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Entrepreneurial & Funnel Hacking with Niajae Wallace
I’m extremely jacked up for this episode. I’ve been looking forward to having this guest on and I am absolutely amazed at how on fire this lady is in what she’s doing and what she’s rocking the world. We are honored to have our friend, Niajae Wallace, on. How are you doing?
Thank you for having me.
For those who don’t know Niajae, check out the Abundance Hack podcast. She launched it. There is some great stuff on that. Besides being a fellow podcaster, she is an influencer, a boss-babe and an amazing individual. She’s a fully remote entrepreneur who specializes in sales funnels and automation, which everybody needs these days. She is also passionate about helping people ditch the excuses, step into their power and live their best life. You are totally right on. You hit the nail on the head about stepping into the power. We met in Tampa at New Media Summit with our friend, Steve Olsher with New Media Summit. Here’s a lady you’ve got to love. I think purple is one of her favorite colors, purple and pink. She’s got bright purple hair, white outfit, a beautiful lady. She steps up to the mic, quiet at first. I didn’t see her networking a lot of people. I think you’re trying to figure that out. She’s at New Media Summit. Everybody’s got to give a two-minute pitch. This lady rocked the house. She did a great pitch and is an amazing person. She does a lot of productivity stuff. I won’t take your thunder, Niajae. Thank you again for being here. I’m excited to have you on the show.
Thank you for having me. New Media Summit was amazing.
You’ve got such a great thing that you’re doing for people. Share a little about your background and how you got into what you’re doing now first. What led you to do what you’re doing now?
I had a brick and mortar business for five years. I owned a dance and aerial studio. At the beginning, for the first year or two, I was like, “This is amazing. I’m getting paid to do what I love.” I was the only studio that offered aerials. For anyone who doesn’t know what aerials is, it’s Cirque du Soleil where we do the flips and tricks in the air. I was the only studio in the city that offers this. The business grew probably faster than what I was anticipating. In year three, I became burned out because I didn’t have solid systems, I didn’t have a good self-care regimen. I pretty much was unhappy because I didn’t have these things in place in my business and I was working myself to exhaustion. I became obsessed with understanding systems. I read a book by Robert Kiyosaki that completely changed my mindset.
Robert Kiyosaki wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but the book that I read that changed my mindset was Choose To Be Rich. That book, he goes in-depth about the cashflow quadrant and the difference between owning a business and owning a job. I became super obsessed with systems. In year four, I revamped my whole business to have it operating like a well-oiled machine. In year five, I sold it. I moved to Florida and transitioned to being fully remote because I realized what I valued more than financial freedom was time and location freedom. I was making phenomenal money but I didn’t have the time to enjoy it. Set your business up to where you still have a life, you still can enjoy the fruits of your labor, you still have time to take care of yourself. Self-care is important and you have time to enjoy life because why we work so hard is to be able to enjoy life.
When I sold my business, I moved to Florida and I started coaching. I wanted to have a specific thing that I coach entrepreneurs on. A company I fell in love with is ClickFunnels. I was a customer first and then I was like, “I love this company. I love what they’re doing. I love how they’re helping entrepreneurs and business owners.” I worked for them for a year so I can learn directly from them. Now, I build sales funnels, I coach people on how to build sales funnels, the strategy behind it, the strategy behind automation and still allowing it to have a personal touch. Some people say, “I don’t want to automate because it takes the feeling out of the business,” but it doesn’t. All of my stuff, you get Niajae in all of my emails, all of my funnels, in everything. That is pretty much what led me to where I am now.
For our audience, why don’t we take it down a little bit? You and I speak the same language and a lot of entrepreneurs do. Let’s talk a little about what a basic funnel is for people. Let’s talk about that aspect. I’m a big believer that everybody has a funnel. I don’t care what they’re doing. Everybody has a funnel to either drive business because we’re all in sales. We’re all in marketing whether you believe it or not. I remember a couple of the New Media Summits ago, DJ Doug Sandler from New Media Summit said, “I don’t even know what a funnel is.” Why don’t we talk about that for our audience out there?
For the traditional website, people poke around and then they leave and you never know they were there. A funnel is the journey that you take the customer on. The difference between a traditional website and a landing page or a sales funnel is there’s a specific call to action. It says, “Do this, click here, download this, sign up here.” It takes them on a specific journey. You tell them exactly what you want them to do. Then there’s another step and then at that step you tell them exactly what you want them to do. If they don’t do it, then you send them into a different journey and if they do it, you send them on that path to eventually purchasing from you. That is basically how I break it down.
In our note business, there are basically two big things that a lot of people go to. We either I want people to come to our websites or come to our stuff or provide us with assets that we can buy or they’re buying assets from us or they’re writing a check and bringing in some money to the table that can fund our deals. We’ll answer the question, “Do I need a website?” Everybody needs a website. It’s the 21st century here. A website is not going to do it by itself. You’ve got to have something that’s going to be able to grab people’s attention. It’s that journey through your website. You do a good job of helping people walk through that step-by-step process.
Everyone has a funnel. There’s a system that people take. You receive a business card and you send them an email and you follow up. A funnel automates that. They’re going through that journey without you doing those individual steps. I like to mind map. When people come to me and say, “I need a funnel,” I mind map it, “What do you want the person to do?” We’re going to write out every single step. Everyone has that journey but the beauty in ClickFunnels or a sales funnel online is that it’s automating that process and you’re taking them through that journey. If you can only speak to five people a day, with you having it automated, now you can speak to 500 or maybe even 5,000. You get to a high level, five million. Taking it to the next level and having it operate like a well-oiled machine.
What’s the biggest mistake you see people doing when they’re looking to mind map out their funnel? What’s the biggest thing that you see people struggle with?
Believing the fluff. There are a lot of programs out there that says, “Copy my one funnel and you’ll make $100,000 a month.” It’s totally possible to make that money. However, it’s not a one-size-fits-all funnel. You have to understand what you’re offering and the problem that you’re solving. You have to understand who you’re solving this problem for. Who’s your target audience? You have to tweak it. A lot of the companies that I see making significant money have multiple funnels. They may have 20, 50 maybe even 100 funnels because they’re tweaking their offer, they’re tweaking the copy, they’re tweaking the photos. They figure out what works and then they put all of their ad spend behind that. I don’t think that one funnel is going to solve everything. You have to continuously add different offers, different lead magnets to get people on your emailing list. You have to be consistent with keeping up with your email list and doing different things to convert them to paying clients.
You Can Choose To Be Rich: Rich Dad’s 3-Step Guide to Wealth (Rich Dad Book Series)
Let’s talk about some of the things there because I spoke at the Quest Trust Company’s Trillion Dollar Investment Mixer. They had 90 people RSVP’d for the event. They had about 55 people show up, which is pretty normal, about 50%. There are a couple of people there that I know and they’re like, “I’ve got my flyer.” I’m like, “That’s great but are you out talking to people? Are you talking to the 50 people here? Do you think they’ll mind if I put my stacks out?” That’s not effective. You can’t put a business card out. That’s the old way. It’s the dark ages of marketing. You have to get out and talk to somebody and then capture their info in some sort of fashion.
I would always say have some type of lead magnet. You have to talk to people. A flyer is a piece of paper. I don’t even know if people still have fliers but people still have business cards for example. With a business card, you want to ask people about what they do because even if it’s not someone that you can directly do service with, you’re connecting with someone and you never know who they know. I think that we have to bring the connection back into networking. That is important. Handing a person a flyer is not building a connection. That’s not building a relationship. Get out and speak to people. I know there’s social anxiety these days but you have to speak to people because we’re missing that connection. People crave that connection. If anyone ever sees me at a networking event, please come up and speak to me. Don’t feel like, “I don’t want to speak to her.” We have to build that connection. Ask people about what they have going on. Ask them what they’re excited about and you never what that will spark.
Getting to find out what they’re excited about is that little extra touch. We’ve talked about the whole form method, “Where are you from? What’s your occupation? What do you do for fun?” Then you’re getting your message out. That’s also a funnel aspect of things. If you’re talking to somebody, if you don’t get a chance, then following up with a conversation with an email or asking a couple of questions so you can take them down that path.
What I like to do is if I’m trying to get people into my funnel, offer something that they’re going to find valuable. Something that piques their interest or something that’s solving a problem that they have, something that’s going to add a little happiness or positivity in their life. Whatever your service gift skill is, you want to find the people who will find value in it and put it in a way to where they can’t resist. They want whatever it is that you’re offering. The beauty in sales funnels is offering some type of lead magnet that’s going to offer value to your target audience.
Let’s take it back on the lead magnet. Some people are like, “Magnet on a TV or the side of my fridge?” No, it’s not necessarily the same thing as a magnet because somebody asked me that. A lead magnet could be like opting into being on a newsletter or a one-page checklist or an eBook of some sort or a Whitepages thing. There’s so much that stuff out there. It’s easy to find that stuff that you can use and figure out what your audience is looking for.
A lead magnet basically is some type of freebie to give your target audience in exchange for their email address because you want to capture emails. A lot of people run their business on Facebook but Facebook shut that down not that long ago and so many people freaked out. A lot of people try to keep up with their audience on Facebook but when Facebook has a glitch, you can’t contact your audience. It’s important that you start to build and grow your email list. The freebie is something that you give them that they’re interested in, in exchange for their email. Webinars are great converters. Web series like a free video web series or something like that, eBooks, PDF, checklists or cheat sheets. Anything that is going to make your target audience say, “I want this. This is going to add value to my life, my business or whatever.” That is how you start your funnel. Then figure out do you want to take them to a sales page? Do you want them to go into your newsletter and email chain? You have to mind map what you want your clients to do, the process you want them to go through.
I love mind mapping. That’s one of the things I think is so valuable and literally it is okay. “What happens? What’s that trigger when they opt in? What do you want them to do?” It’s either yes or no. I call it the choose-your-own-adventure mapping thing. It’s like those choose-your-own-adventure books. It’s that aspect of figuring out, “Here’s what goes with this,” and then either write it all out or videotape some videos and then sharing that journey. Do you talk to people that struggle with that? I’ve seen some colleagues that have struggled with that in the past.
Of course. A lot of times people are so in their heads and they have paralysis analysis where they’re like, “I don’t know what to do.” They freeze up and that’s why I help with that with mind mapping. I say, “Explain to me what the end goal is.” I like to reverse engineer as well. Start with the end goal in mind, “What is the end goal? What is the best-case scenario? Then let’s work backwards from there.” It’s important that you set your goals. A lot of people are just like, “I have this program.” I’m like, “What do you want this program to do? How many programs do you want to sell?” Make sure you know who you’re selling to because one of the biggest problems that I have is people not knowing who their target audience is.
I have a lot of people that say, “I offer services to women.” That’s not a target audience because there are many different types of women. You have moms, you have single women and you have divorced women. You have women that like to work out, you have women that hate to work out and you have women that are glamorous and love makeup and fashion. You have women that hate that. You have to know who your target audience is to speak to them. If I’m releasing a program and I’m talking about traveling and shopping and I’m saying my target is women but I’m talking about things that moms may not be able to do, it’s not going to resonate with them. The more you know your target audience, the more your copy and your freebie or lead magnet can speak to them, the better you’re going to convert.
We do a lot of research here and I know that my avatar is a 35 to 65-year-old college-educated homeowner making between $75,000 and $250,000 a year. 55% of our audience is male, 45% is female. I have it down to specifically buying habits and whether they’re interested in tax, but the more minute you can get, the better it is in your conversion ratios of whether you’re trying to raise capital or sell assets. You don’t want to be trying to raise capital from, no offense, anybody that’s under 30 for the most part, because they haven’t had any time to build any wealth or savings. You don’t want to be dealing with people that are making minimum wage. You’ve got to figure out where they’re hanging out at, whether it’s on Facebook or LinkedIn and honing your craft or identify the right clients.
There are a lot of people that start out, they target people that may not be able to afford their services. If you have a service that you want to charge this amount because this is what you feel your worth, but then they’re targeting people. I love that you said the income. A lot of people don’t focus on that and that’s huge. Get specific of who you’re servicing and where they hang out, the type of money they’re making, what do they value? Try to sell a self-development program to someone who doesn’t value self-development or trying to sell a real estate program to someone who doesn’t find value in that. They’re not in that place in their life. It will affect your conversion. Be specific on who you’re servicing and who can afford and want your product.
I talked to so many people too that struggle. They understand the idea but they don’t make the time to sit down and do it. What do you see as an average timeframe for people just in the mind mapping aspect of things? Is it a day, hour or months? Where do you see the effectiveness being? I know it varies depending on the product.
It depends on where the client is. I work fast. I can get everything mapped out in a day if someone is ready. Then I have people that come to me like, “I have the content, I know who their target audience is. I just have to put it together,” and that’s easy. Then you have some people that are like, “I know I want to do this but I don’t know where to start.” That’s a little more difficult because sometimes when we start to peel the layers back, we realize that their target audience may not be who they thought they were targeting or who can afford their products. It depends on where the person is and I think self-awareness is important. Know where you are in your business, know how much you have and how much you need to have to be ready to go.
I love that word, awareness. Also, I love the fact though that you have an accountability mastermind or accountability program that help people. Talk a little bit more about that because that was one thing I was like, “I’ve got to ask you questions about that. That’s awesome.”
Funnel Hacking: One of the biggest problems that people have is not knowing who their target audience is.
I do 90-day masterminds and I picked 90 days because I know some are six months to a year and life happens, things change and people decide they want to shift things. I like the 90 days because it gives you enough time to figure out if you have a solid product. I do help people scale as well but that accountability of getting a person started, once you get them started and that train is going, it makes it easy. I found that’s the perfect amount of time to get people going. I love masterminds. The collective energy accountability is huge because some people need people to light that fire under their behinds.
They need that fire in their butt to kick in a little bit. Ninety days is great because it allows them to start building some habits. The whole goal of this obviously is to help automate a lot of the things that you’re doing so you can have a little bit more fun than turning a passion into work as you talked about early on. It wasn’t fun anymore.
It’s important that we learn to run our business and not allow our business to run us. That was a valuable lesson that I learned and making sure that your business is in alignment with the lifestyle that you desire because we only have one life. Obviously some people think differently but we only have one life right now. You don’t want to spend that life working yourself to the bone to where you can enjoy it. I had to reevaluate. I started at this business because I wanted the freedom to be able to travel and make the money that I want to make and make my own schedule. Now, I’m not making my own schedule because I’m working seven days a week in this business and I’m burned out. I can’t travel right now. I had to go back to the drawing board and figure things out.
That’s what I love to do with my clients. For me, it’s not just about building funnels or teaching them how to work a funnel platform. It’s about helping them understand the lifestyle they desire and why did you start this business? What’s your why? What’s driving you and what’s your end goal? Are you trying to provide for your family? Are you trying to free up time so you can spend more time with your family? Are you trying to make a whole bunch of money? Why do you want to make this money? What is this money going to gain you? It’s important that people reverse engineer and figure out exactly what it is that they want and why they want to run this business. That makes everything else fall into place beautifully.
I have to ask this before I ask the next question. Where is your happy place? Where is the place that you draw the most spark? I’ve seen some different videos from some of the exotic locations, some small grass huts over the water before.
Tahiti is probably the one that I post the most because it’s so beautiful. The overwater bungalows are beautiful. My favorite place of all time to travel to is Costa Rica. It’s beautiful. The energy there is different than anywhere else I’ve been. Tahiti was beautiful but the energy in Costa Rica is unreal. I love it.
You do like going there and hanging out. Anytime you can go to a place where the energy is great and you can relax and enjoy, it opens up avenues in your mind to be able to get more creative and get away from the busy noise of our jobs or careers. It takes us some time to unwind so those creative juices start to flow and start mapping out what you want to accomplish.
I said this that when you travel to different places, you think that you’re traveling to learn more about the place but you actually learn more about yourself, because it opened something up in you to where you understand that you like something you didn’t know that you like or you don’t like something you didn’t know that you didn’t like. You see different ways of life. One of the places that I went to was Venice and they don’t have cars in certain parts. They either walk or take a boat, which is a completely different way of life. It opens your mind up to not be in this little box. Many people are in a box like, “This is how it has to be.” We’re in such a beautiful time to where we can pave our own way. A business doesn’t have to be a certain way. An email list doesn’t have to be a certain structure. We can pave our own way. That is exciting. Traveling for me allows me to learn more about myself but then also see other ways of life. You get out of the mind frame of, “It has to be this way,” because it doesn’t. Take a chance, do something different.
The reason I brought that in is you talked about the end in mind. A lot of people want to travel more, they want to have more fun but they’re shackled. As our good friend, Aaron Young with Laughlin Associates, one of the sponsors of the show, likes to say, be the unshackled entrepreneur. Don’t be tied down or strapped to an office.” I think that’s the most powerful thing about putting funnels together. You can automate the mundane but also make it very creative. Put your personality into it, sharing it. We had Jim Beach on from the School for Startups Radio. We’re talking about that you can be personal, you can share that stuff and then allow to take away probably a good chunk of what you would normally be doing to put in those other creative things or build a time to help you travel.
That is why I got into sales funnels. It’s because it allowed me the time and location freedom. It takes time to set everything up because that’s one of the funniest things that people say to me, “I don’t have time to set up a funnel.” I’m like, “You set it up once and it completely works itself.” You just have to set aside that time. It takes more time to keep doing the everyday minimum wage activities that you’re doing. If you set aside the time to set it up, it’s going to free up time in the long run. It’s that initial investment that’s going to pay off in the long run.
That’s what I think a lot of people don’t realize. They won’t take the time away from the weekend activities.
This is why I said in my pitch, “Ditch the excuses,” because at the end of the day, think about how much time you spend watching Netflix. Think about how much time you spend watching sports and doing activities that don’t mean anything that’s not getting you closer to your goals and your dreams. If you can cut out Netflix for two weeks, don’t watch any TV for two weeks to get your funnel done, you are going to benefit from that tremendously. Back to self-awareness, be self-aware of how much time you spend doing stuff that’s not getting you closer to your goals because we all have the same 24 hours in a day. If it’s important enough to you, if you want it bad enough, you will find the time.
That is true because you can cut out a couple of hours. I’m sure you’re a fan of Gary Vaynerchuk. If you’re not working nights, you got 7:00 PM to 2:00 AM for your side hustle. What I love is if you take the time to automate some things. Sit down, give Niajae a call, even literally spend some time in a week or two weeks mapping things out that are a pain in the butt. Many people out there come from a job where they’re not used to marketing for themselves. They get in trying to be an entrepreneur and they struggle that first year or two years because they’re trying to figure it out. Nobody gives them an entrepreneurial handbook. You said something good there, knowing your audience but then also reverse engineering where you want to go, “I got the greatest 30-day course on entrepreneurship but I don’t know how to deliver it.” You’ve got to take the time to do it. What’s the biggest thing that drives you bonkers when you’re sitting down with somebody trying to mind map the thing? What’s the biggest thing? Excuse is obviously a hot button there for everybody. Are you tired of the excuses of people like, “I don’t have a funnel, I don’t know how to start a funnel?”
I don’t mind people not knowing because that’s why they come to me. That’s why I do what I do. Excuse is definitely my biggest pet peeve. What I love about what I do is helping people overcome their limiting beliefs. What I found most is people stand in their own way and they’re like, “I can’t do this. It’s going to take so much time.” Still it goes back to excuses. People are realizing that this is possible for you. I’m helping people see that you can make this money but it’s going to take work. There’s no quick fix. There’s no get rich quick copy one funnel and that’s it. If you’re willing to put in the time and the work to understand your audience, the problem that they have, the problem that you’re solving and offer stuff that’s adding value to their life and tweaking and checking your stats and creating content. You can be successful with this and automate it and have that beautiful automated business that’s generating income while you sleep.
Funnel Hacking: If it’s important enough to you, if you want it bad enough, you will find the time.
That is the goal to generate income while you sleep. It’s totally possible for everyone that’s willing to put in the work. The biggest thing is people thinking that it’s a quick fix, get rich quick, “I’m going to pay you to do my funnel and I’m going to make all this money.” It doesn’t necessarily work like that. You have to tweak, you have to have each step in your funnel. That journey has to be personalized. It has to be personalized every step of the way. I record a lot of videos. When people go through my funnel, they see my face. It’s very personalized. Don’t feel like, “If I have a funnel and it’s automated, it’s taken my personal touch out.” No, it’s not. Your touch can be in there every step of the way. Commit to doing the work.
Personalizing, you do some great stuff with it. I love it because you’ve got to the purple, the tones of pink, the images of you in different areas. You’ve got the video of you right all over the balloons behind you.
That was so fun.
That’s your personality and that comes out across the board and people are like, “It’s okay to be yourself.” You don’t have to be in a box guy or girl. It’s a stickler. You don’t want to be the Scott Carson. You don’t want to be Russell Brunson. You want to be whoever you are and share that aspect because that’s why people opt-in to anything. They like the person not necessarily the product a lot of times.
Sara Blakely, if anyone doesn’t know who Sara Blakely is, she’s the owner of Spanx. She posted something on Instagram where she says, “You can have fun and be in business. You don’t have to be serious the whole time,” because she’s super silly. Spanx is a $1 billion company and she owns 100% of it. She is as silly as she wants to be. Don’t feel like, “I can’t be myself. I can’t be silly,” if you are silly. Whatever your personality is, this is a time where people want to know who you are. You are your brand and people are buying into you because there are tons of people who build sales funnels. There are tons of coaches and there are tons of people who do real estate. People are buying into you. This is the time to let your personality, your gifts, your skill and your uniqueness shine.
Maybe you know off the top of your head, what’s the shortest funnel you’ve built and then what’s the longest funnel that you built?
An opt-in funnel typically could be two pages where you have a landing page with your lead magnet and they click to download it and then a Thank You page, two pages and that’s it. Probably a webinar and membership funnel where you register for the webinar, watch the webinar replay room and then you have your sales video and then the Thank You page if they sign up, then maybe an upsell page. They can get detailed. Then your member access membership area can get detailed.
I wanted to bring that up because it can vary. The easiest thing to start with is getting people the opt-in aspect of things, “I got your email. We met last night. Thank you for opting in, if you’d like to opt-in.” It’s very simple things and I’m so surprised. This thing drives me bonkers. I go to an event where we hosted an event and a lot of times, we’ll give the contact list out to everybody that was there. They’re enjoying the content. They have to run around trying to get business cards and nobody follows up with an email. Nobody follows up within 24 to 48 hours and it kills my soul knowing that you can’t spend time. You have all this contact. People want to connect. You already know that they’re interested in whatever you’re interested in there. You know some of their basic interests are because you share that mind, why not send an email or at least make that first step and get in touch with people? It goes the way the Dodo bird.
Follow through is so important. I had a ton of messages and cards from New Media Summit and I made sure I emailed everyone within 24 hours. You have to do it.
If I reached out to people and said, “I’m glad to have you on my show,” there are crickets for a lot of people except the icons you and a few others. That’s such an opportunity. This is transitioning, I want to get more into a little about the podcasts you got rock and rolling too. There are such opportunities out there to communicate with everybody. I’ve been to several marketing and podcasting conventions and everybody is talking about especially the Traffic & Conversion Summit. Podcasting is one of the biggest funnels that you have that is exploding the business industry.
I’m biased but I have an amazing commercial in my podcast for my membership site. I try to explain to some people about how I set up my podcast because it’s new but I feel like I came at it from such a strategic place that I’m super excited. I have a commercial in there for my membership site and I also have freebies. It takes people to my website. It’s driving traffic to my website. It’s driving traffic to my membership site because that’s what you want to do. You want to give them value and then get them to your website or funnel because it’s a specific journey.
Podcasting, you’ve got how many episodes? You filmed a bunch, you recorded a bunch, you got them uploaded. Did you do a video with them as well too?
Yeah. The podcasts, the audio is on iTunes. The videos are on YouTube and Facebook Watch. I launched. I’m going to release a new episode every Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday will be an interview and Thursday will be a solo episode with just me. It’s talking about mindset. It’s about mindset, inspiring people to ditch the excuses, step into their power and take action because we all sit around and we’re like, “I wish I could have this and woe is me and my life is so hard.” Everybody has issues, everyone has challenges but that is our purpose. It’s to overcome the challenge and grow into the person that we’re meant to be, grow into the person that can live the life that we truly desire. Instead of sitting around talking about your goals, go out and take action. That is the purpose of the podcast.
Every guest that I’ve had on so far have an amazing story. I want to bring people in that have taken some type of leap to change their situation, overcame some type of block that was standing in their way because people see these blocks. This is a challenge and some people say, “Maybe it wasn’t meant to be, so I’m not going to do it.” No, it’s meant for you to push past that to grow, to evolve and to learn, so you can have everything that you desire. It is called Abundance Hack and I believe that life is meant to be abundant and removing the blocks. I give this example. It’s like the Mario brothers, the video game where after every level, there is some type of challenge and that challenge is always difficult. You have to fight some big monster. There’s something super hard that you have to overcome in order to get to the next level. That’s how I see life.
Funnel Hacking: You have to keep tweaking your funnel. It’s not typically going to be one funnel. You have to keep creating different lead magnets and different freebies.
There are going to be challenges in every phase of our life and some people don’t want to face that challenge. They say, “I’m going to hang out at this level, collect all the coins that I can in this level because I don’t want to face this challenge.” Don’t you want to see what’s on the other side? You have to push past that challenge and be okay with being uncomfortable. It’s going to get hard at times. It’s going to be difficult at times. You’re going to have to sacrifice at times but that is how you grow. That is how you have the business of your dreams. That is how you have the relationship of your dreams. That is how you have the life of your dreams.
When you made that conversion, what was probably the biggest surprise to you? You left what you were doing. You sold off your aerial gym. You went to work for ClickFunnels, then you went out on your own. What was the biggest a-ha to you when you shook things up because that’s a major shake-up for you?
I’m a huge energy person and I try to follow my purpose. I felt there was something bigger. I was meant to make a bigger impact. When I first sold the studio and I started coaching, I was under so many different misconceptions. I believed those programs were like, “Copy my funnel and you’ll make all this money,” and there were crickets. I didn’t say, “This coaching thing doesn’t work.” I said, “I need to figure this coaching thing out. I need to figure this funnel thing out,” and that’s why I went to work for ClickFunnels because I was like, “There is a method behind the madness and I want to know how to make this work.” There are a lot of people out there that are misleading people and they’re regurgitating sales copy of saying like, “I did this and I’m making this money.” People think that’s how it’s going to be for them and then when they don’t have those results, it’s actually pretty damaging to a person’s self-esteem. They’re like, “What did I do wrong?” I want to tell people that if you experienced that, you didn’t do anything wrong.
They’re selling a course and you bought it but if you want to make it work, you have to keep tweaking your funnel. Typically, it’s not one funnel. You have to keep creating different lead magnets and different freebies. Maybe you did a webinar and your webinar didn’t convert, or maybe your people would prefer eBook because they like to read. Create different things and let your audience tell you what they want and they’re going to tell you and you’ll see in your stats whether a photo works better than a video or maybe an eBook or a blog. Figure out the best way to speak to your target audience but knowing who your target audience is.
The analogy that comes to mind is that we all want to drive a car. You buy a car, it’s a base model. It’s adding all those perks. They’ll throw out some basic tires and basic chassis but you want to upgrade or you want to put some nice your tires on it. You actually want to have air conditioning. You want to have a different paint color. You want to rev up the engine. You want to change the leather interior a little bit or add a different interior. The thing is it’s a very base model aspect of it that isn’t going to work for everybody. You’ve got to make those tweaks and customize it as you like to say. Make it about you and understand what works. “Does it work better on unleaded or super premium or diesel or biodiesel?” with what your audience is looking for.
Another thing too is knowing your value proposition ladder. That’s one thing I do want to mention because a lot of people will try to copy Russell Brunson’s free plus shipping book offer. He has a funnel free, plus shipping book but he’s making his money on the back-end because he has a strong value proposition ladder. I used to see this all the time, “I did a free plus shipping book funnel and I didn’t make any money. I lost money.” That’s because you don’t have a value proposition ladder. What he does is he has this free book but then you pay the shipping but then he upsells you on getting the audiobook and then he upsells you on ClickFunnels, then he upsells you on his mastermind and then his 2 Comma Club. There’s a value proposition ladder to where he, in the end, may have sold you a $2,000 product when you were just going for this free book. It’s to understand that value proposition ladder and reverse engineering. Starting with your highest ticket item and working down from there, most people have a low-ends entryway. The freebie or a $7 product or a $9 product to where people are like, “This is nothing,” but then you’re upselling them along the way.
That’s a ladder of building up there and being able to offer something to people to get them in and then figure the path that goes, “What are they thinking? Which direction are we going?” That’s where a lot of your strings come in, “You’ve got this high-end, let’s figure out a low-end. Let’s figure how we get people on that path to being happy,” because honestly, people are happy. They buy something, they want to be happy with it. They want to get more of something. We’re all habits of that. If I buy one shirt, I want to buy another shirt later. If I buy one book from you, I may want to buy another book because there are always other things that we can add to the journey. Talk a little about your 90-day mastermind. Is it a group of people coming together on a regular basis? Is it webinars? Talk a little bit about that for me if you wouldn’t mind.
We do Zoom sessions. We do one call a week and I follow up throughout the week. We set goals every single week, “What are you doing this week to work towards your goal?” I follow-up and I don’t play. When people are like, “My partner and I,” I’m like, “You’ve got to get it done.” You need someone to say, “Ditch the excuses.” That’s my thing because I’ve met so many amazing and talented people that don’t take action. I like to inspire people to take action but it’s a lot of strategy. I love strategy. I love systems and then I also bring in guests. If there’s something that’s not my specialty, Facebook ads for example, it’s not my specialty but I’ll bring in someone who does Facebook ads to do a call one week if that’s what people need to learn about.
I’m detailed as far as where people are and what they need to do to get from point A to point B. I network a lot. I bring in guests and I know people in all different types of fields. Whatever people need, I probably know someone who’s an expert at it that I can bring in to help them. My goal with it is seeing people thrive because I know the beauty in sales funnels. I know the beauty of having a solid launch. I’m helping people get over that hurdle of not feeling like they can do it and holding them accountable through the process.
A quick question here for you because I love that, hand holding and walking people the process and ditch the excuses. I’ve been in coaching with note investing and real estate investors for a while. That’s the thing that drives me bonkers are the excuses. If I’m taking time on my busy schedule to meet with you twice a week and you’re not going to do the hour activity or something like that, what’s going on here? What’s that mind block holding you back? I love that you’ve done so much in the last few years transitioning and coming into your power. What’s the end game? What’s the end goal in mind for you, if you don’t mind me asking?
I’m trying to be the next Oprah. I want to build an empire. I want to have so much content out there inspiring people whatever vehicle, whatever platform. I want to inspire people to stop existing and take it to the next level and start living. Live intentionally and then take it one step further and thrive. I’m releasing books. I have two books in the works. I have my podcast and my membership. I want to make it so everyone can be inspired at some point from something that I’m creating. I put a picture of Oprah on my wall because I have a mission and a purpose.
That’s an important thing because I love what you’ve got behind you. You can never have too much happiness. You can have a positive mind, a positive vibe, and a positive life. You have a scratch-off map.
I love the gold so much because it fits with my décor. I haven’t started scratching off the places I’ve been because I’m just like, “I like the gold.” I need to work on that because I’ve traveled to a good amount of countries. It will be a good thing to do soon.
How often are you taking a vacation? How often are you traveling somewhere?
Funnel Hacking: Get clear on what you desire and then reverse engineer that and figure out how you can manifest that.
My whole life is a vacation. I live fifteen minutes from the beach. I live downtown. I’m such a city girl. I was born in the Bronx, New York. I live in Downtown Saint Pete but Saint Pete is a beach town. I’m fifteen minutes from the beach. I have water by me. I have this beautiful high-rise building that has a rooftop pool and you can see the water from my rooftop. I literally have manifested the perfect situation for me. I love where I live. It’s such an awesome city and I love my building. I work from my rooftop most of the time. My podcast, the promo picture, that’s on my rooftop. My whole life is a vacation and I work from my laptop. This was what I created. This is why I sold my brick and mortar business where I was slaving and exhausted to manifest this life. It’s possible for everyone. Anyone who wants it, maybe you don’t want to live in Florida, maybe you don’t like the beach. The lifestyle that you desire, get clear on what you desire and then reverse engineering, figuring out how you can manifest that.
I love the water too. My office here in Austin, Texas, I’m two minutes from my house. I don’t deal with traffic anymore. I’m in my office, I’m in workout gear because I’m working with my trainer here a few minutes every day as I can and try to do what I can. You do what you want to. If you start mapping it out and start planning it out, put it on your wall. It’s Oprah on the wall or Jack Canfield with his million-dollar check. It may sound silly, but that’s what keeps us going. That’s the carrot in front of us to keep us moving forward. I’m jacked up to see all the amazing stuff that you’re doing. You’re an inspiration and a light to a lot of people in a very dark world, which I think we agree there’s a lot of crap out there. I was excited to get a chance to meet you and having you on here and continuing this growing friendship. I see us doing a lot of that stuff together. The podcast is Abundance Hack podcast on iTunes. What’s the best way for people to follow-up with you if they want to reach out to you, talk to you about joining your mastermind or working with you for a funnel or two?
My website is the best place to get me, Niajae.com. That will lead you to the podcast. It will lead you to Level Up Mastermind. It will lead you to all of my social media. I’m all over social media, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn, I’m on all of it.
Check it out, everybody. Check out the Abundance Hack podcast. Listen to it, subscribe, leave a review. It can’t go wrong and the energy is just like it is. She’s exactly like she is all the time. The beautiful thing is she’s a positive soul out here. Thank you so much for coming on The Note Closers Show. I know I’ve got a lot of it and I’m sure the Note Nation across the country got a lot of great little tips and nuggets as well to help them in their journey towards financial freedom and their journey to the top.
Thank you so much for having me.
Go check out the Abundance Hack podcast and Niajae.com to get access to all the stuff that she’s got available for you. Go out, do something to take action. If you’re not living in your light, not living on the power that you want to do, take a few minutes during your lunch break or during your coffee break, sit down and think about what you want to accomplish, where you want to be in the next couple of years. You’ve heard that from other people on the podcast here. The whole goal here is you can manifest what you want. If you’re not happy, fix it. Don’t spend the time wallowing in your misery. Take the time, sit it out and map out where you want to be, what you want your life to look like because you’ll be a lot happier, you’ll be a lot healthier and life will be a whole lot more fun. Go out and make something happen. Until the next episode, we’ll see you at the top.
Important Links
- Niajae Wallace
- Abundance Hack
- New Media Summit
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad
- Choose To Be Rich
- ClickFunnels
- Laughlin Associates
- School for Startups Radio
- Spanx
- Traffic & Conversion Summit
- Abundance Hack Podcast on iTunes
- Abundance Hack Podcast on YouTube
- Abundance Hack Podcast on Facebook
- Niajae.com
- Level Up Mastermind
- Niajae on Instagram
- Niajae on LinkedIn
About Niajae Wallace
Niajae Wallace is a visionary who adds art and creativity in her business approach. She knew she was in love with the business as soon as she started her first one at 19 alongside a mentor from SCORE.
The sales funnels specialist is extremely passionate about helping other entrepreneurs start or scale a business that is in alignment with the lifestyle they desire.