Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The Small Book From the 1930’s That Reminded Me Why I Love Selling | #Sales - Ep. 85

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Selling isn’t something you have to do… It’s something you get to do! When I first picked up The Romance of Selling, it completely reignited my passion for what we do as entrepreneurs. This book reminded me that selling isn’t about pressure, manipulation, or tactics. It’s about excitement, belief, and love for the thing you’re sharing with the world. In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I share what I learned from the book and how it connects to my own journey. From knocking doors as a missionary to failing in my first infomercial, I talk about the moment I realized that selling is really about energy and certainty. When you’re genuinely excited about what you have, that enthusiasm transfers to other people. And that’s when sales become effortless. Key Highlights: ◼️Why enthusiasm will always outperform the perfect script ◼️The difference between entrepreneurs, technicians, and true salespeople ◼️How a failed infomercial taught me the real meaning of belief in your offer ◼️The power of energy and certainty to move people to action ◼️Why selling is the greatest expression of service and leadership Here’s the truth: selling isn’t just how you make money, it’s how you change lives. When you sell, you’re inviting someone into a new story. You’re giving them hope, possibility, and transformation. That’s why I love this game so much. It’s not about closing deals. It’s about opening doors. ◼️If you want to go deeper and see my personal notes on The Romance of Selling, you can grab them here: https://russellbrunson.com/notes ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event →⁠⁠ https://sellingonline.com/podcast⁠⁠ ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 want to 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 selling online.com slash podcast. This is the Russell Brunson show. I'm going to show you one thing I found cool in this book as I was leafing through initially. Here in the middle. There it is.

The shading from the paper I bled into the actual page. You can see it's been here for, who knows, 70, 80 years. It's interesting because there's actually a sales principle here that I don't know, whoever owns this book, cut it out and plugged it in here. And this is the principle that's been super powerful for me as I learned sales. What's up everybody? This is Russell. Welcome back to The Vault.

Today I'm going to share with you guys a book. I'm a little embarrassed. This book only cost me $20.10. But it's okay. You can still find gems in the cheap books. as long as they're written before 1940. So this is a book that's written in 1930 called The Romance of Selling. And I bought this book and I love this book because for some reason, in the world as a whole,

selling has looked down upon. I remember as a kid growing up and going to college and going to school and people were like, what are you going to be when you grow up? And people are going to be a doctor. I'm going to be a dentist. I'm going to be whatever. And it was always fascinating to me because I never heard someone bragging about I want to be a salesman. I want to get into sales.

That was never a thing people cared about. And then fast forward, when I got into business and I started learning how to make money, I realized there are different skillsets. I had to learn marketing. Then I had to learn how to sell. And I started realizing that all the people I met who were extremely wealthy, extremely successful, like the one common thing that all these people were really, really good at is they all knew how to sell.

And I started realizing that, like, the person in the room that makes the most amount of money is never the technician, right? There's this concept people have like, I'm going to go to school and typically teach you how to be a technician, teach you how to be a doctor or a doctor. dentist or a teacher or whatever the thing is, right? But in any business, like the person that makes the most amount of money is the rainmakers, the person who makes the money, who makes the sales, right? That's the person who makes the most amount of money. In fact, I always talk about in, if you look at any business, right, there's a couple different pieces that key players

that are involved, right? There is the entrepreneur starts a business, right? And that's the person puts in the risk. And so that's a person who has like the big ups or the big downs, right? But they don't have a ceiling on their income. Then you have the technicians who do the actual the thing, right? They're the person that they're teaching or they're drilling the teeth or they're whatever, the chiropractor, the, they're the technician who does the thing, right? And they're usually, they don't have the risk. They have the skill set. But because they don't have the risk, there's always like a ceiling on their earning potential, right? And again, the last person in the business is the rainmaker. It's the person who actually makes the money, right? And that person typically doesn't

have a degree. There's not typically, you don't go to school to get a degree in selling, you know, But that's the person who doesn't typically have a ceiling on how much money they can make, right? There's no ceiling because the more they sell, the more money they can make. And so for me, it's like, you've either got to be the entrepreneur in business because you have no, like you have unlimited upside or you've got to become the salesperson. And a lot of times the salesperson, the entrepreneur is the same, the same person. But for me, like, when you think about selling and the romance of selling, it is the thing that moves the business, the thing that produces the revenues, the thing that makes the doctor actually, like, useful. It's the thing that makes the dentist, makes the person with the skill set actually useful because if nobody shows up and gives that person money, then nobody gets paid.

And so it's actually the most important part of every single business is the selling. And so I think about the romance of selling. I want people thinking more about that. And like not looking down upon sales or sales positions or anything, but understanding like it is the key. It is the most important part of the equation. So if you want to learn how to do anything, you got to learn how to be great as sales. I'm going to show you one thing I found cool in this book as I was.

was leafing through initially. Here in the middle, there was like this little bookmark, if I can find it again. There it is. Now I learned sales differently than most people, right? Most people, if they're doing sales, they learned on the phone, or maybe they went door to door, or they, you know, whatever, you know,

they sold cars at a car dealers or things like that. My first version of selling that I learned was different. So I went on a mission for my church for two years. I went to New Jersey and for two years I was knocking on doors, literally, selling religion, which of all the things you can possibly sell, I think is the hard to sell. Like my sales pitch on the door approach was, you know,

we talked to someone like, hey, this is our offer. Like I need you to give up alcohol, tobacco, coffee tea, all premarital and extramarital sex and 10% of your income for the rest of your life. In exchange, you may get salvation if you don't mess it up. Like that was our sales pitch. That was like what I learned going door to door for two years. It was hard like knocking on doors and getting rejected,

door slammed your face. I had people like sicking dogs on us. We had like all sorts of chaos. and craziness. But one of the things I learned through the process, which literally is crazy, because it's the message from this little piece of paper. I'll read it first and I'll explain it. It says, nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm. So it's the real allegory in the tale of Orpheus, which I don't know that story, but it says it moves stones and charms brutes. It is the genius of science and truth accomplishes no victories without it. So it says the power and contagious is

enthusiasm. It's one thing that I learned is like when I would, when I would go and knock on somebody's door and I'm trying to share my faith and my belief with people. When I was scared and nervous, other people just shut me down, right? But when I had enthusiasm at what I was sharing, like, this is the most exciting in the world. And I started getting into it. I got excited and I would meet somebody. It would shift everything, like the enthusiasm I would walk in the door with, right? When I came to some enthusiasm, like, hey, you guys, what's going on? Like, we've got the most exciting message in the entire world. Like, then people listen, they started paying attention. And I remember when I got back into, you know, got home for my

mission and then I had a chance to like starting my business, things like that. Again, I was very shy and awkward, and I remember having my first opportunity to actually sell something in an event, right? I've been selling things online through email, so it wasn't me ever talking. It was just like sending out emails, and that's how sales were made, right? And I got invited to speak in an event. I'd been to an event before. I saw people selling from stage, and these people on stage were very charismatic. And at the time I wasn't, I was nervous.

I didn't know how to do these things. And I would watch them, and I would like, what were the people that, like, what were the people that, like, inspired me to want to go run to the back, right? And I started paying attention to that. And I would notice that the people that were having the most success, the people I connected with. Like, they had enthusiasm, they had excitement, they had more charisma. And I remember if you look at the early videos of me, like, I look at my first couple times on stage, I'm wearing a tie, I had a shaved head, and like my eyes look like half

asleep, like I'm tired, I'm talking like this. And I was like, I realized like, I just, I felt tired, I looked tired, like I was like, I'm not engaging people. And somewhere along the line, I thought it'd be really smart for me to create my very first infomercial. And by the way, it was one of the biggest mistakes of my business. I lost a whole bunch of money. Didn't sell a single product from the infomercial, but we recreated the infomercial.

And I remember we went on set and I had a co-host on the infomercial. And this guy was like, you could tell he was a coach for a lot of infomercials. He had tons of energy. He was talking over the top. And I was so embarrassed. I was like, well, this guy is going crazy. And then he would do his whole thing and I would deliver my line. And I remember he's like, he's like, no, no, like you need more energy.

So I'm okay. So he'd do his whole thing. And he cut to me and I'd be like, ha-da-da-da, right? I do my line. And he was like, he cut against like, he's like, Russell, you have to understand. He's like, if you, if you're on TV and your energy and your enthusiasm at this level right here, you sound normal. He's like, if you come in normal, you're going to sound boring and half asleep. Anyway, super awkward.

And so we try again. And then he would do the whole thing. And I'd come in and try to be like as much energy enthusiasm as I had. And I remember one time he's like, he's like, don't you believe in your price? He's like, you've sold me on the product. Like, I'm more excited about this than you are like, where's your enthusiasm? And I'm like, I don't know, I just feel uncomfortable. And so anyway, all of a sudden, we'd film the infomercial.

I do my version of it. I'm trying to talk as as as as I could, but, you know, with the constraints of me feeling stupid. And then when the commercial came out, we watched it. It was crazy because I meant, like, sure enough, just like he said, when you watched it, he seemed normal. And I seemed half asleep. And the infomercial bombed. Didn't make a single cell. But it was a powerful lesson I learned.

And so I remember when social media came out. And I first started on social media, like, I realized, I remember that lesson he kept saying. He's like, If you talk normal, without enthusiasm, you're gonna sound boring, right, on TV. But if you come in a lot of energy, you're gonna sound normal. And so when I started doing social media,

first time I'd go live on Periscope back and then, I was like, what's up, this is Russell Brunson? And I started that level and then people watch it and it sounds normal. And it's funny to me to stay because I still get people who I, every time you have so much energy. Like, what are you talking about? Like, every time I see you got so much energy,

I'm like, oh, well, the reason why is because the only time you ever see me is when I'm about to go live on TV, right? I'm clicking live on Facebook. I'm going live on a webinar or something. But when I show up, I show up with enthusiasm. Like, it's one of the most important things of selling. Like, if you don't show up with that level of enthusiasm,

if you're not excited about the product, nobody else is going to be excited. Like, you have to bring that excitement, that energy to it, right? You're bringing a, you can be bringing a book. I'm like, hey, you should buy this book. It's awesome. Versus like, this book is insane. If you want to learn to sell and like, and like, you're right, that level of enthusiasm gets people to actually desire the thing you want, right?

People desire more energy in their life. Like, they're trying to get energy from caffeine, from coffee, from parties, from, from like they're craving that right everyone wants to be this different vibe they're trying to raise up that level and so when you're the person who comes in with the enthusiasm the excitement right they want to plug into that there's a sales concept that's really powerful when you're doing group selling right if you're doing even small groups ever but the concept is this the person in any room who has the most certainty always wins right everyone comes in this room and everyone's looking like who's got the most certainty and whoever's willing to step up into that right have the most certainty everyone else is like that's the leader

and they're going to plug in that person, right? So if I'm speaking in an event, I have to come in with more certainty than the other speaker. That's come with more certainty than the audience members. So the person with the most certainty wins in a situation, right? And so if I'm going into a selling situation, I have to understand that. So it's enthusiasm, it's enthusiasm, like those things will clean up so many of the other salesons. If you, I was going to create the offer or whatever,

but you come in with certainty and enthusiasm, people are looking for people to plug into. Jay Paramount said that people are silently begging to be led. So they're walking around with like a cord on their umbilical cord, looking for somebody to plug into and so if you want to be a leader if you want to be successful in selling you've got to be a person who comes in with those things because that's what's going to get people to want to plug into you and that's how you win that's how you sell that's how you get people to buy into the products and services that you are promoting and you're selling now if all you sales people out there want to get my notes on this book the romance of selling there'll be

link down below click on that link and you can go get a copy of my notes other than that thank you guys so much for being here i appreciate you if you got your best sales technique drop in the comments down below see you guys on the next video I don't know. Thank you.