The Russell Brunson Show - The $1,500 Dan Kennedy Course That Quietly Changed My Business - #Success - Ep. 133

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, he didn’t say “now you can fit fifty songs on a CD instead of ten.” He said CDs are dead — and pulled a thousand songs out of his pocket. That’s not a better product. That’s a new category. And it’s the single idea that changed my business more than almost anything else I’ve ever learned. Welcome back to the vault. Today I’m opening up an actual course from my mentor Dan Kennedy — the one course, out of the forty or fifty I got when I bought his company, that radically changed my life. It’s called Opportunity Concepts, and it taught me the difference between three kinds of offers… and why the one almost nobody leads with is the one that out-converts everything else. I’ll show you exactly how I used it to launch ClickFunnels, and how to weave it into your own value ladder. Key Highlights: ◼️The three offer types — “Repair, Improvement, and New Opportunity” — and why 95% of businesses stay stuck competing on the weakest two ◼️The “-er” test — if you can only describe your offer with a word ending in -er (“faster,” “better,” “cheaper”), you’re selling an improvement… and improvements always lose to new opportunities ◼️How I positioned ClickFunnels as a “new opportunity” — not a better MailChimp or Infusionsoft, but a brand-new thing called a sales funnel — to become a “category of one” ◼️The Steve Jobs move — why “CDs are dead, here’s an iPod” beats “fit more songs on a CD” every single time, and how to run the same play on what you already sell ◼️The value-ladder twist — where new opportunity, improvement, and repair each belong in your funnel (lead with the new opportunity, sell the other two higher up) Here’s what I want you to sit with: most people spend their whole careers trying to be a slightly better version of everyone else — faster, cheaper, smarter — and then wonder why it’s so hard to stand out. The shift isn’t building a better mousetrap. It’s deciding you’re not in the mousetrap business at all. Dan Kennedy charged $1,500 for this one idea, and I bought his entire company to own it, because it’s worth every penny. So before your next launch, ask yourself the only question that really moves the needle: what’s the new opportunity only you can offer — and what would it take to become the category of one? ◼️SELLING OPPORTUNITY: This whole episode comes from a $1,500 Dan Kennedy course Russell bought an entire company to own — now rebuilt as a multimedia book you can read, scan, and watch Dan teach. If you want to position your offer as a new opportunity instead of a “better” version of everyone else, this is the playbook. → https://www.SellingOpportunity.com ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you have a funnel, but it's not converting? The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good, but you suck at selling. If you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next selling online event by going to sellingonline.com slash podcast. That's selling online.com slash podcast. This is the Russell Brunson show. Throughout history, like Steve Jobs was the best of doing this, right? If you look at like when he came out with the iPod initially, he wasn't saying, hey, I have a better way. Like right now you get, you can get 50 songs on, you know, typically CD has 10 songs.

He wasn't saying there's, you know, now we've created something. We can get 50 songs on a CD. He was like, no, no, no. It's like CDs are dead. Instead, and he pulls out of his pocket, boom, the iPod, right? A dozen years later, he comes out, not just a better phone or different phone, he comes out. It's like, like everyone else doing phone calls, we have boom, an iPhone. It was a new opportunity, right?

A new category was created. And by doing that, that opens up the whole world to you, right? When you become a category of one. And so when you create a new opportunity, that's how you grow. A new opportunity will out convert any improvement offer all day long. And so most people struggle because they put themselves in a category with a whole bunch of other people. You see it all day long. Like, mine's better, mine's faster.

As opposed to saying, well, it's a new opportunity I can create that's different. Like, that's the key to being successful. Hey, this is Russell. Welcome back to my vault. Today we're going deep into an actual vault from my mentor, Dan Kennedy's company. I bought this company a couple years ago and I had a chance to kind of go through all the like 40 or 50 different courses. and of all the courses, this is one that I bought in 2011-ish, and it completely changed, like radically changed my business, changed my life.

I know it's not an old book like we typically talk about, but it is an old course from the man himself, Mr. Dan Kennedy. This course Dan sold for, I don't know, a decade or so, for $1,500. As you probably know, I bought Dan Kennedy's company for multiple seven figures. I don't think I'm allowed to say the actual price. I think I was in my NDA. So I don't know exactly, I can't say exactly we paid for it, but I bought his entire company and got this course and other ones.

Again, this one is my favorite. And the reason why is there's one core thing that he taught in here that shifted everything for me. And I'm going to explain how it works. If you look at how people create offers throughout time, there's different levels, right? The very first level is what's called repair. So right, re-repair.

So if you think back, like, go back to like the late 1800s, early 1900s. Back in the day, like entrepreneurs, for most people, they didn't have the cash to go and start a car company or selling washing machines. kind of things, right? So they were the big brands that would create the first version of products, right? And so for entrepreneurs, the way that we built companies back then was all about repair. Like you had a car that was broken, we're going to repair it, we're going to fix it, right?

You had a dishwasher, it doesn't work, we're going to repair. And that was like the first version of entrepreneurs that came out where people were all focused on repair. And so everybody would create offers, the offers are all about repair. And that was kind of the first version. Then fast forward over the next, you know, a couple decades, the next phase inside of business after repair was called improvement. Okay. And this, This is, I remember when I was going to high school and learning business in school, this is what they always talked about, right? In fact, you probably have heard people talk about, like, if you want to be successful

business, find somebody built the mousetrap, and you just got to build a better mousetrap, right? That is what an improvement offer is, okay? And so repair means, like, if you want to put this, let's talk about the analogy as the car, right? So if I'm in the repair business, then someone's got a broken car, I'm going to repair it. Okay, an improvement is you have a car, I'm going to give you a better car or a faster car or whatever. Usually if there's an ER behind it, like better, faster, stronger, smarter, anytime there's an ER when you explain your offer, then it's called an improvement offer, right?

Now, improvement is better than repair. You can make more money selling an improvement offer than you can to repair. And again, most people, I'd say 95% of businesses on the internet today are all creating some version of an improvement offer. In fact, I'm curious. I love for you in the comments down below to explain what you do and see if you use the words ER. Like, I'm kind of like Uber only faster. I'm kind of like, I'm kind of like, you know, whoever, Tony Robbins, only I'm, for a younger demographic, and whatever, like, wherever your ER is, that means it's an improvement offer. So again, it's better than repair, but there is something that's better. Now that's what Dan talks about in opportunity concepts is instead of going repair or improvement, the third version,

and by far the best, instead of you getting cut off here, is what's called a new opportunity. Okay? And this is the third and the best. So if repairs, like you have broken car, we're going to fix it. Improvements like, there's a car, but it kind of, you know, your car's kind of lame. I have a better car. New opportunity is like, we don't drive anymore. I'm going to show you how to fly.

It's changing the whole paradigm. It's shifting the whole thing, right? And so when I got into, after I learned this, right, was about the same time I was launching ClickFunnels. And it was interesting because I was trying to understand, like, how does this work for me? How do I create a new opportunity, right? And you have to understand a new opportunity is not typically like I'm creating a whole new product. It's how you position.

position the product. Does that make sense? And so I started looking at it and and I realized, okay, if I would have launched ClickFun's like it's kind of like, it's kind of like Melchimp, only better. It's kind of like Infusionsoft only it's, it's better, right? It's got more features. It's faster. It does this. It's kind of like lead pages, but it builds better pages. Like if I were done that, it would have been an improvement offer, right? And so instead I was like, okay, like focusing and channeling my inner Dan Kenney. If I was Dan Kenney, I was, if I was positioning this, how to do it differently. So what we did is we created a new opportunity. At the time, nobody was doing funnels, right?

And yes, our, you know, ClickFunnels has a CRM, it has a page builder, it has email marketing automations, it has affiliate platform, it has all the things, right? It has better versions of all those. But what we did, we focused on what's the new opportunity? And for us, the new opportunity was this thing called, can you guys guess? It's called a sales funnel, right? It's the, like, that is the thing. We're going to build sales phones.

That was the new opportunity that we wanted to introduce into the world. Okay. And so when we came out, it wasn't saying this is a better way to grow a business. It was like, there's, you know, it's not better. This is the new opportunity. right it's not a website it's not this it's a new opportunity it's a thing called the funnel okay another good example if you look at throughout history like steve jobs was the best of doing this right um if you look at like when he came out with with the iPod initially he wasn't saying hey i have a better way like right now

you get you can get 50 songs on you know typically CD has 10 songs he wasn't saying there's you know now we've created something you can get 50 songs on a CD he was like no no it's like CDs are dead instead and he pulls out his pocket boom the iPod right a dozen years later he comes out not just a better phone or different phone, he comes out. It's like everyone else doing phone calls, we have boom, an iPhone. It was a new opportunity, right? A new category was created. And by doing that, that opens up the whole world to you, right?

When you become a category of one. And so when you create a new opportunity, that's how you grow. A new opportunity will out convert any improvement offer all day long. And so most people struggle because they put themselves in a category with a whole bunch of other people. And you see it all day long. Like, mine's better, mine's faster. As opposed to saying, well, it's a new opportunity I can create that's different.

different. Like that's the key to being successful. And so that's the real, like of all the things I learned from Dan Kennedy, inside this opportunity concepts course, this was the most powerful thing I learned because it gave me a way to position my offer that was that was completely different. All right. Now I want to show you guys one little hack that I learned just recently that if you ever study with me or read my book dot com secrets, I talk about this concept called a value ladder, right?

Where you come, your business comes in, you take somebody through this process, right? Where on the left hand side is your price and over here is your, you're, you're, you're value, right? And so as the price goes up, it increases in value. So what I teach people is like, for example, if you're launching a new business, right, this is the thing you want to sell at the end of the day, right? The most expensive thing. This is the way, this is going to be the most expensive provides the most value to somebody. Like, that's the dream thing you want to sell to somebody, right? The problem is like if I walked up to you on the street, I'm like, hey, my name is Russell Brunson. I know it looks like I'm 11 years old, but I want to build you

a sales funnel. And if you give me a million dollars and 20% of the sales that funnel, I'll build you an entire funnel. If I told most people that, they'd be like, you're crazy. You look like you're 12. There's no way I'm going to give you a million dollars to build a funnel, right? Because I haven't provided value to people at that point. So what we do and says at the bottom of the value ladder, we create something that gives them some value, right? They go through this process. If they receive value and they enjoy it, then what happens, they naturally want to send up to the next level to get more. And if they get value at this level of the value ladder, they're naturally going to want to send up and get more. Okay. So eventually, this seems like a really good

opportunity for them, right? Same thing is true in dating and relationships. So I met my wife the very first day. If I would have walked to my wife like, hey, you're gorgeous, we should get married and have a bunch of kids. She would have freaked out, right? So instead, what I do? I come down on the bottom of the value ladder. We go on a date. We have a good time. If she likes me and she gets value in the first date

and I ask her for second date, she's like, yeah, I'd love to do that, right? They go on the second date and then it keeps progressing until eventually when I'm like, hey, do I get married. She's like, of course I do. You provided so much value at every step in this relationship that it makes a lot of sense, right? So that's what the value ladder is.

Now here's the nuance I want to share with you guys. It's super powerful. The best thing to sell on the front of your value ladder, 100% of the time is the new opportunity, right? So somebody comes in and so for me it could be maybe it's click funnels. Maybe it's one of my books that teaches a new opportunity, whatever it is, right? But I'm selling the new opportunity on the first tier. That's the best way to get somebody into your world, right?

Then as you send somebody up, typically what happens is they, like for me, someone comes in the world, they read dot com secrets or they get click funnels, right? They got the new opportunity. They're building a funnel. Now the next phase is then I invite them to join my coaching programs. And what's happening in my coaching programs, by the way. My coaching programs, that's what I'm doing. I am helping them to make their funnels better.

So I do do improvement offers, but I do it high. up in the value ladder. Okay. Now check this out. The next year in the value ladder, somebody comes to me, and they got a funnel that's working, but they want me to make it better.

You want me to improve upon it. Then they can hire me for one-on-one coaching where at this level, then I offer repair. Okay. So it's kind of interesting if you look at like how the value ladder works, right? The best selling offers of all time

on the front end are new opportunities. We lead our business with new opportunities. That's why all my ads go to some type of new opportunity. After they become a customer, right? Then I've weeded out all the people. Now I'm going to help them improve the thing that they bought with me, then the improvement offers, and then the back end, if I want to work with people one-on-one, that's where repair comes.

So it's kind of a fascinating way to look at just different ways to weave these offers into your actual business model. Okay. So that's what the opportunity concept course was all about. And what's exciting for us is that recently we just republish this entire course as a multimedia book called Selling Opportunity that literally went through and took all these videos from the original course, all the books, and it's all in one spot where you can read the book, you can scan a QR code in the video of Dan actually teach these things.

all pops out because right now you cannot buy this course anywhere on the internet. In fact, I literally bought this on eBay because I couldn't find my copy of it. And it's the only one that was a lot out there. So the only other way to get this and really go deep with Dan Kennedy is if you go to Selling Opportunity.com and actually get a copy of this book. We'll put a link down the description down below. But it's kind of fun because we took something old and we've made it new so everybody can understand how to create a new opportunity inside of their specific businesses.

And yes, even though I had spent multiple millions of dollars to buy it to get Dan Kennedy's business to get this copy of the course. I had to rebuy it on eBay. I bought it. It came with like three other courses. It cost me like $3,500 to get that. So I say when all of a sudden, I probably spent $2,000 to rebuy a course

that I already owned the rights to do because I didn't have the physical copy to show you guys here today. So that is the opportunity concept of course. This is the new version, which is even better here inside the selling opportunity multimedia book. Obviously, you should all go and buy the book,

but if you just want my notes, if you'll get the highlights are the best things from this course. Again, in the description down below, click on the link. It'll take you to page where we will send you a copy of the notes from the opportunity concept slash selling opportunity book.

That way you can get the highlights so you can start creating new opportunities inside of your business and be able to change lives to the customers you've been called to serve. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoy this video, we'll see you guys on the next one.