SPI 841: How to Tell Stories to Attract Your Perfect Clients with Celinne Da Costa

Celinne Da Costa: When we are walking what I like to refer to as the timeline of our highest possible soul destiny, there are forces that will come to your aid that are beyond what your rational mind can ever explain. I believe there's something out there that is benevolent, that does lead you in the direction where you're meant to be when you're connected to yourselves. When I'm on the right path, I will have a conversation with a perfect stranger, or I will see a sign, or I will ask a question and will magically get answered in a podcast I'm listening to that next day. The answers will come.

Pat Flynn: One of the most important things about your business is the story that you're telling. Not just your story and how you grew up and how you got to where you are. I think that's important. And I think in my experience, I know just exactly how important that is. You know, my layoff story and all those kinds of things that, that is important.

But the way that you shape that story and how it relates to who it is you're serving is absolutely key. We've had people like Donald Miller on the show before from building a story brand. And I don't think there's enough learning that we can have about better storytelling, which is exactly why I wanted to bring in Celinne Da Costa on today.

Celinne Da Costa is a brand identity master. She's a storytelling coach and she specifically helps people, mostly women, but I mean, her stuff is universal for how we can take our brand and actually relate to our audience. And I think that's so, so important. Even on our website, she says become the best story you've ever told.

And this is going to be especially relevant if you are a coach, if you are getting services. Or have services to share and to offer and to serve with and you know if you have any coaching programs These are going to be pretty key. So whether that is you or not, this is still going to be very very relevant So let's bring on Celinne Da Costa, this is session 841 of the SPI podcast.

This is a great conversation and you can find her at CelinneDaCosta.com. She's an absolute joy and I know you're going to enjoy this. Here she is.

Announcer: You're listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, a show that's all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Celinne, welcome to SPI. Thank you so much for coming on today.

Celinne Da Costa: I'm so excited to be here today.

Pat Flynn: It's about time. You know, we have probably been in the same room together without even knowing it. We have a lot of friends who are friends with each other and yet here we are meeting for the first time. So this is an absolute pleasure for me.

Thank you again for, for taking the time today.

Celinne Da Costa: Yeah, I'm super excited. It's been a long time coming, but it's always the right time when the time comes.

Pat Flynn: Exactly. Exactly. And speaking of the right time, I think this is a perfect time to have you come on the show because a lot of us in this, especially when the new year comes around, it's like new year, new you, you want to go bigger, you want to go bolder, but oftentimes it's a lot of the things that are happening inside of our heads, the story that we're telling ourselves that actually holds us back.

And this is what indeed you help your private clients with. You have some amazing things on your newsletter that we can already get some value from. We'll talk about that later, but I'd love to know how you got here. What is your origin story and how did you become so obsessed with helping people become the best version of themselves?

Celinne Da Costa: So my origin story starts with a story that will be very familiar to the entrepreneurs out there, which is the classic I was in a corporate job and I hated it and it sucked my soul dry and I knew that there was more. to life than what I had been presented with. So what that looks like for my individual story specifically is I immigrated to the United States when I was a child, which I know is a surprise to many because of my English accent, my American accent.

But I immigrated when I was about 10 years old. And what this did is that it gave me a very interesting perspective on the culture that is packaged and sold around, you know, let's call it the American dream. That so long as you work really, really hard and you do your best and you just go do the damn thing, then you get to climb up the corporate ladder and, you know, have your beautiful 2.5 children and life will be grand until, you know, one day and you go and you retire and you go travel.

So this granted this is very incredible marketing campaign called the American dream I totally bought into and as I was growing up in the States, I did everything that I could to become the person who could have it And so what that looked like was modifying my personality Making sure I checked off all the boxes making sure I understood what successful equaled in this context of culture and just doing it, just doing the thing all the way through.

And that's what I did. I worked my butt off. I, you know, sent myself to an Ivy league university. I graduated from there, decided to go to New York city because that's what everybody was doing. Got a corporate job as a brand strategist and one of the top agencies in the U S. And I went through the motions.

I ran on the hamster wheel. You had it. Yeah, I had it. I did the thing. And then guess what happened? How I felt didn't change. How I felt inside did not change. And I realized that if I wanted to truly change my life, I had to do something radical. And I didn't know, I was not aware at the time. I hadn't started doing my personal development work.

I wasn't aware of the science or art of change. I wasn't aware of the biology of change. I didn't know any of these things. I just intuitively knew that for me to shift, the story had to change. And that's when I decided to, I had this radical crazy idea one day of doing a social experiment in which I challenged myself to circumnavigate the globe by couch surfing using human connection.

What that means is no website, no CouchSurfing.com, never used it, never been on it. It meant literally talking to people and going through those six degrees of human connection and just friends, friends of friends, strangers I met on the road. I threw myself into this experiment and I said to myself, every day I'm going to do the three things I love the most.

I'm going to meet people, I'm going to travel, I'm going to write. And if I commit to doing what I love the most every single day, then the universe is bound to show me where I'm meant to be. I I'm bound to find my purpose. It's only a matter of time. And off I went fast forward a year later, I grew a social media following.

I started writing for Forbes, Entrepreneur. I started getting featured on big podcasts, people approaching me to share my story, telling other people's stories and entrepreneurs started to approach me, my friends, friends of friends saying, Hey, how are you growing this really engaged, large following you're not, you don't even have a, real job.

Like, how are you doing this? How are you gathering this visibility and attention and, and hype around your mission? I was like, I don't know. I'm just telling a story and long story short, they asked, Hey, can you take a look at my business? And I started to look at people's business and started to get in there to support these entrepreneurs with what is that real story that you're trying to tell through your brand, through your messaging?

Like, what is it that you really, really want to say? What matters the most to you? And, and why do you want to speak what you want to speak? And I just started going for it, and it took a life of its own, and before I knew it, I was growing a coaching business, helping leaders to tell their most authentic story with the world and to connect that to not only their sole mission, but also to their business growth, you know, because telling your story does lead to a huge catapult in income and influence and impact.

So yeah, you know, when people ask me, how did I get into this? I didn't choose it, it chose me and I decided to follow the signs.

Pat Flynn: Amazing. And we, we will be diving into storytelling a little bit and how to tell our story and how that attracts people that we want to attract. But I'm curious, you know, the dream was the American dream, but today I think a lot of people dream to do exactly what you did, which is to just get up and go and do the thing and be free, if you will, and discover or rediscover yourself.

I mean, immigrant child, I imagine, I mean, did you have parents who were like, no, like, you're crazy. Your boss must have been like, what are you doing? Tell me about the negatives that were happening around you that were trying to pull you back into this life that you thought originally that you were supposed to be a part of.

Celinne Da Costa: Yeah. When I had this idea. It felt so insane that it took me a few months to even allow myself to have this idea. I mean, it was baking for quite a while. When I started telling people about it, at first I was very quiet. I just told my like close friends. Thankfully, my close friends were very supportive.

That's why they're my close friends. But then I started to, you know, I was like, okay, well, it's time to tell my mother. It's time to tell my father. And that's when I started to get a lot of objections. When I started, you know, telling the close family friend, my mother absolutely freaked out. My dad is a huge traveler, so he was, I was a little freaked out, but he, he was like, okay, I think you can do this. He was more accepting of it. But I faced, oh my gosh, Pat, massive amounts of resistance. People told me I was crazy. People told me I was, I could get killed and worse things that I won't speak into. They told me that I was like high smoking things that like, they're just like, what are you doing?

You, you have such like, yeah, yeah, why don't you, why you don't stay. You're just gonna throw everything you've ever worked for away for this, and you're gonna be unemployed. And I, I wasn't even like, oh, I'm gonna go start my business. I have a vision for a business. I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. Like, I had no idea I would be a business owner.

It wasn't even remotely on my mind that I could have the capacity to own a business. It was so far away like dream that I didn't know I had. And so it was just massive amounts of resistance and a lot of people questioning me. And it was hard. And you know what? If it wasn't for that strong, strong feeling in my gut, which over the years I have learned to cultivate and I believe is the secret weapon to entrepreneurship, that feeling of like intuition of this is possible for me.

If it wasn't for that, I would have buckled. I don't even know how I didn't buckle, to be honest. Cause, cause that feeling was that strong, that feeling in my soul. It was a soul calling. It's the best way I can describe it. And I almost buckled so many times, but the feeling was stronger than all the noise.

Pat Flynn: I remember when I got laid off and I was presented the opportunity to become an entrepreneur. I had so much in my head telling me, well, then I'd be wasting the years I spent learning architecture. Right? I put all this time and money, my parents put time and money into schooling for me to do this thing that I'm doing, but here's this new opportunity.

How did you not weigh the sunk cost of what you had already invested in this American dream that you'd built this incredible job that you have? Was there not a thought of just like, Oh, well, I'm actually throwing that away. How did you weigh heavier the opportunity versus what you were losing?

Celinne Da Costa: What I believe in is that when we are walking what I like to refer to as the timeline of our highest possible soul destiny, there are forces that will come to your aid that are beyond what your rational mind can ever explain. And I believe that God, universe, mother nature, source, whatever it is that you believe in, it doesn't quite matter. I believe there's something out there that is benevolent, that does lead you in the direction where you're meant to be when you're connected to yourself.

And maybe that that is just your higher self in the future pulling you into the now. Who knows? But what I have witnessed in my life again and again and again ever since I decided to walk this path Is that when I'm on the right path, I will have a conversation with a perfect stranger or I will see a sign in a restaurant, or I will ask a question and will magically get answered in a podcast.

I'm listening to that next day. The answers will come. And I remember having a conversation. I was connected to a man who actually his name is Leon Lagothicez. He is the author of the Kindness Diaries, now a great friend of mine. And I got connected to him because somehow he's my friend tweeted my blog and he saw my blog and we got into a connection and a call because he had also traveled the entire world and done some crazy things in his journey.

And I remember getting on this phone with him. This was around the time that I had this idea. And I resonated with it so much. I'm like, Oh my God, this is so similar to this idea that I've had. And I asked him, like, why did you quit your job? Why did you put everything on the line to do this crazy, crazy journey?

And he was significantly older than me as well. And so he had way more years behind him. He had more to lose. And he said to me, you know, Celinne, if I could give you any advice, by the time I quit and decided to, you know, embark on my mission, I was in so much pain and I was suffering so much. It was a choiceless choice.

I had to do this or the consequences were dark. If I could advise you on anything. It's make the choice from a place of joy and from a place of I get to do this instead of waiting until the moment where there isn't a choice. And in my work, both in my personal journey as well as you know, I support so many clients who are going through enormous transitions at all different kinds of levels who have built the In like super successful business that now they feel they're a prisoner of, or they've built this like huge influence and have millions of followers, but feel like they're showing up and they're stuck to an identity that they've outgrown or, you know, they're feeling like they've created so much success in their life, but they're still feeling unfulfilled and empty inside.

I have the gift in the, like, it's such a privilege for me to be able to sit in these private rooms with so many high level leaders, because I don't just have to make my own mistakes. I can also learn from other people's mistakes. And what I realized, like, his words stayed with me because I didn't know it then.

You know, my soul was guiding me, and I was completely not, I was unconscious about what was actually going on. Which is honestly better, because if I had known, I probably would have been even more scared. You know, in this case, ignorance is bliss. But it was one of those things where I had this deep rooted feeling that if I don't make a move, I will stay exactly where I am, and my life is going to look very similar two, three, five years from now.

And I don't want that, because I know that road leads me to more misery. So I just knew that I have, I have to. It was a choiceless choice. I have to move forward to give myself the chance to change my reality, and that's exactly what happened, and it's happened again and again ever since. Whenever I'm afraid, whenever I feel tiny little niggly feeling of, mm, I'm stuck, or it's stagnant, or it's feeling like I'm comfortable where I'm at, no, it's like that really gentle fire. It's not as hot as it was back in 2016, because I've already, I've learned a lesson and I know when that little fire starts to burn, it's time to make a change.

Pat Flynn: Thank you for that background. Wow. You know, I'm hearing that having the perfect job that pays the perfect payroll or having the millions of followers, like some of your students have, or having this success and fame, more money is not the answer to fulfillment and success. Yes. What is, across your clients and yourself, what is happiness and fulfillment, really?

Celinne Da Costa: I'll give the answer from my perspective, my experience, disclaiming that, you know, I don't have the answer to it all. And I'll share what my experience has been of touching this place again and again and again. Is that the first thing that it is, is a choice. And what I mean by that, it's, when I was in college, I struggled with depression for two and a half years.

I had chronic depression. And so I, I've had this feeling when we, when we tell people, like, you just need to choose to be happy. It's not fair all the time, because sometimes someone's listening and they're like, what do you mean? I'm, I can't, like, I, I'm so unhappy or I'm so disconnected. Let's make it even easier.

Let's make it even more accessible, which is a choice of who. you're going to be every day leads to happiness and fulfillment. And what I realized is that, you know, following all these years, like over a decade of personal development and studying from these incredible masters and the absolute wisdom of what these masters have to say, it's all true about, you know, like, It's all in the now, it's all in the present, it's all about, like, who you are and being in that space of love and kindness and connection every day.

Yes, these are all true concepts, but if we want to make them more accessible, until the day that I'm forever living in unity consciousness and I'm just like 24 7 in that place of peace and bliss, until that day. There's a process, there's a journey. And what I have found with my clients, with my own personal experience, is that they kept looking to the day when dot, dot, dot, the day when they have a seven figure business, the day when they buy their dream house, the day when they are speaking on that stage that they've been dreaming of speaking on.

And what happens is that that day comes because you work for it. Cause you, you, you bust your butt. Getting there. And when that day comes, it's just like, on to the next thing. On to the next thing. Oh, okay, sure. You don't get that elative, like, oh my god, the heavens are breaking, and I, it's, I'm in absolute trance and ecstasy, like, the moment that you get on that stage.

It's just normal. It's because it's who you've become. And so what I found, the most important way to actually stay connected to that sense of happiness and fulfillment isn't in the goal, but it's rather in the daily practice. And it's something that it took me a really long time to wrap my head around because I refused to believe it at first until I had my own personal experiences of hitting the goal, hitting the goal, hitting the goal, and being like, this isn't changing how I feel inside.

And so identifying how you want to feel inside is step number one, which, you know, to me, my core, I call it with my clients, I call it like, what's the emotional cocktail that you choose to drink every day? If you could have a drink, if you could have a sip of your emotional state every day, what is yours?

For me, it's a cocktail. It's love, joy and freedom. That's the kind of cocktail I want to sip every single day when I'm living my life. If I am living in a state of love, joy, and freedom, everything I want in my life is going to work out because I'm going to feel the way that I want to feel. So no matter what happens, I'm going to get what I want because it's how I feel.

However, if I am not operating in love, joy, and freedom, my job is to get back into alignment and return to love, joy, and freedom. That's where home is. So if I'm feeling miserable and stressed and cranky, my job is to become aware of that, regulate my nervous system, come into my practice to return to love, joy, and freedom.

When I feel that way, then I make a move. Then I take action. And a lot of people, they, and even, you know, when we speak about this perpetual chasing, this perpetual hamster wheel, you're taking action from a space of being cranky, tired, miserable. And then you're surprised that you're not getting the results that you want in your business, in your life, in your love life.

It's because you're taking an action from a state that is out of alignment with the state that you wish to be in when you receive the thing that you desire. So it's nonsensical. You're taking a left when the thing you want is to the right. So your job is to stop being, going to the left, turn around, get back to the starting point, and get to the right again.

All that wrapped up. The short answer is choosing how you want to feel on a daily basis, not putting it over there in the future when you get that thing, but putting it right here today in your current state, even if the evidence hasn't presented itself yet, and then implementing a daily practice through your habits, your behavioral patterns.

and your belief systems so that you're plugging back into that frequency every day. And if you pop out, you know how to get back in. So it's very nitty gritty, small steps that are intentional, focused, and precise.

Pat Flynn: That way you are attributing your self worth and value to the actions that you take and who you are today, not whether or not, I don't know, the algorithm says that video did well, or somebody chose to hire you to go on that stage or not, or the result went this way or that way.

That doesn't matter. What matters is you did the thing that aligns with who you want to be and who you believe you are. And that was a lesson that I recently learned because I'm an Enneagram 3. So my sense of self worth often is so much tied into how other people feel about me. And, you know, there's a good side of that and there's a bad side of that.

But that's a dangerous place to be because I am fully reliant, my mood, my energy is reliant on how other people feel about me. Receive me and that's, that's like you lose a lot of control in that, in that regard, you know, luckily I've surrounded myself with a lot of people who do lift me up, who helped me be the best version of of me that I can, but I'm learning now that as long as I can just be with myself every day and do the things that I know align with who I want to be, it doesn't matter what happens.

I did the thing that I believed was correct for me. And that to me is joy and success and happiness. Now it took a lot of unraveling of a lot of, you know, my history to do that. It took a lot of psychoanalysis and going into my past to go, well, why did I default to that? How do you work with your clients or how do you imagine a person listening to this to go, well, they're already telling themselves stories about why this can't happen to them or why they don't deserve something.

It might be a money story. It might be, you know, a failed launch once in the past. How do you coach people through those past traumas to help set themselves up for success?

Celinne Da Costa: It's so dead simple, but as you know, simple does not equal easy. And sometimes things are so simple that the brain wants to make them complicated.

The simple version is like we today, like you, me, we are a product of our conditioning. And even when you think about when you look at human development from the ages of zero to seven, we haven't developed that critical thinking filter yet. We are these walking, talking, subconscious sponges. What we absorbed growing up, our parents or caretakers, the ways that they related to money, the ways they related to success, the ways they related to each other, to love, the social economic environment that we grew up in, the culture that we grew up in, all of these things are factors that have shaped us to believe because what we are, you know, who we are from a personality standpoint is how we think, how we feel, and how we act. That's what the personality is. The ego, we can call it. Our personality is a collection of how we think, how we feel, and how we act. And how we think is influenced by what belief systems we were conditioned to, to believe in such as money doesn't grow on trees or, Oh, it's, it's, you know, rich people there.

They only out to get you or every man will betray you at some point. Like whatever that story is that was passed down to you. That's, that's the, the emotional inheritance that we get from our, our parents, from our ancestry. And so we come into this world pure clean slate, and then we get all kinds of shaped by, by these external factors.

And at some point, hopefully, we wake up and realize there is more to me. There's more to me than this. And this is what we can, you know, refer to as spiritual awakening or just becoming more conscious, becoming more aware of who we are and realizing that we can no longer react as just being a byproduct of our past.

But we, as human beings, as souls, I believe, we get to that point where we're like, no, I am here to become all that I'm here to be. And that's when we start having a conversation about what is your mission? What is your why? What is your contribution to the planet? Because we are designed, the needs of the spirit are growth and contribution.

We are designed to grow and we are designed to contribute. We are not designed to navel gaze and like be just be trapped by our conditioning and our past. And so when I work with clients, you know, many people, they come to me when they're in that state of transition, they're in that state of either first wave, second wave, third wave of awakening, and they're realizing, wow, I'm meant for more.

And I know that I have more potential. There, there's a massive amount of potential that I have and I'm not living up to it and not living up to your potential is freaking painful. It is like a slow death. It is existential crisis to the max. Not knowing that you're here for more and not living up to it because you're not thinking, you're not acting, you're not feeling in accordance to that future version of you that you know in your gut that you're here to become in your lifetime.

And so there's a disconnect. This is who I want to be and this is who I am right now. How do we bridge that gap? And it's not about adding more when that disconnect is present. It's not about like, Oh Pat, you just need to get smarter or you just need to like get more skills or you just need to, to mature more.

Yes. Those things are all great. And they're part of the growth journey. But what the actual key to this process of shifting into a higher identity and evolving beyond yourself into something greater and more soul aligned is that you need to let go. You need to release, you need to free yourself of things that you used to think were the truth for you.

And you know, I'm going to tell you a secret. You know when they talk about limiting beliefs? All beliefs are limiting. All of them. Every belief you have is a limitation that you've set upon yourself. And as we grow, we create larger and larger beliefs to hold the next level of our growth. But it's a freaking ninja skill to be able to identify those beliefs and let go of them when you have grown out of them.

And so when I'm working with clients, it's really about looking at where is it that you want to go next. It's not all that you can be. It's just, let's stretch you all the way to where you can stretch to understand what is that next evolution of you look like. That version of you, that personality, How does he, she think?

How do they feel? How do they act? Who are they? Let's anchor your future self in so we know where we're going. And then we look at the gap of where you are now and where that future self is. And that's where the inner work, I have a process called the rewrite your life method that I take my clients through, which is, let's look at what are the belief systems, habit patterns, and stories that you're telling yourself, they're keeping you anchored into your current identity. And this is a deeper process that, you know, involves neurolinguistic programming and hypnotherapy and energy work and just really, you know, neuroscience, like really getting into their brain and understanding like what is keeping them back.

But the short version is we identify what are the limiting belief systems that you're engaging in, that are keeping you locked into the current identity. Because if you believe that the more money you make, the more people will take advantage of you, then forget about that, I want to hit seven figures this year goal.

Because it's not safe. You're subconscious. is not registering your goal as safe and therefore you won't get there because you will continue to self sabotage yourself and you will continue to find problems people and situations that where you'll either lose money or you'll mess up the launch whatever that reality that will replay itself so that you can stay at the current level because it's not safe for you to grow.

If there is a habit pattern that you're engaging in, that's anchored into that belief, so you have the belief, then you have the habit pattern. So you believe that, you know, if you make more money, people will take advantage of you. So the pattern is that you will make a lot of money. And then you'll find the next contractor that promises you the world and you'll mess all this money in them without asking the right questions, without actually, like, properly interviewing them.

And then all of a sudden, you're out of a bunch of money and the contractor didn't deliver what they said. And you're like, Oh, you see, they're always out to get me. Like, I will never be enough.

Pat Flynn: Now it's confirmation bias comes in.

Celinne Da Costa: Exactly. And then the next thing you'll do is you'll make meaning out of your pattern, which is you'll tell yourself a story.

And that story will look like, you know, every time that I always go for it, go for my goals, people always come and then take advantage of me. And it's because, you know, when I was young, my father, he would do this to me. And, and, and my mother used to talk down to me and it comes from my child and they'll, they'll create a story to assign meaning to the behavioral pattern that's anchored into a belief system that most times they picked up unconsciously.

Sometimes not even through trauma. Sometimes it was just a kid pushed you in the playground after you gave him your lunch. Like it can be something really innocent. So the process of unwinding that in those layers, the layers, the way I teach it is beliefs, patterns, stories is we identify the story, the meaning that you're giving to it.

We find the pattern, which is. It's rooted in your daily actions, so you have to change your daily practice as well. There's steps you gotta take every single day to change how you're acting and behaving. And then we trace it back into the belief system and we, we release the belief system which is anchored into an unprocessed emotion.

So that's, that's the road map to releasing trauma in a very short version.

Pat Flynn: Can you tell me a story about a client, you don't have to say a name, but somebody who had a lock, you helped them through this, they finally were able to let go. And then where are they now?

Celinne Da Costa: So I'll share a story of one of my dear clients.

She hired me originally. Actually, funny enough, she found me because I had worked with Amy Porterfield and then she did a testimonial, and then this client found me and she was like, oh, cool. You know, I am a she's, she was in process of writing a book, which is her life's work that she was consolidating into a book.

She was 80% done with this book, and she had huge visions. She's like, I wanna turn this into a business, and it's gonna be my keynote. And she was absolutely stuck what she thought was writer's block on one of the beginning chapters of the book which basically tied the whole book together. So she hired me saying, Hey, I need help telling this story.

I'm trying to finish this book. I'm not able to finish it. I don't know why, but I've been stuck on it for months. So we go deeper into it and turns out the chapter she's stuck on is a chapter around self acceptance. Where she talks about the importance of accepting yourself in order to, to be able to, to unlock your voice and find your courage and, and put yourself out there in the world.

Because her book was all around how to help people heal in the workplace. And the importance of accepting yourself in order to really make the most out of this process. And when we dug deeper in and understood what's happening? Why is it that you're stuck? Turns out that this is, you know, again, it's such a spoiler alert that isn't.

Turns out the reason why she couldn't write this book is because she had a huge block within herself because she was not accepting herself. Her father had recently passed away and he was very abusive and it had left all of this pent up resentment, anger, grief that she hadn't fully processed in her system.

And so she was in this place of like harboring all of these very dense, painful emotions in her body and she was not looking at them. She wasn't addressing them. Instead, she was like, Oh, that's just going to put that in the corner. I'm just going to plow ahead with life, which is what so many people do, especially when they haven't learned the importance of emotional regulation and emotional processing, not just for your wellbeing, Pat, but also for high performance, since we're talking about entrepreneurship here, if you don't care about your wellbeing, which hopefully is not people in this podcast, but at least, you know, if you care about high performance, know that healing is on the path to high performance. And so she had all this pent up energy and it was literally blocking her creativity because creativity is, is inspiration. Inspiration is, the word says it, inspiration in spirit. It's spirit coming through you. It's you being able to actually channel something that's beyond your little personality self.

It's about getting connected to something bigger than you. That's where all creativity comes from. She couldn't do that because she was too busy. Her body was too busy processing all this pent up dense emotion. So what we needed to do was, first thing first, is recognize, acknowledge, hey, you're not writing because this thing is about self acceptance, and one of your values is integrity. If you, one of your core values as a human being, because one of the things I do with my clients is value work to help them really understand what their values are, because that's the blueprint for any successful, fulfilling, sustainable business, is knowing what your values are.

One of her values was integrity. Of course she's not writing this thing. She's out of integrity with herself. So she can't write it. Her soul won't let her. It's like, nope, you shall not pass until you figure out how to iron this out. That was the first piece. Then the second step is, let's go in. Let's go into the basement and see what's going on here.

So I walked her through this process where we went into her subconscious. And again, I work with hypnotherapy and just going into that past timeline. And finding that little girl who was so freaking terrified and so scared to express herself through this book, because if she did, she would get hurt. So there was a very real wounded child inside of her that believed, It's not safe for me to publish this book.

It's not safe for me to talk about this. Because if I do, I will be beat. I will be hurt. Bad things will happen to me. Which she was, in the present day, projecting as, people will judge me. People will, you know, it's going to be a witch hunt. And she was projecting that, that deep rooted fear into what she thought would happen if she published this book.

So we had to go back in there and give her the tools to really reparent herself in that way and to feel from a very fundamental nervous system level that it's okay, this is in the past, this is not the present. Processing those emotions, so there's a process I take my clients through to just safely go into that original grief and that pain and move it through their nervous system.

It takes about, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but when we are not in the mind, it actually takes the body maximum about three minutes to process an emotion. The longest emotion that it takes for a nervous system to process is grief. It takes around three minutes to process it through the body.

Everything else is a story that we give it. It's a meaning, which can go on for decades. And so once she processed that, we brought her back into the present timeline, and we got her connected to the bigger why she's doing this. Who is this going to impact? Why is she even bother writing this book? So this is deeper like sole purpose work and getting her really clear and connected to the bigger picture of what she's doing.

Once she understood why she was doing what she was doing, then we did the story work, which is what's the story that you want to tell around what it means to accept yourself. And how do you do that? By being authentic to where you are now, instead of what she was trying to do, which has been a story that she was far away ahead than where she actually was.

But the most potent truth was actually her saying, I'm still in the process of doing this for myself, and here's where I'm at, and here's what I've learned, and here's what I want to share with you in this book. Once we unblocked that, her chapter came out in just like a week or so. It just flowed out of her.

She finished the book, she published it, it became a bestseller, and fast forward to two years from that, it is now an online course business. And she is now getting paid multiple thigh figures to be a keynote speaker at really like top companies around the world. And she is now running workshops and doing keynote speaking on that book and that book started all of it.

And so now she's able to freely express herself, build a business that is founded in her sole mission and have a book that is changing the life of thousands of people, not to mention the keynote and the corporate workshops that she's running. And it's all now centered around something that she is fully embodied and she feels fully confident in.

Pat Flynn: That's amazing, Celinne. Just congratulations to her and to you and your clients and what they are working through. I mean, this is deep stuff. This isn't like an episode you can go, okay, like, here's the next tactic. It's, it's a lot of inner work that needs to happen. I think this is something I've learned over time is it's a lot of mental health that's required to be able to be the best version of myself and you know, a lot of times you need some outside help to be able to discover or see these things. This is why I love the mastermind groups I'm in. These are people who are very honest with me and they see things that I don't because I'm in the middle of it and it's just a nice way to get reconfirmed that yes, this is so important.

I know that you work with a lot of people. You also mentioned that I believe you have a lead magnet or something that you can offer people here. That's maybe a little bit more tactical, but related to storytelling. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what that might offer?

Celinne Da Costa: Yeah, definitely more tactical. I so recognize as we're speaking into this, that this is really deep. And one of the things I also want to share is that for a lot of people, the inner work can feel really cumbersome and really scary and really overwhelming. But what I want to share is that one of my goals, one of my missions during my time is to demystify it and to make it really simple.

This lead magnet will start to do that. But also when people go on my website there's a lot of products that I have that is all designed on how can we make this simple, obtainable, and fun. And so the lead magnet that I have is all around how to share your irresistible story so that you can attract more of your soulmate clients.

And what I love about this lead magnet is I take you behind the scenes of what it is that I do with my private clients, what this masterclass does. It's, it's a video masterclass, it's less than an hour, and it's going to teach you the key principles of what it is that you need to know in order to tell a really magnetic story.

As a brand that will attract the right people to you. It's very practical. It's very tactical and it will show you also what are the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs are making that are actually keeping them inauthentically expressing on the internet. And what are the reasons why you might not be connecting with the right audience where you might not be having people knocking on your doors asking to buy from you. So what it does instead is it shows you my four step framework of how it is that you can craft a story every single day in your content to really put yourself out there and to do so in a way that's authentic and is connected to you. And it's very simple. I promise you it's less than an hour of your time.

And if you go through the steps that I share there, you're going to get a really clear picture of what it's like to tell your story. I recently had a client before she hired me, she went through this masterclass and she said she took the principles that she learned from the masterclass and use them on her social media literally the next day and she started to get clients. So it's something that's going to support you right away. I'm very confident of that.

Pat Flynn: Thank you. So where can people go to check that out?

Celinne Da Costa: So they can go to CelinneDaCosta.com/freemasterclass. My name is Celinne, so it's one L and two N's. I know that's a common mistake.

So I always flag it for people who want to explore my other offerings. I have some courses as well as my one on one coaching. You can go on CelinneDaCosta.com and all the information is laid out there.

Pat Flynn: Beautiful. Thank you. We'll have all the links on the show notes page. Celinne, thank you for your time today and for getting deep with us.

This is something we don't often talk about because we get pretty tactical here in the show, but every once in a while, it's such a refreshing and also needed thing to hear. So thank you for that. And wish you all the best. Looking forward to when we cross paths again to actually seeing you in person and shaking your hand and saying hello.

Celinne Da Costa: Hugs.

Pat Flynn: Yes.

Celinne Da Costa: Shaking my hand. I'm a hugger, but you know. I'll respect your boundaries.

Pat Flynn: But I don't want to assume, you know, you never know.

Celinne Da Costa: Okay, well, we're in now. We know.

Pat Flynn: We're hugging for sure.

Celinne Da Costa: For sure.

Pat Flynn: Thanks, Celinne. Appreciate you.

Celinne Da Costa: Thank you.

Pat Flynn: All right, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I really love just the idea of a soulmate client.

I just love that, right? That's like a perfect client. And I love how she framed that again. It's just her expertise and learning how to tell the story and connect that soulmate client, especially if you are a coach or you offer any services or consultations. This is going to be especially helpful for you, and I definitely recommend checking out that free masterclass.

If you go to CelinneDaCosta.com/freemasterclass, you'll see that less than an hour to take, and she has a lot of other things and just great stories to share. And she's such a wonderful person. Highly recommend to check her out again. Thank you so much for listening in.

This is session 841. If you want the show notes and things and resources that were recommended here, you Just go to the show notes page, SmartPassiveIncome.com/session841. You'll get all the links and everything that was shared again. Thank you, Celinne. I appreciate you again. I cannot stress enough how important the storytelling is.

And it's not just the pictures that you paint and the movie that you're kind of taking your audience through, but it's the words you use and how that relates and how that then goes into and naturally gets into an offer of some sort. That's how you do this the right way. So it doesn't even have to ever feel like selling.

It's not aggressive. You're not even asking. You're sharing a story and a person wants to come with you on that story that you were sharing. So anyway, thank you so much. SmartPassiveIncome.com/session841. Thank you again, Celinne. I appreciate you.

Cheers, everybody. Take care.

Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media and a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Catch you next week!

SPI 705 The Keys to Building a 6-Figure Niche Business in 2023-2024

Mark Wills: Too many times I see course creators on the outside focus on the money and not the value. And they're trying to launch these $1,000 launches. And like, well, how come I only sold two? Well, I'm like, dude, your course is a thousand bucks and you've helped one person.

And so you need to test and validate. Can my, information actually change your life? Can I actually get them to do what they want them to do? And if you can do that, then the referrals happen.

It's like when you see a great movie, you're like, dude, you gotta go see Avatar 2. It's not because James Cameron paid you, it's because it was that good. So you have to get your product to be that good where people just want to talk about it.

Pat Flynn: This is the stuff that we need to hear right now. If you are building a business, whether you're a course creator or you're involved with communities, you're definitely going to want to listen in. And I know that's a very, very big thing to say, but Mark Wills here, who was on the show back in episode 303, this was 700.

This was 700, seven years ago, 700 years ago would be wild. I haven't figured out the time travel thing quite to that extent yet. But this episode is going to tell you exactly what you need to know today in order to grow a successful business. There's very specific things that Mark and his business partner, Roman, are using in their business Loan Signing System.

Very, very niche what they're teaching. And we do give you a little bit of background. You don't have to listen to episode 303. You can if you want, but we're going to give you a little bit of background as far as the origin story and where this started and how we scaled up from a $30,000 per month business back then, which already was very successful to essentially 10X-ing that and still have time and sanity around building this whole thing and making people feel special.

So definitely make sure to listen in. This is Mark Wills from Loan Signing System. Oh man, this is, I had a lot of fun on this one and you'll feel the energy right away. I promise you. So sit tight, enjoy. We'll connect right after.

Announcer: You're listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, a show that's all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, his favorite color growing up was orange, because it was the only color no one else picked in his class. Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Mark, welcome back to the podcast, man. Thank you so much for being here today.

Mark Wills: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me, man. What's going on, brother?

Pat Flynn: See, I love your energy. It's the same as before back in episode 303. So we're catching up after a very, very long time. And at the time I remember you had talked about a business that was making 30,000 a month and we'll, we'll get into where it's at now, but why don't you, for people who didn't listen to that episode, tell us a little bit about who you are and how you and your partner created, whatever it is that you created.

Just give us a quick little background.

Mark Wills: Yeah. First off episode 300. What are we, what episode are you on now?

Pat Flynn: It's going to be over 700 at this point.

Mark Wills: Oh, wow. I know it is crazy. It's insane. You're right. There's been a long time, man. I congratulate you on all your success as well, brother. So I'm super happy to be jammed with you again.

Yeah. So I tell people in a nutshell, I'm the largest notary business coach in America. Most people look at me a little bit sideways. And so I always tell people, you know, there are 4,4 million notaries in America to put that in perspective, there's only 3 million realtors. So everybody thinks everyone's a realtor, and the truth is everyone's a notary. And so I teach these notaries how to create successful businesses. Most people don't realize a notary signing agent, which works for title companies, makes 75 to 200 for an appointment. It takes about an hour, no college degree needed, just some education. That's where I come in.

I see you nod, you're ready to shake your head. Cause it's crazy. There's so many notaries. In fact, we have so many SPI listeners from five years ago, making six figures a year from learning about this from your podcast. So you've changed lives in the notary community by having me on, you know, four or five years ago.

So it's crazy.

Pat Flynn: I appreciate that. Well, that's what we're here to do is to amplify these messages and show people what's possible. So go back to the beginning real quick, like how did you know that this is something that you could teach others or like, where, where did this sort of origin story even come in?

Mark Wills: Yeah, good question, man. So I was a successful notary. I guess I still am. I mean, so I'm a notary that specializes in the loan mortgage niche. And so I say that because that's actually how me and you met, right? Me and you met where I was actually the notary at your mortgage signing fatefully five, six years ago.

And so point I'm trying to make that is I was a successful notary working for title companies. And so I always, all my buddies are like, man, how are you making six figures a year? And I'm like, dude, get your notary commission. I'll show you the rest. And so I literally taught five, six, seven, my friends, how to do exactly what I was doing.

Like, it's really not rocket science. You got to be a notary from your state. And then I can teach you how to go over mortgage loan documents. So I literally did that for six or seven of my buddies. Loan comes Roman, who is now my business partner, who was one of those buddies. He's like, Hey dude, why are you teaching all our other friends, I don't make money as a notary in this loan niche, why don't you teach me? So the story goes, which is the truth, we jumped on FaceTime. This was about six and a half years ago, probably six months before me and you actually got on your podcast. And so he was in Northern California. I'm in Southern California.

So he's like, Hey, let's just jump on FaceTime and I can bang this out in a couple hours. So we get on FaceTime. I'm literally on the Mac, just like I am now, he's on his Mac and I go through the process about two hours. And so teaching about six of our friends how to be a notary in the loan niche, usually at the end of the two hours, they go, Oh my God, thank you so much.

Roman's reaction was a little bit different. Roman goes, so you just taught me how to do this over FaceTime. I'm like, yeah, dude, I got to go. My wife's in the other room. He's like, no, no, no, no. You just taught me how to do this over FaceTime and I'm still not putting it together. And he's like, If you can teach me over FaceTime, why can't you teach more people how to do this if you had an online course?

And I go, babe, can you hold on a few minutes? And so I go back to Roman, true story, I go, well, I'm, I'm a notary at some, I'm not a digital course creator. I'm not a digital marketer. And so I wasn't putting it together. And he's like, if I can get notaries in front of you, do you think you can do this again?

And I said, yes, and this is not just a plug, Pat. This is a truth. He read, Let It Fly, and through that, he talks about testing. I didn't know this. And I think I talked about this in the first one. And you talk about how you kind of test your theories. And so what we did is he did, I don't want to take any credit for it.

He got on there, created a website. We drove no traffic to it. It was called MoneyNotary.com. And he just realized notaries are probably typing in the word money and typing in the word notary start driving traffic to it. We literally had five people on a free webinar. I taught them exactly what I taught my other friends.

And then they're like, Oh my gosh, Mark, thank you. I say, cool. I don't have any, I don't have any testimonials yet. All I'm doing is just teaching people over webinars and he would run free traffic via Facebook ads or through just the webpage moneynotary.com. It's now loansigningsystem.com. But again, we'd started with five people.

And then the next webinar was 10. The next number was 30. The next webinar was 50. And the, by the time we got to 50, we then, Oh, well, let's see if we can sell something to these 50. The first ones were just free. We was just, can I teach what I know to somebody without being in front of them? And so it literally was just kind of a process up using a lot of your philosophies from Let It Fly.

And here we are seven years later, man, we have 70,000 students over six years, as I speak to you today, we have 11,000 community, a subscriber community of over 11,000 notaries, of students who literally make seven figures a year in this business, all from a $500 course. So the impact we've made has been pretty substantial in the past six years, man.

I'm pretty stoked on that.

Pat Flynn: Congratulations, man. That is like absolutely wicked. Do you, it's an incredible story and it's, and it's one that, you know, it's not anything super crazy or fancy that you're helping people with, but you are helping people with their career, make more money and you're doing it in a legit way based on experiences that you've had.

I love how Roman came into play and he saw that opportunity when, when you didn't. And so what's your guys's relationship like? Like, how does, like, currently he's still working with you, right? And what, what are the sort of roles that you each play?

Mark Wills: Yeah, so he's still my business partner. We're 50 50 from day one.

And what I always like to say is I'm kind of the visionary. He's the executor, right? I'm the guy who has, you know, these crazy ideas and Romans, the one who, who's the genius behind the funnels and like, well, that's a great idea, Mark, but I'm not sure if we can actually execute that. And so we have a great business partner relationship because I'm kind of the one with all these ideas and he's like, well, Mark, and he executes it.

Well, this is what the funnel should look like. Well, that's a great idea, but how are we going to drive traffic to it? Okay. That's a great drive for the community, but how do we scale this? Because we have 11, 000 people because sometimes I have all these ideas on how to support the community better. He's like, great.

That'd be sweet if we had 40 people in our community. We have 11, 000 and so it's really, he's really the executor on how to issue the support out to me or even some of our bigger ideas on how to help the general population because now we're really in the money, money making niche, right? So we go up against some of the other how to make money people.

So we're kind of grown out of just the notary niche and now we're helping Uber drivers, single mom, and so we can get into talks if you want about some of our funnels, but now our funnels, it started within just speaking to notaries and now we speak to Uber drivers, Lyft drivers, you know, drop shippers, anybody looking for part time income.

And so now our finals, mostly because of Roman have gone out of just the notary niche and into just the, you're looking to make money, we buy those keywords, we run Facebook ads and we try to help as many people as we can. Interesting,

Pat Flynn: but you're still driving them to the loan signing system, right? A hundred percent.

But the carrot isn't, Hey, be a notary. The carrot is, Hey, Uber driver, you might want some extra money. Come in and we'll show you how to do that. And then you reveal the Loan Signing System and how it works. And then of course it attracts people to come in and students, right?

Mark Wills: Couldn't have said it better.

It's exactly what we do.

Pat Flynn: Okay, man. That's, that's amazing. And so 11, 000 students or no 70, 000 students, a community of 11, 000. Now that's right. What is the community aspect of this? Right? You mentioned there, there's an online course that people can get, but what is the community component? What is that there for?

What is it doing?

Mark Wills: Yeah. I mean, the funny part is I've learned over the past six years is, people want community more than anything else. And I always tell people the best part of the Loan Signing System is not me. It is our community. And so from day one, I've tried to lead people in a way of positivity. I like people in the way of that, you know, collaboration is the new currency.

We can all be successful. You know, before I really became a prominent notary business coach, notaries are kind of in silos like, Oh, don't talk to me. I'm afraid to give you my secrets. Before they realize if we can collaborate, we can all win. And so I tell all my students as a rising tide lifts all ships.

And so the community really is notaries helping notaries. It's single moms helping single moms because everyone has these different stories and backgrounds. And so I put them together in a community and then we end up kind of making these micro communities, whether it's based on state location or your backgrounds, you know, being single moms or whatnot.

And so it's really community more than anything else. And as you can imagine, you know, seven years later, I get, I get a lot of people asking me how, how did you build what we've built? And so I actually say two things. I say, the first thing is whatever you're selling has to work. Like you can't, if you have not tested, can you teach someone else to do whatever it's in your brain or whatever you claim it to do, then you're, you're dead in the water.

But the number two thing I tell people is you got to build a community around whatever you're doing. Cause especially with the advent of ChatGPT community is more important than anything else, in my opinion, in my opinion, as course creators go forward and this new kind of, you know, AI world, you know, information's commoditized.

You can go on YouTube now and learn how to be a notary public loan signing agent, but it's the community support that really makes someone go from A to B, you know, from being a brand new notary to actually making money. And so the way I've built what I've built is by building a community. Now I always tell people I'm just one person of 11, 000.

It's them who make it special. I'm just honored to be part of the small journey, but yeah, it's community support cohorts, letting everybody feel heard, giving a safe place to be like, you know what today stunk. I didn't get any realtors in my belt. I didn't get any mortgage officers in my belt while I had to travel two hours from an appointment that paid 50.

And so giving some place where people can actually vent frustrations, they don't have to, they can be real. They don't have to, you know, live the Instagram life where everything's perfect. And so if you give people a place like that, a safe place, I think the course actually builds itself.

Pat Flynn: Dude, you're speak in my language. Like this is what I'm doing in the Pokemon space right now. You know, people come in the common languages or the cards, just like for you, the common languages, you know, generating an income and the long thing and stuff. But when you come together, then the conversations aren't even about that. They're about the families.

They're about the problems. They're about the, the wins and just everybody celebrating each other, which is really cool. And you're doing this with loans. Like it, like on the surface, it's like, how could you even create a community about that stuff? And the fact is the community isn't even about that, that's the thing that's brought those people together as sort of the common language to start a conversation with, and then you've just done an amazing job of fostering that, which is, which is wild.

So how are you hosting your community? Where technically? Is that hosted in like what's the day to day they're like?

Mark Wills: Yeah, so we mainly host it on Facebook, in a Facebook group. So you come in through authentic paid course. And then once you get through authentic paid course, then the actual community is Facebook.

We actually have now joined Circle. Nice. We are one of the most active communities on Circle. In fact, community managers want us to start teaching how we make our group so engagement at Circle, but so we use Circle and Facebook, Facebook groups. And then through those we'll hold Zooms. And so if we do a live training where I have like 500, 000, 2000 people on it, we'll do Zooms to really get the live training out to them.

But the communication occurs in the Facebook group or in Circle itself, Circle app.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Circle's great. We use that as well. I mean, as you might know, SPI has changed its business model from courses to specifically community. We have our All Access Pass. And yes, they can still get access to the courses, but it's the people who connect with each other as they're going through those courses together that really make it special and what keeps people on for longer and keeps them coming back, which is great.

And I would imagine that with the communities that you're building, their friends, their families are asking about it, right? It almost kind of starts to promote itself from within. How are you fostering sharing, how are you, how are you encouraging those members of yours to bring new people in? If at all, is there like a referral situation?

Like, how does that work on your end?

Mark Wills: Yeah. So we do have affiliate program. However, that we actually, the funny part is affiliate programs very rarely used by our community. And people just refer because the product works. I get asked this all the time. I'll say it again, Mark, how did you build what you've built?

And it's because my product actually works. If the product actually works, then you're going to get referrals. The problem with, if you don't, if your product doesn't work in my opinion, and I'm just one course creator, it's very tough to scale the business just on Google ads or paid traffic because as pay traffic increasingly becomes more expensive, the way you offset your Google ad costs is by getting free referrals.

And I think a lot of course creators don't really put that together. It's like, wow, it's 15 pay per click. Well, actually it's not. If you had three people are for you for free. And so you can offset your paid advertisement or paid costs by having referrals. The only way you can get referrals of your product works.

And so before we, our course started at $15. Today, our most expensive course, our biggest investment is $800. But too many times I see course creators on the outside focus on the money and not the value. And they're trying to launch these $1,000 launches and like, well, how come I only sold two? Well, I'm like, dude, your course is a thousand bucks and you've helped one person.

And so you need to test and validate. Can my, my information actually change your life? Can I actually get them to do what they want them to do? And if you can do that, then the referrals happen. So yes, we have an affiliate program, but oddly enough, most of our students don't use it. It's like when you see a great movie, you're like, dude, you gotta go see Avatar 2.

It's not because James Cameron paid you because it was that good. So you have to get your product to be that good where people just want to talk about it. And I've spent years trying to get my course perfect and I'll take feedback. I'm I've ego-less feedback. Some students like you need a better table of contents. Done.

Well, you know, you need better zoom meetings. Done. So I'm really into feedback loops and it's a very egoless way of building this because I really serve the community. And from day one, me and Roman have always been about, you know, helping the notary actually make money, not the way we think they should, but the way they tell us they should.

And I think too many times. A lot of course creators really have this ego driven business versus a heartfelt business where it's like you really are trying to help somebody. And that's all I did day one. And you know, to kind of wrap up this part of the conversation is your community can feel if you're money driven or heartfelt driven.

And if you're heartfelt driven, then the referrals come for free and then your community grows. And so from day one, I did all, I've just thought that being a notary is the best kept secret in America for income opportunity. Everybody wants to be everything but a notary and it's like, no, they don't just charge $5 a stamp.

They're making $200 bucks in an hour. I sat with you literally Pat Flynn for 45 minutes and I made $200 bucks. And it's really getting the word out that this is really the best kept secret and people can tell you if it's just you're trying to sell a thousand dollar course if you're really trying to help. And so if you can just really learn to be a heartfelt business and not a money driven business, the business grows itself.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, I'm into that for sure. And I know that you were heartfelt right from the beginning and now seven years later, how do you keep that? I know a lot of creators who start off heartfelt. Then they start making money and then they lose touch with their community. They lose touch with their people. It seems like you've gone deeper.

What what's kept you in the game with actually staying heartfelt across the way.

Mark Wills: Well, the technical way is I still stay involved. It was never this moment of, Oh, once I get so big, I'm going to have other coaches. I still make sure that I jump in there and I give my trainings. I still make sure I'm the only one who has access to the Facebook group.

It is literally me responding. If someone's having a bad day, it's me responding like, what can we do to make today better? And so seven years later, I'm the only person we now have, we're very blessed with a team of 10. So we have 10 employees plus me and Roman. Enjoy. They're team members, but none of them are allowed to be in the Facebook group.

That's me because I authentically want to make sure everybody is, is heard by me. And so that's the technical way. But the real reason is because I actually care. Like I know what it feels like to have no help, no support, you know, not to get into my background, but I have traumas, right. And so, you know, it's really knowing what it feels like to be alone and having no support.

I'm a, I'm a foster child myself. And so I really know what that feels like. It's a part of my mission in life is to make sure no one feels alone. And so, because of that, you know, I'm responding to Facebook messages at 10 o'clock at night, even today, seven years later, I believe my students and community feel that.

And that's why they're so cool with referring people. And it's not about the money. You know, when I first came to, you know, we had, you know, I think 400 students now we're up to, you know, 400 members in our group. Now we're 11, 000, the 11, 000, like I did the 400. I'm still in. I still care. I still cry with them.

I still celebrate with them. And that's the answer.

Pat Flynn: How do you manage your time and schedule? Because as you grow in skill, it does become harder to give that time to everybody. So what, how have you been able to do that?

Mark Wills: Well, like I said, we have a team of 10 now, very blessed with some of the best social media director of the best social media director in the world. And so my point is i've gotten a lot of people to help me time block my day and do a lot of the things I used to do So I used to be the editor and content creator. Now I'm just a content creator. And so, you know, we have a hundred thousand followers on instagram and you know, I just shoot the content she creates it. So my time now was more valuable than ever but I use it where it moves the most needle. And I think that's another problem with early entrepreneurs is they don't really learn how to take things off their plate and only focus on the things that move the needle. And what moves the needle most of my community is me helping them build a business and I don't lose sight of that. Like I know if somebody gave me two, my, our lowest entry points to $2.97 and it doesn't matter if you gave $2.97 or $800 it's, I want to make sure I'm helping you build the business the best I can. We still have, when you come in, this might help some course creators out there, when you come in, I have a welcome webinar. It's still with me. Like it doesn't matter if you spent 20, you bought it, you got a coupon and it was 27. Are you still going to team me, I want everyone to know that you have access to me. So I do a new student webinar. It's what we call it. So when you come in within a week, I get, you know, tons of people on that new students live.

Pat Flynn: It's not pre recorded. It's it's live?

Mark Wills: It's live. It's live with me, just like we're doing right now, but I time block for that, right? So that's once a week. And then at the end of the course, there's another webinar with me, not pre recorded live because honestly, that's two hours of my week. It's not too much to give up.

It's the impact that I'm chasing. I know if I did it pre recorded or if I had, you know, someone else do it for me, I wouldn't make the impact. And the reason I got into the business seven years ago is I just wanted to help people. And that doesn't change just because we happen to be bigger. So I do an early touch point in the beginning.

When they first come in, then after they finished the course, they get another webinar with me. These are free. These are included, not upsells. And so that's the way everyone really knows when they come into my community, oh, I actually get to talk to Mark a hundred percent, man. And I call you dude, nice cheer.

And I clap. I'm like, you're just, I'm just, I'm just me. And so they get touch points early and often, and then I'll do mass trainings, you know, with, you know, you know, now we have, you know, sold out national conferences. We have offline events as well. But yes, they still get touch points and that's, and I think that's a lot of people get into online courses so they can be hands off.

I think really, if you get create an online course and be hands on is where the real impact comes. And like I teach my, my students is if you chase the relationships, the money follows. And I've been very blessed with a big organization.

Pat Flynn: Beautiful. I'd love to know what's working for you guys today. And maybe you could tap into Roman a little bit in kind of the funnels, because I'd love to know how you're bringing new people in.

Yes, you have a product that works, which is A game, most important thing, and that will bring people in through referrals. But what, what are you doing to amplify that? What are you doing to create systems?

Mark Wills: Cool. So the main thing we do is social proof. I don't, I don't think that's a, like, you know, the most profound statement, but we plaster social proof everywhere.

Again, number one reason why your course has to work. And so once someone makes their first dollar, boom, we ask them for a testimonial, once someone makes a thousand, boom, testimonial. We give swag in exchange for testimonials, right? These are all loan sites. So that's cool. We ask, you know, in exchange of value for a testimonial.

So to answer your question is, you know, the biggest thing we do is, is paid advertises through pay social proof, social proof, social proof. So the product works, I know it does. And we're going to show from people all walks in life. Single moms, single dads, dual income, you know, White, Mexican, black, Asian, Indian.

It doesn't matter. We show social proof of all walks of life because our product helps all walks of life. And so to answer your top question, it's social proof and we will put tons of money behind social proof. Now we have a lot of things like quiz funnels. We also do massive content. So the biggest part of my job is producing content.

So we're on every platform, Tik Tok LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. We go all in on YouTube. And so then a lot of our paid traffic actually is retargeting. So once we get, you know, a lot of people are Googling, you know, how to make money. We're putting our paid traffic up there. You know, they may not thought of notaries, you know, they watch a notary video, then boom, they go to a landing page, boom, they're cookie right through pixel.

Then we follow them around and then we retarget them with social proof. So they come through the top of the funnel, either through a lot of searches, organic searches. We have tons and tons of contact of the team of six minor Romans, 10, excuse me, four just dedicated to content. To show you how much resources we put behind content.

And then we run paid traffic towards the content on YouTube. Most of our paid traffic is actually not top of the funnel. It's usually retargeting. Now we will do top of the funnel ads to people within our niche. If you're, if you are a notary interest, we'll do a top of the funnel, but for like a Uber drivers Lyft drivers, not a ton of that, but most people are Googling how to make money and then our ads pop up organically or through paid traffic. So it's a lot of just social proof and a lot of top of top of the funnel content. And so what do I mean by content? It's probably a second follow up question is we just show how notaries are making money.

So it's a lot of how to not what's inside of what to do, not how to do, right? So it's, it's what to do is this, how to do it is in the course. Right. It's in the community. So we're doing a ton of what to do content. I don't know if that helps anybody, but if you just put it, because a lot of people are afraid of gatekeeping.

They're afraid of giving too much information out. You're going to do a ton of information on what to do all day. I'm a realtor. I'm whatever. There's what to do. You can, you can pump out a ton of content on what to do. I do give a lot of the, how to do away cause I believe once they realize I can teach them how to do it, then they'll become part of the community. I believe in giving value before ask for money. But some people are really paranoid about giving away too much information. We don't belong we don't adhere to that principle personally with LSS. But nonetheless those are kind of how we're doing top of the funnel. We do quiz funnels, you know, if you kind of happen to organically land on our page, we'll do a giveaway in exchange for an email. So if you go to our website right now, we'll give you a nine success step checklist. Meaning you could be a notary signing agent without my help.

So we try to give really good things away in exchange for an email. And then I would say this a better question for Roman, 40 to 50% of our business, our purchases come through our email drip. We have about a 45 to 50 initial email drip we put on people. And essentially what that is, is what to do with some, how to do in it.

And so big email camp, I mean, email market is what I really tell people we are.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, for sure. And I would imagine there's a lot of social proof in there in those emails as well, just to kind of reinforce when you mentioned social proof earlier, what does that look like? Is that capturing videos?

Is that just stuff on a sales page? Like what is social proof exactly? And, and if we were to see it, what would it look like?

Mark Wills: Yeah. Video testimonials of their success. And so I'm in the money making niche, right? A lot of my students actually make money so they should be holding up checks of the money so people realize it's not fake.

Right? So because they get paid from title company. So our niche is kind of cool because there's actual physical proof you can show on the video proof. I'm making money. It's not just somebody like, Hey, I made 40 today. It's like. One check to check. And so we asked them to show the money that they're making, if they're making money, or we asked them just to talk about the transformation, the course gave them.

So it's video testimonials. We do written testimonials, but needless to say, video is the best. In our niche we're very blessed that you can show some physical proof inside the video testimonials. So they don't look like, you know, fake video testimonials. So, yeah. And we asked for video testimonials. I don't know if this helps anybody out there all along the process.

So it's not when they just make money. Cause that could be month number four in my community, but month number one, they finished the course. So why am I not getting a video testimonial of how good the course was? So I think sometimes people overthink what they need to get for social proof. Sometimes it's like, dude, Mark's course was amazing.

He's full of energy. It taught me everything I needed to do. I can't wait to make money. Some people feel like the video testimonial comes after them making money. And it's like, no, because some people's objections are, you know, what is it like being in the course? Is he boring? Is he not boring? Do you feel empowered?

And so we get video testimonials all along the journey, not just at the end. I like that.

Pat Flynn: That's super smart. How do you counter the objection of, Oh, Mark, you're just helping people make money. This is a scam. Like that's going to be an immediate story people tell themselves when they laying on the sales page or see one of these ads or even, even just like the idea of a person showing a check for some people will be like, Oh, this is, this looks scummy.

How do you tell the story around that to help people understand that this stuff is real?

Mark Wills: Yeah. So it's a great question. So, I actually got this idea from traffic and convergence about five years ago. So I used to go to track conversions in the very beginning. I still do.

Pat Flynn: It's an event for everybody who doesn't know and seeing it.

Mark Wills: Yeah. Yeah. And, and Pat speaks at it regularly, I believe. And so someone stood on stage and said, you should share more stories. And so for me, that kind of hit this like year two and for me, that kind of hit hard. I'm like, wow, I just need to do this, what me and you are doing right now. So I bring all my students who tell the story.

So I have about a hundred stories that I've told in the past six years. And so we talk about what didn't work. We talk about how it took 90 days. We talk about how it's not a get rich quick scheme. So through the stories. Is how I overcome the objections because a lot of people say, is this a get rich quick scheme?

No. In fact, let me serve you a video of someone where it took 60 days to get a first check. And so through the stories and sound bites, we can overcome the objections. We know people are thinking, oh, this is a get rich quick scheme. So we'll serve you in a retargeting ad. I am specifically telling you this is not a get rich quick scheme.

By the way, it's not me, it's a story of somebody who's doing it in Tennessee and Florida and Wyoming. And so through stories, I mixed in the objections I've gotten over the years and telling the story and I'm very transparent. The moneymaking niche is very hard because it's so scammy. So I lead with, this is a real business, it's going to take you 30, 60, 90 days to get off the ground.

I lead with, you know, your first appointments, you might be making 12 an hour, but you can't get to 150 an hour until you work through it. And so through the transparencies, it's worked for my niche. And so I just, I'm very transparent. I'm like, No, you're not gonna get rich tomorrow. I literally say that.

And so I could overcome the objections by just being very up for it. Like, no, like this student, it took six months from them to make 10,000 in a month. This was not month number one. And so through stories, I bring out the objections. I get real people talk about their trials and difficulties and then their successes.

Like if I didn't stick it out for 90 days, my life wouldn't have changed. And so I'm telling stories and overcoming the objections by mentioning the objection upfront.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Just hit it straight on or else the person's going to make up their own story about that thing. So I love that. And as far as like these stories that you are telling, are these people you invite on to the YouTube channel or where else are they being shared?

Mark Wills: Good question. So I actually do a zoom. I actually know that I've heard of Squadcast. Maybe we'll start using Squadcast, but we still want to one zoom is all we do. And then I have a list of four questions are all templated. And through that comes natural conversation. Now I've been sharing these stories for about five years.

The first, you know, six months was really choppy and then you just got to get better with reps. Right? And so we just. We record it and then I edit it and then I put it out in the universe. We have a newsletter. So if you enter our email drip, you get a newsletter and the newsletter, it shows students wins.

And so people were dripping on people. Students wins. We're highlighting the different backgrounds they come from, you know, single mom, single dad, just got laid off, just got divorced to really make people feel like they're not alone. Like, Oh, I can do it too. And so we record it. And then we kind of put it in our machine, quote unquote, it's literally a machine.

It starts with putting our YouTube channel, then it goes in our email drip. Then we segment pieces out that we can retarget with like, Ooh, that was a good 45 seconds, and then we'll start putting it out into our paid paid traffic.

Pat Flynn: So great, dude, Mark, we could talk forever about this.

Mark Wills: I was just saying, if people rewind this, they'll get the full playbook, you know?

Pat Flynn: They, it's, it's great. So a couple of things, if a person is interested now in the system that, you know, a person might be, what are those people who could potentially use some additional income, where should they go to check out the system? And even if you're not interested in that, at least check out the sales page, see how he's telling the story and get involved with how you're doing what you're doing because it's obviously working.

So where should they go?

Mark Wills: Yeah, go to loansigningsystem.com. That's not plural system, not systems. So loansigningsystem.com. And to your point, Pat, I mean, here's what me and Roman still do. We will enter other people's email drips just to see what they're doing. And so I think it's a very sound business technique to find other people's funnels and be like, Oh, I can take something from that, right. We believe in something called RDI. Rip, duplicate, improve. And so we will literally join, I just joined Ted McGrath's. He has one and his email drips are insane. I'm guessing you know, Ted McGrath is. And so he literally sends out like three emails a day. We're Roman and I are very sensitive. We're like every three days.

And so it's really cool to get another POV is my point. And so, yes, I would encourage anybody, any of your listeners to come on my, my funnel, see what we're doing. See how it works, you know, see how non salesy our emails are. Right. We're very, just educate first. So we actually believe in the five plus one system, which means five emails of value and then one sales email.

And so what we do is really let people know you can be a notary public loan signing agent without ever giving us a dime. And then on the six one, we're like, look, if this seems a little bit overwhelming, we have a course for that. But if you don't want to pay us a dime, cool. We just giving you basically the free tools on how to do it.

And so we believe in the five plus one system and that's actually Roman, not me who developed that. I think if people should go to our landing page, should look at our quiz funnel, should look at our offer. Maybe you'll see how amazing being a notary public loan signing agent is, but even if not, like I do with Ted, you know, and I could do with, you know, with even with you, I, I, we, our names are in 18 different email drips cause we're trying to learn from people better than us because, you know, we don't think we're the smartest person in the room.

We're always trying to learn from people better. So that's kind of our philosophy.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, man. But I mean, you have obviously picked up so much info since the last time you were on the show and it's scaled and have amplified so well. I knew this was about for success and just to see where you guys are at now is just I'm very proud of you and it's just thank you so much for coming on Mark and shout out to Roman as well.

If you could leave everybody listening to this who's now inspired to see how they can take what they have, the knowledge that they have and put it out there in the world in the same way. What one or two pieces of advice would you offer them?

Mark Wills: My, my first piece of advice is validate, validate, validate.

I'm going to give you a very technical one, you know, validate your product works and, and get the feedback loop. I think a lot of course creators go out with a thousand dollar product. I literally meet them almost every day. And I'm like, how many people have you changed? You're like, well, nobody. And I'm like, well, start from the basics.

Our course was free. Then went to 15, then went to 97, then went to 147. Then we had a multiple product offer after 147. And then it went from 97, 199 to 299. And so each part of the way, just keep validating. But the first thing that I recommend anybody is that I'd go to a personal trainer and I learned to give him this advice last week.

I said he wants to start teaching like 24 hour fitness, personal trainers, how to go private. And this is the exact advice I gave him. I didn't give anybody listening. I said, start with one trainer. And if you can help one trainer, then go to two trainers. You can help two trainers go to three trainers. So that is my very technical answer.

If you're inspired, you're like, I want to build a community. I want to build a course, don't try to help everybody try to help one person. Then try to help two people. Then try to help three people. Here's my esoteric answer, is you have to serve from the heart. Too many people this day and age have information. Information it's an overload. You can go on YouTube and learn anything. People don't buy information anymore. They buy you. They buy a leader, they buy a community. And that starts and ends with do they really feel like you're in it for them? And so the moment you want to start an online course to make money, I actually tell you to reevaluate.

You start an online course because you want to help a human. And when you can really get your message about helping someone else, then the money comes. It's not the other way around. I meet too many people who want to do a 5, 000 product. And it's obvious you're in it for the money, man. It's super obvious.

Well, mark, I have 45 years of experience. Okay. Then start with one person for free and try to change their life. And then multiply that to 2, 5, 10, 15. When you've helped a thousand people. Now I'm going to get some feedback. I'm going to get pushback because I get it all the time. I'm like, you're just not on a high ticket sales.

But I tell people, if my advice is, you know, you're asking for my advice. My advice is lead with the heart. I mean, Pat, you're, you're a prime example of that, bro. You've done 700 episodes of just trying to bring value and you're uber successful, I believe is because you've always done it from your heart and you've just wanted to give value and you've always wanted to help.

And I believe that's why your community loves you. And I think if more people operated from the heart, I think there would be more successful online course creators. I think the failure rate of all my course creators it's because everyone's chasing the money and not chasing the impact or chasing the value.

And so it's okay to work for free. I didn't make a dollar for probably 18 months, 12 months. Roman was working full time. I was still a notary and I wasn't making a buck and he was making the money and I just, because I just wanted to help and you know, back to one of your early statements earlier is why do you think community is built?

Because I think they really feel I care because I do. It's not about money. My course could be a 5,000 course. I have students who make a million dollars in revenue from a 500 course, but I don't do it because it's not about the money. I know them and it's not because I don't like money. I just know the money will come if I serve.

That's the bigger advice. And so if you really learn to serve, not chase the dollar, the dollar will always come. And that's what I teach my students when they're trying to build notary public loan mark. I'm trying to charge 250. I'm like, just start with 50 and let it build the 250. Serve from your heart.

I think, I think in this day and age. With especially ChatGPT information's commoditized. It's going to be so much harder for a course instructor to do it. If you don't really have a leadership servant type of philosophy, and I could be off on that, bro, but I think you're a great example of that to your community.

I know you've inspired me over the years and let me publicly thank you too. You know, I was telling Jess, like, you know, I give you a ton of credit. I slammed back in your room after the signing. I'm like, Hey, I'm starting a course. There's what I want to do. And you were generous with your time. You met me and Roman for coffee.

And so again, you embody what I just talked about. Someone who's serving is trying to help and trying to be. So thank you, man. I give you, every time I see you, I literally say the same thing. I tell you, thank you. I tell you that I really feel you have helped with our growth, whether it's Will It Fly the book that Roman read.

Or whether it's you just chat with me, dude. So we are very successful, but I'd argue it's you have a very big part of that. So thank you, brother.

Pat Flynn: I appreciate you. And many people are successful because of you and hopefully people listening to this episode will get inspired and take that desire to succeed in the way that leads from with the heart first.

I think that's a beautiful message to finish off with. So Mark, thank you so much. Appreciate you. LoanSigningSystem.Com. Go check it out. Go subscribe. And Mark, we'll have to not wait another 400 episodes till we chat again. Okay.

Mark Wills: I'm in brother. Let's go.

Pat Flynn: All right. Thanks brother.

All right, I hope you enjoy that episode with Mark Wills.

Again, Mark, thank you so much for coming on, bringing the energy, bringing the heat, and providing us with exactly what we all need to hear or actually be reminded of for succeeding in this day and age. I mean, we're at the approaching the end of 2023, starting 2024. A lot of us are right in the middle of building something or want to build something very soon.

This is a perfect way to approach it. Heart led approach, but also being very smart and systematic with the things. And I love what you said about validation. If you're not sure if it works yet, go find out if that's true. You've heard me talk about on Friday episodes before the one person, one result sort of approach.

And this is exactly that. This is how to do it today. And I hope that you'll take this forward and do something with it. So if you want to check out Loan Signing System, we actually do have an affiliate link if you want to go through it. So if you go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/loansigningsystem.

If you do want to give a little credit, if you end up going through that program, we've had a number of people since episode 303 actually go through that program and enjoy it. But Mark wanted to give that to us just in case to pay us back for any referrals. And that's not a huge deal, but yeah, SmartPassiveIncome.com/loansigningsystem, if you want to check that out. And you can even just join their funnel and see what it's like, because they got some really, really great copy. And Mark's always bringing really good stuff here, just like he did today. So thank you so much, Mark.

Thank you for listening all the way through. I appreciate you and make sure to check out the show notes. If you want the links to all this stuff, SmartPassiveIncome.com/session705. Again, SmartPassiveIncome.com/session705. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and keep leading from the heart. That's it. Peace out.

Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. Our senior producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media, and a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Catch you next week!