When you master this piece, it actually becomes really simple.
On today’s episode Russell talks about moving into his new office, and finishing up his book. He also goes into great detail of his backwards strategy for understanding if a funnel is going to work.
Here are some interesting things you will hear in this episode:
So listen below to find out how you can know what kind of funnel will work for your business.
---Transcript---
Good morning everybody. Guess what today is? Today is moving day. I am so excited. Today is the day we are finally moving into our new office, which there’s probably a few of you guys like, “Who cares, Russell. It’s not a big deal.” But this is a big deal for a lot of reasons.
Number one, we’re moving to a new office and every times there’s change, a pattern interrupt from your day is a good opportunity, a good chance to radically shift everything about yourself. So I’m excited because this is like a new beginning, a new birth, I don’t even know, but it’s pretty cool. Number one.
Number two, I’ve been in a lot of offices in my days since we started this whole internet marketing game, and all of them have been rented from people. This office I bought, so I own it. Well not yet, I guess I got like a thousand more payments, but someday I will own it. But what’s about it is it’s our own. And then we bought this building and it was horrible inside so we gutted the whole thing and rebuilt it to be exactly what we want and how we want it.
I’m sure you guys will see if you follow me on Facebook or anywhere else. We’ll do some videos and kind of show the whole thing, but it’s so cool. On the outside we got this big old sign that says Clickfunnels. The inside, you walk in, the sign’s not there yet, the sign should be there by tomorrow, I think. But a big old sign that says Clickfunnels. And then there’s the TV, when we’re doing events and stuff we’re going to play video or audio, looping what’s happening. And then on the right hand side you walk in, there’s this huge seminar room that will hold up to, I mean we could have about 100 people in there, but comfortably it’s about 70 or so people that it’s set up.
It’s big. And basically we’re going to be able to do workshops there. What we’re trying to do….actually, let me step back. I’m driving right now to downtown Boise because we got a certified partner event. So I’m going to be hanging out with 40 or 50 of our certified partners today while everybody else is moving stuff.
So our goal was to get it done last weekend, so we could do the first certified partner event in there, but we didn’t quite make it. I guess technically we could’ve but it would have been weird today because everyone would’ve been moving and they would have all been there and it would have been just, you know. You know when you first move into your house and you don’t want guests coming right away, because you don’t even know where you’re going to sleep yet. So that’s kind of how it is.
So anyway, next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we have our first ever FHAT event. It stands for Funnel Hack A Thon. Funnel hack a thon, I think I mentioned this before, but it a new, I’m really excited, it’s a new type of event we’re going to do in our office. If it works, we’re going to start doing them throughout the year and start bringing people to them. But I’m doing a test run with our inner circle members. So that’s happening next week.
So we’re getting everything set up and ready and prepared for the first ever FHAT event, which is exciting. So that’s going to be happening at the workshop room in there. Then we’ve got a big old kitchen. I think the kitchen will hold like 38 chairs. 38 people can eat at the same time, which is crazy. I guess that’s a lot for normal days, but I guess when we have events there, we’ll probably need a little more. People can eat in the conference room as well. So we got places for people to eat, which is cool.
Also, we always rent these kitchens and stuff, to film different products, when we did the weight shake video we’d rent this person’s kitchen. We’ve done that once. So I wanted a kitchen that was nice, so we could actually film in it. We’ve got a nice backdrop a nice countertop. So it’s set up so we can actually film in it.
That’s one of the cool things about this office. Our old office, if you ever saw it on the videos, it’s totally embarrassing. It was so trashy and I’m not the cleanest person ever, especially when I’m in the zone working and creating, I’ve got stuff everywhere. But it always looked ugly, it’s kind of embarrassing. There was no where to film videos, so we always had to go somewhere. But in the new offices, we’ve got probably 15 or 20 spots that we created specifically to look cool, to be awesome on video, which is going to be really, really cool.
You should see a lot more new cool video stuff coming from us. When we’re streaming stuff it won’t look lame, it’ll actually look awesome. So I’m excited for that on top of everything else. We have our own little recording studio, it’s going to have all sound proofing, that foam stuff so there’s no echoes or revirb so you can record webinars or audiobooks or whatever in there, podcasts. It’s going to be really, really cool. I don’t know, just ton’s of cool stuff is happening.
So I, as you can tell, am very excited for today. The move is happening, but first I got to get to downtown Boise, through all of this traffic and go give a presentation to our certified partners, then get back to have some fun.
Also, the new office has got a lot of book shelf space, but not as much as the old office. So some of you guys knew this, if you watched me on Snapchat, it was kind of a sad day in my life. But we went through and threw away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of marketing courses, things that were no longer relevant, or I knew I’d never listen to, things like that. So because of that I threw away most of my courses. And I put the courses that are still relevant, we burned them all onto audiobook files, so now they’re all in my phone and laptop and everywhere else. But they’re no longer on the bookshelf.
Now it’s just going to be books there. So today we’re bringing all the books over. I’m going to organize all those, get them on the wall and hopefully there’ll be some room for new books. Because I love books, books are the coolest.
And speaking of books, Saturday I finished it. I finished the last edit, the last everything. I sent it to…… I printed, actually printed out 6 physically copies of the book and handed them out to 5 of my friends and one for me. And they’re all doing a really quick read through to see any last misspellings or typos or anything, but after that It’s done. And it was the weirdest thing. Saturday I went in and spent about two hours just doing the last, last thing. Making sure everything was in there. Making sure all the images were correct, making sure all that stuff. And I remember, when I got done I was like, “I’m done.” I think I snapchatted, “I’m done.”
But it was the weirdest, I literally felt like I had this 300 pound kid sitting on my shoulders, and then he fell off. And I was like, “I feel so light.” It was really interesting. I felt so light and fluffy and good and So it’s nice to have that big old gorilla off my back, because that’s been one of those things that needed to be done.
In fact, my initial due date from the publisher was December 1st, and then I missed that date. Then it was December 31st, I missed that date. Then we had to move our launch date, so we moved our launch date for the book to April 18th. I was basically like, “Okay, you have this done by the end of January, it’s physically impossible to have it done by your launch date. I was like, “Okay.” So that’s where we’re at. So the last two months, was like a nightmare. But now it’s done and books, I don’t know if you ever written a book, it’s so much more permanent. I can, I’m not, what’s the right word, I was going to say cheat my way through.
I can freestyle my way through power point slides, presentations and sales videos and all those other things. They don’t have to be perfect or finite, there’s, I’ve done them enough that I don’t need them to be perfect. But a book has to be perfect. Because they don’t have you being able to cover up the mistakes through a good story or through whatever. It is what it is. It has to stand alone. You can’t touch it when it’s done. So there you go. I’m excited, the book’s going to be so, so cool.
Alright, with that said, I’m driving down to the certified partner’s event so I thought a good thing to talk about would be the other side of the funnel business. So I know we talk a lot about our own funnels. How you’re one funnel away and that part of it, but I thought it would be fun to talk about what our certified partners talk about. And if you’re not a certified partner yet, but you’d like to be, you should become one. I think everybody, whether you want to sell funnels or not, should go through a certified partner training. It’ll help you become a better funnel builder for yourself or if you did have clients. Whatever that is. But I think it’s good.
So if you’re interested in going, go to cfcertified.com, and there’s a webinar there explaining how the whole thing works. I just think everybody should go through it. It’s worth it. A few groups are coming in today. So the way it works, you sign up for it and it’s like, I think it’s 12 modules, but you have to complete the first 8 before you’re able to come to the certification events. The certification events, we do every quarter here in Boise. So everyone who’s got the first 8 modules done is allowed to come to it.
At the certified events we actually bring in a bunch of business owners and you have a chance to go and build funnels for them. There’s a contest at the end, whoever builds the best funnel wins the prize, it’s really cool. But it kind of gives you the ability to do the whole thing for a client, which is like taking the intake and finding what they want, from there figuring out the strategy, figuring out how to build it and going through the whole process. I would typically make people stay up all night, this is an all nighter type of thing, to work hard and get these things done. It trains you and teaches you how to actually get the project done, which is cool.
It’s interesting that even if you’re not doing these for other clients, you’re doing them for yourself, the process is still the same. A lot of people start with the funnel by jumping into Clickfunnels and start building, which is cool. But there’s stuff you gotta be thinking through ahead of time. And if you were working for a client, you would. What’s the goal, what’s the strategy? Here’s all the funnel types we have, what should I do? What should I not do? And it gives you a chance to really think through it at a different level.
So it’s kind of cool, but it’s been fun watching our certified partners, some of these guys are making crazy, crazy amounts of money and it’s interesting what it comes down to. What you’re doing is taking your business owner off the street. And the business in the past probably had a website, they’ve probably got all these things they’ve been doing, but none of them are making them any money.
You’re saying, “Look, the old things you have don’t work. There’s a new way, a better way to do it and it’s through this process with what we call a funnel.” And if you think about funnels, this was so interesting to me, most businesses have a funnel. Yesterday at church I was talking to a guy who’s a chiropractor and he was asking me about what I do with funnels. And he’s like, “So it’s kind of like a website?” I was like, “Well, I guess.” That’s like if I’m like a basketball player, saying “Oh, so you’re kind of like Michael Jordan?” it’s like, “Well, technically. He’s a lot better than me, but I’ll take that I guess.”
I’m like, “Yeah, it’s kind of like a website, but it’s a process we take someone through. A website is kind of dead thing that’s like, bleh.” And I’m like, “How much money did you’re website make you last year?” and he’s like, ”We don’t know.” I’m like, “Exactly. Nobody knows because it doesn’t do anything, you guys think it’s useful and it’s not. But if you shift it a little bit, you shift your thinking, and you’re like ‘websites are dead, this is the new future, the new opportunity is these things called funnels.”
And you start looking; in fact, this is what I do with any client I’m working with, especially offline clients. “What’s the funnel you’re taking people through right now?” And they’re like, “I don’t know what that means.” I’m like, “How do you get clients right now?” They’re like, “okay, well first thing I do is this, then I do this, then I do this, then I do this, then I do this.”
So I’ll draw out a picture of a funnel, like, “That’s what you did.” So we know that model, and I’m not going to try to re-invent the wheel. How do we replicate that? If you’re doing this, this and this. How do we replicate that online. Let’s look at that because the funnel you have is working now. My chiropractic buddy, when we first started, when he started his practice, he struggled forever to get leads. And the first thing I think that really took off for him was, he put a, what do they call them, fish bowls in a restaurant. So people put their business cards in for a free lunch. Then he’d call them up and be like “Congratulations, you won a free lunch.” To everybody who dropped a card in.
The way it works is I’m going to come to your office for free, I’ll bring lunch but I get to give you a thirty minute presentation. So he’d show up with lunch, feed everyone, do a thirty minute presentation, close a bunch of people and rinse and repeat. That was his funnel that he was bringing people in. And it’s like, hey that works. So now we know that model works, how do we replicate that online. You need to get lunch appointments for people locally that you can give them free lunch or whatever. Let’s make that same offer, let’s make a fishbowl funnel. “Put your name and email address in here and you can win a chance to get me to bring lunch.” And then go buy Facebook ads that go to that fishbowl funnel, get their contact, call them up and be like, “congratulation, you won.” And then go do the same thing.
People seem to think it’s this magic trick, it’s not. It’s just looking at the customer process. I’ve talked about this before with you guys. But I don’t know if it was episode 1 or 250 so I apologize, they kind of blur together. But I remember reading the book the Emyth, for the first time and he talking about how every business has a system and if you don’t have a system, it means you do but it’s a really bad system probably. And he was talking about how what’s a system for a retail business, when a customer comes through the door. What do they say first? What do they say second? And looking at that process.
I remember reading that book ten years ago and thinking about the stores I go into. How am I being, what’s the funnel people are taking when they walk into the store? It’s funny, my favorite store to this day is GNC. But I rarely go, even when I see a GNC, I’ll avoid it like the plague, because I know their system sucks when people walk in. I walk in, the first thing is, “Hey what can I help you with?” and I’m like, “Gah, I just walked in. I want to look at the bottle and read the back.” And they always ask me that, and so I always say what everybody says, “Oh no thanks. I’m just looking.” And then they, and then it ruins that first interaction.
It’s like having a sales funnel where the headline is, “Hey what can I help you with today?” and you’re like, “I don’t know, I just landed on your landing page. I don’t know. I’m going to leave. You’re freaking me out.” And then they leave. That’s the equivalent of it.
So it’s like, okay how do we make this process right? If I were the GNC dude, I’d come in and be like, “Welcome to GNC, looks like you’re looking for some cool supplements. Have you tried the new whatever power bars? I can give you free sample if you want to try them because they are freaking amazing.” I’d be like, “Heck yeah, I’ll try a power bar.” I eat and I’d be like, “Dude that is amazing. What’s the secret?” and they’d be like, “Oh there’s this kind of protein instead of this. This is the big thing behind.” Maybe he’d be like, “Are you looking for proteins or what kind of supplements are you typically looking for?”
Boom, he’s opened his question. First off, he built rapport, second off, he opened up a question. I’d be like, “I like all sorts of supplements.” And be like, “Sweet, let’s get a cart and let’s make a shopping list.” I’d be like, “Alright.” And I’d spend like $800 instead of the opposite when I’m like, “I’m just looking.” And awkwardly looking around and you can tell they’re looking at you.
Every time you’re looking at something, “Hey so do you have any questions about supplements?” and I’m like, “No I’m just looking.” And then walk to the next section, “Oh do you have a question about those?” “No! GAH! I’ll kill you.” That’s what normally happens when I go to GNC. So if I was the consultant for GNC, I’d be looking at the funnel, that process, every single interaction. What’s weird, what’s not weird? What’s awesome? And I’d be looking at those kinds of things and figure out how to tweak it and make it smoother.
And the same thing is true with websites and funnels. For five years I used to do all the Glazier Kennedy website reviews. Go to this website and every single time it was this brick wall, “Can I help you with that?” and there’d be 8 thousand links on their page. I’d be like, “I’ve been reviewing these things for 5 years, how are all your pages still horrific?”
When someone comes to your page, that’s why you have a headline. What am I going to say in my headline that gets them to want to give me their email. You have to think through the process, that’s the key. It’s not, “okay I’m going to use the book funnel for this one. I’m going to use….” No, think through the process. If you were coming here for the first time. What would be the path? What would they say to you that would not shut you down but would open you up? And that’s what I’m thinking. When I’m building my own funnels, that’s all I’m thinking about.
Someone’s coming here, what’s happening? Where am I feeling resistance? Where am I feeling good? What’s creating curiosity so I can proceed through this process? What’s giving me too much so I want to step back? Where am I being annoying? Where am I helping? That’s what I’m looking at when I’m building a funnel. That’s what you should be doing if you’re working for other people. Is looking at that process. And that’s what you’re thinking through and if it’s for yourself, it’s the same thing.
I have a friend that said that every month you should secret shop yourself. I haven’t really done that, but I think it’s smart. Secret shop yourself and see what resistance you’re hitting into. In fact, Dean Graziosi, I think it was, told me that when he had his big seminar business they were 200 million dollars a year and he hired a bunch of people whose full time job was to go and consume everything.
They went to the live event, they signed up, they went to the next thing, just do the whole thing and spend all the money to go through everything in the process and then come back and be like, what things were awesome? What things were horrible? He said what he found from secret shopping himself, was that people signed up they’re all excited and then they didn’t hear from people on average, about 6 days after the event. He said that was what bothered him. It took six days to hear back. They’re like, “Wow, we need to get back to people immediately.”
So they shifted the whole business to where as soon as someone would sign up for an event, the next day they got an email. When they did that their cancelation rate dropped by half, like crazy. So it’s like, coming back to the process, the funnel is just the process. The system that your taking somebody through. The magic of online funnels is the fact that we can perfect that.
You know, with offline funnels, you gotta train the sales dude, you gotta train the person in every single store, in every single GNC to not be an idiot and ask a good question instead of a bad question. And then when they want to slip back to their bad questions, it’s hard. It’s hard, right?
The cool thing about funnels is you can tweak that, perfect that and everybody comes through the same path. What’s cool, just think about GNC, if they were to go to every one of their stores around the whole country and make that one shift, what would that do for their revenue? If they were able to instantly get every single person to follow the same script, I mean, I would not be shocked if it doubled their revenue. That may seem crazy, but let’s just, I don’t think that’s that hard.
But the hard part is getting ten thousand reps to actually do it and do it right and do it correctly. That’s the opportunity that they’ve got to figure out, which is not that easy. Whereas with a funnel, there’s one point that everybody’s coming through, therefore you tweak it in one spot and it works across everything.
It’s not hard to double companies business when you fix that piece. And that’s the opportunity you guys. That’s what certified partner program is all about. That’s what these funnels are all about for yourself and for other people. That you’re just perfecting the message and each step along the funnel. And when you do that, it’s what do they say? Small hinges swing big doors. Or the butterfly effect. Wjatever you want to call it. Those teeny tiny tweaks have dramatic impact on everything else you do on your business.
I think it’s pretty exciting. I geek out on this stuff, as you can probably tell. But it’s all about thinking through it. How would you feel if you’re going through this process? Where would your resistance come from? What would you be excited by? And the more you think about, and then watch as other people go through it, and watch what they’re doing and make tweaks and changes based on that, the more success you’ll have in your funnels.
So, I hope that helps everybody. I’m almost to the certified partner event, so if you’re there today I’ll see you guys. If you’re not there yet, it means it’s time to get certified. You or someone on your team should be certified. Everyone should have one in their office. Go to cfcertified.com and go get certified. And I will see you guys here in a little bit. Thanks everybody.