In our recent posts we've been discussing the Follow Up Formula – a powerful, proven strategy to increase conversions and drive sales. But none of this means much for you if you don't know how to hold yourself accountable for your business.

It's Jason Buckner here, CEO and Founder at Automation Made Easy - your go-to-team for business automation

If you've been following our recent articles, you know we've dived deep into the three phases of the Follow Up Formula: ACTION, TRUST, and CONVERSION.

It's been an exciting journey so far, and today, we're taking things up a notch by exploring a crucial aspect - how to hold yourself accountable in your business.

Believe me, folks, this is a game-changer! I've seen countless businesses struggle when they don't take the wheel and drive their success forward. It's like being stuck in the trying it on lane (I'll explain more about that in a moment).

Let's dive in and discover how to become the driver to hold yourself accountable not only in your business, but in all aspects of your life.

Are You Driving This?

Now secret number three, how to make sure you're driving this in your business, to hold yourself accountable. I see so many people not sitting in the driving lane, and I'll tell you what I mean about that.

Some entrepreneurs say, “I don't know how to do it. Can you just do it for me?”

Most of the time now, I say, “No, I'm not going to do it for you.”

In my experience, the businesses that we do a Done-For-You service on are the businesses that don't actually succeed with the formula.

Those that learn it and embrace it and make it their own, and make themselves accountable for it, are the ones that actually have success.

You know, going back to me and the first speaker I worked with (whom I bought a done-for-you program from – you can check out that story in this video if you missed it or want to recap)… I was not accountable for that. I didn't hold myself accountable.

It's almost like I spent the money and that was gone, and this was a little bit of an occupation, if you like, and I didn't do what I needed to do with it. I wasn't in the driving lane.

One of my customers, Sue Stevenson – I love Sue… we were having a one-on-one session about her business.

And so Sue uses the Follow Up Formula in many different places in her business.

Sue uses it for automated webinars.

She uses it for live webinars.

And she uses it for live webinars so that she can help parents.

She wants to get as many people onto her webinar as she can so she can help parents of anxious kids turn up to her webinars so that she can help the parents help the kids that are anxious, okay?

Sue described this for me, with these three lanes, and I just had this explosion go off in my mind. It's like, “Oh my God, everything's just fallen into place here.” Let me describe it to you.

The Three Lanes:

So we've got these three lanes in business… in life… in getting things done. And there's this first lane here that's usually thinking about it, maybe, or not actively engaged in it.

Then we've got this second lane here that's kind of… I call it the trying it on lane.

And then we've got this third lane here, which I call the driving lane.

Example - Changing Lanes To Give Up Smoking:

So let me explain to you, I used to smoke and I smoked for seven years. Let's call them my party days. You know, I go out drinking and have some cigarettes and smoke during the week. Every time I had a coffee, I had a cigarette.

It was my seven years between sports. I was very sporty when I was younger, and I'm very sporty now, but there was this time where I thought I had to rebel. And so I smoked cigarettes.

All the time I was smoking. I'm sitting in this lane (the thinking about it land) – I am a smoker, okay?

And then I jumped into this trying it on lane and I thought, “I need to quit.” And I was trying it on. During the week, I didn't smoke at all. “No, no, I don't smoke during the week. I'm quitting... I'm quitting... I am a quitter.” 

That's all I did was I'm quitting, yeah? And then on the weekends, I'd go and have a drink with my mates and out comes the cigarettes, and I'd smoke all weekend. I'd smoke a packet all weekend. I actually smoked more on the weekends than I did during the week where I was quitting.

And, you know, I'm trying it on. In actual fact, I'm giving myself a reason to say, “Oh, no, I'm quitting. This is okay. I don't smoke during the week. I do smoke on weekends, and eventually this is going to pass.”

In actual fact, no, it is not going to pass.

You will stay in that lane forever.

The Lane You Want To Be In:

But then one day my little sister came to Sydney (when I was living in Sydney), and she was about 12 at the time. We’d just taken Mum out for a birthday lunch, actually. Mum and my little sister came up.

She said, “Jason, why do you still smoke?” She said, “You know, it's bad for you… (and this and that), ...and you know, we don't want you to die.” All of the sorts of things that come out of a 12 year old's mouth.

It just hit. It was just the right thing I needed at the right time to give me that emotional connection. And I jumped into the I'm a non-smoker lane.

The last lane is the I'm a non-smoker lane. The middle is the I'm a quitter lane and the left is the I'm a smoker lane.  

And so I jumped into this last lane and then all of a sudden I didn't smoke.

I literally was smoking a cigarette. I butted it out. Actually I nearly caved two weeks later, and I picked up that cigarette. It's the most disgusting thing you'll ever taste in the world when you get your taste buds back. I picked it up and, and I haven't had another cigarette since, but I jumped into the, I do not smoke lane.

It was only when I got into that lane, I was emotionally holding myself accountable for being that person. And it was easy for me then.

How To Use This To Hold Yourself Accountable In Your Business:

It's the same in business. So many of us are like me. “I'm trying it on.” I got this done for you service, and I tried it on.

I tried to put all the responsibility on somebody else. “I'm going through this program and someone's doing it for me. I've paid all of this money and I'm going to become an internet marketer.”

Rubbish I was going to become an internet marketer!

I'm sitting this in this middle I’m trying it on lane.

And I see so many people come along as well, that in my Done-For-You service – when I had it done for you service – they'd come along and they'd jump into that same lane.

“Yep, Jason's doing it for me. He's going to do it for me and put it all together.”

And they don't take any responsibility whatsoever. They don't take the responsibility to market their business. They don't take the responsibility to learn about what comes next. And as a result, they sit in this trying it lane and never quite jump into the driving lane.

So which lane are you going to be in? 

Which lane are you in right now?

You want to be in the driving lane. You’ve got to jump over a few hurdles to be in the driving lane.

Meet Tom Hua:

So I want you to meet Tom.

Tom came to me and he said, “Jason I need you to help me make these webinars great.”

He was doing a webinar series, okay? He was doing some live webinars and then automating it afterwards. And Tom wanted me to organise the follow up for him.

And I said, no. I said, “Look, Tom, this is what I need you to do to make it work.”

We went through the action, the trust and the conversion.

He said, “No, don't be ridiculous. I'm just going to do what I've always done.”

And so he did what he'd always done. He followed the old school internet marketer kind of process… sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. Okay? And he got nothing in return.

Now when I say he got nothing in return, he ran the webinar and he actually got no sales from the follow up whatsoever. He got sales from the webinar, but he didn't get any sales from the follow up. And I knew that he wasn't engaging in what he had to do. He had to go through that process to learn that.

Then he said, “Well, I haven't got enough return out of this. I have to do this.” And he jumped into the driving lane then.

Coming Back Into The Driving Lane:

So when he came back in the driving lane, I told him what he had to do. He said, no, but then he came back.

As a result of coming back, we implemented the Action and the Trust and the Conversion, but we chunked it into small pieces. Okay, we're going to do this Action now. And he became responsible for the Action.

Then I said, “Okay, now we need to do this Trust.” In Tom's case, we actually put in place 21 trust building emails… and it was too many. We didn't actually need to do that many, but we got a few extra incidental sales out of that as well.

We tested and found out that five is the sweet spot in there, but Tom got $57,000 in low ticket, monthly recurring sales. This is just the sales for one month though.

So that was $57,000 in sales – $197 a month, okay? And some in there at $97 a month as there was a downsell as well.

From $57,534 in sales, $29,384 came from the webinar directly; $28,150 came from the follow up.

Now, it's only because Tom jumped into the driving lane because he had this problem, okay? He had this problem where he actually didn't get any returns when he was doing what he wanted to do.

He jumped into the driving lane, and put the Action, Trust and Conversion in place where he made the extra money. So he doubled his income, basically.

He doubled the sales on this as a result of putting that Action, Trust and Conversion in place that he wouldn't have done, had he not have jumped into that driving lane.

The driving lane… I've seen a few excuses come up where those excuses are literally the things that are holding you back from jumping into the driving lane. You're trying it on kind of thing. You know, you're running a webinar, you're doing an ad campaign, you're trying it on.

I need you to drive, okay? I need you to get in there and drive.

Interested in finding out more about how the Follow Up Formula can help build trust for you and your business? 

We'd love to offer you a free consultation. Simply book a free, no obligation call with us today.