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What if your business ran like a vending machine? When you put in $1, you get a client out. But how do you build a business like that?
In this episode, Sharran delivers one of his most powerful frameworks yet: the Iron Suit System—a step-by-step model for building a predictable, scalable, and profitable business engine. Using a clever Iron Man analogy, Sharran reveals how to design a business that runs on autopilot, with consistent lead flow, client conversion, and systemized follow-up.
He breaks down the seven “gears” that power a high-leverage marketing machine—from creating a magnetic offer and messaging that resonates to choosing the right channels and building a content engine that sells for you. This episode is not about hacks. It’s about smart strategy and compounding growth.
Tune in to learn how to build a scalable business model that works perfectly for you.
“Content is how you sell an idea for free.”
– Sharran Srivatsaa
Timestamps:
01:08 – The perfect business model for you
03:37 – The Iron Suit System: a 7-part framework for business automation
05:48 – Gear 1: A grand slam offer that powers everything
08:52 – Gear 2: Clear binary marketing goals
12:34 – Gear 3: Designing for one perfect customer
14:05 – Gear 4: Emotion-driven messaging
22:33 – Gear 5: Choosing the right distribution channels
25:24 – Gear 6: Install a follow-up system (check Ep. 256 for details)
27:13 – Gear 7: Reach a wider audience with a content engine
30:11 – Final advice: obsessively build your vending machine business
32:40 – Bonus tip: Use the full transcript and AI to build your vending machine
Resources:
– Business School Podcast Episode 256: Influencer Email Machine
– Join the Future Proof Community
– Join the 10K Wisdom Private Partner Podcast, now available to you for free
– Join Sharran’s VIP Community
– ARC Multifamily Real Estate Investing
– Sharran’s Partnership Program
– Grab Sharran’s 4-Week MBA for Free
Connect with Sharran:
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– YouTube
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey, this is Sharran Srivatsaa. Welcome back to the Business School Podcast. And in this episode I’m gonna take you through probably the most profitable business concept that I can ever share or teach you, and I show you how you can make your business as easy as paint by numbers as easy as a vending machine, as easy to be on autopilot, where you put a dollar in and you get a client out.
[00:00:20] That I’m gonna break down the system step by step for you, and if you could implement this in your business, you will print money forever and it all starts right now.
[00:00:33] One thing is for certain, just because it’s tried and true doesn’t mean it’s working right now. So the big question is this, where can you learn what is working right now? The strategies, the tactics, the psychology, and the exact how to. How to grow your business, how to blow up your personal brand and supercharge your personal growth.
[00:00:56] That is the question. And this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Sharran Srivatsaa and Welcome to Business School.
[00:01:08] So lemme give you the perfect business model. The perfect business model for you should be like a vending machine. All right? Someone walks up, puts in a dollar. That could be a ad that they clicked or a reel that they watched or an email that they opened or every phone call that they made and, and boom, out pops a client on the other end, you put some kind of effort in and you get some kind of predictable output out.
[00:01:32] That is when you know you actually have a real business. Otherwise, you’re just totally guessing. And if you don’t have a business like that, I’m trying to give you. This episode just designed for you where I just want you to listen. You don’t have to do every single thing on this one, but there may be an idea here that gets you closer to having a vending machine like business.
[00:01:52] The sooner you get to a vending machine like business, and I will tell you right now that having vending machines, having used a vending machine, you know. You can go put a dollar in and get a drink out. You can put a client, put a, put some effort in and get a client out. Like we gotta get to that point.
[00:02:06] And the big question happens when, what if you put that dollar in and nothing comes out? What if you feel like that machine is broken or empty or just. Maybe poorly designed, which is hard for us to accept. That’s literally what happens when you don’t have the right business model or the systems or the thinking in place in your business because or otherwise, you’re just literally working super hard without understanding how to generate something.
[00:02:30] Now, let me state this upfront, super clearly in the beginning. To figure out how to build a vetting machine, you have to put in the hours, right? My friend Alex Mosey talks about volume negates luck. You gotta put more effort in to figure out what actually works. If you put a hundred, if you knock on a hundred doors and you get one person to say yes, you know roughly if you knock on doors, something works.
[00:02:52] If you make a thousand calls, you get 10 people to say yes. You’re like, okay, I can make a thousand calls. If you send out a hundred emails and you get five people to say yes, you know that actually works. If you make a, if you make 10 TikTok videos and nothing works, you know that you’re problem. Probably not doing it right or it’s not working because everything works for everybody and they just have to figure out how to do it.
[00:03:10] Exactly. So in the beginning, you need a little bit of volume need, you need a little bit of brute force to figure out how the vending machine should work. That’s what’s important because, uh, this, if we don’t have a vending machine forever, you will be trying to figure out the next tactic, the next tack, the next whatever, and you’ll just complain that your business is down.
[00:03:31] And you’re like, man, my business is down and I’m really disappointed. And like, that’s just not it. Right? So, so what I wanna explore today is I wanna give you a kind of a seven part framework designed to help you build this marketing engine that is a vending machine. I call this the iron suit. So lemme explain what this iron suit is.
[00:03:47] This iron suit system. I was watching a Iron Man with my family, with my kids and I was like, okay, so that’s so cool. Ironman was a nobody. He was an engineer and like he was a visionary. Cool. In the movie. And then he made the suit, which made him Iron Man. And I was like, how cool would it be to tie that analogy in.
[00:04:05] So if this feels hokey in some way, just go with the idea because I’m trying to organize my thoughts using this, using Ironman as the inspiration because I wanted to put these seven gears into place for you. So this, this iron suit system is like something that actually works. I’m trying to figure out something that I can give you that can consistently attract leads and maybe build trust and convert those leads into like paying customers because.
[00:04:25] You want a system that is designed to free you up to focus on the bigger picture of your business, rather than trying to constantly fix a broken machine. And that is the problem for most people. They’re like, how do I get involved business? Oh, just, just take that deal that you’re given. Or if you’re a real estate agent, oh, just take the listing and figure it out later.
[00:04:42] Or just people talk about, you know, if you’re selling a physical product, you know you have commission breath. Well, there’s a reason for that because the number one objection handler is a bigger pipeline. Say it again. The number one objection handler is a bigger pipeline. If you have a bigger pipeline, you don’t care.
[00:04:58] Right? And it’s not that you don’t care about the client, you, it’s that you, you show up in service of them a lot more and you’re not commission hungry or sale hungry or you know, or sales greedy in this process in a lot of ways. So let’s actually jump into it. If I make references to this iron suit, it’s the Iron Man analogy that I’m trying to make.
[00:05:16] I’m just trying to organize my thoughts to give you something to kind of work with. If you don’t like the hokey analogies, just look past it. If you do, then hey, you’re a fellow Marvel fan like me, and I appreciate that a lot. All right, so, uh, these are the seven gears that I’m going to get my, I’m trying to figure out how to get you a Ven machine.
[00:05:29] Just listen. See if you can pick, pick one idea or two, see if you actually have it. And then I’m gonna give you like a good tweak at the end that you can put all of this into play without almost zero effort. Okay? So that’s the entire process here. So let’s actually jump into it. ’cause I’m gonna be pretty tactical on this one and you’ll probably need, you know, 10, 15 minutes listen to this so that you can absorb the right ideas from this overall.
[00:05:47] So like part one of this iron suit system is the core, right? And if you know how Ironman did, he had a little. Core that powered everything in this iron suit. So the core is your power source. And so in our vending machine analogy, this is what sells in the vending machine. There’s a reason why vending machines work because everybody knows what a coke is.
[00:06:04] Everybody knows what a Pepsi is, right? Everybody knows what a bond bond is and what’s in the machine is important too. So just like this arc reactor, they call it that, is beating the heart of Iron Man suit, powering everything that he does. You need that core element in your business, which is your offer.
[00:06:17] Now, if your offer is kind of vague, a little boring, or just doesn’t feel like this. What high stakes opportunity, then everything that else you try to build on top of it is going to feel a little shaky, and it’ll lack that, you know, that, that fundamental power to make somebody take action to, to really nail this, think about making, uh, a Grand Slam offer.
[00:06:37] This is what Alex Mosey writes in his book, something so good that people feel silly saying no to right. Remember that this tactical checklist, does it solve a clear pain? Does it solve promise, a specific result? And does it create a reason to act? Now again, that’s how I think about it, which is does it solve a clear plane?
[00:06:54] Does it create a promise, a specific result? And does it create a reason to ask? Now, now pause. Right? You, you should pause this video and be like, Hey, if I, when I’m putting my marketing messages out, does it solve a clear plane? Does it promise, promise a specific result? And does, does it create a reason to act?
[00:07:10] Now, if you don’t have that, you just. Shouting into the marketing wasteland, right? So think about this. Let’s say think about a web design agency for like local businesses, right? So instead of just saying, we build websites, a Grand Slam offer or something that is, that you feel silly, feel silly to say no to, might be, Hey, we design and launch your fully optimized website within 10 days Promise specific result.
[00:07:35] Including your first month of SEO maintenance to help you start ranking on Google for a flat fee of $3,000. If you don’t see a measurable result in the website within traffic within 30 days, we’ll work for free for the next month. Now you see how much more compelling that is than we build websites.
[00:07:52] It’s super specific, it’s result oriented. It reduces a risk for the client because it solves an objection that they’re thinking, what if this doesn’t work? What do I actually get? What if, you know what, what? Will they still help me or will will they just turn and burn after that? And. It’s a product that someone would want to buy from your vending machine.
[00:08:08] It’s super, super clear. You want some version of that offer. If you don’t have it, I literally would just spend the time working on that. And if you don’t, that’s what you should be talking to people about. That’s what you should be watching YouTube videos on. That’s what you should be listening to podcasts about.
[00:08:20] That’s what you should be reading books about. Because if you can’t solve that, you’re, you’re, you’re working super hard to sell a shitty product and that doesn’t work. Right? So if you had a, you know, I don’t know, like a really terrible jacket and. You had and the jacket was really bad and you had to find, you know, extremely creative ways to market a really crappy jacket.
[00:08:44] At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good you market the jacket, the jacket’s not going to win like you’re gonna lose, right? So we have to figure out this offer. So here’s number two of this iron suit. So you can laugh when I talk about this, which is the target. And so you’ve gotta calibrate the mission in some way, right?
[00:09:00] So you’ve got, you’ve got that powerful core offering now. Let’s talk about kind where you’re actually aiming all that energy, because it’s a arc reactor, right? It’s an offer. So in our analogy, this is making sure that the vending machine is placed in a location where people actually want what it sells.
[00:09:16] Because marketing without some kind of clear or defined goal is a lot less. Like flying a super sophisticated drone around without any coordinates programmed in, like maybe for fun from your, from your, you know, from your backyard. But what if, what are you gonna do with it so you can burn a ton of time, a ton of money, and a whole lot of precious energy that.
[00:09:36] I really want you to protect that you’ll likely end up landing in the middle of nowhere. So what is the fix? Uh, it it’s really simple actually, but it’s super important. You’ve got to write down the specific goal of your current marketing campaign and make it binary. Either it happened or it didn’t. That means you ask yourself at this very, very critical question, is everything that I’m creating, every email, every social post, every video directing me to help that specific binary goal.
[00:10:00] If I’m not clearly pointing towards that outcome, you’ve got to be willing to cut it out. That’s it. It it’s an insane way to hit your goal saying, Hey, I wanna make a million dollars. If I say yes to this opportunity, is it getting me closer to making a million dollars or farther away from it? My friends, Russ Morgan and Joey Muré, who are my money coaches, always talk about that’s how to approach financial freedom.
[00:10:21] Every financial decision you make, you ask, Hey, is this getting me closer to financial freedom as defined by where my passive income is greater than my monthly expenses? So if you are going to put. $67,000 into your SEP IRA, this, this, this year. You ask yourself the same question, if that is your goal. If your goal is financial freedom, you say, Hey, does this get me closer or farther away from financial freedom based on the definition of that goal.
[00:10:45] So if you put $67,000 towards your SEP IRA, sure you can access it in 35 years, maybe at a significantly higher tax rate based on how things are going right now. So. Does it get you closer or farther away? Based on that goal, it would get you farther away. So it would make, it should make you think twice on whether you should put the money there.
[00:11:02] It’s a very simple, binary decision that allows you to make, you know, a yes no decision on what you’re actually gonna do. So, so, so for example, let’s say you’re a real estate agent and your goal is for the next two weeks to book five listing appointments. Well then a hundred percent of your marketing efforts needs to be geared towards either generating interest or, or, or in selling that.
[00:11:21] Home for that homeowner, or directly asking those for appointments, meaning these generic market updates. Literally you’re like, oh, I’m gonna send an email about a market update, or I’m gonna put a, you know, a just listed, or a just sold, or like, I’m gonna put a funny video up about rates like that does not work.
[00:11:36] You gotta cut them out because from a binary perspective, does it get you the appointment? You’re putting your vending machine in places where the potential sellers are not just random passersby. Right. How do you think McDonald’s and the Burger King phenomenon happen? What did Burger King do? McDonald’s did all this research, put all, bought all this real estate and put McDonald’s in very good strategic locations.
[00:11:55] People don’t realize that the McDonald’s is actually a real estate business and not just, you know, franchise-based, you know, kind of operating business. But what did Burger King did? They’re like, McDonald’s did all this research. Let’s go put another Burger King near a McDonald’s. They just. Learn how to do that.
[00:12:09] And so there’s a reason why you do that, because you’re not gonna find out new markets in all of this, right? So that’s kind of part two, which is you gotta figure out, have this clear, binary action. You gotta cut ruthlessly and say, Hey, is what I am doing getting me closer or farther away from my goal?
[00:12:24] And can I, and if I don’t know it, by the way, if you don’t know and you’re not sure, you ask another question. You ask another question. If you’re not sure, that means you’re, you’re getting farther away. It has to be clearly show you that you’re getting closer to your goal. Right? Here’s part three. There’s some kind of fit involved, like you gotta design for one person.
[00:12:40] I’ve always, I think I’ve shared this with you before. I have one person that I have in mind when I record this podcast. I’m talking to one, like, one friend. I. One entrepreneur. She’s fantastic. I am good friends with her. I know, I know her business inside out. I believe that she’s my perfect avatar on person that I can help.
[00:12:55] She’s loving, caring, kind, hardworking. She knows she’s communicative. She, she has work ethic. She is. She has a right balance of mindset and heartset. Like I know who she is, so I talk to her. This podcast is for her. And like when I say that I, I say it because I know that you are her. You have her and you, and as you’re listening to this, you may not be that person, but like, I have to die.
[00:13:18] Dial in my efforts to that entrepreneur in you, because otherwise, when you’re talking to everybody, when everyone’s your target market, nobody’s your target market, right? So if you ever sometimes feel like, man, he’s talking to me, it’s because you are exactly who I’m talking to because I’m not talking to a retired military veteran who I.
[00:13:34] You know, is a firefighter right now. Like, it’s just not, that’s not the avatar. Like, I love them. I have, I I see that because I have a, one of my best friend is a retired Marine who is a firefighter right now. And he’s like, Chong, I, I’ve never listened to your podcast. And I’m like, you won’t enjoy it either, right?
[00:13:48] That’s the point here. So let’s talk about like, who we’re actually trying to reach back to the vending machine, you would put, you wouldn’t put like candy bars in a gym’s vending machine or protein shakes in an elementary school. Or you would, you would need to tailor what the machine. Offers to the specific needs and desires of the people who are there, right?
[00:14:03] Because the, you and I both know that the one size fits all might be great for those selling, kind of like these little free hotel shampoos that nobody really loves, but it’s definitely not a winning strategy for your and my business. You and I need to tailor our message with like insanely laser precision because.
[00:14:22] There’s a really powerful exercise. You picture your absolute best client, exactly what I’m sharing with you. The one that you genuinely love working with. The dumb one, the one that gets you can get amazing results for the one that gets you, the one that loves you, the one that you care about. Now, actually write a fake journal entry from their perspective.
[00:14:36] What would they say? Right. Put yourself in their shoes. Use their voice, use their words, use their language. Use what would they naturally use and say and feel. What are their daily frustrations? What are their, their hopes and dreams? What keeps them up at night? What you, you’ve got, once you’ve got that journal entry, you can start pulling out phrases and sentences that may say, and by the way.
[00:14:54] You don’t even have to do this. You can literally go to AI right now and say, Hey, here’s my perfect avatar, and you just describe your perfect client. You just talk to ai, describe your perfect client to them, and then say, Hey, if you were writing, write me 10 journal entries, and let’s say your perfect client is Jenny.
[00:15:11] Write me 10 journal entries that they would write in their journal and a day in a life, and write each journal entry as a paragraph. Now it will output 10 different journal entries about them, and you will start to find. The specific language, like the crazy part right now is I’m telling you to write it.
[00:15:24] You don’t even have to do any of this. Like, you could just think it, in fact, you, you, you could take this paragraph, upload it to chat GPT, uh, I, and I give you the full transcript on my, in the show notes by the way. So there’s a full transcript. You don’t even have to like find a way to transcribe this.
[00:15:37] You just copy paste it. The, once you got these journal, you can start to pull out these specific phrases and these exact sentences that they may say, and then use those exact phrases in your next email, in your next social media post, in your next headline of your sales page. Like, the reason why a lot of you will respond to me and say, Hey, that email spoke to me is because I, this is what I do.
[00:15:55] I like try to figure out what you may say, what you may think, what you may feel, and then. Share that back with you so that you, you, that’s my way of like trying to reach you. It’s like speaking directly into their inner monologue and their inner voice and, and, and stalking your vending machine with exactly what they’re craving.
[00:16:12] You’re not being manipulative. You’re actually giving them what they need. This is what people think is wrong. They think that doing the psychology around it, people are like, man, isn’t that manipulation? Well, what is the difference between manipulation and persuasion? Right. You’re doing it to, as long as you’re doing it to help them.
[00:16:27] I think it’s good if you know their deepest, darkest desires and the things that they want, their fears, frustrations, and wants and aspirations, and you are, you have something that they want and you can build something that they want, and you’re giving them something that they want, and you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart to help them and benefit their lives and, and, and create something powerful for them, great.
[00:16:45] Do that. That’s good for you. Now, you know, if you’re manipulating and if you don’t, you’re a sociopath. And if you’re a sociopath, I can’t do anything to help you anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Right. That’s the point here. So imagine like, uh, uh, I love, I love dogs. We, we, my, we grew up raising puppies and so I, I actually speak dog more than I speak human because dogs kinda sense your energy.
[00:17:05] And I, I love, I love puppies. I can, I can talk to any puppy with my head and my heart without even using a word. But imagine you run a premium dog food, like subscription business, right? I, I would love that business. Your ideal. Customers who your ideal customer’s journal entry may say something like, man, I’m so worried about bingo’s sensitive stomach.
[00:17:23] I’ve tried everything and I just want some food that’s healthy for him, that he uses real ingredients and doesn’t cost digestive issues. I wish I had the time to do it myself, but I can’t. Now, if you use that exact language in your marketing, that’s like putting a sign on your vending machine that says.
[00:17:37] For dogs with sensitive stomachs, it attracts the right people like me to talk about. This is the, this is what we call the dog whistle, right? If you don’t know what a dog whistle is, essentially it’s, you know, dogs can hear a different frequency than humans, and so a lot of times you have this whistle where if you blow it, they can hear something that no, no one else can hear.
[00:17:54] And so you can use that for training purposes. That’s called a dog whistle. So in a lot of times in your emails, you can write, you can start off an [00:18:00] email by saying, if you’re looking to lose, you know, 10 pounds in the next six months, then this email is for you. The only people reading that email are those that wanna lose 10 pounds in the next six months.
[00:18:09] Uh, if you wanna buy a home in Laguna Beach, then this, this email is for you. Then people only watch that. Or if you’re making a video, if you could say, Hey, you know, if you would like to launch an Amazon store, then this video is for you. Then it tells you exactly, and it’s called the Dog Whistle. The only people wanting to watch that after they hear the quote hook are the ones that actually want to hear what’s after that.
[00:18:29] And so you’ve, you’ve, they’ve self-selected into the messaging you’re providing. Right. Which is super important. Alright. Here’s part number four is we talked about the messaging. Is I, this is the fuel, again, I’m going a little hokey with my iron suit. Example. We gotta kind of speak to the pain and the desires that they’re going through, right?
[00:18:47] So we are attracting the right people, but how do we get them to actually buy from the vending machine? We need to kind of make them want what side we, this is why we, this is where we kind of talk about the psychology of marketing. Because a lot of us are, are attracted to the tactics. They’re like, Ooh, what do I put in my hook?
[00:19:04] What color do I use? What one day do I post? All of that is completely secondary to understanding that there’s a fundamental truth. That emotion is what makes people act, and logic just helps ’em justify their action, right? And so emotion is primary. They wanna buy, they, they made the decision and the logic just helps ’em justify that action to themselves afterwards.
[00:19:22] So I’ll give you a practical example. By the way, if you’re not paying attention, please pay attention right now. ’cause if you just did this, it will help you a lot. Super practical exercise. I, I do this often. I mean for myself, just take a page, a piece of paper. This is super easy to do. Draw a line down the middle and you’ve got two columns on the left, on the right, on the first one, right?
[00:19:40] What sucks on the second one? Right? What they want and in the what sucks column, you’ve gotta just brainstorm and list five or 10 things that you’re. Ideal client avatar’s. Biggest frustrations are, I call them fears and frustrations. What are the fears and frustrations of the things that on the left side of the column, you know, my, my coach talking Moore often talks about, he’s like, he calls it fears, frustrations, wants and aspirations.
[00:20:01] And if you can understand, if you could just make a map of the fears, frustrations, wants, and aspirations, you literally can sell anybody anything that they actually want, which is super, super powerful. And so. The things that are causing them real pain in their business or in their life. So then that’s what you’re writing in the what sucks call then in the what they want column.
[00:20:18] That’s the wants and aspirations. Write the corresponding desire. So a lot of times what I would do is I will just take whatever the frustration is and do the opposite. So for example, if a frustration is they don’t have any time, the want is they have a lot of free time, right? So you wanna do the opposite of what’s in the, what’s in the fear and the frustration.
[00:20:34] And that’s the ideal outcome. That’s the ideal, you know, result that they’re seeking now. If you take those powerful lines and, and those raw expressions of pain and, uh, desire and, and now weave them into your headlines or your email openers, your social media captions, that what’s, what’s gonna help you connect with people.
[00:20:49] Now again, I’m gonna tell you this again. After you write this, you just take a picture of this page, you upload it to ai, aachi, pt, whatever, and you say, Hey, I just wrote down the, the fears and frustrations, wants and aspirations of my target avatar. My target avatar is this, and you just talk to it. Can you validate that this is the.
[00:21:06] This, this is accurate. What am I missing? Great. Based on all of these, can you give me five email headlines that talk to one of these? Can you gimme five social media hooks that talk to one of these? Instead of just saying, gimme five scripts on the best social media videos that I can record. That is not what you say.
[00:21:23] This is what you say. So now just you doing a little bit of like one column, you know, two column work and making AI do the rest. Now you’ve given it the right context for it to actually help you. So if you run, like, um, I’ll give you an example. If you run like a marketing automation service for a small business, I have a, I have a friend who’s awesome at, at building these, uh, he builds systems and technology for, for, for companies.
[00:21:45] His name is Leo Chen. He runs this company called Systemology and I. If you think about, you should look ’em up, by the way, systemology agency, essentially, they build whatever you can think of them, which is super cool, right? So they’re, it’s, they’re like, what sucks? Maybe I’m spending too much on, you know, manually emailing leads, or I know that I’m missing opportunities and their want be, Hey, I want a system that automatically nurtures my leads and maybe turns them into paying clients while I focus on running my business.
[00:22:09] That contrast, right? That highlights the value that you provide and that makes the solution the more obvious choice. That makes the solution exactly what you want, that makes the solution what they want. And now. On what they can get from a vending machine. So if you, all you have to do is just in, in the AI portion of this, if you do a little bit of work, the AI can help you because you’re just guiding the AI to be a lot more specific for you in this process.
[00:22:31] Alright, kinda here’s part five. Now the question becomes like, you know, what are the channels we gotta fly where our eyeballs are not? Not go into the marketing but wasteland. I, my, my last episode I talked about this marketing wasteland idea where, why would you shout into the abyss when no one is listening?
[00:22:47] You gotta be in the right room when you just talk to the right people. And so we, we’ve got a great offer. We aimed at the right people, we’re positioned to make them want it. Now, where do we put our vending machine to absolutely crush it, to maximize sales, to get the results that you want. [00:23:00] You don’t need to be on every single social media platform that pops up.
[00:23:02] Trust me, like you don’t need to do this. Now, if you are an influencer. Then, and that is your game. Yeah, I understand. But even the influencers realize what platforms that they’re good at and what they’re not, and they try to like double down on the things that actually work for them. So trying to be everywhere is, is honestly it, it with, if you don’t have unlimited resources, it’s fu Utah.
[00:23:20] So by the way, you’re also gonna burn, burn out burnout, and have like insanely mediocre results. I have done it. It sucks, and I’ve gone through that season of my life and I just don’t wanna do it anymore. So what does being strategic mean on all of this? You just need to show up where it actually counts, right?
[00:23:33] Where it actually means something. Where do your clients actively spending their time and their attention? So let me ask, tell you this, what have you made a practical list of the last 10? Paying clients, just go back and say, Hey, who are these people? How did I actually get connected with them? Was it through Instagram?
[00:23:49] Where did I find them? Was it through a podcast interview? Was it through a referral in an email? Was it through LinkedIn? And, and, and if all you will start to see, a lot of them come from a similar channel. And if you can’t find the channel, you could look for the message. Maybe you ran a specific campaign, maybe you did a specific giveaway.
[00:24:03] Like if all your giveaways ran at the same spot, at least you know that that specific giveaway is what you should need to do more of or something like that, right? So you wanna become a master of that one or two key platforms even before you think about spreading yourself across a dozen. Others. Only expand to new channels once your primary ones are consistently giving you greater salts.
[00:24:21] Meaning if you don’t have a vending machine on your primary platforms, do not expand to others. If you’re a real estate agent focusing on a specific local area, you might find that. The most leads come from local Facebook groups or Zillow, et cetera. In that case, your primary focus should be on those channels rather than trying to build a massive falling on TikTok.
[00:24:38] Whether you can dance or can’t dance, it doesn’t really matter, right? That’s the answer. If you are, uh, selling accounting services, and I’m sorry, like, I do not think that business owners and in-house like CTOs and controllers are hanging out on Instagram or TikTok right now, they’re probably spending more time on LinkedIn.
[00:24:54] So you’re probably saying, okay, where’s my ideal avatar? Like, and the reason I think about this is imagine the person’s computer screen and imagine they. You are walking by their screen. What do you see on their screen? Like do you, do you, what do you see them looking at? That’s what you want to do.
[00:25:10] Whatever you think that I am looking at is where you want to be to reach me, right? That’s the point. So kind of please don’t do the marketing wasteland. Be where your customers are, even though it’s not sexy for you. You gotta do what’s sexy for them, right? That’s the answer, part six. Little autopilot stuff.
[00:25:26] We’ve gotta install some kind of follow-up machine because we know that when someone comes to a vending machine, they look at something, they, they may not be interested exactly in what we’re offering at that point, but they don’t buy right away. But what do we do? A lot of people are like, you know, they say, oh, you got now buyers and not now buyers.
[00:25:39] Well, not now. Buyers is where all the money is, and this is where a good follow-up comes in. There’s a critical piece of this puzzle that so many people overlook, and that is. Rarely what happens on the first click or the first interaction? Usually what happens on kind of the follow up, because the frustrating, frustrating, frustrating reality is that most people put all of this effort to attract the leads and you stop after sending one message because they’re like, ah, this doesn’t work.
[00:26:03] I’m just gonna like not worry about this person. This is a, you know, this lead sucks. It’s like inviting someone over for dinner to your house and then slamming the door in their face after they knock one time. That’s literally what it looks like. We, and, and we need a system for some kind of consistent follow-up.
[00:26:16] So this could be writing, you know, three to five part email sequence. This could be making sure your content is happening all the time. I actually do this whole thing. I actually build a, I’ve shown you how to do this. I don’t wanna go into this in this episode, but if you’ve, if you don’t have a follow-up system and that’s something that you have wanted episode.
[00:26:32] 2 56, which is like just a few episodes back. It’s called the influencer email machine. I break down exactly how you need to set up your like email follow up machine system. If you are gonna do it, you should listen to that episode. If you are not gonna do it, you should just send that episode to your team and have them replicate that.
[00:26:47] Exactly, because that’s what I kind of share with the influencers that I advise and I, that’s what I share for myself. If you wanna jump on how our follow-up system works, sadly I have nothing to sell you. Sadly. There’s nothing you can buy from me sadly. I don’t, I, that is not my jam right now. So you can go to sharra.com/vip and you can get into our email network, you’ll, it’s all value because I have nothing to sell you anyway, but you can see how the process works.
[00:27:12] Alright, last part. How do you kind of multiply all of this? So I call this the boost. So you’ve got this little suit, Ironman suit that you have built. It’s functioning pretty good. It’s getting you where you need to go. But in our analogy, this meaning this vending machine is really well stocked. It’s in a great location.
[00:27:27] You have the system to make pure people buy. How do you kind of make it bigger? How do you amplify the impact? How do you amplify such a strange word? You don’t even use it in normal context. I don’t even know why I thought about it. Sorry. How do you like, you know. I don’t, I don’t even know the synonym for Amplify.
[00:27:41] How, how do you broadcast? I don’t, I’m trying, I’m trying to figure out, use a non-complex word here. How do you reach a wider audience and make a bigger impact? That’s how do you add a megaphone? There it is. And, and today’s really kind of crazy business world. A megaphone is your content. Content is how you sell an idea for free.
[00:28:00] Think about that content is how you sell an idea for free. Here’s a simple but like super incredible like content engine that you can implement. You gotta pick one big idea each month that aligns with your goals, then create one long form piece of content around that idea. This could be like a deep dive video or a podcast, or a webinar, or an in-depth article or whatever.
[00:28:19] Then once you have that foundational piece, your next step is to slice it in, dice it into five to 10 smaller pieces of content, like, you know, short form pieces like Instagram and reels and TikTok or whatever, and drive them all back to that. So think about this content strategy as like, I. Kind of two pieces.
[00:28:31] You’ve got this legacy content, which is your deep, searchable, evergreen type stuff that lives on your website, lives on YouTube that lives, all of that. And then you’ve got this daily stuff, which is top of mind and punchy, and it’s taken from that long form content and drives everybody back to that content literal, literally, that’s it.
[00:28:43] My, I was talking Alex Schmo, and he told me the entire reason for making short form content is to get them to consume your long form content. I was like, wait, what? He said the entire reason. For making short form content is to make them consume your long form content. There’s a lot of embedded assumptions in there if you think about it, right?
[00:29:01] Number one, it is, you actually have a, the the depth to deliver long form content. Number two, you actually have a system and a way to deliver long form content. You are actually doing that. Number three, once you have the long form content, you have the capability and the capacity and the intellectuality to deliver that long form.
[00:29:18] Then it says, okay, cool. Now I’m gonna take that long form content and do a lot more with it. If you talk to any content media agency, they’ll just tell you, Hey. Uh, you can either sit and record 40 short shorts, or you can make one long form podcast, and I can just get all the depth from it. So if you’ve not listened to that, I’ll, I’ll say it again.
[00:29:34] You’ve gotta, I’ll give you a super big idea, right? Pick one big core idea, like say big idea each month that aligns with the overall goals and create one deep, substantial, long form piece of content around that idea. Then take that piece of content and then you break it up into, you know, 5, 6, 7 little tiny chunks that can be just big ideas and now make videos, tweets, reels, Instagram posts, et cetera, all around them because you’ve already created the deep and and punchy long form content.
[00:29:59] Now use that to drive everything back. That is all you’re doing. If you just did that, you win. So that makes everything easy and you only have, then you have the depth to show with everything overall as well. Alright, lemme wrap everything up. Here’s literally the honest truth. I know this was a little longer, but the core takeaway from all of this is it’s not about grinding yourself into the ground.
[00:30:18] There’s no fun for anybody. This the, this whole endless hustle point is terrible. It is not about being some marketing genius with all the latest hack. It is not this real, profitable, sustainable growth comes from making these smart, thoughtful, strategic decisions that compound over time. You don’t want hacky stuff.
[00:30:35] You don’t want like, oh, just what’s working right now. Marketing when it’s done right is really, really a powerful chain reaction. That’s what you want, a chain reaction. You know, you gotta have a compelling offer with the right product in your vending machine. You literally, I want you to think about this vending machine.
[00:30:49] Why is your vending machine not working and put the right machine in the right location. Get people there. That’s what it’s all about. Ask yourself, do I have a vending machine-like business? If I don’t, what is it gonna take for me to get a vending machine like business and be. Ultra ultra unhealthy, obsessive to try to build a vending machine like business.
[00:31:08] So be like Ironman, right? In this case, you’re this savvy vending machine owner. Your suit’s not for Show your vending machine’s, not just a box like we need a vending machine like business. If you’ve never watched Ironman before, like think if you have this, this will resonate with you. You gotta think back to Tony Stark in that cave scraps of metal and he’s trying to figure out how to build a missile while building his suit, and he built something that got him out and you have the same capacity, you have the same ingenuity.
[00:31:33] Now I just want to give you that vending machine goal. You don’t need a perfect system. You just need to start building this vending machine. You just need like a functional prototype. You just need the basic version of this Iron Man suit. The basic vending machine because once you build that, you’ll know what’s broken.
[00:31:45] Once you build that, you’ll know how much money that needs to go in or effort that needs to go in to get that result out. Once you build that, you can iterate. Once you build that, you can figure out the next step. Once you build that, you can upgrade. Once you build that, you’ll know who to look to help for and what to actually build, because at the end of the day, if you don’t have a vending machine, you will constantly, constantly, we have to work super hard to get more business, and I just, my biggest wish for you is that you have a vending machine like business where you put $1 in.
[00:32:08] And you get one client out or put a hundred dollars in and get five clients out or whatever it may be, you need a vending machine like business and I, I, that’s my entire vision for you. Hey, so I hope this was helpful. I know I went a little deeper. My question for you is, if this was interesting to you, can you please, please, please do me a favor.
[00:32:21] Can you screenshot this, post it on social and tag me that you like this? That way I can make more like this for you. If you like this, you want a deeper version of this, just tag me and say make a YouTube video or something like that. That way I can draw and. Create more examples that you can then take it and send it to your team, et cetera.
[00:32:37] The, lemme give you the tip here. Um. If you go to the show notes that are on this page, you will be able to get the full transcript of this. You don’t even have to like find a way to download and get, you know, figure out. You have the, there’s a full transcript of this episode. Copy paste a full transcript, put it into AI and say, Hey, break down.
[00:32:54] Take my business, take my avatar, and break this all down for me as to what I should do for next steps. Use this as a coach. Use this full episode as a blueprint and a coach to then coach you on your business, and then you can just. Have it ask you questions saying, Hey, take all of this information from this episode.
[00:33:08] You know, use this as the coach, and then ask me the questions you need to know to help me build my, you know, vending machine plan. Right? And then have AI ask you questions one by one, and you’ll get a plan around it, and you’ll know what the most important next step is. Really, really, that’s why I’m putting the full transcript out for you, so that you can take this, you understand it, and then you can build from this.
[00:33:26] So please, if you like this screenshot, this episode. Post it on social, tag me and then tell me you like this. That way I can make more like this for you until lifetime. Have a good one.
[00:33:42] Hey, it’s Sharran, I have a cool gift for you. Since you like this podcast, I actually have an ultra super secret private podcast that I make just for my partner companies and the CEOs and influencers that I advise. It’s called 10 K wisdom because I try to wrap 10, 000 worth of value in every single episode in just under 10 minutes.
[00:34:05] That’s why it’s called 10 K wisdom. It’s raw. It’s real. It’s got no intro or outro or anything like that. It’s just straight to the point and to the insights. Since you like this podcast, I think you will like that. So for the first time, I’m making it available to you. Just go to 10Kwisdom.com the number 10K wisdom.com and my team will activate it for you as my gift. Go to 10Kwisdom.com. I’ll see you there.