Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - Creating a Movement: How to Build a Brand That People Follow for Life | #Marketing - Ep. 09

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Most businesses sell products… The best businesses create movements!  In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I’m breaking down what it really takes to build a movement instead of just selling something. If you want to gather a loyal audience, create lasting impact, and turn customers into die-hard fans, this is the episode for you! Key Highlights: The two essential elements every successful movement is built on Why writing a book is the foundation for building a loyal following How hosting an industry event cements your authority and attracts your dream customers The difference between selling a product and leading a movement How ClickFunnels became more than just software—by building a movement of Funnel Hackers Why legacy comes from creating something bigger than yourself Building a movement isn’t just about making more sales… It’s about creating real impact and giving people something to rally behind. If you want to attract a loyal audience, establish long-term authority, and build a brand that lasts, it starts with these two key elements. This episode will show you how to plant your flag, gather your people, and build something that lasts! Let’s do it! https://sellingonline.com/podcast https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Special thanks to our sponsors: Northwest Registered Agent: Go to northwestregisteredagent.com/marketingsecrets to start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at LinkedIn.com/CLICKS Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at RocketMoney.com/RUSSELL Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/clicks NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal https://nordvpn.com/secrets Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Offer ends March 3rd, 2025. Terms and conditions apply. invest with RBC. Offer ends March 3rd, 2025. Terms and conditions apply. Invest with RBC today. This is the Russell Brunson Show. What's up everybody, this is Russell. I am so excited to be hanging out with you today. I am actually less than 24 hours,

I think I'm like 18 hours away from jumping in a plane and flying to Las Vegas, Nevada for the last ever Funnel Hacking Live and I've been sitting here all day today, it's a Saturday, working on my slides, getting things done and I thought I wanna jump in and do one more podcast episode before I head out to kinda share two things that I've been thinking a lot about

that I think will have a big impact on you. And both of them have to do with what are the things you have to do, we have to create what we have to have if you want to build a movement, okay? If you've read my book Expert Seekers, I talk a lot about building a movement. You know, not just having a product-based business,

but having a client-based business, a customer-based business, where you are gathering your customers together, you're helping them, you are serving them, and you're creating an actual movement. When we launched ClickFunnels a decade ago now, that was the goal, right? The software's called ClickFunnels,

the people were called Funnel Hackers, and the movement, right, is what we created to take all these Funnel Hackers and help them to grow their businesses, to change their lives. And that was kind of the initial vision, the initial goal of what we were doing here inside. And so, as I was thinking about this,

again, this is the last ever Funnel Hacking Live. We're about to do our last big event. We have more tickets sold for this one than any Funnel Hacking Live in the past. It's gonna be insane. It's also the last one which I'm not sure if I'm gonna emotionally be able to handle that. It's gonna be kinda crazy but that's what's happening.

And so we are literally find out to go to do that. So I was thinking while I was preparing and like this event I actually have 11 presentations I'm doing so I'm working on presentations and my last one is like what's next? Like what's happening? Cause everyone keeps asking why would you cancel this event? You have the most successful event in the industry.

Why would you just turn it off? And so I'm gonna talk about that. But I wanted to step back because the things, I don't know, it's just been fun. Like a lot of my presentations, I'm going back in time and thinking through the different, the last decade and what we did and why we did it and the reasons and the ups and the downs

and the pros and the cons, the things I did that were smart and the moronic things I did, thinking I was smart, finding out later, I really wasn't. But there are two core things that had such a huge impact on this, on this business, on creating a movement instead of just selling a product

that I wanted to share with you guys today. So, and partially the reason why I'm sharing this with you guys is because, I don't know, yes, business is great, making money is great, but the reality is like, and you guys have heard me say this before, I say it a lot, especially when I'm on stage, but I believe business is a calling.

I believe that each of you guys have been called by God to serve a group of people, right? It's contribution, like there's a time in your life when you go through growth, right? And you guys know when you go through growth, there's the pain of that, right? There's positive pain, like I think about when we go into the gym, you lift weights, you're sore,

and next thing you know there's positive stuff like that. Right, it's like there's a positiveness of you're building a business and it's next thing you know there's positive stuff like that. It's like there's a positiveness of you're building a business and it's hard, and you're tired, stuff like that. There's also a lot of negative things, the problems, the issues, the headaches, the people stabbing you in the back, the stuff that's painful.

But through that process you've been growing, and so that's the first half of business, the growth side, and you went through those problems, those issues, and the reason why you went through them is because you learned something. You learned now how to serve someone who's just like you. I think about business all the time, I talk about how business is contribution.

You have growth and then you contribute. Contribution is now going back to the people who were just like you five years ago before you got started. You're taking all the lessons you learned, both the positive, the pain that you got going to the gym, the positive pain, but also the negative pain, and the trials, and the issues you went through,

and you learn through all that process. You came out the other side unscathed, maybe you're scathed a little bit, but you came out of the other side as a better person, right, you grew, and now your business is about contribution, going back and helping those people. And those are the people I'm most passionate about serving, is the people, the entrepreneurs who are doing that, right,

who are in that phase of the business right now. And so, that's really what I want to talk about during this podcast is like, not like here's how to start a business, but like, if you actually want to build a movement of people, where you're gonna find these people that God's called you to help, right, you're gonna gather those people together. And again, these people are people who are just like you

five years ago, you're gonna gather them together and you're gonna change their life. How do we actually do that, okay? And there's a lot of ways to do it, there's a lot of things, but there's two core ones that I've been thinking about a lot today that I wanted to share with you. And so I'm just gonna jump right into them. So the very first one, and this is interesting,

I remember I have my category, King's Group, which is like $150,000 a year, and we had some guys coming in and they were asking specifically about like, should I write a book, should we not write a book, da da da, and I remember I shared something, just kind of as an afterthought, I was thinking about like, should I write a book, should we not write a book, da da da, and I remember I shared something, just kind of as an afterthought, I wasn't thinking about it,

and then like a month later I saw it on their podcast, their Instagram channel, that it was like, one of those big mic drop moments for them, and I was like, oh, it kind of is. And so they asked me, should we write a book? What I told them, I said, if you think about it, every great mass movement throughout time and history always started with a book.

Think about this. I think about at least the major religions that I know about, right? I think about Christianity, it's led with the book, the Bible, boom, right? Think about, again, I'm Mormon, so the Mormon faith, right? It started with a book, the Book of Mormon. You think about Christian, Islam,

like every major mass movement started with a book, right? When I launched the ClickFunnels business, we had ClickFunnels, we had the software, and luckily at the same time I was writing a book with my thoughts and ideas about how to build funnels, and boom, on the backside of launching ClickFunnels, out came.com secrets. This was the book that started the movement, right?

I remember we launched ClickFunnels, I think it was like September we launched, we did an initial launch during the summertime, let a group of people in there close it down, September we launched, we did an initial launch in like, during the summertime. Let a group of people in and we closed it down. And then in September we did the official launch. We started, people started coming in. It was crazy, people came in and like, they used the software, didn't use,

like it didn't stick, like we couldn't get people to stick, couldn't get people to sign up. It was tough, right? And this is the time where I'm thinking about creating a movement versus just selling software. In fact, I had this really cool experience. Some of you guys know David Fry. He's one of my friends and mentors.

And David was in a network marketing company with me at the time. There's a company called Send Out Cards. Some of you guys may remember Send Out Cards. But I was in this company and I had never, I'd promoted it, but I'd never actually, like I'd never actually been to an event. David's like, you have to come to me.

You have to see what this is like. And so I come to this event. It's in Salt Lake City. And it's a three or four day event. I'm sitting there and, you know, I'm there. I'm have to come to me, and you have to see what this is like. And so I come to this event, it's in Salt Lake City, and it's a three or four day event. I'm sitting there, and you know, I'm there, I'm used to going to marketing events, I'm there with a pad of paper, or a Dan Kennedy event, so I'm there with a pad of paper, ready to take notes,

I'm sitting there the first day, and like, first people get up on stage, they're telling their story, and then they're crying, and then next people get on stage, they're telling their story, they're crying, and then someone gets up and they get an award, and then someone else gets an award, and I'm like, what is happening?

I'm like so confused, like day number one, no notes. Day two, day three, and by the like, day three or day four, I remember Dave left the lean door to me, he's like, do you see what's happening? I was like, no, I have no idea what's happening right now. And he goes, they didn't create a software company, they created a movement. And it was like the ah, boom.

So for me, right, fast forward a year later, I've got this new software company called ClickFunnels, and I'm trying to figure out how to sell it as a SaaS company. I'm looking at what are all the other big SaaS's doing, I'm trying to model me, right, fast forward a year later, I've got this new software company called ClickFunnels, and I'm trying to figure out how to sell it as a SaaS company. I'm looking at what are all the big SaaS's doing? I'm trying to model them, right? So we're funnel hacking these SaaS companies, and we're struggling, nothing's working,

nothing's converting. It's too expensive to acquire. Everything was just not working. And then all of a sudden that light bulb hit my head from David Fry, like, they don't have a software company, which it was, send out cards to software company, log in, you type a thing, you click send, it sends a card to somebody, software, right? It's like, they don't have a software company, which it was sent out cards to software Can be login you type thing you click send it sends a card to somebody software, right? It's like they don't have a software company. They built a movement and I started thinking oh

That's the difference. How do I build a movement right and luckily again at time? I've been writing this book for a decade. This was like for me as a beauty You know the decade prior to click phones. I was I was learning these principles. I was doing him I was having so much fun building funnels and trying these things out I was going to these events and teaching and talking about it and sharing what was happening. And so I remember I started like, I always wanted it to write a book.

In fact, I remember it was, man, it was almost 10 years, it was like 10 years before I ever wrote DotCom Secrets. I was in an event and it was an Armand Morin's event and I remember they kept talking about writing your own book, writing your own book. And then I remember David Hancock, who owns Borgen Danes Publishing, he was there. And he was like, Russell, you should write a book.

I was like, I should write a book. So I paid him to help me to write a book that way back then. And then I remember, see, I met Brendan Bouchard the very first time. Brendan was kind of new in the industry, just like I was. And he had just written this book called Life's Golden Ticket and on the front of the book there's like this really cool, what's it called, like a circus tent

on it and he told me, he's like, yeah I sold the book and people started reading it and then I do these events and they're in circus tents and he's explaining the whole thing and I'm like, this is so cool, I gotta have a book and so that was my thought. So for 10 years I thought about a book, kept thinking about it, kept changing the title and changing it back and forth but it took me a decade to finally sit down and like, okay, I'm going to write this book. So I sat down and finally started writing it. I took a decade of my life, all these things I've been learning and studying and practicing and trying, right?

All the funnels and the front end and the back end and copywriting, like just everything. And I put it into this book, right? And this was not like a facile thing. This is a labor of love. Like I spent, man, two years or so researching, writing, putting it together, rewriting it, all this stuff to make the Dotcom Secrets book become a thing, right?

And so again, ClickFunnels launches in September. I think that the Dotcom Secrets book launch was in February or March. Really like within the first four or five months, boom, we launched this book, and this book created the movement. People got it, right? It's the doctrine or the dogma or whatever you wanna call call it, right? So we've got the book, they

read it and they're like, oh my gosh, now I understand what Russell's trying to tell me because I read it inside of a book, right? The book gives them, again, the initial, if you think about this from a religious movement, it's a doctrine, right? Here's the doctrine of like the belief system that you and your following, your movement has, right? Something they can read, they can talk about, they can like get behind, which is another reason why it's very important to write a good book and not a crappy book.

So I'll leave that for, I'll go on a rant there here in a few seconds, but this book became that. So we launched it out in the world, people started reading it, we sold over 100,000 copies, and it became the foundation for this movement, people to read it, understand it, and now they understood what we did, what we thought about, what we were teaching,

and all of a sudden, that was the first foundation point. right? And so the first of the two things I want to share with you, number one is like if you want to create a movement, you've got to write a book, right? The book is like again, the doctrine or the dogma or the principles or whatever you want to call it for your people, for your movement, for your following, for the people you are bringing into the world to be able to help them, right? And they have something to look back to is like, this is what the truth is, this is what the able to help them, right? And they have something to look back to is like, this is what the truth is. This is what the foundational core principles are. Hey, it's Russell Brunson and I have a confession to make.

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You're placing the right message in front of the right person at the perfect time. Here's what blew me away. LinkedIn ads delivers up to five times the row ads of other platforms. And that's not just the stat, that's scaling power. Imagine your campaigns turning into a steady stream of qualified leads all while your competitors are busy playing on platforms that barely move the needle. If you're serious about scaling your business, you can't afford to ignore this. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today.

And here's the cherry on top. LinkedIn is giving you $100 credit for your next campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com slash clicks to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com slash clicks. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. What's up, funnel hackers? Today, I want to talk to you about something that's kind of like a funnel for your finances. There's an app called Rocket Money that my wife and I recently downloaded. We went and added our bank accounts, added everything in there and instantly started showing us all the subscriptions we were paying monthly for. And what's crazy is most of these things we'd completely forgot about. Oftentimes my wife has signed for something and I also signed up for it

and we're paying twice for the exact same service. It was crazy. So we started using Rocket Money and it changed everything for us. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you to find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and it helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Now here's what Rocket Money did for me. It showed me all of the subscriptions in one spot. Our streaming services, our apps, our membership sites, some of which we literally had not seen in months and a couple in over a year. Now Rocket Money

canceled the ones we didn't want anymore, saving us hundreds of dollars. In fact, actually for my wife and I, it was over a thousand dollars per month, and they didn't stop there. Rocket Money even monitors my spending and sends alerts if bills increase or if I'm going close to my budgets. Now with their personalized dashboard, you can see exactly where your money's going. I've even created custom badges with categories

for everything from groceries to business expenses. Do you want to save automatically for a new house or paying off some debt? Their goals feature makes it simple and hands-free. Rocket Money has over five million users, including my wife and I, and it saved over $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 per year when using all of the app's premium features. So if you want to cancel all your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals

faster with Rocket Money, then go to rocketmoney.com slash Russell today. That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell, R-U-S-S-E-L-L. That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell today. That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell r-u-s-s-e-l-l. That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell. Now I'm going to go into the rant about writing good book. I want you to understand like why I'm not a big fan of like hey, I was trying to write a book in a weekend or have AI write your book or whatever. In fact, I'm mildly obsessed with books. You probably noticed this. Just my background, watch the videos, there's a dozen or so books, but in the last three years, I've bought over 18,000 books, most of them first editions,

rare books, like I'm obsessed with books, because I know what it takes to write a really, really good book, right? You can never, I don't know, maybe someday AI will get smarter than all of us, but for me to write dot com seekers, expert seekers, or traffic seekers, the writing of the book was the most painful thing I had ever gone through, it gets so painful to write a book.

But by going through the process of writing and thinking and putting things together, all these insane, the process of writing the book is where all these insights, these ideas come, they all start, I don't know how to explain it other than, when they first start writing a book, there's always these siloed ideas. And you start writing a book, you have to put them together

and when you do that, you start seeing these connections, these interactions that never were there before. That's why when people are like, oh, I'm gonna have AI write my book, I'm gonna speak on stage and then someone will transcribe and turn into a book or whatever, it's like you're missing it or even a ghostwriter because the magic of my books came for me

like at two in the morning, wrestling between two or three different concepts and all of a sudden it's like, oh, this thing appears and you're like, there's the answer and all of a sudden the book makes sense, right? It's like, you have to earn a book, you have to like, birth it. And the reason why it's so important,

because if somebody in your movement gets your book and your book sucks, okay, it will destroy everything quickly, in fact, I'm not gonna say the person's name, a lot of you guys know who he is, or who this person, I should say, I said he, now cut it in half. But when I first got in this world, this person wrote a book, and they got talking about it,

and I was like, this is so cool. And like that was the person, I'm like, okay, that's the person I'm plugging into. This is my guru, right? And they wrote this book, they did a big product launch around it, it became an Amazon bestseller, all sorts of stuff, forever. I buy the book, I get in the mail

and I'm so excited to read this book. Like I am pumped, I'm on fire. Like you have no idea, like how much I anxiously waited for this book because I pre-ordered it while they're waiting for the pre-launch, right? And then they shipped it. And the book shows up, I remember getting it,

I was like, I was so excited to read it, and I blocked out time, I was sitting down, I was gonna read it, I was gonna study it, I was gonna devour it, I'm gonna like, understand what's in this author's brain, and it would be in my brain, right? It's like Tony Robbins calls it a decade and a day, it's like a book, it gives you the ability

to compress a decade of an author's life into a day, and you can just read it. So I get the book, I sit down, I still have it on my shelf, I know exactly which one it is. And I start reading the book and it was horrible. It was like he had taken some tele seminars he had done, transcribed them, threw in a book. There were typos, there were misspellings,

it didn't go deep, it was just like surface level fluff. And I remember I read that and I lost all respect for the person. I stopped following, stopped listening to them and I was just like, that's it. You don't want that happening so you can get your book, right? You need to give them the insights, the stories, the, like, that's how you create a really, really good book,

okay? If you do that, that's one of the core things about creating a movement, right? So step number one, like, if you want to really do this, like, what are the foundational thoughts, beliefs, principles, things that you have that you believe in that you can take and actually put into a book, okay, and create something that's really good. Again, like,.com secrets, I'm proud of this book.

Like, I bled for this book, like, it was so hard, okay? For me, it takes me about two years to write a book on average, that's how much time and effort and energy I put into it, obviously I'm not, in fact, it's funny, my first two books, I went with kind of a smaller publisher and my third book, I went to Hay House, which is a bigger publisher. And remember, we did the contract negotiations.

I wasn't paying that much attention, sign and thing. And all of a sudden, like a week later in the mail, I get a check for a whole bunch of money. And I was like, what is this for? So I messaged them like, hey, I got a check. I haven't sold any books yet. Like, what's this for? Cause I'm an entrepreneur.

I'm just like, I eat what I kill, right? Like I go kill something and then I get fed from it. Like for me to get money before I'd written the thing, it confusing and like oh, that's your that's your for your advance I'm like what like what like what like? What if I don't sell any books? How's this work? I need to pay it back I was all stressed out. They said no typically when when you sign a book deal The the you know the publishing house gives you enough money you can live for the year So you don't have to work so you can actually write the book.

And I was like, oh, that's how it works? Because for me, I'm working eight hours a day running click funnels, and then I'm like, five or six, seven hours a day as a dad and a father, and then I got like two hours a night in the morning where I am writing my actual book. I was like, I didn't know that's how it worked. Anyway, I probably should have done that

because I would have gotten the books done a lot faster. But for me, it's a longer process. I take a lot of time, but it's like, again, I'm trying to figure out those insights. I had someone recently who wanted to help co-author a book with me and I started on the path and I was just like, this can't work because the writing of the book is how I discovered these principles. By me being willing to go into the pages and into the work and do the stuff, that's where I believe God let's start implanting ideas and thoughts into my head that made it actually

become something amazing. Had I just tried to go the easy way, the cheap way, and had AI or Ghost Rider or somebody do it, it wouldn't have been the same, okay? So that's the very, very first thing, all right? Okay, now while we're sitting here you guys, just so you guys know, before I jump into number two, I got this cool new setup in my office.

In fact, I'm gonna show you, I'm on a gimbal, I got a couple cameras here. So check this out. The way I do my work, I've got three different monitors here. I just have to have a lot of monitor space to work. And then right here I have my camera, and I don't know if you can see it or not, it's gonna be kinda weird here

because the gimbal is gonna want to see my face. Actually, let's try and flip this around. So I got a teleprompter right here, which is really, really cool. Now I can put my notes here. If I'm doing a Zoom call, you know you do Zoom with someone and you're looking down,

you're trying to look at them because you're looking at their eyeballs. Now I can pull up into this thing right here and then I could actually, I can talk to the person, have eye to eye contact. Anyway, I'm really excited. And the other cool thing is, I have a couple ads that I wrote for our stuff

and I can't remember in the past because I'm looking down at the ad and it didn't work in the video. But guess what? I got a teleprompter now, so I'm gonna read two ads just for my own products because I thought it'd be awesome. So the very first one is for a company

you may have heard of called ClickFunnels. Now obviously if you want to sell stuff online, you're gonna need a good funnel. But if you want a great funnel, then you're gonna need to use ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels is the number one funnel builder in the world, helping more first time entrepreneurs to leave their nine to five and to launch their dream

than any other company in the world. ClickFunnels was built for the dreamers and the doers, and you can grab a 14 day free trial by clicking on the link in the description or going to clickfunnels.com slash podcast right now. ClickFunnels, because you're one funnel away from changing the world. How was that?

My first ad reach myself, I hope you guys enjoyed it. I know on the podcast I've been doing, we started selling ads over on the podcast, I've been doing reads for other companies, I thought this is way more fun to read for my own. Okay, number two, so number one, every mass movement of all time led with a book. Sit down, figure out your doctrines for your people, write a book. Like it'll change you, it'll change things for you more than anything else

you can do. In fact, if you look at this, I've been in this business now for like 23, 24 years. Right? I've launched so many courses, so many events, so many masterminds, so many things and it's crazy because The only thing people come on to me later on and say hey Russell you change my life your book changed my life That's the word. It's always your book changed my life. It's never that event. It's never that course It's never the like the book is the thing It's the thing that lasts beyond the life of the author if you want legacy if you want to live forever Through your words the book is the thing that actually does that okay? Like that's how important it is. That's why I'm obsessed with it.

In fact, I remember, you know, back in the day, I do this product launch. I see a big spike in sales and it dropped. Another launch, another launch, and we were doing launches multiple times a year. That's how I made our money. When we launched ClickFunnels, we started getting recurring revenue. It was crazy because it went like this, really small, and it got bigger, bigger, bigger to the point where every single day I check my Stripe app and it's half a million dollars is there every morning before I wake up and it's just like, this is insane.

Okay, what's happening? And so then when we do these launches, I do a launch of a course, it's like a million dollars is there every morning before I wake up and it's just like, this is insane. Okay, what's happening? And so then when we do these launches, I do a launch of a course like boop, you see this little blip, boop, like it barely registers on the thing. I'm like, what? Right? And I would launch a book, little blip, blip.

And what I found is that almost anything I launched didn't actually have any long-term impact. There's no long-term impact. Sales, the impact was so minuscule, it didn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things. And the only thing that lasted beyond the launch was the book. The only thing that lasted beyond the launch was the book. The only thing that lasted beyond the life of the author is the book, right?

Think about this. Napoleon, why do we know him? He wrote books that are still around, right? I think about people I know who run huge mega events, right? When they die and those events disappear, so does the legacy, it goes away, right? Like the book is the only thing that outlives the author, so write a book, all right, that's number one.

Number two now, second thing is if you want to create a movement and be like the leader in your industry, you have got to basically plant a flag in the middle and say this is the industry event, we are the one, okay? Final Hacking Live, 10 years ago, okay? If you look at, it's crazy, if you look at the timeline of events, way back in the day there were two events.

There was an internet marketing event, Armand Morin's big seminar, and there's Dan Kennedy's Info Summit and Super Conference. Those were the two big things happening in the marketing world. Internet version and then the direct selling version. Then eventually Yannick Silver came out

with the Underground, that became the second one. So there were two big internet marketing seminars and then the two direct response. So those are events like you had to be at every single year, right? Fast forward 2008, 2009, economy crashes, events dry up, everyone cancels their events, no events for four or five years.

Then they come back, first event happens, TNC. Ryan Dice, Perry Belcher launched TNC, amazing event. It used to be you go to TNC and it was just Ryan and Perry teaching. I love both those guys. I think I could listen to Perry tell stories for days. Like he's my favorite storyteller ever. And so we'd go to the event, cause I wanna hear Ryan and Perry, Ryan and Perry.

And then as it started getting bigger, the event got bigger. They started bringing more speakers and more speakers and Ryan and Perry got less and less and less. And eventually got to the point where they had like 90 speakers. They had all these different breakout rooms. And if you go to the event, you might hear Perry talk once and Ryan talk once and that was it.

And that's when I stopped going to TNC. And I remember that, my feeling as a consumer, I was just like, this is great, but I came for those guys and there are no longer speakers, a whole bunch of people. And I watched over the years that event got smaller and ours started getting bigger. So when we launched ours, Funnel Hacking Live,

there was TNC and they were the biggest. I think at the time they were getting like 3,000 people in the event, I'm like, how do I compete with that? I'm like, well, we're going to, cause I wanna create my own version. So I put in the event, I'm like how do I compete with that? I'm like well, we're going to because I want to create my own version, so I have to put the flag in like, I'm gonna create the industry event

and it became Funnel Hacking Live. Okay, we launched it, did the very first one, we had 600 people at it, right? Second one we had 1200 and it kept growing and growing and growing over time. And eventually, what was cool was the event gave us the ability where our people, not all of our people, right,

but it's the bottom of the funnel, right? The bottom of the funnel are the people who are the most hardcore, that are the craziest, that are the most fun. Those are the people that came to the event. So also you get the energy of who are the people that care the most and they show up and say, oh, these are our people and they're just like me.

They're obsessed with the stuff. They're high energy, they're crazy and that's how we built Funnel Hacking Live. Our dream people, the bottom of the funnel, came to the event, the the best people, right? And what happened is like when they're there, it builds culture, it builds excitement, and those people go out to the rest of the world,

and they take that energy, and they resonate out to the rest of the world, right? So even though only four or 5,000 people were able to come to Funnel Hacking Live at a time, the energy of that, when it goes back out, just like ripple effects into the industry, right? So it's such a powerful thing. It brings people together, gives them time to network,

to hang out, it gives you the ability to like speak directly to the people and tell them what you're doing, but the future is like what's happening, right? Hey, Funnel Hackers, I wanna talk about building your business. You've got the idea, the passion, the drive, but here's the thing, setting up the legal stuff can feel like a total roadblock.

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and start building something amazing. What's up, Funnel Hackers? I wanna talk to you guys about a challenge that every business faces, including mine, and that is finding good people to hire. For the last few years, we've been using Indeed to find the right hires in every one of the different departments inside of our company. Okay. Now think about this.

You've built a successful funnel, your business is scaling, and now you're wearing all of the hats. Does this sound familiar? This is the path that most entrepreneurs go on. So at some point you need a team to help you keep growing, but finding the right person can be very overwhelming, it can be a huge pain, and for me it's not something I love to do.

That is until we found Indeed, and here's why I love it. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is literally all that you need. Their sponsor job feature is a total game changer. It pushes your job listing right to the top of your ideal candidate's page. It's literally like having a billboard right in front of the dream person that you are trying to hire.

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Go to indeed.com slash clicks right now and get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility. That's indeed.com slash clicks. Start hiring faster and smarter. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. I started thinking back about the send out cards event when I got there, right?

People were on stage and I remember they had the CEO and the head tech guy get up and show the new features. I was like, okay, we got it, this is the cool thing. Steve Jobs at their big event, he'd always come out his black turtleneck and he would show the thing. We needed an event so we could show what we were doing, what we were creating.

That's our thing about send out cards. They had people who would come on stage, people, and they would cry, they'd tell us stories. That's what we need, to have our members come and talk and share their stories. Right, and they gave away awards, I'm like, we need to have awards, like, this is how you create a movement, right? And so we built an event that wasn't just,

like, every other event. Every other event at the time, there were a couple of inversions. It used to be, you'd have multi-speaker, every single speaker would get online, get on and they would each, everyone have a chance to sell, and they called them pitchfests sometimes, but I was like, how events were back in the day.

Way back in the day. And then after the crash, and it happened again, it was different. And I remember with TNC, they came in and they were on the whole event. They might pitch one thing, sometimes they didn't pitch anything. They sold a lot more sponsors and booths

and stuff like that. And for us, I was like, I don't really wanna be in the sponsor booth game. I wanna be all the people in the room. I wanna be able to sell coaching, the next thing, right? So it gave us the ability to sell our coaching program. It gave us the ability to highlight students and testimonials and find out who our people were

so we could go find those people and then later go to their homes and film them telling their stories and all sorts of stuff, right? It just became the thing, having the industry event. And so for you, if you really want to create a movement, after you've written your book, the next phase, you need to create an event. You need to be be one planning the flag

and this is the thing, this is my event, this is where people in our industry go. Even if you have no right of saying that initially, right? We didn't, we have TNC, you have three to 5,000 people at these events. We get, first one, 600, right? They were way bigger than us, and we kept trying to get bigger and trying to get bigger.

And eventually we got a spot where we were similar. We were three, four thousand people there, three or four thousand people and then COVID hit, right? Everything collapses, shrinks down and then right after COVID, we both launched our events. We didn't realize this when we launched it, but it just happened. There's week number one, ours week number two. I was like, oh man. And now we're competing. Now people are picking, we're going this one or this one, right? And so they do their event. So I'm home, it's just like this week. I'm here doing slides during the event

and TNC's happening. But we sent much of our team down there to go check it out. And it's crazy, you look in the ballroom, it was set for like 3,000 people. And during the opening keynote, there were about 30, maybe 50 people in there, maybe 100 people. And my team was sending me videos.

And I'm like, this place is empty. And I was like, oh crap, we're in COVID, people are not gonna come to events. We just saw that, I was so scared. And for us, we spent so much money. It could've been really bad for us if people didn't show up because there's a lot of money that goes into events, there's a lot of things that you guarantee the hotel,

like a room block, how many rooms you get. It can be a really expensive learning lesson. Anyway, but because the people that came to the bottom of our funnel, they are the crazy ones, the 1% crazy, the funnel hackers, like the most insane people, right? One week later we go to ours and it was packed. From back to front, wall to wall, it is packed.

And it was crazy. And I remember, I can't remember if it was that funnel I came out of or the next one. It might have been the next one, but Perry Belcher spoke at it, and then Perry messaged me on Messenger afterwards, and he's like, congratulations man, you're event won. And I was like, oh, I knew we were competing.

I didn't know he knew we were competing, but he said that, and I was like, for me I was just like, we became the industry event. And how did we do that? It's like coming back, and it wasn't just like, let's make a convention and boost and speakers, let's create a movement. Let's look at how network marketing,

let's look at how other ways, and how do we bring those things in to make something that's really truly special and different. And so that's what we do with Funnel Hacking Live. And now we're 10 years into it. This is our 10th, TechNeed is our 11th one, so we did a virtual international one six months ago. So TechNin is our 11th one, so we did a virtual international one six months ago.

So TechNin is our 11th. It's our FHL 10, the last dance. And it's weird because people have been asking, like, why would you stop this? Like you're the industry manager, the biggest one. We're like, why would you stop this? And it's weird because like we're stopping ours and our TNC got canceled this year. They shut it down. Grant Cardone's got a huge event.

This is his last year. It's kind of weird. Like all of us are kind of ending these things and I think a couple reasons. Number one is like, you know, if you're going to do an industry event, like it's a lot of work. For us it's a 10 month cycle, so we do the event, we have two months just like, oh, and then it's like,

okay, back at it, like we're promoting the next one, sell the tickets, get the speakers, line it up, like it's such a, it's a lot, and we've been doing it for a decade. And honestly, I'm tired. Number two is I'm working on something else. By doing the event we did, when we first launched Funnel Hacking Live,

it was very unique, it was very different. People came like, this is not like normal events. This is not like anything else they've ever experienced. Even the way we captured, the way that we did our videos, everything was different. And that was really special. And then over time, people started modeling us and funnel hacking us and copying us, right? And now it's like 10 years later looking like

most events look like funnel hacking live. People understand like we figured out a formula, they're modeling it. And it's amazing, but like this is the reality. Is I'm not done doing events by any stretch of the imagination. I wanted something different, I wanted something better, but I needed some time to reset. With Final Cut Live, it's hard because we have a framework and things people expect, right?

So it's like every year it's like that, a little bigger, a little bigger, a little bigger, right? And for me to do what I want to do in the near future to create the new industry event, it has to be different and I had to reset. I couldn't just be FHL 11 now because it's a little different. It needed to be a huge reset, I needed space and time to rethink through it and how to make something amazing.

So that's the reason why we're stopping Funnel Hacking Live. But it's still part of the thing, right? Part of the movement, writing a book, creating an event, and that is how you build a movement. That's how we built ClickFunnels, that's how we get a spot now where we're a software company is literally taking on zero dollars in funding. We're the last of our competitors to not take on money.

All the rest sold out, right? We're the last ones who are sticking to the bootstrap story and it's been amazing, right? We passed a billion dollars in sales. Three comma, three comma club award, let's go. By the way, we did design it. I'm gonna show you guys that Funnel Hacking Live. So all you guys that make that a goal to go up to three Comic Club Award.

But like we did it because of these things, right? Obviously funnels are key, but we did with the front end book, with a virtual, not virtual, with a live event. Those are the two core things to actually create a movement. So that's what I want to share with you guys today. I hope that it helps get the wheels and head spinning, right? Every mass movement was built initially with a book. All of them throughout time, throughout history.

And then if you want to create this movement, you gotta become, put your flag in the ground, I'm gonna become the industry event. This is where people come to gather. This is the spot. You do those two things, that's how you start finding your people and bringing them together. Now they've got the doctrine of the movement

you are creating, they've got the people together. Again, give them a name, Funnel Hackers, whatever you wanna call your people, call your people and then give them identity, have them come together and then you can serve them and it's just a fun, powerful, exciting thing. So, I hope you guys enjoyed the episode, I hope you learned a lot.

Can I read one more ad, because I'm here. This will be a fun one for me as well. This is for our Selling Alignment, which is insane. We do this once a month and it's one of the best things I've ever done. It is a virtual event, so you can do it from the comfort of your home. But here you go. Here is the ad read. Here we go. Do you have a funnel, but it's not converting? The problem is 99% of the time it's... Oh, let me fix this ad. Editors don't edit this. We'll keep it in so they can see me messing up. Okay? Okay. Do you have a funnel, but it's not converting? The problem

99.9% of the time is your funnel is good, but you suck at selling. If you wanna learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next Selling Online event by clicking on the link in the description or going to sellingonline.com slash podcast. Look at me reading ads.

I feel like a professional podcast host. After what, 1,200 episodes, whatever, I'm finally becoming like legit host. And it's funny, a lot of guys on my team have been listening to podcasts like, I don't like having to hear any other ads. I'm like, I know, it's okay. But these are cool companies with cool products and they're willing to promote, to dump ad money into this.

And what's cool for us, we take all the ad money and we use it to drive more people back to the podcast so it can continue to grow. So if you want to help me in the process, what I would love to do is to help you about new podcasts, either on YouTube channel or on the podcast or both. Share with other people, that's how you can help serve me selfishly back for any of the stuff I'm giving to you guys and that way more people start listening to podcasts.

Again, all the money-making sponsors goes 100% back into just promoting the podcasts, getting more people on here so I can keep serving you guys because for me, in my life right now, everything's about impact and so for me it's like, if I'm gonna spend an hour a day doing a podcast like this, like what's the return on investment, like what does it look like?

And for me it's like how many listeners? And so as that number's growing and growing and growing, I'm like okay, I'm gonna put more time, more effort, more energy into it. The podcast is huge right now, it's growing very quickly, which is awesome. YouTube channel's kind of more new. I've been doing YouTube stuff for a long time,

trying a lot of formats and I was like, I am really enjoying this. So if you're listening, watching on YouTube, I know it's a different format, I was doing it in the past, and it's a little different from YouTube, but my goal is to keep this going for a while and see if I can get you guys all on YouTube converted to like enjoying it and sharing it,

because if I can do that, then it's, anyway, it's pretty cool. So that's it, you guys, I appreciate you, thank you for hanging out with me for this episode. If you liked it, again, let me know in the comments, share with a friend, I appreciate you guys. And for those of you guys who will be at Funnel Hacking Live, well, the time this is live, FHL will probably be done.

But I'm excited to hang out with you guys and serve you guys one last time for the biggest event in the world. And just know that I'm there. And again, it's the last of the Funnel Hacking Lives, but it's not the end of an era. It is the beginning of something amazing that will be coming very, very soon.

I appreciate y'all. Thank you guys so much for listening and we'll talk to y'all soon. Bye.