The Simplest Online Business with Ann Sieg: An EOFire Classic from 2020

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like CEO School. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active, and we'll be breaking down the simplest online business. To drop these value bombs, I am brought to Anne Sieg and EO Fire Studios. Anne's training has impacted hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to achieve online business success all while working from home, but nothing has matched the rapid success of her e-commerce students. In today's foundation, we'll talk about how business is the sport of non-athletes.

0:36There's an extremely high level of athleticism in business. Just like sports, you have to strengthen yourself for your journey and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Anne and our sponsors. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason and Ethan, where they share hacks, tips, and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts.

1:12And say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know. All right. Well, great to be here with you. What's up, Fire Nation? All right. Fun little something about me is I got my first taste of salesmanship selling my hand-knitted Christmas bells when I was seven years old. So my mom set up my first store, and it was a paper box with dollars and change to make my sales. I went out often in the neighborhood by myself, and I sold them all. And that was my first taste of entrepreneurship. Now, would you actually ring the bells to make the sale? No, they would not have been heard.

1:51This was up in Minnesota, and the doors were closed tightly because of the cold. But I did ring the doorbell, and it was kind of fun because they see this cute little girl they're standing with her little box of bells and I sold them all and um I was like I'll never forget the sound holding my box going back home this was back in the day when things were safer and kids were let out and um without parents shadowing them every step of the way but the box made the most interesting sound as a little child it's like I can just hear it and it was the rustling of dollar bills and I sold them all I even had a bundled offer.

2:26I had white, green, and red, and I would sell them three for a dollar. Wow. I mean, once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur, Anne. I love that. And Fire Nation, as I shared at the beginning, we're talking about the simplest online business. And that's one thing I love about Anne is she does break things down. She really shows you the step-by-step. She shows you how it doesn't have to be overwhelming. It doesn't have to be stressful. It really can be simple. But in today's world, we have to be unique, Anne. So what makes you, and then specifically the e-commerce business school, unique in the e-commerce training space?

3:02Well, it goes back to, I've been an online marketer for 15 years. So I know the digital marketing space really well relative to people put together training. They read some course where you can create training, turn around and sell it. So I had manuals that I released back in 2007, etc. Digital marketing, right? And really, my big distinction that I always make for people is that yes, everybody needs training, you need that foundation. But it's the experience that encompasses that training delivery. So my background is both my parents were teachers, I was a sports coach for 15 years, I homeschooled for 12 years, and I love the teaching environment.

3:43And so my whole goal is to set up a system, a platform for people to have an optimal experience. As it turns out, I do attract a lot of what I call evolving entrepreneurs. So they're perhaps never have done business. And it's quite a mind shift, a mental mind shift. And so setting up a platform conducive to that and also one with such a wide swath of support that I like to tell people. there's no way they can even physically take full advantage of it all, but that the support is there in spades because as a new entrepreneur, it can be a scary world. And so we, you know, walked them through that process and support them through that.

4:29So I've seen, there's a lot of training info out there, but really what we are as a mentorship, because we're developing the person into an entrepreneur. And that's my passion. That's such a critical aspect to the process, Fire Nation. I mean, you need to have that part of your game intact and ready to roll if you're really going to thrive. And speaking about thrive, let's get down to those specifics. How do you, Anne, help people who have never before been in business build a thriving e-commerce business of their very own? Well, it does start with the training that it's very, it needs to be very step by step.

5:08So when we see that there's any kind of gaps in between, we help fill those gaps, but it's also the support as they go through it. So I'll give you a couple examples. What I have found in working with entrepreneurs, and I've worked with tons of thousands of people around the world and they'll say, and I have never worked for myself. I know how to show up for someone else, but not for me. And so when they come into our program, doesn't matter which product, which training they come into, they are then gifted, so to speak, as part of their training, the 10 day accountability bootcamp, because this is one of the biggest challenges they face as they shift out of a lifestyle that is showing up for someone else.

5:51And now they've got to show up for themselves. So it's actually something we implemented. This is my first online mentor. I met him 16 years ago and I said, you know, we really should do this. I think this would really help people. So we deliver that for 10 days and everything there, um, their show up is actually tracked showing up for in this public accountability kind of space, which is really different seeing that peers are watching because you'll behave differently. You'll, you'll rise up another level when you see that there's that not just accountability to yourself, but a group of people that you're going through this bootcamp.

6:26And we also have a back office tool called the end of day tracker. And that came out of my own business when we came online in 2007 as a corporation, 2006, is we're a digital team. So how do we kind of keep track of each other's efforts? And so internally, as a corporate staff, we developed our EOD, end of day. So we then created a tool for our members that they can track their performance with their key performance indicators. And then I'd say this is like your business journal, your diary of your efforts and your results. So what we also do as a result of that, we have the graduation. We have the gold, bronze, and silver.

7:09And they get dog tags shipped out to them as part of if they showed up every day. They have to actually graduate, and then we ship it out. so it's really just inculcating if you will habituating them into the habits of success and it takes on a greater level of meaning because they're doing this with a group of peers so it's the 10 commandments of accountability is what my uh one of my top coaches he put it together the program and we know statistically that the results of our members who go through that perform better. So I'm constantly looking for a better experience that keeps them at the end of the day, they need to be consistent in their action.

7:54And they need to check and adjust along their path so that they maintain their continued momentum. So that's been very integral. And then we have another that we added in just this past January, peak performance. It's just yet dialed up a whole nother level in terms of those some accountability, high level handholding, guiding them along the way. It comes from my work in the sports world for 15 years, this kind of mindset that I always felt it was really more incumbent upon me to mitigate the point of failures within the student body that we have. And so we're always watching for how we can better optimize their performance.

8:36Accountability is everything. I mean, Fire Nation, you will, and I mean, you will rise to another level when people who you know, like, and trust, when they're supporting you, when they're guiding you, and when most importantly, they're holding you accountable. And I love those 10 commandments of accountability. I mean, to me, just being able to have that visual and understand what that looks like, because Fire Nation, Anybody can start something. We want you to finish. We want you to finish that thing. Now, you said that you quote unquote, grow entrepreneurs, Anne. What the heck does that mean?

9:10Are you watering us? Yes. Much like a garden, truly. I've been an entrepreneur for my husband. I've had numerous businesses, very diverse automotive industry, real estate investment came online with my eldest son as my business partner back in 2006. And it's just like parenting. I tell my kids, you know, you're my garden and I'm responsible to kind of keep the garden clean and weed it. And it's a nurturing process. And some people are very blessed to grow up in a family where they get to experience entrepreneurialism hands on as they grow up. And that's what we did with our three sons. They were always brought into the business.

9:53It's, you know, a run to the bank for a deposit. No matter what it was, we tried to, we never removed that and isolated that from them. So when I did direct sales, my two little boys, when they were three and five at that time, they went out into the neighborhood with me. So we always, in our family upbringing, they were a part of the family economy. They weren't like mom and dad are off there doing their thing. They were a part of it. and that's where there is this value contribution if you will by the children that converse to always getting handouts and mommy and daddy can i have this and that no i'm going to empower you to learn how to acquire this and that and that's best done by demonstration in real life opportunity and my goal is to expand entrepreneurialism as much as i can because i believe that's the strength and foundation of our country.

10:46And the more entrepreneurs we have, the more we strengthen our economy. And it's the betterment of the country. That's kind of been my thing for many decades, my belief. So anyways, I do that within my family. All three of my sons have worked in my business. So in terms of developing them, absolutely, I'm still developing. I get mentored. It's an ongoing process coming from the sports world. I think of, I call it business is the sport of non-athletes. And there is a very high level of athleticism to business, a very high level. There are some rigors. You will hit some potholes along the way, guaranteed.

11:26You can put in your business plan. It will happen. And so just like sports is you have to strengthen yourself for that journey. and so much of that is being with peers and like-minded people because not everybody is there to support us in our journey because they can't even begin to relate to it that it's just such a completely foreign concept of having your own business and for me it's like breathing it's like breathing so it's just being really aware that it's a shift for people now a really integral part of that whole experience is getting to them proof of concept as quickly as possible and I speak very plainly to my members like when I do my new member orientation I show them all sorts of success stories and I said no but I get it you're seeing other people succeed but I know inside you're wondering yeah that's great but what about me and so I let them know the best way you can get to that is you've got to get into action because it's hard to adjust a non-moving vehicle it's really hard but if you get into motion then we can help guide and correct you along the way so they really it's um providing mental coaching along the way and i'm a very holistic kind of teacher as well that you've got to meet them at all their needs emotional business is a pretty emotional game it's to me it's a lot like raising a child the the tender love and care that you put into raising a child you do the same thing in a business it's something that you love on and that you, I personally feel, to have a heart for it because that's what's going to drive you in your business and where you're constantly focused on it and wanting to see it grow and improve.

13:08Now, I love a lot of what you just broke down, Anne, but a couple of things I really want to circle back on because to me, they were just writer downers is when you use that phrase, I'm going to empower you. I mean, Fire Nation, that's the way that you need to be driving forward. You need to be finding mentors who are empowering you. You need to be finding masterminds and accountability partners who are empowering you because you are that average of the five people you spend the most time with. And then the other quote, I just love this, business is the sport of non-athletes. And it is so true, Fire Nation.

13:42I've seen it time and time again where ex-athletes and non-athletes, those people that approach it the way top-level athletes approach their sports, they win. They find ways to win because guess what? they know it's fall down nine times, get up 10, make that happen. And wow, do we have some things coming up for you, Fire Nation. We're going to be talking about the first three things that you need to do when starting a new online business and other value bombs as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. Tech is great. It can help us grow and scale our businesses in so many ways, but it can also be clunky, time-consuming to manage and expensive.

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14:58Get started for free at HubSpot.com. That's HubSpot.com. So, Anne, we're back, and something you sent over to me that I found very fascinating. Studies show that less than 10 % of people complete online training courses that they purchased. You, on the other hand, have a much higher success ratio. What is your secret? It's engagement. It's really, we look at what are the points of failure. So I'm going to give you one that just kind of stood out to us for, again, evolving entrepreneurs is all too often they're clipping along in their business and then life happens. And I know for business, you've got to keep that momentum going until you have it established that you're not so much as needed in the business as you're working on it.

15:51And this was just as we stepped back as a team of trainers and coaches. And it's like, so where's the point of failure here? Well, one of them was the, again, for that fact that they're going along and then it's their mom is in the hospital. Their son broke his like who everything under the sun happens. As we know, we get hit broadsided, just life being what it is. And so specifically in a more recent mentorship program, its 90-day peak performance, we determined that we wouldn't focus, well, yes, we were focused on a sourcing method, this being for e-commerce. What was more important was to zoom out of the big picture of what it would take to help them succeed.

16:32And as we studied it, we realized they need to offset, we'll call it grunt work task, for example, to offset those as quickly as possible so that you're working on your high value activities and not these low value activities that truly someone else could do for you, probably even better because that's what they've been trained professionally to do. So that's what we focused on in this as we made our next iteration of improvements as a case in point. And what happened as a result that kind of pleasantly surprised us, and this being with an eye towards an automated e-commerce business. some business models are not as amenable to that but in the case of e-commerce it is because you can have the vast majority of the task i'm talking 90 that can be offset to a team who have the systems and software in place to run them for you so that's just a case in point where we helped mitigate um uh that fallout that point of failure that frequently happens and i think that's really what it is, is entrepreneurialism as you start with this initial, initial, you know, excitement.

17:46And I always tell people, you know, that excitement that you first had, I liken it to a baton. This is kind of my visual of it. And you're doing one of those races where you pass it off to someone really race kind of thing. And I tell them, I never let that baton down for fear that if I set it down, it will take more energy, more mental resolve to get back to that original state that I had when I first got excited about my business. It is. It's so true. You set it down and a day goes by and two days and three days. And before you know it, rationalization kicks in and it's the emotions that are attached in and around.

18:33Why are you clutching that baton so tightly anyways. I've seen a Fire Nation over and over again. I mean, people that get momentum, you've got to do everything you can to keep that momentum going. It's like rolling a boulder down a hill. It will take on its own momentum if you let it, but man, once that thing stops, getting it going again, forget about it. You have to keep up that momentum. And I have teased this a couple of times, so break it down for us now. What are those first three things that Fire Nation needs to do when starting an online business? It's to look with the end in mind. Instead of just jumping straight in, which I'm very prone to, I'm a massive action taker.

19:15My mom would chastise me when I would cook something and it would fail. And Sieg, what are you doing? And she'd say, did you read the recipe? Well, kind of, sort of. I'm just more prone to take action. That being said, this whole concept of what's your end game? What are you in it four. So in my case, it was when my husband had the windshield business and I was homeschooling my three sons at that time. And I was getting the idea that, man, we don't have a safety net. It's all on us. We are the safety net. I don't depend on the government to be my safety. It's us. I'm going to take full ownership of this.

19:54And I realized that anything and everything could happen. So we better have a backup plan. And I was always doing other side gigs all the time, just to add money into the family household. But I had this resolve and determination I was going to get them home. That became my driving force. A second one was this. And this is where I think you really lock in the heart and the spirit of your resolve is I have seen the best performance come out when it was more other directed. In other words, the fruit of their efforts was related to others. So in my case, it was this. I knew that my three sons were watching me.

20:31and there I am homeschooling them too. And I said, here's what I'm going to be doing. I'm going to be busy in the morning. I'm doing this, this, that, and the other thing. And the thing that I determined is they will not see their mother fail. No way, no how that would be the best life example that I could give them. So that's just an example of, of just, you got to lock in that steely resolve. What is going to be the end outcome of, of what you want to accomplish. So tangibly get husband home, demonstrate to my boys, their mom is not a quitter. So those were like diehard locked in. Like I'm in a surgery room, sudden unexpected thing.

21:08I had them bring the paperwork. I was working the business. Nothing was going to stop me. So that's just how I feel about it. So I was extremely driven and motivated. And a lot of it is I just like to prove it. And I think that's a lot of it is it's more about what happens inside of you as a result of the journey. That's the bigger driver of it all than, well, I accomplished this and that, which of course we want to do in business. But I'm always looking at, I want better control of my future. And the more I develop myself through my business, the more opportunities that open up to me. So I see it as an ever-expanding opportunity as I further reinvest myself, me personally, into my business.

21:49I just make myself better and better and bring more value into the marketplace. So it's really that steely resolve and where you want to have it take you. Secondly, in biology, they call it imprinting. Imprinting is when an animal is born and the first animal they see, they think is their mother. It's a little chick, might see an alligator. There's my mother, right? For me, I had the good fortune when When I first came online, and this was a long time ago, this was 2004. And so I listened to two different calls about two potential people that I could work with. And I much preferred the one gentleman because he was so not filled with hype.

22:29And I thought, that's who I'm going to go with. And it was consultative selling approach. And it felt very natural, very comfortable. What I was looking for, I knew I needed training because I lacked knowledge. But what I really needed was a mentor. So I had the very good fortune of I got awesome training and I got an awesome mentor that made all the difference in the world. Sadly, that is not the experience of so many people. It's maybe a digital marketing piece and they never get any kind of help. And that's unfortunate because had I not had that, I don't know that I would have been successful.

23:04And third is consistency. So straight out of the gate, when I came into that first training company, we were given tracking sheets. Now, I had developed that from the sports world. I would track my push-ups, leg lifts, sit-ups, everything. I documented it all because it was my way of seeing my progress. So with that initial training, I was documenting and I was tracking. And I could see cause and effect from the actions that I took, the results that I would get. So those would be my, that's what we do with our members as a result of what worked for me as a new entrepreneur. Number one, Fire Nation, I love that phrase, lock in that steely resolve.

23:45I mean, man, that is such a visual word phrase right there. I just love that. And then number two, imprinting. And then just don't forget document and track. You know, what gets tracked and measured gets improved. You know, I love that Peter Drucker quote because it is so true. And Anne, you shared a lot with us today. So give us the one big takeaway that you want to make sure Fire Nation really gets from everything that we've chatted about. I know you have a great call to action for us and how we can connect with you. And then we'll say goodbye. I really believe in the power of the entrepreneur and for their cause and effect, most importantly for themselves and their family.

24:24That's what I'm personally, I'm very committed to is impacting the family economy. me it's interesting when I do surveys as people come into my opt-in for a webinar for example I pull people and what's really shifted over the last year and a half so and it's kind of surprised me is that they want to give back to the community they want to do something for others and the very dead last thing is they want to buy a get a fast car in a big house and and I've been doing these for about it's called a dream casting survey and I've been doing this for about 10 years So the data has been very impressive and it's that people want to have an impact is what I'm seeing.

25:00Not so much self-directed. They do want to take care of their own needs, but they want to help take care of others. So I want to encourage people to pursue those dreams because there is help and support out there for you to achieve it. And I'm going to say, too, with the recent news that's been transpired, I'm going to call it landing in the lucky bucket. I've been working online for 15 years. My business has kept going without a hitch. In fact, it's just gotten better. So being in the online space has been especially beneficial. So for those of you who are considering that, I can't encourage it enough.

25:35It's been a real blessing to be able to come into the online space. And then as far as, you want me to share what we have? Please do. Okay, awesome. All right, so the simplest online business model. So I have been online for 15 years now. And when I look for simple, it means that you are not so encumbered with what can be some of the most challenging aspects of an online business, and that is traffic and conversions. It's a monster of a beast to learn and to conquer that. It just is. and so is to tap into a system that can help leverage that piece that you don't even have to think about so i'm talking about the world's biggest sales machine online sales machine and that is amazon.com and i like to educate people in the really big picture of what amazon can do for you first and foremost is to generate that cash flow because you don't want to be cash hurting in your business you want that steady cash flow so whether you want to just keep snowballing that and growing that through an Amazon business, you can, or you use it as a catalyst and a springboard to something bigger and better, where Amazon is giving you that big leg up courtesy of their amazing customer base.

26:48So the simplest online business model is using a very simple sourcing method called arbitrage. We've been teaching it for six years, over 7 ,000 students. And that's because it dishes up the most data points for you to make a very reliable, predictable buying decision about a product that you can buy low, flip, sell high very, very quickly. If you have the right data points and you know how to interpret it, it can be a beautiful sales machine for yourself. And it mitigates you having to learn so many other more difficult aspects of an online business. You're just focused on sourcing. Furthermore, all of that can be offset.

27:30The sourcing work, the shipping work, every bit of it can be outsourced so that a team runs your business for you. So that's what we have for a webinar that I think people would really, really love to get the information on and just be that much informed and educated and potentially find an absolutely fantastic method for building a really fast, successful Amazon business. And how do we register for this webinar? That would be joinebs.com forward slash fire. joinebs.com forward slash fire. And that's EBS as in Echo Bravo Sierra. That's correct. Love it. Well, Fire Nation, you know this. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

28:14And you've been hanging out with AS and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And if you head over to eofire.com and type Ann, A-N-N in the search bar, her show notes page will pop up with everything we've talked about, links to the webinar, all that jazz, but go directly to joinebs.com slash fire. That's joinechobravosierraebs.com slash fire. Register for that webinar. Learn all about the arbitrage that's waiting for you, Fire Nation. This is the simplest online business. and has been doing it for six plus years, 7 ,000 plus students rocking it every day. And thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today.