Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - (MS) You're One Funnel Away - Part 2 (Revisited)

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

This is part two of my Funnel Hacking LIVE presentation from 2017. I wanted to toss-up this replay to remind you that when everything goes wrong, funnels have been the answer for me over and over and over, and I know they will be for you. So listen in to part two where funnels not only saved me from near bankruptcy and prison, they led to building ClickFunnels with my partner, Todd Dickerson. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing FunnelHackingLIVE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Metrolinx and Crosslinx are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. You're listening to Marketing Secrets

with your host, Russell Brunson. Hey everyone, it's Russell again. Welcome to the next episode of Marketing Secrets. This is part two of the One Funnel Away presentation. All right guys, so hopefully you enjoyed yesterday's episode. If you did like it, I hope that you have shared it, you told other people to go listen to it. Today's going to be the exciting conclusion of Russell's bankruptcy and failure stories.

I hope you guys enjoy it. It should be a lot of fun. Listen to it. If you're online at marketingsecrets.com, you can watch it. There's a video there where you can share it and see the actual presentation as well. I hope this helps you. It helps give you faith and hope in what you're doing, what you're creating, and where you are trying to go with your business and the people's lives you're going to serve.

So with that said, enjoy my failures. I hope you guys have a good time with it. And we'll see you guys soon. Bye. Now, the pros and the cons of this. The pros is this was really, really awesome. And I was like, as a getting good entrepreneur, I'm like, hey, what's the book? Nail it and scale it.

We nailed it. We're like, hey, let's scale this thing. And so then, I probably shouldn't have done some of this stuff, but we got excited. I was like, well, if this worked here, we should hire more people. And we started growing this. We went from this little thing with five or six of us to two years later two years later we had about a hundred people, uh, operation where this is the model we were doing. CDs, calling them on the phone, selling, coaching, having continuity.

And it grew really, really big. And, uh, during that time there were some really positive things that came from it. Some negative things, some ups and some downs. And I'll share kind of, uh, a lot of those things. One cool thing is that while this was happening, and it was going really well, my name kind of got out there, so I got a chance to go speak a lot, which was cool, and I had seen other people speaking from stage. And this is where, I've told you guys a story, anyone who's gone through the Perfect Webinar, like, I spent about two and

a half, three years on the road, going to seminars, standing in front of a bunch of people like this, talking and trying to sell something, and, nothing happening. It's a really horrible feeling. Anyone ever done that before? My first presentation, I was on stage. I just probably had 300 people in the room. I did a presentation and I tried to like do what speakers do and like close. And then hopefully everybody runs to the back and like nobody budged. And then the guy forgot to turn the music on and it was just like crickets. And then I was just like awkwardly like walking off the stage. Oh, this is awkward. And then running, you know? And then I remember the first, I was so embarrassed because usually we have like those events where all like multi-speaker events and all the speakers are selling and everyone's bragging about their numbers. And like, and I knew that I don't want

them to ask me my numbers cause I totally didn't like not one person signed up. So I went and hid in my hotel room and I remember ordering coconut shrimp and Haagen-Dazs ice cream for every meal for the next two days while I hid in the room, eating it, watching movies. So I'm like, I'm going to go back downstairs. And I just, it was really bad and awesome at the same time, because coconut shrimp and Haagen-Dazs is awesome. But I did that, and I learned how not to sell. And then I started learning from some amazing speakers and people, and I started learning

the process and how it works. And all the stuff we talked about in the Perfect Webinar, all this stuff we talked about day one about creating belief and breaking belief pattern, all those kind of things I learned like on the road in front of people on stage. It was scary, but it's such a good time for me to learn and understand that part of the process. As we started to grow, I'm going to make sure I cover all the cool things, we had a bunch of different offers we came out with.

One of the ones that was more successful for us was a front-end offer like this called Microcontinuity. How many of you guys remember Microcontinuity? Yeah, that is awesome. So this is one we, man, it's probably, I don't even know, eight years ago now. We put it on an MP3 player from Hong Kong. It had like six hours of this training, and that was a funnel we put through, and we just kept creating new front-end funnels to get people, this program. And it worked awesome. And we grew the company from nothing to three or $4 million a year and was doing awesome. And then at a time, um, I started looking at other people in my industry and this is hopefully will help. One of you guys is going to get a good idea for this one. But I had this funnel. We talked about

the value ladder, right? Like I had this really cool value ladder happening here. And I was sending people up. And I realized that I was the only person in the market that had a real value ladder. Everyone else was kind of doing stuff down here and that was it. And I was the only person selling really expensive stuff. So I started calling my friends. I called like Mike Filson. I'm like, hey, man, like, so all of our customers, Rick called and we sell like these $5,000 things. And lots of people buy that.

Like, you should do that. He's like, I don't want to call a center. I'm like, well, do you want us to call your customers and sell it he's like yeah so we hooked up with mike and we became mike's back end i call it frank kern same thing we came frank kern's back end for a little while we started calling up a whole bunch of people and then we started becoming the back end so all these people now had front end funnels we became the back end for a lot of them and that's how we took company from three or four million dollars to ten million dollars and it became really big and i was gonna say big and fun but i don't think i would say that at all it became really really

big we had 100 employees and uh we had 60 people on phones and a big huge call center we had 20 people uh doing coaching for all the things we're selling and then we had about 20 people who were driving leads and customers and stuff like that and it got really big and i don't know if you guys notice this but like i'm really good at like selling and those things really bad at like the management of stuff. And I was not good at managing all these people. And it just, it kind of started, um, just getting too big. And, uh, this is about the time that I was telling you guys, if you've read the.com secrets book that I, I started waking up and I was just like, God, I did not like what I created. I got so excited that I started building this thing. And then one day I woke up and I was like, huh,

I really want to do this. I think half of the conversations I have with inner circle members when they first come in is this like, do you really want to build that business? Like, yes, that would work. But sometimes it's horrible when you get there. Like thinking through like, what do I actually want to do? Who would I really want to become? Who do I want to be when I grow up? And luckily during that time, it was probably one of the most painful times in my life.

But looking back now, it was probably one of the most important times in my life. We had this huge operation. Everything was working. And then one day, it was in January, literally 11 and 30 in the morning, one of my sales guys came in and said, hey, I'm trying to run a credit card, but it's not working. I'm not sure what's wrong. I'm like, oh, that's weird. Well, you know, try one of the other merchant accounts. Maybe that, maybe there's something there. And then someone else came in, hey, all the continuity orders are failing. I'm not sure why. And then the three or four people came to me. I'm like, what's happening? I logged in the backend system and like not as like 1137 or something like that. Every sale stopped, just stop. No sales. I was like, what is happening?

And so I'm kind of freaking out. So I call our merchant account company. There's a busy signal. I'm calling again, busy calling and busy. And like, I can't get ahold of anybody. All of a sudden I start hearing from friends, like, dude, everything got shut down. Like, are you still able to process? I'm like, no, like what, what's happening? And everyone started, I don't know. I don't know. And, uh, and soon I found out that it wasn't me. It was like, um, I eventually found it was like three or 400 people. Uh, at the same time, all anybody who was doing any kind of like continuity based stuff, uh, the merchant accounts basically came in and said, look, uh, we think that what you're doing might be illegal. And so we're shutting all of you guys down and you're basically guilty till proven innocent. I was like, what? I've got a hundred people I'm feeding a hundred people

and their families. Like it turns into like a hundred people and their families like it turns into like hundreds of people i was like you can't stop processing finally after like an hour i get through somebody and the lady on the phone says yep we shut you down uh good luck ever getting a merchant account again i gotta go boom and hung up on me and i was like what you know at the time i thought i was i thought i had diversity like i i had uh we had nine merchant accounts all through one company and so I thought that meant, but they were all through different, they're different merchant accounts,

but all through one bank. And I found out that's the equivalent of having one, which is why I'm very, a big believer now in having multiple merchant accounts in multiple different banks, which is the lesson hopefully for everybody. If you don't know Alex Roy yet,

I don't know if Alex is in here, but meet Alex and he's the man who can get you hooked up with lots of merchant accounts. Like he's done that for us. Yes. He's amazing. Um, but, uh, but we, we, it was bad. And so finally, um, uh, uh, got ahold of these guys and I'm trying to figure some things out. And, uh, basically I said, okay, well you got to prove that you are a good guy. I was like, okay. So we went through, took us two weeks for them to, to go through all our stuff,

look at our documentation, look at all our stuff. They said two weeks for them to go through all our stuff look at our documentation look at all our stuff basically two weeks and they came back said okay you're right you're doing everything clean everything's above board

we'll turn your merchant accounts back on and you're good to go I'm like sweet so we turn it back on and that time when there's that kind of instability like sales guys are freaking out

they can't handle any kind of instability they're leaving like crazy people walking out the door and I was like freaking out and we had all this payroll but but no money coming in. And so like, I'm paying it out of my own pocket. Like everything just like keep things afloat. And, um, as I'm going through this process, like it's getting scarier and scarier and finally it's

like, if things, you know, merch counts are back on, you're, you're, you're a good guy. I'm like, sweet. So hey guys, we got to do a launch really quick to make a bunch of money. So we do this, put together this huge launch thing. We push it out to our customer lists. And in a weekend, we made $250,000. And I was like, thank you. So great. I was like, Monday, we should get the money. We can pay payroll. I'm telling everyone like, just, you know, tell your wives and your kids we'll have money soon. Like it's coming. I promise. Like it's in the bank. It's just going to be here any day now. And money didn't come. Money didn't come. Monday didn't come. Tuesday didn't come. Wednesday didn't come. By Thursday, I'm like calling them. Like, where's our money, dude? Like we need this money. And the guy looks at the camera. Oh,

it's definitely in there. I'm like, okay, when's it coming to our bank? He's like, well, it's not going to come to your bank. Like, well, why not? He said, oh, well, you're on 100% reserve, so we keep 100% of your money. I was like, what? Like, that's not good for me or for anybody. How am I supposed to be in business? I got people to pay. He's like, yeah, well, that's just how it works. Uh, he's like, but the good news is that, um, it looks like you are legitimate company. No one's charging back or refunding this money we've collected so far. So what we'll do is we'll drop you down to 10% reserve. I'm like, oh, thank heavens. And then he said, but the 250,000 are you collecting last week? We're keeping that, uh, for the next six months, just as collateral, make sure nothing bad happens.

Like, are you kidding me? Like, so I'm like, okay, I gotta create another funnel quick. So we're printing that new thing, push it out there, make some money. And we start, um, you know, paying payroll for whatever we can, but like everything's collapsing around me. And, uh, so that started in January and that started happening at the same time. We're trying to find other merchant accounts, other banks, and all these other banks are like, oh yeah, we're cool. Come in. We'll give you a merchant account. And they're like, okay, this is how it works. Like you're gonna make a hundred thousand dollars a month. I'm like, cool. Okay. We're gonna do that in like two days. So I need like four merchant accounts because this is like, we can make money. We just need you to be able to like give it to us after we make it. And like, oh yeah,

we're cool. We're good at that. Don't worry. It's like, okay, cool. So we get a merchant account, get it all set up, drive a bunch of traffic. And twice we made over the hundred thousand dollars a month. We were, we were allowed within like a day, day and a half, and then they froze our accounts, and they said, oh, you've made too much money too fast, we're freezing your accounts, we'll get this money back to you in six months, I'm like, six months, like, please stop doing this to me, like, we ended up with like four or $500,000 locked up in merchant accounts, and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse, so this whole year was like, like the hardest year of my merchant accounts and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse so this whole this whole year was like like the hardest year of my life and it just kept going

down and like every single day i'm like laying off friends and family members and people whose families i like people i just love and i care about and i'm coming in i'm like i don't know what to do man i'm so sorry like i gotta let you go i'm just letting and it was just oh like such a dark time in my life and just just over after thing, after thing, after thing. And, um, uh, and I wish that I could say from there, it got better. So that was an entire year. The next January started. And, uh, one of our friends was doing an event in Vegas and I was like, I'm gonna go out there and just see what everybody like, I gotta re figure out my whole business. Like everything's completely collapsed. Uh, at the time we were, by the way, we were in this big, huge office we had rented and or yeah, that we were leasing.

And I think it was like 20,000 square feet because we had all the call center and stuff. And I went to the landlord. I'm like, hey, man, I can't afford to pay you anymore. And he's like, okay, well, we've got a three-year contract. If you don't pay me, I'm going to sue you, and you're probably going to end up in jail. I was like, are you kidding me, dude? I'm trying. It would not work with me at all.

I had all this fear behind that. So I'm in Vegas a year later trying to ask friends what's happening. What are you guys doing in your business? And they're trying to tell me their stories. I'm just like, oh, this is, I don't know what to do. And then that night I got an email on my phone from my dad and opened this email. It was like a shot in the gut, like, like probably the worst second of my life as I read that. And the email said, hey, Russell, I'm so sorry. My dad was helping the books at the time, but we had a bookkeeper in the office. And he said, and the bookkeeper, I mean, she was trying her best, but she didn't know. She knew we were struggling and she didn't want to stress me out. So she didn't tell me how much we were struggling. And it turns

out what she'd been doing is she had been paying the bills she could and the ones she couldn't, she was trying to like not pay them and delay them, delay them. And, uh, and to hide it from my, from my dad and from everybody else, she was, she was saying in QuickBooks that she paid bills, but then like not actually paying them. So it looked like it was clear. And he'd gone through and actually audit and found out, um, that she hadn't paid payroll taxes in almost a year. And the email, my dad said, Hey, just, you know, payroll taxes aren't like something where they find you. Like if you don't pay payroll taxes, you're going to go to jail. And it was over $150,000 a year in payroll taxes. And I was like, at the end, it had been an entire year. Every penny I'd ever earned was gone.

All my people, my teams, like it just had all fallen apart. And I'm sitting there like, I don't know what to do. And so the next morning, we got on a flight from Vegas back to Boise. We fly back to Boise. I get to Boise and and I walk in, and the call center's empty. All the guys are gone. And there are two people that are left, and they said, hey, just so you know, the call center across the road just recruited us, and we all just left, and we're out. See ya.

And they walked out. I was like, oh. Out of the government, $150,000. I have nobody to help me sell. Like, I don't know what to do. And I want to quit. Like, so bad, I want to quit. Like, I don't know what to do. And I want to quit. Like, so bad I want to quit. But if I quit, I go to jail. I'd also sold a lot of coaching to people I cared about. If I quit, all these people that bought coaching from me, like, I can't help them. That's not right. That's not the right thing to do. I was like, I don't know what to do.

So I went to a bankruptcy lawyer. I'm like, this work man like i got what to do like i gotta i gotta figure this out and he's like well kind of explain the whole process and i told him about my lease i'm like at least the the landlords that are coming after me like the government's gonna come after me like i don't know what to do and he's like well uh the best thing to do is i should come with you to your landlord and just explain you're going bankruptcy maybe they'll be nice to you so i'm like all right he's like do you have any money like. He's like, do you have any money? I'm like, no. He's like, what do you got in your pocket? I was like, I got like a hundred bucks.

He's like, cool, give me a hundred bucks. I'll come and I'll tell the landlord you're going bankrupt. I'm like, all right, man, here you go. So he comes with me, which actually is the best hundred bucks I've ever spent. So he comes with me to the landlord and he's like, Russell, screwed man. He's going through bankruptcy. He just hired me.

He's like, he can't pay you. Like you can come after him, but he is like, and the got, it was like this old man. He's just like, yeah, he's done. Like, oh, so bad. Like so much money. Government's coming after him. Like, oh, you're screwed. Don't even try. And, and basically convinced our landlord that like, it was a useless cause. So the landlord was like, all right, be out by Friday. And we had a big space with office cubicles and phones and all sorts of just craziness. Right? So I'm like, okay, I'll be out by Friday. But 90% of my team was gone at this point,

from 100 employees down to about seven or eight. The few people that stuck by me, people like Brent Cole-Peters, who, like, just love that guy to death. He, um... Brent and John and some of the people back then, um... I mean, Brent had taken a pay cut, 50% pay cut and, uh, never. It's amazing people. Um, what's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson.

I've got something really cool for you today from my friend Taylor Wells. Taylor spoke at our last Funnel Hacking Live because I wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the revolving pricing method. And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to give you guys more access to this super cool strategy that you are going to love. It's something we've been implementing into our high-end coaching program as well, and it is amazing. But to kind of give you some context about this offer he's making for you guys, as you may or may not know, a few years ago, JPMorgan Chase did a study, and guess what they found? They found that the average small business only has about 28 days of operating expenses in reserve. That's right, less than a month of cash on hands. Now, if you're like me, the idea of your business being one bad month away from disaster is enough to make your

stomach drop, Am I right? Especially with how the economy's been lately. It's not the time to be gambling with your finances. So Taylor put together this book called The Revolving Pricing Method, and it's awesome. It helps you turn every client you close into a long-term profit machine. We're not talking about one-time paydays. We're talking about creating sustainable and real predictable income for the long haul. Now here's where it gets even better.

Taylor put together an awesome exclusive deal just for you guys, my Marketing Secrets listeners. And if you go over to wealthyconsultants.com slash secrets, you can grab the revolving price method book and over $150 worth of bonuses and get this all. It's at 70% off and I promise you guys, as a customer of this, you are going to love it. So if you're serious about growing your business

with real stability, this is the model you need to add into your funnels. So go over to wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets, grab your 70% off deal, and let's start turning your clients into long-term revenue. Again, that's wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets. Do not miss out. Hey, this is Russell Brunson, and I want to jump in really quick to share with you a new assessment I found out that is insanely cool. You guys know I'm obsessed with personality profiles and assessments, but this one is different because not only does it help you understand yourself, but more importantly, especially for

us who are entrepreneurs, it helps us understand our employees, our teams, and get people sitting on the right seats in the bus so they can get more stuff done. I just had a chance to interview Patrick Lanchoni talking specifically about this new assessment they created called Working Genius. And the Working Genius is awesome. Like this test, I had actually blocked out an hour to take it because I was so excited for the new assessment. And it only took me like 10 minutes or less to get it done. Yet, even though it takes only 10 minutes, like you can actually apply this immediately.

I took it for myself. I had my team take it. And what's cool about it is from there, we figured out exactly what people's working geniuses are. And that's important because if you're building a team or a company, you got to figure out, make sure that you have, first off, the right people, but make sure the right people are sitting in the right seats on the bus. And this is what this assessment will teach you how to do. Um, now normally this assessment, you can go to working

genius.com and there's two G's in the middle working genius.com, but I got you a 20% discount on the assessment, which is only $25. So don't stress. It's not an expensive test at all. Uh, but you get a 20% discount off when you put in the keyword secrets at checkout. So go to working genius.com again, two G's working genius at checkout. So go to workinggenius.com. Again, two Gs, working genius, two Gs in the middle, workinggenius.com. And then use promo code secrets, S-E-C-R-E-T-S at checkout. Get 25% off. But then go take the test.

Again, it takes you 10 minutes. But even in a 10-minute session, you will get something that is so insanely valuable to help you understand yourself, to make sure you're working in a spot that's going to be the most joy, number one. But then number two, it's going to make sure that you are with your teams getting them in the right seats as well. So anyway, I love this assessment. Go check it out at workinggenius.com and enter the promo code SECRETS for 20% discount. Take this test for yourself and for your team, and I promise you it will change the working dynamics amongst everybody and help your company to grow.

So the few of us that were left, we went and we packing up stuff. We put up ads on Craigslist. Like we got tons of computers and crap coming by and things we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for. We were selling for hundreds of dollars. And just to get out of it, we made, I don't know, maybe five or six grand of all of our crap getting rid of. We had huge dumpsters just throwing away everything we'd ever created because we had a downsize and trying to figure out how do we get into a smaller building and how do we keep the people we have to have to be able to fulfill on coaching but we have to we have to just cut everything else that we have and so um uh we were downsizing everything going out and the night we were moving like that friday we're supposed to be out of midnight or whatever you know whatever it was i was sitting in the office and the desks

were gone everything was gone All I had left was my laptop. And I was sitting there. I remember I had my socks on. I had some Levi's and I had no money. And I was like, I have to make some money or else we can't even like move into it. I don't know how to do anything. And so, uh, I sent an email to my list. I had the time, had a bunch of people registered for webinar. And I was sitting there in a chair with my laptop on my, on my lap, doing a webinar, praying that something would happen. And that webinar saved us. Like that webinar we did made $150,000 in sales over the next three or four days from that webinar, which gave me the money I needed to pay everyone to like not leave, get in the office, move, get us moved in and get us like

to stability so we could actually breathe for a few minutes and figure out, okay, what's the next step? Like, what do we want to be when we grow up? And so we downsized from 20,000 square feet to like 2000 square feet. And, uh, and we had this really cool moment where it was like, what do we, what do we want to do when we grow up? Like, what do we want to be? Um, and as painful as that process was, like it was one of the coolest things ever because we didn't have to keep going on this path. We could, we could pick anything, and this is where I started thinking, like, who's our dream customer, like, who do we really want to serve, like, what fires us up, what gets us excited, and we started thinking through that, and, and during this process, like, we started just creating again, and started having some fun, we're like, well, what should we do, I had a friend at the time who,

he had this little website, I was making him, like, two or three thousand dollars a month, and he got in some trouble, and, and I had a couple things, making a little bit of money at the time who he had this little website was making him like two or three thousand dollars a month and he got in some trouble and uh and i had a couple things making a little bit of money at the time and and he's like i need to get rid of the site can you can you pay me some money so i gave him twenty thousand dollars he gave me this little website it's a little machine that you zap and get sort of cold sores and autopilot was making two or three thousand dollars a month i was like oh this is so cool so we had this little thing i'm like that little business just kind of runs like what if we had another one so we started creating another one so we did one in the couponing market we set it up we got a one? So we started creating another one. So we did one in the couponing market. We set it up.

We got a guru in there. We started running. And that started making money. And they're like, okay, what if another one? We did one in the weight loss and another. And in a year period of time, we launched 12 different companies. Each were making different amounts of money. And during that time, we launched NeuroCell, our supplement companies.

All these things were happening. And it was starting to get exciting again. Like, we were creating. We were doing. We were, like, doing the business instead of teaching the business again, which was, like, so much fun for us to do. And to learn and see like why does this stuff work in this market but not this market? One of the things that drive me crazy about teachers in my industry is that they come in and act like the marketing techniques that work in one space work everywhere.

And I learned during that two or three year period of time that's not true. Like everything's different. There's intricacies that are different in couponing versus business versus weight loss versus diet versus supplements. Like there's differences. And, and I came to respect that because we had a chance to do it in so many different businesses and so many different, different things. And we spent the next two or three years creating stuff. And during that process, um, one of the really cool things is, uh, I used to go to flip a.com all the time and try to find like cool websites we could buy and like turn to businesses. And there's a website called champion sound.com that was for sale.

And it was this little email text message autoresponder for bands. And I was like, I'm going to buy that, and then we're going to take it and niche it for every market. We'll make email autoresponders and text message autoresponders for dentists and for chiropractors. I was so excited. It was $20,000. We didn't have that much money, but I was like,

this is the future of our company. We have to do it. So we ended up buying this, this website from these guys. I'll flip it. We get the website and then try and transfer it over to our servers after we paid them the $20,000. And, um, as they're trying to transfer it, they're like, well, you can't have, this is the nerd talk. You can't have a Linux server. You need a Ruby server. I'm like, what does that mean? And they're like, it means that this is not coded in PHP. It's coded in Ruby on rails. You have to have a different kind of server. I'm like, what does that mean? And they're like, it means that this is not coded in PHP. It's coded in Ruby on Rails. You have to have a different kind of server. I'm like, what does that mean?

It means you have to go over here and pay like 800 bucks a month for a new server. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, I don't have 800 bucks a month for a server, but we just bought this thing. So we did and they installed it and it didn't really work. I'm like, I don't know what to do. None of my tech guys had ever used Ruby on Rails. And so like, I went to Odesk to hire some guys and they couldn't fix it. And I tried like five or six guys and finally I was like, wasted 20 grand. I was like so upset and

so frustrated because like, I didn't have that money. And, um, and on the way out of the office one day, I was like, I wonder, what if anybody on my list knows Ruby on Rails? Like shot in the dark. I have no idea. So I sent an email out to my little list at the time. I was like, uh, subject on, I was like Ruby on Rails on Rails, looking for a partner. If you know Ruby on Rails, I'm looking for a partner. And I said, basically, the story I just told you guys, bought this thing, can't make it work. If you know Ruby on Rails, become my partner,

we'll make a bunch of money with this thing together. Sent the email out. About an hour later, I get an email from this guy in Georgia named Todd Dickerson. And Todd's like, hey man, I know Ruby. I'm like, you do? And then I looked at his picture. I was like, you don't look like a nerd. I don't think you do. And then I went to like Facebook and I have Facebook friends. It was actually six years ago last week or something. A Facebook friend, I'm like, he's got a beautiful wife. He's got a daughter. I'm like, I don't think he's a coder. Like, I don't know if I believe that. He's that he's like yeah man shoot me the log and i'll fix

it i was like whatever i had like eight guys try to fix it for the last like four or five months nobody can do it i'm like whatever here's the login so he logs it in and then like an hour later he's like okay done it's fixed i was like what you think i got it fixed i just did blah blah blah and it worked i'm like dude how did you do that he's like i just love ruby on rails i'm amazing he didn't say that but he's super humble. But I was like, dude, this guy's amazing. And I was like, okay, well, I have these other things. And so Todd came and we started working on this other project. We ended up, we had a different auto webinar. Todd built out this software behind the scenes, which was like ClickFunnels version 00, like pre-everything. And he built this webinar,

auto webinar software, because Mike Filsaime had been talking about auto webinars. Rich Sheffrin had put a webinar report out. A couple of guys had been talking about auto webinars and nobody had done one. Like nobody was really doing them. So Todd custom built this whole platform so we could do them. We launched an auto webinar through that. And in that, in that auto webinar, we made a million dollars in 90 days. And the first thing I did from that on 90, yeah. First thing I did from that million dollars, I took the money, and we paid off the IRS, and I was like, I'm free, oh, I'm free, I'm not going to jail, IRS is paid off, all the fines are paid off, and that auto webinar funnel literally saved me, literally gave me freedom, like, up to that point,

every night, when I went to bed at night, I was just like, they could come knock on my door. Like, I have not paid payroll taxes in that long. And that webinar freed us. And we kept doing thing after thing. And what was fun is with Todd and Dylan used to design half of these things. It says, like, contract. He designed these pages. Then Todd would take them and code them up, make these funnels. He did funnel after funnel after funnel. We probably had 15 different companies.

But then those companies, two or three funnels. Probably like 40 funnels we built over over after thing, after thing, after thing, after thing. And the last funnel we actually built the old school way was the, the neurocell funnel. And that's one of the ones that blew up really, really big and start making tons of sales. We're having a bunch of fun with it. And about that time is when Todd was like, Hey, we should really create something. So I don't have to keep making websites for you every single day. And, uh, and that was where the idea came for ClickFunnels. And so we started that project in front of Whiteboard, like we talked about yesterday.

We mapped out this whole thing and Todd went to work to build ClickFunnels. Then we partnered with Dylan to build the editor and the UI. And then fast forward seven or eight months later, we came and we were like, this thing is going to change the world. And I was so excited. I was like, we're going to do a free trial. And I think the very first month, our goal was to get 10,000 members the first month. I'm like, oh, like this is gonna be the greatest thing in the world. So put out there, create the first funnel, had all this stuff in there. It was a free trial. We had a bunch of people all lined up to promote it. We launched it. It was like crickets. People came and they left. I was like, dude, do you guys not understand what

I'm giving you? Like, like I made that page you're looking at, like, it's really good, right? Like, and like they, nobody got it. And I was like, why didn't they get it? I'm like, there's something wrong with my messaging. So we changed the funnel again and then we launched it again. Like, like few of you guys signed up, but that was it. Like most of like hit it and they left. I'm like, God, I tried again. We tried again. We rebuilt that funnel not once or twice or three times or four times or five times. Six times it took us before the ClickFunnels funnel worked. And the sixth time was because one of my friends, Mike Filson, invited me out to his event and he's like, hey, Russell, I want you to come and sell ClickFunnels. I think it's awesome. I said, dude, Mike, nobody's buying ClickFunnels.

Like we got to figure out our next deal or figure out something because it's not working. He's like, no, dude, my people need it. You need to come speak on it, but you got to sell it for a thousand dollars. I'm like, it's a free trial. Nobody even wants it. All right. And so Mike's event was happening that weekend. And I was literally sitting in my office watching a streaming, the event streaming. As I was sitting there, I started writing my webinar. And, um, and I had my slides open. I was following the perfect webinar script that I had been working on for like 10 years. I started filling in the blanks, started making this webinar like true to the perfect webinar script.

I literally was like watching it, adding the things in while I'm watching Mike's event happen. That day I finished the slides. Next morning I jumped in a plane. I flew there. We got to California. I think it was California where the event was at. I got there, put the slides up on the thing. I'm like, okay, so here we go.

I started it, and the title slide was my weirdness funnel. It's currently making $17,947 per day, talking about the neurocell funnel and how you can definitely knock it off in less than 10 minutes. Showed the first slide, started going through. And when we got to the end, we got to the stack and the close, we did it. And 30% of the room jumped up and ran to the back, jumping over the tables, fighting to get back there. I was like, we did it.

That was the message. That was the key. Now I know how to sell ClickFunnels. We took that message, went back, and as a lot of you guys know, especially in the Circle members, starting webinars every single day, sometimes two a day. One time I did three in a day, which was really hard, over and over and over again. I did that webinar live over 70 times over the next year and a half. We went from being a startup with no members to year after the end of last year,

we had over 10,000 members. After this year, we have over 30,000 members. It's continued to grow and grow and grow. It was that one funnel that changed everything for me. so this process for all of us you guys is is an up and a down like it's it's always happening and all of you guys are somewhere in this wave right now right some of you guys are at the top riding it some of you guys are at the bottom in a crash and you guys are somewhere in between and always going up and down but if nothing else of this event like i wanted you guys are at the bottom in a crash. Some of you guys are somewhere in between, and always going up and down. But if nothing else, this event, I wanted you guys to all understand that no matter where you are, there's hope. It might not be this funnel. I can't tell you how

many funnels flopped. I guarantee I have failed at more funnels than anybody else in this room, because we tried over and over and over and over again. Because of that, we found out what worked. And the only way to do that is to do it over and over and over again. And it's a lot easier now. I promise you, it's so much easier than what we used to do when poor Todd and Dylan had to custom code every single thing, every single time. Like now you guys can test things really, really fast. First time I met Trey, first call, I said, Russell, I'm going to launch a funnel a week, every single week. And I watched the CD launch a funnel and another funnel, another funnel, another funnel. And he had some marginal success, little success, more success, more success, more success. I saw him launch a funnel last year, one funnel, boom.

And within 90 days became the biggest selling funnel in the history of the world. I was talking to some of the guys that affiliate some of this. They said, there's never been a funnel that's made more money in a shorter period of time than one of Trey's funnels. I'm not privy to share all his numbers and his stats, but it was insane. And it came from him doing a funnel a day or funnel week, funnel week till he hits the one that just explodes. And you don't know what that's going to be. It's important. That's why this tool is so important, because you can do that.

You can test. You can try over and over and over again.