Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - (Q&A) What's Your Biggest Advice For A Senior In High School?

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

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What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, I'm pumped to get a question from Zach Field. As you guys know, recently, we added a little section to the Marketing Secrets homepage at marketingsecrets.com where you can go and ask me a question. And I'm trying to answer them here live on the podcast. So Zach is a high school senior who's wondering what would be my advice for someone his age who's trying to get into this marketing world. So first off, I'm going to queue up Zach's question and we come back. I will jump in and we'll have some fun. Hey, Russell. My name is Zach. I'm a senior in high school and my question is just kind of like,

kind of cliche, but like what's your biggest advice for someone my age looking to pursue a career in marketing and like what the next step should be? Because right now in school, you know, we're talking a lot about like applications for college and, you know, like finding your career path and what you want to do. And I really want to do marketing. Like I think it's just such a cool career, but I want to know if you were in my shoes, like what your next steps would be. Thank you so much. Okay. So first off, Zach, dude, you are so lucky to be in high school and knowing what you already know and having some of this stuff.

Like it took me, man, it took me years to discover the things that I, for you, I've tried to give you on a silver platter. So I'm pumped for you because you're starting so far ahead of everyone else. When I got started was, I was probably 22, 23 years old and everyone's like, man, you're the young guy. Like you started so early. I wish I was you. And you're looking, you're starting even earlier, which is so cool. So I would say

the biggest thing is inside of this world of marketing and sales and funnels and everything. There's so many, there's so many sub things, right? Everyone says they want to get into marketing, but what does that mean? So my first question for you, Dick, what is the thing that you're most passionate about? Right? Because there's, there's so much, like even from the very beginning, it's cutting the analytical versus the left brain versus right brain. Some people are into the art of this game. Some people are into the math of this game.

A good example, John Parks on my team, he likes math. He likes Excel sheets. He likes that kind of stuff. He thrives on buying ads and doing all this stuff over there. Where I'm more like spreadsheets are the worst thing in the world. They stress me out. I don't want to see them. I don't want to talk about them. Um, and for me it's like the art, like the copy and the words and the vision and the, the, you know, that kind of stuff. So the first question is you right brain left brain, which side? And then from there now it's like, okay, now inside of that, what things get you

most excited, right? Um, is it, is it, is it ads? Cause on ads you got both sides, you have the creative and you got the analytical side, right? Same thing with email. You got the words and you also got the open rates and deliveries and stuff like that. There's sales funnels and side of funnels, there's design, there's copy, but there's also the connection and the, the getting things working, the analytics and that. So, so it's kind of going, you know, first level is right brain, left brain. Then like what gets you excited and keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and find one thing, like the thing that's the most exciting to you

and then go and like master it. Right. And it could be as simple as like, I like books. I like book funnels, or maybe I like webinars or I like high ticket funnels, or I like driving Facebook ads or I like Tik TOK ads, or I like, I don't like, I don't like Facebook ads, but I do like the, the, the numbers now or retargeting campaigns, or I like email sequences or whatever day, but it's picking one thing. Right. And then like going deep on that one thing. And initially it's then providing that as a service. Right. So I have a good friend, Dave Miz, who, when I first met Dave, he was really good designer and then other things. And somewhere in, you know, in his career of last 20 years, he decided like the thing he, he loved the most was email and his email analytics and delivery and split testing and stuff like that.

And so first it was just him doing it. He got really good at it for himself, right? And he made money doing it himself. And then he started bringing on some clients and some other people. And he did some work for me in the day. And he only specializes in email campaigns for e-commerce businesses, right? So it's all those levels deep. He got really good at it himself.

And then he started doing it for a couple other people. And I tried to hire, like, I literally last month, I was like, hey, Dave, can I just hire you full-time to work for me? And he messaged back. He's like, man, if you would have offered me that 10 years ago, it'd be amazing. He's like, but I have a big company now

with 40 employees who are all writing email campaigns for thousands of e-com brands. I was like, holy crap. He took the one little thing. He became a master at of himself, right? Did it for himself, did it for other people, did it for more people, more people, eventually started training people,

and then it became this huge business now, right? So Zach, for you, I'd do the same thing. It's like, it's really figuring out, like, in this whole ecosystem, like, I imagine, like, this huge, it's an ecosystem, right? Like, and inside the ecosystem, there's a whole bunch of things.

There's traffic conversions, copy funnels, like, all this stuff. I figure out where in the ecosystem are you most excited, and then going in there and figure out, like, what's the ecosystem, there's a whole bunch of things. There's traffic conversions, copy funnels, like all this stuff. I figure out where in the ecosystem are you most excited and then going in there and figure out like, what's the niche or the thing that you, that you want to own? They want to be most passionate about. And, uh, and then like starting there and trying to become the best in the world with that one thing. Right.

I mean, who knew that, that, um, email sequences for e-commerce people was going to be that huge thing, right? But he's built a huge company out of that right um and i can tell you a thousand people people have specialized in tiktok people specializes in challenges people specialize in email sequences i had somebody the other day i met who um who they specialize in taking the perfect webinar format but doing it in email sequences for uh uh coaches who are doing challenges. Like that's how small the niche is.

But how many authors and speakers are doing challenges right now that have horrible email campaigns that you could go and you could plug the thing into? Like tons, right? Thousands of them. And so it's coming back to that, like trying to figure those things out. Because the world is so big. And if you try to become an expert at all the things, you're never going to do it, right? I think that was one of the big mistakes I made when I was in my 20s was I started learning all this stuff. I loved it all. And I tried to become the guy who did all the things, you're never going to do it. Right. Um, I think that was one of the big mistakes I made when I was in my twenties was I started learning all this stuff. I loved it all. And I tried to become the guy who did all the things. And I still remember going to an event,

uh, one time and at the event, there's all the marketing people there, you know, and like, I remember Jeff Walker was the product launch guy and Brad Fallon was the SEO guy. And Brad Callen was also an SEO guy. And then there was someone that Perry Marshall is the PPC guy. And John Carlton was the copy guy and everyone there was like, everyone had their specialties, right? But I was like the young, cool kid who was like in my head, I'm like, Oh, I'm better than everyone. I know all these things. I can do all of them. And I remember somebody asking me out in the lobby during, you know, one of the breaks, like, well, what do you do? I'm like, Oh, I do it all. Like, well, what do you specialize? I'm like, well, I can do all the things. And he looks

at me. He's like, well, that's Jeff Walker. He's good at product launches. I'm like, Oh, I can do product launches. He's like, well, there's John Carlton. He's a copywriter. I'm like, oh, I can do copy. And I was like, because I was skilled in all the things, I was trying to do all of them. And I ended up walking away from me and signing up for somebody else's program because somebody else was a specialist, right? People want specialists. I think our ego wants us to be generalists because like, oh, look, all the stuff I know,

the breadth and the width of my knowledge. Whereas like the reality is like people want specialists. So what can you specialize in? And for me, my company never got past, you know, a million, million and a half, $2 million a year for over a decade until I decided to specialize in funnels. And I was going to become the best in the world at funnels. And then when I did that, I planted my foot in the ground. I was like, that was going to be the thing I was going to do. It started to grow. And now you have to remember 10 years ago when I made that decision, funnels weren't a thing yet. You know, like people weren't calling, they weren't

even called funnels. They were called sales processes and pipelines and stuff like that. Like it was a, it was a new market. It was a new thing. And now you're like, Oh, Russell, so obvious it's, it's this huge market, but it wasn't then. Right. But I made it big. I made it big because I was so passionate because I cared so much about it because I wanted to go and write books on and do courses and start teaching on it. And so I became the best in the world at that piece. And so for you, Zach, man, I would recommend doing that. And if you go down the path and you find out in a year from now, like, I actually hate email or I actually hate Facebook ads or whatever, that's okay.

You can change it. But the first is like just learning it. And then initially, again, it's doing it for yourself. Number two, then it's starting to do it for service for other people, right? And then from there, you have different options, building an agency or turning into info products or coaching or core, you know, like there's different, there's different things you can do off of that. But the key is like, like taking your stake in the ground, going deep on it, becoming the best in the world, do it for yourself, do it for other people and then decide,

okay, I'm going to do this for other people as a coach consultant or as an agency and then, and keep running with it. And if you decide down the line, you don't like it, shift and change. There's nothing wrong with that as well. So hopefully that helps, man. I'm excited for you. I just can tell by the intelligence of your question that you're going to be successful with this.

It's just kind of finding out what gets you the most fired up. You can spend your day becoming the best in the world. If you do that, that's what's going to make it so you can really have tons of success and build whatever you want to in the long term. So hope that helps. I appreciate you. And for anyone else who's listening, I hope you got some value from that as well, especially for those who have been struggling.

You don't have to be a high school kid for that answer to apply. If you've been struggling at any part of this business, hopefully that'll help you guys to get there. So thanks so much, you guys, for listening. And if you have questions you want me to ask or to answer, go to marketingsecrets.com, post the answer in there, and hopefully I'll have a chance to answer your question live on one of these upcoming shows. Thanks so much, you guys, and we'll talk to you soon.

Bye, everybody.