Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The Publishing Playbook: How to Win Before You Launch | #Marketing - Ep. 07

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Most people build a funnel first and then try to find traffic. But that’s completely backward! In this episode, I share why your number one focus should be gathering an audience long before your funnel launches. I’ll break down the exact strategies I’ve used to dominate in marketing. Whether it's building ClickFunnels into the category leader or creating products that people are already lined up to buy. If you’re struggling to get momentum, this episode is for you. Key Highlights: Dig your well before you're thirsty - If you wait until your funnel is live to build an audience, you’ve already lost. The two paths to traffic - Working your way in (free strategies) vs. buying your way in (paid ads). You need both, but I’ll tell you where to start. The power of relationships - Most successful marketers don’t rely on ads alone. I’ll show you how connecting with the right influencers can send a flood of traffic your way. Why publishing content is non-negotiable - You can’t just build an offer and hope people show up. I’ll explain why consistent content is the secret to long-term success. How I’ve used these strategies to dominate competitors - From beating Leadpages to taking on GHL, I’ll share the mindset and tactics that keep ClickFunnels ahead. If you’re serious about selling online, you can’t afford to wait until launch day to find your audience. The second you decide to start a business, you need to start gathering the many. In this episode, I’ll break down exactly how to do that, so when your funnel is ready, you’ve already got a crowd waiting to buy! https://sellingonline.com/podcast https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Special thanks to our sponsors: Northwest Registered Agent: Go to northwestregisteredagent.com/marketingsecrets to start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at LinkedIn.com/CLICKS Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at RocketMoney.com/RUSSELL Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/clicks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Do you have a funnel but it's not converting? The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good, but you suck at selling. If you wanna learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next Selling Online event by going to sellingonline.com slash podcast. That's sellingonline.com slash podcast. That's sellingonline.com slash podcast.

This is the Russell Brunson Show. What's up everybody? This is Russell. Welcome back to the show. Excited to be hanging out with you guys today. And today we're gonna be talking about getting insane amounts of traffic to your funnel before your funnel is even live.

This is one of the biggest problems I'm seeing inside of our community is people, they are spending time building a funnel, or building it off, or putting things together, but they're not focusing on the most important thing, which is planting all the seed you need ahead of time before you actually launch your funnel. So that's what we're gonna talk about.

We're gonna go deep into it. For any of you guys who are building but not getting the eyeballs, the leads, the following ahead of time, we're gonna fix that for you guys today and show you a very fun, simple way to do that. But before we do, I gotta start with some stories because anyway, I'm enjoying the new podcast style

and you guys have been telling me it's been fun. I've shared a lot of stories, again, like I used to back in the day and people are loving it. So I'm gonna tell you guys some stories that will hopefully motivate you and get you excited. One story is the fact this shirt I'm wearing today, I saw this on the Joe Rogan show. He had it on during his podcast episodes.

I'm hoping that by default, me wearing this, our podcast will grow. So there you go. There's number one. No, but for real, the story I want to tell you guys today, it was one, it was actually, I left weights in the morning with the trainer and I can't remember what conversation we got in,

but we started talking about this and this story popped in my head. I hadn't thought about this in like probably 20 years and I thought it was really funny. So this comes down to like, I don't know, my number one, I took Strength Finders, my number one strength is competition.

Like I love competition, I thrive in it the more that it is, the better it is and all sorts of stuff. And you know, that's why this business has been so fun for me. You know, we first launched it, we were the underdogs and we had all this big competition. We had all these companies that take on funding.

I remember Leadpages when we first decided to create ClickFunnels, they'd just take on $5 million in funding. Eventually they had like 40. And so I was like, we gotta beat them. So we were racing to beat them because we had no funding. It was just us with our brains

and our intuition and our energy running. So that was like the initial thing that we went through, right? And eventually we beat them, we surpassed them. And I have not heard the word Leadpages in, I don't know, five, six, seven years. Then the next was like, okay, who's the next company? And it was like, boom, it was Infusionsoft.

They just got like $150 million in funding. So like, all right, there's the next goal. So they're racing, racing, racing. And it was interesting. So that was kind of the goal. And then for a long time, we were the top and there was no one to compete against. And for me, like, I need competition.

And so that's, I think, big reason why we decided to build new ClickFunnels, which by the way, you guys can see the logo. If you watch the video version, there's a logo blown up. We just this week launched the brand new ClickFunnels brand. You guys seen it yet? It is insane. It is the coolest thing ever. I need to get a light like this now with the new branding.

But it's coming soon. I actually did order lights. I hope we'll have new branding here in light format for the videos, but the new branding is going amazing. The app looks awesome. The software looks awesome. It's so exciting. With all these people now who are like relogging back into ClickFunnels to see the new app, start using it.

In fact, Joe McCall, one of my favorite people on planet, he posted today, he said, "'I'm digging into the new ClickFunnels more seriously. "'And let me tell you something, it's flipping amazing. "'We're bringing all of our funnels back over. It's way better than GHL. What was that Joe? It's way better than GHL.

Thanks for also running some, love your dedication to making marketing world a better place, seriously. Okay, so speaking of what Joe just said, there was competition and this competition came out hard and fast against us. And I'm not gonna lie, we lost the first round, lost the first period. And, but I'm a wrestler, like we don't just stop, right? And so for us it's been like mounting our defense,

mounting a new strategy, mounting a new play, getting software better, like all the different things. And now it's like, this is the year of momentum, like things are rolling forward, it's been really fun. And so anyway, so in that context is where this story kind of came from.

So I do remember the kid's name, I'm not gonna say his name, but this is a kid who, elementary school, I went to school with him, knew who he was, thought I was a friend with him, he got into high school, you know high school people become like annoying. So anyway, I was not the best football player,

but I was on the football team, and I remember, anyway, I remember, I was like third string safety or something like that. I remember our coaches were like, all right guys, you gotta find the guy ahead of you and beat him out.

And it's like, they gave us really good presentation. I got motivated. It's like, okay, I'm gonna find the guy ahead of me. I'm gonna beat him out. So for the next two weeks, I kept like working, working and killing myself and ended up beating the guy that was like the second string safety. And then the first string and I ended up beating

the first guy. And I was so excited. I'm like, getting in competition drives and I'm like, this is the thing. And so I told my parents, like, I'm gonna be playing the game, I'm gonna guy. And I was so excited, I'm like, getting in competition drives, and I'm like, this is the thing. And so I told my parents, like, I'm gonna be playing the game, I'm gonna be starting, I'm so excited. And so that day is the football game, we're there,

we're on the field, we're warming up. And one of the other coaches came over, he's like, Brunson, what are you doing here? I'm like, I beat, I'm very proud. Like, I beat the guys out, like, I made the starting team. And he looked at me, he's like, he looked over at one of the backup quarterbacks, he's like, hey, get over here.

And he like put him in my spot and bumped me out. That's when I started hating team sports, by the way. I'm very much, in fact, that's how conversation came up with my trainer is like, I'm a combat athlete. Notice, hence the cauliflower, you're like, I love wrestling with UFC, love fighting with combat. Like not a big fan of team sports. Can't stand watching him and get bored by him.

But this is probably a big reason, because like I killed myself. And then because of the politics of a team sport, I got bumped out, which was frustrating me, right? So anyway, after that, I decided I'm not a football player. If I can bump me because of that, I don't wanna play this game. I finished out that season,

but I focused all my effort on wrestling, the greatest sport in the world. And within a year, became a state champion in high school, took second place in the nation, went on, got a D1 scholarship and so on and so forth, right? So that was kind of my shift. Now this is where the story gets fun. So that year playing football,

I remember after I got beat out, we went to some, we were playing some away game and we played this game and we got destroyed. Like our team got killed. And I'm on the sidelines waiting to play. I think I played maybe one play the entire game, which is so stupid. So I play one game and we get done and we're like leaving. I'm just like, this is to play. I think I played maybe one play the entire game, which is so stupid. So I play one game, we get done and we're like leaving.

I'm just like, this is so, like why am I doing this? I remember I was thirsty, so I grabbed a thing of water and I started drinking it and there's this kid, again, went to elementary school with him, thought we were friends and he sees me drinking it. He like shoves me, he's like, he's like, bruh, why are you getting drink water? You didn't even play this game or something.

And I was like, you know, as a, you know, as a, as a, as a, what, a ninth grader or whatever, like humiliated, embarrassed from all these people, I was just like, oh, it like broke me, you know? And I was like, I freaking hate that guy. Anyway, but that like got the, like the, like, okay, I gotta win. Anyway, then fast forward, this guy moves schools,

I don't see him again. I'm like, yeah, kind of forget about him. Then a couple years later, it's, I swear the story's got a point, but it's fun. And a couple years later, I come back and, where it's, I think I was a junior that year in high school or something, and during the Christmas break,

we did a crossover practice with another high school. So the other high school came to our room, and one day we went to their room, so two days with these guys, and when they showed up to our wrestling room, I look over and that kid, I still know his name, he was there, he's on the other team. He had transferred schools and he was on their wrestling team.

And I was like, oh yes. And all the memories of him knocking the water out of my hand, all kinds of stuff was like, I was like, this is it. And so we started the practice, I'm like, him, I'm gonna go with him. And I'm like, hey man, how's it going? He's like, oh, hey Brunson, how you doing? I'm like, yeah, I'm doing good. And so for the next three hours of the practice, I'm like, him, I wanna go with him. And I'm like, hey man, how's it going? He's like, oh, hey Brunson, how you doing?

I'm like, yeah, I'm doing good. And so for the next three hours of wrestling practice, my only plan was to destroy him mentally and physically. And I did, by the time it was done, we were about two thirds of the way done with practice. He had got up, he's like, I have to leave or I'm gonna try to fight you or something. I'm just laughing, I'm like, I'd like to see you try.

I just beat you like a baby for the last, anyway. So he walked off and left. The next day we had a chance to go to their high school. I'm like, I'd like to see you try. I just beat you like a baby for the last, anyway. So he walked off and left. The next day we had a chance to go to their high school. I'm like, you're my partner again. And he was like so mad. And I just, anyway, it was a great day in a great two days in the life of Russell to come back and have that kind of payback.

So anyway, that's the mindset you have to have when you're going off to competition competitors, right? Is looking at that and like, okay, how do we win? What does it look like? When somebody knocks you down, it's like, all right, new strategy, new game plan, what does it look like? They start putting the pieces together. So I'm excited because the last couple of years

has been brutal, the first video, the first podcast I talked about. But what's been fun is it's finally gotten like me, the competition backwards, like, okay, how do I win? Instead of like, how do I survive? How do we do everything? No, no, no, how do we win? What's that look like?

How does the strategy have to change? And I tell you what, man, it has lit me on fire. And a lot of people tell me, Russell, we feel this momentum coming from you and from ClickFunnels, what's happening? I say, oh, you'll see. If you're feeling it now, just wait. We're just getting started.

So I'm excited for this year and it's been fun. So, all right, so what I promise you is we're gonna talk about during this episode, this is one of the biggest things I see, okay? People come in my world, they read the books, they start studying, they start learning, they start building funnels, they start building offers, they're putting things together,

and there's a process, right? Is you're trying to, you first start learning this game, like you gotta figure out like, okay, first off, I gotta convince you that you are an expert, right? If you're gonna be in the expert business, I gotta convince you, you gotta create products, and like there's all these things that go into it, right? And it takes a lot for you to create the product,

create the things, and so what I see a lot of times is people get so stuck over here and like, okay, I'm building, I'll see them at an event, like, oh, I'm building a funnel, I'm building a funnel. Like, cool, building a funnel is very important. It's my favorite thing in the world, right? I get it. But at the same time, like, are you also

like gathering the people, okay? And this is where people mess up, mess up, right? And a lot of times they'll spend a month, six months, a year, whatever, building the funnel, building the product, whatever, And this is where people mess up, mess up, right? And a lot of times they'll spend a month, six months, a year, whatever, building the funnel, building the product, whatever, and then when they're finally done, they're like, okay, I'm gonna share it with the world, and there's no one to share it with.

This is a mistake people make, okay? So the second you decide you wanna be an entrepreneur, okay, the second you decide, you're like, I wanna be an entrepreneur, I wanna sell stuff, like that's when this, this is step one that has to happen. Step two is like creating an offer, building a business. Like step one is you have to start gathering the many.

Okay, you hear me talk a lot about like one to many presentations. Like what is a one to many presentation, right? It's me gathering many people together and I deliver a presentation to them to sell them something, right? So it could be a webinar, could be a challenge, some type of funnel that gets the people

where I can sell them something, right? So what we need to do is we gotta gather the many. There's a lot of ways to gather the many, right? One way is through paid ads. So right now we are in the is we gotta gather the many. There's a lot of ways to gather the many, right? One way is through paid ads. So right now we are in the middle of a selling online event. This selling online event, we got a little over 3,700 people registered for that event. So I gathered 3,700 people together.

Okay, but my cost to gather those people, it was like $300 or so to sell $100 chicken, right? So it cost me almost a million, it was like $925,000 for me to gather those people together, 3,700 people to deliver a presentation. Now from that, we will make, well, I don't, we'll 3X our return on our ad spend, right? Like we'll 3X the money we made by doing that, right?

But it cost me a lot of money to gather those people through paid ads, right? And so a lot of people think, I think when they think, when this is my final step, then I'm gonna go and like, then I'll go find the audience, right? But then that's like the most expensive, especially if you've been doing this

and you're bootstrapping this, like the most expensive thing initially is to go pay for ads and get people in, right? So the question is like, well, how do I gather the many ahead of time so that when I go and I'm ready to launch the thing, but the audience is already gathered, I don't gotta go spend a million dollars

to gather these people. How do I do it ahead of time, right? There's so many things you can and should be doing that you're probably not thinking about right now. And that's what I wanna talk about, okay? Is what are the things you can do to start gathering the money right now so the second your product, your funnel is done, right?

Then the money are already there. You're not like going out like, okay, I depleted my resources building this business, now I gotta go spend money to get the customers, right? Like, no, the second you decide I wanna be an entrepreneur, that's when you start planting these seeds. That's when you start gathering the people instantly, right?

So for a lot of you guys, if you've missed it, like if you've been doing this for a week or a month, or a year, or five years, and you haven't done this yet, like this is now your number one focus. More important than building your funnel or creating your offer or anything, your number one focus is this,

which is starting to gather the many. So the second you've done, you've got a captive audience. Because if you're waiting for your funnel to be done before you capture an audience, you messed up, okay? That's the wrong order, you're out of order. So we gotta get back into the correct order. Does that make sense? Okay, so that's what I'm talking about.

Now I'm gonna quote a couple things from my book, Traffic Secrets. This is not a blatant pitch for Traffic Secrets, but if it was a blatant pitch, I'd tell you to go get a free copy at trafficseekers.com. But inside this, this is my book to teach you guys how to get traffic and build a following and all sorts of stuff.

It's the deep dive of my brain. There's a couple pieces in here that I do wanna share with you that I think are key to understanding this, right? And so I'm just gonna jump around. If you got the book, you can open with me. If not, just listen to my stories or if you wanna get a book,

or you can go to Amazon, get it for 25 bucks or whatever it is, or you can get it for free plus shipping at trafficseekers.com. Okay, so secret number four you wanna get a book, or you can go to Amazon, get it for 25 bucks or whatever it is, or you can get it for free plus shipping at trafficsecrets.com. Okay, so secret number four inside of Traffic Secrets book, the chapter's called Work Your Way In and Buy Your Way In. So I'm talking about there's two different ways to grow an audience, right? Again, buying your way in is buying at.

That's what I did with this weekend. I gave Zuckerberg $900,000 to buy my way in, to get him to send a whole bunch of people to me so I can sell to them, right? Or you can work your way in. Working your way in is how you get free traffic to come to you, right? A lot of people ask me, what's better,

free traffic or paid traffic? The reality is they're both insanely awesome. I love them both, right? There's not one better, but when most people are getting started, usually you've got one, you got two different resources, either time or you have money, right? These are the two resources that we have.

And what I tell people traditionally is if you have more money than time, focus on paid ads. But if you have more time than money, you gotta focus on working your way and doing the free stuff, okay? And again, in a perfect world, you'd be doing both. In fact, if you read the Traffic Seekers book, we walk you through the process of starting free and then reinvesting money from free into paid ads,

and that's how you actually scale in a way that's not scary. In fact, on page 68, I have this little graph. I don't know if you can see that at all. There it is. So there's like this traffic and time and like it shows like controlled traffic you're buying. You can spike really fast and it flatlines,

whereas earned traffic is slower, but then it scales past it eventually. So that's kind of like, anyway, that's how we look at long-term. But right now I just wanna focus on working our way and getting the traffic ahead of time because it's the free traffic. The stuff you can and should be doing

while you're building your business, okay? All right, so in secret number four, work your way and buy your win, the first step here, the step says dig your well before you're thirsty, okay? So this is what I'm talking about. You wanna start digging your well before you're thirsty. So what that means is when your funnel's done,

your offer's done, you're gonna be thirsty. I need traffic, I need traffic, I need people to sell to. And Austin's like, oh crap, I didn't dig my well. Okay, that's the secret eggs. We gotta start digging our well before we're thirsty. Okay, we start building the following before we have something to sell to them. Step number one is building the following.

Step number one is traffic, right? Somebody asked me, I remember I was speaking in the UK, and I still remember her name was G, she was awesome. And speaking in the UK, I come off and we're talking in this little group of people and somebody asked me, I think it was her or someone's with her, somebody, but they asked me like, Russell, whenever you launch a funnel,

it's always successful, how are you always successful? And it was the first time I'd ever given the, I didn't consciously think about this but it was the first time I'd ever like, I responded, I was like, oh wow. And I was like, I thought for a second, I'm like, oh, the reason why is because I don't build a funnel first thing to look for traffic.

I find the traffic source first and then I build a funnel and an offer based on what that traffic actually wants. And the person was like, what? Why don't you tell everyone that? Like that was the big secret. I was like, I hadn't thought about it. But it makes, like that's what I do, but I hadn't thought about it, right?

A lot of people what you're doing is you're building a funnel and building an offer and then trying to find traffic to sell to, okay? The secret is finding the traffic source first and then you create the offer that they actually want. Then it becomes easy. It's just flipping the order of things, right? Step one, step two.

A lot of you guys are doing step two right now, as opposed to step number one, okay? So dig it well before you're thirsty. Hey, it's Russell Brunson and I have a confession to make. When I first started in B2B marketing, I thought I needed to be everywhere at once. Every platform, every ad type, But guess what? That's not where the magic happens. The magic happens where the decision makers are and that is

LinkedIn. LinkedIn ads let you target who you want. CEOs, C-suite executives and 130 million professionals ready to take action. These aren't random clicks. These are people who are already in the mindset to do business. With LinkedIn's advanced targeting, you are not just throwing spaghetti at the wall. You're placing the right message in front of the right person at the perfect time. Here's what blew me away. LinkedIn ads delivers up to five times the row ads of other platforms. And that's not just the stat. That's scaling power.

Imagine your campaigns turning into a steady stream of qualified leads all while your competitors are busy playing on platforms that barely move the needle. If you're serious about scaling your business, you can't afford to ignore this. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. And here's the cherry on top. LinkedIn is giving you $100 credit for your next campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com slash clicks to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com slash clicks. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. What's up, funnel hackers?

Today I want to talk to you about something that's kind of like a funnel for your finances. There's an app called Rocket Money that my wife and I recently downloaded. We went and added our bank accounts, added everything in there and instantly started showing all the subscriptions we were paying monthly for. And what's crazy is most of these things we completely forgot about. Oftentimes my wife has signed for something and I also signed up for it. We're paying twice for the exact same service. It was crazy. So we started using Rocket Money and changed everything for us. Rocket Money is a personal finance

app that helps you to find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and it helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Here's what Rocket Money did for me. It showed me all the subscriptions in one spot. Our streaming services, our apps, our membership sites, some of which we literally had not seen in months and a couple in over a year. Rocket Money canceled the ones we didn't want anymore, saving us hundreds of dollars. In fact, actually for my wife and I was over a thousand dollars per month and they didn't stop there. Rocket Money even monitors my spending and sends alerts if bills increase or if I'm going close

to my budgets. Now with their personalized dashboard, you can see exactly where your money's going. I've even created custom badges with categories for everything from groceries to business expenses. Do you want to save automatically for a new house or paying off some debt? Their Goals feature makes it simple and hands-free. Rocket Money has over 5 million users,

including my wife and I, and it saved over $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 per year when using all of the app's premium features. So if you want to cancel all your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money, then go to rocketmoney.com slash Russell today. That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell, R-U-S-S-E-L-L.

That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell. And so the concept that's like before you need the traffic, this time, before you need the relationship, before you need someone to promote, that's when you start building a relationship, right? Like I remember when I first met Tony Robbins, like eventually I wanted Tony to promote something for me, right? But I'm like, hey Tony, you can promote for me, right?

That's me asking for water without digging a well, right? Instead I was like, I'm gonna build a relationship with Tony Robbins. So for a decade, I built a relationship with Tony, right? I was digging my well, digging my well, building a relationship and 10 years later, when my second book came out, Expert Seekers, I was like, hey Tony, can you promote this? my well, digging my well, building a relationship, and 10 years later, when my second book came out, Expert Seekers, I was like, hey Tony, can you promote this?

And he's like, I would love to. And he did a Facebook Live with me, like I've seen by like five million people, sold 10,000 plus copies of my book, right? And it all came off of me digging my well before I was thirsty, okay? And that's the first thing I'm thinking about. I was like, you're gonna be thirsty.

As soon as your funnel's done, you're gonna be thirsty for traffic. Now is the time to start digging, today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not today, right? That's step number one. The second you start even on your dream, you're starting digging your well, starting to get the people,

starting to start building the following. That's something you should be thinking about every single day. You should be blocking at least an hour to two hours a day, just in like digging the well, right? So that when you have the offer done, it's ready. That makes sense? So step one is digging your well before you're thirsty.

And then in here, I talk about different ways to do that. And there's a lot of stuff in here. But there's kind of two sides I'm gonna talk about. One is publishing, and then one is actually building relationships with people who already have your traffic source, okay? So I'm gonna go kind of touch on both sides of those a little bit.

I'll start with the finding people who already have your dream audience, okay? That's what I talk about here in the book. So on page 1661, Traffic Seekers, I kind of walk through a process. But the basic, the goal is like when you're getting, when you're driving traffic eventually, right? I can go and give Mark Zuckerberg money and he'll drive traffic to me. But if I can find someone who's on Mark Zuckerberg's platform who already has an audience, right?

Like I find a Tony Robbins or I find a, insert whoever influencer is inside your space and they have a following of 10,000 or a hundred thousand or a million people. If I can build a relationship with that person, they can send an email or they can post on their wall or they can use something and they can promote me as an affiliate and that way I don't have to actually spend money on the ads, right?

And so for me, like when we launched ClickFunnels, again, if you read the Traffic Seekers book, I go deep into this concept called the Dream 100. Who are the hundred people that already have congregated your dream customers? It's like, how do we infiltrate? How do we start talking to these people, right? And so the very first thing for me is like,

if I know that I'm in the real estate market or I'm in the health market or whatever, the very first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go and I tell people, I'm gonna go to Instagram and delete all of your contacts and then only follow every single influencer inside of your space, right? Go and maybe it's setting up a new Instagram account, whatever you wanna do, but create something and then go follow every single influencer inside of your space, right? Go and maybe it's setting up a new Instagram account,

whatever you wanna do, but create something and then go follow every single influencer, right? Cause I wanna see like, who are all the people in my space who already congregated in my dream customer? Like those are the people, if I can get a relationship with one of those people, it can open up a huge door for me, right? And same with Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, podcasts,

like whatever it is, but you start gathering these people, right? You start trying to build relationships today. You're digging your well before you're thirsty, okay? So what I would do is I'd go unsubscribe from people, from everybody and then just follow the influencers who are in my space. And then it's like,

I need to start building relationships with these people. How do we do that, right? We do it by being part of their ecosystem, right? When they're posting something, I'm liking, I'm hearty, I'm commenting. I'm like, I want them to see my face every single time. I want them consistently like, man, whoever this Russell guy is, like he keeps commenting on my stuff, right?

And so I'm there, I'm like engaged in their content, right? To start building relationships with them, right? I'm messaging, I'm DMing, I'm DMing, I'm like, oh man, your podcast stuff last week was amazing, thanks so much for sharing, my favorite thing was blah, blah, blah, right? I'm just trying to like, I'm trying to plant these seeds, I'm trying to dig a well before I'm thirsty, right?

And building a relationship first. And so that's how you start doing it, to start building future relationships. And these are so important because one relationship in the future can change your entire business forever. I got a million examples of this, but one I was thinking of like when I launched my very first book, Dotcom Secrets, I did the same process.

I went to all the podcast directories, Instagram, oh wait, I went through everywhere. I built, I found my 100 top podcasters, 100 top Instagram influencers, 100 top YouTubers, so I had a dream 100 on every single platform. And then what I did is I sent a free copy of my book to the 100 top podcasts, 100 top YouTube, 100 Instagram, so I sent five or 600 copies

of my book out to everybody. And it's like, here's my new book, love for you to review it, see if you wanna post it, whatever. So I sent sent those out. And what's crazy about that is, I remember the very first person who responded back was a guy named JLD, he has a John Lee Dumas.

He runs Entrepreneur on Fire podcast. He messaged me, he's like, dude, this book's awesome. I'm like, thanks, man. And he's like, I'd love to promote you. Do you wanna come on the podcast? I'm like, I would love to come on the podcast. So he had me on the podcast. And then he sent like a whole bunch of emails

to the email list. And from that one person, that one connection, I think he sold like five or 600 copies of my book by himself. That was one person, right? And then Jeff Walker got a copy. He's like, this book's awesome. I'm like, thanks man.

He's like, can I promote it? I'm like, yes, you can. He sold like 2,500 copies of the book. And then Todd Brown got it. He sent a bunch. And then another podcast over here. And then the YouTuber and influencer, like, from those relationships that I built,

we sold hundreds of thousands of copies of my book, right? But it started with me like building those relationships ahead of time, like I was listening to podcasts, I was sending out messages, I was getting to know people so that when my offer and them promoting something showed up, they knew who I was and it was easy for them to say yes, right? So digging your well before you're thirsty,

going out there, finding out who are the people who have your dream customer, who are the other influencers in your market, getting to know those people, connecting with them. There's a live event that those people are gathering at. You need to be at that live event. You need to be hanging out in the room, okay? I think I told this story before, but like, for me,

I'll let you guys know again, I'm Mormon, I don't drink alcohol, I'm at this live event, and all the people are hanging out, I'm at the event, and then after hours, they're all going out to the bars, and I don't drink, and I don't want people to think I drink, but they're all like, yeah, Russell, come to the bars, come to the bars, I'm like, ah, but I'm like, those are the people I gotta network with.

They're all in the same room together. So I think I told this story. I went down there and I ordered a milk from the bar, from the bar keep or whatever. I was like, he's like, you want milk? I'm like, yeah, cause I didn't want it to look like alcohol or anything. So I had a cup of milk cause I'm walking around,

which by the way, it was a great conversational. People are like, are you drinking milk? I'm like, oh yeah, I'm Mormon. I don't drink, I don't drink alcohol. And they're like, that's cool, tell me about it. And then boom, connection, networking, right? But you gotta be around those people. So if I'm in the real estate market,

I'm going to every real estate event. If I'm in the fitness market, I'm going to fitness events, I'm a biohacking, biohacking events. Like, it could be virtual events, live events, in person. Like, I gotta get around the other people in my space and get to know and build new relationships, right? This game is a relationship game, okay? If Zuckerberg shut down Facebook, if Google, Instagram,

everything disappeared tomorrow, I would be fine because the relationships I build over time. These people have email lists, they've got podcasts, they've got things, and so if everything fell apart, I'd still be okay. Most people's businesses I know, if one little thing fell apart,

if Instagram disappeared, their business is gone. For me, if I lost every paid media platform on the planet, I'd still be fine. It wouldn't change our business, right? Maybe a little bit, but not that much, okay? In fact, if you've read Traffic Secrets, if you read Introduction, there's a storm coming, dot dot dot, right?

And I wrote this book four years ago, it came out, and then right after that, all of the Google slaps, Facebook slaps, everything started happening afterwards. I was like, I told you guys, this book is helping you to full-proof your marketing so that if the platform, not if, when the platform shuts you down,

you don't lose your business. And so there's a storm coming and those who took heed to this have succeeded. Those who haven't, like again, go back and geek out. Okay, sorry, I digress. So number one, again, is digging your well before you're thirsty. Number two is working your way in, right?

Building relationships, contacting people, getting to know people. Like this is like such a key foundational part. Okay, if you were launching a product in an industry, people in the industry know who you are. Okay, you need to be connecting with those people in any way you can do it. Okay, now I want to talk about one of the easiest ways to connect with those people. Okay, a lot of times I'm like, what do I say to them? And it's like, hey Russell, you know. And so one of the easiest ways to connect with them is to give them something that they need, right? So if they get, the influencers in your market, in your space, what are they looking for, right?

Influencers, people with followings, they're looking for a platform. And I talk about, I share a story in here about, you guys remember Arsenio Hall? Like, who, who, who, right? Arsenio Hall. So he was the biggest talk show back in the 90s. I remember he's the one that basically I think that he was the reason why Bill Clinton got elected as

president because he was like kind of struggling and then he went on the show and played the saxophone and like all these people loved him and ended up going and voting for him and like so much like anyway Trump and Rogan, which is kind of interesting. Anyway, that's the story from their day. But so he had his biggest talk show in the world, and it was a huge thing for four or five years, and eventually it kind of dried up and died, right? And he lost the show. Anyway, fast forward now, 20 years later,

he's on The Apprentice, I'm watching Celebrity Apprentice, and all of a sudden he comes out, one of the guests is Arsenio Hall, and I'm like, that's Arsenio Hall, I remember that guy, he was amazing. And they're doing all these different tasks and stuff like that, and what's crazy is they get to the task,

it's like a fundraising task, right? Where they have to call their friends and raise money for this thing, right? So all the people out there, they're calling, they're raising money, everything. And Arsenio's got his role next to people, he's calling the first person, next person, next person. And they show him all day and nobody's returning his calls.

Nobody's, and like, when all of a sudden, I think he raised zero dollars from the whole fundraising campaign. And it was pretty embarrassing because every other celebrity got deals done, got things in our signal, got none of them. And I remember like the night, I think it was that night or something, he's sitting there and the camera captured this moment.

It was like one of the most powerful things in the world. I think I was the only one that caught it because I was freaking out. And anyway, I talked about it in Traffic Secrets, but he says this thing. He's looking at the camera and he's talking. He's like, man, he's like, when I had a talk show, everybody returned my call. I was like, oh, did you catch that? When he has his own platform, the president of the United States, the, like anybody, everyone returns call because they want access to his platform. Like what's the most valuable thing for an influencer? More influence, more, they need a platform. Like that's it. That's what they're

looking for, right? So for you, it's like, you need to have a platform before you have a funnel, before you have an offer, you need to have a platform, right? it. That's what they're looking for, right? So for you, it's like you need to have a platform. Before you have a funnel, before you have an offer, you need to have a platform, right? For a lot of reasons. Number one, and we'll talk about here, it's gonna help you start publishing, getting your voice out there. But number two, it is the thing that you have to offer

to the other influencers, right? Hey, when you're contacting me, I love your content, loved the last podcast episode, would you be willing to come on my podcast? Would you be willing to come on my YouTube channel? Would you be willing to come on my podcast? Would you be willing to come on my YouTube channel? Would you be willing to come on my Instagram? Like whatever your platform you decided is, like that's the thing of value

you have to offer these people. That's how you build connection, right? Then you bring them off of social, you connect with them, you bring them on something where you're giving them access to your platform. You have a chance to talk to them then you build a relationship. You talked to them for 30 minutes or an hour

during a podcast interview. Now they know you, you know them and you've got connection, right? And then you create content in the marketplace. Like it's so simple and it's so powerful and most people are not doing it, right? They always say, I'm gonna launch my funnel, then I'll launch a podcast in the future.

Like, no, wrong order, flip it around, right? I gotta start building my influence today. I do that by leveraging other people's influence. I do that by giving them access to my platform. Assuming you guys are like, Russell, I don't have a platform yet. Well, you gotta start them. That's exactly why you start today.

Not next week of the year or like after your finals. Like you gotta start digging your well before you're thirsty. Start today, right? And you might be saying, well, why would someone come on my platform? I don't have any followers yet. I don't have any listeners.

It's like, yes, good point. That's why you gotta start. Like start publishing, right? Start your own podcast. You're on YouTube. I don't care what channel you pick. Pick a channel and start on it. And that's how you start getting people.

You start gathering the many. Cause the only thing you have to offer another influencer right now is access to your many. So start gathering them. And even if it's small at first, that's okay, right? But you start leveraging it, it grows bigger and grows bigger and grows bigger over time, okay? So thinking about that, okay? Because until you have your own platform,

you're of no value to the people that you are trying to, to borrow influence from. Does that make sense? Okay? All right. Now this comes down to the last thing I wanna talk about really, and this is the key to it all, is for you guys to start publishing.

I talk about here in traffic secrets, I've been saying this now for five or six years, I see tons of people on Instagram now quoting me. They don't give me credit for it, but there you go. But I said this is the Funnel Hacking Live, I think it was the second or third, no, it was the second Funnel Hacking Live in San Diego, it's really eight years ago.

I remember because Steve Larson was in the room and Steve told me that when he was coming to Funnel Hacking Live, he said, I'm gonna do everything Russell says, but I'm not gonna publish something. I don't know if I remember what he said there, but I'll do everything else he says. And I got on stage and I said,

I talked about publishing, I said, if you guys will publish every single day for a year, within a year from now, you'll never have to worry about money again. And he was like, but I don't wanna publish things. Then he like, fine. And so he did it, right? And it changes his whole business,

it changes his whole life, right? You gotta start publishing. And that's the key that I think most people are missing. Now, there's a lot of reasons why you gotta start publishing. I'll talk about where and how here in a minute, but there's a, this is one of my friends, Nathan Barry. Nathan owns ConvertKit. So technically we're competitors, but he's amazing.

Liz and Boise, two Boise guys, two tech companies. Boise is the tech capital of the world. Take that, Silicon Valley. We're here, Boise. Anyway, so ConvertKit and ClickFunnels are both here, both in Boise, Idaho, and Nathan Barry's the CEO of ConvertKit, and he's awesome. And if you don't know Nathan, like a couple years ago,

somebody gave him a challenge and basically told him to do a blog post a day every single day for a year and you'll never worry about money again. Very similar to my challenge was for blogging, right? So he went out there and started blogging every single day for a year and he tells his whole journey and how by the time the year was done, it changed everything like because he became a better writer but also like people start finding his stuff, start growing and then all the companies like on the backside of that group. Then he wrote this post and this post, oh, it's so good, okay?

This is like, if you could tattoo a post to your face so you could look at every single day, this would be the one. So the post is, the title says, Endure Long Enough to Get Noticed, okay? It says, how many great TV shows have you discovered in season three or later? I started watching Game of Thrones

after they had released five seasons. Pat Flynn had released at least 100 episodes of this podcast before I even know it existed. I discovered hardcore history years after Dan Carlin started producing it. This is such a common experience. There's so much content being produced we can't possibly discover it all.

So instead we wait for the best content to float to the surface after time. If step one in building an audience is to create great content, step two is to endure long enough to get noticed. Seth Godin's very generous with this time and will appear in almost any relevant podcast. But you have to record at least 100 episodes first.

His filter is creators who have shown they're willing to show up consistently for a long time. Okay, you guys getting this? So the reason why you start publishing is because you have to start getting your voice out there. And there's two reasons. Number one, it's gonna help you to actually find your voice.

Number two, it gives your audience long enough time to actually find you, okay? That's why you gotta start today. You're like, but Russ, I can't start, I don't want to following, I suck at this, I don't know what I'm gonna say. Exactly, that's why you have to start. Okay, one of the best stories of this for me

is actually me, okay? Let me tell you a story about my life. So I built up a business, we had a big call center, we had a big company, and then one day, literally overnight, the whole thing collapsed. I had to fire 100 employees one day, we shrunk from a 20,000 square foot building to a 2,000 square foot building and everything, my whole life is falling apart. I'm like, this isn't going to work, right? One of the many cycles of my business career. Hopefully all of you guys had a chance to go through some cycles in your life, but going through the cycles, right? And so I'm in this

little tiny office, like we're bleeding money, I'm trying to keep the doors open, trying not to have to fire anyone else because like which fulfill on stuff we'd sold in the past, it was just chaos, right? And I had a four minute commute from my house to the new office, it was four minute drive every day. And that about this time is when podcasting

and we're talking about podcasting, it's gonna be the future. And I was like, there's no way this podcasting thing is gonna be the future, it's a stupid word. No one's gonna think it's cool. And, but I was like, you know what? I'm gonna thing is gonna be the future. It's a stupid word, no one's gonna think it's cool. And, but I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do a podcast anyway, just to prove you all wrong. And so I decided to launch a podcast,

it was called the Marketing in Your Car Podcast. And so what I do is I grab my phone, every day at a four minute cue, I click record on my phone, I would drive like this, I would drive to my form in office, I would talk about what I was doing today. Hey, today we're going to the office, we have an idea for this thing,

we're gonna try to blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Everybody driving back, hey, last night I studied this guy and he told me about this, I'm gonna try it. And so I just documented what I was doing today. Hey, today we're going to the office. We have an idea for this thing. We're gonna try to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, everybody driving back. Hey, last night I studied this guy and he told me about this. I'm gonna try it. And so I just documented what I was doing every single day. Right, four minute drive. I was publishing four or five,

six podcast episodes a week. What's up, Funnel Hackers? I wanna talk to you guys about a challenge that every business faces, including mine, and that is finding good people to hire. For the last few years, we've been using Indeed to find the right hires in every one of the different departments inside of our company. Okay. Now think about this. You've

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Head to Northwest Registered Agent today and start building something amazing. And what's crazy about back in the day, like podcasting was different. And so we had to upload it through the WordPress site. It was this whole thing and we didn't know how to track stats or listens or anyone's even listening.

We had no idea, right? We were just putting out there and for me it was more therapeutic for me to just like think out loud of what I was talking about, right? One of the smarter things that Gary Vaynerchuk said, he's like, it's not about creating contents about documenting your journey.

That's exactly what it was. I was just documenting the journey. In fact, if you go back to the old marketing secrets, sorry, marketing your car podcasts, I talk about like, we had this idea for this thing. We bought a domain called ClickFunnels. Me and Todd are building, like, it gets all this stuff prior to that,

and then like us discovering it, buying the domain, and launching it, like, like the whole history of ClickFunnels is in there. It's really fun to go back and listen, but it's just me discovering these things as we're going, and I'm sharing them in real time. I'm not acting like I'm an expert. I'm just like, these are the things that are happening,

right? So I'm putting these out there. Then so the backside of it launched ClickFunnels. Eventually I launched my Inner Circle. I find out craziest thing that 100% of the people in my Inner Circle were podcast listeners. My best people were people who were listening to my long form content.

I had no idea. It was funny. I had no idea, right? There's like all the world of saw me on social everywhere, but the people who bought my high-end coaching programs were 100% all podcast listeners. There was this direct correlation, it was crazy. Right, so we had the podcast listeners,

and then we launched ClickFunnels, and then again, this is four or five years into me launched this podcast, and then finally we figured out how to reconnect it all so we can see how many downloads are coming. At the time, we had some pretty good downloads coming in, but we started looking back at like the graphs and trends, and it looked like basically basically for the first year,

almost nobody was listening, okay? Now, number one, if I had known how few people were listening when I first started, I probably would have stopped. I'm grateful that I didn't know, okay? Number two funny thing is Steve Larson started working for me and you know, I love Steve. He was like, I'm gonna binge listen

to everything you've ever done. So we went through and listened to every single podcast episode and I remember, I think he spent a whole weekend binge listening or something. He comes back on Monday and he's like, man, I listen to everything. He's like, you know what's crazy? He's like the first like 40, 45 episodes,

like they were not good. He's like, they were pretty bad. He's like, you were awkward. It was like painful. He's like, we're on 40, 45ish. He's like, you got in your rhythm and you like, he's like, it was just different. Like you found your voice and it was so fun. And then now it's like painful. He's like, we're having 40, 45-ish. He's like, you got in your rhythm and you like, he's like, it was just different. Like you found your voice and it was so fun.

And then now it's like amazing. And I thought that was so interesting, right? Number one, like what are we doing? Why are we publishing? Number one, it's because it's gonna help you to find your voice. If you're hiding in a corner, building your funnel and building your offer and not talking,

you're not gonna ever find your voice, right? That's number one. Number two, is it gets you long enough, you're out there long find your voice, right? That's number one. Number two is it gets you long enough, you're out there long enough, what does Nathan Berry say? For your audience to find you. Boom. And they think, well, right now no one's following me so it's gonna suck.

Exactly, that's the best time. You wanna suck when no one's following you, okay? That's the whole point of it, right? You'll get better and get better over time, it'll start ramping up, right? And so that's the key, guys, is starting right now. You gotta start publishing. And there's a lot of ways you can do it, okay? For so that's the key, guys, is starting right now. You gotta start publishing. And there's a lot of ways you can do it, okay?

For a long time it was blogging. Nathan Barry started his process blogging. I'm not a blogger. It's funny, I love writing books, hate writing blog posts. So blogging's not for me, but maybe if you love blogging, okay, if so, cool, like just focus on it, okay? For Nathan, it was a thousand words a day for a year. That's what he was doing,

blogging a thousand words a day for a year, and within a year, transform his business, okay? Maybe you like audio, okay? Cool, if you're an audio person, podcast, that's what he was doing. Blogging a thousand words a day for a year and within a year, transform his business, okay? Maybe you like audio, okay? Cool, if you're an audio person, podcast, it's easy. Like literally, I recorded the first 600, 500, 600 episodes on my phone. And people always ask me like, what's the microphone you're using?

I was like, it's the one that's like hooked to the bottom of my phone, I just clicked the button and I would talk. Like that was it. You know? And then, so there's that. Some of you guys may like video more. So do video, so like Instagram,

like figure out a platform you love the most organically, anyway, you spend time in any way and do that, right? Do the thing you understand the most. Like, it's funny, cause like I, we dominate podcasts, we're great at Instagram, we're great in places. We're still struggling with YouTube. We're still figuring it out, right? YouTube is a different platform for me.

So I'm not YouTube first, I'm podcast first. So I get podcasts, my podcast listeners are my faithful, they love it, they're all subscribed. In fact, watching on YouTube, come to the podcast and listen on as well, right? They're subscribed, they're listening while they're working out, they're hanging out, right? YouTube's a different beast,

we're still figuring things out, but I'm podcast first, YouTube's kind of secondary because that's the platform I understand, right? So figure out what you understand and that's where you start publishing at and start publishing consistently, okay? And again, the goal is not for you to be amazing. The goal is not to get tons of views. The goal for you to start and start learning how to find your voice and doing publishing consistently. Okay, and again, the goal is not for you to be amazing. The goal is not to get tons of views.

The goal for you to start and start learning how to find your voice and doing it consistently, right? Three days a week, five days a week, seven days a week, whatever it is, the more consistently the better because that's how you're gonna find your voice, right? And then after time, if you are consistent with it and you do not stop, over time your audience will find you. Okay, now you've got a platform, okay?

And now you can go to people and be like, hey, can I, you wanna be on my podcast? Do you wanna be on my YouTube channel? And even if your following is not big at first, that's okay, you don't go and like ask Tony Robbins day number one of being on your podcast, right? You don't ask Russell Brunson on your podcast day number one.

You start looking at who are people that are about the same level as me or maybe a little bit bigger. And that's where you start, okay? When I got started in this game, I remember the same thing. I remember, in fact, my, before I knew what a Dream 100 was, I just knew, I saw all the influencers back in the day. I saw Joe Vitale was one of them. I saw Tony same thing. I remember, in fact, before I knew what a Dream 100 was, I just knew I saw all the influencers back in the day. I saw Joe Vitale was one of them.

I saw Tony Robbins. I had all these, Mark Joyner had all these people's names. I remember I would send them emails and send things in the mail. Like none of them responded back. I'm like, oh, like this isn't fair. They only care about the little guys like me. Like why won't they help me?

I remember having that like attitude. And then I remember going to an event and I met this guy, actually it was an event. It was online, I met him first initially. His name's Mike Filson, somebody who doesn't know Mike, met Mike at this event and Mike was like, I would say he was probably six months ahead of me in the game.

He already had a product, he had launched it, he had a bunch of sales and I had my product called ZipRandor, which I had and I was trying to sell it and I met Mike and Mike was like, he was one step ahead of me, right? And again, this is before we were podcasting, this is before any of the publishing stuff but the concept was the same.

So he was a little bit above me. I got to know him, he's easy to hold up because he's not Tony Robbins with 800 gatekeepers, not Russell Brunson with 800 gatekeepers you gotta get through, right? It was just like him. And it was the six months ahead of me, he had figured things out already,

I was still trying to figure out. So it was easy to get through his filters and get ahold of him. We started talking, build a relationship, and he's like, dude, that product's cool. And then Mike promoted ZipRander, okay? Literally promoted it. And I remember, because we sold a whole bunch of them,

and 217 people joined my email list from the promotion that Mike Philson did. It's funny, I remember that number two, the number 270 people came to my site, saw the pop-up, put in the email address, and joined my newsletter. And all of a sudden, I had 217 people on my list, which I never had before, okay? And then Mike and I were talking,

and I was like, thanks Mike, that was awesome. I'm like, who are the people you met so far? Mike said, oh, you gotta meet these other guys. This guy's named Gary Ambrose. And so Mike had five or six other people he knew at our same level. He introduced me to all these people, and also now I had five people.

I was like, hey Gary, I've got a list. Can I promote your product? A list of 270 people. He's like, sure, so I promote this product, I made two or three sales, and he promotes mine, he makes two or three sales. And also his list grows, my list grows, Mike's list grows, and then he introduces me to this person, this person,

and we start doing these things and all of a sudden like our little friend group of people, we all start getting like our influence starts growing together a little bigger, okay? What happens now? Now my list is three, four, 5,000 people, right? Now I start looking like who have people that have lists of three, four, 5,000 people?

And I start connecting like oh, there's this person, right? So I step one step up, get to know those people. I put my value for their product, right? Whatever it is, I promote theirs. Then they promote mine. And I'm like, who are your friends? They introduced me and all of a sudden like, boom, and my business is growing and growing, right?

And that was the process. I did that for year one, year two, year three, right? And eventually I was like three years in the business, Joe Vitaly messaged me. He said, hey, Russell, fire yourself online. It's really, really cool. Can I help you promote this product? I'm like, I messaged you three years ago. You did not respond to me, right?

Cause I was down here, right? But because I looked at who the people around my sign size, maybe a little bit bigger, I connect with them, then we all grows together. And then connect to them, grows together. Like that was the game, right? So eventually Joe Vitale came to me. Okay, fast forward five more years later,

I get a phone call from Tony Robbins. I didn't call him. They called me. Okay, that's why I had to meet Tony initially, was not me aggressively outbound reaching, he reached out to me. Okay, boom, and then next, and so like that's how this game is played.

Does that make sense you guys? So this is how it works. You need to start digging your well before your thirst, which means you start publishing today. Okay, you start publishing, start publishing, right? Number two, you gotta start figuring out who are the other influence in your space and start building relationships immediately. Doesn't mean going for the huge people at top, right? Number two, you gotta start figuring out who are the other influencers in your space and start building relationships immediately.

Doesn't mean going for the huge people at the top, right? Who is about your level? Like if you got a thousand followers on Instagram, who's got three to five? Go find those influencers. Those are the first people, comment. Cause those people, if you comment on their comments, they're gonna see your name, they're like,

oh, this person comments every single time, right? DM them, get on the phone with them, hang out. How can we promote each other? What if I did an Instagram Live promoting your squeeze page, you promote mine, we both build our list together, boom, right? Promotions, partnerships, little things like that, right? Your list grows, their list grows.

Who are your friends? They get to connect you to five of their other friends, you connect them to five of your friends, all of a sudden your whole network starts growing together, it grows together, boom, boom, boom, right? That's how you build this game, that's how you win, okay? This is what everyone's missing, everyone's sitting there focusing just on building off

or building a funnel and forgetting the fundamentals of you gotta start gathering the many and this is how the game is played. Okay, and if you do that, that's how you win long term. Again, I've been in this business now 20, man, 22, 23, 24 years, I don't even remember at this point, right? In the time, I wish I could show you guys the pedigree chart of the gurus who have come and gone

and come and gone and come and gone and come and gone over the last two and a half decades, okay? Tons of them. Who has lasted the test of time? I can count them on one hand, literally. And I wouldn't need all the fingers even, okay? Russell, how have you had longevity? How have you stayed throughout the thing?

Because I don't stop focusing on the most important thing. Okay? Gathering the many, gathering the many, okay? Cause you can gather the many, you're gonna lose them. You're gonna gather the many, you're gonna lose them. You're gonna gather the many, you're gonna lose them. Like that gathering the many, okay? Because you can gather the many, you're gonna lose some, you're gonna gather the many, you're gonna lose some, you're gonna gather the many, you're gonna lose, like that's the game, right?

What happens, people gather their people, right? And then they start selling them stuff and they forget to gather and then the whole thing collapses. Gathering the many, gathering the many, gathering the many. Russell, why'd you spend a million dollars last month, $950,000 to gather people for an event? Because that's how you win the game, it's gathering the many, right?

If you wanna make offers to people, great, but you gotta have people that make offers too, right? Okay, Russell, why are you still in the podcast episode? Why are you still doing this every single day? You're at like a thousand episodes, why do you keep doing this, right? In fact, I remember I was in an intercircle meeting and me and Garrett Weier sitting next to each other

and there was a guy in our room and we were trying to convince him to start publishing, we were talking, right? And it was so fascinating because Garrett looked at me and he was like, Russell, you're, because the guy, I can't remember the exact story, the guy him to start publishing, start talking, right? And it was so fascinating, because Garrett looked at me and he's like, Russell, you're, because the guy, I can't remember the exact story, the guy had done some publishing, we kind of stopped, whatever, and he's like, I'm good.

And he looks at me and he's like, Russell, like, why do you keep publishing your podcast every single day? I said, because I'm trying to find my voice. He's like, you've been doing this for a decade. I'm like, yeah, right? Why'd I relaunch the Russell Brunson show, okay? I think we're four or five episodes in now.

I did because I felt like I lost my voice. I was trying to do things based on scripting, based on keywords, based on stuff like that, and like it was good, but wasn't great. So like, I gotta find my voice again. Let me get back to Russell talking to a camera and hanging out and like sharing the stories I wanna share, right?

Like, let me tell you guys a story about me beating up a kid who messes with me in football, right? He came to the wrestling and I mopped him back. I wanna tell you that story. What's the point of it? The point of it, I wanna tell you that story. Makes me feel good about it, right? He came to the wrestling and I mopped him back. I wanna tell you that story. What's the point of it? The point is I wanna tell you that story. Makes me feel good about it, right?

It feels good about myself. Like I wanna tell you guys stories. And so for me, it's like I'm still in the spotlight. I'm still trying to find my voice, right? It doesn't end, right? Your voice is getting better and better and better. In fact, it's crazy. My brother sent me this video of me.

Ah, I could splice him. Should I do it? Ah, camera splicing. I'm gonna have him splicing like a 10 second clip on the video and everything. It's me in a tie behind a desk and I'm awkwardly, so awkwardly talking. A shaved head, a tie.

And I look at that kid and again, I thought I was the stuff back then. I thought I was amazing. And I think about it now, I'm like, man, so embarrassed. I watch it now, it's like, oh. But I wanna put my arm around like, Russell's keep going. Eventually you're gonna figure out,

you can grow your hair out. You're gonna find out that you can talk with energy, keep your eyes open. Like, you know, things like, cause like, anyway. So, okay, insert awkward clip of Russell right now. Sometimes you don't really know what to do next. Where's the next step? And so we've actually created a lot of different programs

to help everybody who's interested to get started and to really make you successful as quick as possible. Now, one thing we've done, excuse me, is we created a course called our Protege course. And we're back. I hope that wasn't too painful for you as it was for me, but that's it, you guys. Back then, I thought I was good.

That make sense? I thought I was good back then. Look at me today, like right now in my head, I think I'm pretty good. But in 10 years, someone looked back at this and like, Russell, you were so bad, right? Same thing for you, but you gotta start and be consistent over and over and over again

to figure that out and find it. It was fascinating to me. When I met Tony Robbins originally, he was the same age I am right now. What? I remember thinking like, man, he's gonna do this forever. Like he's this big, he's saying, blah, blah, blah, right? And I'm like, no, he was my age when I met Tony.

Like this is crazy to me. And then I look at now, okay, he's gonna do this forever. He's this big, he's saying, blah, blah, blah, right? No, he was my age when I met Tony. This is crazy to me. And then I look at now, okay, when I'm Tony's age, where can I be? Where should I be? Can I catch him? Can I lap him? Am I gonna lose to him?

I don't know. Either way, it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun to compete. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I hope you get some ideas. The biggest thing is I just, I'm so tired. I feel so bad. People who spend so much time and energy and effort

building a product or a movement or a funnel or whatever that you want to call it. And then they're putting out there, there's no one to see it. And it's like, and then usually what's been happening is they've been bootstrapping this thing for so long. And it's like, oh, they can't like, there's no one to sell to.

They can't afford ads, they can't do anything. Now they've got this thing, but they've got to go start gathering people and now they don't have time for it. They're out of money, they got to find another job. And it's like, oh, if you'd been doing these things simultaneously, you'd be fine at this point, but you missed the most important part,

which is gathering the many initially. That is the key. So this is the focal point for you guys. Okay, wherever you are right now in your business, it's like taking your time and breaking off, I'd say an hour a day. Okay, and the hour a day is for you to go out there and to network like crazy, for you to publish like crazy,

and then get back to building your thing. Okay, just block out first hour of your day. Okay, I'm gonna spend 20 minutes networking, I'm gonna go on Instagram, Facebook, whatever, I'm just DMing people, following people, getting to know people, trying to build relationships, get up to someone calls with people, then I'm coming out, record a 20 minute video,

20 minute podcast episode, upload it, and then boom, now I can go back to building my company. But if you're missing this piece, when you need the money, when you need like, you know, when you're thirsty, you have not been digging your well, you're gonna miss it, okay? And that is the key.

So hope that helps you guys a lot. On top of that, if you haven't read Traffic Secret yet, I just recommend reading it, because this is the keys to everything I know about getting traffic. It's a very strategic book, which means it's evergreen. It's timeless, it means it's not gonna change. It means it works today, tomorrow, forever.

I specifically did not put in tackle things that change with every wind of change inside the social media world. These are strategic things that'll work forever. It's gonna help you understand list building. It's gonna help you understand focus on the right things. Yeah, it's the key, you guys. And so again, I love all my books. They're all great, but Traffic Seeker's just a powerful one

for you guys to understand so you can start building the traffic. Because until you gather the many, you don't have a business, okay? And that's the key. So start gathering the many. Your people are waiting for you. They're waiting for you to step into your calling.

They're waiting for you to show up and start publishing, start talking so they can find you. They're looking for what you have. They're in pain. They're trying to get out of pain, and they're waiting for you to be willing to step into your calling and share your message, okay? And you gotta do it awkwardly.

You gotta do it uncomfortably. You gotta do it in a spot where you're not ready yet. But until you are willing to step into your calling and share your message, okay? And you gotta do it awkwardly, you gotta do it uncomfortably, you gotta do it in a spot where you're not ready yet, but until you are willing to do that, those people cannot be, like you can't change their lives. So as soon as you're willing to step into your calling, they are there waiting for you so they can find you so you can change your life. So do it, I promise you it'll be worth it.

It's gonna be scary first, you're gonna get nervous, pain, all that kind of stuff, I get it, but the good news is when you first start publishing, when you are the worst, no one's gonna be watching you. And by the time you figure it out, that's when your audience will show up. So start today, have some fun, appreciate y'all. We'll see you guys all next episode.

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