Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - How To Fortify Against Your Weaknesses AND An Exciting Announcement!

Episode Date: January 4, 2018

As you grow, your weaknesses will start to show, here is how to strengthen those holes as they are exposed. On today's episode Russell talks about setting a goal last year to pay off his house, and why it was so important to him. He also talks about fortifying his business to make sure it can't be destroyed by something stupid. Here are some of the cool things to look for in this episode: Find out why paying off his house was such a big goal for Russell for years. Hear some of the things that have kept him from reaching that goal in the past. And find out why it is so important to find the holes in your business and strengthen the weaknesses to protect yourself from those looking to destroy you. So listen here to see how you can bump up your security at home and at your business. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/how-to-fortify-against-your-weaknesses-and-an-exciting-announcement Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Switch to RBC Avion Visa and get up to 55,000 bonus Avion points. Limited time offer, conditions apply. Visit rbc.com slash Avion. What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. 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 answer. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. the marketing secrets. Christmas episode I wanted to do and I just, I was literally dying so I couldn't, um, but I still

think I'm going to do it. Maybe I'll do it as a new year's episode instead. But, um, uh, anyway, that's kind of, that's, yeah, basically what happened is new year's Eve. We were getting, uh, some of my, my brother and, uh, and Brent and his family came over for, um, for dinner. And right before they showed up, I started feeling really kind of like sick my legs were hurting and stuff so I took some medicine and that's where it began and I've had since then it's been six days now fever of between 103 and 104 degrees constantly since then

which means I've been forced to be in bed and haven't eaten anything so I've lost 15 pounds in the last since then so the one positive of everything else, I didn't have to do cardio to lose weight. So that was pretty sweet, but I haven't eaten anything yet in a week. Um, and I'm still hungry. So I'm just going to keep riding until I, until my body tells me I'm hungry again. Um, but, uh, anyway, so, um, I'm feeling a little better today and my cough is,

it's harder today. So that's the only thing that's kind of like, um, hurting, but, um, I just am too excited right now about where I'm about to go to. So I want to share with you guys because, and it's funny, I have this weird fear about sharing this with you guys and I don't know why. Um, I think I might know why. Um, so some of the backstory of this is, um, I actually, um, uh, my dad bought me the book rich dad, poor dad.

Actually, let me rewind a little bit for us before I got there for said poor dad book. My dad always told me that you should try to pay off your house first. It was like, cause I remember he paid his house off. He's all excited. He's like, yeah, you always want to pay your house off. Like that's just one of the things you want to do. In fact, I did an episode on this probably three or four months ago about paying your

house off first. Like, and the reasoning was like, cause it gives you that, the security of your house being paid off gives you the ability to go out there and risk as an entrepreneur, which, um, you know, we have to make crazy risks sometimes, and it's hard, though, if you, to risk things where, like, hey, I could lose their house, or they could, you know, like, that's the, the weird fear there, and so, um, and so, uh, anyway, when my dad got me the Rich Dad Poor Dad book, I read that, and it was talking about assets and investments, and I was like, you'd be a moron to pay your house off, why would you ever do that, it doesn't make any sense, and I remember asking my dad that, the Rich Dad Poor Dad book I read that and it was talking about assets and investments and I was like you'd be a moron to pay your house off why would you ever do that it doesn't make any sense

I remember asking my dad that I was like why would you that doesn't make any sense dad like all the money is just sitting there and he said you know what it may be sitting there it may not be the smartest investment in the world it might even be a dumb investment but I tell you what you sleep better at night knowing that it's paid off knowing that no matter what you risk as an entrepreneur you're not going to lose

that your house your family will always have the house to be in and so after, you're not going to lose that new house. Your family will always have the house to be in. And so after that point, I always wanted to pay off my house. And I remember my first house that my wife and I bought. We lived in it for 10 or 11 years. And it wasn't a crazy house. It was a nice house. And I always wanted to pay it off, but just never was able to.

And towards the end, I knew I wanted to buy another house. I just didn't put a lot of money into that. Then we bought this new house three years ago. It's kind of a crazy house. And I was like, dang, it's my goal in this. I want to pay it off within a year of buying it. And I was not able to. But it was kind of crazy.

It wasn't, I don't think it was a real goal. It was kind of like, oh yeah, I told people that cause it's kind of cool. Um, and then, uh, the second year went by and I, I'd taken a big whack down on the house. We also built a pool house that summer and a couple other things. Um, but we, but we hadn't paid it off. And so last Christmas time or last New Year's, um, I some New Year's resolutions, and I had two New Year's resolutions. One was to get a passive income stream outside of ClickFunnels to cover my monthly living expenses, which is less than $20,000 a month. So if I get something that covers $20,000 a month, then I can live for free even if

the business disappeared. And the second thing is, the second thing would be to pay off my house. And so that was my goal a year ago. And then right after that is when we had this, if you go back in time, you listen to the podcast, like storming and flooding, our house flooded, like craziness. And then we rehabbed the whole house. It took eight months. And then we built a huge, crazy soccer field and all sorts of things. And I still paid a lot of money towards the house trying to get paid off.

But I mean, it's a big, it an 11,000 square foot house on five acres. It's a big house, right? And anyway, last week I messaged my accountant, or CFO, whatever you want to call him. He's awesome. I messaged him. I was like, hey Clint, can I pay my house off this year? Is that possible? And he's like, I'll get back to you. So he got back to me a little while. He's like, yep, if you want to, you'd be fine. I'm like, are you serious?

So, um, I just, um, on my deathbed went in the office and I picked up this piece of paper here with this check inside and it is literally the paperwork to go pay off my house. And I'm driving to the bank right now to meet my wife over there. And I'm paying my house off right now. And it's going to be gone. And now I'll never, like, I don't even know. I'm kind of freaking out. And I'm excited. And it's going to be the coolest thing ever.

So I don't think I've been this excited about anything ever. The cool thing is I'm picking up my parents tonight at 1130 at night. I'm picking them up from the airport. I'm so excited to tell my dad. I'm saying, Dad, guess what? They paid off my house. So there you go.

That's kind of the fun, exciting thing to share with you guys. All right, so I do have a message today that is pertinent to everybody. So the last thing that I've been trying to do from my deathbed this last week or two before the end of the year was basically is to figure out where are the weaknesses in my business and how do I fortify against those weaknesses, okay? And it's not weaknesses, like for me it wasn't like,

it's not weaknesses like in people, maybe in a couple places, like we need different people or the right people or things like that, but there's just holes, there's gaps in the business, things that you're not, that you don't pay attention to

because of whatever your personality type is that you don't see, you don't notice, right? And so I'm trying is, you don't see, you don't notice. Right. And so I'm trying to identify those and then, and then figure out what those things are. Like where, where are places that you could be destroyed? Right. Um, like legally, are you legally compliant on everything?

Are you, um, you know, are you doing this right? You didn't like things like that, that like, like where are the gaps that you have in your business? You could, you could literally get destroyed if you're not careful. Um, um, there's a, in the good old book of Mormon, I'm gonna show you guys another story that you have in your business, you could literally get destroyed if you're not careful. There's the good old Book of Mormon. I'm going to show you guys another story from there, but it's important. There was, in fact, if you've read the Expert Seekers book, I talk about a guy named Captain Moroni. And this was, I believe it's actually him telling the story.

I might be wrong. Iran. Um, but basically he was, he was protecting, um, he was protecting the, uh, the, this, uh, his, his city. Right. And, and, and most places that they have like this where the armies are at, but between like where all their strong guards were at, they had these weaknesses. And, um, and so Captain Moroni was like, Hey, we need to fortify our weak spots. And, uh, he said, cause you know said, because even our, especially our enemies, they know where our weak spots are at. They know how to destroy them. We need to strengthen them. And so he went and he started fortifying and putting armies and people and stuff in place to protect their weak places. And they did that. And then when the armies came to try to storm them and try to get them shut down, they weren't able to because they fortified their weaknesses and strengthened them.

And so for me, that's been really our goal for the last couple weeks. Just like, okay, where are we weak? Where could we be in trouble? What things have we done stupidly that we just didn't pay attention to? Things that we, as entrepreneurs, are running so fast, a million miles a minute, we don't think about the little thing here, the thing there. What are the pieces we're missing? Where are the holes that we need to fortify? And then we're actively fortifying those things, those pieces, and getting the people in place,

or the structure, or the systems, or the legal docs, or whatever those things are, try to fortify ourselves. And that's kind of what I want to share with you guys today. legal docs or like whatever those things are, try to fortify ourselves. And that's kind of what I want to share with you guys today. I think that is important for all of us to look at. I know my credit union bank is somewhere right around here, but I don't know where exactly it's at. So I'm gonna paint this thing out there, sweet. Anyway, so that's what I want to share with you guys,

is start thinking through those things, because a lot of times us entrepreneurs, we get so obsessed with the marketing and the sell of our thing, which is obviously the most important part that we forget about like the protection of that thing so um that's my recommendation is is to spend some time this holiday season thinking about how to protect your thing so you don't ever lose it to some things that are stupid like one reason your business should should not be successful is if the market doesn't want your product or service like that that makes sense. All the other reasons are stupid

and they come from us not protecting ourselves. So that said, protect yourselves, fortify yourselves against those holes and those gaps and hope that helps. Thanks everybody and we'll talk to you guys all again soon. Would you like to see behind the scenes of what we're actually doing each day to grow our company? If so, then go subscribe to our free

behind the scenes reality TV show at www.funnelhacker.tv.