Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - You're One Funnel Away - Part 2

Episode Date: July 31, 2017

You're just one funnel away... On this special two part episode you will hear the second part of Russell's "One Funnel Away" presentation from Funnel Hacking Live. In this episode you'll hear: How Russell nearly lost everything when his merchant accounts closed. Why Russell didn't know he hadn't paid Payroll taxes in a year and could have gone to jail. And how Russell turned it all around and along with Todd created Clickfunnels. So listen here to find out how Russell went from nearly bankrupt to amazing success with Clickfunnels within just a few years. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/you-re-one-funnel-away-part-2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Russell again. Welcome to the next episode of Marketing Secrets. This is part two of the One Funnel Away presentation. 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, guys, so I hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode. If you did like it, I hope that you have shared it, you told other people to go listen to it. And today's going to be the exciting conclusion of Russell's bankruptcy and failure stories. So I hope you guys enjoy it. It should be a lot of fun.

Listen to it. If you're online at marketingsecrets.com, you can watch it. There's a video there where you can share it and see the actual presentation as well. But I hope this helps you. It helps give you faith and hope in what you're doing, what you're creating, and where you were trying to go with your business and the people's lives you're going to serve. So with that said, enjoy my failures. I hope you guys have a good time with it.

And we'll see you guys soon. Bye. Now, the pros and the cons of this. The pros is this was really, really awesome. And I was like, as getting a good entrepreneur, I'm like, hey, what's the book? Nail it and scale it. Like we nailed it, right?

Okay, let's scale this thing. And so then, I probably shouldn't have done some of this stuff, but we got excited. I was like, well, if this worked here, we should hire more people. And, um, we started growing this. And we went from this little thing with five or six of us to, uh, two years later, we had about a hundred people, uh, operation where this is the model we were doing. CDs, calling them on the phone, selling, coaching, having continuity. And it grew really, really big. And during that time, there were some really positive things that came from it, some negative things, some ups and some downs, and I'll share kind of a lot of those things. One cool thing is that while this was happening, and it was going really well, my name

kind of got out there, so I got a chance to go speak a lot, which was cool, and I had seen other people speaking from stage. And this is where, I've told you guys out there, so I got a chance to go speak a lot, which was cool. And I had seen other people speaking from stage. And this is where I've told you guys a story. Anyone who's gone through the Perfect Webinar, like I spent about two and a half, three years on the road, going to seminars, standing in front of a bunch of people like this, talking and trying to sell something, and then nothing happening. It was a really horrible feeling. Anyone ever done that before?

My first presentation, I was on stage. I probably had, I don't know, 300 people in the room. I did a presentation, and I tried to like do what speakers do and like close. And then hopefully everybody runs to the back and like nobody budged. And then the guy forgot to turn the music on and it was just like crickets. And then I was just like awkwardly like walking off the stage. Oh, this is awkward. And then running, you know? And then I remember the first, I was so embarrassed because usually we have like those events where all like multi-speaker events and all the speakers are selling and everyone's bragging about their numbers.

And I knew that I don't want them to ask me my numbers because I totally didn't, like not one person signed up. So I went and hid in my hotel room and I remember ordering coconut shrimp and Haagen-Dazs ice cream for every meal for the next two days while I hid in the room, eating it, watching movies.

So I'm like, I'm gonna go back downstairs. And I just, it was really bad and awesome at the same time because coconut shrimp and Haagen-Dazs. Um, but I did that and I learned like how not to sell. And then I started learning from some amazing, uh, speakers and people. And I started learning the process and how it works and all this stuff we talked about in the perfect webinar, all this stuff we talked about day one about creating belief and breaking belief pattern, all those kinds of things I learned like on the road in front of people on state, people on stage. It was scary, but it's such a good time for me to learn and understand that part of the process.

As we started to grow, I'm going to make sure I cover all the cool things. We had a bunch of different offers we came out with. One of the ones that was more successful for us was a front-end offer like this called Microcontinuity. How many of you guys remember Microcontinuity? Yeah, that is awesome. So this is one we, I don't even know, eight years ago now. We put it on an MP3 player from Hong Kong. It had like six hours of this training and that was a funnel we put through and we just kept creating new front end funnels to get people into this program and it worked

awesome. And we grew the company from nothing to three or four million dollars a year and it was doing awesome. And then at a time, um, I started looking at other people in my industry and this is hopefully will help. One of you guys is going to get a good idea for this one, but I had this funnel. We talk about the value ladder, right? Like I had this really cool value ladder happening here. And, um, and I was, I was sending people up and I realized that I was the only person in the market that had a real value ladder. Everyone else was kind of doing stuff down here and that was it. And I was the only person selling really expensive stuff. I started calling my friends. I called like Mike Filson. I'm like, hey man, like, so all of our customers, we call them, we sell them like

these $5,000 things and lots of people buy that. Like, you should do that. He's like, I don't want to call a center. I'm like, well, do you want us to call your customers and sell it? He's like, yeah. So we hooked up with Mike and we became Mike's backend. I call it Frank Kern. Same thing. We became Frank Kern's backend for a little while. We started calling up a whole bunch of people and then we started becoming the back end. So all these people now had front end funnels. We became the back end for a lot of them. And that's how we took company from three or $4 million to $10 million. And it became really, really big. And I was going to say big and fun, but I don't think I would say that at all. It became really, really big. We had a hundred employees and we had 60 people on phones and

big huge call center. We had 20 people doing coaching for all the things we were selling, and then we had about 20 people who were driving leads and customers and stuff like that. And it got really big, and I don't know if you guys noticed this, but I'm really good at selling and those things, really bad at the management of stuff. And I was not good at managing all these people, and it just kind of started just getting too big. And this is about the time that I was telling you guys, if you've read the Dotcom Secrets book, that I started waking up and I was just like,

God, I do not like what I created. I got so excited that I started building this thing. And then one day I woke up and I was like, huh, I really want to do this? I think half of the conversations I have with Inner Circle members when they first come in is this, like, do you really want to build that business?

Yes, that would work. But sometimes it's horrible when you get there. Like thinking through, like, what do I actually want to do? Who would I really want to become? Who do I want to be when I grow up? And luckily during that time, it was probably one of the most painful times in my life. But looking back now, it was probably one of the most important times in my life. We had this huge operation, everything was working. And then one day, it was in January, literally 11 and 30 in the morning, one of my sales guys came in and said, hey, I'm trying to run a credit card, but it's not working. I'm not sure what's wrong. I'm like, oh, that's weird. Well, you know, try one of the other merchant accounts. Maybe there's

something there. And then someone else came in. Hey, all the continuity orders are failing. I'm not sure why. And then three or four people came to me. I'm like, what's happening? I logged in the backend system and like 1137 or something like that, every sale stopped. Just stop. No sales. I was like, what is happening? And so I'm kind of freaking out.

So I call our merchant account company. There's a busy signal. I'm calling again, busy, calling, and busy. And like, I can't get ahold of anybody. All of a sudden, I start hearing from friends like, dude, everything got shut down. Like, are you still able to process? I'm like, no, like what, what's happening? And everyone started, I don't know. I don't know. And, uh, and soon I found out that it wasn't me. It was like,

um, and eventually found it was like three or 400 people at the same time. All anybody who was doing any kind of like continuity based stuff, uh, the merchant accounts basically came in and said, look, uh, we think that what you're doing might be illegal, and so we're shutting all of you guys down, and you're basically guilty until proven innocent. I was like, what? I've got 100 people I'm feeding, 100 people and their families. It turns into hundreds of people.

I was like, you can't stop processing. Finally, after an hour, I get through to somebody, and the lady on the phone says, yep, we shut you down. Good luck ever getting a merchant account again. I gotta go go. Boom, and hung up on me. And I was like, what? You know, at the time, I thought I was, I thought I had diversity. Like, I had, we had nine merchant accounts all through one company, and so I thought that meant, but they were all through different, they're different merchant accounts, but all through one bank.

And I found out that's the equivalent of having one, which is why I'm very big believer now in having multiple merchant accounts in multiple different banks, which is the lesson hopefully for everybody. Um, if you don't know Alex Roy yet, I don't know Alex is in here, but meet Alex and he's the man who can get you hooked up with lots of merchant accounts. Like he's done that for us. Yes. He's amazing. Um, but, uh, but we, we, it was bad. And so finally, um, uh, uh, got a of these guys, and I'm trying to figure some things out. And basically said, okay, well, you got to prove that you are a good guy. I was like, okay. So we went through.

It took us two weeks for them to go through all our stuff, look at our documentation, look at all our stuff. It took us two weeks, and they came back and said, okay, you're right. You're doing everything clean. Everything's above board. We'll turn your merchant accounts back on, and you're good to go. I'm like, sweet. So we turn it back on. And that time, like when there's that kind of instability, like sales guys are freaking out. They can't handle any kind of instability. They're leaving like crazy people walking out the door. And it was like, and I was like freaking

out and we had, we had all this payroll, but no money coming in. And so like, I'm paying it out of my own pocket. Like everything just like keep things afloat. And, um, as I'm going through this process, like it's getting scarier and scarier and finally it's like, if things, you yeah, merch counts are back on. You're, you're, you're a good guy. I'm like, sweet. So they, you guys, we got to do a launch really quick to make a bunch of money. So we do this, put together this huge launch thing. We push it out to our customer lists. And, uh, in a weekend we made $250,000 and I was like, thank you. So great. I was like, Monday we should get the money. We can pay payroll. I'm telling everyone like, just, you know, tell your wives and your kids we'll have money soon. Like it's great. I was like, Monday we should get the money. We can pay payroll. I'm telling everyone, just tell your wives and your kids,

we'll have money soon. It's coming, I promise. It's in the bank. It's just going to be here any day now. And money didn't come. Money didn't come. Monday didn't come. Tuesday didn't come.

Wednesday didn't come. By Thursday, I'm calling, where's our money, dude? We need this money. And the guy looks at the camera, oh, it's definitely in there. I'm like, okay, when's it coming to our bank? He's like, well, it's not going to come to your bank. I'm like, well, why not? He said, oh, well, you're on 100 hundred percent reserve. So we keep a hundred percent of your money.

I was like, what? That's not good for me or for anybody. How am I supposed to be in business? I got people to pay. He's like, yeah, well, that's just how it works. He's like, but the good news is that, um, it looks like you are a legitimate company. No one's charging back or refunding this money we've collected so far. So what we'll do is we'll drop you down to 10% reserve. I'm like, oh, thank heavens. And then he said, but the $250,000 you collected last week, we're keeping that for the next six months, just as collateral, make sure nothing bad happens. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, so I'm like, okay, okay, another funnel quick. So we're printing that other thing, push it out there, make some money. And we start, um, you know, paying payroll for whatever we can, but like everything's collapsing around me. And, uh, so that started in January and that

started happening at the same time. We're trying to find other merchant accounts, other banks, and all these other banks are like, Oh yeah, we're cool. Come in. We'll give you a merchant account. And they're like, okay, this is how it works. Like you make a hundred thousand dollars a month. I'm like, cool. Okay. We're gonna do that in like two days. So I need like four merchant accounts because this is like, we can make money. We just need you to be able to like give it to us after we make it. And like, oh yeah, we're cool. We're good at that. Don't worry. It's like, okay, cool. So we get a merchant account, get all set up, drove a bunch of traffic. Uh, and twice we made over the a hundred thousand dollars a month. We were, we were loud within like a day, day and a half. And then they froze our accounts and they

said, oh, you've made too much money too fast. Uh, we're freezing your accounts. Uh, we'll get this money back to you in six months. I'm like six months. Like, please stop doing this to me. Like, ah, we ended up like four or $500,000 locked up in merchant accounts. And it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.

So this whole, this whole year was like, like the hardest year of my life. And it just kept going down. And like every single day I'm like laying off friends and family members and people whose families I like people that I just love and I care about. And I'm coming in, I'm like, I don't know what to do, man. I'm so sorry. Like, I gotta let you go. And it's letting, and it was just, oh, like such a dark time in my life. And just over, thing after thing after thing. And, um, uh, and I wish that I could say from

there, it got better. So that was an entire year. The next January started. And, uh, one of our friends was doing an event in Vegas. And I was like, I'm going to go out there and just see what everybody else. Like, I got to re-figure out my whole business. Like, everything's completely collapsed. At the time, by the way, we were in this big, huge office we had rented. And, yeah, that we were leasing. And I think it was like 20,000 square feet because we had all the call center and stuff. And I went to the landlord.

I'm like, hey, man, like, I can't afford to pay you anymore. And he's like, okay, well, we've got a three-year contract. If you don't pay me, I'm going to sue you. And you're probably going to end up in jail. I was like, are you kidding me, dude? Like, I'm like, hey man, like I can't, I can't afford to pay you anymore. He's like, okay, well, we've got a three-year contract. If you don't pay me, I'm going to sue you and you're probably going to end up in jail. I was like, are you kidding me, dude? Like I'm trying, like would not work with me at all. I had all this fear behind that. So I'm in Vegas a year later, trying to ask friends, like what's happening? What are you guys doing in your business? And they're trying to tell me their stories. I'm just like, oh, this is, I don't know what to do. And then that night I got an email on my phone from my dad. I opened this email. It was like a shot in the gut, like probably the worst second of my life as I read that. And the email said,

hey, Russell, I'm so sorry. My dad was helping the books at the time, but we had a bookkeeper in the office. And he said, and the bookkeeper, I mean, she was trying her best, but she didn't know. She knew we were struggling and she didn't want to stress me out, so she didn't tell me how much we were struggling. And it turns out what she had been doing is she had been paying the bills she could, and the ones she couldn't, she was trying to, like, not pay them and, you know, delay them. And to hide it from my dad and from everybody else, she was saying in QuickBooks that she paid bills, but then, like, not actually paying them.

So it looked like it was clear. And he had gone through and actually audited and um, that she hadn't paid payroll taxes in almost a year. And the email, my dad said, Hey, just, you know, payroll taxes aren't like something where they find you. Like if you don't pay payroll taxes, you're going to go to jail. And it was over $150,000 in payroll taxes. And I was like, at the end, it had been entire year, every penny I'd ever earned was gone. Uh, all, my teams, like, it just had all fallen apart. And I'm sitting there like, I don't know what to do. And so the next morning, we got on a flight from Vegas back to Boise. We fly back to Boise. I get to Boise and I walk in and the call center's empty. All the guys are gone.

And there are two people that are left. And they said, hey, just, you know, the call center across the road just recruited us and we all just left and we're out. See ya. And they walked out. I was like, oh, I have the government $150,000. I have nobody to help me sell. Like, I don't know what to do. And I want to quit. Like, so bad, I want to quit. But if I quit, I go to jail. I'd also sold a lot of coaching to people I cared about. If I quit, all these people that bought coaching from me. Like, I can't help them. That's not right. That's not the right thing to do. I was like, I don't know what to do. So I went to a bankruptcy lawyer. I'm like, how's this work, man? Like, I don't know what to do. Like, I gotta figure this out. And he's like, well, kind of explain the whole process. And I told him about my lease. I'm like, the landlords that are coming after me,

like, the government's gonna come after me. like, the government's going to come after me. Like, I don't know what to do. And he's like, well, the best thing to do is I should come with you to your landlord and just explain you're going bankrupt and maybe they'll be nice to you. So I'm like, all right. He's like, do you have any money?

I'm like, no. He's like, what do you got in your pocket? I was like, I got like 100 bucks. He's like, cool, give me 100 bucks. I'll come and I'll tell the landlord you're going bankrupt. I'm like, all right, man, here you go. So he comes with me, which actually is the best 100 bucks I ever spent. So he comes with me tell the landlord you're going bankrupt. I'm like, all right, man, here you go. So he comes with me,

which actually is the best 100 bucks I ever spent. So he comes with me to the landlord and he's like, Russell, screwed man. He's going through bankruptcy. He just hired me. He's like, he can't pay you. Like, you can come after him, but he is like, and he got, it was like this old man.

He's just like, yeah, he's done. Like, oh, so bad. Like so much money. Government's coming after him. Like, oh, you're screwed. Don't even try. And basically convinced our landlord that like it was a useless cause. So the landlord was like, all right, be out by Friday. And we had a big space with office cubicles and phones and all

sorts of just craziness, right? So I'm like, okay, I'll be out by Friday. But 90% of my team was gone at this point, from 100 employees down to about seven or eight. The few people that stuck by me, people like Brent Cole Peters, who, um, God, like love that guy to death. He, um, Brent and John and some of the people back then, um, I mean, Brent had taken a pay cut, 50% pay cut and, uh, never. It's amazing people um what's up everybody this is russell brunson i've got something really cool for you today from my friend taylor wells and taylor spoke at our last funnel hacking live because i wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the revolving pricing method. And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to give you guys more access to this super cool strategy that you are going to love. It's something we've been implementing into our high-end coaching program as well,

and it is amazing. But to kind of give you some context about this offer he's making for you guys, as you may or may not know, a few years ago, JPMorgan Chase did a study, and guess what they found? They found that the average small business only has about 28 days of operating expenses in reserve. That's right, less than a month of cash on hands. Now, if you're like me, the idea of your business being one bad month away from disaster is enough to make your stomach drop, am I right? Especially with how the economy's been lately. It's not the time to be gambling with your finances. So, Taylor put together this book called The Revolving Pricing Method, and it's awesome. It helps you turn every client you close into a long-term profit machine.

We're not talking about one-time paydays. We're talking about creating sustainable and real predictable income for the long haul. Now here's where it gets even better. Taylor put together an awesome exclusive deal just for you guys, my Marketing Secrets listeners. And if you go over to wealthyconsultants.com slash secrets, you can grab The Revolving Price Method book and over $150 worth of bonuses and get this all. It's at 70% off. And I promise you guys as a customer of this, you are going to love it. So if you're serious about growing your business with real stability, this is the model you need to add into your funnels. So go over to wealthy consultant.com slash secrets, grab your

70% off deal, and let's start turning your clients into long-term revenue. Again, that's wealthy consultant.com slash secrets. Do not miss out. Hey, this is Russell Brunson, and I wanna jump in really quick to share with you a new assessment I found out that is insanely cool. You guys know I'm obsessed with personality profiles and assessments, but this one is different because not only does it help you understand yourself,

but more importantly, especially for us who are entrepreneurs, it helps us understand our employees, our teams, and get people sitting on the right seats in the bus so they can get more stuff done. I just had a chance to interview Patrick Lanchoni talking specifically about this new assessment they created called Working Genius. And the Working Genius is awesome.

Like this test, I had actually blocked out an hour to take it because I was so excited for the new assessment. And it only took me like 10 minutes or less to get it done. Yet, even though it takes only 10 minutes, like you can actually apply this immediately. I took it for myself. I had my team take it. And what's cool about it is from there, we figured out exactly what people's working geniuses are. And that's important because if you're building a team or a company, you got to

figure out, make sure that you have first off the right people, but make sure the right people are sitting in the right seats on the bus. And this is what this assessment will teach you how to do. Now, normally this assessment, you can go to workinggenius.com and there's two G's in the middle, workinggenius.com, but I got you a 20% discount on the assessment, which is only $25. So don't stress. It's not an expensive test at all, but you get a 20% discount off when you put in the keyword secrets at checkout. So go to workinggenius.com again, two G's working genius, two G's in the middle, workinggenius.com and then use promo code secrets, S-E-C-R-E-T-S at checkout, get 25% off. But then go take the test. Again, it takes you 10 minutes, but even in a 10 minute session,

you will get something that is so insanely valuable to help you understand yourself, to make sure you're working in a spot that's going to give you the most joy, number one. But then number two, it's going to make sure that you are with your teams, getting them in the right seats as well. So anyway, I love this assessment. Go check it out at working genius.com and enter the promo code secrets for 20% discount. Uh, take this test for yourself and for your team. And I promise you it'll change the working dynamics amongst everybody and help your company to grow. So the few of us that were left, we went and we packing up stuff. We put up ads on Craig's. It's like, we got tons of computers and crap coming by and things we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for. We were selling for hundreds of

dollars. And, uh, just to get out of it, we made, I don't know, maybe five or six grand of all of our crap getting rid of. We had huge dumpsters just throwing away everything we'd ever created because we had a downsize and trying to figure out how do we get into a smaller building and how do we keep the people we have to have to be able to fulfill on coaching. But we have to, we have to just cut everything else that we have. And so, um, uh, we were downsizing everything going out and the night we were moving like that Friday, we're supposed to be out of midnight or whatever, you know, whatever it was, I was sitting in the office and the desks were gone. Everything was gone. All I had left was my laptop. And I was sitting there. I remember I had my socks on, I had some Levi's and I had no money.

And I was like, I have to make some money or else. We can't even move into it. I don't know how to do anything. And so I sent out an email to my list ahead of time. I had a bunch of people register for a webinar. And I was sitting there in a chair with my laptop on my lap doing a webinar, praying that something would happen. And that webinar saved us. That webinar we did made $150,000 in sales over the next three or four days from that webinar, which gave me the money I needed to pay everyone to like not leave, get in no office, move, I guess moved in and get us like to stability so we could actually breathe for a few minutes

and figure out, okay, what's the next step? Like, what do we want to be when we grow up? And so we downsized from 20,000 square feet to like 2000 square feet. And, uh, and we had this really cool moment where it was like, what do we, what do we want to do when we grow up like what do we want to be um and as painful as that process was like it was one of the coolest things ever because we didn't have to keep going on this path we could we could pick anything this is where i start thinking like who's our dream customer like who do we really want to serve like what fires us up what gets us excited and we started thinking through that. And, um, and during this process, like we started just creating again and started having some fun. We're like, well, what should we do? I had a friend at the time who he had this little website

was making him like two or $3,000 a month. And he got in some trouble. And, uh, and I had a couple of things making a little bit of money at the time. And he's like, I need to get rid of the site. Can you, can you pay me some money? So I gave him $20,000. He gave me this little website. It was a little machine that you zap and get sort of cold sores. And our autopilot was making $2,000 or $3,000 a month. I was like, oh, this is so cool. So we had this little thing. I'm like, that little business just kind of runs. Like, what if we had another one? So we started creating another one. So we did one in the couponing market. We set it up. We got a guru in there. We started running. And that started making money. And they're like, okay, what if another one? We did one in the

weight loss and another. And then in a year period of time, we launched 12 different companies. Each were making different amounts of money. And during that is when we launched NeuroCell, our supplement companies, all these things were happening and it was starting to get exciting. And like we were creating, we were doing, we were like doing the business instead of teaching the business again, which was like so much fun for us to do and to learn and see like, why does this stuff work in this market, but not this market? One of the things that drive me crazy about teachers in my industry is that they come in and act like the marketing techniques that work in one space work everywhere. And I learned during that two or three year period of time, that's not true. Like everything's different.

There's intricacies that are different in couponing versus business versus weight loss versus diet versus supplements. Like there's differences. And I came to respect that because we had a chance to do it in so many different businesses and so many different things. And we spent the next two or three years creating stuff. And during that process, one of the really cool things is I used to go to flippa.com all the time and try to find cool websites we could buy and turn to businesses. And there's a website called championsound.com that was for sale.

And it was this little email, text message, autoresponder for bands. And I was like, I'm going to buy that, and then we're going to take it and niche it for every market. We'll make email autoresponders and text message autoresponders for dentists and for chiropractors. I was so excited.

It was 20 grand. We didn't have that much money, but I was like, this is the future of our company. We have to do it. So we ended up buying this website from these guys off Flip. But we get the website,

and then try to transfer it over to our servers after we paid them the $20,000. And as they're trying to transfer it, they're like, well, you can't have, this is the nerd talk, you can't have a Linux server, you need a Ruby server. I'm like, what does that mean? And they're like, it means that this is not coded in PHP. PHP is coded in Ruby on Rails,

so you have to have a different kind of server. I'm like, what does that mean? It means you have to go over here and pay like $800 a month for a new server. I'm like, are you kidding me? I don't have $800 a month for a server, but we just bought this thing, so we did, they installed it and it didn't really work. I'm like, I don't know what to do. None of my tech guys had ever used Ruby on Rails. And so like, I went to Odesk, I hired some guys and they couldn't fix it. And I tried like five or six guys. And finally I was like, wasted 20 grand. I was like so upset and so frustrated

because like, I didn't have that money. And, um, and on the way out of the office one day, I was like, I wonder, what if anybody on my list knows Ruby on Rails? Like, shot in the dark. I have no idea. So I sent an email out to my little list at the time. I was like, subject, I was like, Ruby on Rails, looking for a partner.

If you know Ruby on Rails, I'm looking for a partner. And I said, basically, the story I just told you guys, bought this thing, can't make it work. If you know Ruby on Rails, become my partner, we'll make a bunch of money with this thing together. Sent the email out. About an hour later, I get an email from this guy in Georgia named Todd Dickerson. And Todd's like, hey man, I know Ruby. I'm like, you do? And then I looked at his picture. I was like, you don't look like a nerd. I don't think you do. And then I went to like Facebook and a Facebook friend, which was

actually six years ago last week or something. A Facebook friend, I'm like, he's got a beautiful wife. He's got a daughter. I'm like, I don't think he's a coder. Like, I don't know if I believe that. He's like, yeah, man, shoot me the log and I'll fix it. I was like, whatever. I had like eight guys try to fix it for the last like four or five months. Nobody can do it. But I'm like, whatever, here's the login. So he logs it in. And then like an hour later, he's like, okay, done. It's fixed. I was like, what? He's like, I got it fixed. I just did blah, blah, blah. And it worked. I'm like, dude, how did you do that? He's like, I just love Ruby on Rails. I'm amazing. He didn't say that, but he's super humble. But I was like, dude, this guy's amazing. And I was like, okay, well,

I have these other, how many of these other things? And so Todd came and we started working on this other project. We ended up, we had a different auto webinar. Todd built out this software behind the scenes, which was like ClickFunnels version 00, like pre-everything. And he built this, this webinar, auto webinar software. Cause Mike Filsaime had been talking about auto webinars. Rich Sheffrin had put a webinar report out. A couple of guys had been talking about auto webinars. Nobody had done one. Like nobody was really doing them. So Todd custom built this whole platform so we could do them. We launched an auto webinar through that. And in that, in that auto webinar, we made a million dollars in 90 days. And the first thing I did from that 90, yeah, first thing I did from that million dollars,

I took the money and we paid off the IRS. And I was like, I'm free. Oh, I'm free. I'm not going to jail. IRS is paid off. All the fines are paid off. And that auto webinar funnel literally saved me, literally gave me freedom. Like up to that point, every night when I went to bed at night, I was just like, they could come knock on my door. Like I have not paid payroll taxes in that long. And that webinar freed us. And we kept doing thing after thing. And what was fun is with Todd and Dylan, he used to design half of these things. He says that contract, he designed these pages.

Then Todd would take them and code them up, make these funnels. He did funnel after funnel after funnel. We probably had, we had 15 different companies, but then those companies, two or three funnels, probably like 40 funnels we built over after thing, after thing, after thing, after thing. And the last funnel we actually built the old school way

was the NeuroCell funnel. And that's one of the ones that blew up really, really big. It started making tons of sales. We're having a bunch of fun with it. And about that time is when Todd was like, hey, we should really create something so I don't have to keep making websites for you every single day. And that was where the idea came for ClickFunnels.

And so we started that project in front of Whiteboard, like we talked about yesterday. We mapped out this whole thing. And Todd went to work to build ClickFunnels. Then we partnered with Dylan to build click funnels then we partnered with dylan to build the editor and the ui and um and then fast forward seven eight months later we came and we were like this thing is going to change the world and i was so excited i was like we're going to do a free trial and i think the very first month our goal was to get 10 000 members

the first month i'm like oh like this is gonna be the greatest thing in the world so put out there we created the first funnel had all the stuff in there. It was a free trial. We had a bunch of people all lined up to promote it. We launched it. It was like crickets. People came and they left. I was like, dude, do you guys not understand what I'm giving you? Like, like I made that page you're looking at. Like, it's really good, right? Like, and like they, nobody got it. And I was like, why didn't they get it? I'm like, there's something wrong with my messaging. So we changed the funnel again, and then we launched it again.

Like, a few of you guys signed up, but that was it. Like, most of them, like, hit it, and they left. I'm like, God, and I tried again. We tried again. We rebuilt that funnel not once or twice or three times or four times or five times. The sixth time it took us before the ClickFunnels funnel worked. And the sixth time was because one of my friends, Mike Filson, invited me out to his event.

And he's like, hey, Russell, I want you to come and sell ClickFunnels. I think it's awesome. I said, dude, Mike, nobody's buying ClickFunnels. Like, we got to figure out our next deal or figure out something because it's not working. He's like, no, dude, my people need it. You need to come speak on it. But you got to sell it for $1,000.

I'm like, it's a free trial. Nobody even wants it. All right. And so Mike's event was happening that weekend. And I was literally sitting in my office watching the event streaming. As I was sitting there, I started writing my webinar. And I had my slides open. I was following the perfect webinar script that I had been working on for like 10 years.

I started filling in the blanks, started making this webinar like true to the perfect webinar script. I literally was like watching it, adding the things in while I'm watching Mike's event happen. That day, I finished the slides. Next morning, I jumped in a plane. I flew there. We got to California. I literally was like watching it, adding the things in while I'm watching Mike's event happen. That day I finished the slides. Next morning I jumped in a plane. I flew there. We got to California. I think it was California where the event was at. I got there, put the slides up on the thing. I'm like, okay, so here we go. I started it and the title slide was my weirdness funnel. It's currently making $17,947 per day. Talking about the neurocell funnel and how you can definitely knock it off in less than 10 minutes. Show the first slide, started going through. And when we got to the end, we got to the stack and the close, we did it. And 30% of the room jumped up and ran to the back,

jumping over the tables, fighting to get back there. I was like, we did it. That was the message. That was the key. Now I know how to sell ClickFunnels. We took that message, we went back, and as a lot of you guys know, especially in the Circle members, starting webinars every single day, sometimes two a day. One time I did three in a day, which was really hard,

over and over and over again. I did that webinar live over 70 times over the next year and a half, and went from being a startup with no members to year after the end of last year, I had over 10,000 members. After this year, we have over 30,000 members

and it's continued to grow and grow and grow. And it was that one funnel that changed everything for me. So this process for all of us, you guys, is an up and a down. Like it's always happening. And all of you guys are somewhere in this wave right now, right? Some of you guys are at the top riding it. Some of you guys are at the bottom in a crash.

Some of you guys are somewhere in between. And it's always going up and down. But if nothing else, this event, like I wanted you guys to all understand that like no matter where you are, there's hope. Okay? It might not be this funnel. I can't tell you how many funnels flopped. I guarantee I have failed at more funnels than anybody else in this room because we tried over and over and over and over again. Because of that, we found out what worked. And

the only way to do that is to do it over and over and over again. And it's a lot easier now. I promise you, it's so much easier than what we used to do when poor Todd and Dylan had to custom code every single thing, every single time. Like now you guys can test things really, really fast. First time I met Trey, first call, he said, Russell, I'm going to launch a funnel a week every single week. And I watched the CD launch a funnel, and another funnel, another funnel, another funnel. And he had some marginal success, little success, more success, more success, more success. I saw him launch a funnel last year.

One funnel, boom, and within 90 days, became the biggest selling funnel in the history of the world. I was talking to some of the guys at Affiliate Summit. They said there's never been a funnel that's made more money in a shorter period of time than one of Trey's funnels. I'm not privy to share all his numbers and his stats, but it was insane. And it came from him doing a funnel a week until he hits the one that just explodes. And you don't know what that's going to be. It's important.

That's why this tool is so important because you can do that. You can test. You can try over and over and over again. 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 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.