Hey, what’s going on, guys? Alex Branning, here with your podcast of the week. I want to talk about throwing your money away. A lot of us, because we’re emotionally attached to the tool or the person, we take our hard earned cash, we flush it down the toilet. Let me give you some things to think about.
So one of the things that I have been really working on, going into the new year, is looking at last year and seeing all of the receipts of the money that I have been spending. And I got to tell you, some of it is really fun and exciting because I can see where I was at, what I was spending money on, and where I’m at now, and the cool things that are happening now. The investments that I made, they’re paying off. Some of the companies that I funded during last year that are turning in a profit, which is super exciting.
I also see things and I’m like, ugh. It makes me go like, “Oh, no. What have I done?” So a couple things that I realized about myself awhile ago, and I’m working on fixing it is that I get emotionally attached to things. And I don’t want to walk away, even though I know that I’m throwing good money after bad. And I’m guessing that there’s something in it the same way for you. So I’m going to go over some things to check out.
When you’re going through your receipts and you’re going through the checks that you write, let’s talk about how to save some more of that money and not throw it away on things that aren’t working for you. First thing I recommend you doing, this is like a no-duh thing. But it’s shocking to me how many other business owners that I know that do not keep track of this and that is actually printout your bank account statement. Print out the bank account statements for the last two months. And see if you’re paying for anything that you do not want anymore. As simple as that.
Go over the subscriptions, the software, go “What out of these things do I not use anymore? What do I need to throw out, get rid of, quit, stop, pause payments, et cetera?” So I was paying for a CRM I wasn’t using. I was paying for services I no longer needed. I was paying for software that I hadn’t logged into for a while. And by just looking at it, I was able to go, “You know what? I’m cutting it. This is it. I don’t need this. I don’t use it. I haven’t made the phone call, I haven’t logged in, et cetera.” So that’s step number one. Actually printing out your bank statements and reviewing it.
Step number two. I want you to look at the different software that you pay for and just make sure that you have the best solution for yourself. And this is something that can be kind of hard for us because change stinks. I hate change. I hate modifying the things that I’m doing, especially if I’m in a rhythm. I’ll give you a real life example of a change that I made, that at the time, was extraordinarily painful for me. But turned out to be one of the best things that I’ve ever done. And that is changing from Leadpages to ClickFunnels.
As you know, I’m a huge ClickFunnels guy now, one of their top affiliates. And it’s just helped grow my business so much. But before I fell in love with ClickFunnels, I fell in love hard with Leadpages. I mean, I thought they were the business. I loved that software. I loved the community. I loved the founders. I loved it all. Then one day, a team member tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Alex, I think you should check out ClickFunnels.” And I told them flat out, I wasn’t interested. Looking back, it’s funny. But so I wasn’t interested.
So he said, “You know, I really think you should check this out.” It was more expensive than when I was paying for. And I didn’t know the founder, Russell Brunson, who’s now become a huge mentor of mine. But I didn’t know who he was. He didn’t have my respect, authority or trust at that point. But I did my due diligence based on what my team member was telling me. And I went in and I did some research on ClickFunnels and found that it was a better solution than what I was using.
And so I did not turn off Leadpages. I started to get my ClickFunnels set up. And in the meantime, I kept using Leadpages, kind of going back and forth, dabbling with ClickFunnels. Long story short, made the switch, couldn’t be happier. There’s other software that I was using before. I was using a CRM and I turned it off because I realized that my process has changed and so I no longer needed to use that CRM. It was simply an extra step in my sales process.
I was using a new … it was a double step basically. So I was able to turn that off. And sometimes we can look at the software and simply ask them and say, “If I were to pay this annually, could I save money?” And the answer is almost always “Yes”, they will take more of your money up front, gladly, so they can meet their revenue goals for that month. And so looking at the software and going, “Do I want this? And is there a cheaper way that I can still have access?”
The third thing that I want you to look at is who are the people on your team. And are they the best fit with the best price? Now some of you are already bristling at this like, “Oh, Alex, don’t touch my people. I need the people that I have on my team. I cannot live without them. They are the bedrock of my company.” And I get it. I agree 100%. My team is my company. Having said that, let’s set aside the emotional attachment to the people that are on our team. And let’s look at it.
So number one is, are the people on your team in the right roles for their responsibilities? Now, most of the people on my team that are leading entire departments of people, oversee others, et cetera, they didn’t start there. They moved up. They kind of did a little ping pong within the company as I was able to find where their role should be as we grew. And I was able to identify things that they could do that they didn’t start out doing.
One of the gals that was leading my copywriting department for years, started out as a simple app installer. Like she literally just pushed a couple buttons and was working a couple hours a week, super duper low part time until I asked her one day if she wouldn’t mind writing an article for me. I was in kind of a pinch. And she had mentioned she wrote on her resume. She said “Sure”. And she wrote one of the best articles that we have on our blog. And I was like, “Oh, my gosh, you’re really good at this. Do you want to do this more?” She’s like, “Yeah”. And she ended up launching our social media department, which is phenomenal. But I never would have known had I not taken a risk and asked her to do something that was outside of her responsibility by just glancing at her previous work history.
Some of the people, Ryan, my Facebook ads manager, he came on as an assistant to me. And then he was just hungry for knowledge and so he learned, he grew in his knowledge, grew in his abilities. Now he is leading my ads department, one of the top Facebook ads guys in the nation when it comes to the roles that we do. So I mean, just an amazing success story. And it all started with him going, “Man, I really want to learn this stuff.” And diving deep. So very exciting stuff.
So look at your people. Are they the best? Also look at your people … I’m talking about throwing good men after bad, but sometimes your people, they’re the right role, they’re in the right responsibility and they just need help. And so for me, I know that the people that are heading up my department, customer service, our ads management, our funnel development, they need people to come alongside them and help them with some of the more medial tasks. They need quality assurance, people to look over their shoulder and just make sure that everything is done properly.
So bringing in people from the outside, and in our case, we have virtual assistants that come in and help them out. That makes my key players jobs so much easier and a lot more fun. So look at the people that you have and say, number one, “Are these the best people?” Because there’s nothing more expensive than the wrong person doing the wrong job or the right person doing the wrong job.
And then, “Do I need more people? Do I need a little bit more staff?” Because for us, as the solopreneurs, as the people running this company, guiding the ship, we need to make that we have enough people in place so that we can make this thing go. There’s nothing like being able to delegate a task and never having to do it again. So make sure that you’re not throwing your good money after bad, by putting the wrong person in the wrong job or the right person in the wrong job.
All right, so we’ve talked about printing out your bank statement and actually looking at what you do. We’ve talked about software. We’ve talked about people. Let’s talk about marketing. One of the mistakes that people make, and I’ve talked about this a few episodes ago in my redneck marketing or my, I forget exactly what I called it, something redneck, Redneck Methods, I think. I don’t remember. At the time, I thought it was really punny. But now I can’t remember. But I talked about actually writing out and figuring out what your stats are for your marketing.
There’s just something about taking out a pen and paper going, “Where did this customer come from?” And being able to trace it back. And then once you see a pattern, like for me, I noticed the pattern is on YouTube. So I went, “Well, how can I go bigger and bigger on YouTube?” And I started really going big on bringing some more people in from YouTube. I started making more videos. I started advertising. Guess what? I’m seeing more success in my company. I’m seeing more leads coming in. I’m seeing better leads coming in. Because I noticed a pattern and I leveraged it.
So in you’re marketing, you need to make sure that the marketing dollars you’re spending are coming back in. One of the ways that I found I was losing money was in Google Search. I was bidding on keywords and after Tracy and I realized, I’m not actually getting anything from this. My Google Search keywords are not working out. So I needed to move that budget to a different method. But it all starts with actually being able to identify where your best clients are coming from, so you can turn up the sources that are working and turn off the ones that are not.
Last but not least, talking about throwing good money after bad. It’s all about your coaches and your mentors. First of all, I think every single person listening on this podcast needs a coach and/or a mentor to help them walk through the journey of entrepreneurship that we are all on. But having the wrong coach or the wrong mentor can be pretty discouraging. And it can lead you down the wrong path.
The right coach should be where you want to be and be able to help you get there. Be able to shortcut your journey along the way by saying, “I’ve been there, done that. Learned the hard way. Figured it out. Here’s what you need to do different.” And so, having the wrong coach is terrible. Having no coach I think is just as bad. So make sure that you’ve identified somebody who’s where you want to be and is able to help you get there.
So you guys, stop throwing your good money after bad. Follow these tips. Run through these five things. First one, print out your bank statements, see what you’re spending money on. You may be surprised. Number two, identify the software you’re using, turn off the ones that you don’t log into anymore. Number three, look at your people. Do with thorough emotionless check on who you have on your team, whether or not they’re doing the right thing. Look at your marketing, identify where your best customers are coming from, to turn up the sources that are working and turn off the ones that are not. And then your coaches. Find the right coach who can lead you into the promised land.
I’ll talk to you guys next week.
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