Josh: Man, I’m fired up to be here.

John: Yes!

Josh: You know I’d walk through fire just to be at this interview so thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

John: Love it.

And Fire Nation, Josh and his company specialize in online sales funnels, the most critical process for business stability and growth, and for that, I can vouch.

He has personally been trained by Ryan Deiss, Ryan Levesque and several other industry experts and he is also a single father to Benjamin. He’s an adventure seeker, fitness junkie and a daredevil to boot. Wow!

Josh, take a minute. Fill in some gaps from that intro and give us a little glimpse of your personal life.

Josh: Sure. You know, so I started my business back in early 2013. I just got laid off from Infusionsoft and I was at Infusionsoft throughout 2012. And before that, you know, I had a good, stable career for seven years at University of Phoenix, where I was making nearly six figures. You know, I was winning awards. I was doing well.

But, you know, at the end of 2012, things started to kind of slip and, you know, I had some adversity – you know, being let go at Infusionsoft. And at that moment, I decided to do some, like, freelance marketing work and that was my first foray into making money on my own and not counting on a company. And so, that was basically me validating the market.

And I did start at another job about a month later and that didn’t work out because they gave me an ultimatum. They said that I would have to change my schedule with my son in order to stay at the company. And, you know – so that was an easy decision to say goodbye to that.

John: Yeah.

Josh: But I still had to take a second and figure out, logically, how I was going to do it. And it was at that moment that I finally, like, sat down. I was, like, you know what? I’m gonna do this full time. I had a little bit of freelance work on the side still and I’m just going to dive in to entrepreneurship. I’m gonna make this business work. And I just, you know, took off from there and I’ve been growing it year after year ever since.

John: Now, Josh, we’ve known each other for actually quite some time now. I mean, can you kind of maybe share how you first entered the EOFire universe and kind of, like, what you’ve been on as a trajectory since then a little bit?

Josh: Man, you know – Honestly, man, you have been an inspiration to a lot of people but, you know, you’ve definitely been an inspiration to me.

John: Well, thank you.

Josh: You’ve given me something, you know, to kind of reach for and, you know, I first listened to Entrepreneur On Fire when I first dove into podcasts. I think it was back in 2014 is when I really started to get into podcasts. And you were one of the first ones I listened to and I immediately, you know, loved it and listened to pretty much all the episodes. I mean – well, maybe not all of them because you’ve got like 1,200 or something but –

John: 1,600. Wow. You’re behind, brother.

Josh: Wow!

John: You gotta get back into my world now.

Josh: I know, man. I haven’t been listening to podcasts much lately. I’ve been just putting my nose down to the grindstone and just getting work done.

But, yeah – I mean, that’s how I came across Entrepreneur On Fire. I just – I was looking to develop myself and get better and better. You know, I think that I’m just a lifelong student. I’m always trying to look for resources that are going to help me get better and better at my craft. And back in 2014, Entrepreneur On Fire was one of those resources. And it’s –

Yeah, like I said, you’ve been inspirational ever since I’ve gotten to know your podcasts and yourself and Kate.

John: Well, brother, I’ve really enjoyed kind of seeing your journey and seeing the people that you’ve aligned yourself with. I mean, having been personally trained by Ryan Deiss and Ryan Levesque and obviously, you know, having, you know, myself be able to kind of look at your business and give you some advice and pointers.

And, you know, then you coming back at us because, you know, you specialize in areas that we need help with, like online sales funnels, etc. It’s been kind of a really cool experience.

And, to your point about how, you know, you don’t really consume podcasts much anymore – that’s the journey, Fire Nation. When I started my journey, I was like 95 percent consumption of content and 5 percent production because I had nothing of value to produce. And I had to learn, learn, learn, learn; that was the consuming side. Then, as the scales tip, you know, you get to, like, 40/60, 50/50, 80/20. And now, I’m at like a, you know – 90 percent of my bandwidth is dedicated to producing content and 10 percent is to consumption.

Now, I’ll never dip below that because I feel like you always need to be consuming on some level. So 10 percent of my time that I spend working and consuming content – that I spend working and using my mental energy is on consuming content. So, always be learning, always make sure you’re doing something to kind of stay razor-edge, to keep your finger on the pulse, because you never know what’s coming next.

Now, Josh, share with us what you consider that area of expertise, which – I’ll actually jump in and say – is online sales funnels. So, what’s like a value bomb that we don’t know about sales funnels that we should know as entrepreneurs?

Josh: Sure. You know, I feel like this is an incredible tip for your audience, John. I mean, to my knowledge, there are many people listening that are new to entrepreneurship, trying to develop their businesses either part time or full time.

And, as early as possible, one critical key to developing a successful business is to create a system that consistently brings in leads and sales so you don’t have to grind trying to find business. So, this is what I feel like is a really good tip for anybody listening to this. When people don’t buy your offer, this is a simple tactic that can increase your conversions drastically or lead you to creating a better offer, since your previous offer wasn’t what people wanted or needed because it wasn’t converting.

So, it’s simply this: Ask your non-buyers why they didn’t buy. With their feedback, do the following:

Make sure that the copy on the sales page is tailored to address the most common questions, concerns and desired benefits that you’re seeing in your feedback.

Also, create a FAQ section that essentially recycles the questions that you had received, along with the answers. Put them into the sales pitch, so you have a section dedicated to addressing those common questions and concerns. Also, carry that over to the order form by including a – like, a bulleted list of features and benefits with the desired benefits being the focal point.

And then, finally, on top of that, include a FAQ badge on the order form that, when they click on it, it triggers a pop-up – so, this way, they don’t leave the order form but it addresses some of those common questions and concerns that come up as they’re about to buy.

On top of that, too, you could automate this entire process if you’re using Infusionsoft or a hybrid of solutions. I mean, SamCart, MailChimp – you know, SamCart ActiveCampaign. You could pretty much do this with any hybrid of solutions. You could automate asking people for feedback if they had not bought the offer that you were promoting to them.

John: Yeah. And I can give you a real-world example about how, like, we improved our funnels. And actually, even hearing what you’ve been saying, I mean – I’m coming up with more ideas right now.

But, you know, one thing that we realized with The Freedom Journal, which is a physical journal – it ain’t cheap to ship this thing internationally. Like, it’s unbelievably, painfully expensive because of import taxes and VAT and just the fact that it’s going overseas, etc. Painful, painful, painful.

So, what happened is, when people go to the check-out and then they abandon their check-out, you know, Shopify marks that. They have a great system for that. We send a follow-up email, like, just a couple hours later that says: Listen, we know that you didn’t buy because of the shipping. That’s why people don’t buy. Like, if you get to the check-out and you don’t buy, it’s because the shipping’s too expensive.

So, guess what. We can’t do anything about that because it’s painful but we have this just-complete digital pack that you can pick up right now. So it’s no – It’s free shipping; no cost on shipping. You can start The Freedom Journal today. You know? It’s a beautiful 100-page fillable PDF. It has the audio version. It comes with the Kindle access to the Facebook group. And, not only are we going to offer it to you for 35 bucks, we’re going to give you a discount if you take action right now – and we offer a promo code.

And that has just really ramped up our international sales. You know, we now have people that are just coming in and buying a Freedom Journal, the digital pack, because, you know, they weren’t going to buy the physical copy because it was just too expensive to ship but they want The Freedom Journal. So, you know, while they’re still in that wanting-to-buy process, you hit them with that email and those conversions can be great.

So the funnels have to be dialed in. I love that FAQ badge. Like, that’s something I actually wrote down that we’re going to have to implement for sure. And I do think that key phrase that you said was “the pop-up”. You know, you don’t want to ever take them off the sales page. Like, you want it just to be right there; keep them on the sales page, hopefully answer your questions, remove the barriers and then – boom! They can move on in and they can take action.

So, let’s kind of move into your Freedom Journal journey. What was your goal and how did you crush it?

Josh: You know, I’m still in the middle of crushing it. But I, you know – I love this thing. I’m holding it right here in my hands –

John: Aww!

Josh: And, you know, I document every single morning. I also document at night, laying in bed at times – or just sitting on my bed, even – just reflecting. And, you know, it’s been really good for me to use this to stay on track towards my goal and let me – I’ll share what my goal is.

So, my goal right now is: We’re about to make a strategic move and start to build out a vertical and really serve a specific vertical. So, in this case, we’re going to really focus on serving the health and fitness business space. But I realized, when I decided that was my goal moving forward, going into 2017 – I realized that in order for me to accomplish it, I have to free up my own time more-so.

I don’t do a whole lot of in-the-middle responsibilities, as far as in my business. I’ve got a good team and my team’s growing but I still do handle some responsibilities that I need to delegate. And so, basically, my goal in The Freedom Journal is to scale myself even further out, hire more people, train those people, get those people on track – filling specific roles that I need to offload off of my own plate – and also really focus on increasing our lead flow too. I mean, we’ve got good lead flow currently but it could be better and we definitely have to have better lead flow to sustain the cash flow needed to support a bigger team.

John: So, just in a sentence or two, how is The Freedom Journal helping you accomplish that goal?

Josh: I’m the type of person that’s like go, go, go and I don’t know how to slow down sometimes. And it’s been good for me because I’ve been able to really just sit down and just eliminate all other distractions, technology – you name it – and just focus on reflecting and learning and just acknowledging the good stuff that just happened. Because I don’t celebrate the small wins, I celebrate the big wins only.

And it’s been good for me because I’ve been able to really acknowledge the steps along the way that have helped me be productive day in, day out. And, on top of that, it allows me to really reflect on lessons that I’ve learned as I’m going through The Freedom Journal that I can apply towards, like, the next day. So it’s been great for that reason.

John: I love your point about “not celebrating the small wins” and, Fire Nation, life is all about the small wins. And if we don’t celebrate those small wins, sometimes we just wake up one day and we’re like, “What am I doing? Is this really worth it?”

But if you’re going throughout every single day and, you know, within The Freedom Journal, every evening we have you share. You know, you actually write down two wonderful things that happened today. So, no matter what it is, you know – you are going to share something that happened that was wonderful today. It’s going to bring you back to reality of, like: Hey, this is a journey. This is the life that I’m living and there are good things that are happening too. Like, you know, maybe I’m not crushing it with sales; maybe I’m not doing this or that; but, you know, I’m doing good things every single day and I’m getting closer to my goal. I just have to keep on truckin’.

So, celebrating those small wins – great point.

And Josh, something that I’ve been able to master over these four years of developing myself as an entrepreneur – I’ve been able to master productivity, discipline and focus. I consider them my three greatest strengths. I’m passionate about continuing to work on them because, even though I’ve mastered them, you know, I still need to get better and better and better. And like, there’s just – It never ends. And that’s a great thing but how do you, as an individual, as an entrepreneur, define productivity?

Josh: So, I feel like productivity is the measurement of getting the right work done in a specific amount of time. In other words, you are productive if you’re working towards your goals by completing tasks in a reasonable amount of time.

John: How do you struggle staying productive?

Josh: I don’t struggle being productive but I do struggle with being productive on the right activities. Like, I’m always working but, you know, I do struggle because I’m wearing multiple hats still, in my business. You know. And, you know, for example – I’ll bring this up.

I recently went hiking with Ryan Levesque, actually, here in Scottsdale, Arizona. And I was kind of just talking to him about where my business is at and, you know, some of the challenges I’m feeling right now. And he basically told me simply that my business is like an airplane going through the clouds right now. And it’s encountering, you know, some bumps along the way but once I get to the top, you know, it starts to smooth out and the experience becomes more smooth.

And so, that’s what I feel like – that’s where I’m at right now in my business and that’s why I do have some struggles from time to time, when it comes to being productive on the right activities, is because of the fact that things are bumpy along the way. So that’s kind of my personal, like, struggle with being productive.

John: Let’s talk about discipline. How do you define that word? What does being disciplined mean to you?

Josh: Well, to me, it, you know, is defined as: staying focused, making the hard decisions, doing what needs to be done – even if you don’t like doing it; that all encompasses discipline to me.

John: I like the Brian Tracy quote, “Eat that frog”, Fire Nation. So, for me – you know, when I sit down, I create that plan that I’m going to be disciplined to execute upon, the No. 1 thing in that plan is the toughest thing I have to accomplish that day. I will eat that frog because – guess what. It sucks and it doesn’t taste good but after it’s done, you’re sure glad you did it because man, the rest of the day is a cake walk in comparison.

So, let’s talk about focus. You know, for me, Josh – and I’m sure you’ve heard this, having listened to a couple of EOFire episodes – I’m obsessed with the “Follow One Course Until Success” mentality. To me, that’s why I think I’ve been able to achieve great things because I’ve been able to focus on the one big domino, which was EOFire; knock it over, start that chain reaction of awesome – which lead to Podcasters’ Paradise, Webinar On Fire, The Freedom Journal; you know, now The Mastery Journal. Like, how do you define that word? What does focus mean to you?

Josh: Narrowing your attention to one thing and eliminating any distractions around you while you narrow your attention.

John: So, how do you do that? How do you narrow your attention, intraday, to just that one thing?

Josh: Well, personally, this is a simple exercise that I do. So, at the start of every morning when I sit down at my desk, I have a Post-it – I have a Mac, so I have the Post-it app – and I have a Post-it that defines what my tasks are for that day. And I always document every single morning what I need to focus on today. And then, I kind of almost run, like, a mini-scrum where, every time I complete a task, I move it to a different Post-it that says that this is what I’ve completed today. So this way, I can kind of celebrate those small wins along the way as well.

That’s what I do to really, like, help myself stay focused on activities throughout every single work day.

John: What’s one example of something that kind of jars your focus from time to time? Like, what’s your nemesis?

Josh: I care so much about my company and just the performance that we achieve for our customers and the quality of our work. And sometimes I get a little bit too involved instead of just letting my lead project manager just handle that. And so that, to me, kind of sucks me in sometimes. That’s my Kryptonite, so to speak.

John: Wait – an entrepreneur micromanaging? Never heard of that. Come on.

Fire Nation, it is part of life when you care, when you really care, you’re going to have this desire to micromanage but, you know, you just have to find the right times to let go and you have to find, you know, the right time to step in and make sure that your hands are getting dirty every now and then.

Now, again, productivity, discipline and focus; these are three areas that I know are reasons why people like Josh are succeeding, like myself, are succeeding. And we’re continuing to work on it. We continue to struggle with these things. You know, even at the level that I’ve gone to with these three skills, I’m trying to get better every single day and that’s why I, personally, even follow my own system that I created; that took a year to create how to master productivity, discipline and focus in just those 100 days so that you can be a master of these three things.

Check out more at themasteryjournal.com. We have some killer, killer videos, GIFs, rewards, prizes – all the cool stuff. Just go check out what we have got goin’ on over there.

And Josh, don’t go anywhere. We’re going to be right back to crush The Lightning Round after we thank our sponsors.

Josh, are you prepared for The Lightning Round?

Josh: Yeah, I’m ready to go. Let’s do this.

John: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Josh: You know, I would say – You know, just a lack of clarity and just comfort. I mean, I had a solid career before becoming an entrepreneur, especially working at University of Phoenix as an enrollment manager and, you know, making decent money. I mean, I was comfortable and I just didn’t know what steps that you had to take to start up your own business.

I even, at one point, flirted with the idea of starting a company. I had a LLC years ago called Ice Power PC, which was just to build, like, high-performance custom-built computers because I’ve known how to build computers since I was 18.

John: Nice.

Josh: But I didn’t do anything with it. I just had this LLC that did nothing.

You know, it was really working at Infusionsoft in 2012 that really opened my eyes and ignited my imagination – you like how I said “ignited”? – and really gave me courage that I could do what others were doing because, as I was hearing stories, I was like, “You know what? I could do that too.” And then, you know, of course I did.

John: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Josh: So, this goes out to my dad. You know, he used to tell me this as a kid and it’s really molded me to be an action-taker, maybe too much of an action-taker. But “talk is cheap” and “actions speak louder than words”.

John: What’s a personal habit that contributes to your success?

Josh: I would say my focus on health and fitness. If I didn’t challenge myself with, like a 10-mile run or a hellacious, speedy hike up Camelback Mountain – the double black diamond, you know, trail – I wouldn’t have the same fire to face the challenges that I have day to day as a business owner.

John: Can you share an internet resource with Fire Nation?

Josh: Yes. This is a little bit against the norm but I got to give credit where it’s due. Digital Marketer Lab – I highly recommend it. It’s not a free resource but it’s totally worth every single penny, every single dollar. When I was developing myself as a marketer, as a sales funnel expert, Digital Marketer Lab really ignited that path. And, I mean, I’ve seen – I mean, easily – a thousand times ROI back from every dollar that I spent on Digital Marketer Lab when I first started back in early 2014.

John: What is the cost, approximately?

Josh: $38.00 a month, I believe.

John: Invest in yourself, Fire Nation.

If you could recommend one book, Josh, what would it be and why?

Josh: Relentless by Tim Grover. He’s a trainer for Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Dwyane Wade and many others. You know, I recently listened to it and, I mean, I listened to it in, like, two or three days. I loved it. I was listening to it when I was hiking, when I was jogging, when I was working. And I just love how it teaches you to have, like, the right mindset to be a (quote/unquote) “cleaner” or at least know yourself well enough so you know your limitations and so you can break through them.

John: Josh, let’s end today On Fire, brother, with a parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you and then we’ll say goodbye.

Josh: Sure. So, you know, I actually have an incredible quiz that I put together –

John: Ooo!

Josh: – you know, for your audience, because I feel like that one of the challenges, like I said before, that a business owner has is really identifying the right step-by-step sales funnel strategy for them based on where they’re at in their business’s development.

So, what I’ve done is, I’ve created a quiz that helps a business owner identify their best step-by-step strategy by answering a series of questions that can be completed in about 45 to 60 seconds. So this is my gift to your audience.

If they go to www.cvoaccel.com/fire, they can go through this quiz. Again, it’s very quick. And at the end of it, they’ll receive a customized, step-by-step sales funnel strategy specifically for their business. And then, on top of that, after they get to that point when they actually receive their customized strategy, there’s actually a bonus specifically for EOFire listeners.

John: Whoa! Whoa! Lovin’ all of that.

And what’s that parting piece of guidance?

Josh: Keep driving forward, put your head down, get through the wind and once you do that, you’ll see the sun at the end of the tunnel.

John: Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with and you’ve been hangin’ out with JM and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to eofire.com; just type “Josh” in the search bar. His Show Notes page will pop up with everything that we’ve been talking about today. These are the best show notes in the biz; time stamps, links galore.

And one more time, Josh – and kind of go slow this time – what is the URL for that quiz?

Josh: Sure. It’s www.cvoaccel.com/fire.

John: Alright. I missed it again but we’ll have the link up on the Show Notes page, Fire Nation. It will be amazing.

And Josh, thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we’ll catch ya on the flip side.

Josh: Sounds good. Thanks, man.