Check out this case study of what happened when we applied these two simple words.
On today’s episode Russell talks about the two magic words that made Russell more money than anything else. He also shares why those two words are so powerful.
Here are some cool things to listen for in this episode:
So listen below to hear how Russell used urgency and scarcity to make a ton of money.
---Transcript---
Hey, good morning everybody. This is Russell Brunson, and welcome to Marketing In Your Car, everyone. Today is the day I'm going to talk about two of my favorite words. These two words have made me more money, than I think, pretty much anything in the history of my life. If you could learn these two words, it's done, that's all you need.
Well, that's not true. You've got to have a good offer, good product, good reputation, good brand, all the things you got to do it right. If you have all those and you want to turn that into money, the two magic words are, you ready for it? Number one is "urgency," and number two is "scarcity." That's it. If you can have those two things, along with an amazing offer in front of the right audience, it's game over.
Here's the back story. Last January, so a year ago, it's not quite January yet but almost, Vince Palko from Adtoons.com, super cool dude, he's the inventor of the hand sketched doodle video. Anyway, he messaged me, "Hey man, what are your goals for next year?" I'm like, "Why?" He said, "I'll make you a cool gift." I wrote down about a handful of goals and sent them over to him and he ended up sketching this amazing… it's awesome, it's just the coolest thing, it’s like this huge picture with all my goals drawn out in cartoon format and this really progression between, it was amazing.
He does that if you go to AdToons.com and message him, "Hey Vince, here's a million bucks please draw my visions so they can become true," and he'll do it. He did that and sent it to me and I got it blown up and I put it on my wall and it's just been there. I didn't even think about it at the time but it's a year ago, my goal was only work close with 100 entrepreneurs in my Inner Circle, that's what I said.
At the time back then I think we only had 25 people in the Inner Circle, and it's $25,000.00 a piece and to get a 100 I think that would be pretty awesome, but it was outside my reality, but it was a goal I put up there. Then fast forward over the last 12 months we have our Ignite program at $12,000.00 and our Inner Circle at $25,000.00. We've be selling both of those and it's been doing well. Obviously a lot of people are going to the Ignite program. I think we sold 180 or so people into Ignite and Inner Circle kept growing as well. It’s been interesting, as Inner Circle has been moving forward it's exponentially been growing, I think that's the right word, where it keeps getting bigger faster. I think that we do a really good job with that. I'm really proud of it. Then people find out and then more people find out and it's just kind of growing organically really quickly.
About a month ago I was looking at it. Inner Circle has grown actually faster than the Ignite program which is interesting because it's more than twice as much money. The people in the Inner Circle are honestly my dream clients. Most of them have some amazing things happening. They just need some directional things, or feedback or bounce back ideas and just cool stuff like that where it's awesome.
I had this idea and I was actually looking at my sketch with Vince and I saw it said, "Work closely with 100 people." I think right now I'm working close with the 50 or 60 that are Inner Circle and then a little bit further distance with Ignite and then everything we're doing. I was like, "What if we just shut down everything except for the Inner Circle and just focus on getting 100 people in there and I just really close with those 100 people, and if someone leaves and a spot opens we can refill but just actually close it down. Say there's a 100 spots and when they're gone, they're gone and just kind of do that."
It took a little while to get all the pieces in place so that we wouldn't drop any balls and we can continue to service all the people who had bought Ignite up to this point. A few weeks ago we stopped selling Ignite, no more selling Ignite. We're servicing those who are in but we are not selling anymore. Let's just focus on Inner Circle. If we're going to get 100 people, then how's it going to work? There are some mastermind groups where they have 100 people in it's like stupid, it's like going to a seminar. I didn't want that. Our groups can facilitate about 35, 35 is kind of high, even 32-33 is about perfect in a group. I'm basically going to have to have 3 group, if we do 3 groups of 33.3, so somebody is going to be chopped into thirds, I'm just kidding. If we do that it will work, so we went and we actually booked all the hotel rooms for the year, and everything is kind of finalized.
I'm like, okay cool, now we need to get, I think at that time we're about 65 or 70 people in the Inner Circle so we need to get 25 more people. All the guys on my team are like, “you realize it took us almost a whole year to fill up 2 groups and a lot of work.” I was like, "I think we can fill up the last group though in December." They're like, "That's not possible, December is the worst month for sales and all these kind of things." I was, "Yeah, I think we can."
On Monday I sent out an email that basically said, "This is how many spots are left, we are only having 100 people in when they're gone, they're gone." I used those 2 magic words. I used "urgency" and I used "scarcity." They were true urgency and true scarcity. What's happened since then has been insane, it's been literally insane. We've had almost 200 applications. I've only got 2 guys who are doing the phone calls, they can't even keep up with it. After you apply, if you've gone though my high ticket training, you know the big focus is after someone applies, try to get them to inbound call you. We've had I think like 30 people leave voice messages from inbound calls like begging us to call them back as quick as we can. Our guys are as fast as they can calling people and making sure they're qualified because we have a high standard in the group. If they are, then signing then up.
It's crazy, it's like every hour yesterday I get a message, boom Russell, so and so just joined Inner Circle, boom Russell so and so just joined Inner Circle, just going boom, boom, boom, boom and it looks like we're probably going to sell out all the last, and I can't remember it was like 22 or 23 spots as of Monday. I think now we're down to like 17 or 16, I don't know, but I think we're going to sell them out before the end of the year which is crazy. That should have taken almost a year to fill up but instead we did a couple of days because of 2 magic words, "urgency" and "scarcity."
I look at webinars we do and the different between webinar that does good and a webinar that does amazing is 2 magic words, "urgency" and "scarcity." The better your urgency and the better your scarcity on your pitch the better it's going to do. We used to do a webinar on Thursday, and we do replays Friday, Saturday and then we kind of end it and then Monday we'd start the process over again. A little while ago we started adding in urgency and scarcity on the last day, saying, "Hey the replay really is coming down tonight, so go and watch it," and then like 6 hours before we pull it down say, "Okay 6 hours and then we're pulling it down." What's interesting is that last 6 hour call, I'd send 2 emails on Sunday, one Sunday morning and then one Sunday 6 hours before we pull it down. What's crazy is that 6 hour warning email where I'm applying urgency and scarcity typically makes as much money as the live webinar does which is crazy, just nuts, it doesn't make any sense.
Anyway, I'm smiling today just thinking about how can I apply urgency and scarcity in more spots in all aspect of my life. How can I apply that to get my kids to do stuff and get things done. How can apply to force myself to get things done. How can I to get my employees to do things, my team and other things like that. Those 2 things are amazing. Try to figure out ... Oops excuse me, I just honked the horn, I hope the person in front of me is not upset. Anyway, trying to figure out how do we create cool bonus structures or cool promotional things with affiliates, how can we do that.
I remember when we did the DotComSecrets Book launch, I think in the first week we were paying out 40 percent commission to the whole Funnel and the second week we transitioned to $20 per book and then we had a countdown. Then at, whatever day it was, Thursday at midnight when we closed the contest down it went back to 40 percent commission. We had this big urgency and scarcity, every book you give away for the next 24 hours, 12 hours, 3 hours you'd be getting 20 bucks as opposed to the other thing and people went crazy.
Anyway, those are my 2 favorite words. I'm not a tattoo guy but if I was I'd tattoo those to my forehead or my arm or I don't know maybe I'd get one of those sweet, I don't know what it's called, barb wire chains around my bicep that would say, "urgency and scarcity" weaved into the barb wire, that would be pretty sweet, right? No, just kidding. Anyway. I'm such a dork. All right guys, well, I better stop before I embarrass myself anymore but think through those 2 words, urgency and scarcity. Figure out how you can apply them to all aspect of your business and your life because they are magic. It's amazing. You can move mountains if you've got urgency and scarcity. Without them people just aren't inspired to take action.
In fact, last night there was a dude who applied for the Inner Circle about a year ago and he's what we call, this is probably politically incorrect term, but we call him a stroker, somebody who comes in, they call, they ask a lot of questions, they listen to the whole thing and they're trying to see how the process works and trying to get information and they're not really buyers. We call them strokers for whatever reason. This guy, a year ago stroked us and went through the whole process which at the end of it it was kind of annoying because is was like eh. I knew he had the money, I knew he wanted to be in it, but it was just like he didn't have whatever else to push him over the edge.
Apparently he applied on Monday and then again on Tuesday and on Wednesday because last night I was going to bed, and on Skype there was like 10 messages from him, all in caps, "Russell I'm trying to get in Inner Circle, no one's calling back, Russell let me in, I need to get in before it's ..." like freaking out, I was like, "This dude a year ago went through the process and didn't get involved for whatever reason has been sitting for a year, but now that we've got some urgency and scarcity in place, now not only is he reapplying, he is flipping out, Skyping me trying to get in. Those are good signs? There you go, you've urgency and scarcity. Have some fun with them. Actually that's your Christmas gift from me for this year, so Merry Christmas. Urgency and scarcity from Russell. Hope you love them. All right guys, I'm out of here. We'll talk to you guys soon. Goodbye and have an amazing day.