Mark Halwani

Building stuff

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

Ironic, the biggest lessons I’ve learnt about life comes from death. Grateful.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

@Ryandally08 Didn't he say “it’s important that woman’s spaces be available for women”? Not "everyone". I'm not a fan of him, but did I miss something?

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

@MarioNawfal The drones must have paid taxes too

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

Reverse Tax In Australia. Business owners: We should all just work for the government and call our businesses the side hustle. Might as-well...

What's the end game here? More and more businesses owners are just going to close or leave Australia.

WTF Australia. We don't have freedom of speech like how they do in the US. We have freedom of "implied" speech, so if we vote people in leadership to run the country, we give them powers to do things because we voted them in.

Aussies need to be educated about what's really going on before things get much worse and impossible to fix. Stop relying on the mainstream media machine and find the truth for yourself.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

Don’t be a bitch. I came to the realisation that everything I’ve studied could have taken half the time if I just did more… and trust me, I’ve taken a lot of action.

Just like the weekend is an illusion, it’s a mirage for an escape. Education is an illusion. Knowledge is the key. And knowledge is everywhere if you look for it.

Don’t get me wrong, education is important, but if you want to get somewhere or achieve something, knowledge is power and the best way to achieve it is by taking massive amounts of action.

The lessons and insights from taking action will get you closer to your goals.

The catch is you have to have courage, the strength and the persistence to face the uncertainty that comes with it head on.

The more action you take, and keep taking, the more you’ll learn, the faster you’ll get to your goals.

Don’t be a bitch. Seriously. Believe in yourself, accept the responsibility of greatness and you might just get it.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

How To Get More Clients - Part 3/3 We've talked about audiences and funnels. Now it's time to get some leads using Meta.

If you haven't, you need to read a book called Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins. This lays your foundation for running any kind of paid advertising.

The big take away is you need a significant amount of data to make any kind of decision to determine where to go next with your campaign. This is all a problem solving game but you need enough data.

It's not just about putting up an ad and waiting for a miracle. There is both a science and an art to making a campaign work.

Yesterday I talked about the idea of making sure the business model actually supports your funnel. Here we'll talk about the numbers.

With every funnel, there are KPI (key performance indicators) metrics that will determine the success of a campaign. Each metric is a gateway that tells you what needs to change, or stay the same. The numbers tell a story...

The BIG problem I see these days is people don't have the attention spam, focus and stomach to run ads. They run it for a few days, weeks or even a month and think that's it... In saying that, your budget does make a difference too.

Meta works as a pay per click model (CPC). Or technically, pay per impression (CPM). Without getting too technical, there's an infinite amount of data you can look at. What I'm focused on is working from the top of the funnel, all the way down to the bottom. Then determining which key metrics will be the key levers to pull.

For example:
Ad spend
Impressions
CPM (per 1000 impressions)
CTR (all)
Clicks (all)
Cost per click (all)
CTR (outbound)
Clicks (outbound)
Cost per click (outbound)
LP view %
Landing page views
Cost per landing page views

The key metrics I would look at, out of these metrics are CPM (per 1000 impressions). An impression by the way is simply the number of times your ads were on screen. CTR (outbound), the amount of times someone clicked to go to the next step (not including likes etc). Then LP view %, which is the amount of times your landing page was actually viewed vs how many clicks as a percentage.

Each stat will tell a different story, and this goes down through the whole funnel all the way down to your cost per acquisition (CPA), your cost to acquire a customer (CAC).

Like I said, most people don't make it down to the bottom of the funnel, let alone the ascension phase of the funnel to make it profitable.

Meta ads is a whole beast in itself, when it comes to account set up, campaign set up, campaign structure, the creatives themselves, the copy, if you're using lead forms or landing pages, and the big one is the pixel all need to be set up properly to get the best kind of results.

The reality is, a good product and offer can make up for a bad campaign. But you can have the best campaign in the world, but if your product, offer and even business model suck then nothing will save it.

Even if you're not the one clicking the buttons, and technically setting all this up, you have to, without a doubt understand the strategy of a campaign. Otherwise, you'll be taken for a ride by agencies and you won't know what the real issue is.

Is it the campaign, is it the funnel, maybe it's your sales process? Or is it your business model. Every campaign is a puzzle in itself and you have to be the architect that pulls all the strings. You need to be good at all these steps to make it work and unfortunately, most people won't even give it a fair shot.

On the other hand, that alone can give you a competitive advantage.

If you get what I've been talking about and want help getting more clients, just reach out and let's have a chat.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

How To Get More Clients - Part 2/3. Yesterday I spoke about different audiences and knowing where this all sits in the process of getting more clients. You have to understand that to understand anything moving forward.

Today is about the actual funnel. This is what takes a complete stranger and turns them into a client and even raving fan. Funnels are not new. They were popularised by Russel Brunson almost a decade ago, but they aren't anything new.

A funnel is simply presenting someone a sequence of offers in order to educate, and maximise profit. That can be through free content, low ticket products or even services online or offline.

Why? Well it comes back to messaging, marketing... communication. The dating example illustrates this point well. If you meet someone for the first time, a complete stranger who you'd like to get to know, you wouldn't ask them to marry you on the first date would you? They'd probably run away, right?

The purpose of a funnel is to take someone down the path of lowest commitment, to highest commitment through providing value. Therefore building the relationship. The relationship between them and your brand.

There are no magic funnels. You find out what people want, and they exchange either time or money for value. Now, are there better funnels than others? Of course, for every business type, for every offer there is a funnel that works best.

Imagine a numbered padlock, there may be 3-5 different number combinations to unlock the padlock. That's what a funnel is. Once you get the first one right, you can obviously add more in the future.

The main thing that makes or breaks a funnel is the messaging. Aside from the purpose of the funnel, because each funnel has to have a certain goal. One could be to build an email list, one could be to self liquidate ad spend, and another could maximise profit.

The messaging of each step of the funnel is crucial, because that's what determines intent. AKA the "quality" of the leads.

One of my favourite quotes, and I wish I could remember where I saw it, is "Amateirs focus on making a profit on the front end, professionals focus on making a profit on the back end.

So every business should have a front end funnel, and a back end funnel. The front end funnel is designed to aquire new clients. The back end funnel is designed to maximise profit. That can be either through selling another service, or even generating referrals.

Here's an example of a front end funnel I use all the time for service based businesses that just works:
1. Offer to generate the lead, could be a lead magnet or a service.
2. Book a 15 min chat. I add this because you can further qualify leads here and it's a lower commitment than a zoom meeting for the lead.
3. Book a Zoom/Google Meet meeting
4. Sale

A funnel as simple as that can build a million dollar a year business. So the target market, and the offer makes or breaks this kind of funnel.

To make a funnel work, you have to (non negotiable) run the numbers. This means, you have to create a scenario where each main metric has a kpi, and if the funnel meets these kpis, it should create the scenario you're going for.

And in order to do that, your business model needs to make sense.

So you see, it's not just about a funnel or running ads. It's about the whole business. And it may not crush it out the gate, but it's about looking at the data and make educated decisions on what to do next to fix each stage of the funnel.

Tomorrow I'll talk about what to do with this funnel using ads and systems to start getting leads.

https://t.co/QW063UxSho

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

How To Get More Clients - Part 1/3. The most common way I see business owners get more clients is just word of mouth (referrals).

Great work, you've got to the point where you have a solid service, you do good work and people refer other people to you. That's a great foundation for any business. It's a must.

The problem is you can't scale a business based on word of mouth (referrals) alone. It's just unpredictable.

Referrals come to you already warm, they have been sold to essentially, by someone else. Most of the selling has been done by someone else for you.

If you want to scale your business, you have to go to cold audiences.

See, there are 3 types of audiences in your market. Cold, warm and hot.
1. Hot - Completely ready to buy, or may have even purchased from you in the past.
2. Warm - Have heard of you before, they've not just scrolled past you but now it's become a stare.
3. Cold - Completely have no idea who you are. You're a stranger.

In other words, you just have to let more people know you exist, and take them down a path that turns them into a warm audience and eventually hot.

Most people are just lazy, they aren't willing to do that work, and just want more warm people with a snap of their fingers.

It's possible, it just takes time and effort to make that happen. Or you can pay someone to do that for you, but if you don't know whats actually going on, you'll always blame the person doing it for you.

Either the expectations are off, or it just won't work as well.

So now we're talking about building a funnel to acquire new clients. Building brand is a whole other topic that has a big impact, but won't get into that now.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about crafting your funnel to acquire new clients.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

How to Grow Your Business. First of all you have to know what a business is. The purpose of a business if fundamentally to produce a profit. By definition it wouldn't be able to function without it.

A business is an exchange of goods and services that create value for time or money. The greater the value created, the greater the time or money you have.

If that's all it is, then why do so many people including myself in the past find it so difficult? Well, in order to create value, you have to have the skills to solve problems or create solutions.

In order to have the skills, solve problems or create solutions, you need to know how to focus. And there it is... Focus.

In today's world, focus is not common. If you don't know how to focus your attention on one thing for an extended period of time, something else will control your focus for you. Focusing on the wrong thing is just as bad as not focusing at all.
The thing is, that's not all there is to it. That is just one of the things you must have.

Once you do have the focus, learn the skills, solve problems, create solutions, you need to let the world know about them. You can have the best product or service in the world, but if no one knows about it, it will fail.

Marketing is the communication between your brand and your market. Your product lives inside the brand. Your brand is an extension of you.

If your product is crap, and you don't know who you are then you well get that outcome too.

If your product is amazing, and you know who you are, deep down to your core. Past, present and future, then letting the world know will feel completely natural to you. It will feel right, and you'll naturally be good at it. You'll find out how to do it by sheer force.

So how do you grow your business?
1. Learn the required skills to solve the problems and create the solutions to your calling.
2. Focus.
3. Build an amazing product.
4. Let the world know.
5. Repeat and enjoy the process.

The last step is optional. It's a reminder to be grateful, be grounded and remember we only live once.
https://t.co/QW063UxSho

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

All the intelligence in the world is in your pocket, but what's missing? In my early 20's I realized very quickly that if I didn't know something, I realized the importance of learning it right away.

I formed a habit that would accelerate my growth. From reading a book and noticing a word I didn't know the meaning of and just Googling it right away, to whole topics I knew I didn't to get good at.

You mean If I wanted to get good at something, I can just read a book, a biography of an expert and learn from them, their mistakes and insights?

Fast forward 20 years, ai has taken intelligence to a whole new level. In your pocket has most of the knowledge you'll ever need to that you don't know.

So if everyone has access to this, why aren't most people where they want to be? Because knowledge is not just what you need, it's wisdom. It's the ability to do something with that knowledge.

The answers are all right in front of you. The key is in the questions you ask that move you forward.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

@MarcusHouse They’ll probably get taxed just for looking at a site.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

To the dads out there working, building for their family in silence... Respect.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

@ShaanVP Send it

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

@heyblake Work.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

You need discipline to be successful. Discipline = Rain, hail or shine, you do the thing you promised yourself you’re going to do.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

Are you laughing enough? Are you learning enough? Are you loving enough? That’s all that matters.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

Everyone wants to be an expert without the expertise 🤔

Reading the book expert secrets then selling a course does not make you an expert

Being an expert is the realisation that we don’t know anything at all 😅

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

Business is just fun. Previously known as survival. These days if you know that you’re doing, it’s hard not to succeed eventually… if you don’t give up.

[Mark Halwani @markhalwani]

Focus on one thing until it works, then scale. One offer, one channel.