SFR 69: Professional Services Funnel! Special Interview with Yanni Fikaris...

In this 2nd episode of our 6-part series, Yanni shows the funnel behind his painting business...

Steve Larsen:

What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Now, this is part two of our six-part series. This episode, I'm going to dive deep into the professional services category. This is one of the six categories that we know people are using ClickFunnels for especially, and so, number two here is professional services.

Now, if you are a dentist, a lawyer, a doctor, a chiropractor, a painter, anything where there's a trade involved. Whether or not you had to go to school, there's high skill involved with the actual service of the product. You're going to love this episode.

What I did is I've interviewed ... His name is Yanni Fikaris. You'll hear the numbers as he talks about it, but he's pulled 160 grand with $900 in ads--it's ridiculous!--in only three months. He's only had a ClickFunnels account since March, which is ridiculous.

Anyway, without further ado, let's dive into the episode...

Announcer:

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best Internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Steve Larsen:

Dentists, lawyers, doctors, chiropractors, painters, anyone with a trade is going to love the episode that we've got for you today. This is honestly a category that's the holy grail of anyone I know who's a funnel builder. They're trying to go after people who've learned a trade, somebody who is trying to sell a specific service, someone who's trying to sell a specific skill, and it's not an easy area.

Two days ago, I see a post by our speaker today, our guest today, basically saying, "Hey, look! I'm spending just a few dollars in leads, and I'm making a ton of money every month," and it's inside of what I call, what Russell calls, and what ClickFunnels calls the professional services category.

I thought, hey, I've got to get him on the show, and I'm excited to have him. Hey, everyone, if you could welcome with me, Mr. Yanni Fikaris. How you doing, man?

Yanni Fikaris:

I'm doing great, man, how are you?

Steve Larsen:

Dude, I'm just doing awesome. I was super excited for today. I had a hard time sleeping last night, because most people don't figure out what you have figured out, and I don't know that you've realized that yet, as I've talked to you, either.

Yanni Fikaris:

It's a short time coming, but it's a lot of bumps.

Steve Larsen:

Sure, sure, absolutely. Do you mind? Just tell us a little bit about yourself, and then I'd love to hear about what you've pulled off, because it's pretty unique, man.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, I have a painting and refinishing company. It's been in the family. It's changed a little bit from when my dad and my uncle ran it, but we're a house painter, and we do specialty finishing, a lot of cabinet refinishing.

My specialty is spraying, so I really can bring down the crew size and give a really good product because of our spray application. It's harder to do, but it's a niche, and that niche is what promotes me on Facebook, in the advertising. It's that specific niche. I coupled that with what I've been reading from Russell.

What he's putting out there is these blue, the blue waters, and I was like, "You know what? This is pretty interesting." I mean, I'm not the sharpest guy, but I was like, "I've got to give this a shot."

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. It's funny. I've visited your site. Obviously, I've looked at your stuff, and you don't look like ... I mean, you don't necessarily look so much like a house painter. I mean, it looked like I was entering some kind of cult world. I mean, it was awesome. You have such awesome branding, such awesome sites, everything else.

What eventually led you to get into the Internet space as a painter?

Yanni Fikaris:

Well, we were spending a fortune in print, and one day I'm going to the mailbox, and I'm taking all this print, all this advertising from all these people, and I'm just throwing it in the trash every day. Then, I eventually put my recycling bin next to the mailbox, because I would just take out print, take out the bills, and throw everything into the recycling bin.

Steve Larsen:

I think we all do that, yeah.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, I think, ultimately you either bring it in the house and put it in the recycling or take it outside. One day I'm thinking, man, we're spending 10 to 20 thousand dollars a month in advertising, and my newspaper and my print people are telling me, "Oh, if you get 1/1000 of a reader, it's good. It will pay for the ad." That's what they always say, "It's going to pay for the ad."

I'm thinking, man, if I spend 20 grand and I make 20 grand, I didn't even have to do any ... It wasn't even worth it, so an old friend of mine that I knew through real estate was friends with Russell. I was watching The Profit, and I watched Russell help one of these guys in a funnel. You see, I empathize with the small business, as opposed to people who are just selling other guru, how to advertise on Facebook. You need to know the business. You need to know what it's like to sit at home and worry.

Our family's owned small businesses before. We've had restaurants. We've had takeout places. This isn't my first one. It's not going to be my last. I can sit in your shoes and work on your problem. You put me in any ... That's why I like The Profit. I can do that. I'm a systems guy. I can figure out where you're weak and where you're strong and make anything efficient.

I put two and two together. I found ClickFunnels. I did the demo, and I was like, you know what? I think I can do this. I really wasn't a big Facebook guy at all. I really just started doing Facebook in November of last year. It hasn't even been a year. It was pretty user friendly. My first funnel was horrible, but, like you guys say, it's really just about how it works.

It doesn't have to look pretty...

Pretty can come later, if it really needs to be. I went from spending a fortune to really bringing my ad cost down.

Right away, it didn't work, but my ad cost was still a lot less, so I was spending a minuscule amount and getting deals, and people were starting to see it. Then, you see when the user rate starts, or the views start to actually increase. People start to share it, and people start to know your brand. It started to click, and I got that aha moment. I was like, dude, this is good.

Steve Larsen:

I went nuts when I saw your post. I was like, holy crap! Who is this guy? This is awesome. Holy crap. I started just scrolling, everyone just going nuts about it, everyone else tagging everyone else in it. I was like, this is amazing. This is absolutely ... It's so unique what you've done. I have really two areas I just wanted to dive into.

Number one question: First of all, you're selling your main service outright, right? I mean, that's the main thing of the funnel selling, right? You're not doing like a lead in. You know what I mean?

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah. I go direct to what I do best.

Steve Larsen:

That's awesome.

Yanni Fikaris:

Unlike every other ... I'm not going to say good or bad. This is just how I do it. We have a specific niche service. People see ... I basically put the price and the results--the befores and afters and the price--right away, and that's cut down on all the wasted trips, the phone calls.

People know exactly what they're going to get, and they know exactly how much they're going to pay, and you'll see. It's right on the first ... It's the first thing you say, and it's in a lot of the Facebook ads. It's, "This is how much it costs. Look at how cool it is." That's not exactly what it says, but that's basically it. Those are the clicks I get.

 

Those are the people that submit the information, and that's why my conversion rate's high.

Steve Larsen:

Huh, that's interesting. That's really cool. I'm actually just taking ferocious notes, just so you know.

Yanni Fikaris:

Do what you've got to do.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, just because there's several points I want to hit here of what you just mentioned. Number one, I hope everyone is listening or hears what Yanni is saying on this, because it's something that we teach, and I teach like crazy, is you've got to promote that core offer.

Whatever it is that's your business, that's the number one focus. That's the number one funnel to make first. It's too much of a temptation many times to go and say, "Hey, I've got this awesome Spraymen painter business. Why don't I go sell paint?"

Instead of the actual service, why don't I go sell this?

Why don't I sell this?

It starts distracting you from the core business. Anyway, I just wanted to reinforce that. It's so powerful. First, start with the core. Get that nailed down. Then, you can go to other front ends or back ends or whatever. Interesting.

Yanni Fikaris:

Can I cut you off just for one second?

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, totally.

Yanni Fikaris:

I wrote a funnel ... I had two. Well, I actually had more than two, but let's just say I had two for this conversation. I had one that was just specific in cabinet refinishing, because we do paint other things. Then, the other one that I had was interior painting, cabinet refinishing, and exterior painting, the three things that I like to do or that make me the most money.

It was too distracting for the people, even just with three options...

Steve Larsen:

Interesting.

Yanni Fikaris:

Even though they might just go there for cabinet refinishing, they saw the other two, and you're talking about the time on the page was ... I don't know the exact percentages, but it didn't convert. It was the same funnel, but I offered two other things that they weren't interested in, and automatically nobody wanted it, and my conversion ... I ended up just dumping and deleting the page.

Steve Larsen:

Wow, really?

Yanni Fikaris:

It was the one thing. It's that one thing that ... It's that one big ... They were there for one purpose. They clicked on it for one thing, and you offer them two more things? Forget it. It's too soon.

Steve Larsen:

That's so true. It's like other things they've got to go start to believe or they didn't know they had those other options, so it distracts them. Yeah, absolutely.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, because they start thinking about other things. They start thinking about, "Oh, maybe I should get my inside painted or my outside, or this other thing." You're dealing with a distracted world or a distracted audience now. You've got to keep them super-focused on what you do best and what you can monetize most successfully for your business.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, yeah. That's like buying a computer and walking up to the cashier. "Hey, thanks for the computer," and it's like, "Hey, don't worry. The next update, we'll fix the crashing issue."

"I didn't know there was a crashing issue. Are you kidding?" Then they go put it back. Anyway, okay, interesting. It's cool that ... It sounds like you're just following straight from the Expert Secrets book itself.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, it is a good roadmap. There's no doubt about it. You've got to tweak it just a little bit, but don't stray away. When Russell talks about the arrows in the back and you're trying to find your own trail to the top. I mean, people climb Mount Everest the same way all the time.

There's a reason.

That's the quickest way to the result. If your goal is to the top of the mountain, A to B. If your goal is to pave a new way ... I mean, that's not usually what people's goal is.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, absolutely. Now, along those lines, that's actually one of the questions I wanted to ask. You've got ClickFunnels. You're sorting this thing out, and you're building, I'm assuming ... Like you said, it's user friendly. Had you ever built a funnel before?

Yanni Fikaris:

Honestly, I used Leadpages, and it was a miserable attempt at marketing. That's what it comes down ... I mean, that's just my experience. Other people might have their own experiences, but I couldn't get it to work well. I could get it sort of looking cool, and then I was like, this is not as user friendly. I don't know what to do after this step, and then what? It was always like, and then what? People would submit their information in, and then what?

It just wasn't for me. I paid for the subscription for six months, and it detracted me away from marketing. That was one of the reasons I went back into print, because I let the people at the newspaper and the print shops do it for me. Then I turned on to ClickFunnels, and it was great.

Steve Larsen:

That's interesting. Yeah, hey, that's awesome. I can't comment too much on that, otherwise my eyes are going to start to twitch, and I'll start yelling and screaming profanities. You go in, and, like you said, it's user friendly. You can drag and drop and put all the things together.

I'm not trying to promote ClickFunnels with this.

I want to dive straight and more into you. How did you know what funnel to build? You know what I mean? There's a lot of different styles and options out there, and you're building one for paint. How did you know which one to actually put together?

Yanni Fikaris:

That's probably the key question. The first one I built was god ugly. Oh, my God, it was so ugly. It was a picture. It had three buttons. When I actually sent people to it, I was just like, "Listen. The webpage is pretty ugly, but you know the service." I just did it on a whim.

It was pretty bad, but it did work. There was no ... I didn't hack anybody else's at that point. I really just wanted to, and this is what I tell people ask me about ClickFunnels, is just go out there and build one, and then you get better at it. Then fine tune it, and then look back at what you did a month ago, and you'll laugh, but it starts getting better.

You start playing with the animation. You start playing with the layout. What happens is, when you build that ugly funnel, you start going on Facebook or wherever you're looking, and you start seeing good funnels in front of you.

Everything becomes a funnel, and then you're like, "I'm going to take that. I'm going to put that into my funnel, and I'm going to try it. Then, I'm going to see another funnel and I'm going to take a little bit of that and a little bit of this." Then you find one that's really good for what you have to do.

The downside is there's not many good painting funnels. There's some big national companies that have funnels, but they do a lot of other advertising. Let's just drop a name, CertaPro. They do a lot of radio ads and phone calls, so they have a call center.

They do radio ads. They're funnel is eh. It's really eh. I needed to find a funnel that was in your face service, brings out that price, without a lot of other minutiae, because I tried that with that three-tier cabinet painting, interior, and exterior. I needed a one-service funnel that I loved, and that's what I stuck to.

Steve Larsen:

That's fascinating. That's fascinating. You bring up an interesting point. We always tell people. There's a few people that have come up to me and they're like ... I'm not going to name the name, but someone on Facebook tagged Russell and I in this post, and they're like, "How can Russell build such ugly funnels?" I was like, "I'm his main builder. I spent a ton of time on that funnel. It's not ugly."

All these people are like, "It's not ugly." Other people are like, "Yeah, I've wondered that, too." There was this controversy back and forth about it. I got on there, and I was just like, "It doesn't matter what the thing looks like. It's the copy that sells. It's the offer that makes the sale." I mean, Frank Kern has got a white background with a headline a video and a button. That's it. His funnels don't look amazing or anything like that.

I appreciate you bringing a point that beauty in the funnel is not what converts. It's actually the offer. It's actually just the one thing. It's literally the one thing you're offering, and anything else can detract from it. It detracts the entrepreneur eventually, too, to think that I've got to make this thing look beautiful out of the gate.

Obviously, it does matter a little bit, but to go not launch because you're trying to make it beautiful or you're trying to make it look fantastic or function this way. It's totally a false idea.

Yanni Fikaris:

Exactly. The more you push towards that beauty, A. You're spending a lot of time doing something that may not help, and you just need to make it grow. You've got to stick with that one thing. The more you're distracted, the more people are going to be distracted.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, absolutely. Do you mind walking through the funnel with us right here and just let us know? If you've got the one core offer, what's the first page look like, and the second one?

Yanni Fikaris:

All right, hang on. I'll bring it up on my ... Most people are looking at it on a mobile, so I'll do it there.

Steve Larsen:

Interesting. You've got that first page. I'm sure that ... Do you have a micro-commitment on that first page or is it straight to the order button? You say you put the price and everything straight on the ... right from the get-go, the very beginning.

Yanni Fikaris:

That's it.  It's right before the fold. If you go to cabinetdoorpainting.com, you'll see it. It's a picture of a kitchen that we did, a little tag that said, "99% of painters cannot do this." I do some of the editing. Actually, I do all the editing. Then, right, it smacks you, "$100 per door and drawer. Schedule estimate." There's really nothing else.

There's nothing else to it, because the biggest question we had with cabinet refinishing is, "How much does it cost?"

People don't know the process. Let me get into the process. If you scroll down to the pictures, you could see it, but their biggest concern right away that you have to either move forward or stop is how much is this going to cost? The biggest attraction is it's cheaper than doing a full kitchen renovation. If you hit them with their number one question right away, you're either opening the gates to people scheduling the appointment or you're not.

What we've seen is everybody who has scheduled the appointment ... Our close rate on people that actually schedule an appointment is in the 90s. People know exactly what they're going to get. We have videos that we send to them. Why our process is better. Why our material is better, but that's all the second part of the sale. They're already closed with the price and what they see before and after.

If you have a service company, and you have a niche, and it's specific, and your service is great, and you've showed it to them, and you tell them how much it's going to cost, what else needs to happen in the sale? You just have to perform the job. You have to schedule it. I've had people send this in, follow up with a phone call saying, "We're sold. We know how much it's going to cost, but when can you do it?" That's it: when. They need to see it. These are the questions.

Steve Larsen:

Huh, so I mean, you basically are closing people. They're closing themselves with this kind of front end page basically, right?

Yanni Fikaris:

Exactly. When you see the funnel, and if you're a painter or you're a homeowner, you can tell. These are our jobs. We didn't take these offline. These are our jobs. You know that you're going to get, so there's no question about ... They're not getting prices from somebody else, and if they do get prices from somebody else, they're not going to submit their information.

If they're going to go with the cheaper guy, the cheaper guy's not going to do it our way, and you're not going to have results like this.

They do all the research before, and, we can get into this later, but the Facebook re-target. They've already seen the video. They might have went to the landing page, saw the price, didn't put their information in because they wanted to get other prices, and we've had this conversation, and I know what's going on. They get other prices. The other guys are, let's say, either the same or a little cheaper, but they don't think that the results are going to be the same.

The re-target works, because it goes right after the people that saw the video, landed on the page, was in there for three seconds or whatever, and then now they're submitting their information, because they're already sold. It lets them sell themselves. That's why I designed this funnel this way.

Steve Larsen:

That's fascinating. Okay, so I'm just running back through here. You've got the first page. It says, "$100 per door." There's before and after shots, and it then it says, basically, schedule. Then people who leave, you are re-targeting them, I'm assuming, with Facebook ads.

Yanni Fikaris:

Correct.

Steve Larsen:

Then, as far as, and I definitely want to ask about that in a second, but when people hit schedule, though, what happens then?

Yanni Fikaris:

It's just a pop-up. It pops up. It says, your name, email address, phone number, and a promo code. Now, the promo code is how I track which ad groups are working the best. Every ad group that I have has a different promo code name. Then I also have one that I give out to people when I see them. Let's say, my promo code online is FREE123 or whatever it is, make one up. I know that it's from the Facebook group. That's that.

Now, if I do SPRAYMAN15, I've physically spoken to somebody and I said, "Listen. If you're interested"--or I give them a business card--"put SPRAYMAN15 on the promo code, and you'll get" ... It's the same coupon, but I know where it's coming from.

Steve Larsen:

Sure.

Yanni Fikaris:

That's it. They get that. They schedule the thing. They get an email from me. It's automated. It comes out, I want to say, about 15 to 20 minutes later. It's not automatic, so it doesn't look like a robot. It comes out a little later, and we schedule right away. That's the key to it. I tell them to send me pictures of their kitchen. I try to reduce the amount of time that I'm actually going out. I can price this up, looking at the job in photos.

I'm here or I'm at a job, somebody sends me, I say, every angle of every cabinet. You're just trying to be seamless with your process or whatever your product is, and you have to be seamless in the sale.  You don't want to waste your time.

Steve Larsen:

Okay, with the scheduling process, there's something really key here. They're not necessarily choosing a spot in your schedule. Basically, they're submitting, and then you call them back immediately.

Yanni Fikaris:

Correct, yeah. I'll call them back. In the email, it says, "If text is better, text me," or, "We'll text each other," and that works a lot. People who would rather text, it's not old school, but I'm open to it. That's fine. They're not picking a time in the schedule to perform their job. We're booking into like October, November, at this point.

Steve Larsen:

Huh, that's insane.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, we're doing these back ... You saw the sales. It's like back to back to back to back.

Steve Larsen:

It's amazing. It's so amazing. There's something in here that is really key, and I don't know if you did this on purpose or what, but it actually reinforces something that we do in our own phone sales, as well. Usually when we do some kind of application style funnel, where it's similar to what you've done, and there's a scheduling aspect in it.

Every single time we go and we say, "Schedule," and they actually pick a time for us to call them, it always fails 100%, because 90% of them aren't just going to show up or they're not going to answer the phone.

If there's a future based time, where they're like ... I like the software Calendly, because you can go choose times for ... Unless they've already paid money, there's nothing that holds their feet to the fire, so we found that 90% of the leads with a scheduling software or something on the back just dies.

It's so clever to me, so you're saying "Schedule," which sounds so much more low barrier to entry. It sounds so much less scary to say "Schedule" than it does, "Hey, I'm going to call you in 10 minutes," and you get them back on the phone. That's fascinating, so it's "Schedule," but you call them immediately, and that way's always, huh, that's a million times better.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, because they're not getting ... Even though they're really requesting services or getting a quote or whatever they're used to seeing, that in my mind is, they're so used to seeing it, and then there's no, not that there's no value to it, but it starts getting commonplace, and "Schedule estimate" is very specific. You're clicking this button to schedule an estimate.

You're not picking this button to get a price, because it's already there. You're not picking this button for any other reason, and I'm really taking Russell's "knock that big domino down." I take out small snippets and small sections, and I'm walking through as the user, and I'm saying, "What's the big domino? What's the hurdle?"

Let me just ease this and make the wording as specific as I can for whatever I'm trying to get them to do.

I don't want them to ask me how much it's going to cost, because I already did that. That rarely happens. People don't go, "Is this going to cost two grand or 10 grand?" They go, "I have 61 cabinets. It's going to cost me $6100. When can you do it?" That's it.

Steve Larsen:

That's awesome.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, it is. I love it.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, that's so cool. That's so cool. Okay, front page, just walking everyone else through the funnel as well on the call with us. Okay, front page, you say $100 per door. We've got before and after shots, Schedule Estimate, a pop-up, and it asks for name, phone, address.

Do you ask for email?...

Yanni Fikaris:

I do ask for email.

Steve Larsen:

You do, obviously, because, okay ... Then after that, you say, there's a Submit button, right? What happens after they click Submit?

Yanni Fikaris:

They go to the third page. It just says, "Thank you. We'll contact you," or, "Thank you for the estimate. We'll get right to you," and we do. We call them within 15 minutes. They'll get an email from me within 15 minutes. That's the next auto ... There's four steps, so that's the next automated step, and then somebody from the office calls. If they get the email and they want to text, they'll text. At that point, the sale has to take over.

The actual person has to talk. You can't go back and forth with technology. Somebody has to get on the phone and explain the process. The reason I do that is our process is involved. It's kind of hard to, without-

Steve Larsen:

Like vetting people out almost?

Yanni Fikaris:

I get so passionate about what we do, you can feel it when I'm talking to you.

Steve Larsen:

Oh, yeah.

Yanni Fikaris:

I love to talk. I love to sell. That's probably what I should do, besides painting, is just sell stuff. When I'm on the phone with them, they can feel my passion. It just closes the door. I can't wait to do what we do at their house, and they can't wait to see the next video. Usually, we're videoing the job we're on now, and I get excited.

I'm like, "Listen. I'm going to send you the videos before they're edited, or you can come out and see what we're doing." We've had people come to other projects. They just want to see, and they love it!

Steve Larsen:

You're kidding.

Yanni Fikaris:

At that point, we take over. The actual person takes over, the salesperson takes over. Usually it's myself who takes over at that point. Now I'm talking to the client. There's nothing else to it in our business. The only thing they'll get in technology after that ... They'll get a proposal in writing that they have to agree to electronically, but everything else, it starts to go hands-on after that, and that's how we close all of our business.

Steve Larsen:

Just more on the closing process itself, so if they don't answer the phone, do you follow up with them again later? Do you put them on some kind of a ... I don't know. What do you do after, if they don't answer? You just don't it?

Yanni Fikaris:

Well, yes and no. I don't do the crazy high school girlfriend routine, where I'm calling, calling, text, text, call, email. That just doesn't work. Just like distraction, overbearing doesn't work. There's a point that you have a good service, and you have to monetize your time effectively. If you're going to chase somebody down, you give them fair warning. "Listen, I'm going to" ... Don't do it the first time. "If you don't call me back, I'm never going to call you again." That's ridiculous, too.

You call them...

You do exactly what you say you're going to do. "I'm going to call you in 15 minutes," so you call them in 15 minutes. If they don't pick up, I don't leave a voicemail. I'll email them, and then I'll say, "I left you a message. Shoot me a call. Here's my number if you want to text me if it's easier." This is really where we get the texts. If texting is easier for you. Some people are dismissive to our initial phone call. They don't want to talk to people.

Steve Larsen:

That's massive, yeah.

Yanni Fikaris:

That's just part of the world we live in today, so you want to open them up to a text. Give them your personal cellphone. For us, we're selling $5000 to $50,000 paint jobs. "You'd better give me your cellphone." That's all I've got to tell you, so we do it. Here's my cellphone.

I might email one more time after that, just to say, "Hi," in a few days, but if they're not going to buy at that point, something happens where they're going to circle back. We've had people circle back and say, "We went down a different road. It was horrible," or, "Something happened, life event, and now we're ready for it."

Steve Larsen:

Huh, wow. Do you even mention the texting option during the actual opt-in process?

Yanni Fikaris:

No.

Steve Larsen:

That's awesome. That's way awesome, because that's got to pull in so many more people, who are serious about talking with you than if you'd say, "Hey, just go ahead and text me." If you said that right out the gate, that obviously would bring in a different person.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, you have 15 texts open with all these people trying to get your product, your knowledge, your this, you don't even know who you're talking to. You've built funnels. Imagine if somebody was like, "I want you to build our funnel," and you're like, "All right, here's my cellphone, just text me," and that's what you put on Facebook, you'd have a million people.

Steve Larsen:

Oh, at least. I already do. I can't handle it.

Yanni Fikaris:

It's not, especially in a service environment, higher dollar, and I would definitely not do it for lower dollar ... If you did a $50 and you start giving your cellphone number out, it would be crazy.

Steve Larsen:

Oh, that'd be terrible.

Yanni Fikaris:

There's a continuum there. For how much are you willing to give out your private information, and then you have to do it, and then just do what you say. People will respect that, and they will not ... They don't pussyfoot around this. They're not going to hard sell you back with a negotiation.

The best example, and this might not be for everybody, but the best example is when you go into a Mercedes dealership or the Range Rover or a Ferrari dealership, wherever you go for your high-end cars. If you ever try to negotiate with these guys, they're like, "Listen."

They're like, "You see that sign out there. That says Ferrari. The only thing you're going to ask is what color and when is it going to be delivered. There is no more negotiations." That's it. That's your close. We're not there, but that's the mentality you need to hold for your time, because that's what's limited for everybody, especially in the service industry.

Steve Larsen:

Do you have sales guys? I mean, it sounds like you have one or two at least. Actual phone guys at all, who call up, or is it all you're running the whole thing?

Yanni Fikaris:

Zero.

Steve Larsen:

That's amazing! It's you doing the followups. You doing all the ... I'm assuming you have some kind of notification setup, "Hey, someone just filled out the form," and you just call them immediately.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, right through ClickFunnels. I get an email. It's one of my-

Steve Larsen:

Automation tabs.

Yanni Fikaris:

My automation alerts, yep. Listen, somebody just sent it in. I actually put my phone settings on 15-minute alerts, so if you did it in 15 minutes, it's realistic. The reason I did that is I get to it right away.

Steve Larsen:

Sure.

Yanni Fikaris:

If I say I'm going to email you in 15 minutes or call you, that's where I want it to be, so I'm no later than 15 minutes when they submit it. If I got the alert, and this is just a hack for me, but if I got that alert right away, and I called, it just promotes neediness, as the service provider.

There is a time that you have to allow people to wait to want something more, and I've found out 15 minutes is the threshold. Half an hour, they've moved onto something else. Five minutes is too soon. Ten minutes ... Fifteen minutes just worked for us.

Steve Larsen:

Let them wait to want it more. That's powerful, very powerful, and it's cool you've tested that, too, 15 minutes. Okay, a year from now, all right, you've continued doing this. I'm sure you're going to perfect it even more as you keep going. Do you think you will bring on another sales guy or something?

Yanni Fikaris:

My goal is to either license this whole model from the sale, from what we do to the sales, and give it out as a licensee or a franchise...

From my two- to three-man team, and the numbers that you're seeing, that's with a two- and possibly three-man team at times--those are the numbers we're doing--is to be able to put this into a package, train people what to do, and say, "Here is what we do. You can either use our branding and become one of us, or we can use your brand and then make you follow this model." That's where I'm going to be in six months.

Steve Larsen:

That is so powerful. When I saw what you were doing, obviously ... I'm in ClickFunnels headquarters right now. We're in our cool sound booth room, and from the position that we're able to sit in, we see so many funnels. We see how it's working, how they're not working, in different industries, with different ads, all across the board.

When I saw yours, I was like, "I don't know anyone who is in the painting business, who is using a funnel, period." You're not just using it, you're killing it with it. It's cool to see.

You obviously have proven the model, and you're thinking about the franchising. I have one more just followup question about closing, and then, if you're okay with it, if you've got time, I wanted to ask a little bit about the ad, as well, because that's probably the next scary piece for people.

Yanni Fikaris:

Sure.

Steve Larsen:

Have you noticed much of a difference between the close rate with someone who's engaged in a text message conversation with you versus an actual phone?

Yanni Fikaris:

I like to ... That's a good question. I would say that ... Oh, that is a good question.

Steve Larsen:

Because there's a lot of parts to that I can think of.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, there is definitely a lot of parts. A lot of times, my phone calls will end up deferring to a text, and that's what I see. A lot of times, we do out-of-state moves, where people are coming in, and they start with a text, and we close with a text. No matter what, we're always going to a technology piece somehow.

If I send you an email, I'm going to text you, "I sent you the email. Here's a proposal. Just sign it," whatever, and then they say, "Yes." I would say that texting ends up being part of the close more often than the actual phone call.

Steve Larsen:

Really? That's actually opposite than what I was assuming, interesting.

Yanni Fikaris:

I think I can close them on the phone. Maybe I can close you on the phone, but the text is definitely a part of that afterwards. Once we have this conversation, we can go and then we can digress into a text message conversation, because I've hit all the key points, and texting is a lot easier.

The message is there. That's what I'm thinking off the top of my head. I could, from now, for another two months figure it out, but that's what I think.

Steve Larsen:

That's fascinating, though. I'm really stuck on this, because I think it's really interesting, and it's not an area that most people jump into, I don't think, that much, but would you say that ... I mean, does pretty much every sale involve both?

Yanni Fikaris:

I like to get you on the phone after you've written down what you're looking for. I think writing down ... I ask people, "What exactly do you need from me?" Maybe not in so many words and maybe not so harsh, but a one-sentence question, "What are you looking for? What do you need me to do?"

Then, once I realize I can't text back my explanation or anything else, I pick up the phone. I want to hear what you have to say. I am making sure I am also attracting the right, not attracting the right clients. I am making sure that I'm also working for the right clients that fit my business.

I think, as a service provider, the power of not wasting your time, and I don't think I could express this anymore, and you probably got it from the 10th time I said it, but you only have a limited amount of time. You have to work for the right clients, and you are in the power position to work for the right client or the wrong client.

If you're chasing the money, you're going to work for anybody who has your deposit. If you're going to work for the right client, it has to be fun. You have to get excited. Otherwise, it'll start to be mundane. You start to hate it, and then whatever you've built is going to just disintegrate, because you're just working for anybody.

I have to hear you on the phone. I have to. I've got to hear you...

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, yeah, and that makes total sense...

Now, we always tell people, and obviously you're very familiar with this concept, that if you change the bait, you're going to change the client. It sounds like you've obviously gone through the opposite bad part of that. What was the difference in the bait that you've created? You know what I mean?

What was the bad client like, and what were the differences you made to boost that client?

Yanni Fikaris:

That's a really good question. Before I put the cost in the advertisement or on the first page or before the fold, before the cost was in there, everybody had me out to their house, and I would go.

How much is it going to cost to refinish a 10 x 10 kitchen. Oh, let me go see it in person, and I'm thinking to myself, Yanni, what are you doing driving? You know exactly what this is going to cost? Why would you not settle this right away? These are just people fishing for numbers.

They want to know your process...

They see you on Facebook. They know you know all the information. They might just go tell somebody else to do it, which they probably wouldn't get the same results, but you get the idea.

Steve Larsen:

Sure.

Yanni Fikaris:

When I changed the bait to ... I don't like to fish, so when you change the bait to the fish you're going after, the exact meal that they're looking for, it gets everybody else out of the ocean, and you're going specifically for that one target. It might sound rude, but that's just reality.

It's marketing and sales...

You can't just put every sort of bait out there. You're going to get everything to bite. That's not what you're looking for.

Steve Larsen:

It's interesting you brought that up, because obviously with these six different categories, there are rules between the six that, hey, you can do this in this industry.

You can't in this one, and vice versa. I'd say that this is probably one of the biggest differences between the professional services area and the author/speaker/coach/consultant area, because in the author and speaker and coaches/consultant spot, most of the time price is not brought up at the very beginning, but it's cool that you do that.

You don't get on a webinar and somebody's like, "Just so you know, at the end of this you're going to be charged $1000." You know what I mean. You don't do that, but by creating, by making cost an upfront thing, and there's a lot of coaches I know that'll do that, too, but stereotypically this industry or this area seems to be one of the only places where that actually works.

Yanni Fikaris:

I can't tell you for other, anything else. I'm not yet a coach or selling anything technology based. I have sat on webinars, and some of them are very inspiring, and you wait until the end to find the price. You are still waiting to the end to find how much it's going to cost. I've tried that, and I've-

Steve Larsen:

Time wasters.

Yanni Fikaris:

Time waste. There's a big company out here. It's a big plumbing/heating company, and they put you through this ... They double team you, and they come in polo shirts and khakis, and two guys come. They have a portfolio of all their services. No prices on the page. They go through the song and dance, and at the end, they're like, "Here. Here's the number.

It's four times more expensive than Joe, but we guarantee this for 10 years." People are like, "Holy moly! I can't pay that! The other guy charges $200. You're charging $1000."

He's like, "Aw, but the song and dance." They're like, "Yeah, but" ... In the service industry, you're either--and this is really cool--you're either the cheapest or the best. I think Russell might have wrote that down, but if not, maybe he'll put it in his next book, but you're either the cheapest guy or the best guy, and that's who you're looking for.

If you want to be the cheapest guy, be the cheapest guy. If you want to be the best guy, be the best guy, and then you dictate the price first.

Now, let me back into this. I studied the mind in college. I was going to be a neurosurgeon, so I have a lot of psych and philosophy background.

Steve Larsen:

Wow.

Yanni Fikaris:

I might have a little advantage on just how the mind perceives a lot of things, but for me, if I want to be the best guy, the easiest way to get rid of all the bottom, the people that don't want to pay, is to tell them how much it costs.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, it's true.

Yanni Fikaris:

You know? When the rich guy ... All our clients aren't rich; maybe that's the wrong word, but when the guy goes to the Ferrari dealership, he knows he's going to spend 240. He knows it.

Steve Larsen:

It's a status thing.

Yanni Fikaris:

Exactly. You don't have to tell him that. It doesn't make a difference what the price is. He already knows he's going to pay, but that's the best. When you go into the Hyundai used car dealership, they're waiting for the price at the end, because it's a negotiation. Do you see how that changes? It's a menace to a lot of people, but most people, their sales pitch is they're waiting to get the courage to tell the price.

Steve Larsen:

They're like, "No, I won't tell you. Here it is, because I'm not the best, so let's negotiate."

Yanni Fikaris:

Exactly. I have daughters. I tell my daughters all the time, "Sometimes there's no room to negotiate. It's a win-win, a lose-lose, or no deal." Go read some good books about negotiation. The philosophy has never changed. It's either good for both of us or it's not going to work. The middle ground, you control me, and I get spiteful. It doesn't work in the service industry.

It just doesn't. Hands-on, wasting your own time, physical, employees, workman's comp, I mean, just so many things that whoever's listening to this in the service industry realizes that you're either the cheapest or you're the best. Charge for being the best. Get rid of all the people that are just going to price negotiate you, and then move on.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, I remember when I started doing that for funnel building services. I don't currently do it for anyone else anymore at this time, but when I first ... I was like, "I'm going to build it for 10 grand," and it brought in all these people, and I was like, "You know what? I really think I'm way better than that now, and I'm 2X-ing businesses. It's worth way more than 10 grand. I'll do 20."

Then it went to 50, and then some guy came recently and offered 100, and I was like, it's so funny to say no to those kinds of opportunities, because I know that that's the same thing that you're probably going to run into, because there's only one of you, and you're awesome.

What's nice about what you're saying right now is that you, and it's the same thing I've found, is you get to be choosy with who you want to work with.

There's just some people, it doesn't matter how much they'll spend and will give to you. I turned down a 100K one, just because I knew I did not want to work with the guy, himself.

I was like, ah, I feel like we're not going to get along. That's not worth any amount of money to me, but when you work toward being best, rather than cheapest, in my opinion, that's the one to go for. Obviously, if you're in eComm or other places like that, it's a little bit different if you can be the cheapest and really get away with it, but by trying to strive for the best.

How many people does Ferrari turn away?

Probably a ton, because they get to choose the client.

Do you qualify? Do you get to qualify?

It goes back to, I think, what Russell talks about in the book, too. Everything's status. You're protecting status. You're putting status at risk. Whatever it is. As people are moving through the funnel, and as they get ... Only because I can tell that you've really read his book am I going to ask this, because it's kind of intense, but what have you done to protect somebody's status inside of the funnel? What kind of guarantee or what kind of safety nets have you given them emotionally, so that their status is protected?

Yanni Fikaris:

Well, if you look at our funnel, the people are there for a result. They want something, and they want a really good result. What they really want is not to spend a lot of money, so, in the world of status, their pocketbook stays full, and when we're done, their kitchen looks like they did spend enough to empty their pocketbook.

Steve Larsen:

Interesting.

Yanni Fikaris:

That's a very basic way to look at it, but let's curtail into Facebook ads through this conversation.

Steve Larsen:

Yeah.

Yanni Fikaris:

I have two audiences. I have women and I have men. The women want ... Listen. Don't write me nasty emails, if you don't like what I'm going to say. This is just scientific data that I've collected.

Steve Larsen:

It's marketing.

Yanni Fikaris:

This is marketing. The women, more or less, want the result. They want the outcome to look like the photos on our webpage, and they get it, so their status goes up. It first mentally goes up when they're like, "Wow! This kid can really make this kitchen look like that? Look at the before and afters. I love it."

Now, the husband's status gets shocked when he's like, "Oh, my God, I don't want that. It looks so expensive," but once you tell him the price, then he feels okay. He's like, "Okay, I can pay for this." Now, I say it like that, where the woman decides, and the husband pays, because 87% of my clients, that's the relationship.

The husband foots the bill for the job...

Steve Larsen:

87.

Yanni Fikaris:

Now, I'm not telling you that is across the country. I'm telling you that's my clients, and I only know that because I ask.

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Yanni Fikaris:

Because I need to know. If you want to better your business, you need to know who you're actually selling to. If you're selling to men, then advertise to men. If you're selling to women, advertise to women. Most of the time, I'm getting women first, and then the man is actually the one paying.

Steve Larsen:

Fascinating.

Yanni Fikaris:

If you go into our Facebook, how our Facebook ads play out, I do something similar. I'm advertising pictures and results to women, and I'm advertising price to males.

Steve Larsen:

Interesting, so do you literally have two separate Facebook audiences running those separate ads?

Yanni Fikaris:

Correct.

Steve Larsen:

Wow!

Yanni Fikaris:

Absolutely. I never mix the two. It doesn't work.

Steve Larsen:

That's so cool.

Yanni Fikaris:

If you saw a breakdown between, let's say, Facebook ad group one and Facebook ad group two, one is photos and no mention of cost, and that's directed towards women, and the other one is a basic one and mentioned towards how much is it going to cost or save. A lot of big ones, sometimes, it saves $35,000 to $50,000 versus a full kitchen renovation. That's a good one that hits on men. Another one that hits is we can do this, we start on Monday, we end on Friday.

Steve Larsen:

Oh, time.

Yanni Fikaris:

They want to know the time, time, yeah. You have to understand the psyche of your clients, and if you don't know that, write it down. Think about, besides who do you want your ideal client to be? ... Like Russell says, "Who do I want?"

Steve Larsen:

Sure.

Yanni Fikaris:

You need to know who you've had. You need to know who was your best client and who was your worst client. Two percent of our clients are nut-job crazies. It doesn't matter, you could give them a pile of gold, and they would say you're the most ridiculously overpriced person in the world. You could pay for their job, and they hate you.

Two percent...

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, I call them the dirties.

Yanni Fikaris:

The dirties. Yeah, we do 115 jobs actually a year, 2% of them are nuts. It just happens. Those are outliers. You don't put them into any group.

Steve Larsen:

Sure.

Yanni Fikaris:

They could be anybody, but you need to know exactly who you've sold to in the last, let's say, five years. That would help. Last six months, I mean, that's not enough of a pool. Once you get that, that's where Facebook starts to come in, because Facebook is integrated so well with that.

Steve Larsen:

Right, they're everywhere.

Yanni Fikaris:

They know-

Steve Larsen:

They've got every demographic.

Yanni Fikaris:

Every demo, and use it! Don't think that, wow, if I write this, I'm being judgmental. You have to be judgmental. This is marketing. You have to. You're spending your own money. If you were going to say, "I'm going to spend 10 grand."

I will spend 10 grand a month, but let's say you're going to spend $1000 a month and not be judgmental and send this ad to everybody and just throw it away, or I'm going to be a little judgmental, and I'm going to be very specific, and I want to know exactly who I've sold to, and that's who I'm going to advertise to.

Steve Larsen:

Amazing, amazing...

I know we've been going a while. Just, it's super cool. Most people don't geek out about the marketing part as much as you do, which is refreshing for me. I wanted to ask, and then we'll end here soon, because I know we're way over on time, but I appreciate your time here.

Yanni Fikaris:

It's all right.

Steve Larsen:

When you first started out on the Facebook ad and doing the audiences and such, did you already know all of that data?

Yanni Fikaris:

No. Oh, God, no. Somebody just asked me that on a post. How'd you figure this out? I was like, "Dude, trial and error, and mostly error."

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, yeah.

Yanni Fikaris:

The one thing I did know is who my first contact was over the last five years, even in the last two years. I primarily talk to a woman first, and that made me think that that's the person that I needed to advertise towards.

At first, I did both, and then it was a huge percentage of women, compared to men, who were responding to the ads, so naturally I just took men right out of it, and it didn't affect anything. Then I ran the two splits. Women are, they're engaging way more than men. If I split my money in half, it would still be more women than men. If I did 90% men, 10% women, it would still be more of a woman.

They're engaging more for this service...

Now, again, I can't tell you for every service, but for this specific service, I'm engaged way more from a woman between 34 and 65, than a man any age.

Steve Larsen:

Wow, wow! To know that, that's pretty awesome. I mean, I saw the post that you put out there. You said you're getting $4 CPA. Is that right?

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, we spent. Let me tell you, the month before I posted ... I did this three months in a row. I did one a month ago to show the last two months, and I did it this month just to say, "Wow, man. This isn't a fluke. This is pretty cool." The two months we did 165 grand in business, I spent 900 bucks on Facebook ads.

Steve Larsen:

Are you serious?

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, dude, I could show you the printout on Facebook, and I think this month we might have spent 300.

Steve Larsen:

That's got to be some kind of freaking record. I'm not joking. Holy crap!

Yanni Fikaris:

What happens is--you know this--it starts to pick up-

Steve Larsen:

Other, yeah.

Yanni Fikaris:

People just start to see the brand, and the word of mouth, and we get a lot of ... I'll tell you a good story. I had a lady call, and she was like, "I need my cabinets refinished, and I called two of my friends"--this is a lady talking--"I called two of my friends and asked them for recommendations.

One said you," and she goes, "I called the other one, and the other one said you. Then I went on Facebook, and I saw your pictures." She's like, "I'm sold."

If you have a specific product or service that's excellent, that's the best, you start to be the person that people talk about when they want that. Painting, in general, isn't enough. There's a million painters and everybody can do it. Name one person that could bring the equipment that we have, that we show online, and we could talk about advertising and why we're the best, because what we show people, we do. There's value in the proof, or there's value in establishing what you actually are doing for them.

It's not just the results. They're seeing the process. They're seeing how this comes together, and they're like, "Holy crap! This other guy doesn't do anything like this." There's value in that, and it starts to close the door.

When you see ... We didn't even post these yet, because I don't want to post too many things at the same time. I don't want people to liken our company with so many different things, they get distracted, but we have another brand that I have, that I didn't even post this yet, but it's another painting company, and it just does move-out painting.

Totally different brand...

I'll send you the logos, but that painting company has nothing to do with cabinet refinishing. It has nothing to do with exterior painting. It's specifically just for people who move out and want their house painted.

Steve Larsen:

Wow! That niche-

Yanni Fikaris:

That's the niche. Cabinet refinishing's a niche, that's the niche, and I have one for exterior painting. Those are the niches, but there's so many people on the market, so you have to be the best.

You have to show people the process. My advertisements for cabinet refinishing, they basically go something like this, and I also post on my regular Facebook page, not to be too long-winded, but it says, with a video or a photo, "If your guy or gal or painter doesn't start like this, he'll never end like this."

I'll show two pictures, one of us completely maxed out and prepped out, not an inch to be painted on, and another one a finished product, and now you, in your head, you're like, "Damn, I hired Joe's Painting, and there's freaking paint everywhere!"

Steve Larsen:

Interesting.

Yanni Fikaris:

Now, it's the dichotomy of cost. You want Joe's Painting because he's cheap, but did you really want Joe's Painting?

Steve Larsen:

Right, no, you probably didn't. You don't want the result attached to it.

Yanni Fikaris:

Right.

Steve Larsen:

Absolutely. Now, you've clearly become a Facebook ad expert, probably, through this process, out of necessity, which is awesome. It's cool, because it sounds like you wrote the ad, and the ad pretty much stays the same, or does it? Are you split testing ads or are you split testing audiences? You know what I mean?

Yanni Fikaris:

I had a couple ads. The funny thing is the ads that I have, or the ad that actually works is not any picture you see on the landing page, which I thought that was odd. I thought that people would want to see the ad, then the landing page, and be the same. Now, I tried that, but what was happening was I think I was getting too much aversion to cost from the ad.

People were like, "Dude, that looks like a magazine. I can't afford that. I don't care. I'm not even going to ask for the price." It's like, I can't go to the Ferrari dealership, because it's too expensive, so I had to back that into a more economic ad, almost like how Mercedes went from their real high class, now they're putting things into the $30,000 price range for more people.

It's still high end, but more people can afford it, so I did the same thing.

Instead of using my DSLR and flash and making the picture look like we actually publish it onto our webpage, I took a picture on my iPhone 6 and didn't edit it and had it a little crooked, just a little, not obscene, but just to know that somebody actually stood there and took it. That ad worked the best.

Steve Larsen:

Amazing!

Yanni Fikaris:

It's amazing! Listen. Some things you can't explain. Do you know what I mean?

Steve Larsen:

Sure, right.

Yanni Fikaris:

It just, it doesn't work like you thought it would work, but you have to test it.

Steve Larsen:

Right. Basically, you widen the net with the ad, but then you make it tighter what seems at the landing page and have all the criteria before it. That's brilliant, my friend. That is a funnel.

Yanni Fikaris:

That's exactly what it is. You want a million people to see it for nothing, then you want to re-target the people that are interested into the funnel or into the ad that has the cost. Now, they're not going to click on it to spend your money. If they're going to click on it, they're going to spend their money.

Steve Larsen:

Interesting. Interesting, so super cheap, big, wide open net, goes down to tight, and then ... I've kept you on way too long, but I'm just having fun with you now. Everyone else who's listening, you just have the privilege of listening, because this is all for me now.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, keep-

Steve Larsen:

How do you run the ... What's different about the re-targeting ads? Do you keep it more of the strict style then, or do you widen it back out to the bigger net?

Yanni Fikaris:

No, I go to people who have seen a video or an ad placement. It's pretty specific. What I've noticed is a lot of people will go to the re-target and buy from the same ad. I have one that re-targets basically to a copy of the same ad. That works for me.

Steve Larsen:

Oh, really?

Yanni Fikaris:

Not a new picture. The new picture ones re-target ... Let's say I have a picture of kitchen A, and they re-target. I've copied everything, except for the picture, and I change the picture. It's like a new dimension for them. It's the same guy, but that's the thing that doesn't work. Once they re-target to the same copy, maybe different words, but the same picture, that works.

Steve Larsen:

Interesting, so same picture, just switching the copy on the re-targeting ad.

Yanni Fikaris:

Right. The re-targeting ad has more things about cost. Either they're going to save money or they're going to spend 100 ... I don't want them to click it unless they're going to spend $100 per door. That's what keeps my cost down. If your adverse to cost, once you see that on your screen, you're going to say, "I'm not clicking this. It doesn't make a difference. I just can't afford this," or, "I'm not going to pay." Once you see it, you're like, "Oh, my God, that's better than a kitchen renovation, because I'm going to save 50 grand.

Let's find out more," and they've already seen it before.

Steve Larsen:

That's fascinating, so you go through it. You keep the net open and big, and you say, and it's more about the process, right? Hey, this is what I did, little iPhone 6 picture, and then you go to landing page. It gets a little bit tight, but then on the ad on the way out, the re-targeting ad, it's more about cost to just sift out the last fence-sitters, I guess, right?

Yanni Fikaris:

Basically.

Steve Larsen:

Numbers-wise, how do those usually perform? Do you get a lot of closing from that, as well?

Yanni Fikaris:

The closing ratio of any ... If you go to the landing page and actually snitch our information, we are in the 90s of doing the job. The few times that we don't do the job, it's life changes, something happens, or they fall off the face of the planet, which really doesn't happen.

I have a whiteboard in my office. I'll take a snapshot of it.

Steve Larsen:

Sure.

Yanni Fikaris:

The top part is the jobs that we scheduled. The bottom is, we call them the unknowns. We're not really sure, maybe they are, maybe they're not. There's one at, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 ... We have 16 jobs for this month.

One is an unknown. I'm talking to her at two o'clock today.

Steve Larsen:

Fascinating!

Yanni Fikaris:

They total ... I could do this. This is for this month [inaudible 01:02:56] probably if not a little more than the month before that I posted.

Steve Larsen:

Powerful. Last question, then we'll go ahead and end. How long did it take you to get this whole funnel process down and really working? I mean, three months in a row, that's awesome, but I'm sure is months of figuring it out.

Yanni Fikaris:

I don't want to lie to you. I think I started in March.

Steve Larsen:

Okay, that's crazy, you know?

Yanni Fikaris:

You could check my receipt of ClickFunnels, but I'm pretty sure it was March or April.

Steve Larsen:

That's ... It's August, barely.

Yanni Fikaris:

It was right away, because I'm the guy, that nerd, that's going to stay up until four o'clock in the morning and make sure that everything is centered right, and why didn't this work? Let me just look at this other page one more time.

Steve Larsen:

Sure.

Yanni Fikaris:

It was a ... I need a challenge. That's my personality, so I was like, if somebody else is doing this, dude, I'm going to do this. I couldn't let it wait. The longest thing to do is wait for the ads to actually work, because it does take time. That was the most frustrating part.

Steve Larsen:

Sure.

Yanni Fikaris:

That's why, at first, the biggest failure and the biggest mistake that I think that people should avoid, but maybe they have to make it, just--I learn from my own mistakes--is casting that net and not tightening it up.

Steve Larsen:

Interesting.

Yanni Fikaris:

Remember how I told you I would go to appointments? I would go everywhere, try to do face-to-face, but these people weren't going to pay when I went out there anyway. Just because your funnel works, people actually submit their information, doesn't mean you're going to make money.

Steve Larsen:

Right, it doesn't mean the funnel works.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, the funnel gets people, but you're getting the wrong people.

Steve Larsen:

Right.

Yanni Fikaris:

That takes some tailoring, and, like you said before, having the ability to tell people, "Dude, I can't work for you," or, "This isn't just a good project for both of us." That ownership of work, that takes time.

Not many people have that skill to turn away work. That gut instinct where you're like, dude ... You look at your buddies in the room or whoever you have in management, and you're like, I don't want to do this.

Steve Larsen:

This is not the one, yeah. You'd better run.

Yanni Fikaris:

I, for years ... Everybody makes the same mistake, because they really just want the paycheck, and that's just experience.

Steve Larsen:

Man, that's incredible. Man, I want to thank you so much for this. You have over-delivered to the nth degree, and I really appreciate it. Hey, just so people can follow you, they can see what you do, where are the places they should go to be watching what you're doing?

Yanni Fikaris:

I'm on Facebook...

I really, I guess I should get a public page more than my own page, but if you just go to Facebook and click in Yanni Fikaris, you can see what we do on a daily basis. Every day, we're putting out cabinets and promoting what we do. I'm sure, after this conversation, it's going to grow.

Steve Larsen:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Just so you guys know, Fikaris, the spelling, it's F-I-K-A-R-I-S.

Yanni Fikaris:

That's correct.

Steve Larsen:

Yanni Fikaris. You're actual site where you're doing all this stuff ... Don't go jumble his numbers, everybody, but you can go check out what he's doing at cabinetdoorpainting.com, right?

Yanni Fikaris:

That's correct.

Steve Larsen:

Awesome. Man, I want to thank you very much. This has been fantastic. No matter what kind of professional service you're in, listen to what Yanni's been telling you. If you're a dentist, you're a lawyer, doctor, chiropractor, any trade, any area that's taken a lot of skill to develop, this can be used. A very simple, two-page funnel that is just totally killing it, but very, very ingenious.

I mean, every single spot, you have thought of and every single ... There's nothing on this funnel or in these pages or on these ads that is not there for a reason, and that is very rare. I think most of it, a lot of times haphazard at the beginning, which just makes sense, but, man, you have honed everything in. I want to thank you and thank you for all the value you've shared here.

Yanni Fikaris:

Thanks, Steve.

Steve Larsen:

Awesome. Thanks, man.

Yanni Fikaris:

All right, buddy.

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