The End of Hustle: Automate the Systems That Scale Your Revenue with Ryan Fenn

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down the end of hustle. Automate the systems that scale your revenue. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Ryan Fenn into EO Fire Studios. Ryan is a founder and entrepreneur who started with$500 repairing windshields, built$2 million in course sales, then scaled a SaaS business to 1.2 million monthly recurring revenue using systems, automation, and partnerships. And today we talk about systems over hustle, automate the handoffs, keep the human, plugging revenue leaks, and oh, so much more.

0:37John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Ryan and our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you. We'll book you eight to 20 qualified calls each month than train you to run the system yourself. Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

1:12John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private a call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Ryan, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, Fire Nation. How are you guys doing? Ryan Fenn here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So the one thing that I think that I thought about this question a lot when you sent it to me And for me, I think the belief that you have to really hustle and grind and really put a lot of things on the back burner to become successful is counterproductive.

2:00I don't think that that's actually the right way to do it. I don't think that it takes, you know, neglecting relationships, neglecting spirituality, neglecting health is required to become wealthy. I think that you can acquire a huge amount of wealth with what would appear to be less than really, really, really hard work.

2:26John Lee Dumas:Well, what an amazing segue to the title of our episode, which is the end of hustle, automate the systems that scale your revenue. And I want to talk about systems over hustle, Ryan, because you are known to say, you've been known to say, you are quoted as saying, hustle doesn't scale, systems do. So what's the mindset shift entrepreneurs need to make from relying on efforts to building repeatable processes? Well, I kind of always leaned into the saying in this, this was me at the beginning, which was, it's going to happen because I will make it happen. That was the kind of the belief that I have, you know, and had.

3:07And it was kind of just this, like, I will force success into my life and I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen. And, you know, I think you can, I think your energy alone can generate a certain amount of wealth. And there are certainly some people that have more energy than other people and they can generate a lot of results with that energy. But it's the people that scale their businesses effortlessly are the ones that I'm inspired by. The people that seem to not be grinding, the people that have time with their family and all the things, yet their businesses continue to grow. And so that mindset shift of I'm going to happen, it's going to happen because I'll make it happen to I shifted to.

3:50it's going to happen because I will allow it to happen was a big mindset shift for me. And understanding that flow comes from allowing your, you know, your internal systems to work and do their thing on their time. I don't, if I try to force flow, I don't, I can't really make it happen. It comes, it comes as I am rested. It comes as I have focused on things outside of work, like my spirituality and my kids and my wife and those things. And then during the times of work, I'm much, much more productive because I'm in a flow state. I'm not in a fight or flight state. And that allows me to be much more creative.

4:34And then when I'm more creative, I'm able to create more systems and processes and things that allow things to happen versus me forcing them to happen.

4:43John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about how to automate the handoffs whilst keeping the human? Because I mean, we live in a world, Ryan, it's obsessed with automation. So how do you decide what should be automated? Because definitely things should be automated, but what absolutely needs to stay personal? Because we have to be maintaining trust and conversion. Talk about that. I find that people, when they try to step in and automate everything too quickly, and they try to just go, okay, well, I heard I need to automate, so I'm going to automate. and I've made this mistake and I continue to make this mistake in my business.

5:22I've made it at least 10 ,000 times if I can count. But what you end up doing is you kind of think, I think this will work, so I'm going to automate it and see if it will work. And so you do all the process, all the effort to automate something, and then it doesn't work. And most of the things in business are guesses anyways. And so what I tend to do is I say, you really need to be the human first in the process, learn the process. And then once you have learned it well enough that you can identify redundancies where you're being redundant, that's when you can start to automate those redundant things out.

6:00Because we need the human where the human is good and where the human makes the difference. we don't need the human where there's redundancy and there's things that are something you're doing over and over and over again so for example you know when i first started when i did my first webinar that this webinar eventually went on to make like two million dollars back in 2015 you know the leads would come in and i would i would text them myself i would send them a text message right when the lead came in but it was the same text message over and over and over again So it's like, okay, after a while you start to go, once I've kind of nailed that, like what to say, then it's like, okay, well now I can automate that message.

6:43Cause I know that that message works now I'm going to automate it. Right. And, and since it's the same message, whatever it's, it doesn't matter if I type it out or if I just push a button and it sends automatically, it's the same message. but I learned that by being a human first and then was able to scale that because I learned the messaging. But the problem, the problem with doing it first is you kind of need to be in the weeds a little bit and feeling the pain of the process to, to fix it. And if you automate first, you kind of skip over the pain and you don't really know how to figure out how to fix bad messaging or how to fix things because you weren't really in the process.

7:27John Lee Dumas:I mean, listen, Fire Nation, the undisputed entrepreneur of our generation, of our lifetime, Elon Musk, came in and went down to the Tesla car line and said, we're getting rid of all the humans. We're automating everything. And they did that. They went to robotics. They automated everything at a huge expense. And then months later, he had to look in the mirror and say, I was wrong. like that was a huge mistake. We can't automate everything. We can't remove all the human components. And so he went back in at unbelievable expense and had to rip out all those robotics and all this and that. Of course he kept things here and there that were important, but he brought the humans back in.

8:10And there's a lot of reasons why he did that.

8:12John Lee Dumas:And Fire Nation, we have so much great stuff to talk about on this topic and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer, but you are not getting enough quality sales calls on the calendar, Nexus Install is exactly what you need. This is a custom LinkedIn client acquisition system built to help you connect with the right prospects, start real conversations, and turn those conversations into booked calls. Here is what makes it different. We do not just hand you a bunch of theory and tell you, good luck. We build the system with you, dial in your audience, sharpen the messaging, run the outreach, and aim to book you 8 to 20 qualified calls each month.

8:50John Lee Dumas:Then once the system is proven and installed, we train you on how to run it yourself so you are not dependent on another agency forever. If you have a strong offer, a clear result, and are ready for more quality conversations with real prospects, email my team at john at eofire.com, and then we'll set up a call to see if Nexus install is the right fit for you. Simple, focused, and built for predictable, long-term, quality lead flow. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more.

9:34John Lee Dumas:Everything you need to succeed, all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business. And their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at HighLevelFire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Let's talk about plugging revenue leaks because you talk about the five places where deals typically die after somebody shows interest.

10:19John Lee Dumas:So somebody like, I'm interested, and then there's five places that deals die. So what are those leaks or where are those leaks happening? And what simple automations can fix them? Sure. And this could be different for every business, some that we've identified. but this could be different in your business. Whoever's listening, you will know better where to identify these leaks. But, you know, you have various stages throughout the customer journey, especially at the beginning. If you treat a lead more than what people don't quite understand about a lead is that they think that it is a name, phone number, and email of somebody who is interested in their product or service when in reality they're missing one extra part of that.

11:06It's a timestamp. It's a passing moment. A lead is a passing moment. If you just have the name, phone, number, and email, that's contact information. A lead is a name, phone, number, and email plus the person in the mindset of working on the problem that you solve. So let's just use like you're an HVAC company, for example. If I submit my information on your website, I'm in the frame of mind at that moment to solve a problem that I have with my HVAC. And that is eventually going to pass. And so if the person on the other end waits too long to contact the lead, the lead becomes contact information.

11:48It's no longer a lead. It's just contact information. And so we find that in order to convert at the highest level with leads from any direction, We need to be communicating with them within one minute Now this is a study. This is not my study. I've done this study within our thing and it works But this is done by salesforce years ago with hundreds of million I don't know hundreds millions of millions of form fills That if we wait one minute our chances of converting cut in half by minute two And then cut in half again by minute five so that one to five minute range you're losing 75 % of your opportunity Just in a little bit.

12:26I'll give you an example i was getting a dexa scan i needed a dexa scan done if you don't know what that is it's when

12:33John Lee Dumas:you go in and they scan your body how fat are you scan and then they tell you how fat you are that's right and then uh yeah and so i looked it up uh i googled dexa scan two popped up they both had five star reviews they're both within one mile of my office like no no differentiation at all right between the two except one was on top and one was under so i called the first one he didn't answer it went to voicemail. I'm not gonna leave a voicemail. I hang up. I called the second one. They answer. I booked the job. And, you know, I booked the DEXA scan and I hang up. And when I hang up, I get a text message from the other guy saying, hey, sorry, I missed your call.

13:13Would you like to book your DEXA scan? And that was two minutes after I had called him. And I had already booked with somebody else. And so that two minutes killed the deal. If he had sent the message, immediately before I had the chance to click the next guy, I likely would have said, oh, okay, cool. Cause, cause you've kind of put it out there. The text message goes out and says, sorry, I missed your call. I'll call you right back. Now you've moved into another stage of the process that you're not trying to solve the problem. The problem is in process it's being solved. And so you've, you've shifted out of search mode into allowing it to happen.

13:50So, so that minute it could have saved him a deal. And so that's really important to me. Speed to lead is extremely important. I'm contacting leads within one minute. The next part where leads can really drop out is just in follow-up. There's so many people that don't book right away or are searching around and looking at different options. And if you don't consistently follow up with those leads, they're going to drop off. And it's almost impossible to manually do enough follow-up without some form of automation to actually follow up and close at the highest level. So that would be kind of the second area.

14:28If you do estimates within your business, you likely aren't closing 100%. If you are, you should call me. I want to talk to you. But estimates are the same thing. You give an estimate, you leave the home, and you go, well, if they want it, they'll call me back. Or maybe you follow up once. You need to follow up like 12 times and nobody's going to, nobody's going to do that if you want maximum conversion rate. And so we automate that process as well. We also look at when a job is booked, there's a chance that when the job is booked, they can drop off. So we want to make sure that we're making them feel good about what they've done, kind of erasing some of that buyer's remorse by sending out a message with, this is where, this is where I like to get really personal, tell the story, send a, you know, you have the opportunity now, you as an owner, aren't going to pick up the phone every time somebody books a job and go, Hey, thank you so much for booking with me.

15:30My name is, you know, whatever. And this is my wife and my kids. I'm so grateful for you. You know, all this, you're not going to be able to do that with everybody, but you can record a video of you saying that, and you can send that to as many people as you want in a day. Right. And so, So now what I'm going to do is when somebody books a job, I'm going to send a message with a video in it that says, thank you so much. I appreciate you booking with me. I fully expect that my technician is going to give you five-star service. You know, I'm working on getting a review later, that kind of thing.

16:02And telling my story a little bit. I can say at that point, hey, I started this business 10 years ago. My wife and I, you know, took a risk, and now we serve the community. We love doing it. We're really looking forward to serving you. And that just makes people feel really good about the decision that they made. So there's opportunities there. And then there's also opportunities when people reject or close out their estimate and go with somebody else. Say, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to even quote you. We really appreciate it. If things don't go well with your other people, we're here to help you.

16:37John Lee Dumas:They're going to go, oh, dang, I wonder if I went with the wrong guy. you know, and then that seeds a future opportunity. And then of course, after a job is complete, we want to extend lifetime value, want to make sure we get reviews and then follow up with our leads consistently or with our existing customers now to maintain our database and increase LTV on our customers. So these are all things that, you know, you should be doing if you're small, you should be doing manually and learning and discovering. And then as you start to scale your business and start to go, okay, cool. I can't, like I said, I can't pick up the phone every time somebody books.

17:12Let's automate that. I can't follow up with every single estimate. Let's automate that. And you start to build these layers of automation that really help you scale.

17:21John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, powerful things to fix those revenue leaks. And I want to talk, Ryan, about words that convert. Because as you mentioned, words matter. And like when you get to talk to clients, you start to hear their use of words and how you can implement that into your marketing strategy. So what are some words that can not just increase, but dramatically increase conversion rates? Talk about that. Well, I'll tell a story. When I started my first business 16 years ago, I did windshield repair and I would sell windshield repair door to door. And then I saw this girl doing it at a gas station. She was washing people's windshields and I was like, dang, she is smarter than me.

18:01She's allowing cars to come to her while I'm out there, you know, looking for them. And so she's sitting at a gas station, 100, 200 cars are coming in while I'm knocking on one door, two doors, right? And she would offer to wash the windshield. And so I went, when I saw that, I went back to, this was in Cal, I was living in Utah, and I was visiting California, went back to Utah, went to the closest gas station in my house. And I said, this is what I want to do. The guy said, yeah, go for it. So I went out and I would wash people's windshields or I would attempt to wash people's windshields, I would go up and I would say, uh, Hey, thanks for coming into my Chevron today.

18:39Can I wash your windshield today? Nine out of 10 would say, no, no, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. Right. So now I kind of got discouraged because it was like, well, shoot, if I see a hundred cars and only 10 allow me to wash their windshield, now I got to find my, my damaged windshields in just 10, you know, that's going to be really hard to make any money. and so I started testing the words that I was saying and after saying you know uh can I wash your windshield today I switched it to as a courtesy we're washing everybody's windshields today it's a subtle subtle subtle difference and in fact if you didn't know anything about sales you probably think you're saying the same exact thing but what I'm doing is I'm uh you know obviously assuming the sale.

19:26Yeah, the assumptive close. I'm telling them that I'm washing their windshield. I'm not asking. And then I'm also adding a little bit of FOMO saying, as a courtesy today, we're washing everybody's windshields. And so now in their heads, they're going, well, I don't want to miss out. You know, if everybody's getting it, I want in on that. So, and I tell this story because it's less important about the specific words. More important is the lesson in testing words because everybody's business is different. I can't give you the words that are going to convert. But I'll tell you this. When I made that switch, I went from 10 people saying yes to 90 people saying yes.

20:07So now the same 100 cars, 90 opportunities versus 10. And that completely flipped my business. And I was able to have my first$1 ,500 day as an entrepreneur, which freaked me out. was like the coolest thing ever. And I wish I could still get as excited as that guy did that day. And, um, and, uh, and the point being that words really, really, really matter to a point, I would say that they're the most important thing in your business. And you could be sending your salespeople out or your technicians or however your business runs. And they might be saying one word or they might be sending a text message or there might be a word in your follow-up that is giving you 10 out of 100 opportunities where if you switched, it could be, it could completely change the game to 90 out of 100 opportunities, right?

21:01And so you have to think that there can be dramatic shifts in your business based on very minor tweaks in the words that you use. And so I wouldn't say here are the words that you should use in your business, but I would say test the words you're using so that you can improve. Because if you're not tracking that, if you're not paying attention, there's no way that you can fix it. If your sales guy is saying 30 different things at 30 different homes or whatever your business is, you have no way of knowing what worked and what didn't until you dial in your pitch and you dial in your follow-up and you dial in these things.

21:38You're not going to be able to track and figure out what words are giving you a big opportunity and what words are causing doors to be slammed in your face.

21:46John Lee Dumas:Ryan, I think a lot of people are listening and they're like, man, I am getting a ton of value from these value bombs. These are implementable things to my business, to my life, to my day to day. If Fire Nation wants to learn more about Ryan Fenn, if they want to connect with you and your business. What is your call to action for our listeners today? So I have a group, ryanfan.com. You can go join my group. I teach in the group, kind of the sole focus is how to generate leads from cold traffic on Facebook and Instagram. But within that group, I'm just there as a resource to talk to people about anything in their business.

22:30Um, and, and anybody in that group has access to me to ask questions. And, um, and so you can go to Ryan Fenn, R-Y-A-N-F-E-N-N.com and join my school as, you know, school is where I host the group. And, uh, and I'd love to have you in there. If you're an entrepreneur that wants to grow your business, wants to scale, I've done, uh, I'm not the best in the world, but I've done$25 million in the last, uh, four or five years. And so, um, you know, I have some things to say and I'd love to have you in the group.

22:57John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with RF and JLD today. So let's just keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Ryan in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. And Ryan, I just want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. So for that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Thanks, John. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Ryan for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation. Are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world?

23:31John Lee Dumas:If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire. To learn more about becoming a guest, visit EOfire.com slash guest and I'll catch you there or on the flippity flip side. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you. We'll book you eight to 20 qualified calls each month, than train you to run the system yourself. Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.