Why 2,500 Subscribers Is All You Need For $1M

Jonathan "Jicecream" Courtney believes that in 2025, basic marketing still outperforms everything: a simple 90-minute webinar turns 200 attendees into 20 buyers, even with just 2,500 subscribers. The framework is dead simple - 20 minutes on your story, 15 minutes on the solution, 20 minutes showing the transformation, then offering them a choice between DIY or done-for-you. He goes into it in this episode. Key Points: • Detailed breakdown of successful webinar funnel structures and challenge funnels • Discussion of basic marketing fundamentals that still work in 2025 • Exploration of how software companies can use traditional funnel marketing techniques Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 03:17 - Greg’s New Year Reflections 11:19 - JC's transition from CEO to an advisory role 22:07 - How to make deals with influencers 25:10 - Detailed breakdown of webinar funnels 30:28 - The structure of webinar funnels 37:07 - How to use funnels for SaaS products and challenge funnels explained 47:25 - Product recommendations and wrap-up 1) The Basic Funnel Formula Still Works: • Email list → Webinar → Product sale • Even with just 2,500 subscribers • Live training converts WAY better than direct email • 90-min webinar can turn 200 attendees into 20 buyers 2) Perfect Webinar Structure (by Russell Brunson): • 20min: Your story & struggles • 15min: The "vehicle" (solution you discovered) • 20min: Impact & transformation • Present options: DIY vs accelerated path • Close with clear next steps 3) Challenge Funnels Are Underrated: • Perfect for SaaS & digital products • 30-day format with daily support • Free trial + structured program • Examples: - Notion + Second Brain challenge - Fitness apps + weight loss challenge - Meditation apps + mindfulness challenge 4) The Warm-Up Step is CRUCIAL: • Direct pitching rarely works • Need a middle step to build excitement • Options: - Webinars - Challenges - Info sessions - Live trainings 5) List Partnerships Done Right: • Never cold pitch for list access • Build relationships first • Consider paid partnerships ($10k can be worth it for 1M+ list) • Focus on value alignment KEY TAKEAWAY: Basic funnels still work incredibly well in 2024, but you need: 1. A list (even small) 2. Warming step (webinar/challenge) 3. Clear transformation story 4. Tactful execution Notable Quotes: "Most of the real basics work so goddamn well today. Like 2025, we can launch a product using basically just the same webinar. Just email your list, send them to a webinar." - JC "When a company is doing well, they don't want me involved... They want the strategic advice. They want access to connections." - Greg Isenberg LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ BoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/ BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/ Startup Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses https://www.startupempire.co FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND JONATHAN ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jicecream LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-courtney-4510644b/ AJ&Smart: https://ajsmart.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Greg Isenberg?

  Right behind where I'm sitting, you can see this whiteboard. And there's this funnel that Jonathan J. Ice Cream goes through with us. That's printed him millions of dollars. We go through exactly how to do it, why funnels matter. And honestly, I don't know why people sleep on funnels. It's kind of a dirty word. But today, we're going to have a fun chat and just go through how to think about structuring a funnel that works for your business. So this means you're going to get more customers, you're going to create more sales.

• 0:44Greg Isenberg?

  And it's just going to be a big friend for you to grow your business and give your business the highest chance of success. This is a fun conversation, always with J. Ice Cream is always a blast. And let me know what you think in the comment section. I read every single comment. Hope you enjoy.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Upgrade.

• 1:31Greg Isenberg?

  What's going on? Could I call you J. Ice Cream?

• 1:35Speaker 01

  You can call me J. Ice Cream. I mean, you're the only one who does it, but I like it.

• 1:40Greg Isenberg?

  That's not true, dude. The comment section always.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Your comment section and your people on X called me that.

• 1:51Greg Isenberg?

  What does your girl call you?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  John?

• 1:55Greg Isenberg?

  Ice cream? John Ice Cream?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Jonathan Ice Cream.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  She calls me Jonathan Ice Cream. Yeah. It's, I, I, I think I never intended it to be said, spoken out loud because as I, it was my Xbox gamer tag, you know? It was one of those things where I was like trying different things and then I was just like, Ice Cream. And then J Ice Cream became my Twitter name or X name. Oh, also my Instagram name. But I don't think anything else besides my original Xbox account. And then-

• 2:29Greg Isenberg?

  Besides from your whole identity.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Well, besides the fact that you noticed it or some, or your audience noticed it literally 20 years after I did it. Like no, there was, I think like one person on one podcast, maybe 10 years ago, a German podcast said,

• 2:51Speaker 01

  in a very friendly and naive way, "Why is your name Jizz Cream?" And I was like, "Oh, oh no, it's J Ice Cream." And then that was the whole, then there was 10 years of nothing and then now you and your podcast.

• 3:06Greg Isenberg?

  That's perfect.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's, um, it's good. I'm keeping it. I'm never changing it.

• 3:12Greg Isenberg?

  Great.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Happy New Year, man.

• 3:13Greg Isenberg?

  Happy New Year. Good to see you.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Have you, have you made any like, like, do you over the holiday period do any sort of reflection thing? Or do you, what do you, do you do anything like that?

• 3:28Greg Isenberg?

  I am a human being, you know? So it'd be weird if I did like zero thinking.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  No, but I mean, do you do like any extra reflection or do you, yeah, you just, you just power down when you're not on this podcast and you're like,

• 3:49Speaker 01

  waiting for the guest to appear?

• 3:54Greg Isenberg?

  The honest answer is I set three goals for the year and that's it.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  What are they, you fuck?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Tell us then.

• 4:08Greg Isenberg?

  Um, I'll tell you one of them.

• 4:12Greg Isenberg?

  And it's not business related at all.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Grow a bigger pee pee?

• 4:16Greg Isenberg?

  Hmm, I feel like. Yeah, exactly.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  You're like, how much of this will get cut out of the podcast?

• 4:23Greg Isenberg?

  We, we basically keep everything in.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 4:26Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  So grow a bigger pee pee is number one. And what was number two?

• 4:30Greg Isenberg?

  Number three, let me tell you a story, actually, that happened to me this weekend. So I signed up for my first ever, okay, so I make this resolution, get really good at tennis.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 4:42Greg Isenberg?

  Um, why? Because tennis feels like, it's like part chess, especially singles. It's like part chess, like you're, you're, you know, you need to be really strong mentally. And it's a really good cardio exercise.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Just like chess.

• 4:57Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Part that's like chess.

• 4:59Greg Isenberg?

  It's like, yeah, exactly. So New Year's resolution, sign up to a tennis tournament. I'm really excited. I get there, matches at 11 a.m. I see my buddy Corey is, is like there and he's like, dude, you know who you're playing? And I was like, no, he's like, you're playing Lee. And I was like, who's Lee? And he, and he goes, Lee is a 94 year old man.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 5:30Greg Isenberg?

  So I'm thinking I'm about to just, you know, absolutely blow this guy out of the water, you know? Here I am, a extremely fit 35 year old. Spent the, you know, I have been practicing more and more, getting into shape. And then I get to the court, 94 year old, and he absolutely destroys me 1-0, 2-0. Like, I'm not getting any points on the board.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 5:59Greg Isenberg?

  I'm literally, I can't even breathe. I'm sweating like profusely. There's not a bead of sweat on Lee's face.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Just completely beadless.

• 6:09Greg Isenberg?

  Just completely beadless. So then I see my friend Corey at the sideline. He's like, oh, I forgot to tell you, basically, that like, he's a, he won the world champion or American championship for top tennis players 85 or older.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Holy crap.

• 6:26Greg Isenberg?

  Long story short, I'm literally like immobilized now. He like, I'm so like, I can't, I'm so sore and everything. He just, he destroyed me. I lost the game to a 94 year old man. Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders. They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things.

• 7:11Greg Isenberg?

  That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas. Or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to startupempire.co in the description.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  That's really, I mean, does it give you this feeling of that's who I want to be? Like, I want to be that 94 year old man destroying 35 year olds?

• 7:37Greg Isenberg?

  It's exactly, it's exact, I mean, I must admit, we went into a tie break. So it was like, it got close by the end. So I almost beat a 94 year old man.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  If someone just starts the episode right here.

• 7:51Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think that guy was really cool. Like he's, he, you know, I was talking to him, talking to him. He's like, yeah, I'm just, I love playing tennis. I play every day and, and he's just doing his thing. Like that's goals.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  You know what I think is amazing? You have, I think, one of the, you know, one of the bigger podcasts out there in the startup world, whether you like it or not, and look at your background.

• 8:17Greg Isenberg?

  The worst background.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  A whiteboard which you've half ass written the startup. If anyone's not listening to this on YouTube, you need to go look at how, it's, it's a testament to how people will do the wrong, will, will like get, take the wrong message. Like they'll watch like a popular podcast and they're like, oh, I get it. I need to have a really good mic. I need to have really good lighting. And there's your podcast with like 35,000 listens on YouTube alone. And you've got a really, I mean, it's, it's almost insulting.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  It's amazing. Like, is it, do you ever think like, I need to like, I need to level this shit up visually? Or are you just like, ah?

• 9:03Greg Isenberg?

  I did a round of in-person interviews and the quality is really good. Like, we did a really, really good job. We've, we're releasing our site, I don't know when this is gonna go out, but the second IRL video is going out today with David Senra, which by the way, was probably one of the most life-changing conversations I've had with anyone.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Cool. Like, on what topic? Like, what broad topic?

• 9:32Greg Isenberg?

  Um, I want you to listen to it, honestly. Yeah. But basically, the reason why it was life-changing was, I think what's cool about David Senra, he's from Founders Podcast. Do you know Founders?

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've listened to it. It's great.

• 9:46Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Not as good as your podcast, obviously, but.

• 9:51Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, okay. So, David, David, um, you know, he's studied all these billionaires and founders and stuff like that. And he's just got these amazing, like, one-line zingers and stories that go with everything.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  I love when people have that, when they've got their, like, you know, backlog of really cool quotes and anecdotes and all that stuff. I never have that. I mean, I have it for, only really have it for my, my, like, very specific facilitation world.

• 10:25Greg Isenberg?

  Yes.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  When I do, like, my show and they're not, like, saved anywhere, but they come out. But I have heard it's a really good idea. I heard this from Russell Brunson, that it's a really good idea to have, like, your, he has, he calls it like story archive or something, like of your best stories that you can tell. Apparently, people do that when they're, like, media-trained, apparently.

• 10:47Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. I forget who said it. Again, we suck at this, but it's like, never show up to dinner without stories. Maybe it's Anthony Bourdain.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Showing up to dinner with really inappropriate, really long stories, but because no one told me the rest. Like, what do you mean? Okay, I'll just learn some fucking horrible shit. Did you hear about the guy who fell down the crevasse and died and had to eat his own legs? I cut a three hour story about it.

• 11:13Greg Isenberg?

  Don't go, don't go for dinner with ice cream. No to sell.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Do not go to dinner with me. It's bad. It's very bad. Well, I, um, I made a pretty big decision over the, the holiday period. I decided to step out as CEO of Facilitaire.com.

• 11:29Greg Isenberg?

  Oh, wow.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Fully. Um, I'm now, so basically last year, uh, I think around September, we publicly launched a section of, or so we've split, I've split the company into three different companies. Actually, obviously inspired by the way you did it with the holding company sort of thing. Um, and so I split it into Facilitaire.com, AJ and Smart Studio, which is the designs, design studio, and then, uh, partners, which is like where myself and my team advise other companies on really funnels and growing their company using funnels. And it just clicked with Laura and I, who run Facilitaire.com. Over the holidays, we were like, why don't we just advise Facilitaire.com the way we're advising other companies to

• 12:14Speaker 01

  grow? And we had a chat with one of the employees who seemed like the best fit to essentially take over. He said yes. And so for the last three weeks, we've been advising Facilitaire.com the same way we're advising everyone else. And it's been a massive, massive change, like out of being super reactive every day into being a lot more, having a lot more headspace and a lot more time to think. Although, to be really honest, I don't know what to do with the time yet. Like, I'm kind of in a confused state where I'm like, okay, should I, what do I do? Should I read books? Should I meditate? Should I?

• 12:56Greg Isenberg?

  Boo hoo. Literally boo hoo.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Should I do fucking beat up a 94 year old man like Greg? Um, no, with this, like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to make that the topic, but it's really, that's pretty huge because last year I was like hardcore.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Full oper- fully operational across the three companies and now I'm more advising and it feels like a nice change of pace.

• 13:25Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, so do you, are you worried at all that this person is going to drive the business into the ground?

• 13:34Speaker 01

  I'm sure they all listen to this podcast.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  So I would say that I always assume, I mean, for me, it's always easier for me to assume the worst, like it's, it's, it would be stupid for me to assume that someone who hasn't had that role in the same way. I've had the role of CEO for 14 years now and it's very challenging.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  I'm not worried that he'll run it into the ground because first of all, I'm the advisor and Laura is advising, so we can be very helpful along the way. But also facilitator.com now is a well-oiled, well-running entity with all the funnels and everything. So it's, it just needs someone really like, who really knows the ins and out of funnels and Dom who's running it, hey Dom, is really good at all that stuff. So I think he's going to do a great job and yeah, I'm not worried about it being run into the ground personally.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  It's low on my worries list.

• 14:41Greg Isenberg?

  The hard thing to do, and, and I'm guilty of this sometimes because I'm in a similar role with Late Checkout is some, you know, you might be, you might be working with a CEO and, and see that the CEO is making the wrong decision. And you, you have to be like, I, are you, you know, you have to be kind of like out of it, right? You can't just be, don't do this, or I would do this this way. And that's, that's the hardest part. That's going to be the hardest part of your role.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  It's very, very difficult, very difficult for me because we did hand, I did hand over the corporate side of my business just to, to a CEO a couple of years ago. And they did eventually sort of lose track of it and it did pretty much crash and burn and had to be rebuilt. Uh, I obviously left it go a little bit too far because I was like, I just need to, I went so hands off that it actually went too far. So I, I try, I've tried kind of that approach where I'm like, okay, I'm going to be almost like ignorant of it. Um, and now I'm taking, I think it was helpful for me to be, to have this partner's business. Where I'm an advisor to others so that I know how to advise while being checked out a little bit.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  While being like, I'm going to answer your question, but I'm also not going to check up and see if you did it right or something. Um, but yeah, I mean, look.

• 16:06Greg Isenberg?

  So let me get this straight.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 16:07Greg Isenberg?

  So let me get this straight. So you had a business, a few businesses. You started coming on the pod. You started wearing glasses like me. You started changing your business like me.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Had these glasses before I started this pod, you motherfucker.

• 16:22Greg Isenberg?

  You started talking like me. You started telling the same stories that I tell. You started beating up 94 year old men like I do.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Hell yeah. I'm just like, I, you know what I said? I, I said one day when I woke up, I just said, I am Greg. Euro, Euro Greg.

• 16:40Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. That's what people say in the comments. They're like, oh, are they, are they brothers?

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Oh, I have glasses that look really like, do you have your like lighter colored glasses?

• 16:49Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  All right. I'm going to go get mine. Wait. Like these kind of.

• 16:53Greg Isenberg?

  I don't have them. I don't have those. I don't have those, but.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 16:57Greg Isenberg?

  Those look great.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  They're like more like yours. I have shorter hair and then, uh, yeah. So yeah, I'd look, I have stepped out of the business a few times. Um, that's why I like started my whole unscheduled CEO. Persona and everything, but what keeps happening is like this thing of just when, just when I thought I was out. They pulled me back in or whatever that fucking meme is. So I do end up getting pulled back into it. Do you not get pulled back into your companies?

• 17:27Greg Isenberg?

  Honestly, you want to know the honest answer?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're going to say no.

• 17:33Greg Isenberg?

  When a company is doing well, they don't want me involved.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:38Greg Isenberg?

  They honestly, like, I don't have like the context that they might have. They, I shouldn't say they don't want me involved. They don't want me to like in the weeds.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:49Greg Isenberg?

  They want the strategic advice.

• 17:54Greg Isenberg?

  They want, you know, access to connections. They want, how would I do X, Y, Z? But they don't want, like, I'm sitting in meetings and I'm asking like a million questions. Like that to them feels like I'm taking the wheel and that's not the deal.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:13Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's, it's really hard to, if, if you were the CEO and now you've given the role to someone else, if you get, at least if I'm in the room, it'll default to people feeling like my opinion maybe has more weight.

• 18:29Greg Isenberg?

  Exactly.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  And so it's better for me to just simply not. And, and, and what's cool with Dom is like, he's also been like, yeah, you'd like, we basically decided I'm not going to be in like the kickoff meetings, new product meetings, things like this. Actually, I, I made a pretty extreme decision as well, which is that I am no longer doing, uh, personal. So I was personally sometimes physically going and running large scale corporate trainings, just because they bring in like quite a lot of money. And I also decided in, in December, I'm not doing them anymore. Like full stop, I'm not traveling. So a lot of the big

• 19:11Speaker 01

  B to B corporate enterprise travel plans for 2025, um, I've handed over to the team. And that's something I was always kind of like scared of, I think, because it's like, it's a little bit the Jonathan show, like the teaching facilitation thing, the way we do it at AJ and Smart. And now it's not the Jonathan show anymore. So

• 19:33Greg Isenberg?

  The Dom Show.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  The Dom Show, exactly. So yeah, that's going to be the team running those. And so that's, yeah, I'm, I'm really, really curious and excited to see how it goes. But what's cool for your podcast is that Now I've gone from, you know, focusing obsessively on, you know, a facilitator.com funnel. And then like two weeks later, going and helping another company with their funnel and whatever. Now it's like I wake up and I've got, we, I just do it on iMessage because it's just so much easier. And I've got like five companies which we're helping with different funnels and then different projects.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  And pretty much what I've been able to, or what I can pretty cleanly and clearly say, I started doing this kind of advising a couple of years ago, but now it's like really part of my actual day to day. It used to be a bit more like on the side. Most of the real basics work so goddamn well today. Like 2025, we can launch a product using basically just the same webinar. Just email your list, send them to a webinar. In that webinar, talk about the product, the end, send loads of follow-up emails. Like that's still the multimillion dollar recipe

• 20:56Speaker 01

  that we're reusing over and over and over and over again. We've got two big launches coming up next week. We've got, like, maybe you can like beep, will it get beeped out if I, if I want it to get beeped out?

• 21:08Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, you just have to say what you want beeped out.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we're launching.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  So we're launching that next week and the like, we're just doing webinar. So on Wednesday, all the different lists that we have access to, including like some third-party lists. And so we've been working with a couple of different leads and, and lists. So all of them push towards essentially a webinar funnel.

• 21:38Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, so we bleeped out who, who those people are, but basically for the listener, there's someone who's launching a book, right? You're helping them with orchestrating the funnel to get as many people, as many people, you know, in, in their ICP to buy the book. There's another big podcast, big.

• 22:02Greg Isenberg?

  You know, list that you're you're gonna be working with to get even more people on it. How do you structure a deal with like, you know, someone who has a big list or a bigger list? Like, how does that even happen?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, there's a couple we have. I think we have for this particular launch. There's going to be like four different lists being tapped into. Sometimes it's just a favor. That's in this case what it is like, uh, you know, we were we're friends or we've done something together before and can we just like tap into your list? And then we can do this other thing. Uh, it's actually all.

• 22:40Greg Isenberg?

  Isn't that like awkward, though? Like, I don't I I feel I would feel awkward to. Yeah, okay, take off your sweater. Of course, you're wearing black like I'm wearing black.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  I want to be more like you.

• 22:53Greg Isenberg?

  You literally looked at me and you're like, oh, my God, I I don't look as much like Greg today. I need a.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  I can do this. So I'm more like you again.

• 23:01Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  So, yeah, you never just ask someone you like what's definitely not a good idea is to reach out to someone and say, hey, can I be on your list? We actually had an episode. I think you and I did an episode before the holidays where we talked about this idea of just like asking people for favors and stuff.

• 23:17Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, you never reach out. Okay, if if it's like, um, okay, I actually asked you about this exact book launch. And I didn't just say, hey, Greg, since I've been on your podcast already, let me just have access to your full audience and promote the book, right? I didn't say that. I asked you very like carefully, hey, Greg. Is like, I have this, we're going to promote this book. We've got this book launch coming up. The person who wrote it is like, in my opinion, great for your audience because this, this, this, this, this, this, this. Do you think there's any chance that this person could come on your podcast?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  I asked that like relatively carefully with no in my at least hopefully not from your perspective. I didn't have any assumption that you should just say yes. My assumption was it's an absolutely maybe situation. And that's if I really know someone. So if I really know someone or if I'm, if I've talked to someone a lot like I've talked to you, then I might do a direct ask like that, but still very carefully. And. If I don't know the person so well, for example, with Chris Doe, when we did our first promotion, I just said, "Hey, how much will it cost?" Straight up like, and often they'll just be like, "I don't need, I don't want your money. Let's just do it."

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Or they'll also realize, "Oh, well, our lists, let me do something on your list and I can do something on your list." Sometimes, though, it's worth paying someone $10,000 if they have a 1.3 million dollar list or person list. So it is a mix of those things, I would say. You have to be very tactful and careful to not overstep boundaries.

• 25:10Greg Isenberg?

  Is your big insight overall that the basic funnel, the webinar funnel, is just what works today?

• 25:18Speaker 01

  In my opinion, what's, what makes the most money in the shortest amount of time is you've got a list. So ideally, this won't work if you have zero list or you're like, this is not one of those situations that works from zero, the way I'm describing it now. But let's say you have a list of 20,000 people or something you've been building up over years. Or even honestly, 2,000 people.

• 25:41Greg Isenberg?

  Wait, you want to do something? Should we write it on the board? I've never done this.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Let's do it. So you've got a list of 2,000 people.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Actually, 2,500 people. I've got like my unscheduled CEO,

• 25:57Speaker 01

  like blog, which I almost never post to, has around 2,500 subscribers, which is essentially nothing. So.

• 26:06Greg Isenberg?

  You can't even see it, right?

• 26:08Speaker 01

  I can see it. Yeah, it looks good. It looks good. Yeah, it looks good. So what I will do is I'll invite those 2,500 people to a live training. So this is what I literally will do with this group. I'll, I'll, I'll give you an exact funnel that's coming up that I'm going to launch soon. So I'm going to invite 2,500 people to a live training that I know will appeal to those people. So those people in my community, they kind of like talking about, "How do you, how, how do you, how can you like be a CEO but also have like a normal life and all of balanced family, whatever?" I'll, I'll do some sort of training on that topic.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Then in that training, I will talk about the thing I want to sell, which in this case will actually be an in-person event that's three days. So I'll sell that in-person event on that training. At the end of it, I'll say, hey, by the way, if you enjoyed this training, there's two ways you can go forward. One is read all these books. They're really amazing. They're really cool, whatever. Number two is come hang out with myself and my team in Berlin for three days, and we'll do it in a hackathon style. If I just emailed those 2,500 people with the exact same information, two people would buy. Like, I've experienced it multiple times. If I do a live training, a 90-minute live training in between,

• 27:35Speaker 01

  which is a webinar, like out of the, let's say, 2,500 people will get invited, maybe 200 people might turn up. I'll get like 20 people buying tickets right there and then.

• 27:49Greg Isenberg?

  Question, of the, call it 90 minutes, would you say that it's 90% giving value, 10% talking about the offer? Like, what's the breakdown?

• 27:59Speaker 01

  The breakdown is structurally, I use the structure from Russell Brunson, like 50% of the structure I take from Russell Brunson's book, Expert Secrets. So that structure is basically, I'll just tell you the structure I'll use for this one. It's going to be, hey, everybody, here's what the last few years have looked like for me. And the last few years for me have been pretty stressful because loads of things have gone on in my life, blah, blah. And I believe that that will touch on a lot of people's issues they're having as entrepreneurs. So I'll talk about sort of my story for, I'd say, 20 minutes. I'll talk about the biggest learnings I've had in those couple of years.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  And from those biggest learnings, I'll distill down like, what big things I'm going to do to move forward. And at the end of that, I'll say, then I'll start talking about the event or the thing, or even the service, like this could even be a coaching service, that would accelerate that learning for other people. So it's Not even

• 29:08Greg Isenberg?

  Twenty minutes me?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  It's like, it's like twenty minutes my story.

• 29:14Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  It's ten minutes of me discovering something that has helped. So that's like called like the vehicle. I'm discovering the vehicle. So in my case, it could even just be funnels because funnels can help me to not have to be owned by my business if I know I can switch something on and make money. So it's like twenty minutes, my story and the problems. Ten to fifteen minutes, the vehicle. So me discovering the thing that could even be meditation, that could be climbing, that could be whatever. Then it's like another, maybe twenty minutes, we'll add it up at the end of using this vehicle and why it was so valuable and useful to me.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Then I give people two options. You can go on the same journey I did by learning all these things. It will take you this much time or come hang out with me and you'll just learn it faster. That's kind of the two options at the end.

• 30:14Greg Isenberg?

  Cool, I'm actually gonna erase it just because it's making it too complicated, the funnel, but I will include in the show notes of this disc, of of this episode, notes from this episode where we'll, people can go and access that.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  I can tell you also like, okay, we've got two, we've got two webinars coming up for two different clients. They're always almost the same structure because they're always like, Jonathan, what should, but what do we do on the live training? And I'm like, alright guys. So both are launching a new product. One is, and and both are launching almost sequels to their previous product. So they had something and they're, they're launching new things. So in both cases, I will say, first, talk about the, why you created the first product? Like, why did you create it? What problems were you having? What was the journey? Now talk about, in the meantime, since you created that product, what were the things

• 31:09Speaker 01

  you realized about that product that are no longer working for you as you've developed and and become better at what? You've done. Cool. Talk about that for a while. Now, what are the things that have you've discovered that have improved and helped you on the new part of your journey? And I'm going to give you an exact example in a second. And now talk about, well, there's a gap between the thing you've created. And now the thing that you would need to have existed for you to get to this point. And that's the new product. An example is I'm learning, I'm doing climbing, bouldering. It's like a bouldering, whatever. Climbing, indoor climbing, that's probably the easiest thing that it's called.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  So I'm currently one year into learning indoor climbing and I'm completely stuck. And what always happens when I get stuck is I try a million different things to get past that point. I'm currently watching loads of YouTube videos. I am this, this, this, this, this. But I have a very strong feeling what's going to happen is now I've booked a coach. This coach will probably be able to tell me like, oh yeah, no, you need to move your leg a little bit like this and this and this and this. And that will have like completely short circuited the entire process of learning. Like me doing it by myself might have taken another year for me to go up one grade. With a coach, it might take me another two weeks to go up one grade.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  And so if I were telling the story, if I were later trying to sell coaching like for climbing for some reason. I would just tell the story of if I was the coach, I had this client who was stuck on grade five B. Don't laugh at me if you actually know climbing. Five B for six months, he tried all of this, he bought new shoes, he kept spending loads of money on it. Eventually he was giving up, he wasn't having any more fun with it. Then we met and I realized actually it was just this one thing.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  That's why it's better to get a coach than sometimes than trying to learn everything yourself. So webinars are just always about showing this gap between where you think your audience is. Where you'd like them to be. And because you're usually there where they want to be. What needs to go into this gap to bring them over there as fast as possible? And webinars are mostly that in a nutshell.

• 33:33Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, let's finish this funnel. And then after we finish this funnel, I want to talk about is this. When I think of funnels like this, I think of info products and you know me, I'm more of a software guy. So can you use funnels like this to spin up apps and spin up SaaS products and sell via webinars? We can talk about that at the end, but I want to finish this funnel.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Okay, so this funnel is basically list to live training to paid live event.

• 34:04Greg Isenberg?

  Paid? You charge for it?

• 34:06Speaker 01

  No, well, the live training is the webinar. That's free, but then I sell them a live event. Or, so like there's two arrows coming off the live training, actually a paid live event. And actually, there's an arrow after this, which is one-on-one coaching.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Okay, actually, let me tell you then, this one-on-one coaching is actually more like advising with a cut of profit. So that's like, how it works is someone listens to my podcast or reads my blog. They come to a free training, then some of them come to a paid event, then some of those people who have companies that are making over a million end up being part of our partners program where we take a cut of their business. So it's like, it's a funnel, it's also not a common funnel you people use for almost a getting a cut of someone's company process.

• 35:01Greg Isenberg?

  You people? Are you talking about Americans here? What are you saying?

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Did I say you people?

• 35:07Greg Isenberg?

  That's what I heard.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  I don't even remember what I said. No, I said, it's not a funnel that people commonly think of when it like, I actually can't remember what I said, actually.

• 35:18Greg Isenberg?

  You said, you said you people. I don't know if you're talking.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  You people. That's what I meant. That's what I meant. You people. Yeah. But it's like, people don't generally, when someone's thinking, oh, I want to start a business, I want to be an advisor and take equity in companies, they're not thinking, that's the exact type of thing people would think funnels doesn't work for, but it does work very well.

• 35:41Greg Isenberg?

  So I actually, to me, that's like the most interesting piece of that, this whole funnel, to be, to be honest, like the. I mean, isn't that similar to Alex Hermosy's funnel? Like, he ultimately partners. I mean, actually, he does. He has this funnel now that I'm thinking about it.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  I think so, yeah. I don't know so much. I know he takes like, I actually don't know exactly what his funnel is, but I'm sure it's also highly optimized for whatever is at the end of that funnel.

• 36:11Greg Isenberg?

  I also know that he is and was a Russell Brunson guy.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Yes, and I'm sure he has more than 2,500 subscribers.

• 36:20Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I think, I think what he does is he sells paid IRL events in Las Vegas. I think it's $5,000 or something like that. And then he buys pieces of companies.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  So like, literally takes ownership in the companies.

• 36:40Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  I mean, that's also really smart because what I like about that is you get to test out whether this person is worth being your advisor or not. You get like, almost like a free, a low cost trial of them being your advisor. So like, this is my very small funnel for getting advisory gigs, basically.

• 37:06Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, that's cool.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  You asked about SAS, a SaaS, software as a service funnel. I mean, I think this is just a class, this is just a very basic, fundamental way of selling things. It's doing a demonstration of the thing you have. But like, actually, thinking of Alex Hermosy, he has this product called Skool, S-K-O-O-L. And that's a software. Would you consider that software as a service?

• 37:39Greg Isenberg?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  I mean, they're using the classic challenge funnel to fill up school and get people creating new schools and paying for new schools. All the time and they use a webinar at the very top of that challenge funnel.

• 37:54Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, explain what a classic challenge funnel is.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  It's it's one of the most common types of funnels and it's actually kind of genius. A lot of, so the structure of a challenge funnel is basically you ask someone to join a 30 day challenge and this could be like a challenge to lose weight. Once I explain this, you'll see them everywhere. It could be to lose weight. It could be to like get all your taxes organized. It could be getting your first customers, whatever it is. There's lots of 30 day challenges or 10 day challenges that you've probably seen before. And how these are used is most of the time they're free, but sometimes you actually have to pay for them, like $100 for

• 38:42Speaker 01

  a 30 day challenge. It's like every single day you have live coaches helping you with the challenge. So let's say it was a, pick like a software that we would try to fill up and I'll just come up with an example.

• 38:59Greg Isenberg?

  Notion?

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Notion, okay. So the 30 day challenge for Notion is we are going to, okay, I'll come, all right. Notion is, for anyone listening, Notion is like a note taking, kind of organizational note taking app?

• 39:16Greg Isenberg?

  For anyone who's listening, they know what Notion is.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  They know what Notion is, all right.

• 39:21Greg Isenberg?

  Don't offend my audience.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  My mom is listening.

• 39:24Greg Isenberg?

  This is, this audience is with it, you know?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Okay, so I am, so Notion hires me to just get way more customers, right? But they don't wanna, they wanna, they've tried everything. They're like scraping the bottom of the barrel of their return on investment in ads. And I'm like, all right, we're gonna do a challenge funnel. Here's what's gonna happen. At the start of January, you're going to do these ads which are going to be about helping people build their second brain. And it's not even going to mention Notion. It's just like how to build your second brain. And we're going to team up with Tiago Forte, the guy who wrote the second brain book. And what we're going to do is a 30 day challenge. We're going to try to get as many people signed up as possible. It's going to be free plus a free trial of Notion and a free 30 day trial of Notion.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  And over the next 30 days, for, you know, a couple of hours per week, Tiago and multiple different people who are very good at this topic are going to help like hundreds of people in your audience and thousands of people from Facebook in this mass challenge to help them build their second brain using Notion. Every one of them gets a free trial of Notion. Of course, they can cancel very easily. Do you believe some people? Number one, lots of people will learn how to use Notion who never had any reason to use it. Number two, lots of people will get a lot of excitement and fun out of it and actually build something valuable for themselves.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Number three, you're going to get a shitload of people now paying for Notion after that point. So a challenge funnel is simply letting someone use your product, creating a fun challenge around what do you think some people might want to use that product for? And then X amount of people don't cancel after the free trial because they want to actually use the product. That's a challenge funnel. They're used all the time. You just don't see them because they're not, they don't call it a challenge funnel.

• 41:27Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. And I think the ones that work the best are when people are most susceptible to the challenge, right? So like, you know, January, New Year, you know, people think about weight loss, 30 day weight loss challenge, for example.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:48Greg Isenberg?

  Would work better in January than in August.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. But I bet I could come up with a challenge funnel for every month of the year.

• 41:56Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  I think if you just kept giving me different pieces of software in different times of the year. I could create a challenge funnel for them regardless, but I mean, it's obviously easier. The January is so easy, but building a second brain, you could almost do any time of the year. Like, spring cleaning could be another topic for, for a lot of people. And then there's probably products, like, I am now currently advising.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  It's going to be obvious. A product, I'm, I'm currently advising a product which I'll just say the name of it to you, just so we know what we're talking about.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, something like that. Anyway, it's a, it's a product that teaches you something over.

• 42:44Greg Isenberg?

  You want to, you want us to.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, please, please block that out. Yeah, that would be very important, actually.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  The reason is it's like an NDA to the max for now. But this product is, is a very simple challenge. They say, they tell me, we need to increase our monthly active users by a hundred percent by the end of the year. And so for me, like, a challenge funnel is a great way to start a project like that, because you just get this massive influx of people. And especially, it's, so I'll, I'll ask them, they, they said they have like 40,000 people on their list. And I'm like, okay, so how many monthly active users do you have? We have like, I don't know, 500. I'm like, okay, so we've got most of the people on your list have not been activated yet. And in many cases, it's because they don't really know why this product is really useful.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  And a challenge can be a fun and useful way to get people actually into some routine of using the product. And then they don't want to, and some of them won't want to not use it anymore then.

• 43:51Greg Isenberg?

  I like it.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Challenge funnels are great. I don't do enough of them. I mean, we don't do enough of them at AJ and Smart because they're like, kind of hard to set up and a little bit tricky to run. But they're very explosive from a growth perspective.

• 44:07Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I like it a lot. I'm just, I think that in like Silicon Valley.

• 44:13Greg Isenberg?

  Startups, let's say, they don't use things like that as often as they should.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  It's just because it's mostly, most of these things are used in really cheesy products, you know? But sometimes you see these products like crossing from cheesy into non-cheesy and like cool. Like AG1 was kind of one of those, you know, was more on that funnel-y side of things.

• 44:38Greg Isenberg?

  Right.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Now it's like a cool thing. But like I showed you also during Black Friday, a lot of very cool and hip products use funnels. They just, you just don't realize it because they're kind of behind, they like, they look nicer, basically.

• 44:55Greg Isenberg?

  Right. That's the dream, that's the dream, that's where you want to get to. What else, what else, is there anything else you wanted to talk about today?

• 45:04Speaker 01

  I mean, all I'm doing is making funnels.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  I'm trying to think, is there any other, like honestly, if you have a list and if you've ever, okay, if you're someone who's listening to this and you have a list and you have a, maybe a blog, whatever it is, you have some content thing and you've ever tried to make an event or sell something and it just didn't work. If you just emailed everybody or if you just posted about it, it's not supposed, it shouldn't have worked. It's unlikely that it will work without this middle warming up step. And I think this warming up step can be a challenge. It can just be a training. Call it like places like Stanford use something called info sessions. If you go to their website where you can like sign up for a session where they'll show you what it's like to, you know, do their courses and whatever, the executive education courses.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  I think we expect people to just buy our thing just because we mentioned it or email them. Whereas most of the time, I think in practice, you need to have this middle step to get people warmed up and excited enough to actually spend their money. And for me, that's where webinars, challenges, these types of things come in.

• 46:19Greg Isenberg?

  Beautiful episode.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  I don't know if I have anything else.

• 46:22Greg Isenberg?

  That's perfect. No, I think that's great.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  I'm really sorry for all that beeping that I'm asking for. I know that's probably annoying for your team and I don't want to be like fake mysterious. It's just that I I know now that my clients listen to this podcast because Alan, hello Alan, one of my clients was like, oh, I was listening to Greg's podcast and you mentioned me and I'm like, oh shit.

• 46:45Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, no worries.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Apparently your podcast isn't a secret.

• 46:50Greg Isenberg?

  Despite how low budget my studio looks.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  I love it. I love that you even started writing on it and everything.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 47:01Greg Isenberg?

  I'm like, is this marker gonna work that I got at the dollar store?

• 47:06Speaker 01

  I think it looks amazing, dude. It's it's beautiful. The Startup Ideas Podcast. Look at, look at how well even the the you can, it feels like you wrote Startup Ideas Podcast and then you kind of realized there's a the and added that in later.

• 47:20Greg Isenberg?

  Exactly.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Is that what happened?

• 47:21Greg Isenberg?

  Oh my God, I forgot the name of my own podcast.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  I'll end it on one question for you. Not that I can end your podcast, but it seemed like you were about to end it. Do you have a favorite product of 2024?

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Or most useful?

• 47:39Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 47:43Greg Isenberg?

  For, you know, people of the pod know I like to sip, you know, I'm a sipper.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  You do like to sip a lot.

• 47:49Greg Isenberg?

  I like the, it's called, it's a, I'm sure a lot of people know about it, the Fellow, Fellow Products brand.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  I love, I have, I have so many Fellow products.

• 48:02Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  I love them.

• 48:05Greg Isenberg?

  So they have a kettle. I don't have the, like, there's one kettle with, like, here, I can try, share my screen.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure I have the exact kettle you're about to share.

• 48:15Greg Isenberg?

  No, I don't think so.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  No?

• 48:17Greg Isenberg?

  I don't think so.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  I have that exactly.

• 48:18Greg Isenberg?

  You probably have this kettle, right?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.

• 48:20Greg Isenberg?

  I knew it. You're so European.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Is that the loser one?

• 48:25Greg Isenberg?

  No, no, no. There's the European one, which is the EKG electric kettle. And then there's the American one with like.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  What do you mean European and American?

• 48:36Greg Isenberg?

  I'm kidding. I'm actually joking.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  It's because it's like, eee, it's all fancy and European.

• 48:44Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, this is like this. Look at it. Look how fancy that spout is. And look how

• 48:50Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 48:51Greg Isenberg?

  Look how like to the point this spout is.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Chunked.

• 48:56Greg Isenberg?

  Chunked out. So this one has been really great because just being able to set it to I want it at this 175 degrees Fahrenheit or whatever it is.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:07Greg Isenberg?

  Is is a no brainer. Oh, it looks like they even have refer just refurbished ones. You can get one for 132 bucks.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Fuck that. Don't buy those.

• 49:16Greg Isenberg?

  The ones that don't work. No, but I mean, honestly, it's not worth it.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you gotta have a fresh one. I like the white looking one, but it doesn't fit in with all my other fellow stuff. They also have very nice water bottles, the fellow crew.

• 49:29Greg Isenberg?

  Oh, water bottles, really? Like

• 49:32Speaker 01

  I have this Kate Carter Curry water bottle. I've got two of those. They have this. Did you see their new coffee maker?

• 49:39Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I want to buy it. So I'm gonna get I really want to get it.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  The Al Aiden, whatever.

• 49:45Greg Isenberg?

  Let's look at it for a second. Is it Aiden?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  So I have a Mocha Master and I love how it looks, but this seems cool.

• 49:55Greg Isenberg?

  This looks so cool.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  I know.

• 49:59Greg Isenberg?

  It looks so cool.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Do you use milk in your coffee?

• 50:04Greg Isenberg?

  I do use milk in my coffee.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  So I like for years didn't use milk because it, you know, it's you taste everything and everything and it's like all fancy. But I get such bad heartburn, like acid reflux when I don't put milk in. So now I'm like, these machines are kind of pointless if you're going to use milk.

• 50:26Greg Isenberg?

  Why?

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Because that's what fancy coffee people say. You don't even you're just tasting like the milk then.

• 50:32Greg Isenberg?

  No, no, no. First of all. Even even if you didn't even drink the coffee, looking at this machine every day is a vibe.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  It's absolutely a vibe.

• 50:42Greg Isenberg?

  So that's number one.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:45Greg Isenberg?

  Number two, don't let anyone tell you, people listening, don't let anyone tell you how to drink your coffee.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Except for me.

• 50:54Greg Isenberg?

  Don't know, especially a funnel guy. Don't let the funnel guy tell you.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Hey, funnels are a big part of coffee making. You put it down a funnel and then have you seen this? Beauty.

• 51:07Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, that's the uh.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  The OPXY.

• 51:13Greg Isenberg?

  So that's to make music?

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so great.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Wait.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  I don't know how much you can actually hear.

• 51:23Greg Isenberg?

  We can hear it perfect.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, really?

• 51:25Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Let's do.

• 51:27Greg Isenberg?

  Much, much to my chagrin, we can hear it.

• 51:33Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, we gotta end the podcast. Thank you for listening, everyone.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Three hours.

• 51:39Greg Isenberg?

  It's been fun. Later, dude.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  All right, Greg. See you later, man.