The Russell Brunson Show - The Hard Truth Every CEO Needs To Hear

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

On this episode Russell allows us to listen in on some personal advice that Tony Robbins gave him about where he should go with Clickfunnels, and why that may involve stepping down as CEO. Here are some of the surprising things you will hear in this episode: Where Tony thinks Russell should go next, and why he thinks selling Clickfunnels would be a mistake. What Tony has done with his own companies that he thinks would be a great move for Russell to make. And what makes Russell so good at what he does, and how he can continue to do what he loves without being CEO. So listen here to find out what Tony thinks Russell's next move should be. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/268-the-hard-truth-every-ceo-needs-to-hear Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Travel moves us. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. What did you guys think about yesterday's episode? I guess it wasn't yesterday. A day or two ago. I don't know.

I'm recording these at the same time, so it seems like yesterday. But for you, you'll get them every other day or something like that. So I hope you enjoyed it about Tony Robbins and the Dream 100. I don't know if I told you this or not, but Tony is our big keynote. And this is just Funnel Hockey Live. So if you want to meet my mentor and hang out with him and get to know him and get your life changed by him like he changed my life, you better get your tickets to Funnel Hockey Live.

What are you waiting for? FunnelHockeyLive.com. Anyway, this next episode is one. This is a really special one. I was nervous to share this video. If you haven't seen the video yet, again, go to our YouTube channel. I think if you go to FunnelHackerTV.com, it'll take you to our channel. But go to the channel and watch the video because the visuals are amazing.

But this is a private intervention with me and Tony Robbins where he basically consulted me on the next steps of my life and my business. And it was very emotional, very powerful, very cool, very cool lesson. So I hope you enjoy it. I'm going to cue up the theme song. When we come back, we'll jump right into the episode. With that said, don't forget, get your tickets to funhawkinglive.com so you can come hear me and Tony and the rest of our amazing audience we put together for you. And number two, if you haven't gone to our YouTube channel yet and you want to go to our YouTube channel and get these videos, they are insane.

We're putting tons of time and effort and money into them to make them amazing and visually appealing. But the audio is just as powerful. So listen to the audio, but go check out the video as well. Thanks so much, and we'll talk to you soon. So the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, we're spending money from our own pockets. How do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things

that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to Marketing Secrets. Go. All right, so the mastermind, I didn't really know what to expect, and I asked Dean, and Dean was like, oh, well, we talk about business,

but we always talk about business. Let's leverage Tony while we got him for a couple hours. Okay. Is Russell going to join us, too? Or is he going to be a piece of it? He's right there. Okay, cool. I think it'd be worth taking a few moments,

a minute or two with each, and have you tell us where are you right now in your life? You know, where are you? What's great? What's missing? What needs to change? And let's see if we can't go a little deep

so it's not a surface thing here. We're happy to answer, you know, marketing and sales and business questions, of course. But my hope for you is that we go a little deeper because, um, how many of you are between 35 and 45? Virtually all of you. So if you're in that, if you're in that range close to it, uh, every stage of life has different opportunities and different challenges. And, um, I'm lucky enough to live almost 60 years now. And I can look back on those years and see each decade and see each decade. And everyone's different.

Nothing's universal. But there's certain things that at stage of life show up for people pretty predictably. And if we look at some of those things, we might be able to give you even more help than just your business, which will help your business as well. So if you're open to it, we'll go there. So I'd suggest going deeper than you even thought you were going to be. And I also want to give it up for Russell, our other partner and friend, and helping make this. What a great friend, and it's been amazing for us to get to know you more.

And, Colette, it's been so awesome. You guys are family now. So without any further ado, let's do this. And the way we basically did it was there's 10 of us that were kind of in this little small group, and Dean and Tony were in front. And everyone had a chance to kind of introduce themselves, talk about what they were doing and having success, so everyone could celebrate together,

and then talk about what in your business or your life you had questions about or you were at a crossroads and didn't know what to do and just kind of be vulnerable and share that a little bit. And I was in the second row, so I had a little while to kind of sit back and just relax and a couple hours to watch him go deep on everybody else. But what's amazing about Tony when you watch him do what he does, his context of who's in the room, so when he does like he'll go deep on some of his intervention as he's doing it he's saying things specifically that he knows that like Russell needs to hear or

Jenna needs to hear whatever. And he'll say something and he'll mention it he'll look at me like like direct eye contact like that was for you Russell. I'm like, got you. Like okay, I'm picking up where you're laying down. So I had a chance to see him do a bunch of interventions like Lewis Howes and Josh Bizzoni and Billy Jean and just all the people leading up to me, you know? And from everyone's presentation, I got different pieces about like, how to structure your life, how to do your morning routines. All these cool things made me start thinking in my head about ClickFunnels in the future

and what do I want to actually do. Has this been, we've worked with individuals, but how many gotten something for yourself at each one so far? Just want to make sure. Okay, good. Just want to make sure. In fact, by the time it got to me, I was just like, I'm kind of good. Like I know most of the answers I'm looking for.

Hey, you should be up here talking. What are you doing sitting there? No, I want to be back here. But there's one question that I've always wanted to ask Tony, but I've been really nervous about it. And it's kind of a question that, like, I don't think anyone else would ever dare to ask him or even bring it up. But.

Russell at lunch today said what I really want to ask Tony is, how's his breath? Always so amazing. How's what? How's your breath always so amazing? Your breath is insanely good all the time. That's what he said. That's my real...

That's actually a real question, but we'll answer it. You can text me the answer to that one sometime. What's that? Alkalinity. I literally said it last night. When your breath's bad, you're very acidic. That's all I got.

Just kidding. literally said last night when your breath's bad you're very acidic huh yeah that's all i got um um i i it's hard to put it as an actual question so i'm not really sure exactly it has to do with kind of just direction so obviously click funnels turns five years old in two weeks it's been five years run that's awesome thank you it's um become bigger than we ever i think dreamt initially and it's been a really really fun ride as we've been growing uh we're almost 400 employees now we've got uh we passed 95 000 active customers last week we should hit 100 000 by the end this year so a lot of fun things that's what i'm saying that's not a promotion it's a business um but also it's and i remember the very first time we met at upw like 10 or 11 years ago and um we were in toronto yeah and you told me so the reason why you got in this business is because of the art like like you did you were doing your art and then you built a business because you had to do it to be able to

support your art and i've always felt like that's very similar to me like i love the art of what i do and that's why i'm passionate about so i love it it's like it's all about that for me and um as the business has grown i'm still in the ceo role and i think that's been one of the hard things is that as it's grown my ability to do the art has shrunk i have i have pockets of times i could do like doing events i love i love writing the books i love doing content but you're now i'm a CEO also, which especially at this level, there's all the legal compliance now, which, you know, you take my art and then the lawyers look at it

and they try to destroy the art before they send it out, which, like, makes me, you know, like, it's hard. And then you get just all the government regulations. And, you know, we process $4 billion so far through ClickFunnels. Now it's just like the bureaucracy, that part of it now is like what takes up so much of my time. And my ability to spend time in the art has gotten smaller and smaller. And I think that's kind of been this weird spot where I'm at,

where it's like we have an opportunity. I think if we wanted to exit, we could exit. But then I have the fear of if I did exit, would I lose my art? And is there a way to exit and keep the art? Or is it just do I need to shift so I can do my art and not worry about that part of it? And so that's kind of the question coming into it, which a lot of stuff you said to Josh has been really good for me as well.

Yours is different, though, because you're, you have really mastered that business at a really amazing level where you could sell it for a billion dollars, probably on the, on a gross multiple as you described. Right. So I don't think it's quite the same thing there, but I think the difference is the art matters to you emotionally.

That's why I brought it up to you when I was talking up here. It matters to you so much that if you don't have what's next before you sell it, you're making a big mistake. So you either got to decide I'm going to to get, like, maybe I'll get a valuation slightly less, but all my employees will win and I'll win and I can keep running it and I'll do my art and I'm going to hire someone to be the CEO and I'll be the chairman. That's what I would do.

That's what I am in my company. I'm the chairman. I'm no longer the CEO. So you either decide to exit because you don't want those things. In those cases, you know, I'm not the CEO there anyway. Someone else is doing it. But for me, it was getting in the way of what I wanted to do. And the other is I made myself chairman.

I hired CEOs that are really skilled in those areas and then decided what I want to do with those businesses because I want to keep them. So I got enough assets, enough benefit. I don't need to sell them. You have enough assets probably because you live very humbly. This guy's one of those humble people I know. He's like 100 million times better than he ever projects himself to be. He always understates who the fuck he is. He's a total fucking stud, and he's incredibly humble, is he not?

You know, it's incredible. And he lives a humble life, and he's got five beautiful children, and he's like, he's just a great human being. You all know that, I think, if you interact with him. So you have all that by the, so to speak, by the tail tail so to me it'd be like okay i can exist but if i'm going to do it what i'm going to use that for that's going to be even more fulfilling otherwise i should keep this and get someone else i don't want to do who's even better than me get back into my art but my as as your friend you love what you do you light up when when you do. I love being around you.

You all get a quick funnel. It's like, wow. It's like Jesus has come to earth and is coming through his body, and that's a beautiful thing, you know? So for you to sell that is really exciting right now. I don't know if it will be exciting five years from now, unless you found the next most exciting thing that you're going to go build and make happen and go do. Because the money is not going to change your life, brother.

It'll change your life for the moment. It'll provide some comforts or some securities, maybe more than you have. But honestly, with the lifestyle you have, you've got plenty. I would not let the momentum of the business determine where my life is going to go. I decide where my life's going to go and decide where the business needs to go based on that. Because otherwise, everybody around you is going to push you towards it. And because a billion dollars, like that's the big number everybody wants to hit. Not everybody.

Most people don't hit a million dollars. But a billion dollars. Oh, my God. You know? And a billion dollars is unbelievable. But most of your life probably won't change very much. So maybe decide how you're going to get the assets you want for yourself and your family but where you could do the art still and keep growing it just for your own

fulfillment. And because you have so much to give and you're like, hold you now. 39. You're not even 40. You haven't even begun your journey. That's beautiful. What you've accomplished.

No, I mean, that's not a derogatory. It just means I'm 60. I mean, you think about the next 20 years, what you can do from where you are now. Then to me,

where I was at 39 was like, most people like, I was unbelievable. It was like nothing compared to what I'm doing now. So I wouldn't sell myself short for the money. I could still get the money. You should be smart. You should take it off the table.

You built something. You should do it. You should help your people do it. Figure out what your plan is that's going to be more fulfilling. That's the most important thing. Because in the end, it's the fulfillment that's going to make the quality of your life happen. It's not going to be the dollars. And you love what you do brother i do and you're and you're getting pulled away from some of it as you said more and more so all the more reason to sell

the business but that's not really the reason that just means you shouldn't be doing that role find somebody who's so good at the world loves that that's what you put in there that they they thrive on that it's like who, knowing what your greatest gifts are and staying with those even more. The business wouldn't be here because of your CEO role. The business is here because your vision and your influence and your passion and your creativity and your intelligence and your caring and your ability to teach and your humility. That makes everybody go, man, he really seems like an easy guy. If he can do it, I can do it too. You don't seem like superhuman and you are.

But you don't seem like it, which is what makes more people be able to succeed. I'm 6'7", so sometimes I think I'm super human. I'm not super human, right? But they think I am. So then sometimes I was like, Tony can do that. What about me? But if they spend enough time with me, they see they don't have to do what I do. They can do what they do even better. You know? Makes sense? I think for sure your company, obviously you're on track to do great things, but I think if you got the right CEO in place who loved being a CEO as much as you love marketing, you would have, there's another level of exponential growth because I know you, you and I market, we think a lot alike, we have great conversations. You're just getting pulled away

from that genius of yours. Your biggest growth be just what tony's talking about is a ceo that loved running the day-to-day as much as you love marketing and you got back into your craft i think there's a i think there's another exponential growth waiting with that decision but also it's also timing you should probably take something off the table right but still keep your vehicle unless you found a better one. You need to get out of what you don't enjoy because when you do what you enjoy, you crush it, right, and you feel alive. She knows better than anybody, right?

There's two types of marketing that are going sucking your energy, external or internal marketing. External marketing is the time you're spending serving the customer and the client or maybe your internal clients. Internal marketing is dealing with all the shit that frustrates you and pisses you off. And if you're spending so much time on internal marketing, you have less for external marketing. The business will not have the same value or more importantly, even if the business keeps going, you won't feel the same value.

So there's only so much E. I got a lot of it. You guys do too. E meaning pure energy. But there is a limit, no matter who we are, no matter how strong you are. So you got to say, where is that energy going to go? And if there's any mistake I used to make, by the way, it's stayed with people way too long because I'm a very loyal person. But what I've learned is if I'm not loyal to the mission, if I'm not loyal to the best players by trying to stay with somebody, if you're going to play with Michael Jordan, you better be ready to play.

Otherwise, go play somewhere else. Nothing wrong with you not wanting to give the same amount as I do, but you shouldn't be on this team. Find somebody that loves to deliver as much as you do on the market. Like Dean said, it'll be a different game for you. As a consumer of your content, I listen to every podcast that you release, and I can hear you just trying your best to squeeze in that time, like on your drives to work or wherever it can be. And it's,

it's always gold. And like, I always do kind of leave those episodes thinking like, what if Russell just had more time to create, to write, to do what frankly you do best. And so I, I think that chairman is a really interesting role for somebody like you.

That was cool. Good man. James. Well, thank you both so much. I feel like I've already gotten so much. My name is James Maldo. Yeah, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, they start their businesses because they're passionate about a thing, right? Like, I'm a great photographer, I'm a great designer, I'm a great whatever. They get into it because of the passion for the thing. And then you have to learn all these businesses to be able to support the art.

And I think it's interesting how we all eventually have to become the CEO of our business because we're the ones who are the most passionate. We get stuck in the CEO role because that's where you need to be to drive the ship, but a lot of times that's what then makes us spend time with the art and then you start in some cases resenting it. It shifts really quickly from being an entrepreneur back to being a job. It's kind of the opposite of the reason why most of us got into this business.

I don't know. I'm not exactly positive what I'm going to do. For sure what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to have an inventory of myself to really sit down and say, okay, what are the things that I love? If I was to design my perfect week, what would that look like? If I was to design my perfect month, my perfect year?

I think a lot of times we don't focus on architecting that and designing it, so instead, come to the office every day and it's like, oh, there's a whole bunch of fires. Like, what fire did I put out first, second, and third? Instead, it's coming back and saying, okay, who's the person that can be in charge of the fires? If I was to build this from the ground up right now and only put myself in the spots that give me the most passion

and fire and excitement, like, what would those be? Almost like writing your own job description for your own job, like this is my job description. I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this. And then make a job description of stuff you don't like as much. And take that job description, like who's the person that wants this job? Because there are people who love it.

Like I still, I go out to my funnel building team, I'm like you guys are so lucky. Like I have to have a meeting with so and so and you're gonna build funnels, like I love it. I love sitting down on the whiteboard and architecting it and figuring out the designs, the branding, the logos, the hook, the offer, the copy, like being in the middle of that. And when it's done, you see the end funnel, like how beautiful it is. Like, I love that part of it. And the second part I love is like getting

that aha moment for other people. Like when they're just like, I don't know how this, how would a funnel work for me? And you explain it to an awesome day, like they get it. Like there's something about that. That's the other part. So I think it's, it's understanding that like, who are the people that are obsessed with and love the things that I don't. And let's, let's give those things to them and let me just do what I love. Hey, this is Russell again. And really quick, I want to thank you so much for listening to the marketing secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, can you imagine what it would be like to experience this for four days with 5,000 other insane funnel hackers, people who are just like

you, who think like you, who believe like you have vision like you, if you would like to do that, then you need to be at this year's funnel hacking live. It's coming up very, very soon. If you don't have your tickets yet, you go to funnelhackinglive.com and it gives you the ability to leave your home, leave where you're trying to create and dream and come to a place with a whole bunch of people who think like you, who believe like you, who see visions like you of what they can create and what they can become.

Funnel Hacking Live is not just a marketing event. It's not just a personal development event. It's both of those things wrapped into one and it is an experience that will change your life forever. So I wanna make sure you get your tickets. If you don't have them yet, go to funnelhackinglive.com. Get your tickets. We have sold out five years in a row. We will sell it this year as well. And after you get tickets, you will be there with 5,000 other insane, crazy, fun funnel hackers talking about how to grow their business, sharing all the best marketing

secrets, things that are working today. You got to go get your tickets now at funnelhackinglive.com. Thanks so much. And I'll see you in Nashville.