Navigating Growth and Culture with the "Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort
01:00:52 Share

Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready.

$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, I've got a treat for you. So how many of you guys have watched the movie Wolf of Wall Street?

If you have, you probably shouldn't watch it. It was really bad. But at least something you should definitely not, I don't know, we'll leave that on the table. But way back in the day, I remember pre-ClickFunnels, pre, this is probably 17, 16, 17 years ago, I was going on a trip to the UK. And when I was leaving, someone had mentioned this book called The Wolf of Wall Street. I never heard of it. So I downloaded the audio book and I listened to it on my flight over

over the UK. And this is like the beginning, like pre click funnels. We're still building a business. We're struggling at the time. And, um, I remember listening to the book and obviously there's a lot of stuff needs to be edited out. So if you're going to watch it or listen to it,

but, uh, but I remember I listened to the whole thing and I remember getting to the UK and then, um, just, you know, thinking and dreaming out what we're trying to do with our business. And during that time is when, um, the Facebook, the social network came out. I remember we watched the social network and there was this one scene when, um, Justin Timberlake comes out and it's like, you know, it's cool. A million dollars isn't cool. A billion is. I remember thinking like someday it'd be so cool to build a company that could do a billion dollars. And then the flight home that I listened to, um,

the second book from Jordan Belfort, which is called, I think it's called Catching the Wolf of Wall Street. And so anyway, interesting books, but like I remember listening to the audio books years before there ever was a movie. And after that, I started like, you know, trying to figure out who is this Jordan Belfort guy. And there's obviously a lot of, a lot of different directions, but you can't,

doubt that he's, you know, one of the best sales people of all time and sells trainers and building teams. And I remember afterwards I bought his course called straight line persuasion. I studied it like a lot of really good things in there, but it was an honor when I launched the traffic secrets book that, um, he actually hit me up and said, Hey, can I have you on the podcast? And I was like, yes, you can. That'd be amazing. So I had this really cool chance to be interviewed by Jordan Belfort, the wolf of wall street. Uh,

Um, and just someone who was, I mean, super cool to me the whole time. I had really great experience talking to him and hanging out. And I just refound this interview recently. It's like, Oh, this would be a cool thing to put on the podcast for those who haven't heard it or didn't hear it, you know, three or four years ago when it first happened. And, uh, hopefully get a ton of value out of it and, um, have a chance to hear, you know, Russell Brunson, the potato gun guy hanging out with the Wolf of wall street and talking business and sales and marketing and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. So that's it. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the marketing secrets podcast with Jordan Belfort.

In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars in my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.

Hey, JB here, the Wolf of Wall Street in the Wolf's Den. I have an awesome guest, very famous guy, entrepreneur extraordinaire, someone you're definitely going to know. He's the founder of a software platform that allows people to become world-class marketers and salespeople on the back end of it. Talking about Russell Brunson, the founder of ClickFunnels. So Russell's someone that I know for many, many years. We never interacted with, but we've

admired each other from afar. Seriously, I've looked at his career. I've watched him grow. I've used his products. He's read all my books. So what you're going to see as we start to communicate with each other and really go back and forth, what you're going to see is not just mutual respect, but you're going to actually see how sales and marketing work together, handing in the two pillars of essentially monetizing an idea. Let me restate that. I want to dig deeper. See, at the highest level, what business really is,

Entrepreneurship is monetizing value. You have something of value, which means that it can cure someone's pain point. It can resolve something, right? You have something that has value. The purpose of a business...

is to deliver this value to people, to your customers, right? And to do that in a way that when it's all said and done, the amount that you spend on manufacturing your product or delivering your service, the amount that you spend on marketing, identifying the right people, bringing them into your funnel,

and then ultimately on the sales side to close them, at the end of the day, you actually make money. So I'll repeat, the purpose of a business is to allow you to deliver value in a way that actually makes a profit. Because you're not going to do very well if at the end of the day, the cost of delivering and sourcing and manufacturing your product or service is

cost you more than what someone's willing to pay for it or you're charging for it, right? That's how you lose money and you can't make it up in the volume, right? You don't lose money in every sale and make it up by selling more. So what you see when Russell and I really start digging into this stuff is you'll start to notice that there's this really interesting line where like marketing ends and sales begins and

And how you use the straight line system, the sales side of the equation, to dramatically enhance the effectiveness of any marketing program. And conversely, how a sales system like the straight line is almost dependent on

on having a marketing program that actually brings in the qualified leads. So marketing essentially serves as almost like the fuel. It brings in the raw materials that salespeople need to close. Those raw materials are leads. People come into your pipeline from your marketing programs, right? We then close them using the straight line.

So when you combine those two together, kick-ass marketing program, killer sales force, right? That's how companies truly grow and get the CEOs and the shareholders and the employees rich. Bottom line. Now, granted, there's a lot going on right now, right? It's a tough time out there for many people. I understand that.

But not in this world. In the world that Russell and I live in right now, there's opportunity everywhere.

Engagement is growing massively. Fortunes are being made every single day. People that used to be in the traditional economy have now moved into this side of the economy, online selling, online marketing. And what's happening is people that were barely scraping by in the pre-COVID world, working in traditional jobs, are now making tons of money in the world of ClickFunnels and the straight line.

So I want to go right now, we got a quick word from our sponsor, one of our amazing sponsors, by the way, a quick word from them. Then we'll get right into this interview with Russell Brunson and I, and you're going to be really, really glad you watched this one because this is just chock full of like, you know, step by step, step one, step two, step three, how you start and most importantly, how you scale. All right, so here we are, the man, the myth, and truly the legend, a living legend at that, Russell Brunson. Russell, how are you, buddy? I'm doing amazing, man. Thanks for having me.

All right. So you're an enigma to me. You really are, because, you know, you are what I call the real deal. Like there's not many real deals out there, but you know, for whatever reason, I want to start at the beginning. Somehow you've really managed to not just like be in the online world. You've built a massive business, like a real business, but

with large operations and employing tons of people. And one thing I could say, even my own future son-in-law is like, because he won't come to me for advice, he's like, oh, I'm getting into ClickFunnels. It's become almost like, it's almost like a buzzword. You're the Google of the funnel world.

You know what I'm trying to say? It's like ClickFunnels has become more than just ClickFunnels. It's like when you talk about funnels. First time someone told me like, I need to build a ClickFunnel. I was like, we've become the term. Like that's insane. We weren't even planning on that. It's so cool.

So tell me, how did that start? I usually don't go back to the beginning, but I'm very intrigued when you see something like this that becomes, it's like you've captured almost the zeitgeist, the moment, like a feel. It's more than just a company. It's a feeling. It's a way of life, right?

And first of all, was it intended? Was there any was there ever like a vision at the beginning? Like, you know, we want to change the way people can go out there, young people or old people, too, and redefine their lives and secure their futures financially. And, you know, we believe we could be a big part. Was it like that or was it just no? Was it sort of one foot in front of the other? And holy crap, wait a second. We got something awesome. Which one was it?

I say it's kind of half and half. Like the first half was when I first found out about these things, we didn't call them funnels back then, but just the concept of like, you know, we, everyone make these big e-commerce stores, a thousand products. And like, we tried that and never had success with it. And we shifted to like sell a product and even upsell and downsell taking someone through a very strategic sales process and

That's what for me blew, like that first time I made money online was creating one of those and blew up. And then I became obsessed with it. I was like, what else could I do this with? And the next five or six years, I launched like 20 different companies, just little companies here and there, like selling supplements and selling info products and selling just all sorts of things. And I just, I started geeking out about just the concept of funnels. And it was funny because I started talking to people about it. And back then nobody seemed to care or their eyes were just glazed over like, okay. But I was so excited. I kept talking, kept talking and kept talking about it.

And it wasn't until I found my partner, Todd, who's the one who's the brains actually built the software. He was building these funnels for me over and over and over again. And he honestly got to the point where he was just like, man, all these funnels are similar, but, you know, like, why do I have to keep doing these? Like, he's like, I can build software to make this process really easy. So you don't have to keep asking me, you know, change things at 500 times a day.

And so he built that. And I remember that's when things kind of took off for us because it was like people could understand conceptually what I was talking about, but it wasn't until they had ClickFunnels, the tool where it's like, oh, I can actually do this thing that Russell keeps talking about. And it's really simple. And it was funny because about the time we launched ClickFunnels, one of my friends invited me to like a network marketing event.

thing i'd never been to one before he's like you just have to see this like just come and experience this i went i remember being in this room with like 5 000 people and they're all going crazy and they're they're so excited and i'm watching people get on stage and it's funny because on stage they're not teaching anything they're just people on stage like telling their stories and crying and i was like so confused like i don't understand this and my buddy looked over to me he's like he's like do you notice what they've done i was like no i have no idea and he goes he goes they didn't just sell a product like they created a movement i remember we said that i had this like

Oh my gosh. Like that's, I don't want to just sell a software product. Like, like that's not that cool. Like how do I create something bigger? And so I started geeking out on like, on that, like, like how do, how do movements get started? How, how are cults built? How are religious movements? Like I started looking at all those kinds of things and then trying to, to weave and incorporate those things into our messaging as ClickFunnels was growing. And now, you know, Facebook,

Six years later, you look at this funnel hacker. Our people call themselves funnel hackers. We have people that tattooed on their arms. It's a culture. It's an identity shift that people have. They become a funnel hacker. I don't think it was super strategic, but as I started figuring it out, then we've leaned into that. It's been really cool to see what's happened over the last few years. How would you define ClickFunnels? If I was to say, hey, what exactly is ClickFunnels? How would you describe it?

It's funny. That's literally like the hardest – it's like – it's the hardest thing for me because it's like it's so hard to explain. Like I don't have a phrase of like, oh, a funnel is or whatever. It's – so the way I try to explain it in a shorter period of time is I tell people, and obviously you are the best at sales I've gone through. It's funny. I don't know if I can tell you this ahead of time, but I read your books five years before the movie came out. I went through straight line like when it first came out. It's like –

the same way you take someone through a sales process, right? And, and it's not just like, we're just shooting and hoping to close the deal. Like there, there's a strategic place you're taking someone through. That's what a sales funnel is. It's strategically thinking through the customer comes in, like, like from the, from the ad to the landing page, the next page, like what's the experience you take them through to increase the likelihood of selling something on each step in the, in the, in the funnel. And so it's just, it's, it's, um,

It's just, yeah, it's very strategic step-by-step sales. It's like, what's the sales process you take somebody through? That's what a funnel is. And ClickFunnels makes it simple to customize and edit and test every single variation of that until you have it perfect. And that's kind of what it does.

Do you think that from a pure technology standpoint that ClickFunnels is head and shoulders above everything else out there? Or is it that, you know what, the technology is as good as anything else out there, but it's the movement around ClickFunnels that creates this...

ancillary benefit because it motivates people and gets them to actually use the product. In other words, so there might be a lot of other companies that have a similar product,

But the difference is that because of the movement that surrounds ClickFunnels, people come into it and they get inspired. They feel supported. They look around and see what's possible. So they end up taking action with ClickFunnels while they probably might not have taken action using a similar product. You think that's it? Or is it just a superior technology play as well or combination? Good question. You know, I think...

The software is amazing. And my partner, Todd, and our team that's built it, it's amazing. But it's been interesting watching since we launched ClickFunnels. I think I lost track at like 30-something. 30-something people came out with, next, ClickFunnels killer. And at first, I'd be all panicked. I'm like, huh. And I go to their page, and in their page, they're talking about, our page loads 0.00% faster than ClickFunnels. I'm like, oh, OK. And then like, or, oh, we do this one feature that they don't do. Or, oh, ours is cheaper. Or they always have these things. But.

But you're right. There was no soul to it. It was just like, okay, we're going to feature this or whatever. And I remember I had this conversation early on with one of my people with kind of a hiring coaching program. And he says, man, he's like, every week we see the next ClickFunnels killer come out. And he's like, I'm on Facebook and I'm swiping through. And he's like, I see the ad. He said, I stopped just long enough.

to like look at it and be like, ha, I would never go with you because I trust Russell. He's the one that showed me the stuff and I keep swiping. And I feel like there's so much that, and there's always people that are going to price shop and thrift shop and like, like the little things like that. But I think the reason why we're heads and shoulders bigger and growing faster than any of the other ones is just because of what you said, because of the movement, because people understand like, like here's the tool, but this is like a community and training and education and all the things that make success with the tool.

Yeah, it's funny because I got a call about maybe two weeks ago from a very smart guy who has no clue about this world. He's just a very successful businessman in a completely different industry. He's probably worth close to a billion dollars. He goes, hey, a friend of mine in Israel, very sharp guy, says he's got –

a product that just blows away ClickFunnels. It's going to put them out of business. I said, well, stop. I said, let me just explain. I said, the ship has sailed with ClickFunnels. I said, it's beyond the point. It's a commodity. ClickFunnels is almost commoditized. It's almost like it's a standard. There's nothing that is not...

a slightly superior technology, a slight increase in the click rate of a page load. It's beyond that at this point because there's so many other things. There's so many nuances and also emotional ties to it that it's like, I just don't, I think it's past that point. Again, I really, I wasn't kidding when I said it's almost like the Google of funnels that you almost think about like synonymous with click funnels. Did you, was there a certain point

when you realized like that had happened and did that make you act differently the way you treat the, you ever go into like more of a like sort of, okay, wow, we're on top. I now got to play defense more than offense or has it not really altered the way you go about doing business?

Some of it's strategic and some of it's just the nature of the beast, right? So software, when we first launched ClickFunnels, it was my favorite part. I had two partners. They were coders. And so they were just all day long coming out. They'd see someone else have a cool idea for a feature. They'd clone it. Boom, it was in ClickFunnels. We'd come up with ideas and we were just innovating and developing. It was like,

like as fast as we could. And it was really fun. Cause that's like, there's so much energy and excitement around that. Like every day it's like, here's a new feature. We launched that here's a new feature. And like, there was so much stuff. And, and, um, and that caused a lot of this initial momentum and surge. And I, I,

And I wish that we could still do that. Cause I feel like that's like what people love is the new thing. And like they excited, the hard thing is now we've got 120,000 active members on the platform. And like every little tweak you make, it's so stressful. Cause like, Oh, if we edit this little thing over here, you have no idea what it's going to do over here. And so like every time they, they edit a line of code, they got to do like 8 million tests on every single thing and how it racks this and this. And like, and so it's slowed down our process from like pray, create new things and stuff. Um,

which I hate. So for me, it's like, we can't develop, we can't develop as fast on like the software side. It's like, so for me, it's like, what are we like, like, how can we keep developing? Like, and so it was less of like the new software feature, but for us, it was, for me now, it's more of the education side. Okay. Like, where are they stuck? Like, what do they need? And like, here's the funnel for this kind of situation. We do big training, a big launch around that. And they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't know I could use

a funnel for that. And then we get a huge new segment of the market. It comes in, who starts using it. They're like, Oh, here's, here's this other strategy. And we bring it, you know, we do trainings and stuff like that. So, uh, where we, we used to iterate on, you know, features to get people excited and get them in. Now it's like more, more iterating on like the strategies and the concepts and how people can, can apply them. And then giving them, you know, then here's the tool that makes it, makes it simple, makes it possible for them.

As a business-to-business marketer, your needs are unique. B2B buying cycles are long and your customers face incredibly complex decisions. Isn't it time you had a marketing platform built specifically for you? LinkedIn Ads empowers marketers with solutions for you and your customers. LinkedIn Ads allows you to build the right relationships, drive results, and reach your customers in a respectful environment. You have direct access to and the ability to build relationships with your customers.

with decision makers, a billion members, 180 million senior level executives, and 10 million C-level executives. You'll be able to drive results with targeting and measurement tools, but specifically for B2B. In technology, LinkedIn generated two to five times higher return on ad spend than other social media platforms.

You'll work with partners who respect the B2B world that you operate in. 79% of B2B content marketers said that LinkedIn produces the best results for paid media. Here at ClickFunnels, we also use LinkedIn ads to get more of our high-end dream customers we can't target anywhere else online. Make B2B marketing everything it can be and get $100 credit on your next campaign. All you got to do is go to linkedin.com slash clicks, C-L-I-C-K-S, to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash clicks. Terms and conditions may apply.

What's up, everybody? Really quick, I want to jump in because I am excited for our next sponsor of the show. The next sponsor is Mint Mobile. I found out about Mint originally when Ryan Reynolds bought in the company. And Ryan's not only one of the greatest actors of all time, he's one of the best marketers I've ever seen. If you've watched Mint Mobile,

the funny viral ads he's created. It's something that all of us marketers should be studying and watching. And I remember watching the ads from Mint Mobile. I thought they were amazing, number one. And number two, when I started seeing what they were doing, I got really excited. And so I'm pumped to have them as a sponsor for the show. And what I didn't realize until I got my own Mint Mobile account was that typically with most cell phone companies, as you probably know, you gotta pay anywhere from $70, $80, $100 a month or more for premium wireless service. And the reason for that is because

is because you got to deal with TV commercials. And then on top of that, and you got the retail stores and the salespeople. And like, there's all these costs along the way. And what Mint Mobile does is they sell their wireless services online, cutting out the costs of all of these retail stores and salespeople, saving you a ton of money. So instead of paying $50, $70, $100 a month, you only pay $15 per month

as part of this premium phone plan. And so because I decided to check it out on my phone, and so far I love it, they've been really, really good. Since I've been loving it so much, I was pumped when they asked if we could partner up. I'd help people who are listening to this episode of the podcast actually save money, and they said yes. So here is a special offer we created for you guys. You can now save a ton of money by switching to Mint Mobile for just $15 a month.

Literally, you can say goodbye to all of your overpriced wireless plans, get high-speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network without having to change your phone number or your existing contacts. So to get this new customer offer and get your new three-month unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a month, all you got to do is go to mintmobile.com slash funnels. That's M-I-N-T-M-O-B-I-L-E dot com slash F-U-N-N-E-L-S. Cut your wireless bill to just $15 a month and get premium phone service at mintmobile.com slash funnels.

What do you think is the smartest move that you've made as the owner, as one of the founders of ClickFunnels? Has there been some sort of either a strategical line, some sort of marketing shift? What do you think is the, if it's just one, what would that be? Not the secret to your success, but what was that one move that really allowed you to break out?

I think the biggest thing that created the community and created like stickiness within it is so every, you would do an annual event and we didn't do the first year or the second year, but before our third big annual event, I remember, you know, we were preparing for it and getting speakers, all this stuff you do for an event and,

And I remember I saw an ad that it was a professional singer or whatever. And they're sitting on the wall behind the head. It was like Grammy or Emmy, whatever the records are that the music industry gives. And I was like, oh, it's so cool. If you're a musician, you get these cool trophies. And I'm like, what do entrepreneurs get? We get nothing. And I remember being frustrated. I was like, we should create our own award. And then we started playing with it. And what could the award be? And I remember I had bought this domain name a long time ago called the Two Comma Club.

Two commas and a million dollars. And I was like, I own the domain. We own the branding and all that stuff. And I was like, we should make an award called the Two Comma Club. And then it was like, so we started kind of freaking out. I remember I asked Dave, one of my partners, I was like, how many people inside ClickFunnels have made at least a million dollars inside of a funnel? I thought maybe a dozen or so. And he pulled the stats, came back. He said, as of today, we have 79. And I was like,

Oh my gosh, this is crazy. So we're like calling, you know, Nashville, like, where do you guys get these records at? And we found the company that customized the records and put commas in, we built this trophy. We didn't tell anybody like this thing was happening until that event. And we invited everyone who had, who had qualified for Chacalma Club and said, Hey, come to this event. We have something really cool for you. And I can tell you what it is.

And I remember day three of the event, right after lunch, I told everyone the story about like the two comma club. And like, I was like, I feel like there's, there's like for every, every like industry, there's, there's like the, the Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars, like everything, but entrepreneurs don't get anything. There's nothing that like we can celebrate our success with. Like, you know, we make a bunch of money and like we try to celebrate people think we're prideful. And it's like, how do you,

you know, like we're killing ourselves to like try to change the world. How do we celebrate that? And so I was like, because I want to create this award called the two comic club award. And we had everyone lined up who'd won when they came on stage. I got a picture with them holding the award and they all went down and I did not realize what that would create. So the 79 people got the picture with me. And then all those guys, those pictures became their ads, became their, their Facebook wall page.

everything. Everyone's like, what's that? What's that? It's like, oh, that's the two comic club award. That's what entrepreneurs win inside of click funnels. We make a million dollars in a funnel. And it started shifting people where people, even if they were on other software platforms that I, they ditch them, came to ours. Like I want that award. I want to be part of that. I want to get on stage. I want to get a picture. I want to be able to celebrate. And so people started coming. And I think year one, we had 79 year two, we had like 350. It was almost like one person a day started hitting two comic club.

And then year three, we had people passing, people coming on stage winning five or six awards or trying to hold them all. And so then we made a new award called Two Comic Club X, which is for $10 million. And then we've had almost 100 people won that now. And this last year, we launched Two Comic Club C, which is for $100 million. And we had like a dozen people that won that now. And I think what's cool is...

There's a quote from, I think it's Napoleon Bonaparte or something like that. He said, talking about in war, he says, it's amazing what a soldier will do for a scrap of ribbon. And I feel like it was kind of that same thing of like, man, as entrepreneurs, we

we want to serve, we want to give it like, there's something about that recognition. Like we just don't get. And now this has become the same. We had a whole documentary called the two comic club now. And it's like, it's become this thing. And that's a big reason why people come to us and they publish with us and they do all their products. Cause like, I want to win that award. I want to get on stage. I want, I want to be able to show my family. This is what I accomplished. Like, this is what I'm doing. This is why it's so important. And it gets, it got people. It's,

continues to get people to come in and it gets them to stick with our platform. Even when they're at a hundred million dollars in sales, they could easily custom code these things and hire big teams to do stuff. They still do it on our platform because they want to get the recognition. They want to be able to show what they're, what they're doing. I think of all the things that was this thing that just causes this internal, like you talked about the feeling that's different. That's not, I own a software product. It's like, I want to be part of that. Like I want to be on stage. I want to, I want to get my award.

And what would be, I think, the worst decision you made with ClickFunnels? Something that you would like, that you obviously overcome it, but you had to pivot away from it. Has there been any things that you've done that you just said, oh my God, why did I do that? Yeah, there's so many of those. So many times where I, man, if we could go back and I remember it was after we were growing and we got ClickFunnels a certain spot.

And, and at the time it was still like Todd was Todd and Dylan are two partners who are programming everything. And we started hiding, like they need help. Like they were, it was Christmas morning and they're coding things, make sure things aren't crashing. And so we started building a team. And as we started building a team, we'd never done it before. Like we're, like we're a bus, a bunch of hustler entrepreneurs who never had done anything right. You know, we've got 400 employees now at ClickFunnels. Back then we'd never had employees. We'd never managed people. We didn't know what to do or how to do it. So we're hiring these people and,

you know, the more they, they charge us, the more we assume like the better they were. So we're like, so we built this huge programming team. Um, and the first thing all, and now that I've done software now for long enough, I realized this is what all programmers want. They look at something like, Oh, I can do it better. And so they get this team that we've hired came back to us. Like we want to recoup, we want to redo click funnels from ground up because if we do, we can do this and all these things. And they, you know, they, they totally sold us on this vision of like, we could do, ah, so we're freaking out. And so,

We spent, I think it was a year, like an entire year, them trying to build this new version, which meant nobody was fixing the software, developing it. It was like everyone's energy is here. We're building it, building it. And a year of time, and then the cash outlay was probably $2 or $3 million of cash for payroll, not counting like the opportunity costs if we wouldn't focus in here. And I remember a year into it, they did the first demo of the software, and they were demoing it.

And I feel bad. It was like on a zoom call like this and the entire programming team was there. And I messaged and Todd, my partner, he was, he was first time he'd really seen it as well. I messaged him. I was like, one of our competitors initially was called lead pages. And I, and I, I messaged him. I was like, I was like, this is the worst thing I've ever seen. I felt like we hired some crappy lead page developers and this turned out worse than lead pages. And it popped up on his screen on a, on zoom where everybody saw it. I was like, I'm

I'm like texting him like, turn off your screen. And it was the worst thing. And anyway, we ended up having to like literally lay off that entire team because they were so focused on this and like cut it all and start back over. And it just slowed down a lot of the progress and insane amounts of time. What was it about it? Was it just like the aesthetics, the look of it, the feel of it? Or was it slow? Was it buggy? What was it about it? We just didn't have that same like snap. I guess I look at ClickFunnels and if there's something that –

pop into my mind. It would be, it's almost like the way Facebook improved on what MySpace did. They made it very clean and crisp and uniform. So in other words, you knew what to expect.

when you went on it and they turned what you would think would be a negative, which would mean lack of options, almost like into a positive because it sort of gave you this experience that just felt right versus like, you know, almost when everything could be changed, it's like you don't even know what you're looking at. There's the advantage of, I think, a ClickFunnels page. I think this is a positive is that when you go through a

funnel page, it's intuitive. You basically know what you should do. As soon as you see it, you feel like you're in the right place. Was it something like that where it lost that feeling or it just didn't work?

When Todd was so Todd, my partner, he's genius and he's, he's a marketing guy and a developer. So as he was building initially, he always says like, I build really opinionated software. I do. I build it to do exactly what I want. I don't make it so that anybody can do anything. Like you said, it's like, this is what it does. And this is the reason why we do. And there's, there's logic. Like Steve jobs is like that too. Exactly. He's like, he said like, I'll, you don't know what they want till we tell them basically.

I just said all, yes, 100% Todd's like, he says that all the time. And so because he built what he wanted, like ClickFunnels was like Todd's dream of like what he wanted it to be. And it was amazing. And these other guys came in and they started, we're going to call customers and we're going to survey them. And like, oh, just like this whole thing, they're surveying people. Like you said, you don't even know what they want. And they come back and they built this thing. And it's just like,

Ah, like it's, it was just, it was, the whole thing was wrong. It was like literally I always just highlighted and deleted the entire thing, fired everyone to start over. Cause it was just like, it wasn't, it wasn't even salvageable. It wasn't even something we could build on. And so. So is the ClickFunnels today, is it the original platform or was it ever redone from the ground up at some point? It is the original platform. There's been tons of stuff done.

Like some of the things we didn't know about, again, like at scale, like we built software, you know, Todd built it and we'd launch it. He didn't add any features, just launch it and stuff like that. We didn't realize at scale that like the way the corporate software companies work is they write lines of code around every, or tests around every line of code. So like when this new code goes live, they click a button that says, okay, when this goes live, let's test it every day.

every situation we could possibly dream of to see if it collapses anything. And so we didn't know that when we first got started. So like Todd would upload like this new feature and like half the app would go down, right? Oh, like fix it, you know, reverse it. And so like we've had amazing team come through and test every line of code inside ClickFunnels and built the platform more stable. And so there's been a ton of work on it for the last five years, but it's still based on the same, the original code that Todd built back in the day.

One of the things that bothers me about the perception around ClickFunnels sometimes is that I feel like people get caught in a trap. They feel like, oh, I'm just going to do ClickFunnels for a living. I don't think that's possible. I think ClickFunnels is an incredibly powerful tool. It's a very powerful tool in the toolbox of an entrepreneur.

And what I see sometimes is someone will almost use ClickFunnels as an excuse to like, oh, I'm getting into ClickFunnels. I'm going to be in the ClickFunnels world or something, right? And do you find that, is there some group of people out there that,

They'll go into it and they'll learn everything about ClickFunnels. But at the end of the day, the magic of ClickFunnels, to me at least, is that there's nothing to learn. You could just take action with it and test things so quickly, so cheaply. And it allows you to almost be this incredibly nimble entrepreneur versus trying to like almost go out there and perform.

What?

As you're saying that, I was just thinking about like your world, right? Where you came from, where it's like, ClickFunnels is the phone, right? Like it's a tool that does a thing and it converts a cell, but it's the sales guy who knows the script and can do the right tonality and the right, I think that's what sells something, right? So it's like, I think I get a time, it's like, I built a funnel, Russell, it didn't work. It's like, yeah, like,

technically the page structure is right, but you suck at selling. Like you got to figure out some lands on the page. How do you get them to give you your email address? And the next page, how do you convince them to give you their credit card? Like click funnels is a tool that builds a framework, but then you have to weave your art and your person, like your selling ability into, into the funnel. Like if you look at what a funnel is, it's just literally, it's replacing you as the salesperson. Like I could go to every single person on the street and sell my book over and over and over again. Or I can get a funnel where it's me selling my book.

perfectly flawless. I know the script, I perfected it and then I just put people through it and they go through this funnel and it sells them over and over. It's a one-sided sale basically where you're anticipating every objection and answering them with the funnel. It's no different than a regular sale but it's a one-sided sale where you're imagining everything they could be thinking, feeling, objecting to and somehow answering it as you move through the funnel and that's why you have multiple calls to actions and why you go down to the page. When I explain marketing, I'm like, guys,

It's exactly like a straight line sale. Like every time there's a buy here and then it keeps going, that's what I call a loop in the world of selling where you would ask for the order, they don't buy it, you keep talking. You don't say, oh, thanks, see you, they didn't buy, see you later, the sale's over. So they're very much the same. What do you think is the, there's certain products that you see, like when you look at a product, can you immediately say, that's a winner? Like that's perfect for ClickFunnels. Is there something you say, ah, that's not right?

Yeah, for sure. Or it may not as ripe as position, not right. You know what I mean? Like I think with anything solar aligned, especially through funnels, like you're, you're relying on like,

people's people like you have their attention for a second right in my in my books I talk about this concept called hook story offer I always envision my customers sitting on the phone sitting on the couch or you know whatever they're they're scrolling through and it's like it's like can your product capture their attention or can you or the message or something grab their attention long enough you can tell them the story and so sometimes the product's hearts is like ah it's not exciting or whatever or

or the person who's selling it isn't able to grab someone's attention off the newsfeed, right? Just long enough that you can tell them the story about why they should care about this product and why they should buy it. But I think it's either the product's got to be something that's sexy, it's got to grab their attention, or the person selling it's got to be so passionate they can do what they need to do to grab someone's attention. You know what I mean? But for the most part, it's crazy. We have people selling

I mean, everything you can dream of. There's a guy selling Bigfoot hunting trips on ClickFunnels and he's killing it. And I was like, people know there's no Bigfoot, right? But like, the guy's excited. He's passionate about Bigfoot. He's talking about these expeditions. You give him money, he'll go, you hike up the mountains with him. You try to find Bigfoot. And like, people are signing up all day long for that. So it's like, it's less of the product. And like, I think that the excitement of the person selling it and like their ability to grab your attention and inspire you to want to get the thing.

I'm guessing if you're anything like me, the thing you love most is hearing the success stories of people that used ClickFunnels. It's almost like a drug. If there's a drug I'm addicted to nowadays, it's the people telling me, I used your system and it changed my life and lifted me up out of poverty. Can you tell me, give me a story that you think is particularly moving and is also representative of someone that would be in like that people could connect with, like someone that used ClickFunnels and just

you know, that was not successful before and how they use that and what their life is like now. Yeah. Um, uh, I get my Rolodex out. There's so many cool ones. Um, one of my favorites, uh, just because they, they got started right at the very beginning ClickFunnels. So it's been fun watching their journeys. It's kind of like followed the ClickFunnels journey, but, uh, they were a young couple, Brandon and Caitlin Poland. They'd just gotten married. Uh, they were in a network marketing thing that collapsed. And so they were just like,

And they literally sent me a video on my phone. I still have it. They're like, Russell, we just saw your webinar, man. We're going to be your biggest ClickFunnels success story. And like, you know, they sent this video to me and you know, you get those sometimes like, okay, well good luck. And, um, and they, they went through the training and they, they, they created their very first funnel. And, uh, Caitlin, she was someone, she, she, uh, had lost a ton of weight and, um,

I think she lost like 50 or 60 pounds and won some titles of, you know, some, some fitness awards and stuff like that. And so she wanted to share that message with, with other women. And so they created their, their very first thing, this little app that they'd created and they put it online and they launched it. I think the very first, the first little launch to their, to their instant, to their social media following, which wasn't big at the time, they made like $20,000.

which was like their, that was the thing, right? And they got so excited and they kept going in and kept reinvesting in themselves and do the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. And I actually was talking to Brandon yesterday, last month, they just passed their first $6 million a month. And like, that's how much they've grown last four or five years. And now they've helped,

They've helped, I think on their email list, they have like two and a half million women who are on the email list. They've all come through a funnel who've given their email address and they're there. They have over 150,000 customers who've gone through the weight loss program. And it's amazing because like I'm in there, I think I'm the only guy in the Lady Boss Weight Loss Facebook groups because I want to sneak in there and watch it. But you see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of women posting their before and after pictures, before and after pictures, crying, like thanking Caitlin like so much. You changed my life.

and it's fun. Cause then Kayla messaged me. She's like, you realize that, that the only reason those people found us is because of funnels, right? Like, because of what you showed us, that's how they got in this group. And it's just really cool. And, and, um,

And that's, that's one person, right? And there's so many cool stories. Another one, there's a lady named Pamela Weibel and she was a doctor. And in, when she was in medical school, she had two or three of the doctors she was with commit suicide and she was just devastated by it. And so she's transitioned her life to help doctors to not commit suicide. And she's used funnels to get this message out and she saved thousands of doctors who

were on the brink of committing suicide. I didn't know at the time, like doctors are the highest suicide rate of any profession. And she's used funnels now to get this message out and save doctors lives. And it's just like, how many people like the doctor was saved and then how many lives are they able to save because of it? And it's because Pamela got a funnel, got her message out. And anyway, there's just, yeah, I'm the same way as you. It's like a drug. Like we have a daily meeting every morning in our company. Every morning we share a success story. And it's just like,

it like it ties our whole company together hearing like what we do matters and it's important and, and it gets everyone, you know, excited about the mission. What percentage of your market is overseas versus United States? Oh, um, I don't have the number on top of my head. I would say it's probably my gut would say probably 60 to 70% of us and, uh, the other 30 to 40% overseas. Uh, it's growing overseas really rapidly. Now we're trying to get the next phase for us is getting, uh, um,

We have a lot of overseas companies using it, but we don't have official presences in those areas. In some countries, you have to have people actually there. That's the next phase for us is figuring out where do we need to have office locations at, support staff who can do other languages. It's growing rapidly despite the fact that we haven't done anything. We don't have anyone who speaks other languages on support teams and things like that, but it's still growing really rapidly.

The IKEA Business Network is now open for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Join for free today to get access to interior design services to help you make the most of your workspace, employee well-being benefits to help you and your people grow, and amazing discounts on travel, insurance, and IKEA purchases, deliveries, and more. Take your small business to the next level when you sign up for the IKEA Business Network for free today by searching IKEA Business Network.

Do you love the Marketing Secrets Podcast, but you don't love listening to the ads? If so, we've got great news. We just launched an ad-free version of the podcast you can get subscribed to for just $4.99 per month. As one of our premium members, you have ad-free content that seamlessly integrates with your favorite podcast listening app like Spotify or Apple. This is an exclusive offer just for our fans of the Marketing Secrets Podcast to help give you an even better listening experience. If you want to get the premium version, all you got to do is look at the show notes or the episode description to get a link for how you can upgrade to premium.

How important of your personal relationships within the self-development community been for the growth of ClickFunnels? I know you do a lot of joint ventures with people that have large followings. Do you believe in that model of this idea that I remember early on

Early on, back in 2010, there was a group of guys. They called themselves the Syndicate. You remember that, right? A lot of cross-mailings and promotions. They'd done that. That kind of faded away. It probably broke up. Is there something, though? Do you think that it's very important

for someone that wants to grow their business to do that, to actually bring in outsiders and do those joint ventures or affiliate deals, as you would say in your world? Yeah, I'm a big believer in it. Especially when you're beginning, it's like some of the fastest way to grow something, right? Like when we first, it was year two of ClickFunnels and I was like, how do we get more adoption? So that's when I like,

All the people I've met in the time, you know, Tony Robbins and people I call them up like, hey, can I build a funnel for you? I'll do it for free. I like normally we charge whatever I'll do all for free for you. I'll run the thing. And we started building funnels for all these successful people. So they started using it. And people saw, oh, Tony Robbins is using ClickFunnels. And, you know, Neil Strauss is using ClickFunnels and Dave Asprey and all these different people who I looked up to in different markets. And so we started building their funnels for them. People started seeing it.

And that was big. And then as far as getting affiliates to mail, I think it's a really good short-term strategy. It's a good long-term. Like nowadays, the majority of what we do is paid ads, right? But at the beginning, paid ads are expensive and it's hard where the joint venture stuff was free. Like I, yeah, the first year of ClickFunnels was,

basically was primarily grown through JV webinars. I was doing webinars at least two or three times a week, sometimes two or three times a day to people's email list. And that was just, it didn't cost me ad money. We split the money 50-50 with the affiliate, but I got the initial, probably the first 10,000 members or so of ClickFunnels came off of other people's list for sure. And then from there, took that cash, we could reinvest it into ads and everything else that helped scale it from there. How do you...

I think ClickFunnels has fared in the whole COVID-19. Has it been a positive for you as a company in the sense, I hate to say a positive because people died, but has it been like, you know, I could see how ClickFunnels would be a very elegant solution to someone that lost their job and that's looking for a new way to make money because it would seem that, you know, the online delivery world and, you know, a ClickFunnels page and, you know, connected to a Shopify store, something like that might be a very powerful combination for,

Have you seen an uptick in your business in response to COVID? Yeah, we've seen on two sides. And one is like new customer acquisition has dramatically skyrocketed, which has been fantastic. Number two, what's interesting is pre-COVID on an average day, we had about 15,000 people actually logging the software and they're doing stuff and building things and looking at stats.

uh during the last the covid it's been like over 35 000 people a day are logging the software so people are more and they're less distracted they're getting in and actually doing it and getting their hands dirty people who like for so long are like signed up like oh i'm gonna do it this weekend or next week you know it's like now they had the time to actually do it um and so yeah it's it's uh it's been really good for us as a company overall and i think it's um

It's interesting because it's the transition, right? It's like, I think all these offline companies, like my friends who ran gyms, my friends who you have local stores, they're all, they're all understand now how, how fragile their companies are and how they're transitioning and doing the online version and they're shipping things online. And like, and it's, I think it's been a good transition and it's been, I've been grateful to be there to kind of catch people and help transition. Like, let me show you how this could actually work and how it could work in, in a, for your type of business, you know?

Have you ever thought about either selling the company or going public or take, have you taken any outside capital at all? So we've never taken outside capital. In fact, that's my, my next book I'm writing is going to be called bootstrapped. It's going to be the click funnel story, how he bootstrapped it without any, any capital. So we haven't to this, to this date, we have entertained a couple of ideas. Like what would it look like if we went public? And,

parts that scare me to death and the parts are really exciting so we you know and we've looked at things but nothing you know as right now we're having a good time and we're you know we're profitable there's no i don't i can do whatever i want like there's no there's no board or people telling me you know and i really enjoy that so i think as of now you know we're happy um i don't think we'd be against it if it served the customers um you know because like

we've talked about this in terms of our partnership. Like, I don't need more money. We don't need more things. But if it was like, man, if we, if we, if we went and did something and now we could hire a team, you know, like,

I was looking at just Stripe, for example, Stripe, which processes most of the people's payment. It's a simple software. It's one thing. They have a thousand developers on staff, a thousand. ClickFunnels, we've got 50 developers. Man, if we could do something where we could bring in a thousand developers to take ClickFunnels, what it's going to take is 10 years doing a year. I think I would be interested in some of that potentially, but only if it's the best thing for the customers. Because for me, my life's not going to shift either way at this point because

You know, you know, it is where, where, yeah, we do. Where, where do you see ClickFunnels going from here? Like, do you have, is there, is there a plan? Is it more of the same? Is it, is there some sort of like shift that you see that like, you know, we think that in the next few years, the industry as a whole shift, we want to shift with it. You know, do you do that? Do you have this sort of like this sort of long-term, you know, vision where you're, you know, we are making pivots or no, is it more reactive?

No. So things have been going through my mind. I recently read the book Crossing the Chasm for the first time. I tried a couple of times in the past. It's really, it's a heavy read, but I finally got it. And like, as I'm reading the book, like I'm looking at where we are in the cycle and I feel like we're literally at the chasm and it's like to jump over. And I think for us to get to, you know, from going from a hundred thousand members to a million members and beyond, it's really, it's,

we have to shift a lot of what we do fundamentally, right? Like right now, ClickFunnels, as simple as it is, it's still a tool that does a lot of things. I think that we try to cross the chasm to like all the businesses, like all the mom and pops down the street, right? It has to be simpler. It has to be easier. It has to be, you know, and so like, I feel like for us to get to the next tier, to go from a hundred thousand to a million members, like the software needs a deep, I don't know if it's redesign or just a fundamental shift. In what sense? In what sense? Like specifically in what way?

You know, I think the early adopters and something people like me or you or whoever geeking out, like we'll spend the time to figure out the strategy and the things like that, because it's worth it to us. We understand like we, if we make those tweaks, it's going to be worth blah, but someone who runs a restaurant down the street that they're not going to sit here and like read a book and understand the strategy and like figure it out. Like they run a restaurant. They just want a funnel that does restaurants. I want to click a button and boom, the restaurant funnel pops up. It's pre-populated. They plug in their menu items and they can rock and roll. Right. So it's like, it's a simplification of like, if we really want to get the next phase, it's

it's gotta be less here. You can customize it to whatever you want. It's gotta be like, here's how like this plug and play, this is going to work for your business, your industry. And so it's, it's a big gap that scares me, honestly. So that, and I think the other big growth thing for us is, is internationalization, like getting actually in other countries as opposed to just, you know, bleeding into countries, like having presences and having support teams and having, you know, all those things, you know, it's tough. Cause like we have some countries, people in where 97 bucks a month that we charge is, is,

tons of like insane amounts of money, but they can't afford that. You know, but that's, that's the only way you can buy it right now where it's like, Hey, in these countries we could do it differently or, you know, things like that. And the other big player right now, we're working with some local government, some governments where they're looking at buying like 50 or a hundred thousand accounts to give to like their entire student body and things like that. And we never actually closed a deal like that, but we got one or two that are like close that if that, if we can figure that out, also we're in all these school systems that, that gets me excited. Cause there's so much like,

you know, developing that at that level when they, when they get to, you know, to our level, they, like that's the tool they use. They understand it. So there's a lot of fun things like that we're working with. Do you think that ClickFunnels should be taught and in college or, you know, in high school?

A hundred percent. It's crazy. We have, so we have like a lot, you know, I've got my books that I sell. We've got our one funnel way challenge and we just had a college last before COVID. They took the entire entrepreneur section of their college and took them through the one funnel way challenge. And the teachers afterwards were freaking out. They're just like, this is insane. Like we've been reading stuff from textbooks and trying to reteach it. And now here it's like, we're learning in real time. What's actually working. They're seeing real case studies and people were actually able to do it and

And I definitely think for me personally, I don't know if ClickFunnels is a company, but me as like a publisher of content, I really want to figure out that next step. I don't understand it well enough to know, but I would love to get like our concepts and curriculum into the entrepreneur schools and the business schools. Because I think, you know, right now...

I mean, when I got my degree, at least it, like the stuff we were learning were like companies in the 1800s and how they did their profit and loss statements, all this stuff that's just like, how is this relevant to anything that's happening right now? Like the pulse of this market is like, it's moving so quickly that, um, anyway, so I'm hoping, so I think, I think it'd be, it'd be so much more useful. And I think just as a whole watching what's going to happen with school system post COVID, I think that's going to open up a lot more opportunities for, for stuff like this to be, to be in, into put into colleges. Yeah.

What's the culture like at ClickFunnels? Like the actual corporate, not your outward to all the customers, but inside the business. How would you describe your culture? I love our people. I would say it's not all the, like, I wouldn't say this is true for the developers. Developers almost have their own culture, right?

But like for the support and the marketing and stuff like that, most of the people who work for our team are people who were ClickFunnels users first. And they use the platform. They loved it. But for some reason, they didn't have a business yet. They didn't have an idea. They're still trying to figure it out. But it's like they love ClickFunnels and the message. They get a job in the workforce. And they love the fact like I get to be around this at nighttime. I can work my own funnels. And they feel like they're part of it. And so such a big percentage of our staff are customers before they ever were members, which is really cool. So because of that, like –

it's funny because I'll do a podcast and my entire, you know, 400 people team are like, Joe, this is your podcast. It was so cool. And you know, like they're answering support tickets. Like, Oh, you should go watch this YouTube video. Russell did over here. Cause like he talked about this thing specific and it's just, it's cool because like our people are, are, you know, like,

our team were our customers at one point and most of them are still actively using and actively building funnels. A lot of them have launched businesses on while they worked at ClickFunnels, left and grown them and we support that, we encourage it. I always tell people our mission at ClickFunnels isn't to have people build funnels. Our mission is to help entrepreneurs to grow their companies. Whatever that means, maybe it's using funnels, maybe it's doing an event, maybe it's whatever, it doesn't matter. If someone in our team

starts a business and goes and blows it up. Like we were so excited for him. And, and it, and so I think that's a, that's a big part of it. What do you, what do you think about the state of the union right now? Does, do you like, you're in Idaho, right? And I think Idaho skews a bit more conservative, but I, you know, I think with most conservatives, yeah,

And do you feel like, listen, I mean, I'll be honest with you. I look at the country right now and I'm deeply disturbed at what I see. And I think, you know, I can trace back a lot of this to, you know, to things that were happening over the last 20 or 30 years in the educational institutions. But it just seems like at this point now, there's like a,

a complete absence of truth in the media. Like they just lie. I mean, like, they just like this, I mean, I can't even believe like what I hear and see. You know, what are your thoughts on that whole thing right now? Like what's going on with the country and the violence in the streets? And I'm sure you're very far removed in Idaho, but you know, what are your own thoughts on that?

Man, it's scary. And I've tried, I don't know, I think all of us have our biases, but I try as hard as I can to look at both sides and understand both sides. And it's interesting because I feel like

you know, the Republican side, they want, they want less government. They want more freedoms. I want the ability to build producers. I'm a big believer in that. Right. I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged and I was just like, yes, like this is what we need. Like the government regulations make it harder and harder for someone like me or you or whoever's producing stuff makes it harder for us to want to have a purpose in producing. But then you look at the other side, it's like they want love and they want peace and they want, they want, you know, and I relate to that as well. So it's tough. I get,

but I think there's, there's man, social media has given everybody such a loud voice that I remember this even four years ago, like how beat up everyone got. Like I, I tried to post either direction. Cause like, no matter what you say, like, like it destroys relationships, destroys families, destroys businesses. And it's just like, it's kind of a thing that I don't know that there's the positives of social media. We all have our own voice. The negatives is that we all have our own voice and, and,

I don't know. It's, it's definitely scary times. And, um, I wish that I believed it was going to be done after the elections, but I think whatever happens is going to bleed over for, for a while. Um, and I don't know. I think that, that, um, I think all of us who are, who are, um,

I just tell people, I feel like entrepreneurs are the people that are going to change the world. I think the more tools we can give entrepreneurs and put things in their hands so they can give these messages out and be the change, I think that's really the only thing that's, I don't know, the only hope I really feel. I don't feel like it's going to happen from the government side. I know it's not going to happen from the media side. It's going to happen from people who create products and services they believe in, who create missions and movements. I feel like that's going to be the thing that causes the change that actually matters. Everything else is just

I don't know. It's just a mess. What do you think an entrepreneur should do? I mean, like, should you say, you know what? I can't.

I have to accept the things I cannot change. I have to make as much money as I possibly can to protect my family and those I love and to help the causes I believe in. Do you think it should be like, you know, okay, the world is nuts. It's spiraling out of control. So let me just put my head down and make money. You know, is that a strategy that you think is a smart way to look at things if you're just, you know, a success-oriented person? You think just to try to block it out? Or should you think that's not...

being a good citizen, you should try to have your voice heard too. What do you think? Good question. I mean, I mean, yeah. Good question. You

you know, I, I had a friend, Ryan Moran. He said something one time that was so profound to me. He said that an entrepreneur is somebody who sees, um, who sees the problem. It's not their own and decides to take responsibility for it. Right. So it's like, you see this problem. It's not my problem. And most of the world's like, Oh, it's not my problem. I'm going to back away from him. And entrepreneurs like, that's a problem I'm going to solve. Like Caitlin was like, I'm going to figure out how to help these women lose weight. You know? Um,

Pamela Weibel's like, I'm going to help doctors not commit suicide. Like that's not her responsibility, but she took it and she ran with it. Right. And I feel like,

us entrepreneurs, like that's, that is what it is. And the byproduct of us being entrepreneurs and creating is cash. And so like, if, if, if the question is like, should we go out to make a ton of money? Yes. Because if you're doing that, making a ton of money means you found a problem. That's not yours. You're gonna take responsibility for it. And you're gonna try to change that thing. And if you do it in the right way, cash will come to you. And the more money you make, the more impact you're having. And so I think it's a great way to keep score. I know that it's not probably popular in today's world as much to say it, but I a hundred percent believe that right now, you know,

for financial security for yourself and for your families. But second off, it's just, it's a byproduct showing that you are actually taking a group of people and serving them at a level that's changing their lives if you're getting the money from it, as long as you're doing it ethically, obviously. What do you think the best way

for a young or old person that's young me in their career online, what's the best way, the most effective way to enter the world of ClickFunnels? What would you do first? Let's say you say, you know what? I like this. I'm intrigued by it. I'm going to get into this. I want to capitalize on this movement. What's step one? Yeah, I think step one for people is you have to understand, you have to have the education, right? You can't just

If I'm doing sales, I'm not picking up the phone and start dialing day one. Like I'm going to have a script and have some basics. I think it's going through the train to understand it. And then before I ever like gambled, you know, everything on like my own business idea, I would say, I want to prove this actually works. And I would find somebody who already has, cause you know, there's like starting a business. There's so many things like what's the product. What's you know, how are we going to sell it? What's the, who's going to do the accounting? Who's paying taxes? Like there's a,

billion things to make a business work. So I would try to like take away as many of those things as possible to work in a vacuum of like, I'm going to try to figure this thing out. So I find someone who already had a business who already had a product already had all these things. So I have to worry about that part of it and say, okay, like let's say you find someone who's selling, uh,

I don't know. Here's some fidget spinners. Like this is their product, right? And it's selling. I'd go to them and say, okay, I'm going to take these fidget spinners. I want to build a funnel just to prove this concept. I'm going to work for free. I'm going to put my own sweat equity. I just want to see if it works. If it does work, I'd love like a commission off all the sales I make for this thing. Right. And then go learn and build the, build a funnel based on, you know, based on all the things you're learning inside the community and all those kinds of things. And yeah,

and then do it and launch it. And then, and then, you know, if you make money, awesome. If not like, okay, just trying another product, trying another thing until you kind of figure it out. But I think that's the biggest thing. If you're going to try to figure out all the things to launch a business right out of the gate, there's so many things. So it's like, go and go and learn these strategies and apply it for somebody else work for free. And, um, you know, that's how I would start. In fact, I've got tons of people in our community who've done that, who literally they, they did that. And they, um, they've negotiated for like, Hey, if this funnel works, I want half the money from the person. Like, okay. Like,

It's free money for me. Who cares? And now they have these multi-million dollar businesses, like just like front ends for other people's big companies. Cause they figured out how it works and they're doing this thing and they don't have any of the staff that overhead the payroll, the taxes, they just get a cut off every single sale. And some days I wish I would just do that. Cause that sounds easier than running a big company. What's the best. Okay. So now we're getting to the, unfortunately our time is almost up. I try to keep it to an hour. What's the, the best,

that someone should read about ClickFunnels? Is it your first book, your second? Which is book one? Yeah, so I'll grab my hair. So I've written three books. These are the three books. The first one's called Dotcom Secrets. Second one's called Expert Secrets. And third's called Traffic Secrets. But Dotcom Secrets is the best book

it's the strategy of funnels, right? It's like, okay, how do I take whatever business I'm in and how do I translate that to here's the funnel that'll work for me? And that's my first book. I'm super proud of it. The second book, Expert Secrets, is more about the selling side. Like now I have this funnel, how do I sell inside the funnel? How do I use persuasion and sales skills to get somebody to buy?

And then Traffic Secrets is how to get more people in. But from a beginning standpoint, everyone always tells me the first book to read, read.comsecrets. You understand like, oh, that's how a funnel worked for me. It'll like give you the aha moment. It'll give you the understanding of like how these things fit into your world. And that's where I'd start for sure.

And what's the website to go to right now if you want to find out more of us? ClickFunnels.com? ClickFunnels.com if you want to learn about software. If you want the book, if you go to .comsecrets.com, we have a free shipping handling for the hardbound version of it, and you can get it there. Or it's on Amazon too.

Well, I will tell you, you know, you know, I have a click funnels account and I've done really well with click funnels. I love it. Um, and I would strongly suggest any, I'm not just saying this cause Russell's on the show guys. Um, if you are in this world, um,

and you're not using ClickFunnels, you're out of your mind. I made the mistake because someone gave me some bad advice and said, oh, you need to have your own super duper high speed funnel because if you're, oh my God, what a disaster that was. Okay, you know what?

And I learned from that, you know, when someone does something well, you know, just leverage off of their software and their mistakes they made. You probably made 8 million mistakes to get to where you are right now. We have this perfectly seamless interface. So I would really strongly recommend if you're not using ClickFunnels and you're in that world, you should at least check it out. Take it for a test run. And I think you'll be very happy that you did. So that's my advice. Russell, thanks for coming on, buddy. You're an inspiration, a

a great guy and a world-class entrepreneur. Thanks guys. Yeah. Thanks for having me, man. It's been so much fun watching you for so long. I've just, I read your books five years before the movies ever came out. It's fun to finally have some face time with. So I appreciate you. Thanks for having me on and a lot of fun. My pleasure. Everyone, Russell Brunson, share this with your friends and don't forget to check out ClickFunnels and all the episodes of The Wolf's Den.