Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - What I Do To Guarantee My Funnel's Success

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

The missing step that most people forget, before you create a product or build a funnel. Over the weekend, my personal team’s funnel builder…Nick…and I launched a funnel at the spur of the moment just because we thought it would be fun. It’s from an idea I’ve had for 8 years and it’s just been sitting on my hard drive. The funnel was literally hatched, built, and launched in 2 days. And already we’ve had a bunch of sales! Now here’s the crucial part. This is the place where many entrepreneurs mess up. They spend a ton of time…weeks, months, even YEARS…developing and creating something, only to find out that when they launch it, nobody buys. Nobody wants what they have. And that’s because they didn’t ask themselves this ONE CRITICAL QUESTION… The one question that will tell you whether you should spend the time creating a product, service, or offer, or you should pass on the project. If you want to save yourself a ton of time, frustration, and stress, then tune in to this episode of Marketing Secrets to find out what the question is and WHY it’s so important to your entire business. ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I want to teach you a trick today to make sure that every campaign and every funnel you build, always wins. All right, everybody so I wanted to do this episode because I was bored this weekend, not really bored, I'm never bored, we’ve got a lot of stuff going on, but Friday we were about to leave the office and then one of the guys on my team, Nick Sanders, was like, "Hey, do we have any fun project you want to do on the side that'd be kind of fun?" I was like, "What is a fun project that we have on the side that we can just do real quick?" And he's like, "I got some time this weekend, I'd love to just bust something out". I'm like, "Okay." We started thinking back and I remembered that eight years ago, I had this idea for a site called T-shirt smackdown. And the concept was picking two competing concepts or philosophies or whatever, and make a t-shirt for each one and let people vote with their wallets. So, they come to the site and they're like, "Oh, I want this one to win." So they buy the t-shirt to make sure that that one wins, right? And so, I remember I designed this... the site we had designed eight years ago because... So funny, because it was back when Obama was running against Romney. And so, in fact, the initial PSD files we found had the Obama versus Romney thing, and so it was kind of fun. Anyway we found those PSD files and were like, "Dude, let's make this." So, he took it and he got it all working inside ClickFunnels, and spent his whole weekend doing that. Obviously, the elections are coming up right now so I was like, "Let's do some Biden/Trump shirts." And so we got designers to go and design the t-shirts and all sorts of stuff. And, anyway, it's just been this really fun project that we put together, literally in no time. It's crazy, it's been sitting on my hard drive for eight years now. I can't believe I found the PSD files. It looked so cool. In fact, if you want to see it in action, but I'm not sure when this podcast episode will drop, my guess is hopefully the site will be live by then, but it's tshirtsmackdown.com, so you can go see it there. Anyway, so the concept is we picked two different shirts to compete. When the movie Twilight came out, we could have done like Edward versus Joseph, or during The Bachelor season, it could be this person versus that person, or whatever. You pick two competing things, you put them out there and you let the communities of the things all go and vote on it. And so, with this one, we're like less than a month before the election, everyone's really angry about both sides like, "We should capitalize on this as capitalists do." And so, we put this together. And so, Jake on our team went and got a whole bunch of really cool t-shirt designs that he made some for Trump, some for Biden, and we threw it up on the site and... Anyway, they've been killing themselves and it's almost ready to go. So we're excited. It's going to go live. And again, all you guys should go pick your favorite. Go to tshirtsmackdown.com buy which shirt you want to prove... To vote with your wallet. But anyway, I'm telling you this because a lot of times, we have an idea for something. And you're like, "Man, do I spend the time and energy doing this? I have no idea. It's going to take me all this time and I have no idea if it's going to work or not." And all this fear. The reason why I'm able to do crazy things like this without any fear is before I said yes, before we started the process, the first question that we asked was, "If we do this thing, where are we going to get the traffic for it?" That was the question. And if I don't know the answer to that question, then the answer's always no, we're not doing this thing. I have to know that first. And so, that was the first question like, "Where do we get traffic?" And I was like, "Okay well, to get traffic for this means we need a conservative Republican people and we need liberal Democrat people." So, I'm like, "Where do we find these people?" Okay, there's email lists so we can write here, here and here. And then there's email lists we can write here, here and here. Then here's these Facebook pages we can target. Here's the liberal, here's the conservative, here's the... and so we really quickly, as quick as we could, found as many different variations as we could of both sides to know where you get traffic. So, very quickly okay, boom, here's the traffic. I think conservatively we probably said 10,000 to 20,000 clicks in a three to four day period of time, which is how long one of these smackdowns probably end up lasting. And so, "Okay, let's do it." Right. And so now, Nick and Jake and Jamie, have been working on the site on their free hours, after hours and the weekends and stuff. While they're doing that, I just went and texted all these people, "Hey, can I run add your list?" Yes. Can I run run add your list?" Yes. How much does it cost? Okay I want this date? I want this much." And within, I don't know, within 12 minutes, 10 minutes, maybe I had enough traffic lined up to get about somewhere between probably 10,000 to 15,000 clicks, half on the conservative side, half on the liberal side. And so now when the live site flied, I clicked a button and that fast sales will start coming in. So I want to share with you guys, number one because I want to show off and brag about my fun little idea that we had eight years ago that we're finally actually executing on, but number two is for you guys to start thinking about this. That's one of the biggest things people have is spend so much time and energy and effort on their idea and their thought, and then they go and they build their sales message and they build their funnel, and then they're like, "Where do we get traffic?" And that should have been the first question. Not the last. I remember... Man this is pre-ClickFunnels, no, it wasn't pre-Click, it was right when ClickFunnels first came out actually. So maybe about five years probably. I was in London and I spoke at this really cool event. And afterwards, my wife and kids were still gallivanting around London while I was finishing my speaking things. So I sat in the hallway and talked for two or three hours to all the people there, which was really fun. Definitely intimidating as an introvert, but it was still good. Talked to everybody and they ask those questions. I still remember one person asked me this question that I'd never answered before. No one had ever asked me before, but he asked the question he said, "Man, you've been doing this so long, how do you know that something's going to be successful before you do it now?" And I started thinking and he was right, I do know. I haven't failed at this game in a long time. I failed a lot initially and I failed more than you've tried, I guarantee that. Hundreds of times we launched funnels that did not actually work. And I would say in the last five or six years, pretty much all of them have worked. And so the question was like, "What do you do differently? What do you know? What's the answer?" And before I give you that answer, I'm going to catch a really quick sponsor from myself and I'll be right back to answer it here in a second. Okay. You text me at Community, come on let's just do it. Anyway. All right, so let me answer the question. The question goes like, "How do you know the funnel is going to be successful before you build the funnel out?" And the answer I told him is, the first time someone ever asked me that, first time I ever answered, I told him, I said, "Hey, the reason why I do this is because I find the traffic source first. I don't go and create a product that I want to create, I'll go and take my best idea, I go and find the traffic source first and figure how much the traffic is going to cost, what does it looked like. I figure things out, and then the question I ask myself, "Okay, here's the traffic, here's the market, what does the market actually want?" And then I started brainstorming ideas. That way when the idea is done and the sales message is done and the funnel is done, I know the traffic so I just click a button and traffic shows up. And so, while you're thinking about that, as you're building your businesses where you are, in any spot you are right now, they just imagine like as soon as your thing is done where's the traffic going to come from? Where's that place? Do you have it already? Do you know where it is? If not stop everything and just go figure that out. Go figure out where is the traffic going to come from before you spend all the time and the effort and energy trying to figure out what you're going to create. And honestly, when you figure out what the traffic's at and you figure out how in the world to get access to this traffic, what's it going to take? Who do I need to get to know? Who's the person that's going to sell me the ads? How much does it cost? All these things you're going to start figuring out at that time. Then when you find that traffic source and the best things to do, like let's say it's email traffic you're going to rely on, get on that email list and get all the emails come in, and then that way, as you see the emails like, "Oh, I see this offer and this offer. Here's all the offers that are being sent out to this group of people now I know what this kind of person is responding to," Or if you're following them on Facebook pages and you start seeing your everybody's adds you're like, "Oh, now I know what this type of person is looking for. What kind of offers are working," it'll stimulate the ideas for the offers and the products that you actually want to create. So that's the key guys. That's what we help understand is that a lot of times, most of us do it backwards instead of doing it backwards, the first goal should be where's the traffic? Where's the traffic at now so I can go find it and then go and figure out your product, figure out your funnel, figure out your sales message. Find the traffic first. If you haven't yet, I'd highly recommend reading the Traffic Secrets book. I talk a lot about this. In the first phase for me how I find the traffic is going through the Dream 100. In fact, it's crazy in our 2 Comma Club X Coaching Program. It's 25,000 a year coaching program. People come in and I think everyone thinks I'm going to give them some magic sauce that I've never talked about before. And module number one, literally I force them to actually build out their dream 100 list. They be like, "Why? I thought I was here to make money." Exactly. Right now, our job is to figure out who are the people who already have your traffic. Where are they at? The better I understand that person, that group, the more successful I'm going to be because now I know what are all the other offers they're going out there. Who's controlling the traffic. How do I get to know them? Can I buy my way in? Can I work my way in? All the other things. And so, anyway, that's the one I shared yesterday, just looking at things a little differently. We were able to launch the site. My guys spent the weekend plowing through, getting it done, getting the designs, getting the program and getting it all into ClickFunnels and everything. And then I spent 12 minutes texting the people who I know have the traffic and now we're ready to rock and roll. And that's how the game was played. It was fun. For the T-shirts smackdown is every week, we're going to have a new smackdown. And so right now the smackdown is... next two or three weeks is going to be the politics. And after that guess what's going to be? I don't know yet, but I know I'm going to know where the traffic's at before I go in and do the thing. I'm going to go say, "Where's the traffic at for... " Let's say it's some movie coming out. Or maybe it's the finalists on The Bachelor, maybe it's who knows. I'm going to go and find the traffic first, like where I'll actually get that traffic from before we design the t-shirt, before we get the thing created, otherwise it's just going to be a waste of time, energy, and money. And that's how we play the game. All right. Hope that helps you guys. I appreciate you all. If you got any value from this episode, please take a snapshot, post it on your social profiles and tag me in it and let me know your biggest takeaway. It would mean the world to me. I read every one of them and I'll definitely read yours as well. Thanks so much guys, and I'll talk to you all soon. Bye everybody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I want to teach you a trick today to make sure that every campaign and every funnel you build always wins. 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. All right, everybody. So I wanted to do this episode because I was bored this weekend.

Not really bored. I'm not bored. never bought a lot of stuff going on, but, um, Friday we're about to leave the office. And then, uh, one of the guys on my team, Nick Sanders was like, Hey, do any of the fun projects you want to do on the side? That'd be kind of fun. And I was like, what is the fun project that we have on the side that, you know, that we can just do real quick. And he's like, I got some time this weekend. I would love to just bust something out. I'm like, okay. And we started thinking back and I remembered that eight years ago I had this idea for a site called t-shirt Smackdown. Um, and the concept was like picking two competing concepts or philosophies or whatever, and make a t-shirt for each one and let people vote with their wallets. Right. So they come to the site and they're like, Oh, I want this one

to win. So they buy the t-shirt to make sure that that one wins. Right. And so, um, I remember I designed this, the site we had designed eight years ago because, um, it was, uh, so funny, um, because we were, um, it was back when, um, Obama was running against Romney. And so, uh, in fact, the, the initial PSD files we found had the Obama versus Romney thing. And so it was kind of fun. And, um, anyways, we found that we found that, uh, those PSD files are like, do this, make this. So he took it and, uh, he got it all working inside of ClickFunnels and spent this whole weekend doing that. And obviously the elections are coming up right now. It's like, let's do some Biden Trump shirts. And so we got designers going to design t-shirts and all sorts of stuff. And anyways, just spend this really fun project that we put together literally like in no time. It's crazy. Like it's been sitting on

my hard drive for eight years now. Like I can't believe I found the PSD files. It looks so cool. In fact, if you want to see it in action, I'm not sure when this podcast episode will drop. My guess is hopefully the site will be live by then, but it's tshirtsmackdown.com. So you can go see it there.

Anyway, so the concept is we pick two different shirts to compete, right? So like when the movie Twilight came out, we could have done like Edwards versus Joseph or, you know, during the bachelor season, it could be this person versus that person or whatever, right? And so you pick two competing things, you put them out there and you let the communities of the things all go and vote on it. And so with this one, right, we got like, I don't know, less than a month before the election, everyone's really angry about both sides. Like we should capitalize on this, right? As capitalists do. And so we put this together. And so Jake on our team went and got a whole bunch

of really cool t-shirt designs that he's, he made, uh, one, you know, some for Trump, some for Biden. And, uh, we threw up on the site and anyway, they've been killing themselves. It's almost ready to go. So we're excited. It's going to go live. Um, and again, all you guys should go pick your favorite, go to t-shirt smackdown.com and buy what shirt you want to prove to, you know, vote with your wallet. But anyway, I'm telling you this because a lot of times we have an idea for something, right? And you're like, man, if I spend the time and energy doing this, I have no idea. It's going to take me all this time and I've no idea if it's going to work or not.

And like all this fear, right? The reason why I'm able to do crazy things like this without any fear is because before I said yes, before we started the process, the first question that we asked was, if we do this thing, where are we going to get the traffic for it? That was the question. And if I don't know the answer to that question, the answer, you know, the, then the answer is always, no, we're not doing this thing, right? Like I have to know that first. And so that was the first question is like, where do we get traffic? And I was like, okay, well, to get traffic for this means we need conservative Republican, um, people and we need

liberal Democrat people. Right. And so I'm like, where do we find those people? I'm like, okay, there's email lists that we can write here, here and here. And then there's the email list. We went right here, here and here. Right. And then here's the Facebook pages we can target. Here's the, here's the liberal, here's the conservative, here's the, and so we like really quickly and as quick as we could found as many different variations, um, as we could of both sides to know where to get traffic. So very quickly, right? Okay, boom, here's the traffic. I think conservative, we probably send, I don't know, 10 to 20,000 clicks, uh, in a

three to four day period of time, which is how long when these smackdowns will probably end up lasting. And so, right. Okay, let's do it. Right. And so now Nick and Jake and Jamie have been working on the site on their free hours, after hours and weekends and stuff. Um, while they're doing that, I just went and texted all these people and say, Hey, can I rent an adjournalist? Yes. Can I rent an adjournalist? Yes. How much is it going to cost? Can I want it this date? I want this much. And within,

I don't know, within 12 minutes, 10 minutes, maybe, um, I had, uh, enough traffic lined up to get about somewhere between probably 10 to 15,000 clicks, half on the conservative side and half on the liberal side. And so now when the light side's live, I can click a button and that fast sales will start coming in. Okay. So I want to share with you guys, number one, cause I want to show off and brag about my fun little idea that we had eight years ago that we're finally actually executing on. Um, but number two is for you guys to start thinking about this. Okay. That's one of the biggest things people have. They spend so much time and energy and effort on their idea and their thought. And then they go and they make their sales message and they build their funnel. And then they're like, where do we get traffic? And that should have been the first question,

not the last. I remember, man, this is pre click funnels. No, it wasn't pre, it was right when click funnels first came out actually. So about five years ago, probably I was in London and I spoke at this really cool event. And afterwards I, my wife and kids were still, um, you know, gallivanting around London while I was finishing my speaking thing. So I sat in the hallway and talked for two or three hours to all the people there, which was really fun. You know, definitely intimidating as an introvert, but it was, it was still good talking to everybody. And they asked those questions. I still remember one person asked me this question that I'd never answered before. No one had ever asked me it before, but he asked the question,

he said, man, you've been doing this so long. How do you know that something's going to be successful before you do it now? You know? And, um, I started thinking and he was right. Like I, I do know, like I haven't failed at this game in a long time. I failed a lot initially. I failed more than you've tried. I guarantee that right. Hundreds of? Hundreds of times we launched funnels that did not actually work. And I would say in the last five or six years, pretty much all of them have worked. So the question was like, well, what do you do differently? What do you know? What's the answer?

Okay. Before I give you that answer, I'm going to catch a really quick sponsor from myself, and I'll be right back to answer it here in a second. Hey, everyone. I wanted to quickly interrupt this podcast episode to let you know about something really cool that I just started doing that I want you to be part of. I just opened up a texting community, which means you can text me your questions. And right now I'm spending anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes every single day answering questions through text message to people who are on the podcast. And so I wanted you to stop everything you're doing,

pull your phone out and actually text me a message, okay? And the phone number you need to text is 208-231-3797. Once again, it's 208-231-3797. When you text me, just say hello. And then what's going to happen is I'll add you to my phone and then they'll send you back a message where you can add me to your phone. And then we can start having conversations.

On top of that, through this texting community so i'm going to be giving out free swag giving away free copies of my book i'll let you know about book signings about times i'm coming to your local area and a whole bunch more so i want to make sure you are on this list on top of that every single day i'm sending out my favorite quotes my favorite frameworks and things you can get for free only through my texting platform. So what you need to do right now is pull out your phone and text me at area code 208-231-3797. One more time. That's 208-231-3797. I can't wait to hear from you right now. Okay. Um, if you text me at a community, come on, let's just do it anyway. Uh, all right. So let me ask the questions. The question is like, how do you know that a funnel is going to be successful before you build the funnel out?

And the answer I told him, it's the first time somebody ever asked me, the first time I ever answered, I told him, I said, hey, the reason why I do this is because I find the traffic source first. I don't go and create a product I want to create. I don't go and take my best idea. I go and find the traffic source first and figure out how much is traffic going to cost, what does it look like? I figure those things out.

And then the question I ask myself is, okay, here's the traffic. Here's the market. What does the market actually want? And then I start brainstorming my ideas. That way, when the idea is done and the sales message is done and the funnel is done, I know like the traffic's there. I just click a button and traffic shows up. Right? And so I want you guys thinking about that as you're building your businesses, where you are in any spot you are right now. Like, like just imagine like as soon as your thing is done, where's the traffic going to come from? Where's that place? Do you have it already?

Do you know where it is? If not, stop everything and just go figure that out. Go figure out where is the traffic going to come from before you spend all the time and the effort and energy trying to figure out where you're going to create. Honestly, when you figure out where the traffic's at and figure out how in the world can I get access to this traffic, what's it going to take, who do I need to get to know,

who's the person that's going to sell me the ads, how much does it cost, all these things you start figuring out at a time. Um, then when you find that traffic source, you know, one of the best things you do, I could say it's email traffic you're going to rely on, like get on that email list and get all the emails coming in. And then that way, um, as you see the emails, you're like, Oh, I see this offer and this off. Here's all the offers that are being sent out to this group of people. Now I know what this kind of person is responding to, right? Or if you're following them on Facebook pages,

all of a sudden you start seeing everybody's ads, like, oh, now I know what this type of person is looking for, what kind of offers are working, and it'll stimulate the ideas for the offers and the products that you actually want to create. Okay, so that's the key, guys. That's what we help understand, is that a lot of times most of us do it backwards.

Instead of doing it backwards, the first goal should be where is the traffic? Where's the traffic at now? So I can go find it, right? Then go and figure out your product, figure out your funnel, figure out your sales message, find the traffic first. Okay. If you haven't yet, I'd highly recommend reading the traffic secrets book. I talk a lot about this. The first phase for me and how I find that traffic is going through the dream 100. In fact, it's crazy in our two comma club X coaching programs, $25,000 a year coaching program. Um, people come in and I think everyone thinks I'm going to give them some magic sauce. I've never talked about before. And module number one, literally I forced them to actually build out the dream 100 list. People are like, why?

Like I thought I was here to make money. I'm like, exactly. Right now our job is to figure out who are the people who already have your traffic, right? Where are they at? Where like the better I understand that, that person, that group, the more successful I'm going to be, right? Because now I know what are all the other offers. They're going out there. Who's controlling the traffic? How do I get to know them? Can I buy my way in? Can I work my way in like all the other things, right? And so anyway, that's what I want to share with you yesterday. Just looking at things a little differently. We were able to launch this site. You know, my guys spent the weekend plowing through getting it done, getting the designs, getting the programming, getting it all into ClickFunnels and everything.

And then I spent 12 minutes texting the people who I know have the traffic and now we're ready to rock and roll. And that's how the game is played. Um, it was fun for this t-shirt smackdown is every week we're going to have a new smackdown, right? And so right now the smackdown was, is, you know, if next two or three weeks is going to be the politics. And after that, guess what's going to be? I don't know yet, but I know that I'm going to know where the traffic is at before I go and I do the thing, right? I'm going to go say, where's the traffic at for, like, let's say it's some movie coming out, or maybe it's the finalist on The Bachelor, or maybe it's, who knows, right? I'm going to go and find the traffic first. Like,

where do I actually get that traffic from before we design the t-shirt, before we get the thing created? Otherwise, it's just going to be a waste of time, energy, and money. And that's how we play the game. All right, hope that helps you guys. I appreciate you all. If you got any value from this episode, please take a snapshot of it, post it on your social profiles,

and tag me in it, and let me know your biggest takeaway. It'd mean the world to me. I read every one of them, and I will definitely read yours as well. Thanks so much, you guys, and I will talk to you all soon. Bye, everybody.

Hey, everybody, this is Russell again, and really quick, I will talk to you all soon. Bye everybody. Hey everybody, this is Russell again. And really quick, I wanted to invite you to join, um, arguably the best thing that we've ever put out inside the ClickFunnels community. And it is a challenge we call the one funnel way challenge. You know, everyone in their business, in their life, they're one funnel away from something. Some of you guys are one funnel away from quitting your job. Some of you guys are one funnel away from getting more impact. Some of you guys are a funnel away from growing your company to the next level. And so we created this challenge to help you to create and launch your first or your next funnel. No matter where you are in your business, this challenge is going to help you understand the strategy, help you understand

the tactics, help you understand all the things you need to be successful with your funnel. So what I recommend you do right now is stop everything, pause this audio, go online and go to onefunnelaway.com. That's onefunnelaway.com and join the next challenge. There's a challenge starting in the next few days, so go get started right now. Onefunnelaway.com.