The Russell Brunson Show - The Overlooked “Old Way” to Sell That OfferLab Brings Back! | #Sales - Ep. 70

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I take you back to the beginning — before Facebook ads, before TikTok, before algorithms controlled everything. I share how we grew businesses in the early days, and how those same principles helped ClickFunnels scale to $10 million before we ever ran a single paid ad. This is the foundation behind Offer Lab. It’s about partnerships, collaborations, and creating results together instead of relying on expensive, unpredictable traffic platforms. I’ll show you why this shift is the future, and how remembering what worked in the past can unlock everything you’re building today. Key Highlights: Why relying on one ad platform is the biggest risk The pre-Facebook strategies that still work today How partnerships and co-branded products drive lasting growth Why Offer Lab was built to make collaboration simple The truth is, traffic costs are only going up. But collaboration will always win. If you’ve been frustrated with ads, algorithms, or trying to do business alone, this episode will reframe what’s possible and show you a path forward that’s simpler, faster, and way more fun!! Check out offerlablaunch.com/go ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sellingonline.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clickfunnels.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the RBC Avion Visa, you can book any airline, any flight, any time. So start ticking off your travel list. Grand Canyon? Grand. Great barrier reef? Great. Galapagos? Galapagos? Switch and get up to 55,000 avion points that never expire. Your idea of never missing out happens here. Conditions apply. Visit rbc.com slash avion. This is the Russell Brunson show.

Hey, what's up? This Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the show. We just finished the Offer Lab launch. I think most of you probably watched it or a part of it. Hopefully you enjoyed it at the Offer Lab launch. After the launch day, then we had a three-day event happening afterwards. It was kind of a four-day event, and it was chaos and it was fun and it was exciting.

We had over 40, I think, 45 speakers who came and spoke. And it was amazing. But I had a chance to do a special presentation each day. I thought was really fun. and I wanted to share it here with you guys on the podcast. So the first presentation, this was really fun for me to give because I talk about how we made money before Facebook, before MySpace, before friends,

or back when we were just getting started in this game, how did you have successful line? How did you make sales and drive traffic when you didn't have these ad platforms to drive traffic from? And I showed everyone what was happening. And one of the premises of this talk is like, if you want to understand how to be successful in the future, you have to learn about the past.

Because right now there's a storm coming. Traffic is changing. Everything is shifting. And those who understand how we had traffic before Facebook, the ones are going to be successful now that getting traffic is harder and harder on Facebook and the other platforms. And so that's this presentation is about. I hope you enjoy it. If you haven't got your OfferLab account yet, it's completely free. You just go to OfferLab.com and get signed up.

It's really cool. And so go check it out. And that's all you got to do. So thanks so much, you guys. And we'll jump right into the first training right now. What I wanted to spend my first 30 minutes or so today before we start bringing in all the other guest speakers is, I just wanted to share with you guys basically a history lesson. My belief is that for you to be successful in the future, you have to understand the past.

And most of you guys who are even in this room, for sure at home, most of you guys haven't been doing this that long. In fact, I want to do a quick poll. How many guys have been in this game, this online business game, for more than a year? If you've got a year, raise your hand. Okay? More than five years. Keep your hand raised. More than 10 years.

Keep your hand raised. More than 15 years, keep hand raised. More than 20 years, keep your hand raised. More than 25 years, keep your hand raised. There's one person in the room, me, and maybe one or two? Okay, so I've been playing this game for a long time. I know I look like I'm 11 years old. I'm actually 45 years old right now, which is crazy.

I started this game when I was 21. So that's kind of when I got into this world. And back then, the Internet looked completely different. It's not like it is today. And we had to figure a lot of things out. And so what we were doing back when I was in my 20s is the secret to being successful moving forward. Okay? When I wrote the Traffic Seekers book, the introduction title was there's a storm coming.

I talked about this, man, four years ago, I'm like, there's a storm coming. Traffic's changing, Internet's changing. Those who don't understand these core principles are going to struggle. And I've watched now over the last four years since I wrote that in the book, I've watched as the Internet's change, as ads have changed, as platforms have changed. And so many people who I love and care about who have amazing messages and products and services. have fallen away because they didn't heed the warning then. And so this is me reheating the warning today because things are not going to get cheaper online.

Traffic's not going to get easier. Going viral is not going to be an easier thing, okay? And so the secret for you to be successful in the future is to understand the past. How did we play and win the game before we could buy ads? Before we could just turn on, you know, make a video when viral. Like how did we do it before all that stuff? And if you understand that, it's going to change everything moving forward. That's how you're going to be successful in the future.

Because if and when your ad account gets shut down, you get delisted, your video stops going viral, like all the things that can and will probably happen in the very near future for everybody. Okay? Happens to me. Happens to everybody. If you understand these principles I want to talk about this morning, it will give you the ability to weather the storm won't even matter. It won't even affect you in the smallest, okay?

And OfferLab is a huge piece of that. It's what makes this part of the conversation actually possible, which is why I'm so excited for it, which is why I'm like, if you guys adopt this now, as you move forward in the future, it will protect you, it'll give you safety, security, you'll help your business to be around in the long term. And so that's why I'm so passionate, why this message is so important. And it's shifting from like this solo entrepreneurship that we're doing that we've been doing for last decade back into a collaborative environment that we were doing when I was in my 20s, the way that I grew in my business, the way that most of the people you know nowadays

who have been around for 20, 25 years, that's how we all did it. And so I'm going to bring you guys some of that today. And so it's going to require you to think about business a little differently. It's going to require you to think about how offers work and funnels work a little bit differently, but if you're willing to go on that journey with me and you take these little shifts in your mind, I think that in the other side, you're going to find something really, really magical. So that's my game plan. I want to talk about. I don't have any slides today. I just wanted to doodle some stuff. So most of the people in our community that know of

got into this business within the last 10 years or so. The last 10 years have been like the good old days. When Facebook ads were cheap, things were different. It was a lot easier. So this is what most people's businesses look like in the last decade. Okay. What would have happen is they would go and they would create a product. So there is a product, right? And then they like, we need a traffic to the product. So you go over here and you found this one partner. We're to call him Zuck. There's Zuckerberg. And he was the partner. He said, hey, Zuckerberg, will you send people to my offer and I would give you some money? And Zuckerberg's like, I would love to take your money. And so we would buy ads, right? And we would drive traffic.

So we give Zuckerberg some money up here. People would come. They buy the product. And in theory, if we did it correctly, we would get $2 back out. And it was amazing. How many of you remember the good old days when Facebook ad clicks were penny or $5 or 25 cents or 30 cents per click? And you were selling just the $37 product and you could be profitable. Say you spend $10 adjimate, $37. This is like a magic ATM machine. And you just do it.

And you're like, this is the greatest thing in the world. I have the best partner in the world. His name is Mark Zuckerberg. I'm going to figure about every other human being on the planet because I don't need him. It's all I need is Mark Zuckerberg. He's like a drug dealer. And we're like, this is awesome. Give me some more.

Give me another hit. I've never done drugs, but I assume that's a little, I don't, right? And so we literally just like got rid of all of our friends, our partners, our JVs, our everything, and just like we focused on this one person because he was like the best in the world. He gave us all the good stuff, right? And then what happened is then Zuckerberg's like, hey, install this little tracking pixel on your site so we can optimize and find better audiences for you. He's so smart. I'm like, this is a great idea. And so we put these little pixels on our pages, right? And then he starts looking at stuff and he starts realizing, he's like, man, okay, I know how much they're spending in here.

they're giving me $10, and they're making $20, I'm going to increase this, from $10 to $15 to $18, $18 to $19, just enough that they're still making money, but not enough for them to actually succeed, but they got the drugs coming. They can't turn it off, right? And so that was happening. And so costs are going up, we're like, ugh. And this is when, like, the funnel world started developing and started becoming a thing, right? It's like, okay, well, I can't do this. Mr. Dan Kennedy, the greatest marketing mind of all time, says, whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins, how do we do that? and that's when the birth of like upsells started coming it's like well okay i'm spending a dollar

getting two i'm spending almost two dollars getting two uh this isn't working i need to have an upsell so we start adding in upsells right and then that would work for a while and then Zuckerberg starts tracking this pixel here's like ooh they're making more money i can charge them more and they start going again right it starts happening they're like oh now we need to add it down sell oh we add an order for and bump we start tweaking and optimize these things and so our funnels got better and better and more and more sophisticated because we had to because otherwise we made no money from Zuckerberg and so we got better at selling he got better at taking our money and it kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse right and that's the world we live in today okay um and so for someone

to be successful it's not just like i'm gonna put a product up and sell in fact um i was in a mastermind uh a month ago and had such a good time hanging out and there's all these celebrities there and how many guys know derrick huff the dancer from dancing with the stars like super talented guy and he comes up he's like ross was like seen your stuff online he's like he's like i want a funnel like he's like i have a book like i wrote a book like we do because i did you do a funnel with that and at first i was like dude derikov's gonna have a funnel this is insane and then the same time, I was like, for him to have a successful funnel, he's out of book, but how am I going to tell him, like, you've got to create an order form bump. And then to make that work,

then you've got to create, like, a $200 course, and then you've got to make a down-sill course. They probably have another course. And like, if you have all these pieces in place, then we turn ads on, then you could break even. But then you've got to have something high-taker on the back-in to sell to actually make, and I was just like, how am I going to, like, it seems so hard. Right? And that's what's like, it's hard. I have people come in my community all the time. I'm like Russell, I wrote a book. Russell, I created a course. I come. They're so excited and like, okay, what do I do now? I'm like, cool. You created a, you wrote a book, which is, if you have written a book, if you do it the right way, it is, it's like the hardest

thing in the world, right? I have a, I have a meme that I share with myself every time I start writing a book. It says the difference is that reading a book and writing books very similar. The only difference is when you're writing a book, the book's trying to kill you. And that's kind of what happens when you write a really good book, right? The book's trying to kill you. You get the book done. You just put two years in this things like, the book is done. You're like, cool, we can sell the line. but we need to create four other courses, a product and upsell coaching program, and then you could actually maybe make money with it at the end.

And it's just like, people get overwhelmed, right? Which, by the way, is one of the problems that OfferLab solves. I'll come back to that later. But like with Derek Huff, for example, or whoever, I could, like, just put your book on OfferLab, and then you don't have to create an order for a month, and an upsell and the downsend. They're like, find partners who already have these pieces,

and now you can just drive traffic and it works, right? You don't have to go and create 30 different products just to break even. You can actually just put your product on there, find other products, and it speed you up to success. And over time, you can go and you create your own upsell. Over time, you can create something else. But in the short term, like, let's get money happening, right? Like, money follows speed.

Like, how do we get something out there as quick as humanly possible, right? And so that gives us ability to move fast because I just have one offer here, one course, one product, whatever, and I can plug another people's things. Okay? And so, again, that's kind of one of the big benefits of offer. And I'm going to come back to that. But that's kind of where business is today, okay? That's been the last decade.

So although you guys have been playing this game the last decade, yeah, it looks familiar. I had this. And then I added this and this and now we're here. Okay. But I want to go back in time now. So again, your success in the future dictates is going to be 100% based on your understanding of the past. Because what's happening in the past is what's going to win.

And most of you guys weren't there in the past. So you're lucky. Old man Russell Brunson was there 25 years ago in college figuring this game out. And I'm going to show you what it worked in the past. Because if you understand this, this is how we're going to be successful in the future. Okay. So in the past, rewind back to when Russell was 21 years old. I looked really young back then.

it was really weird um someone this is like awkward somebody uh i met somebody and they're like you look really young how old do you i'm like how old do you think i am i'm looking at my like fishing for a compliment you know and uh she goes well based on the crow's feet next to your eyes you got to be leased in your 40s i was like i have crow's feet like i was freaking out like oh no anyway now i'm very self-conscious of my anyway so back before i had crow's feet 21 year old russell brunson um i was trying to figure this game out and figure things out right And so here's me, and I had glasses back then. Ooh, so there's me at the glass.

Anyway, there's Russell. Okay? Now, Russell created a little offer. The very first product I ever created, before potato guns, the very first thing I ever created was a little product called Zip Brander. So this was my product. It's a little software product sold for $67, and that was my product. And I spent all this time, like, posting in forums and you didn't know people because, again,

remember, this is the world before Facebook was around, before YouTube, before all these things, right? It was before MySpace, like, MySpace came out after this. Okay, it was back when, like, there was no advertising networks outside of Google. You could buy Google ads. That was about it. So I'm creating my first product, Zipander. I'm trying to drive traffic.

And over time, I built up a list, a little tiny list of, I don't know, a couple hundred people. So this is my, this is Russell's little list. Okay, and that was me. And I started going, I was like trying to figure out, like, other people playing this game besides me. I started searching online. I found some forums in different places. I started getting to know other people. And then one day, I saw this dude.

and his name was Mike Phil's name. So there's Mike. And Mike was in this form, and he had a brand new product. I think it was called, I text him some morning to see if, if, oh, dang, he didn't text me back yet. I texted him to, I was like, well, the name of the product. I think it was called carbon copy something, carbon copy marketing or something. So we had this product, and there were DVDs, and he was literally burning him at his house,

and you buy it and he'd ship you out this DVD. And it's called Carbon Copy Marketing. Right. So that was Mike's thing, it was the DVDs, Carbon Copy Marketing. And so that was his product there. And then Mike had his little list of people. I think he had probably, I don't know, 2,000 or 3,000 people on his list. There's his little audience.

So there's Mike's list. And I met Mike. I was like, what's going on, Mike? How's like, I love your product. It's so cool. And he was telling him about what he's doing, how many he sold. We're just excited going back and forth. And then I was like, well, because, again, I have this product.

There's no way for me to just go turn traffic on it. I'm going to run for Facebook ads. Like, I have a product. I'm just in college. My newly married wife, money was not coming in every day. I ever once in a while would come in if we did something. So I went to Mike. I was like, hey, Mike, I have an idea.

Your new product, carbon copy marketing looks really, really cool. I have a little list of people. What if I send an email on my list of people and sold them Carbon Copy Pro? And then you sent email to your list of people and sell them Zip Brander. Then we both went. He's like, okay, let's do it. And so we set up a partnership. I sent an email to my list.

I sold a whole bunch of Carbon Copy Pro. And then Mike, he kept half the money. He gave me 50%. So I got half, he got half. It was awesome. Then Mike sent an email his list on Ziprander. bunch of people bought it, right? I kept half the money.

I gave Mike half the money. Partnership, joint venture. It was insane. I made money. He made money. And at the same time, guess what else happened? Both of our little lists got bigger because people on his list found out about me. People on my list found out about him.

And so all of a sudden, my list got a little bit bigger. And there's more people on this. And there's more people on his list. And we did this collaboration. And we both won. We both made money. Both our audiences grew. And we had this partnership.

And it was the coolest thing in the world. So that happened first. And then I was like, talking to Mike. I'm like, that was so fun. Like, you know, my wife's pumped. we made some money, like, she didn't think I'm like this homeless, jobless husband that she's supporting, like, we actually made some money in my business. And it was the coolest thing in the world. Now, I was talking to Mike, I'm like, do you know anybody else doing this? Like, I'm just,

I'm just kind of getting to know, like, the players in our market. And Mike's like, oh, yeah, there's this other guy. And so he told me out, there's this guy named Gary, Gary Ambrose. And he's like, here's Gary. He should meet him. So I go and I meet Gary. And guess what? Gary has his own product. Right. I can't remember exactly Gary's product was called. But Gary also had his only a little list of people. Right. I was like, dude, that's awesome. And it's like, so I go to Gary, I'm like, hey, that product looks cool. And so I was like, what if I promote your product to my list? And then you promote my product to your list.

And we'll do a joint venture where we work together in collaboration. And Gary's like, your product's awesome. I would love to you. So Gary sends email to his list to go buy Ziprander. Okay? Money comes in. I give half to Gary. I keep half of it.

My list grows because a bunch of Gary's people join my list, and my list gets bigger. And then Gary, and then I send email to my list selling Gary's product, a bunch of people bought. Gary gives me half the money. I keep half the money. We both win. Right. And then his list gets bigger. I'm like, this is insane. This is the best thing in the world. I was like, I was studying business in college. I was like, I was studying business and I'm talking about all these weird things and everything. I was like, business has nothing to do with any of the crap they're teaching me in college. Business is just relationships. Okay. This is coming from Russell, the awkward introvert who scared to death of people. So then I'm like, okay, how do I do this? And then they told me, um, Hey, there's an event happening. This guy named Arm and Morn. He's like the big guru in the world. He's doing this event called Big Seminar.

We should all go to it. So I'm like, oh, that sounds amazing. So I go to a seminar. Gary goes, Mike goes, all of us, we go to this seminar. We get in this room, there's 500 people who are all just like us. A bunch of nerds making money on the Internet. I was like, this is amazing. There's this person here, and there's this person here.

And we start meeting all these people. And one, one, things is interesting. Each these people had, number one, their own offer. And number two, these had their own list of people. Owned offer, own list of people. own. And I started walking out. I was like, every person in here is a partner. I'm not competitive anyway. I'm a partner with every single of these people. And so I started becoming friends with them. And back then, this is again, I'm aging myself as well, okay? You remember Skype? Skype just got

shut down, which is crazy. Before Skype, there's a thing called Yahoo Messenger. And it's the greatest thing in the world. And so I got a Yahoo Messenger. Hey, which are Yahoo Messenger? And we got a Yahoo Messenger. And we started connecting, right? So a Yahoo Messenger, we all hung out. And all the business just happened. So my job, literally full-time, I'm on Yahoo Messenger messaging Gary and Mike and this guy and this guy, all right? And I'm introducing people into stuff and we're figuring out of deals. I'm like, hey, I have, you know, we from my app, so like, this is what's happening. And from this, my business starts growing and growing and growing. I'm again, I'm like, business is so great.

It has nothing to do with math or ads or creative or anything. It has 100% to do with relationships. That's all this. Okay? So introverted Russell, I'm going to this event, meeting people, getting their, getting their Yahoo Messenger links, which is really fun. and that would be because of my business. It's funny. It's maybe her to tell a story.

I would go to these events. And again, I've never drink. I don't drink. But everyone, after the event's done, everyone's in the room like this, then they go out to the bars and hang out. And I'm like scared, you know, as the kid who's never drunk before, I'm scared to death. Like, I don't want to go to a bar.

Like, I don't want people think I'm drinking. And so I would go to the bars at night with these guys to hang out. But I was like, I need to make sure they know that I'm not drinking. So I would go to the bartend, right? Right. And I'd get them like, hey, can I order her milk? He's like, what? I'm like, can I order milk?

Like, you want milk? I'm like, yeah. I mean, he's like, why do you want a milk? I'm like, because if you give me a sprite, everyone's going to think I'm drinking, I don't even know, cold 45, I don't even know what those things are. I'm like, if I got milk, they know I'm not drinking anything. And so I did that, and the most cool is like, it was the best icebreaker ever ever could be like, are you drinking milk?

I'm like, yeah. Like, what? I'm like, yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, yeah, but you're drinking milk, like, yeah. And then what was cool, this is, this is the big secret if anyone wants to know. throughout the night, the more drunk they got, the more stuff they just gave me. Like, we became like, they're telling me all their secrets, all their best stuff. It was like insane, right?

And then at that time when they're like half, half there, I'm like, hey, what's your, what's your Yahoo Messenger? Right? Oh, here it is. Sweet man, I'll message you next week. Right? And so I'm getting all these deals. And so I started building this network of people.

I'm like, all businesses is a network of people. The better relationship I have these people, the more money I'm going to make. And that's exactly what happened. Okay. And so what happened is then, again, I'd pro him. And like, that's how this whole thing started growing. Okay. And it was great. That was the season for a little while. But then what happened, um, uh, over time,

um, over time we started thinking like, how do we be more creative? Because like, I can promote Mike, Mike can promote me. That's great. How do we do actual collapse? What's the next level of this? What's the evolution of business? Instead of me just, us cross promoting, what's the next evolution? How do we do this? And so we started playing with a couple different ideas was like, what if, what if we created a product together that we both own. So instead of just like, here's Russell's product, here's Mike's product, what if we got to, we came together, did a joint venture collaboration with each other, what if we created a co-branded product? Create a co-branded product and it's got Mike's face on it. It's got my face on it. We sell this product and then we both promote it. What happens

is like now Russell is promoting Russell. Mike is promoting Mike so the conversions go up because our lists know who we are and so more people buy because of that, which is exciting. But then they come in here, and we have this co-branded product where we're teaching together. And also, like, my credibility bleeds on Mike. My credibility bleeds on mine. And, like, we both, like, look bigger in the eyes of our audience. We teach them stuff. And then when people buy this, we both get the customers.

And we both get the money. We split 50-50. And this becomes, like, this becomes the thing to do, right? And so we started doing that. In fact, I found one this morning on the way back machine. And my team can pull up. This is one of the ones that Mike and I did. Back in the day, it was called pre-launch secrets.

We pull on the big one, too, hopefully. there. So this is the co-branded product we did 2000, October 20, 2005. So I was 25 years old and this one came out. And so it's Mike Phil's saying Russell Brunson's pre-launch secrets. And if you scroll up a little bit, you'll see this, the product we put together. And basically, it was a tele-seminar where Mike and I called each other and I did a bunch of successful, he done a bunch of successful product launches. And so we just interviewed each other about like, how'd you do this one? What'd you do? What was the step-by-step process? This is before anyone was saying the word funnel. But basically, here's the funnels I did for all these different campaigns and these things.

And then Mike went through all the what his. I think you spent like three hours on the phone of us going back and forth just talking about this one niche, very specific topic, which was like how to do a pre-launch. We put it together. Okay, I think you can pull that now. We put together pre-launch secrets. I've produced my list. Mike runs through his list and also a bunch of people start buying it.

And then people start messages, that product is awesome. Can I promote it? All these guys who see, like, can we promote? Like, yeah, you can promote it. So then they're promoting it. And we're making, it's like blows up, right? making a bunch of money and it was cool for me at mike and i when someone bought we both got the lead right and we split the money 50 50 and then affiliates promoted and split the money and it was

insane okay it got so exciting and so then i started like like who else can i do partnerships with and so i started creating products with a lot of other people right um i did products with the guy named jeremy burns they had a product with gary ambrose had to break should do these co-branded products together it was so fun right and each co-branded product was interesting because what we would do is we'd figure out like what's like what's a specific thing like we're not creating these huge coaching programs and big courses and stuff it's like what's like what's like one really interesting, unique topic we can talk about, a pre-launch, okay? Mike had one that he did. It was called Fire Cell Seekers. Like how to do a fire cell. We had all these

different things. We'd pick one topic. We'd co-brand a product together, and it became a front-end for us, right? We'd both promote this thing, and we both get money split it out, and it was amazing. And then other affiliates thought they wanted to promote it, and so it just became this thing. And then what would happen is that each of Mike and I both had our own business in the back, right? So then I would get the customer, I'd get the customers like a thing, and I'd sell my customers, my product. Mike said his customer's his product. And so this became this front end where we introduced each other's audiences together. We both make a bunch of money, right? But then we get the customers leads and then we can sell them stuff on our own

behind the scenes. And that's kind of how we started playing business back in the day. And then for me, I was like, this is the secret. It's just collaborations. How do we create things together? It doesn't have to be Russell Brunson, this, Russell Brunson, this will have created more things together as a community, as partners, right? And for the next decade of my business, that's what we did over and over and over again. Now, interesting fact, Mike's going to be here this week, I believe, going to be speaking, so you have a chance to hear from him. But back at this time, when we were doing this whole thing, Mike and one of his business partners had an idea for a concept. I think they called the upsell network. Like, what if we create something? Because right now we've got

Russell's got his product, Gary's got his, he's got his, everyone got these different products, right? We have co-branded products for making together. What if there's a way we could create a marketplace where everyone would upload their offers together. And then what I could do is I could build a funnel release where I could have my product on front end, I could have his is upsell one, his is upsell two and this is upsell three, right? We could just glue together something. And then what's, and cool is like, Everyone's involved in this funnel. Everybody promotes it because everybody wins.

Right? So when buys, Russell gets his money, this person gets their money, and everyone gets the leads along the way. And like, we all win together, right? And so Mike started to build this thing. Again, I think it was called the Upsail Network. And they tried to build it. And technically, they ran into hurdles where it technically wasn't possible. But he planned this seat.

And I remember this is, again, 2005-06. This is, man, 20 years ago is when he kind of planned that idea. And they tried to build it and didn't end up working out. And, you know, I don't know what ever happened to the project. but kind of died. But I always remember thinking, like, that's the coolest thing. Because right now for me to build a funnel, I've got to go and build every single step inside the funnel.

I've got to create 30 different offers. I've to create everything. And then I'm in the silo by myself. And then the only person who cares about that funnel success is me, right? Versus this way was different. It's like, okay, we have a co-branded product here. This guy's upsell. And now a lot of people are incentivized.

And it was essential back then because I didn't have the ability to go to the one partner who seemed so nice to all of us before he screwed us. This guy, I didn't have the ability to go to him back. Hey, man, Sean ads. He wasn't there. So I had to find other partners who is also in their best interest, I succeed as well. And so I logged in there. And so I put them together.

I'm going to promote. You're going to promote. And we set up these deals and these partnerships. And everyone would promote something at the same time. Everyone got sold stuff in the funnel. Everyone had a chance to make money. And it was insane. Okay.

So again, Mike tried to build an upstown network. Technically, it wasn't able to happen. But I remember always thinking, like, if we had that, it would make this like so much more fun, so much easier. And so, and that was, again, man, almost 20 years ago. Okay. And then fast forward, a few years later, Facebook comes out, ads start working, and then everybody just kind of shifted.

Everyone stopped working with partners and just had one partner, right? Everyone started moving from this collaborative thing where we're literally on Yahoo Messenger, eight, ten hours a day. And then it moved to Skype eventually when Skype came. We're like, oh, we're cool. We're in Skype. What's your Skype handle? That was the next cool thing to be.

In fact, I still have people, to this day, that I only contacted through Skype until they shut down last week or two weeks ago, whenever it was. I didn't remember how to get a hold of them now because I only had their Skype. It kind of sucks. I wish they would have warned us. I could have contact. Hey man, what's your real email? What's your name again?

But that's where these deals were happening, right? And for me, it was weird because we shifted from like how do we collaborate, how to create co-brands, how do we co-create stuff, how to create upsells and downset? How do we all win together to this thing of like everyone just kind of went silos, everyone focused on their own funnels, and then nobody else was involved in. It was just them. And hopefully Zuckerberg wouldn't screw them too bad. And hopefully they could figure out the math and numbers.

and that was business for the last 10 years. And there were times it was amazing. Times was down, up and down, up and down. And you see the cycles. You see it where for a little while, Facebook or one of the platforms introduced a new feature, like groups or they introduce fan pages. They want everyone to be successful or going on Facebook Lives. And so they make it free for a little bit, right?

And they reward you. So I remember Facebook Lives first came out. I would open my Facebook Live. I'd click Live on Facebook Live. She's remember the good old days. I click Live within 30 seconds, 3,000 people were on. I'm like, what's up 3, 3,000 people? Buy my crap.

And it was amazing. They would go buy it. Okay. Today, I've got over a million followers on Facebook. When I go live on Facebook Live, I go Facebook Live, guess some people show up? 12? 13? Okay.

So there's peaks where they're like, we're going to get everyone addicted to the next drug, which is a Facebook lab. Everyone to move off every other platform come to us. And so they addict you, they give these amazing things. And it's like, this is the greatest thing in the world. And then Zuckerberg's like, ha, I got you all. Boom. And then it just disappears, right?

Organics. Like, I made a video when final. This is insane. Oh, and everyone's getting addicted to it. And it's like, now you've got to pay for reach. and it just dies, right? And so there's these ebbs and flows and ebbs and flows. And so I've been watching this for 25 years now, the ebbs and the flows.

And the only thing that never had ebbs and flows was this, right? Everyone has their own distribution channel. Everyone's got their own part. Even when they're small. Mine started with 200 people, right? The mic promoted it got to like 400 people. And then 800 people. And then 1,000, eventually from 1,000 people to 5,000 to 10,000 to 100,000, right?

And my status started growing, my following started growing. And it was all about this. We didn't have any ads. I literally did not run the first ad. in my business until we were two years in the ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels is over $10 million before we bought our first ad. How did you build ClickFunnels to $10 million a year without any ads, Russell? I look back in the past. And it's like, these people all have my dream customers. I can go to Zuckerberg and pay him a premium, or I can just go to them and do partnerships.

And so Mike Phil's name was one of my very first partners in ClickFunnels. He did an event. He let me come to speak the event. And we spoke and we sold it. And then I gave him half the money. I kept half the money. And then he did a webinar later. And he promoted ClickFunnels. He promoted it, sold a ton of people. I gave him half the money. I got half the money. We both won, and ClickFunnels grew up. Then it went to the next person.

The next person, I was on Skype, hitting up everybody. What's up? Yahoo! Messengers are still there, and these same members there. Hitting up everybody. And all I did for the first two years of ClickFunnels, before we bought our very first ad was just this. We just went and found people. And the coolest thing about this, when you do partnerships, okay?

And this is the get-go. This is I understand this. Zuckerberg, you pay him up front whether you make money or not. Right? Does that seem fair to you? guys like I can send you crap traffic doesn't matter you still got to pay me for it right with these guys like when I did a partnership when Mike did the webinar to promote click funnels um he didn't he didn't I didn't pay him up front it was a partnership we're both hoping this is going to work so he was

invested in a way of working I was invested we sat down we talked about we figured it out we did a promotion together people went on there on the webinar I sold he was invested in it being successful he gave his own bonuses we got more people to buy we figured this thing out and we sold a bunch stuff. And then after we collected the money and all the refunds around, then I took half the money, I gave it to him and we both won. So there's no risk, right? Like, I would have been successful in business back when I was 21 years old because the risk would have been too high if I to go pay for Zuckerberg. So many people in my world like, okay, I got my thing. I'm going to buy ads. I'm like, oh, why would you buy ads? Like, you're now like in this deficit immediately from day number one

of risking money that you do not have to be successful. And how long do you got a thousand bucks, $5,000 for you run an ad money, like, go get $10 million before you run ads by doing this. Find partners, collaborate. That's the game. That's how everybody should be thinking about business differently, okay? Because it's not going to get cheaper, it's not going to get easier. There'll be things that get you addicted for a few minutes and they take it away and they're addicted to you and they'll take it away.

And this usually can keep happening at every single platform, TikTok, Instagram, like the next one's coming out soon. Like, it doesn't matter. They're all going to go through these ebbs and float. Okay. The thing that's consistent will give you security and safety in your business today, tomorrow, and forever is this, okay? Like, if Facebook gets shut down, if TikTok is, whatever the, they're trying to do, I don't know, politically, whatever to shut down TikTok. If those things all disappeared, it wouldn't matter because I still have my list.

Mike still got his. They've got hit. Like, everyone still has their stuff, right? And so understand that's like, I should be, I should probably be putting a little more time and effort into these relationships. Because business has nothing to do with math and algorithms and creative and copy and all that crap. Businesses relationships. That's it. I used to tell people all the time, like, if you, if I lost everything today and everything,

if I lost all my money, my company, my business, my brand had disappeared. I was like, it would take me less than 30 days to be a millionaire again. Like, what? I'm like, 30 days, easy. That's all we take. Like, how? Jump on Skype. What's up, man?

You want to create a product together? Yeah? Cool. I'll promote it to my people, you brought your people and split the money. Sweet. Hey, man. What's up? That's it.

That's the game. Okay. So I wanted to share that because, again, your guys' success in the future is going to depend on your understanding of the past. And most of you guys weren't there. So old man Russell's here to give you that history lesson. Okay? If you start thinking about business differently, stop getting out of this silo where you've got

one partner and he hates you and he wants to take all your money to the thought we have a lot of partners who actually care about your success, who actually want you to be successful, who you can co-create with. You can create amazing things. You can serve your customers at a different level. If you start thinking about business differently, it changes everything, okay? The coolest thing about OfferLab, when we came back and we built this platform, the goal is like, how do we make this process easy?

because I've explained this in the past. I'm like, here's how to make, do partnerships and JVs and stuff. I try to explain it, and then everyone just messes up, like, I'm just going to go back to Zuckerberg. Like, why? He's the worst.

He doesn't even like you. He wants you to fail. He made you put pixels on his page so you can take all the money. Like, that's what he does, right? Instead of finding partners. And so we built a platform. You guys have probably been in the platform.

If not, it's free, go to Offenab.com, create free account. This is what the platform looks like. Okay? Over here, there's this little thing called inbox. Okay. I want you to think inbox equals 2,000 Yahoo Messenger or 2000, when did Skype come out? 2005 Skype.

This is your new Skype. This is where the deals are happening. I know I requested to promote a lot of people's products. And guess what? Those people didn't log in their inbox. I'm like, there's Russell Brunson asking to promote your product. And you're like, you didn't look at your inbox. That's like me skyping.

Hey, man, I can promote your stuff? Hey, man, I want to promote your stuff. Hey, want to put your stuff. And like, nobody's like, are you insane? For me, this was how I made money back day. I would open my computer, open up Skype for Yahoo Messenger, and that's why I made money. That was it.

Like, every day you should be logging in the Offalab and all you should be doing is like, okay, inbox. This is where the partnerships happen. Okay? This is where people contact you. Hey, kind of promote your crap? Yeah, you can. But if you're not paying attention, you're missing it.

Okay? How many guys have logged into your Offelab account this morning so far? Okay. If you haven't, there's probably people who don't want to work with you. Like, go find the dialogue, communication, introverts. I built this for you. You don't have to go to an event. You don't have to be carrying glass of milks at the bar like I did.

You literally can just log in right here, and the people are already there for you. I did it all for you. I built this for me, so I would have to talk to people face to face. It's the best thing in the world. Okay, it's the rest. So this is your Yahoo Messenger, your Skype. That's where the inbox is. So make sure you log in every single day to offer lab and go in there.

Okay? Now, obviously you want people to contact you, but if you want to be successful, you've got to contact people as well. So the coolest thing is on the platform. You click on the marketplace. There's all these cool offers in here. These are all people who are like you who are saying, hey, I hate Zuckerberg and I want to do partnerships. Everyone in the marketplace, that's them. They're all here to do partnerships.

So you don't have to be nervous. Like, uh, what if I annoy them? Like, no, annoy them. They want to be annoyed. So you message this person like, hey, man, your product's sick. Can I promote it? They say yes. And also it creates the dialogue in here and you're like, hey, this is awesome.

I want to promote it. I'm going to put upsell number one. Hey, what if we did a co-branded product together? I love how you do this. I do this. I do this. the people in one spot. Everyone who understands this game is here. I'm training, educating you guys all in this game, right? So all the offers here are the platform. So your job

is to come to the platform, find these offers that are congruent. You contact the offer and start building relationships, okay? When you have other people that maybe aren't on the platform yet, go to them like, hey, I want to do a partnership. Let's do a co-lab together. Let's create a co-branded project together and let's put it on Off-Lab. That way, we can promote other people who promote it. Okay, we're cool thing about this. This is something I always wanted to do back in the day, but we never could do. But now with Off-Lab, you can. Let's say Mike and I did a new project together, right? So we create pre-launch secrets 2.0. How many years to buy

pre-launch secrets 2.0 now? A couple of you guys to buy it. I've done a lot of pre-launches since then. So pre-launched is 2.0, right? So let's just say, like, imagine this. I mess with Mike through. Hey, man, let's go back to 2005. Let's create 2.0 of pre-launch secrets. It'll be sick, right? So create pre-launch secrets, right? It's got

Russell's face on. It's got Mike's face on it. And then what's cool about this is we can create two funnels. Okay? So Mike creates his version of funnel. Russell creates his version of the funnel. But the front of product is the same, right? So the Mike's going to promote his list here. The Mike may be like, hey, this is the cool thing.

I get a co-branded with Russell. So I get the credibility for him. I get a co-branded with Mike. I get credibility from him, right? But what's cool about this is like, I have my own products I want to sell. So what if on my version, after someone buys pre-law and secrets, then I go and sell selling online. This is my product.

That I want to sell, right? And Mike would be like, hey, I don't want to sell Groove, right? And so that's his product. So he can sell his thing. And then we can both promote the front product, but then I can upsell the things that I want upsell. He can upsell things he wants to upsell, right? We still both get the customers,

split the money, everything else, but now we can do that. And then you guys, this is awesome. I love, rest of my credit, this is amazing. I want to promote it,

but, you know, I have my product. I'm going to put my other things upsell. And then someone else can promote my product, but they can put their own stuff. So now they're incentivized for being successful. Now it's like, we're all making money because we can do whatever we want.

You're just getting this. Does this all make it sense? Okay. There's so many, like, thank you. Like, if you start thinking about business a little bit different than you guys like this,

it's going to change everything for you. Like, it literally, there's so many ways to leverage this and have fun on OffLab and actually be successful with this. And so I just wanted today this morning before all of our other amazing speakers here just like to kick this off and get the wheels you guys spinning, okay? Again, your success in the future is going to take your understanding of the past because the past is how we're going to win the game in the future. Okay, and that's what it is. And so we built Offer Lab literally for you guys to be able to do it to play the game in a way that I wish I could have back when I was on Skype. Okay, this is it. Your inbox is your place.

This is we're networking. These the offers here. These people start contacting. getting to know them, building relationships, building partnerships, co-labbing, doing partnerships together, adding an offer that's specific to you guys on the platform. Like, there's so many cool, fun, easy, exciting ways to do this. And that's why we wanted to create this for you. So I'm hoping that you guys love the platform.

I hope that it benefits you in your company, your business. I hope you build friendships, relationships. I think for me, looking back over the last 25 years in business, like of all the amazing things, like the thing that's meant the most of me is the friendships I've built a long way. I mean, it's crazy. I've got people here that I've invited to be part of this who I haven't seen them in 10 years. And they flew out. In fact, some of them are going to be here today or tomorrow that I haven't seen in 10 years.

But these guys met on Yahoo Messenger back in the day. And I was doing the saying, hey, would you want to come and just talk about how you do offers? Like, yeah, man. And they flew out on their own dime to be here. Like partnerships, relationships. This is what makes the game fun. Somebody has become cynical because it's like, I've got to build a funnel and conversions and optimizations and ads and twists and all that kind of stuff. And I understand that part of the game.

We still got to play it if we want to grow over on the platforms. but the reality is like there's a simpler way to do it, a more fun way, a way that builds relationships and friendships and connections, a way to get you out of your silo selling alone and brings it back together. And the more we do that here on the Offlaught platform, the more success we're all going to have together. So that was our gift to you guys is creating this platform for you, for me, for everybody to be able to do more partnerships, have more collaboration, and it's going to be awesome. So that's what I had to prepare for you guys this morning. I hope you guys enjoyed that. Got some value from it. That was your

history lesson from old man Russell Brunson, taking you guys back to when I was 21 years old, and that's how we played the game. And I hope that hopefully is valuable for you guys. All right, I hope you enjoyed that session and you got a lot of value from it. Hopefully you're starting to learn more and more about how you can use OfferLab to grow your business to make more money, to have more fun, have more collaborations. I will see you guys on the next episode. We'll go even deeper into OfferLab and how you can use it for your business.