After sitting in the blistering heat all day, I’m not sure if this is just a hallucination or a really good idea. Either way, I thought I’d share it with you.
On this episode Russell talks about what he thinks is the fastest way to get to a million dollars in a company. Here are some of the insightful things to look for in today’s episode:
So listen here to find out how two dudes were able to make a million dollars in a year, and what you can learn from them to do the same thing.
---Transcript---
Hey, what’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome to Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I’m just going to give you guys a really, really easy way to get to a million bucks. I hope that’s alright.
Alright so I’m actually in my backyard right now, walking around my little track. And it’s a beautiful night and everything’s amazing except for one thing, there are like a thousand mosquitoes out here and I’m getting eaten alive. But the show must go on.
Anyway, today was awesome. I had a chance to take the day off basically today and go to my kids field day, so I was outside for two and a half hours in the morning with the young kids, spraying them with water, which was really fun. And then I had a quick lunch with my wife and then came back and did two and a half more hours, which was awesome. I’m a little fried and a little sunburned.
And then some of our Two Comma Club X members, are actually legit American Ninja Warriors, so they are here for the event that starts tomorrow, and they took us and our kids to the American Ninja Warrior course, which was insanely cool. So they trained us on it, we got to do all sorts of stuff, the warped wall and all that fun stuff. So anyway, we had a great time tonight.
And now I just got kids to bed, and I am so tired, so beat. But it was a great day. I’m excited to tomorrow get back in and get Mother Funnel close to launched, and also the Two Comma Club event. So a lot of cool stuff happening here which I’m excited for.
But anyway, when I was out there today with thousands of little kids who were trying to kill me, it gives you a lot of time to sit around and think. So I had my headphones in and I was listening to Dan Kennedy and I was listening to, mostly Dan Kennedy, if I’m completely honest, and just thinking. And one thought that started going through my head is I remember this one, I’m not sure if it’s the right word to say, client, person, somebody who I’ve had the chance to work with, and I’m not going to name names. Hopefully this person, or individuals will not know that I’m talking about them.
Because it will be nice on one side because they became millionaires really, really quickly but it was kind of funny on the other side because I wouldn’t say these people, who I’m going to talk about, were super, not the best entrepreneurs. They didn’t know a million ways to drive traffic, or how to write good copy and upsells and downsells, all the stuff that I geek out about that I just love sharing and talking about and thinking about.
I know that a lot of you guys who are in my world have kind of become obsessed with it as well. They weren’t good at those things at all. In fact, the first time I met the person, the first person in this business relationship, was a good sales person. That was it. They worked on sales floors, done a lot of phone sales, stuff like that, never really had a lot of success in their own business but they were good at phone sales. Then later, this person partnered up with somebody that was good at traffic, and what was amazing was, the one person would drive traffic to generate a lead, then this guy who was good on the phone would pick up the phone and call the lead and sell them something.
And he was selling them like 5000-10000 dollar things, and then they fulfilled on it. And they weren’t even very good at fulfillment, if I’m completely honest. But they did, and that was it. It was the most basic, simple business. It was one dude drives the leads, other dude calls the leads on the phone, sells them something, they fulfill on and rinse and repeat. And that was kind of it.
I was thinking about them today, and I was just like, again, they don’t know anything about hook, story, offer, they don’t epiphany bridge, they don’t know the hero’s two journeys, they don’t know breaking false beliefs, all the amazingness that you guys are aware of. But what they did do, they figured out what are the pieces that involved to make this thing turn into cash, and it was really, really simple.
And I think, a lot of times I get deep into the science and art of this game, because I love it and I’m obsessed with it, I think sometimes some of you guys get overwhelmed because you’re trying to do all these amazing million things. I got people right now, who are talking about their future based cause and about the mass movement they’re trying to create, and when I ask them what they are trying to sell, they don’t know the answer to that yet.
I’m like, a lot of these things they’re talking about are the deep levels. Like after you get some of this to work you can go and start digging deeper. But if I was legitimately like, I gotta make money, a lot of money, really, really quickly, what’s the plan? It wouldn’t be so much like, okay let me run an ask campaign and find out what people want and all that kind of stuff. It would be really, really simple. I would look at the skill set I have. And I think to generate cash, and this isn’t including like customer support and all that kind of stuff, and honestly for these, the people I’m talking about before, it was two people for over a year, probably two years or so.
They did everything including the fulfillment of coaching and they did the customer support, everything was just them. So you don’t need to hire all these people, and teams, and staff right out of the gate. You can get to a million bucks with just a handful of people.
So what I look at, who do you actually need? You need somebody that can make it rain. That’s number one. Someone who can make it rain, someone who can get traffic or leads or whatever to your business. That’s number one. Number two, you’ve got to have someone who can sell something. You’ve got to be good at selling. Number three, you gotta be able to fulfill something awesome.
So that’s going to take two and maybe three people. So let’s just say that you’ve got something amazing to fulfill on. You’re like, I’ve got this thing and I’m the best at the world at this thing. And if I could just spend all day coaching and teaching and showing people this thing, man that would be amazing. So if that’s you, there’s only two things you should be doing.
You shouldn’t be learning or studying or any of those kind of things. Two you should be doing, number one, you should be finding somebody who can sell stuff. I would be obsessed with that. I would go to every sales conference, I’d buy every sales product just to find out who are the other people who bought the product. I would be obsessed with trying to figure out who is the sales person. This goes back to an episode I did when I was back at the Genius X event. We did an episode called It’s the Who not the How. So instead of trying to figure out ho wto sell, and learn selling skills and stuff like that, just go find someone who’s amazing that sells. I’d put out ads in the newspapers, I’d call people, find people, just become obsessed with finding someone who’s good at selling. Boom, now I got someone who can sell, then I got this thing that I’m selling that I can fulfill on. So I got a sales person now, boom, that part of the business is taken over.
Now I just need someone who can make it rain. Who is somebody who can bring traffic or leads to me? And I would go and find somebody. It would be an agency, or I’d try to find a partner or whatever. And let’s just say, coming out of the gate you’re just like, “Look, dude who’s a really good sales person, I can’t pay you because I’m broke. But I got this really cool thing. Do you think it’s cool too?” and he’s like, “Yeah, that is really cool.” “Alright, I’m going to give you 30% of the business, you’re just going to sell all day. I’m going to figure out some way to get you leads, you’re going to call those leads, sell them some crap, and then I will fulfill on the crap that you just sold them.”
Boom, then the third thing I’d be doing, all I gotta do now is finding somebody to drive leads. I’d be obsessed with that. I’d go to every conference on lead gen, I’d go to every marketing conference, every sales conference, not trying to learn it, but trying to find out who are the people I can find that I can bring into my team and say, “Look dude, you’re going to be driving leads from Facebook, or pinterest, or instagram or whatever. Look, I can’t pay you, but look I got this crap over here, it’s pretty good. Do you think it’s good?” “yeah, it’s really good.” “Yeah, this sales guy here, he thinks it’s good. He can sell it. Can you drive leads? I’ll have you drive leads, he sells them, I fulfill.”
If I can sell somebody on that, boom, I’m done. I watched these guys who basically did that and flipped it on, year one did over a million bucks. There were two of them, that’s it. One driving leads, one selling the product, they both fulfilled on it together. No customer support, no contractors, no engineers, no nothing. Just boom, that’s it. One little tiny funnel, and the funnel was not good. It was a page that said, “Hey do you want to do this ‘insert big result’. If so fill out this application.” Boom, that was it.
Now let’s just say you’re the kind of person like, “I know how to drive traffic. I’m really, really good at driving traffic.” I’d be like, okay I need to go obsessively find someone who’s got a product that’s super, super awesome who can fulfill on it. I’d go find someone who can fulfill on the product and be like, I need to find someone who could sell this thing like crazy. I would go and try to find somebody who could sell it, and then plug them together and boom, my traffic, someone else selling. Boom, we’ve got fulfillment and now we’re in business and we can get to a million bucks with those three people.
Let’s say you’re a good sales person. I don’t know how to drive traffic, I don’t know how to do fulfillment. That’s totally fine, go find someone to do traffic, partner with them, find someone to do fulfillment, partner with them, boom. You sell it in the middle and boom, you’re in business.
I just think that, and this is partially my fault because I geek out on it and I’m so excited by it, sometimes I over complicate things. Sometimes we all over complicate things. It really is that simple. You just need a couple of people, a couple of “who’s”. And that’s it.
Some of you guys are saying, “Russell, I don’t sell coaching so this doesn’t make sense for me.” Well, what do you sell then? “I’m a chiropractor.” Or whatever. Okay cool. So what do you need? You need leads, go find somebody who can generate leads. “Okay, I got leads.” What do you need next? “ I need somebody to convert these leads.” How do you want to convert them? “Through a webinar or on the phone.” Go find someone who’s really good at webinars, somebody’s who’s really good at phones. Give them equity in the company or whatever it is, and then you’re off to the races.
Anyway, that was just my, I kept thinking that today while I was sitting there. I was just realizing, these guys were not rocket scientists. They just knew that for their business to run, they needed someone to drive leads, someone to sell the leads, and they needed to fulfill on a product. So they just found someone to drive leads, someone to sell the leads and they fulfilled on product. And boom, multi-million dollar a year business out of the gates, instantly.
So I think for a lot of you guys who are going through this process and you’re learning it, I think it’s good. Otherwise I would quit publishing all together, but I think this stuff is good. I think it’s good for you as the entrepreneur, to really understand the intricacies of all these things and how they work together. But let’s be completely real and honest. If you’re trying to generate cash and make money right now, what are the things you have to have?
If anyone here, listening to the sound of my voice, thinks that I have ever logged into Facebook and had any idea how to run an ad, you are completely wrong. One time I was clicking on something in my account and it went to my business account accidentally and it popped up this really weird dashboard that scared me, and I was like, I think I might break something. And I literally had John, who runs my ads, come in and “I didn’t break anything right?” He’s like, “No, you just went to the ad manager.” I’m like, “Okay, cool. Can you shut the page, because I don’t want to jack this thing up?” and he shut it down.
Because I don’t know how to do that, so I found John and John became the person on my team who then runs the ads. And now as my company has grown from you know, half a dozen people to a dozen, to 20, to 100, to 150 to 200, ugh we’re past 200 people now. It was really just that. Finding out who are the people we need to plug in who are already good at those things that have a tendency to like them and have a tendency to be good at them.
It wasn’t about going and me trying to learn every single step of it. A lot of times I learn it because I am intrigued and I want to understand it, but I’m not actually doing it. So that’s what I want you guys to understand, that’s the fastest way to move forward quickly.
Anyway, I hope that makes you kind of think a little bit. I hired someone the other day, it might have been Charfin, I’m pretty sure it was him but I’m not positive, anyway, but I basically said if you look at the NFL or the NBA, they don’t go and “I’m going to go find a dude, I’m going to go train that person on how to do it, and hopefully they become a good point guard someday, or be a good quarter back.” No, they go and find the best quarter back and they recruit that person. You should be doing the same thing for your business. This is your business. This is your NBA team. You’re trying to win the superbowl.
Anyway, so if that’s you and that’s what you’re kind of going for, I want you thinking about that. Who are the people I need to recruit? Where are they at? I’m going to go to the conferences, the events, find out where the sales people are at. Let me go to this sales floor, let me call people and get them to sell me something, if they’re good, let me see if they want a job.” Just aggressively recruiting the right talent for your team. I think that is a faster way to cash than anything else.
Now, I’m sure there’s questions coming up. “Russell, what happens if I hire the guy and I give him equity and he turns out to be an idiot three weeks later?” set some contingencies, “First off you’ve got to actually perform. Second off, we’re going to do this for thirty days, and at the end of the thirty days we all get to sit down and decide if we want to keep doing this. And if you drove no leads, I’m going to cancel this whole thing. If you drove leads and this guy didn’t sell, we’re going to cancel the whole thing. If this drove leads, this guy sold, but nobody liked the product, I’m going to cancel this thing. But let’s sit down in thirty days or ninety days and let’s re-evaluate and at that point let’s figure out what makes the most sense and we’ll move forward.”
And that way you’re not stuck in a long contract or anything until you figure out if that works. Then after that say, “This has been three months in, this has been awesome. We’re all making a bunch of money. Who wants to keep doing this exercise?” “Yeah, we’re all making money, let’s do it.” “Alright let’s do this out for a year, and in a year if we’re all still friends and we all still like this game, let’s split this up into actually equity. Until then we’re just seeing if we all like each other and if we can make it work.”
If you get the right people on board, they’ll be on board with that. Anyway, on top of that treat your partners really, really insanely good, because I promise you, I know that I couldn’t have built CLickfunnels without my partners. I know that I couldn’t have built my family without my wife. I know that I couldn’t…the people you bring in are the ones that actually make it possible. It’s not you or me, it’s the people we surround ourselves with. It’s the people we recruit, the team we build. So I hope that helps.
Anyway, that’s it you guys. I’m going to keep walking the track for a bit longer, because it’s a beautiful night. My skin has got bumps all over it from all the mosquitoes, but it’s worth it because I gotta share this with you guys and get it off my mind so I can actually sleep tonight. But start looking at things that way. Start looking at who are the who’s you need to recruit on your team and that way you can get to the all-star game so much faster.
Alright guys, thanks for everything, appreciate you all and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye.