Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - How To Fortify Yourself Against Your Weak Spots

Episode Date: December 26, 2018

As you're planning your year this year, make sure to spend time focusing on this important aspect as well. On this episode Russell talks about having an end of year goal meeting with his partners and what it means to fortify yourself against your weaknesses. Here are some of the amazing and insightful things to listen for in today's episode: Find out why Russell started off the end of the year meeting with Clickfunnels partners asking what the things are that could take down Clickfunnels. How Russell has learned from some weaknesses his former businesses have had and how he is fortifying himself against them with Clickfunnels. Why you should fortify yourself in all aspects of your life, including business, your marriage, your relationships, etc. So listen here to find out why it's so important to look for your own weak spots and to fortify your business against them. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/how-to-fortify-yourself-against-your-weak-spots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, we're gonna be talking about fortifying your weaknesses so your company can continue to grow long-term. So, the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us, who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, who are 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. Hey everyone, hope everything's amazing. We are getting ready for the holidays. In fact, this episode will probably go live during Christmas.

Maybe even on Christmas, I don't even know. But last week we had our big partner meeting where all of our partners fly out to Boise and we lock ourselves in a room for two days and we discuss the plans and the future and world domination, what we're going to do and try to figure out the whole process. It was crazy.

So anyway, our goal for last year, like last So, um, anyway, our goal for last, for last year, like last year when we did this, our goal is like, we want to do a hundred million dollars in sales in a calendar year. Cause we've done it in like, I think it was like three years or something. It took us to get a hundred million, right? We want to do a hundred million in a calendar year. So that was the big goal. And actually what's crazy is as of yesterday, when we recorded this podcast, we did it. We broke a hundred million dollars in one calendar year, which is crazy. So, oh, insane.

So thank you for all of your support. Everybody who's invested in programs, who uses the software, who loves what we do. We are grateful for you guys and for making that happen. So now next year, it's like, what's the next goal? What's the next phase? So we had the big meeting, got everyone out here. And it was a lot of fun. We basically, like I said, we lock ourselves in a room and we just have a big list of items that we go through and then

we try to prioritize and schedule and figure things out. And, um, just kind of a cool thing we do every single year. And, but I wanted to share with you guys is how I started the meeting this year. That's different than normal. So basically we started the meeting. I brought everyone together and said, okay, you know, we've done some amazing things this year. We have some big goals for next year. Before we get into any of that, I want to talk about all the ways that ClickFunnels could fail. And everyone's like, oh, well, that's a depressing way to start the meeting. I'm like, well, not in a depressing way, but like, if we're not aware of like, where are our choke points? Like where could we actually get tapped out? If we're not aware of

where our weaknesses are, then, then it's, it's, it's like almost like a lot of people, we don't want to look at those things. We kind of hold a blind eye, right? Even not just in business, but in everything in life. Like where are my weaknesses in my marriage and in my family relationships with my kids? Like where are the weaknesses? We typically like our brains don't like to think about the unpleasantness of things. So we kind of block those things and we don't, we don't talk about it.

We don't think about them as opposed to the opposite, which is like being aware of them, acknowledging them and then fortifying yourself around those things so that the problems don't happen. Right. And so that's what we kind of talk about. So in every business, there's things that can make your business crash. I know because I've crashed multiple businesses in the past and hopefully I learned each time and I've tried to fortify things stronger the next time. But for example, last time I had my big business crash, some of you guys may have heard this story before. Um, it was actually right about time I started this podcast. Um, but we had a hundred and something employees and, um, we had all of our merchant accounts. I think we had like 14 merchant accounts, but they're all with the same processor,

same bank. So I thought we had like diversity cause they were different process, different merchant accounts. But apparently because they're all in the same bank the bank looks them as one merchant cat even though there's like 14 of them and so when that bank said they didn't like us anymore they shut down the merchant account but they shut down all of our merchant accounts we lost 14 of them and with this huge business was growing everything was doing amazing but that one like that one thing that chokehold was able to like really quickly like someone just pinched that and the whole company basically went under um you know i let go 80 people in in, in a, in a weekend and it was horrible and it's all because of that one thing.

And so I started thinking, what are the, what are the things inside of ClickFunnels that if they were to go wrong, um, could destroy this amazing thing that we built, you know? And so one of them again is like merchant accounts. Like, are we diversified? Do we have backups? If Stripe shut us down, what would we do? What would be the process? What would be the, you know, like what, what can we, other things we do to ensure that we don't like,

what are our chargeback rates? What are our refund rates? Like what's high, what's low, whatever we need to be. And like, just, just figuring out all those things, because the last thing that would happen is lose my merchant account and I lose ClickFunnels. Right. And then everybody who's we've been serving now, we screw them over because they lose that piece. Right. This is the things keep me up at night, by the way. So that was the first one we We talked about what happens if the FTC didn't like how we sold something like, oh my gosh, like that could be another choice. My FTC came in and said, we don't like how you sell your stuff. We could be shut down.

So we were like, what do we do? So it's like, okay, let's go and let's hire an FTC lawyer to go through every single page, every single funnel and give us feedback and we'll make changes to the copy. Let's look at our webinar presentation, like things that aren't compliant. Let's change those things. Let's look at, um presentation, like things that aren't compliant. Let's change those things. Let's look at, um, you know, all sorts of things. Um, join the BBB, you know, joining, there's another pro, uh, anyway, the other organization we're trying to join that, you know, whatever we can do to like protect ourselves from anything bad like that happens,

make sure that we are squeaky clean in all aspects there. Right. And then we're like, what happens if our servers are going down? What happens if, if we're looking at all the, all the possible things that could go wrong. And then instead of like trying to turn a blind eye to him and not think about him, we try to like face him straight on and be like, okay, here's the weaknesses. What do we need to do? How do we fortify? What are all the things we can do to protect ourselves and protect our customers and the people we're serving? And it's, it's those things. And so I share with you guys because, well, first off, so you're aware that I am doing everything in my power to, to continue a solid foundation for all of you guys. I want to make

sure you have a place to build your, your businesses on and your legacy on. And we want to make sure that we're here for a thousand years, right? So hopefully it gives you guys some comfort there. But second off, I think you should all be looking at your business as well. If you only have one merchant account, that's kind of scary. If you only have one merchant account, that's kind of scary. If you only have one traffic source, that's scary. If all your ads come from Facebook, what happens if Zuckerberg decides to change how ads work? Or everything's coming from Google, what if the algorithm changes again? What if, like, just being super aware, what if I have a business partnership and I'm like,

what if my partner and I don't get along? Like, what could happen there? What happens if, you know, and like, all the what ifs and looking at those things and figuring out how do we fortify against this, right? Same thing could be true in your marriage, right? What are the points that like something bad, like something bad happened in your marriage? Like what are those things? And it's like, okay, be aware of those things. Then how do we fortify against that? Right? Like when Clint and I first got married and first started this business, I started hiring people. Um, one of the very first things that we kind of sat down and said is like, okay, like I'm not going to go to lunch with a single female. Like that's just

something I will never do. And that's just like a stronghold. Like even if it's like, there's someone I'm not attracted to or to someone way different, like it's just a rule. Like I don't go to lunch by myself with a female. Like it's just, it's just, you just don't do it. Right. Cause who knows what could happen, what people could think could happen or whatever. It doesn't even matter. It's just I'm fortifying myself against, against potential problems, right? And so you set up these fortifications ahead of time and then you won't have the issues. And so now that we're in the season of planning and preparing and figuring things out, I just

challenge you guys to look at your weaknesses and fortify yourselves around it. You know, if I was to go to, to war against a comp, another country, I'd be looking at the same thing. Like, where are we weak at? We're weak on land and sea. Like, like where are they strong at? Where are we weak at? Like, how do we, how do we fortify ourselves so that when, if the attacks come there, um, we're prepared for them and we can, we can withstand the blows. So anyway, there you go, you guys, there's a lesson for today. Um, it's not gonna be the most fun conversation. conversation, but I promise you it's a lot more fun than the conversation you have afterwards when your emergency accounts get shut down or when

Zuckerberg shuts down your traffic or when the FTC finds your phone was not compliant or when whatever your thing might be. And so I just want to encourage all you guys to do what we did and really look at those weaknesses, focus on them, figure out how to fortify them as you're making your plans for the upcoming year. Because doubling your company or tripling your company, whatever your lofty, exciting goals are, which are fun, all that fun disappears quickly if you're not careful. So hope that helps somebody out there.

I know it's a big thing for us this year as we're trying to figure out how to go from a hundred million to a billion, which I don't think is a 12 month goal, but I think it is a 10 year goal. You know, how do we make sure we're fortified so that when we 10 X or right now we can handle it, we can support it and we're prepared for it. Um, yeah. So hope that helps you guys. Uh, with that said, I appreciate you all. Thank you so much for hanging out on the podcast. If you've learned anything or if you, um, enjoy this, please take a screenshot on your phone. You just click the buttons, boom, take a screenshot, your phone. Just click the buttons. Boom.

Take a screenshot. Go to Instagram, Facebook, wherever you're social at. Post and say your number one thing, your biggest takeaway you got from this episode.

Please tag me in because I'd love to see that. And then if you use hashtag marketing secrets in the post as well, that'd be awesome. And yeah, it's been fun watching

more and more of you guys taking snapshots and posting your big takeaway from the episodes. It means a lot to me and I love it. And so please keep doing it. Plus helps other people find out about our podcast and hopefully I can help serve more people. So with that said, thanks you guys.

And we'll talk to you all again soon. Bye everybody. Want more marketing secrets? If so, then go get your copies of my two bestselling books. Book number one is called Expert Secrets and you can get a free copy at expertsecrets.com. And book number two is called Dot Com Secrets and you can get a free copy at expertsecrets.com. And book number two is called Dot Com Secrets, and you can get your free copy at dotcomsecrets.com. Inside these two books, you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest-growing, non-VC-backed SaaS startup company in the world.