get most of his books for free plus shipping. So you can get the.com secrets. That's his playbook for making funnels. If you follow his playbook and incorporate that with Click Funnels, then your business is off to the races. And the other thing that I love about Click Funnels so much that you don't get like WordPress sites are awesome. They're free. But if you are having problems, building something a WordPress site, what do you do? Like you're kind of screwed, aren't you? You're on your own, you got to figure that out. There's forums you can go to and get a half a different bunch of answers from people who don't know anything more than you do. But with Click Funnels, there's online chat, there's online support right there. So you'll usually get an answer. Like within 24 hours at the latest and it's usually a lot quicker than that.

Robert Plank 23:59 Awesome. So I mean, not only do they do everything, but also they they support it pretty well. And so speaking of supporting this thing called Click Funnels, is that right that you what you do is you set up funnels for other people.

Speaker 2 24:12 Yeah, so um, yes, yes, yes. And no, I'm more of a I build I definitely build funnels for people. But my strength is more in the whole strategy behind the funnel. So I so yeah, I can build the funnel, but my strengths are more in building the business that's in the funnel is like one component of it.

Robert Plank 24:31 Okay, so I mean, Could you walk us in the in the last couple of minutes here? Can you walk us through like a quick case study of maybe a client you had and they said we need XYZ and then you kind of save the day for them?

Speaker 2 24:44 Yeah, so that happened last week. So a potential client call me I found out later that I was fourth. So I'm a certified Click Funnels consultant. So we have a page where people can go and you know, contact us. So I was the fourth person any contact On the page, and he was trying to sell some supplements. And so supplements are great. But what people have to understand about supplements is they have, they have generally, small margins. So it's more of a, when you take into consideration all the advertising, everything you've got. So, Russell has a template where he was making $17,000 a day on the supplement funnel. And he advertised, he promotes that. But when you when you have the opportunity to go to some of his inner circle meetings, and that he'll tell you that that funnel was making $17,000 a day, but it was on a $50,000 a day ad spend. So that Prop, that funnel was like between 10 to 15% profitable, which is good. But if you want to make a living from it, then you have to have the financial resources to back it with your advertising. Right, right. So once I explained, I said I'd happily build a funnel for you. But another problem with supplements is Facebook isn't really that supplement friendly. So it's really you can do it. But it's tricky to you have to really play within the rules of Facebook, to promote supplements on Facebook. So I just sort of explained that to him as well. And then what we learned through talking is that he's a, he's a pastor with this huge following. And he wants to do more in the lines of life coaching. And what he actually has in his arsenal is this amazing high ticket offer. And so well, but the call lasted close to an hour. But at the end of the call, he hired me, he told me that I was a fourth person that he talked to, everybody else has talked about the structure of the funnel and how they're going to put like a green button here and a video there. And what I did is I helped him walk through his business model where you can actually monetize and make money at the back end. And so now we're building out a high ticket webinar funnel forum where you can tell sales coaching services, complete with a value ladder of upsells and down sales.

Robert Plank 26:53 Awesome. So the reason why he chose you over someone else, and I guess what differentiate you from those other four people was that they were just focused on the tactics, they were just focused on the little minutia details. And you said, Well, here's the big picture.

Speaker 2 27:07 That's it. Yeah, like that. He called me and said, Can you build me a funnel? And I said, yes. But just so you know, I'm really good at building funnels and strategy and all that, but it doesn't matter how good I am. Russell Brunson was 15% profitable. So that would be my goal to be that good. And I'm not as good as Russell Brunson. So we're probably looking at, you know, eight to 10% profit. And aside from Russell, I'm one of the best there is. So just. So it's almost like saying, I wouldn't hire me. And because I didn't, I didn't, I don't want your business, I want to build your business. And if I don't think I can build your business to the degree that you want it, then I don't want to, I don't want to work for you. And I don't think you should want me to work for you either. So. So anyway, that's just how I approached it. And then like I said, at the end of the day, he ended up hiring me to build them as a high ticket webinar.

Robert Plank 27:58 Awesome. And I mean, I mean, that is a good goal to shoot for. And I think that that that's a good attitude that you're not just you know, clocking in and getting paid, you know, X number of dollars for the hours, you're actually making something that's complete and is going to help someone else's business. So if someone wants to find out about you, Mike, and they want to hire you, or even just see what you've been doing and talking about lately, where can they go to find out all that information.

Speaker 2 28:24 So they want to get want to go to Marketing medic.ca. And on that page, you'll see my my lead magnet there, I use I've given I've given away my eight page checklist. So the exact same checklist that I use, when I build a funnel to make sure I all my standard operating procedures to make sure I haven't missed anything. That's what I'm giving away, and is legitimately like the same checklist that I use. So there's an example of somebody who wants to build a funnel. If that's your goal, you're wanting to build a funnel, you find marketing medic.ca, you come to my website, and you're like, wow, Mike's give me the same checklist that he uses to build funnels, the same checklist that he used to turn $300 in Facebook ads $11,000 in profit. That's what I'm giving away as my lead magnet. So you can guess that? My click

Robert Plank 29:14 through rates pretty high on that. Well, yeah, because I mean, imagine that you actually practice what you preach. Instead of saying, Here are the top three conversion ideas. You're saying, No, here's like, oh, start to finish. This is what I actually use. Now. You can use it as well. So great stuff, marketing medic.ca. And thanks so much for being on the show today, Mike. Thanks for having me, Robert. Anytime. Hey, there, it's Robert plank. Do you have a second? Can you go to Robert plank.com/itunes and click that subscribe button. That way you never miss another episode. Thank you so very much.