Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - Offer Lab: Why Collaboration Beats Competition in Online Business | #Sales - Ep. 67

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

In this second ‘episode’ of the Offer Lab pre-launch series, I’m opening up about the real reason we created this platform. A year ago, I was burned out, frustrated, and honestly ready to walk away from serving this community. Competition had replaced collaboration, costs were skyrocketing, and entrepreneurship had started to feel lonely again. But in that dark season, a new vision was born… And that vision became Offer Lab. This episode is deeply personal. I share the story of where the idea came from, why it matters for every entrepreneur, and how it solves the very problems that have been holding so many of us back. You’ll hear how we went from asking “what features can we add” to asking “how do we bring everyone back together?” The answers changed everything. Key Highlights: The moment I realized the old model of online business was broken and unsustainable. How skyrocketing ad costs have crushed margins and left entrepreneurs feeling stuck. Why I believe entrepreneurship has become lonely again… And how we can fix it. The behind-the-scenes conversation with Todd Dickerson that sparked the idea for Offer Lab. How Stripe helped us make the impossible possible: instant payouts across collaborative funnels. Why Offer Lab is designed to unify all entrepreneurs, no matter what tools or platforms they use. If you’ve ever felt isolated, squeezed by ad costs, or frustrated by endless competition, this episode will give you hope. Offer Lab isn’t just about making money online. It’s about bringing back the community, collaboration, and movement that made this fun in the first place. Join me as I share why I believe this is the next big chapter for all of us… And how it can change the way you do business forever. Go to OfferLabLaunch.com to register, get your free account, and be part of this new movement with me!! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sellingonline.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clickfunnels.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Td Bank knows that running a small business is a journey, from startup to growing and managing your business. That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. This is the Russell Brunson show. What's up, everyone? Welcome back. Last episode I shared with you guys the first pre-launch video from a new platform we are launching called OfferLab.

I've had people say, this is going to be bigger than ClickFunnels. I have people say all sorts of crazy stuff. Video number two in the pre-launch was kind of a demo. So I can't really show you that one because you're listening and it would just be weird. Video number three is one that's kind of special. I actually we had a whole video script that I was going to do and if I got to go actually start filming it I realized that like it was the wrong message and so I told the guys I'm like just just roll the cameras we'll see what happens and I sat there and I talked for 30 minutes or so

and but I was done like I was in tears the guys in the room with me were in tears and it was really powerful and so I want you to hear this this message again hopefully we have a chance to watch this as well it's visually beautiful too you see like actual footage from when we had the idea and all sorts of stuff. So anyway, but regardless, when you listen to this, I think it'll give you guys a glimpse behind the scene to where my brain is, what's happening, why it's important. Um, when I'm trying to do with the industry, um, what makes me sad about today and what makes me happy about the future and the direction we're going. So, I hope you enjoy it. Afterwards, make sure you go to OfferLablaunch.com to go register.

We do that. A register for the event coming up this week. And then also it'll, um, it'll, um, it'll give you a free OfferLab account and a whole bunch of other really cool things. So go to OfferLablaunch.com. Anyway, again, this is kind of kind of a more personal episode. I think you like it. Hopefully you'll like. Hopefully you'll feel something and I can't wait to continue to serve you guys.

Thanks so much for everything. And here we go. Offer Lab Launch video number three. Good morning. I couldn't fall asleep last night, so. Same. Same? Same?

Yeah. Let's just meet with me. She hung out. Try to be quiet. I tried trying to TV on and I tried to watch friends at office and more friends. It's like, what's wrong with my brain? We flew to Atlanta to hang out with Todd. We have like a whole bunch of really big decisions to make almost three years ago last time

I was here with Dave. We spent a week of Todd's Lakehouse and we made a big decision to build quick almost 2.0. This is like, I feel like a little of those trips. What's the plan? Where are we going? What's the future? Because there's so many different directions we can go. Do we double down?

Do we not? Do we change the model? I feel like really important decisions we made. What's up, guys? Welcome to video number three. Typically in a product launch like this, all the videos are scripted out, trying to do very certain, very important things. And we had a script for this video, and now that we're here, the script didn't feel right.

And so I just wanted to talk to you guys about, honestly, why? Why did we create OfferLab? Why is this here? Why is this actually important? And I want to tell you guys a story that's probably a little vulnerable, probably. stuff I don't typically I talk about externally, but we'll help you guys understand why I'm so passionate about this and why we're putting so much time and energy and effort into OfferLab. The idea originally for OfferLab started about a year ago.

I'd flown out to Atlanta where my business partner Todd Dickerson lives, and we were there trying to figure out what's next for ClickFunnels. Ten years ago, we launched the platform. And it's interesting, when you look back 10 years ago, most of you guys weren't there. You showed up at different times. Maybe you were brand new. Maybe you came three years ago. Maybe five years ago.

You came at different times, but like, it was different. Like, I go back in time, actually, to when I got started. Like, literally, I got started, if you know, my story back when I was in college. I just met my wife. I was trying to figure out how to support her, how to pay the bills. And I started learning how to sell stuff on the Internet. And it was the most exciting thing. I remember every day waking up, and it was just like, like I was treasure hunting.

I was going out there trying to figure out, what do I sell? How do I sell? And so what I did is instead of, you know, trying to have a product and trying to force it upon people, I went out there and I found out exactly what people were searching for. And if there were a lot of people searching for it, I would create a product. and sell it to them. That makes a lot of sense. I was learning about offers and about autoresponders and emails and how to drive traffic

and like it was, every day was like Christmas, right? I was learning and for me it was like probably the biggest phase of growth in my life up to that point and over time as I learned more and more got harder to find new things and harder to discover more and I got to a spot when I was probably 27, 28 years old I was just like stuck again. I was just like I was having success, I was making some money but like I didn't, I just felt stuck, right? I was not in momentum.

I didn't know what to do. And about that time is when the ClickFunnels story started, right? It's when I met Todd Dickerson and Dylan Jones. We started building this platform ClickFunnels. With ClickFunnels launching, then I wrote my book, Dotcom Secrets. Then we started teaching people and doing seminars and events. We started the funnel hacking live where I started sharing all these ideas with people where I saw it in their eyes and the first time they got it. And they lit up and it was just like so exciting.

And that was our business. And that was our business, that was my life, for the last decade, right? ClickFunnels was software that allowed people to move quicker. Software allowed people to have success. And then the training, the education was where we gave people the haws and gave them the ability to actually take these things they were learning and doing it. With the software, it created so many success stories.

I still remember the very first time we launched the Two Comic Club Award, the very first event, 79 people got it. And the next event, it was like 230, and then 500. And like, we started seeing people have success. And it was just, like, it was the greatest. We built this community. We all had a name. We called us those funnel hackers.

Like, we were a movement. We were people. You saw people all around the world becoming this thing. I get people messaging me, sending me pictures from everywhere in the world. Like, I was in Bali, and I saw someone driving on a motorcycle with a funnel hacker shirt. I was over here working out in a gym in some other place. And people I knew were all sending me pictures. And, like, we created this global movement of people.

And it was the most exciting thing in the world. And then, over the last couple years, it shifted, right? You know, for a long time, we were the only. We're only ones doing this. We were teaching, we're educating. But over time, more people started learning and more people started teaching, which was a great fan. I was like, this is so fun.

It's not just me talking about. There's tons of other people talking about funnels. Everyone's bringing their own ideas, and all innovations, and things are getting more and more exciting. My favorite things that Funnel Hacking Live is to find people, and we bring them to speak. Someone who came into our world, they would read a book, they learn a principle, then they would take it,

and they would take that one little piece, and they would go super deep. And they build a whole coaching program and a movement around their version of my stuff, or a version of what they were doing, it was like it was the best it made me so happy but then over time again with the success we were having people saw that and they started copying us they started you know software started popping up there's very similar ours people started competing against us and which is fine that's what happens

in any market right I love competition I love those kind of things but it went from like us and maybe three or four people who were doing this and talking about this to eventually as you guys know one of our competitors sold the white label and instantly overnight we went from having four or five competitors to 100, and then 500, and then 1,000, and then 2,000, and then 3,000. And suddenly there were so many people all with similar platforms to what we have. And for me, what was hard was not so much to that. Like, I love the competition. What's hardest for me is that so many people who we had trained,

people who came on stage who got a two Coma Cup award with tears in their eyes, telling me how to change their life with the same ones who, you know, six months later were on their ads wholly a two Comal Cup award pitching their white-label version of ClickFunnels. And I broke my heart at the spot where, I honestly, I was like, I don't even want to, like, I don't want to serve this audience anymore because when I do, they come in and then they take some information and then they leave. And it was really frustrating.

So when I go to a year ago, I fly out to Atlanta and spend time with Todd and with our team and figure, like, what's next for clip funnels? I was in a pretty dark spot where I didn't know, I don't know what it is. And while we're sitting there, that was the conversation. It's just like, what do we do we add more features? Do we try to do this? Like, what's the biggest thing? And it's like, right now it's an arm's race for everyone's trying to add more features and lower cost.

And it was just like, this isn't the right answer. This is what everyone's trying to do. It's just trying to make a better mousetrap. So what we teach in all of our marketing? They don't make a better mousetrap. Like, what is the new opportunity? What's something that's going to change the marketplace once again? What's something where the funnel hackers will rise up again and say, look, I want to be part of this, this movement, this thing.

And so a year ago, for Sydney, Atlanta talking, the whole conversations began with like how to make click funnels better, faster, stronger, more features, more, da-da-da. And like, and then one late night, there was we're saying. sitting there like what if we're looking at this wrong right right now we're all competing against each other everyone's fighting it's just like this chaos like the marketplace that we had built up that everyone was together working together had literally become segmented where now everybody's competing against each other very similar offers very similar software very similar everything and it's just like this is getting worse this isn't fun anymore right and it made me um honestly

made me kind of shell up a lot of people messaged me like Russell I haven't heard from me while like what's happening I don't like are you still with click funnels you still part like what's what's even happening and that night in Atlanta as Todd and I were talking and brainstorming we had an idea and at first it started like this could be a really cool feature inside of click funnels but as we kept talking about developing if it's inside of click funnels it's just a feature and everyone else will clone it and then it's just it's just another thing I was like if we want to create something special it's got to be something that doesn't further divide everybody what's something we could create that would bring everyone back together that was the thought and then we sat down and we started the mapping out

what would that look like what if we had this what if we had a centralized spot that everybody in the marketplace, everyone who had ever bought Funnel Hacker in the past could all come back and come back into this marketplace and we could all put our offers. I don't care if you sell on Go High Level or on Shopify or on Patreon or wherever you're selling yourself. It doesn't even matter, right?

But everybody could come together and everyone plugs their offers in and it wasn't something that's divisive where now we're trying to pull people from our software to yours or whatever. Everyone still uses whatever platform they want. It doesn't even matter to me anymore. I was like, what if we did that?

We put together a spot and instead of having it, we're all competing against each other where we can all start working together. I don't know about your business, but my business has changed in the last 12 months, two years, three years. Like when we launched ClickFunns initially, it's back when Mark Zuckerberg was a good guy, right? When he was fun to work with. Like you put up, you spend $100 in ads and you make $500.

And it's like, this is insane. And everyone's having success, right? It was so fun. It was so easy. But, you know, as tech do, they start understanding their value. They start increasing things. They start putting tracking pixels so they can help you find a better audiences, but also to know exactly what you're spending, exactly what you're making.

And from that, they can reverse engineer and, figure out how to charge you just enough, you got enough money to keep on going, but nothing more, right? And for me, and for most of the people, I know our margin shrunk, and they shrunk, and they shrunk. And because we're in these different silos, everyone's all over the place. Like, we're all suffering together, right? But no one's talking about it, right? You can admit it. I'm admitting it. It's hard. Our margins went from 50% to 40% to 30% to 20% to 10% to now we're negative up front. Like our 10,000 are offers now to front end just to cover the ad cost and we create something new just to make money. Like, it's insane.

Because Marks, because Facebook, because Google, like, all the ad costs have gone up so high. And so what normally happens? For a lot of you guys, a lot of my friends, a lot of people I love and care about, their businesses have completely collapsed, right? They're no longer successful anymore, right? They have their audience and they're doing little things. They had to fire their employees, their teams, their staff, everything shrunk, right? Because the ad costs have gotten so high. But because we're all in the silos, we're all competing against each other.

No one talks about it. And what happens now, right? The whole mission we started 10 years ago, right? It was to free entrepreneurs so they could change. lives and the customers they've been called to serve. Now, entrepreneurs are in bondage again. They can't get free, right? They're tied to ad cost.

Technical stuff we've figured out, but the ads, they're stuck, right? They're alone. We always say entrepreneurship is the loneliest job in the world, right? When we built the funnel hacker, ClickFunnels movement, right? We changed, we brought everybody together into a spot and no longer was lonely, right? People were doing hackathons all over the country, all over the world.

These things were happening, people were talking about. It was like the most exciting time ever. It was no longer weird to be an entrepreneur, it was no longer solo. like you had the chance to be around other people who think like you who believe like you would dream like you now it's different because i'm like i can't talk to them because they're competing we have the same thing like their offers mine like my customer everyone's like hoarding their customers it's like why are we doing that and it's lonely again i felt lonely so thai and i are sitting there a

year ago it's like how do we create something that would actually bring people together we create a platform that everybody could bring their offers into and that way we can still sell stuff on our own right you can still sell in whatever i can sell in click funnels you can sell it whatever you want to sell and right but at the same time we can take those offers plug them in in one spot where now we can start working together and so we started thinking about okay that's the concept that has work technically is it possible is it not and we start working on the tech and the development and at first it was not possible the concepts are there but like we can't the technical limitations it's impossible to actually execute what we're trying to do because the question is

like how do we create a funnel where um i put my product in front in i take someone else's product is upsell one someone else's product upsell two where it could all be in one streamline funnel and the money gets split instantly so that you're not waiting for people to pay you and all the the other chaos that comes with traditional affiliate marketing, we're trying to figure out how to do that. Eventually we had a chance to actually message our reps at Stripe. And we've been lucky because we've got such a good relationship with Stripe. The ClickFundle's platform has processed over $12 billion in Stripe sales. As we call them or say, this is what we're trying to do. And I know it's not possible. Like, I know it's not possible. Is there some way to make this

work? And we went back and forth and back and forth with them. And luckily, they put tons of time and energy and money into creating the platform so we could do this. So because we're the only ones that can do this, right? Well, the only ones that actually have the technical capabilities to do this today. That's what's so powerful, why it's so important. So what that means for you is that you can come and you don't have to always rely

in all these other things. You can leave your silo and come back together as a community once again. We can work with each other. We can serve each other. We can all grow together. That's the story behind Offer Lad. That's why we create it.

That's why we're so excited. And so the reason why I didn't want to give you guys the video script we had written before is I want you understand the reason. Okay? A year ago, I was done. I was tired. I was tired of the industry.

I was tired of the separation. I spent the last year's gathering a community where we were all happy together. We're all building together. And I felt like that community slips through my fingers, everything falling apart. And I looked at it, I realized it was my fault. Right?

I was one that to be the most divisive. I was saying, you have to go my way or no way. And because of that, people chose different directions. And some people stuck over here, and some people left, and it became the worst thing. I remember seeing a post one day. It literally made me cry. Someone said, I'm still a funnel hacker just using a different tool. And I was, like, so broken.

Like, like, but the reality is if I looked at it correctly, it's like, no, it doesn't matter what tool they're using. Like, we are a community. How do I create something where we can all work together? And from that is where OfferLab came. And so if you are a funnel hacker and using any tool, it doesn't matter. Now we can all do it here in one spot. we can plug in together and we can start working together right instead of giving most of our profits to mark Zuckerberg we can give our profits to our friends how much better way is that it's a

better way to live it's a better way to have business more fun um it's something that's more sustainable as we were putting together offer lab like i somebody has showed me a picture of the two comic club award and they were very proud they'd won one through click funnels they were so proud and i remember in there in the comments some people were talking bad about it and i was like Why are they talking bad about it? I realized it's because they were building on a different platform. They didn't have the opportunity to win one of these awards, right? Because they couldn't.

So instead of like celebrating this person, celebrating a friend that they have who actually won one, they're talking trash because they don't have the ability to win one because they're using a different platform. I was like, man, if we shifted this, like how do we shift this around? I wanted to create this award now. If anybody's publishing on Offer Lab, you can win it to Cobbock Awards. You can be selling on any platform. It doesn't matter as long as you're going through Offer Lab or you're doing it through collaboration.

You can also win it to Comic Club, you can also be part of this movement. Okay, the funnel hacker, the identity, the community is encompassing everybody who's using whatever platform, it doesn't matter. And offer that's how we actually work together. And that's why I'm so excited. What we've created is really unique, it's very special. And if you adopt it and play with it, it's going to change the way you do business. It's not only I believe going to make you more money.

It's not only going to make it so that you're going to spend as much money on traffic, but you're going to make some of the greatest relationships in the world, some of the greatest partnerships. Like when you look at that, it just changes the lands. literally overnight. It goes from all of us being silos, all of us being together once, once again. And so this video is for all of you guys. As entrepreneurs, as funnel hackers, as creators, as people who are trying to change the world, I want to do it together. I don't want to be my own silo. It's not worth it. It's boring out there, right? We can all make money

independently, but so much more money, so much more fun to make money together. And we could all do it here on this platform. So what does that mean for you guys? Number one, obviously get your offer live account. Number two, bring your offers over. And number three, I'm doing a live training. It's probably going to be happening after this video, depending on you're watching this. But jump on that training because in there, we're going to give you guys the next steps. Here's how to take these concepts, this platform, and how to change everything. How to use it as a tool and an asset to dramatically grow your company. How to get more people actually selling your products on the platform, but also how to make it so you're getting more traffic into

your offers and your products, right? How to find partnerships and collaboration. and how to dramatically increase your businesses together. I hope you guys have enjoyed this series up to this point. The next step, obviously get your Off-Lab account, get on the live training. We're going to take you guys through the next step. And then after that, then it's all about going in there and having fun, okay?

This is similar. I look at this, like, I have friends that are stock traders and I see them, they walk into their office and they've got a wall with like 20 different monitors and they're trading stuff and they're moving things back and forth. It's like the most exciting thing in the world, right? Like, that's what the Off-Lag back panel is.

You log in there, you see all the different offers. People are messaging you to promote your contact in And like this whole communication back and forth and back and forth, and you guys can create their most amazing partnerships, right? And you can launch these things very, very quickly. I can see you like finding influencers and helping them build a funnel and they launch it on their thing in, in, you know, 20, 30 minutes now

and money coming in for you and for them, like, there's so many opportunities in so many ways. I just picture all of us logging every morning to an OffLab account, looking at stats, looking at numbers, going to the inbox, checking things out, and then making money, making deals, finding partnerships and finding friends. That's what OffLab's all about.

Thank you guys for being part of the series. I will see you guys on the live trade. And even more importantly, I'll see you inside of the actual platform. I hope you message me. I hope that you promote one of my offers. Hopefully I'll have a chance to put one of your offers inside of my funnels. We can all win and make money together. Thank you so much for me.

We call Dickerson's entire Off-Lop team. We're grateful for you and we cannot wait to be working together with you once again. Thank you.