Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The Buzz Behind The Birthday Announcement

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

Have you been watching the buzz that we've been creating? Listen in on my thoughts about what we're doing and why. On today's episode Russell recounts how an announcement he's making on Clickfunnels' 5 year birthday got so much buzz. Here are some of the exciting things you will hear in this episode: How so many rumors about an upcoming announcement came from a simple two minute video. What some of the rumors going around about Clickfunnels 5 year birthday announcement are. And how studying the story of P.T. Barnum helped Russell see why creating buzz would be a better way to make announcements. So listen here to see how so much buzz was created around this announcement, and don't forget to watch Facebook Live on Monday to find out what the announcement actually is. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/243-the-buzz-behind-the-birthday-announcement Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Good morning, good morning. This is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, I'm going to be reading the second half of the Traffic Secrets book. 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 answer. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. Alright, so I'm not actually reading it on this podcast. That'd be the longest podcast of all time. But I finished the Traffic Seekers book. Did I tell you this already? So we're back from Fiji.

And right in front of Fiji, we submitted the final manuscript to the publisher. And they have their editors go through and then send it back to us. And we have to do our last edit. And then next Friday, a week from today, I have to submit it. And at that point, I can never touch it again. So I was kind of freaking out about it because when I read the dot-com secrets book and the expert secrets book, when I finished those, after I got done, I went and I remember I recorded the audio book versions of them. And as I was recording the audio book versions, I found all these mistakes and errors.

I hadn't found even though I'd read the book like a hundred times through and uh and so um but because i was publishing those to a smaller publisher i was literally able to like um like make the audiobook make changes sent to them they changed the last minute and then we started printing them but with this book like the book doesn't come out until may 5th it's like i don't know seven or eight months from now um which makes me sad because i want to start selling it tomorrow because that's you know what i do um but we have to wait for forever and so um my audiobook i'm probably not going to record till like next march or something at that point it'll be too late to like make edits and stuff so it's kind of freaking out so i thought you know i'm going to do is i'm going to just do a live reading of

it so i can read out loud and i can edit it um and so that was the plan and then i was like well maybe i should invite my traffic team so they can hear my thoughts on traffic and make sure we're all in alignment so i'm by the traffic team and then we're like wait a minute if we're doing this anyway might as well record it because who knows maybe something cool come from it's like well if we're going to record it we should set up a big set it's kind of that book if you give a mouse a cookie so then we set up the big set and like this looks amazing we should sell access to it and so so, uh, basically for anyone who bought a phone hacking live, take a buy right now, gets to come and listen to me read

the traffic seekers book live. So I read the first half of it yesterday for, it took like eight hours. It was really tiring and exhausting, but I did it. Woo. So we did that first. And then, um, and then, uh, when that was, um, and so then today I'm reading the second half. So that's what's been happening over here. And it's kind of fun actually reading it that way. It's interesting as I'm reading it, for the most part I'm liking all of it. There's a couple parts I'm just like, oh, this reads really weird. Or like, I don't feel it here. I'm getting bored reading this part.

Or like, this part was really fun and exciting. And there's definitely different, different, uh, different parts. And it's also funny cause I found things that like the editors edit and I'm like, Oh, like I, I don't like how that was said or I don't like how this thing, you know what I mean? So it's like, I gotta change this back. I gotta add my voice back in here. Anyway, I remember my grandpa, uh, my grandpa was a professor at BYU history professor and he wrote like, I don't know wrote 10 different books on Columbus and all these old history things that he obsesses about. My grandpa obsesses about history. I obsess about marketing.

I remember him telling me back in the day when I was a kid, he's like, when you write a book and you send it to the publisher, when you get it back, the editor is like, you won't even recognize the book. It doesn't even sound like you anymore. I remember him saying that. I was like, that doesn't make any sense but then like i totally see that and luckily for me my editors have been really good and they they've kept my voice in and for the most part they're just cleaning up punctuation things like that and you know make things where i

say that i'm saying things repetitively it's just funny because there's some things that they keep changing i'm like i'm not that. This part has to stay in the book. Anyway, so it's just kind of fun. Anyway, so today's lesson, nothing new with what I just talked about. But as you may or may not know, ClickFunnels is having our five-year birthday on Monday. And so we are making some changes and having some fun things. And so we thought, well, we need to get people to come on a Facebook Live so I can announce these changes. And we thought, well, let's do a Facebook Live.

But if we did that, who knows how many people would come on. And so we decided I wanted to make more of a formal presentation and there's some big changes and some updates and some things happening. So I made these, we're talking about these changes, but now we need to get people to show up and be excited for this thing. And so how do we, how do we stimulate growth and excitement? And it's fun because I've been studying over the last year, a lot of like P.T.

Barnum's life and P.T. Barnum, you haven't seen The Greatest Showman, like the book or the movie is amazing. But if you studied P.T. Barnum's life, he's like the king of publicity and shows. And like, in fact, he, he, uh, two days before he died, he wrote his own obituary and he published it to the newspapers and, and that he had died and like told this whole story.

And people messaged, you know, came afterwards and were like, why did you write your, like, you're still alive. Why did you publish your obituary? It was like,

Oh, I thought that the death of, uh, that my death would help sell tickets or the news of my death would help sell tickets to the circus or something like that. Like he's always about creating the buzz and the story and the excitement and the, the whatever to be able to, you know, to sell more tickets or to be able to deliver the message or whatever the, whatever the, the thing might be.

And so for us, you know, we were thinking like, well, how do we, how do we cause some noise? How do we get some excitement? Like, let's make this not just like, Hey, Russell's doing an announcement. You should show up. Cause then no one's going to show up like we needed to get people excited and what's happened has been like a show uh we could we could write a whole book on on what what happens what happened is initially we're like well what if we like people got people to start rumors like we got people go post on their facebook you know like oh

did you hear the rumors that click funnels is selling or that these things are happening? And, and, um, and so we, we were thinking about that, right? Ah, that's not really, that's not really as good. And so instead what we did is when I was in Fiji, I recorded a video and the video, if you haven't seen it yet, it's on, it's on Facebook and on YouTube, but it was me kind of like talking about some of these changes and, and I'm obviously nervous about them. And so I, I didn't try to hide that. And, and, um, and I made this very vague, very cryptic announcement.

I talked about what some of the rumors are. You know, some people have rumors that we're acquiring a company. Some people, some rumors are that we were selling, I'm going, we're in public or I'm retiring or all these things. And, you know, and, um, and I haven't been able to tell anyone, but I'm going to tell everybody on Monday. And so that's been kind of, um, the thing. In fact, in fact, I think this podcast will probably go live today.

So, um, that's the case and you know about it now it's happening on Monday. So Monday the announcement will happen and I'll, I'll tell you guys about kind of what it is afterwards. And if you've been listening to the podcast, you have some, some hints and some updates. One of the big ones is that this is just one part of a three part announcement. Uh, one part we're not announcing, um, right now, one part announcing at Fun Locking Live, and one part we're announcing on my birthday on March 8th. And so these are three big, fun, exciting things that are happening. And so anyway, the reason why I'm telling you this is because what's been happening has been crazy.

I've been watching people online meltdown. I've been watching people post on their own page. What's happening? People taking bets. Like I think ClickFunnels is selling. I think this is happening. I think Russell's doing this. I think this, and like everybody's like speculating like crazy and it's causing all this buzz. And it's been insane to me except for getting text messages from all my friends. People haven't heard from a long time. Um, people texting me like, Oh, you know, good luck on the news. Good luck on this. You know, we're nervous for you. We're praying for you. Like all these things today, I got in the car to take my kids to school. And, um, and I pick up these other kids in the neighborhood. And when the kids jumped in the car,

again, these are kids that go to school with my, with my kids. And, uh, and the first thing he asked is like, what's your now it's happening on Monday. I'm like, what, what? And my kids like, what dad, what's happening? I'm like, Oh, what? My kid's like, what dad, what's happening? I'm like, oh my gosh, this has gotten all the way to like the neighborhood kids. And they're like, yeah, my parents were talking about last night for like 30 minutes trying to speculate what they thought was going to happen. And, and it's like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. So I hope you guys are watching this because there is a real announcement that's happening.

There are multiple announcements happening over the next couple months, but we could have easily just gone and told people, hey, we're making an announcement about blah. But instead, we talked about we're making an announcement and it's not these things. And by talking about what it's not, we didn't say it's not about these things. We said that people are speculating that it's about these things and I'll tell you exactly what it is.

And by saying that and saying what people were speculating this about these things. Um, and I'll tell you exactly what it is. And by, by, by saying that in a, in saying what people were speculating, then it caused people to really speculate. And it's caused all this, all of this controversy and all these, these people talking about it. And it's just been like one of the most organic, fun, cool promotions we've ever done. And so it's got my mind thinking like, man, I don't want to ever speak or do a Facebook live or do an announcement without this kind of buzz behind. Like, how do we, how do we craft this? How do we choreograph this? How do we, how do we create this? And when we have a new webinar coming out, we have a new thing, like how do we make it so that we get this kind of buzz behind it? Cause it causes it, you know, when you get people talking

about your business and creating speculation and all these things, um, it's really, really fascinating. It's been crazy. And I'm excited to see on the Facebook live Monday, how many people actually show up. Um, I don't think it's going to be a few. I think there's going to be insane amounts of people. Um, just for just from the amount of people that have texted me personally, people who I haven't heard from in years, um, who are all in the middle of this, my neighbor, kids and their parents talking about it, you know, like online, seeing people posting on their own social profiles and people, you know, just causing this controversy.

And it's been really fun to watch and a really interesting marketing lesson. So for you, I'd start looking at your business, like what's an announcement you could make or you should make? And then how do you cause the buzz behind that? You know, um, it also makes you think about that for any new webinar I do or any new announcement or any new product or any new whatever. How do you, how do you craft that, that much engagement?

You know, Steven Larson, I was his offer mind event. He talked a lot about how like a lot of people think it's just the offer. They think it's just the funnel. And it's like, no, like those, those are parts of it. You have to have an amazing offer. You have an amazing funnel, but then it's like the campaign you create to cause the buzz that pushes people with that funnel. Like that's a whole nother art and science is the, is the art of creating campaigns and creating buzz and doing these kinds of things. And, um, it's interesting if you, if you watch the people that are great at this, um, you

know, I've been, I've been watching as I've been writing the book and like editing the book and things like that. Every once in a while, like my brain has a lot of pain. So I'm like, I got to I got to take a 20 minute break on something. And so I'll go and I'll, you know, watch different things or things that are short. For example, I was watching the Conor McGregor Khabib fight, which, you know, all my UFC fighter friends and wrestlers would know this. But it was like this big fight that happened a couple months ago. And it's like, I watched that,

but like I was watching all the precept that built up to the fight. Right. It wasn't just like two dudes stepped in the ring, started fighting. It was like, no, there's this campaigning and there's this talk, trash talking.

And there's the, the preweigh ins and the stare down and the trash talking. And then after the matches, the, you know, could be jumping over the, the side of the cage and all these things that cause the drama. It's all the campaign buildup that makes us care about this fight, right?

Because if two people just jumped in the ring and started fighting, nobody would care. It's like, it's what's the campaign ahead of time that creates the buzz and makes people want to know what's happening, right? It's also what you guys are thinking about with your businesses. It's like, what are the things I can do? I'm a really good book to read, probably the best book to read on this. Joe Vitale wrote this book. It's called There's a Customer Born Every Minute, and it's the life story of P.T. Barnum through the lens of how he did his marketing.

And I sent this two years ago to all the Two Comma Quebec students. I was like, read this book, you guys. It is so good. But P.T. Barnum, like I said, he lived back in the early 1900s. And this is before the internet and everything. So he had to go and create this buzz to get people to come to the show. And again, if you watch The Greatest Showman, you saw a glimpse of it. But if you study his life, and especially that book, that book is really good.

There's A Customer Born Every minute by Joe Vitale. Um, if you read that book, you'll see how he created all these things. He called them humbugs. Like, uh, we need to create a humbug, um, which is like a, you know, a, a fake story to, to cause buzz. And back then they didn't have the FTC and, and, you know, they didn't have all the legal regulations. Like most of the stuff that PT.T. Barnum did back then

would probably be illegal nowadays. But, you know, he did these things to create buzz. Like, he did Stephen Larson at Offer Miner Show. He did this campaign where it was like, I can't remember what it was. It was like a mermaid monkey or something. And basically, it was like a big fish and a monkey. And he took the corpse of it and, like, sewed them together so it looked like it was a monkey mermaid or something like

that i can't remember and like put these ad newspapers showing the picture of this monkey mermaid and it literally was just like he took a dead monkey and a dead huge fish and he like sewed them together but used that as his publicity to like get people to come to the circus and come to his his um his museums and like all these crazy things and so i just want you just to just, I just, I hope you're watching this campaign. I hope that you're paying attention. I hope that you're thinking about what can I do in my business to stimulate growth and controversy and people talking and like, um, because man, this is the best viral, free organic exposure of anything we've ever done. It all started with a two minute video that I filmed in Fiji, um, telling the story about, about the rumors that people have been throwing around.

And if I'm completely honest, um, there were no rumors. Um, I caused those rumors. So there you go. Just my marketing secrets friends. You guys know behind the scenes, like I'm the one that there, there was nobody saying I wonder if ClickFunnels is getting bought or sold or going public or going, you know, if Russell's retiring or whatever, like none of those things people were saying. But I said, you know, my video, I said that there's, there's been whispers

of this. And it was like, I was whispering about it with my team. Um, and so, but by putting those things out there, it causes the whispers, it causes the thing. So anyway, it's fun. It's exciting. I think you guys are all going to enjoy it. So hopefully you're enjoying the show. Um, come on Monday. If you get in, depending on when you get this, uh, Monday, we'll be making the first of three big announcements and they are big announcements. Um, each one progressively bigger. And then, um, and then there's, there's one, uh, there's one thing I can't tell you guys all yet. Uh, even on these announcements that I'm excited for, but, um, I did buy just, you know, I bought bootstrap.com and my next book is gonna be called bootstrap.com. It's going to be telling the ClickFunnels story. And in that book, I will be

able to tell you the full story. Um, anyway, there's, there's reasons I can't explain all right now that will make more sense when you read the book someday. But, um, yeah, that book I'm excited for is going to be the first non like how to book. It's going to be just the story, the story of ClickFunnels. Like how did did this come to be how do all the weird characters meet together to create this thing and the movement and the ups and the downs and the um all the stuff so how many guys are pumped for that book oh i'm excited so anyway that's it i'm gonna get i'm gonna bounce i appreciate you guys all for listening hope you have a good day and um if you do get this before monday i'll see you on the on the the Monday announcement. If you get this later, that's really cool. My

next podcast episode will probably be recorded. Um, or one of the near future ones will be talking about that and what came from it. So we'll go from there. Thanks everybody. And we'll talk to you soon. 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.