Part 1: The Three-Step Process to Create a Movement

Jeremy: Hey everybody, this is Jeremy again. I'm so excited to introduce this week's podcast episode to you. In this episode, Alex talks about this really evident massive contribution gap that exists for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs who really have this desire to increase their contribution, to make a real dent in the universe. Well Alex, of course, as he always does, unpacks what it's like to create a movement. We look at the foundational aspects of every movement in history. What did they have? How did they do it? So how do you turn your mission into a movement? I think you'll love this week's episode.

Alex Charfen: I'm Alex Charfen and this is the Momentum Podcast made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers and creators of all kinds, those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny. We define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters. Clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution and we always will be.

How many of you are feeling this massive contribution gap between the desire for contribution and the infrastructure you have? If you're in this place then you're absolutely in the right place, because here's what I want to show you how to do. The systems, the processes, the tools we teach entrepreneurs help to shrink the contribution gap so that you can create massive momentum, move forward and have the income, the impact and the dent in the universe you've always known you were there to make. In fact, when you look at Russell Brunson, Russell has an incredible way of looking at a mass movement. See, I think one of the ways of shrinking that contribution gap is to create a mass movement and because I gave this at Funnel Hacking Live, I shared Russell's view. The charismatic leader with the cause with the new opportunity or vehicle of change. Well, how do you do this? How do you make this clearer in the world? How do you become that charismatic leader? How do you become that attractive character?

See, I think this is one of the strongest models I've ever seen on creating a movement because what Russell did was he looked at a movement from the entrepreneur back. He said, if you have an attractive character and these other things, then a movement will be created. Well I looked at it differently. See, I looked at it and said, what are the foundational aspects that every movement in history has had, and if you are going to become that attractive character, how? What do you share? How do you polarize? What do you talk about? What are the subjects that you put out into the market so that more and more you first are the attractive character, then you are seen as a leader, then you are seen as the de facto only leader in the world for your movement.

I've done this over and over again and it's not luck. It's because I've applied a format, a structure, a process to creating a movement. Far too often people look at movements that are rough and they think they got lucky. They were in the right place at the right time. They're doing the right things. They're doing something I can't do, and here's what I want you to know. You can create a movement. You can become an attractive character and you can change the world. Let me show you soon as my slides switch over. There it is. I want you to turn your mission into a movement. I want to make sure that I haven't missed anything over here. Awesome. I really appreciate all the comments guys. It lets me know that I'm not alone here, which is crucially important for somebody like me and I appreciate you participating.

Now let's jump into how do you turn your mission into a movement? How do you become that attractive character? How do you become the undisputed leader of your movement to where no one else even thinks about trying to challenge you? So step number one is you have to define who your tribe is. Who is that tribe? And this is how you become the attractive character by sharing the following four things. So number one, in order to create a movement, you must define and unify your tribe. You have to explain who your tribe is. There it is. Define and unify. So who is your tribe? How are they different from the crowd? How are they different from everybody else who's out there? When you define and unify your movement, you tell them that they're part of this movement. I'll use this simple example, one of my favorite examples, the civil rights movement.

When you look at what did Martin Luther King share when he said define and unify. Who was the civil rights movement for? Well, here's what's interesting. Who it was for was for anyone who was against discrimination for everyone, and who was for equality for everyone. So as long as you are willing to be for equality for everyone, that was the civil rights movement. That is how Martin Luther King defined and unified the civil rights movement by stating who was allowed, who was in, who is part of this movement.

The second part of the movement is to provide a plan. You have to provide a plan for your movement so that they understand what it is that they need to do in order to move forward. What it is that they need to do in order to succeed. When you look at the average movement today, there is not enough of a plan. When you look at the movements that have succeeded, they provide a plan. The civil rights movement provided one of the simplest plans in history, passive resistance. We are going to organize and we are going to resist passively. No more fighting. We're going to go out and organize. We're going to show up. We're going to be there. The civil rights movement defined its movement by saying you had to define and had to provide a plan and that plan was be there, show up, be present.

The next part of the movement of turning your mission into a movement. Man, I'm having a huge delay here. Sorry everybody. I'm going to have to start clicking like way early. The next part of defining the movement is to defend against. You want to defend your tribe against anything that they're under attack. And I want you to understand something. If you have a clientele, they are under attack. Let me give you the example of our business. So we help entrepreneurs grow and scale businesses. So what do we defend them against? We defend them against coaches that don't know what they're doing. We defend them against frameworks that don't really work. We defend them against people who put way too much into their products and make it way too complicated and we tell them they need minimum effective dose. I want to defend my clients against the people out there that are taking advantage of them. If you go out and you defend your market louder than anybody else, you will be seen as the leader.

And the fourth step is to advocate for. Defend against and advocate for. The reason you advocate for your client is this. If you go out and you talk more about your movement than anyone else, if you are the biggest advocate and the biggest defender, you will become the de facto leader. I've been there guys. I mean, just share with you candidly how I became the leader of 50,000 real estate agents. It's humbling. In 2007, Katie and I introduced a product called the Certified Distressed Property Expert. I was not a real estate agent, but the product was for realtors and the way that we started a movement and completely changed the real estate industry was we defined and unified. We said any real estate agent who wants to help their clients, who's willing to do a little bit more, who's willing to go the extra mile. That's who we want to talk to. We provided a plan by giving them a product called the CDP that showed them how to help homeowners who are in distress. I defended realtors.

In fact, at the time, realtors were being blamed for the foreclosure crisis. It was being said that realtors ran up prices and and did things that made it, they had higher appraisals and they did things that made it so the crisis actually happened. I went out and defended them. I went on Fox News. I went on CNBC. I was one of the biggest defenders of real estate agents and I wasn't even a real estate agent, and then I advocated for. I went out and I actually was the only person on TV over and over again, and I was seeing more often defending and advocating for realtors than just about anybody else. I was the only person who said realtors will solve the foreclosure crisis. What happened was I was seen as the de facto leader. We were able to sell 50,000 units of our product and move forward quickly. Let's get into this in detail. So define and unify. Most people talk to the crowd. Here's what I mean by the crowd. It's everybody out there.

In order to speak to a movement, you need to speak to your tribe. It's the movement within the crowd. Let me show you what I mean. For us as a company, we help entrepreneurs grow and scale businesses by building a team, starting a movement, and maximizing their momentum. So I don't speak to all entrepreneurs. In fact, if it's a startup entrepreneurs, somebody who's just starting out, I'm not looking for them to come and join our movement right now. I want them to get some momentum and actually have the need to build the team. Now are they part of our greater movement? Absolutely. But I want to be able to narrow down and say, I speak to, and this is who I'm looking for. I want entrepreneurs who have started a business, who are building a team, who are in momentum, who know they have a huge opportunity.

That is my tribe, that small group that can't turn it off and, and they want to make a contribution just as much as they want to make a living. And for us, we want entrepreneurs who know that they have a $10 million opportunity but feel like they have $100 million opportunity. That is my movement within the crowd. What is it for you? One of the biggest issues that most movements have is that the entrepreneur in charge doesn't know how to talk to a tribe. They talk to a crowd. So here's how you do it. Provide contrast. How is your tribe different? Here's what I do. I go out and I talk at conferences and events and I say here's who I talk to. I talked to the entrepreneurs who have been working at it and grinding and who are willing to put in the hours and make things happen and who will force their business into momentum.

And when those people get to the place where the momentum they can create on their own is not enough, they come to us and we help them build a team, build an infrastructure, put the right processes, projects, and people in place so that they can grow their empire. Now that might sound like I'm talking to every entrepreneur, but there is a huge percentage of the room that's intimidated by almost everything I just said. So when I talk to my tribe, I know I'm providing contrast. I want the people who want to build an organization, who want to build a team, who want to make things happen and who are not willing to settle for anything. If your tribe isn't hearing you, niche down and then do it again. Oh man. This is one of the biggest issues in entrepreneurship today is that people do not have niches. They have categories.

I'll talk to somebody and say, tell me who you work with? And they'll say, well, I work with women who are going through divorce. Well, that's not a niche. There's millions of women going through divorce, which women going through divorce? Do you work with entrepreneurs who are going through a divorce? Do you work with executives who are going through a divorce? Single moms who are going through a divorce, who is it that you are working with? Niche down, niche down, niche down. If you're not being heard, it needs to be a tighter avatar. Here's an interesting thing that happens today, especially like with products companies. People come to me all the time with a products business and they'll say something like, I'll say, who is your niche? Who are you calling on? And they'll say, well, I'm just like bulletproof. We're going for Biohackers. And I feel like with that statement alone, it's like the nail is getting put into the coffin of the company. Here's why.

Biohackers is about as ambiguous as people in general. When you look at Dave Asprey and how he built Bulletproof, I know because I was at round at the very beginning. Dave's been a friend of mine for years. I remember the early days, it wasn't Bulletproof, it was Bulletproof Executive. Dave had one avatar, the busy executive, and he sold them coffee and supplements for being a busy executive. And you know what happened? That avatar became a passionate tribe. That tribe pushed beyond the tribe. That tribe started recruiting single moms and entrepreneurs and people who are working too hard and distance athletes and overachievers and everybody else into the Bulletproof group. But it started with a niche. And too many entrepreneurs are trying to go big at the beginning and hoping that it works and it just doesn't.

So if you're not growing, you are probably talking to the crowd, not to your tribe. So step number one, define and unify. Step number two, provide a plan. Providing a plan for a movement is so important. And you know what? Here's what's interesting. Entrepreneurs make this way too complicated. In fact, movements need a simple plan. Simple plans are remembered. Plans that are remembered, get shared. Let me share with you a movement that I think you're probably a part of, especially if you're watching me. The click funnels movement. So what is the movement for click funnels? How is click funnels simple? Man, Russell makes it so simple. One product, one promotion, one avatar, until you hit $1 million. That's the simple plan with click funnels. One funnel, one product, one promotion, one avatar until you hit $1 million. Simple plans are remembered. Plans that are remembered, get shared.

Let me show you some movements out in the world that you might not even have recognized as movements. Like who knows what this one is. A shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and a sensible meal for dinner. What movement is that? What plan is that? Somebody tell me in the chat interface, I want to see if anybody actually remembers this. Come on. Somebody's got to get it. That's it Flint. [inaudible 00:13:45] Barbara, Janell. Like SlimFast was an incredible movement in the late 80s, 90s. You couldn't go into an office building without opening a refrigerator and seeing a whole shelf of SlimFast because so many people were using it. Why? It became a massive, massive movement. David said, SlimFast was great with fries. Let's go to the next one. Let me show you another movement. As soon as this shifts over.

High intensity for 90 days. What is the high intensity program for 90 days? P90X. It became a massive movement. What is the the 12 steps and 12 traditions? Anybody? What's 12 steps and 12 traditions? AA, Alcoholics Anonymous. The 10 commandments from Christianity. So when you look at movements, they have simple plans. I do want to point out that it takes two more steps to quit drinking than it does to find salvation. But whatever. It's okay. Let's just keep going. So when you look at providing a plan, it's a simple plan, encapsulated easily that you share with your clients. Like for us, what do we tell our clients? If you want to grow a business and you want to grow it around an opportunity, you need a strategic plan, the right processes and the right people. That's it. And we show them how to do that.

Now, once you have defined and unified your movement, gathered them together so you can start growing it, and then you provide a plan. Show them how you're going to move forward. You must become the biggest defender of your movement. If you want to be seen as a leader. If you want the assumption that you're the leader. If you want the people around you to just believe you're the leader, then start defending faster and louder and bigger than anybody else. Defend against the pressure and noise, your tribe feels that's created by the market. Is there market pressure right now? Absolutely.

I share all the time that entrepreneurs feel the need to be perfect. They don't want to show any vulnerability. As soon as you become an entrepreneur. How many of you feel this? As soon as you become an entrepreneur, you're no longer a person. You're a commodity, you're judged. You're seen as something that can be judged and I talk about it all the time. I talk about how difficult it is to be an entrepreneur, especially in a growing business because there's so much pressure and noise. There's personal pressure and noise. There's the pressure to make the right decision. It's not easy to be an entrepreneur. Then talk about the pressure and noise your tribe feels created by the competition. I talk constantly about how entrepreneurs are in a dynamic market where we have to react to competitive issues, team issues, product issues. We need an adaptable company that can go forward. And then we also have to talk about the pressure and noise created by who you are as an entrepreneur.

Jeremy: Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. There are entrepreneurs all over the world in our programs that are generating amazing momentum, that are building incredible movements, that are increasing their contribution at a massive scale. If you want to join the ranks of these entrepreneurs, head on over to billionairecode.com/apply-now. That's billionairecode.com/apply-now.