The Grinder &
The Fox

“This kid is magical. Captivates a room. Actually helps people. We both know how rare that is.”

That’s Jason Gilbert, on the phone with me, about someone named Stefan Aarnio.

“But,” Jason goes on, “he needs help.”

Jason is a commercial real estate genius, brilliant coach, and a client of mine. If he says a speaker is “magical”, I listen. I was happy to take the referral, but unlike most of my clientele at the time, Stefan was virtually unheard of.

May 9th, 2014

Our first call was…not promising.

“I’ve been burned before,” Stefan said. He was cold. Smart enough to know he needed to start marketing online, but wise enough, even at his young age, to remain stoic. I liked that about him.

At first, he just needed some email copy and video sales letter scripts.

Then help with Infusionsoft/Keap.

Then web design.

First ads we managed for him were promoting his REIA Club in Winnipeg.

It took a while, but he finally warmed up.

Wait For The Wolf, Who Should Be Coming Directly

“You remind me of that guy from Pulp Fiction,” he said.

Oh boy, I hope he doesn’t mean one of the hit men.

“Remember when they are in deep shit with blood and brains splattered all over their car? So they call the boss, freaking out? Remember what he tells them?”

Many Pulp Fiction fans remember what Marsellus Wallace told Julius the hit man…

…but not Stefan.

Well, not exactly. “He tells the hitman to relax because he’s sending in The Fox!”

Of course, in the film, the character he is referring to is known as The Wolf, not The Fox. But I never corrected him. I took it as a compliment and told myself that he mutated the character just for me.

“Whenever I need help with this business fast, I just call you. The Fox!”

Indeed, I got that call a lot.

What Do You Know About Funnels, Fox?

“I know a lot.”

But the funnels he wanted were a flop. Convoluted. And worst of all, he made a lot of homework for himself. I see this happen a lot. First campaign out of the gate they want to invent a bunch of new products from scratch. Some “guru” said to do it or some competitor was “killing it” or some “funnel hacker” suggested it. I knew better.

“Instead of funnel hacking competitors,” I tell him, “why not funnel hack yourself?”

Silence — because if you repeat that sentence out loud, quickly, it sounds like I told him to F himself.

“I mean it. Why are we re-inventing anything? We should be taking what we know works for you OFFLINE and simply repurposing it ONLINE.”

More silence.

Then…

Stefan says, “Every single one of my top students, and every speaking gig I get offered, is because of one thing...”

The Five Million Dollar Book

Things changed. First slowly, then fast.

The book showed people how to raise capital, a lot of it, for real estate deals. Stefan revealed how he raised over $5,000,000 for his own business. Called it “Money. People. Deal.”

We handled the copy, graphics, landing pages, CRM, etc.

Writers assume this is easy, but most authors don’t know how to sell their own books. Enter foxes, like me.

The email campaign to the house list launched first. Crushed it. Sold a $50 bundle. High-converting up-sell. Great leads.

People loved this book!

But remember, this was the house list. They were warmed up to Stefan already. And there were only a few thousand of them.

If we were going to establish Stefan Aarnio as the elite author and coach that he was destined to be, then we were going to have to scale up. That meant advertising.

Winter ‘16

We launched the book funnel to cold audiences with Facebook Ads. It was November, 2016. Still the Wild West on Facebook.

I had filled a lot of seminars all across North America with Facebook Ads. Generated a ton of leads, too. For all kinds of clients. But this was the first funnel selling nothing but a book.

Sounds easy, but…

No easy task when you consider that the book offer was just the “top line” of this campaign. We weren’t just trying to generate book buyers — we need to attract readers who would eventually become students. Becoming a student of Stefan’s required a serious investment. Cheap leads weren’t going to cut it. So we went to work.

In just November and December of 2016 we generated 152 customers that went on to make 252 purchases.

Total sales were $142,916.11.

Just $6,566.77 in ad spend.

Insane ROI.

Like I said, it was still the Wild West.

In 2017 we did even better.

We were off to the races.

And stayed on track.

Until…

Hard Times

“Sorry I got cancer.”

He said it just like you read it. As if it was rude of him to get cancer. He was joking, of course. Some off-color humor is normal for men in stressful times. Another thing I liked about Stefan, we made each other laugh.

We were supposed to meet in Winnipeg.

I got the call from his assistant on May 13th, 2018. The night before my trip.

“We have to cancel. He never left Vegas. He’s in the hospital.”

Strong Man

I don’t know all (or any) of the treatment options oncologists offer cancer patients, but I am certain none of them include retreating to the jungle for over a month — and fasting the entire time.

But that’s what Stefan did.

Would he come back alive? Would he remain in the jungle and become a hermit? At times I thought he might evaporate into a cloud of sparkling, radiant dust like he was summoned to the next plane of existence.

You may think I’m joking. I’m not. That was Stefan.

While he was gone, I did all I could to maintain the momentum we generated with the book, course, and coaching business — what would later become Black Card U. We had multiple book funnels going now and a lot of email lead generation going.

But without Stefan, it was just kind of boring.

Great Times

When Stefan returned from the jungle it was like a miracle. Jason Gilbert was right, this kid is magical. Cancer-free and stronger than ever, Stefan had a renewed sense of purpose.

He was on a mission.

Hard Times Create Strong Men was his most controversial book yet, but it changed the course of his destiny, and many others’. As a cancer survivor, successful author, and award-winning entrepreneur, Stefan served as the ultimate champion for the book’s message of self-reliance and liberty in times of rapid, disruptive change.

He looked better than ever, too.

Lean, but not skinny. Eyes had life in them again. Dropped the tailored suits and donned his American flag sweater. His energy was contagious and many new students followed.

Funnel-Hack My Ass, Bro!

The most rewarding part of being Stefan’s “outsourced CMO” was the freedom to go against convention, best practices, and so-called “gurus” formulas.

• We removed course up-sells from our book funnel instead of annoying leads with more.
• Our email follow-up sequence was free content & indoctrination instead of pitching.
• We stopped doing “launches” and webinars.

Sales went up.

Sales cycles shortened.

The coaching & training part of his business was making more money, faster.

Of the 1,032 promotional emails we wrote and sent on Stefan’s behalf so far, we beat benchmark open and click-to-open rates on almost every broadcast.

Even the Facebook ads defied “conventional wisdom”.

Stefan empowered the marketing & creative team to do what we had to do. Truly refreshing (and highly effective, too).

Best of all, his students were actually doing deals. Success rate was phenomenal.

So it’s time to scale up even more, right?

C.D.C. W.H.O. W.T.F?

December 2019. Wuhan. Wet markets. Bats. Lockdowns. Riots. Elections.

2020. 2021. Whatever.

I’m skipping around here.

I’m skipping around because we all want to skip the tragic irony: Stefan beat cancer once, only to have to fight it again — this time with a different outcome.

I’m skipping around because this is a tribute…

…because I’d rather remember Stefan at the top of his game.

Abracadabra!

I earned my first online commission check in 1998. Affiliate marketing. I was just out of high school promoting offers on message boards. That was my first taste.

Like Stefan, I played music and gave rock stardom a try. Fun, but didn’t last long.

Went to school for software engineering. But coding is boring.

By 2003 I’m working at one of the biggest email marketing companies in America, Data Resource Consulting. (founder was on the front page of The Wall Street Journal).

Moved on to a division of Think Partnership (the biggest conglomerate of marketing companies in the world at the time) to manage 7-figure Google AdWords campaigns.

But corporate was too rigid.

Freelancing was better. Better clients. More rewarding. Autonomy. Experimentation. Everything a creative marketer like me wanted. But still, there were times it felt dull.

Dull only because I’d done it so long, so many times. (And by 2014 I had done it a lot).

Once in a while, you need a jolt. Something to remind you of why you started. Something besides money or “success” to keep you going.

Once in a while, you need something to believe in.

That’s when the phone rang. It was Jason Gilbert.

“Do you believe in magic?”