The 3 steps to build a cult…
Today’s episode is part 2 of a 3 part series of Russell speaking at a $100k event where he taught about the psychology of funnels.
Here are some of the things you will hear in part 2:
So listen below to find out how to build a cult following.
---Transcript---
Russell Brunson: My next book I'm working on now, it's called Expert Secrets and it's really about building a cult, to be completely honest. I don't ... Well, we call it cult-ure. If you get through my inner circle [inaudible 00:29:13], we have big things about, "Hey, we've got to build a cult." Sure. As I was preparing for this book, I started studying, I got super deep in to cults. I wanted to understand how they work and why they work and so I was reading all the amazing books on cult dynamics and you know, just totally geeked out on it. After looking at a whole bunch of things, I'm like, "What's the pattern?" The pattern I found for every single cult is this. Three things. Number one, every single cult has an attractive character. A charismatic leader. Whatever you want to call it, right? Typically, for most of you guys, that's you in the business. There's somebody who's like leading the march, right?
What's interesting is, I'll go through these ... This is true for negative cults and positive cults. It's the exact same for Hitler as it was for Christ. It's the exact same for Hillary as Trump. It's fascinating, you start looking at it. Every mass movement across time, follows this exact same pattern. One is the attractive character. Number two, in to bring their people in to a future cause mission. This is where we're going. This is the plan. This is what's happening. That's number two.
The thing I want to spend the most time on, because this is the key to everything, is they always offer people a new opportunity. Okay? When Christ came, what was the new opportunity he offered? He said, "Look, we've been doing a lot. Moses is doing all these kind of things. That's gone away. No longer do you have to do animal sacrifices. Now we're switching over to, you come to me with a broken heart and contrite spirit. It's different." Hitler came. World War One, Germany got all this oppression, all these kind of things and said, "Look, we're not going to try that. I'm not going to help you guys to solve this issue and pay our debts off. We're going to freaking take this thing over and we're going to get this new opportunity, new Germany. It is a new opportunity."
What most of us are doing, is we create products, we call these in our, in my world they call them urb products. Products that will make you better, smarter, happier, faster. That's the worst possible thing you could do. Okay? We also have these improvement offers. Improvement. Same thing. Improvement offers or ER offers. If you were selling an improvement offer to somebody, I'm going to help you to improve. What are the things that they have to admit before they give you money?
[inaudible 00:31:31]
Speaker 4: That they suck at what they're doing. For me to give you money, I have to admit that I failed. That's it, okay? Improvement offers are the worst possible things on earth and if your product's like, "Yeah, my product makes you smarter, it makes you stronger, it makes you faster, it makes you better, it makes you happier, it makes you sadder, it makes you ..." If you can tie an er to it, that's why your business sucks. To be completely honest. Okay? This is the biggest problem most people have, is that ... How many of you guys are looking and you're like, "Crap, I have an improvement offer, to help you become better,"? Right?
Russell Brunson: That's the biggest problem. People do not want to get better. Perry [Beltzer 00:32:03] was telling me this. He said, "2% of the world has ambition." 2% of the world wants to become better. 98% of the world do not want to become better. As soon as you position what you're selling as an improvement offer, 98% of the world just left. You've lost 98% of your market instantly. Now you're selling to 2% who actually want to become better. Way harder to do. Okay? If you want to get a mass movement and you want to build a cult share of people that give you money, it comes down to this. It's creating a new opportunity. That's what people want. Everyone wants a new opportunity.
The question comes back, how do I create a new opportunity. I was looking at all the different opportunities that we looked at. New opportunity. They are basically all new opportunities can be broken down in to one of two things. Number one, we call it opportunity switch. Number two is an opportunity stack. Most of your offers ... The good news is, typically you don't have to change your whole product, you have to change the positioning of that product. If I come to people and say, "Look, this is the current opportunity that you are living your world under. I'm not going to help you make that better, because it sucks and it's painful."
The other thing about improvement offers is, most people have been doing that their whole life and they've tried to get better, they've tried to get better, tried to get better. In their mind, they associate pain with becoming better at that thing. As soon as I offer a new opportunity, they have no idea what that means. There's no preconceived notions, there's no idea of pain It's just like, "Wow, this is a new thing." It's the reason why this did so well. I didn't say, "Hey, this is a way to lose more weight." I said, "Look, this is a whole new opportunity. No longer do you have to work out hard to get your body in the state to burn fat. You take this thing, it tastes like candy. You mix it in water, you stir it up, you drink it, and your body is in a fat burning state instantly. This is a whole new opportunity." Boom, a hundred million bucks, right?
It's all about that opportunity switching, or opportunity stacking. Some people ... I always look at this as like, an opportunity switch is like, "Hey, you're driving a Volvo. I'm going to put you in a Ferrari." I'm switching your opportunity. Here is like, "Okay, you've got a Volvo. You love it, but on the weekends you need a nice car, so I'm going to stack ... It's an opportunity stack, I'm going to sell you a Ferrari, so now you've got both of those." Then the opposite of all these is obviously the improvement offer. This is ... Do you guys know Perry Beltzer? If you want to hear how Perry explains this ... Perry was explaining, the first time I heard him talk about this was, he was talking about from like a marriage standpoint, right?
You're in your marriage, you're not happy, you've got three options. Number one, you can improve, you can go to counseling. Yay, that would be so much fun, right? So much pain, right? Number two, you get a new wife. Number three, you sleep with the secretary and you just have an opportunity, right? That's like, these are easy things for people to go to. This is pain, this is hard, this is why people do not want this. If you're structuring like this, you've got to say, "Look, let me step back. How do I change what I'm selling to this?" If I can figure out how am I taking ... What's the opportunity they're currently in, that I'm trying to move them to? If you look at the good offers, if you look at ... I was in weight loss, now I eat probiotics. This is a whole new opportunity. You didn't even understand this, but as your gut's all jacked up. This is the new opportunity. Holy crap, I don't have to run and lose weight. All these things I've tried in the past, I could try this new thing. That's the key.
How do you structure what you sell as a new opportunity? That's the key. To really understand that, is to really get clear. What are they currently doing, cause people have this desire, that's why they came to you, right? They have something they're currently doing and that, to get that need met. You're looking at, here's the need they're trying to get met through some vehicle. What's the vehicle they're currently using. I need to get them out of that vehicle, in to my vehicle that's going to help them meet that same desire. I've got to become crystal clear like, this is how they're trying to meet their desire, this is the vehicle or the option they're currently in. I'm getting them to switch out of that to this one. That's what we have to rethink through your brain, of how to structure what you're doing. Does that make sense?
You see that there's going to be an opportunity switch, like you're getting out of this vehicle, moving to this one, or "Hey, you're currently doing something that's good, I'm not going to make it better, but I'm going to stack a different opportunity on top of it. This might be, you've got a gym right now. I've got a buddy that does, he comes in to gyms and adds on a whole new [inaudible 00:36:31] and he says, "You already have a gym, you're already doing [inaudible 00:36:33], you're already doing your stuff. I'm going to come in and I'm going to stack a whole new opportunity on top of it, maybe it's a yoga studio inside your gym, or it's going be a different marketing business stack as opposed to an improvement." Okay?
I'm curious if you guys, you're looking at this within what you offer right now, how many of you guys think that what you're offering is probably an, is How going to be an opportunity stack to your market? How many is it going to be an opportunity switch?
[inaudible 00:37:02]
Speaker 5: Many of you guys, it's going to be both, yes.
Russell Brunson: You know what I think that opportunity stack by doing 100k.
Speaker 6: Stack it. Stack it. Thank you for setting this up. If you think about this, typically when somebody is first coming in to my universe, the first time they meet me, my first job typically is an opportunity switch. How many of you guys, when you came in to 25k, it was an opportunity switch? Like, "I've been trying to get these things met in NEO or YEO or through this or that." It's like, "Crap, none of that stuff works. I'm going to try this." How many of you guys it was an opportunity switch, when you came in to that? Now you switched to get in there, and then typically, the back end stuff are more stacks. Now you're sold on this opportunity, now how do we stack things? Okay? Any questions about that?
Russell Brunson: [inaudible 00:37:45] Improvement off of this. I mean, he's offering basically like [inaudible 00:37:54].
Speaker 7: It's how you sell it. You do it that way. I got in to Bulletproof, and I don't drink coffee, but I was like, he was like, "Hey man. I was hiking this Himalayan mountain and I met some dudes with yaks and they gave me some hot chocolate, some coffee, with yak butter in it. I drank it and I felt amazing, and it turns out I lost a whole bunch of weight, and I have way more energy after drinking yak butter. Have you guys read that story? That's his initial opportunity switch, should I wait? I'm going to put butter in my coffee, to lose weight? That's a switch. Then you're going to feel better and healthier, you're going to get those things they want, but ... It's like, even ...
Russell Brunson: I remember when Biggest Loser, the last Biggest Loser episode was on and I watched. Dave posted something, it cracked me up. He was like, making fun of this, right? Like, "Here's Biggest Loser. They're going to eat healthy, they're going to lose weight, they're going to do all of these kind of things." He's like, "I want to make my own version of Biggest Loser, but it'd be really boring. It would be a bunch of guys, sitting around drinking coffee, working our computers, losing weight doing nothing." That's an opportunity. That sounds way better than this, right? I want to switch ... I need to switch opportunities. He could've positioned it as something different, the positioning is how you get the switch. [inaudible 00:39:01], most of these, you don't have to change your offer. You just change how you're positioning that offer. Did you have something D?
Yeah, I was just going ... I was just telling him to turn my mic on for a second. It's funny. Dude, I hope everybody knows the value of how he's breaking this down, because this is stuff ... What you've done better than me is, you articulate what you do in a better way than I know how to. What I had internally for years, and I would teach my team too, in the same opportunity switch or stack, compared to improvement is, I'd watch people and the difference of, when it's somebody new, in my head, the way I was ... I like this better. This analogy's better, but I used to look at opportunities, like the switch was, when you're going to a new prospect, you have to prove there's gold in those hills. You have to tell them that there's gold in California, and you should get your ass on a ricking horse or car and get to California, cause there's gold in those hills.
D: It's a switch. It's like, I'm working my ass off. I don't know what I'm doing, but there's gold, where you can just dig and you find it. Then once they get there and you prove that there's gold in those hills, then you got to sell them sharper picks, shovels and tools and better maps. That's the opportunity stack. I see so many people flop it. They'll be on a front end offer, offering improvements. "Here's a better pick, here's a better shovel." You didn't prove that there's gold in the hills yet. They're not digging yet. When you think about, I first have to prove that probiotics are the fucking answer, not a better probiotic or an improved probiotic. Anyway. This is so brilliant, the way you explain this dude. I love it.
Thank you.
Russell Brunson: Really impressed. I mean, I always love what you do, but I love the science behind your art.[crosstalk 00:40:41] I like the science behind your art.
D: I'm totally geeking out on this right now, cause it's like, my new book's all on this stuff. It's so fun. One thing cool, how many of you guys have read the book Red Ocean, Blue Ocean?
Russell Brunson: Yes.
Speaker 9: I never read it, but I saw the cover. I was like, "Oh, that's cool." I got the gist, right. I think, I haven't read the book, but I think the gist was this. It's like there's this red ocean over here of improvement offers, where we're all fighting over trying to like, "Oh, mine's better. I have a little better mouse trap. Mines a little. No mine." You're fighting over features and benefits and all this crap. Everyone's over here and there's all these sharks and there's blood in the water. If you have an improvement offer, you are in a red ocean and you are fighting against every single other person out there. It sucks. You become a blue ocean, make an opportunity switch, now you're the only ones there. Price goes out the door, resistance goes out the door. All those things magically disappear, because you're a new opportunity. What do you have to compare it to? It's different. It's a whole different thing.
Russell Brunson: Eventually after you, like Bulletproof, right. Dave's done that, now there's people coming in to that ocean, but he created this blue ocean. That's why that's such a huge influx initially, cause it's such a different conversation. It's a whole different opportunity, went crazy, now everyone's jumping in to that pool and it'll get more and more bloody. I think for Dave to keep reinventing himself, it's going to be that. Like, what's the new opportunity? What's the next opportunity switch. I need to give them to you. That's what I'm always thinking in my business. What's the next thing and where am I coming back at it?
If you look at the [inaudible 00:42:01], any mass movements, that's the key. For me, it's like, I'm not trying to sell products. Selling products is like transactional. It's one offer. I'm trying o build a cult. If you come to my event, you will see it's a cult. People are insane. We all wear the same tshirts. If you go to any marketing even in the country right now, half the audience is wearing my tshirts. We are a tribe, we are a cult, we are people who have a vision. My people know where we're going. We know what we're doing. People are bought in to it. It's insane. Now, when I'm stacking opportunities, I don't have to even try and they just buy the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, because it's like, they're bought in to this mission.
If you start looking at your businesses and your companies less like, "What's my transactional thing and I'm going to get a lead and I'm going to sell them." All those kind of things. "How do I build an experience, where they come in and they get these things. They're attached to a charismatic leader. Okay, we've got something bigger than, that we're going towards collectively as a whole, and we offer new opportunity to them, that they can't get anywhere else." That's how you build this thing, that's so much bigger than what you could do. Right now it's crazy. We get between five and six hundred people a day that sign up for click funnels and everyone's like, "Where do those people come from?" I have no idea. No idea. No idea. My colt's talking about it, everywhere.
Where ... Where'd you go? Oh, he was telling me yesterday, he was in an airplane. Some kid from South Africa sitting next to him was like, "You've got to read this book. It's the greatest thing in the world." That's what we're doing. We're trying to get people who are like, your person at the thing, right? Your hairdresser or ...
Florist.
Speaker 9: Florist, yeah. That's what we're trying to do, and I think that, f we're looking at things more like that, that's the key. I wanted to get in to that first, before we get in to kind of some funnel stuff, because that's the key to it, right? Understanding the strategy, understanding like, "Look. If you're selling from here, nobody's buying your stuff." Your warm audience is buying it, they'll give you money, but you can not grow beyond that, because of your own language patterns. Language is the key, right? You've got to step back here, and this is the key, is mastering this.
Russell Brunson: Stay in control of the epiphany bridge is like, what is the story that brings people in to the new opportunity. For me, I'm thinking ... The one thing I'm thinking about is, what's the story that got me in to this opportunity? If I was Dave Ashbury, I'd be telling his yak butter story way more often than he does. I had to find it on his blog and I was like, "Holy crap." If I was him, I'd be telling that story every single day, three or four times. Over and over and over again, cause that epiphany story is what got people in to the new opportunity. Have any of you here ever heard my potato gun story? I am so sick of that story, I've probably told it a thousand or more times, but it's my story about how I understood funnels. That was it, so I tell that story over and over and over and over again. That's what gets people in to the opportunity.
Mastering the story, because I think, for most businesses, most of us aren't going to have someone amazing like Craig, who can write copy. It's going to be hard, it's expensive to outsource something, but you as the ... Like you said earlier. I can sell the crap out of my own stuff, right? You don't need a copywriter then. You need to get super good at telling your story from here, that's your VSL. That's your upsell. Everything is tied to that. It's not going to be as efficient as what Craig, or a really good copywriter can do, but it's faster, it's better.
We put out so much stuff so quickly, because I don't have to sit down and a pad of paper every single time. I get myself in front of a video, I click record and I'm doing this. What's the story I've got tell people to give them the epiphany, so they understand that this is the new opportunity. What's the story I've got to tell people to get them the epiphany, so they want to stack on this opportunity to what they're currently doing. If I just get good at story telling, that process, it gives you the ability to do things very, very quickly, without having to guess and tweak and [inaudible 00:45:29], all those kind of things.