The Russell Brunson Show - (MS) You're One Funnel Away - Part 2 (Revisited)

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

This is part two of my Funnel Hacking LIVE presentation from 2017. I wanted to toss-up this replay to remind you that when everything goes wrong, funnels have been the answer for me over and over and over, and I know they will be for you. So listen in to part two where funnels not only saved me from near bankruptcy and prison, they led to building ClickFunnels with my partner, Todd Dickerson. 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

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Travel moves us. You're listening to Marketing Secrets with your host, Russell Brunson. Hey, everyone. It's Russell again. Welcome to the next episode of Marketing Secrets. This is part two of the One Funnel Away presentation. All right, guys. So hopefully you enjoyed yesterday's episode. If you did like it, I hope that you have shared it. You told other people to go listen to it. And

today's going to be the exciting conclusion of Russell's bankruptcy and failure stories. So I hope you guys enjoy it. It should be a lot of fun. Listen to it. If you're online at marketingsecrets.com, you can watch it. There's a video there where you can share it and see the actual presentation as well. i hope this helps you it helps give you faith and hope in what you're doing what you're creating and where you were trying to go with your business and the people's lives you're going to serve so uh with that said enjoy my failures i hope you guys have a good time with it and we'll see you guys soon now the pros and the cons of this uh the pros is this was really awesome and i was like as getting good entrepreneur i'm like hey what's the book nail it and scale it like we nailed it right okay

let's scale this thing and so then um i probably shouldn't have done some of this stuff but we got excited i was like well if this worked here we should hire more people and um we started growing this we went from this little thing with five or six of us to two years later, we had about a hundred people operation where this is the model we were doing. CDs, calling them on the phone, selling coaching, having continuity. And it grew really, really big. And during that time, there were some really positive things that came from it. Some negative things, some ups and some downs. I'll share kind of a lot of those things. One cool thing is that while this was happening, and it was going really well, my name kind of got out there, so I got a chance to go speak a lot,

which was cool, and I had seen other people speaking from Sage, and this is where, I've told you guys a story, anyone who's gone through the Perfect Webinar, like, I spent about two and a half, three years on the road, going to seminars, standing in front of a bunch of people like this, talking and trying to sell something. And then, um, nothing happening. It's a really horrible feeling. Anyone ever done that before? My first presentation, I was on stage.

I just probably had, I don't know, 300 people in the room. I did a presentation and I tried to like do what speakers do and like close. And then hopefully everybody runs to the back and like nobody budged. And then the guy forgot to turn the music on and it was just like crickets. And then I was just like awkwardly like walking off the stage. Oh, this is awkward. And then running, you know. And then I remember the first, I was so embarrassed because usually we have like those events

where all like multi-speaker events and all the speakers are selling and everyone's bragging about their numbers. And like, and I knew that I don't want them to ask me my numbers because I totally didn't, like not one person signed up. So I went and hid in my hotel room. And I remember ordering coconut shrimp and Haagen-Dazs ice cream for every meal for the next two days while I hid in the room, eating it, watching movies. So I'm like, I'm going to go back downstairs. And I just, it was really bad and awesome at the same time because coconut shrimp and Haagen-Dazs is awesome.

But I did that and I learned like how not to sell. And then I started learning from some amazing speakers and people. And I started learning the process and how it works. And all the stuff we talked about in the Perfect Webinar, all this stuff we talked about day one about creating belief and breaking belief pattern, all those kind of things I learned on the road in front of people on stage. It was scary, but it's such a good time for me to learn and understand that part of the process. As we started to grow, I'm going to make sure I cover all the cool things. We had a bunch

of different offers we came out with. One of the ones that was more successful for us was a front end offer like this called micro continuity. How many of you guys remember micro continuity? Yeah, that is awesome. So this is one we, it's probably, I don't even know, eight years ago now. We put it on an MP3 player from Hong Kong. It had like six hours of this training and that was a funnel we put through and we just kept creating new front end funnels to get people into this, this program. And it worked awesome. And we grew the company from nothing to three or $4 million a year and it was doing awesome. And then at a time, um, I started looking at other people in my industry and this is hopefully will help. One of you guys is going to get a good idea

for this one. But I had this funnel. We talked about the value ladder, right? Like I had this really cool value ladder happening here. And, um, and I was, I was sending people up and I realized that I was the only person in the market that had a real value ladder. Everyone else was kind of doing stuff down here and that was it. And I was the only person selling really expensive stuff. I started calling my friends. I called it like Mike Filson. I'm like, Hey man, like, so all of our customers, Rick called him. We sell him like these $5,000 things and lots of people buy that. Like you should do that. He's like, ah, I like, so all of our customers, Rick called and we sell them like these $5,000 things and lots of people buy that. Like, you should do that. He's like, I don't want to call a center.

And I'm like, well, do you want us to call your customers and sell it? He's like, yeah. So we hooked up with Mike and we became Mike's backend. I call it Frank Kern. Same thing. We became Frank Kern's backend for a little while. We started calling up a whole bunch of people and then we started becoming the backend. So all these people now had front end funnels.

We became the backend for a lot of them. And that's how we took company from three or $4 million to $10 million. And it became really, really big. And I was going to say big and fun, but I don't think I would say that at all. It became really, really big. We had a hundred employees and, uh, we had 60 people on phones and big huge call center. We had 20 people, uh, doing coaching for all the things we were selling. And then we had about 20 people who were driving leads and customers and stuff like that. And it got really big. And I don't know if you guys noticed this, but like, I'm really good at like selling and those things really bad at like the management of stuff. And I was not good at managing all these people. And it just, it kind of started, um, just getting too big.

And, uh, this is about the time that I was telling you guys, if you've read the.com secrets book that I, I started waking up and I was just like, God, I did not like what I created. I got so excited that I started building this thing. And then one day I woke up and I was just like, God, I do not like what I created. I got so excited that I started building this thing. And then one day I woke up and I was like, huh, I really want to do this. I think half of the conversations I have with inner circle members when they first come in is this like, do you really want to build that business? Yes, that would work. But sometimes it's horrible when you get there.

Like thinking through like, what do I actually want to do? Who would I really want to become? Who do I want to be when I grow up? And luckily during that time, it was probably one of the most painful times in my life. But looking back now, it was probably one of the most important times in my life. We had this huge operation, everything was working. And then one day, it was in January,

literally 11 and 30 in the morning, one of my sales guys came in and said, hey, I'm trying to run a credit card, but it's not working. I'm not sure what's wrong. I'm like, oh, that's weird. Well, you know, try one of the other merchant accounts. Maybe there's something there. And then someone else came in, hey, all the continuity orders are failing. I'm not sure why. And then the three or four people came to me. I'm like, what's happening? I logged in the backend system and like 1137 or something like that, every sale stopped, just stop, no sales. I was like, what is

happening? And so I'm kind of freaking out. So I call our merchant account company. There's a busy signal. I'm calling again, busy calling and busy. And like, I can't get ahold of anybody. All of a sudden I start hearing from friends, like, dude, everything got shut down. Like, are you still able to process? I'm like, no, like what, what's happening? And everyone started, I don't know. I don't know. And, uh, and soon I found out that it wasn't me. It was like, I eventually found out it was like three or 400 people. At the same time, anybody who was doing any kind of like continuity-based stuff,

the merchant accounts basically came in and said, look, we think that what you're doing might be illegal and so we're shutting all of you guys down and you're basically guilty until proven innocent. I was like, what? I've got 100 people I'm feeding, a hundred people and their families. Like it turns into like hundreds of people. I was like, you can't stop processing. Finally, after like an hour, I get through somebody and the lady on the phone says, yep, we shut you down. Uh, good luck ever getting a merchant account again. I got to go boom and

hung up on me. And I was like, what? And at the time I thought I was, I thought I had diversity. Like I, I had a, we had nine merchant accounts time, I thought I was, I thought I had diversity. Like I had, we had nine merchant accounts all through one company. And so I thought that meant, but they were all through different, they're different merchant accounts but all through one bank. And I found out that's the equivalent of having one,

which is why I'm very, a big believer now in having multiple merchant accounts in multiple different banks, which is the lesson hopefully for everybody. If you don't know Alex Roy yet, I don't know if Alex is in here, but meet Alex and he's the man who can get you hooked up with lots of merchant accounts. Like he's done that for us. Yes. He's amazing. Um, but, uh, but we, we, it was bad. And so finally, um, uh, uh, got ahold of these guys and I'm trying to figure some things out

and, uh, basically I said, okay, well you got to prove that you are a good guy. I was like, okay. So we went through, took us two weeks for them to go through all our stuff. Look at our documentation, look at all our stuff. Basically two weeks and they came back and said, okay, you're right. You're doing everything clean. Everything's above board. We'll turn your merchant accounts back on and you're good to go. I'm like, sweet. So we turned back on and that time, like when there's that kind of instability, like sales guys are freaking out. They can't handle any kind of instability. They're leaving like crazy people walking out the door. And it was like, when there's that kind of instability, like, sales guys are freaking out, they can't handle any kind of instability, and they're leaving like crazy, people walking out the door, and it's like, and I was like freaking out, and we had all this payroll, but no money coming in, and so like,

I'm paying it out of my own pocket, like, everything just like, keep things afloat, and as I'm going through this process, like, it's getting scarier and scarier, and finally, it's like, things, yeah, merch counts are back on, you're a good guy, I'm like, sweet, so hey guys, we got to do a launch really quick to make a bunch of money, so we do this, put together this huge launch thing. We push it out to our customer lists. And in a weekend, we made $250,000. And I was like, thank you. So great. I was like, Monday, we should get the money.

We can pay payroll. I'm telling everyone like, just, you know, tell your wives and your kids, we'll have money soon. Like it's coming, I promise. Like it's in the bank. It's just going to be here any day now. And money didn't come. Money didn't come.

Monday didn't come. Tuesday didn't come. Wednesday didn't come. By Thursday, I'm like calling him. Like, where's our money, dude? Like, we need this money. And the guy looks at the camera. Oh, it's definitely in there. I'm like, okay, when's it coming to our bank? He's like, well, it's not going to come to your bank. Like, why not? He said, oh, well, you're on 100% reserve. So we keep 100% of your money. I was like, what? Like, that's not good for me or for anybody. How am I supposed to be in business? I got people to pay. He's like, yeah, well, that's just how it works. He's like, but the good news

is that it looks like you are a legitimate company. No one's charging back or refunding this money we've collected so far. So what we'll do is we'll drop you down to 10% reserve. I'm like, oh, thank heavens. And then he said, but the $250,000 you collected last week, we're keeping that for the next six months, just as collateral, make sure nothing bad happens. I'm like,000 you collected last week, we're keeping that for the next six months just as collateral to make sure nothing bad happens. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, so I'm like, okay. I gotta create another funnel, quick. So we're printing that other thing,

push it out there, make some money, and we start paying payroll for whatever we can, but everything's collapsing around me. And so that started in January, and that started happening at the same time we're trying to find other merchant accounts, other banks, and all these other banks are like, oh yeah, we're cool, come in, we'll give you a merchant account. And they're happening. At the same time, we're trying to find other merchant accounts, other banks. And all these other banks are like, oh, yeah, we're cool.

Come in. We'll give you a merchant account. And they're like, okay, this is how it works. You're going to make $100,000 a month. I'm like, cool. Okay, we're going to do that in like two days. So I need like four merchant accounts because this is like we can make money. We just need you to be able to like give it to us after we make it. And like, oh, yeah, we're cool.

We're good at that. Don't worry. It's like, okay, cool. So we get a merchant account. Get it all set up. Drive a bunch of traffic. And twice, we made over the $100,000 a month we were allowed's like okay cool so we get a merchant account get all set up drove a bunch of traffic uh and twice we made over the hundred thousand dollars a month we were we were allowed within like a day day and a half and then they froze our accounts and they said oh

you've made too much money too fast uh we're freezing your accounts uh we'll get this money back to you in six months i'm like six months like please stop doing this to me like we end up like four or five hundred thousand000 locked up in merchant accounts. And it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. So this whole, this whole year was like, like the hardest year of my life. And it just kept going down. And like every single day I'm like laying off friends and family members and people whose families I like, people that I just love and I care about. And I'm coming in, I'm like, I don't know what to do, man. I'm so sorry. Like I gotta let you go. And it was just like such a dark time in my life.

And just over, thing after thing after thing. And I wish that I could say from there it got better. So that was an entire year. The next January started. And one of our friends was doing an event in Vegas. And I was like, I'm gonna go out there and just see what everybody, like, I gotta re-figure out my whole business.

Like, everything's completely collapsed. At the time, by the way, we were in this big, huge office we had rented and, yeah, that we were leasing. And I think it was like 20,000 square feet because we had all the call center and stuff. And I went to the landlord. I'm like, hey, man, like, I can't afford to pay you anymore. And he's like, okay, well, we've got a three-year contract. If you don't pay me, I'm going to sue you and you're probably going to end up in jail. I was like, are you kidding me, dude? Like, I'm trying. Like, would not work with me at all. I had all this fear behind that.

So I'm in Vegas a year later, trying to ask friends, like, what's happening? Like, what are you guys doing in your business? And they're trying to tell me their stories. I'm just like, oh, this is, I don't know what to do. And then that night I got an email on my phone from my dad. And I opened this email. It was like a shot in the gut. Like, probably the worst second of my life as I read that. And, uh, the email said, Hey, Russell, I'm so sorry. My dad was helping the books at the time, but we had a bookkeeper

in the office. He said, um, and the bookkeeper, I mean, she was, she was trying her best, but she didn't know. Um, she knew we were struggling and she didn't want to stress me out. So she didn't tell me how much we were struggling. And, uh, it turns out what she'd been doing is she had been paying the bills she could. And the one she couldn't, she was trying to like not pay him and delay him. And, uh, and to hide it from my, from my dad and from everybody else, she was, she was saying in quick books that she paid bills, but then like not actually paying them. So it looked like it was clear. And he'd gone through and actually audit and found out, um, that she hadn't paid payroll taxes in almost a year. And the email, my dad said, Hey, just, you know, payroll taxes aren't

like something where they find you. Like if you don't pay payroll taxes, you're going to go to jail. And it was over $150,000 a year in payroll taxes. And I was like, at the end, it had been an entire year. Every penny I'd ever earned was gone. All my people, my teams, like it just had all fallen apart. And I'm sitting there like, I don't know what to do. And so the next morning, we got on a flight from Vegas back to Boise. We fly back to Boise. I get to Boise and I walk in. And the call center's empty. All the guys are gone.

And there are two people that are left. And they said, hey, just so you know, the call center across the road just recruited us. And we all just left and we're out. See ya. And they walked out. I was like, oh. I have the government $150,000. I have nobody to help me sell.

Like, I don't know what to do. And I want to quit. Like, so bad, I want to quit. But if I quit, I go to jail. I'd also sold a lot of coaching to people I cared about. If I quit, all these people that bought coaching from me, like, I can't help them. That's not right. That's not the right thing to do.

I was like, I don't know what to do. So I went to a bankruptcy lawyer. I'm like, how does this do. I was like, I don't know what to do. So I went to a bankruptcy lawyer. I'm like, how does this work, man? Like, I don't know what to do. Like, I got to figure this out. And he's like, well, kind of explain the whole process. And I told him about my lease. I'm like, the landlords that are coming after me, like, the government's going to come after me.

Like, I don't know what to do. And he's like, well, the best thing to do is I should come with you to your landlord and just explain you're going to bankruptcy. Maybe they'll be nice to you. So I'm like, all right. He's like, do you have any money? I'm like, no. He's like, what do you got in your pocket? I was like, I got like a hundred bucks. He's like, cool. Give me a hundred bucks. I'll come and I'll tell the landlord you're going bankrupt. I'm like, all right, man, here you go. So he comes with me, which actually is the best hundred bucks I've ever spent. So he comes with me to the landlord and he's like, Russell, screwed man. He's going through bankruptcy. He just hired me. He's like, he can't pay you. Like you can come after him, but he is

like, and it got, it was like this old man. He's just like, yeah, he's done. Like, oh, so bad. Like so much money. Government's coming after him. Like, oh, you're screwed. Don't even try. And, and basically convinced our landlord that like it was a useless cause. So the landlord was like, all right, be out by Friday. And we had a big space with office cubicles and phones and all sorts of just craziness, right? So I'm like, okay, I'll be out by Friday. But 90% of my team was gone at this point, from 100 employees down to about seven or eight. The few people that stuck by me, people like Brent Cole-Peters, who, like, just love that guy to death. Brent and John and some of the people back then, I mean, Brent had taken a pay cut,

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That's rocketmoney.com slash R-U-S-S-E-L-L. That's rocketm money.com slash Russell today. That's rocket money.com slash R U S S E L L. That's rocket money.com slash Russell. So the few of us that were left, we went and we packing up stuff. We put up ads on Craig's. It's like, we got tons of computers and crap coming by and things we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for. We were selling for hundreds of dollars. And, uh, just to get out of it, we made, I don't know, maybe five or six grand of all of our crap getting rid of. We had huge dumpsters just throwing away everything we ever created because we had a downsize. And trying to figure out how do we get into a smaller building and how do we keep the people we have to have to be able to fulfill on coaching. But we have to just cut everything else that we have.

And so we were downsizing everything, going out. And the night we were moving, like that Friday, we were supposed to everything going out and the night we were moving like that Friday, we're supposed to be out at midnight or whatever, you know, whatever it was. I was sitting in the office and the desks were gone. Everything was gone. All I had left was my laptop and I was sitting there. I remember I had my socks on. I had some Levi's and I had no money and I was like, I have to make some money or else

we can't even like move into it. I don't know how to do anything. And so, uh, I sent an email to my list. I had the the time. I had a bunch of people registered for a webinar. And I was sitting there in a chair with my laptop on my lap doing a webinar, praying that something would happen. And that webinar saved us. Like that webinar we did made $150,000 in sales over the next three or four days from that webinar, which gave me the money I needed to pay everyone to like not leave, get in a new office,

get us moved in and get us like to stability so we could actually breathe for a few minutes. which gave me the money I needed to pay everyone to like not leave, get in the office, move, get us moved in and get us like to stability so we could actually breathe for a few minutes and figure out, okay, what's the next step? Like, what do we want to be when we grow up? And so we downsized from 20,000 square feet to like 2000 square feet. And, uh, and we had this really cool moment where it was like, what do we, what do we want to do when we grow up? Like, what do we want to be? Um, and as painful process was, like, it was one of the coolest things ever because we didn't have to keep going on this path. We could pick anything. And this is where I started thinking, like, who is our dream customer?

Like, who do we really want to serve? Like, what fires us up? What gets us excited? And we started thinking through that. And during this process, like, we started just creating again and started having some fun. We're like, well, what should we do? I had a friend at the time who he had this little website.

I was making him like $2,000 or $3,000 a month. And he got in some trouble. And I had a couple things making a little bit of money at the time. And he's like, I need to get rid of this site. Can you pay me some money? So I gave him $20,000. He gave me this little website. It was a little machine that you zap and it gets rid of cold sores.

And our autopilot was making $2,000 or $3,000 a month. And I was like, oh, this is so cool. So we had this little thing. I'm like like that little business just kind of runs like what if we had another one so we started creating another one so we did one in the couponing market we set it up we got a guru in there we started running and that started making money they're like okay with no we didn't win the weight loss and another and in a year period time we launched 12 different companies each were making different amounts of money um and during that time we launched neurocellar supplement companies all these things were. And it was starting to get exciting again.

Like, we were creating, we were doing, we were, like, doing the business instead of teaching the business again, which was, like, so much fun for us to do. And to learn and see, like, why does this stuff work in this market but not this market? One of the things that drive me crazy about teachers in my industry is that they come in and act like the marketing techniques that work in one space work everywhere. And I learned during that two or three year period of time, that's not true. Like everything's different. There's intricacies that are different in couponing versus business versus weight loss versus diet versus supplements. Like there's differences. And, and I came to respect that because we had a chance to do it

in so many different businesses and so many different, different things. And we spent the next two or three years creating stuff. And during that process, um, one of the really cool things is, uh, I used to go to flip a.com all all the time and try to find cool websites we could buy and turn to businesses. And there's a website called championsound.com that was for sale. And it was this little email, text message, autoresponder for bands. And I was like, I'm going to buy that, and then we're going to take it and niche it for every market. We'll make email autoresponders and text message autoresponders for dentists and for chiropractors. I was so excited. It was $20,000.

We didn't have that much money, but I was like, this is the future of our company. We have to do it. So we ended up buying this website from these guys. I'll flip it. We get the website, and they're trying to transfer it over to our servers after we paid them the $20,000. And as they're trying to transfer it, they're like, well, you can't have, and this is the nerd talk, you can't have a Linux server. You need a Ruby server. I're like, well, you can't have, this is the nerd talk, you can't have a Linux server, you need a Ruby server.

I'm like, what does that mean? And they're like, it means that this is not coded in PHP, it's coded in Ruby on Rails, so you have to have a different kind of server. I'm like, what does that mean? It means you have to go over here and pay like 800 bucks a month for a new server. I'm like, are you kidding me? I don't have 800 bucks a month for a server, but we just bought this thing, so we did, and they installed it, and it didn't really work.

I'm like, I don't know what to do. None of my tech guys had ever used Ruby on Rails. And so like I went to Odesk, I hired some guys and they couldn't fix it. And I tried like five or six guys and finally I was like, wasted 20 grand. I was like so upset and so frustrated

because like I didn't have that money. And on the way out of the office one day, I was like, I wonder, what if anybody on my list knows Ruby on Rails? Like shot in the dark, have no idea so i sent an email to my little list at the time i was like uh subject i was like ruby on rails uh looking for a partner if you know ruby on rails i'm looking for a partner and i said basically the story i told you guys bought this thing can't make it work if you know ruby on rails become my partner

we'll make a bunch of money this thing together sent the email out about an hour later i get an email from this guy in Georgia named Todd Dickerson. And Todd's like, hey man, I know Ruby. I'm like, you do? And then I looked at his picture. I was like, you don't look like a nerd. I don't think you do. And then I went to like Facebook and I have Facebook friends.

It was actually six years ago last week or something. A Facebook friend, I'm like, he's got a beautiful wife. He's got a daughter. I'm like, I don't think he's a coder. Like, I don't know if I believe that. He's like, yeah, man, shoot me the log and I'll fix it. I was like, whatever. I had like eight guys try to fix it for the last like four or five months. Nobody can do it. I'm like, whatever, here's the login. So he logs it in. And then like an hour later, he's like, okay, done. It's fixed. I was like, what? He's like, I got it fixed. I just did blah, blah, blah. And it worked. I'm like, dude, how did you do that? He's like, I just love Ruby on Rails. I'm amazing. He didn't say that, but he's super humble. But I was like, dude, this guy's amazing. And I was like, okay, well, I have these other, you want me to do these other things? And so Todd came, and we started working on this other project. We ended up, we had a different

auto webinar. Todd built out this software behind the scenes, which was like ClickFunnels version 00, like pre-everything. And he built this auto webinar software because Mike Filsaime had been talking about auto webinars. Rick Sheffrin had put a webinar report out. A couple guys had been talking about auto webinars. Nobody had done one. Nobody was really doing them. So Todd custom built this whole platform so we could do them. We launched an auto webinar through that. And in that auto webinar, we made a million dollars in 90 days. And the first thing I did from that on 90, yeah, first thing I did from that million dollars, I took the money and we paid off the IRS. And I was like, I'm free. Oh, I'm free. I'm not going to jail. IRS is paid off.

All the fines are paid off. And that auto webinar funnel literally saved me, literally gave me freedom. Like up to that point, every night when I went to bed at night, I was just like, they could come knock on my door. Like I have not paid payroll taxes in that long. And that webinar freed us. And we kept doing thing after thing. And what was fun is with Todd and Dylan used to design half of these things. He says like contract, he designed these pages. Then Todd would take them and code them up, make these funnels.

He did funnel after funnel after funnel. We probably had 15 different would take them and code them up, make these funnels. He did funnel after funnel after funnel. We probably had, we had 15 different companies but then those companies two or three funnels. Probably like 40 funnels we built over after thing

after thing after thing after thing. And the last funnel we actually built the old school way was the NeuroCell funnel. And that's one of the ones that blew up really, really big.

It started making tons of sales. We were having a bunch of fun with it. And about that time is when Todd was like, hey, we should really create something so I don't have to keep making websites for you every single day. And that was where the idea came for ClickFunnels.

And so we started that project in front of a whiteboard like we talked about yesterday. We mapped out this whole thing. And Todd went to work to build ClickFunnels. Then we partnered with Dylan to build the editor and the UI. And then fast forward seven or eight months later, we came and we were like, this thing is going to change the world. And I was so excited.

I was like, we're going to do a free trial. And I think the very first month, our goal was to get 10,000 members the first month. I'm like, this is going to be the greatest thing in the world. So we put it out there. We created the first funnel, had all this stuff in there. It was a free trial.

We had a bunch of people all lined up to promote it. We launched it. It was a free trial. We had a bunch of people all lined up to promote it. We launched it. It was like crickets. People came and they left. I was like, dude, do you guys not understand what I'm giving you? Like, I made that page you're looking at. Like, it's really good, right? And like, nobody got it.

And I was like, why didn't they get it? I'm like, there's something wrong with my messaging. So we changed the funnel again and we launched it again. Like, a few of you guys signed up, but that was it. Like, most of you hit it and they left. I'm like, God, I they get it? I'm like, there's something wrong with my messaging. So we changed the funnel again, and then we launched it again. Like, a few of you guys signed up, but that was it. Like, most of us, like, hit it, and they left. I'm like, God, and I tried again. We tried again. We rebuilt that funnel not once or twice or three times or four times or five times.

Six times it took us before the ClickFunnels funnel worked. And the sixth time was because one of my friends, Mike Filson, invited me out to his event. And he's like, hey, Russell, I want you to come and sell ClickFunnels. I think it's awesome. I said, dude, Mike, nobody's buying ClickFunnels. Like, we've got to figure out our next deal or figure out something because it's not working. He's like, no, dude, my people need it. You need to come speak on it.

But you've got to sell it for $1,000. I'm like, it's a free trial. Nobody even wants it. All right. And so Mike's event was happening that weekend. And I was literally sitting in my office watching the event streaming. As I was sitting there, I started writing my webinar. And I had my slides open.

I was following the perfect webinar script that I had been working on for like 10 years. I started filling in the blanks, started making this webinar true to the perfect webinar script. I literally was watching it, adding the things in. While I'm watching Mike's event happen, that day I finished the slides. Next morning, I jumped in a plane. I flew there. We got to California. I think it was California where the event was at. I got there, put the slides up on the slides. Next morning, I jumped in a plane. I flew there. We got to California. I think it was California where the event was at. I got there, put the slides up on the thing. I'm like, okay,

so here we go. I started it and the title slide was my weirdness funnel. It's currently making $17,947 per day, talking about the neurocell funnel and how you can definitely knock it off in less than 10 minutes. Show the first slide, started going through. And when we got to the end, we got to the stack and the close, we did it. And 30% of the room jumped up and ran to the back, jumping over the tables, fighting to get back there. I was like, we did it. That was the message. That was the key.

Now I know how to sell ClickFunnels. We took that message, went back. And as a lot of you guys know, especially in the Circle members, starting webinars every single day. Sometimes two a day. One time I did three in a day members, starting webinars every single day, sometimes two a day. One time I did three in a day, which was really hard, over and over and over again. I did that webinar live over 70 times

over the next year and a half and went from being a startup with no members to year after the end of last year, I had over 10,000 members. After this year, we have over 30,000 members and it's continued to grow and grow and grow and it was that one funnel that changed everything for me. So this process for all of us, you guys, is an up and a down. Like

it's always happening. And all of you guys are somewhere in this wave right now, right? Some of you guys are at the top riding it. Some of you guys are at the bottom in a crash and you guys are somewhere in between and it's always going up and down. But if nothing else of this event, like I wanted you guys to all understand that like, no matter where you are, there's hope. Okay. It might not be this funnel. I can't tell you how many funnels flopped. I guarantee I have failed at more funnels than anybody else in this room because we tried over and over and over and over again. Because of that, we found out what worked. And the only way to do that is to do it over and over and over again. And it's a lot easier now.

I promise you, it's so much easier than what we used to do when poor Todd and Dylan had to custom code every single thing, every single time. Like now you guys can test things really, really fast. First time I met Trey, first call, I said, Russell, I'm going to launch a funnel a week every single week. And I watched the CD launch a funnel and another funnel, another funnel, another funnel. And he had some marginal success, little success, more success, more success, more success. I saw him launch a funnel last year. One funnel, boom, and within 90 days became the biggest selling funnel in the history of the world. I was talking to some of the guys at Affiliate Summit.

They said there's never been a funnel that's made more money in a shorter period of time than one of Trey's funnels. I'm not privy to share all his numbers and his stats, but it was insane. And it came from him doing a funnel a day or funnel week, funnel week till he hits the one that just explodes. And you don't know what that's going to be. It's important. That's why this tool is so important because you can do that. You can test, you can try over and over and over again.