Lessons in success from my 8 year old son.

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Hey, everyone. This is Russell Brunson, and I want to welcome you to a late night “Marketing in Your Car.”

I’m actually headed back home. Todd is in town. We launched Click Funnels last week. It’s been a smashing success, and now we’re doing the other side of the software business, which is keeping up with customer support [laughs], and features, and bugs, and all of that fun kind of stuff. It’s been a lot of fun. He flew in today, and we’re going to be hanging out this week, cleaning it up, and making it perfect so that we can do our big, big launch here. Hopefully within the next twenty or thirty days or so – we’ll plan that out tomorrow, but I’m super excited for that.

I wanted to do a podcast today, because I wanted to share a story that happened this afternoon with my son, Dallin. Dallin is the little entrepreneur in our family, for sure, and he’s always trying to figure out how to make more money. He’s doing yard sales and lemonade stands and all sorts of stuff.

Yesterday, he told my wife, Collette, that he wanted to open up a bank account. He has a couple of dollars, and she’s like, “Well you have to have more money to open a bank account.” So he’s like, “Well I need to make more money so I can open a bank account,” so that’s his mindset. We were driving home from church today, and he had this idea. He said, “Hey, mom and dad, if I lose a tooth today, then the tooth fairy can give me some money, and I can use that money to open a bank account.” I said, “Yeah, but how are you going to lose a tooth?” He said, “What I’m going to do is I’m going to get a string, and I’m going to tie it around my tooth, and I’ll tie it to a door handle, and I’ll slam the door, and my tooth will get pulled out.”

We kind of laughed and giggled, and that’s where I thought it was going to end. Fast forward thirty minutes later, we’re in the house, and my wife and I are making lunch for the kids and getting everything ready for that, and I keep hearing the door slam upstairs. I totally forgot about what’s happening, and so I’m yelling upstairs, “Quit slamming the door,” and then Bowen yells down, “It’s Ellie slamming it. She’s trying to pull out Dallin’s tooth.” [laughs] I was like, “Oh man, hold on,” and so like any good dad would do, I went and grabbed my phone, because I wanted to get this on tape [laughs], so I grabbed my phone, and I ran upstairs. He’d gotten the ribbon from wrapping paper on a Christmas box, and he’d tied a little knot around his tooth, and then he’d tied it to the door. All of the kids were up there trying to figure out how to make Dallin some money, and Dallin was literally trying to pull his tooth out so he could make money so that he could open up a savings account.

What was so funny was he was standing on the wrong side of the door, so when he would slam it, the string would actually get shorter instead of pulling it, and two of the times they were doing it, they were perplexed. They were like, “Why is this not working? Why is it not working?” Then they were both like, “Dallin, you’ve got to be on this side of the door.” I’m filming this whole thing on my phone, so Dallin goes on the inside, and they start slamming the door from the inside trying to pull his tooth out [laughs]. They would slam it, and sometimes the ribbon on his tooth would pop off, and other times it would start sliding through his teeth and not pull all of the way out. Anyway, I got, probably five or six times, them slamming the door and trying to lose his tooth. I thought it was really funny. Then I had them stop so that we could come down and have lunch.

I started thinking about it. I started thinking about this little kid, right? My little Dallin – he’s eight years old, and he’s got in his mind, he needs money.—““I need to figure out how to make some money.” There’re a lot of things he can do. He can do chores. He knows he can make some money doing that, but thought, “A quick way I can make money is to rip one of my teeth out.” Instead of thinking about it and how it’s going to hurt and all of these things, he just went and did it – just got out there and tied a string to his tooth, tied it to a doorknob, and started slamming the door trying to rip his tooth out.

I was proud of him, not because I thought it was the smartest idea to do, but I just look at how many entrepreneurs I have a chance to work with and how many people I work with. Most of them want something, and they want money. They want whatever, but then when you lay out, “Here’s the steps you need to do to accomplish that goal and get that thing you want,” they don’t do it. They’ll buy course after course after course, and they’ll learn, and they’ll hear, and they’ll have ideas and all of these things in their head, but they’re not willing to step up and fricking tie a string to their tooth and slam the door.

I think that that’s one of the biggest problems with people today. I’m so proud of Dallin for doing that – for getting off his butt, tying a string to his tooth, and slamming the door trying to make some money. I think that for any of you guys that are listening to this who are on that fence right now, and you’ve been in this learning cycle, and you’re learning, and you’re learning, and you’re enjoying this learning cycle, it’s time to get off your butt, tie a string to your tooth, and slam the door. I really think that mindset, that attitude, that thing that Dallin has, whatever that is, and I’m proud of him as my son for doing that, but it’s what all of us need.

I look at the things in my life that have been successful, and a lot of it is because of that – because I’ve just gone out there and tried to do that thing. If you’re struggling, this is your call to action. This is your time to get off your butt, tie a string to your tooth, and slam the door, and go out there and find these things. Just do it. Do what it takes to make money. It’s going to be painful. It might cost you some money. You have to get out of your comfort zone. You’re going to have to stretch probably further than you’ve ever stretched before in your life. You’re going to have to have some sleepless nights. You’re going to have to risk some of your own hard-earned money, and you’re going to have to be able to do a lot of work to reach your dream and to have what you want, but it’s worth it, I promise you guys. It is so worth it.

Anyway, that’s my message for you guys today. I thought it was kind of a fun story. If my eight-year-old son, to earn fifty cents or a dollar, whatever the tooth fairy would bring him [laughs], he would have done it, is willing to tie a string on his tooth – on a tooth that’s not even loose [laughs], and try to rip it out to make a buck, what are you willing to do? What are you willing to do to change your life? If you’re not willing to do something, then you’re probably going to keep being it at the spot you’re at right now, so figure out what you’re willing to do, get off of your butt, and go do it. That’s my message for tonight.

Thanks, you guys. I’m sure you’re going to be hearing more from me this week. I’m back from vacation now, and we’re having some fun rolling out the new company. I’m excited to be sharing all of the little behind-the-scenes things that are happening with you guys. Thanks, again, and I’ll talk to you soon.

How to trick your mind to get crap done.

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Good morning, everyone. This is Russell Brunson, and I want to welcome you to “Marketing in Your Car”.

Hi, everyone. Today is an exciting day. It’s a Monday, and we are about to launch Click Funnels. This week is our execution week, which is kind of fun. Now, luckily for me, my wife and kids went out of town this week. They’ve gone camping for the next three days, which basically means I get to pull all-nighters for three nights in a row, launch this thing, and then pass out for two weeks straight, unless there’re issues. Then it means I’ve got to not pass out for a week straight [laughs], but I’m fired up and excited.

I wanted this podcast just to talk about the process of actually getting a project or a product, whatever you want to call it, out of the door. I know that it’s something that all of us go through, and it’s funny. Todd and I were talking about this as we’ve been getting all of this stuff done. It’s kind of like, I think it’s Pareto’s Law, where no matter how much time you have left before the launch date, things will always fill up all of the available time to get things done. That’s what I’m feeling like right now. Literally, the launch date was two months ago, and then one month ago, and then this week, it’s happening, win, lose, or draw, and we still have so much stuff that’s got to be done [laughs], but it’s at the point now where we’re going to make it happen, and we’re put it out there. We’ll do whatever it takes and kill ourselves and get it done, and then we’ll back fill it, and fix any issues we see along the way.

I think one of the things that keeps most people from ever getting their projects out there, and I’m guessing most of you have got at least one, if not ten or twenty projects [laughs] that are mostly done, but they’re not finished yet. They’re not pushed out the door. People, a lot of times, ask me, “Russell, how do you get so much stuff done. How do you get so many things out the door?” I think part of it is because of the philosophy we started using five or six – I don’t know, maybe longer – seven or eight years ago.

It started when I heard a tape that was called “The Scuttlebutt Tape” from Gary Halbert and – it wasn’t John Carlton – Gary Halbert and Michael Fortin were talking about copywriting stuff, and one of the things that Halbert talked about was this concept called “Lead or Gold”. It was interesting to me because he talked about, and again, I don’t know if the story’s true or not, but the illustration of what he shared was powerful for me. He said that down in Mexico that when the mafia warlords wanted to change laws, they would go to the government and say, “Hey, you need to change this law.” The government would be like, “No. We’re not going to do that for you. That’s crazy.” [laughs] So what they would do then is the mafia would go and break in to people’s houses late at night – the government officials. They would wake them up out of their sleep, and they would come up to them, and they would have a gun and a bag of gold, and they would say, “We need you to change this law tonight, and you’ve got two options – lead or gold. Which one do you want? Do you want a bullet to the head, or would you like some cash?” Very quickly, somehow, laws were able to be changed. When the options are lead or gold, it’s pretty easy to get things done [laughs].

I started thinking of that in my business. How many times do we have projects where we’re like, “Oh, we’re going to launch this week. Oh, okay, next week,” and six years later, nothing’s ever happened. We started setting these deadlines, and we called them “lead or gold deadlines”, where it’s like, “We’re launching Tuesday at noon. Win, lose, or draw, it’s happening, and we’ve got two options – either lead or gold, and we’ve got to make this happen.”

When you give yourself those two options, and those two options only, it’s amazing what kind of stuff you can get done. It’s amazing how you can get people to stay late, and you can stay late, and you can work harder, and you can do whatever it takes. You’ll get that project done. So for us and all of our coaching groups who have been here for the last five or six years, I always talk about this, and I say, “Look, when you guys get home from this event, or home from whatever it is that you’ve learned about something, you have to go and set lead or gold deadlines for each step of the process.” You say, “Look, for me, first I’ve got to get the sales stuff done, okay? So my deadline is next Tuesday at three – lead or gold. There’s nothing that can move that date. I will die if it doesn’t happen,” and you just make sure it happens.

Then the next one – “We’re going to have this part done by this day, and you set that lead or gold deadline, and then you hit it, and you keep doing those things. For most of you guys who aren’t getting the things done that you want, it’s because you’re too soft on yourselves. You let yourselves off the hook, like, “Oh well, we ran out of time. We’ll do it tomorrow,” and when you do that, it keeps getting pushed forever, because of Pareto’s law where as much time as you give it, things will always fill up the expanse of that time, no matter what it is, and so I promise you guys, if you want your project tomorrow or a month from now, either way, you’re going to be up until three or four  or five o’clock in the morning the night before cramming to get it done, and so why not pick the date that’s earliest and get you more money?

That’s what we’re doing. I’m going in to the office now. We’ve got two and a half days away from launch time, and we picked our deadline, and we are going to hit it, and no matter what happens, we will make it work, and I’m excited. I’m fired up. It’s going to be an awesome day today. I hope you guys have a good day as well. Set some lead or gold deadlines, and we will see you guys again on the next episode. Thanks, everyone.

What really happened over the last three days…

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Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson, and I want to welcome you once again to “Marketing in Your Car”.

So first off, I want to say that I think it’s about time we get a new theme song. What do you guys think? [laughs] The 1980s initial version is about ready to be retired, I think, so that’s going to be first on my list for this week.

Anywho, it’s been a little while since I’ve done a podcast. The reason why is that I’ve been neck deep in getting ready to launch Click Funnels, and I’m guessing from the outside, everything seems so calm and simple and easy for what we’re doing. We launched the first pre-launch video yesterday, but there’s always a story behind the story, and so I thought I would just share that to you guys while I’m heading in to the office, because I think it’s always fun.

First off, Click Funnels has been a big project [laughs]. We’ve been going crazy trying to get all of the templates done, working and testing them on every browser, and on and on and on, and it’s been a ton of work on that side, but it’s turning out amazingly. For the last three or four nights in a row, I’ve been pulling sixteen hour days. I work eight hours, go home and play with the kids, and then go back another eight hours, and then come home and sleep for a few hours, and then go back again. It’s been a lot of work on that side.

The last week we started planning out the pre-launch. What should we do? How should we do it? My team member, John Parkes, and I sat down and we brainstormed out an idea that it would be fun to have Chris, our number one designer, go head to head with somebody who’d never used Click Funnels before, and see who could build a website the fastest. We started brainstorming these ideas, and it went from this really simple idea to us renting out an octagon and having these two fight it out in the octagon. We got really excited. This was Thursday.

I had this guy who wanted to do the video, so I called him up and said, “Hey, do you have some time next week to do videos?” He said, “No, I’m flying into Tokyo on Monday.” I was like, “On Monday? Crap. I need these before Monday.” He’s like, “I have tomorrow, Friday, if you want to do it then.” I’m like, “All right, man. Let’s do it,” and so Thursday night, I’m scrambling to try to write scripts for this four video launch sequence. Typically I think, most people spend a couple of weeks writing out scripts to launch a brand-new company [laughs], but literally, I had to do it in about an hour.

Then I had to find an octagon, so I’m calling around, and luckily, some of my buddies own an MMA gym and we were able to rent an octagon. We got the camera person in. I needed to find somebody to be the other person competing against Chris. One of my friends is an author in town. She’s written a book, and she’s been super successful. She’s a life coach, and she also certifies life coaches, so I called her and begged her, and she dropped everything, moved all of her appointments around so she could show up and be the other person, and on and on and on.

That day, I get a call from the Ferrari place, because my Ferrari, which is a whole other story for another podcast, has been in the shop for six weeks. They’re like, “The Ferrari’s done,” and I’m like, “Oh, sweet. We can have the Ferrari in the video.” So I raced down to go grab the Ferrari, and on my way back, trying to get home, it died about thirteen times [laughs], so it still doesn’t actually work, but at least it moves forward long enough so you can catch a glimpse of us driving it on the video [laughs].

So we put the whole thing together, and then the video guy is scrambling because he’s flying to Tokyo Monday morning at 6 a.m., so he’s scrambling to edit the videos and put it all together and get all of his stuff done. Then he texts me Sunday night at about five in the morning and says, “Hey, I got it pretty much done. I left the hard drive out in front of my house, and you can go grab it, and hopefully the files will all work for you.” [laughs]

So I go and grab the thing, and it looked good, but there were some tweaks I needed, and my brother, who’s my main video guy, was heading out of town Monday morning, so I called him and tell him and his wife they can’t leave yet, and so he goes down on his computer and he’s editing the videos and tweaking some stuff to get it just perfect [laughs]. I swear, his wife is probably cursing me out, because they were leaving on this big family vacation. We get that back, and then at the same time, we’re in the process of moving our e-mail auto-responders again, for about the third time this year, to this company called MaroPost, and we’re having issues there. We can’t get the list imported [laughs], and then their scrubbing process, which should take an hour, took about three days.

Then we started building out the launch funnel inside Click Funnels, and honestly, the only funnel I’d never tested yet was the launch funnels, so we started testing them. The first time around, there’re always issues that come with any funnel. Then we’re rebuilding our entire launch funnel sequences and Click Funnels and we’re adding features, and it’s like this storm of things, literally, for the last four or five days. I don’t even know.

Finally, yesterday, I was in the office, and I hadn’t slept in about three days in a row. I literally am living off of our supplement that we’re launching in the MMA market, called “MMA Ignite”. I take a shot of that, every few hours to wake me back up, but the effects of it had stopped working yesterday. I think my body was just done. I was just dragging, putting all of the pieces together, and then finally we got the launch page up. We got the video live. MaroPost uploaded. I sent the e-mail out to the list, and I sat down, and I was just like [sighs], “We did it.” I was so excited.

I went home, played with the kids for a bunch of time, and then checked my phone, and a whole bunch of people were texting, “Man, that video is awesome. It’s the best video you’ve ever done.” You know, all of the things people message me on Facebook and stuff about how impressed they were with it all, and how good the scripts were and everything. It just made me smile, knowing that we pulled the whole thing off, literally, in about a day, if even that. I think it turned out pretty good, so behind the exterior, there’s always crazy stuff happening inside.

Oh, and not only that, we’ve got our support team, right? We ramped up because we were getting ready for Click Funnels, but then, low and behold, Neuracel just went crazy, and so we’ve got three full-time support people who’re doing Neuracel, and we have no one to support Click Funnels, so we’ve been scrambling and trying to hire people in Boise. We haven’t found anyone good.

Luckily, thankfully, and hopefully some of you guys listening have probably got some great friends who’ve volunteered who are good at something, like Garrett Pierson. He’s the owner of a whole bunch of sites, Trust Guard, Shopper Approved, Kart Rocket. He just dedicated his time. He’s coming up for a week to work for free just to help us during the launch week [laughs]. We’ve got a couple of other people that are I met on Facebook that are friends that are going to come in and work for a couple of weeks. People are literally flying here just to help out with the launch, just to help us so that it will go off opefullyHwithout a hitch while we’re finding a more long-term support team.

So anyway, it’s just kind of crazy. I’m grateful for everyone on my team that’s made this happen. I’m grateful for everybody outside of it, people like Garrett and others, who don’t have any vested interest, but just care about me and about us enough to come and throw in a helping hand. Some really cool things are happening, but I just wanted to share that, because I’m sure a lot of you guys, in your business, you see you’re doing stuff, and you feel like nothing’s working, and you’re going crazy, and you’re freaking out. Even though it may look like on the outside that we have it all together all of the time, we’re just like everybody else. It’s a lot of work and a lot of juggling, and when it all comes together in the end, it feels really, really good.

I’m excited. Launch Week is in less than a week – Launch Day. We’re just going to launch to our internal list first and we’re going to test that out and make sure we can handle the support, and then we’ll open it up to affiliates after that. It’s pretty exciting.

After I got home last night, after the kids went down, I had a chance to finally watch “24”, which was awesome, because it’s was Wednesday night, so I’ve had two or three nights in a row of wishing I could watch it, but I’ve been too busy working. I got to watch it last night. It was exciting, and I wish that show would never end. For those guys who are watching it right now, they only have twelve episodes a season, and they just finished up with number ten, so there’s only two more to go. We should have a 24-Dot Com Secrets “Marketing in Your Car” party for everyone. That would be fun.

Anyway, I’m in the office. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’ve got to go clean up a couple more messes and stuff for video number two, but I’m excited for it all. I appreciate you guys listening. I hope you got something out of this one, and I’ll talk to you guys all again soon.