Market with Authenticity with Steven Werner

 

 

Listen to the podcast here:

 

Highlights:

01:11 The Key to a Successful, Authentic Marketing
08:32 The Five’s of Love Language and Marketing
18:40 How to Get Raving Fans as a Marketer
26:44 The Marketer’s Checklist
32:47 How to Pitch an Authentic Marketing
36:55 How to Come Up with the Pricing
42:08 Where to Start
45:56 “E” for Effort

 

Do you want to redirect your marketing styles with more authenticity? Join @myexpectation as he interviews Steve Werner on how to ‘profit 60k in a single weekend’ while impacting people’s lives in amazing ways. #in-person #liveevents… Click To Tweet

 

Quotes:

“Marketing is something you do for somebody else to help better their life. But there’s so much bad marketing out there that people get turned off to it.” –Steven Werner

“The sales are not something that are done to somebody, they’re done for somebody. If you help somebody, there should be no question that it’s valuable and they want to pay you for it.” –Steven Werner

“People have their perspective of good and bad and depends on how you move through it.” –Art Costello

“Nothing that’s worth doing is easy.” –Steven Werner

“That’s what people buy- people buy the outcome, not the doing.” –Steven Werner

“If you don’t have clarity, those are the things that are stopping you from making money. The more clear you get, the more income you’re going to get and the better you can serve people.” –Steven Werner

“People are people. They understand that you’re a human being, and they appreciate being treated like a human.” –Steven Werner

“That is what’s lacking in the world today, people don’t talk to each other anymore. They do it through texting, they do it through all these other methods. And they think that that’s communication, and it’s not.” –Art Costello

“How do you come up with pricing? You look at what the outcome is worth to the person that you’re selling to them. You look at first the monetary value, and secondly, the non-monetary.” –Steven Werner

“If you think you can go into business and make money without effort, you’re sadly mistaken. Too many people do that.” –Art Costello

 

Transcription:

 

Art Costello: Welcome to the Shower Epiphanes Podcast. I am just thrilled today because I have Steven Werner who is one of the premier event developers, teachers, experts in the world, and he is going to talk to us today about his journey and his story, the epiphany that he’s had and what has really moved him to help others create really great events. I know Steve from Harvard, an event that he did at Harvard. I was there several times and I can tell you he’s not only a good man. He’s really a great, great speaker. So anyway, Steve, tell us your story and how it all transposed into your life.

Steven Werner: Awesome, Art. Thank you so much for having me on like, thank you for that great intro, I really appreciate it. So my background, we went all the way back like six, seven years ago. I ran events for major hotels. I worked at Vail for Vail Ski Resorts and I ran a lot of their high end events, anywhere from 10 to a couple thousand people for their big end corporate events. I also was involved with their fine dining program, but I knew I wanted to be more, and I wanted to do more, and I wanted to really affect people, and I wanted to own my own business. I owned a business in college and I really loved it, but I got back into the corporate world and I knew I wanted to go that direction. So several years ago, I just decided, you know what, this is it. And I packed up everything. I’m left beautiful, Vail, Colorado. And I moved to Las Vegas, because Las Vegas is the event capital of the world. When I moved there, the first day I was there after I dropped my stuff off, I went down to Treasure Island and I booked the largest space that they had. So this is where like, normal people that would have scared to death. I signed on the dotted line for a $25,000 minimum, and the space was huge, but I was like, Oh, I’ve held events this big, it’s not to be a hard thing. I could not have been more naive or backwards. So I started, I had about $25,000 saved a little bit less, and for some reason marketing to me seemed like it’s really easy. Like, Oh, you just heard on the switch, you just run some ads. So I started running ads. I ran ads everywhere you can think of print ads, radio ads, I bought remnants on talk shows, I did Facebook ads, I started doing all these ads and nothing was converting, nothing. So that event, like I poured my heart and soul into it. I had 18 speakers lined up and nothing. So four weeks from the event, I had two people registered and I was beside myself because I was out of money. I spent the last little bit of money I had to get a spinney sign guy on the side of the road in Las Vegas, and I set up in the parking lot in a booth to have people come in and talk to me. And that was the last, I paid them $200 for four hours and got nobody. And I was like, what am I going to do? So I went into the office of Treasure Island and I begged them not to hold me to my minimum, which they did not. They kept my deposit, which was fair to me. And I ended up having dinner with a friend that night who had a successful business in Vegas doing something completely different. And she said: “You know, you can move in. I have a spare room. It’s kind of a utility catchall room. You can move in there for a couple of months. I believe in you. I know that you can do this. You know how to hold the events. You just don’t know how to get people to them. You’re smart, I believe in you.” So I moved into her house, which was conveniently two blocks away from the library, and I started going to the library, and I found a Dan Kennedy program that was called Butts In Seats. And it was all about how to market. Like the world of marketing grabbed me, and like pulled me in in a way that I don’t think very many people would understand. But it’s the most fascinating thing when it’s done correctly. Marketing is something you do for somebody else to help better their life. But there’s so much bad marketing out there that people get turned off to it.

Art Costello: Amen to that (laughs).

“Marketing is something you do for somebody else to help better their life. But there's so much bad marketing out there that people get turned off to it.” –Steven Werner Click To Tweet

Steven Werner: Right, I mean there’s so much bad marketing, anything that pushes on you and immediately puts up a barrier, right? But there’s so many ways to market to people in an authentic, transparent way. And the core of what I do, that’s what it is. I hold small events that allow me to be completely transparent, connect with people the best way possible, I mean that’s how we met. And we immediately got rapport, and like sat and talked, and then I take people out to dinner, and it’s really just building friendships and relationships in a small group setting, but doing it as an event host. I get to pick what the topic of the event is, and then if the fit is right, I sell people at the end of it. But again, the sales are not something that are done to somebody, they’re done for somebody. If you help somebody, there should be no question that it’s valuable and they want to pay you for it. So back to my story.

“The sales are not something that are done to somebody, they're done for somebody. If you help somebody, there should be no question that it's valuable and they want to pay you for it.” –Steven Werner Click To Tweet

Art Costello: That’s a powerful statement. I mean really, because that may be the key to marketing. Totally right there. You know that you’re doing something for somebody, not to them and it’s just really, it’s powerful.

Steven Werner: This is being transparent. I don’t usually have to tell people it costs this much money, or do you want to move forward? I have people reaching out to me definitely weekly, almost daily saying: “How do I work with you?” “What do I need?” “How much does it cost?” “What do I need to give you?” “I want that.” If you’re doing it correctly in complete transparency, if your message is correct, and you’re sharing, and you’re giving value, people come to you where it becomes an abomination. And where sales becomes something that’s done to somebody is when my agenda becomes before your agenda where I’m not interesting in serving you anymore, where I’m only interested in taking. That was the lesson that Dan taught me first, and then Frank Kern, and then Russell Brunson. All of those people, if you look at them, yes, they sell things, but they’re doing it because they have a good product. It makes people’s lives better, and it makes the world a better place at the end of the day. Now, there are people who definitely use those tactics for not good.

Art Costello: That’s true in life. I mean people have their perspective of good and bad, and depends on how you move through it.

“People have their perspective of good and bad and depends on how you move through it.” –Art Costello Click To Tweet

Steven Werner: Well, something that I like, a parallel that I draw is seduction. Like, if you want to date somebody, if you’re romantic with your, well for me, like with a girlfriend, or a wife, or a significant other, they love that. Like, bring me flowers, you know, take me to a nice dinner. Or like, if you look at the parallel there, there are people that, that’s used for good most of the time to build a romantic relationship and to build intimacy between partners. But there are also people out there who definitely use that for pad just to get what they want out of it. It’s the same, just like what you said.

Art Costello: I just had an epiphany. Is there a correlation between the five love languages, and the five strengths of marketing?

Steven Werner: I would guess, yes. I don’t know what it is, but I would definitely say yes.

Art Costello: Yeah, I mean, you know, basically the five love languages, or you know, tact or visual/audio. You know, just the whole gamut of what we, how we interact.

Steven Werner: How we relate to each other.

Art Costello: Yeah, how we how we relate. You know, I’m always interested in how people get to where they’re at, and you took everything you owned and threw it into this. I don’t want to say blindly, because it wasn’t blindly. It was actually with the intent of knowing that it was going to be successful, or thinking that it was bad. First event was going to be successful, but you could have gotten very discouraged and just walked away, and never did anything, you didn’t do that. You kept on going and have created. What was the epiphany, or thought, or how did that come about? Was it somebody saying to you, I believe in you, and that just kept you going, or what was it?

Steven Werner: It was a mixture of a few things, so that day that I went to Treasure Island and had had to beg them, I basically said: “Hey, I used to run events. I totally understand if you want to keep the money, but here’s the thing. If you guys forced me to deliver on that, I’m going to have to file bankruptcy and you’re not going to get the money anyway.” And she was very understanding and let me out of my contract from there. The friend that I had in Las Vegas, I had a credit card that I had not used that had $4,000 on it. And my friend in Vegas, I was like, I guess I’m just gonna take this. I’m gonna move back to Vail, and I’m going to go back into it. She was like: “Do you want to do that?” And I said: “No, I absolutely don’t want to do that. This is what I want.” And I had, I had done a Tony Robbins practice where you write out everything that you want, right? And I kind of went through it with her and she said: “Well look, I know that you can do that. I believe in you, but you need to believe in yourself.” And I said: “Well, you know, I’m playing around with, how do I live for the next three, four or five months? How do I get this going?” And she asked me a few questions that were just, you know, like: “What do you really want out of life? Are you willing to like really push for this?” And she said: “If you are, you know you can move in.” So the epiphany was marketing, first off. So the next event that I held, I moved into her utility room. I studied this course by Dan Kennedy. I also read a ton of Zig Ziglar stuff, because he was big into events. I read a lot of the old time marketers, so Gary Halbert, and all the stuff that I could get for free. And when I dive into something, I dive in like it’s 12 hours a day I’m doing. And I realized that marketing and attracting people, and giving them the outcomes that they want is what gets people there. So that was the marketing epiphany, and it allowed me the next event that I built, I built for 150 people and I sold it out in under six weeks through the methods that I had learned, and I knew how to run the event, running the event was not at all the problem, that was the easy part. So the epiphany, I’m trying to think of like two or three really good epiphanies. So the first one is, that marketing is something you do for somebody, not to somebody. And I was like, what do the people want? So it was a dental event. So I was like, what do dentists want? So I had to go out and I had to get dental journals, and look at what the hot topics were. And it wasn’t about me. Like one of the great things about holding it for dentists is, I’m not a dentist. I don’t know anything about being a dentist. I go to the dentist once every couple of years, I know I should go more but I don’t.

Art Costello: (laughs).

Steven Werner: But I looked at what they really wanted, and it was such a difference for me. That was very easy to see the pattern of what they wanted. And then I built stuff that they wanted, and I gave them things that they wanted at the event, that was the first thing. The second thing was, that nothing that’s worth doing is easy. We hear that a lot, but like it was way outside of my comfort zone to do the marketing. It was like the first event that I held that I failed. I thought, I’ll just throw money at something. Well how many people, I bet everybody can think of a story where they’ve just thrown money at a problem thinking it will fix it, only to find out that they are now poor and they have the same problem, right?

“Nothing that's worth doing is easy.” –Steven Werner Click To Tweet

Art Costello: It happens all the time.

Steven Werner: Cause we’re like, we’ll just throw money at it and that will fix it. Well here’s the thing, like you can throw money at a problem, but that’s not going to fix it. Normally, if you throw money at a problem, you still have to take action and you still have to do things. So that was one of the big lessons that I learned in that was, I had to, not only spend money because I had to buy the advertising, but I needed to know how to advertise, I had to manage it myself. Things are rarely as easy as just throwing money at them. They taught me a lot of really good questions to ask about things that I spent money on. So then, the last big epiphany actually came after the event. So I got done with the event, and I made about a little over $8,000, and I thought, I was like on the road. I was like, this is amazing. So I went to a Dan Kennedy event, I took some of that money, and I went to a Dan Kennedy event, and he did a round table where you could ask him questions and I thought I was like the king of the world. I was like, I held this fence and I sold it out, and it was amazing. And I like, he let me go and for a little bit. And his face was just like, he was just staring at me and I get done. And he was like: “Okay, are you done? You are an idiot.”–

Art Costello: (laughs).

Steven Werner: –And I was like: Oh man, this guy is like my kind of hero. And he just called me an idiot.” I shut my mouth, and I listened. And he was like, here’s the thing like this never occurred to me: “At an event, you should sell people something. They were willing to fly there. They were willing to invest their time, energy and money in being in person with you.” And Dan, like, I was like: “Well what do I sell? I’m not a dentist.” And he said: “Well I have a whole table of stuff over there that’s for dentists, pick one and sell it to them, I’ll give you commission.” So that’s what I did for the next event. But the last epiphany from like this whole thing that kind of brought my business full circle was people are buying you. If there’s 3% of the population is looking for a specific solution to a problem because they’re in pain. So I have a toothache, I have to go to the dentist right now, right? The other 97%, they’re buying because they want what you personally are offering to them. So Dan, talk to me a little bit and he said: “You need to speak at your events?” And I said: “Well I don’t dentistry, I know marketing.” And he said: “Well, so talk about marketing, because marketing is universal. You just need to niche it to dentists.” And so I did and people bought me, they weren’t buying Dan’s book anymore, right? That was all in the first like, 16 months of me doing events. I know I gave you a few epiphanes there, but that was like, that was the Aha, and as I started holding events I thought bigger was going to be better and I learned that smaller was actually better, which is how we met. I went from holding 150, 250, 300 person events, to holding 30, 40 and 50 person events because they were more, I’m truly authentic. Like I love meeting people, I love getting to know people. When I hold a smaller style event, I know it shocks people, but they come to the event, I know their name when they walk in the door, I know what their businesses, I know what their struggles are, because I do research on them and I usually have a meeting with them before they ever come to the event. And that allows me to serve them at a much higher level. So for the six years that I’ve been doing events that took, the first three years I was trying to build the events bigger and bigger and bigger. And then, I put out a survey and people said, you know: “I love this event, but I would love more speaker time. I’d love to have my question answered. I would love to learn how this works in my business.” And I remember like looking at those surveys and I was like, everybody always tells you to hold larger events. And I was like: “You know what? I’m going to hold a smaller event. I’m going into it, I’m going to see how it goes.” And I held a smaller event. That one was for 35 people, I sold it out 35 people. I charged a little bit more money up front because I had to, because there weren’t as many people to cover costs. Nobody argued with the pricing. People think about this. So when people come to me to help them with the events, they’re like: “I want to hold a 500 person event, or I want to hold a 300 person event.” And when I talked to them, and I find out where they’re at in their business, I have to politely reframe the situation to, what if we held a 15 or 20 person event, and we framed it as they get one on one time with you. And like sometimes it’s ego-driven and they just don’t want to hear it, if they say that, they’re not the right person for me. Usually there are a few people I’ve helped do larger style events if they have a massive following. But most of the time if you have a reasonable following, you could do a small event and those people are, you’re going to be able to serve those people so well at such a high level. And then I teach quality over quantity, so I don’t put out a bunch of courses, I don’t sell that kind of stuff, what I sell is a high ticket item that’s expensive, but it gets a result and it’s a long term commitment on both sides. That’s what I teach people to sell because that’s way more powerful than, here’s a thousand dollar course that you’re probably going to get halfway through and it’s not really going to serve you. I would rather serve you in a personal way of some kind, even if it’s just a Facebook group where we can talk. So those are kind of the epiphany.

Art Costello: Yeah. I saw a statistic the other day that just floored me. Do you know that only 13% of everybody that takes an online course completes it?

Steven Werner: Yes, I’ve heard less.

Art Costello: Oh really?

Steven Werner: I’ve heard less than 10, and it’s true. I mean, anyone who’s bought a course knows you go about halfway through it, maybe a third, and you get busy, life happens. I mean, I have a course, but my course includes one-on-ones. And the point of the one-on-ones is so that I can hold you accountable, and I can move people along the path.

Art Costello: I just redid my course, I’m actually doing live events with my course right now. So I think it’s much more effective.

Steven Werner: I agree.

Art Costello: Much more effective.

Steven Werner: I would rather make less money but serve the people better, because I believe the money will come on the back end of that in either, they will recommend me to somebody because they got the results. If somebody takes your course and doesn’t get a result. If you’re listening to this and you have a course, and you’re playing around with this in your head, if you have a course and you sell, let’s say you saw a 100 of them in a month, but only 10 people finish it, the other people are gonna say, his courses, okay, Blahblahblah, It wasn’t that great, but if you only sell 10 of them and you get all 10 of those people, amazing results, those people are going to be raving fans and they’re going to tell everybody you know, which allows you to raise the price of your course. And in raising the price of your course, if people are out there that have price sensitivity or like, Ooh, I can’t do that. If you raise the price of your course, you are actually, the more money somebody pays for something, the more they pay attention to it.

Art Costello: Ehmm.

Steven Werner: I’m not saying to price people out of it. You shouldn’t make a $100 course, but you can raise it to a $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 price point and say, the reason why is because you’re getting one on one attention from me, and I am going to hold your feet to the fire and help you complete it. That’s a much more powerful course than, here’s my 997 course that a zillion people have taken and no one has finished.

Art Costello: Do you think that there’s courses that are conducive to, I guess I’m trying to say, are there courses that shouldn’t be out there, and then there’s courses that should be. I know the marketing arena has, I mean you could go on, and there must be literally 100,000 marketing courses out there on the Internet. People like me who do are very niche into expectations, and my research, and all that, not so much, and I’m going to be transparent here too. I’ve struggled with trying to get my course into people’s hands, but the people that have taken it has really transformed their lives for the better. And marketing to what I do is really difficult, I’d found it extremely difficult. And I guess my question is, are some courses easier to market to than others?

Steven Werner: Yes, but not really. I know that’s a big caveat.

Art Costello: (laughs) I was afraid you we’re going to say that.

Steven Werner: When your marketing first, your very first question was: “Are there courses out there that shouldn’t be out there?” And I would say: “Absolutely.” The courses, you can look at it. If the person selling the course is only worried about themselves. I think that’s why 90% of the courses were created. They weren’t to actually get an outcome for the person going through the course. They were for the course creator to make money and gain prestige.

Art Costello: Ehmm.

Steven Werner: And that right there is the differentiator. Because if I build a course that is all focused on getting an outcome for somebody, I’ve put my heart and soul into it, and I’m willing to take feedback and make it better, and I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to get the people taking the course of the result. Whereas somebody who builds a course to make money or build their prestige, they might have the marketing piece right, so a lot of people buy it. But if people aren’t getting the outcome, that’s the challenge.

Art Costello: Yeah, that makes sense.

Steven Werner: Well that correlates directly to what your challenge is. So expectation, I work with a good friend. I’ve actually, you know Mindy?

Art Costello: Yes.

Steven Werner: Mindy is amazing.

Art Costello: I love Mindy.

Steven Werner: So Mindy works in energy healing. The challenge that both of you face with your marketing is, you have to turn the intangible into a tangible. So what is the outcome that you get for somebody and talk about that, cause the expectation therapy in itself, it’s sounds awesome, but the first question that somebody gets when they hear that is, well, do I really need it? Because it’s not a pants on fire need. So what Mindy has changed for marketing too a little bit, I’m telling her story because it correlates doing energy healing results in you feeling better, which then results in you making more money, having way less stress, being healthier and living the life of your dreams. So by selling outcomes, that’s what people buy. People buy the outcome, not he doing. Like Dan Kennedy speak: “It would sell the vacation, not the airfare, not the travel.” So I think like, Are, you’re amazing. Like the stuff you do is amazing. I think the thing that would benefit you the most in getting it out there is pulling out the outcomes that you’ve gotten for people.

“That's what people buy- people buy the outcome, not the doing.” –Steven Werner Click To Tweet

Art Costello: Ehmm.

Steven Werner: And tell their story, through telling their story. Then everyone who wants that outcome is like, Oh, if we’re talking about weight loss, right? This might help clarify it for anybody listening. If I’m talking about weight loss and I say, you know: “Hey, I have this amazing diet. You’re going to cook three meals a day, you’re going to drink this shake, you’re going to take these pills, and you’re going to be amazing.” That doesn’t sound very sexy at all, but if I change it and I say: “Hey, Jim, over here was a client of mine and in three weeks I got him to lose 25 pounds in less than an hour a day.” I’m selling the outcome because he lost 25 pounds in less than an hour a day. I didn’t talk about the nitty gritty details that they have to go through to get there. Yes, they know there’s a journey, but they want the outcome that brings them in.

Art Costello: Oh, absolutely does. You know, and I’m sitting here thinking, you know, one of the things that I do is bring order into people’s lives. You know, because once you learn how to master your expectations, it’s a natural progression of order just comes in. So the outcome is getting rid of chaos, and confusion, and consternation, and all those things that whole peach fear, that all hold people back, you know?

Steven Werner: So I mean I would ask people, what would your life be like if you didn’t have anxiety anymore? If you got up in the morning and your anxiety was gone, what if like all the mess and chaos in your life suddenly became just a natural order that you didn’t have to worry about. You didn’t have to do a spreadsheet or anything like that, but it was just in order, and it felt good, and you got rid of all the anxiety and fear that is holding you back.

Art Costello: 90% of the world would just dive all over it if they could get rid of them, anxiety and everything, think about it.

Steven Werner: Yeah.

Art Costello: And what I do, I take it a step further. I know that anxiety is the beginning of depression and a whole bunch of other things that go on in your life. But yeah, and I understand it from a marketing point that put a lot of clarity in it for me. So I’m hoping everybody out there, you know, can see the same and I know they will. So it’s, that’s really great.

Steven Werner: Awesome.

Art Costello: I guess my next thing that I want to know is, once you get a client, can you kind of take us through the process of what you do.

Steven Werner: Yeah, of course.

Art Costello: You know, so it may become clear to everybody.

Steven Werner: Sure. So I work with a couple different groups. Usually it’s somebody who has some kind of followers already. They have maybe 25 to 2000 people. They have some momentum going, they’ve got a business, but they’re trying to figure out, they don’t have a high ticket item yet. They’re selling things that are maybe $500, or $1,000, or less. They have the online course, but they don’t feel fulfilled by it. So something that a lot of marketers would never talk about is they built this course. They have a few people who’ve gone through it, you know, 25 to a hundred people have gone through their course, but they don’t feel fulfilled because people aren’t getting the result, or they don’t know where to take people next. So those people come into my world and I help them sit down, and we map out who their ideal customer is first. And this isn’t just an Avatar because that word is overused. We map out who those people are in their lives and we look for the patterns, we look for what keeps them up at night. We look for what makes them excited, and we build a high ticket item that is usually a coaching program that is six months or a year long, something where the creator gets to work with the people. But then we build the event. So having a high ticket item, you can sell that online, can try to do an application, you can do some zoom calls. But the best way that I have found to sell that is to have a small event. So most of the events that I tell people to hold are 30 people or less, and you really get to connect with the people in the room. So once we’ve identified the right people through past clients and looking at what you have going, we then build the high ticket module, and we have that all outlined and super crystal clarity around it. So clarity around what you offer and who you serve. If you don’t have clarity, those are the things that are stopping you from making money. The more clear you get, the more income you’re going to get and the better you can serve people. So once we have those two, then we build the event and I show people how to do the marketing for the event with no Facebook ads, very little list, and then we build the product. So you don’t need to come in with the product. And we usually fill the event with no ads spend, or maybe $5 a day in some retargeting ads. We don’t spend money on front end leads. One of the biggest calls that I get from people, I’ll get a call, I got a call yesterday: “I have three weeks to my event and I have one person registered, what should I do?” And I told them: ” To cancel the event because you’re too close to it, and you’re not going to be able to put the right quality people in.” She had spent $5,000 on Facebook ads to cold traffic. It’s the same mistake I made with my event, my very first event, but now I know how to do it in a very congruent, very authentic way that you have no ads spend. You bring people in, and you get the right people to your events. I wouldn’t say it works 100% the time, but it works to almost, almost every time we’ve at least gotten, you know, 10 to 15 people, which is all you need. I think so many people when they look at events, they think of a big hotel style event, but I would much rather hold an event with 8, 15, 20, 25 people that you really connect with because there’s more money in that room. I help two ladies. They held their first event three months ago. We put 14 people in the room, and they close 12 of them on a $20,000 offer, so right.

“If you don't have clarity, those are the things that are stopping you from making money. The more clear you get, the more income you're going to get and the better you can serve people.” –Steven Werner Click To Tweet

Art Costello: Yeah.

Steven Werner: I mean that’s what I teach. So it’s a $20,000 a year long coaching program, and they put the right people in the room. They got their message right and their offer because they knew the 12 people in the room. They knew those people so well, that those people were like leaning over to buy. They had people asking them before, so you don’t make a hard sales pitch, that’s the other thing. People are really scared of being salesy and I teach them: “If you do the event correctly, your sales pitches literally, hey, how many of you had awesome time here?” “How many of you got something amazing out of this event?” “How many people in here would love to continue this for the next six months or a year.” And if you do that, people are like, yes, they had people, they sold three of their packages before they ever made the offer because people were like, I want to know how to work with you. And when you do that correctly, the sky’s the limit because you’re not ever hard selling. You should never hard sells. Sales is something you do for somebody not to you.

Art Costello: Yeah. And I can attest to that with you. I mean, because one of the things that I look at is authenticity and connection. And you and I, even before I ever got to Harvard for the event, you and I had connected because we had emailed back and forth. And even though it was a few little things that, you know, it wasn’t any great conversation. I knew I could trust you before I ever got there.

Steven Werner: That’s a 100%, I have people reach out to me and they would say, you know, they would have questions and I would either call them right back, and it wasn’t my secretary calling them, or some assistant, or an autoresponder email. I would just get back to them and, like you just real with people. People are people, and they understand that you’re a human being and they appreciate being treated like human.

“People are people. They understand that you're a human being, and they appreciate being treated like a human.” –Steven Werner Click To Tweet

Art Costello: And that’s rare. I mean, I just did a podcast with Jill Raff who is a customer service, her parents own, I think it’s number 155 McDonald’s franchise–

Steven Werner: Oh, wow.

Art Costello: –way Back in the day. And she learned customer service through McDonald’s, through her parents being there and her working in their store, and then several stores and all that. One of the things that we identified during the podcast was, is that people really resonate to the personal connection and not that connection of an autoresponder, or a message on the phone saying: “You can’t get ahold of me now.” You know, and you’re right, I did. You know that was one of the things that built the trust with you and I is that when I had a question you answered it right away, call back and we’d spoke one on one. That is what’s lacking in the world today. People don’t talk to each other anymore. They do it through texting, they do it through all of these other methods and they think that that’s communication, and its not.

“That is what's lacking in the world today, people don't talk to each other anymore. They do it through texting, they do it through all these other methods. And they think that that's communication, and it's not.” –Art Costello Click To Tweet

Steven Werner: I 100% agree. The thing that I do completely differently. If you’re in the digital marketing space, or you’ve seen any of it, it’s all people with lambos behind them, or a big mansion, and then they’re talking about how awesome their life is. Well that’s all fine and good. Some of that is rented, and most of that is done with 15 different takes, four different camera guys. I do all my stuff on Facebook live. There’s no edits, it’s just me. There’s a different authenticity to that. That’s why I love the live event space because everyone else is trying to build a course, or you know this thing that gets a bunch of people in, and they make a couple million dollars, and oh, it’s amazing. I would much rather show people how they could put 20 people in a room. I mean those two ladies, 12 people, $20,000 do the math. That’s one weekend that they just held their second event last week, they did the same thing. It was a smaller group, they had eight people. It was smaller because they held it in the same town that they had held the first event in, but there was enough interest. They did a second event. It was about two and a half months later, eight people, they closed seven of them on the same offer, so in a four month period, if you do the math on that, it’s 140+220, it’s $360,000 in a four month period. I don’t want to give too much away about them, but their audience were stay at home moms. So it wasn’t like some crazy CEO level event. They did everything I said, but they also, like I teach people listen to their intuition and to work with. If you get going with your group and you start holding an event, work with the people who are there, like give them what they want because that’s the point. The point is not to push onto them. The point is what do you need? What do you need to get from where you are right now, to where you want to go? Which is where usually where the person presenting it is, I’m over here, you’re over here. What do I need to do to get you there? Okay, let’s do that. And the people online don’t do that. So I agree. I’m a little bit of a rant, but I agree like so much online.

Art Costello: It’s a good rant (laughs).

Steven Werner: Yeah, the online world. I mean I’m quality over quantity and I think that, I think we’re going to start seeing things move that way because there’s so much out there. I mean, you said yourself, there’s probably 100,000 digital marketing courses. How do you know which one is good, and which one isn’t? Well you don’t. You know you’re going to buy a bunch of them, and one of them will be better than the other, you’ll get going. Usually it comes down to whether or not you take action as the consumer, but some of the courses are obviously worse than others, but if you’re in person, you know whether that person’s the right fit for you. You know whether you should move forward with them. And those two ladies, they’re capping their program at 25 people. Well they’ve already sold 19 of them. They’re going to take on six more people. That’s all they need for the year. And they’re both making more than they would’ve made in a corporate level job. And anyone can do that. That’s like the genius of the in person event.

Art Costello: Which of the events run, are they one day events, two day events, three day events? What do you recommend them on length of events?

Steven Werner: Two or three days, it depends. So one day events, I’m not against doing one day events. Here’s the thing, the price that you can charge at the end of the event. Therefore, the amount of service that you can give to somebody changes with how many days the event is. So if you do a two hour event, you’re going to be hard pressed to sell something more than 2 or $3,000. If you do a one day event, your cap is going to be about $5,000. If you do a two day event, your cap is going to be more in the 15 to $20,000 range. Three days you can sell them, I would say up to, I’ve seen people sell a $50,000 thing to the right audience. I’m not saying that you should go out. Whatever you are selling should be matched. So the way that you come up with pricing people always ask is, how do you come up with pricing? You look at what the outcome is worth to the person that you’re selling to them. You look at first the monetary value and secondly the non-monetary, and then you have to put a price on the non-monetary and it can’t be priceless. You have to sit down and actually do this, like do the work. Like what is it worth if I add five hours a week to your life? Well, okay, the normal person coming to this event makes $60,000 a year. So they make X number of dollars per hour, that’s like $25 an hour. So if I had five hours a week to their life, it’s $125 a week X 52 weeks is, hang on. Hey Siri,–

“How do you come up with pricing? You look at what the outcome is worth to the person that you're selling to them. You look at first the monetary value, and secondly, the non-monetary.” –Steven Werner Click To Tweet

Art Costello: (laughs).

Steven Werner: –what’s 52 X 125? $6,500 so like, you have to look at that. So whatever that cost comes out to be, I’m going to help you make X number of dollars plus worth this. You can charge somewhere around 25 to 30% of that for your high ticket item if you’re getting them a result. So that’s kind of how you come up with pricing. That’s a very broad rule, but it’s a rule of thumb, so sorry.

Art Costello: No, no, no. That’s really great because you’re just, I’m sitting here wondering, my brain is just on fire right now. Just thinking about the different things that you could do with a live event that you can’t do on an online course, and it just, it’s pretty awesome.

Steven Werner: It is. I mean, I love events. The power of them is amazing. The amount that you can reach people, and the amount that like, this is the last epiphany, and this is more for anyone out there listening. I didn’t have this epiphany, but I’ve seen it so many times. When people start a business, they start by selling, especially like an online business. Mostly what I deal with is online, whether it’s somebody training something, or doing some kind of coaching, so it’s coaches, influencers, digital marketers, that kind of core. Anyone who starts usually starts with a free item to build a list, some kind of lead magnet, and then they start with something that’s 49, 97, 197, and then they might do a course that’s going to be 497 to a thousand dollars. What they find out is, it’s really hard to sell enough of those things to stop spinning your wheels. If you’re selling a $37 product, you’re going to try to do Facebook ads to sell it. Your Facebook ads probably aren’t going to work right away because Facebook ads are difficult to get ones that convert well, so you’re going to be in the hole. Well, if you’re running negative, how many $37 products you have to sell to replace your income, you can’t. If you’re running positive, let’s say you’re running positive $5 while your audience is only going to be so big, and you’re only going to be able to run so many ads, how many $5 pulses do you need to make? Well, let’s say that you make 20 in a day. That’s 100 bucks, so that’s $3,000 for the month. Take out taxes, you’re at $1,700, is that enough to replace your income? Probably not. And I know that, what I’m saying right now is not popular because this is not what is sold by all the marketing agencies out there. They’re like, oh, buy this course. Before you know it, you’re going to have 10k a month. Well, what they don’t tell you is the reality of getting there. So I’ve seen people with a $1,000 course that it costs them $600 in ads to sell that, and they are lucky if they sell five a month, they’re at the same thing, they’re making $1,500.

Art Costello: I could tell you a story that you’ll be have interest. I have a friend that’s in Arizona. He went to a marketing firm, and they sold him on the idea of big spend on. He spent $1 million on Facebook ads. Do you know what he made Back?

Steven Werner: Not very much.

Art Costello: 1,000,100.00, at least he made $100,000 on his fate–

Steven Werner: At Least he didn’t lose his money.

Art Costello: He didn’t lose this money, but his thing to me was, it was not worth it to me. All the headache of months, and months, and months of just generating. He said: “I bet”, you know, he has a multimillion dollar business and he’s trying to grow it and do more and all that, but his experience with Facebook ads was not a good one.

Steven Werner: I think a lot of people out there have that same story. I mean, I have a client right now that has spent not anywhere near that, they sent about 30,000 and they’re not getting the return that they want. They’re not getting any return, they’re negative, but they’re doing something different. They’re going to end up positive in the long run, but if they had to do over again, they wouldn’t do it. What I teach is so different from that. So in your value ladder you have your free, then you have low ticket, then you have like a thousand to $2,000 offer. I teach start with the high ticket and everyone says, well I don’t have a list or that’s not scalable. Well ask the two ladies that just held two events and cleared 360,000, they don’t need to be scalable. Like, if you went out and we build a high ticket offer, and we found the perfect people to buy it beforehand, built the exact offer that they needed that was 10, 15, or $20,000, and you sold one a month. Does that replace your income?, And does that allow you to then have some freedom and creativity? And then, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a list, I’m not telling anyone not to have a list, but you don’t start with building the list. You start with a higher ticket item that gets you out of overwhelm and stops you from spinning your wheels because by doing that, then it frees you up. The last piece I’ll give to that is, if you hold a live event, those two ladies, they videoed their live event, we’re turning it into a book, we’re turning it into several different lead magnets. They’ve got enough content now to put out that will cover six months, maybe a year of content to bring people in and build their list, and that’s all because they sold at the beginning, they got the right people in the room. They’re getting results for those people. So right now they have over 20 testimonies, which is plenty. You really only need five or six. They’ve got testimonies, they’ve got everything that they need now to build their business and start scaling if they want to. It was funny, I was talking to one of them last week and she was like: “It’s amazing, I don’t know that we want to scale it beyond the 25 people.” Cause they were like: “How do we do that and stay congruent?” And I said: “Well, I mean you can, there’s a way to do it, right? You run a small group program.” Both of them are like: “Wow, this is great.” Because it frees up your time.

Art Costello: Well, it also gives you a capital, which is huge.

Steven Werner: Yeah. I mean, there’s this belief I think online stuff and even in business, that if you’re serving people at the highest level possible, your free time goes way down. My argument would be you could have both, but you have to set it up correctly. You have to charge enough money, and get people a powerful enough result that you can charge that, and then don’t take on too many people like don’t, I mean, I’m not against making a couple million dollars a year. I think that’s great, but if you’re doing it at the expense of your family, your health, and your sanity, it’s not worth doing. I mean–

Art Costello: Right.

Steven Werner: –everybody should make money. I think everybody out there should make money. I think everyone should make plenty of money to enjoy the life that they want, 100%. I think there are some people you see them and they are just so driven that they’re, everything suffers so that they can make 5,000,000.00 a year, and then 10,000,000.00 a year, and at a point like diminishing returns just says enjoy your life. You know, that’s, that’s not for everybody either. Like I listen to Grant Cardone, I don’t agree with everything he says. He would not agree with that point. He would say: “You know, you need to make $1 billion.” And you know, if it’s worth it to you, then it’s fine. But you have to ask yourself, I feel like so many people just pursue the really big number without saying, you know, is this worth the trade off?

Art Costello: Yeah. You know, and I think that that’s something personally that people have to identify before they ever go into business because really, if you think you can go into business and make money without effort, you’re sadly mistaken. Too many people do that. They go in, and, you know, it’s going to roll in. I don’t have to put out any effort, that happen.

“If you think you can go into business and make money without effort, you're sadly mistaken. Too many people do that.” –Art Costello Click To Tweet

Steven Werner: You have to put effort in, 100% if you’re not putting effort in, you’re not gonna, it’s usually harder effort. If you’re thinking about starting a business, I’ll tell you it’s 10 times harder than working for somebody else. It’s 10 times more rewarding, but it’s a lot more effort. I wanted to talk about the second group of people I work with because it’s completely different. I’ve found so many people out there who have groups, whether it’s a Facebook group, or a church group, or a meetup group. It’s their passion, they love doing it, but they’re making $0 from it. So I’ve had a few of those people, I talked to one last week. He runs a bass fishing group, 15,000 people. He makes no income from it, and he was talking about shutting it down. He said: “Hey, I was thinking about shutting it down.” He’s like: “I absolutely love it, but I can’t. It’s taking up too much of my time and I don’t know what to do.” And he said: “I saw one of your videos, so I want to reach out.” And we came up with a way that, I think within six months he’ll be able to make a fulltime living, replaces salary because you have 15,000 people. How many of those people do you have to sell something? But he had never even thought about it because he’s not a business person. He just wants to help people, he just wanted to hang out, he started it as a hobby. So well, I’ve worked with him, I’ve worked with some of the people out there that have that style. You know, they started a group of some kind, and it was a hobby. And their ways, I think so many people are scared to sell because they see it as, I don’t want to be salesy, I don’t want to force something on somebody, but the thing is that you can, if you do sales correctly, where you’re doing something for somebody, they’ll buy from you, and then you can replace your income from a nine to five, from a w2 job, and believing your dream, right. Those are the two groups that I focus on. I just wanted to bring that up because I think that that’s, if somebody out there is listening to this and you have a group of some kind, there is a way for you to monetize it in an ethical and authentic way that will allow you to do it full time.

Art Costello: Well, let’s wrap it up on that note because that’s really good, but what I want to, I want to give you the opportunity to tell people where they can get ahold of you, how they can get ahold of you. Give us all the pertinent information yourself.

Steven Werner: Sure, so I have a free course that is all on how to do this. It’s completely free. It’s at M-Y-T.H-O-W monetize your tribe (myt.how monetize your tribe). I also have, if you go to Steven Phillip Werner, that’s my middle name, with two L’s .com (stevenphillipwerner.com), you will find my bio, and you’ll find everything that I have available, it’s all on that website. If you have any questions, I’m really easy to find on Facebook. You can hit me up on Messenger. I don’t use a bot or anything like that, just reach out to me. I’m happy to have a conversation with you. If there’s anything I can do for you. I mean, Art can testify like, I just like talking to people, I love getting to know people. So feel free to reach out to me. I would love to hear from you.

Art Costello: And I can attest to that, and I can attest to his authenticity and his genuineness, and good heart that he has, he’s a good man, and I’ll encourage everybody that listens to the Shower Epiphanes Podcast to reach out to Steven, then he can help you, he’ll help you get your program launched and everything. With that being said, it’s another great time Steven, I want to thank you. It’s been an honor and a pleasure, and I hope that we can work together soon and all that. Everybody in epiphany land, keep shower, and keep up having those epiphanes let us know about them. Thank you much gang.

 

 

About Steven Werner

Steve came to his “This is it!” moment and decided to pack and start on his own. He spent his last savings with high hopes but things weren’t turning out as expected. So he decided to learn how to be an authentic marketer and that’s who he’s become. Today he is helping hundreds of entrepreneurs, influencers and coaches ‘profit 60k in a single weekend’ and impact customers for a lifetime. 

Website: https://www.stevenphillipwerner.com/steve-homepage
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-phillip-werner
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StevenPhillipWerner/

 

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