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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: 2018
Jan 18, 2018

Behind the scenes of some cool things that we’re doing to get people to stop and actually watch our ads.

On this episode Russell talks about a new ad technique where you try to get someone’s attention within three seconds. Here are some of the awesome things you will hear on today’s episode:

  • Find out what kind of ads Russell is experimenting with to grab people’s attention quickly.
  • Discover why you need to be quicker in grabbing people’s attention in these days than they did in the 80’s.
  • And find out how Russell’s jeep became high centered and why he lit a copy of Expert Secrets on fire!

So listen here to see why Russell blew up his Gold Prospector with a potato gun and lit his book on fire.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast.

Alright everyone, I hope things are going awesome. We had such a fun day today. Tuesday’s become my days where I block out time to film all the stuff we gotta film. I remember, when was it? Probably like three or four years ago, I was talking to Mike Filsaime, he’s been a close friend for a decade now, I remember he told me he and Annie Jenkins, they used to be business partners with the company Webinar Jam and Traffic Genesis and stuff. And he told me he had an epiphany, he’s like, “We make money when we’re on camera.” So the more videos they make, the more camera time they make, the more money they make. So that was their big epiphany. They need to spend more time making videos because that’s how they make money.

And I’ve kind of recently come to the same thing. I make the most money inside Clickfunnels as a pitch person who’s out there talking about Clickfunnels and talking about why it’s awesome and all that kind of stuff. So basically every Tuesday we’re blocking out as filming day now, filming a whole bunch of stuff. So I filmed a new thank you page webinar for the Dotcom Secrets book funnel. I filmed a whole bunch of promo videos. I filmed upsell videos. I filmed all these things.

And at the end of the day I had two other videos I was supposed to make that I didn’t really want to make. So I was like, ahh, I had like 15 minutes left and I was like, “You know what we should do? We should go and do some fun ones.” It’s been fun. I’ve been watching one of my buddies, Dean Graziosi, we’ve been kind of sharing notes with book funnels. He’s got a book funnel that’s killing it. I’ve got a couple of book funnels that are also doing really, really well. I’ve been watching his ads and his ads are so fun.

He had one where he lit his book on fire and he’s like, “This book is literally on fire. You should go buy it.” And then he had a bunch of magic trick ones. One when he’s in his Tesla and he clicks the screen on the Tesla, all the sudden the book pops out and he holds it. One where he’s got the empty box he shakes up and like 15 copies of the book dump out of it, just little things to capture people’s attention.

I was like, we need to start doing more of those kind of things, just fun things. So we’re sitting there, we had a little time to film. I was like, “Let’s do a fun video, it could completely bomb, but it could be awesome. Who knows? We should do a potato gun video where I’m shooting the Expert Secrets book with a potato gun.” And I’m looking around and we see a big cardboard cutout of our Gold Prospector. I’m like, “We should take the book and the Gold Prospector like he’s holding it, and I’ll shoot the gun at the Gold Prospector and blow up the book.” It went from one thing to the next and the next until 15 minutes later we’re out in the field with the Jeep in the background for a pattern interrupt.

There’s this Jeep with red headlights shining at the camera. We set up slow motion camera as well, and then there’s this Gold Prospector cutout with a copy of the Expert Secrets book taped to him. And the first thing I say is, “Hey my name is Russell Brunson. I’m a potato gun expert.” And I turn the potato gun towards the prospector and like point blank, three inches from where he is, I shoot this potato gun at him and he explodes, the book flies in the air. We got slow motion of the whole thing happening.

And then I come back and I’m like, “Holy cow.” And I throw the potato gun on the ground and then Dave Woodward, off screen, throws me a copy of my book, and I’m like, “Hey my names Russell Brunson and I got my new book called Expert Secrets, you should get a free copy of it.” And I did this crazy pitch for the book. And it was so much fun. We had such a good time.

And when that was done Dave decided to teach me how to use a Jeep because I got my new Jeep that’s awesome, but I’m kind of a city boy who’s scared of Jeeps. So we went driving in this mud pit, flipping circles and stuff. He wanted me to go up on this huge hill. So I go up on this hill and it scared me to death, it was one of the scariest things ever.

And he kept telling me, “No, you’re wussing out. You gotta go up and over the top of it.” And I didn’t dare, so I jumped out and had him go in it and first thing he does, he goes up this huge hill and then high centers the Jeep and it’s completely stuck and we can’t get it to move. It’s not even high centered. There’s like more dirt…I can’t even explain it. It was like in mud because there was dirt all the way up to the car, underneath….anyway, it was crazy, completely stuck.

So we had to call his son, Christian to come and basically get a wench and pull it out. But when we’re doing that, we had a 20 minute break before he could here. So we’re like, “what should we do for 20 minutes?” I’m like, “let’s burn a book like Dean burned a book, I want to burn a book.” So we got a book, we tried to light a fire, we found out it’s kind of hard, you have to have lighter fluid. So I drove to the grocery store, bought lighter fluid, came back, soaked my book in lighter fluid, about this time they got the Jeep out, it’s pitch black, I told my kids the Jeep was stuck in the mud so they all came over, my wife and my kids are there.

And so finally, it’s pitch black outside, we’re like, “This book is soaking wet with lighter fluid, we need to do this thing.” So I sat in the Jeep, I lit the book on fire, and it’s like flames going crazy everywhere. And it looked awesome because it was super dark outside. This book is burning and I’m like, “This book is on fire, you need to go get your copy right now.” And just made a really quick, fun promo video that turned out, it looked so cool because it’s dark and the flames are bright, and I’m sitting in my car at the time. It was just crazy.

And when it was done, I held the book up and did an Instagram ad and a bunch of other ones with this flaming book and just had so much fun. The last hour of the day was insanely fun and insanely cool.

And I started thinking, so often most of us are trying to do things the right way. We set the funnel the right way, and then we drive ads, buy image ads, and get ads with memes, all these things we’re doing trying to make things look good. “What’s everyone else doing? We’re doing it.” And what I’m kind of realizing watching some of these people I know who’s ads are killing it, it’s the rare, unique, weird things.

It’s the pattern interrupts, it’s things someone sees on Facebook and they share it with their friends, or they have to buy or they’re scrolling and all the sudden they stop like, “What? Russell’s thing is on fire, why is he shooting a potato gun at a cutout?” It’s the pattern interrupt that wins.

And I just had this big epiphany in my mind. We need to start doing more things like that. How many cool, crazy, weird things can we do to get someone to stop scrolling, so you can share your thing? I talked to Dean and his guy a little bit and one of the keys to these magic tricks is you need something within the first three seconds that captures their attention and then you transition into your book pitch.

Soon in the next week or two you will see these ads go live. And maybe they might bomb. They may do amazing. I don’t know. But I think they’re going to do really, really good. And now my mind sets on this thing, how do we create crazy ads to stop scrollers, to stop everyone on the thing really quick, so we can transition into a call to action? How do we grab them and just stop them where they’re at in their tracks enough to get their attention and then make the special offer?

So I just wanted to share with you guys today, because I think so many times we get so stuck in the minutia of business and building funnels and sales pitches and all this kind of thing. Let’s have some fun again. What are the weird things you can do with your front end products to get people to stop? If you get them to stop, that’s 99% of the battle now days.

Everyone’s got, in fact I’m writing a script about this right now, but the average human has a 7 second attention span. 7 seconds. A gold fish has 8. We have shorter attention spans than gold fish, which is crazy. Back in the 80’s we had a 20 minute attention span, now we’re down to 7 seconds.

So when you understand that, our people got 7 seconds, you’ve got to do something insane to grab them. A magic trick, blowing a book up, lighting it on fire, or whatever. The crazier the better.

So today was fun because we made two of those and it just got me excited. I’m going to start doing a whole bunch more. I want to share with you guys, so hopefully it gives you some freedom. Have some fun with your ads, do some crazy things. Things that just make no logical sense, but just do it just to do it. Who knows?

I look at Dean’s ads, and the one of the book on fire has like 4 million views. The one with the magic trick has even more. They’re doing insanely well. So if you start thinking, what’s the memed ad I can do today that’s going to have a good quote someone’s going to share..Instead, how about something interesting that actually gets people to stop, so I can make them a special offer?

So that’s what I wanted to share with you guys today. Do something crazy to make them stop so you can give them a special offer. Anyway, check out Facebook, Instagram, you will probably start seeing some of these things pop up soon in the very near future in my newsfeeds. That’ll hopefully in your newsfeed, it’s going to be awesome.

By the way, if you want to see all the craziness that happened behind the scenes, if you’re following me on Instagram, Instagram stories, I’m sharing all this stuff. There’s scenes of the potato guns, things blowing up all the time. So if you’re not following me on Instagram, go to instagram.com/Russellbrunson, I believe. Or just search Russell Brunson, I should be in there. Follow me and then go watch my Instagram stories. We’re filming the chaos and craziness every single day as it’s happening. So if you want to see it all  happening in real time, Instagram is the place.

Anyway, I’m going to go to bed. My kids are in bed before 9. I’m so excited. I’m so excited, so I’m going to go to bed. I appreciate you guys all, have an amazing day and I’ll see you guys soon. Bye.

Jan 18, 2018

This is not your traditional marketing episode, but hopefully it helps you to understand your role in the plan.

On this podcast Preacher Russell talks about the journey that leads you to where God (or whatever you believe in) wants you to be. Here are some of the insightful things in this episode:

  • Find out why Russell feels that the struggles from his past have made it possible for his present.
  • Hear why Russell believes his journey is so important for what God ultimately has in store for him.
  • And find out why when he looks back on the most difficult and painful time in his life, he is grateful for the journey.

Listen below to see why your journey is so important for where you end up.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and I got a really cool message I want to share with you guys tonight that at first may not seem like a marketing secret, but I really think it’s probably the secret behind all the gifts and talents we’ve been given.

Alright everybody, I hope first off, that you’re all having a great day. I just wanted to share a really neat experience. I’m going to get slightly religious just for like 5 seconds, just to be able to illustrate a point behind why I believe you’ve been given the gifts that you have. And my guess is if you’re here listening to my podcast, that’s not a fluke. You’ve been blessed with something amazing. And because of that you’ve also been blessed with the desire to share, to help or to serve, or do something.

It’s not something I understood for a long time, but it’s something I see so clearly now. I’m a big believer that God, he calls us to do things and then he qualifies us by often times taking us through a long, horrible road, for us to learn the skills we need to be able to accomplish the thing that he wants us to do. It’s interesting.

You may or may not believe that, but regardless, it happens, you’ve seen it. You’ve seen it when it’s like, I’m going to accomplish this thing, and I have no idea how I’m going to do that. And then you go through this horrible, painful process often times, and then on the back side of it, you’re able to accomplish that thing. It’s like, oh that actually wasn’t that bad. And it’s because of this journey, this road we’ve gone on that has increased our capacity to actually be able to do the thing that we need to do.

So last weekend we were in San Diego for Dave Woodward’s son Chandler got married, it was a cool thing. So my wife and I had a chance to fly down there and be there for the wedding and reception and it was really, really cool. And then Sunday we were flying back home. Normally we try to go to church or something, but we couldn’t because of the way the timing was, but there is a really cool thing in San Diego, it’s called the Mormon Battalion Visitor center, or something like that.

So we had an hour before our flight so we went from our hotel there, and went through the little tour of the thing. For those that don’t know Mormon history, it doesn’t really matter, but what’s interesting is that after people murdered the Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, they were leaving and they were trying to come basically back west to find somewhere to hide from these people that didn’t like the Mormons.

So they get tthese handcarts and they’re moving and all this stuff, they’re literally fleeing from the government. And then all the sudden one day, these guys show up on these horses and they’re like, “Hey, we need 500 of your men to join this army to fight with the country against the Mexican armies.” And at first they’re like, “Dude, you guys literally killed our prophet, you ran us out of the town, you killed our people, you’ve done all these things, and now you want us to join your army?”

And anyway, and I’m not going to go too much into the whole story, but they prayed about it and felt like, yes we need to do this. So 500 of these men left their wives, left their children and went on this long, huge, year long journey down to Texas, across Arizona, all the way to California, to be a part of this little army called the Mormon Battalion.

They were promised by the Prophet, Brigham Young, at the time, that if they went on this journey that they wouldn’t actually see war, and their families would be protected. And that’s kind of this thing.

So they go on this huge journey, and I promise you guys who are the non-religious people who are listening, saying why is he talking about this? There’s a purpose and a point and I think it’s important. Anyway, he takes these people, they go on this journey for all these, for months and months and they finally get all the way to California, don’t see any war, in California they end up in San Diego, and when they’re in San Diego…It’s interesting, they brought with them, they’d learned how to make bricks and all this stuff. They came to San Diego and taught the people here this, and they actually helped settle San Diego, initially. And then from there, their year ended up being up with the army, so they had a chance to go back and get their families and help them come across the plains.

And what’s interesting about it, and this is why I want to share this, they went on this big, long journey that they felt called by the Lord to go on. They’re there to hopefully help with this war, they didn’t get in the war, they never fought, they never did anything, but they went on this journey and through this journey they got dehydrated, they didn’t eat or drink for weeks at a time, all sorts of things. They met Indians, did all sorts of stuff.

But on this journey they learned a whole bunch of really cool things. They learned how to farm in desert land, they learned how to make bricks, they learned how to find food, they learned all these amazing things. So then when they get back, they get their families and they move to Salt Lake. When you get to Salt Lake, Salt Lake was a horrible place. There’s this big salty lake in the middle of this valley, everything is dead. And this is where the Mormons decide to settle.

They get there, and these 500 men, that had gone on this big journey, they get here and they’re like, “We learned on this journey how to go and irrigate water, we learned how to make bricks, we learned how to do all these things.”All these skills that they had to have when they got to Utah to be able to settle that place and to be able to build this amazing city that they did.

And as I’m watching it, it’s like I literally, tears in my eyes as I’m realizing how symbolic this is to most of the missions that we go on. For some reason all of us have some kind of calling. And it comes in different ways. Some of you guys like you, got into this business because the calling was, “I need to make money for my family.” That was definitely what initially got me into this right. And it’s the equivalent of, “Hey you’re going to go to war to California, leave your family, go on this huge, long journey.”

So you go on this journey, and I think if people would have told us ahead of time, “If you do go on this journey, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re not going to have water, you’re going to be going through Arizona in the middle of summer….” If we knew the journey ahead of time we wouldn’t have done it. If you knew all the stuff you had to go through to build your business, you probably wouldn’t have done it initially, right. That’s just too much, I can’t do that.

Some of you guys came in, not because you wanted money, maybe it was because you wanted impact, or you had a message, or you found a product that you loved, or there’s someone you believed in and you want to support them. Whatever, we all come in for different reasons, different things that bring us into this journey. And then we have to go through a journey that typically is not easy.

If I look back on the last 14 years of my life, the journey to get to where we are today and to get Clickfunnels where, it was not all sunshine and roses. It was tough, it was really, really tough. But what happens when you go through those hard times, it increases your capacity to handle things. You learn little pieces at every single thing along the way.

And I feel that God is preparing you for whatever your real mission is. And I don’t even think that Clickfunnels is my real mission, to be completely honest. I think it’s something; Clickfunnels is preparing me for something different.  I think I’ve inklings of an idea of where my real mission is, but I could be completely wrong. I don’t know.

But all the ups and the downs, trials and errors that I learned, it helped me for a decade of my life to increase the capacity so that when this amazing opportunity of Clickfunnels came, I’ve been able to handle it. I look at my partners, people on my team, I look at the journeys that they all had to go through to be able to increase their capacity to be able to handle this thing.

Because, man I don’t know about, I think we’ve talked about this a little on this podcast, it’s not all sunshine and roses. It’s a battle every single day. We’re getting the crap kicked out of us sometimes on things. And it’s like you get knocked down, you get back up again. But if that would have happened five years, we couldn’t handle it. So we went on this interesting journey where we got beat up over and over and over again, to increase our capacity so when we got to this battle, to this war, to this stage we’re on now, we had the capacity to handle these things. It’s so fascinating.

And it just makes me so grateful for that journey and for those things. I think that’s why I started crying watching this thing about the Mormon Battalion. None of them wanted to go on that journey, they journey was horrible. But because they went on that journey, they come back to the Salt Lake Valley, and they had been blessed with the gifts and talents and abilities they needed to be able to thrive in the dessert next to a big, huge, salty, nasty lake.

I feel like all of us go on that same journey and I don’t know about most of you guys, but I’m sure the journey that you thought you were going on when you get back to where you are now, it wasn’t the same journey. It’s similar, but all these things you learned along the way made it possible.

Again, I feel like this Clickfunnels thing that we’re doing now, as much as I love it and I’m obsessed with it and I’m so grateful for it, the ups and downs and everything, it’s preparing me for something, it’s preparing the people on my team for something else. I don’t know what that is yet, but I don’t think…maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think God cares a ton about if my funnel converts or not.

Which, by the way, the new funnel we launched last week is killing it.

But he doesn’t care. But he’s giving me and you and us the talents, the skill set, the relationships, the abilities, the things we need so we can do what he really wants us to do.

So my recommendation for this podcast and my thoughts is for you guys to just to think about what is he really calling you to do. Maybe there is no God. I know some of you guys are thinking that, maybe there’s not, maybe this is all just coincidence, I don’t know. But regardless, this journey we go on is preparing us for the next thing. I believe in a God and I believe he is there guiding this stuff, so I’m not afraid to talk about that, I believe it.

But when you do believe it, it’s interesting. It’s just like wow, there’s this hand in this guiding me. What am I learning along the way? Why did I have this horrible trial, this horrible thing that happened? And it’s like, well, a lot of times we don’t know, but in hind sight, when you go back and look at it later, it’s like, “Wow, I could not have done that if it wasn’t for that.” How fascinating that that thing that I hated became such a good thing.

I remember at a Tony Robbins event, he asked everyone, “Who here likes surprises?” and everyone’s hands are raised. He’s like, “Bull crap. You like surprises that are good. No one likes surprises that are bad.” All the issues, all the bad things that happened, those are all surprises, you don’t like those surprises, right. We like the surprises that are good. But the other surprises are there.

But I believe they are there for our good, they’re taking us and preparing us and expanding our capacity so we can really do what our real mission is. And most of us probably don’t know what our mission is. But that’s why it’s important to keep moving forward in whatever the path that you’re on, because as you do that, that vision of what your true calling is, will appear someday. But only if you’re prepared for it. If you’re not prepared for it, it’s not going to be there.

“What a tragedy that moment finds him unprepared, or unqualified, that moment which could have been his finest hour.” One of my favorite quotes. So there you go. There’s a little religion from Russell. I’m going to preach to you guys tonight. I hope you don’t mind.

But I think it’s fascinating, and it meant a lot to me, so I just wanted to share with you guys as well. Just think about htat. This journey that we’re going on, the ups and downs and frustrations. Don’t give up because there’s something there you’re supposed to learn. There’s something there that’s supposed to increase your capacity and prepare you for something that’s coming.

I don’t know if that’s coming in a month from now, a week from now, a year from now, 5 years from now, 10 years, I don’t know when it is. But I promise you, these skill sets, these things you’re learning along the way aren’t just happenstance. There’s no reason….I barely, I struggled in school. How in the world was I blessed with these abilities to write books and to write copy and to speak?

If you saw me ten years ago, I was the most awkward person ever. I couldn’t look someone in the eye and talk to them. I went on a mission for the Mormon Church and knocked on doors for two years, door by door. I was so shy and awkward and nervous and I hated it. I would have to speak in church on Sunday, I’d be so scared. All these things, but those things you learn, there’s so many ways that I’m using it today. It’s just fascinating. Such a cool thing looking backwards.

It’s hard seeing forward, so I just wanted to pause tonight and look backwards for my own perspective because I am now seeing the fruits of those things in my life. And depending on where you are, I know all of you guys are at different spots. Some of you guys are probably going through some really tough times right now and it’s hard to look back and be like, “Oh this blessing is awesome.” But I promise, it’s not going to last. There will be a time when you’ll be able to stop and look back and be like, “Wow, I’m so grateful for that thing.”

I still think about the most painful, probably the most painful experience in my life was when we built up our big call center, we had 100 people. Some of you guys have heard me tell this story before, but when the whole thing collapsed, and I had to let go 40, 50, 60 people overnight, when I had people who I loved and cared about and thought were my friends and they walked out on me. That was so, so much pain.

In that moment, I could have never looked at that and been like, “Oh this is awesome.” But it’s so fascinating now looking back on that, I am so, so grateful for that course correction that was forced upon me. If it wasn’t for that, I look at the direction we were going, who knows? It wouldn’t have been good, it wouldn’t have been this, it wouldn’t have been….

And that time when I was in the darkest…I still remember one morning trying to leave the house and I was in so much mental anguish that I didn’t want to go out the door. My wife came into my room and she’s like, “What’s going on?” and I couldn’t even talk, I just started crying. I remember she grabbed me and pulled me down to our knees and we sat there and she prayed for me, prayed for us, prayed for this thing.

Looking back, that was such a scary, scary moment and I didn’t know how I was going to survive that. From a business, from a.. .there were so many things. How am I going to survive that?  I don’t know. I have no idea. I stood up, she gave me a kiss, pushed me out the door and back into battle. We had to figure it out.

And because of that, again, that’s what increased the capacity. So when the trials and the issues come today I’m more prepared for them than I was then. And there’s still stuff happening. I talked about this on the podcast. Other things have happened that have been stretching me again, preparing for the next phase, whatever that might be. I just hope that I’m worthy and prepared for that when it comes. And I hope that you are as well.

Because our Heavenly Father, he wants to use you in ways that you don’t even know yet. If you’ll prepare for that, you’ll be amazed at what he’s able to do with you. It’s unreal.

So there you go, preaching before I go to bed. Hope you guys don’t mind. I appreciate you guys listening in. Whether you believe in God or not, doesn’t matter. Just know that there is stuff leading your life, and if you’re in a dark spot or a happy spot or whatever, have faith, keep pushing forward. It’ll all turn out right in the end. And that’s all I got. Appreciate you guys, have a good night, and I will see you soon. Bye.

Jan 16, 2018

Some thoughts I had after staring at a blinking cursor for three hours.

On today’s episode Russell talks about how to find your big idea or hook. Here are some of the awesome things to listen for in this episode:

  • Why it’s hard for Russell to teach how to find the big idea.
  • Why you need to find the opposite of a pattern in order to find your big hook.
  • And why you should buy your Funnel Hacking Live tickets now if you haven’t already.

So listen here to find out how you can figure out your next big idea.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast.

Alright everyone, it’s late at night. I was supposed to go to bed like two hours ago because I have to get up early. But no, my kids decided that even though it was Martin Luther King day and they had no school all day, they didn’t do homework until right now. So I’m up getting them to finish their homework.

So anyway, I thought I’d take a quick break while they’re doing their stuff to come talk to you guys because it’s been a little bit and I’ve got something really fun to share with you today.

So today I had a chance to go to the office, which is really fun because we just got this flow and this rhythm happening now with the systems and the agency and all this stuff. And it’s just exciting and a lot of fun, so I was really excited to go in there today. And then I have a bunch of tasks I need to do and one of them I’m already working on. The sales, like an explainer video. So explainer videos are like those little cartoon videos that kind of explain what you do in a short period of time. I don’t want to brag, but I’d say I’m probably the best explainer video script writer on planet earth. If not, I’m going to take that credit for myself.

Because I wrote Rippln ones that did 1.5 million members in 6 weeks even though the company never went anywhere. I did the Prove It ones that built a half a million dollar company this year alone, in the last three years, off of one video. Obviously there’s a lot of other stuff happening, it’s an amazing team. I’m not taking all the credit, but the explainer video was mine. So proud of that. The Clickfunnels ones have done super good. So I’ve probably done, I don’t know, two dozen explainer videos and I’m just really proud of them and I think they all have turned out good and done amazing things.

When you write for them, it’s different. Because you have to write in a way that would be fun to be animated, be interesting, be engaging, all those kind of things. But what’s interesting, I was writing this one, we have a new part of Clickfunnels coming out called Actionetics MD, that’s all I’m going to tell you guys right now. And today I needed to get the video script done so the explainer video guys could start animating and sketching and getting it all done in time for the Funnel Hacking Live Event. Because I’m going to be showing the video there when we release all our new awesomeness that I can’t tell you about right now. But it’s going to be so amazing.

My goal is to get all of you guys to start using Actionetics 100% and I think we have, last time I checked 10-12 thousand people who are on the full Etison suite who are getting, who have Actionetics, but there’s still the 40 whatever thousand customers that aren’t using it yet. So it’s like, how do I get everybody to use it because it’s awesome? So the biggest thing was just make it simple, better, easier, more awesome, so that’s what we’re doing a big sprint right now from the dev side, to get it all done and live by Funnel Hacking Live.

So those who are at Funnel Hacking Live will get first access to this amazing-ness and everything. So make sure you’re at Funnel Hacking Live, if you’re not you’re missing out because it could be six months or so before we release it to everybody else. So if you want to get the features early, go to funnelhackinglive.com get your tickets before they are all sold out. They should be sold out this month, in fact, we’re doing a big push starting tomorrow.

Anyway, I digress, I’m sharing this because I’ve had a lot of people, in fact, I’ve had a lot of companies since then come to me like, “Hey Russell, write me an explainer video, we’ll give you equity, we’ll give you percentages.” Blah, blah, blah. Because that’s kind of what Prove It had done and obviously it worked well for them and for us and for everyone.

But I’ve just told people no because I just obviously have a lot happening in my life right now and I don’t have time to really write explainer video scripts for people. But for my own stuff obviously it’s still important. I was like, how do I write this thing?

It’s funny because the thought that came through my head before I started writing this was, what is the hook, what is the big idea? Those who were at Funnel Hacking Live last time heard Todd Brown, came and spoke on that. The big idea, the big hook. And as I was sitting there with my blank sheet of paper, the little cursor blinking as I’m trying to figure this out. “What’s the hook? What’s the hook?” I know what the product is, I know the differentiation points, I know it’s exciting, but what’s the hook? You have to have the right hook.

And I think, I’m going to talk about Todd Brown for a while because I love Todd. I respect him and I think he’s amazing. I think that what I’ve gotten, I think I’ve done a good job getting our funnel community and our marketing community understanding funnels and things like that. And I think we’ve gotten better at understanding structure of funnels and how and where and front end funnels versus back end funnels, how to do the perfect webinar and all these cool things.

But I look at Todd and what he studies and geeks out on, and he hangs out with all the Agora guys and they’re always talking about the big hook and the big idea. What’s that thing that drives the rest of it? And I don’t talk about that a lot publically, probably because it’s not something I can…it’s hard to reverse engineer. It’s like, okay here’s the pattern, here’s how it works.

The pattern of the hook is like the opposite of a pattern. Most stuff I teach it’s like, here’s the pattern, where’s the hook? Is like the least pattern-y thing ever. It’s the opposite of the pattern. It’s the pattern interrupt that becomes the hook. So I never talk a lot about it, but when I’m doing my own stuff, I do it. If you watch my webinars, all the stuff that I do, I’m doing it all the time.

And I sat there today for probably 2 ½ - 3 hours with a blank sheet of paper with that little blinking cursor, that you just want to, you wish you could delete it but everything’s deleted, that’s all that’s left, that little blinking cursor mocking you the whole time.

And my whole thought was, “What’s the big idea? What’s the big idea?” and I was asking in my company, “Okay, we know what Actionetics MD is, what’s the big idea, what’s the big hook? Why should people care?” and it took a while, like I said, 2 ½ - 3 hours before I was like, I got it. And as soon as I got it, in my head the story just flows, because I’m visualizing taking people on a journey and the process and story and how it fits together and how we illustrate this, and those things come fast. But man, that hook is the hardest thing.

I’ve had webinars where I’ve spent two days in front of a white board trying to figure out a headline, the hook. What’s the thing that gets somebody into a webinar? And I think that I’ve probably done a disservice inside of the funnel hacker community where I don’t talk enough about that because again, I don’t know how to reverse engineer and teach it. But it is the key.

I’m so grateful for Todd Brown talking about that so much. Because he’s the one that talks about it the most. I wish that we talked about it more in the community. Maybe this podcast is kind of the first time of me kind of bringing it out. But I just thinking about that, what’s the big hook? Why should someone care about the thing you’re selling? What is that, what’s the big reason? What’s the big idea that you have?

So look at the big campaigns that you’ve seen around you. Every market there’s big things happening. I look at when we launched Clickfunnels, I tried a bunch of different messaging and funnels, but the funnel that worked was a webinar funnel, the process was, I’ve talked about this before, having a webinar and then on the thank you page having a trial. That was the process work, but the hook was this concept of funnel hacking. That was the big idea that got people to be like, “Oh my gosh, I understand it.” That was the big idea that drove Clickfunnels.

The thing about that, the markets you’re in, if you guys are in financial markets, look at Agora, what they’ve done. Some of the biggest campaigns are, when Obama ran for a second term, it was called the end of America that was the big idea that drove this huge thing. If you look at recently, there’s probably been 8 thousand crypto offers that have come out, but Agora’s the one that did, I think they did 30 million dollars in their webinar in like a 2 week period of time.

But what was the big idea? What was the big hook that they had? They was something there, I studied it. I don’t know if you did, but you should have. If not, it means you’re not listening to funnel hacking. Look at these people who are making insane amounts of money and reverse engineer the campaigns from everything.

A lot of people think funnel hacking is just like, “Oh, well they have a landing page and an upsell page, down sell page, and this price point.” That’s the beginning of funnel hacking, but it goes deeper. I don’t know about you but I get every webinar, every video sales letter, everything that I look at I get transcribed so I can read it. What was the hook, why did this work? What was the big idea that they were doing that made this separate?

Because man, if there’s 800 crypto webinars, why did one do 30 million and all the rest did, even the big ones did a million. There’s something different here, what’s the big idea that they led with?

Look at the weight loss industry, look at Prove It. Why did Prove It blow up? It hit keto at a time that was right. Dave Asprey blow up, because took this, the Atkins diet, it’s not the same, but he took the Atkins diet, and his big idea was this thing of butter in your coffee. Boom, that big idea of putting butter in your coffee. It was just a ketogenic diet, it wasn’t this new thing, but he was like, “Butter in your coffee” Boom, Bulletproof was born.

What’s the big idea for your business? I can’t tell you that, I can’t reverse, I can’t doodle something that shows you, here’s how to find your big idea. Maybe I can, I just don’t know how to do it right now. Again, because it’s not a pattern, it ‘s the opposite of a pattern. So look at the pattern, what’s everyone doing in your marketing to explain or to sell your thing? And what’s the opposite of that, how do you break the pattern? Have your big idea so that when someone hears it, it smacks them upside the head and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, that’s brilliant, that’s the thing.”

I think my point of this podcast is just to get you guys thinking about that, because that’s what I did today. I sat in front of a blinking cursor for three hours thinking, what could it be? What could it be?

You know I looked at all of my competitors, I’m looking at, I’m not going to spoil what Actionetics MD is, but I’m looking at auto-responders and other things like that, and how do they pitch it? Because how everyone else is pitching it is the pattern. Now what’s the opposite of that? How do I make it the opposite, so that it becomes this interesting idea?

So I hope that helps. If nothing else, it gets you to sit there in front of a blinking cursor like I had to do today, and just think. What’s my hook? What’s my big idea? Why should people care? Why am I going to invest the time and energy it takes to make this video or this webinar, or this whatever? And why is someone going to take the time and energy to watch it? And why are they going to get excited to run and find their wallet and pull their money out and give it to me?

There’s a big idea behind it that drives it and I don’t think most of us are spending enough time doing it, figuring that out. When you get it right, you see you. Gary Halbert said, “One idea properly exploited is worth more than 100 lifetimes of hard work.” And I believe that. I’ve seen that in my own life. I’ve seen it with tons of our member’s lives. One idea, when you exploit it properly is worth 100 lifetimes of hard work.  So what is that idea?

That’s what this is, the big idea, the big hook. What is that thing for you? If you listen to Todd Brown, listen to his stuff on the big idea, I think it’s fantastic. He did a whole presentation at last year’s Funnel Hacking Live about it. But just get that in your head spinning.

When you’re looking at good advertising and you’re funnel hacking people, what’s their big idea? What’s the big hook? What’s the thing that drives this campaign? Because if you find it and identify it, it will help you figure out your own as well.

I hope that helps, I hope that gives you some good ideas and gives you something to think on. That’s all I got. I gotta get these kids’ homework finished so I can go to bed. I gotta be up lifting weights soon. I’m trying to get rid of this double chin before Funnel Hacking Live, which is a pain. I wish you could just sleep it off, that’d be way better. Anyway, I appreciate you guys, have an amazing day and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye.

Jan 12, 2018

A quick recap of what we learned rolling out our first funnel inside our new mini agency.

On this episode Russell talks about how the first week went with his new advertising agency that is dedicated to only Clickfunnels. Here are some of the cool things to listen for in today’s episode:

  • How changing the Expert Secrets book funnel was able to bring the average cart value up by $8
  • How Russell’s team was able to virtually be in the same room to communicate, even though everyone on the team is remote instead of being located in Boise.
  • And find out what the next step is in the funnel.

So listen here to find out how the first week went for Russell’s new Clickfunnels-dedicated advertising agency.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast.

Alright, I’m going to talk kind of quiet. It’s like 1 in the morning and I am literally in my closet right now getting packed for a trip we are heading out on tomorrow. My wife is asleep in the room, we got sick kids, it’s kind of a weird trip to be going on, but we’re really excited to be getting away for a couple of days. We’re going to a wedding for someone we care about, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.

So anyway, I wanted to return and report back on our awesome, cool week. So I talked before about some of the new project management stuff we’re doing and the batman meetings and all sorts of stuff. And it’s been fun the last probably 3 or 4 weeks we’ve been getting all the pieces in place and launching little batman meetings, neat stuff happening. But this week was the first funnel we were trying to get live.

So it was a different process because the goal is to try to pull me out as much as possible. So we’ve been recruiting people, in fact, a couple of you have joined our team. I’ve been putting out Facebook Lives into our group and recruiting some amazing, amazing talent to start working with us and getting these funnels launched. It’s been really, really cool.

So the first part we had James P. Friell, and we’ve hired him for six months to come in our office and help us get this working and consistent and keep reiterating on it and keep making it perfect. So he’s got the whole Trello system systemized. It’s evolving and tweaking, so that’s the first step in the process. Getting everybody on board and getting everybody focusing on their unique abilities and nothing else, which has been a really fun process. So that’s kind of the next phase.

And then, like I said, to get projects kicked off we did these batman meetings. So I did a podcast episode 3 or 4 back that kind of talked about it, that worked really cool. So we’re doing those. But then this week, it’s like, okay, this is a funnel we’re getting live. And it was the new Expert Secrets book funnel. We had some updates that we needed to make and some stuff like that, plus a tweak that I’ve been teasing you guys about a little bit, which is the new thank you page webinar concept. There’s so many cool things that I wish we could share with you, but I’ll share more after the tests are done. And I’ll be sharing a lot at Funnel Hacking Live as well.

Anyway, we’re getting it done and this week working on it, one thing that’s tough is that 2/3rds of our team right now are remote. They’re not here in Boise, that are working on this funnel. So we’re like, communicating through Trello and Slack, but it was just like, ugh, I miss that feeling of being in the office. So one thing we started doing, we opened up a zoom room and just told everybody, “Hey, jump in here and then mute yourself, and you can just work in here and then if you have questions then just un-mute yourself and ask and whomever can jump on.”

So we had, I don’t know 8 or 10 of us in this zoom room for the last 3 or 4 days, which was super cool. So we just have it muted and then someone had a question and they’d un-mute themselves and be like, “Hey Russell, what do you think about this?” or “Check this out.” Or whatever it was. It was just kind of like we were in the same office together.

It was cool for so many reasons. But one is just, especially with the remote work force, it made everybody feel way more connected and it gave us the ability to move through things very, very rapidly, which was insanely cool. We got so much stuff done, and the weirdest thing is we got to the launch phase where we have everything getting done and I had this weird feeling. Where normally I’m in the middle of it, pushing and pushing, but like because the way the system’s in place, I wasn’t involved hardly at all. I told James and everyone in our office, “I just feel like I’m not doing anything.” Which is actually a good thing, it’s the goal of this whole thing. To pull me out of it, because I’ve been so deep into everything.

Prior to this I’ve been focused on the copy, the email copy and the videos and the funnel structure. I just did a lot. And now we’ve got this team of rock stars who are now taking over different pieces of it and its really, really cool.

So today we launched the funnel, so the Expert Secrets Book funnel is live, you probably won’t be able to tell by looking at it from the outside, but if you re-buy the book, you’ll see the process and you’ll see some of the stuff which is awesome. So far our average cart value in the last 12 hours is up 8 dollars from what it used to be, which is huge, really, really good. So that’s exciting. And that’s not counting the thank you page webinar, which I think will increase the average cart value by…who knows. A lot. We’ll find out. It’ll take a day or two to get those stats in.

But it’s really cool. At the end of it we do this really cool, we called it a post-mortem meeting, which is basically everyone in the group will now say, “Okay, what worked really good for you and what things struggled in this process?” And what’s cool, watching James who has been building out these systems, taking notes. “This was awesome, but this part got stuck.” Or “We lost momentum here.”Or “This part didn’t work as good.” And then he’s updating the Trello cards, and the checklists and the systems based on all those kind of things, and it’s cool.

And then next week we pick the next funnels and next week we’ll do the same thing. We start Monday, we launch on Thursday, post-mortem on Friday, then we start over again the next week. So our goal right now, we are trying to roll out a new front end funnel every single week in this team. And it’s pretty exciting.

I’ll report more back to you guys. I just want to share with you because I’m getting excited just because we’re systemizing this. Like I said, for us so far it’s always been, I don’t know it’s the same thing every time, but we focus so much more on the art of it. So it’s like we recreate it from scratch every single time. This time we’re trying to figure out the process every single time, there’ll still be room for the art, which is changing things, tweaking things, calling audibles at the last minute and changing stuff, but for the most part having a systematic thing for each funnel that’s being pumped out.

So it’s fun and it’s exciting. I’m really, really enjoying the process, so I’ll keep sharing more with you guys. And who knows, I’ll probably at Funnel Hacking Live start sharing a lot of this part, the Trello process and how it ties into the funnel building and the traffic. It’s exciting. I don’t know how much, I don’t remember how much I told you guys, depending on when you’re jumping in and listening to this, but we basically took part of our company and broke it apart and it became, we started like an advertizing agency where Clickfunnels is the only client of this agency.

So there’s two halves, there’s the funnel building team and then there’s the traffic team. So that’s the other cool thing. Now the funnel building team got this funnel done and live and then they pass it off, and then the traffic team is now taking this, and there’s this whole process that goes on the back side with the traffic team. That’s the next fun piece we’re going to be figuring out and building out. So exciting.

Anyway, I’m excited. Like I said, we’ve obviously done a lot of stuff in the last few years, but now we’re building the processes and the people and all that kind of things in place. It’s going to be cool to continue to watch this thing grow.

Anyway, I’ll keep sharing with you guys. I just wanted to share a big one with you guys because it’s really fun and exciting. It was a good day, a good week. Alright guys, that’s all I got. I’m going to go to bed. I’ll finish packing in the morning. I always procrastinate until the last possible second. Alright, thanks everybody and we’ll talk to you guys soon. Bye.

Jan 9, 2018

During the simplification of our value ladder, we discovered some really cool stuff.

On this episode Russell talks about how his company has spent the last few weeks focusing on the value ladder and what they changed. Here are some awesome things you will hear in this episode:

  • Find out what some of the analytics and churn rate are for some of Russell’s current front end offers.
  • Find out where you should start on the value ladder if you are a beginner.
  • And Find out why you need to go to Funnel Hacking Live to get the real scoop on all of this stuff.

So listen here to find out how your front end funnels can affect churn on the back end.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast.

Alright, alright you guys. I’m heading to the office, it’s a rainy day which is nice, it’s melting all the snow. Boise had a really calm winter this year. Last year we had snow-pololypse, where if you were watching Instagram and Snapchat back then you saw how we had, our kids had like ten days off of school because of snow days, we had raid Walmart for water and generators, it was insanely cool, and then nothing really happened that was that bad. This year, it’s just been a mild winter for us, so it’s kind of nice.

I wanted to share a couple of cool things because these are cool things that are happening that I just can’t not share. So hopefully you guys have heard me talk about concepts like funnel stacking, where it’s like, what’s your front end funnel and where’s that lead to the second funnel and where’s that go? And if you look at the big push that we’ve done over the last 60 days in our company, it’s to really focus on a defined value ladder and killing everything that doesn’t map to it.

In fact, we’ve shut down two multimillion dollar programs because they did not fit in the value ladder, which is kind of insane, but nevertheless we did, because that’s what we’re doing. Pure focus on, focus and respect for the value ladder. So people come in and there’s this process, so if you look at the way our value ladder is working now, there’s one big piece that I’m revealing at Funnel Hacking Live that I can’t reveal yet, it’s so cool though. It’s the key that glues this whole thing together, that ascends people through the process. It’s so cool. So cool. I’m doing a whole presentation on it at Funnel Hacking Live.

So if you don’t have your tickets yet, go to funnelhackinglive.com to get your tickets for the greatest event on planet earth. The greatest show on earth. You can call me P.T. Barnum if you want, this will literally be the greatest show on earth.

Anyway, if you look at our value ladder, it’s very defined. Front end offers that all lead then to one centralized middle offer, which then all lead to one centralized back end offer. And that’s it. And then my creativity gets to happen on a whole bunch of front end offers.

So we were doing some data and analytics and this is the coolest thing ever, one of the big things we’re trying to figure out in Clickfunnels, because it’s like, here’s the front end offers, middle is Clickfunnels and then the top is hiring coaching. It used to be Inner Circle for life, until we filled that up. So now we have a new program coming out soon that’s going to be kind of our back end coaching program.

Anyway, what was cool, we did a bunch of analytics, we went through and looked at all of our front end offers, I think we got half a dozen or so that are active, and then based on that, what was the retention rate of people in the second tier of the value ladder based on the frame that they came into our value ladder through, which was fascinating, so fascinating.

So check this out, if people, the first thing they bought from us was the 108 Split Tests book, and then from there they ascended into Clickfunnels, our churn rate on people that that was the front end offer they came through, is less than 3%, insanely cool. Now if you shift, if you go the Dotcom Secrets book, someone buys the Dotcom Secrets book and then creates a Clickfunnels account, the churn rate is like 5%, so it’s a little bit worse, but still pretty good. Then if you go to, what are the other ones….Expert Secrets has higher, I think Expert Secrets is like 9% churn rate. Perfect Webinar was like 7 or 8, I can’t remember off the top of my head.

If they just came to Clickfunnels homepage and watched the viral video it’s like almost 30%. So because of this data, you’ll see some big updates happening to Clickfunnels homepage. But it’s just interesting that like, the frame that they enter your value ladder in dramatically effects the retention rate of them through the rest of the value ladder. Isn’t that fascinating?

Obviously there’s, it’s not a perfect science because somebody who’s looking for split testing or who buys a split testing offer, just by default of what it is, is probably more likely to be further along in their career. They’re looking for split tests, it’s not something that a brand new beginner would typically look for. Whereas Expert Secrets is definitely a brand new beginner. Or the Gold Digger viral video is like, so beginner. So it’s not a perfect science obviously, because different front ends will track different segments of the market, different people, things like that, but it is fascinating just to know that.

What is the bait you’re putting out, what people does it grab, and then how do those people actually stick long term? It’s fascinating, fascinating, fascinating. So anyway, it’s made me think about a lot more of new front end offers. What’s the bait we’re going to create? And really choreographing the offers to get your dream, the best possible customers to raise their hand and walk over to you.

Anyway, it’s huge. I know I’ve done a lot of podcasts on this in the past because it was such a big epiphany for me 5 years ago. When we switched our bait, we switched our customers, which switched everything else.

Anyway, hopefully that helps you guys. I’m thinking through that, simplification of your value ladder, making sure that you’ve got multiple front ends that lead to one middle tier, which typically is webinar, which then leads to one high ticket, which is typically a phone sale or something like that.

And if you’re just starting your business, start with the middle tier with the webinar, and focus all your effort and energy on that until you made at least a million dollars in sales, about that time your webinar landing page and ads and things will start to see ad fatigue and that’s when you start launching new front end offers. You don’t have to go, this is a big misconception with value ladders, that you have ot have a front end, then from there you have to go do a webinar, and from there you have to send people up.

And it’s not necessarily the case, in fact, if you look at the selling mechanism at each rung of the value ladder, it is its own value ladder in and of itself. Free plus shipping I don’t have to have a huge value ladder because it’s like, “This is a really good product, pay me $7 or whatever and I’ll give it to you.” Because the barrier is low, the perceived value is going to be a bit high, right.

On a webinar someone’s spending 90 minutes with me on a webinar. That 90 minutes I am taking them through a value ladder, or I’m giving them tons of value in that thing. So because of that, I can go directly to a webinar and have success even if it’s a cold prospect, because I have that 90 minute window to spend with them, that’s warming them up, that’s descending them up through the value ladder.

Same thing if I get on the phone with somebody, I can on the phone build a lot of value in a shorter period of time. It’s harder to go directly to high ticket sales, but you definitely can do it. We’ve done it, we’ve seen a lot of other people do it. So that’s what I kind of want to….I love Dotcom Secrets book, but my one thing that people always gets stuck on, they hear the concept of the value ladder and they’re like, “cool.” And then they come back and be like, “Russell, here’s my value ladder.” And they have like 80 different rungs in this value ladder, just really complicating and complex. And then they’re trying to create all of them before they launch any of them and I’m like, “No, pick the one that’s going to be the best to begin with.”

I still think a webinar funnel is the best for almost every business you can think of, not every business, but almost every business a webinar is the best. What you sell it for, the profits are bigger, so it’s easier, you can make more mistakes and still have success because what you’re selling is more expensive, so it’s more forgiving.

So most people should start there and then focus. Just do that webinar until you make at least a million dollars, and then downgrade to different front ends when it starts hitting fatigue and then what happens, if someone buys the front end, and then you send them up through on a thank you page for your front end offer. We have what you call a thank you page webinar, which I haven’t taught about this yet. We’re testing it right now, the first one is actually going live today. But I will definitely talk about it at Funnel Hacking Live.

So it sends to a thank you page webinar, it sends to the next rung in the value ladder and moves through like that.

So anyway, so much cool stuff. I wish we could spend hours and days together, and we will at Funnel Hacking Live. So if you’re there please come, we’ll hang out and we’ll geek out on this stuff together. But hopefully this gives you guys some insight on value ladder. Again, it has been, become our major focus since this last group of Inner Circle meetings. And it will continue to be throughout this year. Simplification and mastery of the value ladder. That is the goal.

Alright guys, love you all, appreciate you. Thanks so much for everything and we’ll talk to you all soon. Bye.

Jan 8, 2018

Don’t forget your responsibility to your customers, it should keep you up at night…

On today’s episode Russell talks about the responsibility you have to your customers to make sure that what you are selling them is high quality. Here are a few insightful things in this episode:

  • Why thinking about your customers should keep you up at night.
  • And why it’s so important to make sure what you are selling is high quality.

Listen here to find out why with great power comes great responsibility.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast, and yes I am wearing a tie.

Alright everyone, so I hope you guys are doing awesome. I just got done with church and I’m actually, this is a real proud moment for me. My kids, my two twins are out doing something that we call Fast Offering, so they are out going to people’s houses and they go to church with us, and basically getting donations to help people feed the poor and things like that, which is kind of cool. So I’m driving them around and they’re running in. So I’m going to be pausing and starting this one over as they’re going in and out. But they’re in a house right now and it’s kind of a fun, proud day for me to watch the kids go out and do that, so it’s pretty cool.

But I wanted to share with you guys something, and I’m going to keep some of the names private to protect the innocent. But I think this story is really, really important. So one of my close friends recently did his first webinar and crushed it on it. Probably not at liberty to say numbers since you don’t know who I’m talking about, doesn’t really matter.

But did over 20 thousand dollars the first day and then has gotten a whole bunch more through replays and stuff. It was their first shot, first time doing this and they’re on top of the world. “Man, people are paying me for my stuff. It’s so exciting.”

I know that any of you guys who have success selling your own thing, you feel that. You’re just like, “I can’t believe will pay me for my thing.” And it’s so fun and so exciting. For the next day or two he was in the emotion of that, and the excitement of that. And then yesterday he messaged me, he said, “Dude, Russell, I don’t know what to do.” I’m like, “Well, what happened? What’s the matter?” He said, “Someone messaged me and they said they needed what I was selling so bad, they actually went and…..” I don’t know, sold a car, or refinanced a car, or something to get the money to be able to buy his thing.

And he’s like, “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to take that. This person probably didn’t have the money to do it, but they were so compelled by my presentation and offer and everything that they went and they did this thing to get money they didn’t have to be able to buy my thing. I don’t know how to take that. Do I refund their money? Do I give it to them for free? Do I not?” It was like this weird conundrum.

And some of you guys have been through that, where people who believe in you and trust in you, and trust in what you have to say and what you created, that they’re going to go and pay you for it. And sometimes it’s scary. So all I did is I texted him back one line, and it’s the line from Spiderman, so yeah, it’s a cheesy superhero movie, but I texted him back, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

And I wanted to share that with you guys because as you are creating these businesses and you are selling people products and you’re selling services and you’re selling hope and dreams to people, unfortunately it’s not going to be 100% success rate, and understand that. But for you guys who are doing that, as you’re learning these skills, you’re learning a power, a great power. Where you can persuade and influence and help and serve and change people’s lives. I want you to remember that, with great power does come great responsibility.

Knowing that I can’t help everyone, but I need to put everything into my product or my service. I need to put my heart and my soul because these people, they’re trusting me with their money, with their well being, with their families financial safety, they’re trusting you with it. So with great power comes great responsibility.

Bowen: Hi! We played with their dog while we waited.

Russell: Was that pretty cool?

Bowen: Yeah.

Russell: That’s the power of service. You get to play with their dog. What was their dog’s name?

Bowen: Shadow.

Russell: That’s pretty awesome. Alright, Dallin’s about to come back in too. Do you like the doggie, Dal?

Dallin: I didn’t know they had a dog.

Russell: So what did you guys just do?

Dallin: Pet the dog.

Russell: Besides pet the dog. They’re doing their duty, doing Fast offerings, helping the poor people. Alright, I’m going to be back here in a little bit you guys.

Alright they’re at the next house, so I’ll finish this up. But anyway, I just wanted to kind of restate for all of you guys, as you are learning this game and this thing, that while you’re making money, don’t forget about the people. The people you’re serving, the people who are paying you for your thing, and make sure that that keeps you up at night.

It keeps me up at night, knowing that people are investing in my products and my services. I’m like, “I gotta make these things the best in the world.” Because I know that someone on the other side is gambling something in their life. They’re going without this to buy whatever my thing is. And if I haven’t put my heart and my soul into the delivery of the fulfillment of that thing, then it’s not worth doing.

And I want you guys doing that because the marketing stuff’s easy to learn. It’s easy to get people to say yes. But if you really want to build a legacy and really want to change people’s lives, you gotta get them to say yes and then actually serve them and fulfill at the highest point you can.

So that’s the game, that’s the game you guys. So again, with great power comes great responsibility. Serve your people at the highest level, let that keep you up at night. Keep focusing on them, do not forget about your customers. They are the reason why we’re in business. That’s all I got you guys, appreciate you all and we’ll talk to you guys soon. Bye.

Jan 5, 2018

Here are five things to do to make sure that a funnel will even work for what it is you’re trying to sell.

On this episode Russell talks about putting the right people on your team to be able to best market your product or service. Here are some awesome things you will hear in this episode:

  • Find out why you should have your entire team take the disc profile test to find out where they best fit in.
  • And Why it’s important to have the right people in the right positions for your business.

So listen here to find out why it’s so important to use the disc profile system to put team members in the right position for your business to grow and be successful.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast.

Hey everyone, sorry it’s been a little while since you probably heard from me in any channel. I have been suffering my first sickness in probably 3 or almost 4 years, as long back as I can remember actually. So it’s been a long time. But I actually just drove my parents to the airport and dropped them off and had some thoughts I wanted to share with you guys about is your business ready for a funnel.

The reason why this is kind of top of my mind right now is my dad was in town and he’s got a really cool accounting business, which some of you guys use him, which I appreciate that. I get nothing for recommending him, but he’s awesome. It’s Bookease.com and they do business structuring, so they help get you protected by the way you structure your business. They do accounting, they do bookkeeping. If you haven’t paid taxes in like 5 years, like most entrepreneurs seem to not do when they get started, they do all that stuff to catch you up. It’s a really cool business. Bookease.com.

I talked about it before on this podcast, I told everyone that it’s like the cheapest thing ever and I keep trying to get them to raise their prices and it’s funny as they’re trying to turn this into an actual business, business…it’s a good business, they’ve gotten a few hundred clients, a lot of Clickfunnels members, inner circle members, stuff like that, that they do stuff for and they’re trying to grow. I keep telling my dad, these are things that need to happen for you to be able to grow.

So I want to share them because I think it’s true for a lot of businesses who make this leap. They’re trying to transition from whatever they’re doing now into using funnels. I know my dad, he didn’t want to bug me, so he went and hired someone to build funnels. The person building the funnel, built a webinar funnel and my dad showed me, “Our funnel’s done.” And I look and I’m like, “okay, do you have a webinar?” and he’s like, “No.” And I’m like, “Then why did he build you a webinar funnel?” He’s like, “I don’t know, he told us we needed a funnel and this is the funnel he built.” I’m like, “Who builds my dad a funnel and doesn’t even talk strategy.”

So that’s what today’s lesson is going to be about. Kind of going off the top of my head, but these are the things that are necessary if you want your company to be successful with funnels.

Alright number one, you need to have somebody on your team, in charge of marketing, who is a high D. The reason why I say high D, this is if you take the Disc profile, d-i-s-c, if you take the disc profile, you have someone who is a high D, or is a driver. There’s so many companies I know that do not have a high D that’s running stuff and because of that nothing actually ever gets done. So number one, you need to have a high D. If you do not have a high D on your team yet, you are not going to grow.

I have bad news for you you’re not going to become a high D if you are not one already. It’s not something I believe you can develop, nor should you try to develop it, you should find the right person to do that. Now I’m a big believer that the only thing in your business that actually matters is the marketing, therefore I think that for most of you guys, your CMO and your CEO should be the same person, because that is business in marketing.

I know that some of the product people out there will disagree with me, but I think that I’m right, and I’ve got the bank account to prove it. So there you go. Just kidding, I don’t want to be the annoying guy, I’m not that annoying. I just want to make a point that you need to have somebody that’s driving the marketing and hopefully it’s the CEO or the owner or whatever. And that person needs to be a super high D.

So if you’re not a high D and you wonder why your company’s not growing, it’s because you don’t have that person yet. So take the disc profile, it’s free online. In fact, I think if you go to tonyrobbins.com, scroll to the very bottom, the little link says disc profile, take that and find out if you’re a high D. If you’re not find out who on your team is a high D, and if you don’t have one on your team, if there are no high D’s on your team, you’re not going to drive this thing to where you want it to go. You’ll have visions and you’ll think about how nice it’d be if you could have a bigger company, but you are not going to be able to do it. It’s just not possible without a high D on your team.

So get a high D, make that person in charge of the marketing of your business. That’s number one. Because number two is going to be, become obsessed with the marketing of your business. And we’ve talked about this a lot before, in the past. But there needs to be somebody who’s obsessed. If there’s not somebody on your team who’s read both my books at least twice, then there’s not an obsessive marketing person on your team.

And I’m just saying my book because my book’s a compilation of all grid marketing books put together into strategic, chronological order. These are not my thoughts, my books are, here’s Russell reading 800 books and then putting them in chronological order after testing everything and telling you what actually works and the order it works.

So if someone in your team, in this day and age, who’s building a funnel and in charge of marketing is not obsessed with my books, not out of ego, but just out of the fact that they’re not going to be successful. They need to read it and understand it, and read it, and read it, and read it. Because if this person says, “hey, we should build a webinar funnel.” And they start building a webinar funnel and put all of your time and your money and your expertise into building a webinar funnel and then you come back, “But we don’t actually have a webinar yet.” They should be fired. Just make sure you are fully aware of that.

Because they need to understand the strategy, they need to understand the selling, they need to understand all those kind of things. All those things are very, very important. So that’s number two.

Number three, you have to create an offer that can sustain paid traffic. We are in a world right now, and it shifts all the time, today, the world we live in right now, the majority of your guy’s traffic, and I know this because we get billions of visitors a year coming through Clickfunnels. The majority of your traffic right now is coming through Facebook. The majority.

Good old Mark Zuckerburg is going to charge you, on the low end, the very, very low end, one dollar per opt in, per register, per whatever it is, per lead. On the high end you’ll give him 8-10 bucks per lead. So if you’re selling something that can’t sustain where you gotta spend…I’d say on average you’ll get $3-5 a lead. Between $3 and $5 a lead.

So if you’re selling something, let’s say you’re selling a $50/week payment, let’s say you’re a chiropractor, a $50 a week payment or whatever, I don’t know. My brain’s kind of tired, so that’s probably a bad example, but whatever it is you’re selling. And you’re saying, look for me, I’m going to need 100 leads to close one person or three people or whatever, it’s costing me $5 per lead, so I gotta pay whatever the cost of being there. If those numbers don’t work for you, you have to shift your pricing strategy.

That’s my biggest problem for my dad right now. Is that they’re, they have really inexpensive accounting services, which is great for his clients, the ones who know about him, and nobody else will ever know about him because he can’t sustain growth right now. So that’s why you guys should go use them quick before they jack their prices up like I keep telling them to. You need to have money to be able to spend on advertising to acquire customers and bring them in. And probably incentivize a sales person at high D. Because most high D’s, they’re rainmakers, right. They want to pay a lot for the work that they do.

Unless you are the high D who is going to be doing that, you need that person there to be able to afford them. So you’ve gotta be able to have those things in place. You’ve gotta change your offer.

I keep telling my dad, “People need to pay you at least $2000 to begin the interaction with your company. That gives you at least $1000 you can spend to get that customer, which is going to be necessary in the business model you’re in.” So you gotta be able to figure out, do I have an offer I can sell right now? That first off is sexy, that people want. And second off, I can charge enough money that it’ll make me money and it’ll cover all of my advertising expenses. If not, you’re not going to be able to grow your business, no matter how great your product or your service is. Unfortunately, this is true. So you gotta make sure it’s going to be able to sustain the growth of it.

So what do we got? We got driver, number one, someone obsessed who can drive this thing. Number two is the obsessed with marketing and sales, just going to geek out and just go crazy to understand the strategy behind your specific business. Number three, you gotta make sure you have an offer that will absorb all the costs of advertising. So you can go out there and you can advertise. And then number four, you gotta have somebody who can sell the thing.

There’s different ways that we sell stuff online. There’s sales letters, like long form sales letters. So if you’re going to be selling through sales letters, you need a copywriter who is good. Copywriters aren’t cheap. Or if you’re going to do sales over the phone you need someone on the phone who can sell.

My guess is that most of your sales people are also going to be high D’s. not all the time though. Sometimes copywriters are and things like that, but if you’re going to be doing webinars, either you need to do the presentation, or somebody needs to do the presentation, and that person is typically going to be a high D. They’re going to be doing stage/event presentations, webinar presentations. You need somebody to sell the thing that you’ve got.

There’s a lot of ways to sell. You can sell through the written form, sales letters. Verbally through phone sales, audio, video, webinars, there’s different ways you gotta figure out what’s the sales mechanism that’s going to sell that offer that you created. So that’s the next piece of the pie.

And the last piece of the pie is who’s going to be getting the traffic, those people to show up so the person can actually sell them with marketing. So you got the marketing that drives the traffic that brings the people in, then the sales person can sell to the person your amazing, irresistible offer that will cover all the costs of all your advertising, plus cover the cost of all the people involved to make this amazing thing happen. And that’s how this whole game is played.

So I just wanted to kind of put those things out there for those who are, the funnel’s not working for them yet, you’re not quite figuring it out, you’ve been trying this thing, you’ve been dabbling, you’ve been struggling, all those kind of things. I know those things are all true and are all real and if I was building a business from scratch, if you had hired me as a consultant, this is exactly what I’d do, I’d be like, “Okay, who on your team is a driver? Take the disc profile, you got no drivers on your team, you need to hire a driver. Let’s go find one quick.”

Or it’s like, “Hey, that dude right there who is doing nothing, that’s your driver. Put him in the spot.” Then number two is, alright this person needs to become obsessed with the marketing and the sales, they need to be awesome at the strategy and the driving of this thing. Because sometimes you might have to create 10, 20,30 funnels before you get the one that pops for you. So the person gets bored after attempting the first funnel is not the right person. You need a driver who’s obsessed, who’s going to keep going and going and going until this thing works.

Then I’m going to be figuring out, okay what’s the actual offer we’re going to be selling because it needs to be something that’s big enough to sustain the growth so we can grow this as a company. And I’ll make a really sexy, irresistible offer that’s expensive enough to cover all the costs.

And then from there be like, how are we selling this thing? Are we selling through webinar, through whatever. Either I’d be doing the webinar or hiring a webinar person, or hiring a copywriter or whatever. Figuring out who would be selling this thing, that’s the next key.

And then the last is who’s the person that’s going to be driving the traffic? Who’s going to be getting the eyeballs to show up so we can actually sell them? Those are the pieces, and if you don’t have those pieces, it’s probably why you’re struggling right now. It’s time to start building your Avenger team, we talked about this last podcast episode I think. Find the people around you, start building a team. Look at this like a real business.

There’s two ways to build a business. One is to try to learn all the stuff yourself and it’ll take a long time and take a lot of effort and work. Number two is to go hire a bunch of people to do it. Which that costs a lot of money, it can be done, but it’s way more expensive and typically you’re not going to be able hire the best. And number three is start networking, start building an Avengers team. Find people who all believe in the vision, the mission.

One of my first mentors, he passed away a couple of years ago, his name was Chet Holmes. I remember I was talking to him initially, he told me about his company he built. He built his entire company with a single person on payroll. Everyone was paid based on a percentage of what they sold. I was like, what?  He said, “Yeah basically the way it works, our company’s big months we all get big checks, small months we all get small checks.” That’s the way a company should be run. If I were to start over everything from day one, once again, I would definitely be doing it from that vantage point.

Find people bring them in together, sell them on your idea. Don’t just bring in people because you know, your friends and family members though. Find the right people, take the disc profile, surround yourself with what you aren’t. If you’re a high D and a high I, find people who are a high S and high C and visa versa.

In inner circle Mandy Keene is one of the inner circle coaches. She did a training on disc profile, and she did a really cool thing when she showed my disc profile and showed all the people around me, my core team, my management team, who are my partners, my assistant and all these people. It was interesting how we looked at me versus all the people around me, how they all compliment me in this really cool way that based on that we have this one super human.

Because unfortunately, we’re not all super humans. I wish I was. I wish I was a high D-I-S-C, but I’m not. So I gotta surround myself with those other people. Anyway, I hope that helps you guys. I am almost back to the office. I’m going to bounce because I’m going to start having a coughing attack and I want to do that off camera. So thanks everybody, I hope you have an amazing day and we’ll talk to you guys soon. Bye.

Jan 4, 2018

As you grow, your weaknesses will start to show, here is how to strengthen those holes as they are exposed.

On today’s episode Russell talks about setting a goal last year to pay off his house, and why it was so important to him. He also talks about fortifying his business to make sure it can’t be destroyed by something stupid. Here are some of the cool things to look for in this episode:

  • Find out why paying off his house was such a big goal for Russell for years.
  • Hear some of the things that have kept him from reaching that goal in the past.
  • And find out why it is so important to find the holes in your business and strengthen the weaknesses to protect yourself from those looking to destroy you.

So listen here to see how you can bump up your security at home and at your business.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast.

Alright everybody, so I have not done a podcast for a little while and the main reason is that I am honestly on my death bed. I can barely breathe right now and I apologize if I’m coughing. But I must get some messages out.

I had a really cool Christmas episode I wanted to do and I was just literally dying so I couldn’t. But I still think I’m going to do it. Maybe I’ll do it as a New Years episode instead. Anyway, that’s kind of, basically what happened, New Years Eve we were getting, my brother and Brent and his family were coming over for dinner, and right before they showed up I started feeling really sick, my legs hurt and stuff. So I took some medicine and that’s where it began. And I’ve had since then, it’s been six days now, a fever between 103 and 104 degrees since then.

Which means I’ve been forced to be in bed and haven’t eaten anything. So I’ve lost 15 pounds in the last, since then. So the one positive of everything else is I didn’t have to do cardio to lose weight, so that was pretty sweet. But I haven’t eaten anything yet in a week, and I’m still not hungry so I’m just going to keep riding it until my body tells me I’m hungry again.

Anyway, I’m feeling a little better today. My cough is harder today, so that’s the only thing that’s kind of hurting. But I’m just too excited right now about where I’m about to go. So I want to share with you guys because, it’s funny, I have this weird fear about sharing this with you guys, and I don’t know why. I think I might know why.

So some of the back story of this is I actually, my dad bought me the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Actually let me rewind before that. So before I got the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book, my dad always told me you should try to pay off your house first. Because I remember he paid his house off and he was all excited, he was like, “Yeah, you always want to pay your houses off, that’s just one of those things you want to do.”

In fact, I did an episode on this probably 3 or 4 months ago, about paying your house off first. The reasoning is because it gives you the security of your house being paid off, gives you the ability to go out there and risk as an entrepreneur, which we have to make crazy risks sometimes. It’s hard though, to risk things if you’re like, my family could lose their house. That’s the weird fear there.

Anyway, when my dad got me the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book, I read that and it was talking about assets and investments and I was like, “You’d be a moron to pay your house off. Why would you ever do that? It doesn’t make any sense.” I remember asking my dad that. I was like, “Why would you? That doesn’t make any sense Dad. All the money is just sitting there.” and he said, “You know what? It may be sitting there and it may not be the smartest investment in the world, it might even be a dumb investment. But I tell you what, you sleep better at night knowing that it’s paid off. Knowing that no matter what you risk as an entrepreneur, you’re not going to lose that, your house. And your family will always have a house to be in.”

So after that point I always wanted to pay off my house and I remember the first house my wife and I bought, we lived there for ten or eleven years. It wasn’t a crazy house, it was a nice house. And I always wanted to pay it off, but just never was able to. And towards the end I knew I wanted to buy another house, I just put a lot of money into that.

And then we bought this new house 3 years, it’s kind of a crazy house. And I was like, dang. My goal initially, I want to pay it off within a year of buying it. And I was not able to. And it was kind of a crazy, I don’t think it was a real goal. I was like, I told people that because it’d be kind of cool. And then the second year went by and I’d taken a big whack down on the house and we also built a big pool house that summer and a couple of other things.

But we hadn’t paid it off, so last Christmas time, or last New Years I set some New Year’s resolutions and I had two New Year’s resolutions. One was to get a pass of industry outside of Clickfunnels to cover my monthly living expenses, which is less than $20 grand a month. So I was like I need something that covers $20 grand a month that I could live for free even if the business disappeared. And the second thing would be to pay off my house. So that was my goal a year ago.

And then right after that we had the, if you go back in time and listen to the podcast, storming and flooding and our house flooded. Craziness. We rehabbed the whole house, it took 8 months. And then we built a huge crazy soccer field, all sorts of things that I was still paying a lot of money towards the house, trying to get it paid off, but it’s a big, it’s 11 thousand square foot house on five acres, it’s a big house.

Anyway, last week I message my accountant, our CFO, I don’t even know what to call him. He’s awesome. I messaged him, I was like, “Hey Clint, can I pay my house off this year, is that possible?” and he’s all, “I’ll get back to you.” So he got back to me after a little while, he’s like, “Yep if you want to, you’ll be fine.” I’m like, “Are you serious?”

So I just on my death bed, went into the office and I picked up this piece of paper right here with this check inside and it is literally the paperwork to go pay off my house. And I’m driving to the bank right now, going to meet my wife over there and I’m paying my house off right now and it’s going to be gone. And now I’ll never, I don’t even know….I’m kind of freaking out and I’m excited and it’s going to be the coolest thing ever.

I don’t think I’ve been this excited about anything ever. The cool thing is I’m picking up my parents tonight at 11:30 at night, I’m picking them up from the airport. I’m so excited to tell my dad. Say, “Dad, guess what? I paid off my house.” There you go, that’s kind the fun, exciting thing I wanted to share with you guys.

Alright so I do have a message today that is pertinent to everybody. The last thing I’ve been trying to do from my death bed this last week before the end of the year, was basically to figure out where are the weaknesses in my business and how do I fortify against those weaknesses.

For me, it’s not weaknesses in people, maybe in a couple places we need different people or the right people, or things like that, there’s just holes, there’s gaps in the business, things that you don’t pay attention to because of whatever your personality type is that you don’t see or you don’t notice. So I’m trying to identify those and figure out what those things are. Where are places that you could be destroyed?

Like legally, are you legally compliant on everything? Are you doing this right? Things like that. Where are the gaps you have in your business that you could literally get destroyed if you’re not careful.

In the good old Book of Mormon, I’m going to show you guys another story from there, but it’s important. There was a, in fact, if you’ve read the Expert Secrets book I talk about a guy named Captain Moroni and this was, I believe it is actually him telling the story, I might be wrong. But basically, he was protecting his city. In most places they have, this is where the armies are at, but between where all their strong guards were at, they had these weaknesses. So Captain Moroni was like, “okay, we need to fortify our weak spots.”

He said, “Because even our, especially our enemies, they know where our weak spots are at. They know how to destroy. We need to strengthen them.” So he went and started fortifying and putting armies and people and stuff in place to protect their weak places. And they did that and when the armies came to try to storm them and get them shut down, they weren’t able to because they fortified their weaknesses and strengthened them.

So for me, that’s been really our goal for the last couple of weeks, where are we weak? Where could we be in trouble? What things have we done stupidly that we just didn’t pay attention to? Things that we as entrepreneurs, running so fast a million miles a minute, we don’t think about a little thing here, a thing there. Where do the pieces we’re missing, where are the holes that we need to fortify?

And then we’re actively fortifying those things and those pieces and getting people in place, or the structure or systems or the legal docs, or whatever those things are to try to fortify ourselves. And that’s kind of what I wanted to share with you guys today. I think that is important for all of us to look at. I know my credit union bank is somewhere around here, but I don’t know where exactly it’s at. So I’m going to pay this thing, oh there it is. Sweet.

Anyway, so that’s what I want to share with you guys. Start thinking through those things. Because a lot of times, us entrepreneurs get so obsessed with the marketing and sale of our thing, which is obviously the most important part, that we forget about the protection of that thing.

So that’s my recommendation, to spend some time this holiday season, thinking about how to protect your thing so you don’t ever lose it. Just things that are stupid. The only reason that your business should not be successful is if the market doesn’t want your product or service. That makes sense. All the other reasons are stupid and they come from us not protecting ourselves. With that said, protect yourself, fortify yourself against those holes and gaps. I hope that helps. Thanks everybody, talk to you guys all again soon.

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