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 be talking about getting insane amounts of traffic to your funnel before your funnels even live um this is one of the biggest problems I'm seeing inside of our community is people um 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 for any of you guys who are building but not getting the the the eyeballs the leads the 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 um I got to start with some stories because uh anyway I'm enjoying the new podcast style and you guys have been telling me it's been fun uh 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 guys some stories that um hopefully motivate you and get you excited um one story is the fact this um shirt I'm wearing today I saw this on the Joe Rogan show he had it on his podcast episode so 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 um the story I want to tell you guys today um it was one it was actually I lift weights in the morning with the trainer and um I can't remember what conversation we got in but we started talking about this and this story popped my head I hadn't thought about this in like probably 20 years and U I thought it was really funny so this comes down to like um I don't know my number one uh I took strength finders my number one strength is compe is competition like I love competition I thrive in it the more it is the better it is and all sorts of stuff and um 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 um uh lead pages when we first decided to to create clickfunnels said 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 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 then the next was like okay who's the next company I was like boom it was um uh infusion soft they just got like $150 million in funding so like all right there's the next goal so they're racing racing racing um and it was it was interesting so uh that was kind of the goal and then um and then for a long time we were the top and there was no one to compete against and for me like I need competition and so uh that's I think big reason why we decided to to to build a new clickfunnels which by the way you guys can see the logo if you're watching the video version there's a logo blown 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 um I need to get a a light like this now with the new branding um but uh it's coming soon I we actually did order lights love new branding here in light format for the for the videos but um uh the new branding is going amazing like the app looks awesome the software looks awesome it's so exciting with all these people now who have who are like Rel logging back into click phonos to see the new app start using it in fact um Joe McCall uh one of my favorite people on planet he posted today 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 ah what was that Joe it's way better than ghl thanks R Brunson love your day dedication to making marketing world a better place seriously okay so um speaking of what Joda said there was competition and this competition came out hard and fast against us um and um I'm not going to 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 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 um anyway so in that context is where the story kind of came from so I do remember the kid's name I'm not going to say his name um but this is a kid who uh elementary school I went to school with him knew he was thought I was a friend with him he got into high school you know 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 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 was really good presentation I got motivated I like okay I'm going to find the guye of me I'm going to beat him out so for next two weeks I kept like working and working and killing myself and end up beating the guy that was that was like the second string safety and then the first string and I end up being 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 gonna be playing the game I'm GNA be starting I'm so excited and so that that day this the football game we're there we're on the field we're warming up and one of the other coaches came over like Brunson what are you doing here I'm like I beat I very proud like I beat the guys out like I made I made the starting team and he looked at me he's like uh he looked over at one of the backup quarterbacks he's like like hey get over here and uh he like put him in my spot and bump me out that's when I started hating team sports by the way I'm very much in fact that's the conversation came up with um with my trainer is like I'm like I'm a combat athlete notice you know 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 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 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 uh within a year became a state champion in high school took second place in the nation uh went on got a D1 scholarship and so on and so forth right um so that was kind of my my shift now this is where the story gets fun so uh that year of playing football I remember after I got beat out we went to this we went to some uh we're playing some away game and we played this game and we got destroyed like our team our team got killed and I'm on the sideline waiting to play I think I played maybe one play the entire game which is so stupid um 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 again Went to went to elementary school with him thought we were friends and uh he sees me drinking it he like shoves me he's like he's like Brunson why you getting drink water you didn't even play this game or something and I I was like you know as a you know as a as a as a what a ninth grader whatever like humiliated embarrassed from 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 I kind of forget about him then a couple years later uh it's I swear the story's got a point but it's fun um a couple years later I come back and um uh uh where 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 one day we went to their room so two days with these guys and when when they they show up to our wrestling room I look over and that kid I still know his name he was there he was on the other team he transferred schools he was on the wrestling team and I was like oh yes and all the memories of him knocking the water out of my hand all kind of stuff was like I was like this is it and so um we started the practice I'm like him I want to go with him and I hey man how's it going he's like oh hey BR said how you doing I'm like yeah I'm good 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 we done with practice he had got up he's like I have to leave or I'm gonna I'm gonna try to fight you or something I 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 he walked off and laugh the next day we chance to go there 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 competitor 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 like start putting the pieces together so um I'm excited because the last couple years has been brutal as you guys knew from my the first video I I uh from the first podcast UPS I talk about but um what's been fun is it's finally gotten like me the competition backward it's like okay how do I win instead of like how do I survive how do we do like no no how do how do we win what's that look like um how does it how does a strategy have to change and um I tell you what man it has lit me on fire and a lot of people tell Russell we feel this momentum coming from you and from clickone like what's happening I like oh you 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 promise you guys we're talk about during this episode um this is one of the biggest things I see okay people come to my world they read the books they start studying start learning they start building funnels they start building offers putting things together and um there's a process right is they trying to when you first start learning this game like you got to figure out like okay first off I I got to convince you that you are are an expert right if you're going to be in the expert business I got to convince you got to create products and like there's all these things that go into it right um 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 like I I'll see him at an event like oh I'm building a funnel I'm building a funnel like cool building a funnel is very important it's my favorite thing in the world right I get it um 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 they'll spend a month six months a year whatever building the funnel building the product whatever and then when they're finally done they're like okay I'm going to share with the world and there's no one to share it with this is the 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 men 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 some type of funnel that gets the people where I can sell them something right so what we need to do is we got to gather the many now there's a lot of ways to gather the many right one way is through paid ads so um right now we are in the middle of a selling online event um this selling online event we um we got a little over 3,700 people registered for that event so I gathered 3700 people together okay but my cost to gather those people um we it was like $300 or so to sell $100 ticket right so it cost me almost a million it's like $925,000 for me to gather those people together 3,700 people to deliver presentation now from that we will make well I don't we'll we'll 3x um our return on our ad spend right like we'll 3x the money we made by by doing that right but but it cost me a lot of money to gather those people through paid ads right and um and so a lot of people think I think when they think this is my funnels done I'm going to go and 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 is like the most expensive thing initially is to go pay for ads and get people in right so the question is like how do I how do I gather the many ahead of time so that when I go and I and I'm ready to launch something thing the audience is already gathered I don't got 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 menu right now so the second your product your funnel is done right then the menu are already there you're not like going out like okay I depleted my resources building this business now I got to go spending money to to get the customers right like no the second you decide want to be an entrepreneur that's when you start planning these 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 anything your number one focus is this which is starting to gather the many so the second you're done you've got a a captive audience because if you're 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 orders we got to get back into the correct orders that make sense okay so that's what I'm talk about now I'm going to quote a couple things from my book traffic Secrets um this is not a blatant pitch for traffic Seekers but if it was a blatant pitch I'd tell you to go get a free copy at traffic seekers.com um 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 of my brain there's a couple 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 got the book you can open with me if not just list to my stories or if you want to get a book 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 U 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 to grow an audience right um again buying your way in is buying out that's what I did with this weekend I gave Zuckerberg $900,000 to to to buy my way in to get him to send a whole bunch of people to my 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 PID 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 one you got two different resources either 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 in doing the free stuff okay again in a perfect world You' be doing both in fact if you read the traffic Secrets book we walk us through the process of um 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 uh on page 68 I have this little graph I don't know if you can see that at all uh there it is so there's like this traffic in time and like it shows like um controll traffic you're buying you can Spike really fast um in flat lines whereas 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 long term 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 stuff you can and should be doing while you're building your business okay all right so in uh in secret number four work buyer win the first step here the step says dig your well before you're thirsty okay so this is what I'm talking about about you want to start digging your well before you're thirsty so what that means is when your funnel is done your offer's done you're going to be thirsty I need traffic I need traffic I need I need people sell to and all'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 um somebody asked me I remember I was speaking in the UK and um I still remember her name is G she was awesome speaking of UK I come off and we're talking in this little group of people 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 is always successful how are you always successful and it was the first time I'd ever given the I didn't I didn't consciously think about this 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 go look for traffic I find the traffic Source first and I build a funnel and an offer based on what that that traffic actually wants and the person was like what why don't you tell everyone that like that was the big secret I was like I hav thought about like but it makes like 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 opposes step number one okay so dig your well before you're thirsty um uh and so the the concept that is like before you need the traffic this time before you need the relationship before you need someone to promote that's when you start building a relationship right like I remember when I first met Tony Robins like eventually I wanted Tony to promote something for me right but I'm hey Tony promote for me right that's me um asking for water without digging a well right instead I was like I'm going to build a relationship with Tony Robbins and so for a decade I built a relationship with Tony right I was digging my will digging my will building a relationship and 10 years later um when my second book came out expert secer I was like hey Tony we promote this he's like I would love to and he did a Facebook live with me got seen by like five million people sold 10 thou 10,000 plus copies of my book right and it all came off of uh me digging my well before I was thirsty okay and the so that's the first thing thinking about is like you're going to be thirsty as soon as your funnel is done you're going to be thirsty for traffic now is the time to start digging today not tomorrow not next week not like today right that's step number one the second you decid to be entrepreneur is starting digging your well starting to get the the people starting to start building the following 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 your Thursday 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 going to 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 GNA 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 because that's why I talk about here in the book and so on page 60 and 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 platform who already has an audience right like I find a Tony Robbins or I find a who insert whoever influencer is 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 um and so for me like when we launch clickfunnels again if you read the traffic Secrets book I go deep into this concept called The Dream 100 who are the hundred people that already have congregated your dream customers it's like how do we infiltrate how do we start talking to these people right it's 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 do is I'm going to go and I tell people might go go to Instagram um and delete all of your contacts and then only follow every single influencer inside of your space right go 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 already congregated my dream customers like those are the people if I can get it a relationship with one of those people it can open up a huge door for me right um and say me Instagram Facebook YouTube podcast like whatever it is but you start Gathering these people right 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 then just follow the the influencers who are in my space and then it's like I I need to start building relationship 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 Harding 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 D dming them like oh man your your podcast so last week was amazing thanks so for sharing my favorite thing was blah blah blah right 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 I'm building a relationship first and so that's how you start doing to start building future relationships and these are so important because one relationship in the future can change your entire business forever um I got a million examples of this but one I was thinking of like when I launched my very first book Doom Secrets um did the same process I went to all the podcast directories instagramit I went through everywhere I built um I found a you my myund top podcasters 100 top in Instagram influencers H 100 toop YouTubers and so I had a a dream 100 on every single platform and what I did is I sent a free copy of my book to the Hun toop podcast 100 top YouTubes 100 Instagram you know so I sent five or 600 copies of my book out to everybody and like here's my new book love for you to review it see if you you know see if you want to post it whatever so I sent all those out and what's crazy about that is um I remember the very first person responded back was a guy named jld some you guys know John Lee Dumis he runs entrepreneur on fire podcast he messages me he's like dude this book's awesome I'm like thanks man and he's like I'd love to promote you promote it do you want to 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 six hundred 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 like thanks man he's like can I promote it I'm like yes you can he sold like 2500 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 an influencer like from those relationships I built we sold hundreds of thousands of copies of my book right but it started me like building those relationships ahead of time like I was listening to podcast I was sending out messages I was getting to know people so that when my my offer them 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 your thirsty going out there finding out who are the people who have your dream customers 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 you need to be at that live event you need to be hanging out in the room okay I think I told the 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 I'm at 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 like yeah Russell come to 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 the story I went down there and I ordered milk from the bar from The barke Keeper whatever I was like he's like you want milk I'm like yeah um because I didn't want it to look like alcohol or anything so I had a cup of milk as I'm walking around which by the way was a great conversation people like are you drinking milk like oh yeah I'm Mormon I don't drink I don't drink alcohol they're like that's cool tell me about it and then boom Connection in you know 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 biohack I'm biohacking events like and it could be virtual events Live Events iners like 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 um if Zuckerberg shut down Facebook if Google Instagram everything disappeared tomorrow I would be fine because because of the relationships I build over time right these people have email lists they've got podcasts they 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 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 um if you read um uh where's that where's that the introduction literally or the pref the preface preface have you say it says um oh no sorry it's not the preface preface how do you guys say that I should I should definitely know that um sorry section number one I started the I started section number one um or the introduction there it is Introduction there's a storm coming dot dot dot right I wrote this book four years ago it came out and then right after that all of the all of the um uh the Google slaps Facebook slap everything started happening afterwards I was like I told you guys this book is helping you to um to uh fullprof your marketing so that if the platform not if when the platform shut 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 like this is like such a key foundational part okay if you are launching a product in an industry people in the industry you know who you are okay you need to be connecting with those people in any way you can do it okay now I want to talk about one of the easiest ways to connect with those people okay A lot of times hard like what do I say to them I like hey Russell you know and so one of the easiest ways to connect with them is to give them something of value right is to give them something um that uh is to give them something that's that um that they need right so if you think at what the influencers in your Market in your space what are they looking for right um influencers people with 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 Arenal Hall like who right stud Hall so um he was the biggest talk show back in the 90s I remember um he's the one that basically I think that he was the reason why Bill Clinton got elected as uh as president because 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 then end up going and voting for [Music] him some much like Anyway Trump and Rogan which is kind of interesting anyway that's the story from another day but um uh so any he's biggest talk show in the world and it was huge thing for four or five years eventually it kind of 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 a sudden he comes out one of the guests is Arenal Hall and I'm like that's our c i remember that guy he was amazing and they're doing all these different these different uh tasks and stuff like that and what's crazy is they get to um they get to the task uh it's like a fundraising task right where they to call our friends and raise money for this thing right so all the people are out there they're calling they're raising money everything and our Cals got his his role X 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 sudden done he raised I think he raised zero dollars from the from the the whole fundraising campaign and it was pretty embarrassing because every other celebrity got deals done got things in Areno got n 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 there was like one of the most powerful things in the world I think I was the only one that caught it cuz I was freaking out and anyway I talk about in traffic Secrets but he says this thing um he's looking at camera and he's talking he's like man he's like when I had a talk show everybody returned my call I was like oh did you catch that when he has his own platform the president of United States the like anybody everyone returns call because they wanted 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 we'll talk about here is 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 like when you're contacting I love your content I love 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 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 then you build a relationship you talk to them for 30 minutes or hour during a podcast interview now they know you you know them and you've got connection right and then you create content put in the marketplace like like it's it's so simple and so powerfully and most people are not doing it right they always tell me I'm launching my phone then I'll launch a podcast in the future like no wrong order flip it around right I got to start building my influence today I do that by leveraging other people's influence I do that by giving them access to my platform assuming guys like Russ I don't have a platform yet well we got to start then that's exactly why you start today not next week the year or like after your FAL you start digging your well before your thirsty start today right and you might be say well why would somebody come on my platform I don't have any followers you any listeners it's like yeah it's a good point that's why you got to start like start publishing right start your own podcast or your on YouTube I don't care what channel you 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 manyu so start Gathering them and even if it's small at first that's okay right you start leveraging it grows bigger and grows bigger and grows bigger over time okay so thinking about that okay because until you have your own platform you're of no value to the people that you are trying to to um 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 um and this is the key to it all is for you guys to start publishing um uh 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 Instagram all quoting me they don't give me credit for it but there you go but uh I said this is the funnel hacking live I think it the second or third no was the second funcking Liv in San Diego so like eight years ago I remember Steve Larson was in the room and Steve told me that when he was coming to fun Hocking live he's like 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 um I talked about publishing I said if you guys will publish every single day for a year within a year from now you'll 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 changed his whole business Chang his whole life right you got to start publishing um and that's that's the key I think most people are missing now um there's a lot of reasons why you guys start publishing I'll talk about where and how here in a minute but there's a um this is one of most I I one of my friends Nathan Barry Nathan owns convert kits technically we're competitors but he's amazing he Liv a boisey two boy two tech companies boy is a tech capital of the world take that Silicon Valley we're here in boy anyway so uh convert kit and clickfunnels are both here uh both in boy aaho and Nathan Barry's the CEO of convert kit he's awesome and he um and if you don't know Nathan like a couple years ago somebody gave him a challenge and basically told him to do a blog post a day every single day for year and and you'll never worry about money again very similar my my challenge but for blogging right so he went out there and started vlogging every single day for a year and he tells his whole journey and 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 it stuff start growing and that all the companies like on the backside of that group um 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 so 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 3 or later I started watching in Game of Thrones after they had released Five Seasons Pat Flynn had released at least 100 episodes of his 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 um if step one in building an audience is to create great content step two is to endure long enough to get noticed Seth Golden's very generous with this time will appear in almost any relevant podcast but you have to record at least 100 episodes first his filter is creators who have shown their 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 why you got to start today you're BR I can't start 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 okay one of the best um stories of this for me is actually me okay let me tell you a story My Life um so um I had built up a business we had a big call center we had a big company and then one day literally overnight whole thing collaps I had to fire 100 employees one day shrunk from a 20,000 foot building to a 2,000 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 hopefully all 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 have to fire anyone else cuz like which fulfill on stuff we'd sold in the past it was just chaos right and I had a 4minute commute from my house to the new office it was four-minute Drive every day and that about this time is when podcasting and was talking about podcasting it's gonna be the future and I was like there's no way this podcasting thing is gonna 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 was called the marketing in- your car podcast and so what I do is I grab my phone every day at a 4minute commute I click record on my phone I would drive like this and I would drive to my forment office I would talk about what I was doing today hey today we're going to the office uh we have an idea for this thing we're GNA try to blah blah blah blah right everybody driving back hey last night I studied this guy and he told me about this I'm gonna try and so I just documented what I was doing every single day right four-minute Drive I was publishing four five six podcast episodes a week um and what's crazy about back in the day like podcasting was different and so we had to upload it through a WordPress site it was this whole thing and we didn't know how to track stats or listens or anyone was even listening we had no idea right uh 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 um one of the smarter things that Gary Vayner 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 podc or sorry marketing your car podcast I talk about like we had this idea for this thing we bought the domain called clickfunnels me and Todd build like like it's all St prior to that and then like us discovering it buying the domain and launching it like like the whole history of Click but 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 were listening to my long form content I had no idea it was I had no idea right there's like all the world of saw me on social everywhere but the people who bought my high-end coaching programs were 100% all podcast listeners it was this direct correlation was crazy right so the podcast listeners um and then we launched clickfunnels then uh andway um and then again this is four or five years into a we launch this podcast and finally we figured out how to reconnect it all so we can see how many downloads are coming and the time we had some pretty good downloads coming in but we started looking back at like the the graphs and Trends and looked like basically for the first year almost nobody was listening okay now number one if I 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 um number two funny thing is uh Steve Larson started working for me and you know I love Steve he was like I'm gonna binge listen to everything you've ever done so he went through and listen every single podcast episode and I remember like I think he spent a whole weekend binge listening or something he comes back on Monday he's like man he's like listen to everything he's like you know what's crazy he's like the first like 40 45 episodes like they were not good he's like in fact they were pretty bad he's like you were awkward it was like painful he's like around 40 45ish he's like he's like you got in your Rhythm and you like he's like it was just different like you found your voice 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 is cuz it's going to help you to find your voice if you're hiding in a corner building your funnel and building your offer and not talking you're not going to ever find your voice right number one number two is it gets you long you're out there long enough what do Nathan Barry say for your audience to find you boom you may think R Us 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 um that's the whole point of it right you'll get better and get better over time it'll it'll start ramping up right and so that's the key guys it's starting right now you got to start publishing and there's a lot of ways you can do it okay um for a long time was blogging Nathan Barry started his process blogging I'm not a blogger it's funny I love writing books hate writing blog post so blogging is not for me but maybe for you like blogging okay it's so cool like just focus on it okay for Nathan was a thousand words a day for a year that's what he was doing blogging thousand words a day for year and within a year Transformers 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 M me like what's the what's the microphone you're using I like it's the one that's like cook to the bottom the iPhone I just clicked the button I talk like that was it uh you know and then um uh so there's that some of you guys may like video more so do video they like Instagram like figure out the platform you love the most organically anyway they spend time in anyway and do that right do the thing you understand the most like it's funny because like um I we dominate podcast we're gr Instagram we're places we're still struggling with YouTube we're still figuring it out right YouTube's a different platform for me so I'm not YouTube first I'm podcast first because I get podcasts my podcast listeners on my my faithful they love it they're all subscribed in fact if you're watching on YouTube come to the podcast and listen on 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 is kind of the secondary because um that's the platform I understand right so figure what you understand 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 for you get tons of views the goal for you to start and start learning how to find your voice and doing it consistently right 3 days a week 5 days a week 7even days a week whatever is the more consistently the better because that's how you're going to find your voice right and then after time if you if you are consistent with it and you do not stop over time your audience will find you okay now you've got a platform okay now you can go to people like hey can I want to be on my podcast you want be on my YouTube channel and even if your following 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 watch Russell Bruns me 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 starting this game I remember the same thing I remember in fact my before I knew what a dream 100 was um I just knew I saw all the influ moers back in the day I saw Joe vital was one of them and I saw Tony Robbins I had all these Mark Joiner had these people's names I remember I would send them emails and send things in the mail like none of them responded back I'm like ah like this isn't fair they only 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 it was online I met first initially his name is Mike philson some you guys 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 he had a bunch of sales and I had my product called zip brand or R I had I try to sell it and I met Mike and Mike was kid he was like he was one step ahead of me right and again this is before we were podcasting this is before any 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 get a hold of because he's not Tony Robbins with like 800 Gatekeepers not Russell Brunson with 800 Gatekeepers you gotta get through right it was just like him and he was he was the six months ahead of me he figured things out already I was so to figure out so it's easy to get through his filters and get a hold of him we start talking build a relationship and he's like dude that product's cool and then Mike promoted zip rander okay literally promoted it I remember because we sold a whole bunch of them and 217 people join my email list from the promotion Mike they send in is that funny I remember that that number to the number 270 people came to my site saw the popup put the email address in Jo my newsletter and all of a sudden I had 27 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 like thanks Mike that was awesome I'm like Mike who other the people have you met so far Mike's like oh you got to meet these other guys this guy's name is Gary Ambrose and so like Mike had five or six other people he knew at our same level he introduced me all these people and also now I had five people and I was like hey Gary can I I've got a list can I promote your product a list of 217 people he's like sure so I promot his product I made two or three sales and he promotes mine he makes two or three sales and all like his list grows my list grows Mike's list grows and then he introd me this person this person we start doing these things all a sudden like like our little friend group of people we all start getting uh like like our influence starts growing together a little bigger okay what happens now now my list is three four 5,000 people right now I start looking like who are people that have list of three four 5,000 people I start connecting like oh there's this person right so I I I step one step up get to know people I provide value I 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 all 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 I was like three years in the business Joe vital messaged me he's like hey Russell s yourself online it's really really cool can I help you promote this product I'm like like I messaged you three years ago you did not respond to me right because 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 I connect with them then we all grows together connected them rosing together like that was the game right So eventually Joe vital 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 was not me aggressively outbound reaching he reached out to me okay boom 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 your thirsty which means you start publishing today okay you start publ start publishing right number two you got to start figure out who are the other influenc in space and start building relationships immediately doesn't mean going for the huge people at 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 they those people if you comment on the comments they're going to see your name like oh this person comments every single time right DM them get on the phone with them hang out how can promote each other what if I did an Instagram live uh promoting your uh 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 can connect you to five of their friends you connect them to five of your friends all a sudden your whole networks start 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 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 long term again I've been in this business now 20 man 22 23 24 I don't even 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 him 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 thing because I don't stop focusing on the most important thing okay Gathering the many Gathering the many okay because you're going gather the many you're going to lose them you're going to gather them many you're going to lose them you're going gather them many you're going to 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 did you spend a million dollars last mon 900 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 want to make offers to people great but you got to have people to make offers too right okay Russell why are you stilling 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 um 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 talking right and um it was so fascinating gett looked at me like Russell you're cuz the guy I can't remember this exact Story the guy done some publishing he kind of stopped whatever and he's like I'm good and he looked at me and he's like Russell um like uh why do you keep publishing your podcast every single day I said because 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 all right I got to find my voice skin let me get back to Russell talking to a camera and hanging out and like sh in the stories I want to share right like let me tell you guys a story about me beating up a kid who who messed with me in in uh in football right he came to the wrestling room and I I mopped them like I want to tell you that story what's the point of it the point is I want to tell you that story makes me feel good about it right it feels good about myself like I want to tell you guys stories um 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 Spice in um should I do it h okay I'm going to Spice in I'm going to have him Spice in like a 10sec clip on the video everything it's me and a tie behind a desk and I'm awkwardly so awkwardly talking um a shaved head a tie and I look at that kid and that again I thought I was the stuff back then I thought I was amazing and I think about it now I'm like man so Emar I watch it now it's like oh but I want to put my arm around like Russell's keep going eventually you're gonna figure out you can grow your hair out you're gonna find out that um that you know you can talk with energy keep your eyes open like you know things that because like anyway so okay insert awkward clip of Russell right now welcome back I hope you enjoyed the DVD and I hope you really spent some time thinking about your ideas and your product and how you could put all these pieces in and turn it into your business now one thing that I want to also mention because a lot of people watch this DVD and they get so excited and they're fired up and we're back I hope that wasn't too painful for you as it was for me but um but that's it you guys back then I thought I was good do that make sense I thought I was good back then now look at me today like right now in my head I think I'm pretty good but in 10 years someone look back at this like Russell you were so bad right same 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 um when I met Tony Robbins originally he was the same age I am right now what I remember thinking like man he's been do this forever like he's this big H thing right like no he was my age when I met Tony like this is crazy to me um and I look at now okay when I'm Tony's age where could I be where should I be um can I can I can I catch him can I lap him am I gon to lose to him I don't know either way it's gonna be fun it's gonna be fun to compete so um anyway I hope you guys enjoyed this episode I hopefully they give you some ideas the biggest thing is I I I just I'm so tired I feel so bad people who spend so much time and energy and effort building a a product or movement or funnel or whatever that you want to call it and then putting out there there no one just no one to see it it's like and then usually what's been happening is they've been bootstrapping this thing for so long and it's like ah they can't like there's no one to sell to they can't afford ads they can't do anything now they 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 got to find another job they're trying and it's like ah if you been doing these things simultaneously You' 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 is like taking your time and and breaking off I'd say an hour day okay and the hour 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 gonna spend 20 minutes networking I'm gonna go on Instagram Facebook you know whatever is I'm dming people following people getting to know people trying to build a relationship jump 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 uh on top of that if you haven't heard traffic secret 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 um I did I specifically not put in tactical things that change with every with every you know um every Wind of Change inside the social media world uh these are strategic things that will work forever it's going to help you understand list building help you understand focus on the right things it's going to um yeah it's it's the key you guys and so uh again I love all my books they're all great but um traffic secret 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 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 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 gotta 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 want to step into your calling they are there waiting for you so they can find you so you can change your life so do it I promise you it'll be worth it it's going to 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 youall and we'll see you guys all in the next episode