Informative thread, thank you for participating.
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Something significant. Something so large that even though I don't know you, I question your reading comprehension.
MJ emailed you?
I just had to look at your supposed age...due to your childish immature response...43? You are right you do not now me and the likelyhood is you never will ....lucky me. Reading comprehension? Then you think MJ personally emailed me? Really
I had a quick scan over my emails, then had a quick scan over the thread...I made a mistake and to be honest I am very busy and looking at the emails for a 'break'. Some of us are too busy working the dream than sitting in front of a screen dreaming?
May I suggest you go and play on Facebook, Twitter or something! Maybe watch American Idol or Celebrity News?
Thank you to Allen Crawley for pointing me in the right direction.
Hey Dane,
My question is very basic, but what is your "outline" that you follow for getting in touch with the right person and getting to their pain. I'm kinda scared to get on the phone with people and what key lines would tip my extraction phone calls more towards success?
We have a 43 page report on how to fully do idea extraction.
Some of us are too busy working the dream than sitting in front of a screen dreaming?
May I suggest you go and play on Facebook, Twitter or something! Maybe watch American Idol or Celebrity News?
Anyway, Sam Ovens has apparently launched a bizopp infoproduct based largely on his assertion that the Foundation doesn't work as advertised & the SaaS apps can't really be funded with presales. (Ironically, his ads are being injected for me into Fastlane Forum's adsense slots):
Hey Dane,
Here are some other questions if you have time:
- What was the biggest surprise benefit of biz to you?
- How do you feel you've become a better man through biz?
- Do you have any burning ambitions outside of your biz projects?
- Looking back on your choice to be better with business, how happy do you feel about most of the things you did to learn what you did? Is there anything you would have done differently looking back?
(fantastic stuff dane)
Also, are there any tips you would share for making sure your educational material is REALLY helping your target audience out, rather than being "fluff" that they look through and say "yeah, ok, dude, thats common sense... neeeext".
Thx for these great replies?
I have already send 1000 mails to doctors, and got around 80-90 answers. However, the answers are roughly,
I do not use the computer, however, I have problems with not paying customers, Time managment.
Software building is not the problem for me, I can build everything. For me the problem is to convert somebody who is interested in a paying customer?
So my question is:
How to convert an interested customer into a paying customer?
I really appreciate your answer Dane!
Hey Dane,
2 quick question about selecting industries to target:
1. Your criteria for number of businesses in the industry is 5k+, ideally 10k+. Is there a maximum number here also? I found a couple industries that look interesting, but they have 150k+ businesses, so I was wondering if that meant that I needed to get more targeted. Or, if it just meant that it might be a nice, big market!
2. How are you determining if businesses in a given industry already pay for software of some kind? I saw the one example about that chiropractor marketing businesses with 100 employees being an indicator that chiropractors pay for their software. If you can't find something like this, is there another way to find out about this?
Thanks for this AMA, I've been loving it so far. Just what I needed... it just makes so much sense!
Definitely one of the best threads on the forum.
How did you first sell the foundation? What was the process of getting leads and then converting them to sales? Did you do ppc? Google, facebook? I am in the process of converting from doing my thing to teaching others how to do it. So this IMO is a crucial step.
Did you test out different sales pages? Offers? etc?
Did you start with a free product or free offer?
And thanks again. Some great stuff in this thread.
"Is there anything that I'd rather do differently? I'd start with and run a business up to $500,000 a year soley on webinars. I wouldn't waste time with anything else. I'd add the other shit in later."
That last post by Dane on idea extraction is gold! BTW, this process is applicable to more than just SaaS, these are some of the core skills in complex solution selling and consulting as well.
Second, biggest surprise benefit of business for me? Having my mid life crisis at 26 instead of 50. I found out what was important to me real fast once I had money. Money only amplifies your problems. Take whatever problem you have now (self doubt, insecurity, paranoia, arrogance) and add millions of dollars, and they all amplify. So having lots of money helps you to sort through your baggage.
To add to that, I've become an incredibly loving guy. Sincere, humble, soft, and loving. I used to be hard, edgy, and have "F*ck you" energy. Like look at what I've done. Well that energy sucks. And because I got to achieve and see that accomplishments don't really matter to your true self esteem and love, I get to play a new game now.
For burning ambitions. YES. Oh shit yes. I want to show you Rogue, how brilliant you are. You are truly, incredibly, brilliant. This is called the "You Are Brilliant Project" right now. What I want to do, is have younger children take a personality test using the Enneagram, and then match them to the greatest thinkers and achievers of our time. So these kids have a north star for their potential.
Think Billy, takes the test, finds out he is a type 5, investigator. We'd match him to a report on Albert Einstein. Billy would get a report that says
"Hey Billy, do you know how brilliant you are? Do you know you have the same personality type as albert einsten? Do you know you could be as genius as he is? Here is a really awesome fun summary of Einsteins personality traits, skills, habits, and flaws. Read this report and learn how you could not only be like einstein, but even more powerful because you are learning from his mistakes."
Rogue it's insane to be in my mind these days... I'm thinking of the potential of others. I see kids walk down the street and think... "That kid could be the next Einsten, that kid could be the next Edison, that kid could be the next Bruce Lee!"
And so my lifelong project is this non-profit mission - I want every child on the planet to know how loved, and how Brilliant They Are. I will probably use my software background to create an integration between a fun test on the Enneagram, and linking in these great people to match to a personality system. (Sorry if this isn't making sense, The Foundation launch has me zapped on mental energy, but I wanted to get back on here to serve.)
Is there anything that I'd rather do differently? I'd start with and run a business up to $500,000 a year soley on webinars. I wouldn't waste time with anything else. I'd add the other shit in later.
If you want to be a master at persuasion, it helps to apply the 27ish word persuasion sentence. "People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, calm their fears, confirm their suspicions, justify their failures, and help them throw rocks at their enemies." My reports follow that framework.
So...
When I create content for the foundation, it's all based around the readers feelings FIRST. So I co-create content with the students. I ask them what they are feeling when they try to think about doing the task my next piece of content is going to help them do.
If I get, "frustrated... overwhelmed... not sure where to start..." I take that and create content like this:
"So in this report you're going to learn how to extract profitable ideas in a single phone call. Gone are the days of guessing for ideas. No more! If you feel overwhelmed or you aren't sure where to start, you are in the perfect place, because this will explain it all."
It really helps to meet people where they are at, before you take them where you want them to go. And you do that by connecting with feelings.
We can talk more about this if you're curious!
Hey Dane,
Thank you so much for doing this AMA and giving your advice. Your freedom=kindness philosophy makes me think that someone being kind (and giving advice) also pushes me to being kind and giving advice to people around me.
Say I have found my market and have several pre-sales that validated the idea. Now I have to build the software.
Now what are specific steps to take here?
From what I understood:
1- Sketch out on paper how the software will work. Every screen every action. (ok, done)
2- Translate these into HTML/CSS to have the UI ready
3- Hire a coder and build it
Could you go into details on the steps 2 and 3?
Where do you hire the coder? What programming language to develop my app in? Once I hired the guy, what should I tell him to do first?
In your projects, when the coder is working, what is your involvement? Do you let him 100% freerange as long as it's in the budget and timing, or do you tell him things to do 1 by 1?
What is the typical breakdown of the 12 weeks of programming, in terms of milestones and tasks?
I have 8,400€ of "6 months advance" presales in my hands, is that enough to start and focus on dev?
Dane thank you so much for doing this AMA and take care
Cheers,
Valentin Van Nhut
PS: If you come to Paris, you're always welcome at my place!
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