Funnel Hacking LIVE Preview with Kristine Mirelle, Tim Shields & Ruth Soukup

What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Show. Today we got another really fun Funnel Hacking Live preview show for you guys, which has been fun 'cause I feel like it's almost like a mini Funnel Hacking Live through the podcast. You guys have given some really good feedback 'cause each speaker is coming in and they're dropping some gold and some bombs to get you excited. You know, some really good stuff, and then they're like, oh by the way, come to Funnel Hacking Live. So I got 3 more speakers. These ones are all, well 2 of them are talking about different ways to get a lot of traffic into your funnels through social media. One of them is more course-based. I'll talk about those here in a second, introduce them. But if you don't have your ticket yet to Funnel Hacking Live, I don't know if you heard yet, but we changed the offer. We thought it'd be a lot of fun to shift things around, and so right now you can actually get a ticket to Funnel Hacking Live for free. Funnel Hacking Live International's happening. It's virtual, but if you go to funnelhackinglive.com, you can sign up, and the tickets still cost money, but you can sign up for free, attend the entire, 4-day event, and then after let me know if it's worth it. If it's worth it, we'll bill your credit card. If you're like, nah, that was lame, Russell, then we won't bill you. But you can try before you buy. It's kinda like going to a restaurant, and me as the waiter comes and I serve you an entire dinner that I slaved away and spent millions of dollars creating for you. You get to eat it, and in the end if you think it was worth the ticket price, then you let me know and you pay for it. If you're like, nah, I'm good, then you don't pay anything. So this is an irresistible offer we wanted to create, 'cause I wanna make sure you guys have a chance to be at Funnel Hacking Live International. Here coming up very, very soon. So, okay, so here's your guest speakers for today. Number 1 is Christine Morell, and Christine's spoken on Funnel Hacking Live a few times in the past. She is one of my favorite people. She is the queen of hilarious ads, and so you may have seen her, but she makes ads that are very simple. She'll tell the story a little bit here, so I'm not gonna ruin the surprise, but with her phone, very simple things, no high budget, no high anything, and these ads are crazy, how much traffic they get, but also like just how much it lowers the ad cost, 'cause when people, like the funny ads get shared, they get viral, like all sorts of stuff, so the ad cost drops dramatically, and it's powerful. So she's gonna talk about that a little bit, you're gonna love that. Number 2 is Tim Shields. Tim's someone who, he could talk about so many cool things that I would love, but he wants to talk about his Instagram formula, mostly so he can make fun of me. So when we, I didn't know I was competing against him, he had a following of like 50,000 people on Instagram, I had, I think at the time, 1.3 million, and he was frustrated, and this was like 6 months ago, and he tried like 1,000 things, and all of a sudden he tried one thing that took off, and he's been doing it consistently, and he passed me in 6 months, went from 50,000, he passed the 1.3 million, he got to 2 million people, and he's in the photography market. Like, it's crazy to me, and he's killing me, and he's crushing me, and so he is gonna talk a little bit about how he did that, and what, and then he's gonna go deep on it at Funnel Hacking Live, which is amazing, so if you, you know, if you wanna go from 50,000 to 2 million followers on, Instagram, definitely listen to what Tim's gonna teach you. And last is Ruth Sokup, and Ruth is someone who's been in our community for a while and she's awesome. She's written some really cool books you guys will love, but she's gonna be teaching a lot more on courses. You know, obviously, so many of you guys come into our world and you either have a course, you wanna create a course, you're trying to figure those things out, so she's gonna be coming and going deep on course creation. I think you guys are gonna love it as well. So those are our 3 guests you're gonna hear from right now, and so listen to kind of the preview show, what they're gonna be talking about, but also, again, each of them are gonna give some tips and some hints that you're gonna, you can grab and start running with today. So I hope you enjoy this, and then afterwards go run over to funnelhackinglive.com and get your tickets. It's just $0 down, and let me know if you like it afterwards, and so we'll bill your card. If not, you get the ticket for free. Thanks, guys, appreciate you all, and hope you enjoy this episode. In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over $1 billion of my own products and services online. This show's gonna show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. What's up everybody, how's it going? We are still in Mexico, I'm about to bring you guys our next speaker invite, but we're pumped 'cause Funnel Hacking Live is like 90-something days away, and so far I've been slowly revealing who the speakers are with you guys, and one of our next speakers happens to be in Mexico with us right now at the Unlock the Secrets in Paradise Young Entrepreneur event, and so we thought while we're here we should introduce you to her as well. And before I introduce you though, Last night she was hanging out with my kids, singing, having a lot of fun. She's somebody who's awesome, love hanging out with her, love having her in our Funnel Hacking community, and just excited 'cause she's gonna be speaking this year about how to get traffic into your funnels in some really fun, unique ways. So the person I'm gonna introduce you guys right now is Christine Morel, your speaker at Funnel Hacking Live again this year.

So, so, so stoked, thank you for asking me to do it again.

Oh, everyone, yeah, you're one of my favorite people to ever hear speak of all time. We get tons of requests for you to come back, and so—

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah, we were planning this out, and we were talking about just different, you know, whenever we do Funnel Hacking Live, I'm always thinking about like the storyline of what we're teaching and the order we're teaching. And we got to traffic and it's like, what should we like, who'd be, who'd be the best? And everyone's like, can we have Christine come back? Like, yes, we should have her back. So I'm really excited. For those who don't know you yet, do you wanna tell a little about your story and how you got into our whole world here?

Yeah. Yeah. So I was, you know, I was a full-time musician and then like COVID happened and everything like went, you know, to crap. Like I lost all my gigs, I lost everything. I had a baby. I was, I was about to have a baby. I was 5 months pregnant and I was living in a garage. I've talked to you about the story. I held my first webinar in a garage after I had read one of your books. Expert Secrets changed everything for me. I held my first webinar, sold my first $1,000 course. I was like, "What is this thing? This is crazy." I didn't even have to work. I was so scared about doing my first webinar. I didn't even do it live. I just recorded it and then played it and I watched everyone's— I'm just sitting there watching, like, "How are people going to respond?" and then ended up moving to a farm with no Wi-Fi. And that was like the biggest thing. It was almost like the biggest blessing 'cause it was like, I just read your one book, Expert Secrets. And that's always everyone. I'm like, the power of what you share, if you just apply, like just apply like one thing and it could change your life. 'Cause here's the one thing that I did. I didn't read all your books. I didn't do any of those things. It was just Expert Secrets. And living on this farm with no Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi was like 10 miles away. Out of town, but I just started, I created this one video where my brother was sitting on a toilet and we were talking about my book and it was because we had just redone my mom's bathroom and I just called my brother yesterday, I'm like, hey, is the toilet still there? 'Cause I was thinking like we could do like a comeback video.

Yeah, part 2.

Yeah, like part 2.

Part 2.

Yeah, exactly.

So he just sits on this toilet, we're talking about like, hey, are you sitting on a toilet right now? Pretty much like you could be building your business, you know? And so I was teaching musicians how to promote their music 'cause that's what I knew how to do. I knew how to promote music. At the time I had like toured around the world and done some cool stuff. And so I was, I just created a book like you said, you're like, teach the one thing that you know. And then I would wait till my mom got home every day and take her car and drive into town where there was Wi-Fi. And I uploaded this one video and it just like tens of millions of views.

Was it a paid ad or was it a free ad at the time?

That was a paid.

Okay.

It was paid ad. 'Cause I, again, I didn't have any time. So I wasn't doing organic. I didn't have Wi-Fi. So I couldn't be posting every day. I couldn't do any lives, I couldn't do anything. I was just selling these $19 books, and then one day my paid ads guy called me, he goes, hey, did you know that you qualify for this thing? It's called a Two Comma Club Award. You did $1 million. And I'm like, what? And he's like, yeah, you get to walk on stage. And so the first Funnel Hacking Live, I went there and I just sat in the back and was like, watching you, watching everybody else, and like, what is this world? This is crazy. And then, yeah, just from like $19 books. And then yeah, it completely changed my life.

That's a lot of $19 books. Did you have upsells and downsells at all?

Yeah, the other upsells were other $19 books.

Okay.

So yeah, it wasn't like a high ticket, like—

No, it wasn't any high ticket. It was just $19 books. And then I finally, I was actually, I had met Perry Belcher and I remember showing him my funnel. He's like, this isn't a funnel. This ain't a funnel. Or, you know, he was like, I love his accent. And he's like, all you have is a book. 'Cause there wasn't any, but I was using ClickFunnels, but I didn't have any other steps. He's like, you gotta add other steps. Or, you know, this is such a bad impression of Perry. Sorry, Perry.

No, it sounds like him.

I know. So then I added the other upsells, and then it just, you know, then I understood the concept of, oh, okay, so you add other books. And then I added like a little mini course at the end for like $47. So, but it was all like really low-priced stuff, and it worked for me and my lifestyle because again, I couldn't be doing like webinars or masterminds or coaching programs or anything. I just needed something to be delivered And that's it. Like I couldn't do anything else. And so it was just such a blessing. I was like, thank you, Russell Brunson. Thank you so much. So yeah.

And so it started with these funny ads and then what's been fun in our world, our community, like everyone knows you for making these funny ads. And I think the reason why I'm excited for you speaking at Funnel Hacks Live is right now, as everyone knows, ad costs have been going up, you know, over the years, but it's getting worse and worse. And right now we're moving into an election cycle, which, If this is your first election cycle, ad costs will go crazy 'cause all of a sudden there's Democrats and Republicans dumping too much money into ads that don't make any logical sense. So ad costs go up. And what's interesting about the very first time we talked and you showed me your campaigns and stuff, it was like because of the humor and like people share the— also like the cost drops dramatically versus any other kind of thing. Do you wanna talk about that with like that hidden benefit of actually making funny ads?

So it's so funny. So one of the gentlemen that were here, he came up to me, he was like, 'Look at what I'm doing.' He said, 'I did exactly what you said.' And, um, we've talked about how, like, let's say you're spending— let's say you're spending $500 a day, um, and it's costing you, you know, uh, however many dollars it says— costing $10 a purchase. What I'll find is if I get like a really good ad, or it's costing $50 per— whatever that looks like— when I post something funny, it's always like the humor, something really fun, something really kind of like grabs people's attention. The cost to like acquire that customer can cut in half or even like a third of what that usually costs. And it'll, it'll immediately, like if I'm spending like $1,000 instead of making $1,500, suddenly it's doing $2,000 or $2,500 and I'm not spending more. I'm not doing anything different. I'm not adding any new audiences. I just put this new ad creative. And this gentleman that I was talking to, he showed me and he even made a video for me. He made a testimonial and he was talking about how it directly split in half. He's like, it's costing me half. He's like, this is all I do now. I just do these funny ads. I don't do anything else. He's like, I figured out this way. And he dresses up in little, like he had like a little mustache. And he's like, hmm. And he has a Spanish market. So this is for the Spanish market. And he's like, I don't know how to start my business, you know? And then the other guy's like, let me tell you how. And he plays both characters, you know? So he did like, you know, this kind of just funny little skit. And he's like, he's doing $50,000 a month right now. He's like, I'm doing $50,000 a month. Thanks, Christine. Like, yeah, you owe me a commission.

Give me a commission. I just want 20% of all that.

Forever.

For sure. So cool. Well, I'm excited 'cause I obviously haven't created a presentation yet, but in the past you've shown some of the funny ads, which is so fun for people to see and like, oh my gosh, you literally just used a toilet and a lawnmower. You know, it's not like, the very first time I got a funny ad created, we hired the Harmon Brothers and it was like half a million dollars to create the ad plus percentage of ads. It was insane. And it, it made us our money back luckily over time. But it's like, that's not what you're talking about. It's not like these huge budgets and scriptwriters, all sorts of stuff. It's just finding the stuff around you and, and being creative and, and having some fun. Right.

And you know what the cool thing is, is you can just do it with your cell phone. Like I always tell everyone, I'm like, my ads that made me like my, like the biggest ads, you know, tens of millions of views were like shot on like an iPhone 6. It was like, it's so like ancient, you know, might as well just been a BlackBerry or something.

Everyone's like, iPhone 6, they're buying the iPhone 6. Maybe it's the model.

Yeah, maybe it's the model.

Exactly.

Maybe I need to get iPhone 6. Like it's just an old phone. Like it wasn't really great quality. It really wasn't. And I almost feel like social media, they love it when you just seem like a person, you know? And so there's so much about just creating something fun, creating something where you seem human, and people are like, oh, I want it, what is this? Because all we're trying to do is get them to click. We're just trying to get them to click on it. But yeah, the funny, funny ads, like, I couldn't— yeah, the guy, when he told me, he's like, it directly cut in half. I'm like, yeah, that's, that's like the same— that's exact— yeah, same stats that I get.

So I was like So if your ad costs have doubled and you wanna cut 'em back in half, you gotta be at Funnel Hacking Live this year. Do not miss it. So what are you talking about Funnel Hacking Live this year though?

Okay, so yes, I'm so excited. So now that I don't live on a farm with no wifi anymore, I've moved to Las Vegas. People still come up to me, they're like, are you still on the farm? I'm not on the farm anymore. Yeah, not on the farm anymore. I do a lot of organic, so I'm gonna do a lot of organic stuff. I'm gonna share video content that I use to fill all my funnels, all of my challenges, all of my webinars, just how to create video content. I know a lot of people get really scared about putting themselves on camera.. So kind of just showing them easy ways. And now that we have AI, it will literally write all your scripts for you. So I'm gonna show everybody how to make like funny content and like fun, engaging, you know, content using AI. So even if you don't think you're funny, even if you don't think you're fun, even if you think your business is boring, like we're gonna be able to make this fun using AI. So I'm really excited to like share that. So I'm gonna be showing all kinds of video content, both organic and paid. And, and now the stuff that I run, I show everybody how to run stuff as organic. Organic, and then if it does well, then you run it as a paid ad. So then it's like, okay, cool. So it kind of works for everybody, whether they're running ads or whether they're just, you know, starting out and they're just doing organic right now.

Super cool. Okay, so I'm excited. Now I also heard you may have a speaker bonus for everybody who has a ticket. So if they already have a ticket for Funnel Hacking Live, we'll put this in the members area. You go to funnelhackinglive.com, click and log in, you'll be inside there. But if you're not a member yet, what are they gonna get if they get the tickets?

Yeah, so I'm putting together a whole PDF of 16 different types of video content that much of this you can like create in minutes to, and this is how I use what I use to get email subscribers, um, how to get people into my funnel, my low ticket funnels, my, you know, my challenges, my to apply to my high ticket stuff. Like every, anything that someone is selling right now, you need video content for. Um, Facebook released all kinds of data, like it was like almost 70% of all sales are coming from video content now. So it's like, So instead of like trying to fight it, it's like, okay, here's just easy ways. Here's faceless ways where maybe you don't want to be talking on camera. Okay, here's some other ways that, you know, work for you. So I'm going to be sharing like 16 different types of content. I'm going to be giving that away and with samples and how-to, you know, all that kind of stuff.

I want that. So I'm going to go sign up again and get another ticket. Anyway, that's amazing. I'm pumped for— anyway, glad to have you here. Glad to have you there as well.

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Anyone who's thinking about coming, what do you— should they come, you think?

Okay, when I tell you guys that this completely changed my life in like just the 180 of everything that my life was, garage to— I was just telling someone the other day that I got denied buying a home because they didn't believe that I would buy a home smaller than the home I live in right now. So I'm buying another home and they're just saying, you make too much money. We don't believe you actually want this home. I can't imagine that that would be my position. Like most people are trying to like, like that's a problem. Like I had to send them a letter like, no, I really, I just want a smaller home. Like, you know, and they're like, no, you make too much money. That is so bizarre to me. Okay. So from living in a garage to getting denied because they make too much money. That is— I didn't even know that was a thing. This happened. I didn't have lots of mentors. It was literally just Russell. I didn't read 100 books. It was literally Expert Secrets. So you have to come to this. This is— if you have any dream of being an entrepreneur, of doing anything more than working a 9 to 5, serving the world, making money, giving value, all those types of things, you have to, have to be there.

Amazing. All right. Well, thank you.

Appreciate you, Christine.

Thank you. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you guys in a couple months. What's up, everybody? This is Russell, and I'm here today in a mastermind in paradise. We're here today for two reasons. Number one, to reveal one of our speakers who I'm so excited to have speaking this year. And then number two is to make sure you get your tickets before they're sold out. So I wanna make sure you get them at funnelhackinglive.com. So I'm gonna introduce our speaker. So this is the speaker who I've known you for a little while, but got to know you really well over just the last, man, probably year or so, which has been fun. And I'm always watching what people in my inner circle are doing and things like that, and I like funnel hacking people. And so this guy, I started funnel hacking what he was doing and was blown away, and then now I feel bad almost, 'cause I'm Voxing him half the time asking him for ideas and feedback on my funnels, 'cause he does so many cool things. He also happened to have recently destroyed me on Instagram, which may be what he's talking about, this year's Funnel Hacking Live. With that said, I'll introduce you to our next speaker, Mr. Tim Shields. Tim, how you doing, man?

I am doing so well. It's such an honor to be here.

I can't believe you're more socially popular than I am now. This hurts my feelings a little bit. So, uh, anyway, will you tell people a little bit about what you do and, um, and your core business?

Yeah, so the core business is that I teach how to— people how to take beautiful landscape photos, like outdoor photos, photos of, of sunsets and mountains and rivers with the camera that they already own. So I've created a very simple and easy to learn framework, a 4-step system, and I sell digital courses using live webinars, and where we really kind of cracked the code was to take live webinars and not just broadcast from home like we usually do, but to actually go out in the field and broadcast a live webinar from a really remote place in the wilderness.

What are some of the places you've done the big promotions?

Yeah, so the very first one we went live from the edge of the Grand Canyon, and we were able to say as part of the promotional piece to our audience, this is the world's first live webinar from the edge of the Grand Canyon. And when that was successful, We did the next one from the Rocky Mountains. Then we did from the sand dunes of Death Valley National Park in California. We did live from New York City. We did live from Banff National Park. And the most recent one was live from the icy surface of a frozen lake in the Rocky Mountains.

And I actually watched that one, which was really cool to see. So Tim gave me a— after he was showing me how he was doing these big dramatic demonstrations all over the place, he gave me ideas like, you should do a dramatic demonstration at Dan Kennedy's basement, which A couple months ago you may have saw we did that, went to Dan Kennedy's basement. It's not probably as cool as like the glacier or the other things.

But it was cool.

For marketing nerds it was perfect.

Yeah, because the way that this works is that you want to pick a location that is really important in the eyes of your perfect customer. So for me to pick from the edge of the Grand Canyon, that's really important in the eyes of landscape photographers. But like if you were in finance and you were able to say live from Wall Street, even though you're in a hotel room or an Airbnb that happens to be on Wall Street, that's an important place in the minds of a perfect customer in the finance niche. So you were able to go live from Dan Kennedy's basement, which is super important for us Funnel Hackers.

Oh yeah, we all wanna see down Dan's basement.

Yeah.

Which is really fun. Okay, so Funnel Hack Live's coming up. Do you wanna talk about what you're gonna be talking about this year?

Yeah, so I'm going to be talking about the Instagram Fire Formula, and this is a really interesting thing where I have been super frustrated with my Instagram lack of growth. It was just stagnant and it just made me want to give up. It created a lot of negative thoughts inside myself where I was— I had a lot of false beliefs just because I had failed with Instagram growth over and over again. And I kind of had that feeling that I just don't have what it takes, like I'm too old, I'm not good-looking enough, my content's not interesting enough, you know, I'm no spring chicken. So then I tried this new way, and I call it the Instagram Fire Formula, and I was able to rocket the success of my Instagram Instagram account from 50,000 followers, which took 5 years to get, up to what it is now, 2.1 million followers in just 7 months. So it's just been like, wow, did this really happen? So I've created a system and an easy-to-follow series of steps, kind of like a framework that everyone's going to be able to follow, and I'm going to be teaching it to everyone who comes to Funnel Hacking Live.

It's cool because it's not like some like, oh, getting shoutouts or doing like active buying ads or any of that kind of stuff. It's all just on the way you structure your content, how you post it to make it go viral. Pretty much every time it seems like all your videos or your pictures do.

And I'm only posting 5 times a week. It's a reel. I go 5 times a week and really I should be doing 7 days a week, but I just don't want to take the time to make all the content. So it's just 5 new reels a week and I'm filming the reels really quick. Like literally sitting in front of my computer and reading a script into a teleprompter and then we're putting some visuals onto it. But we're using this new trick that is just like mind-boggling with how it gets the engagement and just gets people to type in comments and triggers the algorithm.

He just did a presentation last night to the audience here for Unlock the Secrets, and people were going nuts. Like even people in our Atlas Inner Circle group who have seen you talk about this just in our private meetings were freaking out. Like there's new stuff, we never— like that makes more sense. Like you're getting better every time you're kind of sharing it and pulling in the new pieces of it. But it just blows my mind because like, I look at what I've been doing for the last decade for my Instagram and growing it and promotion, all kinds of stuff. I think I'm at 1, a little over 1 million. So you like, you went from 50,000 to 1 million and then you lapped me again in the last 7 months.

Yeah, I used to look at your social media. I would look at your Instagram. I look at mine, 50,000. It took 5 years to get to 50,000. It was stagnant for the past 2 years. I would look at yours, 1.3 million followers on Instagram. And it just made me almost feel sick. Like I just wanted to give up. And I calculated out that if I could grow at 100 new followers a day, it would take me like 39 years to get up to your level. And then I started with this new formula after I kind of reverse-engineered some human psychology and went back to first principles of what makes a human being tick. Like, what's the one question everyone wants to answer for themselves? And the question is, do I have what it takes? So all my content, I'm poking that bear, poking everybody right in the heart with the "Do I have what it takes?" question. And it's just provoking people into watching the whole reel and leaving comments, liking, saving, and the algorithm loves it. We went from 50K to 2.1 million in 7 months. It's been amazing.

And now I'm on the other side feeling depressed and frustrated. You have what it takes. Anyway, I'm going to be making a concerted effort. So my goal is the next 90 days by Funnel Hacking Live, to catch up to you using your own strategy. So there's my commitment to myself. It's on. It is on.

Yeah, you give me a challenge, I'm there. Just like you.

I'm going to catch up too. You can't get me to stop. How many a day are you adding? Do you know what, or a week, or do you know what numbers, like how many you're adding?

It depends with which one is going viral at the time, but with our best reel where we got 32 million views on it, it added 220,000 new followers just in one day alone. It was incredible. Yeah, so when something goes viral, it really makes an impact on your account.

Huh. Well, do you wanna learn how to do that? 'Cause I do, and I want to beat you all to it. But anyway, I'm excited Tim will be sharing this at this year's Funnel Hacking Live, which is like 90 days away or some, 3 months away, whatever the exact day count is. And I'm pumped, man. Thank you for coming and be willing to share this. A lot of people have stuff like this that works and they just kinda hoard it to themselves. They don't wanna like, pass it on.

Yep, I'm giving it away for free. Yeah, and really, and if you're watching this, no matter what your niche is, This is going to apply to your niche. You're gonna be able to use it. It's super easy. It doesn't take any technical know-how. It's just a quick step-by-step system. You'll be able to modify this technique to your niche and grow your Instagram like crazy.

And people understand, like, you're not in like the how to make money niche or anything. You're in landscape. It's not even like, it's like there's photography and there's different niches and you're like landscape photography, which is nice.

I am a niche in a niche in a niche.

Yeah. Yeah.

And still to 2 point whatever million followers now who obsess about everything you're putting out, which is crazy. So yeah, it doesn't matter what market you're in, like, the strategy's really, really cool. So, alright, last question for you is for someone who's either never been to Funnel Hacking Live or on the fence sitting there, like, what would you tell someone who's—

Funnel Hacking Live changed my life. I went to Funnel Hacking Live for the first time in 2020, and I saw, I caught the vision, and really what we need, we all have what it takes to be successful in our online businesses. What we need more of is tenacity, sticking with it, a vision, and the motivation to just go for it and put all your fears aside. And that's what I got when I went to Funnel Hacking Live. It just gave me the vision, and I saw from all the lectures and presentations from everybody else who had a million different niches, I saw it's possible and I can do it too. And I got these techniques that I could use, and more importantly, I got the motivation and the belief in my heart of hearts I can do this. So when I saw people walking across the stage getting their Two Comma Club Award, I made a vow to myself. I am going to be back and I'm going to get the Two Comma Club Award. I want the Two Comma Club X Award and I want to speak on this stage. And all three of those tick marks have been checked. So that's because I went to Funnel Hacking Live. I really encourage everyone who is sitting on the fence and who might be waffling, is this going to be worth my time? Oh my goodness, it's worth your time. You need to come.

So cool. Well, thank you, man, I appreciate you, and excited to share with our whole entire audience, the whole world. So, with that said, you guys, I appreciate you all for hanging out today. If you already have your tickets to Funnel Hacking Live, congratulations. If you don't have it yet, now is the time. If you go to funnelhackinglive.com, you can go and register, get your tickets right now. But other than that, thank you guys so much for hanging out, thank you, Tim, and we'll see you guys all in 90 days. So what's up everybody, how you guys all doing? Alright, so the person who's gonna be speaking, I'm excited, she actually spoke just today here at the Unlock the Secrets event for our audience to share a whole bunch of really cool information about creating courses and creating your message online and a whole bunch of other things. She's someone who's wrote some really good books. One of them I am obsessed with. I don't know if you know that or not, but anyway, she's amazing and I'm so excited to introduce you guys here today. To my friend Ruth Sokup. I'm so excited to have you here.

I'm so excited to be here.

So for my audience who doesn't— I know a lot of people know who you are, obviously, but those who don't know, you want to tell a little about your backstory, just who you are and how you got here?

Yes, I've done so many things. I actually am like a serial entrepreneur, like so many people. I have many different businesses. I started as a blogger way back in 2010 with a little blog called Living Well Spending Less, and that sort of evolved into many different things. And so now what I do is I have 2 main companies. One is a health and weight loss company for women called Thinlicious, where I help women over 40 lose weight and get healthy. And the other one is sort of my passion project where I teach people the behind the scenes of everything that I'm doing to build my other businesses. And that is a company called Elite Blog Academy. It's been around for a long time. It started helping bloggers and now it's more focused on other forms of content marketing. And yeah, that's what I do.

That's very cool. Um, are people still blogging nowadays? I have noticed a lot less of that, huh?

Um, it's not so much blogging. I mean, I look at blogging as all forms of content. So if you are doing a podcast, you're blogging. If you're putting stuff on Instagram, you're blogging. It's really all the same thing. Content is content is content. Just there's all sorts of different platforms where you can put it out.

Very cool.

Yeah. So when did you launch— you got Thinlicious? Yes. When did you launch the Thinlicious business and brand?

Uh, 2 years ago. Okay.

Yes. Very cool. And, um, and then, and then how long have you been doing the, the other business, showing behind the scenes of your businesses?

Uh, since 2014.

2014.

Okay.

Yeah.

Which is what?

It's a long time. Long time. Yeah, a long time. I'm like an OG.

I'm curious, what made you want to go start the other business? Well, just kind of show what you're— a proof of what you're doing?

A little bit of that. Mostly it was based on, you know, you kind of got stick with what you're passionate, right? And, and through COVID and through, you know, all this time that I was building my business, honestly, over the last— how many years have I been doing it? 14 years. I think I was, I was fighting this sort of secret battle behind the scenes with my weight where I kept gaining weight and kept gaining weight and kept gaining weight. And it was really affecting my confidence. And, um, I didn't really know what to do with it. I had like so many women, I tried diet after diet after diet after diet after diet. And I couldn't figure it out. And finally I had like this moment where I realized like, why don't I do for myself? Because I was always looking to somebody else for the solution, right? I'm like, that's not what I talk about. I do, I help women get organized and I help, I do all these other things, mindset, but I never really thought, oh, I should, I should do what I'm good at, which is basically diving into all the research, figuring out a system and then applying it to my life. Life, which is— I'm really, really good at, and do that with my health. And so I started doing all the research and figuring out like what is working, what is not working, why do people gain weight, why don't they gain weight, why do diets not work. And I started applying that to my own life, and I went on this journey and ended up losing over 40 pounds and have kept it off for years now. And then because I'm such a public person and have huge audience already, I had so many of my readers and, and followers be like, what are you doing? You look amazing, right? Like, it was crazy. And so I was like, I need another business like I need a hole in my head. But I couldn't because I'm so passionate about it and I really truly like care so much and it has changed my life. And so I wanted to like sort of help people change their life in that way. So I started this company. It was crazy. My husband was like, do not do this, but I did it anyways. And it's been 2 years and it's been— it's not the easiest thing to start a company from scratch. You just learned that, you just did that, right? Like, it's, it's hard. You forget how hard it is to start over, but it's been amazing. So yeah, we're 2 years.

Are most of your audience there came from your other businesses, or is this also a new venture, new audience?

We had a bunch of people that came over, obviously. I mean, that's the beauty of being the attractive character for your business. People attach themselves to you, and so they like you and they come over to whatever the next thing is. So obviously that's like, that was a good boost for the beginning. And we had this like out the gate, right? It was like amazing, like crazy sales the first month and then boom, right? Like then everybody, all your people that love you are done and then you have to find new customers. Yeah. So that's been like a learning experience.

Mm-hmm.

So I would say now we've definitely built up a new following and new audience.

Yeah. I love it cuz I think a lot of people who talk about business online, they talk about something they did like a decade ago or 20, you know what I mean? And the fact that like you're still actively in the game, like with the new business, new things, like stuff you're teaching isn't like old. It's like, this is what's working today in the market. Like based on what's—

Yes. And that's what's been so fun about my Powerhouse program, um, which is what I do for Elite Blog Academy, right? That has continued to evolve. That business has been around, but the program is actually brand new and I'm, I'm sharing everything that I'm doing in real time. Like, this is what I'm doing, this is how I built this business, this is how to do it in real time, the structure that I'm setting up. And so that's been really fun to do too, yeah.

Awesome, okay. So this year's Funnel Hacking Live, you're gonna be coming and speaking, and, uh, wanna tell everybody what you're gonna be talking about this year?

Yes, I am gonna be talking about how to create an info product from what you know. Yes, is that right? Did I get it right? Nailed it. Yes, I think I switched those around or something. How to take what you know and turn it into an info product. That's right, yes.

Very cool. And you just gave a presentation here for our audience, and people loved it. They were going crazy. I got so many good comments. We had to do a big group picture out there. Everyone was talking about it. So what do you think, like, for someone who's always wanted to do that but hasn't done it yet, like, what is the biggest thing that keeps people back from actually taking the leap of faith and like creating something?

Here's what I see from my students, right, is that so many people come to me, and you probably see this a lot too, is that they want to create something. They have this idea. But they feel like everything needs to be like all lined up, right? And then they start hearing things about like, oh, I have to do a funnel and I have to market and I have to know all my sales plan and I need to do all these things. And the reality is that you actually first just need to put something out there into the world and you have to start imperfectly. And I think that's, if you can just get into that mentality that you have infinite opportunity to improve what you start, but in until you put something out there to the world, and there's so many opportunities for that now to get something out there and see if it resonates really quickly, um, that you need to, you need to get it out there so that you can see, oh, people do respond to this. This one little thing is what people respond to because you don't know what it's going to be. And until you know what it's going to be, don't create your whole business plan because you might have to change it anyways. That's what I even learned that just recently with Thinlicious. It was the same, same thing. We thought it was one thing, right? And I'm like, I've done this I've done this for so long. I know exactly what I'm doing. And we put it out there and we had this messaging and of course it worked with my people cuz they already know me and like me and trust me. But then as soon as we got it to new people, they're like, oh, I'm not interested in that.

Right?

Like, who are you? And then we had to go, oh, we need to tweak and we need to tweak it. We need to change our messaging. And, and so it's been a learning process for that.

So interesting. I've, I've had the exact same experience every time I try to create something in a vacuum and I'm like, here it is, the world. And then like, yeah, again, my faithful fans are like, oh, they buy and everyone else is just like, And so I'm similar, I now, I'm not perfect yet, but I try to put out, you know, through podcasts and social, like putting out a lot of things, but I'm paying attention, like what do people actually respond to, what do they don't, you know? And then like based on that, say, okay, that hit a nerve, I'm gonna go deeper, right? If I do a podcast and I hear nothing, then I'm like, oh, no one cares. But if I get 30 people who message me like, dude, that was amazing, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do another thing on that topic and see if, you know, if that was a one-time thing and I kind of play with that for a little while and eventually, okay, that's what they want.

Exactly. And sometimes it's not what you think. In fact, most of the times it's not what you think. And so, and if you have this whole thing in your head that you are planning out, you're actually shooting yourself in the foot because then you haven't figured out what actually resonates with your people. I'm always surprised, even now.

In the same way. Interesting. So, oh, so cool. So I'm excited for you to, uh, to come and share that with everybody. I think obviously I'm the biggest believer in like in getting people to take what they know, what they do, and turn it into a business. I think it's the most fulfilling business. I love e-commerce, all the other ones, they're great, but there's something about when you take something out of your own head and then you give it to somebody and you watch their life change, how it affects that person, but also how it affects you, realizing, wow, there's purpose to my trials or my frustrations or all those kind of things. It's my favorite kind of business. I'm pumped to have you come showing everybody that stuff. So thank you for doing it. Any last words for anyone who's thinking that they should come to Funnel Hacking Live or not?

Well, we do have a, Oh yes, yes.

So tell us about the gift. What bribe do you have for our people to get them to come?

We do have a bribe. Yes, we have a gift. Um, so our EVA Powerhouse program that we, that we launched last year, um, is— has a new, um, what, what should we call it, a Level 1 continuity product that we are launching in September. And everyone who joins comes to, comes to Funnel Hacking Live is going to get a free month in this program. And it is called IG Power Play. And it is focused on specifically on Instagram, but also on helping you figure out exactly what your message is. Because I think that is such an important thing. If you're gonna start putting content out there into the world and especially on short-form video, I prefer Instagram, which is why we're focused on Instagram. But we give you weekly, a weekly content plan and, and telling you exactly what to do every week and how to post it and the concepts of what you should be posting and why you should be posting them. But we also give you a framework to follow, um, on why we're posting certain, certain reels every single week. We've seen amazing growth in Instagram and just amazing results, um, in Instagram. And so we're, we're really excited to see that and we're seeing that for our students too. So now we have this, this, um, program that's called IG Power Play and they get a free month and it hasn't even launched yet. It doesn't launch early access till September. You get early access. You will get early access before anybody else.

Oh, that's awesome, thank you. Okay, there you go guys, there's the speaker bonus. Make sure you get your tickets right now. Again, tickets are at funnelhackinglive.com. If you already have a ticket, we will put her speaker bonus in the members area, so you go to funnelhackinglive.com, click on the members login link at the very top, and then log in, it'll be inside of there. And if you're not a member yet, now is the time. Other than that, we'll see you guys in 80, 80 days, right? In 80 days at Funnel Hacking Live International. We'll stream this around the world, and excited to be hanging out as a collective group of funnel hackers All hanging out, so thank you Ruth for being here and for presenting, and excited to share you with our whole world.

Yeah, we'll see you there.

Alright everybody, hope you guys enjoyed that episode of the podcast. I'm really enjoying these preview shows, hope you guys are as well. Don't forget, we have a special happening right now at funnelhackinglive.com where you can go and you can get your ticket, go through the entire experience, and then when the event's over, then you decide if it's worth it. It's kinda like going to a restaurant, sitting down, eating all the food, and the waiter at the end asks you if it was worth it, and if you don't think it's worth it, You don't pay anything, you leave for free. But if you're like, that was amazing, then you can pay for the ticket afterwards. And so this way I'm putting my money where my mouth is, I'm gonna prove to you that this event will change your life and this is the only time and will be the only time we'll ever do this. So if you want to come to Funnel Hacking Live and experience it for free right now, go to funnelhackinglive.com, go to the order form, you have to put your credit card in, we won't bill you anything, experience the entire 3.5-day event and when it's over let us know if it's worth it and if it is, which it will be, we'll bill you under $200, If it's not, that's cool too. Let us know, we won't blame anything. No harm, no foul. I wanna make sure that you guys enjoy the event and it's an experience that changes your life. So again, thank you so much. I appreciate you guys all for listening to the podcast. I cannot wait to see you this year at Funnel Hacking Live.