My Two Biggest Take-Aways From The Inner Circle

Welcome to Marketing Your Car, the podcast for funnel hackers everywhere. You're now part of a small group of underground entrepreneurs who are trying to change the world through the products and the services that we believe in. But because we don't rely on venture capitalists, we don't have financial safety nets. So we have to do things differently. We have to do things smarter. We do that through an art and a science we call funnel hacking. This podcast will give you a glimpse at the daily life of a funnel hacker. So let's get started. Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson and welcome to a late, late night. I guess it's not that late. You guys have hung out with me when it's like 4 in the morning, so kind of late night marketing in your car. Alright, it's 10:15, driving home from Barbacoa. If you guys ever come to Boise, Barbacoa is by far the best restaurant here. And we had a group, some of the people in our, anyway, came to dinner with us. Sorry, my brain is so fried. It's been insane the last, and you guys heard me talk about this, Over the last 2 weeks then, we've done 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 mastermind groups, 25 entrepreneurs in each group, so we've had 100 entrepreneurs come through. And what's amazing, like, gah, like compressing decades into days is literally happening, it's insane. And I was able to get insights from 100 different business owners on what's working right now and then give feedback and give ideas. Anyway, there's just so much gold and so many little tangible takeaways that I wish we had, you know, 8 days and I could share them all with you guys. I thought you might be interested. Like, Russell, what is the core theme? People always ask me like, where do you think internet marketing is going? Or what's on your mind right now? Or whatever. But it's crazy because there were two definite, definite, definite themes over the last 8 days. What was cool is the last day, the last 2 days, Garrett White and his wife attended the Inner Circle the last 2 days. And so, those of you who know Garrett, he's pretty intense. And it was just cool because a lot of stuff we've been talking about every day, were dramatically amplified in this last 2 days. In fact, he brought a bunch of cool tools and things that we're gonna be adding into Inner Circle meetings from now on, 'cause it just had a huge impact. But anyway, there were 2 core themes that were like, if I was to give you the most important pieces of this, and I feel bad, 'cause no matter how cool I try to make these sound, you're gonna be like, oh cool, that's awesome, that sounds great. But it's like, ah, like it's, You see it happen in the room. We see an entrepreneur who's trying so hard to not only change the world but to change themself and there's like this pressure and this like stuff that we're hitting against, right? And you see like when this is given to them and it's like this release and I can't tell you how many people broke down in tears, myself included, over the last 8 days which was like unique. Like that's never happened in my groups before to be honest but it happened consistently a lot of times and it was because of these two things. And again, when I share these two things, they're almost gonna seem too simple. I don't want you to dismiss them because of the simplicity because they are probably, my guess, are the two issues that most of us, me included in this, have the biggest problem with. So, you ready for them? Drum roll please. In all seriousness, I just wanna make sure you guys, I try to build up the drama so that you pay attention but please pay attention 'cause these are important. The first thing is focusing on one thing. Okay, sounds so simple. We've heard it a million times, but all of us entrepreneurs, we're doing more than one thing. How many things are you doing right now in your business? Okay, if it's more than one, you need to stop. I'm talking to myself right now and you included. Like, what's the one thing you are trying to do? And then kind of a sub, a sub-thing from that is I can't tell you how many people have like things that are successful people they stop doing. Like, whatever's working, keep doing that. Like, we keep looking for like, what's the next thing? Like, it's just the nature of us as entrepreneurs, like, what's next, what's next? So we're like, we're adding these, we're layering these, we're doing things. You know, one of the pros and the cons of the DotCom Secrets book, I talk about a concept called the value ladder, which is vitally important to the long-term growth of a company, but it's also one of the things that stifles people from immediate growth because they're looking at, well, what's the next, and the next, and they're like, so some of those things like It's important to understand and to know where you're going, but not to get caught up in this value ladder of, okay, webinar's working, I made $1,000 last week, gotta build my high ticket out. No, just do one thing on that value ladder and master that. Make a million dollars in that, and then you can go and layer stuff, but don't do that now. And so, look at what's working and just do more of that. And just do one thing. Focus on one business, focus on one core part of your business. Have people on your team focusing on one thing. There's a million different angles that that matters in this market, important, but it's all coming down to that, like, what's the one thing? And if you focus that, you can call it the 80/20 if you want, like, what's the 20% that gives you 80% of the results? Like, focus there. 'Cause for some reason we get caught up in all these things that don't actually impact or do anything. So that's number one, focusing on the one thing. And the second thing, and this one, this one's hard. It's something I struggled with for a long time, I mean, years and years and years. I still struggle with it. It's something that I don't think was essential 10, even 10 years ago, but now the world we live in today, it's the only thing that matters. It's the most important thing. And it is being vulnerable with your audience in all situations. Not just selling, but definitely in selling, but even like, we had people in our in our group who I've known for a long time, and for whatever reason, because of the environment and the people and the situation and whatever, were finally willing to get vulnerable and share things with the group that they normally wouldn't or have never shared before. And because they were vulnerable, people connected and it opened up so many things. Like, because they opened up and they were vulnerable with me or with other people, like, it was just, it was great. I wish I could share stories, Some of them are, not some of them, they're all like way too personal stories for me to tell. They're not my story to tell, so I can't. But because they shared those stories, they were able to have the breakthroughs that they needed, right? And the same thing is in your selling. Like, it's hard, especially when we're communicating with our audience, that we have, you know, the front that we have. Like, you guys know, like, here's Russell on stage. He's got stage presence or whatever, you know, like there's this thing. But the reason why people connect with me is not because on stage I seem like whatever. It's 'cause I'm vulnerable. It's 'cause I share things like this through my podcast and through Snapchat and I share things like that through videos and I'm vulnerable. I open things up. As embarrassing as it is, I've cried on video. But that vulnerability is what causes connection, which lets people in, which lets people trust me, which is the reason why I've got so many great connections, so many great people is because of that. And I think about areas of my life that I'm not happy. It's primarily tied to me not being willing to be vulnerable because I'm afraid of fear or of rejection or of, you know, fill in the blank, whatever fear it is for you. So this isn't just a business lesson, this is an everything lesson, but being vulnerable because as soon as you are, like, it softens the people to whatever it is. If you're trying to build a relationship or if you're trying to sell something, whatever that is, trying to build connection, like, it's you opening yourself up and being vulnerable that allows allows people in. And it's scary because sometimes people are bad people, and when you open things up, they say bad things, they do bad things. Like, I get that, um, but I feel like that putting your barriers down and opening yourself up is what allows the amazing things to happen. And those are the two themes. It was really coming back down and saying, look, focus on one thing, number one. Number two, like, be open, be vulnerable, share your story. And then Don't do it once or twice, but do it consistently. It was funny in the last group, again, I wish I could share all the stories, but they're getting too personal to share everything, but someone was talking and it was just, Garrett kind of came back and said, "Look, for me to learn my message, this is what I had to do." He said, "I did a podcast every day for 600 days. I did Warrior Weeks every week for," or excuse me, "every month for whatever, 76 months." months, right? Like, I did video on Facebook 3 times a day for 5 years. I did this and this and this, and like consistently. And I said, how many marketing cars have I done? I've probably done, I don't even know how many, I'm sort of on 300 or 400. I've podcasted, I've blogged, I've done this so many times. And Garrett asked me, he said, how, like, why, like, why have you done so many? Like, why do you keep doing them? I was like, I'm still trying to learn my message. And he's like, do you hear that? Russell's been doing this for 12 years and he's still trying to figure out his message. And so for people to come in and like, to try it once and to dabble into like, oh, I did a podcast, didn't work. I did a webinar, didn't work. I tried, you know, whatever, it didn't work. Like the difference between me and them is like, I didn't stop. Garrett didn't stop. The successful people don't stop. How many webinars did I have to do to learn to tune in to discover, to create, whatever you want to call it, the perfect webinar. Like, it was, it's a lot. It's in the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. I mean, the ClickFunnels webinar alone, I've done at least 50 times, over and over and over and over and over again, to learn my message, to learn how I tell my stories, to learn all these kind of things. And so, if you want to be in this game, you want to succeed in this game, and you want to change yourself, you want to change other people, and you want to change the world, It's a commitment, it's a sacrifice. And again, the two themes: number one, focus on the one thing, focus on that thing. Then number two is focus on consistently doing it over and over and over and over again and opening yourself up and being vulnerable. That's how you can cause those changes. So anyway, I hope that helps you guys. Again, there's, you know, laced inside of that is probably 100-page notes for myself and and action items to-dos, but those are definitely the overarching themes that I think everybody can gain value from. And yeah, I wish and hope that someday each of you guys have a chance to experience our inner circle, not because I want or need money, that's not the point of this group, but because of the transformation that comes from it. And it's a group I love, I care about all the people in it, and I built some relationships and friendships that will last the rest of my life. And I care insanely, I care more than you'll ever know about all your businesses, but these are the ones I have a chance to really, really affect and be part of. And so anyway, with that said, someday hope to have you in the group so you can be part of it and you can experience it at that level because that's where I think, I feel the best transformation I can provide people comes from. So with that said, I'm getting close to home, I'm really tired, kind of thirsty, I will talk to you guys all again here very, very soon, probably in a few days. I need a couple days to chillax. Next week though, next week's crazy 'cause I have got to finish the Expert Secrets book. I found out for me to have the printed copies in time to give them out to all the attendees at our live event, funnelhacking.com, I have to have the final draft to the editor by the end of next week. So I am spending next week in a hardcore editing, rewriting, book focusing thing that's gonna be crazy intense but it'll be good. So that's what I'm doing next week. So I'm sure I'll be sharing with you some of the ups and the downs of the immersion week I got next week of finishing my book. So appreciate you all. I'll talk to you guys all again soon. Thanks so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed the behind the scenes look at our funnel hacking project.. You can also watch the Funnel Hacker online reality show and watch us build and launch funnels live at www.funnelhacker.tv. If you'd like to come hang out with your fellow funnel hackers, come join our Facebook group at www.projectclickfunnels.com. Oh yeah, and don't forget, you can get a free MP3 player with the first 257 episodes preloaded at marketinginyourcar.com. Join us next time, and remember, you're just one funnel away from your dreams.