Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - You’re Only One Funnel Away: The Backstory Behind ClickFunnels - #Success - Ep. 137

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

When I was a kid, I mailed 38 hand-stapled sales letters to names I picked at random out of the phone book, absolutely certain I was about to get rich. Zero people responded. That was my very first funnel — and it flopped like almost every one that came after it. I’ve failed at more funnels than anyone I know. And that’s exactly why I eventually found the one that changed everything. This is one of the final episodes of The Russell Brunson Show — I’m sunsetting it (along with most of my other channels) to launch something brand new called Bootstrap Secrets. So to close this chapter, I’m taking you all the way back to the beginning with my original “One Funnel Away” presentation: the full origin story, from late-night infomercials to the funnel that literally saved Christmas, to the one that became ClickFunnels. These are the stories that built ClickFunnels into a billion-dollar empire — the ups and the downs — and this is just the beginning of the story. I actually shared part two recently, but before revealing it I figured a good recap was in order, especially as you get aligned for everything Funnel Hacking Live has in store for you this year. Key Highlights: ◼️The 38-stamp disaster and the infomercial that ruined me for a normal life — how Don Lapre’s “$30 turned into $30,000” classified-ad pitch lit the fuse when I was a kid ◼️The funnel that saved Christmas — broke and one payroll from bankruptcy, hanging Christmas lights in the freezing cold, I blended two ideas into a free-CD offer that pulled 800 buyers and $55K in two weeks ◼️The lesson that turned it into a real business — “until you have continuity, you don’t have a business” — and how ~800 people at $37 a month finally gave me one ◼️Why you’re always “one funnel away” — the up-and-down wave every entrepreneur rides, and why the only way to find the winner is to launch again and again (one funnel-hacker ran a new funnel every week until one became the biggest-selling funnel in history) ◼️The webinar I gave 70+ times — the single funnel that took ClickFunnels from zero to 10,000 and then 30,000 members Here’s what I hope you feel, especially if you’re in the crash part of the wave right now: every overnight success you’ve ever seen is sitting on a pile of funnels that flopped first. I didn’t win because I was smarter — I won because I was willing to try one more time than made sense. So as I close out this chapter of the show, let me leave you with the question the whole journey comes down to: are you really out of options… or are you just one funnel away? ◼️FUNNEL HACKING LIVE AI: The last Funnel Hacking Live ever is happening this September in Las Vegas — one final, smaller, AI-everything encore before it’s gone for good. If you’ve never been, this is your last shot to be in the room. → https://www.FunnelHackingLive.com ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you have a funnel, but it's not converting? The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good, but you suck at selling. If you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next selling online event by going to sellingonline.com slash podcast. This is the Russell Brunson show. What's up, everyone? This is Russell, and I've got a couple cool things for you. It's number one. We are at the end of this podcast.

It's crazy, the journey. I'm actually right now, if you see behind me with a Claude and Code, I'm taking every podcast episode I've ever done from marketing in your car, a few hundred episodes, three or four hundred episodes, and then the marketing secret show, which had like eight or nine hundred episodes, and then the Russell Brunson show, which had, I don't know, 50 or 60, and we're in the process of sunsetseting everything to relaunch my podcast and my YouTube channel and my brand and a whole bunch of things,

which is really exciting. So what's crazy is that this week I'm actually starting filming. So that's happening very, very soon. And so, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at in some things. And so a couple episodes left over recording. We're trying to get a batch of three or four weeks full so that before we launch us that way, if I get in the middle of the Fun Locking Live or an event or something like that, I can keep up with it and not fall behind.

So we're going to be filming a bunch of the next couple weeks. And then launching the new show. New show is called Bootstrapped Secrets, which is exciting. I'm talking about this now for probably a year, but it's finally coming to fruition. And it's going to be exciting. So I'm thinking like, how do I kind of, what are the things I do to wrap out this podcast?

And so I had two ideas. When we first started this whole party, you know, with the click funnels with the podcast, the live events, everything, one of the core themes that kind of bubbled up a couple years into it was that year one funnel away. And he hasn't heard me talk about this now for, man, almost a decade, which is crazy.

But the very first time I announced it and told this story with that funnel hacking live. And I told my one funnel way stories. And it was all the things I'd done leading up to ClickFunnels. The ClickFunnels launch, which is kind of crazy. And so, yeah, so it was really cool. And then at this last Funnel Hockey Lab, I did another one that was called One Funnel Way. I think I called OFA Evolution. But it was like everything, all the funnels after ClickFunnels launched.

And so I thought, what a fun way to kind of, you know, end this journey, this season, this whatever of the podcast with these two sessions. So this week today, we're going to show you guys the original one fun away presentation. And I hope that it gives you guys some motivation. It's going to take you back to my beginnings back when I was getting started trying to figure this stuff out. And you'll hear all the different things we tried in the funnels and what it was that got us to eventually launching quick funnels a decade later.

So that's this episode. And the next week, I'm going to give you guys. the One Funnel Way evolution, which is part two of this, which was basically all the stuff we did after launch ClickFunnels till now. And so that was a very emotional presentation. But we'll talk about that next week. So I hope you guys to Joe OFA.

And like said, I'm going to be filming the new Bootstrap Secrets Podcast this week. Let's go. It's finally happening. I'm excited. I hope you're excited as well. If that said, hope you enjoy the original One Funnel Way. Okay, so what I want to do is I want to go on a journey with you guys. guys, my journey, which started way back over here on my timeline and my backstory. So,

those who know me or have heard about me or know anything about this, I got started. Initially, I started learning about business when I was a 12 or 13 year old kid, sitting there with my dad. He was watching the news, and I was watching it with him. And I was sitting there, I'm like, I can't believe he hasn't told me to go to bed yet. This is the coolest thing in the world. And the news was on. And then when the news ended, then MASH came on. And I was like, I don't, you must think I'm asleep or something. Like, he hasn't told me to go to bed. And I'm sitting there, like, trying to move. I don't want him to know. As I'm watching MASH with my dad, I thought it was the coolest thing in the whole world. And then when MASH got done, like,

he still, like, didn't say anything. I'm like, he's got to be convinced I'm asleep. This is so cool. And then the next thing came on, and it was an infomercial, late-night infomercial with Don the Pree. How many guys remember Don the Pree? Yes, just an amazing person. And he had an infomercial, and I was so grateful for him and for his passion and his excitement talking about he was doing and he was talking the infomercials about how to place tiny little classified ads you can make a fortune right and it was um god it was the coolest thing i remember sitting there listening to him and i was like this makes so much sense i'm looking at my dad like you paying attention to what's happening like this guy is the whole thing made so much sense and he said i took a class i took a classified ad i put in a newspaper

and i made 30 dollars and that told my friends and my family like i started a business i made 30 this week and they all laughed at me. He's like, so then I took that same ad, and I ran it in a thousand newspapers the next month, and I made $30,000. And I was just like, mind-blown. And I've been ruined from that day on when it comes to the world. I'm like, I can't not do something like this. I was so excited.

I saved a bunch of money, mowing lawns and everything, and eventually I bought Dawn the Priest's kid on an infomercial. I read through it all. I learned it, and I wasn't able to actually do anything, though, because I didn't have money to do direct mail and all sorts of things like that. But that's how I first heard about direct response marketing. I remember after I got Donald Priest's kid, I got so excited. I was at the grocery store with my mom one time, and we were walking out.

And on the checkout stand, there was a magazine. It was called Small Business Opportunity Magazine. Had a whole bunch of little cartoon people in front of it. How many guys have seen that magazine before? That's it? This is like the greatest, like, swipe file of direct response ads ever. So I didn't know at the time, though, there's like 30 things talking about how to get rich quick. And I'm like, sweet, I want to get rich quick.

That'd be awesome. So I had my mom buy me this magazine. I went home, and if you look at it, it's like 140 pages of ads and four pages of articles. It's pretty awesome. And so I'm looking at every single ad, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can sell gold chains at the mall and make money. It's like, call this $200 number for Free Info Kit. I'm like, yeah. Free Info Kit sent to my house. And like the next page, it's like something else. A page after page, all 140 pages I call every single 800 number to request the free info kit. And about a week later, I started getting these gifts in the mail. First was like two or three letters. Then it was.

It was like 10 or 15 letters. And it was like 60 or 70 letters. And I think those people started selling my name to other mailing us because soon it became like hundreds of letters. And the mail could not physically shove the junk mail in the mailbox anymore because there was so much coming in. So I'd get home from junior high and I'd come home and I'd walk into the house and I see on the bar, I see two or three letters from my parents and Russell's stack a junk mail.

And they're like, there's your junk mail. I was like, oh, and I'd take it to my room and I'd open it. I'd like read these things. I'm like, this is so cool. And all these money-making ideas. So that happened at a young. young age, unfortunately, again, I couldn't do anything. Well, I tried once. So this one person convinced me that, like, direct mail was the key. And all you do is you get a list of buyers

who bought similar products and you write a sales letter and you mail it to those people and a percentage will buy. I'm like, awesome. Only problems, I can't afford a mailing list. And I don't have any stamps or any envelopes or anything. And so I'd done something I'd made a little bit of money doing some chores and I asked my mom to go take that money and instead buy stamps and bring me home stamps. So she brought me home 38 stamps. That's how much money I had made. And I had 38 stamps, and I was like, this is so awesome. I used to tell my brothers and sister and parents always used to tease, oh, not my parents didn't tease me, my brother, my sister did.

Because I'd always like, I'm going to be a millionaire any minute now. And like, this is going to work. And they used to be like, oh, are you a millionaire yet? Oh, and like totally make fun of me, right? So I had these 38 stamps. I'm like, okay, if I can get 10% of these people to say to buy, that's three people. If I sell a $50 products, $150, I was like, I'll be rich. So I didn't know what to do.

And so they talked about sales letter. And so I was like, I write a cellul. I printed out on blue paper. I made blue paper. I'd be more likely to read. So I put on my parents' computer. I wrote a little cell that I printed out 38 copies of it. I couldn't afford an envelope.

So I just folded it and stapled it. And then I didn't actually have a mailing list. So I just opened the white pages and flip through and randomly pick 38 names. I'm like, this is going to be huge. So I wrote it, put my stamp on and all my savings, put in the mailbox. And I was just like, I am going to be rich. This is going to be amazing. I sent it out, told everybody like, when this comes back, it's over.

Like, I'll be able to move out. have my own house, it's going to be amazing. And unfortunately, nobody responded. So that was the only time I was able to invest. I didn't have money even by classified at in a newspaper. So I just kind of, after that, I just kept reading all this junk mill and learning from all these people. And then a couple years later, I got into wrestling and I kind of forgot about making money, but there was a seed that had been planted. So I wrestled through high school, had a lot of fun, got a college scholarship, I wrestled through college. And when I was going to college, I met my insanely beautiful wife.

Most of you guys, if not, she's right here hiding. So. And met her and fell in love really, really quick. And I spent the next, like, three or four months trying to convince her. In fact, it was probably the hardest cell I ever had to convince her that I was the right one. And luckily, she said, do you see that picture?

I was kind of a geek. Not going to lie. Anyway, convinced her to marry me, and it was amazing. And about the time we got engaged, I realized my dad said, well, when you get married, like, I'm not going to keep supporting you. Like, that's when you become a real man, and you have to, like, I'm like, what? But I want to, but I'm... But dad, like, I'm wrestling and they're covering my school, but I, like, you'd always send me money to pay for food and stuff.

And he's like, no, like, if you get married, like, you're kind of on your own, like, I'm like, crap. I want to get married, but I don't want to, like, grow up yet. Dang it. And my wife was a fiance at the time, wife now, she was working and she was making money. she got a second job to support us. And I was just like wrestling. I'm like, I don't have any money. And so I'm like, well, I got to do something.

And then luckily, the greatest thing in the world happened, that happens to a lot of us. I was up late at night, stressing out about this. And then this little thing popped up on TV. It was an infomercial. And it was this guy talking about how people are making money with these little websites and that they were doing an event at Holiday Inn, like the next day, and that you can come and get tickets to it. I'm like, oh, this is it.

So I, like, call the number, get my tickets to holiday. And I show up the holiday in. It's like a little tiny room with a little tiny room with like 50 really, really, like, desperate people sitting there. And I get in, then there's the dude on stage who's all, like, in a suit and tie. And I'm like, whoa, that guy looks rich. And then he started doing his thing. And within, like, five minutes, he closed me on, like, this $50 thing. And so I ran the back and I, like, had my one credit card. I think I had, like, a $300, like, credit. Like, that was it. I saw I had earned so far. So I bought my $50 thing. I ran back. I'm like,

oh, I'm going to make so much money with this. And then he pitched just on a website, which was, like, three grand. And I was like, oh, and everyone's running back buying websites. I'm like, I can't afford a website. Dang it. And they pitched website hosting at $80 a month and all these things. And so like, and then they're teaching like, hey, if you call your bank, you can get your credit extended? I'm like, oh, sweet. I didn't know that. So I'm calling the bank. Like, hey, can you make my car a $1,000? I'm learning all these things. And so getting my credit card bigger, which was kind of cool. And then I bought everything he told because I'm like, all. And he convinced me, he's like, PayPal's evil. He's like,

you have to have a merchant account. And there's $6,000 for merchant account. I'm like, I don't have $6,000 yet. He's like, well, you can't make money online without a merchant account, six grand. I'm like, ah, but I couldn't afford that, but I had everything else. So then I went home. I was like, cool, I got a domain name. I got hosting a, you know, $1,000 worth of internet web stuff. And then jumped online. I was like, I'm going to have a website. I was excited. I started Googling some things. And eventually within about 15 minutes, I realized the website hosting is not $80 a month. I realized that domain name is not like a thousand dollar. I was like, oh, oh, crap.

Like I got taken, like, for all these. And then I was just like, I was freaked out. And so I ended up calling the next day and I was like, yeah, so my son is a minor and he was at your event last night and he charged all his credit cards and he needs to be out of this contract. And they got me out of the contract and gave me my money back. So that's one trick if you ever need to get out of a contract. It's worked almost every time. So those are the real dot-com secrets.

All right. So I got a contract. But that point, like, I was in. I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I just need to sell stuff on the internet. And so that started this thing about the time my wife and I were getting ready to get married. And I was, like, trying to sell stuff. And I was selling, like, all sorts of different things.

I remember initially I thought maybe it's eBay. Like, people make money on eBay. And I remember driving to the thrift store, buying everything that I could find that I thought was worth value. And then, like, on my bike with, like, grocery sacks full of crap, like driving my bike back home. And I had, I remember, like, about a mic. Michael Jackson records. I'm like, dude, records are so old. This has got to be worth, like, hundreds of dollars. I end up selling it for 13 cents on eBay. So depressed. Anyway, and all these things, and I was like, and I was boxing them and I was shipping these

things out. And, like, when all said that, I think I made like $40 or $50, but my costs were like $150, $150, $200. And it was like, I was going to the, trying to find boxes to box all these weird things I bought. And it was just horrible thing. And I'm sitting at the post office with like 18 different boxes of weird things, like records and all these things. things, and there's this dude standing there with a big, huge, like, box full of CDs, like, hundreds and hundreds of CDs. I'm here with, like, a wheelbarrow full of, like, odd boxes. I'm like, dude, what are you selling?

He's like, oh, I sell information products. I said, what does that mean? He's, like, all these CDs have info burden on, and people pay me, and I ship him a CD. I'm like, is it the same CD? He's like, yeah, I have a CD burden, and I just burn them. And then I put them in these things, and I send them out. So, are you kidding me? They're all the same size.

I could, like, buy one box and just, like, it'd be so much easier. And so that was we started talking about information products. I was like, I don't know if that was even a thing. And so I got all excited by information products. So I started Googling stuff and started learning about how information products. And I ended up finding this CD. It was called, it was a CD that had like 8,000 coloring book pages for kids. And the guy was selling it.

So I emailed them. I was like, dude, this CD's cool. I was like, can I buy the rights from the CD so I want to sell it? And he was like, I've never done that before. But sure, for 200 bucks, I'll sell you the rights. And you can sell it too. I'm like, sweet. So I gave him $200 I didn't have, and he gave me the rights.

So he had the CD, and then basically all I did is I had to burn it on a CD burner. I can melt out as many times as I wanted. And he had a big, long sales letter he let me use. So I put his sales letter up, and I started trying things. And what was cool is I started making sales. Not a lot. Like every other week we make a sale for $20. And then I'd go burn a CD, and I put it in an envelope, and I ship it out.

I was just like, this is so cool. Information products became like the thing. And I was trying to figure out how that whole thing worked. And that's why I started bumping into people like Yonix Silver and all these different internet marketing gurus and watching what they were doing selling information products. And I was just hooked to that point. And about that time, I started watching what they were doing

and started learning. I started creating different things that my flashlight's still on. Sorry, but that. And I started creating everything. In fact, one of my very first products ever, has anybody in this room remember the product Zip Brander? Yeah. Yeah, like three people.

VJ does. So I had all these info products, and I was buying resellerized other people's products. I'm selling these things. And I remember, I was like, wouldn't it be cool if there was a way where like, when I sent this file, this digital file to somebody, it's like when they first open it, instead of just getting the file, they'd see an ad for my product, and then they see the file. And I was like, that was my first, like, light bulb. I'm like, oh my gosh. I was like, it's like zipping a file, but you'd zip it and they'd be branded. So they open it, they'd see your ad first.

I was like, this is the, like, I thought it was it. Like, that is my idea. this is going to change the world as we know it, right? And so I bought ziprander.com. And I remember Armand Morn at the time was one of the guys I was studying and like, I was just like, Armine is so cool. Like everyone of his sites looked very similar. They were so cool.

And I'm looking in like, Arm inside he had a big header graphic with his picture, like his arm folded with a suit coat on. I was like, oh, dude, that's what I need. So I got a picture of me like folding my arms and a suit coat. And he had this header. And so I had a header looked just like his. His was always like E-cover generator. And so I was like Zip Brander looked like identical.

And then this is where like my funnel hacking started. So he had this big long. sales letter. I'm like, that looks weird, but Armand's doing it, so I'm going to do it. So, like, I look to the sales letter. I wrote my own based on that. And then I was like, how do I, how do I create this? I didn't know that. And so my first thought is like, oh, well, I should just become a computer engineer. Like, that'd be the coolest thing. Like, I want to make software. So I switched my major to, like, computer information systems so I could learn how to code, right? It was about the time that semester was changing. So I get the class the first day,

and teacher gets up there and starts talking about code and, like, databases and all these things, structures. And I was in there like, oh crap. I have nobody who's talking about, like, not even a little bit. And within about 15 seconds, I realized that I'm not a coder and never will be a coder. Couldn't even understand. I thought like, I was a Spanish class or something. And I'm just like, I don't even know what he's saying. But I didn't know how to change my major again. And I kind of was, so I just kind of stayed in it. And in a little while, I kind got depressed. I'm like, well, that was my one idea. Like, I guess I can't do it. And then I remember I was listening to a telesemit. I was on a wrestling tournament. We were driving to

California. It was like a 16-hour drive. I downloaded on my, it was pre-Ipods. It was like this little tape player thing, a whole bunch of tele-seminars, Armand had done. I'm listening to these things in the back of the car where all the other wrestlers are like partying and having fun and like listening to music. And I was listening to these seminars. And they were totally making fun of me the whole thing. If you meet any of the wrestling buddies, like they relentlessly made fun of me the entire trip. Like, you're such a nerd. Like, you're never going to make any money. I'm like, no, I swear I will. So I'm listening to these things the whole way. And in one of these things, 22 hours into this thing I'm listening to, Armand says like, yeah, I don't code software.

I go to the time that's called Scriplands. I go to Scriplands, and I pay guys in Romania and India really like hardly anything to build stuff. And I was like, Arman is not a programmer? I thought I, I thought he was a programmer. There are people in India that can do this? So I went to like, literally that and I jump on Scriplands and I, and I actually prior to that, I tried to hire a company to do it. And they quoted me like $5,000. I was like, okay, well, I don't have that. And so I took the same description I given these guys, and I posted on Scriplands, and instantly I got a, I got all these people started bidding on it. One guy was like, I'll do it for $5,000, I'll do it for $2,000, for $1,000, for

$500, and came down all way down to this guy named Cyprian in Romania, said, I'll do it for $20. I was like, I got $20. So I picked him, and he's like, all right, so this is how I'm going to do it. And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, but just do it. So he spent like two or three days, he sends it back. He's like, here it is. So I tried it, and I like zipped a file and I opened it, and my ad showed up. I was like, you did it. Oh my gosh. And he's like, yeah, thanks for the $20. I was like, no, you're like, this is going to be huge.

Like, I'm going to make millions of dollars. I feel guilty giving you $20. Can I pay you an extra $100? And he was like, yeah. So I gave him $100 and I felt good about it. And that was my very first software product ever did. And it didn't make me millions. I probably made, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 grand with that product.

But it was the first one I had a sales letter. I started driving traffic. I was doing Google ads. I was finding JV parking, all these things. I started selling it. And that was like the first thing that actually made me any money. Is that exciting? How many has one Zip Brander?

The first 30 people in the back? Just kidding. No, okay. It doesn't work anymore. The coding all stopped working like 10 internets ago, so it's done. But that was my first software product. It was so cool. About that time is when I started learning more about info products.

That's when the Potato Gun came out, Potato Gun DVD, all these things. I was just doing all these little businesses. And none of them were like huge smashing, like, million-dollar successes. I didn't pull Dan Henry and read a book. And five months later made a million bucks. Like, I was like, hey, I made $5 grand here. Oh, I made $200. here, and these little things kept happening.

It was so cool. And every project did a little bit better. It was kind of just like slow momentum. Like, everyone did a little bit better than the last one because I got more customers were coming in and more people. And I kept just making things in different markets, potato guns, and all these sorts of different things. And each one got a little bit better, and it was just fun.

And I remember back then I started doing teleseminars, and I was like, I'd get like 30 people online, and I'd talk about something and I'd sell it at the end, and some people would go buy it. It was so exciting. And that was like the start of the stuff. whole thing for me. And then one of my friends, BJ, who's sitting over here, he was the wrestler in Nebraska, and I wrestled at Boise State. It was our senior year. And my senior year I'd made pretty

made, probably $150,000, somewhere in there, my senior year. And he'd heard about it. And so Boise State was wrestling in Nebraska, and we're sitting there wrestling and we're glaring each other because we're opposite teams. And afterwards, he's like, hey, man, so someone told me you're making money. Is that true? And I was like, yeah? He's like, how you doing it? How you doing it. And so we kind of talked about a little bit. And then, you know, we flew back to our places, we're fitting out of college. And we kind of talked back and forth a couple, you know, for a little while. And then after college got it, and he's like, hey, man, I want to do what you're doing. Can I get a job? I was like, you want a job? He's like, yeah. Like, well, what would you do

all day? He's like, I don't know, I'll do what you're doing. I'm like, okay. And can we talk about marketing stuff? He's like, oh, I love talking about. I'm like, that feels so cool. I have nobody talk about this stuff. Like, I thought it was just me. I was like, so you're like, you're actually interested in this thing. He's like, yeah. I'm like, okay, yeah, man, I'll give you a job. So come on out. So he's like, all right, so he jumps in the plane, flies to Boise and moves like literally into our office, slept in our office for like six months.

And he gets there and he's like, okay, so how does this work? Like, I never really had an employee before. I'm like, I don't really know either. I'll pay you. And we can talk about marketing. Then we'll sell stuff and it'll be awesome. Now me as an entrepreneur, I was in this mode of like eat what you kill. Like I'd sell something, make a much money.

And I was like, sweet. And then we wouldn't do anything for like four or five months. And we'd create something to sell it, make a bunch of money. and then that's kind of the model that I was on for a long time, right? And then BJ came and he wanted to be an employee, and I was so excited, I'm like, sure. So he's an employee, and then the weirdest thing happened is every two weeks he wanted to get paid,

whether we made money or not. Like, I'd never heard that, but I was like, okay, so here's some more money. And then, oh, crap, we haven't sold anything for, like, a long time. And so then he had some other friends that came along that were like, this is cool, I want to work for you too. I'm like, all right, come on over, man, let's get jobs. So I gave them jobs.

jobs, one of his buddies and his wife, and then some other people. And soon I was like, I got all these friends that want to talk about marketing with me. This is so fun. And so we had all these people coming over. And then, but the problem was that like every two weeks they wanted to get paid. And so we weren't selling anything. So I'd go lock myself in the back room. And I'm like, don't bug me, you guys. I got to make money so we can all hang out again. So I close the door and I start working and I'd be working and I'd be selling stuff. And then they'd be out there like, dude, can we help you? I'm like, shut up. If you talk to me, I can't make monies to pay you. So just like, go away. And they're

like, we really feel bad. Like, we want to help you, Russell. I'm like, I don't have time to train you because otherwise we can't make money to pay payroll. And so they just kind of, and that was like this thing. And what's interesting is this is one of my, one of my first lessons an entrepreneur that was tough, right? And so I had, I don't remember, we had five or six people at the time. We hired this video guy that was, there's so many side stories. I can't tell you all of them. He was an Indian guy who had shorts went up to here and he had a braid that went past his shorts, because he told me in the interview. He's like, yeah, I'm a video guy. I'm like, oh, you can't even, we can do videos. And he's like, yeah, I got all sorts of video stuff.

So we hired him. And then, it turned out he didn't know anything about video at all. But I didn't dare to fire him because I'd never fired anyone. I was so scared. And, like, every day we're like, oh, it's just like, he'd just quit. But I don't know what to fire him. Like, I don't know what to do. Like, oh, it was just all these weird learning things, right? And so this went on for a while. I was launching something like every week trying to make money to cover payroll. And it's just a huge thing. And it became, like, horribly not fun for a long time. I kept going worse and worse and worse until the point where it was December.

It was the beginning of December. It was freezing cold. And I was looking at everything. And, like, every penny I'd ever made was gone. Every idea I had, like, how I could hustle and, like, sell things to different markets, like, was gone. And I was just, like, just drain. Like, I don't know you know what to do. And it was Christmas time.

I was outside. And I started going to go hang up lights around my house. And I had this little, someone had sent me, like, an iPod Nano. And Stu McLaren had actually done an event. I don't know if Stephen knows this, and he had sent me the links to it. So I downloaded the links to this event on this iPod, plug into my ears, and I start, like, hanging up Christmas lights, which I had never done before.

It's a horrible job. Turns out you can hire people for really cheap to do that. And the lights look really straight. Mine were like, it was really bad. And I kept stapling through the wire, which would then kill the lights, and it was bad. And my fingers were so numb. I had this little light coat on.

I remember, like, God, my fingers were so numb. And I had to have my gloves off to be able to, like, squeeze the thing. And so, like, I put them back in and get warm, and I'd go back in. And I didn't really want to go. inside and get warm because I was so depressed because I knew that the next payroll was coming up in like a week or so and I was like I don't have money like I don't know what to do and like tomorrow I need to go in and tell these guys otherwise they're gonna like it's gonna be really awkward when

you know payroll does come and I'm like oh sorry guys so I'm like tomorrow I have to go tell everybody this and so I stayed outside in the Colts I didn't want to go in and I just was trying to think and so I'm stapling these Christmas lights around the house so I'm listening to this audio and in the audio there's two different speakers talking about different business business models. Back then, none of them called these things funnels, but they talked about these different business models what they were doing. And one of them was an offline guy, his name is John All, and that's some of you guys heard me talk about him. He's a guy talking about attractive character. And he said, he's like, I have this thing that I've been doing where I create

these CDs, and then I tell them it's so controversial that I can't put it on the internet, which is like, the funniest thing ever. It's like, so because of that, you got to pay me $5, that I will ship you the CD. And then he said, what happens is that I ship him the CD, but then that customer financed me sending them a sales letter. I was like, dude, that is like, brilliant. I'm like, we got to do that. And I remember I'd film the CD like two years earlier or DVD. And I was like, we could do that.

We could burn that DVD and we could start sending that out. So that was the first presentation was John Allens says, the next presentation was this guy named Matt Basak, who's become a close friend since then. And Matt was talking about his business model. He said, what I do is I send out CDs, and the people to buy the CDs, I call them on the phone, and we sell them coaching.

And I was like, you can call people on the phone? Like, I'd never, I'm an internet nerd, and I'm like, wait, you pick me. And I was super scared, but I knew that there was a guy that worked for me at the time. One of those, my five or six friends who had sold things on the phone before. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, what if, like, what if, like, what if we figured out something we could do where we could, like, save this thing? Like, it might actually be possible. I'm starting to hear of Christmas lights.

I'm listening to stuff, and I'm just like, oh, my gosh, like, this plan, this, like, funnel was going through my head. And I'm like, okay, I think I figured out, like, a blend of what these two people, guys are saying could actually actually work. And so my time I got to hang up Christmas lights, I texted all of them like, you guys, you don't know this yet. But we're about to go bankrupt, but I got an idea that I think can save it. Let's meet tomorrow morning early. I'm going to walk you guys through what I think could actually save this business, send. And they're all like texting back like, what? Like, we're going through bankruptcy. Like, oh, yeah, we're about to. And luckily, it's okay, let's all come in. So they all came in the next day. And I was like, you guys, I think

I got a model. This is what we're going to do. I was like, remember that DVD I did like, years ago, we take that, and it's going to be a free DVD. It's going to be so controversial, we can't sell on the internet. We'll charge, I think it was $4.95 shipping and handling, and we'll send this DVD out to them. And then inside the DVD, we're going to have a sales letter where we're going to sell a $5,000. Actually, it was $5,500. I don't know why we said that price, but $5,500. And they're like, cool, what do we sell? I don't know. What do you guys want to sell? I'm like, uh, all right, so then we had our whiteboard, and we, on our whiteboard, right, well, if someone's the game was $5,500, like, we'd have to be something amazing. Like,

what if we did this? And we were like, and we listened out, what if we did this? And we made this huge list for like two hours of, like, all the amazingness. And I was like, that would be awesome. But I'm not willing to do half of that stuff. So, okay, we're not going to have them sleep in my house. We're not going to have them do it. And we kind of crossed out all these things, right?

Okay. And right, okay, I'd actually be willing to sell this. I think people would actually buy that. Like, that would be insane. And so we took that. And then at the same time, we added a newsletter. So if somebody bought the city, they joined a newsletter that was $37 a month. So they came from here, and they did.

joined a newsletter. It's $37 a month. And that was the funnel. Back then we'd have click funnels. So luckily we had one or two nerds still working for us who were able to kind of put these pieces together. And we had this really rudimentary, like horrible looking funnel, but it was live within a day. We said, okay, let's try it. And if I'm at a little tiny email list, this is pre-Face Facebook, pre, it was about Myspace Day. So it was back then we pushed some traffic to this and we ended up selling a couple hundred of these CDs. And in the CD, we shipped out to inside the came of sales letters talking about this, and then it put people on a continuity program, and then we called everybody about a CD and said, hey, you bought this CD, how would you like to come

to Boise, and we're going to give you this. And this was our Hail Mary Pass, like, please let this work. And so we did that, we focused on it, we drove traffic to it, and when all of a sudden done, over the next, like, two-week period of time, we got 800 people to get our free CD. From that way we used to do is everybody was on continuity. We had 800 people that were on this $37 a month continuity, but it was free for a month, so we weren't make any money here. But we had 800 people's phone numbers who were able to call, and since we started calling them. And we didn't know anything about phone sales or anything. We were just like, hey, man, you bought

the CD, you want to come and hang out with Russell? They're like, yeah. And in that two-week period of time, we sold 10 people at $5,500 apiece, which ended up being 55K,000, and that funnel saved Christmas. Is that awesome?

It was awesome. I was able to pay all of our payroll. We had some money left over. It was awesome. And the coolest thing is 30 days later, then this clutch started, and all these people were in continuity, and suddenly we had a business. This is when I learned the power of continuity. David Fry, who's one of my favorite people in the whole world, he's in the audience here somewhere, I think.

He used to always say, he's like, until you have continuity, you don't have a business. And I never understood that until this. There's David smiling over there. I love that guy. And now I found out how suddenly I had these people. And so what happened, I don't know, the math, 800 times 37 a month. It's like 25K a month. And we knew, like, we have continuity now.

Every single month, we have 25K, and that means I can pay for employees. I can, and I realize, like, you don't hire employees before you have continuity, but now we have continuity, now we actually had people covered, and we could actually focus and think. And that was the first funnel that really kind of saved things and turned it around for us. Now, the pros and the cons of this. The pros is that this was really, really awesome. And I was like, as getting good entrepreneur, I'm like, hey, what's the book, nail it and then scale it?

Like, we nailed it. We're like, hey, let's scale this thing. And so then I probably shouldn't have done some of this stuff, but we got excited. And I was like, well, if this worked here, we should hire more people. And we started growing this. And we went from this little thing with five or six of us to two years later. We had about 100 people 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 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 for a bunch of people like this, talking and trying to sell something, and then nothing happening. It's 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 everyone 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, like, running, you know. And then, like, I remember the first, I was so embarrassed because usually, like, we have, like, those events were all, like, multi-speaker events and all the speakers are selling. And everyone's bragging about their numbers. And, like, I knew that I didn't want them to ask me my numbers because I totally didn't, like, not one person signed up. So I went in my hotel room. and I remember ordering coconut shrimp and hog and diced ice cream for every meal for the next two days while I hit in the room eating it watching movies. I'm going back downstairs. And I just, it was really bad and awesome at the same time because coconut shrimp and hog andac andoss is awesome.

But I did that and I learned like how not to sell. And then I started learning from some amazing 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. and all those kind of things I learned like on the road in front of people on state. Like it was scary, but it's such a good time for me to learn it and understand that part of the process. As we started to grow, I'll 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 guys remember microcontinuity? Yeah, that is awesome. So this is one we, man, it's probably, 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 the funnel we put through. And we just kept creating new front-in funnels to get people into this program, and it worked awesome.

And we grew the company from nothing to $3 or $4 million a year, and it was doing awesome. And then at a time, 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 talked about the value ladder, right? Like, I had this really cool value ladder happening here. And I was sending people up.

and I realized that I was the only person in the market that had a real value out of her. 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 it like Mike Philson. 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, oh, I don't want to call send her. 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 back in. I call it Frank Kern. Same thing. We came Frank Kern's back in 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, and we became the back-in for a lot of them. And that's how we took a company from $3 or $4 million to $10 million, and it became 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 100 employees, and we had 60 people on phones in Big Q's 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, like, selling, and those things really bad at, like, the management of stuff. And I was not good at managing all these people. And it just, it kind of started just getting too big. And this is about the time that I was telling you guys, if you've read the dot-com secret's book, that I started waking up and I was just like,

God, I did 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, do I really want to do this? I think half of the conversations have with the inner circle members when I first come in is this, like, do you really want to build that business? Like, yes, that would work.

But sometimes it's horrible when you get there. Like thinking through, like, what do I actually want to do? What I really want to become? Who would 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 11.30 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, 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 the three or four people came to me, I'm like, what's happening? I logged in the back end system and like not as 1137 or something like that. Every sales stop, 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 business signal.

I'm calling in busy, calling. And I'm busy and like, I can't get hold 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's happening? And everyone started, I don't know, I don't know. And soon I found out that it wasn't me. It was like, I eventually found it was like three or four hundred people.

At the same time, anybody who was doing any kind of like continuity-based stuff, the merchant accounts basically came in and said, look, 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 to have proven innocent. I was like, what? I've got 100 people I'm feeding. 100 people in their families, like it turns into like hundreds of people. I was like, you can't stop processing.

Finally, after like an hour I get through somebody, and the lady on the phone says, yep, we shut you down. Good luck ever getting a merchant account again. I got to 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,

uh, the different merch accounts were all through one bank. And I found out that's the equivalent having one, which is why I'm a big believer now at having multiple merchant accounts and multiple different banks, which is the lesson hopefully for everybody. 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. But it was bad. And so finally, got to hold these guys, and I'm trying to figure some things out,

and basically I said, okay, you've 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's two weeks, and they came back, so, 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. And they're leaving, like, crazy. People walking out the door, and it was like, and I was, like, freaking out. And we had all this payroll, but no money coming in. And so, like, I'm painted out of my own pocket. Like, everything just, just, like, keep things afloat. And as I'm going through this process, like, it's getting scary.

you're scary and scary. And find this, like, things, you know, merch counts are back on. You're, you're a good guy. I'm like, sweet. So, hey, guys, we got to do a launch really quick to make a bunch of money. So we do this, put this together, this huge launch thing. We push it out to our customer list. And 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 coming. I promise. Like, he'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. Monday didn't come. Tuesday didn't come. Wednesday didn't come. By Thursday, I'm like, calling him. Like, where's our money, dude?

Like, we need this money. And then he's 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. Like, why not? He said, oh, well, you're on 100% reserve, so we keep 100% of your money. I was like, what? Like, that's not good for me or for anybody. How much is 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 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 under 10% reserve.

I'm like, oh, thank heavens. And then he said, but the $250,000 you collected in the last week, we're keeping that for the next six months just as collateral and makes sure nothing bad happens. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, go. So I'm like, okay, okay, create another funnel. Quick, so we're putting that another thing, we push it out there, make some money and we start, you know, paying payroll for whatever we can, but everything's collapsing around me.

And so that's starting in January. And that's start happening. And 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 $100,000 a month.

I'm like, cool. Okay, we're going to 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 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. So we get a merchant account, get all set up.

We drive a bunch of traffic. And twice we made over the $100,000 a month. We were loud within like a day, day and a half. And then they froze our accounts and they said, oh, you made too much money too fast. We're freezing your accounts. 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 five hundred thousand dollars locked up in merchant accounts. And it just kept being worse and worse and worse. So this whole year was like, like, like the hardest year in 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 love, people that I just love.

and I care about and I'm coming in. I'm like, I don't what to do, man. I'm so sorry. Like, I got to let you go. And it was just, oh, like such a dark time of my life. I'm just over, thing after thing after thing. And I wish that I could say from there it got better. So that was the entire year. The next January started. And 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, 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, we were releasing. 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, 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 to 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? Like, what are you doing 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 for my dad, and I opened this email, and 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 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'd been doing is she had been paying the bills she could, and the one she couldn't, she was trying to, like, not pay him and, you know, delay him.

And to hide it from my dad and from everybody else, she was saying in QuickBooks, like, she paid bills, but then, like, not actually paying them. So it looked like it was clear. And he'd gone through and actually audit and found out 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 you're going to payroll taxes.

And I was, like, at the end, it had been an entire year. penny I'd ever earn was gone. All my people, my teams, like, it just had all fallen apart. And I'm sitting there like, I don't know what to do. And so next morning we're going on a flight from Vegas, back to Boise. We're 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's 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, go. I have the government, $150,000. I have nobody to help me.

sell, like everything, 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 about 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 want to do. So I went to a bankruptcy lawyer. I'm like, how's this work, man? Like, I got to do. Like, I got to figure this out. And he's like, well, I kind of explained the whole process. And I told him about my lease. I'm like, the landlords that are coming 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 I do is I should come

with you to your landlord and just explain you're going bankruptcy. 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. 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 cyber spent. So he comes with me to the landlord and he's like, Russell screwed man, he's going through bankruptcy. He's hired me. He's like, he can't pay you. Like, you can come after him, but he is like, and he's like, and 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 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, we'll be out by Friday, but 90% of my team was gone this point, from 100 employees down to about seven or eight. The few people that stuck by me, people like Brent Col Peters, who, like, just 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 never, it's amazing people. So the few of us that were left, we went and we packing up stuff.

We put ads on Craigs. It's like, we got tons of computers and crap coming by it. And things we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for, we were selling for hundreds of dollars. And 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 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 just cut everything else that we have. And so, um, uh, 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. So we can't even like move into it. I don't know how to do anything. And so I sent out an email with my list ahead of the time. Had a bunch of people registered 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, God, saved us. Like, that webinar we did, we 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 another office, move, get us 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 downsize from 20,000 square feet to, like, 2,000 square feet. And we had this really cool moment where it was like, what do we want to do when we grow up?

Like, what do we want to be? 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 pick anything. This is what I started 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 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. It was making him, like, $2,000 or $3,000 a month. And he got in some trouble. and I had a couple things making a little bit of money at a time, and he's like, I need to get rid of this site.

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 a month. And 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. They're like, okay, no, we did one in the weight loss.

and another, and in a year period of time, we launched 12 different companies. Each were making different amounts of money. During that time, we were launched Neuroscel, our supplement companies, all these things were happening. And it was starting to get exciting again. 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 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 that 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 like email text message auto responder for, 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 auto responders and text message auditors for our dentists. I was so excited. It was 20 grand.

We didn't have that much money. 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. I'll flip up. 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, 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, it's 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? Like, I don't have $800 a month for a server, but we just bought this thing. So we did, and they installed it, and they didn't really work.

I'm like, I don't know what to do. None of my tech guys that ever used Ruby on Rails. And so, like, I went to Odess, 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 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, 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. Send the email out. I'd been 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 this picture. I was like, you don't look like a nerd. I don't think you do. And then I went to 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 the guy, 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 things. And so Todd came and we started working 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 OO, like pre everything. And he built this webinar, auto webinar software because Mike Phil Slam had been talking about auto webinars. Rich Sheffern had put a webinar report out.

A couple guys who tried talking to auto webinars, so nobody had done one. Like, no one 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 on 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. I'm free. I'm not going to jail. IRS has 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 used to design half these things and says that contract, he designed these pages, then Todd would take him and code him 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. We probably had like 40 funnels we built over, thing, after thing, after thing after thing. And the last funnel we actually built the old

school way was the neural cell 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 the editor and the UI. And then fast forward, seven to 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 going to be the great. the world. So we 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, I made that page you're looking at. Like, it's really good, right? And like, nobody got it. And I was like, why don't they get it? I'm like, there's something wrong in my messaging. So we changed the funnel again and we launched it

again. Like, a few of you guys signed up, but that was it. Like, most of like hit. and they left. I'm like, God, I tried again. We tried again. We rebuild that funnel not once or twice or three times or four times or five times. Six times it took us before the ClickFunnels funnel's worked. And the sixth time was because one of my friends, Mike Philson, had me out to his event, and he's like, hey, Russell, why you come and sell ClickFunnels? I think it's awesome. I said, dude, Mike, nobody's buying ClickFunnels. Like, we got to figure out an next deal to figure out something because it's not working. He's like, no, dude, my people need it, and you 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 sitting there on, 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 into plane. I flew there. We got to California. I think it was California. The event was that. I got there, put the slides up on the thing, and 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 neuroscell funnel, and how you can definitely knock it off in less than 10 minutes. Showed 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 click funnels. 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 we went from being a startup with no members to a year after the end of last year, 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 and the crash. And you guys are somewhere in between. And it's always going up and down. But if nothing else of 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. But 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 a custom code every single thing, every single time.

Like, now you 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, another funnel. And he had some marginal success, little success, more 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 that's an affiliate somebody.

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, funnel a week, until he hits the one that just explodes. You 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 it over and over and over again. All right, guys. I hope you enjoyed the OFA, presentation, you know, if you haven't been to funnel hacking live yet, this is the last shot. As you guys know, we did basically ran Funnel Hacking Live for a little over a decade. Actually, 11 of them.

We did 11th and a half. So it's kind of in between there. But we did 11 Funnel Hiking Lives. And then about a year and a half, two years ago, we shut it down. But we decided to come back and do one last ones because AI has shifted and changed so much. And we wanted to get in front of it with our funnel hackers and serve you guys. So we're doing one big show. It's called Funnel Hacking Live AI.

It's happening in, in Las Vegas. And what's crazy about this one is this going to be a lot smaller. The room only holds 2,500 people versus our normal 5 or 6,000. And so if you already have a ticket, we are going to blow your mind for what's going to be happening in the event. If you don't want to take you up, now is the time, go to funnel hacking live.com and go get your ticket. It's in a theater.

It's going to be cool. We're going to go deep on AI. It's going to be amazing. I'm excited. I'm fired up. I've been calling speakers this week and getting lined up. I'm preparing my stuff. It's going to be so good.

So don't miss it. Go to funnel hackinglive.com get your tickets. And we'll see you guys on next week's episode. Bye.