126: Courses, Webinars and Funnels: Attract Customers and Clients with Brian Lofrumento

Robert Plank: Brian Lofrumento is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author. He's made a thing called the Ultimate Profit Model, and he's written a book called, "Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur." Brian is an internet entrepreneur, speaker, and author whose businesses have reached over 3.5 million people in over 200 countries. He built a six figure SEO agency at the age of twenty-four and has helped over fifty clients from around the US and over three thousand students from around the world grow and automate their businesses by implementing high converting sales and marketing funnels. Sounds like lots of good stuff. Welcome to the show, Brian.

Brian Lofrumento: Thanks Robert. I'm super excited to be here and give your audience some awesome value here today.

Robert Plank: Awesome. What exactly is it that you do, and what makes you unique and special?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Great question. That's a loaded question, Robert, to start this out, but I love it. The big thing that I do is I really take people from saying, "Okay. I really want to be an entrepreneur, but I don't know where to go," to packaging it up, whether it's a product or service for an online program. Something that can pull in some serious profits for them. High profit margins. I help them find a market of people who are looking to actually buy that product or service.

Robert Plank: Cool. Exactly how far do you take it? Have you dealt with clients who just have absolutely no idea what to do, or someone would have like a half written book. I mean, do you narrow down their niche? How far do you go with that?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Actually, there's an easy way to answer that question. The first thing that I always do with people is I ask them, "Who the heck are you trying to serve?" A lot of people when they do come to me they say, "I want to be an entrepreneur, but I don't have a business idea." I always argue that you don't actually need a business idea. You just need to determine and decide on who it is that you want to serve. For example, one of my most successful students that I worked with, he's a high school soccer coach. He wanted to be an entrepreneur, but he didn't know exactly what to do. He had no business idea.

I asked him who does he want to serve, and he said he wanted to help other soccer coaches become better coaches. Once he decided who he wanted to serve, I simply asked him, "What's standing in between them and the result that they want, which is to become better coaches?" He started listing everything out. He said they don't know how to plan practices, they don't know how to deal with parents, they don't know what nutrition and fitness advice to give their players.

He went through all these things, and we packaged it up into a $997 inner circle. He sells that to coaches all around the country, so that they can learn from him. They can get weekly access to him and go through these training modules that he has. It literally is from idea to actual execution and launch. I love seeing my students go, while they're working with me, go from $0 to $10,000 a month.

Robert Plank: That's pretty cool. I think that what was packed in there a little bit is just the idea that you don't have to come up with a crazy, fancy idea, like you said. You just figure out who you want to serve and that kind of reminds me of early on for me, I was trying to think of what my next product or software program should be. One of my mentors at the time just said ... Something that's hot right at that moment was affiliate marketing, so he was like, "well, put together some set of tools that helps with affiliate marketing." I asked him, "Doesn't that kind of thing already exist?" He said, "Yeah, but it doesn't have to be something that's brand new and groundbreaking. It doesn't have to be like Uber or Facebook."

Then, there was something I saw maybe a few months ago from the creator of Alibaba, who said something like, "It doesn't matter if the thing you're creating is stupid. It matters if people use it." Instagram, Snapchat, PayPal, stuff like that. Well, it doesn't have to be this huge groundbreaking, mind blowing thing. It just has to be something that catches on.

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. That's absolutely spot on, Robert. You had a few really good points in there. I love the argument, entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs they always have that argument of "Oh, there's somebody else doing it." Imagine if Mark Zuckerberg didn't start Facebook just, because MySpace was already doing it. Name any business book. Imagine if that was never written, because there are already other business books. No one can do exactly what it is that you want to do, exactly the way that you can do it. You are the only person on the planet that can do that thing in your unique way. Even if 50 million other people have done it, no one's ever done it like you. That's a great argument.

Robert Plank: Let's kind of unpack that a little bit. One thing I'm always curious about, especially in this kid of thing, where you're a coach to people. Is there a set of steps or a process you go through like if you have one of these people like that soccer dad? He has an idea, and you flush out his idea. Then, after that point, what's the next step? What do you set up for him?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Good question. For me, specifically ... Well, actually I'll answer it more broadly, then we'll get into me more specifically. Once you've actually got your product flushed out or your service flushed out, there's really only one thing you need to focus on in order to have a business. That's to attract customers and clients. Anything else you're doing is totally superficial. If you spend your time getting a logo and doing all these surveys with your potential people, that's all great, but unless you actually have sales coming in you don't have a business. What I do, specifically with the soccer coach, for example, and thousands of my other students, is I helped them set up an online system that, one, attracts potential customers and, two, turns those customers into clients.

I'm a huge fan of the webinar model right now. I mean, the webinar model's grown in my business over the past two or three years. It's how I've helped countless students do the exact same thing. Webinars are great, because there's no quicker way online to find people totally from scratch through Facebook ads, is what I recommend. Warm them up, because you give them value over the course of a webinar, and then invite them to work with you. Even if only two percent of people ever work with you, that's the mechanics of a $10,000 per month business right there.

Robert Plank: Speaking of webinars and things like that, you running Facebook ads, I mean, how do you figure out the hook and the content for a webinar? How do you get some butts in seats for that kind of thing?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Great questions. I'll answer the first question first, which is the content of the webinar. People always freak out about that. I've got a really simple formula that I share with my students. This is actually a great question, Robert. You pried this out of me. Usually I reserve this stuff for my students in my programs. The answer is that what you really need to do, it's very simple, you need to figure out what people's existing beliefs are when it comes to whatever your product or service is. I guess we'll keep running with the soccer coach example, because that's something tangible for a lot of people.

When a soccer coach approached me and said, "What am I going to put in a webinar?" You have to acknowledge what are their existing beliefs about coaching soccer. One of the existing beliefs is that, if my players aren't technically sound, there's no way that they can win. It's going to be really hard for me to get them to improve. That's an existing belief. On your webinar, you want to acknowledge the existing beliefs, shatter that belief, and rebuild those beliefs. If you can do that about three existing beliefs, you've got enough content for a webinar right there.

Robert Plank: That's pretty cool. That's as far as ... For this kind of thing, do you have your clients have a set amount of time, set length time, set number of slides, stuff like that?

Brian Lofrumento: I'm not a big fan of numbers or anything like that. I mean, thinking back to high school, how much did we all hate when teachers said, "Oh. It's got to be a four page paper." Something like that.

Robert Plank: Oh, yeah. I hated that too.

Brian Lofrumento: Oh, it's the worst. I really stick to, typically, about an hour, because people allot in their calendar for an hour to show up for a webinar. Hour long webinars are really successful. I've seen people succeed with shorter webinars, with longer webinars, but I never get into number of slides to anything like that with them.

Robert Plank: Okay. Fair enough, so you figure out all that existing belief, shatter, rebuild, and then if they don't have a list to fill up that webinar, then what's the plan?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Facebook ads is an absolute gold mine right now. That's my overwhelming answer to pretty much most people's problems. If you can master Facebook ads, you can reach as many people as you want, and as you can afford as quickly as you want to. Facebook ads is really great, because you can target people based on anything. If you ran a business where your ideal customers were thirty-six year old females who live in the Upper East Side of New York, who drive a Toyota Prius and own a dog, you can target those exact people on Facebook ads. I don't know what kind of niche industry that would be that I just gave that example for, but you can get as fine or as broad as you want when it comes to Facebook ads.

Robert Plank: Have you noticed that with the Facebook ads that maybe it's easier to put those ads out there if you're outside of the internet marketing space, or is there a secret to that?

Brian Lofrumento: Yes. No. Great question, Robert. My students, that's why I love working with students who are soccer coaches, who are health coaches, or who are travel agents. Those students are so much fun to work with, because if you're outside of the IM niche most of those markets have ever been marketed to properly. I mean, the soccer coaching industry, for example, I swear my student must be one of the few people in the world targeting these soccer coaches on Facebook. He's generating webinar sign ups for 75 cents a sign up. When he spends $500 on a Facebook ad campaign, he's getting 700 coaches signing up for his webinars. If you can talk to 700 people on a webinar, you can bet your bottom dollar that you're going to get at least a few sales. That way, if you've got a $1,000 product, you're looking at a pretty sizable business pretty easily.

Robert Plank: Oh, yeah. That amount for $500, that's a day no brainer.

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Exactly. It's insane. How else can you speak to 700 people for $500 and offer them your $1,000 product? You're right. It's a total no brainer.

Robert Plank: What do people actually see? Continuing with the soccer dad type of thing, so lets say some other soccer coach is on Facebook, and they see some kind of ad that's targeted to them. What do they kind of see in the ad and in the landing page they click over to more or less?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Great question. Typically, the ads will just speak to the benefits. I mean so many marketers we know that you don't want to sell the drill, you want to sell the hole. People aren't actually interested in the drill. They're interested in making the hole in the wood, in the wall, or whatever they're looking to buy. You've got to speak to the results. For the soccer coach, his example, his ads typically speak to "Do you want to improve your players, your team, and your coaching? Sign up for this free webinar. I'm going to show you the three ways that you can make your team better this season." It's strictly results and benefits based.

When people actually click the ad, they get taken to a very simple page. It's just the picture of a soccer coach out on a practice field. It advertises the free webinar. Shows us the date and the time of the webinar, and they can sign up right then and there. It's literally nothing fancy. It's super effective, because it speaks to the results that people are actually looking for.

Robert Plank: Awesome. Again, it seems like even though you explain it, it's very go from the idea to having it in place very quickly and not a lot of fanciness. No thirty or fifty step process. Just whatever is the simplest thing to get it done.

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Exactly. No sixty-seven steps here, for sure. Robert, the one thing that I want to point out for people who are listening to this and saying, "This sounds cool. It sounds like a quick way to get started." You can even sell something from a webinar that you haven't even created yet. If you could come up with, for example, an eight week program that you want to sell online. You can sell it. Then, host those eight weeks live with your students, record those, and then turn it into a product afterwards. It really is a quick way to go from idea to $10,000.

Robert Plank: Is this all that you do? Is this your primary business? You find people who need online presence, who need a product, who need coaching, clients, and you set this system up for them. You get the Facebook ads and the webinar and all that stuff set up for them?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. The fun thing for me is that I stopped doing client-based work back in 2013, so I haven't done client-based work in over three years now which is great. I've really go this system honed in, in an eight week process that people can go through these eight weeks that I've laid out. Do the work. Take the action items that I've given to them, and roll this entire system out on their own. My real business, what I do on a week to week basis, is I welcome new students into the program. Then, I host Tuesday night group calls with my students, usually. Every Tuesday night, I'll get on. It kind of looks like the Brady Bunch, we're all on video interaction, and I answer their questions. I hop on their screens. I take control of their screens and help them out. Yeah, that's absolutely how my business is, and a lot of my students have set up their businesses in very similar ways.

Robert Plank: Awesome. We talked about the soccer dad. Can you give us one other cool niche or cool case study where you set some stuff up for them?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Totally. One of my students, who is going through right now, she's got an awesome business that she's rolling out. She calls it the A-List Workforce Academy. She really targets people who are fresh out of undergraduate, so one to five years out of school. They're in an entry-level corporate position, and they're wondering, "How the heck do I climb this corporate ladder without butt kissing, without playing all these political games within an office setting?" She's teaching people who are right out of school how to climb the corporate ladder without all those other things that none of us really enjoy.

She's created this academy where people get that access to her. They get these pre-made training videos, where they learn how to communicate effectively over email, how they should present themselves at work. Even little things like, what are the items that they should have on their desk at work, at their cubicle, so no matter what happens ... She calls it the Office Survival Tool Kit. If you spill something on you, you should have a Tide-To-Go pen. All these things that you just wouldn't think of, and she's providing this awesome service and awesome value to people who have those problems.

Robert Plank: How to get ahead without sleeping with the boss, because that's my problem. I'm just kidding.

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. No, you hit it right on the head, Robert. It's exactly that type of concept.

Robert Plank: Cool. I like that. I don't have as many coaching clients that like, it's always nice to kind of play around in someone else's space. Especially, how you and me, we have all these tools, but the problem is that it seems like a lot of our competitors have the same tools. It's really cool to go into a space where people don't even know that these things exist, right? Like the auto-responder, the funnel, the webinar, all that cool stuff.

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Exactly. It always gets a kick out of people when I say the F-word, because then I joke around that the F-word stands for funnel. Many people, you're right, don't know what a funnel is. It's easy within our little IM, or internet marketing, world to feel like everybody knows these things. You take one step outside, and they've got no clue.

Robert Plank: If someone wants to work with you or if someone is in one of those niches where no one else is doing anything like that, I mean, it's game over. They're the top dog, at least, until everyone else jumps on.

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Exactly. You nailed it.

Robert Plank: I know that you have a book, and that you have a program called "The Ultimate Profit Model." Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Totally. The book is called Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur. It's targeted at the exactly people who we've talked about here today. They know that they want to be an entrepreneur, but they don't know what steps to take to go from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur. I'm actually giving a thousand copies of that book away for free. People can just go to ImetBrian.com now that they've met me here on your podcast. They could just go to ImetBrian.com, and that's a fun book. I walk them through the concept of what we talked about. How do you come up with an idea for your product or service? Where do you find your ideal person? How do you even know who your ideal person is? Then, how do you turn them from just a prospect into a new paying customer or client? That's the book.

The program, "The Ultimate Profit Model," is my flagship program, so that's the eight week program that we've talked about. It's really a group program where people get direct access to me. They can learn more information about that at UltimateProfitModel.com or the easiest way is to just get a free copy of my book at ImetBrian.com. Then, they can sign up for one of my webinars and see the entire system in play and in process, see how it all works, and they can sign up for "The Ultimate Profit Model" there. I will throw this little tip in, that's actually the most affordable way to get into "The Ultimate Profit Model" is to grab my book for free. Show up to my webinar, and I offer a special discount at the end of my webinar.

Robert Plank: Nice. You're not just a guy that teaches about webinars and funnels, but you actually do them.

Brian Lofrumento: Yes. You're right. That's the one thing that kills me. "Oh, the best way to get new leads and new customers is through quizzes," but they're not using quizzes to do that. That kills me when I see them doing webinars for that. Yeah. I practice what I preach. I'm always testing things and rolling out new, effective things to my students. Absolutely.

Robert Plank: Well, cool. Now, along those lines and as we're kind of winding this call down, do you have anything new and exciting coming up? Do you have some new idea or some new project that you're really pumped up about?

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. I'm super pumped right now about developing more advanced master mind, because so many of my students are getting really crazy levels of success right now. They're just kind of chomping at the bit, and they're asking, "Brian, what's next? I've got these webinar funnels going. I'm making good money. What's next?" Right now, I'm putting together an all-in-one experience. It's going to be part in-person experience, where we're going to fly to cool places around the world and master mind as well as online stuff to really take them to the next level.

Robert Plank: Awesome. Isn't that a nice place to be where instead of you having to scramble around for idea, you have people telling you what they want you to make for them.

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. It's the best. Definitely. No doubt about that.

Robert Plank: Awesome. Pretty good lifestyle to have. Lots of good ideas packed in here. Can you tell us, one last time, where people can get "The Ultimate Profit Model" and where they can get the book? That way we know they have the link.

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. The best way to get both is now that they met me here on your show, just go to IMetBrian.com. They can pick up a free copy of my book. They just have to pay shipping and handling. I'll sign it, send it to them wherever they are. Once they get their hands on my free book, they can sign up for the webinar right there. It takes them straight to the webinar sign up page. From the webinar, they'll see the entire thing in play, and they can sign up for "The Ultimate Profit Model" there.

Robert Plank: Awesome. Works for me. Thanks, Brian, for coming on the show, and thanks for sharing all your little nuggets of gold wisdom. All these things, the things I liked the best, I know that even though you said you're not the Mr. Numbers guy, but still the way that you explained all this stuff. It's very straight forwarded. Very simple. Just follow the steps. Skip the steps that don't apply. I like that way of thinking.

Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Thanks, Robert. It was a blast coming on the show today. I hope people got some value, and I'd love to do it again soon.