Ep 12 - EARNING Your Funnel Traffic (AKA How To Work Your Way In…)

Welcome to the Traffic Secrets Podcast. Here you will learn the secrets to get tons of your dream customers, AKA traffic, to any website or funnel. It'll also help you to massively grow your fans, followers, and customers. I'm your host Russell Brunson. Now let's get started. What's up everybody? This is Russell. Excited to be hanging out with you guys staying quarantined. I'm curious really quick. How it's been for everybody. Are you guys surviving? Do you have teenage kids you want to strangle at times? Not that it's me, I'm just curious if that's happening for anybody else besides us. Oh man. Anyway, it's been fun. So we are killing it on the Marvel series. We just watched Thor: Dark World last night, which means tonight we get to watch, I think next is Guardians of the Galaxy. We're moving through the entire series, which has been a lot of fun. Hopefully you guys are picking something like that to do as well with your family, 'cause it's like the one thing that keeps us sane is knowing that each night we're gonna watch the next in the Marvel series. So anyway, I'm excited to be with you guys today. Today we're gonna be talking about Traffic Secrets. Surprise, surprise. Did you guys even know we were gonna talk about that today? I assume that, I assume you probably assumed that since we've been doing this every day for like 2 and a half weeks. So hopefully you guys are having a good time. So today we're gonna be talking, we're gonna go deeper into the Traffic Secrets book. I'm curious, how many of you guys have gotten your copy? I guess we don't ship until May 5th, so technically we don't have them yet. But how many of you guys have ordered your copy and you are geeking out? How many of you guys have listened to the audiobook already? Because the audiobook is available immediately. Hopefully you guys have had a chance to do that. So if not, make sure you go to trafficseekers.com and get your copy. Go preorder your copy now. They ship May 5th. As well as this box set. This is one of the upsells. I know some of you guys, a lot of you guys actually got this box set for the upsell with all 3 books, the new updated DotCom Secrets updated Expert and the New Traffic, plus the Unlock the Secrets workbook. So those are all there, part of the upsell flow when you go to trafficsecrets.com. But you are able to get the audiobooks anytime. So anyway, I hope you guys are listening to it. I had a couple people this weekend that told me they've listened to it multiple times and they're loving it, so it's exciting. For any of you guys who've ever written a book, you know it's really scary at first. Like when you're writing a book and you're in isolation, it's like fun and exciting, you're dreaming about people getting it someday, and then like when you first start handing it to people, It's like the fear, like what if they don't like it? So it makes me happy so far that I've heard really good feedback from everybody. So, alright, with that said, today we're gonna dive back into the Traffic Secrets book and now we're gonna start talking about getting traffic. Yesterday I shared with you guys the fill your funnel framework, which, do you guys like that? Hope you enjoyed that. That was, it's a big piece of the puzzle, it's a big piece of the pie that you gotta understand and hopefully you guys listened yesterday to that. If not, make sure you go back and watch them, they're all stored over on Facebook. On my fan page and then also we are making a podcast with all these episodes too, so that'll be coming out here hopefully soon, maybe the next day or so. So today we're gonna be going deeper into, into the middle of it. So today we are in secret number 8. Secret number 8 is called fill your funnel organically, or working your way in. So if you remember a couple days ago we talked about there's 3 ways to, 3 types of traffic, right? There's traffic that you control, so basically that's like, for example, like Mark Zuckerberg owns a lot of traffic, right? He owns Facebook, owns all the traffic there, but he allows us as business owners to control some of it. So we can come to him and say, hey Mark, here's some money, can you send people that like my stuff over to me? And he will redirect some of that traffic and you can control it. You don't own it, but you can control it and send it to your own landing page, right? That's traffic that you control. Then there's the other kind of traffic, which is traffic that you earn. This is where you're going out and you're getting on people's interviews and podcasts and Facebook Lives and all those kind of things, right? Those who have been watching this book launch notice I've been doing this like crazy. I think yesterday I did 9 interviews. It was a lot. Today I got a full day back to back to back as well. So that's kind of the second way, traffic that you— is working your way in. And then the third is traffic that you own. So I talked a lot about that over the last week or so. And this one now is going to go a little deeper into working your way in. Like how do you get in, how do you get that traffic, how do you get organic traffic. The story that I tell in this book is interesting. So I, you know, my background is I come from like a hardcore direct response marketing world, right? Like I learned from guys like Dan Kennedy and Gary Halbert who were all direct mail, radio, TV, and they did and do produce content, but for the most part, like their marketing was very heavily direct response. Like really good sales letters that grab someone's attention, tell them a story, and get them to buy something, and that's kind of the world I came from. And so the first, I don't know, 8 or 9 years of my business, that's all it was. We wrote really good ads, really good headlines, really good, you know, and that's how we got people into our world. And I remember about that time is when the social networks started coming out. And I honestly didn't get it at first. Facebook came out, I was like, I don't get this. It doesn't make any sense to me. And I'd go and I'd try some on Facebook and I never made any money. I'm like, ah, this is for the little kids. So I left it alone for way too long, a long time. And then I remember next was Twitter and then other ones. And I remember when Twitter first came out, I was like, okay, I gotta figure out the social thing. This is the secret. There's all these people here hanging out. I can make a bunch of money. And so I did what a lot of marketers do and I did it all completely wrong. So what I did is I remember I went to Twitter and back then they had these different software tools you could download where basically you'd be like, I want to add 100,000 people to my Twitter account. So the software would go out there and it would go and like, it would follow people and then they would auto-follow you back and then it would unfollow them. And then a lot of them, they would just keep following you. So like, you go out there and you basically would just build these huge followings of hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter. And you're like, this is amazing, I have a list of 100,000 people on Twitter. Hey, Twitter. And then my marketing brain's like, okay, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna sell something 'cause I got 100,000 followers, I'm gonna sell some stuff to them. And so I went in there and I just did what good direct response marketers do. I started spamming them with my links, like hey, buy my crap, buy my crap. I kept dropping links to all my stuff, right? And it was crazy, even though I was sending this message out to 100,000 followers on Twitter, the number of clicks I got was almost zero and the sales I got was zero. And I remember like I was doing it for a week or two and I was just like, this social thing's a scam, it doesn't work, like, blah, and I was like so frustrated, I was like, screw Twitter, I'm done, and like, I was like, I'm never gonna do this again. Okay, and so luckily at that same time there was another one of my friends online who's one of the smartest marketers I know, his name's Perry Belcher, and Perry comes into Twitter with all his swagger and his way, and he comes in and he starts building a following, and obviously he's doing it differently than me, but he's getting all these people to follow him, and then he's in there, he's telling stories and getting people to laugh, and he's doing cool stuff, and like, And I'm just kinda confused, I feel like he's wasting his time. He's in there just hanging out, being part of this huge social party, and he's like the life of the party, and everyone loves Perry, and everyone's following him and tweeting him, and I don't know, all the stuff they do. And I'm watching him for a couple months, and I'm getting more and more disillusioned with social traffic at the time, and looking at Perry, and Perry's like in the middle of this party, and he is the cool kid. He went from having zero followers to 10,000 to 50,000 to 100,000 to 200,000 to 300,000. Right before my eyes, I'm watching this, I'm like, okay, I'm like, but he's not making any money, he's like not promoting anything, he's not pitching anything, my marketing brain's like, does not compute, I do not understand this, like he needs to, like why is he not selling something to these people? And I'm watching this for a couple months, and then towards the end of it, he, or you know, after a couple months of it, he puts on this webinar, he's like, hey guys, I'm doing a webinar, if you wanna come to the party, it's gonna be awesome, like come over here. And I remember this vividly because they messaged me, and they're like, Russell, we have, I can't remember at the time, like 10,000 people registered for this webinar, and our GoToWebinar our account only holds 1,000, can we borrow one or two of your GoToWebinar accounts? So I'm like, okay, so I like gave him my GoToWebinar account, he had other people's, and they daisy-chained together this huge mass webinar to his Twitter followers, and on the launch night when they did it, I don't remember the exact numbers, they had like, they had, I don't know, close to 100,000 people register, they had 30,000 or 40,000 people show up live, daisy-chained between all these GoToWebinar accounts, and then he did this webinar, at the end of the webinar he sold, I don't remember what it was, some course, and they did over $1 million in sales from this course. And it gets done, and I'm looking, I'm like, here's Russell perplexed, like, I don't get it, like, I'm so confused right now, like, this does not make any sense to me. And you know, so I'm kind of sitting there for a couple days just kind of perplexed, and finally I reach out to Perry, I'm like, can I ask you a question? He's like, yeah, what? I'm like, let me jump on a call with you. So we jump on a call, and anyway, I don't know if I should read this part of it. Alright, so I'm gonna read this part of it 'cause it's from the book. So page number 137. So it said, I finally reached out to him and asked if he'd be willing to explain his strategy to me. Luckily for me, he agreed. We quickly jumped on a phone call together and it went a little something like this. Hey Perry, I said, I've been trying to figure out how to make money with all this social networking stuff and it is not working. I see on the outside what you're doing, but it all seems backwards. You're not promoting anything, you're not selling anything. You're making a ton of money, what are you doing? Perry kind of laughed and said, "That's your problem, Russell. Guess how much money I try to make with social networking?" "As much as possible, I guess." I could hear him grin on the other end and then he said, "Zero. None. That's how much I try to make with social networking. Social networking is not about making money, it's about making friends. It's just like how we do business in person. Let me show you how I view social media and how I use it to grow my companies." If you look at the social networks, we have Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. I view all of these networks like I'm going to a party. So if I'm on Twitter posting messages and responding, it's like I'm at a party. Does that make sense? Kind of, I replied, but I'm still not sure how that makes us any money. Well, when you go to a party, do you just walk up, do you just talk about what you do? Hey, I'm Perry and I sell stuff. Would you like to buy some stuff from me? No, of course you don't. If you did, you'd be the biggest jerk at the party. Everyone would avoid you, and that's what you've been doing, Russell, on social media. That's what you've been doing on social media, Russell. I've been watching you, and that's why it's not working for you. 'Okay, then what do we talk about on social networking sites? As an introvert, I've never really networked in real life, so I'm not sure how or what I should be saying.' He said, 'You're gonna talk about what's going on in your life,' Perry responded. 'You talk about your family, tell stories, entertain them a little bit, ask them questions, introduce them to other people at the party, or introduce them to other cool people at the party. Basically, you do everything you would if you were hanging out with them in real life. Social networking is just a great big party. That's part number 1.' I doodled an image to make sure it was clear in my mind. I also made a note to watch how Perry and everyone else in my Dream 100 was posting and making conversations on each social network so I could start modeling these party interactions. The second part of the process is how I use my personal profile on each social platform, Perry continued. My personal profile is my house. It's my home. It's where I live. It has most of my thoughts, my information, stuff that's interesting to me. I archive pictures, videos, fun stuff I've done with my friends and stuff like that. When people come to my house, they know what I'm about and they can see the things that I like to talk about. Now this is how it works. When I go into these groups and I start networking, or I see someone else's post in my feed, I go and I participate in the conversations and I make friends. As they see me consistently show up, they will drop by my house and see what I'm all about. I give them some free stuff like chips and dip or free content and to get them to come to your house. Then when they're at my house, that's where I invite them back to take action with me, to register for my webinar, attend my next event, read my book, or join my newsletter list. That's how I invite people from my house into my funnels. Those selling conversations don't have a place on social media, but they do at your house. You can direct people into your funnels from your posts and make, from the posts you make on your personal profile. If you provide value on the social platforms, people will come running to your house because they want more of you and from there they will flow into your funnels. What? So here's the picture I doodle right here if you guys can see this here. So here's the social party happening on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, I don't know, wherever your social, you know, thing is. And see, the way this model works is you go to these social parties and you be social. Okay, and again, as an introvert I didn't really know what that meant. Perry's like, you gotta be social. I'm like, uh, I'm scared of people. He's like, well, the way extroverts do when we go to a party, we show up and we talk to each other. We're like, oh, you gotta meet so-and-so, you gotta meet so-and-so, and we're like telling stories and getting to know each other. So that's what's happening in these social networks, right? We go and we're part of this huge party that's happening, and then at the party, if people like us, we invite them to come back to our house, which is our personal profiles, right? So like if you're on Facebook and you see me keep popping in these conversations, I'm like the life of the party, you see me everywhere, you're like, who is this Russell guy? You click on my little face, you come back to my home, and over there you're like, oh, what's happening over here? And there's where you see links to my blog, links to my funnels, like my web class, my free books, like all those things where you see it there, and then from there I can then send people to my offers, right? So it goes social party, invite 'em back to your house, and your house, from there they get pushed into your funnels, okay? And that was the big aha that I had never realized before. And so before, if you had noticed, I put this chapter in here before we start talking about each of the social networks, 'cause I didn't want people going in like I did, which is going spam like crazy. So I went back to my Twitter account, I deleted it, started a new one, I was like, okay, I'm gonna repent to my ways and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna be social and help people out. And I never personally got very good at Twitter, I'm not gonna lie. But I got good at Facebook, I got good at Instagram, I got good at these other channels. I went in there and I started saying, where are the parties at? You know, it's fun on Facebook, you can go in, if you search groups, right? Go to groups and type in your keyword, right? So let's say you're a photographer, photography groups or marketing groups or coronavirus groups, whatever you want. You post it and there's groups of people already, the social party's already happening. Sometimes there's social parties with 100,000, 200,000, 1 million people that are happening in them. So I go to these platforms, I'm like, oh, the parties are happening, right? The Facebook groups are already there, right? The Instagram people, the things are already there. So your job is to go to these parties and become the life of the party. Go help people, be of service, show up consistently. When you do that, that'll start getting people coming back into your home, they start following you, and from there you can push them into your funnels and beyond. So what I recommend for you guys today, here's my fun assignment for you today. And the easiest place to do this is on Facebook. Facebook groups are like the biggest social parties in the world. And Facebook's pushing groups like crazy right now. If you notice, I don't know if you guys watched the Super Bowl or not, but during the Super Bowl they had ads for Facebook groups, which is kind of ironic that the biggest advertising platform on Earth is advertising other places to get people to create groups. So Facebook wants groups, they need groups, they're like pushing everyone there. So there's all these groups happening in every topic you can dream of. So go to Facebook, and if you go up to the search bar, you can search inside of groups, and look for groups inside of your market, groups that already have your dream customers congregated inside of them, okay? And there's tons of them. And go in there, and what I like to try to do personally is I say I wanna go to enough parties that there's at least a million people that I have exposure to, right? So I go there, and let's say I type in photography. In fact, I'll show you right now with you guys. I go to Facebook here, and I go to the top, to the search bar. Of course Facebook's gonna load slow the second I'm going live, live. Okay, I'm gonna open a new tab just 'cause something's wrong with every— okay. So I go up to the search bar at the top, I'm gonna type in photography, and then photography groups. So I type in photography groups, I click on it, and lo and behold, there's a bunch of groups here, okay? First one's called Photography Learning and Sharing, there's 93,000 members there. There's a party with 93,000 of my dream customers there. Next one, photography for beginners. There's a group of 95,000 members. Photography for beginners, 32,000 members. Photography, 1.3 million. There's a party with 1.3 million people talking about photography right there. Photography talk, 787,000 people. Photography group, 7.5 thousand. Okay, so just the top 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The top 5 photography groups that pop up in my search result, there's 1.3 million, there's 2, 250,000, oh no, sorry, 2.5 million people in the first 5 groups talking about photography. There's 5 parties with 2.5 million people hanging out there. So what do I do? Do I go in there and start spamming them like crazy and dropping links promoting my free photography course? No, that's not what you do. You'll get kicked out of those groups and you'll get banned forever and people will be like, that's the jerk that comes in and spams all day long. Imagine you're at a social networking party and some guy comes in and he's got, the t-shirt with his business card on, he's handing out business cards like, come buy my crap, blah blah blah blah, everyone's like, oh, it's that guy right there, oh crap, he's at the drink table, walk over here, oh, you know, like, people are gonna avoid you, and in these groups, they'll just kick you out. So the goal's not to do that, it's to come in this group and be like, hey, there's 1.3 million people in this group right here, this is the biggest social party of all time, I need to come in and I need to be cool, how do I help these people, how can I certainly go in there? And so what I would do is I would try to pick enough groups that you have at least a million people inside of these parties you're going to. And some markets are gonna be different. If you're a local market, it's gonna be smaller, and maybe you get 10,000 people, whatever. But pick a group size, like I like saying I wanna be part of a million, I wanna be, I want my social party to be at least a million people. Excuse me, for my market, it might be different for yours, but pick a number, and then go join 5 or 10 groups, and then this is what I want you to do for the next week. I want you to go in there and I want you just to serve. It's gonna be tough, you're gonna wanna go spam your links, and that's not the game, that's not what we're playing. Okay, the goal is to go in there and go into each group, let's say there's 5 groups, go into each of the 5 groups and try to answer 3 questions each day in each of the groups, okay? So it's 15 questions you're gonna answer. Look in there, see what people are asking, see the questions that you know the answer to, and go in there and be helpful. Be the person to show up to the party and be like, what's your problem? Oh, I don't know how to help you, let me help you. And start helping people. And try it for a week straight, okay? So there's 5 groups, there's 3 posts a day, so you're looking at 15 posts a day, 15 questions you're gonna answer a day. For a week. So that's 15 times 7 equals, some of my mathematicians can figure that out for me, whatever that is, and go and do that. And what's gonna happen is in a week from now, people are gonna be like, who is this new kid at the party? This person's awesome, they're showing up, they're answering questions, they're really, really cool. And they're gonna start clicking on your links and going back to your personal profile, and there is where you can be posting stuff about, hey, my new book's coming out, oh hey, my new thing, and like, that's where you can like have, that's your house, right? You're bringing people back to your house., but it starts with serving, okay? It starts with working your way in. And so, that's what I would do right now, you guys. You're looking for the social parties, so go and that's the step for today. Does that sound like fun? Did I give you guys something tangible you can go and do right now? Cool, I would say, someone's asking, should I use my page or my profile? So when I'm going out social networking, I'm using my personal page, okay? 'Cause I want them to come back and see me, right? Now my personal page, I'm not gonna be spamming my business like crazy, but I'm gonna have stuff there, right? I'm gonna have pictures of my family, then my pictures of my business, If you look at your personal profile, there's places you can go and you can, like if you go look at my personal profile if you guys wanna see it, like someone comes back, if someone clicks on my, you know, I'm out there being social and someone clicks on it and comes back to it, like you see there's a picture of me on stage, there's links to some of my things up there, there's like the little intro card there, it says founder of ClickFunnels, founder, it has some things there, and then my number one image is an image of my three books and they click on the image, they can go get a copy there. Yeah, like, my personal profile, I'm not building it to be a business page because that's not the job, but there should be breadcrumbs that get people back to like find my stuff and find my funnels and see what I'm talking about and like get to know me at a deeper level. So it's your personal profile going out to these groups and serving, okay? And that's the game plan. So that's how we're starting this party today, okay? That's secret number 8. When you guys get the book, it goes deeper into it. But it's helping you guys understand that's how we can start getting into this. You need to be getting in front of people. You gotta start filling your funnels, you gotta start working your way in. And while you're waiting to get booked on podcasts, interviews, and things like that, go and find these social groups. Get in front of a million people and start hanging out, networking, talking, being useful, and all of a sudden you start showing up. And it's fun, you're gonna meet friends there, you're gonna get to know people. Some of you guys, you'll find lifelong friends that you'll meet inside these groups. And then you'll find other people, and like start watching, who are the other people that are posting? Who are the people that have products, have courses? Let me get to know them. Maybe they'll be my future joint venture partners. Maybe there's someone in this group that has a podcast. Maybe that's a question you can ask. Like, hey, I love this photography group. There's 1.3 million people here. It's awesome. I'm curious, any of you guys run a photography podcast? Like, I'm looking for some good photography podcasts I wanna listen to. Who's got one? And then the people that podcast will post in there, and you're like, oh cool, listen to podcasts. Oh, I love your podcast. This is so cool. Get to know them. You build a relationship. And then guess what happens? Somewhere along the line you're like, hey, I've got this really cool ebook I'm giving away for free over here, can I come on your podcast? I'm obsessed with your podcast, I love it, can I come and share some stuff and then I can give away this ebook for free to your listeners? Boom, now you're in. Okay, you guys get it? This is how this game is played. It's really, really fun and I hope you enjoy it. So, alright you guys, well I'm gonna be working my way and I've got like 8 podcasts I'm doing today so I gotta jump off and go get prepared for those. But hopefully this is giving you guys some ideas and getting the wheels in your head spinning and something you can do during your quarantine time. Maybe during quarantine time you're sitting Instead of answering 3 questions per group, you answer 5 per group. Ah! And you serve even more and get even more people to like you. It'd be amazing. So anyway, I hope that helps you guys. I appreciate you for hanging out. If you don't have a copy of the Traffic Secrets book, we are in pre-launch right now. It ships on May 5th, but you need to pre-order yours today before we sell out. We have sold a ton of these things in the last 2 weeks. The big affiliate contest ends this week, and so we may pull the funnel down at that point. I'm not quite sure of the plans. We'll kind of see as we get closer, but if you don't have your copy now, go reserve it ASAP at trafficsecrets.com. You can go and you can get it. After you've reserved it at trafficsecrets.com, you can get the audiobook. It's available immediately. It's one of the order 4 bumps. You can get the audiobook. One of the upsells is the box set where you get the new updated hardbound DotCom Secrets, new updated hardbound Expert Secrets, the Traffic Secrets book, and the Unlock Secrets workbook is in the upsell flow, so you can upgrade and get that if you want. I also spent 7 days in the studio reading all 3 of these books. It was like the most painful 7 days of my life, I'm not gonna lie. But that means I got 3 audiobooks, the new updated ones. So it means you can start listening to all of these instantly, 'cause in the upsell flow you get the audiobooks of all 3 if you want as well. And then you can geek out listening to all 3 books in order if you want. So let's start with DotCom Secrets. This is like how to build your funnels. This is how to communicate and move people through your funnels. This is how to get more people into your funnels. So that's what the whole trilogy is, all available at trafficsecrets.com. So, anyway guys, appreciate you hanging out today. Yeah, I love doing this, this has been really, really fun. Best thing about quarantine has been hanging out with you guys every single day. We got a good turnout coming every day, so I appreciate that. So, anyway, with that said, I appreciate you all and I'll see you guys mañana. And if you enjoyed this at all, please comment down in the comments down below, let me know, and we'll go from there. Oh, someone said, what's the fourth book? The Unlock the Secrets book is a workbook that goes with these 3 books. So as you're reading DotCom Secrets, the first third of this is the workbook that goes with that. And then as you read this, the second third of it is the workbook that goes with Expert Secrets. And as you read Traffic Secrets, the last third of the workbook syncs with that. So as you're going through here and you're learning the concepts, in here is where you're journaling and you're writing your ideas. And like, here you hear me talk about it, and then here is where you create yours. And so you're doing the stuff, the exercises, as you're going through the books. Anyway, it's gonna be awesome. So, I appreciate you guys, thanks so much for hanging out, and if you don't have a copy yet, again, trafficsecrets.com, and with that said, I will see you guys all tomorrow. Bye everybody! I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Traffic Secrets Podcast. If you wanna learn more secrets to getting traffic to your websites or your funnels, then I wanna give you a free copy of my brand new best-selling hardcover book called Traffic Secrets. Now, I already bought a copy of the book for you, I just need to know where you want me to ship it to. Ship it. So go to TrafficSecrets.com and let me know where to ship your free copy today.