Navigating Growth and Culture with the "Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort

What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today I've got a treat for you. So, how many of you guys have watched the movie Wolf of Wall Street? If you have, you probably shouldn't have watched it, it was really bad. But at least something you should definitely not, I don't know, we'll leave that on the table. But way back in the day, I remember pre-ClickFunnels, pre, man, this is probably 16, 17 years ago, I was going on a trip to the UK and when I was leaving, someone had mentioned this book called The Wolf of Wall Street. I'd never heard of it, so I downloaded the audiobook and I listened to it on my flight over to the UK. And this is like the beginning, like pre-ClickFunnels. We're still building a business. We're struggling at the time. And I remember listening to the book and obviously there's a lot of stuff needs to be edited out. So if you're going to watch it or listen to it, but, but I remember I listened to the whole thing and I remember getting to the UK and then just, you know, thinking and dreaming about what we're trying to do with our business. And during that time is when the Facebook movie, The Social Network, came out. I remember we watched The Social Network and there was this one scene when Justin Timberlake comes out and he's like, you know what's cool? A million dollars isn't cool. A billion is. I remember thinking like, someday it'd be so cool to build a company that could do a billion dollars. And then the flight home, then I listened to the second book from Jordan Belfort, which is called— I think it's called Catching the Wolf of Wall Street. And so anyway, interesting books. But like, I remember listening to the audiobooks years before there ever was a movie. And after that, I started like, you know, trying to figure out who is this Jordan Belfort guy, and there's obviously a lot of different directions, but you can't doubt that he's one of the best salespeople of all time, and sales trainers, and building teams. And I remember afterwards I bought his course called Straight Line Persuasion, I studied it, like a lot of really good things in there, but it was an honor when I launched the Traffic Secrets book that he actually hit me up and said, hey, can I have you on the podcast? And I was like, yes you can, that'd be amazing. So I had this really cool chance to be interviewed by Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street. And just someone who was, I mean, super cool to me the whole time. I had a really great experience talking to him and hanging out. And I just refound this interview recently. I was like, oh, this would be a cool thing to put on the podcast for those who haven't heard it or didn't hear it, you know, 3 or 4 years ago when it first happened. And I hope we get a ton of value out of it and have a chance to hear, you know, Russell Brunson, the potato gun guy, hanging out with the Wolf of Wall Street and talking business and sales and marketing and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. So with that said, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Marketing Secrets Podcast with Jordan Belfort.

In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a $1 billion in my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.

Hey, JB here, the Wolf of Wall Street in the wolf's den. I have an awesome guest, a very famous guy, entrepreneur extraordinaire, someone you're definitely going to know. He's the founder of a software platform that allows people to become world-class marketers and salespeople on the back end of it. I'm talking about Russell Brunson, the founder of ClickFunnels. So Russell's someone that I know for many, many years. We never interacted before, but we've admired each other from afar. Seriously, I've looked at his career, I've watched him grow, I've used his products. He's read all my books. So what you're gonna see as we start to communicate with each other and really go back and forth, what you're gonna see is not just mutual respect, but you're gonna actually see how sales and marketing work together, hand in hand, the two pillars of essentially monetizing an idea. Let me restate that. I wanna dig deeper. See, at the highest level, what business really is, entrepreneurship is, it's monetizing value. You have something of value, which means that it can cure someone's pain, pain point. It can resolve something, right? You have something that has value. The purpose of a business is to deliver this value to people, to your customers, right? And to do that in a way that when it's all said and done, the amount that you spend on manufacturing your product or delivering your service, the amount you spend on marketing, identifying the right people, bringing them into your funnel, and then ultimately on the sales side to close them, at the end of the day you actually make money. So I'll repeat, the purpose of a business is to allow you to deliver value in a way that actually makes a profit, because you're not going to do very well if at the end of the day the cost of delivering and sourcing and manufacturing your product or service cost you more than what someone's willing to pay for it, or you're charging for it, right? That's how you lose money, and you can't make it up in the volume, right? You don't lose money in every sale and make it up by selling more. So what you see when Russell and I really start digging into this stuff is you'll start to notice that there's this really interesting line where like marketing ends and sales begins, and how you use the straight line system, the sales side of the equation, to dramatically enhance the effectiveness of any marketing program, and conversely, how a sales system like the straight line is almost dependent on having a marketing program that actually brings in the qualified leads. So marketing essentially serves as almost like the fuel. It brings in the raw materials that salespeople need to close. Those raw materials are leads. Leads. People come into your pipeline from your marketing programs, right? We then close them using the straight line. So when you combine those two together, kick-ass marketing program, killer sales force, right? That's how companies truly grow and get the CEOs and the shareholders and the employees rich. Bottom line. Now, granted, it's a lot going on right now, right? It's tough time out there for many people. I understand that. But not in this world. In the world that Russell and I live in right now, there's opportunity everywhere. Engagement is growing massively. Fortunes are being made every single day. People that used to be in the traditional, traditional economy have now moved into this side of the economy— online selling, online marketing. And what's happening is people that were barely scraping by in the pre-COVID world working traditional jobs are now making tons of money in the world of ClickFunnels and the Straight Line. So I want to go right now, we got a quick word from our sponsor, one of our amazing sponsors, by the way, quick word from them. Then we'll get right into this interview with Russell Brunson and I, and you're going to be really, really glad you watched this one because this is, it's just chock full of like, you know, step by step, step 1, step 2, step 3, how you start and most importantly, how you scale. All right, so here we are, the man, the myth, and truly the legend, a living legend at that, Russell Brunson. Russell, how are you, buddy?

I'm doing amazing, man. Thanks for having me.

Good. All right, so you're an enigma, all right? To me, you really are because you are what I call the real deal. There's not many real deals out there, but for whatever reason, I wanna start at the beginning. Somehow you've really managed to not just be in the online world, you've built a massive business, like a real business with large operations and employing tons of people. And one thing I could say, even my own future son-in-law, he's like, 'cause he won't come to me for advice. He's like, oh, I'm getting into ClickFunnels. Like it's become almost like, it's almost like a buzzword. Like you're the Google of the funnel world. You know what I'm trying to say? It's like ClickFunnels has become more than just ClickFunnels. It's like, when you talk about funnels—

The first time someone told me like, I need to build a ClickFunnel, I was like, we've become the term. Like, that's insane. We weren't even planning on that. It's so cool.

So tell me, how did that start? I want to— you know, I usually don't go back to the beginning, but I'm very intrigued. You know, when you see something like this that becomes, uh, it's like you've captured almost the zeitgeist, you know, the moment, like a feel. It's more than just a company. It's a feeling. It's a way of life. Um, and, uh, first of all, was it intended? Was there any— was it ever like a vision, um, at the beginning, like, you know, we want to change the way people can go out there, young people and— or old people too— and redefine their lives and secure their you know, the future is financially, and you know, we believe we could be a big part. Was it like that? Was it just— no, was it sort of one foot in front of the other and holy crap, wait a second, we got something awesome? Which one was it?

Um, I say it's kind of half and half. Like, the first half was when I first found out about these things. We didn't call them funnels back then, but just the concept of like, you know, we— everyone make these big e-commerce stores, 1,000 products, and, and like, we tried that, never had success with it. And we shifted to like, sell a product, then you have an upsell and a downsell, taking someone through a very strategic sales process. That's what for me blew, like that's the first time I made money online was by creating one of those and blew up. And then I became obsessed with it. I was like, what else could I do this with? And the next 5 or 6 years I launched like 20 different companies, just little companies here and there, like selling supplements and selling info products and selling just all sorts of things. And I just, I started geeking out about just the concept of funnels. And it was funny 'cause I started talking to people about it, and back then nobody seemed to care, or their eyes would just glaze over like, okay. But I was so excited, I kept talking, kept talking, and kept talking about it.. And it wasn't until I found my partner Todd, who's the one who's the brains, actually built the software. He was building these funnels for me over and over and over again. And he honestly got to the point where he was just like, man, all these funnels are similar, but you know, like, why do I have to keep doing these? Like, he's like, I can build software to make this process really easy so you don't have to keep asking me to change things 500 times a day. And so he built that. And I remember that's when things kind of took off for us because it was like people could understand conceptually what I was talking about, but it wasn't until they had ClickFunnels, the tool, where it's like, oh, I can actually do this thing that Russell keeps talking about, and it's really simple. And, um, it was funny because about the time we launched ClickFunnels, uh, one of my friends invited me to like a network marketing thing. I'd never been to one before. He's like, you just have to see this, like, just come and experience this. I went. I remember being in this room with like 5,000 people, and they're all going crazy, and they're, they're so excited. And I watch people get on stage, and it's funny because on stage they're not teaching anything. There's just people upstairs like telling their stories and crying. And I was like I was like so confused, like I don't understand this. And my buddy looked over to me, he's like, do you notice what they've done? I was like, no, I have no idea. And he goes, they didn't just sell a product, he's like, they created a movement. And remember when he said that, I had this like, oh my gosh, like that's, I don't wanna just sell a software product, like that's not that cool, like how do I create something bigger? And so I started geeking out on that, like how do movements get started? How are cults built? How are religious movements? Like I started looking at all those kind of things., and then trying to weave and incorporate those things into our messaging as ClickFunnels was growing. And now, you know, 6 years later, you look at, you know, this funnel hacker— our people call themselves funnel hackers. We have people that tattooed on their arms, and like, it's like, like, it's a culture, it's an identity shift that people have, like, that they become a funnel hacker. And, and, uh, so I don't think it was like super strategic, but as I started kind of figuring it out, then we've leaned into that, and it's been really cool to see what's happened over the last, the last few years.

How would you define ClickFunnels? If I say, hey, what exactly is ClickFunnels? How would you describe it?

It's funny, that's literally like the hardest— it's like, it's the hardest thing for me because it's like, it's so hard to explain. Like, I don't have a phrase of like, oh, a funnel is, or whatever.

It's—

yeah.

So the way I try to explain it in a shorter period of time is I tell people, and obviously, you know, you are the best at sales. I've gone through— it's funny, I don't know if I didn't tell you this ahead of time, but I read your books 5 years before the movie came out. I went through Straight Line like when it first came out. It's like Like the same way you take someone through a sales process, right? And it's not just like, we're just shooting and hoping to close the deal. Like there's a strategic place you're taking someone through. That's what a sales funnel is, is strategically thinking through the customer comes in, like from the ad to the landing page, the next page, like what's the experience you take them through to increase the likelihood of selling something on each step in the funnel? And so it's just, Yeah, it's a very strategic step-by-step sales— it's like what's the sales process you take somebody through. That's what a funnel is, and ClickFunnels makes it simple to customize and edit and, and test every single, like, variation of that until you have it perfect. And that's kind of what it does.

Do you think that from a pure technology standpoint that ClickFunnels is head and shoulders above everything else out there, or is it that, you know what, The technology is as good as anything else out there, but it's the movement around ClickFunnels that creates this ancillary benefit because it motivates people and gets them to actually use the product. In other words, so there might be a lot of other companies that have a similar product, but the difference is that because of the movement that surrounds ClickFunnels, people come into it and they get inspired. They feel supported. They look around and see what's possible, so they end up taking action with ClickFunnels while they probably might not have taken action using a similar product. You think that's it or is it just a superior technology play as well or combination?

Good question. You know, I think the software is amazing and my partner Todd and our team that's built it, it's amazing. But it's been interesting watching since we launched ClickFunnels. I think I lost track at like 30-something, like 30-something people came out with the next ClickFunnels killer. And at first, I'd be all panicked, I'm like, huh, and I go to their page, and their page, they're talking about, our page loads 0.00% faster than ClickFunnels. I'm like, oh, okay, and then like, or oh, we do this one feature that they don't do, or oh, ours is cheaper, or they always had these things, but you're right, there was no soul to it, it was just like, okay, we're gonna feature this or whatever. And I remember I had this conversation early on with one of my people in the hiring coaching program, and he says, man, he's like, every week we see the next ClickFunnels killer come out, and he's like, I'm on Facebook and I'm swiping through, and he's like, I see the ad, he said, I stopped just long enough to like look at it and be like, ha, I would never go with you because I trust Russell. He's the one that showed me the stuff and I keep swiping. And I feel like there's so much that, and there's always people that are gonna price shop and thrift shop and like the little things like that, but I think the reason why we're heads and shoulders bigger and growing faster than any of the other ones is just because of what you said, because of the movement, because people understand like, here's the tool, but this is like a community and training and education and all the things that make success with the tool.

Yeah, so yeah, it's, it's funny because I got a call about maybe 2 weeks ago from a very smart guy who has no clue about this world. He's just a very successful businessman in a completely different industry, but he's probably worth close to a billion dollars. He goes, hey, a friend of mine in Israel, very sharp guy, says he's got a product that just blows away ClickFunnels. It's going to put them out of business. I said, whoa, stop. I said, let me just explain. I said, The ship has sailed with ClickFunnels. I said it's beyond the point, it's a commodity. ClickFunnels is almost commoditized. It's almost like it's a standard. There's nothing that is not like a slightly superior technology, a slight increase in the click rate of a page load. It's beyond that at this point because there's so many other things, there's so many nuances and also emotional ties to it that it's like, I just don't, I think it's past that point. Again, I really, I wasn't kidding when I said it's almost like the Google of funnels that you almost think about like synonymous with ClickFunnels. Was there a certain point when you realized like that had happened and did that make you act differently the way you treat, do you ever go into like more of a like sort of, okay, wow, we're on top, I now gotta play defense more than offense or has it not really altered the way you go about doing business?

It's, some of it's strategic and some of it's just the nature of the beast, right? So software, when we first launched ClickFunnels, it was, my favorite part, I had two partners, they were the coders, and so like, they were just, you know, all day long coming out and like, they'd see someone have a cool idea for a feature, they'd clone it, boom, it's in ClickFunnels. We'd come up with ideas and we were just innovating and developing, and it was like, like as fast as we could. It was really fun because that's like, there's so much energy and excitement around that. Like every day it's like, here's a new feature we launched today, here's a new feature. And like there's so much stuff, and, and, um, that caused a lot of this initial momentum and surge. And I, I wish that we could still do that because I feel like that's like what people love, like is the new thing, and like they're excited. The hard thing is now we've got 120,000 active members on the platform, and like every little tweak you make, it's so stressful because like, oh, if we edit this little thing over here, you have no idea what it's going to do over here. And so like every time they They edit a line of code, they gotta do like 8 million tests on every single thing and how it reacts to this and this, and like, and so it slowed down our process from like creating new things and stuff, which I hate. So for me, it's like, we can't develop, we can't develop as fast on like the software side. It's like, so for me, it's like, what do we, like, how can we keep developing? And so it was less like the new software feature, but for us it was, for me now, it's more the education side. Okay, like where are they stuck at? Like what do they need? And like, here's the funnel for this kind of situation. We do a big training and a big launch around that, and they're like, Oh my gosh, I didn't know I could use a funnel for that. And then we get a huge new segment of market that comes in who starts using it. They're like, oh, here's, here's this other strategy. And we bring it, you know, we do trainings and stuff like that. So, uh, where we, we used to iterate on, you know, features to get people excited and get them in, now it's like more, more iterating on like the strategies and the concepts and how people can, can apply them. And then giving them, you know, then here's the tool that makes it, makes it simple, makes it possible. So good, so good, so good.

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Terms and conditions apply. What, what do you think is the smartest move that you've made as the owner, as one of the founders of ClickFunnels? Is like, you know, if there really, has there been some sort of either a strategic alliance, some sort of marketing shifts. What do you think is the— if there's just one, what would that be? Like, not the secret to your success, but what was that one move that really allowed you to break out?

I think the biggest thing that created the community and created like stickiness within it is— so every year we do an annual event. We didn't do the first year or the second year, but before our third big annual event, I remember, you know, we were preparing for it and getting speakers, all the stuff you do for an event. And I remember I saw an ad that it was a professional singer or whatever, and they're sitting on the wall, and on the wall behind they had all these Grammy or Emmy, whatever the records are that the music industry gives. And I was like, oh, it's so cool, if you're a musician you get these cool trophies, and I'm like, what do entrepreneurs get? We get nothing. And I remember being frustrated, and I was like, we should create our own award. And then we started playing with it, and what could the award be? And I remember I had bought this domain name a long time ago called the Two Comma Club, 'cause two commas and a million dollars. And I was like, I own the domain, we own the branding and all that stuff, We should make an award called the Two Comma Club. And then it was like, so we started kind of freaking out. I remember I asked Dave, one of my partners, I was like, how many people inside ClickFunnels have made at least $1 million inside of a funnel? I thought maybe a dozen or so. And he pulled the stats, came back, he said, as of today we have 79. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. So we're like calling Nashville, like where do you guys get these records at? And we found a company to customize the records and put commas in, we built this trophy. We didn't tell anybody this thing was happening until that event. And we invited everyone who had qualified for Two Comma Club and said, hey, come to this event, we have something really cool for you, and I can tell you what it is. And I remember day 3 of the event, right after lunch, I told everyone the story about the Two Comma Club, and I was like, I feel like there's like, for every industry, there's like the Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars, everything, but entrepreneurs don't get anything, there's nothing that we can celebrate our success with. We make a bunch of money and we try to celebrate, people think we're prideful, and it's like, how do you, We're killing ourselves to try to change the world, how do we celebrate that? And so I was like, because of that we wanna create this award called the Two Comma Club Award. And we had everyone line up who won one, they came on stage, I got a picture with them holding the award, and they all went down. And I did not realize what that would create. So those 79 people got the picture with me, and then all those guys, those pictures became their ads, became their Facebook wall, everything, everyone's like, what's that, what's that? It's like, oh, that's the Two Comma Club Award, that's what entrepreneurs win inside of ClickFunnels when you make $1 million in a funnel.. And it started shifting people where people, even if they were on other software platforms, they're like, they ditched them, came to ours. Like, I want that award, I want to be part of that, I want to get on stage, I want to get a picture, I want to be able to celebrate. And so people started coming. And I think year 1 we had 79, year 2 we had like 350. It was almost like one person a day started hitting Two Comma Club. And then year 3, like, we had people passing, you know, winning, like, people coming on stage winning like 5 or 6, like, awards or trying to hold them all. And so then we made a new award called Two Comma Club X, which is for $10 million.. And then we had, we've had almost 100 people won that now. And this last year we launched a 2 Comma Club C, which is for $100 million, and we had like a dozen people that won that now. And I think what's cool is there's a, there's a quote from, uh, I think it's Napoleon Bonaparte or something like that. He said, he said, uh, talking about in war, says, amazing what a, what a soldier will do for a scrap of ribbon. And I feel like it was kind of that same thing, like, man, it's entrepreneurs, like, we, we want to serve, want to give, but like there's something about that recognition like we just don't get.. And now this has become this thing. We had a whole documentary called the Two Comma Club. Now it's like, it's become this thing. And that's a big reason why people come to us and they publish with us and they do all their products, because like, I want to win that award. I want to get on stage. I want, I want to be able to show my family this is what I accomplished. Like, this is what I'm doing. This is why it's so important. And, uh, it gets people— it got people— it continues to get people to come in and it gets them to stick with our platform. Even when they're at $100 million in sales, they could easily custom code these things and hire big teams to do stuff. They still do it on our platform because they want to get the recognition. They want to be able to show what they're, what they're doing. I think of all the things, that was this thing that just caused this internal, like you talked about, there's a feeling that's different. That's not, I own a software product. It's like, I want to be part of that. Like, I want to be on stage.

I want to, I want to get my award. And what would be, you think, the worst decision you made with ClickFunnels? Something that you would, that you would like, that you've obviously overcome it, but you had to pivot away from it. Has there been any moment, things that you've done that you just said, oh my God, why did I do that?

Yeah, there's so many of those. So many times we're like, man, if we could go back and I remember, um, It was after we were growing and we got ClickFunnels to a certain spot, and at the time it was still like Todd and Dylan, our two partners who were programming everything, and they started hiding, like they needed help. It was Christmas morning and they're coding things, making sure things aren't crashing, and so we started building a team, and as we started building a team, we'd never done it before. We're a bunch of hustler entrepreneurs who never had done anything, right? We've got 400 employees now at ClickFunnels, but back then we'd never had employees, we'd never managed people, we didn't know, what to do or how to do it. So we're hiring these people and the more they charge us, the more we assume the better they were. So we built this huge programming team, and the first thing all, and now that I've done software now for long enough, I realize this is what all programmers want. They look at something like, oh, I can do it better. And so this team that we'd hired came back to us like, we wanna redo ClickFunnels from ground up, because if we do it, we can do this, and all these things. And they totally sold us on this vision of like, we could do, ah! So we're freaking out. We spent, I think it was a year, like an entire, entire year them trying to build this new version, which meant nobody was fixing the software, developing. It was like everyone's energy here, we're building it, building it. And, um, a year of time, and then the cash outlay was like probably $2 or $3 million of cash for payroll, not, not counting like the opportunity costs if we wouldn't focus in here. And I remember a year into, they did the first demo of the software and they were demoing it and, uh I feel bad, it was like on a Zoom call like this and the entire programming team was there, and I messaged, and Todd, my partner, he was, first time he'd really seen it as well, I messaged him, I was like, one of our competitors initially was called Leadpages, and I messaged him, I was like, this is the worst thing I've ever seen, I felt like we hired some crappy Leadpages developers and this turned out worse than Leadpages, and it popped up on his screen on Zoom where everybody saw it, and I was like, I'm like texting him, like, turn off your screen! And it was the worst thing, Anyway, we ended up having to like literally lay off that entire team because they were so focused on this and like cut it all and start back over. And it just slowed down a lot of the progress and insane amounts of money and time wasted.

What was it about it? Was it just like the aesthetics, the look of it, feel of it, or was it slow? Was it buggy? What was it about it? Just, we just didn't have that same like snap. I guess I look at ClickFunnels and if there's something that would pop into my mind, it would be, it's almost like the way Facebook improved on what MySpace did. They made it very clean and crisp and uniform. So in other words, you knew what to expect when you went on it, and they turned what you would think would be a negative, which means lack of options, almost like into a positive because it sort of gave you this experience that just felt right versus like, you know, almost when everything could be changed, it's like you don't even know what you're looking at. So the advantage of, I think, a ClickFunnels page And I think this is a positive is that when you go, when you go through a funnel page, it's intuitive. You know, as you know, you basically know what you should do. It's sort of, as soon as you see it, you feel like you're in the right place.

So was it something like that where it lost that feeling or just, it just didn't work? When Todd was— so Todd, my partner, he's genius and he's, he's a marketing guy and a developer. So as he was building initially, he always says like, I build really opinionated software. I do. I build it to do exactly what I want. I don't make it so that anybody can do anything. Like you said, it's like, This is what it does, this is the reason why we do it, and there's logic.

Like Steve Jobs is like that too, exactly.

He's like, he said like, they don't know what they want till we tell them, basically. I just said all, yes, 100%. Todd's like, he says it all the time. And so because that he built what he wanted, like ClickFunnels was like Todd's dream of like what he wanted it to be and it was amazing. And these other guys came in and they started, we're gonna call customers and we're gonna survey them and like, oh, just like this whole thing, they're surveying people. Like you said, you don't even know what they want. And they come back and they built this thing and it's just like, ah, like it was just, the whole thing was wrong. It was like literally all we did is highlighted and deleted the entire thing, fired everyone, just start over, 'cause it was just like, it wasn't even salvageable. It wasn't even something we could build on.

And so— So is the ClickFunnels today, is it the original platform or was it ever redone from the ground up at some point?

It is the original platform. There's been tons of stuff, like some of the things we know about again, like, at scale, like we built software, you know, Todd built it and we'd launch it. He didn't add any features, he'd just launch it and stuff like that. We didn't realize at scale that like the way that corporate software companies work is they write lines of code around every, or tests around every line of code. So like when this new code goes live, they click a button that says, okay, when this goes live, let's test it every situation we could possibly dream of to see if it collapses anything. And so we didn't know, like we didn't know that when we first got started. So like Todd would upload like this new feature and like half the app would go down, right? Oh, like fix it, you know, reverse it. And so like we've had amazing team come through, written, written, test, right, every line of code inside ClickFunnels and built the platform more stable. And so there's been a ton of work on it for the last 5 years, but it's still based on the same, the original code that Todd built back in the day.

One of the things that I, that I, that bothers me about, um, about the perception around ClickFunnels sometimes is that there, I feel like people get caught in the trap. They feel like, oh, I'm gonna— I'm just gonna do ClickFunnels for a living. I don't think that's possible. And there's— it's like, I think ClickFunnels is an incredibly powerful tool. It's like a— it's a very powerful tool in the toolbox of an entrepreneur. And what I see sometimes is someone will almost use ClickFunnels as an excuse to like, oh, I'm getting into ClickFunnels, I'm going to be in the ClickFunnels world or something, right? And do you find that— is there some group of people out there that they'll go into it and they'll learn everything about ClickFunnels, but at the end of the day, the magic of ClickFunnels to me at least is that there's nothing to learn. You could just take action with it and testing so quickly, so cheaply, and it allows you to almost be this incredibly nimble entrepreneur versus trying to like almost go out there and perfect it. And like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make the perfect funnel versus like, well, there probably is no perfect funnel. It could always be improved on, but most importantly, this I'm going to take action and try something with ClickFunnels. If it doesn't work, I lost an hour of my time, if that much, and I could try again. So what do you think about that aspect of people getting caught up in trying to be too good at it?

What, as you're saying that, I was just thinking about like your world, right? Where you came from, where it's like ClickFunnels is the phone, right? Like it's, it's a tool that does a thing and it converts to sell, but it's the sales guy who knows the script and can do the right tonality and the right, I think that's what sells something, right? So it's like, I think I get at times like, I built a funnel, Russell, it didn't work. It's like, yeah, like technically the page structure is right, but you suck at selling. Like you gotta figure out some lines on the page, how do you get them to give you your email address? The next page, how do you convince them to give you their credit card? Like ClickFunnels is a tool that builds a framework, but then you have to weave your art and your personal, like your selling ability into the funnel. Like if you look at what a funnel is, it's just literally it's replacing you as a salesperson. Like I could go to every single person on the street and sell my book over and over and over again, or I can get a funnel where It's me selling my book perfectly flawlessly. I know the script, I've perfected it. And I just put people through it and they go through this funnel and it sells them over and over.

It's a, it's a one-sided sale basically where you're anticipating every objection and answering them with the funnel. That's, it's very, it's no different than a regular sale, but you're, it's a one-sided sale where you're imagining everything they could be thinking, feeling, objecting to, and somehow answering it as you move through the funnel. And that's what you're, why you have multiple calls to actions and why you go down to the page. I like when I explain marketing, I'm like, guys, It's exactly like a straight-line sale. Like every time there's a, like a buy here and then it keeps going, that's what I call a loop in the world of selling where you would ask for the order, they don't buy it, you keep talking. You don't just say, oh, thanks, see you, they didn't buy, see you later, the sale's over.

So they're very much the same.

What do you think is the— there's certain products that you see, like when you look at a product, can you immediately say that's a winner? Like that's perfect for ClickFunnels.

And is there something you say, ah, that's not right? Yeah, for sure. Um, or maybe it's not as ripe as position, not right, you know what I mean? Like, um, I think with anything solo online, but especially through funnels, like you're, you're relying on like, um, people's, people like you, you have their attention for a second, right? In my, in my books I talk about this concept called hook, story, offer. I always envision my customers sitting on the phone, sitting on the couch, or you know, whatever they're scrolling through, and it's like, it's like, can your product capture their attention, or can you, or the message, or something grab their attention long enough you can tell them the story. And so sometimes the product's hard, 'cause it's like, ah, it's not exciting, or whatever, or the person who's selling it isn't able to grab someone's attention off the newsfeed, right? Just long enough that you can tell them the story about why they should care about this product and why they should buy it. But I think it's either the product's gotta be something that's sexy, that's gonna grab their attention, or the person selling it's gotta be so passionate they can do what they need to do to grab someone's attention, you know what I mean? But for the most part, I mean, it's crazy, we have people selling, I mean, everything you can dream of. There's a guy selling Bigfoot hunting trips on ClickFunnels, and he's killing it. And I was like, people know there's no Bigfoot, right? But like, the guy's excited, he's passionate about Bigfoot, he's talking about these expeditions, you give him money, you'll go, you hike up the mountains with him, you try to find Bigfoot. And like, people are signing up all day long for that. So it's like, it's less of the product, and like, I think the excitement of the person selling it, and like, their ability to grab your attention, inspire you to want to, to get the thing.

I'm guessing if you're anything like me, the thing you love most is hearing the success stories of people that used ClickFunnels. It's almost like a drug. If there's a drug I'm addicted to nowadays, it's the people telling me, I use your system and it changed my life and I, you know, lifted me up out of poverty. Can you tell me, give me a story that you think is, is particularly moving and is also representative of someone that, you know, that, that would be like that people could connect with, like someone that used ClickFunnels and just, you know, that was not successful before and how they use that and what their life is like now?

Yeah, um, oh, I get my Rolodex out. There's so many cool ones. Um, one of my favorites, uh, just because they, they got started right at the very beginning ClickFunnels, so it's been fun watching their journeys. It's kind of like followed the ClickFunnels journey. But, uh, they were a young couple, Brandon and Katelyn Polin. They'd just gotten married They were in a network marketing thing that collapsed, and so they were just like, and they literally sent me a video on my phone, I still have it, they're like, Russell, we just saw your webinar, man, we're gonna be your biggest ClickFunnels success story, and like, you know, they sent this video to me, and you know, you get those sometimes, like okay, well, good luck. And they went through the training, they created their very first funnel, and Kaylin, she was someone, she had lost a ton of weight, and I think she lost like 50 or 60 pounds, and won some titles, you know, some, some fitness awards and stuff like that. And so she wanted to share that message with other women, and so they created their very first thing, this little app that they had created, and they put it online and they launched it. I think the very first little launch to their social media following, which wasn't big at the time, they made like $20,000, which was like their, that was their thing, right? And they got so excited and they kept going in and kept reinvesting in themselves and doing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And I actually was talking to Brandon yesterday, Last month they just passed their first $6 million month. And like, that's how much they've grown last 4 or 5 years. And now they've, they've helped, um, they've helped, uh, I think on their email list they have like 2.5 million, uh, women who are on the email list. They've all come through a funnel who've given their email address. They're there. They have over 150,000 customers who've gone through the weight loss program. And it's amazing because like, I'm in there. I think I'm the only guy in the, in the LadyBoss Weight Loss Facebook groups because I want to sneak in there and watch it. But you see Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of women posting their before and after pictures, before and after pictures, crying, like thanking Kaylin, like so much, you changed my life. And it's fun 'cause then Kaylin messaged me, she's like, you realize that the only reason those people found us is 'cause of funnels, right? Like because of what you showed us, that's how they got in this group. And it's just really cool, and that's one person, right? And there's so many cool stories. Another one, there's a lady named Pamela Weibel, and she's a doctor, and when she was in medical school, she had 2 or 3 of the doctors she was with commit suicide, and she was just, devastated by it, and so she's transitioned her life to help doctors to not commit suicide. She's used funnels to get this message out, and she's saved thousands of doctors who were on the brink of committing suicide. I didn't know this at the time, like doctors have the highest suicide rate of any profession, and she's used funnels now to get this message out and save doctors' lives, and it's just like, how many people, like the doctor was saving, and how many lives are they able to save because of it? And it's 'cause Pamela got a funnel, got her message out, and anyway, there's just, yeah, but I'm the same way as you, it's like a drug. Like we have a daily meeting every morning in our company, every morning, we share a success story, and it's just like, it ties our whole company together hearing like what we do matters and it's important and it gets everyone excited about the mission. What percentage of your market is overseas versus United States? Oh, I don't have the number on top of my head. I'd say it's probably, my gut would say probably 60 to 70% of US and the other 30 to 40% overseas. It's growing overseas really rapidly now. We're trying to get, the next phase for us is getting We have a lot of overseas companies using it, but we don't have official presences in those areas. And some countries you have to have people actually there. So trying to invest in that space for us is figuring out where do we need to have office locations at, support staff who can do other languages. So it's growing rapidly despite the fact that we haven't done anything to like, you know, we don't have anyone who speaks other languages on support teams and things like that, but it's still growing really rapidly.

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Shop VertuoUp exclusively at nespresso.com. How important have your, like, personal relationships within the self-development community been for the growth ClickFunnels. Like, I know you do a lot of joint ventures with people that have large followings. Do you, do you believe in that model of, of, you know, sort of this idea that I remember early, early on, like back in 2010, there was a group of guys, they called themselves like the Syndicate, and they were doing a lot of creep out— you remember that, right? A lot of cross-mailings and promotions. And, and, and they'd done that, and then that kind of, I think, faded away or probably broke up. And then You know, is there something though, like, do you, do you think that it's very important for someone that wants to grow their business to do that, to actually bring in outsiders and do those joint ventures or affiliate deals, as you would say in your world?

Yeah. I'm a big believer in it. Um, uh, especially when you're beginning, it's like some of the fastest way to grow, to grow something. Right. Like when we first, it was year 2 of ClickFunnels and I was like, how do we get, how do we get more adoption? And so that's when I like, all the people I'd met in the time, you know, Tony Robbins, and people I call them up like, hey, can I build a funnel for you? I'll do it for free. I'm like, normally we charge whatever, I'll do it all for free for you, I'll run the thing. And we started building funnels for all these successful people. So they started using it, and people saw, oh, Tony Robbins is using ClickFunnels, and you know, Neil Strauss is using ClickFunnels, and Dave Asprey, and all these different people who I looked up to in different markets. And so we started building their funnels for them, people started seeing it, and that was big. And then as far as getting affiliates to mail, I think, It's a really good short-term strategy, not so good long-term. Like nowadays, the majority of what we do is paid ads, right? But at the beginning, paid ads are expensive and it's hard, where the joint venture stuff was free. Like I, yeah, the first year of ClickFunnels basically was primarily grown through JV webinars. I was doing webinars at least 2 or 3 times a week, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day, to people's email lists, and that was just, it didn't cost me ad money. We split the money 50/50 with the affiliate, but I got the initial, probably the first 10,000 members or so of ClickFunnels came off of other people's lists for sure. And then from there, took that cash, we could reinvest it into ads and everything else that helped scale it from there.

How do you think ClickFunnels has fared in the whole COVID-19? Has it been a positive for you as a company in the sense— I hate to say a positive because people died, but has it been like, you know, I could see how ClickFunnels would be a very elegant solution to someone that lost their job and that's looking for a new way to make money because it would seem that, you know, the online delivery world and you know, a ClickFunnels page and you can, you know, connect it to a Shopify store, something like that might be a very powerful combination. Um, have you seen an uptick in your business in response to COVID?

Yeah, we've seen, um, uh, on two sides. One is like new customer acquisition has dramatically skyrocketed, which has been fantastic. Number two, what's interesting is, um, pre-COVID, on an average day, we'd have about 15,000 people would actually log in the software and they're doing stuff and building things and looking at stats. During the last, the COVID it's been like over 35,000 people a day are logging the software. So people are more, I think they're less distracted and they're getting in and actually doing it and getting their hands dirty. People who like for so long are like signed up like, oh, I'm gonna do it this weekend or next week, you know, it's like now they have the time to actually do it. And so it's been really good for us as a company overall. And I think it's interesting just 'cause it's the transition, right? It's like, I think all these offline companies, like my friends who ran gyms, my friends who, You have local stores, they all understand now how fragile their companies are and how they're transitioning and doing the online version and they're shipping things online. And I think it's been a good transition and I've been grateful we've been there to kind of catch people and help transition. Like, let me show you how this could actually work and how it could work for your type of business, you know?

Have you ever thought about either selling the company or going public or have you taken any outside capital at all?

So, we've never taken outside capital. In fact, that's my next book I'm writing is called Bootstrap. It's gonna be the ClickFunnels story, how we bootstrapped it without any capital. So, we haven't to this date. We have entertained a couple of ideas like what would it look like if we went public? And parts of that scare me to death, but parts are really exciting. So, we, you know, and we've looked at things, but nothing, you know, as of right now we're having a good time and we're, you know, we're profitable. There's no, I don't, I can do whatever I want. Like there's no board or people telling me, you know, and I really enjoy that. So I think as of now, you know, we're happy. I don't think we'd be against it if it served the customers. You know, 'cause like we've talked about this internally with our partners, like I don't need more money, we don't need more things, but if it was like, man, if we went and did something and now we could hire a team, you know, like I was looking at just Stripe, for example. Stripe, which processes most of the people's payment, you know, it's a simple software is one thing. They have 1,000 developers on staff, 1,000. ClickFunnels, we've got 50 developers. Like, hey man, if we could do something where we could bring in 1,000 developers to take ClickFunnels, you know, what's gonna take us 10 years to do in a year, I think I would be interested in some of that potentially, but only if it's the best thing for the customers. 'Cause for me, like, my life's not gonna shift either way at this point 'cause, you know, you know how it is.

Where, yeah, where do you see ClickFunnels going from here? Like, do you have, is there a plan that you, is it more of the same? Is it, Is there some sort of like shift that you see that like you said, you know, we think that in the next few years, the industry as a whole shift, we want to shift with it, you know, do you do that? Do you have this sort of like this sort of long-term, you know, vision where you're, you know, we are making pivots or no, is it more reactive?

No. So things been going through my mind, I recently read the book Crossing the Chasm for the first time, I tried a couple times in the past, it's really, it's a heavy read. But I finally got it, and like, as I'm reading the book, like I'm looking at where we are in the cycle, and I feel like we're literally at the chasm, and it's like to jump over. I think for us to get to, you know, from going from 100,000 members to a million members and beyond, it's really, we have to shift a lot of what we do fundamentally, right? Like right now, ClickFunnels, as simple as it is, it's still a tool that does a lot of things. I think that we try to cross the chasm to like all the businesses, like all the mom and pops down the street, right? It has to be simpler, it has to be easier, it has to be, You know, so like, I feel like for us to get to the next tier, to go from 100,000 to a million members, like the software needs a deep, um, I don't know if it's redesign or just a fundamental shift.

In what sense? In what sense?

Like specifically, in what way? You know, I think the early adopters in something, people like me or you or whoever geeking out, like we'll spend the time to figure out the strategy and the things like that because it's worth it to us. We understand like we, if we make those tweaks, it's gonna be worth blah. But someone who runs a restaurant down the street that they're not gonna sit through and like read a book and understand the strategy and like figure out, like they run a restaurant, they just want a funnel that does restaurants. They wanna click a button and boom, the restaurant funnel pops up, it's pre-populated, they plug in their menu items and they can rock and roll, right? So it's like, it's a simplification of like, if we really wanna get to the next phase, it's gotta be less, here you can customize it to whatever you want. It's gotta be like, here's how, like this plug and play, this is gonna work for your business, your industry. And so it's a big gap that scares me, honestly. So there's that, and I think the other big growth thing for us is internationalization, like getting actually in other countries as opposed to just bleeding into countries, but like having presences and having support teams and having all those things. It's tough 'cause we have some countries people in where $97 a month that we charge is tons of, like insane amounts of money where they can't afford that. But that's the only way you can buy it right now where it's like, hey, in these countries we could do it differently, or things like that. And the other big player right now, we're working with some local governments, schools where they're looking at buying like 50 or 100,000 accounts to give to like their entire student body and things like that. And we never actually closed a deal like that, but we got one or two that are like close that if we can figure that out, also we're in all these school systems, that gets me excited 'cause there's so much like, you know, developing that at that level when they get to our level, like that's the tool they use, they understand it. So there's a lot of fun things like that we're working with.

ClickFunnels should be taught in college or, you know, in high school?

100%.

Um, it's crazy. We have, um, so we have like a lot, you know, I've got my books that I sell, we've got our One Funnel Away Challenge, and we just had a college, uh, last before COVID uh, they took the entire entrepreneurial, uh, section of their college and took them through the One Funnel Away Challenge. And the teachers afterwards were freaking out. They're like, this is insane. Like, we've been reading stuff from textbooks and trying to reteach it And now here it's like we're learning in real time what's actually working. They're seeing real case studies people are actually able to do. And, um, I definitely think for me personally, I don't know if ClickFunnels as a company, but me as like, as like a publisher of content, like I really want to figure out that next step. I don't understand it well enough to know, but I would love to get like our concepts and curriculum into the entrepreneur schools and the business schools because I think, you know, right now, I mean, when I got my degree, at least it, it like the stuff we were learning were like companies in the 1800s and how they did their profit and loss statements. All the stuff that's just like, how is this relevant to anything that's happening right now? Like, the pulse of this market is like, it's moving so quickly that, um, anyway, so I'm hoping so. I think, I think it'd be, it'd be so much more useful. And I think just as a whole, watching what's going to happen with school system post-COVID, I think that's going to open up a lot more opportunities for, for stuff like this to be, to be in, into, put into colleges.

What's the, uh, culture like at ClickFunnels? Like the actual corporate, not your outward to all the customers, but inside the business, how would you describe your culture?

I love our people. I would say it's not all the, like I wouldn't say this is true for the developers. Developers almost have their own culture, but like for the support and the marketing and stuff like that, most of the people who work for our team are people who are ClickFunnels users first, and they use the platform, they loved it, but for some reason they didn't have a business yet, they didn't have an idea, they're still trying to figure it out, but it's like they love ClickFunnels and the message, they get a job in the workforce, and they love the fact like, I get to be around this, at nighttime I can work on my own funnels, and they feel like they're part of it, and so such a big percentage of our staff are customers before they ever were members, which is really cool. So because of that, like, it's fun, 'cause I'll do a podcast, my entire, you know, 400-people team are like, Joe, I listened to your podcast last night, it was so cool, You know, like they're answering support tickets like, oh, you should go watch this YouTube video Russell did over here, 'cause like he talked about this thing specific, and it's just, it's cool because like our people are, you know, like our team were our customers at one point, and most of them are still actively using it, actively building funnels. A lot of them have launched businesses on, while they worked at ClickFunnels, left and grown them, and we support that, we encourage it, you know, like I always tell people like our mission at ClickFunnels isn't to have people build funnels, our mission is to help people entrepreneurs to grow their companies. Like, and so whatever that means, like maybe it's using funnels, maybe it's doing an event, maybe it's, it's whatever, doesn't matter. And if someone in our team starts a business and goes and blows it up, like, we are so excited for them. And it— and so I think that's a, that's a big part of it.

What do you, what do you think about, uh, the State of the Union right now? Does— do you like— you're in Idaho, right? And, um, I think Idaho skews a bit more conservative, but, you know, And do you feel like— listen, I mean, I'll be honest with you, I look at the country right now and I'm deeply disturbed at what I see. And I think, you know, I can trace back a lot of this to, you know, to things that were happening over the last 20 or 30 years in the educational institutions. But it just seems like at this point now there's like a complete absence of truth in the media. Like they just lie. I mean, like, they just like this— I mean, I can't even believe, like, what I hear and see. You know, what are your thoughts on that whole thing right now? Like, what's going on with the country and the violence in the streets? And I'm sure you're very far removed in Idaho, but you know, what are your own thoughts on that?

Man, it's, it's scary. And I've tried— I don't know, I think all of us have our biases, but I tried as hard as I can to look at both sides and understand both sides. And it's interesting because I feel like, you know, the The Republican side, they want less government, they want more freedoms, they want the ability to be able to produce, which I'm a big believer in that, right? I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged and I was just like, yes, like this is what we need. Like the government regulations make it harder and harder for someone like me or you or whoever's producing stuff, makes it harder for us to want to have a purpose in producing. But then you look at the other side, it's like they want love and they want peace and they want, you know, and I relate to that as well. So it's tough, like, but I think there's, Man, social media has given everybody such a loud voice that I remember this even 4 years ago, like how beat up everyone got. Like, I tried to post either direction because like no matter what you say, like, like, it destroys relationships, destroys families, destroys businesses. And it's just like, it's kind of a thing that I don't know. There's the positives of social media, we all have our own voice. The negatives is that we all have our own voice. And, uh, I don't know, it's, it's definitely scary times. And, um, I wish that I believed it was going to be done after the elections, but I think whatever happens is gonna bleed over for a while. And I don't know, I think that, I think all of us who are, I just tell people, I feel like entrepreneurs are the people that are gonna change the world, right? So like, I think the more tools we can give entrepreneurs and put things in their hands so they can get these messages out and be the change, I think that's really the only thing that's, I don't know, the only hope I really feel. Like, I don't feel like it's gonna happen from the government side. I know it's not gonna happen from the media side. From people who create products or services they believe in, who create missions and movements. Like, I feel like that's going to be the thing that causes the change that actually matters.

Everything else is just, I don't know, it's just a mess. What do you think an entrepreneur should do? I mean, like, should you say, you know what, I can't, I have to accept the things I cannot change, so I might as well make as much money as I possibly can to protect my family and those I love and to help the causes I I believe in? Do you think it should be like, you know, okay, the world is nuts and spiraling out of control. So let me just put my head down and make money. You know, is that, is that a strategy that you think is a smart way to look at things? If you're, if you're just, you know, a success-oriented person, you think just to try to block it out? Or should you think that's not being a good citizen, you should try to have your voice heard too? What do you think?

Good question. I mean, I mean, yeah, good question. You know, I had a friend, Ryan Moran, he said something one time that was so profound to me. He said that an entrepreneur is somebody who sees the problem that's not their own and decides to take responsibility for it, right? So it's like, you see this problem, it's not my problem, and most of the world's like, oh, it's not my problem, I'm gonna back away from it. An entrepreneur's like, that's a problem I'm gonna solve. Like, Kaylin was like, I'm gonna figure out how to help these women lose weight, you know? Pamela Wyble was like, I'm gonna help doctors not commit suicide. Like, that's not her responsibility, but she took it and she ran with it, right? Us entrepreneurs, like, that's— that is what it is. And the byproduct of us being entrepreneurs and creating is cash. And so, like, if, if the question is like, should we go out to make a ton of money? Yes, because if you're doing that, making a ton of money means you found a problem that's not yours, you're gonna take responsibility for, and you're gonna try to change that thing. And if you do it, uh, in the right way, cash will come to you. And the more money you make, the more impact you're having. And so I think it's a great way to keep score. I know that it's not probably popular in today's world as much to say it, but I 100% believe that right now, you know, for financial security for yourself and for your families, but second off, it's just, it's a byproduct showing that you are actually taking a group of people and serving them at a level that's changing their lives if you're getting the money from it.

As long as you're doing it ethically, obviously. What do you think the best way for a young or old person, that's young meaning in their career online, what's the best way, the most effective way to enter the world of ClickFunnels? What would you do first? Let's say you say, you know what, I like this, I'm intrigued by it, I'm going to get into this, I want to capitalize on this movement.

What's step 1? Yeah, I think step 1 for people is you have to understand, you have to have the education, right? You can't just— I'm going to sell my pick up phone and start dialing day 1. Like, I'm going to have a script and have some basics. I think it's going through the training to understand it. And then before I ever like gambled, you know, everything on like my own business idea, I would say I want to prove this actually works. I would find somebody who already has 'Cause you know, it's like starting a business, there's so many things like, what's the product? What's, you know, how are we gonna sell it? Who's gonna do the accounting? Who's paying taxes? Like there's a billion things to make a business work. So I would try to like take away as many of those things as possible to work in a vacuum of like, I'm gonna try to figure this thing out. So I find someone else who already had a business, who already had a product, already had all these things, so I don't have to worry about that part of it, and say okay, like let's say you find someone who's selling, I don't know, here's some fidget spinners. Like this is their product, right, and they're selling it. I'd go to them and say okay, I'm gonna take these fidget spinners, I wanna build a funnel just to prove this concept, I'm gonna work for free, I'm gonna put my own sweat equity, I just wanna see if it works. If it does work, I'd love like a commission off all the sales I make for this thing, right? And then go and learn and build the funnel based on, you know, based on all the things you're learning inside the community and all those kind of things. And then do it and launch it, and then, you know, if you make money, awesome. If not, like, okay, just try another product, try another thing till you kind of figure it out. But I think that's the biggest thing, because I think if you're gonna try to figure out all the things to launch a business right out of the gate, there's so many things. So it's like, go and learn these strategies and apply it for somebody else, work for free, and that's how I would start. In fact, I've got tons of people in our community who've done that, who literally, they did that, and they negotiated it for like, hey, if this funnel works, I want half the money from it, and the person's like, okay, it's free money for me, who cares? And now they have these multi-million dollar businesses, just front ends for other people's big companies, 'cause they figured out how it works, and they're doing this thing, and they don't have any of the staff, the overhead, the payroll, the taxes, they just get a cut off every single sale, Some days I wish I would just do that because that sounds easier than running a big company.

What's the best— okay, so now we're getting to the— unfortunately our time is almost up. I try to keep you to an hour. Um, what's the, the best book that someone should read about ClickFunnels? What is it, your first book, your second?

Which is the— which is book one? Yeah, so, um, I'll grab my— here. So I've written 3 books. These are the 3 books. Uh, the first one's called DotCom Secrets. Second one's called Expert Secrets, and third's called Traffic Secrets. But DotCom Secrets is the best. It's the strategy of funnels, right? It's like, okay, how do I take whatever business I'm in and how do I translate that to here's the funnel that'll work for me? And that's my first book, I'm super proud of it. The second book, Expert Secrets, is more about the selling side. Like, now I have this funnel, how do I sell inside the funnel? How do I use persuasion and sales skills to get somebody to buy? And then Traffic Secrets is how to get more people in. But from a beginning standpoint, everyone always tells me the first book to read, read DotCom Secrets, you'll understand like, Oh, that's how a funnel worked for me. It'll like give you the aha moment. It'll give you the understanding of like how these things fit into your world.

And, uh, and that's where I'd start for sure. And what's the website to go to right now if you want to, um, find out more?

But it's clickfunnels.com, um, clickfunnels.com. If you want to learn about software, if you want the book, um, if you go to dotcomsecrets.com, uh, we have a free, you know, pay shipping and handling for the hardbound version of it, and you can get it there, or it's on Amazon too.

Awesome. Well, I will tell you, you know, you know I have a ClickFunnels account and I've done really well with ClickFunnels. I love it. And I would strongly suggest any— I'm not just saying this because Russell's on the show, guys. If you are in this world and you're not using ClickFunnels, you're out of your mind. I made the mistake because someone gave me some bad advice and said, "Oh, you need to have your own super duper high-speed funnel." Oh my God, what a disaster that was. Okay, you know what? And I learned from that. When someone does something well, just leverage off of of their software and their mistakes they made. You probably made 8 million mistakes to get to where you are right now. We have this perfectly seamless interface. So I would really strongly recommend if you're not using ClickFunnels and you're in that world, you should at least check it out, take it for a test run, and, um, I think you'll be very happy that you did. So that's my advice. Russell, thanks for coming on, buddy. You're an inspiration, uh, great guy and a world-class entrepreneur. Thanks, guys.

Yeah, thanks for having me, man. It's been so much fun watching you for so long. I've just, I read your books 5 years before movies ever came out. It's fun to finally have some face time with you. So I appreciate you.

Thanks for having me on and a lot of fun. My pleasure. Everyone, Russell Brunson. Share this with your friends and don't forget to check out ClickFunnels and all the episodes of The Wolf's Den.