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Marketing Secrets

Welcome To Russell Brunson’s Marketing Secrets Podcast. So, the big question is this, “How are entrepreneurs like us, who didn’t cheat and take on venture capital, who are spending money from our own wallets, how do we market in a way that lets us get our products and services and things that we believe in out to the world… and yet still remain profitable?” That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to MarketingSecrets.com.
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Now displaying: June, 2017
Jun 30, 2017

What was going through my mind when tipping at IHOP.

On today’s episode Russell talks about going out to breakfast with his daughter for her birthday and how watching the server work so hard to make a small wage made Russell wonder why he didn’t work somewhere that he could make more money, and how that relates to being an entrepreneur. Here are a few interesting things in this episode:

  • How Russell would increase his ticket sales if he were still a server.
  • How waiters increasing ticket sales relates to being an entrepreneur.
  • And why if you can’t be the cheapest in your industry, you should be the most expensive.

So listen to Russell’s awesome advice on how to increase your ticket sales and make more profit for yourself.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody, this is Russell. Welcome to Marketing Secrets while I’m in my car. This is a flashback from a podcast earlier. I’m doing this right now because, first off, I hung out with Justin Williams last weekend and he yelled at me, “you used to do podcasts every single week, three or four times a week. But now that you’re not in your car, you’re not doing them very often.” I’m like, crap he’s right.

I’m driving to get my haircut today because it’s huge. I figured out how to mount this thing in my car so I can do it while driving, so nobody yells at me. That’s what actually happened, I was doing the podcast with the camera, when I did marketing in your car with my phone nobody ever yelled at me. But when they saw me on video I got yelled at by everybody, so I stopped doing it that way. But now that it’s mounted up I can drive and talk and not even pay attention to you guys. No yelling at me, alright. That’s the deal.

Alright, so with that said, today is a cool day for a couple of reasons. Number one, it’s my daughter’s ten year old birthday, which is insanely cool. So this morning, I’m actually flying out today, so this morning I had a chance to go and take her out to breakfast. Her breakfast of choice was IHop, and I was like, “Come on, we can take you to Waffle Me Up or any of these cool places.” and she was like, “No, I want IHop.” As we’re driving there I’m like, “There’s only two kinds of people that like IHop, Ellie.” And she’s like, “Who are they?” and I was like, “Grandma’s and little kids. Watch when we get there how many grandma’s are there.” So we got in there and we counted and there was 13 or 14 grandmas in there and then me and her. So I was like, that’s it. It was kind of funny.

Anyway, that was really fun, and then she had a birthday party. So I went and raced and got her a bike this morning and took it to the birthday party, and I’m actually heading to get my haircut because I’m flying out to Utah today, two cool things happening in Utah. Number one is the Harmon Brothers are making our viral video. They actually started filming it today, and to be completely honest, it’s kind of killing me. I wish I was there, I want to be watching it. But I couldn’t today, so I’m flying down there tomorrow to catch some behind the scenes footage and all that kind of stuff for our Funnel Hacker TV show.  So I’ll be flying down there, it’s gonna be really cool.

And the second cool thing, is I’m actually going to a meeting with Timothy Ballard, who is the dude who runs Operation Underground Railroad, which is a charity or organization, I don’t know exactly what it is, but they help save kids who have been abducted and put into sex laboring. So we’re going to be  helping build funnels and helping build that whole mission. It’s a passion project I’m really excited for. That’s what’s happening on this trip. So if you’re watching Funnel Hacker TV you’ll see the behind the scenes of that stuff. If not, go to funnelhacker.tv and go hang out with us over there too. There’s a lot of fun stuff happening.

Alright my message for you guys today, and this is something that I don’t know why more people don’t think about this, but it’s important. We went to IHop today, as you know. My daughter ordered the pancake with the fluffies and the sprinkles, there were sprinkles on it, and then bacon and an egg. Her cost is like $3 or something like that, then I go and order scrambled eggs, a side of bacon, a side of avocado, because that fits in my macros for all you healthy nerds. So our bill was like $12. And I look at the server and the server is running around, grabbing our stuff and his and grabbing waters and grabbing A1, because I love putting A1 on eggs, if you haven’t tried it, it’s insanely good. I did it one time because I had steak and eggs, and I put A1 on the steak and some of it spilled on the eggs and I ate it that way. I was like, this is an egg topping, not for steaks. So if you haven’t had A1 on your scrambled eggs yet, you should totally try it. It’s amazing.

Anyway, I digress. Where was I going with this whole thing? So the server is running around frantic, I get the bill at the end of it and I look at it, and it’s  like $12.43 or something. As someone who tips, and I’m a good tipper, so I didn’t tip him that much, I left a lot more money than that. So if I were to say, we’ll give him 10% of that, means he earned $1.25. That’s what he made from me, for all his efforts. Or if I do 15% it’s like what $2, if I do 30% it’s $3. So that’s what most people do. Especially, the grandmas at IHop, they have their little calculators out and figuring out, “Okay, I owe him $1.13.” and give exactly the tip, but if you’re bad they’re going to give you 5%, if you’re okay you get 10, if you’re great you get 15. That’s how it works.

I’m looking at this, and the server was a young dude, and I’m like, “Man, he’s killing himself for this little thing.” And I was just in the office before I headed to get my haircut, which now I’m stuck in traffic and my haircuts in 3 minutes and if I miss it I’m going to go crazy. So I was talking to them, “Look, if that dude instead of getting a job at IHop where the average ticket is $12. If you’re doing the same work but got a job at a steakhouse or a sushi place where the average ticket is like $50-$100, he’d do the exact same amount of work and get way more money.” Because people tip off a percentage. So if my bill is $12, you’re getting 1.20, that’s 10%. If it’s $112, you’re getting $10, or whatever the math is, for the exact same amount of effort.

So the moral of the story is if you’re serving tables, go and sell more expensive stuff, because you are getting paid a percentage of the ticket price. So you gotta sell the most expensive thing. That’s why as a Mormon when I go and I go to restaurants and they always try to sell you alcohol because alcohol has a huge profit margin, it’s big ticket. And they can get you to buy a lot more stuff. So we never buy the alcohol and those other Mormons who are out there know, if you’re at a nice restaurant, and you don’t order alcohol, they don’t treat you as good, because they’re like, “Crap.”

So I always tell people when they ask me, “What do you want to drink?” I’m like, “Oh we don’t drink, but don’t worry, we tip really, really good.” Because I want them to know, I don’t want them to treat me like crap because I didn’t drink because my ticket price is going to be smaller. Good server’s understand that. I warn them ahead of time, I’m a really, really good tipper. I tip 30, 40, 50% sometimes 100%. I’m a really good tipper as long as you treat me good. If you treat me bad, I’m still a good tipper, but I’m a great tipper if you treat me good.

So kind of the thought, if you’re serving tables, you gotta be selling the highest ticket thing, and if I was serving tables again, which is the only job I had for real is serving tables, and I really liked it. It’s all about that, ticket price. If I were a server today, I would have people order dessert first because most of the time at the end of the meal you’re not hungry anymore. If you’re not hungry anymore you’re not going to buy dessert. So then my ticket price went down, so my tip just shrunk.

So I’d be going ahead of time like, “Look, a lot of people at the end of the meal are full, I’m going to give you a 10% discount if you order dessert first.” I would do that because it would increase the ticket price. Everyone wants dessert when you go in, but when you’re offered it, it’s hard to eat it because you’re so full.

Number two, think about Olive Garden. They started doing this a little while ago and it was brilliant. After you’re done eating they say, “Hey, what would you like to order for tomorrow?” And they had a second meal. So you’d order a second meal to take home and eat the next day. Now you just doubled your ticket price because you sold them two meals instead of one. IF I were serving tables today, the first thing I would be doing is offering dessert, take them their meal and at the end of the meal be like, “That was good, huh? I know you guys aren’t going to be coming back tomorrow, but if you want you can order off the menu right now and I’ll go package it up and you can have it tomorrow as well.” And I don’t know what percentage take it, but I know there’s a big percentage that take the second meal and now I just doubled my ticket price. And the tip will be based on the ticket price, not based on what they ate while they were sitting there.

So I’d be thinking, increased value, how can I increase my ticket? So that’s if I was serving tables again. Obviously I’m not serving tables, I’m serving entrepreneurs and a lot of them. But guess what I’m thinking, the same thing. It’s the same stuff. I know I get paid based on a percentage of what our growth is. As the entrepreneur in the company the way that I make my money, I do have a salary, because I think you legally have to do that, however that works, you can do all the W2’s and all that techie, nerdy tax stuff. But then the rest of my payment comes from a percentage of profit share. The more profit, the more I get to share. So I’m always thinking how can I increase my profit share? How can decrease costs? How can I increase the ticket value? How can I sell more expensive stuff? How can I sell more things?

And that’s what my mind said, because I know I get paid a certain percentage of what I get people to consume. So I need to get people to consume. Same way you do it if you’re at a restaurant. And what’s interesting is, a lot of time, speaking to you right now, most of us we undervalue what we do. We try to be the discount leader because that’s what we’re used to doing.

So a lot of times we put our own pricing values on other people. Like I wouldn’t may $1000 for this, so you won’t sell it for $1000. You don’t understand, that’s worth it for somebody else. So don’t try to discount your prices. So a lot of times that’s what we do, we try to discount our prices, lower ticket. We’re trying to go back to IHop and sell even though the money we make as entrepreneurs is based on the ticket price. So the bigger the ticket price, the bigger money you make. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, Dan Kennedy told me this.

“There’s no strategic advantage to being the second lowest price leader in your market.” So if you can’t be Walmart, there’s no strategic advantage of being like, “Walmart’s the cheapest, and we’re the second cheapest.” Because then you look like an idiot. There’s not strategic advantage whatsoever. But there is a huge strategic advantage of being like, “I am the most expensive guy in my market.” So if you can’t be the lowest, then be the most. Don’t be the dude’s in the middle. Because there’s no, it just doesn’t work that way.

So I want you guys to think about that. Because as entrepreneurs, you’re just like the server. You’re serving customers, serving audiences, and you get paid based on the ticket price of what people are spending. That’s why funnels are important. If I just sold people my free book and that was it, guess where I would be right now. I’d be broke. I did a Facebook Live yesterday showing 3 funnels we had inside of our book launch. Now, when all is said and done, when our book launch was over, we did over $3 million dollars in collected revenue. Obviously, that wasn’t net, that was collected gross.

What’s funny, I look at all these people who do these big product launches. $2, $3, $5,000 product launches, most of them are happing making a million to three million dollars. We did the same thing and we were giving away a free book. How? It’s because I’m just like the server. I offer dessert first and I had upsells and I offered a second meal. I did all these kind of things because I’m trying to increase the ticket price. Because that’s how I get fed as an entrepreneur. Plus it gives me the ability to serve that audience better.

The waiter that lets you order dessert ahead of time, so you still get it. The server who lets you order food and take it home, he’s serving you at a higher level. That’s why he gets paid more. He knows how to increase the ticket price, but he’s able to make the restaurant more revenue, but second off gives you a better experience. You get to have a great meal twice. Your wife doesn’t cook tomorrow, or whatever that might be. Maybe it’s you cooking, or whatever. But it all comes down to that.

That’s the moral of today’s story. I hope that helps some of you guys. I’m sure some of you guys are freaking out trying to be the cheapest possible person. And it doesn’t always work that way. Obviously you gotta look at what the market will bear, but like I said, it’s way better to be the most expensive than the cheapest.

So there you go. I’m here, I’m going to get my haircut. I’m only 4 minutes late, hopefully she didn’t cancel my appointment because I gotta get rid of this thing before I hop on a plane or I’m going to be super embarrassed. Thanks everybody for listening. If you would like to see the video version of this, go to marketingsecrets.com and you can watch the video there. Or if you’re watching the video version, go over to iTunes and subscribe to the podcast, we’re at 360 or 70 episodes now. So come hang out with us there. A lot of fun stuff happened and a lot of things you’ve missed that I want to make sure you get. With that said, thanks everybody, we’ll talk to you guys soon. Bye.

Jun 22, 2017

Why having resources will actually hurt you as an entrepreneur and how to become more resourceful.

On today’s episode Russell comes to you from his favorite place on Earth, Pirates Cove. He gives a mini tour of the premises and talks about how he was able to afford the $100,000 that it took to rent it by being resourceful. Here are some of the cool things in this episode:

  • Find out how Russell was introduced to Pirates Cove and what he had to do to be able to afford to initially bring his family and friends there.
  • Find out the difference between having resources and being resourceful. They sound similar, but they are not the same.
  • And hear a rarely told story of how Russell was able to be resourceful early in his career to be able to afford to make his first idea come to fruition.

So listen up and enjoy as Russell talks about how he was able to be resourceful enough to be at Pirates Cove without spending a single penny.

---Transcript---

Hey Everyone, this is Russell. I want to welcome you to the Marketing Secrets podcast happening today from Pirates Cove.

Alright everyone, if you’re watching the video of this, you can see I’m at the most ridiculous place on earth. If you’re listening to this, go to marketingsecrets.com and actually watch the video. I’m right now at a place called Pirates Cove, at a mastermind group. It’s insane.

See behind me, these are my kids swinging on the ropes and having fun in the water and a bunch of other amazing things. This is pretty much the craziest place I’ve ever been. It’s my favorite place on earth. Some of the back story about Pirates Cove. Again, those of you watching can see some of the scenery of this place, but basically, the back story when my twins, which this is Bowen, one of my twins right here, when they were about 6 months old, we were speaking at an event here in Las Vegas, which is where Pirates Cove is at. One of my friends had come to this place and kind of told stories about how amazing it was. He started explaining, and no matter how cool he made it sound, you’re like, “That sounds cool.” He’s like, “No you guys, you have to see it. I’m going to take you and we’re going to try to find it.”

So we started driving around, all over Las Vegas, all over Boulder City, trying to find this place called Pirates Cove, and we couldn’t find it anywhere. So we gave up and went out to eat in Boulder City, and we’re sitting there and all the sudden the owner of Pirates Cove walked out and my buddy’s like, “That’s the owner.” So we walked up to him, “hey you don’t know us, but I’ve been to Pirates Cove, it would be super cool if you could let us see it.” The guy was so cool and was like, “come on up.” And he gave us swimming suits and we swam the entire day. Like I said, Bowen here was only 6 months old, he was in diapers, we had the most amazing time ever.

And if you see this place, it’s basically on the side of this mountain, it’s a private residence, there’s 5 houses on it, there’s waterslides, in fact, I’ll take you guys up on the video so you can see the top. There’s a kid waterslide and a really cool kid pool, and then up at the top there is this huge waterslide that’s for adults, that is crazy. You go down this huge slide and then it enters into the middle of the part, there’s a huge boat, and a pirate mast, you actually jump off it. In fact, on Funnel Hacker TV you can see some video of me jumping off it. It’s pretty crazy.

So I’ll keep showing you as I’m walking around. I want to teach you guys a really cool lesson. So after we came I was like, “I want to rent this.” I want to take my family here and show everybody. So the next year we called the guy up and we were like, “We want to rent Pirates Cove, how much would that cost.” And he was like, “Oh it’s $10,000 a day with a weeklong minimum.” It was $70 or 80 thousand dollars. I was like, what? I didn’t have that kind of money at the time. I was like, “gah. But I really want to rent pirates cove, there’s gotta be a way I can rent this and show my family and my kids and experience this again.”

So the wheels in my head started spinning. And again, this comes down to Robert Kiyosaki 101. Poor people say, “I can’t afford that.” Rich people think, “How can I afford that? What can I do to be able to afford that?” So I’m thinking what do I gotta do to make $70,000 to rent this place, but obviously catering and everything else. I was like for me to do that, it’s going to cost a lot of money. I’m going to need almost a hundred grand to do it. So I was like, okay what if I found a whole bunch of cool people and invited them to come to this thing and I sold tickets to it?

So that was the idea, so what we did is basically. We went and I put out a little page and said, “10 people pay $10,000, and that’s $100,000 and covers the cost of the entire mastermind group and then we can rent it. We’ll just have a really good time.” We’ll have for it half the week for all the mastermind and when the mastermind is over, we’ll still have it for 2 or 3 days at the end, then we’ll invite my family members, at the time a bunch of employees, things like that. And that was kind of the game plan. We did it and it worked and it was amazing.

So that was the first time I had a chance to experience Pirates Cove for a whole week. Since then we’ve done it, I think this is the fourth time we’ve done it. We did it 3 years in a row then we took off 4 or 5 years, because it’s a lot of work as well. And then this year we decided to do it again. So I’m here right now with 10 entrepreneurs and we’re just having the most amazing mastermind meetings during the day when it’s 116 degrees out here. Then at night we’re playing and having fun. Our kids are here and it’s insanely cool. So that’s happening right now at Pirates Cove. Again, if you want to see some visuals of this place, go to Marketingsecrets.com and watch the video.

But the lesson I want to tell you guys is this, and hopefully you kind of got a little piece of the lesson. It comes back to what Robert Kiyosaki said, poor people say, “I can’t afford that.” Where rich people think, “How can I afford that?” So I couldn’t afford this place, I couldn’t afford to rent it, but I wanted to experience it and I wanted other people to experience it. So I had to starts thinking outside the box. What do I need to do to be able to afford that? How do I get other people to help chip in so we can actually experience this and make it an amazing thing?

In fact, a lot of my early joint venture partnerships came from people I invited to Pirates Cove. I say, you take someone to Pirates Cove, they think you’re pretty cool afterwards, which helped. I was trying to build relationships and grow companies and things like that. But for you, what I want you thinking about, a lot of times, as an entrepreneur, I’m not telling you to go rent Pirates Cove and do something crazy like that. But a lot of times the reason why entrepreneurs aren’t successful in business is because they have this weird resource problem. “Ah, Russell I don’t have the resources, the time, the talents.” It’s all I have don’t the resources. You have to understand that entrepreneurship is not about having resources. That’s a fallacy, it’s incorrect.

Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs not because they have resources, but because they’re resourceful. Sounds very similar, but it’s different. They’re resourceful.  I was resourceful, I had to think outside the box. How can I create this thing? A bunch of you guys have heard my rant many time about venture capitalists. I don’t feel real entrepreneurs take VC, because they’re coming in saying, “ I don’t have the resources, let me go ask somebody to give me money, then I’ll have resources to go and build something.” By definition you doing that, you’re not an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are resourceful, they look at things and say, “how can I afford that?” They look at something and say, “I don’t have the resources, I have to be resourceful, I have to think of other ways to do it.”

My very first thing I ever created, Mark Joyner, who is my first mentor and one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. Here’s my Ellie, she’s here hanging out too. You want to say hi? You having fun? I’m almost done, babe.

Okay, so when he kind of retired from the internet marketing, coaching business, he put out a thing called The Farewell Package, and he sold it and I bought it. And at the time I had no resources, I paid a thousand bucks for this course and it was all the money we had and my credit card was maxed out afterwards, and I had no resources. I was like, okay everything I bought from Mark Joyner, I needed to hire programmers and developers to be able to execute and actually create that thing, but I didn’t have the resources. I’m like, “Crap, what am I going to do? I don’t have the resources to create it.” I’m like, I’m an entrepreneur and entrepreneurs are resourceful. So I gotta be resourceful, what should I do?

I was like, okay, I have ideas. I know if I did have money, what I would do. So I was like, this is what I would create if I did have money. I wrote it out and went, at the time we had this little forum with everyone who had purchased his product. I was like, “Look guys, I bought this thing with the last of my money, I’m completely broke. But I know what I would do if I had the money I would create this thing.” And I pitched everyone on this thing. I was like, “The deal is, I’m broke. I have no resources, but I am very resourceful. And I know a lot of you guys are in the same situation, so my question for you is how many of you guys would like to partner up together and we pool our resources and become resourceful and work together.” And I posted that and said, “I gotta a quote and it costs about $5000 to build this idea I have. I got 0 dollars, so I need 50 of you guys to give me $100 and we can create something from our resources, become resources.”

And I had 120-130 people like, “I’ll do it, I’m in.” all these people saying, “I’ll donate $100 to this thing, to be a part of it.” And I was like, “cool.” So I collected all my, I ended up, I had 120 people say they would and then as it often happens, only 55 or something actually gave the hundred bucks. So it was $5,500 that I suddenly had in my paypal account and everyone bought together this package and then I went and took the money and hired the development team and they started creating it and that’s how I launched my first viral website. A lot of you guys don’t know that story. I don’t tell it very often.

But it was about not the resource, I had 0 resources. All I had was a credit card with a $1000 bill on it, because that’s what I paid to buy his course and 0 dollars. I didn’t have a job, I was wrestling. So I was making exactly 0 dollars a month, 0 dollars a year. And my wife was making $9.50 an hour, so that was our resources and now I have a thousand dollars on my credit card and I was freaking out because I don’t know how to pay a thousand dollars.

So luckily I was resourceful and I found people that allowed the funding from other people who wanted to be a part of this project, we launched it and started building a list, used that to launch the next product and on and on and on and here we are 15 years later at Pirates Cove with 10 of the most amazing entrepreneurs in the world, and I’m here with my family and my friends, a bunch of my employees and my partners are coming and I didn’t pay a penny to be here. Because I was resourceful.

So for you, I want you guys to understand that’s why we’re entrepreneurs, we are resourceful. You are resourceful. All you gotta do is stop trying to ask people for money to fund your idea, and just start creating, being resourceful. What can I do? How can I get other people involved and get other people to believe in my vision. When you start learning how to sell, people will come to you and you can create cool things. So there is my message for tonight. Those of you guys who guys who are watching the visuals behind me, hopefully you had a cool little glimpse of Pirates Cove. We’ve got a couple of Funnel Hacker TV episodes coming out that will show the craziness. But hopefully you guys enjoyed this and you start thinking about that in your business and your life. It’s not just business, it’s all aspects of life. How do you be resourceful? You rarely will have the resources you need to get started. IF you’re resourceful you can do it. So that’s what I got. I’m out of here you guys. I’m going to go get my swimsuit on and I’m going to jump in the water, bye everybody.

Jun 20, 2017

Segment recorded from the “Drop The Mic Show” where Russell takes 10 questions from funnel hackers and answers them live.

On this bonus episode of Marketing Secrets Russell answers questions about marketing from other funnel hackers, including:

  • How teenagers can use Clickfunnels to become more financially independent.
  • How to find out if there is a market for your product.
  • How Russell keeps his sanity and keeps his family happy while being a busy entrepreneur.
  • How to move your business into higher ticket sales.
  • How and where to put in an upsell in a supplement funnel.
  • Whether or not you should be running multiple businesses or focusing on one core business.
  • What one thing made Russell's business explode.
  • What to do when you launch a funnel that doesn't work out.
  • How to go about raising money for a non-profit organization.
  • How to go from marketing just a product to marketing an awesome experience to be able to charge more.
So listen in to hear Russell drop the mic as he answers these questions.
Jun 14, 2017

After working with tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, there is one common thing I’ve found that will instantly let me know if you’ll succeed or fail.

On today’s episode Russell talks about how he could tell with 100% certainty within seconds of meeting an entrepreneur if they would be successful. Here are some of the interesting things to listen for in this episode:

  • What quality does Russell see that successful entrepreneurs have and unsuccessful marketers are missing.
  • Why Russell thinks that most people don’t want to take the leap required to be successful.
  • And find out how all this can also relate to other areas in your life besides business.

So listen below to find out if you possess the quality that equals success or if you need to switch your focus in order to become successful.

---Transcript---

Hey everyone this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Tonight I’m going to show you guys the one tell-tell sign to know if you’re going to be successful in business or not. And it works 100% of the time.

Hey everyone this is Russell. We’re on day 4 or 5 of binge all nighters while my wife and kids are away out of town. My wife doesn’t get back until a couple more days, but of my kids are coming back tomorrow, which I’m so excited. They were supposed to come back today, then they didn’t.

So now another day to pull an all-nighter. So it’s about 1:00 now. Today we have built and launched one, two, three, four funnels. And what’s funny is that none of them are new funnels, they’re all just re-builds of existing funnels. And this is hopefully a lesson for you all. Because I hate all my funnels. Even though they work pretty good, but they’re still not done. But guess what I did? I launched them and made a bunch of money with them and now I’m fixing them again. I’ll probably be fixing them again later, and they keep getting better and better, but they’re never done. So don’t be like, “My funnel’s not ready yet, I can’t make money.” Just do it. Just launch it and make money and then fix it along the way and keep fixing it. Ready, fire, aim. CLickfunnels gives you that ability to change things and make them better and better. That’s what I do, and you should too.

Alright, before I pass out, because I’m kind of getting a little loopy. It was fun, Steven and I spent like 30 minutes, I think we were getting tired and I gave him my internet marketing history lesson according to Russell Brunson. I showed him all my old sites on the way back machine. My first product, my first three software products, it was fun. We filmed most of it so hopefully it will show up on Funnel Hacker TV. Who knows, but we’ll see.

While we were talking, it was funny he was talking about how in the past he’s had a lot of business partners and things and how some people basically, all the business partners he’s had, none of them ever became successful and he was the only one that came out the end that was. He and his wife were discussing why did that happen and why didn’t it. As he’s saying that, I remembered something. I told him, and obviously nowadays it’s different, people come to our events now it’s different because we’ve raised the prices and we’ve attracted real entrepreneurs and things like that. But first 5 or 6 years of my company we were selling to beginners. And we were breaking my cardinal rule, which is don’t sell to broke people. But we were and we had these events and people would come and not that they were all broke or anything, there were some amazing people that came through, but it was definitely a different audience, different crowd.

I was telling myself, I would walk into our events, we had smaller events, about 40or 50 people, and I would welcome everybody and have them introduce themselves and within 5 seconds of them introducing themselves I knew with 100% certainty and accuracy who was going to succeed and who wasn’t. It was crazy. I always felt guilty. After they introduce themselves should I tell them, “Hey there’s no way you could ever be successful in this business. You should leave.” Or should I let them go through.

Part of its like, some people buy because success. Some people buy because they want entertainment, the excitement. They like chasing the dream, the idea of the dream. So I feel like that’s sometimes as valuable, if not more valuable, than what you give them, if that makes sense. I can’t remember where I learned this from or where I heard it. It was really good, but the concept was basically that, it was from a TV show, someone shared it. But basically, a lot of people don’t want to take the leap and actually do the work. Doesn’t make sense because those of you who are producers, that’s what you thrive off, producing, doing and moving forward.

But a lot of people don’t want to take that leap. Because they have this dream, vision of what’s going to happen and if they do take a leap and it fails, then they lose their dream. So for me, I know that this life is short and for a lot of us, there’s a lot of things that I do that I spend money on that are never going to be real, but I enjoy it and it gets me dreaming, it lets me dream and to think about something. It gets me excited. So that’s part of it.

So I never told those people when they introduced themselves, “There’s no way you’ll be successful, you should leave.” Because again, I feel like there were other things. I don’t try to impress……sometimes for us, and everyone here listening is different. Some of you guys, success is the reason you do this. And that’s your value, that’s what you’re looking for and sometimes we try to force our values on other people. I have my mastermind group, my inner circle that you guys know about. People pay 25 grand a year and some people come because they want to learn and execute. Other people come because they want to hang out. And if I try to push them to execute, it bothers them and they leave. They say they want success, but they don’t really want success. They want the networking, people, friendship, connection with other people like them. And I totally respect that now. I used to struggle with that when I was first getting started. But people give you money for different reasons, and most of the time it’s not for why you think. So don’t push your own beliefs on them because it’ll screw things up.

So anyway, people would come in and I would know that. I asked Steven, “Do you know how I could tell? I’m curious if you could know.” So my question for you is that. How did I know, what is the tell-tell sign with 100% certainty and accuracy, I knew within a second if people were going to be successful or not, in this business? Not in life, they can be successful in other things, but in this business. I’m curious of what your thoughts are, so think about it for a second. Because I’m going to tell you what the answer is and I’m a little nervous to tell you because some of you guys are going to be like, “Crap, does that mean I’m not going to be successful.” And I don’t think that that means you’re not going to be successful, but it does if you don’t shift what you’re chasing and what you’re thinking about. Because everyone I know who has been successful, it’s been the opposite side.

So again, we would come in and after the first session I would be like, “Okay, here’s the three people that are going to be successful.” and everyone else in the room would be like, “Yeah, I don’t know how but I feel that too.” And I kind of identified. This was the difference. Those who never had success, when they introduced themselves, or when they talked about it or thought about it, or presented anything, they were in the business because they wanted to make money. Those are the people that failed. You listen to that, what, Russell we all want to make money. That’s why we got in this business right. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I’m studying you, Russell. You teach people how to make money, and I want some of that.

Do you guys remember Wedding Singer, one of my favorite movies of all time? When Drew Barrymore goes to marry or whatever, he’s all mad so he goes to the bank and he’s trying to get a loan or trying to get a job at the bank to make money so she’ll like him. And Norm McDonald, not Norm McDonald…what’s his name? He’s the banker, and he’s like, he asks him his qualifications and Adam Sandler’s like, “Well, I like money. I’d like some more of it. You’ve got some money.” And it’s just this funny thing. I totally slaughtered it, but it’s really funny. Go watch Wedding Singer.

It’s really late. Alright, so where did I leave off. The people that were not successful were the people that wanted to make money. The people that were successful are people that were passionate and excited about the marketing. That’s the key. Isn’t that weird? Those who are excited by the marketing are the ones who were successful. It was weird.

I remember hanging out with Daegan Smith one time and he told me when he shifted from not being successful to being successful was when he got excited and passionate about the marketing. He became obsessed with it. It’s interesting because the business owners that I like to work with, the entrepreneurs, are the entrepreneurs running the business. Why? Because they become passionate about the marketing of the thing. Whereas bigger businesses that think they’re in the business of selling the thing. Apple you are not in the business of selling iPhones. You are in the business of ….. Excuse me, you’re not in the iPhone business, you’re in the business of selling iPhones. That’s what Steve Jobs understood. That’s why he was a big deal. That’s why he gave key note speeches. That’s why all those things happened. Because he knew he was in the business of selling the thing. Not of the thing.

That’s what I’ve found. When people introduced themselves, “I’ve been studying Russell. I’ve been geeking out, reading books. I love the market, I’m so excited. I’ve got this passion and I want to sell it.” I’m like boom, that guy’s goingto be successful. Or that girl’s going to be successful. If they come in like, “Hey yeah, I have a job, I really want to make some extra money.” And whatever or “Hey, I’m just not happy with where I’m at, I want to make extra money.” Every time it was money focused they failed. Every time it was “I’ve been reading this stuff and I’m excited.”

Hopefully, because unfortunately most educators make things really boring. I feel bad. Through my college and high school careers, most teachers were really boring. I tried my best to make marketing exciting. Because it is exciting. It’s exciting for me. I actually started, on Sunday I recorded, I decided I wanted to start a religious podcast and I recorded the first two episodes. It’s hard because I listen to other religious podcasts and they bore me and I’m like, “How are you guys boring? Do you not understand? What is happening? I love religion because the greatest act in the history of the world happened. There was this guy in Jerusalem, it wasn’t just a guy….This thing happened and it is so exciting when you understand it, what it means.” So I’m trying to make my podcast exciting. Because I’m as excited about that as I am about marketing.

My goal is to try to make the marketing exciting for you because I know that that’s what gets people into it. It’s not the thing, it’s being excited about the marketing thing. And that’s the moral of today’s lesson. So for you, if you’re struggling, I think better than…..the best advice I can give you is become obsessed with the marketing. Become obsessed from reading the books and understanding the stuff and how it works. You become obsessed with the marketing, that’s how you’ll be successful.

So don’t dabble, go deep. Get excited, get obsessed. Hopefully my books do that, hopefully my podcast, Funnel Hacker TV….that’s why we’re putting out so much content because I want you guys to see how fun this can be. It’s exciting. It’s the most exciting thing in the world. The most exciting business in the world, the most exciting time. You literally could have your own TV channel on a phone. That’s insane. We’re in such an exciting time, and I want all of you to be excited. Hopefully I’m exciting enough.

With that said, I really need to go to bed. Steven needs to go to bed, it’s 1:08. And being 1:08 is not that big of deal except for the fact that it’s like 5 nights in a row, or more. Anyway, I’m going to go. But I appreciate you guys. Get excited by the marketing.  And if you do that, it’ll all work out. It always does. But you gotta be passionate about the marketing. It’s true of anything in life. If you read Expert Secrets, you know what we’re talking about, the external and internal journeys. Those who focus on the external journeys are the ones that typically fail. Seek an internal journey. Making money is external. Understanding marketing, changing people’s lives, serving, telling stories, that’s the internal. So those who have read the book, that’s the clue.

But it’s true with everything. Weight loss, losing weight, if you’re goal is to just lose weight you’re probably not going to do it, just so you know. It’s a hint. What’s the opposite? What’s the internal thing? If you become passionate about that, get excited about that then you’ll lose the weight. If your goal is to, pick any market. Whatever the external goal is, if that’s your real driving passion, you’re not going to succeed. Sorry. Sorry to break it to you. Because I wanted to lose weight for a long time and I didn’t, guess why? Because I was excited about losing weight. Anyway, there’s a hint. Hopefully that helps. No more hints, I gotta go to be. Appreciate you guys, talk to you soon. Bye.

Jun 13, 2017

How I got more done today then most people will get done in the next three months, and I did it by leveraging this one simple concept.

On today’s episode Russell is hanging out in a tent in the office because his family is out of town. He talks about how he gets stuff done quickly. Here are some of the awesome things you will hear in this episode:

  •  Find out why Russell is sleeping on a cot, in a tent in his office instead of at his house.
  •  Find out why it’s important to find people with unique abilities to help you complete tasks quickly.
  •  And listen carefully and you may hear Russell read a newly finished script for the Etison Editor inside of Clickfunnels.

So listen below to find out how over the last 14 years Russell was able to build up a good enough team to get tasks completed in a day that might take another company an entire quarter to complete.

---Transcript---

Hey everyone, this is Russell. Welcome to Marketing Secrets. If you’re watching this on marketingsecrets.com, watching the video, I’m actually right now inside of a tent in the office. The reason why is because my wife and kids are out of town and I told everyone I was going to camp out at the office.  Everyone’s like, “Oh cool. Yeah.” But I was like, “I’m literally going to camp out at the office.” So I brought a tent in and I brought a cot that I almost broke and then Dave brought in a real cot and this is actually incredibly comfortable, so I’m probably going to sleep here tonight. People will show up in the morning and be like, you are so weird.

The reality is, my house right now is under construction and my entire kitchen is gutted, so I can’t even go to my house, I’m living in the pool house and it’s just like, I know it’s first world problems, but anyway. So now I want to talk to you about one thing before I crash because we got a lot of stuff done today. A lot. This is my to-do list and it’s crazy how many things we got done. And tomorrow is another big day as well. And two of my kids come home tomorrow, which I’m insanely excited for.

But what’s kind of cool, let me sit up a little bit, is people always ask me, “Russell how do you always get so much stuff done in the day?” And I really think it’s a couple of things. First off, I do to-do lists like this on pieces of paper with big old marker. Because something about markers, something about crossing things out that is so therapeutic. Because working today, it was like 2:35 or so in the afternoon and I had only crossed off two things so I was like, angry. So I called over my team and I’m like, “Okay, lets cross stuff out.” Everyone’s like, “How can I help? How can I help?” and I’m like, “Steven do this. Dave do this. Melanie do this.”

Everyone was kind of doing things to help us get stuff busted out. And then I’m looking at this and I’m like, what are the things I have to do? What are the, Dan Sullivan called them unique abilities? What are your unique abilities that you have to focus on? It’s funny because I was dinking around doing stuff that wasn’t necessarily my unique ability, I was doing stuff that was, I don’t know, just stuff. I was like okay, a lot of things I could get other people to do, but there are some things that I have to do. So I knew one of them was, we had this new, we’re going after Instagram so we’re starting this drop the mic show that’s going to be our Instagram play to kind of build up our audience there.

But I needed a cool intro video to pitch the concept and stuff like that. I had to write the script for that, so I did that. And I had to figure out a really cool way to demo this stuff on Instagram, on the computer, which was cool. So I went and recorded the voice over and Steven went and edited it and made it the coolest audio intro ever. So that was awesome.

And then we’re a couple of months away from doing our big re-launch of Clickfunnels, at about our 3 year mark. And I don’t know if you guys have seen our old explainer videos, but I needed to update these. So I had to re-write the copy for the first one and I wrote a new explainer video for the Etison editor, which is the web editor. It’s kind of fun, I’ve been like, how do you write an exciting explainer video for a website editor? It’s not, it wasn’t a funnel, just the editor alone.

I actually had somebody today message me on Facebook and ask me, “What’s the script you write for explainer videos?” and I’m like, “I don’t know what the script is. You just have to find the right hook.” So I was sitting there probably 30 minutes. What’s the hook? Why does somebody care about this? I was stuck at what’s the hook? What’s the hook? And then finally I got the hook and I was like, oh my gosh this is it. And then I started writing. As soon as I got the hook everything just started flowing. It was really, really cool. In fact, do you guys want to hear it? Would that be of value?

I’m going to jump off the cot, like I said I am literally camping in the office. So let me jump off the cot. I’m going to read you guys the script so you can see. So the hook that I came up with is I just remember back, what’s a good hook for the editor in Clickfunnels and things like that and I remember that somebody while I was at Joe Polish’s event, I remember we had to write these cards. Like what you do for a company and my card I wrote , we helped take the power back from the tech guys, because there was some InfusionSoft guys there and I wanted to talk about that.

So I remembered that and found the quote “Take the power back from the tech guys.” So I’m like, that’s the hook. Okay, now I know the hook. I was trying to remember a story that ties to that. So I’m like, okay, the hook is the tech guys having the control. So it’s almost like you’re handcuffed. So then I start typing and got into the flow state. So I’ll read this to you.

“Have you ever felt handcuffed as an entrepreneur? Tell me if this sounds like you. You’ve got an idea, it comes to you in the shower or when you’re trying to sleep or often times it’s in the middle of a boring conversation when someone is trying to talk to you about who knows what. When you’re trying to nod and act like you’re actually paying attention, what is really happening is you’re looking and searching for your next big idea. Then, boom, it hits you. You have the idea, you see the vision, you know what you need to do and you know how this thing will change the world.”

And then all the sudden it’ll zoom on the hands and they’ll be handcuffed and it’ll pan back and see a bunch of tech nerds sitting around in a room.

And it says, “And then they got you. You don’t know how to code, you don’t know how to design. You’re being held hostage by the tech nerds that you used to tease in school. Yet somehow things you think should be so simple, things that should only take a few minutes, somehow become hours and then days and then weeks. With each passing day the excitement for your big idea gets dimmer and dimmer and dimmer until one day it’s gone.”

And then we’ll show the idea in a graveyard, with an entrepreneur standing next to it having a funeral. “There’s money wasted, there’s time wasted with little or nothing to show for it.” They’re still handcuffed and the tech guys walk away with all the cash. “Then when all seems lost it hits you again. Yes! Another idea, another million dollar problem that you want to solve. But the problem is you know the pain that would go into getting the tech guys to actually build out what you know needs to be done. And this is where most entrepreneurial dreams die. Somewhere between the idea and your tech guys ability to create the pages you need to sell your big idea.”

Alright so that was this hook. It is that we’re handcuffed as entrepreneurs. So I start telling the story and thinking about that. That all just started flowing, it’s kind of cool. So I’m going to keep going.

“What happened to the good old days where the person who was excited to sell and able to sell, could just stand in front of people and actually sell? Well here I am telling you that those days are officially back. I want to introduce you to the Etison Editor inside of Clickfunnels to let you take the power back from the tech guys.” Then the guy will break the handcuffs and stand there like a free man.

“Yes, the Etison Editor was created so that entrepreneurs like you, who aren’t programmers, who don’t know how to design can easily build pages inside of a funnel that are proven to convert. Let me show you how it works. First pick the type of sales funnel that is scientifically pre-designed to sell your type of product, choose the style of page design that you like best. Click a button and the entire funnel is built in less than 10 seconds. Every page, every step, everything. You can change headlines and your images, add a video, countdown clocks and more. And if you really want to customize a page, we have dozens of amazing elements you can choose from. Just like a painter would pick a color from a pallet, and then drag and drop it onto the page. Move them around to your heart’s content and then send the funnel to go live. In less than 10 minutes you can create what would have taken those tech nerds weeks to do.”

I make fun of them over and over again. “And now the webpage inside your funnel sells as well as you do. Yes, the Etison Editor inside of Clickfunnels lets you take the power back from your tech guys. No longer be handcuffed and held hostage by tech people. You can take control of your marketing and start making sales today. With Clickfunnels we believe that that’s how it should be. So try the Etison Editor today and be free from your tech guys forever.”

So that was the script. That was something I had to write. I’m the one who’s in that pain, who had gone through that experience over and over again. I had to do that, I can’t be focusing on these other things. So that’s what I went and focused on and worked on. Was writing this script. And then I actually wrote another script for another thing. So I ended up writing four scripts today. And then went into our padded room back here and recorded the voice over’s and I got my brother doing the audio editing. Steven did some audio editing. It’s just all these other people.

So the way I’m able to get so much stuff done is, it doesn’t come overnight, so don’t think it’s going to or it has to, but over the last 14 years of me doing this, I’ve built up my team of people who can do all the pieces. And everyone on the team has a unique ability that they’re good at that I’m not. So I know when I have a project, okay there’s people on my team and they each have their unique abilities and I have mine and to get this thing done it takes all of them. So instead of me trying to do Steven’s job or Jake’s job, or Dave’s or Scott’s or any of these other people’s jobs, I just gotta focus on mine. And then everyone do their kind of thing.

Because any one of these projects, I didn’t do all the pieces of it, I did just my piece of it. And because we have a team, it’s able to go fast. So I recommend for you, start building your team. For some reason as entrepreneurs, we think that we have, I don’t know why these, most entrepreneurs don’t think this, but for some reason internet entrepreneurs do, we think we have to do everything. We have to be good at copy and design and pages and everything. But you don’t. You just have to find people and build a team.

I think that for all of us, think about where you’re at right now and look at where you’re weak and where you’re strong. It’s funny because for a long time I always fought, I wanted to be in control and owner, that was my thing. I always wanted to be in control of the business. And now, looking back, it’s the stupidest thing ever. When I gave up control I found good partners and people and connected them and built a team. That’s when things took off.

So for you, I want you guys, the moral of today’s story I guess if you want to call it, is, obviously I’ve been listening to Dan Sullivan, so those of you who have listened to Dan Sullivan recently, he talks a lot about unique abilities. So my moral of the story for you guys is to really identify what’s your unique ability that nobody else can bring to the table. Figure out that thing and look at what are the unique abilities you need to get this thing off the ground. Or get this thing into orbit, or wherever it’s at to get it where you want it to be. If you’re happy with things, then don’t stress about it. You’re good. Just keep doing what you’re doing. But if you want to grow or change or whatever that shift is that you want to make, then look and say what unique abilities do I need on my team to make this happen. And then go start finding those people, start looking for them. Start going out there.

I guess that’s the message for today. Using your unique abilities and others to get crap done fast. Maybe that’s the title.  Because that’s the secret. We got a lot done today, its insane. Honestly, almost any one of these little check marks on this list, is something that a normal company does in, I don’t know, a quarter. We did a lot of it today. And tomorrow we’re going to finish these things up. And tomorrow we’re re-launching one, two, three, four, five funnels. That’s awesome. They’re all mostly done, so it’s just going to be busting them out. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Get them all live.

And then what’s going to be cool, if I have time at the end of the day I’m going to be working on a Funnel Hacker App, which is insane. We have this new app coming out, which is going to be cool. Then if I get all that stuff done, then by the time my kids get here it’ll be nice. Then the next set of fun projects happen. I’ll be pretty proud of us if we get these things done. Hopefully that helps you guys.

Identify your unique ability and bring others to your team that have other unique abilities that complement yours. That’s how you’re going to take over the  world the fastest. With that said, have fun. I’m going to go to bed in my tent here in the office. And they say it’s not good for man to be alone and I agree, that’s why I’m literally sleeping at the office tonight inside of a tent on a cot. Such a nerd. I love it. Anyway, thanks everybody. We’ll see you guys soon. Bye.

Jun 12, 2017

People who read blogs… read blogs, people who watch videos… watch videos, etc…

On today’s episode Russell talks about figuring out a new formula for conversation domination on every platform. He also mentions the cool new way he’s doing coaching. Here are some of the awesome things you will hear in this episode:

  • Find out what cool new way Russell is doing coaching with his Inner Circle members.
  • Hear what Russell just realized while trying to build his Dream 100 list by looking at his email list and Facebook list side by side.
  • And see what the simple solution is to dominating the conversation in every platform.

So listen below to find out why its important to realize that podcast listeners listen to podcasts.

---Transcript---

Hey this is Russell, welcome to Marketing Secrets. Today’s show is about conversation domination.

Hey everyone this is Russell and I hope you guys are doing awesome today. I have a really cool thing I wanted to share with you guys, and if I’m being completely honest, I am completely fried right now. It’s Friday, my wife just left out of town with three of my kids and left me with two. So she was up packing until 3 in the morning, I fell asleep at 1 and at 3 she left, so I woke up to say goodbye to them and the kids. And then at the same time my little 2 year old, Norah woke up and so I brought her down in bed with me, but she went crazy for the next two hours. Screaming, jumping, and kicking. She knew mom wasn’t around, anyway it got kind of hard.

Finally at about 5 or 5:30 I put her back to bed and then I came down and fell asleep for 2 hours and woke up and so it was like a 2 or 3 hour night. Then I raced to the office because we had funnel Friday today, but luckily Jim forgot. I was like thank heavens, because it gave me a chance to get stuff done. Then I had what we call Decade in a Day. So those who are in my inner circle, we do this cool thing called Decade in a Day, which is a coaching program part. When the first come into the program they get to be part of Decade in a Day and then every time they renew they get Decade in a Day.

What it is, is me taking a decade of my experience and jamming it into one day for them. The way it works, we actually changed it, in the past we used to do it different but I figured out a new format and today was the first day and it’s so cool. If any of you guys are doing coaching programs, this is the way to do it. So we have 100 people in the inner circle at any given time. So what we did is we went and took each of their, basically each person got thirty minutes and instead of me just coaching them one on one, when they get the value and that’s kind of it. What it is we coach them and I use Zoom, which is a new webinar platform that is becoming the coolest thing ever. And then we Zoomed each person in the inner circle Facebook group.

So I had person number one, brought them on, to ask questions, then I click record and stream to Facebook and then it streamed the presentation. So for thirty minutes, I had them introduce themselves really quick. And then we talked about business and I coached them for thirty minutes. And while it’s happening its streaming live to the other 99 inner circle members. And everyone in there is giving feedback and dropping recourses and all these amazing things are happening in there. And the call ended, and I ended it and zoom lets you just end Facebook live. I started the next one and pulled the next person in and go. Boom.  We do that for thirty minutes. And then it ends.

So everyone watches the new one starts and then it’s archived in the inner circle members area, that person’s story for thirty minutes with me coaching them. Everyone else starts dropping feedback and comments. We did that, I think 8 times today. So it was kind of crazy. But it was amazing because it was me coaching and then also 99 other fellow inner circle members all coaching as well, dropping resources, links, ideas, resources. It was amazing. So I’m really excited about the new addition to the inner circle, which is awesome.

And Steven who is behind me over here, he just got done with the Two Comma Club coaching, which is the tier before the inner circle, the Two Comma Club coaching and he spent 4 hours doing Q and A today. It’s insane, people. I’ve been doing this now for a long time and our coaching programs have become second to none. It’s exciting.

Steven: It’s a lot of fun. Changing the world, you know. It’s a cool feeling seeing people’s lives like, “I got it.” And then they go out and do it and get results and it’s just fun.

Russell: So fun. So that’s what we’ve been doing today. I[‘m about to take my kids to Studio C, which is really, really fun. Studio C is, if you haven’t, go to YouTube and search Studio C and you’ll see who they are, it’s amazing. Anyway, we’re taking Aiden, who is one of two kids left at home with me tonight to that. So we’re heading out here in a few minutes. But I was just having a conversation with some of the marketing team here and I wanted to share some of it as Iw as thinking about it Because I thought it was really interesting.

So the conversation we had comes back to there was a guy named Howie Schwartz when I first got started who was big online. He had a course called Conversation Domination and it was about getting in Google and as soon as you typed your name into Google all 10 spots would be you, you would dominate the conversation. Anyway, I don’t know what, I haven’t heard from Howie for forever, I don’t know what he’s up to nowadays.

Anyway, the concept of conversation domination I thought was awesome. You type in your key word and you’re all 10 spots and all the paid ads are all you. You dominate the conversation, you’re the only person there. So as I’ve been doing this whole new social media thing, which you guys are watching me do, and hopefully learning and following and modeling and funnel hacking. That’s my thoughts, conversation domination. I want when you open up any platform, that I’m dominating the conversation. I’m in your podcast feed. I’m in your YouTube feed. I’m in your blog RSS feed. I want to dominate the conversation on every single platform so everywhere you look, I am the only alternative. I think it’s important.

But what’s interesting, this is the, I think I know now why. I will always wonder why nobody else is doing this, outside of Gary Vaynerchuk in our market. In my entrepreneurial business market, there’s people probably in other markets, but in ours the only person is Gary V. I think I finally realized why. Because my business is built off email. So we built a big email list. We’ve had over a million entrepreneurs that have been on that list. Active, probably have a million or so. But what’s interesting is, I assumed okay I’m going to launch in Instagram. I’ll send an email and all the sudden I’ll have a million people on Instagram. Then I’ll go to my blog and push there and I’ll have a million people there.

But the reality of what I’ve found is that’s not true. Think about this for yourself. How do you like to consume content? What’s your platform? Because everyone’s got one or two that’s their favorites. Do you like reading blogs? Maybe you’re a blog reader. Or do you like listening to podcast? You’re a podcast person. Or do you like watching video, do you go to YouTube? Or do you check your email? DO you go to Instagram, Facebook? What’s your platform of choice?

And I thought that everyone was on every platform but that’s not the case. There’s a small percentage that are, but if we take our Facebook list and we run next to our email list, and look at those side by side, our Facebook and email list, the crossover in the middle is shockingly small. I assumed they were the same people, but they’re not. It’s just fascinating. When you understand that, a big shift that we’re having, I thought we’ll try Facebook ads to build Instagram, and that kind of works, but not really.

Because Facebook people are on Facebook because they like Facebook. Instagram people are on Instagram. So the more I started thinking about this, the conversation we just had with our team, we’re like, we have to realize that people that read blogs like to read blogs. People who listen to podcasts like to listen to podcasts. Does that make sense. People that watch YouTube videos like watching YouTube videos. People that are Instagram, are on Instagram. That seems stupid right?

Think about that. So what we’re talking about, and I’ve been talking a lot with you guys. Maybe not with you guys, but internally with our team, about the Dream 100. The Dream 100 for us has always been email focused, up until this point. Finding all the people on the list and Dream 100 the crap out of them and get them to promote our products and services. It’s worked, we’ve built a huge company off the back of that. Recently I did an episode a few weeks ago talking about how are you using Dream 100 for SEO? And by the way, we are executing it and it’s working awesome. So listen to that episode and do it.

But think about this, if I want people to read my blog I don’t need to go and become really good at Facebook ads to get people to read my blog. You can, there’s crossover, but what’s better, whoever are the people who read blogs, read blogs. So if I want to launch my blog and make it successful, who are the other people that have successful blogs that my people are already reading. My dream clients are already reading. Because people who read blogs, read blogs.

So I needed to find those people and Dream 100 them, and pay them or partner with them or whatever to get them to write a blog article about me because blog people like to read blogs. So if I’m reading a blog and I read a blog about someone and I go over to their blog, someone’s blog needs to promote my blog. Someone’s podcast needs to promote my podcast. Somebody’s YouTube channel needs to promote my YouTube channel because people who watch YouTube, watch YouTube.

So it’s kind of shift in my thinking. That’s how the Dream 100, as I’m getting more granular with it, it’s fascinating. If you hear me on podcasts, you will know to hear, normally I do podcasts peoplr are like, “Where can I get to know more about you Russell.” And I’m like, “go to Russellbrunson.com, there’s a bunch of stuff there.” But no! If I went on a podcast, be like, “hey, you like listening to podcasts, go to marketingsecrets.com, there’s my podcast, you can subscribe. It’s awesome.” Because podcast people listen to podcasts.

If I’m on a blog, I’m going to talk about my blog. If I’m on a YouTube channel I’m going to talk about my YouTube channel. If I’m on a Facebook feed, I’m going to talk about my Facebook feed. Understanding that, that’s number one. And again, there will be a little bit of crossover, but the majority of your blog readers will come from other blogs. Because blog readers read blogs. The majority of YouTube Subscribers will come from other YouTube channels because YouTube people watch YouTube.

I never watched YouTube videos until 3 months ago when we launched our YouTube channel. I didn’t care about it, I didn’t watch, I never went there. I didn’t understand, it was so foreign to me. Now I get there and I’m in this world and I’m like, there’s a lot of cool stuff happening here. And people that like YouTube, they’re on YouTube all day long, all the time. People who like Facebook are….

So you start understanding that as you’re doing your Dream 100. You become more granular with your focus and your traffic and all those kind of things. I want you to remember that. You wanna have conversation domination. The key to that is the Dream 100. Going back, Dream 100-ing people and getting people who are bloggers to read your blog. And people who are podcast listeners to listen to your podcast, so on and so forth across all the platforms. That’s awesome.

Do you think that’s awesome Steven?

Steven: It’s amazing.

Russell: For those of you guys who are not watching this on a YouTube, if you’re listening to the podcast, Steven is behind me and he’s screaming excited too. So I hope it makes sense to you guys. I’m dropping gold bombs. Some of you guys will not be prepared for it yet. If you’re not go search fro the Dream 100, I think I’ve done podcasts or videos. I’ve talked a lot about that.

So if you’r enot familiar with the Dream 100 yet, go and study it and then come back to this. There will be a point in your business when this concept will be the biggest way for you to scale from wherever you are to the next level. Its huge for us, what we’re focusing on while we’re trying to go from 8 to 9 figures a year. We got a good shot of maybe hitting it this year. It’s going to be a stretch this year. Next year it’s going to be easy. But this year we might make it. We got a couple of things happening that are going to give us the ability to potentially hit that. It’s going to be fun.

Anyway, that’s what I wanted to mention to you guys. Hopefully you have enjoyed this podcast, please go to iTunes and rate, give me stars. Even one or two stars if you want, but if you really had a good time give me 5 and tell people what you think. Also, if you have your own podcast please tell your podcast listeners to listen to my podcast, I would really appreciate it. If you have a YouTube channel, please tell your people to listen to my YouTube videos. And if you’re a blogger, please blog about my blog, that would be very amazing. I hope that helps you guys. Appreciate you all. I’m going to go home and play with my son. We’re going to go to Studio C and have a blast. Peace, have a good night. See you all again soon. Bye everybody.

Jun 8, 2017

Why these things can and should move you forward as opposed to pulling you backwards.

On this episode Russell talks about having entrepreneurial scars and why you should embrace them rather than be embarrassed of them. Here are some of the insightful things to listen for in today’s episode:

  • Why it’s okay for entrepreneurs to fail and how to embrace your failures.
  • Why taking risks and failing can be important for the future success of your business.
  • And why Russell thinks bankruptcy was not only a gift from our founding fathers, but also a gift from God.

So listen below to find out why it’s okay to fail, as long as you are able to learn from your mistakes.

---Transcript---

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to Marketing Secrets. Today’s episode is called entrepreneurial scars.

Hey everyone, so I wanted to, honestly, this podcast I just wanted to hang out with you guys and talk because it’s been interesting. I’ve been working with so many entrepreneurs and recently just as I’ve been working with some people and watching people who had insane amounts of success at one time and then who had something happen. A failure, a bankruptcy, whatever, just fill in the blank. The second time around, a lot of times, they really, really struggle.

I start looking and I’m like, why are they struggling? They had this huge success and it’s almost like they have fear and embarrassment like, “I failed in the past.” As I kept talking about this with some of the guys on our team it was like, it’s almost like they have entrepreneurial scars. It’s interesting, us as a person who went through the process, a failure, a lot of times there’s ups and the downs it hard. We have scars, emotional scars, but I think sometimes we feel like those scars are on our faces and other people can see them.

What’s interesting is that people don’t. Those are just things that are inside of yourself. But because they’re there and you feel like they’re there and other people can see it, it keeps you from having success the next time. Because there’s so much fear around these scars, these things. And as I was talking about this, this morning, I shared a story and this will hopefully kind of tie these things together a little bit better for you. I’m not going to name names or anything.

But there was a guy I know and he was a successful politician. At the top of his game, doing everything amazing and people loved him. And when you saw him in that spot, and it’s not like national politics, I don’t know anybody in national politics. I don’t follow politics at all. But it was a local person. And you saw him on the news and all this other stuff and he was dynamic, charismatic and everything was awesome. And then he got caught up in this political scandal or whatever and it’s funny because, again, I don’t follow politics, and I don’t care that much. But I was aware of the things that happened, and he’s no longer in there and there was someone else.

Then fast forward 3 or 4 years later, I met him. What’s funny, it was in a different situation, and he wanted to talk about business stuff. And I was really excited because I was like, “I know who this person is. How cool. I want to meet him and talk to him.” And as I talked to him, it was funny, not funny I shouldn’t say that, it was interesting to see the scars that he’d gotten from this thing were so deep, he was struggling to progress in other parts of his life. Business and all these other things because of the scars he got from this thing that didn’t work out right.

You look at the thing, it wasn’t good, but 3 years later, I’m almost surprised that I knew about it, but I did. But he was carrying those scars in his conversations with you. If he would have come in the way that I’d seen him before, confident and all sorts of things, I probably would have done the business deal with him, but because he had these scars and just the way he approached me, he didn’t have the certainty or all these things. They were gone and I could feel it. And that uncertainty kept me from doing the deal with him.

And I remember thinking after I finished, I could tell he was still carrying around the fear and embarrassment and shame of that thing. I don’t care about that thing. I couldn’t care less. Move on with your life and come back. That person I saw on TV, if you would have approached me that way, I would have done this deal.

The same thing is true with entrepreneurs, there’s someone I know who is super successful, knew how to funnel, blew up and made a ton of money and then it went away and now they’re kind of struggling. And what’s interesting is I know that back story because I know the person and things like that. Even with that, I look at the person like, this person is a rock star. They’re awesome. They’re amazing. But as I see them interact with other people, I see these scars that this person has are keeping them from taking over the next thing.

And it’s funny because I don’t think 99,9% of every single person in the world has any idea, their little scars are there for this person, but because he knows that they’re there, because he knows he failed. He knows that things disappear and didn’t work out the way he wanted. He has this fear and has these approaching the next situations, he’s struggling because of that. Because of these scars.

And I think it’s interesting that these entrepreneurial scars that we have, first off they’re invisible. Nobody sees them.  Some people may be aware of them, but nobody sees them except for you. So because you are so aware of these things, it keeps you from having the confidence and success you need to move forward.

It’s funny, I was talking to an entrepreneur who was about to go through bankruptcy and they were freaking out and so scared. And I kind of asked them why and they didn’t say, “Because I don’t want those scars.” But what they said afterwards was, If I get out of bankruptcy, what’s my wife going to think and my in-laws and family?” all these things and I was like, “You have to understand, bankruptcy, think about this, failure for entrepreneurs, the founding fathers of this country gave us bankruptcy as a gift, so that entrepreneurs like us would risk and try and move forward and roll the dice and hope for something. And if it wasn’t for that gift, and you may think it’s a gift for the founding fathers, but I think it’s a gift from god. But if it wasn’t for that thing, America wouldn’t have succeeded as a nation. Everything that’s amazing wouldn’t have happened if entrepreneurs didn’t have that risk.

If it was like, if you go bankrupt you go to jail until you pay off all your debts. Not a lot of people would have taken the risk, I don’t know if I would have taken the risks. But because the worst case scenario is bankruptcy, you clear off your balance sheets and start over. That’s the worst case scenario and that’s the greatest gift we have.

So if we hit that and we go through it and all the sudden we have these scars, I went through bankruptcy and have all this fear. Then you go through the next thing, it’s like, no, that shouldn’t be a negative thing. That means you tried, you attempted. Even after you attempted and had success and it went away, you had success.

I remember I was doing a deal with this guy who was super successful. In fact, he did these consulting things where it was 500 grand a day with a minimum of ten sessions, so it’s like half a million bucks to get this guy to work with you. And I had a chance to hang out with him and I was talking to him and talking strategy and he was asking about my story. I tell him my story and I’m pretty open with things now. I have realized that my scars are what actually draws people to me. That’s why at Funnel Hacking Live I spend an hour and a half on stage talking about all my failures, it draws people toward me, which is kind of making the point at the end of this podcast.

But I’ve had my share of ups and downs. And as I told him the whole thing he’s like, “Oh good.” And I’m like, “What do you mean, good?’. And he’s like, “you cycled.” I’m like, “what do you mean cycled?” And he’s like, “Entrepreneurs who haven’t cycled at least once, I refuse to work with them.” I’m like, “What does that mean?” “Cycled means you build something up and then you crash. If you haven’t cycled yet, then guess what? You’re still drinking your own kool-aid. You still believe that you are the most amazing human being on Earth. You don’t realize until after you cycled, that it’s not just you. You aren’t the greatest thing to walk this planet. There’s market conditions, there’s people, opportunities, luck and all these amazing things that happen that make you possible. That make you as an entrepreneur successful.”

And as he said that, first off I was like, that feels better. Cycling sounds way better than failure, than bankruptcy. But I thought it was interesting that he wouldn’t work with entrepreneur unless they’d cycled once. And I was like, Man, how many people go out there and do their big risk and have some success which gives you all t his pride and confidence and stuff. And then you lose it and because of that failure you never try again. Or you try it but halfway because you feel like you  have these scars and you feel like other people are judging you or you are judging yourself for all these kind of things. Where the reality is that we don’t se those things.

Nobody knows about the failures until you tell them about it. But if they do know about it, it doesn’t really matter. In fact, as I found as I share my scars, it’s draws people closer, like I mentioned earlier. I think the reason people will do business with me a lot of times is because I’m vulnerable, I share those things.

So for you guys, I wanted to talk about it today because first off, it’s okay to have those scars, but don’t hide them. Share those things. When my kids get injured and they’re super cute and do it all the time, I tell my boys, “Chicks dig scars. That’s a good thing. That’s awesome. Black eyes are awesome.” I remember one of my black eyes I got in wrestling; I don’t know if you guys are watching the video, you can still see the scars over both of my eyes. I had this one where I hit my buddies knee and my eye had swollen shut and I had 15 stitches and couldn’t see out of my eye for 4 or 5 days. I was at school and I was all embarrassed because of the scar and as I was walking around people were like, “Dude your eye looks awesome. You’re a wrestler.” People connected with that more than me looking good and my hair being, worrying about what I look like.

So I think the moral of this podcast and I want you guys to understand, is that we all have entrepreneurial scars. If you don’t have them yet, you’re going to have them. But don’t let those keep you from the next success. My friend who is a politician, I don’t care what happened. He could go and do and be successful, but because he’s carrying these scars, he’s not. You have to be willing to get rid of those, or not get rid of them, embrace them and share those things. Look, I screwed up, this is what happened. But this is what I’m doing now and this is what I learned from it, how I’m changing.

If I look back on my career, there’s a lot of things I’m embarrassed about. Things I messed up on big time. Maybe I should do a podcast someday about my biggest regrets. I have regrets in my business. There’s things I did that I’m embarrassed about, I wish I wouldn’t have done. Looking back now, I would have consulted myself, “Do not do that.” But I wouldn’t have known the path unless I’d gone down some of these paths and realized what things weren’t right.

I’ve always tried to be fair to my customers and my employees and stuff, but I’ve made mistakes, and I’ve sold things that I thought were really good and found out later they weren’t. There’s things I’m not proud of, but if I let those scars keep me, how many people’s lives that we’re touching and effecting now that wouldn’t have been touched had I not embraced those scars and told people, “Look I messed up in the past.” And I have, and we all do and it’s okay. But I don’t want you guys to not progress because of that.

Hopefully this gives you some comfort. Look, if you’ve gone through bankruptcy that’s okay. If you messed up and did something stupid, that’s okay. That’s what this life is about. About making those mistakes and owning it, and if you do it’s almost like plastic surgery. It makes these scars disappear. But they don’t need to disappear. Like I said, embrace it. Because that’s what’s going to draw people to you.

So I hope that helps. It was on my mind today, I though it just want to share it. I hope that that was good for you guys. Again, as entrepreneurs, we’re risking stuff every day. We’re risking our name, money, other people. I wake up in the morning scared with 119 employees as of today. If I screw up, how many people lives have I let down because of that. Those things are real to me and I understand that. But I’ve got to risk those things because how many people’s lives can we effect because of those things.

And if you’ve gone through bankruptcy, don’t let that stress you out. It’s a gift from the founding fathers, from God. It’s given us the ability so that we can risk and not lose everything. We can risk……..and if it wasn’t for that, again, progress would stop if entrepreneurs weren’t risking. So it’s not a bad thing. If you….

Anyway, I just wanted to give you guys that as a gift. And if you any of you guys are struggling, some of you probably are. Some of you guys are going through bankruptcy or gone through bankruptcy. Maybe it’s not bankruptcy but you failed. You launched something that didn’t work. You built a team of people and the product didn’t work and you had to fire people or let them go. All the ups and downs and disappointment. As entrepreneurs you have so many things on your shoulders and I get that.

I hope this message helps relieve some of that pressure for some of you guys. Because if you don’t keep risking, trying, keep getting those scars, where is the world going to be? Where are you going to be? Where’s your family going to be? Where are the people you’re serving going to be? They need you and it’s worth the risk, worth the sacrifice, worth the fears. Because if you’re going to affect those people, when you deliver on what you know you have and you change their lives, it makes it all worth it.

It’s interesting, just to kind of close this down. I looked at where our company has come to where we are today. And I looked back during my last cycle. 7 years ago when everything collapsed around me and I thought the world was coming to an end and I was depressed and sad and scared and all those kind of things happened. Looking at it now, if I didn’t go through that, Clickfunnels and this process never would have happened. I never would have met Todd, I never would have met who built Clickfunnels. I never would have built this team. I never would have had the opportunity. I wouldn’t have known the things I know to be able to execute on this. A lot of things we’re steering clear from today are because of the mistakes that happened back then. And if I would have made those mistakes today, some of them would have been catastrophic. Way more people’s lives would have been effected.

Whereas, I had a chance to suffer those things, get those scars on a smaller scale, so I don’t have to have those things now. Hopefully, if I learned my lesson which I’m trying to do. So look at those things as gifts, embrace them, share them, and don’t hide from them. Because those scars will draw people to you and we all have them. Don’t let that keep you from your mission.

Hope that helps. Appreciate you guys and see you guys all on the next episode of Funnel Hacker, no that’s wrong. What is this episode? Marketingsecrets.com. So sorry, I was recording Funnel Hacker TV earlier today. So marketingsecrets.com podcast. That’s what this is. By the way, if you want to go see our tv show, go to funnelhacker.tv, we have a whole bunch of behind the scenes episodes, a couple of new episodes as well of different stories. In fact, by the time this is live, the same day, we have our next show going live. So go to Funnel Hacker TV as well, check out the shows.

If you like the podcast, please share it. Please go to iTunes and leave me a review. I don’t care if you give me one stars, two stars. If you give me five that will be way cooler. Please do that. Thanks again for everything guys and I will talk to you all again soon. Bye everybody.

Jun 6, 2017

Who was J. Peterman and why should you care?

On this episode Russell talks about taking inspiration for writing good copy from the J. Peterman catalog (of Seinfeld fame). Here are some of the fascinating things you will hear in this episode:

  • Learn something new about Seinfeld, like that the J. Peterman catalog was actually a real catalog that really had great copy.
  • Hear a couple of excerpts from the catalog that are amazing and see for yourself why it's so awesome.
  • And find out how Russell made a book about copywriting seem sexy.

So listen below to learn something new about Seinfeld that you can tell all your friends the next time you watch the show, while also being inspired by the amazing copy contained in the real catalog.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody, this is Russell. I just wanted to jump on real quick, spur of the moment. Because I wanted to share something with you that is important. It has to do with the show Seinfeld, but I knew as soon as I said Seinfeld some of you would be like, “I read your book, Russell. It’s the Seinfeld email sequences.” But it’s not, I got something completely different that you guys probably didn’t even know about yet.

I don’t know about a lot of you guys, a lot of you guys are into marketing now and you’re loving it because we’re talking about it and making it exciting and sexy, but I want you to understand. Marketing has been the old timers, most of them are dead now, they’re no longer alive. The legends, this is where the coolest stuff comes from. So people ask me what I do for fun. I spent $4000 buying these right here. These are a whole bunch of swipe files of ads from dead people, because they’re so amazing.

Anywhere, where do I get weird stuff like this? Someone’s already asking. I get stuff like this on eBay. I just recently got a purchase that showed up today that I wanted to show you guys. It’s marketing, for someone like me, it’s the greatest marketing thing on planet Earth. Here’s a snapshot of what it is. That’s all you get.

Based on that, who can tell me what this is? It has to do with Seinfeld, it’s a pop quiz. I want to know your answer down below. Anyone who gets the answer to this quiz, I will have so much respect for you as a marketing person. There’s something that has to do with this and Seinfeld. Anyone who knows what it is, post it down below. I want to see if any of you guys know. There’s hints, it’s an old catalog from 1994. What does that have to do with Jerry Seinfeld and Elaine, and the crew? Any one of you guys know.

I’ll give you guys another hint. I’ll give you the title of the top. It’s going to be backwards on Facebook live, but this is one of the official J. Peterman catalogs from 1994. Anyone getting close to knowing what I’m talking about. Okay. Alright, Kramer’s roommate?

Okay, for those that don’t know, I’m going to explain what’s happening. Most of you guys, hopefully everybody has watched the show Seinfeld. Do you guys remember that Elaine got a job at the J. Peterman Catalog. Do you remember J. Peterman was this eccentric person and he’d go on vacations and go buy hats and then he’d write all this amazing copy in these catalogs and Elaine became one of the copywriters and had all these people and it became this huge spoof on multiple different seasons. What most of you guys probably don’t know is that the J. Peterman catalog is a real thing. It was a real thing and any old school direct response copywriters know and you study stuff like this.

The other day I was doing an interview, a podcast interview with some Ecom sellers and they’re asking, “How does this funnel stuff work for ecommerce people?” I was like, “You guys! Do you not know who J. Peterman is?” and they’re like, “That guy from Seinfeld?” and I’m like, “No! Are you serious?” You need to understand your roots, where did you come from? You are marketing and selling and you need to understand your roots. Understanding these roots, there’s so much gold just waiting there for you to take it.”

So anyone selling ecommerce or anyone selling anything. You need to understand who  J. Peterman was. J. Peterman was a visionary, a genius, an amazing copywriter who built a huge company based on these catalogs. I went to eBay and searched for J. Peterman catalogs after that interview because I wanted to get some to show all you guys the foundation and history where this whole thing is coming from. And if you have a ecommerce site, this is a hint.

So here’s 4 J. Peterman catalogs, I got Dave and Steven here geeking out on them.

Dave: Geeking out big time, awesome stories.

Russell: So he doesn’t just say, give us an example of one real quick. Hold on. “Here is a blue shirt to sell” or “Here is …..” This is the best one? Do you want to read it in your marketing voice? This is, what is it? Slinky cord….a lot of you guys will have this on your ecom story, ecom funnel, “it’s ugly green pants and a white shirt.” So listen to the copy. On every single page in the Peterman catalog, just see why this company grew so big and what you guys should be doing to the copy on your ecom and Amazon lists and all sorts of stuff. So ready to read our order?

Dave: Absolutely. “A bedouin horseman chased you half way across the desert. (A beautiful woman on a camel in the desert alone is too ripe a target to dismiss.)

Your heart leaps in your throat again and again, an exquisite torment the Arabs, katu’l-kalb, or “heart cutting.”

Delirious, half dead you reach the emir’s palace. A Galla slave rears his horse in your path….you notice he is speaking in Peter O’Toole’s voice. Just then you awaken in the Royal Suite of the Lanesborough in London, “Lawrence of Arabia” blaring from the television set.

You rush back to sleep, Slinky Silk Cord Tank Top. And Slinky Silk Cord Pants. Not harem pants, but close. 100% flowing, loose silk. More romantic, more interesting than you remembered.”

Russell: Now that is how you sell something. That’s called good copy. You don’t put like brown, orange or yellow, add to cart. You sell your stuff. Every page of this catalog, they’re selling…they don’t even have pictures. It’s like painting of the pictures because this is pre-pictures, apparently. But every single one has amazing cpy to sell it. It would behoove most of you to go to eBay, I don’t know how many are still available, or even Google it. I’m sure you can find it online as well. But search for the J. Peterman catalog, the original ones. These one’s I bought here on eBay are from 1994. The older the better because stuff like this gets better with time.

Steven: The whole thing is a story in one line of description. Look at this.

Russell: So this is….Steven’s going to order this one. This is the Famous Miss Blue. The famous Miss Blue Hat. So if this was on the Shopify site, this would be one button, add to cart and this would be all they would get.

Steven: Yeah, basically. And a picture of it.

Russell: So what would J. Peterman do?

Steven: J. Peterman would say something like this, “You know who I mean. It could have been you. One day you arrived by train, but from where? Nobody knew.

You carved a plantation out of 1,000 acres of dry land which the smart money called worthless.

You diverted a stream and proved them wrong. You wore a big Panama hat, big like a man’s. but you didn’t look like a man. Sometimes you wore it held on with a chin strap, sometimes you wore it down your back.

You became rich, I guess. Anyway, you had a piano, I heard it. I saw you and those……” Anyway, it’s really cool. And at the end it goes, “I remember all that.” And it all kind of rhymes as you go through it. And it’s literally one line…”Made in Ecuador. Leather chin strap. Approx. 4-inch brim. Memorable. $40”

What? I want this hat now. It’s for a woman.

Russell: Alright so, what the lesson and moral for today that I want you to understand, is that copy is the king. It’s the key to everything. I told this on the Marketing Secrets podcast, a lot of you may not have heard this. But copywriting is not sexy, it’s not exciting. So when I wanted to teach copy…..in fact, if I call it copywriting guess what all of us do? We all fall asleep, our eyes glaze over. But if you read the expert secrets book, guess what that book is? It’s my contribution to copywriting. Teaching you how to tell stories, how to do it the right way. How to do epiphany bridges, how to tell kind of like bridges, how to position the offer. All those kind of things. It’s copy, it’s copywriting.

So that is the study that you guys gotta understand. Understand, wherever you’re coming at, some of you guys have been doing this business for years. 6 months, 5 years, 10 years. But there is people that have gone before us that have mastered this stuff. So the reason why I do good today is because I study the old timers. The old timers are the key, you guys. There’s so much of this stuff. If you have an ecommerce site and you want to do well, master J. Peterman. Buy his catalogs, read the copy, understand that.

If you want to understand how to do newletters, go read Gary Halvert letter. Go read, you know go back to the foundation where this stuff all began because that’s the key.

So anyway, there you go you guys. There’s our sneak attack episode of the J. Peterman catalog. If you liked this please share as much as you can. I’d like for more people to hear about it. But now you guys are all in on the secret. So understand that you guys. Copy is the key,it’s the secret. Next time you watch Seinfeld working at the J. Peterman catalog, now you’ll know the joke behind the joke. What she’s talking about and why it’s cool. All sorts of stuff like that.

So that’s all I got you guys. And if for some reason you’ve been living under a rock and you don’t have the Expert Secrets book yet, just go to expertsecrets.com because it is my contribution to copywriting. You know I always said I would never write a copywriting course or product because it’s not sexy or exciting and just not that cool. So I called it something different, but it’s copywriting, that’s what that message, that book is all about. Helping you understand how to write good copy, tell good stories, all those things tied together. So that’s what I got you guys, have an amazing day. I hope you guys had a good job. We will talk soon. Bye everybody.

Jun 2, 2017

Here is a recap of a 7 day internal launch that made over a million dollars and what we learned along the way.

On today's episode Russell gives the details of the 7 day launch strategy and what worked and what didn't. Here are some insightful things you will here on this episode:

  • A step by step guide to what Russell did for each of the 7 days in the launch.
  • What mistakes were made and how Russell and his team were able to make tweaks on the fly to make it better.
  • And what Russell learned from the experience and how it can help others with their own businesses.

So listen below to get a cool step by step guide into the 7 day launch.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to Marketing Secrets podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about the 7 day launch.

Hey everyone, this is Russell and welcome back to Marketing Secrets podcast. So today I’m going to be talking to you guys about this launch right here and the reason why, is my inner circle members keep asking me, “Hey Russell, can you please show us what happened behind the scenes of the 7 day launch?” They want the stats, numbers and details. So I thought I’m going to kill two birds with one stone. Because I wanted to talk about this on the podcast anyway. So this is for the inner circle members and for those of you who listen to the podcast, I hope you love it.

I’m not going to go deep into the numbers, I will just tell you that this launch in 7 days did over a million dollars in coaching sales, which is exciting, so it worked. I initially learned about this concept from one of my friends, Brendon Burchard. If you watch Funnel Hacker TV, the behind the scenes show, you will see some of the behind the scenes of us kind of going through this. He was in Las Vegas and I flew out there and there’s a whole episode on funnelhacker.tv where you’ll see me flying to Vegas, hanging out with Brendon and getting ideas on how he did this.

So I’m not going to go too deep into all the strategies, just because I know he is launching a course later on this year. I’m going to buy it, you should all buy it, we should all buy it, it’s going to be amazing. Going deep into the deep in the details and giving the swipe files and stuff like that, but if you were watching you probably saw it, first off. Second off, you probably got the swipe files just by getting my emails and stuff. So you’ve got some feedback, if you’ve been funnel hacking and watching, you’ve had a chance to see it.

Basically the way it worked is we did the book launch for the first 30 days, which built up a lot of pressure and excitement and we made a lot of book sales and upsells and everything else. At the end of it I wanted to do something cool. I wanted to figure out how, those who wanted to go deeper, how do I offer a coaching program that’s not me being, I didn’t want to feel like I was selling again because it’s just…..You know how it is, after a while people don’t want to keep being sold. I’d say it’s not like I wanted to sell a coaching program, to help people want to go to the next level with it, which is exciting. But then second off, I wanted to give and serve.

So when Brendon gave me this idea I loved it. So basically how 7 day launch works is, and those who saw it, basically what happened is Monday I started promoting it, Tuesday I did this long training. So if you’re watching the video you can see day 1 I basically did an episode from 11 until noon-ish, I can’t remember exactly how it all went. And module one was you becoming an expert.

What’s interesting is the book promo is all about Expert Secrets, but there was stuff like as soon as you read the book there’s this weird finality where it’s written and done and you can’t edit it or touch it again. And there were things as we’re selling it that I was like, “Oh…” during my interviews all these things kept coming up. There was stuff I wished I could share and there was pieces I wanted to just do.

So what’s cool, is giving the ability, because I don’t have to re-teach the book, because people have the book, but here’s a master class of what’s next. If you read the book and you’re like, “What’s the next piece? What is it?” So this one here I went really deep with you becoming an expert and finding your voice and it was just training and it was awesome.

So what we did is we emailed, so on Expertsecretsmasterclass.com, by the time there was a video, they embedded the live video from YouTube, people could watch and promote that through email. But then we also setup Facebook Live, I think there’s just those two platforms. So when we started this and clicked record, I came on and said, “Hey guys, we’re recording a course, it’s going to be awesome. I’m going to jump up here and start recording, be back in a minute.” Then we clicked go and it was like life. So I taught this entire thing, training. It was awesome.

Then during the breaks we had testimonial videos streaming of our coaching program of the FHAT event, The Funnel Hack A Thon event so people could keep seeing success stories. I took a break so I could go to the bathroom and reset. We came back and taught number two, which is creating an irresistible offer. And that was it for day. I think I was up there for 3 hours, it was awesome. When all was said and done, I think we  had 20 or 30 thousand people watch it between YouTube and Facebook. Gave tons of good will and it was really, really cool.

A lot of people who, they’ve been stuck on these two pieces, I had a chance to go deeper on that and give them everything. So that was day number one. And then this is where it replayed for 24 hours and then it disappeared. People had the chance to watch it for 24 hours, and some did, and then it disappeared.

Then day two started. Day two I wanted to do the big domino, it went really deep to help people understand that. Then we had a break again, and then what I did at the latest session, actually did a webinar. Now, it’s a little different from Brendon, when he did his, basically at the end of day two is when he pushed people to a video sales letter, which sold a product. Me, I just did a webinar. One of the big things that was kind of interesting. When we created this offer, part of this training is really cool and desirable. A lot of people aren’t going to be able to watch it live, and you pull it down and you stage, because people actually want the content and the training.

At the end of this I’m not selling this as a course because it’d be hard to sell because people are like, “I missed part of it, I should have watched it!” and all these kind of things. So instead it’s like, if you join the coaching program you get all this course for free, and notice I didn’t say the recordings of this product. Because recordings seem really cheap. Getting this course, the Expert Secrets Master Class, the perceived value is way higher, it’s the course not the recordings.

If you watch the videos back I tried to say that, I think a couple of times I messed up and said recordings. I was trying to get it perfect. So that was here, and then what’s cool is that happened and sales started coming in for the coaching program. Because there was a webinar and they got to watch me do the webinar but then I was actually selling the coaching program on the webinar.

Now what’s happening, as soon as it was done, it’s funny because it’s the first time I’d ever done this webinar. We created it the night before, it was perfect webinar, hacked style. So it was one headline, three secrets, a board with things. I pitched two offers, which is usually a wrong thing to do and it was in this case too. We had 2,000 or 15,000, it was just complicated when you get to the stack. So sales did okay, but I was kind of honestly, when the camera shut off, I was sitting there kind of depressed. Dang, that did not feel right. They didn’t convert right. Some people bought but it wasn’t right. I was just like, dangit.

I was frustrated and that night I was kind of stressing out about it and realizing that. So then we made some tweaks and changes. And the cool thing is day three, I came back and broke down the campaign and showed them and went through the webinar again. And what’s cool about the second webinar, or the second training is because I was going through what I did and what worked and what didn’t work. I knew what hadn’t worked the first time. So I had this really cool opportunity to weave in different close, different stack, different things, to close the deal from the day before.

I’m going to talk about why this is so key here. Because I think I figured out something amazing. But after that section, sales started coming in like crazy. The second webinar where I broke down what I did here, but then use that, and hopefully you guys watched that, if not you missed it. But I was weaving in all these closes throughout it, it was kind of a cool thing. But I was just breaking down what we were actually doing.

Then we had a break and at the end I did a virtual book tour, which is kind of a bonus training of how we got traffic and then that was it. When that one ended, sales were coming in better than the day before. I was able to fix some of the things I had done wrong back here, which was good. But there was something wrong with the, there was something….it still wasn’t quite big so I was sitting there and I was kind of… I don’t know about you guys, but when you nail it I have all this energy afterwards. When I don’t I just feel this lack of energy. When we got done afterwards I was like, it was good but I still felt this lack of energy.

I felt this weirdness around this pricing strategy and if you look at pricing it was $2000 to do the online version, or $15000 to do the online plus come to Boise, plus get Fill Your Funnel and a bunch of other really cool things. And it was kind of, there was complexity in it. So we were talking about it, “Maybe we’ll open up a payment plan.” I hate payment plans and all those other sorts of stuff. Then I had this idea and I was like, “Wait a minute, what if instead of a payment plan, what if…” So this is the pricing strategy that turned this campaign from….at the end of day two we probably had $150,000 in sales to two days later we did over a million dollars in sales. What was the difference? This was the piece that was key, it was pricing.

So we shifted this, if you guys watched it, I came out and said, “Hey a lot of people are asking for a payment plan, unfortunately we don’t have a payment plan. But I did decide to turn this coaching program into a $300 a month one. So you come here, it’s $297 a month, or you can get lifetime access for $2000 or you can upgrade to the $15000 and com to Boise and get all this other stuff as well.

So what’s interesting, I know some of the guys on my team were nervous, “Oh no. If it goes $300 a month, everyone’s going to take that and it’s going to draw whatever…” What’s interesting is that we had people take that, but what it did was become almost like a decoy offer where it made everybody buy the $2000 offer, it’s crazy.

Tons of people bought, suddenly $2000 seemed cheap versus $300 a month and it was cool for 2 reasons. One, it got people to buy that. Number two it was cool because it got a whole bunch of people on a $300 a month coaching program as well, which is one of my goals this year. How do I create a $300 a month? To be honest Frank Kern has a $300 a month thing. Ryan STewman has a $300 a month thing. I was like, “I want a $300 a month training program.” So it kind of forced us to do that, but the cool side effect, it created this really cool thing where now $300 a month or lifetime access for $2000. So it was a huge discount there, which pushed everyone to the $2 grand.

When we had Neurocell, our supplement, it was kind of similar the way pricing was. We had one bottle, three bottles or four bottles. We had a pricing strategy where basically you had to be a moron to buy one bottle. Where if you had any brains at all you’d buy the four bottles. It was $80 a bottle, or it was $40 a bottle if you get three. It was crazy and it pushed everybody to where we actually wanted them. And by doing this it did that as well. It helped me do two goals.

One was to help me build up a $300 a month coaching program, number two it pushed people to what I actually wanted them to do, which was the $2000, which was really cool.

Now it’s been fun because people are going through there and the training for those who are going through it, it’s super in depth and intense and crazy and amazing. It’s getting me excited to watch what people are doing. So that was some of the break down. Basically the last 3 days were urgency and scarcity and that’s what pushed it over the million dollar mark.

That’s, by the way, a million dollars collected. A lot of people use, can I say this publicly? The company basically went bankrupt, so I can. There’s a thing we in the industry call stomper math. In stomper math, there’s a company called stomper net and they used to do launched and they’d be like, “We did 18 million dollars.” But it was not collected, it was if all the payment plans go through for the next 5 years then they would have made 18 million or something like that. I hate that. Stomper math, this was like a 10 million dollar launch. But in real math, not common core, but real math, we collected a million dollars. So after we rebuild stuff we’ll be higher. Anyway, I thought it was cool.

Urgency and scarcity from this point forward, and again, the offer was basically the thing that I wanted to sell wrapped in with the recordings of this, excuse me not the recordings. I said a curse word. You get the Expert Secrets Master Class course for free as well.

So that’s kind of it. So those who  were in the Two Comma Club coaching program, all the recordings of this are in the members area. So you can go back and watch them. I highly recommend at least watching these first three. These first three were probably some of the best presentations I’ve ever given, ever. I’m really proud of them and it will help you implement. The first three for those of you who are listening are The You in Expert, Create Your Digital Offer, and The Big Domino. There was something about the training, the way it worked. This training is just, I’m really proud of them, they turned out amazing.

Anyway, we probably will be trying to evergreen this funnel in the near future, I’m not sure exactly how to do it yet. But in the future if you go to expertsecretsmasterclass.com, it may be there, the evergreen version where basically you opt in and we have a 24 hour countdown and it disappears after 24 hours. I don’t know, I haven’t figured that part out yet. We may or may not try that in the future. But yeah, that was kind of a breakdown of how the campaign worked and it was a lot of fun.

Tons of reciprocity, tons of goodwill, a lot of people weren’t able to buy, they still got tons of stuff from that. And what’s been interesting in my business, as I’ve been watching this, the more I give away, it’s people have success with the free stuff, in fact Dan Henry is one person who said this specifically. A bunch of other people said, I feel like I owe you because I’ve made so much money from all the free stuff. Dan, I remember when he joined the inner circle, he’s like, “I feel like I owe you $25 grand for all you already gave me. So I’m just going to give it to you so I can be in your inner circle, but I feel like I owe it to you anyway.”

And that’s what I want to do. I want to give people such good stuff, they can run with it and have success. So much so that in the future they’re like, “Man, I need to buy all Russell’s stuff, because I feel like I owe it to him.” So it’s kind of a good spot to be in. That’s what I’m trying to focus a lot more on.

That’s kind of how the whole thing worked, it was really fun and enjoyable. The big key takeaways are number one, just giving and building this huge reciprocity streaming this huge, live streaming to YouTube and to Facebook. I think when all was said and done it was like a quarter of a million people that had seen parts of this training. It might have been more than that. It was amazing.

Having an offer, a really good offer with a really good pricing strategy behind it, when Brendon comes out with his course later this year, hopefully he’ll….he’ll probably use this process to launch it. But watch how he structures his offers. I think that’s the key of it. What he does, he’ll do this whole training and be like, “Hey expert academy, my $1000 course, I’ll give you a 50% discount, so you get $500, plus you get this for free.” It’s all about creating an irresistible, amazing offer.  It took us a couple of tries and while this thing was happening, tweaking our offer before it got right.

That’s another thing you’ve got to understand is that we’re tweaking offers in the, as they’re happening. In the middle we’ll be like, “Ah, it’s not working. It’s not converting. Change it, tweak it.” If your thing’s not converting, change the offer, don’t like, “Ah it didn’t work.” If you would have seen the behind the scenes, and I think we probably filmed some behind the scenes of that from the behind the scenes Funnel Hacker TV show.

But we’re shifting and changing and modifying things on the fly because it’s happening in real time and it’s kind of crazy. Anyway, this was a really cool thing to kind of end the launch with. You know it added an extra million dollars to the bottom line, which was cool. It helped us figure out the pricing strategy for long term when we do evergreen-ness. How to actually sell the coaching, what the right messaging…Forcing myself to do a webinar live, helped me figure out what was wrong with my webinar hook. Then having me do a webinar where I recap the whole thing gave me another deep ability to fix the things and know what to do when I make this thing an auto webinar and sell it as a coaching program in the future.

And this is the other thing I learned that was awesome. When you do a webinar, and maybe this only works in my market, I’m not sure. Or like a business market. But doing a webinar and then the next day showing them what you did. The second webinar made us more money than the first. So one cool thing I’m going to start doing is, I think with some of my webinars is if somebody registers be like, “Hey, if you watch to the end, what I’m going to do is send an email with a break down where I’m going to show you behind the scenes. I’m going to show you the webinar funnel, what we did. I’m going to let you funnel hack what I just did. I’ll give you the share funnels, the emails. But you have to watch the webinar to be able to get access to that.” And it should force people to consume the webinar, which will create sales and things like that.

That was a cool thing, doing a double webinar. We did that back in the day. 8 or 9 years ago we used to double things like that. We’d do one and one right after. I forgot about them and it was, I think there’s a correlation here, doing a double webinar and the second webinar is showing something, but just keeps closing sales. But it’s a different presentation. I’ll test with that and let you guys know what we figure out.

Figuring out your pricing strategy was big. There’s so many cool lessons from it. Hopefully you guys watched it and experienced it. You had a chance to see behind the scenes of the numbers and metrics, the big takeaways and aha’s we learned along the way. Anyway, it was pretty awesome.

Hopefully I’ll see you guys. Thank you again for listening to Marketing Secrets podcast. If you are not on iTunes, please search on iTunes, leave me some feedback and listen to it there. Because on iTunes, it’s cool because it’s not just, I think this is episode 5 or 6 or whatever we’re on Marketing Secrets, but on iTunes you get access to all of the back episodes, like 350 episodes from when I was running the Marketing Secrets show under a different name. It was called Marketing In Your Car. I highly, highly recommend you guys going back and binge listening to all of those because they are good and they are worth it.

A lot of our biggest success stories people have a chance to binge through everything. Watch the video here if you’re watching on YouTube, but go to iTunes and subscribe go binge listen to everything. Catch up with us. You can be hanging out with all these things and all this stuff will make a lot more sense to you. Anyway, that was it for the 7 day launch. I hope you guys enjoyed that and we’ll talk to you guys soon. Bye everybody.

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