Steve Larsen: What's going on everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. Oh yeah. So, here's the real mystery. How do real MLMers like us, who didn't cheat, and only bug family members and friends, who want to grow a profitable home business, how do we recruit A players into our downlines and create extra incomes, yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio.
What's up, guys? Hey, I'm very excited for today. First off, I want to apologize. I know it's been quite a while, like a month, I think since I've actually published an episode on this podcast here. And it's simply because there's just been so much going on. I've been speaking a lot. We have our third kid due literally any day now, she could go into labor. Anyway, she'll wince in pain just a little bit. I'm like, "Is this it? Okay, not yet. Is this it? Not yet." Weirdly, I look forward to the mad dash to the hospital, like a chase scene from Chips. Hey guys, I'm excited for the day though. I wanted to talk with you about something that's actually pretty important and pretty powerful.
I have a slight obsession with the show Shark Tank. What's funny is I'm actually really against VC funding for 99% of businesses that are out there. I just don't think that you need it. I don't. And I know that I ruffle a lot of feathers when I say that. Anyway, I like Shark Tank because I like to see what businesses people are in, and I like to see what they're asking for and what they think that their business is actually worth. Now if you have watched that show at all, you know that after about six or seven episodes, you're gonna start to see a pretty strong pattern. It could even honestly be in three episodes. This is always the way it always works. Funny enough, we were in Orlando. I'm sorry, we were in California on vacation a little while ago, and we were in the hotel room, just relaxing before we all went to sleep, and we're watching Shark Tank.
I can't remember what the person's business was, but this question gets asked so frequently. Regardless of someone's business, okay. Now pay attention to that. Regardless of someone's business, the person will always come in and they always do the 30 second little elevator pitch, or whatever. They always say, "Well tell us about your numbers." What's funny is that's the question. We want to know what your numbers are. They always ask them, "How much does it cost for you to acquire a customer? How much does it cost for you to acquire a customer?" Like nine times out of 10, the person has no idea. Are you kidding? Would you invest in something like that if it's not proven to be selling? No. It always blows me away. Oh my gosh. Anyway. People think they get deals based on how cool the product is. There's a very small aspect to that. 90% of it is just proving to the investor that it actually does sell. That they actually could get their money back. Anyway, it's funny to see how it always plays out.
In college, we actually had the opportunity to go and pitch several VC firms as part of some of my classes. I took a lot of entrepreneurship classes. Funny enough in college, that's what we think entrepreneurship is. It's putting together proposals in order to get VC funding. That's terrible. That's stupid in my opinion, my very humble and firm opinion. That's dumb. It's dumb. Are you kidding? Entrepreneurs create value. If you don't create enough value, no one's gonna pay for it anyway. Anyway, I'm not gonna keep going on on that.
Hey, I was recently listening to Russell Brunson's podcast. Funny enough, every time that we always launched a funnel, we always watched our numbers. We always watched our numbers. Okay. I'm going somewhere very specific with this, guys, and I want you to know that. And why I've been able to do what I have been in that MLM space, because it's a completely different shift of thinking, and I know that. I get a lot of pushback from that. There's a lot of old timers in the MLM community who don't like me, and I know that, and I expected that prior to me getting in. And you can't blame them. Some guy comes along and says, "Hey, you don't need to do it the old way that everyone used to do it." And the old timers are like, "Well I don't know how to do what you're doing, Steven. Therefore, I'm gonna tell my team to not do it." Right? That's pretty much what happens.
It's threatening to the empire. They don't know how to duplicate what I'm doing because they don't know how to build funnels. They don't know anything about what I do, so it's threatening. I get it, and I expected that. No harm, no foul. It's all good. So, I do get rocks thrown back at me and that's totally fine. This is the cutting edge stuff and it works. I have lots of students auto recruiting people and I have lots of students selling their products on the internet without them having to actually be the one there doing it. It ruffles feathers and I totally get it.
Anyway, I was listening to one of Russell's shows lately and he was talking about a quote. I can't remember where this is from. I think it might be Dan Kennedy. But Dan Kennedy said that you must know. If you know numbers, you know business. As in K-N-O-W. If you know numbers, know business. You'll know business. But then there's a flip side, if you have no numbers, as in N-O. If you have no numbers, then you have no business. Isn't that funny? Know your numbers, and you'll know business. If you have no numbers, you have no business. That's fascinating isn't it? You think about that with that whole Shark Tank example that I was just dropping out there. That's so true. It's so powerful. It's incredibly, that's spot on. That's exactly why so many of the people that are just like, they'll go ask for these ... They don't know their numbers. Therefore, to the investor, they have no business. We're gonna flip this.
Right now, I know that I spend anywhere from $5 to $8 per person to get on my web class and watch Secret MLM Hacks, the actual web class. Okay. I know roughly, we're scaling ads all over the place, so I'm just waiting for things to settle a little bit, but I have a very ... It's getting more and more clear how much it actually costs for me to acquire a customer. How much money it costs for me to get a lead. What the lifetime value of that customer actually becomes. Those kinds of numbers ... The only numbers that marketers really care about, and this is MLM multi level marketing. As a marketer, you, a marketer, there's only two numbers that you really need to care about. One is what's your average cost to acquire a customer. That's it. Average cost. CPA, cost per acquisition, which are costs to acquire a customer.
Next, what is the average cart value? How much does the average person actually spend with you? I know if I need to spend $3 to acquire a customer, and my average cart value is $4, I'm making money. And I can scale the ads a little. Frankly, I wouldn't want it to be that tight, but right? That's how it works. Well you have to understand, and the reason why I've been able to make a dent so quickly in the MLM space and why my team is doing amazing things that no one has ever done before in the MLM space. Frankly, there's a lot of people like, "Steven, you can't duplicate what you're doing." Well, I am, and we are.
What's cool, and here's the reason why, is one of the reasons why. Okay. If you think about cost to acquire, most of the time we all think of that as money, but there's actually a time cost. That's traditionally the cost that old school MLM wants you to spend. Meaning, we want you to go use your time and talk to your relationships, and that's the only form of cost MLM is traditionally okay with. That's it. That's the only form of cost that they actually are okay with. But wh...
