The Russell Brunson Show

The Publishing Playbook: How to Win Before You Launch | #Marketing - Ep. 07

February 05, 2025 51m S4E7
Most people build a funnel first and then try to find traffic. But that’s completely backward! In this episode, I share why your number one focus should be gathering an audience long before your funnel launches. I’ll break down the exact strategies I’ve used to dominate in marketing. Whether it's building ClickFunnels into the category leader or creating products that people are already lined up to buy. If you’re struggling to get momentum, this episode is for you. Key Highlights: Dig your well before you're thirsty - If you wait until your funnel is live to build an audience, you’ve already lost. The two paths to traffic - Working your way in (free strategies) vs. buying your way in (paid ads). You need both, but I’ll tell you where to start. The power of relationships - Most successful marketers don’t rely on ads alone. I’ll show you how connecting with the right influencers can send a flood of traffic your way. Why publishing content is non-negotiable - You can’t just build an offer and hope people show up. I’ll explain why consistent content is the secret to long-term success. How I’ve used these strategies to dominate competitors - From beating Leadpages to taking on GHL, I’ll share the mindset and tactics that keep ClickFunnels ahead. If you’re serious about selling online, you can’t afford to wait until launch day to find your audience. The second you decide to start a business, you need to start gathering the many. In this episode, I’ll break down exactly how to do that, so when your funnel is ready, you’ve already got a crowd waiting to buy! https://sellingonline.com/podcast https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Special thanks to our sponsors: NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal https://nordvpn.com/secrets Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Northwest Registered Agent: Go to northwestregisteredagent.com/marketingsecrets to start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at LinkedIn.com/CLICKS Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at RocketMoney.com/RUSSELL Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/clicks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Full Transcript

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Do you have a funnel, but it's not converting? The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good, but you suck at selling. If you wanna learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next Selling Online event by going to sellingonline.com slash podcast.
That's sellingonline.com slash podcast. This is the Russell Brunson Show.
What's up everybody, this is Russell. Welcome back to the show.
Excited to be hanging out with you guys today. And today we're going to be talking about getting insane amounts of traffic to your funnel before your funnel is even live.
This is one of the biggest problems I'm seeing inside of our community is people, they are spending time building a funnel or building an offer, putting things together, but they're not focusing on the most important thing, which is planning all the seeds you need ahead of time before you actually launch your funnel. So that's what we're going to talk about.
We're going to go

deep into it. And for any of you guys who are building, but not getting the eyeballs, the

leads, the following ahead of time, we're going to fix that for you guys today and show you a very

fun, simple way to do that. But before we do, I got to start with some stories because anyway,

I'm enjoying the new podcast style and you guys have been telling me it's been fun.

I've shared a lot of stories again, like I used to back in the day and people are loving it. So I'm going to tell you some stories that will hopefully motivate you and get you excited.
One story is the fact this shirt I'm wearing today. I saw this on the Joe Rogan show.
He had it on during his podcast episodes. I'm hoping that by default me wearing this, our podcast will grow.
So there you go. There's number one.
No, but for real, the story I want to tell you guys today, it was one – it was actually – I lift weights in the morning with a trainer and I can't remember what conversation we got in but we started talking about this. And this story popped in my head.
I hadn't thought about this in like probably 20 years and I thought it was really funny. So this comes down to like – I don't know.
My number one – I took strength finders. My number one strength is competition.
Like I love competition. I thrive in it.
The more that it is, the better it is and all sorts of stuff. And, you know, I think that's why this business has been so fun for me.
You know, we first launched it. We were the underdogs and we had this big competition.
We had all these companies to take on funding. I remember Leadpages when we first decided to create ClickFunnels, they'd just take on $5 million in funding.
Eventually I had like 40. And so I was like, we got to beat them.
So we were racing to beat them because we'd had no funding it was just us with our brains and our like intuition and our energy running so that was like the initial thing that we went through right and eventually we beat them we surpassed them and I have not heard the word lead pages in a I don't know five six seven years the next was like okay who's the next company is like boom it was um Infusionsoft they just got like 150 million dollars in funding so like all right there's the next goal so they're racing racing racing um and it was it was interesting, it was Infusionsoft. They just got like $150 million in funding.
So like, all right, there's the next goal. So they're racing, racing, racing.
And it was interesting. So that was kind of the goal.
And then for a long time, we were at the top and there was no one to compete against. And for me, like I need competition.
And so that's, I think, a big reason why we decided to build new ClickFunnels, which by the way, you guys can see the logo. If you're watching the video version, there's a logo glowing up.
We just this week launched the brand new ClickFunnels branding. Have you guys seen it yet? It is insane.
It is the coolest thing ever. I need to get a light like this now with the new branding.
But it's coming soon. We actually did order lights.
I hope we have new branding here in the light format for the videos. But the new branding is going amazing.
The app looks awesome. The software looks awesome.
It's so exciting. With all these people now who are like re-logging back into ClickFunnels to see new app and start using it.

In fact, Joe McCall, one of my favorite people on the planet, he posted today.

He said, I'm digging into the new ClickFunnels more seriously.

And let me tell you something.

It's flipping amazing.

We're bringing all of our funnels back over.

It's way better than GHL.

What was that, Joe?

It's way better than GHL.

Thanks for also, Brunson.

Love your dedication to making marketing world a better place.

Seriously.

Okay.

So speaking of what Joe just said, there was competition.

and his competition came out hard and fast against us um and um i'm not gonna lie uh we lost the first round lost the first period and um but i'm a wrestler like we don't we don't just stop right and so for us it's been like mounting our defense mounting a new strategy mapping new play getting software better like all the different things and now it's like this is the year of momentum, like things are rolling forward. It's been really, really fun.
And so for us, it's been like mounting our defense, mounting a new strategy, mounting a new play, getting software better, like all the different things. And now it's like this is the year of momentum.
Like things are rolling forward. It's been really, really fun.
And so anyway, so in that context is where this story kind of came from. So I do remember the kid's name.
I'm not going to say his name. But this is a kid who – elementary school, I went to school with him, knew who he was, thought I was a friend with him.
He got into high school. You know high high school people become like annoying.
So anyway, I was not the best football player, but I was on the football team. And, um, I remember, uh, anyway, um, I remember, um, the, I was like third string safety or something like that.
I remember our coaches were like, um, all right, guys, you got to find the guy ahead of you and beat him out. And it's like, they gave us a really good presentation.
I got motivated. I was like, okay, I'm going to find the guy ahead of me.
I'm going to beat him out. So the next two weeks I kept like working, working and killing myself.
And I ended up beating the guy that was, that was like the second string safety. And then the first string, and I ended up beating the first guy.
And I was so excited. I'm like, again, competition drives me.
I'm like, this is the thing. And so I told my parents, like, I'm going to be playing the game.
I'm going to be starting. I'm so excited.
And so that, that day is the football game. We're there, we're on the field, we're warming up.
And one of the other coaches came over and was like, Br Brunson, what are you doing here? I'm like, I'm very proud. I beat the guys out.
I made the starting team. And he looked at me.
He's like – he looked over at one of the backup quarterbacks. He's like, hey, get over here.
And he put him in my spot and bumped me out. And that's when I started hating team sports, by the way.
I'm very much – in fact, that's how a conversation came up with my trainer is like I'm a combat athlete Notice hence the cauliflower. You're like, I love wrestling, love UFC, love fighting, like combat, like not a big fan of team sports.
Can't stand watching him and get bored by him. Uh, but this is probably a big reason because like I killed myself.
And then because of the politics of a team sport, I got bumped out, which was frustrating to me. Right.
So, um, anyway, after that, I decided like, I'm not a football player. If I can bump me because of that, like, I don't want to play this game.
I finished out that season, but I focused all my effort on wrestling, the greatest sport in the world. And within a year, became a state champion in high school, took second place in the nation, went on, got a D1 scholarship and so on and so forth.
Right. So that was kind of my shift.
Now, this is where the story gets fun. So that year of playing football, I remember after I got beat out, we went to some – we're playing some away game.
We played this game and we got destroyed. Like our team got killed.
And I'm on the sidelines waiting to play. I think I played maybe one play the entire game, which is so stupid.
So I play one game. We get done and we're like leaving.
I'm just like, this is so – like why am I doing this? I remember I was thirsty. So I grabbed a thing of water and I started drinking it.
And there's this kid getting went to elementary school with him, thought we were friends. And he sees me drinking it.
He like shoves me. He's like, he's like, Brunson, why are you getting drink water? You didn't even play this game or something.
And I was like, you know, as a, you know, as a kid, as a, as a, what a ninth grader or whatever, like humiliated, embarrassed for all these people. I was just like, oh, it like broke me, you know? And I was like, I freaking hate that guy.
Anyway, but that like got the, like the, like, okay, I got to win. Anyway, then fast forward, this guy moves schools.
I don't see him again. I'm like, kind of forget about him.
Then a couple of years later, it's, I swear the story's got a point, but it's fun. And a couple of years later, I come back it's, it's, uh, I think it was a junior that year in high school or something.
And during the Christmas break, we did a crossover, uh, practice with, with another high school. So the other high school came to our room.
And when they went to their room, so two days with these guys. And when I, when they, they show up to our wrestling room, I look over and that kid, I still know his name.
He was there. He's on the other team.
He transferred schools. He's on the wrestling team.
And I was like, oh yes. And all the memories of him knocking the water out of my hand, all kinds of stuff was like, I was like, this is it.
And so we started the practice. I'm like him, I'm going to go with him.
And I'm like, Hey man, how's it going? He's like, oh, hey Brunson, how you doing? I'm like, yeah, I'm doing good. And so for the next three hours of wrestling practice, my only plan was to destroy him mentally and physically.
And I did. By the time it was done, we were about two thirds of the practice.
He got up. He's like, I have to leave or I'm going to try to fight you or something.
I'm just laughing. I'm like, I'd like to see you try.
I just beat you like a baby for the last, anyway. So he walked off and left.
The next day, I had a chance to go to high school. I'm like, you're my partner again.
And he was like so mad. And I just, anyway, it was, it was a great day in the, in a great two days in the life of Russell to come back and have that kind of payback.
So, um, anyway, that's the mindset you have to have when you're going off to competition and competitors, right? It's looking at that and like, okay, how do we win? What does it look like? Um, when somebody knocks you down, it's like, all right, new strategy, new game plan. What does it look like? I start putting the pieces together.
So, um, I'm excited because the last couple of years has been brutal. The first video, the first podcast I talk about, but what's been fun is it's finally gotten like me, the competition backwards.
Like, okay, how do I win? Instead of like, how do I survive? How do we do whatever? It's like, no, no, no. How do we win? What's that look like? How does the strategy have to change? And I tell you what, man, it has lit me on fire.
And a lot of people tell me, Russell, we feel this momentum coming from you and from ClickFunnels. What's happening? I was like, oh, you'll see.
If you're feeling it now, just wait. We're just getting started.
So I'm excited for this year and it's been fun. So, all right, so what I promised you as we're talking about during this episode, this is one of the biggest things I see, okay? People come to my world.
They read the books. They start studying.
They start learning. They start building funnels.
They start building offers. They're printing things together.
And there's a process, right? As you're trying to this game, you've got to figure out, okay, first off, I've got to convince you that you are an expert, right? If you're going to be in the expert business, I've got to convince you. You've got to create products.
And there's all these things that go into it, right? And it takes a lot for you to create the product, create the things. And so what I see a lot of times is people get so stuck over here and like, okay, I'm building.
I'll see them at an event. Like, oh, I'm building a funnel.
I'm building a funnel. I'm like, cool.
Building a funnel is very important. It's my favorite thing in the world.
I get it. But at the same time, like, are you also like gathering the people? Okay.
And this is where people mess up, mess up. Right.
And a lot of times we'll spend a month, six months, a year, whatever, building the funnel, building the product, whatever. And then when they're finally done, like, okay, I'm going to share with the world.
And there's no one to share it with. This is a mistake people make.
Okay. So the second you decide you want to be an entrepreneur.
Okay. The second you decide, you're like, I want to be an entrepreneur.
I want to sell stuff. Like that's when this, like, this is step one that has to happen.
Step two is like creating an offer, building a business. Like step one is you have to start gathering the many.
Okay. You hear me talk a lot about like one to many presentations.
Like what is a one to many presentation, right? It's me gathering many people together and I deliver a presentation to them to sell them something, right?

So it could be a webinar, it could be a challenge,

some type of funnel that gets the people

where I can sell them something, right?

So what we need to do is we gotta gather the many.

Now there's a lot of ways to gather the many, right?

One way is through paid ads.

So right now we are in the middle

of a selling online event.

This selling online event,

we got a little over 3,700 people registered for that event. So I gathered 3,700 people together.
Okay. But my cost to gather those people, um, where it was like $300 or so to sell a hundred dollar ticket, right? So it costs me almost a million, it was like $925,000 for me to gather those people together, 3,700 people to deliver a presentation.
Now from that we will make, well, I don't, we'll, we'll 3X our return on our ad spend, right? Like we'll 3X the money we made by, by doing that. Right.
But, but it costs me a lot of money to gather those people through paid ads. Right.
And, and so a lot of people think, I think when they think, when this is my funnel, then I'm going to go in like, and like, then I'll go find the audience. Right.
But then that's like the most expensive, especially if you've been doing this and you're bootstrapping this, like the most expensive thing initially is to go pay for ads and get people in, right? So the question is like, well, how do I gather the many ahead of time so that when I go and I'm ready to launch the thing, the audience is already gathered. I'm not going to go spend a million dollars to gather these people, right? How do I do it ahead of time, right? There's so many things you can and should be doing that you're probably not thinking about right now.
And that's what I want to talk about, okay? Is what are the things you can do to start gathering the money right now? So the second your product, your funnel is done, right? Then the money are already there. You're not like going out like, okay, I depleted my resources building this business.
Now I got to go spend money to get the customers, right? Like, no, the second you decide I want to be an entrepreneur, that's when you start planting these seeds. That's when you start gathering the people instantly, right? So for a lot of you guys, if you've missed it, like if you've been doing this for a week or a month or a year or five years and you haven't done this yet, like this is now your number one focus.
More important than building your funnel or creating your offer or anything, your number one focus is this, which is starting to gather the many. So the second you've done, you've got a captive audience.
Because if you're waiting for your funnel to be done before you capture an audience, you messed up, okay? That's the wrong order. You're out of order.
So we got to get back into the correct order. Does that make sense? Okay.
So that's what I'm talking about. Now I'm going to quote a couple of things from my book, Traffic Secrets.
This is not a blatant pitch for Traffic Secrets, but if it was a blatant pitch, I'd tell you to go get a free copy of trafficsecrets.com. But inside this, this is my book to teach you guys how to get traffic and build a following and all sorts of stuff.
Like it's, it's the deep dive of my brain. There's a couple of pieces in here that I do want to share with you guys that I think are key to understanding this.
Right. And so I'm just going to jump around.
Uh, if you've got the book, you could open with me. If not just listen to my stories or if you want to get a book, uh, or you can go to Amazon, get for 25 bucks or whatever it is, or you can get for free plus shipping at traffic secrets.com.
Okay. So, um, secret number four inside traffic secrets book, uh, the chapter is called work your way in and buy your way in.
Right. So I'm talking about there's two different ways to grow an audience, right? Again, buying your way in is buying ads.
That's what I did with this weekend. I gave Zuckerberg $900,000 to buy my way in, to get him to send a whole bunch of people to me so I can sell to them, right? Or you can work your way in.
Working your way in is how you get free traffic to come to you, right? A lot of people ask me, what's better, free traffic or paid traffic? The reality is they're both insanely awesome. I love them both, right? There's not one better.
But when most people are getting started, usually you've got two different resources, either time or you have money, right? These are the two resources that we have. And what I tell people traditionally is if you have more money than time, focus on paid ads.
But if you have more time than money, you got to focus on working your way and doing the free stuff, okay? And again, in perfect world, you'd be doing both. In fact, if you read the Traffic Secrets book, we walk you through the process of starting free and then reinvesting money from free into paid ads.
And that's how you actually scale in a way that's not scary. In fact, on page 68, I have this little graph.
I don't know if you can see that at all. There it is.
So there's like this traffic in time and like it shows like controlled um, control traffic you're buying, you can spike really fast. Um, and it flatlines where's earned traffic is slower, but then it scales past it eventually.
So that's kind of like, anyway, that's, that's how we look at longterm. But right now I just want to focus on working our way and getting the traffic ahead of time because, uh, it's the free traffic and stuff you can and should be doing while you're building your business.
Okay. All right.
So in, uh, in secret number four, work your way and buy your win. The first step here, the step says dig your well before you're thirsty.
Okay. So this is what I'm talking about.
You want to start digging your well before you're thirsty. So what that means is when your funnel's done, your offer's done, you're going to be thirsty.
I need traffic. I need traffic.
I need, I need people to sell to you. And all of a sudden it's like, oh crap, I didn't dig my well.
Okay. That's the secret eggs.
We got to start digging our well before we're thirsty. Okay.
We start building

the following before we have something to sell to them. Step number one is building the following.

Step number one is traffic, right? Somebody asked me, I remember I was speaking in the UK

and I still remember her name is G. She was awesome.
And speaking in the UK, I come off

and we're talking in this little group of people and somebody asked me, I think it was her or

someone's with her something, but they asked me like, Russell, whenever you launch a funnel,

it's always successful. How are you always successful? And it was the first time I'd ever

We're doing it. and we're talking in this little group of people and somebody asked me, I think it was her or someone's with her, something, but they asked me like, Russell, whenever you launch a funnel, it's always successful.
How are you always successful? And it was the first time I'd ever given the, I didn't consciously think about this but it was the first time I'd ever like, I responded, I was like, oh wow. And I was like, I thought for a second, I'm like, oh, the reason why is because I don't build a funnel first and then go look for traffic.
I find the traffic source first and then I build a funnel and an offer based on what that traffic actually wants. And the person was like, what? Why don't you tell everyone that? That was the big secret.
I was like, I hadn't thought about it. But that's what I do, but I hadn't thought about it, right? A lot of people, what you're doing is you're building a funnel and building an offer and then trying to find traffic to sell to, okay? The secret is finding the traffic source first and then you create the offer that they actually want.
Then it becomes easy. It's just flipping the order of things, right? Step one, step two.
A lot of you guys are doing step two right now, as opposed to step number one, okay? So dig your well before you're thirsty. Hey, it's Russell Brunson, and I have a confession to make.
When I first started in B2B marketing, I thought I needed to be everywhere at once, every platform, every ad type, but guess what? That's not where the magic happens. The magic happens where the decision makers are, and that is LinkedIn.
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You're placing the right message in front of the right person at the perfect time. Here's what blew me away.
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Imagine your campaigns turning into a steady stream of qualified leads all while your competitors are busy playing on platforms that barely move the needle. If you're serious about scaling your business, you can't afford to ignore this.
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That's linkedin.com slash clicks terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be.
Hey, funnel hackers, let me paint you a picture. You're running a business.
Your funnel's finally converting like crazy and suddenly it hits you. You need to hire someone like yesterday.
Maybe it's a copywriter to help you crank out more sales pages, or a designer to refresh your landing pages, or someone to do customer support to help you to handle your growing audience. The problem is you're swamped, and you don't have weeks to shift through resumes.
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Remember, when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all that you need. And so the concept of that is like before you need the traffic, before you need the relations, before you need someone to promote, that's when you start building a relationship, right? Like I remember when I first met Tony Robbins, like eventually I wanted Tony to promote something for me, right? But I'm like, hey, Tony, you promote for me, right? That's me asking for water without digging a well, right? Instead, I was like, I'm going to build a relationship with Tony Robbins.
So for a decade, I built a relationship with Tony, right? I was digging my well, digging my well, building a relationship. And 10 years later, when my second book came out, Expert Seekers, I was like, hey Tony, can you promote this? And he's like, I would love to.
He did a Facebook Live with me. I got seen by like 5 million people.
Sold 10,000 plus copies of my book, right? And it all came off of me digging my well before I was thirsty, okay? And so that's the first thing I'm thinking about. I was like, you're gonna be thirsty.
As soon as your funnel's done, you're gonna be thirsty for traffic. Now was the time to start digging digging today, not tomorrow, not next week, not today, right? That's step number one.
The second you decide to be an entrepreneur, starting digging your well, starting to get the people, starting to start building the following, right? That's something you should be thinking about every single day. You should be blocking out at least an hour to two hours a day, just in like digging the well, right? So that when you have the offer done, it's ready.
Does that make sense? So step one is digging your well before you're thirsty. And then in here, I talk about different ways to do that.
And there's a lot of stuff in here. Um, but, but, um, there's kind of two sides I'm gonna talk about.
One is publishing and then one is actually, um, building relationships with people who already have your traffic source. Okay.
So I'm gonna go kind of touch on both sides of those a little bit. Um, I'll start with the, the finding people who already have your dream audience.
Okay. Cause that's what I talk about here in the book.
And so on page 16, 61 traffic secrets, I kind of walk through a process. Um, but the, basically the goal is like when you're getting, when you're, when you're driving traffic eventually, right? Um, I can go and give Mark Zuckerberg money and he'll drive traffic to me.
But if I can find someone who's on Mark Zuckerberg platform, who already has an audience, right? Like I find a Tony Robbins or I find a who insert whoever influencers inside your space and they have a following of 10,000 or 100,000 or a million people. If I can build a relationship with that person, they can send an email or they can post on their wall or they can do something and they can promote me as an affiliate and that way I don't have to actually spend money on the ads, right? And so for me, like when we launched ClickFunnels, again, if you read Traffic Secrets book, I go deep into this concept called the Dream 100.
Who are the 100 people that already have congregated your dream customers? It's like, how do we infiltrate? How do we start talking to these people, right? And so the very first thing for me is like, if I know that I'm in the real estate market or I'm in the health market or whatever, the very first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go and I tell people, I'm like, go to Instagram and delete all of your contacts and then only follow every single influencer inside of your space, right? And maybe it's setting up a new Instagram account, whatever you want to do, but create something and then go follow every single influencer, right? Because I want to see like, who are all the people in my space who are already congregated my dream customers? Like those are the people, if I can get a relationship with one of those people, it can open up a huge door for me, right? And send me Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, podcast, like whatever it is, but you start gathering these people, right? And you start trying to build relationships today. You're digging your well before you're thirsty.
Okay. Um, so what I would do is I'd go unsubscribe from people, uh, from everybody and just follow the influencers who are in my space.
And then it's like, I need to start building relationships with these people. How do we do that? Right.
We do it by being part of their ecosystem, right? When they're posting something, I'm liking, I'm hearty, I'm commenting. I'm like, I want them to see my face every single time.
I want them consistently like, man, whoever this Russell guy is like, he keeps commenting on my stuff. Right.
And so I'm there, I'm like engaged in their, in their content. Right.
To start building relationships with them. Right.
I'm messaging them, DM, DMing them. Like, oh man, your, your podcast last week was amazing.
Thanks so much for sharing. I, my favorite thing was blah, blah, blah.
Right. And I'm just trying to like, I'm trying to plant these seeds.
I'm trying to dig this, dig a well before I'm thirsty. Right.
And building a relationship first. And so that's how you start doing it, to start building future relationships.
And these are so important because one relationship in the future can change your entire business forever. I've got a million examples of this.
But one, I was thinking of like when I launched my very first book, Dotcom Secrets, I did the same process. I went through all the podcast directories, Instagram.
I went through everywhere. I found my 100 top I found a, you know, my, my hundred top podcasters, a hundred top Instagram influencers, a hundred top YouTubers.
And so I had a dream 100 on every single platform. And then what I did is I sent a free copy of my book to the hundred top podcasts, a hundred top YouTubes, a hundred Instagram.
So I sent five or 600 copies of my book out to everybody. And it's like, here's my new book.
We'd love for you to review it. See if you want to post it, whatever.
So I sent all those out. And what's crazy about that is I remember the very first person responded back was a guy named JLD.
Some of you guys know John Lee Dumas. He runs Entrepreneur on Fire podcast.
He messaged me. He's like, dude, this book's awesome.
I'm like, thanks, man. And he's like, I'd love to promote you.
Do you wanna come on the podcast? I'm like, I would love to come on the podcast. So he had me on the podcast.
And then he sent like a whole bunch of emails to his email list. And from that one person, that one connection, I think he sold like five or 600 copies of my book by himself.
That was one person, right? And then Jeff Walker got a copy. He's like, this book's awesome.
I'm like, thanks, man. He's like, can I promote it? I'm like, yes, you can.
He sold like 2,500 copies of the book. And then Todd Brown got it.
He sent a bunch. And then another podcast over here.
And then the YouTuber and influencer, like from those relationships that I built, we sold hundreds of thousands of copies of my book, right? But it started with me like building those relationships ahead of time. Like I was listening to podcasts.
I was sending out messages. I was getting to know people so that when my, my offer, then promoting something showed up, um, they knew who I was and it was easy for them to say yes.
Right. So digging your well before you're thirsty, going out there, finding out who are the people who have your dream customer, who are the other influencers in your market, getting to know those people, connecting with them.
There's a live event that those people are gathering at. You need to be at that live event.
You need to be hanging out in the room. Okay.
I think I told this story before, but like, um, for me, I'll let you guys know again, I'm, I'm Mormon. I don't drink alcohol.
I'm at this live event and all the people are hanging out and met the event. And then after hours, they're all going out to the bars and I don't drink and I don't want people to think I drink, but they're all like, yeah, Russell, come into the bars, come to the bars.
I'm like, ah. But I'm like, those are the people I got to network with.
They're all in the same room together. So I think I told this story.
I went down there and I ordered milk from the barkeep or whatever. I was like, he's like, you want milk? I'm like, yeah.
Because I didn't want it to look like alcohol or anything. So I had a cup of milk because I'm walking around.
Which, by the way, was a great conversation. Like, are you drinking milk? I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm Mormon.
I don't drink alcohol. I'm like like, that's cool.
Tell me about it. And then boom, connection, networking, right? But you got to be around those people.
So if I'm in the real estate market, I'm going to every real estate event. If I'm in the fitness market, I'm going to fitness events.
I'm a biohacker. I'm going to biohacking events.
And it can be virtual events, live events, in person. I got to get around the other people in my space and get to know them building relationships, right? This game is a relationship game, okay? If Zuckerberg shut down Facebook, if Google, Instagram, everything disappeared tomorrow, I would be fine because of the relationships I build over time, right? These people have email lists, they've got podcasts, they've got things.
And so if everything fell apart, I'd still be okay, right? Most people's businesses I know, if one little thing fell apart, if Instagram disappeared, their business is gone, okay? For me, if I lost every paid media platform on the planet, I'd still be fine. It wouldn't change our business, right? Maybe a little bit, but not that much.
Okay? In fact, if you've read Traffic Secrets, if you read Introduction, There's a Storm Coming, dot, dot, dot, right? And I wrote this book four years ago. It came out.
And then right after that, all of the Google slaps, Facebook slaps, everything started happening afterwards. I was like, I told you guys, this book is helping you to, um, to, uh, foolproof your marketing so that if the platform, if when the platform shuts you down, you don't lose your business.
And so there's a storm coming and those who took heed to this have succeeded. Those who haven't like, again, go back and geek out.
Okay. Sorry.
I digress. So number one, again, is digging your well before you're thirsty.
Number two is working your way in, right? Building relationships, contacting people, getting to know people. This is such a key foundational part.
If you are launching a product in an industry, people in the industry know who you are. You need to be connecting with those people in any way you can do it.
Now I want to talk about one of the easiest ways to connect with those people. A lot of times it's like, what do I say to them? And it's like, hey, Russell.
And so one of the easiest ways to connect with them is to give them something that's, that, um, that they need. Right.
So if you think of what are the influencers in your market, in your space, what are they looking for? Right. Um, influencers, people's followings, they're looking for a platform.
And I talk about, I share a book, a story in here, um, about, um, you guys remember Arsenio Hall, like who, who, who, right? Arsenio Hall. So, um, he was the biggest talk show back in the nineties.
I remember, uh, he's the one that basically, I think that he was the reason why Bill Clinton got elected as, uh, as president. Cause he was like kind of struggling.
And then he went on the show and played the saxophone and like all these people loved him and ended up going and voting for him. And like, um, similar to like, anyway, Trump and Rogan, which is kind of interesting.
Anyway, that's the story from the other day. But, um, uh, so he's the biggest talk show in the world and it was a huge thing for four or five years.
Eventually, it kind of dried up and died, right? And he lost the show. Anyway, fast forward now 20 years later.
He's on The Apprentice. I'm watching Celebrity Apprentice and all of a sudden he comes out.
One of the guests is Arsenio Hall. And I'm like, that's Arsenio Hall.
I remember that guy. He was amazing.
And they're doing all these different tasks and stuff like that. And what's crazy is they get to the task.
It's like a fundraising task, right? Where they have to call their friends and raise money for this thing. Right.
And so all the people are out there, they're calling and they're raising money, everything. And Arsenio has got his, his role next to people.
He's calling the first person, next person, next person. And they show him all day and nobody's returning his calls.
Nobody's. And like when all of a sudden that he raised, I think he raised $0 from the, from the whole fundraising campaign.
And it was a pretty embarrassing because every other celebrity got deals done, got things, and Arsenio got none of them. And I remember like the – I think it was that night or something.
He's sitting there and the camera captured this moment that was like one of the most powerful things in the world. I think I was the only one that caught it because I was freaking out.
Anyway, I talk about it in Traffic Secrets. But he says this thing.
He's looking at the camera and he's talking. He's like, man, he's like, when I had a talk show, everybody returned my call.
And I was like, oh, did you catch that? When he has his own platform, the president of the United States, the, like anybody, everyone returns call because they want access to his platform. Like what's the most valuable thing for the influencer? More influence, more, they need a platform.
Like that's it. That's what they're looking for.
Right? So for you, it's like, you need to have a platform before you have a funnel, before you have an offer, you need to have a platform, right? For a lot of reasons. Number one, and we'll talk about here, it's going to help you start publishing, getting your voice out there.
But number two, it is the thing that you have to offer to the other influencers. Right.
Hey, I mean, like when you're contacting me, I love your content. I love the last podcast episode.
Would you be willing to come on my podcast? Would you be willing to come on my YouTube channel? Would you be willing to come on my Instagram? Like whatever your platform you decided is, like that's the thing of value you have to offer these people. That's how you build connection, right? Then you bring them off of social.
You connect with them. You bring them on something where you're giving them access to your platform.
You have a chance to talk to them that you build their relationship. You talk to them for 30 minutes or an hour during a podcast interview.
Now they know you, you know them, and you've got connection, right? And then you create content

from the marketplace, right?

Like it's so simple and it's so powerfully

and most people are not doing it, right?

They always say, I'm launching my funnel,

then I'll launch a podcast in the future.

Like no, wrong order.

Flip it around, right?

I gotta start building my influence today.

And I do that by leveraging

other people's influence.

I do that by giving them access to my platform.

Some of you guys are like,

Russell, I don't have a platform yet.

Well, you gotta start then.

That's exactly why you start today.

Not next week of the year or like after your phone.

It's like, yeah,

start digging your well

before you're thirsty.

Start today, right?

And you might be saying,

well, why would someone

come on my platform?

I don't have any followers yet.

I don't have any listeners.

It's like, yeah, that's a good point.

That's why you got to start.

Like start publishing, right?

Start your own podcast.

You're on YouTube.

I don't care which channel you pick.

Pick a channel and start on it.

And that's how you start getting people.

You start gathering the many

because the only thing you have

to offer another influencer right now is access to your many. So start gathering them.
And even if it's small at first, that's okay. But you start leveraging it.
It grows bigger and grows bigger and grows bigger over time. So thinking about that.
Because until you have your own platform, you're of no value to the people that you are trying to borrow influence from. Does that make sense? Okay.
All right. Now this comes down to

the last thing I want to talk about really

and this is the key to it all

is for you guys to start publishing.

I talk about here in Traffic Secrets.

I've been saying this now

for five or six years.

I've seen,

it's funny,

I see tons of people on Instagram

now quoting me.

They don't give me credit for it

but there you go.

But I said,

this is the Funnel Hacking Live.

I think it was the second or third.

No, it was the second Funnel Hacking Live

in San Diego. It's really eight years ago.
I remember Steve Larson was in the room and Steve told me that when he this is the Funnel Hacking Live. I think it was the second or third.
No, it was the second Funnel Hacking Live in San Diego. It's really eight years ago.
I remember Steve Larson was in the room. And Steve told me that when he was coming to Funnel Hacking Live, he said, I'm going to do everything Russell says, but I'm not going to publish something.
I don't want to put my voice out there. But I'll do everything else he says.
And I got on stage and I said, I talked about publishing. I said, if you guys will publish every single day for a year, within a year from now, you never have to worry about money again.
And he was like, but I don't want to publish things. Then he like, fine.
And so he did it, right? And it changed his whole business, it changed his whole life, right? You got to start publishing. And that's the key thing most people are missing.
Now, there's a lot of reasons why you got to start publishing. I'll talk about where and how here in a minute, but there's a, this is one of those, one of my friends, Nathan Berry, Nathan owns ConvertKit.
Technically we're competitors,

but he's amazing.

Lives in Boise,

two Boise guys,

two tech companies.

Boise is the tech capital of the world.

Take that Silicon Valley.

We're here in Boise.

Anyway,

so ConvertKit and ClickFunnels

are both here,

both in Boise, Idaho.

And Nathan Berry is the CEO of ConvertKit

and he's awesome.

And he,

and if you don't know Nathan,

like a couple of years ago,

somebody gave him a challenge

and basically told him

to do a blog post a day every single day for a year and you'll never worry about money again. Very similar to my challenge, but it's for blogging, right? So he went out there and he started blogging every single day for a year.
And he tells his whole journey and how by the time the year was done, it changed everything. Like because he became a better writer, but also like people start finding his stuff, start growing.
And then all the companies like on the backside of that grew. Then he wrote this post.
And this post, oh, it's so good. Okay.
This is like, if you could tattoo a post to your face, you can look at every single day. This would be the one.
So, uh, the post is the title says endure long enough to get noticed. Okay.
It says, how many great TV shows have you discovered in season three or later? I started watching game of Thrones after they had released five seasons. Pat Flynn had released at least a hundred episodes of this podcast before I even know it existed.
I discovered hardcore history years after Dan Carlin started producing it. This is such a common experience.
There's so much content being produced we can't possibly discover it all. So instead we wait for the best content to float to the surface after time.
If step one in building an audience is to create great content, step two is to endure long enough to get noticed. Seth Godin is very generous with his time and will appear in almost any relevant podcast.
But you have to record at least 100 episodes first. His filter is creators who have shown they're willing to show up consistently for a long time.
Okay, you guys getting this? So the reason why I start publishing is because you have to start getting your voice out there. And there's two reasons.
Number one, it's going to help you to actually find your voice. And number two, it gives your audience long enough time to actually find you.
Okay? That's the way you're going to start today. You're like, bro, I can't start today.
I don't want to following. I suck at this.
I don't know what I'm going to say. Exactly.
That's why you have to start. One of the best stories of this for me is actually me.
Okay? Let me tell you a story about my life. So I built up a business.
We had a big call center. We had a big company.
And then one day, literally overnight, whole thing collapsed. I had to fire a hundred employees in one day who shrunk from a 20,000 square foot building to a 2,000 square foot building and everything.
My whole life is falling apart. I'm like, this isn't going to work.
Right. One of the many cycles of my, of my business career.
Um, so hopefully all of you guys had a chance to go through some cycles in your life. Um, but going through different cycles.
Right. And, um, uh, and so I'm in this little tiny office, like we're bleeding money.

I'm trying to keep the doors open, trying not to have to fire anyone else.

Cause like we'd fulfill on stuff we'd sold in the past.

It was just chaos.

Right.

And I had a four minute commute from my house to the new office.

It was four minute drive every day.

And that about this time is on podcasting and we're talking about podcasting.

It's gonna be the future.

And I was like, there's no way this podcasting thing is going to be the future.

It's a stupid word.

No one's gonna think it's cool.

And, uh, but I was like, you know what?

I'm going to do a podcast anyway, just to prove you all wrong.

And so I decided to launch a podcast. It was called The Marketing in Your Car Podcast.
And so what I do is I grab my phone every day. I had a four-minute commute.
I click record on my phone. I would drive like this.
I would drive to my four-minute office. I would talk about what I was doing today.
Hey, today we're going to the office. We have an idea for this thing.
We're going to try to blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? I'll be driving back.
Hey, last night I studied this guy and he told me about this. I'm going to try it.
And so I just documented what I was doing today. Hey, today we're going to the office.
We have an idea for this thing. We're going to try to blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Everybody driving them back.
Hey, last night I studied this guy and he told me about this. I'm going to try it.
And so I just documented what I was doing every single day, right? Four minute drive. I was publishing four or five, six podcast episodes a week.
What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson.
I've got something really cool for you today from my friend, Taylor Wells. And Taylor spoke at our last Funnel Hacking Live because I wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the revolving pricing method.
And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to give you guys more access to this super cool strategy that you are going to love. It's something we've been implementing into our high-end coaching program as well, and it is amazing.
But to kind of give you some context about this offer he's making for you guys, as you may or may not know, a few years ago, JP Morgan Chase did a study, and guess what they found? They found that the average small business only has about 28 days of operating expenses in reserve. That's right, less than a month of cash on hands.
Now, if you're like me, the idea of your business being one bad month away from disaster is enough to make your stomach drop, am I right? Especially with how the economy's been lately. It's not the time to be gambling with your finances.
So Taylor put together this book called The Revolving Pricing Method, and it's awesome. It helps you turn every client you close into a long-term profit machine.
We're not talking about one-time paydays. We're talking about creating sustainable and real predictable income for the long haul.
Now, here's where it gets even better. Taylor put together an awesome exclusive deal just for you guys, my Marketing Secrets listeners, and if you go over to wealthyconsultants.com slash secrets, you can grab The Revolving Pricing Method book and over $150 worth of bonuses, and get this all.
It's at 70% off, and I promise promise you guys as a customer of this, you are going to love it. So if you're serious about growing your business with real stability, this is the model you need to add into your funnels.
So go over to wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets, grab your 70% off deal. And let's start turning your clients into long-term revenue.
Again, that's wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets. Do not miss out.
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Um, and what's crazy about back in the day, like podcasting was different. And so we had to upload through a WordPress site.
It was this whole thing. And we didn't know how to track stats or listens or anyone's even listening.
We had no idea, right? We were just putting out there. And for me, it was more therapeutic for me to just like think out loud of what I was talking about, right? One of the smarter things that Gary Vaynerchuk said, he's like, it's not about creating content.
It's about documenting your journey. That's exactly what it was.
I was just documenting the journey. In fact, if you go back to the old Marketing Secrets Podcast,

sorry, Marketing Your Car Podcast,

I talk about like,

we had this idea for this thing.

We bought a domain called ClickFunnels.

Me and Todd are built,

it gets all this up prior to that and then like us discovering it,

buying the domain and launching it.

Like the whole history of ClickFunnels is in there.

It's really fun to go back and listen,

but it's just me discovering these things

as we're going and I'm sharing them in real time.

I'm not acting like I'm an expert.

I'm just like,

these are the things that are happening, right? So I'm putting these out there. Eventually on the backside, we launched ClickFunnels.
Eventually I launched my inner circle. I find out craziest thing that 100% of people in my inner circle were podcast listeners.
My best people were people who were listening to my long form content. I had no idea.
It was funny. I had no idea, right? There's like all the world have saw me on social everywhere, but the people who bought my high end coaching programs were 100 percent all podcast listeners.

There's this direct correlation. It was crazy.
Right. So the podcast listeners and then we launched ClickFunnels and then we and then again, this is four or five years into me launch this podcast.
And finally, we figured out how to reconnect it all so we can see how many downloads are coming. At the time, we had some pretty good downloads coming in.

But we started looking back at like the graphs and trends and it looked like basically for the first year, almost nobody was listening, okay? Now, number one, if I had known how few people were listening when I first started, I probably would have stopped. So I'm grateful that I didn't know, okay? Number two funny thing is Steve Larson started working for me and I love Steve.
He was like, I'm going to binge listen to everything you've ever done. So we went through and listened to every single podcast episode.
And I remember he, like, I think he spent a whole weekend binge listening or something. And he comes back on Monday and he's like, man, he's like, I listen to everything.
He's like, you know, it's crazy. He's like the first like 40, 45 episodes, like they were not good.
He's like, they were pretty bad. He's like, you were awkward.
It was like painful. He's like, but I'm 40, 45 issues.
Like he's like, you got in your rhythm and you like, he's like, it was just different. Like you found your voice and it was so fun.
And then now it's like amazing. And I thought that was so interesting, right? Number one, like what are we doing? Why are we publishing? Number one, it's because it's going to help you to find your voice.
If you're hiding in a corner, building your funnel and building your offer, not talking, you're not going to ever find your voice, right? That's number one. Number two is it gets you long enough.
You're out there long enough, what does Nathan Berry say? For your audience to find you. Boom.
You may think, well, Russell, right now no one's following me, so it's going to suck. Exactly.
That's the best time. You want to suck when no one's following you, okay? That's the whole point of it, right? You'll get better and get better.
And over time, it'll start ramping up, right? And so that's the key, guys, is starting right now. You got to start publishing.
And there's a lot of ways you can do it, okay? For a long time, it was blogging. Nathan Berry started his process blogging.
I'm not a blogger. It's funny.
I love writing books. I hate writing blog posts.
So blogging is not for me, but maybe if you love blogging, okay? If so, cool. Like, just focus on it, okay? For Nathan, it was 1,000 words a day for a year.
That's what he was doing, blogging 1,000 words a day for a year. and within a year, transform his business.
Okay. Maybe you like audio.
Okay. Cool.
If you're an audio person, podcast, it's easy. Like literally I recorded the first 600, 500, 600 episodes on my phone.
And people always ask me like, what's the, what's the microphone you're using? I was like, it's the one that's like hooked to the bottom of my phone. I just clicked the button and I didn't talk.
Like that was it. I have.
You know? And then, so there's that. Some of you guys may like video more.
So do video. So do like Instagram.
Like figure out a platform you love the most organically anyway. You're spending time in any way and do that.
Right? Do the thing you understand the most. Like it's funny because like we dominate podcasts.
We're great on Instagram. We're great in places.
We're still struggling with YouTube. We're still figuring it out, right? YouTube is a different platform for me.
So I'm not YouTube first. I'm podcast first.
So I get podcasts. My podcast listeners are my faithful.
They love it. They're all subscribed.
In fact, if you're watching on YouTube, come to the podcast and listen as well, right? They're subscribed, they're listening while they're working out, they're hanging out, right? YouTube's a different beast. We're still figuring things out.
But I'm podcast first. YouTube's kind of the secondary because that's the platform I understand, right? So figure out what you understand and that's where you start publishing at and start publishing consistently, okay? And again, the goal is not for you to be amazing.
The goal is not if you get tons of views. The goal is for you to start and start learning how to find your voice and doing it consistently.
Three days a week, five days a week, seven days a week, whatever it is, the more consistently the better because that's how you're going to find your voice. And then after time, if you are consistent with it and you do not stop, over time your audience will find you.
Now you've got a platform. Now you can go to people and be like, hey you want to be on my podcast? Do you want to be on my YouTube channel? And even if your following is not big at first, that's okay.
You don't go and like ask Tony Robbins day number one to be on your podcast, right? You don't ask Russell Brunson on your podcast day number one. You start looking around.
Who are people that are about the same level as me or maybe a little bit bigger? And that's where you start. Okay? When I got started in this game, I remember the same thing.
I remember, in fact, before I knew what a dream was, um, I just knew I saw all the influencers back in the day. I saw Joe Vitale was one of them.
And I saw Tony Robbins. I had all these, Mark Joyner had all these people's names.
And I remember I was sending them emails and sending things in the mail. Like none of them responded back.
I'm like, Oh, like, this isn't fair. Don't really care about the little guys like me.
Like, why won't they help me? I remember having that like attitude. Um, and then I remember going to an event and I met this guy actually wasn't an event.
event. It was online event first initially.
His name is Mike Philson. Somebody who doesn't know Mike.
Met Mike at this event. And Mike was like, I would say he was probably six months ahead of me in the game.
He already had a product. He had launched a bunch of sales.
And I had my product called ZipRand, which I had and I was trying to sell it. And I met Mike and Mike was like, he was one step ahead of me, right? And again, this is before we were podcasting.
This is before any of the publishing stuff, but the concept was the same. So he's a little bit above me.
I got to know him. He's easy to hold up because he's not Tony Robbins with like 800 gatekeepers, not Russell Brunson with 800 gatekeepers you got to get through, right? It was just like him.
And he was, it was the six months ahead of me. He had figured things out already that I was trying to figure out.
So it's easy to get through his filters and get ahold of him. We start talking, build a relationship.
And he's like, dude, that product's cool. And then Mike promoted Zip Brander.
Okay. Literally promoted it.
And I remember because we sold a whole bunch of them and 217 people drew my email list from the promotion that Mike Wilson did. It's funny.
I remember that number two, the number 270 people came to my site, saw the pop-up, put in the email address and drew my newsletter. And all of a sudden I had 217 people on my list, which I never had before.
Okay. And then I went and then, and then Mike and I were talking.
I was like, I'm like, awesome. I'm like, Mike, who are the people you met so far? Mike's like, oh, you got to meet these other guys.
This guy's named Gary Ambrose. And so like Mike had five or six other people he knew at our same level.
He introduced me to all these people. And also now I had five people.
And I was like, hey, Gary, I've got a list. Can I promote your product? A list of 217 people.
He's like, sure. So I promote this product.
I make two or three sales. And he promotes mine.
He makes two or three sales.

And all of a sudden, like, his list grows.

My list grows.

My list grows.

And then he introduces me this person, this person.

And we start doing these things.

And all of a sudden, like, our little friend group of people,

we all start getting, like, our influence starts growing together a little bigger.

Okay?

And what happens now?

Now my list is 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 people, right?

Now I start looking, like, who are people that have a list of 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 people?

And I start connecting, like, oh, there's this person, right? So I step one step up, get to know those people.

I provide value, promote their product, right?

Whatever it is, I promote theirs.

Then they promote mine.

And I'm like, who are your friends?

They introduced me.

And all of a sudden, like, boom,

and my business starts growing and growing, right?

And that was the process.

I did that for year one, year two, year three, right?

And eventually, I was like three years in the business,

Joe Vitale messaged me.

He's like, hey, Russell, sign your stuff online.

It's really, really cool. Can I help you promote this product? I'm like, I messaged you three years ago.
You did not respond to me. Right.
Cause I had, I was, I was down here. Right.
But because I looked at who the people around my same size, maybe a little bit bigger and I checked with them. Then we all grows together and they connected them and get frozen together.
Like that was the game. Right.
So eventually Joe Vitale came to me. Okay.
Fast forward five more years later, I get a phone call from Tony Robbins. I didn't call him.
They called me. Okay? That's why I got to meet Tony initially.
It was not me aggressively outbound reaching. He reached out to me.
Okay? Boom. And then next, and so like, that's how this game is played.
Does that make sense, you guys? So this is how it works. You need to start digging your well before you're thirsty, which means you start publishing today.
Okay? You start publishing, start publishing, right? Number two, you got to start figuring out who are the other influencers in your space and start building relationships immediately. Doesn't mean going for the huge people at the top, right? Who is about your level? Like if you got a thousand followers on Instagram, who's got three to five? Go find those influencers.
Those are the first people. Comment.
Because those people, if you comment on their comments, they're gonna see your name. They're like, oh, this person comments every single time, right? DM them, get on the phone with them, hang out.
How can we promote each other? What if I did an Instagram live promoting your squeeze page? You promote mine. We both build our list together.
Boom, right? Promotions, partnerships, little things like that, right? Your list grows, their list grows. Who are your friends? They connect you to five of their friends.
You connect them to five of your friends. All of a sudden, your whole network starts growing together.
It grows together. Boom, boom, boom, right? That's how you build this game.
That's how you win, okay? This is what everyone's missing. Everyone's sitting there focusing just on building an offer, building a funnel and forgetting the fundamentals

of you got to start gathering the many. And this is how the game is played.
Okay. And if you do

that, that's how you win longterm. Again, I've been in this business now 20, man, 22, 23, 24.

I don't even know at this point, right? In the time, I wish I could show you guys, um, the pedigree

chart of the gurus who have come and gone and come and gone and come and gone and come and gone

over the last two and a half decades. Okay.
Tons of them. Who has lasted the test of time? I can count them on one hand, literally.
And I wouldn't need all the fingers even, okay? Russell, how have you had longevity? How have you stayed throughout the thing? Because I don't stop focusing on the most important thing, okay? Gathering the many, gathering the many, okay? Because you're gonna gather the many,

you're gonna lose some.

You're gonna gather the many, you're gonna lose some.

You're gonna gather the many, you're gonna lose.

Like, that's the game, right?

What happens, people gather their people, right?

And then they start selling them stuff

and they forget to gather

and then the whole thing collapses.

Gathering the many, gathering the many, gathering the many.

Russell, why'd you spend a million dollars last month?

Nine hundred, what, $50,000 to gather people for an event?

Because that's how you win the game.

It's gathering the many, right? If you wanna make offers to to people, great, but you got to have people to make offers too, right? Okay. Russell, why are you still doing the podcast episode? Why are you still doing this every single day? You're at like a thousand episodes.
Why do you keep doing this, right? In fact, I remember I was in an inner circle meeting and me and Garrett White were sitting next to each other. And there was a guy in our room and we were trying to convince him to start publishing.
They're talking, right? And it was was so fascinating to get looking. He's like, Russell, you're cause the guy, I can't remember the exact story.
The guy had done some publishing, we kind of stopped or whatever. And he's like, I'm good.
And he looks at me and he's like, Russell, um, like, uh, why do you keep publishing your podcast every single day? I said, cause I'm trying to find my voice. He's like, you've been doing this for a decade.
I'm like, yeah. Right.
Why did I relaunch the Russell Brunson show? Okay. I think we're four or five episodes in now.
I did because I feel like I lost my voice. I was trying to do things based on scripting, based on keywords, based on stuff like that.
And like, it was good, but wasn't great. So like, I got to find my voice.
Let me get back to Russell talking to a camera and hanging out and like sharing the stories I want to share. Right.
Like, let me tell you guys a story about me beating up a kid who messed with me in football. Right.
He came to the wrestling and I mopped him. Like, I want to tell you that story.
What point of it? The point of it, I want to tell you that story. It makes me feel good about it, right? It feels good about myself.
Like I want to tell you guys stories. And so for me, it's like, I'm still in the spot where I'm still trying to find my voice, right? It doesn't end, right? Your voice is getting better and better and better.
In fact, it's crazy. My brother sent me this video of me.
Oh, I could splice it. Should I do it? Oh, okay.
I'm going to splice it. I'm going to have himice in like a 10-second clip on the video and everything.
It's me in a tie behind a desk and I'm awkwardly, so awkwardly talking. A shaved head, a tie.
And I look at that kid. And again, I thought I was the stuff back then.
I thought it was amazing. And I think about it now.
I'm like, man, it's so embarrassing. I watch it now.
It's like, oh. But I want to put my arm around like's keep going.
Eventually you're gonna figure out, you can grow your hair out. You're gonna find out that you can talk with energy, keep your eyes open.
Because anyway, so insert awkward clip of Russell right now. Sometimes you don't really know what to do next.
Where's the next step? And so we've actually created a lot of different programs to help everybody who's interested to get started and to really make you successful as quick as possible. Now, one thing we've done, excuse me, is we created a course called our protege course.
And we're back, I hope that wasn't too painful for you as it was for me, but that's it you guys. Back then I thought I was good.
Does that make sense? I thought I was good back then. Look at me today, like right now in my head I think I'm pretty good, but in 10 years, someone looked back at this and like, Russell, you were so bad, right? Same thing for you, but you got to start and be consistent over and over and over again to figure that out and find it.
You know what's fascinating to me? When I met Tony Robbins originally, he was the same age I am right now. What? I remember thinking like, man, he's been doing this forever.
Like he's this big, huge thing, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, no, he was my my age when I met Tony.
This is crazy to me. And now I look at now, okay, when I'm Tony's age, where can I be? Where should I be? Can I catch him? Can I lap him? Am I going to lose to him? I don't know.
Either way, it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun to compete.
So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I hope we gave you some ideas.
The biggest thing is I just, I'm so tired. I feel so bad.
People spend so much time and energy and effort building a product or movement or a funnel or whatever you want to call it and then putting it out there and there's no one to see it. And then usually what's been happening is they've been bootstrapping this thing for so long and it's like, oh, they can't like, there's no one to sell it to.
They can't afford ads. They can't do anything.
Now they've got this thing but they've got to go start gathering people and now they don't have time for it. They're out of money.
They've got to find another job. And it's like, ah, if you had been doing these things simultaneously, you'd be fine at this point, but you missed the most important part, which is gathering the many initially.
That is the key. So this is the focal point for you guys.
Okay. Wherever you are right now in your business, it's like taking your time and breaking off.
I'd say an hour a day. Okay.
And the hour a day is for you to go out there and to network like crazy, for you to publish like crazy, and then get back to building your thing.

Okay, just block out first hour of your day. Okay, I'm going to spend 20 minutes networking.
I'm going to go on Instagram, Facebook, whatever. I'm just DMing people, following people, getting to know people, trying to build a relationship, getting up on calls with people.
Then I'm coming out, record a 20-minute video, 20-minute podcast episode, upload it, and then boom. Now I can go back to building my company.
But if you're missing this piece, when you need the money, when you need like, you know, when you're thirsty, if you have not been digging your well, you're going to miss it. Okay.
And that is the key. So hope that helps you guys a lot.
On top of that, if you haven't heard traffic secrets yet, I just recommend reading it because this is the keys to everything I know about getting traffic. It's a very strategic book, which means it's evergreen.
It's timeless. It means it's not going to change.
It means it works today, tomorrow, forever. I specifically did not put in tactical things that change

with every wind of change inside the social media world.

These are strategic things that will work forever.

It's going to help you understand list building.

It's going to help you understand focus on the right things.

It's going to, yeah, it's the key, you guys.

And so, again, I love all my books.

They're all great, but Traffic Secrets is just a powerful one

for you guys to understand so you can start building the traffic

because until you gather the many, you don't have a business.

Okay?

And I'm going to I love all my books. They're all great.
But Traffic Secrets is just a powerful one for you guys to understand so you can start building the traffic. Because until you gather the many, you don't have a business.
Okay? And that's the key. So start gathering the many.
Your people are waiting for you. They're waiting for you to step into your calling.
They're waiting for you to show up and start publishing, start talking so they can find you. They're looking for what you have.
They're in pain. They're trying to get out of pain.
And they're waiting for you to be willing to step into your calling and share your message. Okay? And you got to do it awkwardly.
You got to do it uncomfortably. You got to do it in the spot where you're not ready yet.
But until you are willing to do that, those people cannot be like, you can't change their lives. So as soon as you're willing to step into your calling, they are there waiting for you so they can find you so you can change their life.
So do it. I promise you it'll be worth it.
It's gonna be scary at first. You get nervous, pain, all that kind of stuff.
I get it. But the good news is when you first start publishing, when you are the worst, no one's going to be watching you.
And by the time you figure it out, that's when your audience will show up. So start today.
Have some fun. Appreciate y'all.
I'll see you guys all next episode. Now, obviously, if you want to sell stuff online, you're going to need a good funnel.
But if you want a great funnel, then you're going to need to use ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels is the number one funnel builder in the world, helping more first-time entrepreneurs to leave their nine-to-five and to launch their dream than any other company on earth.

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