Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The Overlooked “Old Way” to Sell That OfferLab Brings Back! | #Sales - Ep. 70

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I take you back to the beginning — before Facebook ads, before TikTok, before algorithms controlled everything. I share how we grew businesses in the early days, and how those same principles helped ClickFunnels scale to $10 million before we ever ran a single paid ad. This is the foundation behind Offer Lab. It’s about partnerships, collaborations, and creating results together instead of relying on expensive, unpredictable traffic platforms. I’ll show you why this shift is the future, and how remembering what worked in the past can unlock everything you’re building today. Key Highlights: Why relying on one ad platform is the biggest risk The pre-Facebook strategies that still work today How partnerships and co-branded products drive lasting growth Why Offer Lab was built to make collaboration simple The truth is, traffic costs are only going up. But collaboration will always win. If you’ve been frustrated with ads, algorithms, or trying to do business alone, this episode will reframe what’s possible and show you a path forward that’s simpler, faster, and way more fun!! Check out offerlablaunch.com/go ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sellingonline.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clickfunnels.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. This is the Russell Brunson show. Hey, what's up? This Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the show. We just finished the Offer Lab launch.

I think most of you probably watched it or a part of it. Hopefully you enjoyed it at the Offer Lab launch. After the launch day, then we had a three-day event happening afterwards. It was kind of a four-day event, and it was chaos and it was fun and it was exciting. We had over 40, I think, 45 speakers who came and spoke. And it was amazing. But I had a chance to do a special presentation each day that thought was really fun. and I wanted to share it here with you guys on the podcast.

So the first presentation, this was really fun for me to give because I talk about how we made money before Facebook, before MySpace, before friends, or back when we were just getting started in this game, how did you have successful in line? How did you make sales and drive traffic when you didn't have these ad platforms to drive traffic from? And I showed everyone what was happening. And one of the premises of this talk is like, if you want to understand how to be successful in the future, you have to learn about the past. Because right now, there's a storm coming. Traffic is changing. everything is shifting. And those who understand how we had traffic before Facebook,

the ones are going to be successful now that getting traffic is harder and harder on Facebook and the other platforms. And so that's this presentation about. I hope you enjoy it. If you haven't got your OfferLab account yet, it's completely free. You just go to OfferLab.com and get signed up. It's really cool. And so go check it out.

And that's all you got to do. So thanks so much, you guys. And we'll jump right into the first training right now. What I wanted to spend my first 30 minutes or so today before we start bringing all the other guests. speakers is I just wanted to share with you guys basically a history lesson. My belief is that for you to be successful in the future, you have to understand the past.

And most of you guys who are even in this room, for sure at home, most of you guys haven't been doing this that long. In fact, I want to do a quick poll. How many guys have been in this game, this online business game, for more than a year? If you've got a year, raise your hand. Okay. More than five years. Keep your hand raised.

More than 10 years. keep your hand raised. More than 15 years, keep hand raised. More than 20 years, keep your hand raised. More than 25 years, keep your hand raised. There's one person in the room, me, and maybe one or two. Okay. So I've been playing this game for a long time. I know I look like I'm 11 years old. I'm actually 45 years old right now, which is crazy. I started this game when I was 21. So that's kind of when I got into this world. And back then, the internet looked completely different. It's not like it is today. and we had to figure a lot of things out. And so what we were doing back when I was in my 20s is the secret to being successful

moving forward, okay? When I wrote the Traffic Seekers book, the introduction title was, there's a storm coming. I talked about this, man, four years ago, I'm like, there's a storm coming, traffic's changing, internet's changing, those who don't understand these core principles are going to struggle. And I've watched now over the last four years since I wrote that in the book, I've watched as the internet's change, as ads have changed, as platforms have changed. And so many people who I love and care about who have amazing messages and products and services have fallen away because they didn't heed the warning then. And so this is me reheating

the warning today because things are not going to get cheaper online. Traffic's not going to get easier. Going viral is not going to be an easier thing, okay? And so the secret for you to be successful in the future is to understand the past. How did we play and win the game before we could buy ads, before we could just turn on, you know, make a video when viral? Like how do we do it before all that stuff? And if you understand that, it's going to change everything moving forward. that's how you're going to be successful in the future because if and when your ad account gets shut down, you get delisted, your video stops going viral, like all the things that can and will probably happen in the very near future for everybody, okay? Happens to me, happens to everybody.

If you understand these principles I want to talk about this morning, it will give you the ability to weather the storm won't even matter. It won't even affect you in the smallest, okay? And OfferLab is a huge piece of that. It's what makes this part of the conversation actually possible, which is why I'm so excited for it, which is why I'm like, if you guys adopt this now, as you move forward in the future, it will protect you. It'll give you safety, security. It'll help your business to be around in the long term. And so that's why I'm so passionate, why this message is so important.

And it's shifting from, like, this solo entrepreneurship that we're doing that we've been for the last decade back into a collaborative environment that we were doing when I was in my 20s, the way that I grew in my business, the way that most of the people you know nowadays who have been around for 20, 25 years, that's how we all did it. And so I'm going to bring you guys some of that today. And so it's going to require you to think about business a little differently. It's going to require you to think about how offers work and funnels work a little bit differently. But if you're willing to go on that journey with me and you take these little shifts in your mind,

I think that in the other side you're going to find something really, really magical. So that's my game plan. So I want to talk about. I don't have any slides today. I just wanted to doodle some stuff. So most of the people in our community that know of got into this business within the last 10 years or so. The last 10 years have been like the good old days. When Facebook ads were cheap, things were different.

It was a lot easier. So this is what most people. businesses look like in the last decade. What would happen is they would go and they would create a product. So there is a product, right? And then they like, we need a traffic to the product. So you go over here and you found this one partner. We're to call him Zuck. There's Zuckerberg. And he was, he was the partner. He said, hey, Zuckerberg, will you send people to my offer and I will give you some money? And Zuckerberg's like, I would love to take your money. And so we would buy ads, right? And we would dry traffic. So we give Zuckerberg some money up here. People would come. They buy the product. And in

theory, if we did it correctly, we would get $2 back out. And it was amazing. How many of us remember the good old days when Facebook ad clicks were penny or $5 or 25 cents or 30 cents per click. And you were selling just the $37 product and you could be profitable. Say you spend $10 and adjimate $37. This is like a magic ATM machine. And you just do it. And you're like, this is the greatest thing in the world. I have the best partner in the world. His name is Mark Zuckerberg. I'm going to figure about every other human being on the planet because I don't I need him. All I need is Mark Zuckerberg. He's like a drug dealer. We're like, this is awesome. Give me some more. Give me another hit. I've never done drugs, but I assume that's a little. I don't know. So, right? And so we literally just like got rid of all of our friends, our partners, our JVs, our everything. And just like, we focused on this one person because he was like the best in the world. He gave us all the good stuff, right? And then what happened is then Zuckerberg's like, hey, install this little tracking pixel on your site so we can optimize and find better audiences for you. He's so smart. And we're like, this is a great idea. And so we put these little pixels on. our pages, right? And then he starts looking at stuff and he starts realizing, he's like, man,

okay, I know how much they're spending in here. So they're giving me $10 and they're making $20. I'm going to increase this from $10 to $15 to $18, 18 to $19, just enough that they're still making money, but not enough for them to actually succeed, but they got the drugs coming. They can't turn it off, right? And so that was happening. And so costs are going up. We're like, and this is when like the funnel world started developing and started becoming a thing, right? It's like, okay, well, I can't do this. Mr. Dan Kennedy, the greatest marketing mind of all time, says, whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins, how do we do that?

And that's when the birth of like upsells started coming. It's like, well, okay, I'm spending a dollar getting two. I'm spending almost $2 getting two. This isn't working. I need to have an upsell. And so we start adding in upsells, right? And then that would work for a while. And then Zuckerberg starts tracking his pixel here.

It's like, ooh, they're making more money. I can charge them more. And they start going to add it down. So I'm going to add an order for and bump. We start tweaking and optimize these things. And so our funnels got better and better and more. more sophisticated because we had to because otherwise we made no money from Zuckerberg. And so we got better at selling, he got better at taking our money.

And it kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse, right? And that's the world we live in today. Okay. And so for someone to be successful, it's not just like, I'm going to put a product up and sell. In fact, I was in a mastermind a month ago and had such a good time hanging out and there's all these celebrities there. And having you know, Derek Huff, the dancer from Dancing with the Stars, like super talented guy.

And he comes up, he's like, Russell, he's like, seen your stuff online. He's like, he's like, I want a funnel. He's like, I have a book. Like, I wrote a book. Like, we do, did I do a funnel with that? And at first I was like, dude, Derek Koff's going to have a funnel. This is insane. And then the same time, I was like, for him to have a successful funnel, he's out

a book. But how am I going to tell him, like, you got to create an order for a bump. And then to make that work, then you've got to create, like, a $200 course. And then you got to make a down-sill course. Then you probably have to make another course. And like, if you have all these pieces in place, then we turn ads on, then you could break even. But then you've got to have something high-take on the back-end to sell to actually make.

and I was just like, how am I going to, like, it seems so hard, right? And that's what's like, it's hard. I have people come to my community all the time. Like, Russell, I wrote a book. Russell, I created a course. They come. They're so excited. And like, okay, what do I do now?

I'm like, cool. You created a, you wrote a book, which is, if you have written a book, if you do it the right way, it is, it's like the hardest thing in the world, right? I have a meme that I share with myself every time I start writing a book. It says the difference is that reading a book and writing a book is very similar. The only difference is when you're writing a book, the book's trying to kill you. And that's kind of what happens. when you write a really good book, right? The book's trying to kill you.

You get the book done. You just put two years in this thing. Like, the book is done. You're like, cool, we can sell the line. But we need to create four other courses, a product and upsell coaching program. Then you could actually maybe make money with it at the end. And it's just like, people get overwhelmed, right? Which, by the way, is one of the problems at Offer Lab solves. I'll come back to that later. But like, with Derek Huff, for example, or whoever, I could, like, just put your book

on Offer Lab, and then you don't have to create an order for a month, but an upsell and down something to find partners who already have these pieces, and now you can just drive traffic and it works, right? You don't have to go and create 30 different products just to break even. You can actually just put your product on there, find other products, and it speed you up to success. And over time, you can go and you create your own upsell. Over time, you can create something else. But in the short term, like, let's get money happening, right? Like, money follows speed. Like, how do we get something out there as quick as humanly possible, right? And so that gives us the ability to move fast because I just have one offer here,

one course, one product, whatever, and I can plug another people's things. Okay? And so, again, that's kind of one of the big benefits of offer. And I'm going to come back to that. But that's kind of where businesses today, okay? That's been the last decade. So, although you guys have been playing this game last decade, yeah, it looks familiar. I had this, and then I added this and this, and now we're here. Okay?

But I want to go back in time now. So, again, your success in the future dictates is going to be 100% based on your understanding of the past. Because what's happening in the past is what's going to win. And most of you guys weren't there in the past. So you're lucky. Old man Russell Brunson was there 25 years ago in college, figuring this game out.

And I'm going to show you what it worked in the past. Because if you understand this, this is how we're going to be successful in the future. Okay, so in the past, rewind back to when Russell was 21 years old. I looked really young back then. It was really weird. Someone, this is like awkward. Somebody, I met somebody in there, like, you look really young. How old are you?

I'm like, how old do you think I am? I'm like fishing for a compliment, you know? And she goes, well, based on the crow's feet next to your eyes, you got to be leased in your 40s. And I was like, I have a crow feet? Like, I was freaking out. Like, oh, no. Anyway, now I'm very self-conscious of my, anyway. So back before I had Crow's feet, a 21-year-old Russell Brunson,

I was trying to figure this game out and figure things out, right? And so here's me, and I had glasses back then. Ooh, so there's me the glass. Anyway, there's Russell. Okay? Now, Russell created a little offer. The very first product I ever created, before potato guns, the very first thing I ever created was a little product called Zip Brander.

So this was my product. It's a little software product sold for $67, and that was my product. And I spent all this time, like, posting in forums, and you didn't know people because, again, And remember, this is the world before Facebook was there on, before YouTube, before all these things, right? It was before MySpace, like, MySpace came out after this. Okay, it was back when, like, there was no advertising networks outside of Google. You could buy Google ads, that was about it. So I'm creating my first product, Zipander.

I'm trying to drive traffic. And over time, I built up a list, a little tiny list of, I don't know, a couple hundred people. So this is my, this is Russell's little list. Okay, and that was me. And I started going, I was like, trying to figure out, like, other people playing this game besides me. I started searching online. I found some forms in different places. I started getting to know other people.

And then one day, I saw this dude. And his name was Mike Phil's name. So there's Mike. And Mike was in this form. And he had a brand new product. I think it was called, I text him some morning to see if, if, uh, dang, he didn't text me back yet. I texted him.

I was like, what was the name of the product? I think it was called carbon copy something, carbon copy marketing or something. So we had this product and there were DVDs. And he was literally burning him at his house. Then you buy it and he'd ship you out this DVD. And it's called carbon copy. marketing right so that was that was Mike's thing was the DVDs carbon copy marketing and so that was his product there and then Mike had his little list of people I think he had probably I don't know

two or three thousand people on his list his little his little audience so there's Mike's list and I met Mike I was like what's going on Mike how's like I love your product is so cool and and and he was telling about what he was doing how many he sold and we're just excited going back and forth and then I was like well because again I can't I have this product there's no way for me to just go turn traffic on like I'm going to run for Facebook ads Like, I have a product I'm just in college, my newly married wife, money was not coming every day every once in a while to come in if we did something. So I went to Mike.

I was like, hey, Mike, I have an idea. Your new product carbon copy marketing looks really, really cool. I have a little list of people. What if I send an email on my list of people and sold them Carbon Copy Pro? And then you sent email to your list of people and sell them Zip Brander. Then we both went. He's like, okay, let's do it. And so we set up a partnership.

I sent an email on my list. I sold a whole bunch of Carbon Copy Pro. and then Mike, he kept half the money, he gave me 50%. So I got half, he got half. It was awesome, right? Then Mike sent an email, his list on a Zip Brander, bunch of people bought it, right? I kept half the money.

I gave Mike half the money. Partnership, joint venture. It was insane. I made money. And at the same time, I guess what else happened? Both of our little lists got bigger because people on his list found out about me, people my list found out about him. And so all of a sudden, my list got a little bit bigger.

And there's more people on his list. And we did this collaboration, and we both won. We both made money. Both our audiences grew and we had this partnership. And it was the coolest thing in the world. So that happened first. And then I was like, talking to Mike. I'm like, that was so fun.

Like, you know, my wife's pumped. We made some money. Like, she didn't think I'm like this homeless, jobless husband that she's supporting. Like, actually made some money in my business. And it was the coolest thing in the world. Now I was talking to Mike. I'm like, do you know anybody else doing this?

Like, I'm just kind of getting to know like the players in our market. And Mike's like, oh, yeah, there's this other guy. And so he told me that there's this guy named Gary, Gary Ambrose. And he's like, here's Gary. He should meet him. So I go and I meet Gary. And guess what? Gary has his own product, right?

I can't remember exactly what Gary's product was called, but Gary also had his only a little list of people, right? I was like, dude, that's awesome. So I go to Gary, I'm like, hey, that product looks cool. And so I was like, what if I promote your product to my list and then you promote my product to your list? And we'll do a joint venture where we work together in collaboration. And Gary's like, your product's awesome.

I would love to you. So Gary sends email to his list to go buy Ziprander. Okay? Money comes in. I give half to Gary. I keep half of it. My list grows because a bunch of Gary's people join my list. my list gets bigger. And then Gary, and then I sent an email to my list selling Gary's product,

a bunch of people bought. Gary gives me half the money. I keep half the money. We both win, right? And then his list gets bigger. I'm like, this is insane. This is the best thing in the world. I was like, I was studying business in college and they're talking about all these weird things and everything. I was like, business has nothing to do with any of the crap they're teaching in college. Business is just relationships. Because I'm doing more business than any of my college professors are. So my little product I created. Right? It's just relationships. Okay. This is coming from Russell, the awkward introvert, who scared death of people. So then I'm like, okay, how do I do this?

And then they told me, hey, there's an event happening. This guy named Arm and Morn. He's like the big guru in the world. He's doing this event called Big Seminar. We should all go to it. So I go to a seminar. Gary goes, Mike goes, all of us, we go to this seminar. We get in this room, there's 500 people who are all just like us.

A bunch of nerds making money on the internet. I was like, this is amazing. There's this person here, and there's this person here. And we start meeting all these people. and one thing is interesting, each these people had, number one, their own offer, and number two, these had their own list of people, own offer, own list of people, own. And I started walking out. I was like, every person in here is a partner.

I'm not competitive anyway. I'm a partner with every single one of these people. And so I started becoming friends with them. And back then, this is, again, aging myself as well, okay? You guys remember Skype? Skype just got shut down, which is crazy. Before Skype, there's a thing called Yahoo Messenger. And it was the greatest thing in the world.

And so I got on Yahoo Messenger. I'm like, hey, what's your Yahoo Messenger? And we got a Yahoo Messenger, and we started connecting, right? So a Yahoo Messenger, we all hung out, and all the business deals happened. So my job, literally full-time, I'm on Yahoo Messenger, messaging Gary and Mike, and this guy, and this guy, all right? And I'm introducing people into stuff, and we're figuring out of deals. I'm like, hey, I have, you know, we from my app, so, this is what's happening. And from this, my business starts growing and growing and growing.

I'm, again, I'm like, business is so great. It has nothing to do with math or ads or creative or anything. It has 100% to do with relationships. That's all this. Okay? So introverted Russell, I'm going to this event, meeting people, getting there, getting their Yahoo Messenger links, which is really fun. And that would become of my business.

It's funny, as maybe her to tell a story, I would go to these events. And again, I've never drink. I don't drink. But everyone, after the event's done, everyone's in the room like this, then they go out to the bars and hang out. And I'm like scared, you know, as the kid who's never drunk before, I'm scared death. Like, I don't want to go to a bar.

Like, I don't want people think I'm drinking. And so I would go to the bars at night with these guys to hang out. But I was like, I need to make sure they know that I'm not drinking. So I would go to the bartend, right? right when I get there. I'm like, hey, can I order milk? He's like, what? I'm like, can I order her milk?

Like, you want milk? I'm like, yeah. I mean, he's like, why do you want to milk? I'm like, because if you give me a sprite, everyone's going to think I'm drinking, I don't even know. Colt 45, I don't even know what those things are. I'm like, if I got milk, they know I'm not drinking anything. And so I did that, and the most cool is like, it was the best icebreaker ever,

ever could be like, are you drinking milk? I'm like, yeah. Like, what? I'm like, yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm more, but I don't drink. Like, but you're drinking milk, yeah. got, the more stuff they just gave me. They became like, they're telling me all their secrets, all the best stuff. It was like insane, right? And then at that time when they're like half and half there, I'm like, hey, what's your, what's your Yahoo Messenger?

Right? Oh, here it is. Sweet man, I'll message you next week. Right. And so I'm getting all these deals. And so I start building this network of people. I'm like, all businesses is a network of people. The better relationship I have these people, the more money I'm going to make. And that's exactly what happened. Okay. And so what happened is then, again, I'd pro him. And like, that's how this whole thing started growing. Okay. And it was great. That was the season for for a little while. But then what happened. And over time, over time, we started thinking, like, how do we be more creative? Because, like, I can promote Mike.

Mike can promote me. That's great. How do we do actual collapse? What's the next level of this? What's the evolution of business? Instead of me just, us cross-promoting, what's the next evolution? How do we do this? And so we started playing with a couple different ideas.

It was like, what if we created a product together that we both own? So instead of just like, here's Russell's product. Here's Mike's product. What if we got to, we came together, did a joint venture collaboration with each other. What if we created a co-branded product? Create a co-branded product and it's got Mike's face on it. It's got my face on it. We sell this product and then we both promote it.

What happens is like now Russell is promoting Russell. Mike is promoting Mike. So the conversions go up because our lists know who we are. And so more people buy because of that, which is exciting, right? But then they come in here and we have this co-branded product where we're teaching together. And also like my, my credibility believes on Mike. Mike's credibility bleeds online and like we both like look bigger in the eyes of our audience. We teach them stuff and then when people buy this, we both get the customers and we both get

the money we split 50-50 and this becomes like this becomes the thing to do, right? And so we started doing that. In fact, I found one this morning on the way back machine and my team can pull it up. This is one of the ones that Mike and I did back in the day. It was called pre-launch secrets. We pull on the big one too, hopefully. There. So this is the co-branded product in 2005, so I was 20, 2005.

So I was 25 years old and this one came out. And so Mike Phil's name, Russell Brunson's pre-launch secrets. And if you scroll up a little bit, you see this, the product we put together. And basically, it was a tele-seminar where Mike and I called each other. And I did a bunch of successful, he done a bunch of successful product launches. I had a bunch of successful product launches. And so we just interviewed each other about like, how did you do this one? What did you do?

What was the step-by-step process? This is before anyone was saying the word funnel. But basically, like, here's the funnels I did for all these different campaigns and these things. And then Mike went through all the what his. And I think he spent like three hours on the phone of us going back and forth just talking about this one niche, very specific topic, which was, like, how to do a pre-launch. We put it together. Okay, I think you can pull it down now.

I put together pre-launch secrets. I produce my list. Mike throws to his list and also a bunch of people start buying it. And then people start messages, that product is awesome. Can I promote it? Can I promote it? Yeah, you can promote it. So then they're promoting it.

And we're promoting it. It's like blows up, right? Making a bunch of money. And it was cool for me. Mike and I, when someone bought, we both got the lead, right? And we split the money 50-50. And then affiliates promoted and split the money. And it was insane.

Okay, it got so exciting. And so then I started like, who else can I do partnerships with? And so I started creating products with a lot of other people, right? I did products with the guy named Jeremy Burns. They had a product with Gary Ambrose. I had to break, we should do these co-branded products together. It was so fun, right? And these co-branded product was interesting because what we would do is we figure out, like, what's like, what's a specific thing?

Like, we're not creating these huge coaching programs and big courses and stuff. It's like, what's like one really interesting, unique topic we can talk about, a pre-launch, okay? Mike had one call that he did. It was called Fire Cell Seekers, like how to do a fire cell. We had all these different things. So we pick one topic. We'd co-brand a product together, and they became a front-end for us, right? We'd both promote this thing, and we both get money split it out, and it was amazing.

And then other affiliates thought they wanted to promote it, and so it just became this thing. And then what would happen is that each of Mike and I both had our own business in the back, right? So then I would get the customer, I'd get the customers like a thing, and I'd sell my customers, my product. Mike said his customer's his product. And so this became this front-end where we introduced each other's audiences together. We both make a bunch of money, right? But then we'd get the customers leads, and then we can sell them stuff on our own behind the scene. And that's kind of how we started playing business back in the day.

And then for me, I was like, this is the secret. It's just collaborations. How do we create things together? It doesn't have to be Russell Brunson, this, Russell Brunson, this. We'll have created more things together as a community, as partners, right? And for the next decade of my business, that's what we did over and over and over again. Now, interesting fact, Mike's going to be here this week, I believe, and he's going to be speaking. So you have a chance to hear from him.

But back at this time, when we were doing this whole thing, Mike, one of his business partners, had an idea for a concept. I think they call it the upsell network. Like, what if we create something? Because right now we've got, Russell's got his product, Gary's got his, he's got, everyone got these different products, right? We have co-branded products for making together. What if there's a way we could create a marketplace where everyone would upload their offers together? And then what I could do is I could build a funnel really easier.

I could have my product on front end. I could have his is upsell one, his is upsell two, and this is upsell three, right? We could just glue together something. And then what's cool is like everyone's involved in this funnel. Everybody promotes it because everybody wins. Right. And someone buys, Russell gets his money. This person gets their money.

And everyone gets the lead. along the way and like we all win together right and so mike started to build this thing again i think think it was called the upsell network and uh they tried to build it and technically they ran in hurdles where it's technically wasn't possible but he planned the seat and i remember this is again 2005 2006 this is man 20 years ago uh is when he kind of planned that idea and they tried to build it and you know i don't know what ever happened the project they kind of died and uh but i always remember thinking like that's the cool thing because right now for me to build a funnel i've got to go and build every single step inside the funnel i can create 30 different offers to create everything

And then I'm in the silo by myself. And then the only person who cares about that funnel success is me, right? Versus this way was different. Like, okay, we have a co-branded product here. This guy's upselled. And now a lot of people are incentivized. And it was essential back then because I didn't have the ability to go to the one partner who seemed so nice to all of us before he screwed us.

This guy, I didn't have the ability to go to him back. Hey, man, Sean adds. He wasn't there. So I had to find other partners who is also in their best interest. I succeed as well. So I logged in there. And so I put some together. you're going to promote you're going to promote and we set up these deals and these partnerships and

everyone would promote something at the same time everyone got sold stuff in the funnel everyone had a chance to make money and it was insane okay so again mike tried to build an upside network technically wasn't able to happen but i remember always thinking like if we had that it would make this like so much more fun so much easier and so um and that was again 20 man almost 20 years ago okay and then fast forward a few years later Facebook comes out ads start working and then everybody just kind of shifted everyone stopped working with partners and just had one partner Right. Everyone started moving from this collaborative thing where we're literally on Yahoo Messenger, eight, ten hours a day. And then it moved to Skype eventually when Skype came. We're like,

oh, we're cool. We're in Skype. What's your Skype panel? That was the next cool thing to be. In fact, I still have people, to this day, that I only contacted through Skype until they shut down last week or two weeks ago, whenever it was. I hadn't really had to get a hold of them now because I only had their Skype. It kind of sucks. I should have, I wish they would have warned us. I could have contact. Hey, man, what's your real email? What's your name again? But that's where these deals were happening, right? And for me, it was weird because we shifted from, like, how do we collaborate, how to create co-brands, how do we co-create stuff, how do we create upsells and downs, how do we all win together to this thing of, like, everyone just kind of went in silos, everyone focused on their own

funnels, and then nobody else was involved in. It was just them, and hopefully Zuckerberg wouldn't screw them too bad, and hopefully they could figure out the math and numbers, and that was business for the last 10 years. And there were times it was amazing, times was down, up and down, up and down. And you see the cycles. You see it where for a little while, Facebook or one of the platforms introduced a new, feature like groups or they introduce fan pages they want everyone to be successful or going Facebook lives and so they make it free for a little bit right and they make and they reward you

so I remember Facebook lives first came out I would open my Facebook live I click live on Facebook live just remember the good old days I click live within 30 seconds 3,000 people are on I'm like what's up 3,000 people buy my crap and it was amazing they would go buy it okay today I've got over a million followers on Facebook when I go live on Facebook live I go Facebook live guess some people show up 12 13 Okay. So there's peaks where they're like, we're going to get everyone addicted to the next drug, which is a Facebook cloud. Everyone to move off every other platform come to us. And so they dictates you, they give these amazing things. And it's like, this is the greatest thing in the world. And then Zuckerberg's like, ha ha, I got you all.

Boom. And then it just disappears, right? Organics. Like, I made a video on fire. This is insane. Oh, and everyone's getting addicted to it. And it's like, now you got to pay for reach. And it just dies. Right. And so they're like, there's these ebbs and flows. And so I've been watching this for 25 years now, the ebs and the flows. And the only thing that never had ebs and flows was this. right everyone has their own distribution channel everyone's got their own part even when they're small like mine started with 200 people right the mic promoted it got to like 400 people and then 800 people and then a thousand eventually from 1,000 people to 5,000 to 10,000 to 100,000 right? And my status started growing my following started growing and it was all about this we didn't have any ads I literally did not run the first ad in my business until we were two years in the click funnels click funnels over 10 million dollars before I bought our first ad how did you how did you build click

funnels to 10 million dollars a year without any ads russell um I look back in the And I was like, these people all have my dream customers. I can go to Zuckerberg and pay them a premium, or I can just go to them and do partnerships. And so Mike Phil's name was one of my very first partners in ClickFunnels. He did an event. He let me come to speak to event, and we spoke and we sold it. And then I gave him half the money.

I kept half the money. And then he did a webinar later, and he promoted ClickFunnels. He promoted it. Sold a ton of people. I gave half the money. We both won, and ClickFunnels grew. And then went to the next person. The next person.

I was on Skype hitting up everybody. What's up? You have messengers is still there, and these statement and was there. hit up everybody. And all I did for the first two years of ClickFunnels before we bought our very first ad was just this. We just went and found people. And the coolest thing about this,

when you do partnerships, okay? This is the get-go. This is an I understand this. Zuckerberg, you pay him up front whether you make money or not. Right? Does that seem fair to you guys? Like, I could send you crap traffic.

Doesn't matter. You still got to pay me for it. Right? With these guys, like when I did a partnership, when Mike did the webinar to promote ClickFunnels, he didn't pay him up front. it was a partnership. We're both hoping this is going to work. So he was invested in working. I was invested. We sat down. We talked about. We figured it out. We did a promotion together. People went on

there on the webinar. I sold. He was invested in it being successful. He gave his own bonuses. We got more people to buy. We figured this thing out. And we sold a bunch stuff. And then after we collected the money and all the refunds run, then I took half the money, I gave it to him. And we both won. So there's no risk. Right? Like, I would have been successful in business back when I was 21 years old because the risk would have been too high if I to go pay for Zuckerberg. So many people in my world like, okay, I got my thing. I'm going to buy ads. I'm like, oh, why would you buy ads?

Like, you're now, like, in this deficit immediately from day number one of risking money that you do not have to be successful. And how long do you got a thousand bucks, five thousand bucks for running an ad money? Like, go get $10 million before you run ads by doing this. Find partners. Collaborate. That's the game. That's like, that's how everybody should be thinking about business differently, okay?

Because it's not going to get cheaper. It's not going to get easier. There'll be things that get you addicted for a few minutes. they take it away and they're dick to you and they'll take it away and these things you can keep happening at every single platform TikTok, Instagram, like the next one's coming out soon, like it doesn't matter, they're all going to go through these ebbs and floats, okay? The thing that's consistent, they'll give you security and safety in your business, today, tomorrow and forever is this, okay?

Like if Facebook gets shut down, TikTok is whatever the, they're trying to do, I don't know, politically, whatever to shut down TikTok, if those things all disappeared, it wouldn't matter because I still have my list. Mike still got his, they've got his, like everyone still has their stuff, right? And so understand that's like, I should be, I should probably be putting a little more time and effort into these relationships because business has nothing to do with math and algorithms and creative and copy and all that crap. Businesses relationships. That's it. I used to help people all the time. I'm like, if you, if I lost everything today and everything, if I lost all my

money, my company, my business, my brand had disappeared. I was like, it would take me less than 30 days to be a millionaire again. Like, what? I'm like, 30 days easy. That's all we take. Like, how? Jump on Skype. It's up, man. You want to create a product together? Yeah? Cool. I'll promote it to my people. You brought your people and split the money.

Sweet. Hey man. What's up? That's it. That's the game. Okay. So I wanted to share that because, again, your guys' success in the future is going to depend on your understanding of the past.

Most of you guys weren't there. So old man Russell's here to give you that history lesson. Okay? If you start thinking about business differently, stop getting out of this silo where you've got one partner and he hates you and he wants to take all your money to the thought we have a lot of partners who actually care about your success who actually want you to be successful, who you can co-create with. You can create amazing things. You can serve your customers at a different level. We start thinking about business differently. It changes everything.

The coolest thing about OffRab. When we came back and we built this platform, the goal is like, how do we make this process easy? Because I've explained this in the past. I'm like, here's how to make, do partnerships and JVs and stuff. I try to explain it. And then everyone just messes up, like, I'm just going to go back to Zuckerberg. Like, why? He's the worst. He doesn't even like you. He wants you to fail. He made you put pixels on his page so you take all the money. Like, that's what he does, right? Instead of finding partners. And so we built a platform. You guys have probably been in the platform. If not, it's free. Go to OfferLab.com, create free account. This is what the platform looks like. Okay? Over here, there's a little thing called inbox. Okay.

I want you to think inbox equals 2,000 Yahoo Messenger or 2000. When did Skype come out? 2005 Skype. This is your new Skype. This is where the deals are happening. Okay. I know. I requested for a lot of people's products. And guess what? Those people didn't log in their inbox. I'm like, there's Russell Brunsson asking to promote your product. And you're like, you didn't look at your inbox. That's like me Skype.

Hey man, can I promote your stuff? Hey man, I want to promote your stuff. Hey, want to put your stuff. And like, are you insane? For me, this was how I made money back day. I would open my computer, open up Skype, Yahoo Messenger, and that's why I made money. That was it.

Like every day you should be logging off lab and all you should be doing is like, okay, inbox. This is where the partnerships happen. Okay? This is where people contact you. Hey, can I promote your crap? you can. But if you're not paying attention, you're missing it. Okay. How many guys have logged into your Off Lab account this morning so far? Okay? If you haven't, there's probably people

don't want to work with you. Like go find the dialogue, communication, introverts. I built this for you. You don't have to go to an event. You don't have to be carrying glass of milk at the bar like I did. You literally can just log in right here and the people are already there for you. I did it all for you. I built this for me, so I would have to talk to people face to face. It's the best thing in the world. Okay, it's the rest. So this is your Yahoo Messenger, your Skype. That's what the inbox is. So make sure you log in every single day to offer lab and go in there. Okay. Now, obviously you want people to contact you, but if you want to be successful, you got to contact people as well. So the cool thing is on the platform. You click

on the marketplace. There's all these cool offers in here. These are all people who are like you who are saying, hey, I hate Zuckerberg and I want to do partnerships. Every in the marketplace, that's them. They're all here to do partnerships. So you don't have to be nervous. Like, what if I annoy them? Like, no, annoy them. They want to be annoyed. So you message this person like, hey, man, your product's sick. Can I promote? They say yes. And also it creates a dialogue in here and you're like, hey, this is awesome, I want to promote it. I'm going to put upsell number one. Hey, what if we did a co-branded product together?

I love how you do this. I do this. What's created a product together? We put an awful lot platform together. Like, oh, yeah, it's awesome. Like, all the collaboration, the partnership is here. Like, I brought all the people in one spot. Everyone who understands this game is here.

And I'm training and educating you guys all in this game, right? So all the offers here are the platform. So your job is to come to the platform. Find these offers that are congruent. You contact the offer and start building relationships, okay? When you have other people that maybe aren't on the platform yet, go to them like, hey, I want to do a partnership. Let's do a co-lab together.

Let's create a co-branded project together. And let's put it on Off-Lap. That way, we can promote other people who promote it. Okay, the coolest thing about this, this is something I always wanted to do back in the day, but we never could do. But now with Off-Lab, you can. Let's say, Mike and I did a new project together, right? So we create Pre-Launch Secrets 2.0.

How many years to buy Pre-Launch Secrets 2.0 now? A couple of years to buy it. Speaking, like, I've done a lot of pre-launches since then. So pre-launched Secrets is 2.0, right? So let's just say, like, imagine this. I messes Mike through, I'm like, hey, man, let's go back to 2005. Let's create 2.0 of pre-launch secrets. It'll be sick, right?

So we create pre-launch secrets, right? It's got Russell's face on. It's got Mike's face on it. And then what's cool about this is we can create two funnels. Okay? So Mike creates his version of funnel. Russ creates his version of funnel. But the front of products is the same, right?

So then Mike's going to promote his list here. Then Mike may be like, hey, this is the cool day. I get a co-brand with Russell. So I get the credibility for him. I get a co-branded with Mike. I get credibility from him. Right. But what's cool about this is like, I have my own products and want to sell.

So what if on my version, after somebody's pre-law and secrets, then I go and sell selling online. This is my product. That I want to sell, right? And I might be like, hey, I don't want to do that. I want to sell, groove, right? And so that's his product. So he can sell his product. And then we can both promote the front product, but then I can upsell the things that I want to upsell.

He can upsell, right? We still both get the customers, can split the money, everything else, but now we can do that. And then you guys, this is awesome. I look, rest of my credit. This is amazing. I want to promote it. But, you know, I have my product. I'm going to put my other thing as upsell.

And then someone else can brought my product, but they can put their own stuff. So now they're incentivized for being successful. Now it's like we're all making money because we can do whatever we want. You're just getting this? Does this all making sense? Okay.

There's so many, like, thank you. Like if you start thinking about business a little bit differently than you guys like this, it's going to change everything for you. Like it literally, there's so many ways to leverage this and have fun on an off lab and actually be successful with this. And so I just wanted today this morning

before all of our other amazing speakers here just like to kick this off and get the wheels, here is spinning, okay? Again, your success in the future is going to take your understanding in the past, because the past is how we're going to win the game in the future, okay? And that's what it is. And so we built Offer Lab literally for you guys to be able to do it, to play the game in a way that I wish I could have back when I was on Skype. Okay, this is it. Your inbox is your place. This is we're networking. These are offers here, these people

start contacting, getting know of them, building relationships, building partnerships, co-labbing, doing partnerships together, adding an offer that's specific to you guys on the platform. Like, there's so many cool, fun, easy, exciting ways to do this. And that's why we wanted to create this for you. So I'm hoping that you guys love the platform. I hope that it benefits you in your company, your business. I hope you build friendships, relationships. I think for me, looking back over the last 25 years in business, like of all the amazing things, like the thing that's meant the most of me is the friendships I've built a long way. I mean, it's crazy. I've got people in here that I've invited to be part of this who I haven't seen them in 10 years and they flew out.

In fact, some of them are going to be here today or tomorrow that I haven't seen in 10 years. But these guys met on Yahoo Messenger back in the day. And I was doing the same, hey, would you want to come and just talk about how you do offers? Like, yeah, man, and they flew out on their own dime to be here. Like partnerships, relationships. This is what makes the game fun. Somebody else becomes cynical because it's like, I've got to build a funnel and conversions and optimizations and ads and twists and all that kind of stuff. And I understand that part of the game.

We still got to play it if we want to grow over on the platforms. But the reality is like there's a simpler way to do it, a more fun way, a way that builds relationships and friendships and connection, a way to get you out of your silo of selling alone and brings it back together. And the more we do that here on the Offlaught platform, the more success we're all going to have together. So that was our gift to you guys is creating this platform for you, for me, for everybody to be able to do more partnerships, have more collaboration. And it's going to be awesome. So that's what I had to prepare for you guys this morning. I hope you guys enjoyed that.

I got some value from it. That was your history lesson from old man Russell Brunson, taking you guys back to when I was 21 years old. And that's how we played the game. And I hope that hopefully it's valuable for you guys. All right. I hope you enjoyed that session and you got a lot of value from it. Hopefully you're starting to learn more and more about how you can use OfferLab to grow your business to make more money. have more fun, have more collaborations.

I will see you guys on the next episode. We'll go even deeper into OfferLab and how you can use it for your business.