Chanti Zak: I am so ready!

John Lee Dumas: Yes! Chanti is a conversion copywriter and funnel strategist for changemakers, community leaders, and brands that actually give a darn. Chanti, take a minute, fill in some gaps from that intro, and give us a little glimpse of your personal life.

Chanti Zak: So, thank you so much for having me on the show. I feel like you’re the Ellen DeGeneres of online entrepreneurship.

John Lee Dumas: Can I quote you for that?

Chanti Zak: You definitely can. So, just a little bit about me, I live with my wonderful partner, Colin, and my son, Maverick, who’s 3, on Gabriola Island in beautiful BC. So, we get to hang out by the beach every day in the warmest place in Canada.

John Lee Dumas: Well, I wasn’t too far from you last week. I was in Vancouver myself.

Chanti Zak: Oh, nice. Yeah, just a hop, skip, and a jump away.

John Lee Dumas: Have you heard of the Mount Garibaldi hike?

Chanti Zak: No, but it sounds epic.

John Lee Dumas: Highly recommend it, 19 kilometers roundtrip. Not probably suitable for your 3-year-old yet. But you get up to the top, and you’re at this glacier lake, where you can actually see a glacier coming down from the mountain into the lake, and you can go swimming in there. It’s freezing, but it’s invigorating. Invigorating.

Chanti Zak: Oh, so much fun.

John Lee Dumas: So, what I want to know right now, Chanti, is: What is your area of expertise?

Chanti Zak: My area of expertise, aside from copywriting, is creating done-for-you quiz funnels to generate loads of leads and sales for my amazing clients.

John Lee Dumas: So, what’s something that we don’t know about quiz funnels that, as entrepreneurs, we probably should?

Chanti Zak: Quizzes are one of the highest converting lead magnets that you can use for your business and for just about any niche. So, the average quiz is shared 1,900 times.

John Lee Dumas: Shut the front door!

Chanti Zak: Yeah, right? Compared to your usual lead magnet, that’s huge. So, in addition to generating a ton of leads, you’re also getting incredibly valuable information about your audience.

John Lee Dumas: I love it so much. Give me an example of a quiz that seems to work really well. It could be in industry. It doesn’t have to be names or specifics, but what’s a quiz that’s worked really well that you’ve seen?

Chanti Zak: Anything that categorizes types, like something as simple as, “What type of entrepreneur are you? What type of copywriter are you? What type of chef are you?” People are curious about themselves. It’s like we can never know enough about who we are, so stuff like that is just like boom! Click.

John Lee Dumas: Boom goes the dynamite! And, Chanti, let’s be honest. You weren’t always a rocking copywriter or this funnel strategist for the stars. You’ve had your ups and your downs, so take us, Fire Nation, to your worst entrepreneurial moment to date. Don’t pull any punches. Take us there. Tell us that story.

Chanti Zak: Oof, okay. Entrepreneurship is full of rejection, so I have so many stories that I could tell, but I think the biggest one is, a while back, I was running my copywriting business, and everything was going well, but you know how it is. It’s kinda up and down, feast-or-famine mode at the time. So, I was offered this fulltime copywriter/content-marketing manager position at a spiritual development company, and I just didn’t think twice. I jumped on it. I went all in. I fully devoted myself to this one company, and I put my business on pause.

So, what I didn’t realize, then, is I was literally putting all my eggs in this one basket, and last spring, the CEO decided to say adios to half the staff, cut expenses, and stick to a small-scale business model. So, out of nowhere, I was jobless with a family to feed and kicking myself for not having worked on my business on the side that whole time.

John Lee Dumas: So, looking back and knowing what you know now, what would you say the big lesson is that you learned? What are the big takeaways that you won’t repeat again as mistakes that you wanna make sure that our listeners get?

Chanti Zak: I think at the core of that mistake was that I didn’t believe in myself to create a sustainable, successful business on my own. And so, I gave away all of my power and went with one company when I could have said, “Yeah, I’ll work with this company, but also I’ll keep growing my business at the same time.”

John Lee Dumas: So, Fire Nation, one thing that I love is entrepreneurs that diversify themselves. They keep learning skills. They see that next thing that comes, and they jump on it. I remember on the Podcasters’ Paradise Cruise, Andrew Warner was presenting, and he was dropping some value bombs about interviewing other entrepreneurs, and I remember after his presentation, we were talking at the bar and just having a conversation, and he’s like, “I just feel like there’s something more that I wanna do in this world.” And I’m like, “Dude, something’s always coming. There’s always that next thing coming, so what are you gonna jump on that excites you that comes next?”

For some people, it was Meerkat, then Periscope, then Facebook Live. They just kept on jumping on these things, and for him, it just ended up being the Messenger boss with Facebook, and he jumped on it, and now he has a community all around it, and he’s making bank.

So, Fire Nation, just because you didn’t jump on one of the bandwagons early on doesn’t mean you can’t keep your eyes open and see what comes next because something’s always coming next. And be that expert there, be the person that jumps on that and crushes it because people like myself and Chanti, we can’t be experts at everything, only some things, and we keep that focus in, so opportunity’s always there for others when that new thing comes around.

Now, Chanti, you’ve had a lot of great ideas over the years, and frankly, you’ve had some crappy ideas, too, let’s be honest. We won’t get into those. I want to know one of the greatest aha moments that you’ve had to date. Take us to that aha moment. Tell us that story.

Chanti Zak: All right. So, my greatest aha moment came with no expectations. I put together a quiz for one of my clients. I just thought it would be a fun lead magnet to just generate leads for a course that he was developing, and the results were shocking. In one month, with $500.00 ad spend on Facebook, we generated over 10,000 new leads, and that’s when a light bulb went off in my head. It was then that I realized quizzes weren’t just this fun way to discover what Game of Thrones character you are. They’re an amazing business tool.

So, after that, I just kept playing around and was able to keep reproducing comparable results, and I felt like I really tapped into something.

John Lee Dumas: Let’s dive a little deeper there. What specifically do you think was that triggering point that started that chain reaction of awesome? Let’s dive deeper into the specifics of this specific aha moment.

Chanti Zak: Just knowing who your target audience is and what they wanna learn about themselves. So, with quizzes, like with anything else that you create, you’re trying to solve a problem for your people. And it was really just figuring out their main struggle and then giving them a fun way that’s kind of personalized and interactive for them to dive in and get the answers they need.

John Lee Dumas: Let’s skip right now to the biggest takeaway that you have from this experience, the lesson that you wanna make sure Fire Nation learns. Let’s go in a little bit of a different direction here than the theme that we’ve been on. What is a lesson that we can walk away, as entrepreneurs, that you’ve seen from this aha moment and others like it?

Chanti Zak: Ask more questions. Ask your audience questions about what they’re struggling with, what they wanna learn. The answers will surprise you. There is a lot of power in using questions to learn what to create, what to focus on. You had Ryan Levesque on a few times, I think, and it’s his whole thing, ASK. And when you do, you have so much ammunition to teach and share more value.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, I’ve been preaching this for years. When you ask your audience – people who know, like, and trust you – what they’re struggling with, what their obstacles and challenges are, and they provide you with those answers, then you can provide the solution in the form of products or services or books or communities. The opportunities are endless.

So, Chanti, let’s talk about you, today, as an entrepreneur. What are you most fired up about right now? What excites you?

Chanti Zak: I am so excited about quiz funnels because, yeah, asking the right questions does. It creates serious results. And it’s so easy to assume that we know our audience and we know what they want, but quizzes give you this surefire answer so you can create content that people will go crazy for. And then, you can create an email sequence to follow up and connect with each individual outcome, and really establish know, like, and trust so that you’ve got a leak-free funnel and something that works.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, I hope that you’ve been dodging all these value bombs because they are literally on fire, and we’ve got more coming up in the Lightning Round when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

Chanti, are you ready to rock the Lightning Round?

Chanti Zak: I am ready!

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

Chanti Zak: Essentially, I think it was just the fear of failure, of pouring all my energy into creating something and then having it be a flop. So, I had to look at my business like an experiment and let go of whatever expectations I had for myself to overcome that.

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

Chanti Zak: I really love this quote. It’s by Robin Sharma. “The mind is a great servant but a terrible master.” So, lead with your heart and stop getting in your own way. That’s my own spin on it.

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

Chanti Zak: Daily yoga or some sort of movement practice really helps me to get out of my head and feel strong and adaptable.

John Lee Dumas: Recommend one Internet resource.

Chanti Zak: I swear by Pomodoro Technique, so a Pomodoro Timer. You work for 25 minutes, and then you have a five-minute break where you can get up, jump around, dance, make a tea, whatever, and then repeat. So, the one that I love the most is called Toggl, and you can just get it as a Chrome extension.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah, it’s great. I actually base my entire journal, the Mastery Journal, around the Pomodoro method because, Fire Nation, it simply works.

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

Chanti Zak: This is a hard one, but since I’ve been talking about the power of quizzes, I think the go-to answer is Ask, by Ryan Levesque. There is a reason Ryan is so successful and has helped so many people. He knows and shares the value of asking the right questions at the right time, and very few of us are telepathic, so we need that tool.

John Lee Dumas: And I’ll tell you, Ryan has built a great community as well and has become a really good friend of mine. In fact, he threw his top-level elite mastermind down here in Puerto Rico just about six months ago and asked me to come keynote that event. It was just 40 people, his elite mastermind, and it was an honor to speak to them and to share some things that I’ve learned along the journey, but just the level of people that he’s brought into that community just shows you what he’s doing and what kind of level he’s doing it at. So, Ask, Fire Nation, make that book on your reading list. Put that book on your reading list.

And, Chanti, I want to end today on fire, so give us a parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you, and then we’ll say goodbye.

Chanti Zak: My final piece of advice is to just start asking more questions. Don’t assume you know what your people want. Listen to them, and create based on the answers they give you. And that’s it.

I would love to connect with you, Fire Nation. Check me out at ChantiZak.com, and I have a free gift for you, so if you wanna learn how to create your own quiz funnel, I have a free six-module email course that you can get at ChantiZak.com/Fire.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you have been hanging out with CZ and JLD today. So, keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com, and just type “Chanti,” and that is C-H-A-N-T-I, in the search bar. Her Show Notes page will pop up with everything we’ve been talking about today. These are the best show notes in the biz – timestamps, links galore. And please don’t forget about that incredible free course that she created for you over at ChantiZak.com/Fire. Again, that’s C-H-A-N-T-I-Z-A-K.com/Fire. If you can’t remember that, if you just head over to the Show Notes page, we’ll link it right up.

And, Chanti, thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, and we’ll catch you on the flipside.

Chanti Zak: Thank you.