The Russell Brunson Show - ClickFunnels Startup Story - Part 3 of 4 (Revisited!)

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Enjoy part three 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--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed episodes 1 and 2 of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club where he was telling the Clickfunnels startup story. I hope you are enjoying this interview series so far, and I hope also this motivates you guys to go over to the mixergy podcast and subscribe to everything that Andrew does. Like I said, he is my favorite interviewer and I think that what he does is second to none. So I hope that you guys enjoy him as well, and go subscribe to the mixergy podcast. But with that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song, and when we come back we will start into part 3 of the Clickfunnels startup story interview. Andrew: I actually got, I did see, I don’t know, I didn’t see the video you mentioned, but I did see what it looked like. Here’s one of the first versions. He compared it to Clickfunnels, he said, I mean to Lead Pages. He said, “Look at how Lead Pages has their stuff all the way on the left, all the controls.” Oh you can’t see it. Oh, let me try it again, let me see if I can bring up the screen because this is just, it’s just too good. Hang on a second. I’m just constantly amazed how you’re able to draw people to you. So this is the article from Lead Pages, this is the first landing page from Clickfunnels, this is what he created before, this is what you guys did together. This is your editor and h e said, “Look, if you’re on Lead Pages, their controls, their editor is all the way on the left and it’s just moving the main content to the right, which is not looking right. And I prefer something that looks like this, with a hundred pixels on the left, a hundred pixels…” I go, who knows a hundred pixels, it’s like you, what is this? Russell: Dylan is obsessed with that type of stuff, it’s amazing. Andrew: Obsessed. And you draw people like that. You draw people like Dave, who is just phenomenal. Dave, the traffic and conversion event that he was just talking about, is that the one that you went to? Dave: The one after that. Andrew: The one after that. Okay, we’ll come back to that in a second then. So this became your next version, you brought on a new partner, and then you did a webinar with this guy. Who is this guy? Russell: It’s Mike Filsaime, one of my first friends online. It actually wasn’t a webinar, it was a live event. He was doing a live event in San Diego and he was like, “You have to come and sell Clickfunnels.” And I was like, “Nobody’s buying Clickfunnels.” We had a free trial and like, we couldn’t give it away. It was crazy. And he’s like, “Well, you’re on this website, you’re picture is there, you have to come and sell Clickfunnels, and I need you to sell it for at least $1000.” Because the way it works, if you speak at someone’s event, you sell something, you split the money 50/50. So he’s like, “It needs to be at least $1000.” And I was all bummed out. I didn’t want to do it. And the event actually started, but they were streaming it live online, so I was actually sitting at our office in Boise, watching it as I’m putting together my slides to create Clickfunnels, and then flew out to the event. And then we had a booth, and I don’t know if I told you this, we had a booth and Lead Pages had a booth right across the little hallway, skinny hallway. And Todd’s wife was manning our booth and then Lead Pages was right there, and it was so funny because she was not shy at all about talking about Lead Pages. She’s like, “Yeah, we’re like Lead Pages except for way better. We can do this and this.” And the other guy is sitting there like, right in front of her as she’s telling them everything. And it was..anyway, I digress. It was pretty funny. Andrew: By the way, she’s still at it. I saw a video that you guys created, you were talking to her and she goes, “I will be Clickfunnels.” I go wait a minute, you still had that fire, okay. So you were at that event. Russell: So we’re at the event and there’s probably, I can’t remember, 150-200 people maybe in the room. So I got the slides up and Dylan was there and he was like, when we got to the funnels he was going to demo the editor, so I did the whole thing, showed the presentation and we demo’d Clickfunnels and at the end of the thing I sold. And I’ve been good onstage, but by far, that was the first time in probably 8 years that I’d seen a table rush, where people are stepping over the things, jumping around, trying to get to the back to buy as fast as they could. Andrew: What did you say to get them to want to do that? Russell: We made a really, I mean we gave the presentation, and gave a really good offer at the end. They get a year of Clickfunnels for free, plus they get training, plus they were going to get all these other things for $1000. Andrew: It was $1000 training and a year of Clickfunnels for free, and then they become long term members. And it was also called, Funnel Hackers? Russell: Funnel Hacks, yeah. Andrew: Funnel Hacks. And that’s the thing that became like… Russell: The culture. Andrew: This culture, this tribe. It wasn’t just they were signing to learn from you, they were becoming funnel hackers. That’s it. Russell: I mean, that wasn’t planned though. It was like, I was trying to think about a sexy name for the presentation, so I’m like ah, Funnel Hacks. And somebody owned FunnelHacks.com, and I’m like, I’m still doing the presentation that way. And then later we made t-shirts that said, “Funnel Hackers” and then now we got 4 or 5 people have tattooed that to their bodies, it’s really weird. But anyway, that’s what happened. We did that and we sold it and I remember going to dinner that night with the guys who were there, and Todd and his wife and everything. And we were all excited because we made some money finally. But I was just like, “You guys don’t understand, like I’ve spoken on a lot of stages, and I haven’t seen a table rush like that.” And I remember back, there was a guy, he passed away a couple of years ago, his name was Fred Catona. And he was a radio guy. He was the guy who did the radio commercials for, do you guys remember, it’s got the guy from Star Trek, what’s his name? Audience member: Priceline. Russell: Priceline. He did the Priceline radio commercials and made that guy a billionaire. And he told me when we were doing the radio ads, “This is what’s going to happen. We’re going to test your ad and if it works, I’m going to call you on the phone and let you know you’re rich. Because if it works, it means you’re going to be rich.” So I remember going to dinner that night and I told the guys, “Just so you guys know, we’re rich.” And they’re like, “What do you mean? We made $150,000.” I’m like, “No, no, no. The way people responded to that, I’ve never seen that in my life. We’re rich.” The response rate from that, I’ve never seen. Andrew: And then you went to webinar after webinar after webinar. Russell: On the flight home that day I’m texting everybody I’ve ever met. “I got a hot offer, this webinar crushed it. We just closed whatever percent of the room at Filsaime’s event. Who wants to do it?” And we started filling up the calendar. Andrew: And the idea was, and you told me you did 2 to 3 some days. And the idea was, they would sell somebody on a course, and then their members would then hear how your software and your funnel hacking technique would help up what they just bought and then they would sign up. You’re still excited, I can see it in your face. And then this thing took off. And then you started doing an event for your culture, your community, and this guy spoke, Tony Robbins. Russell: Oh yeah, there’s Tony. Andrew: One of the first ones. Was he at the very first one? Russell: No, he came to the third one, was the first one we had him come to. Andrew: Yeah? Why do an event? Why do your own live event? Russell: So we’ve done events in the past. I know events are good, but I’d sworn off them because the last event we did, I think we sold 3 or 400 tickets and less than 100 people showed up and I was so embarrassed. I was like, “We’ll never do events again.” And as soon as this, as soon as Clickfunnels launched and it was growing, everyone’s like, “We want to do a meet up. We should do an event.” All the customers kept asking. And against my, I didn’t really want to do it, but at the same time I was launching my book, and I had won a Ferrari in this affiliate contest so I was like, “What if we did an event and we had the Ferrari there and we gave it away and then we’re…” we had other ideas for giving away other cars and it became this big, exciting thing that eventually turned into an event. And that was the first Funnel Hacking Live event in Vegas, and we had about 600 people at that one that showed up. And that’s where it all kind of, it all started. Andrew: And it built how much, how many people are you up to now? Russell: Last year we had 3500 people and we’re on track to have about 5000 at this year’s event. Andrew: 5000? Yeah. Russell: Those aren’t free tickets. Each ticket’s $1000, so it’s…. Andrew: So how much is that in total revenue? Russell: From the event? Andrew: Yeah. Russell: So ticket sales, last year was $3 ½ million, this year will be over $5. But at the event we sell coaching so last year we made $13 million in coaching sales at the event as well. Andrew: Wow, would you come up here for a second, Dave? Do you guys know Dave? Yeah, everyone knows Dave. You know what’s amazing… {Audience catcalls} Andrew: That’s amazing. Dave: I don’t know who that is. Andrew: A catcall. I saw a video, you guys have this vlog now, a beautifully show vlog. You guys went to sales force’s conference, you’re looking at the booths and in the video, do you remember what you did as you saw the different booths? Dave: I think that one I went and asked what the prices for each of the booths were. Andrew: Yes, and then you multiplied. And he’s like, you’re not enjoying the event, you’re calculating ahead, how much. “10,000 that’s 100,000….” It’s like wow, right. You do this all the time? Dave: Yeah. It’s a lot of money in an event like that. Andrew: And you think, and if this was not your event, you would be doing the same calculation trying to figure out how much they brought in today. Wowee. Alright when you went to sales force did you calculate how much money they probably did from their event? Dave: We were doing that the whole time, absolutely. Andrew: You saw the building, you had to know… Dave: Oh my gosh. 61 stories. Andrew: Why? Why do you guys want to know that? Why does, how does that… I want to understand your drive as a company and I feel like this is a part of it. Figuring out how much money other people are making, using that for fuel somehow. Tell me. Dave: I think it actually goes back to Russell and his wrestling days. We had the experience of going to Chicago right after that, and super just exhausted. And it was one of those things where he literally landed, we walked down and we’re underneath the tarmac and all the sudden Russell goes from just being totally exhausted to a massive state change. Where he’s literally right back where he was with his dad and he and his dad are walking that same path to go to, I think it was Nationals. And I saw Dan Usher, who was doing the filming, capturing that moment and it’s that type of a thing for Russell. Where all the sudden it’s the dream, where as soon as you see it, it can then happen. And Russell’s just been amazing at modeling, and again the whole idea as far as just going at a rapid, rapid speed. I mean it’s “Ready, fire, aim.” Andrew: It’s not you gawking at the sales force, what’s the sales force event called? Dave: Dream Force. Andrew: Dream force. It’s not you gawking at how well Sales Force’s event, Dream Force is doing, it’s not you having envy or just curiosity, it’s you saying, it’s possible. This is us. That’s it. Dave: It’s totally possible. Andrew: It’s totally possible. We could get there. And when you’re sizing up the building, you even found out how much the building cost. Who does that? Most people go, “Where’s the bathroom?” How much does the building cost? Dave: There’s a number. Andrew: It’s you saying, “We could maybe have that.” Dave: We can have that, yeah. Andrew: Got it. And so let’s go back a little bit. I asked you about Traffic and Conversion because the very first Traffic and Conversion conference you went to, you guys were nobodies. Nobody came and saw you. Dave: We were put out in North 40 pasture, way, way far away. Andrew: And some people would say, “One day I’ll get there.” you told Russell, “Today we’re going to get there.” Dave: Well Russell wanted, he was speaking and so whenever you’re speaking at an event, it’s important that you fill a room, like this. And there’s nothing worse than having an event and having no one show up. It’s just the worst feeling in the world. And so he’s like, “All we need, I gotta find some way of getting people into the event. I wish we had like some girls who could just hand out t-shirts or do something.” And I was like, we’re in San Diego, that’s like my home town. Russell: Dave’s like, “How many do you need?” That’s all he said. Dave: It’s just a number. It comes down to a number. How many do you want? So we ended up having, within an hour or so we had 5 girls there who were more than happy to dance around and give out t-shirts and fill the room. Andrew: and the room was full? Dave: Packed. Andrew: Packed. And why wouldn’t you say, “One day, the next time we come to Traffic and Conversion, the tenth time we’re going to do it.” Why did it have to be right there? Dave: It’s always now.   Andrew: It’s always now. Dave: It’s always now. Andrew: It’s always now. It’s never going to be the next funnel, it’s never going to be the next product launch. I’m going to do whatever we can right now, and the next one, and the next one. That’s it. That’s who you are. Dave: That’s how it works. Andrew: And now you’re a partner in the business. $83 million so far this year, you got a piece of that. Dave: Yes. Do i? Russell: Yeah. Dave: Just checking. Andrew: Do you get to take profits home now? Dave: We do. Andrew: You do, you personally do? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Are you a millionaire? Dave: Things are really good. Andrew: Millionaire good from Clickfunnels? Dave: yes. Andrew: Really? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Wow. And you’re another one. I was driving and I said, “What was it about Russell that made you work for him? What was it?” and you said, “I’ve never seen anyone implement like him.” Give me an example of early days, something that he implemented…you know what, forget that, let’s not go back to Russell. As a team, you guys have gotten really good at implementing. Give me an example of one thing that you’re just stunned by, we did it, it came out of nowhere, we could have been distracted by funnel software, we could have distracted by the next book, we did this thing, what is it? Dave: You’re here on this stage with JP, and this was what 6 weeks ago? Andrew: and this whole thing just came from an idea I heard. You use Voxer. Why do you use Voxer? Russell: I don’t know. Andrew: Because you like to talk into it. Russell: Yeah, and you can fast forward, you can listen at 4x speed, you can forward the messages to people really easily, it’s awesome. Andrew: and it’s just train of thought, boom, here’s what I think we’re going to…No, it’s not that. I heard it’s, “I have a secret project…” Russell: “I’ll tell you guys about it later.” And they all start freaking out. “Tell us now.” Andrew: “Secret project. I don’t know what it, it’s going to be exciting.” They don’t know what it is, going to be excited. Russell: Do you know how it started, this one? I was cleaning my wrestling room listening to you, and you were, I don’t know whose event it was, but you were at the campfire, it sounded like. And you were doing something like this and I was like, I want my own campfire chat to tell our story. And then I was like, “Dave, we should do it.” And now we’re here. So thanks for coming to our campfire…. Dave: That’s how it happens. Andrew: And that’s exciting to this day. Alright, thank you. Give him a big round, thank you so much. You know what, I didn’t mean for this to come onstage, but I’m glad that it is. This made you laugh when you accidentally saw it earlier too. Why is this making you laugh? What is it? Russell: So we’re not shy about our competitors, even when they’re our friends. So one of the companies we’re crossing out is his. That’s why it’s funny. Andrew: It’s one of my companies. That’s Bot Academy there. It’s also a company I invest in, that octopus is ManyChat, I’ve been a very big angel investor and supporter of theirs. I’m not at all insulted by that, I’m curious about it. You guys come across as such nice, happy-go-lucky guys. Dave asked me if I want water, I said “Dave I can’t have you give me any more things. I feel uncomfortable, I’m a New Yorker. Punch me, please.” So he goes, “Okay, one more thing. I’m going to give you socks.” So he gave me socks. Really, but still, you have murder in your eyes sometimes. You’re crossing out everybody. This is part of your culture, why? Russell: It comes back, for me its wrestling. When I was wrestling it was not, I don’t know, there’s different mentalities right. And I did a podcast on this one time and I think I offended some people, so I apologize in advance, but if you’re in a band and everyone gets together and you play together and you harmonize, it’s beautiful. When you’re a wrestler you don’t do that. You know, you walk in everyday and you’re like, those are the two guys I have to beat to be varsity. And then after you do that, you walk in and you’re like, “Okay who are the people I have to beat to be in the region champ, and then the state champ, and then the national champ?” So for me, my entire 15 years of my life, all my focus was like, who’s the next person on the rung that I have to beat? And it’s studying and learning about them and figuring their moves and figuring out what they’re good at, what they’re bad at so we can beat them. Then we beat them and go to the next thing, and next thing, and next thing. So it was never negative for me, it was competition. Half the guys were my friends and they were doing the same thing to me, we were doing the same thing to them. I come from a hyper competitive world where that’s everything we do. And I feel bad now, because in business, a lot of people we compete against aren’t competitive and I forget that sometimes, and some people don’t appreciate it. But that’s the drive. It’s just like, who do we, if I don’t have someone to, if there’s not someone we’re driving towards, there’s not a point for me. Andrew: And even if they’re, even if I was hurt, “I accept it, I’m sorry you’re hurt, Andrew. I still care and love you. We’re going to crush you.” That’s still there. Russell: And I had someone, so obviously InfusionSoft was one of our people we were targeting for a long, long time and I had a call with Clayton and someone on his team asked me, “Why do you hate Infusion Soft so much?” I was like, “I don’t, you don’t understand. I don’t hate, I love Infusion Soft. I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for Lead Pages, I’m grateful for….” I told them, have you guys seen the Dark Knight, my favorite movie of all time? And it’s the part where Batman and the Joker are there and Batman is like, asks the Joker, “Why are you trying to kill me?” And the Joker starts laughing and he’s like, “I’m not trying to kill you. The reason I do this is because of you. If I didn’t have you, there’s no purpose behind it.” So for me it’s like, if I don’t have someone to compete against, why are we playing the game? So for me, that’s why we’re always looking… Andrew: It’s not enough to say, it’s not enough to just say “we’re playing the game because we want to help the next entrepreneur, or the next person who’s sick and needs to create…” no, it’s not. Russell: That’s a big part of it, but like, there’s something… Andrew: Yeah, but it’s not enough, it’s gotta be both. Russell: My whole life there’s, the competition is what drives me for sure. Andrew: And just like you’re wrestling with someone, trying to beat them, but you don’t hate them. You’re not going to their house and break it down… Russell: Everyone we wrestled, we were friends afterwards. We were on the same Freestyle and Greco teams later in the season, but during, when we’re competing, we’re competing and everyone’s going all at it. Andrew: Everyone’s going all at it. That’s an interesting way to end it. How much more time do we have? How much more time do we have? I’m going to keep going. Can I get you to come up here John, because I gotta get you to explain something to me? So I told you, I was online the other day, yeah give him a big round. I was online the other day, I don’t even know what I clicked, I clicked something and then I saw that Russell’s a great webinar person, everyone keeps telling me. Well, alright, I gotta find out how he does it. So I click over, “Alright, just give your email address and you can find out how..” Alright, I’ll give my email address to find out how he became such a great webinar presenter. “Just give a credit card. It’s only $4.95, so it comes in the mail.” It comes in the mail, that’s pretty cool. Nothing comes in the mail anymore. Here’s my credit card. It goes, “Alright, it’s going to mail it out. Would you also like to learn how to use these slides? $400.” I go, no! I’m done. Russell: Welcome to the funnel. Andrew: Welcome to the funnel. I’m done. But I’m going to put in Evernote a link to this page so I don’t lose it so I can come back. I swear. I did it. And this is my receipt for $4.95. Don’t you ever feel like, we’re beyond this? We’re in the software space now, we’re competing with Dropbox, we’re not competing with Joe Schmoe and his ebook. And you’re the guy who sold the, who bought the ad that got me. John: I know. Andrew: I asked you that. Do you ever feel a little embarrassed, “We’re still in the info market space.”? John: No, I think it’s the essence of what we do, of what Russell does. We love education. We love teaching people. I mean, the software is like the backend, but we’re not software people. I mean, we sell software, but we teach people. All these people here and all the people at all of our events, they just want to learn how to do it better. Andrew: I don’t believe it. John: Okay. Andrew: I believe in him. I don’t believe in you. I believe that for you it’s the numbers. Here’s why I don’t believe it. I’m looking in your eyes and you’re like, “I’m giving the script. I’m good, I’m doing the script.” I see it in your eyes, but when I was talking to you earlier, no offense. This is why he does what he does. When I was talking to you earlier, you told me about the numbers, the conversion, how we get you in the sales funnel, how we actually can then modify…That’s the exciting part. Don’t be insulted by the fact that I said it. Know that we have marketers here, they’re going to love you for being open about it. What’s going on here? What’s going on, keeping you in this space? John: Okay, from my perspective. Okay so, initially it was self liquidation on the front, which is what I was telling you. It was the fact that we were bootstrapped, we didn’t have money to just like throw out there. We had to make sure we were earning enough money to cover our ads. And Russell had all the trust in the world in me, I don’t know why he did, but he did. And he’s just like, “Spend money, and try to make it self-liquidate.” I’m like, “Okay.” So we just had to spend money and hope that we got enough back to keep spending money. Andrew: And self-liquidate means buy an ad today and make sure that we make money from that ad right away and then software. John: Yeah. Andrew: And then you told, and then software’s going to pay overtime, that’s our legacy, that’s our thing. And you told me software sucks for selling. Why? John: Software sucks, yeah. Andrew: Why? Everyone who’s in info, everyone’s who in education says, “I wish I was a software guy. Software is eating the world, they’re getting all the risk back.” I walked through San Francisco; they think anyone who doesn’t have software in their veins is a sucker. John: I asked the same thing to myself, you know. I was running ads, I’m like why can’t I just run ads straight to the offer? Why do I have go to these info products? I want to get on the soft…. And then I was like, I feel like it’s kind of like marriage. Like it’s a big thing to say like, “You probably already built websites, but come over, drop everything you’re doing and come over here and build websites over here on our thing.” And it’s like, that’s a hard pull. But “Hey, you want to build webinars? Here’s a little thing for $5 to build webinars.” Now you’re in our world, now we can talk to you, now you can trust us, now we can get you over there. Andrew: Got it. Okay, and if that’s what it takes to get people in your world, you’re going to accept it, you’re not going to feel too good for that, you’re just going to do it and grow it and grow it. John: Yeah. Andrew: What’s your ad budget now? See now you’re eyes are lighting up. Now I tapped into it. John: We spend about half a million a month. Andrew: half a million a month! John: Yeah. Don’t tell the accountant. Andrew: Do you guys pay with a credit card? Do you have a lot of miles? John: Yeah, we do. In fact…. Andrew: You do! How many miles? John: In fact, the accountant came into my office the other day and said, “Next time you buy a ticket, use the miles.” Andrew: Are they with Delta, because I think you guys flew me out with Delta. John: Yeah, American Express is where we’re spending all our money. Andrew: Wow. And you’re a partner too? John: Yeah. Andrew: Wow, congratulations. John: Thank you. Andrew: I don’t know you well enough to ask you if you’re a millionaire, I’m just going to say congratulations. Give him a big round. John: Thank you. Andrew: Wow, you know what, I actually was going to ask the videographers to come up here. I wrote their names down, I got the whole thing and I realized I shouldn’t interrupt them, because they’re shooting video. But I asked them, why are you, they had this career where they were flying all over the world shooting videos for their YouTube channel. I’m sorry, I forgot their name, and I don’t want to leave them out. Russell: Dan and Blake. Andrew: They were shooting YouTube videos, they were doing videos for other people. I said, “Why are you now giving it up and just working for Clickfunnels all the time? More importantly, why are you so excited about it?” And they said, “You know, it’s the way that we work with Russell.” And I said, do you remember the first time that you invited them out to shoot something? What was it? Russell: It was the very first Funnel Hacking Live we ever had, and probably 2 weeks prior to that, one of our friends had an event and Dan had captured the footage, and he showed me the videos. “Did you check out my Ven Video?” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, that was amazing.” And I said “Who did it?” and he told me. So I emailed Dan and I was like, “Hey, can you come do that for Funnel Hacking Live?” And he’s like, “What’s Funnel Hacking Live?” So I kind of told him, and he’s like, “Sure.” And it was like 2 weeks later and he’s like, “What’s the direction?” and I was like, “I don’t know, just bring the magic man. Whatever you did there, do that here.” And that’s kind of been his calling card since. He just comes and does stuff. Andrew: Bring the magic. He wants to have those words painted on the Toronto office you guys are starting. Literally, because he says you say that all the time. And the idea is, I want to understand how you hire. The idea is, “I’m going to find people who do good work, and I’m going to let them do it.” What happens if they wouldn’t have done it your way? What happens if it would have gone a different direction? Russell: I see your question, and I’m not perfect. So I’m going to caveat that by, some of the guys on my team know that I’m kind of, especially on the design and funnel stuff, I’m more picky on that, because I’m so into that and I love it. But what I’ve found is when you hire amazing people like Todd for example, doing Clickfunnels. The times I tried to do Clickfunnels prior, build it was like, me and I’m telling developers, “here’s what to do and how to do it.” And like there’s always some loss in communication. With Todd, he’s like, “I know exactly what I would build because I want this product too.” And then he just built it and he showed me stuff. And I’m like, “That’s a good idea.” And he’s like, “I did this too.” And I’m like, “That’s a good idea.” And it’s so much easier that way. So when you find the right people, it’s not you giving them ideas, it’s them coming to you with the ideas. And you’re like, “that is a good idea. Go do it.” And it just makes, takes all the pressure off your back. So for us, and it’s been fun because I look at, man, the last 15 years of all those different websites and the ups and the downs, the best people have always stuck. So we’ve got 15 years of getting the cream of the crop. It’s kind of like, I’m a super hero nerd, but it’s like the Avengers, at the end of, when Clickfunnels came about we had this Avenger team of people. And we’re like, now we’ve put in our dues, now it’s time to use all of our super powers to do this thing, and it all kind of came together. Andrew: Build it and build it up. And then as you were building it up, you then went to Sales Force. You guys invited me, you said, “Hey Andrew, we’re in San Francisco, you’re home town. Do you want to come out?” I said, “I’m going to be with the family.” And you said, “Good. Being with the family is better than hanging out with us.” But I still said, “What are you guys doing in San Francisco at Sales Force?” Because sales people don’t need landing pages, yet you guys will probably find a way for them to need it. Then I saw this, this is the last video that I’ve got. There’s no audio on it. I want you guys to look at their faces as they’re looking up at these buildings, walking through the Sales Force office. Look, they’re getting on the motorcycles in the lobby. They’re looking all around like, “Oh gee.” Counting the buildings that are Sales Force labeled. Look at that! What are they doing? Not believing that this is even possible. And then just stopping and going, this is dream force. This is your dream. What did you get out of going to sales Force’s event and seeing their office? Russell: Honestly, prior to Sales Force, I was kind of going through a weird funk in my business, because it was like, again there was the goals. So it was like, okay, we’re going to do a million bucks, and then we did that. And then it’s like, let’s make 10 million a year. And then 50, and then this year we’ll hit a hundred. And like, what’s the next goal?  A billion, because a hundred million, 2 hundred million is not that big of a difference. And it was just kind of like, what’s the point, what’s the purpose? We’ve grown as big as any company that I know. And then last year, Dave and Ryan had gone out there and they were telling me stories like, “There’s 170,000 businesses here.” And they were telling me all these things, and it sounded cool, but I didn’t, and they were going crazy. You have to see this so you can believe it. But there’s something about the energy about seeing something that makes it real. So this year I was like, I want to go and I want to see Benioff speak. I want to see the thing, the towers, I want to just understand it, because if I understand it, cool. Now we can reverse engineer and figure out how we can do it. So for me it was just like seeing it. I think in anything, any, as entrepreneurs too, if you’re people believe that you can do it, you’ll do it. If you believe you can lose weight, you’ll lose 3eight. If you believe you can grow a company, and I don’t feel like I believed that the next level was possible for us until I saw it. And then I was like, oh my gosh, this is not ridiculous. Benioff’s not, none of these guys are any smarter than any of us. It’s just like, they figured out the path. It was like, okay let’s look at the path. And then let’s look at it and now we can figure out our path. Andrew: And seeing it in person did that for you? Russell: Oh yeah. It makes it tangible, it makes it like, it’s like your physiology feels it, versus reading a book about it or hearing about it. It’s like you see it and you experience it, and it’s like it’s tangible. Andrew: I told you, I asked people before they came in here, “What are you looking for?” and a few of them frustrated me because they said, “I just wanted to see Russell. I just want to see the event.” I go, “Give me something I could ask a question about.” But I think they were looking for the same thing that you got out of there. And I know they got it. I’m going to ask them to come up here and ask some questions, and I want to know about the future of Clickfunnels, but first I’ve got to just acknowledge that, that we are here to just kind of pick up on that energy. That energy that got you to pick yourself back up when anyone else would have said, “I’m a failure of a husband, I can’t do this.” Go back. The tension that came from failing and almost going to jail as you said, from failing and succeeding, and failing again. And still, that is inspiring to see. I want to give the whole Clickfunnels family a big round of applause, please everybody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Air Transat presents two friends traveling in Europe for the first time and feeling some pretty big emotions. This coffee is so good. How do they make it so rich and tasty? Those paintings we saw today weren't prints. They were the actual paintings. I have never seen tomatoes like this. How are they so red? With flight deals starting at just $589, it's time for you to see what Europe has to offer. Don't worry, you can handle it. Visit AirTransat.com for details. Conditions apply. AirTransat.

Travel moves us. Hey, everyone. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I hope you enjoyed episodes one and two of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Drybar Comedy Club where he was telling the ClickFunnels startup story. I hope you're enjoying this interview series so far. And I hope also that this motivates you guys to go over to the Mixergy podcast and subscribe to everything that Andrew does. Like I said, he is my favorite interviewer and I think that what he does is second to none. So I

hope you guys enjoy him as well and go to subscribe to the Mixergy podcast. But with that said, we're going to cue the theme song and we come back. We will start in to part three of the ClickFunnels Startup Story interview. So the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us, who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, who are spending money from our own pockets, how do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer.

My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. I actually got, I did see, I don't know if, I didn't see the video you mentioned, but I did see what it looked like. Here's one of the first versions. He compared it to ClickFunnels. He said, look at, I mean, to Leadpages. He said, look at how Leadpages has their stuff all the way on the left, all the controls. Oh, you can't see it. Oh, let me try it again. Let me see if I can bring up the screen because this is just, it's just too good. Hang on a second. I'm just constantly amazed by how you're able to draw people to you. So this is the article from Leadpages.

This is the first landing page for ClickFunnels. This is what he created before. This is what you guys did together. This is your editor. And he said, look, if you're on Leadpages, there are controls, there are editors all the way on the left. And it's just moving the main content to the right, which is not looking right. And I, he said, prefer something that looks like this with 100 pixels on the left. 100 pixels.

I go, who knows 100 pixels? Like, what is this? Dylan's obsessed with that kind of stuff. He's amazing. Obsessed. And you draw people like that. You draw people like Dave, who's just phenomenal. Dave, the traffic and conversion event that he was just talking about, is that the one that you went to?

The one after that. Okay, we'll come back to that in a second then. So this became your next version. You brought on a new partner. And then you did a webinar with this guy. Who's this guy? It's Mike Filson, one of my first friends online. It actually wasn't a webinar.

It was a live event. He was doing a live event in San Diego. And he's like you have to come and sell click funnels and i was like nobody's buying click funnels we have a free trial and like we couldn't give it away like it was just it was crazy he's like well you're on this you're on this website like your pictures are you have some sell click funnels and i need you to sell for at least a thousand bucks because the way it works if you speak someone's event and you sell something you split the money 50 50 so like it'd be at least a

thousand dollars and i was like all bummed out I didn't want to do it. And the event actually started. But they were streaming it live online. So I was sitting in our office in Boise watching it as I'm putting together my slides to create ClickFunnels. And then flew out to the event. We had a booth. I don't know if I told you this. We had a booth. And Leadpages had a booth right across, a little hallway, skinny hallway. And Todd's wife was manning our booth. And then lead pages right there. It was so funny because, um, she was like, not shy at all about talking about lead pages. She's like, yeah, we're like lead pages, except for way better. We can do this and this. And the other guys sitting there, like right in front of her, she's telling them everything. And it was, anyway, I digress. It was pretty funny. But by the way, she's still at it.

I saw a video that you guys created. You were talking to her, and she goes, I will be ClickFunnels. I go, wait a minute. You still have that fire, okay? So you were at that event. So we were at the event, and there's probably, I can't remember, 150, 200 people maybe in the room. And so I got the slides up, and Dylan was there, and he was like, we got the funnels. He was going to demo the editor. And so I did the whole thing.

I showed the presentation, and we demoed ClickFunnels. We did the thing. And then I sold and I've, I've been good on stage, but by far that was the first time in probably eight years, I've seen a table rush where people are like stepping over the things, jumping around, trying to get to the back to buy as fast as they could. What did you say to get them to want to do that? We made a really, I mean, the gave the presentation and give a really good offer. And they get a year of click funnels for free. Plus they were getting it training. Plus they're getting it all. It's all those other things.

It was like a thousand dollar training and a year click funnels for free. And then they become longterm, uh, members. And it was, it was also like called, uh, funnel hackers,

funnel, funnel hacks. And that's the thing that became like the culture, this culture, this tribe. It wasn't just that they were signing to learn from you. They were becoming funnel hackers. That's it.

I mean, that wasn't planned though. It was like, I was trying to name a sexy name for the presentation. So I'm like, oh, Funnel Hacks. And somebody owned funnelhacks.com. I'm like, I'm still doing the presentation that way. And then, yeah, then later we made a t-shirt that said Funnel Hackers.

And then like now we got like four or five people have tattooed that to their bodies. It's really weird. But anyway, but yeah, that's what happened. So we did that. We sold it. I remember going to dinner and I, with the guys who were there and Todd and his wife and everything. And we're all excited. Cause it made us, we made some money finally, but I was just like, you doesn't understand. Like I've spoken on a lot of stages. I haven't seen a table rush like that. I was like, and I remembered back, um, there was a guy, he passed away a couple of years ago. His name is Fred Katona. And he was a like that. I was like, and I remember back, there was a guy, he passed away a couple years ago, his name was Fred Katona,

and he was a radio guy. He was the guy who did the radio commercials for, do you guys remember, it's got the guy from Star Trek on it, what's his name? Priceline. Priceline,

he did the Priceline radio commercials and made that guy a billionaire. And he told me, when we were doing the radio ads, he said, this is what's going to happen, we're going to test your ad, and if it works,

I'm going to call you on the phone and I'm going to let you know you're rich. Because if it works, it means you're going to call you on the phone i'm going to let you know you're rich because if it works it like means you're going to be rich and so i remember going down and i told you guys said just you guys know like we're rich like what do you mean like we made you know we made 150 000 i'm like no no no like the way people respond to that i've never seen that in my life like we're rich like that would like the response rate from that i've never seen and then you went to webinar after webinar after webinar on the flight that day, I'm texting everybody I've ever met.

I bet I got the, I got a hot offer. This webinar crushed it. We just closed whatever send the room at Phil Sames event who wants to do it. And we started filling up the calendar. And the idea was, and you told me you did two to three at some days. And the idea was they would sell somebody on a course and then their members would then hear how your software and your funnel hacking technique would help up what they just bought, and then they would sign up. You're still excited. I can see it in your face.

And then this thing took off. And then you started doing an event for your culture, community, and this guy spoke, Tony Robbins. Oh, yeah. There's Tony. One of the first ones. Was he at the very first one? No, he came to the third one was first we had him come to yeah why why do an event why do your own live event um so we've done events in the past um i know like events are good

i'd sworn off because the last event we did um i think we sold three or four hundred tickets and less than 100 people showed up and i was like so embarrassed i was like we will never do events again and as soon as this as soon as ClickFunnels launched, it was growing. Everyone's like, we want to do a meetup. We should do an event. We should, all the customers kept asking and against my, and I didn't really want to do it. But at the same time I was launching my book and, uh, I'd won a Ferrari in this affiliate contest. I was like, what if we did an event and we had the Ferrari there and then we gave it away. And then we were, we had other ideas for like giving away other cars and just this became this like big, exciting thing that eventually turned into an event. And that was the first Funnel Hacking Live event in Vegas. And we had about 600 people at that one that showed up and that's where it all kind of, it all started.

And then it built how much, how many people are you up to now? Last year we had 3,500 people and we're on track to have about 5,000 at this year's event. 5,000. Yeah. Those are free tickets. Each ticket's $1,000. So how much is that in total revenue? From the event? So ticket sales, last year was three and a half million. This year will be over five. But then at the event, we sell coaching. So last year, we made 13 million in coaching sales at the event as well. Wow. Would you come up here for a second, Dave? Do you guys know Dave? Yeah, everyone knows Dave.

Dave, you know what was amazing? That's amazing. I don't know who that is. I saw a video. You guys have this vlog now. Beautifully shot vlog. You guys went to Salesforceforce's conference you're looking at the booths and in the video do you remember what you did as you saw the different booths I think that when I went to ask what the price of each booths were yes and then you multiply it he's like you're not enjoying the event you're calculating your head how much ten thousand a hundred that's like wow right you do this all the time

yeah if you if this is a lot of money in an event like that and you think and if this was not your event you would be doing the same calculation trying to figure out how much they brought in today uh wowie all right when you went to salesforce did you calculate how much money they probably did from their event um we were doing that all the whole time absolutely you saw the building you had to know oh my gosh yeah. Why, why do you guys want to know that? Why does, how does that inform, I want to understand your drive as a company. And I feel like this is a part of it, figuring out how much money other people are making, using that for fuel somehow. Tell me. I think it actually goes back to Russell and his wrestling days.

We had the experience of, gosh, we had the experience of going to Chicago right after that. And super just exhausted. And it was one of those things where he literally landed. We walked down and we're underneath the tarmac. And all of a sudden, Russell goes from just being totally exhausted to a massive state change, where he literally is right back where he was with his dad, and he and his dad are walking that same path to go to, I think it was Nationals, and I saw Dan Usher, who was doing the filming, capturing that moment, and it's that type of a thing for Russell where all of a sudden it's the dream where as soon as you see it, it can then happen. And Russell's been just amazing at modeling.

And again, it's the whole idea as far as just going at rapid, rapid speed. I mean, it's ready firing. It's not you gawking at the Salesforce. What's the Salesforce event called? Dreamforce. Dreamforce. It's not you gawking at how well sales force's event dream force is doing it's not you having envy or just curiosity it's you saying it's possible this is us that's it totally possible totally possible

we could get there and when you're sizing up the building you even found out how much a building costs who does that most people go where's the bathroom? How much is the building cost? There's a number. It's you saying, we could maybe have that. We can't have that, yeah. Got it. All right. And so let's go back a little bit. I asked you about traffic and conversion because the very first traffic and conversion conference you went to, you guys were nobodies. Nobody came and saw you.

We were putting out the North 40 pasture way, way, way, way far away. And some people would say, one day I'll get there. You told Russell, today we're going to get there. Well, Russell wanted, he was speaking. And so whenever you're speaking at an event, it's important you fill a room like this. And there's nothing worse than having an event and having no one show up. It's just the worst feeling in the world. And so he's like, gosh, you know, all we need is I got to find some way of getting people into the event. He says, I wish we had like some girls who could just hand out

t-shirts or just do something. And I was like, we're in San Diego. That's like my hometown. Dave's like, how many do you need? It's just a number. It comes down to a number. How many you want? And so we ended up having, uh, within an hour or so we had five girls there who were more than happy to dance around and give out t-shirts and fill the room. And the room was full. Packed. Packed. And why wouldn't you say one day, the next time we come to traffic and conversion, the 10th time we're going to do it, why did it have to be right there? It's always now. It's always now. It's always now. It's never going to be the next funnel. It's never going to be the next product launch. Like,

I'm going to do whatever we can right now and the next one and the next one. That's it. That's who you are. That's how it works. And now you're a partner in the business? Yes. $83 million so far this year. You got a piece of that? Yes. Do I? Just checking. Do you get to take profits home now?

We do. You do. You personally do? Yes. Are you a millionaire? Things are really good. Million millionaire good from click funnels yes really yes wow and you're another one i was driving i said what was it about russell that made you work for him what was it and you said i've never seen anyone implement like him. Give me an example of early days, something that he implemented. You know what? Forget that. Let's not go back to Russell. As a team, you guys have gotten really good at implementing. Give me an example of one thing that you're just stunned by.

We did it. It came out of nowhere. We could have been distracted by funnel software. We could have been distracted by the next book. We did this thing. What is it? You're here on this stage with JP. And this was what, six weeks ago. on this stage with jp and this was what six weeks ago and this whole thing just came from an idea i heard you use voxer why do you use voxer i don't know because you'd like to talk into it yeah you can fast forward and listen to 4x speed you can forward the messages of people really easily it's awesome it's just train of thought boom here's what i think we're gonna no it No, it's not that. I heard it's, I have a secret project. I'll tell you guys about it later.

And they all start freaking out. Tell us now. Secret project. I don't know what it is. It's going to be exciting. They don't know what it is. It's going to be exciting. Do you know how it started, this one?

I was cleaning my wrestling room, listening to you. And you were, I don't know whose event it was, but you were at a campfire, sound alike. And you were doing something like this. And I was like, I want my own campfire chat to tell our story. And then I was like, Dave, we should do it. And then now we're here. So thanks for coming to our campfire. That and you were doing something like this and i was like i want my own campfire chat to tell our story and then i was like dave we should do and then now we're here so thanks for coming to our campfire that's how it happens and that's exciting to this day all right thank you give him a big round thank you so much you know what i didn't mean for this to come on stage but i'm glad that it is this made you laugh when you accidentally saw it earlier, too. Why is this making you laugh? What is it?

So we're not shy about our competitors, even when they're our friends. So one of the companies we're crossing out is his. So that's why it's funny. It's one of my companies, and then that's Bot Academy there. It's also a company I invest in. That octopus is Manny Chad. I've been a very big angel investor and supporter of theirs. I'm not a company I invest in. That octopus is ManyChat. I've been a very big angel investor and supporter of theirs. I'm not at all insulted by that. I'm curious about it. You guys come across as such nice, happy-go-lucky guys. Dave asked me if I want water. I said,

Dave, I can't have you give me any more things. I feel uncomfortable. I'm a New Yorker. Punch me, please. So he goes, okay, but one more thing. I'm going to give you socks. So give me socks. So you really, but still you have murder in your eyes sometimes. Like you're crossing out everybody. This is part of your culture. Why? It comes back for me. It's wrestling, right? Like when I was wrestling, it was not, I don't know. There's different mentalities, right? Like, and I did a podcast on this one time. I think I offended some people, so I apologize in advance. But like in a, if you're in a band, right? Everyone gets together and you play together and you harmonize and it's beautiful, right? When you're a wrestler, you don't do that. Like, you know, you walk in every day and you're like, those are the two guys I have to beat to be varsity. And then after you do that, then you walk

in and you're like, okay, who's the people I have to beat to be the region champ and the state champ and then the national champ. And so for me, my entire 15 years of my life, like, all my focus was, like, who's the next person on the rung that I have to beat, and it's studying them, learning about them, figuring out their moves, figuring out what they're good at, what they're bad at, so we can beat them, and then we beat them to go the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, and so, but it was never, it was never negative for me, it was competition, like, half the guys were my friends, and they were doing the same thing to me, we're doing the same thing to them, and so I come from a hyper-com hyper competitive world well that's everything we do and i feel

bad now because in business a lot of people we compete against aren't competitive and i forget that sometimes and they some people don't appreciate it but it's like that's that's the drive it's just like who do we like if i don't have someone to there's not someone we're driving towards and there's not a point for me and even if they're even if i was hurt say i accept it i'm sorry you're hurt andrew i still care and love you. We're going to crush you. It's still there. And I had someone on. So obviously, Infusionsoft was one of our people we were targeting for a long, long time.

And I had a call with Clay. And someone on his team asked me, like, why do you hate Infusionsoft so much? I was like, no, you don't understand. I don't hate. I love Infusionsoft. I'm grateful for lead pages. I'm grateful for, like, and I told him, like, have him like have you seen the dark knight like my favorite movie of all time and it's the part where we're batman and joker there and batman's like asked the joke like why are you trying to kill me and

the joker starts laughing he's like i'm not trying to kill you like the reason why i do this is because of you like if i didn't have you there's no purpose behind it and so for me it's like if i have somebody to compete against like why are we playing the game and so for me that that's why it's not enough to just say we're playing the game because we want to help the next entrepreneur or the next person who's sick and needs to create a new – no, it's not. That's a big part of it. But like, yeah, but there's something – I don't know. It's not enough. It's got to be both.

The competition is what drives me for sure. And just like you're wrestling with someone trying to beat them but you don't hate them. You're not going to their house and break it down. Everyone we wrestle, like we're friends afterwards. We're on the same freestyle and Greco teams later in the season, but when we're competing, we're competing and everyone's going all at it. Everyone's going

all at it. That's an interesting way to end it. How much more time do we have? How much more time do we have? I'm going to keep going. Can I get you to come up here, John? Because I've got to get you to explain something to me. So I told you, I was online the other day. Yeah, give him a big round.

I was online the other day. I don't even know what I clicked. I clicked something, and then I saw that Russell's a great webinar person. Everyone keeps telling me that. I go, alright, I've got to find out how he does it. So I click over. Alright, just give your email address, and you can find out how... Alright, I'll give my email address to find out how he became such a great webinar presenter. And just give a credit card. It's only $4.95, so it comes in the mail. It comes in the mail. That's pretty cool. Nothing comes in the mail anymore. Here's my credit card.

It goes, alright, it's going to mail it out. Would you also like to learn how to use these slides? $400. I go, no, I'm done. Welcome to the funnel. I'm done. But I'm funnel. He says, I'm done. But I'm going to put in Evernote a link to this page so I don't lose it so I can come back. I swear. And I did it. And this is like my receipt for $4.95. And then another.

Don't you ever feel like we're beyond this? We're in the software space now. We're competing with Dropbox. We're not competing with Joe Schmoe and his e-book. And you're the guy who bought the app that got me. I asked you that. Do you ever feel a little embarrassed? We're still in the info market space.

No, I think it's like the essence of what we do and what Russell does is we love education. We love teaching people. I mean the software is like the back end, right? But we're not software people. We sell software, but we teach people, all these people here and all the people at all of our events, like they just want to learn how to do it better. I don't believe it. Okay. I believe it. And I believe it. I believe that for you, it's the numbers. I, here's why I don't believe it. I'm looking in your eyes and like, I'm giving the script. I'm

good. I'm doing the script. I see it in your eyes. But when I was talking to you earlier, no offense, this is why he does what he does. When I was talking to you earlier, no offense. This is why he does what he does. When I was talking to you earlier, you told me about the numbers, the conversion, how we get you in the sales funnel, how we actually can then – that's the exciting part. Don't be insulted by the fact that I said it. Know that we have marketers here. They're going to love you for being open about it. What's going on here? What's going on keeping you in this space?

Okay, from my perspective. Okay, so initially it was self-liquidation on the front, which is what I was telling you, right? It was the fact that we were bootstrapped. Like we didn't have money to just like throw out there. We had, we had to make sure that we were earning enough money to cover our ads. Right. And Russell had all the trust in the world. I mean, I don't know why he did, but he did. And he's just like spend money and just try to make a self-liquid. And I'm like, okay. Right. So we just had to spend money and hope that we got enough back to keep spending money. And self-liquidate means buy an ad today and make sure that we make money from that ad right away and then software.

Yeah. And then software is going to pay over time. That's our legacy. That's our thing. And you told me software sucks for selling. Why? Software sucks, yeah. Why?

Everyone who's in info, everyone who's in education says, I wish I was a software guy. Software is eating the world. They get all the respect, right? I walked through San Francisco. They think anyone who doesn't have software in their veins is a sucker. Yeah. I asked the same thing to myself. I was like running ads. I'm like, why can't I just run ads straight to the offer? Why do I have to go to these info products, right?

I want them to get it on the software. And then I was like, I feel like it's kind of like marriage. Like it's a big thing to say like, you probably already built websites, but come over to drop everything you're doing and come over here and build websites over here on our thing. It's like, oh, that's a hard pull, right? But hey, you want to build webinars? Here's a little thing for five bucks to build webinars. Now you're in our world. Now we can talk to you. Now you can trust us. Now we can get you over there. Got it. Okay. All right. And if that's what it takes to get people in your world, you're going to accept it. You're not going to feel too good for that. You're just going to do it and grow it and grow it.

Yeah. What's your ad budget now? See, now your eyes are lighting up. Like, I tapped into it. We spend about half a million a month. Half a million a month? Yeah. Don't tell the accountant.

Do you guys pay with a credit card? Do you have a lot of miles? Yeah, we do. You do? Yeah. How many miles? The accountant came into my office the other day and said, next time you buy a ticket, use the miles.

Are they with Delta? Because I think you guys flew me out with Delta. Yeah. American Express is where we're spending all our money. Wow. And you're a partner too. Yeah. Wow.

Congratulations. Thank you. I don't know you well enough to ask you if you're a millionaire. I'm just going to say congratulations from the big round. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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.

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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.

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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, it's all that you need. Wow. You know what? I actually was going to ask the videographers to come up here. I brought their name down. I got the whole thing and I realized I shouldn't interrupt them because they're shooting video. But I asked them, why are you – they had this career where they were flying all over the world shooting videos for their YouTube channel. They were – I'm sorry. I forgot their name and I don't want to leave them out. Dan and Blake.

And they were shooting YouTube videos. They were doing videos for other people. I said, why are you now giving it up and just working for ClickFunnels all the time? More importantly, why are you so excited about it? And I said, you know, it's the way that we work with Russell. And I said, do you remember the first time you invited him out to shoot something? What was it? It was the very first Funnel Hacking Live we ever had.

And probably two weeks prior to that, one of our friends had an event and Dan had captured the footage. And he showed me the videos. Like, did you check out my event video? I'm like, oh, my gosh, that was amazing. I said, who did it? He told me. And so I emailed Dan. I was like, hey, can you come do that for Funnel Hacking Live?

And he's like, what's Funnel Hacking Live? So I kind of told him. He's like, sure. And it was like two weeks later. He's like, so what's the direction? I was like, I don't know. Just bring the magic, man. Whatever you did there, do that here.

And that's kind of been his calling card since. He comes and does stuff. Bring the magic. He wants to have those words painted on the Toronto office that you guys are starting. Literally. Because he says, you say that all the time. And and the idea is I want to understand how you hire the idea is I'm going to find people who do good work and I'll let them do it what happens if they wouldn't have done it your way what happens if it would have gone a different direction and I'm not perfect so I'm going to

caveat that by some of my guys my team know that I'm kind of especially on the design and funnel stuff like I'm more picky on that because like I'm so into that and I love it. But what I, what I found is like when you hire amazing people like Todd, for example, doing click funnels, like the times I've tried, I tried to do click funnels prior build. It was like me and I'm telling developers like, here's what to do and how to do it. And like, there's always some loss in communication with Todd. He's like, I know exactly what I would build. Cause I want this product too. And then he just built it and he showed me stuff. And I'm like, there's always some loss in communication with Todd. He's like, I know exactly what I would build because I want this product too. And then he just built it and he showed me stuff. And I'm like, that's a good idea. And he's like, I did this too. I'm like, that's a good idea. And like, it's so much easier that way. And so when you find the right people,

it's not you giving them ideas. It's them coming with the ideas. And you're like, that is a good idea. Go do it. And then, um, it just makes, takes all the pressure off your back. And so for us, and it's been fun because I look at, man, the last 15 years of all those different websites and the ups and the downs, like the best people have always stuck. And so we've got 15 years of like getting the cream of the crop. And then it was almost like I'm kind of a superhero nerd, but it's like the Avengers, right? We're at the end of when ClickFunnels came about, we had this Avenger team of people and like, okay, now we've put in our dues. Now it's time to like use all of our superpowers to do this thing. And it all kind of came together, build it and build it and build it up. And then as you were building it up, you then went to Salesforce.

You guys invited me. You said, Hey, Andrew, we're in San Francisco, your hometown. Do you want to come out? I said, I'm going to be with the family. He said, good, be with the family. It's better than hanging out with us. But I still said, what are you guys doing in San Francisco at Salesforce? Because salespeople don't need landing pages yet. you guys will probably find a way for them to need it. Soon. And then I saw this. This is the last video that I've got. There's no audio on it. I just want it. I want you guys to look at their faces as they're looking up at these buildings, walking through the Salesforce office. Look, they're getting on the motorcycles in the lobby. They're looking all around going, oh going oh gee counting the buildings that are salesforce labeled looking look at that like oh what are they doing not like not believing that this is even possible

and just stopping going this is this is dreamforce this is your dream is what did you get out of going to salesforce's event um honestly prior to salesforce i was kind of going through like a weird um like a funk in my in my business because it was like again there's the goals right so it's like hey we're doing a million bucks we did that and it's like let's make 10 million a year and then 50 and then this will hit 100 and like what's the next goal like a billion like because like 100 million 200 million is not that big of a difference. And it was just kind of like, I'm like, what's, what's the point?

Like, what's the purpose? Like we've grown as big as any company that I know. And, um, and then last year, um, Dave and Ryan had gone out there and they were telling me stories like there's 170,000 businesses here. And they're telling me these things and it sounded cool, but I didn't. And they were going crazy. You have to see this so you can believe it. And I didn't, but there's something about the energy of like seeing something that makes it real.

And so this year I was like, I want to go and just, I want to see Benioff speak. I want to see the things I want to see the towers. I want to just like understand it. Cause if I understand it, it's like, okay, cool. Now we can reverse engineer and figure out how we can do it. And so for me, it was just like seeing it. Um, I think in anything, in any, as we teach our entrepreneurs to, if your people believe that they can do it, they'll do it. If you believe you can lose weight, you'll lose weight. If you can believe you can grow a company. And like, I don't know, like I believe that the next level is possible for us. If I saw it and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is not, it's not ridiculous. And Benioff's not,

I mean, none of these guys are any smarter than any of us. It's just like, they, they figured out the path. It was like, Hey, let's look at the path. And then let's, let's look at that. And now we can figure out our path. And seeing it in person did that for you and yeah makes it tangible makes it like like it's like your physiology feels it versus like reading a book about or hearing about it's like you see it and you experience it and it's like it's tangible i told you i asked people before they came in here what are you looking for and a few of them frustrated me because they said i just want to see russell i just want to see the event i go give me something i could ask a question about but I think they were looking for the same thing that you got out of

there. And I know they got, I'm going to ask them to come up here and ask some questions. And I want to know about the future of ClickFunnels. But first, I've got to just acknowledge that, that we are here to just kind of pick up on that energy, that energy that got you to pick yourself back up when anyone else would have said, I'm a failure as a husband. I can't do this. Go back. The tension that came from failing and almost going to jail, as you said, from failing and succeeding and failing again. And still, that is inspiring to see. I want to give the whole ClickFunnels family a big round of applause. Please, everybody. 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. And the phone number you need to text is 208-231-3797. Once again, it's 208-231-3797. When you text me,

just say hello. And then what's going to happen is 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 can start having conversations. On top of that, through this texting community is where I'm going to be giving out free swag, giving away free copies of my book, 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 code 208-231-3797. One more time, that's 208-231-3797. I can't wait to hear from you right now.