For every dollar I spend on my webinars, I make $15. Learn what goes on behind the scenes of my educational webinar that converts attendees into clients.

Originally posted on Inc.com

How do I turn $15,000 into $200,000 every month?

The answer: Through the following sales funnel.

In one of my Inc.com articles, I explained exactly what I do in each step of this funnel so you can dramatically improve your conversion. This went viral last year with over 8,000 shares.

As a follow up, I want to go deeper on the key of the whole funnel: The webinar.

Webinars are like magic when compared with any other type of content marketing.

Once you’ve recorded a live webinar, you can A/B test variations of the recording, and then play the winning version over and over as an on-demand webinar.

Also, they perform extremely well.

Let me spell it out in real numbers from a typical month in my business during 2015:

In other words, I earn $200 for each targeted potential client that attends my webinar. That’s an awesome 15x return on my paid advertising dollars. Not only that, I convert 25 percent of attendees into interested customers.

How do I get this to happen?

It comes down to a framework that I call the Problem-Belief-Decision (PBD) Framework, an extension of my problem-based approach, and it solves the fundamental challenge that most marketers have with webinars (and content overall for that matter).

The challenge: How to deliver a webinar that is truly educational AND turns attendees into customers.

In the framework, there are four steps to creating a life-changing webinar that converts webinar attendees into clients.

1. Help attendees understand their ‘real problem.’

When there’s a problem, we all have a tendency to band-aid individual symptoms rather than to solve the core problem.

The reason is simple.

Individual symptoms are easier to fix than core problems are to solve.

We drink coffee instead of getting more sleep.

We binge eat to relieve stress instead of addressing the underlying stress.

We pop Advil instead of removing the headache’s cause.

Here’s the problem with this: Anytime you focus on just the symptoms, your solution is temporary.

I help attendees by showing them what their real core problem is. This gives them a huge sense of relief: “Oh, my God! This is the missing link. This is the one thing that I’ve been missing.”

Then, I promise them a solution to that problem.

Once I’ve done this, they’re basically hooked.

This approach works on many levels.

• It builds your credibility. When you can describe people’s problem better than they can, they naturally assume that you know how to solve it and trust you more. They think, “This guy or gal knows exactly what I’m thinking and exactly what I’m feeling.”
• It differentiates you. It separates you from other solutions, which might just be more band-aids.
• It delivers more results. When people solve a core problem, it solves multiple symptoms forever.

Here’s how I do all of this in my webinars:

First I ask my audience six or seven yes-or-no questions to show my understanding of their symptoms. Here is one example:

Before we jump in, I want to check in with you guys. Does any of this sound like you?

Do you have some months where cash just pours into your business … but you can’t seem to maintain it? Does that sound like you?

Then, once they self-identify with the symptoms I’ve described, I go on to tell them the real problem and what the solution is.

If any of that stuff sounds like you, I have really good news for you: You sound just like every single client we’ve worked with when the or she starts to come to us. The really good news I have for you is none of those things are the real problem. The real problem, believe it or not, is you don’t know the system.

2. Help them imagine their lives after the core problem is solved.

Now that your attendees have a new appreciation for the real problem, you want to help them understand what will happen in their lives as a result of solving or not solving it. This will give them the motivation to solve it once and for all.

The best way to do this is to help them see themselves in the future and experience what their world would be like if:

• The problem were already solved.
• The problem is not solved.

When I do this, I’m basically playing the Ghost of Christmas Future from A Christmas Carol.

I talk about sensory details (i.e., “You’ll wake up every morning and see …”) and make the scenes visceral. I want to create a movie in their minds so that it impacts those emotions, not just their logic.

This is such a powerful motivational tool because it triggers both our desire and our fear of loss. Over 10,000 studies by psychologists in the past two decades show the power of approach and avoidance as central drivers of motivation.

Here’s some of the script I use in my webinars:

3. Reframe limiting beliefs one by one.

I help people identify and reframe the beliefs that stop them from taking action and solving their core problem.
Change a belief, and you change your actions. This is a simple idea, yet it is incredibly powerful when you build this into your mindset.

What do I mean by “incredibly powerful”?

Research from Stanford professor Carol Dweck demonstrates how powerful. In her most famous study, two groups of children first did the same task and were given different feedback. As a result of the different feedback, their actions were completely different on the next task:

By simply reframing kids’ beliefs to think that they can improve their intelligence through effort, Dweck managed to considerably change their behavior.

The process I use to reframe attendees’ beliefs in my webinar is very similar to the cognitive restructuring approach of cognitive behavioral therapy:

• I list the top four or five limiting beliefs (myths) that stop people from solving the problem. Many times, our limiting beliefs are unconscious. So simply bringing them into others’ awareness is valuable.
• I dismantle them one by one. I share a rational explanation for why the limiting belief isn’t true. I also use the Socratic approach and ask people questions that lead them to see the irrationality of the limiting belief on their own.
• I replace them with a more empowering belief. I provide a new perspective and then back it up.

This type of content is really interesting to attendees because it blasts holes in their conventional wisdom. In a classic study by the late sociologist Mark Davis, he listed 12 ways to make something interesting, and they all tied back to the idea of challenging conventional wisdom.

Here’s an example of how I dismantle people’s most damaging limiting beliefs in the webinar:

Limiting belief: I’m afraid to increase my price because customers won’t pay more.

Instead of my telling them, “Just change your damn price already,” I ask them questions that help them realize that their belief isn’t true:

Whatever price you’re charging right now, how did you come to that decision? Did you base it on your competitors?… The question I have for you is this: Why should someone else’s reality limit your reality? Look, someone has to be the best, the Ferrari, the Lamborghini of your marketplace, and you know what, it might as well be you!

Then I share with them the more empowering belief:

I believe the value of your service is based on the outcome you’re delivering, and that is all your clients care about.

4. Make the offer.

We provide people with a free phone call on which we provide additional education and make a true offer if they’re a good fit. As I explained in another article, the phone call lets you filter potential clients so you only select ones that are a good fit. We only select 40 percent of the people we have a call with.

Here are the key components of the offer:

• Explain what they get if they participate in the call.
• Explain who it’s for and not for.
• Reinforce the benefits of doing the call with future pacing.

I show that I understand the issues they’re going through, and show them that I can 100 percent solve their problem if they are up for it:

Maybe you need more clients, maybe you are not charging enough. … Whatever your biggest challenge is, we’ve seen it before and we know how to overcome it. We’ve dealt with it hundreds of times, and we want to help YOU to overcome it too.

I further emphasize how the free call is a no-brainer next step for the right people using the future pacing method:

Just imagine for a second what your average day would be like when you are earning twice the money in half the time and working with your ideal client. That would be pretty great, right? That’s what we want to map out for you.

Conclusion.

Of course, there’s a lot more that goes into creating a successful webinar, but if you nail this framework, you’ll provide your attendees with something much more valuable than information; you’ll provide transformation! Transformation changes people’s lives. People will pay a lot of money for transformation.

Most marketers pack in every last hack or tactic to make the webinar as dense as possible.
Here’s the problem with this approach:

Having information isn’t really what people need nine times out of 10, because most people don’t actually take action on the information they’re given.

To understand this, look no further than the obesity epidemic in America. Diseases related to obesity and diet are the number 1, the number 2, and the number 3 causes of death. Most people know the basics of how to be healthy: exercise, healthy diet, quality sleep, etc. But few people actually follow these basics.

We live in a world that is drowning in information, but sorely lacking in transformation.

For people to be transformed, they must first take action. Then, once they take action, they need the right strategy. Then, and only then, is when they need the tactics, and there’s just not enough time in a one-hour webinar to go into tactics.

To recap, the key to my success on webinars is my Problem-Belief-Decision Framework:

Bottom line: use the Problem-Belief-Decision Framework in your webinars or content marketing, and you’ll transform people’s lives and catapult your business toward greater prosperity.