Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - Is This One of Our Final Podcast Episodes?

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

Looking back at this year, its ups and its downs, we've had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And we may, honestly, be one of the final episodes of the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Hear my honest recap of 2023 along with what's happening next for ClickFunnels (both the why and the where I'm pivoting towards)! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing Secrets of Success Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's really not important to me to have a lot of things to show off, fancy cars, you know, a giant home. Those things are just not part of who I am. But I've been coached and I've learned through my advisor that it's not one size fits all. Everyone has their own preferences. Everything that I do with Edward Jones is tailored to who I am. Edward Jones. We do money differently. Visit edwardjones.ca slash different. What's up, everybody?

This is Russell Brunson, and welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. And I don't know yet. This may be one of the final episodes, so I don't know. I'll talk about that here in a minute. Welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. My name is Russell Brunson, and I'm what you call a serial entrepreneur,

but with a twist, you see 50% of my time. I'm the CEO of click funnels, hoping over a hundred thousand brands to grow their companies with funnels. And the other 50% of my time, I'm actually in the trenches using click funnels to grow the startups. I believe it during this podcast, I'll take you behind the scenes and show you how we are bootstrapping ClickFunnels and my other businesses from startup to nine figures and beyond. Welcome to the show. All right, everybody. So man, it's been a little while since I recorded an actual podcast. I've had a couple of replays last month or so. And as time I'm recording this, we're less than a week away from Christmas, which I'm excited for, but man, I am not going to lie. This has been one of the most difficult seasons of my life.

In fact, this year has been hard as a whole. So I was just thinking back about, it was basically 12 months ago, a little over 12 months ago that my closest friend, my business partner dave woodward um passed away and it's crazy because that came on the back of us launching click funnels 2.0 which has been a crazy ride as well and then it's just been it's been it's been a tough year i'm not gonna lie um we've had some big ups some low downs you know i think i was at a wrestling tournament this weekend with my son and i was talking about wrestling i said, I love it because it has like the highest highs and lowest lows. Like when you win, you win. It's like the greatest feeling in

the world. And when you lose, it hurts so bad, but it's what makes the pursuit and the win so feel so great. You know what I mean? And so this year has been similar. We've had some great wins, but also some big losses. And obviously the biggest, the hardest one for year has been similar. We've had some great wins but also some big losses. And obviously the biggest and hardest one for me has been Dave. He was one who I would talk to every single day. He was one that I brainstormed with. He's one that I have crazy ideas and he helped me implement them. He was the one that, you know, was my biggest cheerleader. And I don't know.

It's crazy how hard that is when you lose that, you know, and still having the same mission, the same everything, but missing that person who was such a big, just a big part of, of it all. So anyway, it's been an interesting year and, you know, we launched ClickFunnels 2.0 and, um, I don't know, it was, it was a crazy, I don't know. Launching new software is always hard, right? We have, you know, we've been working on it for over two years. We've been talking about it for a year. People were anxious. They were waiting. And so we, we launched it and, um, it's crazy though. Cause you know, we'd spent a year using it. We built out membership sites, built out funnels, built out, like it was working great.

It worked great for us. But you know, when you launch it and day one, you know, we had 18,000 people sign up in the first week. Um, also sudden you start finding out what's working what's not working and you know and um and i'm so proud of our team they've killed themselves to you know do amazing job of support and the dev team fixing things and adding things and improving things and um that's what this year's been this year's been reactionary of you know we launched this thing and then and then the reaction of just keeping up with it you know when we launched click funnels the first time we launched it there were 10 customers and 50 customers and 100 customers you know and we were fixing things in real time as we're growing but man starting a startup or day you know we the first week you get 18 000 customers

is hard it's something we were not prepared for and ready for and um definitely harder than i thought and it was crazy we launched and then right after that dave passed and then it's just it was hard i think because a lot of people who i consider friends um people who had you know we had we had helped grow in inside of click funnels people who had had struggled they came into our training they had success they went to comic clubs and then to see the negativity. And it was frustrating because like your thought was like we gave everyone 2.0, which is this beta software. We let them keep 1.0. So they got both for the same price.

And inside of that, it was still hard. We had a lot of frustrated people, which is my fault. And I've been working hard to remedy that and fix things. But I love it. I mean, ClickFunnels 2.0 is awesome. I think there's a learning curve that we're trying to simplify and clean up and stuff like that but man we've been running click forms on it now for two years we've been running our own stuff on it and it's it's amazing you know we just did the big secrets to success launch on it and like it's it's

really amazing it's just kind of i don't know it was just it's just anyway launching a startup for that many people is is hard so that year this year's been been kind of tough for that and trying to figure out the right decisions right moves and anyway so i don't know i'm telling you this other than i think a lot of times my podcast where i wrestle all my energy and excitement and stuff like that and i am excited to have energy but um especially today especially tonight i'm just worn out and and tired. Actually, I came over to the book office just to go and spend some time organizing books because that sounds like the most fun thing for me to do

and spend time. You probably know the last two years, almost three years now, I've been buying these old books. It's crazy. I had a handful. I had a small collection. And then when Dave came down with brain cancer,

it was crazy because at nights I couldn't sleep. So what I would do is I'd jump on eBay and I'd search for books. It was the thing that brought me peace and happiness and a relief from the real world, you know? And now I've got these two different offices full of, it's kind of ridiculous if I'm honest with myself, but man, it's just crazy how much happiness it brings me

looking at these books. There were people who passed on, most of these are, you know, I'd say 95% of my books are more from people who who passed on and so it's just fun for me to sit here and realize all these people you know one time were just like me trying to take over the world trying to change the world trying to do the best they could they're writing books they're publishing stuff way back when it's so much harder than it is today you know before google docs and things like that anyway i get comfort just looking at like how excited they must have been when they

were publishing these and writing them and getting them out there. And then they had people who read the books and changed their lives and just how they must have felt. For me, that's the thing that's kept me going over the last decade of doing this whole ClickFunnels marketing secrets thing is just seeing people's lives change. And so anyway, I just – I don't know what it is i just i love this i love being around these books i'm sitting on the floor right now next to a whole bunch of them so my favorite authors are right here next to me charles hannell who's one of my favorites uh robert collier robert collier man a lot of the marketing guys and gals in my world you'll know him from the robert collier letter book but that was a book he talked about his advertising principles but he learned that by advertising his personal development books

and he's got dozens of books he wrote that are so good um and magazines he published two different magazines that um one there's only seven issues that i found four of the seven i'm still trying to find the last couple and then a second magazine um that he published each issues like these little books like that's so cool and then all these other cool things you know and um i think about like you know that scene from dead poet society i played it at funnel hockey live where robin williams is sitting there uh with this new class and he's talking about their future he shares the the poem in fact i found an original first edition of this book after watching it again but the the poem is like uh says gather

you rosebuds while you may right it's like you start talking about like why why is it so important for you to to pursue these things now i gather rosebuds while you may like doing it right now it's because you know soon we're going to be gone and this life is such a short glimpse and then he he shows the he has all the class leading to look at the pictures of these people on the wall and they're like these old or you know you know, they're not old. They're young people, but there's black and white photos. And he said, look at their eyes. Look at the – they're just like you.

They were excited about their future, what they were going to create, what they were going to do. He's like, look at them now. He's like, they're worm food, you know. He says, but right now they're calling. They're whispering something from the ground. Listen in close. Listen in close. So he has everyone getting close.

And then from the back you hear him, you know, saying carpe diem, carpe diem, and seize the day. He's like, that's what these guys are telling you. It's like, you know, our day is over and I'll seize the day. I think when I'm amongst these books, that's what I feel. It's just like that feeling of like seize the day. Like what are you trying to create, Russell? What are you trying to do?

And I think for me I've lost vision of that for the last little while. Mostly it's because I've been, I don't know. Do you guys go through this? This is like the vulnerable Russell. I'm one of those episodes I shouldn't post. But it's been tough. Like, you know, when you have a partner that you're pursuing something and you're talking about it. And then you've got, you know, know man over two years now where you don't

want to talk about as much as it's different and you know my business partners who i love to death you know todd's not in the office he's on the other side of the country we don't talk that often and you know i think while we're so aligned in some things we also different visions what we want and we're trying to do as well and um so for me i think i feel like i got lost on the path for a while like i was just kind of doing a lot of different things and launching different businesses and it's so interesting like uh do you ever do that thing where you teach somebody something and you believe something but then you do the opposite you know before we had click funnels the thing that i i would do is i'd create new business every 90 days and relaunch it and launch next one next one and i love doing

it and we decided to launch click funnels you know todd told me he's like we put so much into this he's like you need to focus on this for a year and so i was like okay i'll commit to a year i did commit for um man eight plus years before covid hit and covid i got bored a little bit you know todd was coding click funnels 2.0 and i didn't have as much to do. And so I'm trying to figure out what can I do, and I bought a supplement company, and then a second one, and then this and that, and then all these projects. We started working on them, but they weren't my core focus. They were just things I was excited by.

And so because of that, none of them got done. Now I'm looking at the year 10 of ClickFunnels, and I need to be focusing 100% on ClickFunnels. And I have all these side projects that are just taking time and energy from me and from our staff and our team. And, and so I laughed because like when, um, inner circle, I've had someone come in and they would try to, you know, they would, they would have some projects, all the projects. The very first thing I do that haven't made, tell me all the different projects they have. And I'm like, okay, number one, you have to kill all your babies. I'm like, you're allowed to have one business,

one only. And I'd forced them all to kill their businesses and people would fight me every single time and then they come back and like i killed all my businesses and i was able to focus and it's crazy because now i you know now i made our business exploded and it's just so funny because you know the advice i gave everyone else in fact just even last year i gave people that same advice like well how come you have so many businesses i'm like oh well you know do what i say not what I do. But then looking back and I was, you know, my advice was correct before. It's just funny. So I'm in the process right now of killing a whole bunch of businesses that, that suck, that put time and energy and money and effort into that just aren't producing and are sucking away time from, from my number one opportunity, right? We all have,

have one core opportunity that we can and should be pursuing. And so, yeah, so for me, obviously it's ClickFunnels. It's my core thing, so I'm committed to. And so I'm actually really excited. You know, today, I started looking at, like, if I'm going to put 100% of my effort into ClickFunnels, like, what's the thing that I can or should be doing that will have the biggest impact that's going to change things the most?

What does that actually look like? I can't tell you yet, but there are four things. I was like, holy crap, we have these four things. We will crush everybody else. They don't even know what hit them. It's going to be really fun. So I got excited by that, energized by that, and so I'm going to be pursuing those things and working towards them.

I think you'll see most of them. Actually, what's funny about these is, well, you'll see a couple you'll see there'll be a couple you will not see for like you most likely won't see but they're going to be big and they're going to be they're going to be moving very very quickly on them and i'm excited like you know it's just one of those things that i don't know i'm just like really excited to jump back in and and really um see what i can do over the next couple years and and see how big we can grow click funnels and so that's i think the really good news but also you know these books and my vision and what i

want to do with the the books are still here as well and so secret success will continue to be my side business i'll have one one that i'm passionate about and i love partially because it lets me use clickFunnels every single day. You know what I mean? I'm in there. I'm building stuff. I'm trying stuff. We're finding the bugs.

We're finding the errors. We're finding what's not working. And it's giving us a really good loop back. Plus all the two CCX training, all my other trainings are based on us growing that company. But those would be the two things I'll be focusing on. That's it. The core focus would be ClickFunnels, obviously. And then the side will be my little side hustle, which is these books and what we're doing with them.

And for the time being, that'll be the focus. And who knows, maybe in three or five years from now or whenever it makes sense, maybe I'll step down and hand over ClickFunnels to someone smarter than me and focus just on the side business where I'm hanging out with books and all that kind of thing. But definitely for the short term, it's going to be 100% focused on that. And so I'm excited for it.

And so for any of you guys who are listening to this, I think that'd be my aha or my takeaway. Hopefully I can give you this year of stress and anxiety and whatever you may be going through, because I don't know, we're all going through stuff, right? You know, and we've got stuff we're going through business stuff, but also we're having a lot of teenager issues that we're struggling with right now. Anyway, just, it all kind of adds up and I know that we all go through those things, but anyway, uh, that's my, if I can give you a gift that I'm giving myself right now is to kill all your babies and focus on what folks are your best opportunity. And I think,

um, especially over the next, I don't know, the next 12 months is going to be crazy with elections and chaos and AI and all these things that are happening. Like, you know, I think now it's time to really focus on one thing and try to do your best to

capitalize on it. And yeah, so that's my goal. So my goal is in the next 90 days is to at least 2x maybe 3x the lead flow of people that join click funnels every day you know we're over a thousand people a day still join click funnels and i want to dramatically increase that while increasing stick rate a bunch of other things and so it's gonna be fun i'll keep in loop what we're doing i'll share with you the the ideas and what's happening.

And I mentioned this may be one of the last Marky's Secrets podcasts, not because I'm gonna stop podcasting, but we're kind of relooking at my content strategy as a whole. You know, we spend so much money on paid ads and paid ads are getting so much more expensive. Even with us, we've got the deepest funnels in the world. You know what I mean?

We're pretty good at that side of things. It's still getting harder and harder at scale and so um that's one of the things that i'm trying to focus on is is really getting more um focus on on organic traffic and so you know with that i'm like well this podcast is great but but it could do more could do a lot more if i looked at differently i remember talking remember talking to Rachel Hollis last year. And she's like, I look at all my businesses and they're all doing well. And she's like, I have this podcast I put almost no effort into. And yet it makes me X amount of dollars a year.

She's like, if I focused as much effort there as it is other places, what would my business do? It would be insane. And so she doubled down. And I saw her going from one podcast episode a week to three or four a week and and you know selling ads and sponsorships and making great money off it and building that as her primary business you know and anyway i just keep coming back to like man if i if i focus on the the organic side and really put a year two years into it it could and should be the spot where

it can you know overtake what we're doing on the paid side, which would be insane. That saved me a million bucks a month, you know, two million bucks a month, probably so. $20, $30 million a year if I can replace that. Maybe I can't, maybe I still keep paying that, but now I get further traffic for free on top of it, and that's even better. So you'll be seeing me going down. So I have an idea for a new podcast that will hopefully be coming out early in the new year and um we're relaunching our youtube channel instagram like we're doing a lot of things to to really focus on the organic side so that's kind of happening here and and yeah my goal is in the next 12 months so that by this time next december we'll re-meet here i'll be like hey guess what right now click funnels has 250 000 active members

booyah we did it so despite the storms despite you know the elections despite all the craziness so anyway it'll be fun i'm looking forward to it i'm looking forward to um simplifying my life um and my stress my anxiety and still trying to figure out the details on how to do that but i think it'll be amazing so all right with that said i appreciate you guys listening and hopefully a little more raw vulnerable version of the podcast is helpful for some of you guys who may be struggling this time of year as well i appreciate you all thanks for listening i'm cheering for you i'm rooting you on and uh let's hit this next year at a level we never had before and have some fun so that's

it thanks guys so much and i will talk to you soon