[Transcript starts at 0:40]
Hello, hello, hello. My podcast people and thank you for joining in for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. If you're watching, tuning in, listening on the day that it drops, it is Monday, April 28th. This month is cooking. Remember when January was here? It didn't end. January was three years long.
And now look at us like. It's a little aggressive, right? But today we're talking about the funnel industrial complex, which is a little term that chat GPT actually served up. And I was like, yo, that is, yes, I wanna talk about that. Um, you know, I stay talking and chatting with chat GPT. It's been my hobby for the past two months and I'm loving it.
Um. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. But first, as per always some life updates. So, um, first off, I changed L Oil last Friday and I filmed it. If you haven't checked out that reel, I made a reel about it. Um, it's longer, it's like a seven and a half minute reel. So if that turns you off, okay. But it goes by fast.
'cause you're like, oh, what's gonna happen? Um, and I'm super proud of that reel. It, it was funny. I will say it, it was funny. We'll link it in the show notes. Thank you Courtney. Thank you myself. 'cause I am also doing this myself now, uh, for YouTube till my guy jojo is back from paternity leave. Um, but I'm gonna zoom out for a second and share a lesson that I learned from making that real, right?
Which is keep creating right? Keep creating folks. If you are feeling stuck, if you're feeling uncertain, if you're feeling whatever. Keep creating in ways that feel good for you. You've, you know, I haven't like, been putting out a ton of stuff on social media. I've been doing my other, my other writing. Um, and I've been enjoying it.
I'm obviously keeping up with this, um, but I'm doing, uh, uh, Instagram as it feels good. And then I came out with a seven and a half minute video and I was like. I'm gonna fucking make it this long. It was a whole like, listen, doing the actual oil change took me like all day. It was ended up being a debacle.
I had a feeling it would, which is also why I filmed it. Uh, it takes me about an hour to do my, my oil on my Jeep Wrangler. Lex has a Jeep Cherokee, way less ground clear, uh, clearance and. She hasn't gotten an oil change in like, I dunno, two years, something like that. And I was like, I'm sure she took it into like Pep Boys or some shit.
And they fucking, they tightened the, they tightened the plug so much there. And I, I had a feeling it would be an ordeal and it was, um, but I decided to record it and then I was like, I'm gonna make this into a reel. It's really tough to cut down hours and hours of content into just like a minute, two minutes, unless you're just taking like one little part of it.
But I wanted the whole thing, so I was like, whatever. It took me like four or five hours to edit. I don't even know exactly how long, 'cause I was having a ton of fun editing it. Right. And that is why we create. For the fun, for the enjoyment, right? It doesn't have to have a reason or be so intentional as to why we are creating.
So if you're stuck, if you're a creator and you're stuck, or you're burned out, you know this is likely the best path forward, which is create because you want to, not because you have to, right? Do it because you, you, you want to. So. Uh, yeah, changing the oil was an ordeal. Um, but I did get some new tools out of it.
I got a breaker bar. Uh, I got some new impact sockets and I just really enjoyed doing stuff like that. The, the real itself was received really well, and most folks understood that I changed the oil not to save money. It's like, yeah, you'll save some money, but like. You also don't have to fucking go to those places and deal with the brochacho there, which is like way, that's priceless.
But I do also like fixing things myself. Right? Everything doesn't have to be about optimizing your time, every minute of your fucking time and every minute of your life, right? Which is foreshadowing to today's main topic. Uh, but update number two, I am strongly considering going to see sinners. If you don't know what it's, there's a new movie that's out.
Um, Ryan Kugler is the director. Uh, it has, uh. What's his name from Black Panther? And from greed. Um, but by the time you listen to this, there's a good chance that I would, will have already seen it. Um, hopefully I will take Lex this week. I have heard nothing but good things about it. It's been all over threads.
Um, I will share a clip. I'll put it in the show notes. Um, a clip that was on threads, uh, jojo sent it, uh, shared it with me, and it's Ryan Klu, the director. He's. He's speaking about like the cinematic aspects of it and how they filmed it and the options that you'll be presented with when you go to buy tickets.
This the different size film that it was filmed on, which is really cool to me. Um, and if that's cool to you, maybe that clip will be cool and we'll influence, you know, how you go and see it. So we'll put that in the show notes. Thank you again, Courtney and me. Um, I haven't been to the movie since before.
Covid. But yeah, fuck yeah. A huge reason why I wanna go see this is 'cause it's a black movie. It's a black movie, black cast, black director, black soundtrack. And yes, take my black money. So I will let you know afterwards, uh, if I've seen it. Uh, update number three. I'm still playing guitar. Still volleyball continues to improve after, especially, you know, or even after that filming.
And I was like, wow, that is, that is a Pinterest fail. Uh, but volleyball continues to go well. Uh, I think I just hit week seven on Aaron's programming. Um. I am swapping out like two or three exercises and I'm just like, Hey, I've given it time to like try and find the stimulus and I'm not finding it. Um, so I'm gonna switch it.
Um, very simple, but otherwise I'm just, you know, chugging along, enjoying it a lot. Um, but speaking of chugging along, update number four, I did a question box in my stories last week and I asked how people were really doing and I said, DM me if your response is too long for the question box. Um, and number one, if you wrote back.
Thank you. I'm still working on getting back to the individual question boxes, um, but like the response boxes. But anyone that dmd me, I have already dmd them back. Um, but either way, regardless of how you wrote to me, thank you, thank you for sharing with me. Thank you for trusting me. There's a lot of message and I was like, wow, like you're being real and I really appreciate that.
Um, but. The general response was that people aren't doing great, and I expected that, which is why I asked the question. Right? There's a lot of the both and where people are trying to stay positive and and remain hopeful, but you know, they're going through their day to day and they're doing their day to day, but they're also going through it and experiencing a feeling of dread.
Some overwhelm, fear, concern, uncertainty, frustration, helplessness, anger, just, you know, the gamut there. I will say that I see you and I'm right there with you, which is why I asked the question. I, I assumed and guessed people are feeling that way. 'cause I'm feeling that way. Um, I now it kind of feels like the worst fucking people that you've ever met are getting everything that they want.
And the people who can stop them are just like sitting on their hands and you're like, what the fuck is happening? Right. So the question is then what can we do? What can we even do? What can I even do? Uh, I listened to a a, a Substack live. Um, listen to the last episode about Substack. If you're thinking about starting a substack, listen to the last episode.
I did 6 61. Should you, should you start a Substack? But Sharon McMahon, she is someone who makes sense to have a sub, makes sense to have a substack. But, uh, I talk about it in the episode, but either way, she did a live on there and she was offering up suggestions of what to do. And I was like, you know what?
I really like this. And, and what she said was to decide on what your thing is and then focus on that, and then lean into what you're really good at. You can't care about all the causes. You can't care about all the things, all the issues, right? So maybe your thing is education. Maybe it's healthcare. I don't know.
Let's start with one thing. Search for groups that are already doing things around this and then join them. That's what you can do. That second part that she said was to lean into what you're good at. And I obviously don't know what you're good at. I don't know you, uh, but I will say that this is an area where you could have possibly chat GPT help you.
Yes, I know that there are problems of public sides to chat GPT. I'm not here to to debate that. Um, but if you are open and willing to using it. It could be helpful with this. 'cause I, I know I had people write back to me, um, after I put to my mafia about this, this same action items. And one someone wrote back and was like, how do I know?
What am I good at? And I was like, I knew you were gonna ask that. This person, she's probably listening to this podcast episode. You know, I'm talking to you. Um, I had a feeling that she would, would ask that, and I was like, I got an answer. Use chat. GPT. So the way that I suggest using chat, GPT and I did this, uh, is.
You gotta share a lot of stuff with it. And if you don't like doing that, then this is not for you. But if you're okay with that, like anytime I write a blog or I write these podcast episodes in trying to create anything, I put it in the chat GBT, so it can learn about me anytime I wanna do a deep dive with researching things, it's done with chat, GPT and I go back and forth with it like it's an actual person.
It learns me, it learns how I think and, and what I care about. Right? Recently I was like, you know, did massive deep dive into economics, economic policy. I did the deep dive into coding so it knows what I, how, what I'm, what I'm capable of and, and what I enjoy, and how I think and reason, and it reads my, my blog post, it reads my emails, right?
And so from there, it gets a good picture of what you're good at, and it's a fucking computer. It can synthesize information quickly, and you can ask it based on what you've seen and what we talked about and everything. What am I good at? So I asked it this and some of the things that it, it's been out like 10 things, but some of the things that it said I was good at that ties today's episode was that I'm good at pattern recognition and synthesizing information.
I'm good at observing culture and calling things forward, and I'm good at being a bridge, namely between what people are doing currently and what they could do differently. And so that is exactly what I want to do with the rest of today's episode. So today's episode, the main topic is the funnel industrial complex.
All right, so right off the bat, let's go to the same page as what industrial complex is. 'cause I was like, oh, I had this wrong. I always thought it was kind of, it kind of meant like just like a big and pervasive thing. That's wrong. That's, that's incomplete. What makes something an industrial complex is its self-reinforcing, circularity, right?
Where the pieces of that system they feed into when they justify the other parts of the system. So it just keeps going, keeps going, keeps going. You've likely heard of the military industrial complex you've likely heard of, possibly probably the prison industrial contract. Prison industrial complex, right?
So I wanna use those as examples to highlight and explain what I mean by this self-reinforcing circularity. So the military industrial complex, right? Or actually, lemme take a step back. Both of these things, right? They are rooted in profit. So it's like a circle, but like not really, right? It's self-reinforcing.
And I'm gonna talk about this later, why I like that term, right? But it's, uh. It's not a true circle, it is rooted in in profit, so military, industrial, complex. What is this quote unquote circle? Well, first off, we have private corporations that wanna make money. They wanna make continued profits. They realize that they can make weapons and sell them weapons and technology and things like that.
They can sell them to the government. The government will buy them and pay them a lot of money. So they do that. These companies then lobby for increased budgets and policies that favor military expansion, right? They're making weapons and surveillance systems like that? Yes. They want the government to have policies that expands that.
That creates more demand for that, right? So they lobby for it. Politicians then. Look to get this money, get these money from these lobbying, uh, groups, and they're like, yeah, okay, we'll, we'll support your, your issues. Give us money. So these companies give money. These politicians then push for these military expansions and these, like these operations.
This is something that, uh, Eisenhower actually spoke about and we the warned about, right? As the military expands its operations. Conflict and instability become, uh, what's the word? Prioritized, right? If it's kinda like if you are just putting all of your time and effort into like getting really big and really strong when you're gonna go deal with other people, perhaps that's all you go to look to lean into.
Then is the fact that're like, Hey, I'm bigger and stronger than you. You don't really lean on the fact that we can have like kind of diplomacy there. You're like, listen, I'm bigger. Listen to me. So this approach is prioritized from that we have issues with relations and then we have, uh, threats whether they're real or exaggerated.
They become justified to, uh, continue growing the military, making that person bigger, which means new contracts are awarded to those companies that make the weapons, the surveillance systems attack the military tech and the cycle. Continues the prison industrial complex. Again, also rooted in profit corporations.
They realize they can profit from incarceration. I fucking prisons are for profit. They're like, Hey, I can make money with this thing. I'm gonna build them, but I gotta fill 'em then, right. So these corporations, they build and promote prisons. They then lobby for harsher sentencing. More surveillance, increase police policies.
'cause that's how we're gonna get people into the prisons, politicians and say, hi, we want that money. Okay, I will take that money. In exchange for campaigning and, and promoting your interests, which is harsher sentences, more surveillance, more policing. Law enforcement disproportionately target certain people.
Incarceration rates rise. As the numbers go up this justifies and it's like, Hey, there's more people in here. There's too many people in here. We gotta get more prisons. On top of that, we have a, a social issues being criminalized, right? Instead of actually being addressed systemically. And so prisons grow.
People believe that they're helpful and we need them because these issues have been criminalized. I even, it's, it's that people are fucking campaigning off of it. And so as the prisons grow, we have this, oh, well, we need to have more of them then. And as people campaign on crime rates that aren't actually true, people believe yes, we need more of them.
And so the cycle restarts as corporations realize we can make a profit from this and we are going to push to have more prisons built. And it just keeps going around and around. But you do see how part of it, there is definitely a starting point to that, which is that. Folks want profit, man. They wanna fucking make money.
It's greed and it's greed off of like gross shit, right? To me, it's pretty fucking terrible. And, and hopefully it does. These, these two examples highlight this self reinforcing nature of things. And like I said before, when I was writing out this, this, um, uh, what is it called? This outline, I was really sitting with the words.
I, I really wanted to make sure the words were accurate here. And I do like this. Phrase this term self-reinforcing because it speaks to the fact that these systems aren't addressing actual demands. They are creating the demands, right? They're not like their continued growth is not supported by, they have a product that's addressing growing demands.
No. They are literally creating the demand and then self-justifying or self-reinforcing, right? And at the heart of it is profit and greed, right? Capitalism will fuck you. Uh. I've said in the past that I was okay with capitalism and that was honestly before I learned the word commerce. Thank you Lord Jean.
There was confusion there. I'm okay with com commerce. We, we always do. It's great. Amazing capitalism. No, it is extractive in nature and it demands infinite profit from finite resources and a and a closed system. That ain't it.
So let's move on to the funnel industrial complex, right? If you are at all in the online space, you've heard of the word funnels. If you're in my ecosystem, then there's a good chance you know that I hate that word only slightly less than I hate the word systems, right? Just. Just so we're on the same page here, definition wise, a funnel is simply a structured sequence of steps that's designed to take someone from their, an initial awareness of the product, of the offer, of the service, the company, to purchasing something, right?
That's the funnel. The funnel industrial complex speaks to that self-reinforcing nature of the funnel industry. You get a funnel, you get a funnel, you'll get a funnel. Everybody gets a funnel funnel on funnels, on funnels, on funnels, on funnels. And you gotta make more complex and keep going. And this one didn't work.
And so you gotta make it even more complex. And if you want people to buy, the only way that they're gonna buy is if they're in a funnel. No. So the funnel industrial complex, right, which again is rooted in profit early. Online marketers. So we're thinking about people like, um, what is his name? Uh, from Product Launch Formula.
Jeff, I can't even remember his name. Um, but we see the early these and, and, and Russell Bronson. He came later though. Um, Jeff from PLF came like earlier, way before, but either way, these earlier marketers, anyone that's in the game, in the business earlier in the space earlier. They start selling things online and they realize, Hey, I can sell stuff online.
What they end up selling to other people is their system, and they sell them as this like universally applicable system, the PLF formula, product launch formula, right From here, we start to see software companies come into the mix, um, on other coaches that utilize this, right? And they, they join this and they're just like, yes, I'm gonna sell.
Funnel as the only path to success if you're not even having success. 'cause your funnel is not good. So then the market creators, they adopt these funnels that use them because they believe, Hey, if I want to succeed, I have to do this. Right. I was actually first introduced to PLF through, uh, doc Gen Fitch.
She was, I was like, I came to the online space and I was like, I gotta, I'm thinking about selling this course. And she was like, buy this book. I have it. I'm looking over to the side. I'm like, I have it right. You, you get into the online space and you're like, I don't really know how to do this. And so you go and you, you read something and you don't have to do it that way.
I didn't do it that way because I was like, this is, seems too complex for me. Uh, but many people do, right? What happens is the market, at some point we're here, becomes saturated with predictable, you know, funnels a speci, especially like a specific type of funnel, the audience becomes fatigued, resistant, skeptical, and not buying in the same way.
And so creators are sold. Newer, more complex funnels to fix those declining results, which creates another cycle of the funnel industrial complex, right? Another cycle where we got these marketers, these business coaches, these software companies that are like, oh, I'm making some money. 'cause people are buying 'cause they think that this thing is gonna be the thing that allows 'em to make a zillion dollars.
And it allows people to, you know, crack the code. Right. Don't get me wrong folks, I am not like super opposed to strategy, right? But also the strategy can be that you have a really fucking good product or offer or services to help people and then it gets results for them. And then they share how good you are and then you ask them to share it with their friends.
And more than that, though, they share it of their own accord or they, you know, give you testimonials and then more people come in and they get results and they share how good you are. And that's the cycle. Right. We tend to see this definitely a lot more in the, in the in-person space. Um, and we see it in people that have been in business for a longer time.
Right. But online where you really, when, when you're just getting started, it's a space where you can't really like, lean into like that physical gorilla marketing tactics. And so people have been, you know, led to believe that you need to make every touch point, you know, on every piece of content it needs to move people towards a sale, which is just like, ew.
It doesn't have to be right. Everything does not have to move someone towards a sale, and every sell does not need to be some huge, complex ordeal. Again, I am not against strategy. I'm not against selling. Right? You, you have to, yes, absolutely put your offers in front of people and if you're like writing about something and like, you know, the footer of your email says the ways people work, like that's fine.
By all means. I am just here to open people's eyes to this like. This funnel industrial complex and the fact that it's just like funnels being pushed upon and pushed and pushed and pushed as the only way, and that like every single touch point has to lead to a sale. And that, like, it's just, it doesn't have to be that way.
And also consumers don't want that. Right. I actually wrote my mafia about this last week. Um, this episode's kind of inspired by what happened last week, which was, um, a family down the road, like they were, I dunno, two like avenues away. They're moving and they had put like two, like we have really big garbage bins that come around you.
If you folks follow me, you know that the recycling truck comes and it gets those big bins. So they had put two of those out in the street and they had put poster board on them. They taped it to it and it just, it was a simple sign that said, Hey, uh, can you please not park here? Uh, we're trying to save this space for a large moving truck that's coming tomorrow.
And said it in fewer words, but it was very much like, please moving truck. Don't park here. And it said the people's names. That was it. Two of 'em. So I saw this on whatever night and I was like, well, I guess in the morning I'll see if it worked. And I walked back the day the next morning. 'cause I, I was walking moose.
That's when I saw it. And there was a huge fucking moving truck there. Right. It had worked. Right. A, a kind and simple ask can also work. Right. I just, I just wanna, you know, present the other side of things. Uh, we've gone so far into. This side of things, and it's like, all right, don't forget about the simple, just ask.
Right. I know that I personally have spoken about professionalizing the creator economy. It was, I talked about it last episode in, um, when I was speaking about substack. I've talked about an actual episode that was professionalizing the, the creator economy, but that does not require that we dehumanize the, the, the creator economy.
Right. Professionalizing. It doesn't mean dehumanizing it, right? Remember that you're selling to humans and you yourself be a human, right? Given that we are working with humans, understand that. You know, the pendulum always goes too far before it comes back. And I think we are in that phase of it coming back.
I think we're entering that phase and, and people, and, and everything that's happening with this current administration is really expediting that. I think Covid expedited it. And then, then now this current administration is ex is expediting the fact that people want, uh, you know, there's a growing affinity.
Nostalgia. A return to shopping small and supporting mom and pop shops, and supporting the individual creator and wanting more human interaction and connection, right? I remember doing Covid. I was like, can I speak to a fucking person? I don't want another robot. When I go and look for the help desk, I don't wanna go to the BA chat bot.
I'm like, Jesus, no, you're not gonna be able to solve my problem. Right. And I, I am still buying things right now. Yeah, the economy's being bad, but if I'm spending my money, I'm like, I wanna spend it on supporting individuals that I know, that I like, that I trust, that I believe in. I don't wanna give it to some big, huge, you know, corporation.
So again, I am not, I. Anti-tech. I am not anti strategy. I use both to a certain degree, especially the tech side of things, right. But I'm not going super deep dive with like, oh, I got all these automations so that I can have all this deep dive, crazy upsell, downsell order bump and all of this shit to, to, you know, move people through a funnel like.
If that's your thing, by all means, keep going. Enjoy it. But if you are listening to this being like, should I do more with my funnel? Is my funnel the problem? Do I need a funnel like we're just wanting to hear about funnels? This is my take on it, right? My goal for this episode is largely to open your eyes and perhaps put some words to this that I think that I know you.
That this thing that I believe you know exists, right? And the system that we are very much being served and that we're inside of, right? Which is the funnel industrial complex, right? You very likely do not need a better funnel or a new funnel, especially like if you're just starting out, right? Especially so.
This is my continued reminder that your business is an opportunity to do things, how you want to do them, and to start doing them that way. Right now, I spoke about the last update from before was, you know, people just being like, I'm not doing great and I don't have much hope and I get it. And one of the things we can do is if you have a business, use it.
Use it to, to lead and to sell. To run a business in the way that you want it to be done, in the way that you would like to see commerce being done the way that you would like to be sold to. Right. Alright. Getting worked up. So I'm gonna get outta here. See, wanna put back there? Doesn't even care as always.
Endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you, I haven't put out a call to action in, in a bit. Um, but if you're listening, one, thank you. Two, if you have any requests. It's always open, the door's always open. Shoot me a DM at the movement maestro, shoot me a text. 3 1 0 7 3 7 2 3 4 5.
I would love to hear from you. The text will be green. It is a sideline. I'm not giving out my personal number, God on, um, but it is me. All right, and I, I would love to hear from you. All right. All right. That's all I got for you again, thank you. Truly, truly grateful. Until next time, friends maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
My reel on changing Lex’s oil
Ryan Cooler on his movie, Sinners
MOTM #649: Professionalizing the Creator Economy
MOTM #661: Should You Start a Substack?
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