Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The Transition From All-Star To Coach

Episode Date: September 5, 2018

A private voxer message I sent to my partners, talking about the next phase for me personally inside of the company. On this episode Russell shares a Voxer conversation he had with his partners and later his team on why he's reached the next phase in his journey to become a coach instead of an all-star. Here are the awesome things you will get to hear on today's episode: Why Russell feels like his career has reached a point where he doesn't know what his next goal should be. How going to a retreat with self-help guru's helped him figure out where his focus should be. And why being a coach instead of an all-star could be the way to grow his company from 100 million dollars a year to a billion dollars a year. So listen here to find out why Russell's next step is coaching his team so they can take the championship. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/the-transition-from-all-star-to-coach Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I'm excited because today I'm going to let you in behind the scenes of something that made me a little vulnerable, nervous, but something that's turned out to be really, really good. I think for a lot of you guys who are the all-stars and you are in the transition point to becoming the coach, this is going to be super valuable for you. So with that said, let's jump into this episode. So the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, who are spending money from our own pockets,

how do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to Marketing Secrets. All right, everybody. So like I said, this episode is actually a Voxer that I sent to my partners inside ClickFunnels. And it was after I had a chance to spend a week with a whole bunch of amazing marketers and business owners and kind of reflecting on what's next for me,

what's my next step, my next role. And yeah, and I'm not gonna lie, I was really nervous to first off to box those guys about it. And then after I actually forwarded it to all the people on my traffic and funnel building team, because it represents kind of a shift in focus for me personally and for them as well. And for me, it was funny how nervous I was and like, the vulnerability of like, oh, this is the scary thing that I got to try to tackle. But doing so has been like one of the greatest things for our company. Everyone's excited now and seeing the vision and rebuying in and the energy level, since I kind of mentioned, has been really, really fun. And so I thought it'd be fun to share with you guys. A couple real quick caveats.

Is there some people I mentioned, some people who were on the trip as well as some people who were, you know, just work internally inside of our team. And so I'm gonna have my brother, uh, beep out those, those names or mute out those names and some of the, the, the confidential details. Um, so if you hear little blips of sound, that's what those are, but do not fear all the good stuff is still in there for you. Um, but for anybody of you guys who have been the all-star in your transitioning to try becoming a coach, which is the phase of the business I'm in right now. And it's a nervous, scary, exciting, everything. I hope that this will give you some perspective and help you out.

And for those who aren't there yet, but you're wondering like, where am I going? What's the vision? What's the future hold for me? Hopefully this will help you as well. So with that said, let's jump right into this Voxer and I hope you enjoy it. Hey, what's up guys? Hope you're doing awesome. I want to kind of record this for you guys based on some of my thoughts over the last probably two weeks or so, just to get a feedback, and I'm probably going to forward this on

to the funnel team and the traffic team just so they have some context as well, but I just wanted to kind of put it in here first and get your guys' thoughts on it. Anyway, the last little bit has been really good for me. I've had like some big personal ahas about stuff. And obviously we've done a lot of things right because we've gotten to where we are. But I think also I'm kind of in this weird spot where I'm trying to figure out what my next step is and all that kind of stuff. So anyway, Sharpen's been really good because they can help me understand a lot better like the team building and how to

how to do meetings how to structure things and just it was it was really really good uh but even with that still i was kind of like with this this weird like uneasiness so when i was at the event um hopefully my car's not too loud it's so loud when i drive anyway when i uh went to that to the mastermind group and we were with those guys up at the at the trout ranch or whatever and we do all the manly things like fishing and shooting and things i'm really bad at um then we finally got a mastermind together and kind of talk and it's funny because normally mastermind groups obviously are like we share marketing ideas but this one was like more like a men's group it was like self-help but but just self-help gurus.

So we were talking marketing. They were talking like, you know, how to make yourself happier. But anyway, then it got to my turn. They asked like what my biggest struggle was I needed help with from the group. And what I told them was basically I said, you know, my whole life, I've always had like something I was running towards, right? So like when I was a wrestler, right? So when I was a wrestler, as soon as I learned about wrestling,

I became obsessed with it and I wanted to be a state champ. And so I would practice, I'd go to matches, and I'd win, I'd get my hand raised. And then I got better, I became a region champ, I got my hand raised, and I became a state champ, I got my hand raised, I became an All-American. I had all these goals I was shooting towards, right? I got to college, I had next thing,

but I always had something I was aggressively running towards where all my time, energy, effort, thoughts were moving towards that thing. My senior year, I was trying to be an All-American, and at the Pac-10 tournament, you have to be the top one or two spots in the Pac-10 to qualify for the Nationals. I was seeded. I should have. It's ridiculous I didn't, but lo and behold, I choked and I was seated I should have like it's ridiculous I didn't but lo and behold I choked and I lost and so my career ended like three weeks before I thought it was going to and it was like the worst feeling in the world like losing and then I was like that that's it I'll never wrestle again and it's like my whole life you know 15 years my life up to that point was that and then it was

gone it was like taken from me before I was ready, and I would have, like, gone into, like, severe depression, I did a little bit, but I had this little business thing that I was doing at the time, and so, like, to get my mind off of, like, the pain, I just jumped into business and became obsessed, and, like, that's all I did for the next eight years of my life, like, I didn't, like, I gained, like, 50, 60 pounds, like, I was unhealthy, I was not happy, I was just, I had this thing, and I was, like, I had a new goal, happy i was just but i had this thing and i was like i had a new goal right i want to make money online and i was chasing it and like at first i had this goal like i want to make whatever if i make six figures a year that'd

be insane so i was like i was running towards it running towards it and as soon as i hit it like my hand got raised i was like cool now i make i want to make seven figures in a year and i was running running running i made seven figures and i was like hey i want to make eight figures in a year and that one took me a lot longer we We ran it for three or four years, almost got there. And that's when the whole company crashed and then built it back up. And then still, I think we maxed out about three, three and a half million during that time. And then ClickFunnels came. It was like, oh, my gosh, this is the thing, right? And I could see the opportunity.

And then I started running, as we all did, and started running. And the goal was to build a 10 you know 10 million dollar business and then we boom we hit and it was like cool like let's do 50 million then boom we did that and then this year's like let's hit 100 million we're gonna hit that this year and then for me it's like what's the next goal and i'm like oh what is the next goal like going from 100 million to 200 million like isn't that exciting it's like i don't know it's like winning another region champ like that like where's the next state championship where's the next national like what's the next thing it's like for me it's like the next thing is the billion which is like oh so far away like it's honestly the reason why I didn't

keep wrestling because the next level after like where I dropped off was the olympics and I knew that like to get the olympics it's like an 8 to 12 year like thing and I was like I don't have 8 to 12 years left in me so I that's why I stopped wrestling at that point and for me it's like that's where I right now it's like a billion dollars seems so far away it's like well do we sell and like I guess that could be a hand raised but then then I'm going to severe depression because I got nothing else after you know like this is my thing and and anyway so that's kind of my question for them it's like I don't know what to chase I don't know how to get my hand raised I don't know what the next thing is and because that I feel like I'm spitting in circles

like being really really busy because um because I feel like I need to be busy. Because that numbs the pain of not knowing what the next challenge is going to be, right? Because that's kind of where I'm finding myself at. And so I kind of shared that with those guys and spent the next hour getting personal developed or personally developing me. It was fun. And there were a lot of good things that came out of it. But the one, like the one voice that I heard that was like speaking directly to me was, um, was basically like, I I've always been like a player, right? Like, like I'm an all star, like, and, and I haven't been a good coach. Like I, and I want to caveat that,

like I have been a good coach to our clients, right? Like I'm like, I've coached Brandon and Kaylin and Alex and Layla and all these people. I'm good at coaching people that are our students, but I'm the worst coach ever for our internal team, our agency we're building out. In fact, I was thinking about it. I feel like I'm the guy who, I'm like the A-level player, like an all-star, right? I'm playing the A-level player, like an all-star, right?

And I'm playing on this team and everyone on the team's good, but I have this weird thing where it's just like, like, for example, I copied, it's good.

And instead of me coaching her on how to make a crate, I'm like, I like grab it and like I steal the ball from her. I'm like, I'm just going to fix it and I fix it

and I dunk the ball, right? Like, oh, look how good I am and I get my significance hit, right? Or do a funnel

and it's good or something, but I'm like, oh, like, I fixed this and I'll jump in and I'll just change stuff and I'll, because like, I want to be significance hit right or jay will do a funnel and it's good or something but my god like i fix this and i'll jump and i'll change stuff and i'll because like i want to be the all-star and it's i mean it's good because we're putting out amazing stuff it's also bad because it's like i keep trying to be this all-star and it's not helping the team it's hurting the team more than anything i'm sure it's discouraging to them and a whole bunch of other things that i probably wasn't aware of until i started kind of really

thinking through this and i think um for me, the next evolution, if we're going to get to a billion dollars, it's not going to be by me being an all-star. You know, like you look at basketball teams. Teams have like one all-star. They have an all-star who like gets all the screen time, but like the teams never win the championships, right? The championship teams are the ones that have like an amazing team. And I've realized that like if we're going to get to a billion dollars,

from the marketing side, I can't do what i'm doing number one because i can't handle more number two it's just it's not how we're going to scale like the way that we're going to grow to the next level is i have to retire from being an all-star player and become an actual coach um like two or three weeks ago i did like first training to our team like on hook story offer and like train. And everyone got excited. It was a really cool thing. And it was like me coaching them. One of the guys in the group, his name's ******.

He's the one that wrote the sales video for ******. If you've never seen it, it's the greatest sales video in the history of the universe. He wrote the sales video, put it out there without having a list at all. And day one did like $350,000 in sales. day two is over half a million and it blew up and it's basically the best offer in the history of mankind until the ftc shut them down they got in trouble for it um but he's like probably the best living copywriter right now um he was doing his one-off things like that making a bunch of money but it wasn't like a company and uh him and his brother partnered up and his two brothers, and they built out a whole company. They have

150 plus employees. They've got 17 full-time writers now. This year, they'll do half a billion dollars in sales. That's, how did you do it? The way I did it, I couldn't keep writing. To get to this level, I can't write all the copies, so I built this team of writers. This is what I do.

My job is I come in every single day and I give a copywriting course to my guys it's like i log in and i train them through copy and they get better and he's like that's that's how we're able to scale i've grown so big because i have 17 writers i'm training every single day and he's like i've become a coach and he's like they probably don't write as good as me but they write good enough like really really good level and he's, like, getting better and better. And he's just, like, he's, like, that's where he was able to scale. He's, like, me as an all-star, like, we could have gotten to, you know, $100 million, but we couldn't have gotten to $500 million. Like, there's no way.

And, anyway, it was really interesting. And the other thing he talked about, like, when he does copywriting training, like, it reminded me of, like pair programming where it's not like some code, something you'd log in here. Like, oh, you change stuff. He like, he basically like he brings that the copywriter and shows on the big screen and like in the shows. And it's like, you know, you're a great copywriter, but I'm going to be super anal here to get this perfect. And we're going to go through this line by line. And he like tell the person like, hey, you need to change that period to like three periods. You need to change that to capital here because and like literally does the whole thing but makes the person do while he walks

him through it and that way the person's seeing why and understanding the reasons behind it right and um anyway so yeah so for me i just i think that like that's that's the next step so i have to start transitioning away from being an all-star and hogging the ball and not develop my team to actually focusing on becoming a really good coach for our team. So that's kind of my big realization. And two other things I had to add to it. If you read the book Good to Great, it talks about different levels of leadership and level four versus level five. And level five leaders are someone who builds it. And then when they leave, the company continues to grow and Excel level four leader,

someone who leaves and secretly hopes to hold and collapses, prove how good they are at what they do. And I was like, I think right now I'm a level four leader, which is horrible. And I don't want to be that. I want to be level five. And so I want to transition myself that way.

And the last cool thing I want to share, and then I'll be done. My dad, um, uh, and I was just thinking like, I same thing with all of our project managers so far they started project management stuff and something happens instead of just like coaching through that rip it away from them and you know so i've gone through four or five people trying

to do this so it's like i'm just a destructive force anyway not because i want to just because i'm still learning um but anyway my dad when he turned 60 a little while ago we did a big family reunion thing and he's first birthday and And my mom went through like each decade of his life, like zero to 10 will tell us about that life. And 10 to 20, you know, when he was an athlete wrestling, then 20 to 30, when he became, you know, like started his career and stuff like that. And 30 to 40, he was like a dad. He was coaching us as, as wrestlers. And he's like a coach. And then 50 to 60, the next phase, next phase 60 you know and kind of walked through all the phase the decades and my dad was a great athlete and anyway it's kind of

fun because i asked him afterwards i was like of all the decades what was your favorite he was like by far my favorite was um was the decade where i was coaching you guys and he's like that was my favorite the best year of my life of that 10 year thing and i feel like i need to get a point where i'm retiring from being an all-star and, like, coaching our team. And I think that's my next challenge. I think that I'm going to love it. I think it's what our team needs, what our company needs, like, if we're really going to get there. And so, anyway,

I'm sure all you guys are thinking, like, oh, of course, that makes total sense. But for me, it was, like, a big aha and giving me permission to shift my focus a little bit in an effort to help develop everybody and get our team the best team in the world. So anyway, I just want to share that. I appreciate you guys.

And I will talk to you all soon. Bye, everybody. Want more marketing secrets? If so, then go get your copies of my two best-selling books. Book number one is called Expert Secrets, and you can get a free copy at expertsecrets.com. And book number two is called Dot Com Secrets, and you can get a free copy at expertsecrets.com and book number two is called dot com secrets and you can get your free copy at dot com secrets.com inside these two books you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest growing

non-vc backed sass startup company in the world