Showmanship in Business: The Lost Book That Changed How I Launch Everything | #Marketing - Ep. 55

This is the Russell Brunson Show.

Welcome to the vault.

Today I've got another out-of-print book on advertising and selling that is going to change everything for you.

So this book is a new one in my collection.

It's called Showmanship in Business.

I got this book because we were focusing on like doing what we call dramatic demonstrations.

Maybe someone back in the day wrote a book about this and I found this book.

I'm like, this is the book.

I got a screaming deal on this book.

And some of you guys may think I'm crazy to spend $500 on a book, but this one costs $500.

I think it's first edition.

one of the cool things about this book that a lot of people probably don't know is dale carnegie who wrote first edition of how to win friends and influence people dale carnegie actually talked specifically about this book i pulled out the quote today he said this is the day of dramatization you have to use showmanship and then he said read showmanship in business by kenneth god and zen kaufman it's an exciting panorama of how showmen are ringing the cash register and he goes on to talk about some of the case studies so in how to win friends and influence people he's talking about this book yet this book is out of print it's out of publish you can't find it not even on amazon we tried to buy one today and it is not there so that's what showmanship in business is.

It's all about how to add that extra flair in your business to get people to notice you, to see what you're doing.

You know, front cover here's got this dog on a parade.

Just an example of showmanship.

So that's what the book's all about.

I don't remember the story because again, it wasn't something that people were talking about.

Whenever I'm deep diving into a topic or something that I'm geeking out on, I'm trying to find like other source material for me to learn from, right?

We have a framework called the Lynchpin that we teach all of our people inside of ClickFunnels.

The LynchPin, one of the parts of the framework is we have people do what we call dramatic demonstrations.

So a dramatic demonstration, it could be a webinar or a challenge or it could be, there's a lot of ways ways to create dramatic demonstrations.

And so I was trying to find old school examples of this.

In fact, Steve Larson and I are writing a book right now called dramatic demonstrations.

And we pull a bunch of examples from other people from back in the early 1900s, late 1800s who were doing these big dramatic demonstrations, right?

You think about P.T.

Barn, he was the greatest showman, right?

And so I had those books.

I was just trying to find some other related, I'm like, there's got to be some more things to look at there.

So I'm always looking for old books.

I was searching for things.

And somewhere in my searches, this one showed up and just showmanship in business.

And I was like, just the essence of the title is like, yes, that's what dramatic demonstrations are, right?

Everyone out there has running an ad to a landing page and whatever, but it's like if you want to get people's attention today you have to be different right the thing that makes you stand out again in my world is creating a dramatic demonstration or adding showmanship into your business that's how you stick out that's how you stay relevant for a long long time people ask me a lot like russell how are you still doing this business 25 years later and the reason is because i add the stuff into our business like nothing that we're doing is just normal right you notice we add showmanship into everything we do i saw the title i was like yes i need that book bought it and then i found out later again that it was literally Dale Carnegie wrote about it in How to Win Friends and Influence People.

So it's now one of my favorite books in my library.

The person that kind of got me thinking about dramatic demonstrations initially was a guy named Tim Shields.

He's one of my inner circle and my Atlas members.

And he's in the photography business, right?

Which you think about people teaching photographers how to build a business.

You don't think there's a lot of money in that, right?

It's not going to be like this huge thing.

But he's got a $10 million a year business.

teaching this.

And so I started watching what he was doing, and he made this documentary sent to me.

It's like a two-minute documentary and a little trailer.

What he did is he was like showing how he doesn't just do a webinar on how to do photography.

Like he creates a dramatic demonstration.

So what he did is he went to the side of the Grand Canyon.

Him and his wife, they hiked out there.

They promoted this whole audience.

Like, we're going to the side of the Grand Canyon.

We're bringing in Starlink.

We're going to do this webinar from the side of the Grand Canyon.

And all the Benel's drama and everything is they got there.

And they finally set it up.

And they're in the most beautiful place in the world.

And they start the camera and they do this whole webinar from the side of the Grand Canyon.

And I watched that whole thing.

And then the next month, he did another one where he went to Banff, Canada, on this frozen lake.

And he goes out in the middle of this lake and he does a webinar there.

He's done like eight or nine of these in a row, back to back.

And he sent me just some footage of that.

And he's like, Russell, this is what most people are missing.

Like they're behind their desk doing a webinar.

And he's like, I don't do webinars.

I do dramatic demonstrations.

After he shared that with me, he's like, you know what you should do, Russell?

I'm like, what?

He's like, he's like, you bought Dan Kennedy's business.

He's your mentor.

And you always tell us these stories about the pilgrimage people go to Dan Kennedy to go to his basement.

And in the basement, there's no internet and all these things.

He's like, we all hear you tell these stories.

And we assume it's $100,000 to hire Dan to have a day with him to see that.

He's like, you should take the entrepreneur world.

Take your world to Dan Kennedy's basement.

He's like, in your business, you're doing these dramatic demonstrations.

You got to take your audience in places they wouldn't go on their own, right?

They're not going to go to the side of the Grand Canyon.

They're not going to go to Banff, Canada, on the frozen lake.

My people are not going to go to Dan Kennedy's basement, but they want that.

They hear about it, right?

And so we made this whole campaign, this whole dramatic demonstration where I basically said we're going to Dan Kennedy's basement.

Like we're bringing Starlink in.

I'm going to show you guys behind the scenes.

I'm going to show you that there's literally like his computer is not plugged in.

I'm going to show you the fax machine.

The nerds in the marketing world with me were freaking out.

We got like 15, 16,000 people to register to go to Dan Kennedy's basement with me, right?

And then, you know, we did this whole pilgrimage.

As we were going to Cleveland, Ohio, we stayed at the La Quinta because it's like the worst hotel on the planet, but it's part of the experience.

Like everyone who's ever been to Dan's house always talked about the La Quinta and how it's the worst hotel.

Like when we are pulling up to the hotel and we're like Instagram and live, this lady comes out of the lobby and she comes out and she's like livid mad and she's like looks at us as we're walking.

She's like, this is the worst hotel I've ever been to.

Don't go in there.

I was like, yes, like this is like we're getting the whole experience.

Next day we go to Dan Kenny's house.

We bring in Starlink and we stream internet down.

And what's crazy is a typical webinar, you might get 15 to 20, maybe 25% of people to show up because that's what typical show up rates are in a webinar because it was a dramatic demonstration because we added the showmanship into this campaign and this marketing.

We had like 80% of people who showed up for the webinar.

People sat there.

Dan Kenny, we did a tour in his basement.

We walked around, showed the bathroom, showed everything for like an hour and a half before we even got to any kind of sales pitch and nobody left.

They were like enthralled.

And so that's what adding showmanship in your business is, right?

It's like everyone's doing a webinar.

How do I take it to the side of the Grand Canyon?

How do I take my people to Dan Kennedy's basement?

For you, who are your people?

Like, how do you add showmanship?

Where it's like, you're going to give them access to something they don't have anywhere else.

Like, those are some of of the ways that we're using showmanship and creating dramatic demonstrations inside of our business now dramatic demonstrations they don't always have to be huge as well like last year for my birthday the opportunity is there's something happening i can talk about i can make a dramatic demonstration it's like we're having russell's birthday come and register for my birthday party we have all these speakers and come everyone's gonna talk and it's like it can be as simple as something like that as well so the key is not so much like it has to be you know spending tons of money or doing like leaving your location but it's like it's creating something that's that's gonna grab someone's attention and give you the ability to share and then to promote the thing you have.

Now in the showmanship showmanship and business book, there's actually a four-part framework that every business who's successfully applying showsmanship follows these four principles.

And so I'm going to write these out for you, kind of talk about and share some stories with each one.

So the first step to have showmanship in your business is

to attract.

And this one is something in our world, a lot of times online, we talk about like creating a hook.

Something that's going to grab somebody's attention is the first key, right?

How do you attract somebody's attention?

So I always think about this, like if I was to go to the food court at the mall and there's like 400 people and they're eating and talking, if I was to stand up on a chair and yell something out, would it grab their attention?

Would they ever stop and look at me or would they be intrigued or would they kind of like, ah, and they walk away?

So I always think about that.

Like I got to say something that's going to get their attention to make them stop talking.

Like, oh, what's happening over here?

That's what I'm always thinking through.

In the book, he shares an example.

Because again, this book was written in 19, I think, 36.

And so this is before, you know, obviously the internet and stuff like that.

But one of the examples they talked about, the attraction is that there was a movie theater and they had all this candy at the movie theater.

And there's a bunch of candy that nobody was buying just kind of, you know, it sat there for week after week and they were trying to figure out how do we attract attention to this.

And so what they did is they got this little spot, like almost like a flashlight and they shone it on the candy that nobody was buying and because it looked like it was an attraction like people saw that they're like there's something like why do they lighten this up there's got to be something here that that candy ended up selling out the most and it became the highest selling candy because they added some attraction to it they added a light to it which is kind of a simple example so it's like finding something unique and like in the shining light on it right it's like again my birthday promotion it's my birthday shining a light on i'm trying to attract people's attention to it i'm going to dancy's house shining light on it right so that's the first step in the framework number two is to emphasize so it's like after you have their attention you have to emphasize either the problem or the things happening so people see it, so they're going to remember it, right?

Like that's what showmanship is, that extra level, not just attracting their attention, they emphasize it.

In the book, the example he shares is really cool.

This guy named Walter Chrysler, you may have heard of him.

He owns a company called Chrysler.

One of the stunts he did to emphasize after he got people's attention, he actually took his cars and he had people come and he brought elephants out and he had these elephants come and actually step on top of the car.

Now, if you see that kind of dramatic demonstration, you see somebody emphasizing something.

You see someone with elephants on top of their car.

That's one of those things you're never going to forget, right?

Like after that happens, it's like, okay, I'm never going going to forget this thing.

I think about this, some of the best that I've ever seen doing this, right?

Like, I love watching and studying infomercials, but if you remember Billy Mays back in the day, Billy Mays was the guy who did OxyClean and, you know, most of the great infomercials of the 90s and 2000s.

He was the best at this, right?

He'd grab your attention really quick at the very beginning of the infomercial, and then he'd do a demo, right?

He'd always do something where it's like, he'd have your white shirt and he'd like, put it through grass where it's all green and nasty.

And then he's like, gets an OxyClean.

And in five seconds, it's like, oh, it's OxyClean.

Now it's done.

He emphasizes the problem and then the react, like how the thing solves it, right?

Because you could be like, oh yeah, these cars are really sturdy.

or you could have an elephant stand on the car that's the difference right oh yeah this will get stains out of your clothes or let me put a stain on it let me show you you're emphasizing it to make it real inside their mind that's showmanship that's the next level beyond just marketing or just advertising so number three is emotionalized in the book you see that people don't buy facts they buy feeling and this is something that is very very true when i'm doing a webinar or a challenge or anything you know a lot of times we share the facts because we're speaking to people consciously and their logical minds like oh yeah that makes a lot of sense but the thing that gets people to buy and to move and to take action is the emotion like what do they feel about the thing?

The more I study and the more I write about the subconscious mind, the more fascinating is because people don't do what they think about, they do what they feel.

Like, if I feel like doing it, they're going to do it, or they're not going to do it, right?

And so, feeling is what you're trying to create.

So, I attract their attention, right?

Emphasize the things.

This thing gets burned and seared into your brain, and then I got to emotionalize it, right?

So, I'm bringing emotion to the table, telling stories, you're showing examples, like you're showing why this should be emotional to them.

And emotionally, a lot of things.

It can be sad.

I've seen people who are really good to tell their story, they get emotional, right?

Or they can be fear, they can be pain, right?

I've seen people at Funnel Hacking Live Stage who use some of our best speakers, but they use anger to emotionalize things.

Where I'm not really someone who comes in angry and hot, I come in very much more like visionary and trying to show, like cast a vision and show people what's possible, right?

And that's how I emotionalize things.

So there's different ways to do it based on your style, but adding that emotion is the next phase.

And then number four, which is the last part of the framework here, is to create.

action, which for all of us we know is like call to action.

Tell them to do something.

It says in the book, it says, all of this theater means nothing unless you have action at the end.

Doing a dramatic demonstration, showmanship, doing all these kind of things, you get their attention, you give them emotion, all that kind of stuff.

If you don't have them do something, there's all kind of for nothing.

And so that's the framework from the book is you're trying to figure out like for you specifically, like how could I create a dramatic demonstration?

Those are the things you're thinking through.

Okay, what can I do that's going to attract their attention?

Okay, after we get them, how do we emphasize this so it like gets seared into their brain?

And then what do I do to create the emotional experience with them?

And then where do I take them to actually take action?

And those are kind of how we use showmanship inside of our business today.

One more thing we do is showmanship in business.

And again, a lot of times we think this is just if I'm selling an event or if I'm doing a course or whatever the thing might might be.

You can use this in any part of your business.

A couple years ago, we hired the Harmon Brothers who do viral videos to make a video for us.

Spend a lot of money to create a video.

We're going to launch it on YouTube and drive ads to it.

And then I was like, we got to do something bigger.

Like we need to make this dramatic demonstration.

Like, how do we engage our audience, get people excited to make this more than just like us putting something out onto the internet, right?

And so we created a whole campaign around it.

And what we did, we rented out the Boise Estate Football Stadium.

We went and got as many high-level influencers as possible to come to the stadium for this event.

We hired Gary Vaynerchuk to come and be our keynote speaker.

And then to top it all off, I was like, we need something that's really going to attract attention, emphasize what we're doing, emotionalize, and create action.

We decided to do the largest bubble soccer game in the history of all time.

And this was all to launch a YouTube video, right?

It wasn't just posting online and just hoping for the best and maybe it goes viral.

It's like this brings people together and let's launch it together, make an experience and create a dramatic demonstration.

And so it was cool because we had almost two different ways.

There's the internal people who came who had this experience and all of them promoted it out to their followings and their list, which helped this video to go viral.

But then externally, our entire audience was watching as we were doing this.

They had a chance to like see behind the scenes this glimpse of like oh my gosh like you know they couldn't be here with us but we're taking them on this journey right we're not just doing these things in a silo but we're letting them kind of experience it with us one of the things i remember one of my mentors john allness told me one time he said that that our job as entrepreneurs as advertisers and he said that he got this from a movie in the 80s it was a rock star talking about this but he said for entrepreneurs like our job is to live the life that our audience wishes they could live right they're living vicariously through us and so we're putting this thing on but we're allowing our audience to watch it so they can vicariously live through us like watch us like win the bubble soccer watch this video go viral like see gary vegan's other people speaking and like we're sharing that experience with them and just it takes the showmanship to the next level where that story and that message just keeps resonating and growing again that was just to launch a youtube video so next time you're putting anything out there if it could be as simple as a podcast youtube video or as big as a product launch it's like figuring out how do you add showmanship into your business to get people talking get people remembering you creating emotion and getting people to take action if you want my notes from the showmanship and business book.

I've got my notes.

There's a link down below.

We can go and get the notes for this entire book.

Because right now it's not possible to find online.

This is the only copy I was able to find, not even on Amazon.

Go through my notes, so you get the highlights from everything.

You get some of the coolest quotes, examples, and case studies.

They share tons of examples on all four of these things, example after example after example.

I think there's over 100 different examples inside this book for these different points you can read through.

And hopefully, there's first some ideas on how you can use this inside of your business.

I feel like nowadays people are lazy because we have Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook ad and think they're a genius, right?

Back then, like I go P.T.

Bardham is like, I think he was the front runner of all this showmanship.

Like, imagine there's no TV, there's there's radio, but who knows?

How do you get people to show up to a circus or to a museum or to whatever?

Like, they had to become masters of showmanship.

And we've forgotten the art of this.

If you go back and you study the art of it and you weave that into what we're doing now with the amplification we have of the internet, it changes the game for everybody.

So it's interesting, the lost lessons, but what they had to do.

I think about this less, like when I got started 20 years ago, like it was before Facebook, before MySpace, like back when Friend Store was the social network, I couldn't buy ads.

So we had to do all sorts of weird stuff.

Like we were creating, making up stuff to try to get people to like find us on the internet, right?

Like we were doing all sorts of crazy things back then that were just fascinating, but we had to.

And now it's like everyone's defaulted to just the one thing.

I run some ads, you know, or whatever.

It's like no one even remembers like all the things we had to do to get attention back in the day.

And so, for us, in our business, a lot of people ask why we're still around 20 years later.

It's like because I weave these elements into the campaigns, right?

We're using the media to like amplify it, but we're still doing the things that got us attention back before we had the media.

Before these guys had the internet, they were doing the stuff to get attention.

And so, you can learn so much from these things and apply them to your business today, and it just changes everything.