Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - Bootstrapping from $0 to $100,000,000+ Part 2 (Ian Stanley Interview)
Episode Date: August 8, 2022Here is the exciting conclusion from the Russell Brunson and Ian Stanley interview. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRusse...ll.com Magnetic Marketing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
What's up, everybody?
This is Russell Brunson.
Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.
I hope that yesterday or whenever you listened to the last episode with the first half of
the interview with Ian Stanley, I hope you enjoyed it.
This is the exciting conclusion of the interview.
It's part two of two.
This is the second half an hour.
As you can tell from the interview, if you listened to the last episode, we were talking
about all sorts of stuff.
It was really fun and hopefully you guys enjoyed it.
It was entertaining and hopefully you also learned some really cool things for your business as well. So with that said,
I hope you enjoy the episode. Thank you so much for listening and I'll take you over now to listen
to part two of my interview with Ian Stanley. So the big question is this, how are entrepreneurs
like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, we're spending money from our own
pockets. How do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world
and yet still remain profitable? That is the question and this podcast will give you the
answers. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets.
Dude, we got Nathan Berry in the house now hey what's up man
and never use convert kicks it's the worst oh i'm just kidding
it's all the uh the clicks and converts and all that that's what's that's what boise is
click funnels and click bank and convert kit paul could not figure all right this is a i
gotta quickly tell you this because
it's a it's a really quick stupid story so we're at craft and commerce and paul the video guy
this one of the most interesting human beings you'll ever meet in your entire life uh he goes
to one of the talks at convert kit and he comes out of the like you know it's like a breakout one
and we're like so what did you
learn he's like she's talking about some software the whole time um it's like showing how to build
pages and stuff and i was like oh what was the software and he's like it was kind of like she's
talking about it's kind of a picture but not really but kind of just showing the software
it's like he's like click something i was like click funnels he's like no it's like, click something. I was like, click funnels? He's like, no. He's like, click bank?
He's like, no.
And I'm like, those are the clicks.
Click up?
And he's like, no, I don't think it was any of those.
And then later he goes, this is something about ConvertKit.
And he goes, oh, that was the one.
And I go, it's their event.
And he goes, I had no idea. He literally had no idea that the whole event was put on by ConvertKit. And he couldn't even figure out the name of one of the easiest software names to remember. And that's Paul. That if you want to know, Paul, and for those of you who were here the, he thought pants, that was his idea as well. If you have any pants related ideas,
that's, that's Paul's recipe. Oh man. Okay.
That's just a fun thing to, to talk about, but okay.
So actually one of the questions I had is I know you talk about the dream 100
quite a bit. How much is that truly and then
there's that guy dana who just like ran with it and built a whole entire business off yeah how
much is that really like a part of what you do huge to this day like uh yesterday doing your
100 stuff um monday my entire day's dream 100 all working towards uh click phone supernova launch but
um it's it's funny because people
are like oh yeah i heard you talk about that and then they pass it i'm like right it literally is
the key like the traffic seekers book everyone's expecting me to talk about google ads and facebook
ads and stuff like that and the first like 75 of the book is like the dream 100 like that's
the secret to everything and like right that's how i bought click funnels i must i was early
yeah i bought when i was living in San Diego.
So this must have been eight years ago.
It was like the start.
We launched eight years ago.
It was during when you were doing the weekly webinars, I think.
And I can't remember whose list it was that I must have bought from.
And I didn't have the money for it at the time, but it was the $2,000 offer, I think it was, for the year or something.
It might have been $1,000.
No, it was $1,000 then, I think it was, for the year or something. It might have been a thousand. No, it was a thousand then, I think.
And I launched my first course the next week with Derek Johansson and we made $12,000.
And I was making five grand a month at my job.
So it's like, holy shit, this is incredible.
This stuff actually works.
But that was the first thing.
And that was when you were...
So that's how you built it, right?
You basically went to all these partners.
Yeah, the first year I did, I think I did year one one i think it was like 70 or 80 webinars the first year sometimes it was
like you know three or four weeks it was three or four a day just lining them up and we were doing
it and doing it and doing it till we passed 10 million in sales after past 10 million dollars
when we started automating it but i still you know when we do a launch of our book we do our
freddits we do like we have full staff like three or four people all their only job is dream 100 like just connecting and talking to them and
sending them stuff and getting promotions lined up and like it's always constantly happening is
that still then your primary traffic is other people yep to this day we get more from our
affiliates and all over i mean we're spending two million bucks a month on ads and we get more from
our affiliates and we do all the ads in mind and they stick longer they're better people like all those things i guess it's crazy
me because even to this day like when we do our own campaigns right like we'll do our campaign and
like 90 percent of our sales still come from the email like to this day like all the stuff that we
talk about and we do from you know ads and this and that all the stuff like email still trumps
all it's like if i can get an affiliate to send email that's worth you know 50 60 70 000 to the facebook ads so why not have someone full-time
who just lines those things up that's what so and it's so interesting hearing that because
well first off email apparently is still alive nathan so um but the this is something that like with clients i've worked with will have typically three to
four times lifetime value from somebody else's list versus youtube facebook anything else and
cam and i've talked about that like two years ago when we decided to partner we were like let's do
this money dna quiz and let's do cpl in the make money space because nobody does cpl office in our
space it's all in the health space it's all cpl right like that's what when biotrust had to make
that change like we're going to pay two dollars a lead and they absolutely blew up through that
model same with giri that's what they did they're just like let's just get emails from other people's
lists because these people open click and engage with email and it's like getting people from
tiktok or youtube onto a list they might be email people yeah but they might not that was actually something from
your event that when sam pa was talking and i was like i was like god i don't want to do blog posts
but then you realize the reason why those lists are so valuable from blog posts is those people
are readers yeah if they like if you watch youtube you're not necessarily into reading but if you
read blog posts especially thousand word blog posts you're probably going to read emails yeah so you guys
sell books people read books for better people right i'm not like they're better customers
yeah yeah so yeah 100 that's right people why do you have so many books to your front ends because
like people read books with best customers they're the ones have the most success the ones who
you know it's like why not create something that generates the dream person so like you run facebook
ads on the book the facebook people like books show up and they enter your world and we have
every one of our uh because i mean i probably have more front ends than any other company on
the planet right so we have however many front ends but we can track like which front end they
came through how long they stick and so like the people come through book funnels stick longer they
last longer how do you tackle that um it's a nightmare there's like 10 different
things we use um a lot of just internal data so we um you know obviously click funnels we see we can
see all that and it's pulling in all the all the things from our own internal click funnels
tracking plus high roast plus wicked reports plus i don't know it's a whole it's a whole mess
do you know ltv numbers do you know LTV numbers? Do you know Tyler?
My team would know that for sure.
Yeah, because he built the whole software basically
using ClickFunnels for LTV tracking.
Oh, I don't know.
Yeah, so we've used that a ton.
And it's, I mean, the problem was he didn't have a phone sales component
and that's been a bigger part of our business now.
So we use HiROs and we're using LTV numbers.
We're working with them directly to like develop
it properly because if we're buying a bunch of leads we have to know 30 day set day 7 day 14 day
30 value and everything but when we started doing that with the book especially like my free plus
shipping front end we'd get around a 35 to 50 day zero value but they'd be worth like 90 dollars by day 30 i think and
then up to 150 by day 90 so that decision was so completely different when we're like oh they're
only worth 50 bucks and we're spending 50 bucks but then you look like we're 3x row as by day 90
but doing the ltv tracking is what's so tough for the most part yeah because it was 2.0 is cool
because it's gonna it has a lot more of that stuff all built in maybe able to track um plus
crm components will be able to track further deeper too so he should message me and then we
can make sure he connects with us and all the new stuff yeah i'll i'll get that we'll get tyler to
to connect with you so dream 100 is really like it's almost like when i read traction the first
time i was like this is a cool idea and i didn't realize that it's like, it's almost like when I read Traction the first time, I was like, this is a cool idea.
And I didn't realize that it's like, this is actually an operating system for your entire company.
So you really like, if you're going to start something new.
So when you did, when you bought Dan Kennedy's company, did you, is that step one?
So what does that actually look like then?
So what is like a dream?
So I love Trello because it's simple.
So I build a Trello board.
And then typically what I'll do is i'll make columns for the different uh platforms like you
know social and dan's hard because most of his dream partners aren't socially yeah you're like
we're gonna build a huge list we have a new sales video that's going live in like a week or two that
literally after you watch it makes faxes like the coolest thing on the planet um anyway so that's
that is actually exciting i was at dan kennedy's house and he's got a fax machine there's a sticky note with my fax number
on his fax machine i was like i've arrived this is the greatest thing like i'm on dan kenney's
speed dial on this fax machine which isn't even a speed dial it's just a sticky it's a pink sticky
note it says russell brunson and my my e-fax number whatever does he still have no cell phone
dude or anything i always knew that he
wasn't connected to stuff i didn't realize how big it is so i'm just out so he goes basically
he's got this whole is this ridiculous uh no it's very modest and shockingly like dan so dan had a
whole bunch as a kid he had a whole bunch of money and his parents they lost all never got it back
so he has this really weird thing where he just i think he just hoards money like he he's got to be
a billionaire but he just lives anyway his he just hoards money. Like he, he's gotta be a billionaire,
but he's just lives.
Anyway,
his basement is really cool.
Like tons of books. And like,
you've got a mastermind room and everything.
And we're down there.
And,
um,
what does he live?
Uh,
in Cleveland,
Ohio.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
Anyway,
he was like,
he's like,
he doesn't know.
He's not like,
we know he doesn't use email and stuff like that.
He does not have internet in his home.
What?
Yeah.
I was like,
no,
he said,
check my computers. He's like behind. There's there's nothing connected um at all and so he he types
whatever it is on his computer and then he prints it i walks the fax machine sends it to whoever it
is that's the process and then like we're doing a book together right now so like he'll fax me
the chapter and then he so it gives his wife carla the file on a thumb drive and then she
overnights it to me so i get the overnighted doc version every because you can't email to me like and then i said that i'm like how in the
world you he's written like 40 books i'm like he's so prolific he writes so much stuff like
how in the world do you do your research if you don't if not hooked on the internet
and uh it's so funny because he looked right he's like you have stacks of like everything here he's
like this is how i do my research and he's like how do you do your research he's like don't you
feel like you're sitting in the middle of a strip club when you're
on the internet like how do you get anything done i'm like that's a good point there's so
that's why he's written 40 books yeah and um uh oh crap i was about to say something else about him
but i forgot what it was anyway but it's fascinating i mean so he man i want to do now i
want to do a youtube video i think in like youtube, I've been working with Daryl leaves.
I know you know Daryl, right? So I had a call to him yesterday.
He's he's making incredible with YouTube. It's crazy. Talk about obsession. Like he is obsessed with YouTube and he's now,
I just am like thinking in titles,
like you just think in those like pithy little titles. And I just,
that just made me think I lived like Dan Kennedy for a week.
That would be a, I would watch that video just to see what that person but you'd get so much done yeah you willing
to get rid of internet for a week so that's what so the the other office i store my books i set up
a dad after go to dan's place i set up a um an office with a computer and no no uh internet for
that exact same reason i can't do like dan kennedy does so now like i go there every morning for a
couple hours and i write and there's no internet access and it's the weirdest
thing but after you get past that crutch of like i gotta google the thing or whatever like it gets
you in this really cool flow how long have you been doing that for um i saw dan probably two
months ago so like last two months or so and has it been it's been really cool at first it's really
hard because you feel like you can't do anything and then um now it's awesome because in that room
all my books too so it's like if i'm in my research i gotta find a book so i'm like
oh i'm gonna go look at you know 1847 like history of advertising and like oh my gosh like i've never
found that on google like this is the you know you pull different ideas and things up in your
house in your house no it's an office next to my office that um we just rented temporarily for a
library one yeah what's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson.
I've got something really cool for you today from my friend,
Taylor Wells.
And Taylor spoke at our last funnel hacking live.
Cause I wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the
revolving pricing method.
And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to give you guys more access to
this super cool strategy that you are going to love.
It's something we've been implementing into our high end coaching program as
well.
And it is amazing,
but to kind of give you some context about this offer he's making for you guys,
as you may or may not know, a few years ago, JPMorgan Chase did a study, and guess what they found?
They found that the average small business only has about 28 days of operating expenses in reserve.
That's right, less than a month of cash on hands.
Now, if you're like me, the idea of your business being one bad month away from disaster
is enough to make your stomach drop, am I right?
Especially with how the economy's been lately, it's not the time to be gambling with your finances. So Taylor put
together this book called The Revolving Pricing Method, and it's awesome. It helps you turn every
client you close into a long-term profit machine. We're not talking about one-time paydays. We're
talking about creating sustainable and real predictable income for the long haul. Now,
here's where it gets even better. Taylor put together an awesome exclusive deal just for you
guys, my Marketing Secrets listeners. And if you go over to wealthyconsultants.com
slash secrets, you can grab the revolving price method book and over $150 worth of bonuses and
get this all. It's at 70% off. And I promise you guys as a customer of this, you are going to love
it. So if you're serious about growing your business with real stability, this is the model
you need to add into your funnels. So go over to wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets,
grab your 70% off deal,
and let's start turning your clients into long-term revenue.
Again, that's wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets.
Do not miss out.
Hey, this is Russell Brunson, and I want to jump in really quick
to share with you a new assessment I found out
that is insanely cool.
You guys know I'm obsessed with personality profiles
and assessments, but this one is different
because not only does it help you understand yourself,
but more importantly, especially for us who are entrepreneurs, it
helps us understand our employees, our teams, and get people sitting on the right seats
in the bus so they can get more stuff done.
I just had a chance to interview Patrick Lanchoni talking specifically about this new assessment
they created called Working Genius.
And the Working Genius is awesome.
Like this test, I had actually blocked out an hour to take it because I was so excited
for the new assessment.
And it only took me like 10 minutes or less to get it done.
Yet, even though it takes only 10 minutes, like you can actually apply this immediately.
I took it for myself.
I had my team take it.
And what's cool about it is from there, we figured out exactly what people's working geniuses are.
And that's important because if you're building a team or a company, you got to figure out, make sure you have, first off, the right people.
But make sure the right people are sitting in the right seats on the bus.
And this is what this assessment will teach you how to do.
Now, normally this assessment, you can go to WorkingGenius.com, and there's two Gs in the middle, WorkingGenius.com.
But I got you a 20% discount on the assessment, which is only $25.
So don't stress.
It's not an expensive test at all.
But you get a 20% discount off when you put in the keyword secrets at checkout.
So go to WorkingGenius.com.
Again, two Gs, WorkingGenius. Two Gs. So go to workinggenius.com. Again, two Gs, working genius,
two Gs in the middle, workinggenius.com.
And then use promo code secrets, S-E-C-R-E-T-S
at checkout, get 25% off.
But then go take the test.
Again, it takes you 10 minutes.
But even in a 10 minute session,
you will get something that is so insanely valuable
to help you understand yourself,
to make sure you're working in a spot
that's gonna give you the most joy, number one.
But then number two,
it's gonna make sure that you are, with your your teams getting them in the right seats as well. So anyway, I love this assessment. Go check it out at workinggenius.com and enter
the promo code secrets for 20% discount. Take this test for yourself and for your team. And I promise
you, it'll change the working dynamics amongst everybody and help your company to grow.
So you just don't have Wi-Fi there. You could theoretically.
I'm sure on my phone I could hack it.
Okay.
I'm trying to like, yeah,
I'm going to write here and nothing else and see.
And so what is he just...
When you go there, what does he do then?
Does he have cable?
No, he just reads and thinks.
Oh, I remember I was going to tell you,
this is the coolest fact.
So he's written 40 books.
He literally told me, he's like,
I have never been to amazon.com. I like what he's like never been there he's like
I'm it's like a thing now he talks about it like it's a place you go yeah I've never been to
amazon.com I don't know which street's that on is it a warehouse or is it next to Barnes and Nobles
I don't think he talks like that but yeah I don't think he knows yeah but isn't that crazy like
he's never that prolific an offer he's never once been to amazon.com and he's so proud of the fact he's never been there.
It's just like a pride point.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
I want something like sneak a laptop the next time.
Like, there it is.
He's like, oh my God.
So he just like lives just, he's like all my clients send him stuff now.
So it's like, like everyone's like outsourcing stuff.
And then the best stuff they'll like FedEx it to him let me get stuff to him so he's like all his research
the stuff that people thought was important enough to fedex to him and that's what he does
his research on and when he looks at and it's it's really what does he do now like um so was
the death all just no it's totally really i mean he's a genius marketer right i mean what better
thing i i would love to die before i die and see all of the nice stuff people
have to say. I think that's the dream is everybody thinks you're gone. You're just off in the woods.
And then you come back and you get to see all the amazing things people said.
Thank you. Why don't you say that? Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, that's so cool. I mean,
it's not awesome that he almost died, but, but he did, that was real.
It was real a hundred percent. And it's, and so like now, like he,
he lost eyesight when I saw other health problems,
but what's cool is like his mind's still sharp. Like he didn't lose that,
which is in a lot of people, you know, that's the first thing to go.
So it's been cool because with acquiring the company,
I have a chance every month I have two hour calls.
And so every month I get to go and like at his feet and ask me questions I want. It's just been like, it's been cool because with acquiring the company, I have a chance every month I have two hour calls. And so every month I get to go and like at his feet and ask me questions I want.
It's just been like, it's been the coolest, like outside of buying the company, like just, you know, he's been my mentor forever.
Like from a, from a distance now, it's like really cool to be, you know, have that relationship with him.
Yeah.
It's really cool.
It's Dan Kennedy.
Yeah.
Like I think so many of us started by reading something.
100%.
Did you, so did you, started by reading something 100 did you so
did you is it g kick that you bought is that yeah it would have been gkc yeah okay they changed the
name a million times but yeah it was and now what is your guys what's your plan with that because i
remember in full transparency of my experience with that company was i read like no bs time
management and then something else i recently
did almost alchemy it looks it's so good it's probably the best one so many people need to
read that book because so many people don't understand that marketing is math yeah and it
like breaks it down so well the best one it's almost alchemy it's so good and nobody knows
it exists and it's a weird name for what it is yeah um that book's amazing and his books are so
good and his mind's great but i bought one binder like you know they'll send you the binder of this
thing and i bought it i must have been 23 or 4 and it was like 300 which for me was a lot at the time
and i ended up like having to call them and be like hey i need a refund like i'm sorry but this
was it was like it was like a 20 thing that they had put into a binder and it wasn't very good and i know people
who are like no his stuff's the best stuff ever and dan's isn't they're like it's amazing but i
had that one experience and i was like oh i'm not going to keep buying from them yeah and i'd lost
that what year was that about that must have been 2014 okay yeah it makes sense a while and but i'd heard
that from other people that there was a little while and when bill blazer sold the company there
was like almost a decade where the people that took it over were just yeah well that's what's
so exciting about you taking it over is it's like he has this incredible information oh yeah but it
was just at that point i don't think it was even his they had just like copied some it was literally
they were like it's dan kennedy's name we just put it on here and people will pay a premium and it was like
laziness for sure yeah there's been a lot of that so we're trying to bring back things but
uh yes the reason why and it's interesting because um uh click funnels obviously the way we grow
click funnels profitably is we have front ends right and there's a whole bunch
of russell brunson front ends and and that's good on one aspect because it's like i can bring people
in and stuff like that but it's also bad because then it's like relying on me right so for me i
was like a couple years ago i want i want to i want more non-russell based front ends aren't me
because number one if we ever sell in the future makes it more sellable if we go public it makes
it just it's just better all around right or if i hit by a bus like the company doesn't go under so that was the that was
the the question we posed a couple years ago how do we create more russell brace russell or non-russell
front ends and so most of all our acquisitions are happening are all based on that too like oh this
like kenny's like he's written 40 books on marketing like there's 40 russell front non-russell
front ends we can use we can leverage leverage their not. Plus he is,
he is the best in the world at low key promoting things throughout his book.
Somebody did.
Have you seen this thing?
Somebody took notes on how many times in one of his books,
he cross promoted one of his other things or mentioned one of his things.
It was 168 times.
Are you serious?
Yeah.
And then I was like,
YouTube video. Where's that at? It's a, I'll, uh i'll i will find it for you it was written in it's it's just weird i found this
uh odd document it sounds so much cooler when i say that uh this weird document of a breakdown
of dan kennedy talking about people who buy how to make money products and there's this also like my favorite story ever is this old dude
who he uh he died while he was shagging his wife he finished and then he died and then he was
resuscitated and then he went to the hospital they brought him back to life and he had to get a new
hurt and he wrote a sales letter to 18 hospitals and got a new hut within like three
weeks and i was like talk about an opening sentence like this guy came and then died
and i know this i know this opportunity concepts course so we're republishing that right we're
working on republishing that's from that course opportunity concepts course i wonder i'll buy
that for us immediately because that's amazing. Yes, you told that story.
I actually listened to that story when I was in Hawaii during Thanksgiving.
So I was going through all the stuff after we bought it.
And I do remember that story.
It was just fascinating.
That guy went on and just created all these biz ops and killed it.
That thing, the coolest bit, we were going to do that with our 90 Days to Freedom program.
It was like, originally, we were going to give a laptop, like get a Chromebook and give
it to people that had all the stuff loaded on it so that they had this separate laptop
that was just for the business. Because he did that he would give people a
computer he said the problem then was that people didn't have computers so he's like let's give him
one yeah so they would build them a computer with all the stuff on it and then that guy was
fascinating but so but somebody i think it was in that thing they said they counted it it was 168
times i think that he had you know talked whether it's
like during my private consulting days or this thing or this thing that i charge 18 000 for this
or this um and then i was like god damn it i really messed up with my book i was afraid of
even like drop putting in like a go to persuasion or you know go to you know templates email
templates i'll call them to get these or whatever and now i'm like i wanted to go back and just
rewrite like just throw in all these because that stuff adds up in a big way when people are reading let's email 10 blues.com to get these or whatever. And now I'm like, I wanted to go back and just rewrite,
like just throw in all these. Cause that stuff adds up in a big way when people are reading the book.
I'm doing a coauthor book with Dan right now.
And that's the thing he's trying to,
cause I'm the same way I got like chapter 40 is when I talk about click
funnels.
Right.
But it's like,
I had the same way I could hide it way in the back.
And he's just like,
you should have this every single page you've talked to.
I think he's big into that and like trying to like weave it in,
but it's still a good book. Right. It's not like there are people who do it where you read a book
you buy the book and you're like i wish i hadn't bought this book it was just a 30 page or a 50
page sales letter yeah it's their webinar written down whereas his are actually really good books
he's just a master at like throwing in little weaving in those little pieces yeah that's what
like i learned um when i got into the dan kennedy world back in the days watching like you go to the
events and like i didn't realize at first but all the speakers were people from our community like
um and like oh this is this is a platinum member on you know so they always introduced the speakers
by like what level of membership they're at and they didn't catch on initially but then as i got
later i was like i realized that i wanted to be the top level because like they're the ones on stage they're the ones doing these kind of things
it's like when we built the click funnels uh our funnel like live event if you notice we have like
a handful of like big speakers but 90 of our speakers are community members right and they're
people in my mastermind groups the people in these things so i can be like oh this is my inner circle
member oh some of my category kings oh this is my and all some people are seeing that positioning
and and they're like oh that's that's the path to get the thing right um and that's you know why our
events have gone so big and created so much because it's like the community and that people
like i could i could be on stage next year and then they ascend and they move the next thing and
they they move all the rest up it's all watching dan do that all the time like every time we
introduce him it's never like russell brunson's coming on stage it was always like diamond or
what was i uh titani member russell brunson but you know like it's always like my my identity was tied to the level
membership i was paying how many membership levels were there that do you know there were a lot back
in the day they had it was the same i feel like when you're getting to titanium yeah you've really
exhausted your heavy metals we got metals we got rocks we got it yeah that was the biggest thing
when i took the coming back over there's still like seven or eight levels i was like this is so confusing it's like let's kill them all and we got two so we have two levels
now and we spent the first year building rebuilding at level number one and then the fax machine video
is going to be what launches level two again and then we'll probably anyway but it's just yeah we
simplified so much of it because it just got complex i love it well unfortunately so we'll go
we'll do one more question here um man another time time, if you don't, I want to,
I want to ask you about the acquisition stuff because I feel like that's a
whole, we can spend an hour talking about that.
And I feel like it's such an interesting way of growing things.
Like instead of investing in stuff,
that's not business related where you're hoping to get 10% or you're hoping to
hit some moonshot crypto, whatever it is.
But I'm curious because one of the things like we're looking into buying some software companies because we're not software people, but it's so easy to sell a software that does something that people are trying to do themselves right now.
But I just have a question from since you've done a lot of software stuff obviously nathan has too um but i created this thing called call me maybe and so it's an
app that lets you it's just like what you're saying so you literally you can call people
on your phone when you're driving walking a dog whatever and you get paid per minute so people
sign up like i want to talk to russell for however many minutes they put in their info you call on
your convenience and they and you talk to them, you call on your convenience and you talk
to them and you get paid per minute. So you'd be like, you'd probably charge, I don't know how much
a minute, but you just get paid per minute. But to launch it, I had a similar thing. This guy,
my buddy's like, it's going to cost you half a million dollars, six to eight months of all
this development. And I got it done for 10 grand, 15 after some profit. But my question is, cause software is so different and I'm 100% inept.
Like I have no skill,
so I can't get in the way.
But with the software in particular,
first of all,
how is it different than the info stuff you've done?
And like,
what are the biggest roadblocks with software?
And would you do it again?
I guess would be another question. Well, essentially because we talked about this earlier but my all my first products were software
right like back 20 years ago when i was at boise state going to school like these little one-off
software products um my favorite businesses number one is software number two is info number
three supplements like those are the three only categories i ever go into because i love all three
of those businesses are fascinating they're fun they're exciting um but yeah i would i would only do
software again like in every business i think they're if you think through there's a software
component to every business and software makes them stick longer to make people they're easier
to sell people stick longer so yes i think that um but you're right on the other side there's that
complexity i'm not a technical person too in fact i have a t-shirt that says technical or
non-technical co-founder because like i don't know how to do these things right my degrees in computer information systems
like i said are like a 2.1 gps like i don't know how to do anything i like i know enough i understand
what they're talking about but i don't know how to do things you're not actually doing any of the
coding or anything not at all and so i lucked out because all my prior software businesses like i
was managing coders which i could do but it's hard because like i had to think through every
single aspect like i'd have a designer design hard because like i had to think through every single
aspect like i'd have a designer design something and i sent it to the programmer and then there's
just this constant and it worked but it was just hard and slow um when i met todd and we partnered
with him he's a technical person who understands our world as well so he's able to run and do
things and that's the thing on the fly that's the how do you find that's i think the hardest
thing to find 100 software people want to build the perfect thing that has nothing to do.
You're like, I just need to know if this makes money first.
That's what I was telling him.
I'm like, no, I need to know if people can, can you call me?
It's phone function.
Can you just charge people to talk on the phone?
And he's like, well, you're going to need all.
And I'm like, you don't understand the business.
Yeah.
And then my other buddy is under, he was a direct, you know, he's a copywriter before this and so it's like he gets it but that's how important is that a huge part of it is them
understanding for sure because most engineers want to over over develop everything which is good and
you know long term yes you want that right but todd in fact i had this funny conversation with
todd because he's the smartest person i've ever met on this planet like he's just he's smart at
everything marketing business coding like just he's he's a genius um I've ever met on this planet. Like he's just, he's smart at everything, marketing, business, coding, like just, he's a genius.
But I remember we had this conversation.
He said, the reason why I'm a good coder
is because I'm the laziest coder ever.
I'm like, you're not lazy.
You work your butt off.
He's like, no, but like most coders will like,
they'll look at something and they're like,
okay, this is gonna take seven months to do.
And he's like, and they're okay with that.
Cause like, oh, I gotta code this and develop.
And they love that.
He's like, I'm lazy where I'm like,
okay, there's a seven month version,
but there's probably a seven week version, a seven day version. When I get done today, like, what's that look like? And so he this and over develop and they love that he's like i'm lazy where i'm like okay there's a seven month version but there's probably a seven week version of seven
day version when i get done today like what's that look like and so he'll go in there and just
kill himself and get the thing done today and it's like yeah it didn't do everything but it does the
one thing really really well and it took us one day as opposed to seven months and that's like
todd's genius and then he'll finish it and then give it to developers and they'll spend the next
two years over developing it writing all the tests getting stuff but he's able to go and like
what's the what's the thing that yeah proves that this is actually valuable because we spend seven months
and gives the the customers and then you find out that they didn't need like there's a useless
that's one of the biggest problems that click phones one point is we kept building these
features because like one dude would be like oh if it could just do this it'd be amazing so we
developed these things and then it was good for one customer nobody else used it you know or maybe
a handful of like the really niche info you know like the nerds like us would get it but the 99 000 other customers don't understand it would
never use it right and then we have a t-dos to keep maintaining this this feature for all these
people it's just a nightmare versus now it's like the opposite like okay like what are the things we
actually need let's figure those things out and then yeah so i think for you i would try to find
somebody it's hard like i definitely definitely got lucky finding a Todd.
That's a really good point. And that's probably why it's already,
it's like been very easy working with him and it's like a great relationship
because he's a, he had a product called Hollywood physique, you know,
and how to, he had, you know, he wrote sales pages,
he gets minimum viable product. He understands these things.
So now I'm like, Oh, that's really lucky lucky but that makes so much sense yeah because developers especially i had one guy who's
this gentleman he's like i want half of the company and three thousand dollars a month to
build it and he had like no experience and i was like you're out of your mind didn't understand
business doesn't understand any of it so it makes so much sense that just finding would you say that
the developer is potentially the most important piece of other than being able to have an idea that can sell developer or someone who's like who can
manage developers right because eventually it's not just a developer right like you're gonna
rock star but over time it's like who can who can be a developer slash manager so that they can bring
on a team and get more people i've had people pass through good developers they can manage
people so we couldn't grow right right like it's like nathan had one developer building
convert kit he never got what he got to right but he had i'm i don't know the business of what he does i'm sure there's
there's maybe it's him but there's someone who understands that can manage and hire teams and
build teams and then because that's how you long-term grow right right you can't build an
empire you're okay with v1 being good enough yeah i mean cliffhanger one point it was built by what
by two people todd and dylan like the two people dylan built the editor todd built software and that was it and then it's like then
we had to go and you know hire team then we had to like figure things out but yeah 100 like people
gonna pay for this before we go and you know that's that's the backwards way the vc world
works is they get a whole bunch of money to hire a huge team of people and then they overdevelop
stuff and hope it works and it's like that we that's not a game that we play right because they don't care if if eight of the companies they invest
in fail as long as one of them goes to the moon yeah so i think it's like hiring or hiring or
partnering with someone who is like a good developer who could develop but then also like
has the skill set to like to be able to like when it's past this thing like i can manage people to
like continue the vision going because right now i can manage people to like continue the vision
going because i know todd can manage 40 50 developers and keep his vision going versus
if he wasn't there every day i'd be like okay well how do i make let me log this as part of
the app okay let's make this better this way you know like i wouldn't be able to do anything stuff
i'm doing because i'd be trying to micromanage or you know all the things that you need someone
who's got a vision as well so like finding you, you know, CTO or a visionary or technical co-founder,
who's got a vision of what you're trying to do is huge.
How you make it past just a one-off product.
Like all my one-off products I had prior.
Did you think this will be the last question?
Did you think ClickFunnels would become what it is today?
You can say, yes, people are always like, I never could have imagined.
Well, I think it's funny. because like when we first launched in my head
i thought we'd get 10 000 customers the first month like that that was my head but i also
thought like that the the number of marketers in our world was maybe 10 or 20 000 right so i thought
i thought we'd have grown faster or excuse me yeah faster but i thought there was a uh i thought the ceiling was lower
yeah so um so i feel like that's kind of thing you know it took us longer to get to 10 it took
us a year to get 10 000 members but then now we're 120 000 members right so it's like wow
it's way bigger than i the top's bigger and a lot of us we've had we've had like
we just turn people into customers you're like you've taught you've taught people that a funnel is i mean whitney's chiropractor is like a he's like a russell brunson like a ton of
chiropractors in the world i love it he's like uh he worships you i think he's like oh my didn't
he say he's like oh my god you're talking to russell he but he's like uh i mean gone so deep
into it but chiropractors didn't used to think like that wouldn't have been for sure what was
your market right that's it's been funny oh this is like business strategy but our first year
the first couple years like how do we get the known universe people understand what funnels
are that was like the first goal and then it's like okay we got them all i think it's like the
10 20 000 people and it's like we have to create customers like we did like they're not more
customers they don't want to funnel so how do we create a customer so that's like the info products
or webinars or things like that or creating gurus other industries who then can take this message to the chiropractor world
the dental world like we have gurus in every industry out there who are preaching funnels
to their audiences right you know and and and bringing the people back into us and so it's
like how do you create customers and then yeah as you as you grow and scale it's like more and more
of those things because there's not hot customers laying around forever eventually you you get all
those then you need to figure out the next wave.
Awesome, man. Thank you so much for coming.
So how do people find Russell Brunson?
I mean, obviously they can just Google you and it's a thousand.
And then I'll follow you forever on every app.
He will find you.
And then also make sure to check out, you know, Muscle Thunson.
Did you ever see Tiny Robbinsins by the way no oh i gotta
say we're tiny robins that was one of my favorites it was hard to do though because i was i was a
little person and i had another guy's arms through the shirt and so it was a lot of work so we only
filmed them one day but tiny robins you've only seen it i don't know you should if you should
send it to him if he doesn laugh, I talk about shelf sabotage
and how I couldn't reach things on the top shelf because of the height. I'll send it to you.
They're pretty outrageous. But so where, what's the, I mean, they're so ridiculous. And my voice
was shot after doing, oh my God, shelf sabotage. I was just like like how does he do that i made the mistake of doing one of his
things as like a joke at our first event i was like oh i couldn't talk for an hour afterward
i was like no wonder his voice is shot like that thing kills um but so what's the biggest thing
you're doing right now where people should go follow you find these is like a hub of all my
if you go to marketingsecrets.com that's like links to all my basically almost all my front end funnels are there so you can find my books by software
marketingsecrets.com you just have secrets.com too uh no i think it's what's wrong i was gonna
say it's gotta be yeah yeah i think i like i yeah i don't know i love that one i bet people see your
tesla they go secrets.com like this guy this guy's nuts little little do they
know that you're on the third set of the spectrum possible from that but dude thank you so much
this is super fun no thanks i appreciate you coming to the office and hanging out
thank you for listening to the marketing secrets podcast if you've loved this episode then please
take a screenshot on your phone
and post it to Facebook, Instagram,
or wherever you post stuff.
And be sure to tag me and let me know
why you like this episode
and what you'd like to hear in the future.
That'll help me to know what's great for you.
Also, Dan Kenney and I would love to give you
the most incredible free gift ever,
designed to help you make maximum money in minimum time.
This free gift comes with almost $20,000
worth of pure
money-making information for free just for saying maybe. You can get this gift from Dan and from me
right now at NoBSLetter.com. Not only are you going to get the $20,000 gift, you also can get
a subscription to two marketing newsletters that will be hand-delivered by the mailman to your
mailbox each and every month, one from Dan Kennedy and one from me. To get this gift and your subscription,
go to NoBSLetter.com right now.