Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The Dream 100 (Part 1 of 3)

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

On today's very special 3 episode series Russell speaks at Dream 100 Con about traffic and how to build your list. Here are some of the awesome things in this portion: Find out how Russell got started building his list, and what he learned about spam free emailing. Hear why everyone around him made half a million dollars a month with Adsense while he was still just building his list. And find out how Russell figures out and narrows down who is dream client is with a simple diagram. So listen here to part 1 or 3 of Russell's super informative presentation at Dream 100 Con. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/the-dream-100-part-1-of-3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Good morning, everybody. This is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you to a special three-part series of the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Over the next three episodes, I'm going to be sharing with you guys clips from a presentation that I did at Dana Derrick's Dream 100 Con. So I told you guys before that I've been working on the Traffic Secrets book and testing my material. And so the first time I actually taught parts of this publicly was at Dana's event. And so I want to share with you. It's not the whole process. It's just a piece of it. But hopefully it'll get the wheels in your head spinning about how Dream 100 works, how

you buy your way and you work your way and how customer lifeline work and a whole bunch of other amazing things. I'm doing this as a tease to get you excited for the Traffic Seekers book that's coming out next year. And so that's kind of the game plan. Hopefully it gives you guys some ideas. So this is part one of three. When we get back from the intro,

we'll start right into that presentation. So thanks so much, you guys. And I hope you enjoy behind the scenes from my presentation at Dream100Con. 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. To begin with, I just want to thank Dana. It's been so fun. I've been talking about Dream 100 for the last decade or so and almost nobody ever listens to me except for Dana and then Dana took it and has taken it to such a big mass level. It was fun yesterday. I was watching as he talked about Chet Holmes, who's kind of the originator of the Dream 100.

And Chet was a personal friend of mine who passed away a few years ago. And his daughter's actually taken over his company since. And I messaged her yesterday to let her know that you guys are here in this room talking about a concept that was pioneered by her father, which is really special for her and for Chet and for everything. So I'm just so grateful for everything Dana's put together in doing this.

So isn't he just like one of the coolest humans you've ever met on earth? He's always giving and always serving. All right, to kick today off, I actually wanted to talk about something and get it on film so that when I pass away someday, you guys can watch this and then fulfill what I need to be done. Does that sound good? So I have a friend in our community. His name is Mark Hoverson. Anyone know Mark Hoverson? A couple of you guys.

Mark Hoverson, an amazing human being in our community, one of my peers. And he passed away last weekend of cancer, which was a really tragic thing. But what's interesting is right after he found out he had cancer about five years ago, he was on stage speaking at an event like this. And Vince Reed actually published it on his Facebook page. And I had a chance to watch this whole presentation. It was right after Mark found out he was going to pass away. And during this presentation, he talked about legacy and where he was going, all sorts of stuff.

And it just got me really inspired. And I'm not going to pass away that I know of so don't think that that's my what I'm saying here but I was thinking about like like if I was to pass away like what's like what I kind of want to leave this whole this whole thing like what I want to my legacy at the end of this I've heard other people say like my goal is get a million people in my funeral like that's my biggest thing I don't really want that in fact I don't want anything else to be my funeral I want my wife and kids and family but the day my funeral. That's my biggest thing. I don't really want that. In fact, I don't want anybody else to be at my funeral. I want my wife and kids and family to be back. But the day my funeral's over,

I need all of you guys' help. Okay, so everyone's got to remember this because someone's going to be here and going to remember this part of it and they need you to take this part out.

So the day my funeral's over, what I want to do is I want to build out the biggest Dream 100 campaign of all time. Every single person I've ever had a chance to influence or impact,

I want to invite them to the last ever Funnel Hacking Live. to get, um, Dana, if you're still alive this time, I want you to be in charge of this whole thing, but I want to dream 100 boxes going out to all of the biggest influencers, all the people. And I want to throw like the biggest party ever. Um, kind of a, kind of, um, uh, this actually happened a little while ago. Uh, there was a guy who's a legend in our industry. His name is Marty Ellison. He owned a company called Boardroom. Anyone ever heard of Boardroom? And he owned that company. And when he passed away, his partner, Brian Kurtz, did something similar. They threw a huge marketing party. It was called the Titans of Marketing Summit. Had all the best speakers

come in and speak. And I remember listening to that event, that course. And I thought, when I die, this is how I want my legacy to end. So we're going to do a big huge Dream 100 campaign where you get everybody in the world to come to the last Funnel Hacking Live ever. And then I'm going to have all my friends and colleagues come and speak about what we've all learned on this journey together. So that's my game plan. So I've got on video now. So someday you guys know my wishes. That's the game plan. Does that sound good? Okay. Awesome. There's a little twang keeps happening. Is that from, anyway, uh, I don't know if it's gonna, I'm talking too loud. Um, okay. One other story and then we'll get, get to the good stuff. So, um, this is going to hopefully help you guys understand the importance of what you're

learning here at the dream 100. So, uh, I had a chance, I actually flew here from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was in Jackson Hole at his secret, uh, Illuminati, maybe it was the Bilderberg. I don't know. A secret group of marketers who all got together for like three days. And we did a whole bunch of manly stuff, which anyone knows me, I'm not very good at manly stuff. We were shooting guns. I took last place. We were fly fishing. I caught the least amount of fish.

We went hiking. All these things I'm not like, I don't normally do. But it was fun. I hung out with all these guys who were all amazing in their own sphere, their own businesses. And one of the guys who was there is a guy named Tom Bilyeu. How many of you guys know who Tom is? Oh, good job. A bunch of you guys do.

So Tom, he started a company called Quest. Who's ever had a Quest bar before? Quest Nutrition. So he started this company and it blew up to over a billion, the valuation over a billion dollars before he sold his portion of the company and retired. Now he's doing impact there and a bunch of other cool things. the valuation over a billion dollars before he sold his portion of the company and retired. Now he's doing impact there and a bunch of other cool things. But he built this company up to over a billion dollars.

And as I'm asking him, I'm like, how did you start this thing up? And he explained how he started the entire company. And what's cool is that after he told me, I talked to Dave about it last night, and Dave's like, let me see if you said it anywhere else. And Dave found an interview, an actual quote of this. And so I want you actual quote of this. And so, I want you guys to hear this. This is the quote from the podcast where he explained

how he launched Quest. But what's interesting is he did the same thing that you guys are all doing here in this room today. So this is what Tom said about launching Quest. He said,

we had a very different approach that got a lot of people excited. Not just about the product but they felt good about the way we treated them. We went old school. Old school Dream 100. Researching several hundred health and fitness influencers, then sending them handwritten letters and free samples. This was all about showing an understanding

of what others were trying to achieve. That Quest was interested in helping them connect with their audiences. When people are building community, they have a real sense of service to that community. We would send them a free product and say, if you like it, tell people about it. And if you hate it, tell them about it too. Not trying to steer people's comments gave us a pretty good recommendation. Some didn't like it and said so, but the vast majority loved it and were grateful we had shown an understanding of who they were and what they were trying to do so they spread the word. The foundation of his billion-dollar supplement company all started here with the Dream 100. Is that awesome? So this is the foundation, you guys, for all these things.

All right. So what Danny the foundation you guys for all these things. All right. So Danny's talking about. It's true. Okay. So some of the, what are we talking about for next couple hours? Um, just give us some context.

So I'm in the middle, not the middle, the beginning of writing my third book, uh, which is called traffic secret. So there was.com secrets, there's expert secrets, and this is the last and final book in the trilogy.

And I'll never write a secrets book again because I'm out of them. But the third one's called Traffic Secrets. And so I've been working on the framework for the whole thing. And I messaged Dana about two or three months ago. I was like, just so you know, dude, this is so good for you

because the entire framework of the Traffic Secrets book is based on the Dream 100. And so a lot of the stuff you guys have been talking about is the foundation of everything that is going to be inside that book. I spent all day last man probably month or so working on the outline and getting things done and yesterday I was sitting in the back of them doodling out all the all the the key frameworks for the book and I got them back this morning at 4 30 in the morning and so I'm really excited they got done in time so I'm going to be going

through seven different images that are kind of the framework for the book, but it's also the framework for how we do the Dream 100. There are, well, you'll see, it's taken it to a whole other level. And hopefully this will give you guys, those who are beginning, give you guys a really good foundation. Those who are advanced, it's going to give you like, here's the next five or six steps in the process. Does that sound like fun? All right, cool. So I'm going to start off.

This is the very first core thing that you have to understand to really understand dream 100, understand traffic, understand everything. Okay. There are three types of traffic. This is the framework for the entire book, the entire concept. You can understand this. Everything else becomes really easy. Okay. So there are three types of traffic. Okay. The first type of traffic here on the top left hand is traffic you control. Okay. This is traffic where you're going to buy your way in. Okay. So you think about that. Um, how many of you guys run Facebook ads in here? Okay. So you don't own that traffic, right? Zuckerberg owns all that traffic. He built the platform. He owns the thing, but he gives us the ability to come and to buy some of that traffic. So we can buy some of that traffic and we can control it. We can send it wherever we want to.

We send it to buy a product, buy a service, listen to a podcast. Like we control that traffic, but we don't own it. How many of you guys ever got a Facebook account shut down before? There's proof you don't own it right there. We've lost hundreds of them, so don't feel bad. It's just part of the game. Traffic control is the first thing. Any kind of thing I'm buying is traffic that I control. The second type of traffic is traffic that you earn. Okay. This is where you're working your way in. So the first one you're buying your way in the second one you're working your way in. Okay. So for this, this means you're getting traffic. You're not paying for it, but you're earning it, right? You're getting on a podcast interview. You're doing a Facebook live with somebody. You put out really good content. People share it like

you're earning that traffic. Okay. How many guys, the majority of your traffic comes from traffic that you're earning. Okay. And how many guys you guys, the majority of traffic you're buying? So a 50-50 split. Okay. So it's important to understand there's traffic you control and the traffic that you earn. The third type of traffic, and this is the best and the most important, is traffic that you own. Okay. My entire goal of our business, if you look at everything we're doing from a traffic generation standpoint, is to convert traffic I control, traffic that I earn, into traffic that I actually own. Because if you own the traffic, that's the secret sauce, right? When I own it, I can do whatever I want with it.

You can be like Zuckerberg and you can rent it to people. You can do a product launch and sell your own products. You can do an affiliate stuff. You can do whatever you want. But the goal is to own the traffic, right? That's the big thing. Because you own the traffic, we own the platform, that's how you win. Okay, how many of you guys right now have your own platform, your own list, your own following, your own whatever?

How many of you guys don't yet and you're like, that's the thingy I think I need really bad? Okay, cool. This is the goal. This is the big secret about internet marketing. I remember when I first started learning this game, I was struggling because I couldn't figure it out. There were so many things that were happening. And this is pre all the stuff you guys get every day. It was pre-Facebook, pre-MySpace.

It was actually pre-Frenster. How many of you guys remember Frenster? Frenster was like the... Melanie was on Frenster. She's still buying ads on that one. Just kidding. That was like the original social network. And it was like, this is amazing. And then my space came out and crushed Frenchster. And then, uh, Facebook

came out and crushed my space. And soon the next thing is going to come out and crush Facebook someday. Hopefully, actually, I love Zuckerberg. I hope he keeps doing what he's doing. But, um, but I was out there trying to figure out this whole game. There's so many things. And so many, I could not figure out, uh, how to, how to, like how this whole game was played. And one day, um, I was at the good old Google searching for like probably how to get rich on the internet or some keyword like that. Like a lot of us start with, and, um, some guy wrote an article and his article he was talking about, he's like, how many of you guys have seen those, those, uh, those stories online? People say I made $30,000 in an hour, $100,000 in a day. He probably thought those things were lies, right? And I was like, like yeah i'm sure they're inflating their numbers he's like no actually

those things are true and i was like wait what and then he started explaining he said this is the way it works he's like imagine this he's like what these marketing people do is they build up a list of a thousand or ten thousand or hundred thousand people and they send an email to that list and they just get a percentage like two or three percent of that email to buy and do the math let's say a hundred thousand people two 2% buy a $50 product. How much is that? Right? It's whatever the math is, you know, $15,000. And they, they send an email every day. They literally can be doing what they're talking about. And me as like a 20 year old kid sitting in my college dorm or reading this article, I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's the secret. I just need my own platform. If I had my own list and people

like that's, that's the magic. Now I unfortunately my own platform. If I had my own list and people, like that's, that's the magic. Now I, um, unfortunately went about it the wrong way. So I had that idea. I'm like, this is the key I'm going to do. It's going to be amazing. So the first thing I did, of course, we went to Google and typed in, um, cause I wanted my own email. So I typed in like buy an email list. And then I was like reading about spam. I want to spam free email address. And I went to website, I think it was, um, spam free email addresses.com. I was like, sweet, this is awesome. And they were selling DVDs of email addresses and you could buy like a hundred thousand, a million, 5 million. I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm gonna buy 5 million. I'm gonna start the biggest platform known to man. So I bought, I think it was like $67 or $69 for a DVD with like

5 million email addresses. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like I ordered this thing. It's coming to me and I'm telling my wife the math. I'm like, click. Okay, so 5 million people. Let's just say we get 1% to buy the thing we sell. Like 1% of 5 million. I'm doing the math. I was like, that's like 100 grand every time we click send. And I was like, wait.

But let's just say I can serve only 1% of 1%. I'm doing the math. I'm like, even if we screw this up, it's like 30 grand every time I send an email out. And I'm so excited. Because at the time, my wife's working, making 9.50 an hour. While I'm at school wrestling and trying to not fail and so this thing comes I get this disc

and I remember I plugged it in and there was this software that would send the emails out for you and I put it in and I remember queuing up and I saw the little software

with all these 5 million emails out there and I was like oh my gosh this is amazing now I didn't have a product at the time so I was making up a product

like what would people like to buy and so I made up an idea for a product I wrote an email it was probably I don't product, like what people like to buy. And so I made up an idea for a product. I wrote an email. It was probably, I don't know, 60 words with a link, with a link to my PayPal account. Like I click here to send me $10 for this product. And, uh, and then that was it. And I was like, if you will buy it, then I'll go make the thing. So I queued up the email. Um, back then it was pre, uh, high speed internet. So I had to like

crawl under the desk, unplug our phone line, plug in the internet, all that kind of stuff pops up, you know? And I'm like, all right, click send. I'm like, let's go to bed. I'm like, by morning, we're going to be rich. I see like email one, send number two, three, four, five. And it's like, oh my gosh, this is it. This is going to be the greatest day of my life. So I go to bed all night long. I'm dreaming of like how many sales are coming through tonight. What's going to happen? How amazing it's going to be. And I wake up in the morning and uh colette's getting ready for work she's still working at the time i'm just telling her i'm like i haven't looked at the stats yet but my guess is you could probably quit after today like if just if this i'm like if a fraction of a fraction of

a fraction by like that's more than you make an entire month like this is gonna be amazing so i'm all excited telling the whole story and then she's like hey i gotta use the phone i'm like you can't use and this is pre-cell phones too, right? I'm like, you can't use the phone. Like, it's mail. And I look at things like 6,500 emails have been sent. I'm like, you can't. She's like, I have to call.

I have to use the phone. I'm like, oh, you're going to ruin everything. So I pause the little mailing thing. I crawl on the desk. I unplug the modem. And I plug back in our phone line. And while I'm still on the desk, the phone rings. I like step and hit my head.

I'm like, oh, dang it. So I come out of the thing. I answer the phone. And the other end is my internet service provider cursing me out on the phone. What are you doing? Like, why are you sending me? I'm like, no, no, no, sir. I did not. I didn't send spam. He's like, no, you sent out tons of spam. I'm like, no, you understand. I bought this DVD. It was called spam for email addresses.com. You can go check out the site. Like they're completely spam free. And I would explain this whole thing to him. I just remember he told me, he's like, he's like, son, that is the definition of spam. And I was like, what? No, like they're spam free. He's like, how do you think there's like, that's not a thing. You can't buy spam for email addresses. I'm like,

but the domain name was like, and then we're going back and forth and he's telling me I was going to sue me and all sorts of stuff. And then like, but the last thing was like, I'm shutting down your internet. And then it was gone. I hung up the phone and then Colette's like, well, who's that on the phone? I'm like, oh, just some guy that had some questions about the thing. You shouldn't quit yet, though. Let's just go to work, enjoy it. We'll recap in the morning or tonight when you get back.

So she leaves out the door to work and I'm sitting there. And I can't even check to see what happened because our internet's now gone. Like I have no access to get back on. So I'm all depressed. So I get ready for school. I go to the school and then I get to school and I get the computer lab and I'm going to check to see what happened. And I log in, still in kind of a depressed state.

And I open my email and then my email though, I see order notification PayPal, order notification PayPal, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, probably 20, 25 orders to come through for like 10 bucks a piece through PayPal. And I was like, oh my gosh, it worked. I got to create a product. What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. I've got something really cool for you today from my friend Taylor Wells. Taylor spoke at our last funnel hacking live because I wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the revolving pricing method. And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to give you guys more access to this super cool strategy that you are going to love. It's something we've been implementing into our high-end coaching program

as well, and it is amazing. But to kind of give you some context about this offer he's making for you guys, as you may or may not know, a few years ago, JP Morgan Chase did a study and guess what they found? They found that the average small business only has about 28 days of operating expenses in reserve. That's right, less than a month of cash on hands. Now, if you're like me, the idea of your business being one bad month away from disaster is enough to make your stomach drop. Am I right? Especially with how the economy's been lately.

It's not the time to be gambling with your finances. So, Taylor put together this book called The Revolving Pricing Method, and it's awesome. It helps you turn every client you close into a long-term profit machine. We're not talking about one-time paydays. We're talking about creating sustainable and real predictable income for the long haul. Now, here's where it gets even better. Taylor put together an awesome exclusive deal just for you guys, my Marketing Secrets listeners. And if you go over to wealthyconsultants.com slash secrets, you can grab the revolving price method book and over $150 worth of bonuses and get this all. It's at 70% off. And I promise you

guys as a customer of this, you are going to love it. So if you're serious about growing your business with real stability, this is the model you need to add into your funnels. So go over to wealthy consultant.com slash secrets, grab your 70% off deal, and let's start turning your clients into long-term revenue. Again, that's wealthy consultant.com slash secrets. Do not miss out. Hey, this is Russell Brunson. And I want to jump in really quick to share with you a new assessment I found out that is insanely cool. You guys know I'm obsessed with personality profiles and assessments, but this one is

different because not only does it help you understand yourself, but more importantly, especially for us who are entrepreneurs, it helps us understand our employees, our teams and get people sitting on the right seats in the bus so they can get more stuff done. I just had a chance to interview Patrick Lanchoni talking specifically about this new assessment they created called Working Genius. And the Working Genius is awesome. Like this test, I had actually blocked out an hour to take it because I was so excited for the new assessment.

And it only took me like 10 minutes or less to get it done. Yet, even though it takes only 10 minutes, like you can actually apply this immediately. I took it for myself. I had my team take it. And what's cool about it is from there, we figured out exactly what people's working geniuses are. And that's important because if you're building a team or a company, you got to figure out, make sure that you have first off the right people, but make sure the right people are sitting in the right seats on the bus. And this is what this assessment will teach you how to do. Now, normally this assessment, you can go to workinggenius.com and there's two

G's in the middle, workinggenius.com, but I got you a 20% discount on the assessment, which is only $25. So don't stress. It's not an expensive test at all, but got you a 20% discount on the assessment, which is only $25. So don't stress. It's not an expensive test at all, but you get a 20% discount off when you put in the keyword secrets at checkout. So go to workinggenius.com. Again, two G's, working genius, two G's in the middle, workinggenius.com, and then use promo code secrets, S-E-C-R-E-T-S at checkout. You get 25% off, but then we'll take the test. Again, it takes you 10 minutes, but even in a 10 minute session, you will get something that is so insanely valuable

to help you understand yourself, to make sure you're working in a spot that's gonna give you the most joy, number one. But then number two, it's gonna make sure that you are with your teams, getting them in the right seats as well. So anyway, I love this assessment. Go check it out at workinggenius.com

and enter the promo code secrets for 20% discount. Take this test for yourself and for your team. And I promise you, it'll change the working dynamics amongst everybody and help your company to grow. And so I had to go back and like figure out what I sold and go make something and send out these people. And I realized the time that I was like, I was like, what I did was wrong. Like I didn't understand the ethics or how to do it. Like I did it wrong, but I, but what happened was right. Right. The goal was to get a platform to get an email list to get us something and that was the whole secret to the to the game and so after that was done i went and found a new internet service provider and i spent the next year of my life

trying to figure out how do i build a list the right way where it's not going to end me up in jail like there's got to be a way to do it and what i learned is basically this process is like i can buy ads i'm going to send them somewhere somewhere to join my list where i can go work my do things and get people just come to my come join my list where I can go work my do things and get people to come to my, come to my website and give me the email. But that was the goal. So I started focusing that point forward on, on building my email list. Like that was my, my core focus is building lists, building lists, building lists. Um, and, uh, and I started growing it. Um, it's been interesting, uh, that, that concept of, of list building became like my whole, my whole life. And I started looking like

over the last 15 years I've been doing this, I've seen a lot of people who've built huge companies who are now no longer in our industry, who are now back at their day jobs trying to survive. And I've seen things over and over and over again. How many of you guys remember back in the day when AdSense first started and it was like Christmas every day? A couple of you guys. So let me paint this picture. So this is the middle of me trying to build my list. My first mentor's name is Mark Joyner. He's like, focus on a list, focus on a list. I'm like focusing on a list. And all of a sudden this shiny object pops out of nowhere called AdSense. And what AdSense was back in the day, you could buy the software for $97. There's a couple of them, Traffic Equalizer. There's probably a dozen or so that ended up coming out. And you load up

the software in your computer, you click a button, go out there and it would it would like pick a keyword so like let's say um whatever they find a keyword that was people were paying a lot of money on and we go and go to the internet scrape all the sites that have written about that pull them in and you publish a site that has like 8 000 pages in like a minute and then put adsense on all the sites and then because the way it structured the pages google instantly index it and you started making money. It was like the easiest, most stupid way to make money. Like we had teams of people in, uh, in the Philippines, like 30, 40 people all day, all day sat there, like build another site, build another site, build another site, just cranking out sites like crazy. And, um, uh, not me. A lot of my friends, they built these, these,

uh, assembly lines of people doing that. I had friends making half a million dollars a month or more just cranking out crap little sites. And it was amazing for about a year, year and a half. And so I'm watching all these people make so much money and I'm over here like, building a list, building a list, and stressing out because all these people make money. I'm like, I'm just going to do that. That's easy.

It takes no effort at all. And my mentor, Mark, luckily was like, no, dude, focus on building a list. This will go away. I'm like, no, you don't understand. This is the greatest thing in the world. It's going to change. Like $500,000 a month?

How many of you guys would that radically shift your life right now? Yeah, I'm just like, and they're doing nothing, providing zero value to the world. They're just clicking a button over and over and over again. I get a million button clickers. I'm going to be the first AdSense billionaire. And he's like, no, build a list. Build a list. And I'm like, oh, torn.

And luckily for me, I'm really coachable. So I'm like, fine, I'll build this stupid list. And I'm doing this. And sure enough, about a year later, boom, the algorithm changed. Google found out all the software that was building the sites, de-indexed every single page. And I had friends go from half a million dollars a month to zero overnight. And I was like, oh my gosh.

But guess what I had? I've been building my list. It didn't affect me. Okay, now anyone knows my story. Who here thinks that I've always done everything right in my business? Only day. Okay. I haven't. Um, so what happened is I built my company up really, really big and then I bankrupted it almost luckily both times I didn't. And the second I built even bigger and then I almost bankrupted. I told those stories before at funnel hockey live. Um, but what's interesting is that the thing that got me through the ups and the downs every single time was this platform I built, this list.

At the point where, like, everything's collapsing around me, I could still send an email to my list, and people would buy because of their relationship. And it kept us through the downtimes. And so when you do this, when you build a platform, it gets the key. Okay? And I still see today, it's unfortunate, I still see today people in our industry who get the next shiny object. Where they're like, oh, I can do this thing. They start buying Facebook ads to sell this and doing this and doing things like that, but they're not focusing on the fundamentals. The fundamentals is what will protect you over the long haul.

The reason why I'm still in business 15 years later and a lot of the people I know that have made a crap ton of money along the way aren't is because this has been my focal point is building the platform, building the platform. So why do you need a platform? The platform is the key. Um, for so many reasons. How many of you guys, uh, watch the apprentice back when it was still on?

How many of you guys saw this, this, uh, the season where Arsenio Hall was on the show? How many of you guys have no idea who Arsenio Hall is? Okay. So for the younger gender, yeah.

So the younger generation, Arsenio Hall was doing his own, his own late night show. He'd come out, get really excited, he'd go, hoo, hoo, hoo, and get really pumped up. He was the man on late night for, I don't know, a decade or so.

So then the show got cut, and then he's normal Arsenio Hall, no one heard from him, and then 20 years later, he pops up on Celebrity Apprentice, because at one time, he was a celebrity, apparently. And so it was fascinating.

They're on Celebrity Apprentice, he's on there competing with all these other um you know celebrities and uh there was this one uh task it was like a fundraising uh task they had to go and raise money right so uh they're all going through and trying to raise money for their charities and our signal is back there's guys rolled ex of people he's calling the first person calling second person calling the third fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth ninth tenth and what's interesting is while all the other celebrities were doing deals, Arsenio couldn't get anybody to return his call,

couldn't get anybody to pick up the call, and anything. And it shows him that night, he's sitting on a couch, all depressed and frustrated and upset, and they're talking about it, and they're like, dude, you're Arsenio Hall, how come you can't get any money? He's like, I don't know, man. He's like, when I had my own show, everybody returned my call. And now nobody will.

And when I heard that, I was like, oh my gosh, what a lesson that is. Okay. So you guys are starting the dream 100 right now at the very beginning, right? And you don't have this platform and it's tough, right? It's tough initially to get people to return your calls, to say yes, to look at your box, to whatever those things are. First, it's hard, right? Okay.

But guess what? When you have a platform, everyone returns your call. Okay. Um, when I first met Tony Robbins back in the day, my platform was a little tiny and I became friends with Tony. We hung out for 10 years and, uh, Tony never promoted me. Never. Like he just, we were just kind of, I got to know him a couple of times, hung out and helped consult him. But as my platform got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger last year, we launched extra secrets, uh, book. I was like, Hey Tony, will you help me promote this book? And Tony's like, dude, Russell's platform is huge. Yes, Russell, I would love to.

Right? There are a few people in our world right now that I couldn't pick up the phone and beg, Hey, can you help me do this deal? Because they know my platform's huge. So because of that, they'll say yes. Okay. So the dream 100 gets better and better and better as you build your platform. Okay. At first it's going to be more difficult, but as you focus on this, building your platform becomes easier and easier and easier. Okay. Um, uh, because the bigger your platform is, the more likely people are to return your call. Okay. So this should be the focus. So again, if I, if I come back to this, everything you're focusing on is this traffic, you control buying ads, traffic that earn, I'm earning ads. We're

gonna go deeper into this in a minute, but the goal of both of those is to turn it into your own platform. Now, platform can be a lot of things. When I got started, all the platform was your email list. I still think focusing on email is one of the most important things because if an email search provider shuts you down, you can move your email list to another one. So that's an asset that can follow you. But your platform is also different things like

how many guys are on Instagram right now? Your Instagram following is a platform. How do you guys have a podcast right now? Your podcast listeners are a following. How many guys have a Facebook following YouTube subscribers, right? All those things are platforms. Okay. And so, um, what I'm going to be talking about, we're going to break this down is that your platform doesn't always have to be one thing. In fact, usually there's a platform on each of these different channels that we're going talk about okay and you should be building more than one um but the biggest problem i have with other ones is like the reason i like email so much is because if again if you shut down you can move it if facebook shuts you down like you're you're done if youtube

shuts down your channel because you did something aggressive like you can't do much about it so i think always focusing on email is one but then a secondary and maybe and and more as we go through is a big piece of it okay so that's that's, that's the key is building your platform. Okay. All right. So that's, that's the first step here. All right. Step number two. So now that you've have got this stuff figured out, right. And again, I'm going to go deeper into this. All these things will kind of layer upon each other and the end will be this beautiful picture like oh crap that's what it is this is so much easier than i thought okay so this is the first part so what i want to do i want to kind of before we go deep back into this part here i want to go deeper on this right here okay

so you have your own platform what most people don't think through is all they're thinking about is themselves in this year like i'm gonna build a platform a big email list a big podcast following a big whatever like that's our focus because that's who we are as entrepreneurs, right? We like significance. We want to be accused following. But what I wish I would have done from day number one when I first got started in this business

is spend more time thinking about the person. Who do I actually want on my list? Okay, if you read the Dotcom Secrets book, the very introduction in here, I talk about you finding your dream customer. I talked about, for me, I had five or six years in my business and one day I woke up and I was depressed. I was so upset. I wished, I remember

sitting there in bed, laying there thinking, I wish I had a boss so they could fire me so I could like separate myself from my customers. But unfortunately, um, I had built a company. I built a platform, but the people who were on my platform were not people I wanted to, to, to serve every single day. And, um, it was, it's, it can be depressing. I promise you, if you build the wrong platform, it can be really, really frustrating when you show up one day and you're like, I hate my customers. How many of you guys have ever hated your customers before?

There's so many of you. Good, I'm glad that I'm not the only one. It's tough. So if you don't think through, like, who is my dream customer ahead of time, you're going to wake up one day with a customer you hate. So I want you to think, like, who is my dream customer ahead of time, you're going to wake up one day with a customer you hate. So I want you to think, like, who is my dream customer? Who is that person I'm trying to serve?

And so what I want to do is I want to talk about your dream customer's journey. Okay? So who is my dream customer? I want to understand their journey. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to draw a picture here. So this is your dream customer. Okay? How many of you guys know who your dream customer is in your mind? You're like, I know exactly who that person is. Okay. If you don't, I encourage you people and people like, Oh, I want to serve awesome people. Like spend time actually thinking through

this. Like, who do I actually want to serve? Like, who is that person? What do they look like? What are their, what are their fears? What are they excited about? What is the pain that they are trying to get away from? And what is the pleasure they're trying to move towards? If you've ever studied NLP, you learn a really cool thing about the human mind. All humans are doing one of two things. Number one, they're trying to move away from pain. And number two, they try to move towards pleasure.

And what's interesting is most people are more dominant on one or the other. I'm curious, how many of you guys make most of your core decisions because you're trying to move away from pain in your life? You want to lose weight, so you're moving away from pain. You want to make money here because you want to get rid of your boss. You're in pain and you want to move away from pain. How many of you guys make most of your decisions based on moving away from pain? Okay. Now, the other side is you make choices like I'm moving towards pleasure. Like I want a nice car. I want to like have six

pack abs for the girls. I want to have like all these things like that. How many of you make your choices moving towards pleasure? Okay. Interesting. It's like 50, 50 in this room. Typically what I find in an entrepreneurial room, most of us make, most entrepreneurs make their choices towards pleasure. Not all, but most of them do. Where in the, in the, the real world, most entrepreneurs make their choices towards pleasure. Not all, but most of them do where in the, in the, the real world, most humans make their, uh, make their decisions moving away from pain. But regardless, you, as someone who's going to be serving this certain customer, you have to know what those things are. What is the pain they're trying to get out of? You have to think about that and figure that out. Like, what is that pain they're trying to get out of? Okay. And if you're not, if you don't know what that is, like that, it's going to be really hard for you

to serve them. And the second thing is like, what's the pleasure they're trying to move towards? Like, what is it that they actually want? What's that thing that like, that, um, uh, the biggest desires they have. Okay. So you have to know that you have to know everything about that with your, with your dream customer. Okay. Now, the next thing I want you guys to think about, and this is going to come into a lot of the Dream 100 stuff here in a minute. So if you draw a timeline of your dream customer's life, this is all the stuff that they're dealing with before you come to them, and this is all the stuff they're dealing with after. So when I start building up my Dream 100 list,

I look at my customer. I'm like, okay, let's see. So for me, I sell funnels. You guys know that's what I sell? Okay, so that's like what I sell, right? So I'm like, okay. So my dream customer, they need a funnel. Okay. But what do they need before they need a funnel? Right? Most of them wake up in the morning, like I need a funnel, right? What do they need before they need a funnel? Before you need a funnel, they need, so I'm coming before. What's the thing they need before they get my funnel? And what do they need before that? And before that?

And before that? And before that? I'm taking them backwards on this journey, right? So if they're going to get a funnel, before they can get a funnel, they probably need a business, maybe? So maybe somewhere in here, they need a business.

Maybe they need a logo. They need branding. There's probably things that happen before they come to me and they're ready for me, right? And then after they've got a funnel, then what are the things they need after they have a funnel, they might need traffic. They might need graphic design. They have, they have other things afterwards. Right. And so I didn't look at this

customer journey. Like where, where's my, where's my customer at. Okay. Um, and, uh, and so this is, this is the first phase. How many has ever thought about this before? Okay. Jay Abraham taught me this initially. So look, if you're trying to find joint venture partners or dream 100, the first thing I figured out is like, where does your, where your product, your service fit in the timeline of your dream customer. And you got to figure out what are all the services they need before they come to you. And what are all the services they need after they come to you? When you identify that, you know exactly who your partners are, right? Cause if I go to somebody else who's, who's selling funnel, uh, funnel software, which is like right here,

which is where most people go, like, well, I'm selling a weight loss product. Why would they promote my weight loss product? They have one too. Yeah, they probably won't because you're selling the same thing. So you've got to go on this customer journey prior to that. Before they wanted weight loss, what else did they get? What did they need? Maybe they had high blood pressure.

Oh, my gosh, they have high blood pressure. Maybe I could dream 100. All the people who have lists with high blood pressure because that's something they need before they lose weight, right? And so I'm looking at this customer journey, like what are the things that happen before they come to me and the things that happen after

because that's where you're going to fit in. Okay, your Dream 100 partners are going to be better here and here, probably, than the other place away. All right, guys, thank you for listening to the first of the three parts of my presentation, Dream 100 Con.

I hope you enjoyed it. Hopefully it's getting the wheels in your head spinning about traffic and kind of how traffic works. Tomorrow, I will give you guys part two. Thanks so much. And we'll see you guys tomorrow. Would you like to see behind the scenes of what we're actually doing each day to grow our company?

If so, then go subscribe to our free behind the scenes reality TV show at www.funnelhacker.tv.