Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - My Book Writing/Creation Process

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

I'm officially working on the secrets trilogy... Let me show you behind the scenes of how I'm doing it. On this episode Russell breaks down his process as he begins working on his Traffic Secrets book. Here are some of the informative things you will hear in today's episode: See why it takes a few days of planning before Russell will actually begin to write the new book. Find out why Russell is re-writing parts of both his Dotcom Secrets, and Expert Secrets books. And find out how Russell is using Trello to arrange all three of his books to make sense. So listen here to hear Russell's awesome way of getting his framework all together before he actually begins writing. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/195-my-book-writing-creation-process 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. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I'm so excited to be with you here today. 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. All right, everybody. So first off, I hope everything's going amazing in your lives. And if you're struggling with anything, then I hope today I'll help cheer you up a little bit. I'm feeling really, really good right now. I just dropped my kids off at school and they had me listening to crazy songs, which always helps. But right now, I am in lockdown, other than taking my kids to school, where I am

forcing myself to stay at home, locked in a room to write my book. And if any of you guys have ever written a book before, you know there's a ton of pain associated with writing a book. In fact, it is by far the hardest task I have ever done. And so I had to literally force myself and lock myself in a room. In fact, I'm going to walk you through what's been happening since Funnel Hacking Live. So Funnel Hacking Live happened. It was insane. Those of you guys who were there, you know, those who weren't there, you are going to be there next year because you don't want to miss out again.

And I did a whole pod, I shared a bunch of podcasts kind of going through the last, everything happened at Funnel Hacking Live. The ups, the downs, the amazingness, the, ah, it was such a, such a, such an amazing event. And some of you guys have asked, um, updates on Andy. Andy was, um, the guy that at Fun Hacking Live, Garrett kind of, uh, brought on stage and he ended up signing up for Two Common Quebecs and everyone was freaked out and nervous about him.

And it's fascinating. Um, in fact, he messaged me because I, in there I talked about, I said that he, uh, that he, um, had a, that his dad had a, had a multimillion dollar business and stuff like that. And he was probably gonna help him. And, and, uh, Andy messaged me. He's like, he's like, dude, I listened to your podcast. He's like, that's not true. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, he's like, my dad is not helping. He's like, this is me. I'm doing this myself. And he's like, he's like, I put together a t-shirt funnel. I got home and a t-shirt funnel made more than enough to cover the first month's payment. He's like this

month I'm working on my next project, which is going to make even more. And he's doing it by himself. And it's crazy what happens when you're put in a state where you've got to be resourceful. And he's figuring it out all by himself, which is super cool. I'm proud of him for doing that. I told him, I said, $2,500 a month, one, is not too shabby. It covered the cost of coaching. But my goal is not for you to make $2,500 a month. Or excuse me, $2,500 a month is to make $25 25 grand a month, then $250,000 a month, and then millions

a month, and to go from there. And he's like, that's what I'm talking about. I want to do that. So it's been fun watching him over the last 30 days since Fun Locking Live, watching him grow. And then after Fun Locking Live, and people ask me, it's like, why do you guys do Fun Locking Live at the very beginning of the year? And for me, it's like, first off, there's a ton of stress associated with it.

I want to get over with. It's like, if I can just get this over with the beginning of the year, that'd be awesome. But number two is like, it's also like, I feel like setting the tone for our entire community for the year. And so I love bringing people together and we, we get everybody moving and momentum happening at the very, very beginning of the year. So we do it very early in the year, but then after I was over, then usually I crashed for like a day, um, which is about all I, I was able to do. And I was too excited about the next project. And, um, I built a whole training on lead funnels for, um, a two column Xers. And then a bunch of other cool stuff was happening. And then for us, it was like, okay, now we had to plan our

direction for the rest of the year. And, um, and so, um, we flew out the entire marketing and a funnel building team and brought them here to Boise. We rented an Airbnb house and, um, and, uh, and we did a week long, uh, event, which was really, really cool getting us all focused and running in the right direction and getting, um, everybody kind of focused on the goals and the plans for this year. And so that happened last week. And my goal, some of you guys know, I've been running quite a few roles in my company. I am the CEO. I'm also, I have been the head marketer, plus the head content developer, plus, I don't

know, I'm doing like 25 people's jobs at once. And obviously I can't keep doing that. And so this was really like a literal passing of the reins. We brought Julie Stoyan in to be the VP of marketing and to run the marketing company, the internal agency, all that kind of stuff. And so this whole, that whole week was about me kind of casting the vision and then handing the reins to her and the team. And now they're running and it's really fun to see.

And then I said, basically after this event's over, I'm locking myself in a room for three months and I'm writing the traffic seekers book as well as updating the.com secrets and expert secrets. We're putting together like a hard bound trilogy. And, um, so I'm basically rewriting two books and, and writing the third book. And so yesterday was the first day. It's funny cause everyone's like, how much did you get written? I was like, well, no words, but I, I created the outline and I did a really cool way.

So I'm going to give you guys this as an idea. So I built the outline out in Trello where I basically had to call them for each book. So the dot com secrets, expert secrets and traffic secrets book. And then I made a card for each chapter. And so the first two books obviously already been written. And then the third book was new. So then I wrote out, but the problem, this is the problem is like there's a bunch of foundational stuff that people need to know in traffic secrets that they don't, that i didn't want to include in traffic secrets because it doesn't make sense

there were things that i wanted to include in dot-com secrets and expert secrets and so i went back to those outlines i put in trouble i was like okay i need to add a section on hook story offer in probably three chapters and hook story offer into the dot-com secrets books that's where this part needs to be and then i need to add this part into the expert secrets book i need to i need to be shifting these these like adding some things and moving some things around. And so I spent all day yesterday kind of rebuilding out the outlines of the three book, look, looking at them now, this time instead of just three, three separate books. But, um, well, you'll see when we launched this later on this year, but they're going to be a box set where

they all come together. So when they come together, it's like, now that we have them, this one thing I can like cross reference between the two and take somebody from here to there. And, and so I'm trying to with, you know, inside that context, like, Hey, now that I know I can add hook story offer to trap or to.com secrets, I can add this to expert secrets. And I don't have to talk about those in traffic secrets, but I can reference them. And now I have all these three books together. So it's been really fascinating because I've been, um, basically building, you know, building the frameworks, these three books together.

And so yesterday I did that all day and then I recorded it and sent videos to some people on my team and some friends just to get their feedback and ideas, which has been really cool as well. But now I feel like I have the framework done. And so this morning I woke up early and the preface for all three books

was basically me talking about how three books fit in together. And so what's been fun this morning. So I've been making a diagram of like, this is, this is what you learn in dot-com secrets and boom, there's a doodle. And then like, and then this is what expert secrets was. Then on top of the doodle, it's like, boom, the next phase of it, which is, you know, learning how to persuade and sell people things and, and build a tribe and things like that. And then the third book lays on top of that. Boom, here's how you fill these funnels, how you build the value ladder and you move people up and through it.

And so, oh, it was so much fun. So that's what I'm doing this morning is doodling out those things and putting them together into an actual framework. And so that's what I've been working on. It's been so much fun. And so I'm excited. I start my kids off and go back in

and lock myself down for the next like 10 hours. Oh crap, I have to lift weights. I have to lift weights in 15 minutes and then lock myself down for like the next 10 hours and keep working on the book. So, um, anyway, it's, it's exciting. And so, um, why did I tell you this? Partially because I just wanted to talk about it out loud. And, um, partially because, um, some of you guys always ask about the process, like, how do you do it, Russell? How does it work? And you know, for me, there's the process of the year, right? It's fun. Locking Live kicks off the community. And then it's like our marketing retreat, which kicks off the direction for the year

and internally inside the company. And then this is like me laying out the framework for the books, how they work together. And it's interesting, like I used to always write the table contents just in, you know, Microsoft Word or Google Docs. And it's tough because like I've been writing this book, I'm like page 300. I'm like, I don't like how this fits. I need to shift something around. I scroll up 300 pages, look at table contents, like scroll back down 300 pages and back. And it's like, it's really hard to change things. And I realized really quick that I'm complaining about how hard it is to edit things

in Google Docs, which is like the easiest thing in the world. Where some people back in the day, they wrote books on a typewriter, a typewriter. How do people do that? God, we are blessed today. And then pre typewriter people writing them by hand. And then they had to like, you know, go and like set the print, you know, letter by letter and then stamp them ink and stamp into a book. Like, anyway, we are so blessed. I don't know how people wrote books back in the, you know, early 1800s or 1500s or before Christ. How do people write books? I don't know. It's hard enough nowadays

when we've got all this amazing technology. But anyway, I digress. The reason why I'm sharing that is because this concept of outlining in Trello is amazing because I can move chapters around just by moving up, down, up, down. And then as you write a book or you create a course, there's always interdependencies, right?

That's always been a big pain in the other books is that I'd be explaining something. I'm like, oh crap, I haven't explained this yet. So I can't talk about this. I have to go back two chapters earlier and talk about this thing so that they understood it over here. And like, Oh, there's this whole chicken and the egg thing. That's really, it's a, it's a lot of work, but what's cool is in Trello, the way I'm doing this is I'm each card becomes a chapter in the book so I can have it from top to bottom so I can see the table contents in Trello. And if I'm like, Oh, I can move things around. I can just drag and drop, move things around and make sure that the logical sequencing of event makes perfect sense. Right. And then

inside each card, then I can like outline what's going to, what I'm talking about each chapter to outline those things. And then I'm able to see before I start writing all the interdependencies, like, Oh, I have to have this, I've talked about this or this makes no sense. I've talked about this or this makes no sense. And boom, boom, boom, back and forth, back and forth. And so that's kind of my goal, my process today. So yesterday I spent the entire day writing, just outlining the chapters of the three books. And again, it may seem like a simple task, but it took like the entire day. Today I'm going to be going in and outlining out what's going to be happening in each chapter

to make sure all the interdependencies work. And so the flow works. And then I got to, you know, in that outline, be like, okay, you know, in the card, in this chapter, like what are all the different stories? I mean, I got to tell this story. I got to tell this story. I got to make sure I explain this case study. I got this case study. And it's just kind of a big, um, anyway, it's going to be, it's going to be fun, but that's kind of the game plan. So, and then from there, then I will actually start writing. So Wednesday, tomorrow, I will actually start pen to paper typing words. Ah, so exciting. So that's my process.

That's how I'm doing it. And it's, um, it's working really good so far. So I hope to help some of you guys who are trading content or courses or whatever. So, all right, that's it. I'm gonna head in. I can get to work. I got, I got, I got words to write. I've got a mission to create.

I've got a book to, to, um, to, um, develop. I've got to change some of your guys' life. This book hopefully will be the thing for a lot of you guys who have been struggling with traffic. Be like, Oh my gosh, now it all fits together. Hopefully when you guys get the box set with the new.com secrets, new expert secrets, new traffic secrets, you look at these things as a whole and you're like, okay, now we can, now we can have some fun.

So, all right. That's all I got. Hope you guys are all doing amazing. Um, if you haven't created something yet today, go and create something. It's going to be the thing that changes somebody's life. But you got to go and start the process. So with that said, I'm going to go create.

Appreciate you all. And I'll talk to you 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 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.