The Russell Brunson Show - Marketing Secrets From An Auctioneer

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Here's a quick breakdown of the cool things I witnessed at a recent fundraiser for my boys' wrestling team and how these salesmanship and marketing strategies can be applied to your business: 1. Building Rapport Quickly:   - The auctioneers started by sharing personal stories and jokes to build rapport with the audience, making them more receptive to the sales process. 2. Training the Audience to Buy:   - The auctioneers used a low-risk offer ($20 for a chance to win $500) to teach the audience how to bid. This technique, which I learned from Bill Glazer, is effective because it makes the audience comfortable with the buying process before asking them for larger purchases. 3. Creating Social Proof:   - The auctioneers had assistants in the audience who made noise and interacted with bidders, creating an energetic atmosphere. This approach heightened the perception of activity and demand, similar to how table rushes work at live events. 4. Identifying and Engaging Key Bidders:   - The assistants identified the most interested bidders and focused on them, encouraging higher bids through personal engagement and social pressure. 5. Leveraging Cross-Industry Strategies:   - By observing successful techniques in other industries, such as network marketing's car incentives, we can adapt and apply these methods to our own businesses. This practice, as taught by Jay Abraham, allows for innovative strategies to enhance sales and marketing efforts. For more insights and updates, follow me on Instagram @russellbrunson, text me at 208-231-3797, or join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com. You can also connect with me on Clubhouse at ClubHouseWithRussell.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Travel moves us. What's up, everybody? This is Russell. I just jumped in the Tesla. I'm driving to the office, and I got something cool I want to share with you. We had a chance to go to a wrestling auction this week, and some of the salesmanship and marketing principles that I saw were amazing, and so I want to talk through them and how you can apply them to your business.

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 answers. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. Hey everybody, welcome back. I hope you guys are excited.

I've had a good week this week. I'm working on some fun projects with the mushifying of Dan Kennedy's company company with click funnels and a new offers coming out and a bunch of stuff And so I wake up every morning at 5 this week and I just been excited and got a lot of work done It's been good. You know feeling like when you're excited about something how much easier just to wake up and do the thing It's been a while since I felt that way. In fact, I was last night I think I was last time I was this excited about Working on something in the business and if i'm honest with myself, it was when the traffic secret book launched which Is man almost like two years ago now

Is that right a year and a half ago anyway So anyway, it just feels good to be doing something fun So hopefully all you guys got something fun you're working on because it just makes everything else better anyway, um, okay, so uh, as you guys know i'm a wrestler My ears are all called flowered up and my kids, some of them like wrestling, some hate wrestling, but I've got one stronghold who loves wrestling. And so, um, which is great. And so we went to the wrestling banquet this year where they were raising money for the wrestling team. And so, um, we were there ready to support and help donate

money so that the team can, you know, get the stuff we need to be a good team and i also help coach so i'm one of the coaches too but anyway um go to the wrestling banquet and in the past they used to do a spaghetti feed they have spaghetti everyone come the wrestlers serve the people and they'd have like a silent auction and i think they said the best year ever um was like six thousand dollars raised i think the average year is like $4,000 or $5,000. So that's kind of the context of where we're starting at. So this time around, they met one of the coaches, the coach's wife or someone met these guys who do auctions. They're an auction company. And we're basically, they go up there and instead of just like having

a silent auction where people bid on stuff, that's like an auctioneer up top. And he's like doing the, yeah, can I get five? Can I get five? All that kind of stuff that they do, right? And so it was weird because it was in a bar, so they didn't invite kids. It was just the parents. At first, we were kind of like, this is weird. I don't know how this is going to work. They still had a silent auction, and we bid on some things, whatever.

And then we had dinner. And then after dinner, they had the auctioneers get up and start the process. And this is where the marketing gold started happening. And as a marketing nerd that I am, I was just like freaking out, like watching the process and how they did it and how they were able to get the room excited about giving up money. And, um, spoiler alert, when it all said and done, they raised almost $40,000 for wrestling. So yeah, like, yeah, a lot. Um, and that's not counting. We gave extra donations on top of it. So it's just like the rest of the people, right. Which was really, really cool.

And so, um, a couple of things, the first thing they did, the auctioneers got up, got up there. First thing I do is they had to build rapport with the audience. Cause by default you're like, Oh, these guys are gonna sell me something. And so there's no rapport. So they get up there and they start telling their stories and who they are and how their family business and how they get into this. And they just kind of told these stories and jokes really quickly to try to build rapport as quick as they could. Right? So that was the first thing.

Second thing is they had to train everybody how to buy. And this was really fascinating. What they did initially is they said, okay, we're going to get this auction process started. I'm going to teach you guys how it works. And they held a $500 cash. We're going to start with $500 cash. And the way that you can win $500 cash is if you buy a $20 thing, like you bid $20 or you pay $20 and you, um, you get a chance to, to win this $500. Right. So who would pay

your $20 for a chance to win 500 and all the money goes to wrestling. So it's gonna be good. Right. They started doing this and, um, I don't know how many people did it, but you know, most of the audience put in their $20 to win this thing, and they had a lot of energy, and it was fun, it was exciting. At the end of it, they drew somebody, and someone won the $500. They got the $500, and the person gave the $500 back just to put it in towards wrestling. From that one little exercise, they raised $1,500 for wrestling. The $500 came back, and then the $20 bills, like it was five, there's a thousand dollars worth of, of $20 orders that went through really quickly. And so they made $1,500. But that first thing, it was interesting because you're paying $20 for a chance to win 500. So it's like a no brainer,

like I'll just try it. Um, but what they were really doing, if you look at the strategies, they were teaching people how to bid, right? For something like me, who'd never been in auction before, I didn't know how to hold the paddle or how it worked and you know, all those kinds of things. And so this gave us the ability to learn at a very low risk thing. The worst case, you lose 20 bucks, right? Best case, you win 500. So it's like a really risk reward thing was very, very easy to say yes to. And it's interesting because training the audience is so important in everything you're doing.

In fact, I remember I learned this originally from Bill Glazer at their super conferences, uh, day number one, they would do a charity offer where he had this whole swipe file book. He's like, Hey, you pay a hundred dollars to charity. You get the book and everyone ran back and, and they closed like most of the room. In fact, I remember running back and had a hundred dollar bill and get given a hundred dollar bill, getting this book. And, um, it was like the first time I had, uh, I had seen that happen. I didn't understand it until my next match, my meeting,

when Bill Glazer got up and explained his strategy. He said, day number one, my biggest goal in the event is to train the audience how to buy. Because I don't want them trying to figure out how to buy when I'm doing my high ticket $25,000 sale, right? I want them to know how to buy on something that's low risk, that's not scary. And so he's like, day number one,

I always do a charity thing, because number one, it builds rapport, because you're helping people. Number two, you're actually helping people, which is awesome. And number three though, it trains the audience on how to, um, to buy. And so they learn how to stand up. They learn where to go. They learn how to go where the forums are at. They go through the whole process once. And then when you ask them to buy two days later, they already know how to do it. They're not confused. Right. And so you're training the audience how to buy it. So, um, again, the auctioneers did that. They trained us how to buy it. Something that was super low risk. Um, we do it at our fun

hacking live events, Bill Glazer did their events where we're training people how to stand up, go to the back of the room, give money on something that's, that's very low risk. Right. Um, and so that's how we did, we've done it at events, but how could you do it during your webinars? How could you do it during, you know, uh, there's so many things that you could, you could leverage that idea. It's like how to train the audience, how to buy something small before you're asking them for the big purchase. That's the first thing.

Next thing they go out there and they start auctioning off these different packages. And I wish I would have had a pad of paper notes that night that it happened. I was just like freaking out about everything, but I kind of just remember the core, the core things that stuck out. So next thing is it wasn't just one dude on stage doing the auction, right? That's how I would have thought it was going to be. But the auctioneer had like four or five people in the audience walking around. So people in the audience are doing a couple of things. Number one is they're making noise. So it felt like even though there wasn't a lot of people bidding, it felt like there was cause you could

hear the, the auction, the people out in the audience talking and uh, you know, the, that there are seeds out in the audience talking and creating energy and creating momentum and social proof that people were bidding. And so they were walking around and as they were doing that, they started figuring out like, who are the people that want this offer? Right. And so the people in the audience would see like, okay, this person bid 50, this person bid a hundred, this person bid 150. So they started looking at the people who were bidding. So then it starts isolating from the entire audience. Like here's the five or six people that are bidding. And as you get closer and closer, the people in the audience walking around,

the auctioneers, partners, or whatever you call them, they start identifying, okay, these are the three people that want this. And so then they hone in on those people and as the auction's happening, they're like, he's sort of 250, I'll do three, three, three. And then they're kind of like helping push

and urge them to bid up. And so the person bids up, the next person goes back. And so now it's all these auctioneers are standing side by side with the, with the two or three, you know, whales in the audience who are going to buy and using that as a way to up the bid, like get a movement higher, higher, higher, higher to the point where, you know, these things that probably would have sold for 50 bucks at a silent auction, we're selling for 1500 or $2,000 because of the way the process worked. It was really, really fascinating. Um, and so I

started seeing that. And so, um, you know, how could you replicate that? You could replicate that in a lot of ways, right? Like in an event, you could replicate that when you, um, you know, it's creating social proof. Like you think about, um, you know, when you get a table rush, if you don't get a table rush, it's hard because nobody moves. Right. But if you can get people to stand up and run to the back of the room, as soon as a couple of people run back and people see that it creates social proof. Like I remember, um, uh, during my funnel hockey live presentation and I was speaking a lot on stages and doing the whole process like that. Um, I remember I would usually the very first time I dropped the price, it's weird. Cause usually like one or two people to get up. And at first I would just like, I was like, Oh, like feeling all awkward.

Like, Oh man, like when two people got up, I don't want to say things. I kept going through the rest of my pitch and going through things, you know, and, and over the pitch, more people would go, more people would go. And I remember just one time I was doing the pitch and I got up and I was, I got the point where I showed the price and the two, three people that jumped up and I don't remember why, but some reason it startled me or I was like, oh wow. And I kind of stopped and I said, whoa, I'm like those, those people right there, they get it.

They've already started moving. And I pointed to the people that were walking towards the back of the room, you know, like jogging towards the back of the room to buy. And everyone else stopped and looked back and they saw like 30 people running. And all of a sudden they're like, oh my gosh, this is legit. And I don't want to be in the back of the line. And all of a sudden the next person popped up, next person popped up. And all of a sudden like, it was this like sprint to the back and it created this table rush. And it's kind of a similar process. It's like, it's like if you get one or two people who are in, who are going to buy, right. They're starting to walk the back of the room. Don't just like be secret about it. I call it like, oh my

gosh, like I haven't got the pitch yet. Look at these guys are already in the back room buying. Um, dude, you don't know the prices yet. You're already in. And they're like, yeah, I'm already in like, oh my gosh, like they get it. If you guys get this, you know, this is the way I just like you, you have my permission to stand up and go right now. Right. And we create this thing and they start moving. It was just really cool to be able to see these marketing and sales principles that we use in different places used here inside of this auction to raise money for wrestling. And so I started thinking, one of my first mentors, I've had a lot of really good mentors in life, but one of them was Jay Abraham. And what Jay Abraham taught me really well was to look at things happening in other industries and how do you model them for yours. And so really, like, my goal with this was to kind of share with you guys a couple

just quick examples from the auction but hopefully open up your eyes so you start seeing all the sales and marketing happening around you right um you look at click funnels we launched our dream car contest like people are like how'd you come up with that i'm like because i looked over at this other industry the network marketing industry and they give away cars to people and gets people to go crazy to build up their companies i was like we're going to take that concept from this industry and move it over. From the auction industry, I saw what they did over here. Next time we do our fundraiser for Fun Like It Live, I'm going to do things differently because of what I learned over here.

It's looking at other industries besides your own, looking at what they are doing, how are they marketing, how are they doing sales, how can you replicate that and pull that into your business. I hope that's the principle I got to today, is just understanding that there's amazing marketing and sales happening in so many places. There's businesses, industries that have proven stuff, right? This auction industry, these guys have been doing this for a decade. They have a whole family that does this.

They test it. They tweak it. I'm sure that they've done a thousand auctions a year. They test all these things and how to say it and when to say it and all the different subtleties, how do you say that word, of how to make it work. And so you can come look at that and see the process and just be, um, it's like sitting there, you know, at school learning, learning how to increase your sales online. And so keep your eyes open, watch other industries, see what they're doing. Click on every ad you see, because you have no idea what, where it's going to, you know,

what rabbit holes can take you down, what you're going to learn, what you can discover for your own, for your own business as well. And, um, I hope that helps one other side tangent. I did this recently. I had my wife's phone. I thought it was mine. I grabbed it, opened up Facebook and I was like, this is not my Facebook because she follows different ads, different people. So the ads she's retargeted with are completely different than mine. And I was like fascinated. I started clicking on her ads. So taking me on this magical wonderland of, of offers and ad and products and funnels I'd never seen before. Um, all because I looked from a different lens. So same thing, look at, you know, go to Facebook, create a fake profile and like things that are the opposite of what you normally look and start seeing what ads show up and what things you can learn from different industries.

And, um, it gets really powerful. So hope it helps. Thanks so much for everything. And I'll talk to you guys all again soon. Bye 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. Now the phone 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 we'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. 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.