The Russell Brunson Show - (MS) You're One Funnel Away - Part 1 (Revisited)

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

In 2017, I recorded this podcast with a recap of my (then) most recent Funnel Hacking LIVE presentation entitled, "You're One Funnel Away". As we've been developing the funnel strategies further and further, I wanted to take a moment and touch base again on this concept, because it's core to everything we're doing. And while you listen to this 2-part episode, listen and relate your business to my story, specifically in this episode - how I saved Christmas with a funnel. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing FunnelHackingLIVE 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. You're listening to Marketing Secrets with your host, Russell Brunson.

Hey, everyone. It's Russell Brunson. Welcome to a special Marketing Secrets episode where I'm going to let you guys see behind the scenes at one of our presentations from last year's Funnel Hacking Live. All right, so this presentation is one that I was really nervous about giving. It was called One Funnel Away, which was the whole theme of the last Funnel Hacking Live event. And it's something that I wanted to share my failures, my bankruptcy stories, the ups and the downs.

Everyone here talks about the highlight reel. I wanted to share the failures, my bankruptcy stories, the ups and the downs. Everyone here talks about the highlight reel. I wanted to share the other side of it. I don't typically release sessions from Funnel Hacking Live anywhere, but this one had such a big impact on our audience and helped people know that everyone, including me, especially me, has big ups and big downs, yet literally we're just one funnel away from success each time. So as we were preparing for next year's Funnel Hacking Live, which will be coming live soon at FunnelHackingLive.com, I was kind of rewatching some of the presentations.

I saw this one. I was like, I want more people to have this. So I'm going to break this episode into two episodes. This is episode number one. Go check it out and leave me a comment if you like it. Please subscribe. Tell other people about it and hopefully it'll give you some hope and some faith that the path you were on is right and that this process is going to get you what you want and what you desire.

And let you have the ability to serve other people. So that's the game plan now. Check out this episode. And I'll see you on part two tomorrow. Okay, so what I want to do is I want to go on a journey with you guys. My journey, which started way back over here on my timeline and my backstory. So those who know me or have heard about me or know anything about this, I got started. Initially, I started learning about business when I was a 12 or

13 year old kid sitting there with my dad. He was watching the news and I was watching it with him and I was sitting there. I'm like, I can't believe he hasn't told me to go to bed yet. This is the coolest thing in the world. And the news was on. And then when the news ended, then mash came on and I was like, I don't, he must think I'm asleep or something. Like he hasn't told me to go to bed. And I'm sitting there like trying to move. I don't want him to know. And so I'm watching mash with my dad. I thought it was the coolest thing in the whole world. And then when mash got done, like he still like didn't say anything about, he's got to be convinced I'm asleep. This is so cool. And then, uh, came on and it was infomercial late night infomercial with Don the pre. How many guys

remember Don the pre? Yes. Uh, just amazing person. Uh, and he had an infomercial and I was so grateful for him and for his passion, his excitement talking about what he was doing. And he was talking to infomercials about how to place tiny little classified ads. You can make a fortune, right? And it was, um, God, it was the coolest thing. I remember sitting there listening to him and I was like, this makes so much sense. I'm looking at my dad, like you paying attention to what's happening. Like this guy is a, the whole thing made so much sense to me. He said, I took a class, I took a classified ad. I put it in a newspaper and I made $30. And I told my friends, my family, like I started a business. I made $30 this week. And they all laughed at me. He's like, so then I took that same ad and I ran it in a thousand newspapers the next month and I made $30,000. And I was just like,

mind blown. And I've been just, I've been ruined from that day on when it came to the world. I'm like, I can't, like, I can't not do something like this. I was so excited. I saved a bunch of money, mowing lawns and everything. And eventually I bought Don the priest kid on an infomercial. I read through it all. I learned it. And I wasn't able to actually do anything though, because I didn't have money to do direct mail and all sorts of things like that. That's how I first heard about direct response market. I remember, um, after I got Don the priest kid, I got so excited. I was at the grocery store with my mom one time and we're walking out and on the checkout stand, there was a, a magazine. It was called small business opportunity magazine. Had a whole

bunch of little cartoon people in front of me. How many of you guys have seen that magazine before? That's it. This is like the greatest like swipe file of direct response ads ever. So I didn't know at the time though, I just like, there's like 30 things talking about how to get rich quick. And I'm like, sweet, I want to get rich quick. That'd be awesome. So I had my mom buy me this magazine. I went home and if you look at it, it's like 140 pages of ads and four pages of articles. It's pretty awesome. And so I'm looking at every single ad. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can sell gold chains at the mall and make money.

It's like, call this 1-800 number for free info kit. I'm like, yeah, free info kit sent to my house. And then like the next page, it's like something else. Page after page, all 140 pages. I called every single 800 number to request the free info kit. And about a week later, I started getting these gifts in the mail. First, it was like two or three letters. Then it was like 10 or 15 letters. Then it was like 60 or 70 letters. And I think those people started selling my name to other

mailing lists. As soon as it became like hundreds of letters. And the mailman could not physically shove the junk mail in the mailbox anymore because there was so much coming in. So I get home from junior high and I'd come home and I'd walk into the house and I see on the bar, I see two or three letters from my parents and Russell stack of junk mail. And they're like, there's your junk mail. I was like, Oh, and I take in my room and I'd open it. I'm like, read these things. I'm like, this is so cool. And all these money-making ideas. So that happened at a young age. Unfortunately, again, I couldn't do anything. Well, I tried once. So this one person convinced me that like direct mail was the key. And like, all you do is you get a list of buyers who bought similar products and you write a sales letter and you mail

it to those people and a percentage will buy. I'm like, awesome. Only problem is I can't afford a mailing list. Um, and I don't have any stamps or any envelopes or anything. And so I'd done something. I'd made a little bit of money doing some, some chores. And I asked my mom to go, uh, take that money and instead buy stamps and bring me home stamps. So she brought me home 38 stamps. That's how much money I had made. And I had 38 stamps. I was like, this is so awesome. I used to tell my, my brothers and sister and parents always used to tease. Oh, not my parents to tease me. My brothers, my sister did. Cause I'd always like, I'm going to be a millionaire any minute now. And like, this is going to work. And they used to be like, Oh, are you a millionaire yet? Oh. And like totally make fun of me. Right. So I had these 38 stamps. I'm like, okay, if I can get 10% of

these people to say to buy, that's three people. If I sell a $50 products, $150, I was like, God, like I'll be rich. So I didn't know what to do. And so they talked about sales letters. And so I was like, I write a sales letter. I printed it out on blue papers. I'm a blue paper. Let me more likely to read. So I, I put on my parents' computer, I wrote a little sales and I printed out 38 copies of it. I couldn't afford an read. So I put it on my parents' computer. I wrote a little sales. And I printed out 38 copies of it. I couldn't afford an envelope. So I just folded it and stapled it. And then I didn't actually have a mailing list.

So I just opened the white pages and flipped through and randomly picked 38 names. I'm like, this is going to be huge. So I wrote it, put my stamp on, and all my savings, put it in the mailbox. And I was just like, I am going to be rich. This is going to be amazing. I sent it out. I told everybody, like, when this comes back, it's over. I'll be able to move out, have my own house. It's going to be rich. This is going to be amazing. I sent it out, told everybody, when this comes back, it's over. I'll be able to move out, have my own house. It's going to be amazing.

Unfortunately, nobody responded. That was the only time I was able to invest. I didn't have the money to even buy a classified ad in a newspaper. After that, I just kept reading all this junk mail and learning from all these people. And then a couple years later, I got into wrestling and I kind of forgot about making money, but there was a seed that had been planted. So I wrestled through high school, had a lot of fun, got a college scholarship. I wrestled through college. And when I was going to college, I met my insanely beautiful wife, most of you guys, if not, she's right here hiding. And I met her and fell in love really, really quick, and I spent the next, like, three or four months trying to convince her. In fact, it was probably the hardest sale I ever had to convince her that

I was the right one, and luckily, she said, do you see that picture? I was kind of a geek, not gonna lie. Anyway, convinced her to marry me, and it was, it was amazing. And about the time we got engaged, I realized my dad said, well, when you get married, like, I'm not going to keep supporting you. Like, that's when you become a real man. And you have to like, I'm like, what? But I want, but dad, like, I'm wrestling and they're covering my school, but I, like, he'd always send me money to pay for food and stuff. And he's like, no, like, if you get married, like, you're kind of on your own. Like, I'm like, crap, I want to get married, but I don't want to grow up yet. Dang it. And my wife was a fiance at the time, wife now. She was working and she was

making money and she got a second job to support us. And I was just like wrestling. I'm like, I don't have any money. And so I'm like, well, I got to do something. And then luckily the greatest thing in the world happened. That happens to a lot of us. I was up late at night stressing out about this. And then this little thing popped up on TV. It was an infomercial. And it was this guy talking about how people are making money with these little websites and that they were doing an event at Holiday Inn like the next day and that you can come and get tickets to it. I'm like, oh, this is it. So I like call the number, get my tickets to holiday. And I show up the holiday and it's like a little tiny room with like 50 really, really like desperate people sitting there. And, uh, and I get in there and there's a dude on stage. He's all like in a suit and tie.

And I'm like, Whoa, that guy looks rich. And then he started doing his thing. And within like five minutes he closed me on like this $50 thing. And so I ran the back and I like had, I had my one credit card. Uh, I think I had like a $300 like credit, like that was it. That's all I had earned so far. So I bought my $50 thing. I ran back. I'm like, Oh, I'm going to make so much money with this. And then he pitched just on a website, which was like three grand. And I was like, Oh, and everyone's running back buying websites. I'm like, Oh, I can't afford a website. Dang it. And they pitched website hosting at $80 a month and all these things. And so like, and then they're teaching like, Hey, if you call your bank, you can get your credit extended. I'm like, Oh sweet. I didn't know that. So I'm calling the bank like, Hey, can you make my card a thousand

dollars? I'm learning all these things. And so getting my credit card bigger and, uh, which was kind of cool. And then I bought everything he told me. I'm like, all right, I need the whole thing. So I buy it all. And he convinced me, he's like, PayPal's evil. He's like, you have to have a merchant account. There's $6,000 for merchant account. I'm like, I don't have $6,000 yet. He's like, well, you can't make money online without a merchant account. It's six grand. I'm like, ah, but I couldn't afford that, but I had everything else. So the night I went home, I was like, cool, I got a domain name.

I got hosting, you know, $1,000 worth of internet web stuff. And then we jumped online. I was like, I'm going to have a website. I was getting excited. I started Googling some things. And eventually, within about 15 minutes, I realized that website hosting is not $80 a month. I realized that the domain name is not like a thousand dollars. I was like, Oh crap. Like I got taken like for all these. And then I was just like, I was freaked out. And so I ended up calling the next day and I was like, yeah, so my son is a

miner and he was at your event last night and he charged all his credit cards and he needs to be out of this contract. And, uh, they, they got me out of the contract and gave me my money back. So that's one trick. If you ever need to get out of a contract, um, it's worked almost every time. Uh, so those are the real.com secrets. All right. So, uh, so I got a contract. But at that point, like, I was in. I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I just need to sell stuff on the internet.

And so that started this thing about the time my wife and I were getting ready to get married. And I was, like, trying to sell stuff. And I was selling, like, all sorts of different things. I remember initially I thought maybe it's eBay. Like, people make money on eBay. And I remember driving to the thrift store, buying everything that I could find that I thought was worth value. And then like on my bike with like grocery sacks full of crap, like driving my bike back home. And I had, I remember like about a Michael Jackson record. So I'm like, dude, records are so old. This has got to be worth like hundreds of dollars. I ended up selling it for 13 cents on

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

products. I was like, what does that mean? He's like, all these CDs have info burned on them. People pay me and I ship them a CD. I'm like, is it the same CD? He's like, yeah, I have a CD burner. I just burn them. And then I put them in these things and I send them out. I said, are you kidding me? They're all the same size. I could like buy one box and just like, it'd be so much easier. And so that was when we started talking about information products. I was like, I don't know if that was even a thing.

And so I got all excited about information products. So I started Googling stuff and started learning about how information products. And I ended up finding this CD. It was called, it was a CD that had like 8,000 coloring book pages for kids. And, uh, and I, the guy was selling it. So I emailed him. I was like, dude, the CD is cool. Like, uh, I was like, can I buy the rights from the CD? So I can, I want to sell it. And he was like, uh, I've never done that before, but, uh, sure. For 200 bucks, I'll sell you the rights and you can sell it too. I'm like, sweet. So I gave him $200. I didn't have, and he gave me the rights. They had the CD. And then basically all I do is I had to burn it on a CD burner. I can

mail out as many times as I wanted. And he had a big, long sales letter. He let me use, I put his sales letter up and I started trying things. And, uh, what was cool is I started making sales, not a lot, like every other week we make a sale for 20 bucks. And, uh, and then I'd go burn a CD and I put it in an envelope and I ship it out. And I was just like, this is so cool. Information products became like the thing. And I was trying to figure out how that whole thing worked. And, and, um, that's why I started bumping into people like Yannick silver and on all these different internet marketing gurus and watching what they were doing, selling information products. And I was just hooked to that point. And, um, about that time I started, um, watching what they doing. I started learning. I started creating different things that...

My flashlight's still on. Sorry about that. And I started creating things. In fact, one of my very first products ever... Does anybody in this room remember the product Zip Brander? Yeah, like three people. Vijay does. So I had all these info products,

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

I was like, it's like zipping a file, but you'd zip it, and they'd be branded. So they'd open it, they'd see your ad first. I was like, this is the, like, I thought it was it. Like, that is my gosh. I was like, it's like zipping a file, but you'd zip it and they'd be branded. So they open it, they'd see your ad first. I was like, this is the, like, I thought it was it. Like, that is my idea. This is going to change the world as we know it. Right. And so I bought ziprender.com. And I remember Armin Morin at the time was one of the guys I was studying. And like, I was just like, Armin is so cool. Like everyone of his sites look very similar. They're so cool. And I'm looking and like Armin's site, he had a big header graphic with his picture, like his arm folded with a suit coat on. I was like, oh dude, that's what I need. So I got a picture of me like folding my arms and suit coat. And he had this header inside a header looked just like his,

his was always like e-cover generator and size like zip brand, like identical. And then this is where like my funnel hacking started. So he had this big long sales letter. I'm like, that looks weird, but Armand's doing this. I'm going to do it. So like I looked at his sales that I wrote my own based on that. And then I was like, how do I create this? I didn't know that. And so my first thought is like, oh, well, I should just become a computer engineer. That would be the coolest thing.

I want to make software. So I switched my major to computer information systems so I could learn how to code. It was about the time that semester was changing. So I get to class the first day, and he gets up there and starts talking about code and databases and all these things, structures. And I was sitting there like, oh, crap. I have no idea what he's talking about, not even a little bit. And within about 15 seconds, I realized that I'm not a coder and never will be a coder. I thought I was in a Spanish class or something, and I'm just like, I don't even know what he's saying. But I didn't know how to change my major again, so I kind of was, so I just kind of stayed in it.

And in a little while, I kind of got depressed. I'm like, well, that was my one idea. Like, I guess I can't do it. And then I remember I was listening to a teleseminar. I was on a wrestling tournament. We were driving to California. It was like a 16-hour drive. I downloaded on my, it was pre-iPods.

It was like this little tape player thing, a whole bunch of teleseminars Armin had done. I'm listening to these things in the back of the car where all the other wrestlers are like partying and having fun and like listening to music. And I was listening to these seminars and they were totally making fun of me the whole thing. If you meet any of the wrestling buddies, like they relentlessly made fun of me the entire, entire trip. Like you're such a nerd. Like you're never going to make any money. I'm like, no, I swear I will. So I'm listening to these things the whole way. And, uh, and in one of these things, like 22 hours into this, this thing I'm listening to Armin says like, yeah,

I don't code software. I go to this at a time. It's called script. Let's go to script lands. And I pay guys in Romania and India really like hardly anything to build stuff. And I was like, Armin is not a programmer. I thought I thought he was a programmer. There are people in India that can do this. So I went to like literally that night, jump on script lands. And, um, and I, and, uh, and actually prior to that, I tried to hire a company to do it. And they quoted me like $5,000. I was like, okay, well, I don't have that. And so I took the same description I'd given these guys and I posted on script lands. And instantly I got a, I got all these people started bidding on it. One guy was like, I'll do it for 5,000. I'll do it for 2000 for a thousand for 500 for, and came down all the way down to this guy named Cyprian in Romania said, I'll do it for

20 bucks. I was like, I got 20 bucks. So I picked him and he's like, all right, so this is how I'm going to do it. And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, but just do it. So he did, like spent like two or three days, sends it back. He's like, here it is. So I tried it and I like zipped a file and I opened it and my ad showed up. I was like, you did it. Oh my gosh. And he's like, yeah, thanks for the 20 bucks. I was like, no, you like, this is going to be huge. Like I'm going to make millions of dollars. I feel guilty giving you $20. Can I pay you an extra hundred? And he was like, yeah. So I gave him a hundred dollars and I felt good about it. And, um, that was my very first software product I ever did. And it didn't make me millions. I probably made, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 grand with that product. But it was the first one I had a sales letter, started driving traffic. I was doing

Google ads. I was finding JV parking, all these things. I started selling it. And that was like the first thing that actually made me any money. That exciting. 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, VP, C-suite powerhouses,

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The coding all stopped working like 10 internets ago. So it's done. But that was my first software product. It was so cool. About that time is when I started learning more about info products. That's when the potato gun came out, potato gun DVD, all these things. I was just doing all these little businesses and none of them were like huge smashing, like million dollar successes. I didn't pull Dan Henry and read a book. And five months later made a million bucks. Like I was like, Hey, I made five grand here. Oh, I made $200 here. Oh. And these little things kept, kept happening. It was so cool. And, um, and every project did a little bit better. It was like kind of like slow momentum. Like everyone did a little bit better than the last one because I got more customers were coming in and more people. And then, and I kept just

making things in different markets, potato guns and, um, and all these sorts of different things. And each one got a little bit better and it was just fun. And I remember just making things in different markets, potato guns, and all these sorts of different things. And each one got a little bit better, and it was just fun. And I remember back then I started doing teleseminars, and I was like, I'd get like 30 people online, and I'd talk about something, and I'd sell it at the end, and some people would go buy it. It was so exciting. And that was like the start of this whole thing for me. And then one of my friends, BJ, who's sitting over here, he was a wrestler in Nebraska. And I wrestled at Boise State.

It was our senior year. And my senior year I'd made, I'd made a pretty good money, probably $150,000, $200,000, somewhere in there my senior year. And he'd heard about it. And so Boise State was wrestling in Nebraska. And we're sitting there wrestling. And we're glaring at each other because we're opposite teams. And afterwards, he's like, hey, man, so someone told me you're making money.

Is that true? And I was like, yeah. He's like, how are you doing it? How are you doing it? And so we kind of talked about a little bit and then, uh, you know, we flew back to our places, figuring out college and we kind of talked back and forth a couple, you know, for a little while. And then, uh, after college got in, he's like, Hey man, um, I want to do what you're doing. Uh, can I get a job? I was like, you want a job? He's like, yeah. I'm like, well, what would you do all day? He's like, I don't know. I'll do what you're doing. I'm like, okay. And can we talk about marketing stuff? He's like, oh, I love talking about it.

I'm like, that'd be so cool. I have nobody to talk about this stuff. Like, I thought it was just me. I was like, so you're like, you're actually interested in this thing. He's like, yeah. I'm like, okay. Yeah, man, I'll give you a job. So come on out. So he's like, all right. So he jumps in the plane, flies to Boise and moves like literally into her office, slept in her office for like six months. And he gets there and he's like, okay, so how does this work? Like I'd never had an employee before. I'm like, I don't really know either. Um, I'll pay you. And, uh, then we can talk about marketing and we'll sell stuff and it'll be awesome. Now me as an entrepreneur, I was in this mode of like eat what you kill. Like I'd sell something, make a bunch of money. And I was like, sweet. And then

we wouldn't do anything for like four or five months and we'd create something sell it make a Bunch of money and then that's kind of the the model that I was on for a long time, right? and then uh Vj came and he wanted to be an employee and I was like so excited like sure so he's an employee and then the weirdest Thing happened is every two weeks He wanted to get paid whether we made money or not Like i'd never heard that, but I

was like, okay, so here's some more money. And then two weeks later, more money. I'm like, oh, crap, we haven't sold anything for like a long time. And so then, and then he had some other friends that came along that were like, this is cool. I want to work for you too. I'm like, all right, come on over, man. Let's get jobs. So I gave them jobs, one of his buddies and his wife, and then some other people. And soon I was like, I got all these friends that want to talk about marketing with me. This is so fun. And so we had all these people coming over. And then, but the problem was that like every two weeks they wanted to get paid.

And so, but we weren't selling anything. So I'd go lock myself in the back room. And I'm like, don't bug me, you guys. I got to make money so we can all hang out again. So I closed the door and I start working and I'd be working and I'd be selling stuff. And then they'd be out there like, dude, can we help you?

I'm like, shut up. If you talk to me, I can't make money to pay you. So just like go away. And they're like, we really feel bad. Like we want to help you, Russell. I'm like, I don't have time to train you because otherwise we can't make money to pay payroll. And so they just kind of, and that was like this thing. And what's interesting is this is one of my, one of my first lessons in entrepreneur, um, that, uh, that was tough. Right. And so, um, I had, I don't remember, I had five or six people at the time.

We hired this video guy that was, there's so many side stories, I can't tell you all of them. He was an Indian guy who had shorts on up to here and he had a braid that went past his shorts. Because he told me in interviews, like, yeah, I'm a video guy. I'm like, you can't even do videos. And he's like, yeah, I got all sorts of video stuff. So we hired him and then it turned out he didn't know anything about video at all. But I didn't dare to fire him because I'd never fired anyone. I was so scared. And like every day we're like, Oh, it's just like, he would just quit. But I don't know what to fire. I'm like, I don't know what to do. Like, Oh, it was, it was just all these weird learning things.

Right. And, uh, and so this went on for a while. I was launching something like every week trying to make money to cover payroll. And it's just this huge thing. And it became like horribly not fun for a long time. And, uh, it kept going worse and worse and worse until the point where it was December. It was the beginning of December. It was freezing cold. And I was looking at everything and like every penny I'd ever made was gone. Every idea I had for like how I could hustle and like sell things to different markets like was gone. And I was just like, just drained. Like I don't know what to do. And it was Christmas time. I was outside and I started going to go hang up lights around my house. And I had this little, someone had sent me like an iPod Nano and Stu McLaren had actually done an event. I don't know if Stu even knows this.

And he had sent me the links to it. So I downloaded the links to this event on this iPod, plug into my ears and I started like hanging up Christmas lights, which I had never done before. It's a horrible job. It turns out you can hire people for really cheap to do that. And the, the lights look really straight. Mine were like, it was really bad. And I kept stapling through the wire, which would then kill the lights. And it was bad. And my fingers were so numb. I had this little light coat on. I remember like, God, my fingers were so numb and I couldn't, I had to have my gloves off to be able to like squeeze the thing. And so like, I put them back in and get warm. Then I go back in and, and I didn't really want to go inside and get warm because I was so depressed because I knew that, um, that like the

next payroll was coming up in like a week or so. And I was like, I don't have money. Like, I don't know what to do. And like tomorrow I need to go in and tell these guys, otherwise they're going to like, it's going to be really awkward when your payroll does come in. I'm like, oh, sorry guys. So like tomorrow I have to go tell everybody this. And so I stayed outside in the cold because I didn't want to go in. Um, and I just was trying to think. And so I'm stapling these, these Christmas lights around the house. So I'm listening to this audio and in the audio, there's two different speakers talking about different business models. Back then, we know none of us called these things funnels, but they talked about these different business models,

what they were doing. And one of them, uh, was, uh, was an offline guy. His name is John. All of this, some of you guys guys heard me talk about him. He's the guy talking about attractive character. And he said, he's like, I have this thing that I've been doing where I create these CDs. And then I tell everyone it's so controversial that I can't put it on the internet, which is like the funniest thing ever. He's like, so because of that, you got to pay me $5. Then I will ship you the CD. And then he said, what happens is that I ship him the CD, but then that customer financed me putting a set, like sending them a sales letter. I was like, dude, that is like brilliant.

I'm like, we got to do that. And I remember I'd filmed the CD like two years earlier, um, or DVD. And I was like, we could do that. We could burn that DVD and we can start sending that out. So that was the first, uh, the first presentation was John Allens's. The next presentation was this guy named Matt Basak. He's become a close friend since then. And Matt was talking about his business model. He said, what I do is I send out CDs and the people that buy the CDs, I call them on the phone and we sell them coaching. I was like, you can call people on the phone? Like I'd never, I'm an internet nerd. I'm like, wait, you pick me up. Like, and I was super scared, but I knew that there was a guy that worked for me at the time. One of those, my five or six friends who had, who had sold things on the phone before. And all of a sudden, I was like, oh, my gosh.

Like, what if we figured out something we could do where we could, like, save this thing? Like, it might actually be possible. And I started getting more excited. I'm hanging up Christmas lights. I'm listening to stuff. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh. Like, this plan, this, like, funnel was going through my head. And I'm like, okay, I think I've figured out, like, a blend of what guys are saying could actually, actually work. And so my time, I got to hang up Christmas

lights. I texted all of them. Like you guys, uh, you don't know this yet. Um, but we're about to go bankrupt, but I got an idea that I think can save it. Uh, let's meet tomorrow morning early. I'm gonna walk you guys through, uh, what I think could actually save this business send. And they're all like texting back, like what? Like we're going through bankruptcy. Like, oh yeah, we're about to. Um, and, uh, and luckily it, okay, let's all come in. So they all came in the next day. And I was like, you guys, I think I got a model. This is what we're going to do.

I was like, remember that DVD I did like two years ago? We're going to take that. It's going to be a free DVD. It's going to be so controversial. We can't sell on the internet. We'll charge, I think it was $4.95 shipping and handling. And we'll send this DVD out to them. And then inside the DVD, we're going to have a sales letter

where we're going to sell a $5,000, actually it was $5,500. I don't know why we said that price, but it's going to be $5,500. And they're like, cool, what do we sell $5,500? I'm like, I don't know. What do you guys want to sell?

I'm like, uh. All right, so then we had our whiteboard and we, on our whiteboard, we're like, well, if someone's name is $5,500, like we'd have to be something amazing. Like what if we did this? And we're like,

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

Okay. And we're like, okay, I'd actually be willing to sell this. I think people would actually buy that. Like, that would be insane. And so we took that. And then at the same time, we added a newsletter. So somebody bought a CD, they joined a newsletter that was $37 a month. So they came from here and they joined a newsletter. It's $37 a month. And that was the funnel. Now back then we didn't have ClickFunnels. So luckily we had one or two

nerds still working for us who were able to kind of put these pieces together. And we had this really rudimentary, like horrible looking funnel, but it was live within a day. We said, okay, let's try it. And at the time I had a little tiny email list. This is pre-Facebook, pre, it was back in MySpace days. So it was back then. We pushed some traffic to this and we ended up selling a couple hundred of these CDs. And then in the CD, we shipped out to them inside the came a sales letter talking about this. And then it put people on a continuity program. And then we called everybody about CD and said, Hey, you bought the CD. How would you like to come to Boise? And we're going to give you this. And this was our Hail Mary pass. Like, please let this work. And so we did that.

We focused on it. We drove traffic to it. And when all of a sudden done over the next like two week period of time, we got 800 people to get our free CD. Uh, from the way we used to do it is everybody was on continuity. So we had 800 people that were on this $37 a month continuity. But it was free for a month, so we wouldn't make any money here. But we had 800 people's phone numbers we were able to call. And so we started calling them. And we didn't know anything about phone sales or anything. We were just like, hey, man, you bought a CD?

You want to come and hang out with Russell? They're like, yeah. And in that two-week period of time, we sold 10 people at $5,500 a piece, which ended up being 55K. And that funnel saved Christmas. Isn't that awesome? It's awesome. I was able to pay all of our payroll.

We had some money left over. It was awesome. And the coolest thing is 30 days later, then this club started, and all these people were on continuity. And suddenly we had a business. This is where I learned the power of continuity. David Fry, who's one of my favorite people in the whole world. He's in the audience here somewhere, I think. He used to always say, he's like, until you have continuity, you don't have a business. And I never understood that till this. There's David smiling over there. I love that guy. And now I found out how suddenly I had these people. And then so what happened, I don't know the math, 800 times 37 a month. It's like 25K a month. And, uh, and now I found out how suddenly I had these people in there. So what happened? I don't know the math, 800 times 37 a month. It's like 25 K a month. And we knew like

we have continuity now every single month we have 25 K and that means I can pay for employees. I can, and I, I realized like it's, you don't hire employees before you have continuity, but now we have continuity. Now we actually had people covered and we could actually focus and think. And that was, um, the first funnel that really kind of saved things and turned it around for us.