How Does Watching Movies IN REVERSE Help You Become a Better Entrepreneur?

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What's up, everybody? Eric Beer here and welcome to the Performance Marketer Podcast. Today, we are going to ask ourselves a question. And the question is "What does starting a business have in common with watching a movie in reverse?" So listen to the intro, and then I'll give you the answer when we get back.

I spent the last 17 years building my eight-figure performance business without using any of my own money, working with some of the most brilliant direct response marketers in the world today. Now I'm looking for entrepreneurs to join my affiliate army, built on ethics, transparency, and good old hard work. Join me to change the perception of how people view the greatest business in the world, affiliate marketing, and follow along, as I learn, apply, and share performance marketing strategies for working with some of the brightest people on the planet. My name is Eric Beer, and welcome to the Performance Marketer Podcast.

So the question is, what is starting a business and watch a movie in reverse have in common? Well, has anybody ever seen a movie a few times where they know exactly what happens and they can see scene for scene to the point where if you started from the end and rewind it, you'd be able to know every scene from the end all the way to the front? Or if you've ever watched and seen the movie, and you know what's going to happen, but you still watch it 25 times. Right? You know the ending, but you love to watch the journey, you love to see how they get there. And that got me really thinking when I... When I started thinking about how I started my business when I had to write this book. And I had to go all the way back from the days of starting to where I am today and sort of write this story myself. And after doing that, I was realizing a lot of things about how lucky I am where I got because I didn't have a plan. I didn't know what I was doing. Certainly in the beginning, it was just... Just go at it and, you know, thankfully, things worked out, right? But so, as I start to go on today in my business and anybody that's listening, and paying attention, what's going on me knows I, you know, have my company Universal, and we work and we kill it and it's fun, and I love it. But in parallel, I'm building SurveyDetective, which is a survey platform. So software, where ultimately I'm trying to create this platform to do what I do every day, what I've been doing for years, but in a way where I simplify it where an entrepreneur and marketer can come in. And they can easily without having to have any tech skills or spend hours, create their surveys and and get the result they want, right generate leads, cold leads, go out to the world generate cold leads and convert customers. And I was showering the other day. And I hear Ali in the other room screaming "I'm in the book, I'm your rock!" So like I kind of laugh and and it means that she she finally read the book, right? But then that got us talking because we don't really talk about work that much. And she started asking me a bunch of questions like "How's work? What are you working on?" And then she asked me like, "What's going on SurveyDetective?" And she's like, "When is it going to start?" And I thought about it. And you know, we're going since the developer phase. We're with the UI, the UX. And I realized, I can't give her an exact date. I know we're doing things. I mean, I see it. It's amazing. But like, holy cow, I really don't have a roadmap, right? Like, I invested in crypto, I really got into crypto punching years ago. And as I started to learn about the space, Bitcoin, V Chain, my favorite one Carddano, Stellar, Ripple, Chainlink is a theory and they all have one thing in common. If you go to their sites, when they're trying to get all these investors. They all have this roadmap, where they show you from the start all the way to the end their plan of what they want to get done. And if you're going to invest in something you want to know, okay, great. Well, if it's not there, how you gonna get there? What's the steps? When's it gonna happen? All that good jazz, right? And I know my ending of SurveyDetective, I know exactly what the ending looks like. I know what the end of SurveyDetective movie looks like. But I don't have my scenes laid out. I don't have a roadmap. I know, the UI UX guys, the programmers that everybody involved, are, they're working. They're working hard and we're getting things done. Got a lot of awesome things done, right like, right these things where it's pre built surveys, right? I have this email sequence where it's already created for you, you just got to put some things in about your business. And it's and it's spits out a total email sequence for you at the end, I can generate the front end hooks for you, I can write scripts for you, you know, like I can give you pre made templates that you just kind of tweak a little bit, and it's yours, right, the idea of getting it fast, but like, still, at the end of the day, it's not getting me to the end result, a lot of these things are, are great, and they're going to get me to the end of my movie. But every movie has these different seats, and every scene should have its own result, to get to the end, building up the plot. And in my plot, I need to focus on the shorter term goals of what I need to get done to attain my longer term goals. So it's like, the Epiphany is, we're working our butts off. But a lot of things we're doing which are amazing, aren't really needed to get to where I want for my phase one, would it be great to have it? Absolutely. Would I love to have hundreds of 1000s of subscribers? Absolutely. But you don't start at 100,000 subscribers, right? If you look at the movie to get there, there's going to be a time where it's 50,000 subscribers, and then 25,010 1000, right and one customer, and there's going to be that story. That's like how we got started all the way to when he was successful, right? It's like, looking at like Mark Zuckerberg story when you watch the movie, and Facebook, how he went to college. And it's really cool watching how it develops. We all know that Mark Zuckerberg, we all know what Facebook is and how successful he is. But we all wanted to know, how did he get there? Like, what was the what was the journey? What was the process to get to where he is today. And that's really interesting. And any entrepreneur would love to watch this and see it. And I know for me, I love that stuff. It just, it helps me break down understand how to get to these goals that look amazing. And you're making hundreds of millions of dollars? Well, there's a movie to that there's a start all the way to the end. That's a roadmap, right? And for me, as I started to ask myself these questions, and I realized that if I'm going to do this, well, I got to start with what what do I want? What What is that short term goal? What is the short term goal that I want to attain right now. And once I understood that, now, I can work from there, and go and reverse for wind my movie, and be able to lay out all the things that are needed to get to that phase one result and phase two result? phase three, phase four, right? And as I'm building the roadmap, it's it's able to help me create a plan that I would then be able to look at and say, Oh, well, I think this should be done by this date. This should be done by that date. And oh, it's looking like a January 5 is when we're going to have this ready. Right? February 1, one, we're gonna have this ready. Could we miss it a deadline? Sure. It happens, things come up, right all the time. But the concept is, if every person on their team knows their role, right in the crypto roadmaps, if you go on to some of these sites, and you look at car, dinos, they have these, they show the people that are developing it, they show the scope of work for each of the of them in process of the beginning of the foundation all the way to the end. And it's really cool, like you get to see, like how it's developing, and how they're building these things. And they're not done, but you could see how they laid it out, then you could look at, oh, what did they accomplish? And that's the things that I've realized, for me, is what needs to happen. And I know the answers, right? It's just working from what do I want to how do I get there? So like, the message for you guys out there that you entrepreneurs who are out there hustling, and maybe you're struggling a little bit like me, is, whatever you doing? You got to think to yourself, what do I want the end goal to be? What is the result that I want to happen for me to now end up doing this? Right? Because what's happening is you're doing all these things, and you're working, right and you don't even know necessarily what you're doing. Right? But you're getting things done and it's awesome. But like, you're still just not getting to the end, right? Like I see entrepreneurs all the time when I'm when I'm talking to them about you know how they're starting their business and I'll hear somebody say, Yo, I'm going to write a book first, you know, but not for them. To sell the book, but for them to have the free plus shipping offer on the front end, well, you don't have a business yet. So like, it's great, you want to write a book, but you can't start with this front end, lead magnet before you know what it is you're trying to get them to do at the end. When I'm building surveys, right, I see people that are using surveys or quizzes or assessments. And you know, they'll, they'll come in and they want to build out and they'll start thinking about what's the theme? Or the hook of their survey? Right? Or what kind of questions should they be asking? You know, where are they going to send them afterwards? What's going to happen? And I'll tell you guys a little secret, as I build out my framework, my process, and I start thinking about what I do, and the results that I've gotten, by using surveys and how I start every single survey that I ever built. And it's a little secret, but I'm going to tell just you guys, which is I always asked myself, What is the goal of the survey? What do I want them to do? Do I want to drive a phone call to an application so that somebody can sign up for something that's a $10,000 product? Or am I looking to get somebody to sign up for a challenge, or buy a guide, right, where they're going to do it online, versus if somebody's going to, you know, put their phone number in. And then I want to get them into some SMS sequence of events, that is going to be sent to the users over a period of 10 days, whatever that goal is, right? That's the the goal of what I want to accomplish when I get to the end. So I'm working backwards of how do I get them there. And that helps me with all of the things in front of what I'm going to build, to make it relatable to what the end goal is. So, guys, my message for you is, if you're if you're struggling, if you're not getting what you want, if you're not in the place where you want to, or, you know, if I ask you, you know, how is your business where, you know, it's great, you know, it's good, I'm working on this, but you know, I'm not really there yet. You guys got to stop and think about, what is it that you want? What is it that you're looking to get at the end of whatever it is you're doing? What is it that your movie looks like, when it's over, and you're going to surprise yourself, because if you start to look at the end game, and then you start to work in reverse, you're starting to rewind your movie, you're gonna start to be able to identify what needs to happen to get there. And then you can look at what you've been doing. And maybe you realize, man, you know, it's great that I'm doing that, but it's not going to get me to where I want to be. And the thing is, is, you know, how your movie ends, you know, what you want, you just have to work in reverse. And that's the key guys, the key anytime I've ever been successful. And when I looked at when I was writing my book, you know, when I think back of the years to get to where I am today. I kind of laugh because, you know, I definitely did this, I definitely knew what I wanted. And there's not a question about that. And the times that I was successful, there was a method to the madness, so to speak. But I definitely didn't do it the way I should be doing it today. And I think back to the times when I go through all of the failures. And I'll tell you, there's a ton of failures, I promise there's, there's a good four or five major things that I've spent some some good money on that didn't work. And then there's those little things that I do on a day, day in day out monthly, where I'm testing things that just don't work. And I think about it in a way that most of the time when, when I'm working on those big projects that didn't succeed. And I've got some really cool technology I've got, I've got a technology that can be put onto a site and it will scan all the content, and then pull that content into a platform and allow you then to hyperlink any of those those words and make it clickable. Right? So you could use it for just navigating somebody site by being able to find those words or using it as a marketing tool to use advertising and create like an RTB platform. All these things that are awesome. Never happened, right? Because I didn't start with an end game of what is it I actually want to do with this technology. I have another technology where I'm able to take a badge, right I built this from my social media business where originally and the badge goes on to a site And within the badge is something called ad back where we drop cookies. And then it gives us the ability to retarget anybody that lands on that page. So when you think about all the ways you can use that and think about it as an influencer has 100,000 people coming to their page, reading about that new dress, or the shoes that are coming out, and now you're able to pixel them identify that they read that specific article. And now, if that's linked up to Facebook, you can retarget those users, right? It's all amazing, right? We I came up with this whole thing of different slangs of like, was like content to conversations to conversions, right, like, you know, all cool, fun stuff. But at the end of the day, I didn't have the end result of how I was gonna run that business. So I have it, it's there. And I never really made something massive of it, we used it a little bit. And you know, I made a few bucks with it, using it with some dmps. You know, like, the ability to monetize the data in like these exchanges. But it never became what I what I dreamed of it to become, I have a reward site that had members and the members come in. And I know exactly what needs to happen. I know all of the things. But I never, I never sat down and had that roadmap, I built a technology, I'm able to reward users for taking actions, I have an extension, where I can, you know, take over your tab. And what we do is we allow you to organize all of your icons, right? It's, it's great, it's awesome. Like I still, you know, we just build stuff, it's fun, we love it. But still, it just never really took off. And it was because of we didn't do a good job building it. And things are amazing, right? It was we didn't have a plan. We didn't start from Alright, well, I'm gonna build this thing. But I'm doing it because this is the result that I want to get. This is the plan. And this is what I'm going to do to get to that plan. So that's the stuff that I'm talking about, right? Like, I have a click x business, where it's all about, it's like a search, exchange. And that business is booming. And it's booming, because we know what we need to do. And now we work in reverse to figure out what types of products we're going to build to get them to the end result. And we don't build the products, and then figure out what are we going to do with them. Right. And I've made that mistake. But that's that's what happens. You know, when you're going through building your life, your business and for all you entrepreneurs out there, like Fast Track your mistakes, learn from from from someone like me that you don't just build products. And maybe you get lucky here or there. You don't build front end, lead magnets and all kinds of fun, low ticket items. Unless you know what the reason is that you're doing it where you want to take the user, what's your core offer? What is the thing that you want to sell? Why is it that you're building that you don't build that first you have your core offer, you have your result you have whatever it is that you want to do at the end of your movie. And now you figure out how you're going to get there? How are you going to get people there, all the different products you're going to build to get to that end result. And so if there's anything I can do for for you today, it is to make you take a step back and think about it and say, well, what's the end game for me? What is the what is my movie ending look like? And that'll help you with building out a roadmap for your business. And it'll tell you what you need to do. And in the order that you do it, right. We're doing a ton of stuff with SurveyDetective. But things are out of order this there's things happening that I'm building, that are going to be unbelievable when I have 100,000 users, and that's great. It's all great. But that shouldn't be what we're doing now. We shouldn't be working on that. Now. We work on that later. Right? What do I need to do now to get to the end game of my short term goal of launching this thing? And, you know, when I start to think about that, I start to now backtrack, and now I'm like, Alright, well, let's push this aside. Let's I want that. But let's, let's do that later. And here's the things that we need to do to get done. And let's start from here. And let's get to where we want to be, which is, you know, the first launch where people are using it. And this is the 2.0 version, right? We already have a 1.0 version, but I'm just trying to give you guys some examples of things that of how you go about it, right? Like if I were to build a business today, start a business right? SurveyDetective is me starting a bit. You guys are seeing me build that business. I'm talking about it. The reason why I'm talking about it is because I want people to know that when I launch that, Oh, I know it SurveyDetective is it's a survey platform. It's great it's for for entrepreneurs and marketers, that is really easy. It's got pre built surveys, it'll take you less than 30 minutes to able to come in, build a survey, and be able to generate leads, and kill it, generate tons of cold leads, cast a wide a wide net out into the Internet, and then be able to nurture them, and then convert them into customers. Or maybe you want to just start a lead gen business. But the whole point is, the reason why I keep on bringing this up, is because I want people to know about it. Right? I want you I want it to be in your your mind that this tool that's not out there. Okay, it's not out there, not the way that I'm doing it. I mean, I've been in the direct response space for a very long time I've been generating leads for a very long time. The wet like, it's, it's, it's crazy, because the way that I'm thinking about it is like making me my brain like I know how to do it. But to be able to simplify it and back it out into very simple, digestible content is not easy. It's, it's really not I could sit down and tell you everything, right? What usually happens is I end up running people over when I start to explain it to them, because I just go way too deep. I talk way too fast. And then I just go from from A to Z, and they're like, Oh, my God, like, they, they realize like, Oh, this guy knows what he's talking about. But like, he just like, barreled me over. Right? And now I realize that. And it's funny, I laugh at it all the time. But like, that's the stuff that I'm doing now. So like for me, when I'm when I'm trying to build out like my trainings, or we're masterclass or a webinar, it's like, Okay, well, let's start from the result of what I do, and then work my way back. Right, I have discovery calls with clients all the time, right to understand their business, so that I can go and build a survey for them, build a campaign for them, figure out what it is I'm going to be doing. Right now we start with, what is the goal? Like what am I doing at the end of this survey? Do these people want clicks? Do they want views? Do they want somebody to buy something? What is it? What are we doing? Right? And then understanding about the business so that I can now start to work my way backwards? Right? Understanding the who and all that good jazz, and then you start to build. So I just thought it was it was it was helpful to come out here and tell you guys that because I see people making the mistake, I'm still making that mistake today. And I you know, I just have to kind of like, hello. Like, when Allie asked me that. It was like it just, it was like, oh, my goodness, I don't have a roadmap, right? Like, I can't really put a stake in the sand and tell you that. And I need to be able to do that. And it's good. It's it was a good wake up call for me. And I wanted to put that out there for you guys that are a lot of really smart people, I see tons of really smart people that are struggling, because they just can't put it together. They don't really know all of their parts and step by step by step. And I just, I think it's because you're starting from the beginning. And you're trying to figure out how to get to the end goal, which I want to make money. Of course, everybody wants to make money. But what is it that you actually want to happen? Do you want people to walk into your to your office, if you're a dentist or a chiropractor, so that you can start to generate new customers? Great. So let's start to work backwards. Where does that start? Like what do you need? How do you grab somebody's attention? And then get them through the process to get into your office? And if you're somebody that's selling something on the phone, a high ticket? Well, okay, great. If you're going to sell a $10,000 product, well, you're not going to close them day one, there's no way you're going to find some stranger who doesn't know anything about you or your business. And they're going to take out their their credit card and spend 10 k on you, because they don't know the value that you bring to the table yet. You need to show them, you need to be an authority, you need to get them to consume your content, right? So you're going to need if you're using a survey, you're going to need time from when they complete the survey, because we're going and we're finding cold leads to when you can start to try to sell them right. So maybe send them to a webinar, right after the survey, and you got a good hour that you have their attention and they go right into you explaining your three secrets, going into the values and the results and you do a bang job, right? Maybe you got them to sign up. Or maybe because you realize that it's a $10,000 program. Maybe you get them into a challenge first, or buying maybe an ebook or a guide or something that is going to start the selling process for you. But you can't do anything. Until you know what it is you want at the end, you got to know how you're going to take that user to the end. And that all starts from, well, what ebook? Am I going to give them? I don't know. What is it? I'm doing over here? What's the end goal? Right? If I'm, if I'm teaching people how to play poker, well, then, okay, let's start from here. Well, then what kind of ebook? Would I want something around poker, right? Something that would be a value to poker players, that they would be interested in getting maybe a checklist, right? strategies, whatever that is, that would start the process to get them to where they get me to be teaching them how to play poker, and when, right and when not just play poker. And when the results, I don't want to just play poker and lose money, I want to play poker and win. So you know, guys, that's the message for today. That is how you look at starting a business is how you have something in common with the end of a movie, rewinding a movie. And I'll tell you, if you ever want to do it, it's pretty interesting. Go watch a movie but start with watching the last 20 minutes of the movie, and then turn it off after it's over and go and start it from the beginning. And now what's really cool, I used to do that one as a kid, because I would go to a movie, I mean, my friends would want to see two movies in a day or three movies a day. So we go to a movie, then we'd kind of sneak into another theater. And we'd catch like the last 30 minutes of the movie. And I had no idea what just happened other than I just saw the 30 minutes from the awesome, like "holy cow" to the end. Right? Then I go back and see the movie again and I know what happens. I know the ending. But the dynamic of watching how it unravels, it's just amazing to me! It's like... It's like mind blowing! It's like, well, okay, the person, you know, ended up here buying this crazy yacht. But how did they get there? And what was the journey they took to get to that spot. And that's what's really cool. Right? If you guys are are struggling and you want to do something in your space, and you don't even know really what the result is, well find somebody that is successful in your space. Try to understand their story. And I promise you there's a roadmap for them on where they were where you were at one point in time. And what are they doing? What is their business like today? If you are somebody that bought into a mastermind for $50k, well think about when you did that, what was the first thing that got you started so that you can know who that was to a point where then you ended up paying 50 grand to be in a mastermind. Were you listening to the podcast. Did you see some videos? Did a friend introduce you to them? What was it that got your mind? Right? They didn't start that for their business. You don't just start a podcast until you know whatever it is that you're going to be talking about, and what the end result is. Right? For your business. So that's the message for today, guys. I hope this was helpful. As always, if you have any questions reach out, but yeah, otherwise, you know, subscribe to this if you're not so you can get all the episodes when they come out and in your podcast. If you're watching this on YouTube, subscribe to our YouTube channel, so you can see all the content that we're putting out there. And other than that, work hard and get going, just do it guys. Believe in yourself as I believe in you. Alright guys, have a good.

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