Today’s Titan
John is a 33 year old Father of 3, a 6 Figure Coach and a British Racing Champion (Ok that last part isn’t true, but I’m working on it!) 😄
By day, he helps hard-working parents make a “Bigger Income So They Can Have A Bigger Impact” By night, he helps his hard-working children drive their Mother crazy by making lots of noise, making a mess and just being a general nuisance.
His utmost priority is to help people spend more time with their families and I do this by taking parents through a series of coaching steps that helps them discover exactly how to do this.
’30 Days To Profit’ is John’s coaching program and it has been crafted in a way that takes struggling parents from having zero clarity to launching their perfect business and making their first profit in just 30 days using my “Epic Launch” Blueprint And we do this in a way that has a positive impact.
Resources
Home
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-paragon-1824181a5/
https://www.facebook.com/jarrow2019
Show Notes
Coming Soon!
Transcript
Josh: What is up everybody, Josh Tapp here again and welcome back to the lucky Titan show and here we are here today with John Paragon I’m so excited to have him here, John is actually he had a really funny bio and I just had to mention it in this because it really caught me off guard and made me laugh out loud so he is a six figure coach but he also said that, hey, I’m a British racing champion but then after that, he said, the second part isn’t true but I’m hoping to make it true. So he’s obviously into racing at some point, right he’s a six figure coach, and helping a lot of entrepreneurs go from where they, you know, maybe they aren’t even an entrepreneur yet, but they’re going and transitioning into the entrepreneurial world and really experiencing entrepreneurship for the first time so I think his perspective is going to be very unique and helping a lot of you even if you have started a business already to go from understanding your business to actually truly having a great model that will perform and as john likes to promote, it becomes a highly monetized business model so John, say, what’s up to everybody and then let’s hop in.
John: Hey, hey, guys, rxcited to be here, Josh.
Josh: Yes, it’s fun to have you here. Man, I am excited. So I want to ask my first question here and for you, in particular, as a coach, I want to ask you, what would be if you were to start over again, completely from scratch, and you had to build a business in 30 days, which is what you you talked about building a profitable business in 30 days, what business model would you build and then how would you make it profitable in 30 days?
John: I think hands down, kinda knew where this question was going as soon as you started asking it, then I think hands down, I would have to go down the coaching route again, I prefer it, I know how to get to a reasonable profitable level in 30 days and I’m genuinely quite excited by the idea of losing everything, just to kind of start again, it’s almost like a game now. You know, once upon a time, the thought of losing everything was terrifying and trying to drive away from the pin, you know, the fear of not having the security but now, because so many times I’ve kind of dropped myself on my ass and recovered, I love the idea of losing it all and starting again, but I think it would have to be the coaching route and or there are other business models, which I could potentially bring to it a higher profitable level within the first 30 days based on what I know, now what I’ve done in the past, I might even replicate some of them but I think coaching would be my comfort zone to go to now.
Josh: See it? And I really liked that answer and what’s funny to me is, I think a lot of us think about that a lot like what would it really be nice wouldn’t it be nice to just have a clean slate? Because now that you know it, you know, you’re like, oh, man, if I could just start over from scratch, I could shed so much of the weight and just make it a hyper profitable business so I love that you’ve built a business around teaching people how to do that so I do want to continue on with that question of let’s talk through how you would actually make it profitable your framework for making the a coaching business profitable.
John: So do you mean how I build my business or how I help my clients build their businesses? Because I think it works quite a bit different even thinking about individually with each of my clients compared to mine.
Josh: But let’s let’s look at yours. I think it’s more fun to actually look at you instead of the way you teach it because it the proofs in the pudding, right? The proof isn’t what you’re actually doing.
John: I guess so. Yeah. To be honest, I kind of want to say, I’m not sure, I mean, I’m relatively new to my coaching business anyway and fortunately for me, I already have a reasonable network from our previous business of people I’d already built a relationship with, I mean, the previous company that I built, had zero money invested into paid advertising, and built the entire company pretty much from word of mouth through referrals so I already have a network. So once I stepped into the coaching world, there are people looking for opportunities to come and work with me want to want to build something similar to what I have built in the past so it was quite easy and blessed in that sense that I just stepped into it and it just worked, I have a swarm of clients looking to me and, you know, based on the model I use, I only work with a small amount of clients anywhere so if I lost it all now, it would probably be a different approach to the one that I’ve taken up until this point, I’m not sure I think I’d have to spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out the best route to go about this
Josh: by doing the coaching, right? Well, I think it’s such an The reason I like to ask the question that way is if you had to start over again, the thing that you do have, it never goes away unless you do something just absolutely stupid is your network and your know how right like it’s the knowledge you have and that’s why it’s being an entrepreneur so fun, it’s like the successful entrepreneurs are the ones who have done at least more than once, I don’t think I’ve ever met an entrepreneur where their first one was like, the most successful business
John: that I completely agree. I don’t think I’ve ever come across an entrepreneur that just started business and just that was the one that was the one that clicked, I don’t want to count how many different ones that I’ve tried and every single one of them was just an incredibly pit. Well, I say every single one up until the most recent ones, a single one before that will just painful lessons on what not to do and you’re kind of forced to learn how to do things but there’s been a few, a few occasions where it’s been such a painful lesson, I thought this is it about, you know, this isn’t for me, you know, I failed. Now people are kind of expected me to fail at some point and then when I did, it was like, yep, they were right, this sucks but then at some point, I’ve gone You know what, Nope, I’m going to do it again. But I’m gonna do it better this time, you know, learn from that and move forward which is, which is why I’ve done them here.
Josh: Yeah, I think I think the appeal, especially as an entrepreneur, when, when you do lose things, if you’re really kind of at that point where you’re, I don’t think anybody really like, their entire business disappears, and very rarely happens but when it starts to decline rapidly, I mean, the, the appeal of like going and getting a job, that point is like, Well, I have a lot of experience, now I’m very, I could very easily get a job and that that allure happens a lot, especially once in a while you’re still in that six figure slog, right and getting past that first six figure barrier and it’s like for you and your clients, like when you’re working with your clients, if they were building a coaching business with no network or anything, how would you recommend that they get their first clients as a coach.
John: So for the most part, I actually work with my clients under the assumption they don’t have an established network, and especially if they are new to the business world on YouTube coaching so I take them through a series of processes so initially, we work on their positioning, which is figuring out their social media presence, positioning themselves as a logical go to solution for their potential clients, then we work on on prospecting, which pretty much comes down to just connecting with the right people and as many of the right people as they can, either through paid marketing, either through organic outreach on social media platforms, predominantly LinkedIn, or podcasts, podcasts are a huge one and we spoke about this previously, you know, these are huge potential for podcasts and then we move on to processes so looking at automation, making the business as efficient as possible, well, this comes a little bit further down the line and there’s obviously things included the small parts, which are put together the websites and the funnels and, and automating that full process, there might be some outsourcing the years and things like that but ultimately, I call the three P’s so you’ve got the positioning, then the prospecting, and then the processes.
Josh: I love that and, and speaking truth to my heart here, because we’ve, you know, our entire business model, and what we teach people is that same thing, right? I mean, you can absolutely start without all of those assets. You don’t even need a logo, we didn’t even have a website, honestly, like a good website that we sent traffic to, until we were at the multiple six figures mark and most people don’t realize that like when they’re building out their business, like okay, I’m good, If I don’t have a site people are gonna want to buy from me and I heard a guy say recently, one of our coaches actually I loved, loved what he said, He’s like, you don’t. You don’t you don’t choose when, when you’re reputable. He’s like, the reality is, your job is just to fight find a solution to their problem and all you have to do is prove to them that you are the solution, their problem that doesn’t require testimonials, or a website or anything, it’s just talk them through the solution, how you’ll help them solve it, and they’ll pay you like and it’s we’ve seen that time and time and time again, in our business, where I mean, we’ll launch things before a product’s even built and people are like, yeah, I’ll pay you for that. Okay, great, take their money, make the product and then give it
John: I’ve I’ve launched products in the past before the products even ready to go, I’ve sold it pre sales a huge websites, I found quite often a counterproductive to clients who are looking to set up a business because they get so focused on the website, because you know, they’re doing the typical thing where it’s messing about with the logo, their business cards and the website, they want to look the part but the reality is that’s not going to help your clients helping your clients is going to be the best way for you to position yourself as the expert. Ultimately, you have to be the logical option if someone has a pin or a problem, and it’s a very specific pin on problem, they want a very specific solution you need to show that you can deliver on that and they need to know where to find it for me, funnels do the job for what I do funnels have done the job significantly better than websites have for me based on what I’ve built in the past and you know, you you stick with what you know, that’s not to say websites don’t work, I found funnels work significantly better for what I do.
Josh: I agree and you know, it’s funny that the way you mentioned I thought was so good because what people they end up using, especially when they’re starting out they use the website as this time crutch like well, I can’t do anything until this is done, and I’ve got to get this done the dumb thing about websites and funnels, they are never finished and it’s annoying and if you get too hung up on Oh, I’ve got to wait till it’s done, you’re never going to do anything, I know for us and one of the best explanations of a website or a funnel is it’s there to collect cash, it’s not there to sell people, you are there to sell people. It’s your job to be the salesperson and I know for us, I mean, like funnels have played a huge part in what we do but the more complicated we get, it ends up our profit margins decrease and we also end up making a lot less sales, honestly, overall, because we’re too hung up on like the small ticket sales, lead magnets and all these things, instead of focusing 100% on okay, how do we close, you know, $10,000 sales $100,000 sales? So, for you, and when you’re promoting this to your clients, what are kind of the first steps you recommend they take because you’re a lot, I mean, your methodology is a lot around building the model. Is that correct?
John: Yes. So So building trying to figure out what their model is going to be so if we start in your business from scratch, trying to figure out what’s going to work for them, based on what skills they have what they are interested in, you know, we ultimately we want to know what they’re good at so there’s lots of different ways to take it really.
Josh: Yeah, not well, so for you, when when, let’s just say I’m a coach, right? So I’m coming at you and I’m say, Okay, I want I want to coach people, obviously, in entrepreneurship in marketing, have some experience in marketing, would you say the first place to start for them would be to take to build a funnel or would you say, hey, like, go sell to people first build a podcast like would you recommend.
John: So I would suggest a formal reasonably early on what is probably not going to be your first step, if you are at the six figure mark, or, you know, maybe you making 200k per year, then I will say you need a funnel relatively soon, I think you can make a very, very good income, just from organic outreach, just from getting the prospecting right you know, even just as simple as 25 connections on LinkedIn per day and reach out to them, have a conversation, touch base with them, people will come to you so for me, it normally gets to I work quite intense with my clients of the first two weeks is pretty intense, and we don’t start discussing the funnels until the second week and then over a 90 day period, almost a full 90 day period is working on split testing and refining and just improving the conversion slightly and that’s not just on the funnels, that’s on the email series, we’re constantly split testing emails, and like you said before, a funnel is not just something you can create, and then it’s done, like the websites, you should always be constantly testing and refining and improving, it becomes a full time focus for that too.
Josh: And I love I love the explanation of funnels and websites in this way is it it’s meant to accelerate the trajectory that you’re already on and accelerates the sales process because if you start out building a funnel, odds Aren’t you have a 95% chance of having a broken or poor sales message that doesn’t work and so if you try to build an acceleration process on that, you’re just gonna burn money, because your, your sales process sucks, right but if you already have an existing sales process that converts very, very well and you add a funnel onto it, oh, man, it’s like putting fuel on the fire, right because it speeds up your sales process.
John: If you can make if you can make, let’s say just quarter mil, organically just on social media, in less than let’s go with two hours per day, very achievable two hours per day, 250 k a year. Just on social media, you don’t need any funnels with that, if you can add funnels into the mix, and you’ve already got that income, you now have some mental and financial freedom to be able to invest in this a little bit better you can then add that fuel to the fire and then take it to seven figures from there, I think that’s probably the best way to go, that’s the way I take my clients now anywhere, they need to be able to make an income organically to show the product works to show that people want their solution, then you can move on to the bigger stuff.
Josh: Yeah, I love that, well and for you, your current sales process you said you do use funnels. Is that correct?
John: Yep. So I use funnels currently.
Josh: and what? What type of funnels have you found to convert the best? I mean, are these lead magnet funnels? Are they just application funnels? How have you used funnels for years,
John: so I think VSL have been the best way, as long as you can provide enough value in the VSL. Yeah, I did make the mistake early on. I’ve made the mistake in the past with clients of having them give as much value as they can but sometimes it gives too much value and the people will leave after watching the VSL we’ve a lot to implement and by the time they’ve implemented it all the forgot about you know kind of moving forward with the paid options so I tried to give away if you really, really good nuggets that made people want more, if you can give them even just one really, really solid nugget on it in a short VSL. If you think about five minutes, that’s fantastic then people leave that they want more, because they gain so much value from that five minutes, they naturally think imagine how much again, if I paid this guy, if I got to work with him every single day, look how much he managed to give me in five minutes working with him every single day, I’m going to get a tremendous amount so I usually try to encourage my clients to create five minute VSL occasionally, depending on what, what the product is what the solution is, we may have a longer one but we certainly don’t go down the route of running one hour, two hour, three hour webinars, they don’t work for me, I personally don’t like them.
Josh: Yeah, I know. There’s Russell Brunson was one of the guys who popularized the webinar concept for a lot of people and they, but even more recently, he’s been talking about it, he’s like, you don’t have to have a 90 Minute Webinar, if you’ve read his most recent books, I mean, he even talks about, you can do it in five minutes and we’ve even been seeing that with our own company is when we do short knit, we get a lot more sales calls, because people are like, you know what this intrigued me enough, let’s get on the call, right? And for us, I don’t know what nuggets you you’d like to teach for us, we really like to just teach the what like the framework, like, hey, here are the big steps and if you want help with those steps, hop on a call, and we’ll see if we can help you those steps, right, let’s see if we’re a good match but for you and you once, once you get somebody to hop on a call with you, what’s kind of your process like are you, are you there to close them? Do you have a qualifying call? How do you guys do it yourself?
John: So it’s a once upon a time, I’d go through the bureau marketing method of no matter how the conversation goes, we’re getting some kind of sale or clause on the form, we’re taking credit card details, and they are buying something, I spent a year working in new car dealership, and that was kind of drilled into me so I took that approach on a cold but now is a call the entire calls just connecting with, with the potential client of the prospect discussing what they intend to do how give them some more nuggets, I’ll even give them a lot of value and tell them what they can go action next and I approach every call with the expectation and I make this clear, before we jump on a call, I’m going to give you some things that you can go and action after this call and if it’s okay with you, I’m going to give you some paid coaching options, if you don’t want them, that’s perfectly fine if you’re not a fit for me and if you decide it’s not what you need, that’s perfectly okay but I’ll give you some paid coaching options. Otherwise, just take what you learn and run with that that’s perfectly okay to you know, touch base with me in a couple of months. Let me know how you’re getting on. I’m always happy to bounce ideas around. Now have enough clients as it is I don’t need to push hard and chase the sales, this is this has worked very well for me in the past and it is a strategy I will continue to use is much more laid back and chilled out for me, I don’t like the pushing on the calls, it just doesn’t work for me.
Josh: No, it’s it’s really funny to watch. Actually, we just spent $15,000 yesterday with a guy, I had become friends with him and we were just on the call and he was like, there wasn’t even a pitch I basically was like, okay, so it’s 15 case we can I can give you my card details and I remember we were laughing about after I gave him the money. I’m like, dude, we should have recorded that and like made that a podcast episode just so you can see like, first off, I’m one of the easiest people to sell. Unfortunately, I struggle with that but especially if it’s like business related stuff, you just get me excited about it and I’ll usually, usually by right, but it was interesting to watch that process because he did the same way you’re talking about and that’s really our methodology as well as it’s like, your goal isn’t to sell them on the call, your goal is to help them find solutions to their problems, if that solution requires a payment to you so be it right and the weirdest thing if you do it that way, you’ll actually close way more deals because you’re not like, Okay, give me your credit card details. Let’s figure it all out right, you obviously take the money on the call, but it’s it’s more about let’s just get to know each other. Let’s become friends and yeah,
John: especially in this day and age where there’s so many people trying to sell you things, I mean, I saw a statistic recently that says we see an average of 4000 words per day and we only pick up on two of them and it’s because the messaging is so wrong on them all but we’re just so used to seeing adverts everywhere, people trying to sell us stuff all of the time, I think we’ve kind of conditioned ourselves to block everything out so I don’t know about you guys, but I know in the UK, I find those very tough to sell to because as soon as we know somebody has something they want to sell, whether that serves us in any way or not, whether it can help us automatically we’re on the defensive thinking this person just wants my money, you know, they have a selfish agenda when they come to sell us something, we get people knocking on the door or we get the phone calls and automatically this person just wants my money wherever they can save me money. Whether they can help me make money we don’t even pay attention to this person wants my money so if I can have a conversation with them, and make it clear, I’m not in this for your money, I don’t need your money, it’s perfectly okay, my priority is to make sure you go and win. If you want to do that with me, if you want to work with me, I can help you win faster, and I can help you win more but if you’re not in position to spend, or you decide I’m not the right fit, that’s perfectly okay, I still want you to touch base with me in a month or two, let me know how you’re getting on.
Josh: Yeah and I think that is the differentiating factor, right? Because you’re, you’re like, regardless of what you end up doing, whether you pay me or not reached back out to back, I want to know, follow follow up with me, I know for me, I was an unintentionally doing this, because I sucked at selling at the beginning, right? And I thought I sucked at selling, right? And because I could I was too nervous to take the card details or what have you but I’m just checking out on that I came to that website you built ever pan out or you know, did this happen? And you start your podcast at that, how’d that work out? How many listeners have you gotten? It’s so funny, because nobody does it and you’re not doing it in a templated way, you’re going back as a human being and saying, Hey, I remember this from our conversation, it was great. Did you ever get that taken care of that’s, that’s kind of the big that’s one of the big takeaways for me from this call as well, from this interview, so I appreciate you reminding me of that so I want to ask you this, because we are coming up standard interview here, John. So as most people know, right, we already kind of know your whole process, that’s what’s kind of fun so you’ve actually given people the opportunity to sit down and have a call with you, is that correct?
John: Yep, that’s correct.
Josh: See, and that’s crazy. Nobody ever does that people like go to get my lead magnet. But john was like, I’m not gonna give them a lead magnet. He’s like, it’s not gonna be for your audience. He’s like, I’ll actually sit down talk with them so where can people get in touch with you, John to get that call.
John: So the easiest way, fortunately, there’s not too many John, John Paragons kicking around. So I’m quite easy to find. So if you take a peek on LinkedIn, you should be able to find me quite easily touching on the racing stuff that I do, you’re going to find me in a pink background, wearing my racing suit, I am quite easy to find. So have a look on LinkedIn, just reach out, let me know, obviously, you’ve you found me on the podcast, and we’ll book a call, I’m more than happy to jump on a call. If you just want to bounce ideas around. That’s perfectly okay. If you want to discuss one to one coaching options, you know, I’ve got some pretty laid back ones or some pretty intensive ones, it depends on where you’re at more than happy to discuss options.
Josh: Love that. So I’m actually go connect them, I’m actually going to add a link in the description here. So people can just one click over to your LinkedIn profile. But I want people to think about that as a way. Okay. Where are you currently at your business, John’s offering you an opportunity to bounce ideas around. He’s literally like not even saying, Hey, I’m going to sell every single person that comes through here, go over there and just bounce ideas off of him. And I bet a lot of you are going to need his services and pay him anyways butmake sure that you go check that out take advantage of John’s time there and, john, one final question for you. So you know, we have covered a lot of different topics today so if you could leave one final parting piece of guidance for our audience, what would that be?
John: Or do you put pressure on me on this, one final piece of advice? Well, every time I get asked a question like this, I feel like I’m meant to come up with something impressive, you know, when you see the course just posted on LinkedIn, or Facebook, that someone’s kind of rehashed and put on a pretty background, something inspirational that’s quoted from Weinstein or something like that and automatically my brain goes right, which one of these Can I think of? That’s a tricky one, really, I think obviously, based on where you’re at I think my priority is when building a business is to make things as efficient as possible, lots of people I see just plugging away, and then may come and serve the computer in the morning, I’ve done this before, now, back in the days when I struggled feeling like I wanted to have a day where I’m productive, I’m going to sit at the computer, and I’m going to get lots done today, I’m going to make some money, I’m going to move my business forward. It never really worked like that. Because I’d sit down, I’d create posts, I’d send an email, I reached out to a few clients, I make a few phone calls and I would just actually think for the sake of action in things, I wasn’t actually moving the business forward one thing that’s worked tremendously well for me, is at the end of my working day, normally around lunchtime, because I don’t like working too proud, I like to write down what my tasks are for the following day so normally, I have three tasks that I want to action the next day, and these can be incredibly simple or quite complex but I know if I just get these three things done, my businesses move forward and if you do that every single day for a year, you’ve action 1000 incredibly useful tasks. Whereas just sitting down at the computer and doing pieces of work for the sake of it often doesn’t move your business forward and once you’ve completed those, you’ve then got the mental freedom for the rest of the day. If you want to invest some more time and energy into your business you can or you can then go and spend time doing all the other things that you love your, your hobbies, your passions, spend time with the family, whatever it may be, I obviously choose to spend time with my children after that and I may jump back in and do a couple of pieces of work but getting those three pieces done, as long as they are moving your business forward, that’s perfectly okay, that’s enough and you can build a multiple six figure business, I built a 7 figure business working an average of 15 hours per week, just because I leveraged automation and be being as efficient as I could, every activity I acted on in the business if it didn’t move the business forward or make me money, somebody else did it, I paid somebody else to do it, does that count? Was that good enough?
