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:
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.