The Russell Brunson Show - The Primary Question That Fuels Your Value Ladder

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

How asking the correct primary question could lead to a two comma club funnel and a fully fleshed out value ladder! On this episode Russell talks about discovering a concept that could help create an entire multi-million dollar a year company. Here are some of the amazing things to listen for in this episode: Why basing your business on one primary question can help you with all the product creation. How this one question makes finding a hook and story easier. And hear examples of how you can use the primary question strategy with your own business. So listen here to find out how asking the right, really good question, could be the foundation to your entire business. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/215-the-primary-question-that-fuels-your-value-ladder Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With TD Direct Investing, new and existing clients could get 1% cash back. Great! That's 1% closer to being part of the 1%. Maybe, but definitely 100% closer to getting 1% cash back with TD Direct Investing. Conditions apply. Offer ends January 31, 2025. Visit td.com slash DI offer to learn more. What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I'm so excited to have you guys here today. And this episode is one that I think is going to change a lot of your guys' lives. I'm going to show you how to turn one really good question into a million dollar a year business. So I hope

you're ready and let's get started. 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. All right, everybody, so I'm at Lake Powell, sitting here, thinking about you all and what I can share to give you guys some ideas and insights.

I was thinking about last week, I was can share to give you guys some ideas and insights. And I was thinking about last week, I was actually recording a podcast for the mastermind.com product, not a podcast, but a video training for the mastermind.com members area. And in that training, I was talking about how a lot of ways you can make money selling information products. And one of them is you become a reporter. And as I was diagramming out this presentation, I was looking at, you know, who are famous reporters we know throughout time. There's like Napoleon Hill who went out and interviewed over 500 people and then wrote thinking girl rich, which became an amazing book. And then you look at nowadays, someone like Oprah Winfrey who interviewed

hundreds of amazing people. And that's how she built her brand. And then, uh, Larry King, all these people who were reporters. And I started thinking about, you know, in my journey, you know, cause I didn't always start as like, I'm Russell Brunson, the people who were reporters. And I started thinking about, you know, in my journey, you know, cause I didn't always start as like, I'm Russell Brunson, the internet nerd expert guy. Um, you know, initially it wasn't, I had no idea about internet stuff. In fact, um, when I was first getting started, I remember the, um, the second course I created, the very first course I created was on how to, how to sell public domain products. And it was, uh, it was a course I did and I think it was like 250 bucks or maybe 500

bucks. I sold, I sold it, um, access to the course for live training course. I think we ended up selling, I don't care, right? $25,000 worth, which is really, really good for me. And then like four or five months later I decided to do a new course and I called it affiliate bootcamp, which is funny cause we just launched affiliate bootcamp.com, um, which I'll talk about here in a minute, but it was the original affiliate bootcamp and I sold it for $1,000 and I still remember I launched it and I had no idea who was going to

buy how many people. And we ended up selling 79 people at thousand bucks a piece. I mean, 79 grand. This is me in college and I'm flipping out. I'm like, I cannot believe it's made $80,000. That's more than any of my teachers made. And I did it by selling one course that I had not yet fulfill on. And so we sold the course and I started fulfilling. And so module number one, I did. I started teaching my affiliate marketing stuff and I was teaching what I was doing. And then I sent out a survey. I said, okay, for the next modules,

what are you interested in learning most about? People started submitting in all these things. And it was funny because like one person, or not one, but a lot of people were like, I want to learn PPC, I want to learn SEO, I want to learn all these things that I did not know how to do. And I was like, oh crap,

they're all going to want their money back and I've already spent it on dumb stuff. Just kidding. Kind of anyway. Um, and so I was like, okay, I got to figure out how to do this. And so, um, I taught the two or three modules that I knew I was going to teach myself. And I was like, I got to figure out how to get the right people in here to teach these other modules. Cause I don't know the answer to these questions. Right. And so I remember looking out and I made a list of like 10 people who I looked up to who were really good at doing pay-per-click search engine marketing as an affiliate. And I messaged them all.

I said, Hey, I have this training program. I got 79 people who signed up and they want to know about PPC. Can I have you come on and let me interview about how to do pay-per-click if you were an affiliate? And from that, I got someone who said yes. And so I brought them on my training. I did a module. I interviewed them.

And it was really cool because I had a chance to ask them all my own personal questions. I interviewed him. I asked all these questions. I learned from it. Plus my members got to hear the module on that topic and it was awesome. Next week was the same thing. They wanted to know about SEO, but I didn't know about SEO. So I found the top SEO person, uh, messaged a couple of them. One of them said yes, brought them on. They got to train and I asked them all my questions. And what was cool was during this process of me being the reporter, I started learning these things. I would then go apply them and I became really good at all these things. I became good at PPC. I became good at SEO. I became good at all these things. And that's how I became the internet marketing nerd that I am today by interviewing amazing

people. So that was what I was sharing during this training, the mastermind.com training series, about how I became the reporter and started selling courses, just asking people questions. And we showed in Tony Robbins' book, his Money, the Master of the Game, as well as Unbreakable. In both those books, he took on the role as a reporter. He went and found amazing people, interviewed them, compiled them into a book,

and boom, made two New York Times bestselling books by being the reporter. And so I started thinking, okay, practical application. Like nowadays, how do I do this? Because I still do this, right? A lot of times we think that we just become the reporter when we're starting a business and trying to learn things, which is a great way to get started, by the way. Um, but I still look at it now and it's now, you know, I want to keep growing click funnels. I want to have more front end offers, but I don't have the ability to create all the

content. And so, uh, last year we did is, um, we sat down and we created, um, uh, our very first summit funnel. And you guys have probably seen our summit funnels. Um, the first one was at 30 days.com and now there's an evergreen version. There's 30 days.com. You can see this in action, but this whole funnel came about based on one question, one really, really good question. The question was this, I'm like, I'm probably gonna mess it up a little bit cause I don't have it here in front of me at the beach. But, um, the question was basically, hey, if you were to lose everything, your list, your JV partners, your products, your name, everything, and all you had left was your marketing know-how and a ClickFunnels account, what would you do from day number one to day 30 to save yourself? Boom.

That was the question, right? And it was a really, really good question, I think. And so we went and instead of me going and writing, you know, creating a product and be teaching it, I went out there and I asked how much people, I got 30 people each to answer that question for me. And they answered it through a written chapter, which we've compiled into a big book. We also had them, we interviewed them with, that was the question they answered. And that became the summit and a bunch of other cool things. Okay. So you guys can get that if you haven't, if you want to, I'm sure some of you guys are like, I want the answer to that question, Russell.

If you do, then just go to 30days.com. You can go and opt in and you can hear everybody's answers, what they, how they answer that question. But, um, that funnel, um, became two column club funnel in like a week, week and a half, something like that. Made a million bucks really, really fast. All based on like one super intriguing, amazing question. Okay. Now fast forward a little while later um affiliate boot camp i had created an affiliate boot camp when click phones first

launched it was kind of out of date and everyone wanted a new one and like we're also gonna create content to do a new one i'm like i don't have time i'm literally trying to change the world how am i supposed to like sit down and make a course on affiliate boot camp again for like the 20th time you know and so then also with that what if we do the same thing we did with 30 days.com and we ask our top affiliates that same question. And so we said, well, what's the question we're going to ask? You know, it's not the same question, but what's an interesting question that affiliate want to know? And I said, well, what if the question was, um, you know, right now you're an affiliate and you're making some good money, but you want to ship this part-time hobby into a full-time career. What would you do, um, over the next hundred days to go full-time?

And again, I slaughtered the question. If you go to affiliatebootcamp.com, you can read the headline on top of it. It says it correctly. It's the headline, right? So go there. But it's basically like if you had to rely on your affiliate commissions to survive, uh, and you had a hundred days to figure out what would you do? Okay.

If you, if you wanted to change this hobby into a full-time career, that was the question which led that, which drove the, the, um, the product, which drove everything else. Right. And it was really, um, I think turned out, um, you know, if the bootcamp is doing killer right now, it'll be a two column club funnel very, very soon as well. Um, there's all based on one good question. Now for us, basically each quarter we're launching a new summit. Um, I love this so much and it helps me to get into new markets. Our next one we're going to do is called Brick and Mortar Funnels. It's going to be going after using funnels from brick and mortar. The question will be something like, hey, if you're a brick and mortar business owner and your Yellow Pages, TV, radio, flyers, Google, SEO all disappeared, all you had left

was a ClickFunnels account. What would you do to get a hundred new clients into your door in the next hundred days? Right? So it's always like something like that. Like, here's a question. Hypothetically speaking, if you lost everything, what would you do? Um, I'm watching Steven Larson and I'm putting on his very first summit, which is kind of cool. His question, I don't want to ruin his question, but it's, it's like the opposite of mine. It wasn't like, what'd you do? And you have 30 days left. His is like, you're about to die. And you got one shot to make an offer, the offer of your lifetime. One that will be your thing. You remember, you remember for, cause you're going to die. And this offer is going to be your legacy that feeds your family

and feeds your kids for the rest of the time. What is that offer going to be? What would you do? How would you create it? Right. So he's taken that whole concept as well. And boom's launched a summit and everything else behind it. Anyway, so I want to kind of get this thought in your head as you're creating products or courses, and I'm not positive of this yet, but Steve and I were kind of geeking out about this. I said, almost you could build your entire value ladder based on one question, right? Like if I was a little less ADD and not creating a million things at once, I could have just turned 30days.com into my entire business.

Imagine this, okay? So it comes into 30days.com into my entire business. Imagine this, okay? Something comes into 30days.com and there's the free summit they come into. And then I can upsell them to buy the recordings and the transcripts. So you can make money there. And then I could do, okay, after going through all of these 30 day plans with other people, I wanted to test the whole thing out. So I went and I picked a plan. I followed it in a market I'd never been in before. And I tested the whole thing out, and this is what happened, right? And I can create a whole home study course now for, I don't know, $500 or $1,000 of me doing a plan where I'm like,

they can look over my shoulder and watch me do the whole thing. I'm going to record a thing, document it, show you how much money I made, show you what I did, what I tried, trial and error, and you can see the whole thing. And that could be a whole home study course where they can watch what I did, and then I can do Q&As each Friday. So maybe it's a eight week course. Each week I'm going to do part of one of these plans to execute this thing.

And it may be awesome. It may bomb. I don't know. But you guys can come on. And again, every Tuesday I'm going to release a new module. Every Friday I'll do live Q&A. You can jump on. I can sell that for anywhere from 500 to a couple thousand bucks.

Boom, there's a home study course. And then I could do 30 day boot camps. Just like, hey, you went through everybody else's 30 plans you watched me do my 30 plans how'd you guys like for us to help you with your 30 plan you fly to boise or fly to wherever you live timbuktu and we'll sit down in a small group workshop with 10 people and we'll sit down and we'll figure out your 30-day plan like what's the market what's the thing we're gonna do it with you and it's eight grand for this done with you experience it's gonna be amazing um 30 experience you come in here and you set up whole thing in over 30 days we're watching and coaching make sure you're you're doing a good job

right and then if there's one additional you have a few of the three day to 30 day boot camp a three day 30 day boot camp um where you come through and we help them get things set up for you and on the back side of it um we do live one-on-one coaching. We get free coaching calls for the next 90 days and that's $15,000, $18,000 for that. Right. And that could be it. I built a whole entire multimillion dollar business off of one question. I could easily do the same thing with affiliate bootcamp if I had the time and inclination

to go deeper with it. Right. I don't, cause for me, my, my business is different. My model is to get people in the click funnel, so I don't have to or need to go as deep. But if this was my business, I could. And for most of you guys, this is your business. You can go really, really deep on this, right? The affiliate bootcamp question alone could be a multi-million dollar business, right?

Boom. Number one, they get the summit. They come in. Number two, they get to look over the shoulder as I do the process with them. They get to watch me do the thing, live Q&As, watching the thing. We're actually done with you. I'm executing this me do the thing, live Q&As, watching the thing, we're actually done with you. I'm executing this thing with them, they live the Q&As, right?

And then it's like done for you or even more so with you. We fly to Boise and we sit down and we do this in a workshop event. And then others, you know, and you can easily grow that into big business. And so I'm sharing this with you guys because a lot of times we look at our businesses and we're trying to figure out like,

what's the course? What's the product? What's all these different things I'm trying to figure out? And it's the course? What's the product? What's the, like, what's all these different things I figure out? And it's like, no, wait, what if instead we came back and said, what's the one question that I could ask? It's a good enough question that people are gonna be so intrigued. They have to come in, right? Like I know, I think the reason why 30 days has done so good is because people are like, man, I want to hear what, what does Trey Llewellyn think? What does Garrett White think? And what does Steven Larson think? And what did Julie Storian think? And what these people think in our community of success, what would they do if they lost

everything? Just the pure intrigue of that. It's like, I want to find out. And you get in the front door, right? Okay. We, you know, if you look at the way this funnel structure, we don't charge people. They opt in, they get all this stuff for free. We upsell them the recordings and the transcripts and things like that, uh, into, um, into them.

But, um, excuse me, the recordings and transcripts of the interviews and we start making money, but we're giving that, that question causes the curiosity and intrigue that gets somebody to come in, right? It's good from an ad standpoint. It's a good hook. It's a good story. It's a good, like all those things are tied into that so strongly and so, so powerfully. So, um, anyway, I want you to think about that. Take a minute and step back and look at your entire value ladder, right? If you don't know want a value ladder as yet, go read the.com secrets book and get a free copy of.comsecrets.com. There's my pitch, but, um, like your value ladder, step back and say, okay, what's the question that could drive this entire value ladder? Okay. Um, if I

was in a weight loss space, it could be something like, um, all right, it's swimsuit season. You got 30 days. Um, and, uh, you know, you got 30 days, you gotta lose three pounds off your hips, um, and fit in your size. I don't know what girl sizes are size two or size 12 or whatever the sizes fit in this size. Um, and, and you couldn't, you, and you had to make sure that you weren't hungry. What would you have made one day? 30 lose 22 pounds and still, you know, lose 22 pounds, feel good and fit in your new swimsuit? Boom. There's your question, which comes to summit, a book, a product, a webinar, a coaching program, like all those things can be based on that one

question, that one concept, that one thing, right? Let's say in the financial space, let's say all you have left was, you know, $2,000 to your name to invest. And you wanted to make sure that by the time you retired, you were able to do whatever. Like, what would you do next 30 days? Where would you invest your money? Or I don't know, something like that. If you're married, you're 30 days away from being divorced.

And, you know, or someone just filed divorce papers and you got one last shot to try to save your marriage, what would you do if you wanted to date 30 to transform everything? And again, it doesn't have to be 30 days. It could be 30 days, it could be a hundred days, it could be the next 12 months, it could be whatever, right? It doesn't really matter.

The time wise, it's just getting the question that's a hook that can fuel every single step of the value ladder. So, um, anyway, I wanted you to just kind of step back and think about that cause I think it's super powerful. Um, it's funny cause, um, the 30 days we we we asked the question and the content came you know everything came together really quick through the boot camp we didn't leave the question we just let like let's interview people on affiliate marketing and the whole project was harder to figure out it wasn't until the end we said we need to attach this to a question and we shifted around to ask you ask

the right question and then everything came together really quickly and with you know brick and mortar funnels coming out it's very simple i. I think with Traffic Secrets and these other ones, it's all going to be the same question. Dotcom Secrets, if your business is struggling and you had 30 days to fix it, what would you do? Boom, Dotcom Secrets had an underground playbook for growing your thing with ClickFunnels. You had a funnel that wasn't converting

and you knew that your friend's family had to, your family wasn't going to eat and the people who've been called to serve wouldn't be able to be saved unless you, um, unless you got this funnel to convert, what would you do? Boom. Expert secrets. Then you're going to play a book for persuading people to buy your stuff, right?

Um, uh, you just got hit up in the Google or the Facebook slap and your entire business ran away from you and you got 30 days. Um, not only get traffic here to your business again, but to start to grow. What would you do in the next 30 days to quickly grow your traffic? Boom. Traffic Secrets Underground playbook for filling your funnels with your dream customers, right? Boom. So it's like the question, the product becomes the answer. Man, it makes it fun. It makes me want to go back to all of my old sales pages, my pages, my old books and, and lead on with, with the question.

Like, what's the question? It's funny. Um, man, probably two, maybe three years ago, I did a podcast about, um, the primary questions, which means if you haven't been listening to backups with the podcast, you are failing. Go back and binge listen. Now go to marketing secrets.com slash binge and download the binge guide. But there's one I did about primary question, which is a concept I learned from Tony Robbins. He basically said that every single person has a primary question that's subconsciously driving everything they do.

And so it's like you had to become aware of your primary question. Because sometimes your primary question is like leading you to destruction or destroying your family, your marriage, your life, and all these things. It's like figuring out what your primary question is and then figuring out how to change it or deviate it. But I think it's kind of similar thinking here. Like what's the primary question for your business, for your value ladder? What's the primary question that can drive everything for you? So I would recommend start thinking about that because it makes the product creation standpoint and process so much more fun. It makes the hooks easier, the stories better, and the offers insane.

So I hope that helps. Appreciate you guys all. I'm gonna get back to having fun with my kids and my wife out on the water. So if you enjoyed this episode, please take a snapshot of it on your phone right now, post it on Instagram, Facebook, or wherever you like to post stuff,

and tag me and do hashtag marketingseekers. I'd greatly appreciate it. And if you haven't yet, please go to iTunes and rate and review. That would mean the world to me. And that's all I got. All right, Aiden, say bye to everybody. Bye. All right, we're gonna go play. See you later, and, please go to iTunes and rate and review. That would mean the world to me. And that's all I got. All right, Aiden, say bye to everybody. Bye.

All right, we're going to go play. See you later and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, everybody. Want more marketing secrets? If so, then go get your copies of my two best-selling books. Book number one is called Expert Secrets, and you can get a free copy at expertsecrets.com. And book number two is called Dot Com Secrets, and you can get your free copy at dotcomsecrets.com. Inside these two books, you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest growing non-VC backed SaaS startup company in the world.