Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - Secret Dan Kennedy Fax Reveals A Nugget Of Gold

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Russell Brunson shares a vital marketing lesson from Dan Kennedy about the difference between why customers join a business (acquisition) and why they stay (retention). Brunson recounts discovering this insight in a confidential fax from Kennedy while reviewing archives of Magnetic Marketing, a company he acquired. Kennedy’s fax highlighted that the factors driving initial customer entry are almost never the same as those that keep them engaged over time. For instance, many join Brunson’s Inner Circle to learn directly from him but stay because of the community and relationships they build. This led to the rebranding of his Inner Circle as "Inner Circle For Life," emphasizing long-term retention. This principle also applies to Funnel Hacking Live events. Attendees may initially be drawn by the promise of learning about the perfect funnel but return for the community and intangible benefits. While many industry events shrink over time, Funnel Hacking Live grows, demonstrating the power of a strong community. Brunson shares his experience at a Dan Kennedy seminar where he observed long-time followers of Kennedy. Despite Kennedy’s claim that he hadn’t introduced new concepts in decades, his followers remained loyal due to the relationships, stories, and community he fostered. Brunson contrasts this with his early supplement business, which was profitable but lacked retention, highlighting the importance of building lasting customer relationships. To address retention issues, he advises businesses to develop a culture and community that encourages long-term engagement. He references his book "Expert Secrets," which delves into building mass movements and fostering customer loyalty through identity and community. Brunson concludes by reiterating Kennedy’s wisdom: the reasons for entry and the reasons for staying are fundamentally different and not even close. Understanding and leveraging this distinction is crucial for long-term business success and customer retention. In summary, Brunson emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing the different factors that attract and retain customers. By focusing on building a strong community and fostering relationships, businesses can ensure long-term loyalty and success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, I want to share with you guys a little, it's like 20 words, maybe 30 words, inside of secret facts I got from Dan Kennedy. While he has only recently acquired his company, and so I've been going through the archives, and there's this fax he sent to the old owners. And I'm not allowed to share the whole thing because literally on the front page it says, let me see what it says. It says confidential, prepared for internal use only. Anyway, but there's this one little paragraph that is so cool and probably going to change some of your guys' lives forever.

So I don't want you to miss it. We're going to keep things on and come back. I'm going to tell you what it is. I'm going to explain it. And hopefully this is a little marketing secret you guys can use. 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. Okay, so inside of this fact, so this is actually a fact. So Bill Glazer, who's my first mentor in this world, like so anyway, so Bill Glazer owned Magnetic Marketing. When I was with Bill, on my sixth year of his mastermind group, he sold it to this PE firm. The PE firm destroyed the company, ran to the ground, and then Adam Witte bought it from them. So Adam Witte got this fax from Dan that was basically like, this is what is wrong with the business. This is how they killed

it. Here's how to fix it. Here's what it was supposed to be. It's like almost Dan's business plan for business, which is really cool. And so then Adam ran it for three years and then we bought it from Adam. So again, there's so much like gold in here. I wish I could, I could do a whole event just on like, Oh, here's the facts that Dan sent, um, showing how to fix his own business, um, from the PE firms who ran it into the ground. Um, so many cool things, but okay. I can't give you it all cause I'll get in trouble, but there's a nugget. I I'm going to go on a limb for you guys. Cause this nugget is so cool. And I want you guys to, to understand it and to be able to use it. Um, and it's interesting because, um, I saw it last week at our, all of our inner circle meetings and I saw the practical application of this again.

Okay. You guys ready for this? Get out a pad of paper and a pencil. If you want to, if you want to go deep. So in this section, he titles the sections reason for entry versus reasons to stay. Okay. And then underneath that says acquisition versus attachment. So we're talking about reasons for entries. How do you get people into your company, right? Into your community, into your world. So that's acquisition versus reasons to stay.

And that's attachment. So what, so how do you get somebody into your community and then what gets them to actually stay in your community? So those are two different things. Um, and then the next sentence says, not the same, not even close. Okay. Cause a lot of times people think like, Oh yeah, you acquire a customer. They stay cause they want to keep buying your stuff. It's like, no, no, no, no. Okay. Acquisition attachment are two different things. Okay. And what Dan said here is last time someone read to you from the facts, he said, what brings them in the door initially is almost never what keeps them inside over time. Okay. Let me say it one more time. What brings them in the door initially is almost never what keeps them inside over time. Okay. Um, and so

for example, um, most of you guys who are listening to this, you came in based on some front end, something, right? Some kind of acquisition. And so it could have been a lot of things. It might have been one of my free books. It could have been, you heard me on someone's podcast. It could have been, you saw me in an event or you saw a YouTube video or there's something right. They got you and piqued your interest and it, and it acquired you, got you into my world, right? Acquired you as a customer. Now, um, if you look, in fact, so the very first time I got this is like when we first launched my inner circle as my high ticket at the time is 25 grand and we signed up, I don't know, a dozen or so people.

And it was interesting because people came to me. They joined the inner circle because they wanted to get closer to me. They also want me like, yeah, I joined because I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to learn from you. But then I, it was interesting because I watched these people and they stayed year after year after year. In fact, we renamed our inner circle. We call it inner circle for life because it's like, we want people to come in to stay there for life. Like they're not allowed to leave. Right. After they come in, they can't obviously, but like, no, that's kind of call it inner circle for life, because it's like, we want people to come in to stay there for life. Like they're not allowed to leave, right? If they come in,

they can obviously, but like, no, that's kind of concepts of inner circle for life. And so they come in, they stay year after year after year. And what was interesting is I noticed that again, they came because they want to get to know me, but then they stayed for something different. They stayed for the community. They stayed for the other people. They stayed for the group. They stayed for the meeting. They didn't stay for me. If it was just Russell and it was me coming and speaking at them once a year, twice a year for the meetings, they wouldn't have stayed long term, right? They stayed because of the community. And so what brings them in the door initially is almost never what keeps them inside over time. And it was interesting because we relaunched the inner circle.

I talked about this last couple of podcast episodes, but what was interesting is, um, initially, especially in the, so we have two, two levels now, the category Kings and most of the category Kings, all but two, I think, or maybe three had been in my inner circle before. And so they kind of knew what was happening, but for the inner circle for life program, um, there was almost a hundred people who were brand new. Again, there's some people that have been there before, but for the most part, they're all new people. And they came, they joined because they wanted to be in Russell Brunson's inner circle. They came because they wanted to get to know me. They came because they wanted to learn funnels from Russell, right? So they came in, but then we

facilitated this group. And the whole goal of me facilitating the group was not for Russell to be on stage talking. The goal was to get them in this room, right? It's the room where it happens, like the room where the magic happens, the room where these conversations are happening at a higher level. And I told them initially, I was like, Mike, like if you guys come here to learn from me, you can learn from me. Like go read my books. Like all the, all the stuff's in there. Like you don't need to like pay me this amount of money to learn from me. I'm like, well, the, the power in this room is not me. It's, um, like I said, I'm gonna stand on stage and my goal is to stimulate conversation and then to like send it back to you guys in these

rooms, have these conversations amongst each other. Like that's the whole thing, right? So even though that we acquired them, the reason for entry, right? What brought them in the door initially was because they wanted to be in Russell's inner circle and be around Russell. But the reasons that they stay is to create attachment, right? And it's what keeps them inside over time is the relationships, the people, the community. And it's just fascinating. So if you look at that from, you know, zooming out, you start looking at

that, it's like, oh my gosh, this is the power. You know, so many times we think that, you know, all the weight is on our own shoulders to run these businesses long-term, especially information businesses, but they're not, it's the community. And so if you're not building a community, if you're not doing things correctly, then that becomes the problem, right? Then it's like always on you, always on you. It's just this hard thing. Like why do people keep coming to Fun Hockey Live? The first time they come to Fun Hockey Live, because they want to learn like what's the funnel?

Like if you look at the copy on the page, usually the headline I replicate from thing to thing to thing, it's always something tied to your one funnel away, but you don't know which funnel it's going to be. So come to Fun Hockey Live, I'm going to show you which funnel that is. So that's like the acquisition that gets people in. It's like, I keep hearing people talk about funnels. I just don't know which funnel it's for me. So they come for that to figure out what funnel it is. But they come in the room and they have a feeling, right?

They get to know other people. They become part of the community. They feel the energy. Like all those intangibles is why they come back. Why people come year after year after year. It's why most every other event that's happening in my industry is getting smaller and smaller and smaller over a year, and ours gets bigger and bigger and bigger

because we acquire people, right? We bring them in the door initially with the thing that they want, and then we create attachment inside the community with the thing that's going to keep them over time, right? Coming here, hearing Russell talk about the next new funnel is not going to keep them over time. That's boring. Eventually they're going to leave, right? But if you build the reasons for them to stay strong enough, they'll stay and they'll keep coming over and over and over again. The first time I ever saw this and actually it was interesting, the very first time I went to Dan Kennedy's seminar and I had been

studying and learning about him and for me it was like going to see the guru on the mountain I was so excited to go and and journey that direction and get to and to meet him and to see him and all that kind of stuff and I remember um the the time I saw him he had just gotten in a he's a he you know Dan if you know anything about him he's a he has horses and he races horses and stuff and he got injured or something so I remember um they told us he's like he made it first I thought he wasn't going to come they they like, he did come, but he's in a wheelchair. And I remember when he, like when he kind of came out, they wheeled him out and it was just like silence. No one said the word and everyone kind of stood up and he came in and I was just like, this is the coolest thing in the world. And I remember that feeling of him getting wheeled in here and everyone's

standing and like, right. The guru has showed up. Like I was so excited and like, that's why I came. Right. And then I remember what he said. It was interesting. He asked the audience, he's like, who here has been following me for more than a year? Everyone's had more than five years, more than 10, more than 15, more than 20, more than 25, more than 30, more than 30. Then we went all the way back to 30 or 40 years. I can't remember what it was. There were still two dozen people standing with their hands raised of this entire room who've been following him for 30 or 40 years. I remember he said, he kind of laughed. He's like, you guys, I haven't had anything new to say since the seventies, you know, or something like that. And, um, he's like, so why do you keep coming back? And that's when we start talking about the reasons why they stay, right? The attractive

character, the stories, the people, the community, like these are the reasons why people stay. And so if you're just building a company on acquisition where you're bringing people in, the problem with that is you have this company that burns insurance. And I had my very first supplement company was a burn insurance. People would come in. We had a really good funnel. Based on media, we'd spend $120, make $180 back. And it was a good business.

We were able to crank things through. But the supplement didn't get people to stick. They didn't keep coming back and reordering and building. All these kind of things, they didn't stay. And so it was always this burn the term business. And we turn off ads, the business stopped. And that was kind of the issue and the problem behind it. And so that can be true. That's true for a lot of people's businesses. If you're in a transactional business, all you're doing is acquisition. And if you're getting an acquisition profitably,

you're okay. But if you want to like scale your company and grow it where each person goes from being worth whatever, a hundred, 180 bucks to, you know, four or 5,000. It's this, this mindset shift of like, can we acquire them one way? And then we create attachment, a reason for them to stay something that keeps them inside over time a different way. And so hopefully it gets the thoughts in your head spinning. Um, especially if you've got retention problems, especially if you're losing people, especially if you know, customers buy once from you and you never hear them again. Like this is the reason you're good at the entry, but you're not good at the reasons for them to stay. And so you together as your team or whoever you're working with, think through that, ask some

questions like, why do people stay with us? What's the reasons? Like, have we built a culture? You know, if you, if you need to go deeper on that, go back to expert secrets. I have three or four chapters talking about building mass movements and what gets people to stay over time, you know, like identity and like, you know, all the things. Anyway, there's a bunch of stuff that you can learn from there, but, um, there you go, you guys. So Dan Kennedy, he's brilliant. There's the facts. I think that's like what, 30 words I gave you, but, um, hopefully it's a, it's a, it's a needle mover. All right. That's it. You guys appreciate you. Thanks for listening. Don't forget the reason for entry is different than the reason they stay. They're not even, uh, and then as Dan said,

they're not the same. they're not even close. Hope that helps you guys. Thanks so much for everything, and I will talk to you soon. Hey everybody, this is Russell again, and really quick, I just opened up a texting community, which means you can text me your questions, and right now I'm spending anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes every single day answering questions through text message to people who are on the podcast.

And so I wanted you to stop everything you're doing, pull your phone out and actually text me a message. Okay. Now the phone number you need to text is 208-231-3797. Once again, it's 208-231-3797. When you text me, just say hello. And then what's going to happen is we'll add you to my phone and then they'll send you back a message where you can add me to your phone.

And then we can start having conversations. On top of that, through this texting community is where I'm going to my phone and then they'll send you back a message where you can add me to your phone and then we can start having conversations on top of that through this texting community is where i'm going to be giving out free swag giving away free copies of my book i'll let you know about book signings about times i'm coming to your local area and a whole bunch more just want to make sure you are on this list on top of that every single day i'm sending out my favorite quotes my favorite frameworks and things you can get for free only through my texting platform. So what you need to do right now is pull out your phone and text me at area code 208-231-3797. One more time, that's 208-231-3797. I can't wait to hear from you right now.