Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - WARNING: Don't Stop Fueling Your Fire

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

If you don't want your successful business to die, heed this warning now. On today's episode Russell sends out a warning of why you can never stop fueling your fire. Here is some of the insightful advice in this episode: Find out how Russell learned to always fuel the fire even when he wasn't ready to sell his customers something. See what kinds of things you can be doing to keep yourself relevant in the eyes of your customers. And find out why even when you're successful with a huge following you need to continually put fuel on the fire. So listen here to find out some of the ways Russell fuels his fire, despite having millions of followers between all the platforms. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/warning-don-t-stop-fueling-your-fire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, good morning everybody, this is Russell, and I want to welcome you back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. So the big question is this, how are entrepreneurs like us, who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, who are spending money from our own pockets, how do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets.

Hey everyone, it's a crazy rainy day out here. Our weather here in Boise is raining. It wants to snow because we're getting close to Christmas, but it's like just too warm. It's been raining like crazy. We're praying it gets cold so we can get some snow because that'd be really fun right now. But anyway, I'm heading to the office and just had a recurring theme in my head for the last day or so that I was like, I need to, I need to share this with everybody. So I'm going to talk about it first, my own experience and then a close friend's experience.

And then some of it, you guys, it's gonna be related back to you. So the theme, the message today is you gotta keep on putting fuel into the fire. Now, I've experienced this three or four times throughout my career. I made this mistake and learned from it. Now, hopefully I won't make this mistake again, but a lot of times what happens

is we start having success with something, right? It starts working, right? This is amazing, and then you stop doing it for some reason, right? So in our business, for example, like we'll start growing a list. We're doing something, right? It starts working, right? This is amazing. And then you stop doing it for some reason, right? So in our business, for example, like we'll start growing a list. We're doing, doing something right to get new customers, new people in our door and we're having fun with it. It's working.

Also, we start building lists. Then we start, we shift our focus from that to like selling stuff and doing things, all these things. And we forget about the fuel that was, that was bringing people in to our, to our business. And then, um, and at first you don't notice it because you're having so much success with existing customers you brought in, but eventually it starts imploding and your company will eventually die. Um, I've seen so many people who get into my world and they hear me talk about like, you need to do a podcast a week, every single week for at least a year.

And so they do, they do it for like, for like a month and a month and a half and they start making some sales and they're like, this is so exciting. And they stop doing the webinar because like we're making money. Things are great. Let's cut off the fuel that's building our company. That's what happens. And like logically you're like, I would never do that. But how many of you guys are still doing your weekly webinars? All right. That means you cut off the fuel to your, to your business. Um, all right. So let me step back like a decade ago when I was building my company. And I remember, I remember one point for sure, like I was having some success, I was making some money,

things were working, and I was like, this is amazing, this is amazing, I started hiring companies, started building a team, had a bunch of people, had an office, and then I had this idea for this website that was gonna be like the greatest thing in the world. So I started working on it. And it took us about six months to build that website. And I remember during the process, I was like, okay,

I don't wanna like email my list of other things, I don't wanna like, you know, I don't want to like make them upset. I don't want to like freak them out. Cause I want them to be ready. So when I have this thing to launch and live, they'll be ready to buy it. So for like six months, I didn't email my list. And then the new thing came out and I was so excited. And we emailed the list, the list that normally would get, you know, three or 4,000 clicks. If I send an email to him, I remember I had like 300 opens and like 12 clicks. And I was like, oh crap, they don't remember who I am. Like I'm screwed. Like I, I'm in such a bad spot right now because I need money very, very badly, which is the

reason why I did this whole promotion. And, and they forgot who I was. I hadn't been putting fuel into the fire. And, uh, and it was very sad, scary lesson, right? A fire bunch of people that lay off staff and then either scramble to rebuild my list, rebuild connection with them. Get new people. I remember in my head saying, okay, I will never not email my list because people forget so fast. If I waited a week to email my list, if it takes me three weeks to email my list,

two-thirds of my list will have forgotten who I am by that point. There's so much noise, so much things happening. You have to always be out there. That's the reason why I'm doing Instagrams every day and Facebook's every day and podcasts every day and all these things every single day because I need to keep fueling the fire. Fueling the fire is what builds the empire. Okay. And so, um, uh, I had a friend over last night and we were talking and, and he's going through a tough time now and we start talking and it was funny because, um, he's at a couple of different businesses and, and all of them, he had stopped putting the fuel for his local business. He'd stopped the fuel fuel and he just restarted it. And he was like, it's killing it. We're doing

awesome again. I'm like, yeah, but what's the lesson? He's like, I forgot to put fuel in the fire. I'm like, yeah, you got to keep doing that. Like even when things get successful, you got to keep doing the things that are bringing fuel in the fire. And that same person has a webinar and he was doing the weekly webinar for a long time, making much money. And then he stopped because he started selling other events and things like that to this list. And it worked for a while. And then attrition started happening and atrophy or whatever you want to call it. And then, and then it slowed down. I said, start doing the weekly webinar. I get back to it. That's the fuel that builds, that builds the business that keeps doing it. Um, same friend has a podcast and he's like, I used to podcast a couple of times a week.

I haven't podcasted since June. And it's like, you got to keep fueling the fire. You got to keep fueling the fire. Even if you have success over here, you can't stop fueling the fire. Um, and so that's just kind of the message for you guys today. This is a very short one. I know, um, partially because Funnel Friday starts in like five minutes and you got to run in there and get it all set up. So I'm a little late. Um, but I just wanted you guys to think through that because you guys are gonna go through these cycles of like, you're focusing on like, how do I make it rain? How do I feel the fire? How do I bring people in? And you're doing that, you're doing that,

you're doing that. And all of a sudden your list and your customer base will start growing. And then what's gonna happen, if I'm warning you for those who haven't hit it yet, and I'm reminding you for those who have, you're gonna shift your focus. And you should, you should be shifting

some portion of your focus to that audience and serving them and like, what's the next thing they need? And how else can I, like, what can I do as an event, as whatever. But the big thing is like, you can't stop. You still have to like tie in. Like I have to keep fueling the fire. I have to keep fueling the fire.

Okay. In our company, like we now have John Parks on my team who literally his entire job is adding fuel to the fire. Right. Like, um, he, he runs the traffic side of things. So he's always doing things. And for me, I might content, like I keep creating podcasts. I got to do at least two podcasts a week.

I got to do at least, um, this many emails. We're going to do, we have these like metrics we have to keep doing. You know, we have to keep growing the webinar. We have to get at least a thousand people a week to register for the webinar. We have to keep doing this. We just have like these numbers that we just keep doing because we know that's the fuel for the business. And I could easily stop right now, right?

I could stop doing all this stuff. I could, like people are like, why are you still on Instagram? Why are you still on Facebook? Why? I could stop all those things, right? But I know what would happen in six months or a year from now if I stopped those things today. Okay, I can tell you how many friends I have who've been in this industry longer and longer than me, who were killing it one time.

They built up a huge following of people, and then they stopped. And they kept messaging and following. The problem with that is it's always either constantly growing or shrinking, right? And so if you stop bringing new fuel on the fire, new people on the front end, your existing list, while they might be hot and responsive now, it'll continue to, to, to get worse and worse and worse. Eventually, um, you're out of business. And so, um, this is, this is the, uh, the warning to you all continually put fuel on

the fire. Um, you know, initially you start your business, it's going to be a hundred percent of your effort because you have no fuel. You have no people, you have nothing to sell, you don't know what to sell to. So it's like focusing, focusing, focusing a hundred percent of the time. And as customers start coming, you start your business, it's going to be a hundred percent of your effort because you have no fuel. You have no people, you have nothing to sell, you know, no one to sell to. So it's like focusing, focusing, focusing a hundred percent of the time. And as customers start coming, you start shrinking and shrinking it. But I would say, man, I would, I would spend like at least 50% of all your time on like fueling the fire and the other 50% on like serving the people you have in there.

But I wouldn't drop below that because if you do, it'll start to shrink and shrink and eventually disappear, which is the worst thing for all of us so all right there's your word of warning fuel your fire keep it going do not stop even when it seems like i don't need to do this anymore because i got this big following people love me look at me and say wow russell's got over a million people between all the platforms i think about a million and a half on email list we We got 700,000 on Facebook, 200,000 on Instagram, all these different places. And yet you keep fueling the fire, keep fueling the fire, because I know I will become irrelevant if I stop.

All right, guys. I'm getting a message from Melanie saying, where are you? Falling Friday starts in two minutes. I got to go. Appreciate you all. Don't forget to fuel your fire continually, consistently. If you do that, your business will live a long, happy, joyful life. All right.

Thanks, everybody. We'll talk to you soon. Bye. Want more marketing secrets? If so, then go get your copies of my two bestselling 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 your free copy at dotcomsecrets.com. Inside these two books, you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest growing non-VC backed SaaS startup company in the world.