Ask Frank Kern
559 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 months ago - ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsTransforming Your Business Isn't About Doing A Million Different Things. It's About Finding ONE BIG THING And Then Leveraging That. Frank Kern has been advising entrepreneurs like you all day, every day, to do just that since 1999. This is his podcast. More at FrankKernPodcast.com.
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Episodes
Do NOT try to out-work me. (Out-smart me instead.)
May 20, 2024 08:00 - 14 minutes - 10.5 MBDo not try to out-work me, out-smart me instead. Over the holiday, I got a message from someone very important to me, and they're going through a good rebirth of business. This individual is experiencing some focus issues and said that one of their ambitions was to out-work me. My immediate response, because I care very much about this person, was "please don't do that. Instead out-smart me." So I say to you, don't try to out-work me. Definitely not from a place of ego...
If you were doing a State of the Union today, how would you structure it towards more of an agency application funnel rather than an info product or lower-end product?
May 13, 2024 08:00 - 3 minutes - 2.58 MBIf you were doing a State of the Union today with a topic like podcasting, or really any, any topic cuz I know so many of the people in this group, how would you structure it if you were looking for, you know, pointing them to more of an agency application type of funnel, rather than like a info product or a lower end product? Or would you strictly do it for a positioning standpoint of kind of putting the entire industry, niche on notice from that perspective?
Do you have any tips on how I can engage a beta group that is testing my product to extract the most valid information?
May 06, 2024 08:00 - 5 minutes - 4.22 MBI'm trying to find out if you have any tips on how I can engage this beta group and extract as much information as possible so I can really hone in on that viable, what that minimum viable product is. I don't know if I would...how big is the beta group? So there's 30 families now, so 60 individuals...
What would you say to the individual that has all the content in the world but is having trouble implementing it?
April 29, 2024 08:00 - 4 minutes - 3.22 MBThe hard part is the implementation aspect or the over analysis of like, oh God, I know I should do this. Should I change the color of the button purple and all this other stuff or, to some of these points, I hear a general sentiment of I kinda know what I need to do, I've heard it before, I'm just having trouble pulling the trigger. How would you address someone who's in that specific situation?
What do you recommend for Book funnels in terms of advertising? Any minor adjustments you'd recommend to your IBB for this model?
April 08, 2024 08:00 - 6 minutes - 4.7 MBWhat do you recommend for Book funnels in terms of advertising? Alright. Specifically referencing my Intent Based Branding methodology. And so I will give that answer regardless of methodology. So if the objective of the campaign is to sell a book, you first have to look at what is the objective of selling the book. Do you want to make an immediate profit during that? Do you want them to consume the book and then become fans and then buy more stuff later. What's the end result?
How do you accurately categorize and elevate the appropriate price for tools such as 1-on-1 coaching, group coaching, memberships, and live events?
April 01, 2024 08:00 - 4 minutes - 2.99 MBAs I pivot more from the services side or the agency side to the coaching stuff, just curious your thoughts on how to accurately categorize the appropriate price of that in my head and how to continue to elevate that. So there's a couple things. 1. It's gotta be consulting, not coaching...
Frank, how do you script your videos?
March 25, 2024 08:00 - 4 minutes - 3.54 MBThe question is how do you script your videos? And the answer is I personally don't script my videos, but I do have a framework...
How do you create whale bait to add new upper-level prospects to your pipeline?
March 18, 2024 08:00 - 4 minutes - 3.48 MBI know the types of people that I was attracting before aren't going to be the ones that work with me at the level that I do, these new ones. And so it begs the question, how do I get more qualified prospects in the pipeline?
Have you worked with clients from Europe who sold their products/services to US customers? Is it more difficult for Europeans to sell on the US market?
February 12, 2024 09:00 - 2 minutes - 2.01 MBSo Simon asks, have I worked with clients from Europe who sold their products/services to US customers? And is it more difficult for Europeans to sell on the US market? Yes I have, and the answer is no.
HEALTH SCARE reveals marketing secret
January 15, 2024 09:00 - 11 minutes - 7.93 MBWe're recording this for you in this little wooden room of the California place where we are staying for the next couple of weeks, here in the summer, and just had the craziest health thing happen...
The Oldest Trick In The Book – Marketing Lessons From A Saint
January 08, 2024 09:00 - 10 minutes - 10.8 MBThis morning, I read a pretty powerful marketing lesson written by a Saint. I'm pretty sure he didn't intend for it to be a marketing lesson, but it's a good marketing lesson nonetheless. The Saint's name is Nikolaj Velimirović and in his writings, he says that we are better off if we do not engage others in lengthy debates and fruitless discussions. We can better change their hearts by our love and good deeds. If we take that sentence and we apply it to marketing, it really makes a lot of...
A Huge Mistake That’s Costing You Money
January 01, 2024 09:00 - 9 minutes - 9.65 MBThings are without question rarely as they seem. So here's what that means... As marketers, it's very, very easy for us to make assumptions about our prospects based on our own personal experience or what we observe in our immediate day-to-day life. However, a lot of times those assumptions are completely wrong. And a lot of times those incorrect assumptions cost us a lot of money in lost sales.
When you bringing back the sassy dazzle videos?
December 04, 2023 09:00 - 2 minutes - 1.63 MBThat question could be translated into "do fancy videos work better than non-fancy videos?" And you know, what? The non-fancy videos work better.
If you were to go back to when you were 20, do you think you would still choose the same lifestyle?
November 27, 2023 09:00 - 3 minutes - 2.34 MBIf you were to go back to when you were 20, do you think you would still choose the same lifestyle that you have now. And the answer is yeah, absolutely. I would have done a lot of stuff differently though...
What to do if your leads don’t convert
November 20, 2023 09:00 - 6 minutes - 4.89 MBSo this is someone saying, hey man, I'm getting leads, but they're not converting. All right, and so that's the statement. The actual statement is I could get leads with my clients, need help converting them. Uh dude, join the club...
If you lost everything today (contacts, cash, business, etc), what will you do to rebuild back your income?
November 13, 2023 09:00 - 2 minutes - 1.92 MBIf you lost everything today (contacts, cash, business, etc), what will you do to rebuild back your income? Well, if I literally had absolutely no money at all, like not even enough to run ads, I would go door-to-door to businesses or just get them on the phone, really. Yeah, I'd get them on the phone. I'm assuming I at least have a phone...
Is the majority of your business still from selling info or consulting? Which business model do you prefer?
November 06, 2023 09:00 - 3 minutes - 2.39 MBMike says, is the majority of your business still from selling info or consulting? Which business model do you prefer? Right now, it's info. And there's a deliberate reason for that. There are two deliberate reasons for that. #1 - it's personal preference, which was spawned by me being wore out...
NEW: The Holy Grail Scenario
October 30, 2023 08:00 - 6 minutes - 4.59 MBIt's the question I've been getting a lot of lately, which is like a general question, which is what's the best way to do social media ads? The answer is, it depends. However, there is a Holy Trinity to shoot for, and if you can pull this off, and I...
HOLD FAST – The Cure For Distraction
October 23, 2023 08:00 - 10 minutes - 10.2 MBToday, I have 10 words for you that can polarize or they can unify. My hope is that they unify. Here they are. The words are...
Is High End Continuity still a significant part of your business model?
May 15, 2023 08:00 - 3 minutes - 2.58 MBIs high-end continuity still a significant part of your business model? No, high-end continuity isn't and it never really has been. By high-end, I'm assuming you mean multi-thousand dollar consulting engagements...
An Uncomfortable Confession
May 01, 2023 08:00 - 15 minutes - 11.5 MBHello everyone. Frank Kern here. I hope you're doing well. I'm recording this for you front of the fire once again, in my little office. It's about seven in the morning, beautiful morning here, and now to live up to the title of today's podcast...
Should I have one page for my training and a separate page for affiliate marketing?
December 19, 2022 09:00 - 3 minutes - 3.19 MBWhen I set the page up, I did not set up a business account. So I'm assuming that I have to set up a business account with that, in order to run ads, is that correct? Especially if you want to do stuff like retargeting and all of that. Yeah. Okay, great. Secondly, my purpose for starting that ad was to brand myself. I have a lot of background in consulting and training, and one of my main goals is to work with people who are trying to start up their businesses and go in so many different...
I keep getting unqualified leads from Facebook. Do I need to use LinkedIn for this type of audience?
September 26, 2022 08:00 - 3 minutes - 3.19 MBSo he had a question about his lead quality. His audience is executives and entrepreneurs. He said in the past, he kept getting unqualified leads from Facebook. He was wondering, are they active on Facebook or does he need to use LinkedIn for this type of audience? OK. So to you, I would say kind sir, welcome to the club...
I'm getting a good quantity of leads, but they are not scheduling consults or responding at the rate that I would like. So my question is, what's the number one thing I should do next?
September 19, 2022 08:00 - 12 minutes - 10 MBI'm getting a good quantity of leads, but they are not scheduling consults or calling or emailing at the rate that I would like. So my question is what's the number one thing I should do next? OK. What's the thing you sell?
When would you use campaign budget versus ad set budget?
September 12, 2022 08:00 - 2 minutes - 1.75 MBWhen would you use campaign budget versus ad set budget? Later...
I would like some advice on how to form my copy, so it gets approved.
September 05, 2022 08:00 - 4 minutes - 3.32 MBI had some problems with the ad approval. I'm selling mortgage and basically I'm trying to base my ad upon the refinancing of the mortgage. So I would like to ask you for some advice, for my copy, so it doesn't get not approved.
How do I expand and find different targets within a sub-niche?
August 29, 2022 08:00 - 3 minutes - 2.67 MBSo my niche is a sub-niche, it's dreadlocks, which is a sub-niche of natural hair. And so if I were targeting natural hair, there are lots of influencers and products and brands that I could target, but not so much, being the case for specifically dreadlocks. So I'm trying to think about how do I expand and find different targets when there's really not targetable...
Should I make my challenge funnel more general to cater to all interests, or should I tweak the challenge and make it only about one specific niche?
August 22, 2022 08:00 - 2 minutes - 2.39 MBI'm wondering, should I make my challenge more general to cater to all interests? So I have people that are coming into this challenge that are probably interested in cosmetics or outdoors or beauty...or should I tweak the challenge and make it only about one specific niche?
Do you have a solution or any best practices to make ads work for clients in small cities with small audiences?
July 18, 2022 08:00 - 9 minutes - 6.98 MBI do marketing services. I run ads for people. I have copy I know works, I used it on several clients. What happens is when I get a client from a small city, it has a very small audience. So the lead ad usually doesn't work. I tried a bunch of stuff and I never actually could get it to work, so I'm wondering if you have any solution for that...
On a new campaign, how much time do you give each ad until you switch it off again?
July 11, 2022 08:00 - 1 minute - 1.49 MBHow long, how much time do you give each ad until you switch it off again, on a new campaign? I'll give three days, generally speaking. When I create a new ad, I don't usually stick it into an existing campaign, so I'll just create a new campaign with a new ad. So a lot of times...
I started running conversion ads. Should I turn the ad spin back down while it's burning or should I just ride it out?
July 04, 2022 08:00 - 1 minute - 1.37 MBSo I made a bit of a rookie error here. I started running conversion ads last week, and we got pretty good results. We sold 21 orders overall, 20 purchases of the offer and then 1 purchase of the upsell product, which is a markdown subscription to our on-demand training. And so I went in earlier this week and put more money behind it, and I wound up changing the conversion event and I didn't notice...
When I set up lead ads recently, the share option was not there. Did I do something wrong or did that change, and are the shares important?
June 27, 2022 08:00 - 2 minutes - 1.8 MBI've run lead ads before and I noticed that sometimes they are shareable. In other words, people can click share and when the program started, they shared amongst friends. They shared and we were able to get more leads that way, just from the shares. I noticed this time when I set up the lead ads, the share option was not there...
Is there an email sequence or best practice to get more people to say yes to a live offer by a deadline?
May 09, 2022 08:00 - 3 minutes - 2.97 MBI have that program where it's basically a three month program 5k to a cold audience. I take them through a five day workshop and the people that don't buy within that 24 hour period, I do the expiring bonuses and all that stuff. Is there a mapped out email sequence that you recommend or is there any other way to get more people to say yes, either in my live offer or through emails that you recommend? Just best practices?
Do you recommend collecting lead forms directly from Facebook? How do you utilize important but questionable photos within Facebook ads?
April 25, 2022 08:00 - 6 minutes - 10.8 MBI've got a client who is doing this diabetes treatment that is unlike any other. It's been around for 20 years, but it hasn't been promoted very well. And, when you're promoting stuff on Facebook, especially in the medical world, the ad got rejected. A number of times I kept kicking back and it finally got approved and this client, they don't really want emails. They want phone calls...
Never Forget This One Thing
April 19, 2022 14:31 - 16 minutes - 11.8 MBDiscover the single most effective way to quickly and easily get as many customers as you want.
I want to have someone do a certain thing...what should the ad say?
April 18, 2022 08:00 - 3 minutes - 2.6 MBAny advice about what ad to run, to have people apply to a webinar? Okay, so this question is, I'll rephrase it like this. I want to have someone do a certain thing. What should the ad say? Alright, that's really what the question is saying. In this case, Mark is saying, I want to have people go to a webinar, register for a webinar. What should the ad say? The question could be...
Any advice on how to learn to put a good course together?
April 11, 2022 08:00 - 1 minute - 1.57 MBAny advice on how to learn to put a good course together? I finally feel like this is possible for me. I'm a legal recruiter and realize I have a ton of advice that will be helpful to young, new attorneys. Dude, here's what I would do. If I was you...
If you were starting a social media agency from square one and didn't have "proof" yet, what would your lead gen strategy be?
April 04, 2022 08:00 - 2 minutes - 2 MBVery simple. It would be to get them on the phone, give them a proposal and see if they wanted to become a client. Everybody's got testimonials, you know. I don't really think it matters.
What to do if the ads are not working
March 28, 2022 08:00 - 5 minutes - 4.33 MBHe's running some ads and he's not getting any sales. And to that I reply, welcome, sir, to the club. And so I don't really understand the question. It says is it only sales conversion that count? Or should I check for some other stats? I'm not...
What types of lead magnets work best to attract higher-level prospects for our agency side?
March 07, 2022 09:00 - 3 minutes - 2.8 MBSo we're going to move those people to pitch our membership group, but we want to create a new lead magnet, similar to your idea of elite owner operator. But it's specifically for real estate agents who make $500K or our number is more like 300 and up, but what type of the lead magnets do you find work better for attracting that type, or do you go straight to hire us to do it for you?
Do you have tips/recommendations to optimize engagement and click-through rate?
February 28, 2022 09:00 - 4 minutes - 3.21 MBI'd really like to see what I can do to optimize engagement and click through rate on our current email newsletter. I'm seeing that our lead magnet, it has a great open rate. It's an 80% open rate, 60% click through, and then subsequent emails out the gate, you know, it's about a 20/25% open and 6% click through rate. What recommendations do you have to really kind of help boost that sort of thing?
What are your takeaways from creating your "perfect lifestyle" first and then working hard to pay for it?
January 17, 2022 09:00 - 7 minutes - 5.31 MBI think you went through either yours or a version of the perfect day experience where in a perfect day, this is what life would look like. Do you remember that day?
You understand human behavior, positioning and dynamics. How do unconscious marketing elements like context, environment and positioning affect the marketing schtick?
January 10, 2022 09:00 - 7 minutes - 5.66 MBOne thing I've really appreciated about you over the years has been obviously, you know, you're one of the most intelligent marketers out there, but something about understanding human behavior, positioning and dynamics. So for example, however many years ago, maybe you remember what year it was, you did the first state of the internet address. You did it in an office that looked pretty fancified, you sitting at the big desk and what people didn't realize, and I know you explained this lat...
HEALTH SCARE reveals marketing secret
January 03, 2022 09:00 - 11 minutes - 7.93 MBWe're recording this for you in this little wooden room of the California place where we are staying for the next couple of weeks, here in the summer, and just had the craziest health thing happen...
They Asked Frank Kern To Keynote Funnel Hacker Live
December 27, 2021 09:00 - 27 minutes - 19.3 MBAlright. It's important that everybody fully understands the situation at hand. I'm going to talk about seven things on the intro net. I might talk about ways to increase sales in your business. I might slip up and say that I've sold a lot of stuff. My results are not typical. The statement about me being completely insane is 100% accurate...
Is SEO dead? How much should I worry about it for a blog/biz website?
November 29, 2021 09:00 - 5 minutes - 4.05 MBHere's a pretty good question. Samuel asks, is SEO dead? How much should I worry about it for a blog/biz website? Well, I'll give you my answer with a disclaimer.
Do you think there's any connection between the MK-Ultra experiments and modern marketing methods, especially the ones that have a background in NLP?
November 15, 2021 09:00 - 4 minutes - 3.11 MBDo you think there's any connection between the MK-Ultra experiments and modern marketing methods, especially the ones that have a background in NLP. Okay. Number one, I don't know...
Is the majority of your business still from selling info or consulting? Which business model do you prefer?
November 01, 2021 08:00 - 3 minutes - 2.4 MBMike says, is the majority of your business still from selling info or consulting? Which business model do you prefer right now? It's info. And there's a deliberate reason for that. There are two deliberate reasons for that. #1 - it's personal preference, which was spawned by me being wore out...
What are people buying online today? Online courses? White papers? Just curious what are the hot products right now.
October 25, 2021 08:00 - 3 minutes - 2.7 MBJason asks what are people buying online today? And then the question goes a little deeper...is it online courses, white papers? Just curious what the hot products are right now. The short answer to that is everything.
What was the SINGLE biggest obstacle overcame to get where you are today?
October 11, 2021 08:00 - 4 minutes - 3.08 MBWhat was the single biggest obstacle I overcame to get where I am today? That's a serious question. There are a lot of them, so I'll just tell you all the dumb stuff that I do. And then I'll let you decide what the biggest obstacle is.