The Russell Brunson Show - ClickFunnels Startup Story - Part 2 of 4 (Revisited!)

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

Enjoy part two of this classic episode series where Andrew Warner from Mixergy interviews Russell on the ClickFunnels startup story! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Alright everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope yesterday you enjoyed part one of the Clickfunnels start up story interview at the Dry Bar Comedy Club with Andrew. I love the way he interviews. I hope you’re enjoying it as well. So we are going to dive right into part 2 of 4 from this interview. And again, if you’re liking these interviews please, please, please take a snapshot on your phone, post it on Facebook, Instagram or wherever you do your posting and tag me in it and use hashtag marketing secrets so I can see that you’re talking about it. I’d appreciate it. With that said, we’re going to queue up the theme song, when we come back we’ll start in on part 2 of the interview of the Clickfunnels start up story. Andrew: You know what, I’ve talked to a few of your people because they’re so good, that Dave could really be a leader on his own, start his own company, he’s got his own online reputation, the whole thing. I keep asking him, “Why do you work for Russell? What is it that lets you be second to Russell who’s getting all the attention?” And I’ve got some answers and would you mind coming up here and in a second I’m going to ask you. No, come back here and I’ll just bring you up in a second. Actually, you know what, it looks like you can come pretty fast. I thought that it would be a little bit more, I thought it would be more of a thing to get mics on people. And I realized if Collette can do it…. Okay honestly, dig down deep. Why did you want to stick with him? Brent: Through all that stuff? Andrew: Yeah. Brent: I don’t know. My heart was just racing. As he started telling that story, it just makes me sick to my stomach. As you scroll down and look at all those businesses of, for years, every 30 days it was a new business launch, it was crazy. Always why I stuck with him is, you know, Collette mentioned that spirit. He’s absolutely different than anybody else I’ve ever met in my entire life, a friend…. Andrew: Of what? Give me an example. Let’s be more specific. Back then, not today, he’s got this track record, adoring fans, I asked him to do an interview, everyone wants him on his podcast. Back then when it wasn’t going so well. Give me an example that let you know this is a guy who’s going to figure it out eventually, and I could possibly go down, watch him go to jail, but I believe that it’s going to go up. Brent: Well, at the time when things are crashing, I saw him as the income stopped. And he had started a program that he loves, obviously wrestling, and he brought an Olympic wrestling coach to Boise and he brought all these amazing wrestlers to Boise and he wanted them to be able to train and get to the Olympics, he wanted to help them get there and live their dream. And you know, he was supplementing, at the time the business was paying for these guys to do a little bit of work for us, they weren’t doing very much for us. But I saw him out of his own pocket, be paying for these guys. And I knew how hard he wanted to support them. And there was a day when my wife and I, we were struggling because I just, I was concerned about him financially because he was supplementing and trying to keep this business afloat, and we talked about things and I came into the office one day and I asked if I could talk to him and sat down, and kind of spoke in language that I normally don’t speak in, I might have dropped a bomb or two. It was, I was so concerned I pretty much told him, I can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep watching you every month pulling the money that you saved for your family to try keep jobs for other people. I said, I’ll leave if that helps you. And the fact that he stuck with people, that was the true character of who he is. Andrew: He kept paying your salary, kept sticking with you, and also constantly launching things. Brent: Absolutely. Andrew: That you’ve never seen anyone implement like him. Brent: You know some people call it faith or belief. He has this inherit belief that he can truly change people’s lives. Andrew: That’s it, even when he wasn’t fully in control of his own. Alright thanks. Thanks for, give him a big round of applause, thanks for being up here. I feel like this is the thing that helped get you out of trouble and potentially, and getting out of potential jail. What is this business that you created? Russell: So we, during the time of that and this there was time, probably a year and a half-two years that we were trying all sorts of stuff. And again, marginal success on a lot of them, nothing like….and this was the one, we actually, this is before….I’ve done a lot of webinars and speaking from seminars and stuff like that, but this is right when auto webinars were coming out and Mike Filsaime had just done an auto webinar and a couple of people, and I felt like that was going to be the future thing. So we’re like, what do we do the webinar on? We didn’t know. And we flew out to Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher’s office for two days and picked their brains, went to Rich Schefren’s office for a day. And then on the flight home, I’m just like sick to my stomach. I couldn’t figure out what’s the thing that we could serve people the most right now. And on the flight home I was like, all the internet marketing stuff we do works for internet marketers, but we’re way better at like local business. Like if a chiropractor implements like two things it works. Or if a dentist does it. But I was like, I don’t want to be the guy going to dentists, but we could be the backbone for that. What if we created an opportunity where people could come in, we train them, and we connect them with the right tools and resources, and then they could go and sell to chiropractors and dentists. And that’s what the idea was. We turned it into an offer called Dotcom Secrets Local, it was a thousand dollar offer at the time. Did the auto webinar for it, and it launched and within 90 days it had done over a million dollars, which covered payroll taxes and then got us out of debt to the point now we could stop and dream again, and believe again and try to figure out what we really wanted to do. Andrew: Dotcom Secrets Local to a million dollars within 90 days. And how did you find the people who were going to sign up for this. A lot of us will have landing pages like this, we’ll have these funnels. How did you get people in this funnel? Russell: And this was pre-Facebook too, so it wasn’t just like go turn Facebook ads on. But you know, one thing that happened over all the years prior to this, I’d met a lot of people and go to a lot of events and get to know everybody. And everyone I met, you know, you meet a lot of people who have lists, they have followings, they have different things like that. I just got to know them really, really well. And in the past I’d promote a lot of their products, they’d promote my products. So we had this one and we did it first to my list, and it did really well. So I then I then called them and I’m like, “Okay, I did this webinar to my list, these are the numbers, it did awesome. Do you want to do it to your list as well?” and they’re like, “Oh sure. Sounds like a great offer.” We did that list and it did good for them too. And we told the next person and then, if you have a webinar, it’s kind of like the speaking circuit, if you’re good at speaking then people will put you all over the place. Same thing, if you have a webinar that converts, then it’s easy to get a lot of people to do it. So as soon as that one worked and it converted well, then people lined up and we kept doing it, doing it, and doing it, and it was really quick to get to that spot pretty quick. Andrew: I went on Facebook recently and I saw webinar slides from Russell Brunson, I went to the landing page, Clickfunnels page and I signed up and I’ll talk about it maybe later, but I bought it and I know other people did. And I’ve seen other people say, “Russell’s webinar technique is the thing that just works.” I’m wondering how did you figure it out? How did you come across this and how did you build it and make it work? Russell: Yeah, so rewind back probably ten years prior to this, when I was first learning this whole business. I went to my very first internet marketing seminar ever, it was Armand Morin’s Big Seminar. Did you ever go to Big Seminar? Anyway, I went to it and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be like, I showed up with my laptop and I was going to like, I thought we were a bunch of geeks going to do computer stuff. And the first person got onstage and started speaking and at the end of it he sold like a two thousand dollar thing. And I’d never seen this before. I saw people jumping up and running to the back of the room to buy it. And I’m like this little 23 year old kid and I was counting the people in the back of the room, doing the math, you know doing the math and I’m like, that guy made 60 thousand dollars in an hour. And the next guy gets up and does his presentation and I watch this for three days and I was like, I’m super shy and introverted, but that skill is worth learning. If someone can walk on a stage and make 100,000 dollars in an hour, I need to learn how to do that. So I started that. And it was really bad for the first probably 8 or 9 months. I tried to do it. I’d go to places and I just, I couldn’t figure it out. And then I started asking the people who were good because you go there and all the speakers kind of talk and hang out, and I’d watch the ones that always had the people in the back of the room. And I’d ask them questions, I’m like, ‘What did I do wrong? I feel like I’m teaching the best stuff possible.’ And they’re like, ‘That’s the problem, it’s not about teaching, it’s about stories, telling stories and breaking beliefs.” So for about the next two years I was about once a month flying somewhere to speak, and then when I would go I would meet all the speakers and find out what they were doing and I’d watch them and I’d take notes on the different things they were saying and how they were saying it. And then I kept taking my presentation and tweaking it, and tweaking it, and tweaking it. And you know, now 12 years later, I’ve done so many webinars, it kind of worked. The process works now. Andrew: You are a really good story teller and I’ve seen you do that. I’ve seen you do it, and I know you’re going to do it even more. What I’m curious about is the belief system that you were saying, breaking people’s…what was it that you said? Russell: False beliefs. Andrew: Breaking people’s false beliefs. How do you understand what, like as you look at this audience, do you understand what some of our false beliefs are? Russell: If I knew what I was selling I could figure out for sure. Andrew: If you knew what you were selling. Alright we’re selling this belief that entrepreneurship does work. And I know we’re all going to go through a period like some of the ones that you had where things just aren’t’ working, other people aren’t believing in us, almost failure, what is at that point, the belief system that we have to work on? What do you recognize in people here? Russell: So usually there’s three core beliefs that people have. The first is about the opportunity itself right. So like with entrepreneurship, the first belief that people have is could I actually be an entrepreneur? And some people who actually believe that, they’re like, I’m in. And that’s an easy one. But for those who don’t there’s a reason and usually it’s like, they saw a parent that tried to do it. And the parent tried to be an entrepreneur and wasn’t able to and they saw that failure. Or they’d tried it in the past and they failed or whatever it is. So it’s showing them that even if you tried in the past and showed different ways, let me tell you a story. And for me, I could show 800 different failures. But eventually you get better and you get better until eventually you have the thing that actually works. So I tell a story to kind of show that, to make them believe that, oh my gosh maybe I just need to try a couple more times. And then the second level of beliefs is like beliefs about themselves like, I’m sure it works for you, Russell or Andrew but not for me because I’m different. It’s helping them figure out their false beliefs, and if you can break that, then the third one is like, then they always want to blame somebody else. “I could lose lots of weight but my wife buys lots of cupcakes and candy. So I could do it, but because of that I can’t.” So then it’s like figuring out how you break the beliefs of the external people that are going to keep them. Andrew: And how would you know what that is? How would you know who the external influencers are, that your potential customers are worried about? Russell: I think for most of us it’s because the thing that we’re selling is something that, one of our, Nick Barely said “Our mess becomes our message.” For most of us, what we’re selling is the thing we struggled with before. So I think back about me as 12 year old Russell, watching Don Lepre, like what would have kept me back? And I would have been like, I can’t afford classified ads. Like if you showed me how I can, if you could tell me a story of, oh my gosh I could afford classified ads. Now that belief’s gone and now I’m going to go give you money. It’s just kind of remembering back to the state that you were in when you were trying to figure this stuff out as well. Andrew: Who was who I met when we were coming in here that said that they were part of Russell’s mastermind and I asked how much did you pay and he said, “I’m not telling you.” I can’t see who that person was. But I know you got a mastermind, people coming in. I’m wondering how much of it comes from that? working with people directly, seeing them in the group share openly, and then saying, ah, this is what my potential customers are feeling? Russell: 100% At this point especially. People always ask me, “Where do you go, Russell, to learn stuff?” and it’s my mastermind, because I bring, all the people come in and they’re all in different industries and you see that. You see the road blocks that hold people back, but then they also share the stuff that they’re doing and it’s like, that’s 100% now where I get most of my intell. Because people ask me, “Why, you’re a software company, why in the world do you have a mastermind group?” And it’s because the reason why our software is good is because we have the mastermind group, where they’re all crowd sourcing, they’re doing all this stuff and bringing back to us, and then we’re able to make shifts and pivots based on that. Andrew: Somehow we just lost Apple, but that’s okay. It’s back, good. There we go. This is the next thing, Rippln. Russell: I forgot I put that one in there. Andrew: I went back and I watched the YouTube video explaining it. It’s a cartoon. I thought it was a professional voice over artist, no it’s you. You’re really comfortable getting on stage and talking. But basically in that video that you guys can see in the top left of your screen, it’s Russell, through this voice over and cartoon explaining, “Look, you guys were around in the early days of Facebook, you told your friends, here’s how many friends you would have had, for the sake of numbers, let’s say you told 7 people and let’s say they told 7 people, and that’s how things spread. And the same thing happened with Pinterest and all these other sites. Don’t you ever wish that instead of making them rich by telling stuff, you made yourself rich? Well here’s how Rippln comes in.” and then you created it. And Rippln was what? Russell: So Rippln was actually one of my friend’s ideas, and he is a network marketing guy so he’s like, “We’re building a network marketing program.” And I’d like dabbled in network marketing, never been involved with it. And he came and was like, “Hey, be part of this.” And I was like, “No.” and then he sold us on the whole pitch of the idea, network marketers are really good at selling you on vision, and I was like, “Okay, that sounds awesome.” And then my role was to write the pitch. So I wrote the pitch, did the voice over, did the video, and then we launched it and we had in six weeks, it was like 1.5 million people signed up for Rippln, and I thought it was like, “This is the thing, I’m done.” My down line was like half of the company. And I was like, when this thing goes live, it’s going to be amazing. And then the tech side of it, what we’re promising people in this video that the main developer ended up dying and he had all the code. So they had to restart building it in the middle of this thing. And it was like thing after thing and by the time it finally got done, everyone had lost interest. It was like 8 months later, and I think the biggest check I got was like $47 for the whole thing. And I was just like, I spent like 6 months of my life. It was like a penny a day. It was horrible. Andrew: I’m just wondering whether I should ask this or not. Russell: Go for it. Andrew: So I stopped asking about religion, but I get the sense that you believe that there’s a spiritual element here that keeps you from seeing, my down line is growing, the whole thing is working. Is any of this, does it feel divinely inspired to you? Be honest. Russell: Business or…? Andrew: Business, life, success, things working out, so much so that when you’re at your lowest, you feel like there’s some divine guidance, some divine hand that says, “Russell, it’s going to work out. Russell, I don’t know if I got you, but I know you got this. Go do it.” I feel that from you and I… Russell: I 100% believe that. Andrew: You do? Russell: Every bit of it. I believe that God gives us talents and gifts and abilities and then watches what we do with it. And if we do good then he increases our capacity to do more. And if we do good with it, increases our capacity… Andrew: if you earn it? If you do good, if you use what God gives you, then you get more. So you think that that is your duty to do that and if you don’t do more, if you don’t pick yourself up after Rippln, you’ve let down God. Do you believe that? Is that it? Or that you haven’t lived up to… Russell: Yeah, I don’t think I feel that I’ve let down God, but I definitely feel like I haven’t lived up to my potential, you know. But also I feel like a lot of stuff, as I was putting together that document, all the pages, it’s interesting because each one of them, looking in hindsight, each built upon the next thing and the next thing. And there’s twice we tried to build Clickfunnels and each one was like the next level, and each one was a stepping stone. Like Rippln, if I wouldn’t have done Rippln, that was my very first viral video we ever created. I learned how to pitch things and when we did the Clickfunnels initial sales video, because I had done this one, I knew how to do this one. So for me, it’s less of like I let down God, as much as like, it’s just like the piece, what are you going to do with this? Are you going to do something with it? It doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful, but it means, if you do well with this, then we’re going to increase your capacity for the next step, and the next thing. But we definitely, especially in times at the office, we talk about this a lot. We definitely feel that what we do is a spiritual mission. Andrew: You do? Russell: 100% yeah. I don’t think that it’s just like, we’re lucky. I think the way that the people have come, the partnerships, how it was created is super inspired. Andrew: You know what, a lot of us are selling things that are software, PDF guide, this, that, it’s really hard to find the bigger mission in it. You’re finding the bigger mission in Funnels. What is that bigger mission? Really, how do you connect with it? Because you’re right, if you can find that bigger meaning then the work becomes more meaningful and you’re working with become, it’s more exciting to work with them, more meaningful to do it. How did you find it in funnels? What is the meaning? Russell: So for us, and I’m thinking about members in my inner circle, so right now as of today I think we had 68,000 members in Clickfunnels, which is the big number we all brag about. But for me, that’s 68,000 entrepreneurs, each one has a gift. So I think about, one member I’ll mention his name’s Chris Wark, he runs chrisbeatcancer.com and Chris was someone who came down with cancer and was given a death sentence, and instead of going through chemo therapy he decided, ‘I’m going to see if I can heal myself.” And he did. Cleared himself of cancer. And then instead of just being like, ‘cool, I’m going to go back into work.’ He was like, ‘Man I need to help other people.’ So he started a blog and started doing some things, and now he’s got this thing where he’s helped thousands and thousands of people to naturally cure themselves of cancer. And that’s one of our 68,000 people. Andrew: See, you’re focusing on him where I think a lot of us would focus on, here’s one person who’s just a smarmy marketer, and here’s who’s creating….but you don’t. That’s not who you are. Look, I see it in your eyes and you’re shaking your head. That’s not it at all, it’s not even a put on. Russell: It’s funny because for me it’s like, I understand because I get it all the time from people all the time, “Oh he’s this slimy marketer.” The first time people meet me, all the time, the first time their introduced, that’s a lot of times the first impression. And they get closer and they feel the heart and it’s just like, “oh my gosh, I had you wrong.” I get that all the time from people. Andrew: Brian, sorry Ryan and Brad, are either of them here? Would one of you come up here? Yeah, come on up. Because they felt that way, right? Russell: I don’t know about them. I know who you’re thinking about. Audience member: I think it’s Theron. {Crosstalk} Andrew: No, no stay up here, as long as you’re here. Theron come on up. Audience member: If it wasn’t me, then I’m going to sit back in the seats. Andrew: Are you nervous? Audience member: A little bit. Is there another Ryan and Brad? Russell: Different story, another story. Do you want to come up? Theron had no idea we were bringing him onstage. Andrew: Come on over here. Let’s stand in the center so we can get you on camera. Does this help? Russell: Do you want me to introduce Theron real quick? Andrew: Yeah, please. Russell: So Theron is one of the Harmon Brothers, they’re the ones who did the viral video for us. Andrew: I heard that you felt that he was a scam. What was the situation and how did you honestly feel? Theron: I don’t know that it…well… Russell: Be honest. Theron: I know, I don’t think that I felt that Clickfunnels itself was a scam, Russell: Just Russell. Theron: But that it just felt like so many of the ways that the funnels were built and the types of language they were using, it felt like it was that side of the internet. So I became very, well basically we were kind of in a desperate situation, where we had a video that had not performed and not worked out the way we wanted it to work out. Andrew: The video that you created for Russell? Theron: No, another client. Andrew: Another client, okay. Theron: And so our CEO had used Clickfunnels product to help drive, I think it was attendance to a big video event. And so he had some familiarity with the product, so he goes to Russell and at the same time Russell’s like, “I’m a big fan of you guys.” So he’s coming to us and these things are happening. Yeah, it was almost the same day. So we’re thinking like this and we’re like, “Well, they seem to really know how to drive traffic, to really know how to drive conversion. And we feellike we know how to drive conversion as well, but for some reason we missed it on this one.” So we’re like, “Well, let’s do a deal.” Andrew: What do you mean missed it? Okay, go ahead, go through to the end. Theron: We were failing our client. We were failing on our client. We weren’t giving them and ROI. So we said, let’s do a deal with Russell and we’ll have our internal team compete with his team, and we’re humble enough to say we’re failing our client. We want our client to succeed, let’s bring in their team and see if they can make a funnel that can bring down the cost for acquisition, bring up the return on investment for our client, and they were able to do it.  And then we said, what we’ll do is we’ll write a script, we’ll take you through our script writing process, but we don’t want to do the video because we don’t want to be affiliated with you. Russell: The contract said, “You can’t tell anyone ever that the Harmon Brothers wrote the script for you.” Andrew: Wow, because you didn’t want to be associated with something that you thought was a little too scammy for… Theron: Yeah, we just didn’t want our brand kind of brought down to their brand, which is super arrogant and really wrong headed. And in any case, so we go into this script writing training, and I wasn’t following his podcast, I wasn’t listening to enough. I mean, read Dotcom Secrets, those kinds of things are like, well, there’s some really valuable stuff there, this is really interesting. A nd then as we got to know each other and really start to connect, like you said, heart to heart. And to feel what he’s really about, and the types of team, the people that he surrounds himself with, I was like, wow, these are really, really good people. And they have a mission here that they feel, just like we feel that about our own group. And in any case, by the end of that 2 day retreat we’re like, all off in private saying, “First of all we like what we’ve written and second of all, we’d really like to work with these guys and I think we’re plenty happy being connected to them and associated with them.” So it’s been a ride and a blessing ever since. Russell: We’re about to start video number two with them. Andrew: You what? Russell: We’re about to start video number two with them right now. Theron: Anyway, we love them. Andrew: Alright, give him a big round, yeah. Thanks. This was pivotal for you guys. Lead Pages, there’s an article about how Lead Pages raised $5 million, and you saw that and you thought… Russell: Well, what happened was Todd, so Todd’s the cofounder of Clickfunnels, and he was working with us at the time and he would fly to Boise about once a quarter and we’d work on the next project, the new idea. And that morning he woke up and he saw that, and then he forwarded me the article. And he’s Atlanta, so it’s east coast, so I’m still in bed. And he’s got a 4 hour flight to Boise and he’s just getting angry, because Todd is, Todd’s like a genius. He literally, when he landed in Boise and he saw me and he’s like, “We can build Lead Pages tonight. I will clone, I will beat it. We’re going to launch this, this week while we’re here.” He’s that good of a developer. He, I’ve never seen someone code as fast and as good as him. He’s amazing. So he comes in, he’s mad because he’s like, “This is the stupidest site in the world. We could literally clone this. Let’s just do it.” And I’m like, “Yes, let’s clone it.” And we’re all excited and then he’s like, “Do you want me to add any other features while I’m doing it.” And I’m like, ‘Oh, yes. We should do this, and we should do this.” And then the scope creep from the marketer comes, and we ended up spending an entire week in front of a whiteboard mapping out all my dreams, “If we could do this and this and what kind of shopping cart, and we could do upsells, and what if we could actually move things on the page instead of just having it sit there. And what if…” and Todd’s just taking notes and everything. And then he’s like, “Okay, I think I could do this.” And he told me though, “If I do this, I don’t want to do this as an employee. I want to do this as a partner.” And at first I was like, ugh, because I didn’t want to do the partnership thing. And then the best decision I’ve ever made in my life, outside of marrying my wife was saying yes to Todd. Said, “Let’s do it.” And then he flew home and built Clickfunnels. Andrew: Wow. And this is after trying software so much. I have screenshots of all the different, it’s not even worth going into it, of all the different products you created, there was one about, it was digital repo, right? Russell: That was a good idea. Andrew: Digital Repo, man. What was…. Russell: So I used to sell ebooks and stuff, and people would steal it and email it to their friends and I’d get angry. Andrew: Can I read this? How to protect every type of lowlife and other form of human scum from cheating you from the profits you should be making by hijacking, stealing, and illegally prostituting….your online digital products. Russell: Theron, why did you think we were…..Just kidding. So no, it was this really cool product where you take an ebook and it would protect it, and if somebody gave it to their friend, you could push a button and it would take back access. It was like the coolest thing in the world, we thought. Andrew: And there was software that was going to attach your ad to any other software that was out there. There was software that was going to, what are some of the other ones? It’s going to hit me later on. But we’re talking about a dozen different pieces of software, a dozen different attempts at software. What’s one? I thought somebody remembered one of them. They’re just the kind of stuff you’d never think of. There was one that was kind of like Clickfunnels, an early version of Clickfunnels for landing pages. Why did you want to get into software when you were teaching, creating membership sites? What was software, what was drawing you to it? Russell: I think honestly, when I first learned this internet marketing game, the first mentor I had, the first person I saw was a guy name Armand Morin and Armand had all these little software products. Ecover generator, sales letter generator, everything generator, so that’s what I kept seeing. I was like, I need to create software because he made software. In fact, I even shifted my major from, I can’t remember what it was before, to computer information systems, because I was like, I’m going to learn how to code, because I couldn’t afford programmers. And then that’s just kind of what I’d seen. And then I was trying to think of ideas for software. And every time I would get stuck, instead of trying to find something to do, I’d be like let me just, let me just hire a guy to go build that, and then I can sell it somebody else as well. So that’s kind of how it started. Andrew: And it was a lot of different tools, a lot of different attempts, and then this one was the one that you went with. I think this is an early version of the home page, basically saying, “Coming soon, sign up.” The first one didn’t work out. And then you saw someone else on a forum who had a version that was better. What was his name? This is I think Dylan Jones. Russell: Oh you’re talking about the editor, yes. Okay, so the story was, Todd built the first version of Clickfunnels and Dylan who became one of our cofounders, I’d been working with Dylan as a designer for about 6 years prior. And he his hands, and we talked about this earlier, he is the best designer I’ve ever seen in my life, he is amazing. He would, but he’s also, this is the pros and cons of Dylan. He, I’ve talked about this onstage at Funnel Hacking Live, so I have no problem saying this. He would agree. But I would give him a project, and I couldn’t hear, he wouldn’t respond back to me, and I wouldn’t hear from him for 2 or 3 months, and then one day in the middle of the night he messaged me, “Hey, rent’s due tomorrow. Do you have any projects for me?” and I’d be so mad at him, and I look back at every project we’d done in the last 3 or 4 months that other designers had done, and I’d just resend him all the lists, just boom, give him 12 sites and I’d go to bed. I’d wake up 5 or 6 hours later and all of them were done, perfectly, amazing, some of the best designs ever, and then he’d send me a bill for whatever, and then I’d send him money and he’d disappear again for like 5 months. And I could never get a hold of him. I’d be like, “I need you to tweak something.” And he was just gone. And that was my pattern for 6 years with him. And then fast forward to when Todd and I were building Clickfunnels, we were at Traffic Conversion and we were up in the hotel room at like 3 in the morning trying to, we were on dribble.com trying to find a UI designer to help us, and we couldn’t get a hold of all these people, and all the sudden on Skype Dylan popped in, I saw his thing pop up. I was like, “Todd, Dylan just showed up.” And he’s like, “Do you think he needs some money?” I’m like, “I guarantee he needs money.” So I’m like, “Hey man!” And Dylan messaged back. He’s like, “Hey.” I’m like, “Do you need some money?” and he’s like, “Yeah, you got any projects?” I’m like, “Yes, I do.” I’m like, “We built this cool thing, it’s called Clickfunnels, but the UI is horrible and the editor is horrible and there’s any way we could hire you for a week to fly to Boise and just do all the UI for every single page of the app?” and he kind of said no at first because, “I’m developing my own website builder. I might have spent 6 years on it, so I can’t do it.” Andrew: It was this, he had something that was essentially Clickfunnels, right? Russell: No, no. It was just pages though, so it’d just do pages, there was no funnels. Andrew: Right, closer to Lead Pages. Russell: Lead Pages, but amazing. You could move things around. But he did tell me that, “I’m working on something.” So eventually we got him to come, flew to Boise, spent a week, did all of our UI, and then we went and launched our beta to my list. So we launched the beta, got some signups, and then a week before the launch, launch was supposed to happen, all the affiliates were lined up, everything was supposed to happen. He sends me, I don’t know if he sent you the video, but he sends me this little video that’s like a 30 second video of him demoing the editor he’d built. And I probably watched that video, I don’t know, at least a hundred times. And I was just sick to my stomach because I was like, “I hate Clickfunnels right now. I can’t move things on my pages, I can’t do anything.” I was just, and I sent it to Todd and then I didn’t hear from him for like an hour, and he messaged me back and he’s like, “I’m pissed.” I’m like, “Me too.” And I’m like, “What do we do?” and I was like, “We have to have his editor or I don’t even want to sell this thing.” And I called Dylan and I’m like, “Would you be willing to sell?” and he’s like, “No, I’m selling it and we’re going to sell it for $100.” It was like $100 this one time for this editor that designed all the websites. I was like, “Dude, it is worth so much more than that. Please?” and we spent all night going back and forth negotiating. And finally, we came to like, “I will give you this editor if I can be a cofounder and be a partner.” And Todd and I sat there, brainstorming and figured out if we could do it and finally said yes. And then him and Dylan and Todd flew back to Boise and for the next week just sat in a room with a whole bunch of caffeine and figured out how to smush Dylan’s editor into Clickfunnels to get the editor to be the editor that you guys know today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a hostage situation in the Olympic Village. You're sports. You're in way over your head. People can't stop talking about September 5th. It's a madhouse down here. It's one of the best movies of the year. What's happening? Oh, God. September 5th in select theaters, December 13th.

All right, everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I hope yesterday you enjoyed part one of the ClickFunnels Startup Story interview at the Drybar Comedy Club with Andrew. Ah, I love the way he interviews. I hope you're enjoying it as well. So we are going to dive right into part two of four

from this interview. And again, if you're liking these interviews, please, please, please take a snapshot on your phone, post it on Facebook, Instagram, or wherever you do your posting and tag me in it and use hashtag marketing secrets so I can see that you're talking about it. I would appreciate it. With that said, we're going to keep the theme song. When we come back, we'll start in on part two of the interview of the ClickFunnels startup story.

So the big question is this, how are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, we're spending money from our own pockets? How do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. You know, I've talked to a few of your people because they're so good that Dave could really be a leader on his own, could start his own company. He's got his own online reputation. The whole thing, I keep asking them, why do you work for Russell?

What is it that lets you be second to Russell who's getting all the attention? And I've got some answers. And would you mind coming up here in a second? I'm going to ask you. Just like, no, come on back here and I'll just bring you up in a second. And would you mind coming up here in a second? I'm going to ask you. Just like, no, come on back here and I'll just bring you up in a second. Actually, you know what? It looks like you can come pretty fast. I thought that it would be a little bit more.

No, I thought it would be more of a thing to get mics on people. And I realized if Kaleck can do it. Okay, honestly, dig down deep. Why did you want to stick with him? Through all that stuff? Yeah. Well, I don't know't know my heart was just racing he started telling that story just makes me like sick my stomach as you scroll down and look at all those businesses of like for years like just like every every 30 days there's a new business launch like it was um it was crazy uh how i why i stuck with them is is uh you know, Clint mentioned that spirit.

Like, just, he's absolutely different than anybody else I've ever met in my entire life. Like, a firm. Give me an example. Let's be more specific. Back then, not today, when he's got this track record, adoring fans, I ask him to do an interview, everyone wants him on his podcast. Back then when it wasn't going so well. Give me an example of something that he did that let you know, this is a guy who's going to figure it out eventually,

and I could possibly go down, watch him go to jail, but I believe that it's going to go up. Well, at the time when things were crashing, you know, I saw him, I saw him as the income stopped, and he had started a program, he loves obviously wrestling,

and he had, he brought an Olympic wrestling coach to Boise, and he brought all these amazing wrestlers to Boise. He wanted them to be able to train and get to the Olympics. He wanted to help them get there and live their dream. He was supplementing. At the time, the business was paying for these guys to do a little bit of work for us. They weren't doing very much for us.

But I saw him, out of his own pocket, be paying for these guys, and I knew how hard he wanted to support them. And there was a day that my wife and I, we were struggling because I was concerned about him financially. He was supplementing, trying to keep his business afloat. And we talked about things, and I came into the office one day, and I asked if I could talk to him and sat down and kind of spoke in language that I normally don't speak in.

I might have dropped a bomb or two. But I was so concerned. I pretty much told him, like, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep watching you every month pulling the money you've saved for your family to try to keep jobs for other people. Like I said, I'll if that that helps you and uh and the fact that he he did he stuck with he stuck with people and that was the true character who he is he kept paying your salary kept sticking with you and also constantly launching things you were telling me

before absolutely you've never seen anyone implement like him no no you know some people call it faith or belief like he has this inherent like belief that he can truly change people's lives. That's it. Even when he wasn't, even when he wasn't fully in control of his own. All right. Thanks. Thanks for giving him a big round of applause. Thanks for being up here. I feel like this is the thing that helped get you out of trouble and potentially get it out of potential jail. What is this business that you created? Yeah, so during the time of that and this, there was a time, it was probably a year and a half, two years we're trying all sorts of stuff and again marginal success on a lot of them nothing like and uh this was the one um we actually um this was before like we had done i've done a lot of webinars and speaking from seminars and stuff like that but this is right when auto webinars were coming out

and mike phil something just an auto webinar a couple people and like i feel like that was going to be the future things right but what do we do the webinar on we didn't know and um we flew out to ryan dyson perry belcher's office for like two days and pick their brains let's go to rich sheffrin's office for a day and then on the flight home i just like sick to my stomach i couldn't figure out like what's the thing that we can serve people with the most right now and um on the flight home i was like i'm like all the internet marketing stuff we do works for like internet marketers works way better like local business like a chiropractor implements like two things. It works.

If a dentist does it, like, but I was like, I don't want to be the guy going to dentist, but like we could be the backbone for that. What if we create an opportunity where people come in, we train them and we connect them with the right tools and resources, and they could go and sell it to,

to, to chiropractors and dentists. And that's what the idea was. We created, turned into an offer called.com secrets local. It was a thousand dollar offer at the time, did auto webinar for it and it launched within um within 90 days they've done over a million dollars which covered payroll taxes and then got got us out of debt to the point now we could like stop and like dream again and like believe again and try to figure out what

we really wanted to do dot-com secrets local to a million dollars within 90 days and how did you find the people who are going to sign up for this a lot of us will have landing pages like this we'll have these funnels how did you get people in this funnel yeah and this was pre-facebook too so it's like it wasn't just like go turn facebook ads on um but you know one thing that happened over a lot you know all the years prior to this i've met a lot of people i've gone to a lot of events and get to know everybody and um everyone i met that you, you meet a lot of people who have lists, they have followings, they have different things like that. I just got to know them really, really well.

And in the past, I'd promote a lot of their products. They'd promote my products. And so we had this one and we did it first to my list and it did really well. And so I then called them like, hey, I did this webinar to my list. These are the numbers. You did awesome. Do you want to do it to your list as well? And they're like, oh, sure.

That sounds like a great offer. And we did that list and they did good for them too. And we told the next person. And then, and if you have a webinar that good, it's kind of like, it's like the speaking circuit, right? Like if you're good at speaking, then people will put you all over the place. Same thing. If you have a webinar that converts, then it's easy to get a lot of people to do it. And so as soon as that one worked and it converted well, then people lined up and we just kept doing it, doing it, doing it. And, and, um, it was really quick to get that spot pretty quick. I was on Facebook recently and I saw webinar slides from Russell Brunson. I went to

a landing page, click funnel page, and I signed up and I'll talk about it maybe later, but I bought it and I'm no other people did. And I've seen other people say Russell's webinar technique is the thing that just works. I'm wondering how you figured it out. How did you come across this and how'd you build it and make it work? Yeah. So rewind back, um, my probably 10 years prior to this, it was when I was first learning this whole business. Um, and I went to my very first internet marketing seminar ever. It was Armand Morin's big seminar. Do you ever go to a big seminar? Anyway, I went to it and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be like, and I showed my laptop and I was going to like, I thought we're a bunch of geeks going to

do computer stuff. And the first person got on stage and they started speaking. And at the end of it, he sold like a $2,000 thing. I'd never seen this before. I saw people jumping up and running to the back of the room to buy it. And I'm like this little like 23 year old kid. And I was counting the people in the back of them doing the math, like, you know, doing the math. I was like, that guy made like $60,000 in an hour. And next guy gets up, he does a presentation. And I watched this for three days. And I was like, I'm super shy and introverted, but like I, that skill is worth learning. If I, someone can walk on a stage and make a hundred thousand dollars an hour, like I need to learn how to do that. And so I started that and, um, it was really bad for the first man, probably eight

or nine months. I, I tried to do it. I'd go to places and I just, I couldn't figure it out. And then I started, um, asking the people to work good. Cause I, you'd go there and all the speakers kind of talk and hang out. And then I started asking the people that were good. Cause like you'd go there and all the speakers kind of talk and hang out. And I watched the ones that always had like all the people were in the back of the room and I'd ask them questions. I'm like, what did I do wrong? Like, I feel like I'm teaching the best stuff possible.

And they're like, that's the problem. Like it's not about teaching. It's about telling stories and breaking beliefs. And so for the next about two years, I was about once a month flying somewhere to speak. And then when I would go there, I'd meet all the speakers and find out what they were doing. And I'd watch them. And I'd take notes on the different things they were saying and how they were saying it.

And then I kept taking my presentation and tweaking it and tweaking it and tweaking it. And now 12 years later, I've done so many webinars. It kind of worked. The process works now. You are a really good storyteller. And I've seen you do that. And I've seen you do it here. I know you're going to do even more. Um, what I'm curious about is the belief system that you were saying, breaking people's, what was it that you said? Uh, false

beliefs, breaking people's false beliefs. How do you understand what, like, as you look at this audience, do you understand what some of, some of our false beliefs are? If I knew I was selling, I could figure out for sure. If you knew what you were selling. All right. We're, we're selling this belief that entrepreneurship does work. And I know that we're all going to go through a period, like some of the ones that you had where things just aren't working. Other people aren't believing in us. It's almost failure. What's at that point, the belief system that we have to work on? What, what do you recognize in people here? So usually there's like three core beliefs that people have. The first is about like the opportunity itself, right? So like the entrepreneurship, like the first belief that

people have is like, can I actually be an entrepreneur? And so some people who already believe that they're like, I'm in there. That's like an easy one. But for those who don't, there's a reason. And usually it's like, they saw a parent that tried to do it. And the parent tried to be an entrepreneur and wasn't able to, and they saw that failure or they tried in the past and they failed or whatever it is. And so it's, it's showing them that like, even if you tried in the past and show different ways, like, let me tell you a story. Like, and for me, I could show 800 different failures, but then it's like, but eventually you get better and you get better and you get better till eventually you have the thing that

actually works. So I tell a story to kind of show that to make them believe like, Oh my gosh, maybe I just need to try a couple more times. And then the second level of belief is like beliefs about themselves. Like I sure it works for you, Russell or Andrew, but not for, not for me. Cause I'm different. It's helping them figure out their false beliefs. And if you can break that, then the third one is like, then they always want to blame somebody else. Like, Oh, like I could lose weight, but my wife buys lots of cupcakes and candies. Like I could do it, but because that I can't. So then it's like figuring out, well, how do you break the beliefs of like the external people that are going to keep them? And how would you know what that is?

How would you know who the external influencers are that your potential customers are worried about? I think for most of us it's because the thing that we're selling is something that one of our – Nick Barely said our mess becomes our message. For most of us, what we're selling is the thing that we struggled with before. So I think back about me as 12-year-old Russell watching Don LaPree. What would have kept me back? And I'd be like, I can't afford classified ads. If you can tell me a story like, oh my gosh, I couldn't afford classified ads,

that belief's gone, and now I'm going to go give you money. It's just kind of remembering back to the state where you were in when you were trying to figure this stuff out as well. Who was it who I met when we were coming in here? We said that they're part of Russell's mastermind. And I asked, how much did you pay? He said, I'm not telling you.

I can't see who that person was, but I know you've got a mastermind. People are coming in. I'm wondering how much of it comes from that, working with people directly, seeing them in the group, share openly, and then saying, ah, this is what my potential customers are feeling. 100%. At this point, especially, people always ask me, where do you go, Russell, to learn stuff? And it's my mastermind.

Because all the people come in and they're all in different industries. And you see that. You see the roadblocks hold people back. But then they also share the stuff that they're doing. And it's like, that's 100% now is where I get most of my intel. Because people ask me, why do you have a software company?

Why in the world do you have a mastermind group? And it's like, because the reason why our software is good is because we have a mastermind group where they're all crowdsourcing they're doing all this stuff and bringing it back to us and then we're able to make shifts and pivots based on that somehow we just lost uh apple but that's okay it's back it's back good there we go this is the next thing rippling right i forgot i put that one in there. I went back and I watched the YouTube video explaining it.

It's a cartoon. I thought it was a professional voiceover artist. No, it's you. You're really comfortable getting on stage and talking. But basically in that video that you guys can see in the top left of your screen, it's Russell through this voiceover and cartoon explaining, look, you guys were around in the early days of Facebook. You told your friends. Here's how many friends you would have said. For the sake of numbers,

let's say you told seven people. Let's say they told seven people. And that's how things spread. And the same thing happened with Pinterest and all these other sites. Don't you ever wish that instead of making them rich by telling stuff, you made yourself rich? Well, here's how Ripplin comes in. And then you created it. and rippling was what um so rippling was actually one of my friends um uh ideas and um and he is a network marketing guy so he's like we're sure we're building network marketing program and i'd i'd like dabble in network marketing never been involved with it and uh he came and was like hey be part of this i was like no and they sold this on the whole pitch and the idea and network marketers really good at selling you on vision. And I was like, okay, that sounds awesome.

And, um, and then my role was to write the, write the pitch. And so I wrote the pitch, did the voiceover, did the video, and then we launched it and we had in six weeks, it was like 1.5 million people signed up for Ripplin. And I thought it was like, this is the thing I'm done. Like my downline was like half of the company. And I was like, when this thing goes live, like it's going to be amazing. And then, um, the thing. I'm done. Like, my downline was, like, half of the company. And I was like, when this thing goes live, like, it's going to be amazing. And then the tech side of it, what we were promising people in this video, that the main developer ended up dying. And he had all the code. So they had to restart building in the middle of this thing.

And, like, it was, like, thing after thing. And by the time it finally got done, everyone lost interest. It was, like, eight months later. And, like, I think my biggest check I got was, like, $47 from the whole thing. And I was just, like, I spent, like i think my i think my biggest check i got was like 47 bucks from the whole thing i was just like i spent like six months of my life it was it's like a penny a day it's horrible i'm just wondering whether i should ask this or not i'll go for it so i stopped asking about religion but i get this sense that you believe that there's a spiritual element here that keeps you from seeing my downline is growing. The whole thing's working.

Do you, is any of this, does it feel divinely inspired to you? Be honest. Business or? Business, life, success, things working out so much so that when you're at your lowest, you feel like there's some divine guidance, some divine hand that says, Russell, it's going to work out. Russell, I don't know if I got you, but I know you got this. Go do it. I feel that from you. And I, yeah, I a hundred percent believe that you do every bit of it. I believe that, that God gives us talents and gifts and abilities and then watches who would do it. And if we do good, he increases our capacity to do more.

If we do good, he increases our capacity. If you do good, if you use what God gives you, then you get more. And so you think that that is your duty to do that. And if you don't do more, if you don't pick yourself up after rippling you have let down god do you believe that is that it or that you haven't lived you express it yeah i don't think i feel like i let down god but i definitely feel like um i haven't lived up my potential pretend you know but also i feel like a lot of stuff like as i was putting together document all the pages like um it's interesting because like each one of them looking in hindsight like each built upon to the next thing in the next and there's twice we tried to build click funnels and each one like was the next level and each one's a stepping stone like rippling if i wouldn't have done rippling like that was my very first like viral video we ever

created i learned how to pitch things i'm like when we did the click funnels initial sales video like like because i had done this one like i knew how to do this one right yeah so for me it's less of like i let down god as much as like um it's just like the the piece it's like what are you going to do with this are you going to do something with it and then it doesn't mean it's gonna be successful but it means it's like if you do well with this then we're gonna increase your capacity for the next step and the next thing but we definitely and especially in time at the office we talk about a lot like we definitely feel what we do is a spiritual mission. Like it's you do a hundred percent.

Yeah. I don't, I don't think that it's just like, we're lucky. I think the way that the people have come, the partnerships, like how it was created is super inspired. Hey, funnel hackers, let's be real. How many of you have forgotten about subscriptions and you keep paying for these things month after month after month. That was my wife and I, before rocket Money came along. Literally a couple months ago,

we downloaded this app and within minutes we found out a whole bunch of subscriptions. In fact, we had multiple Hulu payments, multiple Disney payments from accounts that my wife had set up and I had set up and we weren't even using one of them. It was crazy. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you to find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money showed us where all of our subscriptions were in one place. In fact, it was crazy how many recurring payments we had that we had completely forgotten about. With just a couple of clicks, Rocket Money canceled the ones we didn't need. And the best part is they even monitor unusual spending activity and they alert us if our bills increase.

So I'm always in the loop. Rocket Money has over 5 million users, including my wife and I, and has saved a total of over $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 per year when using all of the app's premium features. In fact, my wife and I, we literally saved over a thousand dollars a month when we started using Rocket App. Now their dashboard is amazing and you get a clear view of all your expenses across every account you have. You can even create a personalized budget with custom categories and track your monthly spending trends to stay on top of your goals. You want to save for that dream vacation or pay off some debt?

Their new goals feature automatically saves money for you so you don't even have to think about it. So cancel all your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com slash Russell today. That's rocketmoney.com slash R-U-S-S-E-L-L. That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell today. That's rocketmoney.com slash R-U-S-S-E-L-L. That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell. Hey, funnel hackers, let me paint you a picture. You're running a business, your funnel's finally converting like crazy, and suddenly it hits you.

You need to hire someone like yesterday. Maybe it's a copywriter to help you crank out more sales pages or a designer to refresh your landing pages or someone to do customer support to help you to handle your growing audience. The problem is you're swamped and you don't have weeks to shift through resumes. So what do you do? You turn to Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all that you need. They make it fast, simple, and super effective. Stop struggling to get your job seen on those other job sites that bury your listing. With Indeed sponsored jobs, your post jumps straight to the top of the page so that the right candidates see it first. It's just like pulling your job out on a billboard for the exact person you need to hire. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed

get 45% more application than non-sponsored jobs. Now here's the best part. With Indeed, there's no monthly subscription, no long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And let me tell you how fast this platform is. Literally in the time that we've been talking right now, 23 people have been hired on Indeed worldwide. Imagine finding your dream hire while your competitors are still waiting through job boards and job boards that don't deliver. So here's what you need to do right now. Go to indeed.com slash clicks right now and get a $75 sponsored job credit board to boost your post visibility. That's Indeed.com slash clicks. Support the show, save time, and find your next hire faster.

Remember, when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all that you need. You know what? A lot of us are selling things that are software, PDF, guide, this, that. It's really hard to find the bigger mission in it. You're finding the bigger mission in funnels. What is that bigger mission? What, how really, how do you connect with it? Because you're right. If you can find that bigger meaning, then the work becomes more meaningful and the people you're working with become like,

it's, it's more exciting to work with and more meaningful to do it. How'd you find it in funnels? What is the meaning? So for us, um, and I'm thinking about some of my members in the inner circle, but, um, so right now, as of, I think today we had 68,000 members in click funnels, which is like the big number we all brag about. But for me, it's like, that's 68,000 entrepreneurs. Each one has a gift. Right. And so I think about one, like one member, I'll, I'll mention his name's Chris work. He runs crispy's cancer, crispy cancer.com. And Chris was someone who came down with cancer and given the death sentence. And instead of going through chemotherapy, he decided, I'm going to see if I can heal myself. And he did. He cleared himself of cancer. And then instead of just like, cool, and then go back into

work, he was like, man, I need to help other people. And so he started a blog, started doing some things. And now he's got this thing where he's helped thousands and thousands of people naturally cure themselves of cancer. And that's one of our 68,000 people right see you're focusing on him where i think a lot of us would focus on here's one person who's just a smarmy marketer and here's who's creating right but you don't that's not who you are look i see you in your eyes you're shaking your head that's not it at all it's not even because for me it's like i get that because i understand i get all the time people like oh he's this guy slimy marketer like the first time people meet me all the time first time they introduce that's a lot of times the first impression.

And they get closer and they feel the heart. And it's just like, oh my gosh, this is, I had you wrong. I get that all the time. Brian, sorry, Ryan and Brad are either of them here? Ryan and Brad. Would one of you come up here? Yeah, come on up.

Because they felt that way, right? I don't know about them. Oh, I know. I don't know what you're thinking about. I think it's Theron. It's Theron, right? I don't know about them. Oh, I know. I don't think about... I think it's Theron. Oh, I guess it was Theron. Oh, is it the other? No, no, stay up here.

Stay up here as long as you're here. Theron, come on up. If it wasn't me, I'm going to sit back and see. You're nervous? How is there another Ryan and Brad? It's a different story. It's a different story. Do you want to come up?

Theron had no idea we were bringing him on stage. Come on over here. Let's stand in the center so we can get you on camera. Does this help? Do you want me to introduce Theron real quick? Yeah, please. So Theron is one of the Harmon brothers. They're the ones who did the viral video for us.

I have no idea where you want this. I heard that you felt that he was a scam. What was the situation and how did you honestly feel? I don't know that I, well. Be honest, it's okay. Oh, I know, I know. I don't think that I felt that ClickFunnels itself was a scam. She's rustling.

But that it, it just felt like that so many of the ways that the funnels were built and the types of language they were using, it was just not, it felt like it was that side of the internet, right? And so I became very, well, basically, we were kind of in a desperate situation where we had a video that had not performed and not worked out the way we wanted it to work out. The video that you created for Russell? No, for another client. Another client, okay.

And so our CEO had used ClickFunnels' product to help drive, I think it was attendance to a big video event. And so he had some familiarity with the product. And so he goes to Russell, and at the same time, Russell's like, I'm a big fan of you guys, and he's coming to us, and these things are happening. Yeah, it was almost the same day. And so we're thinking like this, and we're like, well, they seem to really know how to drive traffic, to really know how to drive conversion. And we feel like we know how to drive traffic, to really know how to drive conversion.

And we feel like we know how to drive conversion as well. But for some reason, we missed it on this one. And so we're like, well, let's do a deal. When you say missed it, what do you, okay. We were failing our client. We weren't getting them an ROI. And so we said, let's do a deal with Russell and we'll have our internal team compete with his team. And we're humble enough to say, hey, we're failing our client. We want our client to succeed. Let's bring in their team and see if they can make a funnel that can bring down the cost per acquisition, bring up the return on investment for our client. And they were able to do it, right? And then we said, well, what we'll do is we'll write a script.

We'll take you through our script writing process, but we don't want to do the video because we don't want to be affiliated with the brand. The contract said you can't tell anyone ever that the Harmon Brothers wrote the script for you. Wow. Because you didn't want to be associated with something that you thought was a little too scammy for it. Yeah, we just didn't want our brand kind of brought down to their brand, which is super arrogant and really wrongheaded. And in any case, so we go into this script writing retreat,

and I wasn't following his podcast. I wasn't listening to enough. I mean, Red.com Secrets, those kinds of things were like, wow, there's some really valuable stuff here. This is really interesting. And then as we got to know each other and really started to connect, like you said, heart to heart, and to feel what he's really about and the types of team, the people that he surrounds himself with, I was like, wow, these are really, really good people.

And they have a mission here that they feel. And just like we feel that about our own group. And in any case, by the end of that two-day retreat, we're like all off in private saying, well, first of all, we like what we've written. Second of all, we'd really like to work with these guys. And I think we're plenty happy being connected to them and associated with them. And so it's been a ride and a blessing ever since. So what? Anyway, we love them. All right.

Give them a big round of applause. Thanks. This was pivotal for you guys. Lead Pages. This is an article guys. Lead Pages. There's an article about how Lead Pages raised $5 million. You saw that and you thought? Well, what happened was Todd. So Todd's the co-founder of ClickFunnels.

And he was working with us at the time. He would fly to Boise about once a quarter and we'd work on the next project, a new idea. And that morning he woke up and he saw that. And then he forwarded me the article. And he's Atlantis, so it's it's east coast i'm still in bed and then he's got a four-hour flight to boise and he's just like getting angry because todd is todd's like a genius like he he literally he when he landed in boise and he saw me he's like we can build lead pages tonight i will clone it i will beat it we can launch this this week while we're here like he's he's that good of a developer like he like i've never seen someone code as fast and as good as him. He's, he's amazing. Right. And so he comes in, he's mad

because he's like, this is the stupidest site in the world. I, we literally clone this. Let's just do it. And I'm like, yes, let's clone it. And we're all excited. And then he's like, do you want me to add any other features while I'm doing it? I'm like, oh yes. Um, we should do this and we should do this. And then the scope creep from the marketer comes and we end up spending an entire week in front of a whiteboard mapping out all my dreams. Like if we could do this and this, and what if I had a shopping cart? And what if we could do upsells? And what if we could actually move things on the page instead of just having it sit there? And what if, and Todd's just taking notes and everything. And then he's like, Hey, I think I can do this. And he told me,

he's like, though, but if I do this, I don't, I don't want to do this as like as an employee. I want to do this as a partner. And, um, I first, I was like, ah, like, cause I've never wanted to do the partnership thing. And then, um, the best decision I've ever made in my life outside of marrying my wife was saying yes to Todd. I said, let's do it. And then he flew home and built ClickFunnels. Wow. And this is after trying software so much, I have screenshots of all the different, it's not even worth going into it, of all the different products you created. There was one about, it was Digital Repo. Digital Repo, man.

Digital Repo, man. So I used to sell e-books and stuff and people would steal it and then email it to their friends. Can I read this? How to protect every type of low life and other form of human scum from cheating you from the profits you should be making by hijacking, stealing,

and illegally prostituting dot, dot, dot your online digital products. Theron, why did you think we were, uh, just kidding. Um, so no, it was a really cool product that would like you take an ebook and it would like protect it. And then if somebody like gave it to their friend, you could push a button. It would like take back access. It was my, it was like the coolest thing in the world, we thought. And there was software that was going to attach your ad to any other software that was out there. There was software that was going to, what are some of the other ones? It's going to hit me later on. But we're talking about a dozen different pieces of software, a dozen different attempts at software. What's the one? I thought

somebody remembered one of them. The kinds of stuff you'd never think of. There was one that was kind of like ClickFunnels, an early version of ClickFunnels for landing pages. Why did you want to get into software when you were teaching, creating membership sites? What was software, what was it that was drawing you in? I think, honestly, when I first learned this internet marketing game, the first mentor I had, the first person I saw was a guy named Armin Morin. And Armin had all these little software products, like e-cover generator,cover generator sales letter generator everything generator and so that's what I kept seeing I was like I need to create dude I need to create software because he made software in fact I even shifted my major from I can't remember what it was before to computer information systems I was like I don't know how

to code because I couldn't afford programmers and then um and that's kind of just what I'd seen and so I and then I was trying to think of ideas for software and every time I would get stuck stuck, instead of trying to like find something to do, I was like, let me just buy, let me hire a guy to go build that. And then I consult somebody else as well. And that's kind of how it started. And it was a lot of different tools, a lot of different attempts. And then this one was the one that you went with. I think this is an early version of the homepage, basically saying coming soon, sign up. The first one didn't work out. And then you saw someone else on a forum who had a four who had a version that was better. What was his name? This is, I think. Yes. Okay. So. Hey, funnel hackers. I want to talk about building your business.

You've got the idea, the passion, the drive, but here's the thing. Setting up the legal stuff can feel like a total roadblock. That's why you need Northwest registered agent. They're like the dream team for business formation, which is 10 clicks and 10 minutes. You can build your entire business identity. I'm talking about formation paperwork, a real business address, premium mail forwarding, and even a local phone number. So you can keep your home address private and stay safe. And it doesn't stop there. Northwest is your one-stop shop for business owners. They've been doing this for nearly 30 years, and they've got the expertise to back it up. From trademark registration to custom domains, Northwest does it all, and they do it right. You get more when you start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. Don't wait. Protect

your privacy, build your brand, and set up your business in just 10 clicks in 10 minutes. Head to Northwest Registered Agent today and start building something amazing. All right, funnel hackers, listen up. It's 2025. And let me ask you, are your B2B ads actually driving results or are they getting lost in the noise? You and I both know the pain of running campaigns that fall flat because they aren't seen by the right people. But here's the game changer, LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn isn't just another ad platform. It's the place where professionals live. I'm talking about the decision makers you dream about working with. CEOs, VPs, C-suite powerhouses, 130 million of them all in one place. And LinkedIn gives you the laser sharp targeting to reach them by job title, company, and even industry.

Imagine how your business could scale if your message hits the right inboxes every time. Now here's the kicker. LinkedIn delivers up to five times higher ROAS than other platforms. Yeah, you heard me right. Five times more return on every ad dollar. And that's because LinkedIn's professional environment is made for people who actually take action. This isn't where people scroll mindlessly. This is where they're making decisions. So stop playing small because it's time to level up. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. And to get started, LinkedIn is offering you a hundred dollar credit for your next campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash clicks

to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash clicks. Terms and conditions may apply. LinkedIn is the place to be, to be. Yeah. So the story was, so we, we taught about the first version of ClickFunnels and, um, and Dylan, who became one of our co-founders, um, I'd been working with Dylan as a designer for about six years prior and he is hands. And we talked about this earlier. He's the best designer I've ever seen in my life. And he is amazing. Um, he would, he would, but he's also, this is the pros and cons of Dylan. Like he, um, I've, I've talked to us on stage if I'm not going to laugh. So I have no problem saying this and he would, he would agree, but I'd give him a project and I couldn't hear, he wouldn't respond back to me. I wouldn't hear from him for two or three months. And then one day in the

middle of the night, he messaged me. He's like, he's like, Hey, uh, uh, rent's due tomorrow. You have any projects for me? And I'd be so mad at him. And I look back at every project we've done the last three or four months that other designers had done. And I would just like resend them all the lists, like boom, give them 12 sites. And I go to bed, I wake up five or six hours later and all of them were done perfectly amazing. Like some of the best designs ever. And then he sent me a bill for whatever. And I sent him money and he disappeared again for like five months and I could never get ahold of it. And then like, I need you to tweak something. He was just gone. And that was like my pattern for six years with him. Um, and then fast forward to when Todd and I were building click funnels, um, we were at traffic conversion and

we're up in the hotel room at like three in the morning trying to, we were on dribble.com trying to find a UI designer to help us. And we couldn't get ahold of all these people. And all of a sudden on Skype, Dylan popped in. I saw this thing pop up. I was like, Todd, Dylan just showed up. He's like, do you need some money? I'm like, I guarantee he needs money. So I'm like, hey man. And Dylan messaged back. He's like, hey, I'm like, do you need some money? He's like, yeah, you got any projects? I'm like, yes, I do. I'm like, we built this cool thing. It's called ClickFunnels, but the UI is horrible and the editor is horrible. And there's any way we can hire you for a week to fly to Boise and just do all the UI for every single page of the app. And he kind of said no at first because I'm developing my own website builder.

I'm going to spend like six years on it, so I can't do it. What was this? He had something that was essentially ClickFunnels, right? Yeah. It was just pages, though. So we'd just do something that was essentially click funnels right yeah it was just pages though so we just do pages there's no right closer to lead pages but it made me can move things around but he didn't tell me that he said i'm working on something so eventually we got him to come he flew to boys he spent a week did all of our ui and then we went we launched our beta to my list so we launched the beta we got some signups and then like a week before um the the launch launch was supposed to, all the affiliates were lined up.

Everything was supposed to happen. He sends me the, I don't know if he sent you the video, but he sends me this little video that's like a 30-second video of him demoing his editor he built. And I probably watched that video at least 100 times. And I was just sick to my stomach because I was like, I hate ClickFunnels right now. I can't move things on my pages. I can't do anything. And I sent it to Todd. And then I hear from him for like an hour. He messaged me back. He's like, I'm pissed. I'm like, I hate ClickFunnels right now. I can't move things on my pages. I can't do anything. And I sent it to Todd. And then I hear from him for like an hour.

He messaged me back. He's like, I'm pissed. I'm like, me too. And they're like, what do we do? And I was like, we have to have this editor. I don't even want to sell this thing. And I called Dylan. I'm like, would you be willing to sell?

And he's like, no, I'm selling it. And we're going to sell it for $100. And it was like $100 one time for this editor that designed all the websites. And I was like, dude, it is worth so much more than than that please and um we spent all night going back and forth negotiating and um finally it came down to like um i will give you this editor if we can if i can be a co-founder and be a partner and uh todd and i sat there and brainstormed and figured out if we could do it finally said yes and then him and dylan and todd flew back to boise and for the next week just sat in a room with a whole bunch of caffeine and figured out how to smush Dylan's editor into ClickFunnels to get the editor to be the editor that you guys know today.

Hey, everybody. This is Russell again. And really quick, I just opened up a texting community, which means you can text me your questions. And right now I'm spending anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes every single day answering questions through text message to people who are on the podcast. And so I wanted you to stop everything you're doing, pull your phone out and actually text me a message. Okay. Now the phone number you need to text is 208-231-3797. Once again, it's 208-231-3797. When you text me, just say hello. And then what's going to happen is they'll add you to my phone and then they'll send you back a message where you can add me to your phone. And then we

start having conversations. Uh, on top of that, through this texting community is where I'm going to be giving out free swag, giving away a free copies of my book. I'll let you know about book signings, about times I'm coming to your local area and a whole bunch more. So I want to make sure you are on this list. On top of that, every single day, I'm sending out my favorite quotes, my favorite frameworks and things you can get for free only through my texting platform. So what you need to do right now is pull out your phone and text me at area code 208-231-3797.

One more time, that's 208-231-3797. I can't wait to hear from you right now.