One Funnel Away Challenge

Why am I getting involved in the Clickfunnels “One Funnel Away” 30 Day Challenge? Lots of good reasons and in this episode of the vzine, Nicola explains why she’s doing it and why, especially if you are over 50 and thinking about your retirement, why you might want to, too. Make sure to LIKE Nicola’s Facebook page and turn notifications on to keep up with her Live updates on how it’s going! Do that here at https://www.facebook.com/NicolaCairncrossUK/

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Clicks And Leads is a “tongue in cheek” digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

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Welcome this week to the Vzine. It’s Nicola here and I’m indoors because I’ve had several attempts at recording this outside and it just isn’t working. The heat is unbelievable today. It’s just the first day of August, and of course, it’s the hottest month of the year. I’m indoors with all the air conditioning going because I’ve had a dog visitor today. I’ve been looking after Wilfie, who’s a lovely Cocker Spaniel and I just thought it would be nicer for him and me if we were not stressed and not too hot and nice and cool.

I’ve got a really big couple of announcements for you in the middle section of this week’s Vzine, so do pay attention, it’s a little bit longer than usual, but I think you’ll find it really interesting, especially if you’re over 50. If you’re a woman who’s been affected by the WASPI scandal, where six years of your pension have been taken away. If you’re a self-employed person who is a bit worried about what their pension’s going to look like because they may not have paid all their stamps or as many as they could have done. Or if you’re just someone who’s got a pension provision that you’re a little bit worried isn’t going to fund the lifestyle that you desire, I think you’ll find this middle section really, really interesting. So, let’s get on with the show, shall we?

So take three, this is me explaining why I’m getting involved in the Clickfunnel’s, One Funnel Away, 30 day challenge during August and why I think you should too. I’ve just done two takes, I did one from the beach and it was too noisy in the background and also, my headphones stopped anyone being able to hear me for the first two or three minutes. And then I just tried to go live with my BeLive.tv software, which is really very good and let’s you do Lives from my laptop, but the internet signal was not good enough here. Haven’t had a good internet signal for about five weeks. Have to go down the taverna to upload video and audio, but I’m managing. Yeah, I’m on the phone to them everyday. They keep promising an engineer, but nobody’s turned up yet, so you just have to roll with punches, really. But nobody’s interested in my challenges.

Then I just went Live a minute ago and luckily Marion showed up and told me that I had my phone slightly off in the side, in fact it was completely on the side. But I’ve just realised how to turn my phone vertical, which apparently is what everyone wants and hopefully you can hear me okay. And if anyone’s out there listening, I’d really appreciate a comment just to let me know that it’s all coming through okay.

So, why am I getting involved in the Clickfunnel 30 day challenge?

I was asked this on the Clicks and Leads Academy webinar call yesterday by two of my students who know that I always prefer my students to go with a self-hosted version on their websites ideally, to build their business on real estate they own effectively. So, you know, your own domain name, your own hosting, your own business on something you control. I would never say to someone, build your business entirely on someone else’s platform. So that seems to be a bit of a dichotomy when it comes to something like Clickfunnels.

So why am I going to use it to launch the thing I want to launch in August?

Why am I going against what I normally say?

Well, before I explain all that and why, because there are some very good reasons why, is I wanted to talk to you about what I want to launch in August. In fact it’s relaunching something. I don’t know if you know, but the first thing I ever sold online was wealth coaching, essentially. Now a lot of people came because they wanted to become a millionaire, but actually, what the found out was, it was all about becoming financially intelligent. That’s what I was trying to teach people because I never had a clue about money and how money works and how some people were rich and some people found it such a struggle to even earn good money, let alone keep it and then invest it.

So I was on my own financial intelligence journey. And as a part of that journey, I read everything I could get my hands on and I listened to everyone that talked about wealth creation. People like Robert Kiyosaki. People like Mike Maloney, all sorts of people like that. So I was learning from the best people about what makes a difference between some person who’s poor and some person who’s earning well and keeping it and investing it. And that grew into a book called “The Money Gym” once upon a time and it’s still there. It still sells happily on Amazon all day long and occasionally when Amazon do promotions, it gets to number one in random categories.

But what I’ve been working on over the years is an audio version and that’s quite a job, I tell you. Reading your own book out loud and not sending yourself to sleep. So there’s the whole recording bit of it and then there’s the editing bit. Now that’s the bit that really sends you to sleep. And actually, I’ve had a half-edited version of “The Money Gym” for a long time. And it’s really now, only now that I’ve sort of sat down and really edited it properly because I want to put it onto audible.

So I’m thinking to myself, so how can I launch this? How can I launch The Money Gym? How can I launch “The Money Gym” book again? How can I get it to the top of the categories that it’s in? How can I launch the audible version on audible with a good impact?

I was thinking, I’m never going to have time to do this ’cause I’ve got my day job which is being a digital marketing consultant and doing Clicks and Leads Academy, which is sort of my main earner, if you like. But then I kept hearing about this WASPI situation and I kept hearing about these hundreds of thousands of women who’ve been affected by the government’s change in the pension time that they can retire.

So lots of women who were born in the 50s, not me because I was born in 61. So I’ve always sort of known, I’ve sort of thought I was to be retiring at 60, but then it sort of dawned on me through the years that it would be 65. I don’t know how that happened. But there’s a lot of women out there who, for all of their working lives, have thought that they would be retiring at 60 and they’ve done all their pension planning accordingly. And I know somebody very well who is affected by this and they’re called the WASPI women. I don’t know what it stands for, but if you look it up, it’s hashtag W-A-S-P-I. And it’s basically, the Labour Government…

That’s because I was pregnant with my daughter, they changed the rules. They just completely changed the rules to say that women who were born in a certain timeframe and they were born in the 50s would retire at 65 but they didn’t tell anyone. And you know, this makes me super mad, even though it doesn’t affect me. It is changing the goalposts, it’s so underhand and I’m really disappointed that that government did that.

There’s one thing to be campaigning about here and to be protesting about it and to be running court cases about it, but while you’re doing that, you’ve got to have something else up your sleeve. And that doesn’t just go for women, that goes for lots of men, people like me who have been self-employed, people who’ve been at home looking after children and who didn’t get their National Insurance stamps kept up to date, and all that business.

Basically, you can’t rely on anybody else to look after you in your old age. So what does that mean? It means that you’ve either got to get a part-time job. And you see lots of people working in places like Sainsbury’s and you know, stacking bags and perhaps that’s really good because it gets them out of the house and gives them a camaraderie and stuff. But there’s lots of people who’ve got fantastic skills, fantastic knowledge, fantastic experience. I had a client for a long time who’s a cement expert. Now what’s he going to do when he gets to retirement age and he… What’s it called, it’s called a… No, I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s a massive electro microscope. Costs hundreds of thousands of Pounds.

And what’s he going to do when he hangs up that and stops analysing people’s cement? And he’s got all this knowledge about being a cement expert globally and he’s written a book about it. So, there’s lots of people who could write, and he’s been selling his eBook quite happily. And he’s a really good example of someone who’s got a really esoteric specialist knowledge who could be making money out of their knowledge.

So, the options if you’re getting old and you need extra money, either to fill a shortfall in your pension are to get a job, to start a little business or to start an online business or to use one of the other two lanes of the wealth highway we used to call them. There’s four altogether. There’s having a business. There’s investing in property and earning property income, so rental income.

Anyway, as I was saying that you’ve got rental income from property. You’ve got having a small business offline like sort of a High Street business or a service business in the real world. You’ve got having an online business and then you’ve got the stock market. Now lots of people can learn to trade, but the problem with the stock market as it is, which is why I’ve never gone ahead and learned how to do it, is because you needed a big pot of money to get started because every trade had to be backed by something. And, but there’s a new way now. So I’m going to tell you all about that later on.

So, I feel very strongly that it’s a really good time for me to relaunch “The Money Gym” book. It’s a really good time for me to relaunch, to launch the audio version of it and I’m going to actually, launch a 12 week coaching programme in September, late September which will take us through to Christmas. Now I haven’t taught “The Money Gym” curriculum for, well a long time, since 2009 when the world went to Hell in a hand-basket with the credit crunch, and the crash, all the crashes. All the different crashes around the world. But the point is that the content is pure gold. It really is and it’s changed millions of people’s, no that’s a lie, it hasn’t changed millions of people’s lives, it’s changed thousands of people’s lives. So I’m going to be relaunching it all.

Now I thought to myself, how am I going to do this? ‘Cause I’m not very good at really being organised and making plans, I’m not a very good planner. So when I saw the Clickfunnel’s One Funnel Away 30 day challenge, I thought ooh, that might be a good thing to do through August to launch “The Money Gym” stuff because I’ve got time in August, I usually do a podcast with Judith and I’m not doing that through August, she’s taking a month off. And the Write Club ladies who I also run a podcast for, we’re taking a month off too. So I have unexpected time on my hands through August. I don’t have any visitors til the 31st, so I’ve got a nice solid deadline there. Phoebe arrives, Pete and his wife and daughter arrive and Mathew and his, I think it’s his girlfriend, or best friend, I’m not sure which. They’re arriving all on the 31st, so I’ve got to get this done by then. And then I really like the look of the 30 day challenge.

I work well when things are chunked down. I get overwhelmed very easily and I don’t know about you. If I’ve got a big job to do and I’m not a great planner, it’s fantastic if someone else has done the plan for me. I know roughly what’s going to be involved, but I don’t know exactly what’s going to be involved because I’ve never used Clickfunnels before. I put all my funnels together, and I have been doing for the last 25 years, using a website and a shopping cart and a mailing list and landing pages that I’ve either built myself or I use Lead, but Leadpages for a long time. And I have to tell you, every single landing page I’ve built myself since, has never converted as well a Leadpages landing page. There’s something about the way those pages look that make people really love them.

Okay, so why August, why a challenge?

Oh, the other thing is, lots of other people have done this. They did the challenge last year and it changed countless people’s lives and I think that that’s as good a reason as any to follow a successful formula, don’t you? If other people have done it and succeeded with it and got something going they wouldn’t have otherwise, it’s probably good enough for me to be able to follow the system and really do it and get “The Money Gym” wholly relaunched again. Okay, so why Clickfunnels? This is getting to your question Nicki, if you’re still watching. Because I know that it’s a really good bit of kit.

I know that it’s got limitations, every bit of kit’s got limitations and I know that, um, there’ll be things that perhaps, if you did it completely best spoke, you could do better, but for most people it’s a very good solution of all the different parts you need to build a funnel. Why do you need to build a funnel at all? Because people find it easier to buy from a well-constructed funnel. They want to see on the pages, all the reasons why they should buy and they want to see, what’s the word? Benefits and they want to see features and they want to have their objections overcome because people want to buy something that was going to move them from one place, which is unsatisfactory to another place which is a better place. And you’ve got to make it easy for them as the business owner, as the marketer to do that. And I believe that I’m going to get my whole funnel built much, much quicker if I follow a system.

I’ve only got 30 days. ‘Cause on the 31st, they’re all arriving and we’re already in August, so it’s not even 30 days. My god, I’m behind the times already. We start on Monday and if you want to start then, why don’t you just go to NicolaCairncross.com/onefunnel and you will find everything you need there to get started. It’s going to cost you a few dollars to get in and that’s going to be for all of the tuition that we’re going to have through August and then at the end of it, you can either just become a Clickfunnels affiliate if you love that whole system and you want to sell it onto your mailing list perhaps or you can actually sign up for Clickfunnels and get your funnel Live. I’m going to be doing the latter.

I’ve already been a Clickfunnels affiliate for a long time now because I’ve got a page on my website that brings a lot of people to my website that are not suitable for my Clicks and Leads Academy. And I marketer and/or get the tools how to become an effective affiliate marketer and Clickfunnels have been paying me commission for that. And that’s one of the things I’m very happy to recommend Clickfunnels because they let you become an affiliate without making you pay for their stuff. Which is totally different to a lot of other companies out there, you can just become an affiliate. But, if you want to launch a funnel, a marketing funnel, a sales funnel and get what your product or service or business up and running fast, then I believe that you could do worse than starting with the Clickfunnel system because you’ll learn how to become a more effective marketer as you do it. So that’s why I’m going Live. That’s why I’m saying that I think it would be a really good idea if you join me in this challenge and that’s why, if you do join me in the challenge, and you go through NicolaCairncross.com/onefunnel, then send me your receipt for the getting started pack and I will support you.

Clickfunnels is a tool. It’s a software tool and I believe that those things make things easier for people. It’s also a skill. Now this is the thing, you’re going to be learning how to become a more effective marketer and you’re going to be learning how to put marketing and sales funnels together for pretty much, any kind of business. I use them with all kinds of business. If you look around my website, NicolaCairncross.com, go to my testimonials page and you will see lots and lots of businesses that I have helped using a funnel system, a marketing and sales funnel. And you know, it just works with everything, it’s just fantastic. And so you’ll be learning a skill that is transferable.

You can either use it for yourself in the future or you’ll be able to sell yourself as an expert at building sales and marketing funnels for other kinds of businesses. So you’ll be able to become a very highly paid freelancer. So a good skill to learn. And then the third thing is that you would be able to make a business with it. If you’ve run a business in the real world, and you’re a woman in her 50s or 60s, then you’ve got all those business building and business running skills. If you were in sales before, you’ve still got those sales skills and there’s no reason why you couldn’t go out and start a marketing and sales funnel building business for all the other businesses out there who haven’t got a blooming clue about how to market themselves online. And then, inside the Clickfunnel’s community, you’ve got lots of people who would actually put it into action, so, but you’ll be able to build a really solid business, a real world business. Then you will have a way to create extra income in your life. You do not have to be a poor old person.

Keep watching these Lives, I want to keep you up to date daily, ideally daily, on my progress with my 30 day challenge. And I’m going to be launching at the end of it. I’m going to be relaunching at the end of it, my “The Money Gym” book, “The Money Gym” audio and a 12 week “Money Gym” coaching programme. And I’ll only be doing that Live for the first time in September, October, November. And then it will be a programme after that because I believe there is no reason in this life for people to be poor.

So, what’s on the blog and the podcast this week?

Well, it’s the last week of a dual entry because we’ve got Vzine number 106, where I’m talking about meditation for business. So I talk about why I eventually took up meditation, what I get out of it, whether it helps and which meditations do I particularly like. And it’s becoming a hot topic, mental health in the marketing world and the startup founder world. So do check that episode out. Just go to NicolaCairncross.com/vzine. Then you’ll get to latest episode, which is 106.

Also on the blog, let’s have a look. It’s Dust and Doldrums, episode 237 is on there. And I’m having a little bit of a moan because I’m finding things a little bit tough in that one. In the next episode 238, we discuss whether talking about our challenges is actually counterproductive, whether it goes against the whole law of attraction kind of thing, ’cause surely if you’re dwelling on your problems, you’re inviting more of the same problems. So we’re going to start switching up in the Own It podcast when it comes back after the August break.

We’re going to try something new because we don’t like the idea that dwelling on challenges could be bringing more of them to us. I’ve got plenty of challenges this week. I’ve still got no internet for the sixth week going. The cosmatay are not even picking up the phone anymore. But then when I just give up and I go down to the beach and I just feel fine again, so, you know, I’m not dwelling in negativity. I’m just doing what I can to solve the problems and then I’m going down the beach when I can’t, which is a really cool thing to be able to do.

So, check out the blog as ever, NicolaCairncross.com/blog. There’s going to be some really cool stuff coming in August because I’m taking part, as you already know now, in the Clickfunnel’s One Funnel Away 30 day challenge. And I’m going to be chronicling my journey on my Facebook page, my YouTube channel and the blog as always, so just check it out if you enjoy watching someone going through a 30 day challenge and finding out where they get stuck, where they overcome challenges, it’s a bit of a hero’s journey. Or it will be with not much internet, that’s for sure.

So, thanks very much, see you next week.

Creative Direction & Video Editing
Phoebe Soremekun

Intro Music
Pool Cosby

Incidental Music
[No Copyright Music] Chill Lofi Hip Hop Instrumental (Copyright Free) Music – Days Like These

Drone footage of The Mani
Georgios Ser-Aouas

Drone Footage of Shoreham by Sea
Scott Wright Photography

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