Ryan: JLD I am so ready to ignite.

JLD: Yes! Fire nation, Ryan is the author of the number one national bestselling book Ask. As featured by Ink as the number one marketing book of 2015; and by Entrepreneur Magazine as the number two must read book for budding Entrepreneurs. Ryan has used the Ask Method to build multimillion dollar businesses in twenty-three, count them, twenty-three different industries. Generating over a hundred million dollars in sales in the process and since then his student entrepreneurs have used the Ask Method, in thousands of different industries to launch and scale their businesses online. Ryan, take just a minute my man and give us a little bit of filling in of those gaps from the intro and a little glimpse too of your personal life.

Ryan: Absolutely JLD man, thanks so much for that really kind intro. Super excited to be here. Just got back from ten days of masterminding and as I mentioned to you, this was the number one thing that I was most excited about; to come home to in addition to my family, so super excited to be here. Now as far as my family which is really the only piece that’s not in that intro, I'm a dad. I've got two young kids; my older son is four and a half years old, my younger son is about to turn two. I'm about to celebrate my tenth wedding anniversary with my lovely wife Tylene. Life is good man, I'm just really grateful for the opportunity to be here and really to serve and serve as a teacher and mentor for so many student entrepreneurs.

JLD: Well Ryan that’s why you and I get along so well because you are always that person of serving first. Of giving value first and foremost and on that note, I brought you back on EO Fire because you got some pretty incredible and free training for Fire Nation. Because Fire Nation, I have seen what Ryan’s training has done for people like Pat Flynn, myself, and other great entrepreneurs and I really want to make sure that you get into this action. So we have some killer free training for you over at eofire.com/ask. So if you just go to eofire.com/ask you’re going to get to the first video, of this killer video training series. And Ryan before Fire Nation even goes over there, what’s this all about? What do you have for us in this video training? Where you actually break down this incredible journey that has brought you to where you now educate over ten thousand people, let’s hear this.

Ryan: Absolutely, so the training is all about what is called, the Ask Method. And the Ask Method is a methodology online that any aspiring or current entrepreneur could use to launch and grow their business online. It’s all about figuring out what your customers want to buy; before they even know what they want to buy themselves; and the secret all comes down to asking questions. The right questions at the right time, in the right way. And the true secret is that the Ask Method uses a unique combination of surveys and quizzes online, in a very specific way. This free online training workshop walks through exactly how to start using the Ask Method in your business, no matter where you are right now in your entrepreneurial journey.

JLD: Fire Nation, I get asked the question all the time, “John how do you know which products which services to create?” and the really simple answer is, I ask. But I know how to ask, I know how to keep my finger on the pulse of Fire Nation; I know how to ask them what their pain points are, their obstacles, their challenges are so that they can let me know exactly where they’re coming from. So that I the person they know, like, and trust can provide the solution.

So Fire Nation, this is something that you need to implement now with your current clients, customers, listeners, readers, fill in the blank or if you’re just getting going and you want to be growing an audience. If you have this in place from day one you will be so much better off. You won’t be missing out on all these opportunities that people like myself missed out on for a very long time. So again, this free video training series is a must, no matter where you are in the stage. Complete beginner, you’re kind of starting to rock and roll, you are rocking and rolling, or you’re absolutely crushing it; you need to go and check out eofire.com/ask.

We all know Pat Flynn has been crushing it for over a decade now but it was just like a year ago that he implemented this process and it has just paid incredible dividends for him. So, Ryan there’s a lot that we can get into right now, but the breakdown is this; I mean you have this incredible free training for Fire Nation, why should they be excited about it?

Ryan: Yeah absolutely, it’s a great question. People always say, I've heard about this ask method but is this something I should really be paying attention to, is it right for me? I think if you fall into one of several categories, this is something that you should absolutely at least check out for yourself to see if it’s something that you could use in your business. Now the high numbers right, let’s talk high numbers for a moment. So I have had the opportunity to basically invest the last ten years of my life in mastering this methodology, over ten thousand hours. And in that process, I have had the fortune of being able to enter twenty-three different markets, using this methodology. Markets ranging from satellite TV, to dog training, to weight loss, to golf instruction, tennis instruction; the list goes on and on.

Now using this methodology, I alone generate well over one hundred thousand email subscribers daily. Now that is a daily number, across all the markets that I am in. Now using that methodology, I then published a book that revealed what that methodology involves. And then from there I have now had the opportunity to work with literally thousands of students, who are replicating those results for themselves. Again the secret, what makes this process unique, and this methodology unlike really anything else that I've ever seen or that’s really out there is this combination of survey and quizzes. There is this unique power that you have when you know how to ask the right questions to figure out exactly what it is that your customers want to buy; before they even know what they want to buy, themselves.

So, if you fall into one the following four categories, this is something that you might want to check out. So, number one; if you’re just getting started right now and you're listening to this and you're thinking, “Man, I’d love to start a business online”; maybe quit your day job; replace your income; that’s actually where I was just a few short years ago. The first market that I went into was the Orchid Care Market. Used this methodology, built a half million a year business, way more than replaced my income at my last job that I ever had. If you’re in that position where you’re trying to figure out what market your might want to go into, this is totally something that you want to check out.

Second category if you’ve already chosen your market and you already have a small business that you’re getting off the ground, but you really don’t have that much of a list; like and email list or an audience to speak of. This methodology, the Ask Method is the single biggest best way to build a list quickly. The secret is with using quizzes as a list building tool.

The third category, if you have a successful business right now but you’re in what I call, the launch rollercoaster mode and what that means is, you run promotions, run launches, maybe one month you make a ton of money, but the next month and the month after that you have no income coming in, or not a lot of income coming in. The Ask Method is one of the most successful ways to take businesses from six, seven figures and seven figures and beyond. By having a predictable way to run cold traffic; Facebook ads, Google ads, to an offer and generate sales every single day.

The final category if you’re listening to this and wondering well is this for me would be if you are a consultant, a business consultant, a marketing consultant, if you’re a coach, a copywriter, or if you have a digital marketing agency. What’s amazing right now is we are at this point, where there’s so much demand in the marketplace, to execute the Ask Method. That if you step in there is so much opportunity to do this, to use the Ask Method and execute it, for other businesses. And not only get paid a huge amount of money up front but also with the potential to get paid a revenues share, or a royalty on the results that you generate.

So if you fall into any of those categories: looking to choose your market, looking to build your list, looking to scale your company, or you’re a consultant looking to potentially do this for other businesses this is a great opportunity that I highly recommend you check out.

JLD: Fire Nation, I'm really curious on what one of those four buckets are you placing yourself in right now? I mean which one are you resonating with? Where are you at? This is where the ask methodology is going to help. Now real quick Ryan before we move into the next topic here, orchid care, is that like taking care of flowers?

Ryan: That’s like taking; it’s exactly what it is.

JLD: Oh, I was just guessing.

Ryan: So the funny story about this, everyone always asks hey Ryan why did you get into orchid care, that’s like the most random market. Well, I’ll tell you when I was working at my last job, I worked for an insurance company and when I worked for the insurance company, the apartment that we lived in, my wife said, “We have to make the house more beautiful we have to put some greenery in here.” We are in the middle of the city, we got to kind of make it a little bit more like nature. So we bought a bunch of orchids and within about a week and a half, they all died. We killed these things and so fast forward about a year and a half. I was making a list one day, I was sitting outside and I was at a Starbucks and I had a notebook in my hand. I was making a list of all the potential markets that I might go into. I was going in all sorts of different directions and I was thinking about all the things I struggled with, challenges, random things that popped up in my life and one of those markets was orchid care. Well, I went through this process which is something I now teach, for someone who is now trying to choose their market, to analyze the market online. Analyze the amount of searches on Google; analyze what I call the competitive sweet spot, where there’s enough competition but not too much completion; analyze whether a market has what’s called one of the five market must haves, five things that every market I've successfully entered has. And I went through and orchid care funny enough ticked all the boxes. So I decided to go in the business, and it was my first market that I went into and John I positioned it in my mind; I thought it was just going to be a practice business, which by the way is a great mental hack.

JLD: Yeah.

Ryan: If you get stuck in perfection paralysis mode where you’re thinking “Oh I don’t know if I want to move forward with this.” I treated it I said this is a practice business and even if I don’t make any money in this business, at least I'm going to learn the process, right. I'm going to master a skill, I'm going to learn how to setup a blog, I'm going to learn how to write emails, I'm going to learn how to setup an email system, I'm going to learn all these things that are going to be skills I can use forever. Well, what ended up happening is we grew that business from nothing to twenty-five thousand dollars a month, within eighteen months. It was using this methodology that’s now become known as the Ask Method.

JLD: That’s what I love Fire Nation, about just having that little mindset hack a little bit of saying, you know what I'm going to get this little failure out of the way. I'm not going to take this one that seriously, and then it blows up and you end up doing it for the next decade of your life Fire Nation. That literally could be that thing, so what’s that just one idea that you have always been like, “that’s too corny?” Well, maybe it is so just go have fun with it and just see what happens. Now, Ryan you have developed the Ask Method and thousands have literally gone through this. From complete beginners to just dozen of past EO Fire guests and personal friends of mine; I mean Pat Flynn, Selena Shoe, Andrew Warner who was rocking the podcast, just paradise cruise a few months ago. These are just successful entrepreneurs and again all the way down to complete beginners. These are people who are going through the Ask Method. So you only do this specific training workshop really once, sometimes at most twice a year. Really quick why do you limit it to twice a year? And let’s hear a little bit more about specifically, the Ask Method Training Workshop.

Ryan: Absolutely, so one of things that we do that’s very different about this training, is it operates like college enrollment, university enrollment. We all think back to when we were in school; everybody starts at the same time, right? You got to register for classes, everybody shows up for classes at the first day of school and this training operates the same way. We open up enrollment, bring everybody in and then we all start it together. I have an entire team that’s in place to help support students who are going through this training and I'm a big believe that there is something amazing that happens when you’re a part of a community that’s all kind of going through the same journey at the same time, right? I don’t know if you remember back for me, like I struggled in school and I remember having study groups, right? Going, hanging out with friends and saying, “Hey are you stuck on this?”, “Yeah I'm stuck on this.” all being able to work on something together and there is something amazing that happens when you’re all working towards this same common goal.

And so for that reason, we open up the enrollment once or twice a year and this enrollment is the last time that we will be opening this up in this calendar year. So, if it’s something that you’re interested in, I highly recommend checking it out. You know there’s another thing John that we haven’t even talked about, is that when people visit the link that you shared, I think its eofire.com/ask, they’re actually going to be able to see and experience the Ask Method in action.

JLD: Ooo.

Ryan: Because we use exactly what it is that we teach. So when you go through it you’re going to see that we ask questions along the way, and we actually customize the experience that you go through, based on your specific answers, to the questions that we ask. So it’s a cool way to not only understand how the Ask Method works but to actually see it in action. Because John, I don’t know if you’re like me but I'm one of those people that I really like to see examples. Whenever I see something I can really, I can oh I get it right, I get how this works. It’s one thing to understand theory; it’s another thing to see a dozen examples of other businesses who are using that. Because that’s when the light bulb goes off, that’s when you say hmm I might be able to use this in my business, I see how it works.

JLD: My best aha moments, by far have come from actually seeing in person examples; or visual examples; or looking at videos of case studies, of test studies Fire Nation. This is critical stuff and guess what; we have some really cool ones that we are going to be sharing with you. We’re talking like real detailed numbers coming up, right after we take a quick break because we are going to thank our sponsors.

So, Ryan we’re back and as I promised before the little break, we are going to show Fire Nation some pretty killer case studies that you have. I'm looking down this list of your students we have Ron, Peter, Will, Corey; these guys are just crushing it and what I love is they are all crushing it in different areas and different ways. I know Fire Nation you’re going to resonate with these people, so can you take it away Ryan, break this down for us.

Ryan: Absolutely so, I mentioned earlier there are really four buckets of people that the Ask Method is really a good fit for. The first bucket would be if you’re in the position right now where you’re looking to choose your market. You haven’t yet chosen a market and your trying to figure out what market is right for you. Well one of our students, Ron, was in that very same situation. He came to us; he went through the training and basically was at a position where he said, “I want to start an online business, but I'm open to what market I am going to go into.” So he went through our how to choose your market training, figured out which market had the five market must haves, fit in that competitive sweet spot, and ultimately landed on a very specific niche within the pet market. Very specific niche within the pet market, he executed the Ask Method, went through all the steps and then grew his business from nothing to six figures in eleven months. He was able to replace his income at his last job, quit his job and is now doing this full time. So that’s Ron, super awesome success story.

Second bucket would be someone if you’re in the position right now, where you already know your market but you’re looking to build your list, Peter is a great example. So peter has a small business in the astrology niche. So he’s in the astrology market, he went through the Ask Method and we have something that’s called a Ten Week Implementation Program, where basically we go from starting from scratch to basically getting results in ten weeks. Every single day, there is a micro-task that you need to perform; so that you are very clear on, okay today my priority is this, tomorrow my priority is that and Peter executed like a boss. He generated just under ten thousand leads, ten thousand email subscribers in ten weeks. Something like nine thousand nine hundred and seventy subscribers in ten weeks, unbelievable.

Now the credit goes to Ron, it goes to Peter for executing but, I don’t know if you’re like me; I'm really good when I have a model. Like if I have a recipe to follow, I can follow that recipe and I think that’s the magic combination. If you’re someone whose like okay, I'm willing to put the work in, I'm willing to execute, I just want to make sure that the recipe I'm following works. And Peter and Ron both did that.

Ryan: So I guess we got Will and Corey left.

JLD: So Will is a great story. So will came to the Ask Method and he already had a successful business. He was in the position where he wanted to scale and automate his business. Will was caught in what we call that laugh rollercoaster.

Ryan: Right.

JLD: You do a launch; make a hundred fifty thousand dollars, life is amazing. Next month nothing, crickets. Next month after that, nothing and really Will was in this very vulnerable position; where he was dependent on that launch income, and I don’t know if you’re listening to this and you have a business where you run promotions, and launches then you might be able to relate. He was really in this situation where he was really one launch away, one bad launch away from going out of business. I've had horror stories of people who come to me, he said I wanted to do I ran a launch and my shopping cart went down or my server went down. And when you’re reliant on that income it puts you in a really vulnerable place. So Will came to the Ask Method knowing that he wanted a way to generate predictable income in his business every single day.

Now Will runs a tennis training website, where he teaches people how to improve their tennis game and he would run three or four launches every single month, excuse me, every single year and he had that launch rollercoaster income curve. He executed the Ask Method and was able to start generating a hundred dollars a day in profit, and then he scaled that to five hundred dollars a day, a thousand dollars a day. Now he spends a hundred thousand dollars a month plus on traffic. Meaning he’s buying a hundred thousand dollars a month or more on ads, on Facebook, on Google. What that means if someone is spending a hundred thousand dollars every single month, how much money do you think they are making every single month; if they are doing this month in and month out, and multiples of that. So Will is a tremendous example of someone who’s able to scale and stabilize his business, with this predictable income that comes in on autopilot now. Now when Will does his launches, the launches it’s not income that he depends on. It’s totally profit. So he is able to just take that, his profit spikes, he’s able to take that money invest it, put it in a bank account, put it in his rainy day fund but he’s not reliant on it to run his business.

The last success story that I think is really telling would be for that last bucket that we talked about. Anyone listening to this who is in the position where maybe you do one-on-one client work; you work with website owners, you work with businesses, you’re a marketing coach, or consultant, or copywriter, you have a digital marketing agency. You as a one person business, a solopreneur, maybe you’ve got a few contractors you work with, maybe you got a small team.

Well I want to tell you about Corey. Corey came to the Ask Method and he was in that very situation and instantly he recognized there was an opportunity for business owners who wanted to execute the Ask Method, but they were in the category of having more money than time. In other words, they would rather just pay someone to do all the work for them. Well, Corey having never done this before but having some experience with working with website owners online was able to secure a contract for twenty-five thousand dollars upfront. Just to execute the Ask Method for a business, and then make ten percent revenue, ten percent of gross sales on every dollar that comes in. So in other words, he was almost able to have the best of both worlds. He was able to get paid up front; paid to learn effectively, since a client paid him to execute the Ask Method; and then was able to get a profit share or revenue share on an ongoing basis, with that business. What's cool for anyone that’s listening to this thinking oh that’s maybe something I may be interested in. we have an advanced training that goes into exactly not only secure those deals but also negotiate those royalties and how to structure, so you can get paid both ways.

So I think those are great, four very diverse case studies to give you a sense, for the potential the Ask Method might have in your business, based on which of those buckets best describes where you’re at in your business right now.

JLD: Fire Nation, those are real students, and real results and I just love examples like that. Because it does, it makes it real. Now a lot of you still might be asking; what exactly can the Ask Method do for you? Do you want a better sell to your prospects? Yes. Do you want a better sell to your current customers? Yes. I mean if you’re looking to choose your market, build your list, scale and automate your funnels Fire Nation you gotta jump into this training. Eofire.com/ask, completely free, jump in and it is going to be killer in every way, shape, and form. Now we just talked Ryan, about the how; about the what; but myself and Fire Nation included, we love the why. So like why, does the Ask Method work so well?

Ryan: Well you know John, in a nutshell, it takes the guess work out of your marketing and that might sound like a simple statement but it really is so important. Dan Sullivan says that the single most important thing that you need to protect, as an entrepreneur. It’s not your time; it’s not even your reputation, “The number one thing that you need to protect as an entrepreneur is your confidence.” Your confidence, because as soon as your confidence is shattered, that’s when you’re afraid to move forward; and the Ask Method helps you protect that confidence by taking the guess work out of your decision making. In other words, what should you sell to your prospects? The Ask Method answers that question. What language should you use to sell to your prospects? The Ask Method answers that question.

And practically speaking the Ask method helps in three very specific areas; so number one, is it helps you truly understand in a very deep way, the pain and passion of your market. And the first step in the Ask Method which we go into together in the free training is something called your Deep Dive Survey. Your Deep Dive Survey is a very specific set of question that you ask, to very deeply understand the pain and passion in your market. Now through that Deep Dive Survey, the Ask Method helps in a very different way, that’s also equally important; which is, understanding language patterns.

You see when you ask your prospects and your customers the right questions, it uncovers very specific language patterns and sometimes the difference between using the work supermarket versus grocery store, makes all the difference in triggering a buying decision. The Ask Method helps you uncover the nuances of language, by teaching you how to speak the exact language of your market.

And the third big benefit and reason why the Ask Method works so well is it helps you identify the buckets in your market. In other words, the submarkets or subgroups of people in your market and not only that but identify, which subgroups of people you want to focus on and here’s the key; which ones you actually want to ignore. And sometimes deciding what you’re not going to do is even more important than deciding what you are going to do. So those are three big reasons why the Ask Method works so well and why every entrepreneur, no matter what stage you are at in your business should be using the ask method right now.

JLD: So Ryan and this is a free training workshop. I just want Fire Nation to get a good grasp from you, from your lips, what exactly are we going to discover within?

Ryan: Absolutely so the first thing you are going to discover is, what the Ask Method is in more detail and how you can begin applying it very tactically and specifically in your business right now. Okay, so no matter where you’re at, we start unsurprisingly by asking you a few questions about where you are in your business. Then you will start to understand how to start applying the Ask Method in your business. Next, you’re going to see dozens of examples. I know listening to John and I talk about this, you might get at a very theoretical or high level what the Ask Method is but it really comes alive when you see examples in multiple businesses. So actually see actual websites, businesses, entrepreneurs who are using the Ask Method. What does their website look like? What are they actually doing? And actually, hear from these entrepreneurs as well. To hear what struggles they went through, what life was like before they started using the Ask Method. How it uncovered some of their blind spots, and the results that they were able to get through it. And last but not least, and this might be the most powerful piece, is to get access to the entire Ask Method blueprint, literally. The entire process outlined step by, step by, step. If you’re like me I'm a big fan of checklists and blueprints and being able to see, okay what do I do at step one; what do I do at step two; what do I do in step three and this blueprint walks through the entire process step by step.

JLD: Fire Nation, you are great at taking advantage of free content. I mean you are listening to my voice right now; you’re listening to this interview with Ryan. This is great, free, targeted, on-demand content. Now it’s time to take that next step; take that next step into training this is where you actually become a pro. So head over to eofire.com/ask and you can start this free training today. Now Ryan I do want to end this interview on fire, so give us a parting piece of guidance, and just take your time, close this interview down. Tie up any loose ends that we kind of left untied throughout the way so again just take your time through this and then we will break down how we should say goodbye.

Ryan: Absolutely so, my parting piece of advice Shaun would be this. This is the most impactful thing that someone shared with me, and I will share it with you if you are listening to this right now. You don’t have to get it perfect, you have to get it going and there is no better time to start getting it going than right now, right here, today.

JLD: Wow, I mean Fire Nation I want to add to that but I won’t because that would just ruin it. So you know this, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with Fire Nation and you’ve been hanging out with RL and JLD today, so keep up the heat and all you need to do is head over to eofire.com/ask to just get going Fire Nation. That is our major call to action today and Ryan I just want to thank you brother for sharing your journey your incredible free training with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side.