Instead of asking “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, let’s start asking this question instead.

On this episode, Russell talks about the importance of considering WHO you want to serve, before you start working on WHAT you are going to provide. Sometimes you might end up wasting time doing a lot of work for something that won’t actually help the people you are called to serve.

---Transcript---

Hey, everybody, hope you guys are doing amazing today. It's Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. In today's episode, I want to rewrite what all of our parents have been telling us for generations upon generations. And hopefully, save me and you and our kids from the same frustration, because if we fix this, I think we'll fix everything else.

All right, so, this is my thoughts today, and I hope you don't mind me sharing with you. But inside of our community, we talk about the fact that, I believe, each and every one of us is called to serve a group of people. It's like, for me, I was called to serve entrepreneurs. And so, I figured like, who are the people I'm supposed to serve? They're entrepreneurs. And then it's like, well, there's a lot of entrepreneurs in the world. Who are my entrepreneurs? And so, my entrepreneurs are funnel hackers. And I give them a name and a title and a belief and all that kind of stuff.

And it was interesting because as soon as I knew, oh, here's who I serve, these are my people, this is who I'm supposed to serve, then everything else came really easy. Then it was like, well, what do these people need? Well, they need this, they need this, and then, the ideas, the products, the services, the events, the coaching calls, the podcasts. All the things became easy when I first identified, who am I called to serve? And then, giving those people a name. They're my specific people. Because saying, "I serve entrepreneurs," is tough because there's a lot of people serve entrepreneurs. Now, I'm fighting and competing against everybody else. It's like, no, I don't serve all entrepreneurs, I serve my entrepreneurs, my funnel hackers.

And so, it's interesting though because I was talking today with some people, and there's a phrase that we hear all the time when we were kids. It's, what do you want to be when you grow up? And people like, "Oh, I want to be a dentist. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a football player. I want to be... " We talked about who we want to be. But you think about how we actually make money, how we actually start businesses, it's not about who we want to be, it's about who we want to serve. It's like this little thing.

And so instead of, with our kids asking them, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up? Or asking the kids who just graduated from high school, what do you want to be someday, when you... After college, what do you want to be? I think to ask that question, what do I want to be, sends us on a wrong path. I want to be a dentist. Okay well, how do you be a dentist? Well, you got to go to school here, and you got to go to school here. And then, when all that's said and done, then you become a dentist. And then, you get your dental degree. Now, you're able to clean people's teeth. And then, cool, now, you can clean people's teeth, the question is, who do you serve? And you're like, I don't even know, I'm a dentist, just everybody probably. And it just puts you on this long, long, long, long, long path that before you ever get to the real question, which is, who are you called to serve? I think we should start switching around like, well, who do you want to serve? Who are your people? Who's your tribe? Who's your whatever you want to call it.

So looking at that standpoint, it changes everything. It changes how you start looking at this business and starts changing all the different things. And so, my question for you is you're starting this journey, wherever you are is not so much, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I've asked myself that a lot. But it's like, who do you want to serve when you grow up? Who is the group of people that you're the most passionate about? Who is that if you woke up every morning and be like, okay, this is the group I get to serve, it would change everything for you. And then, if you have that and you have that person, then you figure out like, what's your name for that group? Who are your people? Then, all the ideas start flowing easier.

I think when I first got started in this business, and I talked about this a little bit in the Dotcom Secrets book, for those who have read it. If you haven't read the new updated version, by the way, please go get it. I promise it's worth getting the new updated one. But I talked about how I started my business. What I was focusing on, I was like, what do I want to create? I was like, I want to create this product and this product. Again, a question, a lot people chase down, but it puts you on a really weird path. I was like, well, I want to create a product that does this. Because I had this idea. I want to create a product that does this. So I started creating these different products. I thought that was the path, I started creating them, and I was selling them. And luckily, I was able to figure out the process, and I started making money.

But it was by default, what I created, it attracted a certain audience. And because I didn't ask, who do I want to serve? I just said, what do I want to create? And I create this thing. And then by default, what I created attracted a certain type of people to me. It's like bait. I'm not a fisher, but I went fishing one time. And I remember it was like different bait. If I want to catch... I don't even know the names of the fish, so embarrassing. If I want to catch a big fish, I want to catch a trout or a salmon or whatever, there's different bait. And the bait you throw out, attracts different fish to you.

I have no idea if that analogy is actually true, maybe I just made it up. But I think it is. And if not, you guys get the gist. Right? Same thing, the bait you put out into the world attracts different people. And so, because I led with, what's the bait I want to create? What's the idea I have? What's the bait? I started doing that. I started throwing this bait out, not knowing what it's going to attract. And all of a sudden, it's like, "Oh my gosh, it attracted trout." And then, I'm like, "Oh, I actually hate trout or I hate salmon," or whatever your version of that.

In the Dotcom Secrets book, I talk about that, how I woke up one day and I was laying in bed and I was like, I wish I had a boss, so that he could fire me because this is miserable. Like, I am not enjoying this experience at all. It was such a bad thing. And so, if you remember the default, what I should do, is I shifted away from what do I want to create? To, who do I want to serve? Who is my dream customer? I wish I would have led with that. I never did. And most people don't. We lead with, what do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to create? Here's an idea hat. And all those things sent you on a path, but it's not a direct path.

The direct path is who do I want to serve, then go find those people and figure out what they actually need, and how they want to be served. Because you come in with a product that people don't actually want, no one's going to buy it. And then, it doesn't work for you. And you're frustrated like, "Oh, this business thing doesn't work. Oh my grade, it didn't work." You don't need to have great ideas. This business is not about being super, hyper creative. That's not going to help you as much as you think it will. Like, "Oh Russell, you're so creative." No, no, no. I'm not that creative. I'm just really good at knowing exactly who I'm serving, and I pay close attention to what they want. That's it, pay attention. That's what the podcast episodes come from. That's where the books come from. That's where the software comes from. All those things are just coming back to, who is my dream customer? Who am I called to serve? And then, how do I serve them? What do they want? Wheat do they need? I pay attention. And then, that's what we create, that's what we go and do.

So I want you guys to understand that, because again, I think so many times we look at it wrong. I think instead of asking our kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? We should ask our kids, who do you want to serve when you grow up? Who are the people that get you pumped up? And I just recently finished the Phil Knight's book, Shoe Dog. His people were athletes. He loved athletes. He was an athlete. He wanted to serve athletes. And if you haven't read Shoe Dog yet, by the end of the book, it's really cool. He starts... it might be the epilogue. I was listening to the audio books, I'm not sure... Anyway, but at the end of the book, he starts telling these stories about dinner with Michael Jordan and this guy, and this guy, all these athletes. It's like, he served his athletes at the highest level to the point where the who's who of athletes had him at their weddings, had him at their funerals, had him at all these different things. Because he figured out who he's going to serve, and then, he focused on that. And he built a shoe company and a clothing line and all these things, because he knew exactly who he was serving and how to make the product better than anybody else.

I think for you guys, if you come back the same foundational things, like who are you called to serve? Not, what I want to do when I grow up? Not, Oh, I had this idea for a product or, oh, what should I create? It's, no, who do I want to serve? And then, if you come with that in sincere heart, they will tell you, you will see it. Especially online, like you see it in the Facebook posts, the positive and negative. I see it in the comments. Every time I post a podcast, I see the comments, and where I see the lack of comments. I post some episodes, but nobody responds. I'm like, I guess that's not what they needed. Other ones blow up, I'm like, Okay, people like that, I should go deeper on that, let me share more things. I'm using this community texting app where I text out the audience. And I can see what things get response, what things don't. And I pay attention.

It's funny, those who have seen me using this texting app. It's a texting platform. It's pretty cool. In fact, let me pause for a moment to insert a tiny around to make sure you are on this texting platform. When I come back, I'll tell you the cool thing I'm doing with it.

So as you see, you guys have a chance to text me. And then, the message come to my personal phone, which is pretty cool. And at first, the first week, I was doing really good at answering every message. And then it blew up and it's getting thousands and thousands of people, and I can't keep up. But I do spend about anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes a day, answering as many questions as I can, which has been really fun. So I may be personally answering your question. Hopefully, I will have a chance to. But the cooler thing is that every time I send a message, I can see the responses to that message. And so, every day I look at the day before, I look at the message I sent. And I scroll through and I see what things hit chords, what things people are looking for, things people are complaining about.

And it's my market research daily. I get a daily text message from all my dream customers telling me what they want, what they don't want. And even if I don't respond to them all, I read them. And so again, I have my pulse, I feel the pulse of the market. So many times, I get hit inside the ClickFunnels team as well. I think I drive them crazy because they're all planners. They want to plan what's happening, and what emails are going out, the sequences, all sorts of stuff. And I'm like, you don't understand, if we plan ahead of time, we miss the pulse of the market. Everybody asks me, "What's the plans for next year?" The plans for next year is to feel the pulse of the market, see what they want and serve them. That's where we're going. It's not like, "Okay, well, Q2, we're going to do this, Q5, we're going to do this Q 10, next year, we're going to do. It's like, no, no, no, no, pay attention to the market and let them tell you what you do.

Yeah, so I drive them crazy because we'll do a campaign and they're like, "Okay, we have 12 emails. Let's try these 12 emails." I'm like, "You can't write them right now." I'm like, "Why not? Let's get ahead of it." I'm like, "Because we have to feel the pulse of the market. What are they saying to us? We need to be shifting our message based on what's happening, with the feedback, the response." If we're not doing that, we're not truly serving our audience. We're trying to write an email sequence. We're trying to create a product. We're trying to do a webinar. I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how this game works." Hey, if you want to be good at this game, it's coming back to the foundation. Who's your dream customer? How can I serve them? Paying attention, watching, listening, and they'll tell you everything they want, which is pretty cool.

So I hope that helps, hope that helps shift some of you guys who are struggling. Again for me, I struggled my first five or six years in this business because I was chasing the product or the idea I had, as opposed to the customers I want to serve. And it was crazy for me. And you guys probably heard this part of the story, but when I shifted that, I said, "Okay, no longer am I going to create products that are my good ideas and sell them. I'm going to figure who's my dream customer and figure out what they would want." And I made that mental shift and it was like, what could we create? And the very first product we created was my book, 108 Split Test Winners, which some of you guys have a copy of that book. And what's crazy about that is, I was so scared to create the book. Because I knew that my existing audience, the people who I was serving, I didn't love them. I knew they wouldn't want to buy that book. They weren't going to buy it. And I even tried, I put the book up, I sent email out to my existing customers and none of them came. I sold a few copies. I was like, okay, that sucks, this is my best material. This is stuff that people would die for. And they weren't interested. And I realized that I was serving the wrong customer.

And so, what was cool, is that this new thing I created, I created for my dream customer, for the person I wanted to get into my world. I launched it. I put it out there. I started buying ads to it. And then, guess what eventually happened? My dream customers, they heard my voice, and they came to me. And that's how we built the list. And then from there, we built ClickFunnels. And from there, we built the Funnel Hacking Movement And my funnel hackers and everything else we've done. But it all started with, who do we want to serve? And then, what bait do we create to attract that person? And that's how we changed the game. So at least, changed it for me. And if you listen to this, probably for you as well.

So hope this helps, hope you enjoy this. If you guys got anything that from this episode, please take a screenshot on your phone, post it on social, tag me on it. And tell me your biggest takeaway. I love to read those. I see them. I read them. And you'll see me, I usually like them, if I see them. Anyway, I appreciate that. Thanks you guys for everything and I'll talk to you guys, all, again soon. Bye everybody.

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Who Do You Want To Serve When You Grow Up? 14:56 Share

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Who Do You Want To Serve When You Grow Up?