No More Being A Jack-Of-All-Trades

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson and welcome to a late night— well, not too late, it's about 8 o'clock at night, so later night— Marketing in Your Car. Welcome to the Marketing in Your Car podcast where you can increase your traffic, conversions, and sales in just 10 minutes a day. And now here's your host, Russell Brunson. Alright everyone, so I'm heading back to the office. We are day 2 of our hackathon, which is so much fun. So we had the last I had like about a 4-hour smackdown today deciding the future of ClickFunnels and it got heated, it got a little bit, a little tension, but it was all good 'cause it's just interesting. I love my partners and love the people in the company. Everyone has, we're all definitely people who are great at what we do and so we have strong opinions, but when all is said and done, couple things I think are very true One is we all respect each other insanely, a ton. And number two is that we care about the customers, and that's really where the conversation keeps going to is what is best for our customers, which is awesome. Way better than what does the board of directors want, which is once again another reason why we'll never do the whole VC thing on top of all the other jokes. But it was really good. We have some really cool directional things that we're doing. That some things make me nervous, but they're gonna be huge, like game-changing type things. And so I'll share more as we keep going on, but I just wanted to kind of share that. And then I wanted to— I just want to talk to you about something I think is really important that's on my mind. And it's interesting, like I've looked at the last 12 years of me being in this business, right? And, you know, first year I was just hustling and tried to make a load of money and I did. And that was awesome. And then I started making a little more and I remember I was just hustling. You know, we do a promotion, we make $15,000, $20,000 and then like I wouldn't do anything again for like 3 or 4 months. And we try something else and then we make a little more, you know. And so like here and there. I remember one day, one of my friends was like, who was in the business, is like, so you passed 6 figures yet? I was like, no. Because my mind is like 6 figures a year is like insane, right? That's not even possible. And then I was like, wait. I started doing the math and I was like, oh my gosh, I did. I passed 6 figures this year. I'm like, that doesn't even make any sense to me. That seems outside of logic. It wasn't something I even believed was happening. So then I got excited and I'm like, okay, now I've got a goal. I wanna make $1 million in a year. And so we went towards that goal and went towards that goal. And it's funny 'cause I think it took me like 3 or 4 years to cross the million-dollar mark. And there's some mental barrier. I missed it by like a few $10,000, like 2 or 3 years in a row. I just remember I was like, why can I not break the million-dollar mark in a year? It just seemed so impossible for some reason. I couldn't figure it out. After I did finally break the million-dollar mark, then it was like that mental barrier was gone. I shot to the next level. We got to the point where I think my best year we did $8.9 million in the calendar year. I think we did $10 million if you looked at it from a start date, like a 365-day start date from the peaks. But in a calendar year from January 1st to December 31st, I think on taxes, $8.9 million was the biggest year I had. After that, and the company crashed. If you listen back through all my old Marketing Your Car, you'll hear all those stories. So that's not for today, but, and then we restarted and we started growing again and we got stuck at like $3 million a year for like 5 years and we're like stuck, stuck, stuck. And we tried focusing, which got us to $3 million. Then it was like, let's diversify, let's launch 10 companies. We launched 10 companies and we still made $3 million. Then it was just like thing after thing after thing. And then we started having a little more success when some of our other offers started going bigger. NeuroCell did well, a couple of other offers are doing well. And so anyway, it was just— but it's still like, then I think we were hovering around like $6 million or so. And I was just like, how do we get back to $10 million without having 100 employees? Like, how's that possible? And I remember going to like marketing events and people would be like, okay, this is the whatever guy and this is the whatever person. And like everyone had like their thing and they'd be like, well, Russell, what's your thing? And I'm like, oh, like, well, We're all things marketing. We do copywriting and we do funnels and we do traffic and we just kind of did everything, right? And I always thought that was like strategic advantage. Like, oh yeah, you can go to this guy to learn whatever, but we're going to teach you the whole thing. And that was always our big thing. It's like, we want to teach everything, we want to teach everything. And just by nature of, we were good at everything, so we wanted to show everything and teach everything in this market. And that's what we did. And the problem is that we just kind of kept getting stuck and it gets stagnant and I never could figure out why. And then And then the whole ClickFunnels thing came. And it wasn't something that we even invented the conversation. People were talking about funnels. We've been talking about funnels for 8 or 9 years. And I remember at the time, Ryan Deiss and Traffic and Conversion Summit was all about funnels. It seemed like it was the hot topic right when we happened to have been building this tool. And it really was a perfect storm when we launched it and all these things and it took off. And I wrote my book. My book wasn't ever really about funnels. Like if I was to retitle it now, I probably would've changed the title, at least the subtitle. Title to be more about like, this is a funnel book. But it didn't, it was just me teaching my process. But it all came down to like funnels, right? When you look at the whole process, like it was all funnels and people read that book and because that came so close to ClickFunnels, people associate it as like, this is like the guidebook or the handbook for funnels and this is the software. And that means Russell therefore is the funnel guy. But at first I didn't like that 'cause there's a lot of people teaching funnels, I'm not the funnel guy, you know? And I'm the guy that does everything. And it's interesting though, but that's kind of like, I had this weird problem wide thing that I wanted to be bigger than funnels, I wanted to be whatever, right? But people kept kind of pigeonholing us, like, oh, you're the funnel guy, you're the funnel guy, and finally after a while I started embracing it and we started shifting things, so now like, all of our products are being tied to that, right? Like Funnel Scripts, like here's the scripts for your funnels, and we had High Ticket Secrets, which is your high ticket funnel, and then we had like all the other things that we have rolled out before and since, right? Then we have like our, and then we start tying things to ClickFunnels, we have our ClickStart program, which is helping people get their funnels set up, we've got our funnel certification program, even my inner circle, Interestingly enough, they transitioned to a funnel inner circle. Someone even mentioned at last meeting, hey, the reason why we're in this room is because Russell's the best in the world at funnels. And I was like, how interesting is that? And I really think that what took, the big, I mean obviously there's a lot of things that happened, but one of the biggest things for us that took us from where we're at now to, I mean this year, I don't wanna share numbers or anything, but it's gonna be, I mean, 3 or 4, maybe even 5 times more than my biggest year of all time. It's just kinda crazy, and I really feel like like is because we picked our thing and that's what we're focusing on. Everything we're doing is around this one concept of funnels and we're trying to become the best in the world at funnels. So our coaching's around funnels, our products are around funnels, the front end offers around webinar funnels and book funnels and like everything is tied to this conversation that we are trying to become the best in the world at. And I think that that's one of the keys. As much as I hated to go that way and I didn't want to and I fought it for so long because I am good at a lot of things. I wanted to be all these things. I don't think that's the key. I think the key is really figure out what makes, what are you the best in the world at? What is your thing? And then everything you create is tied to that one thing. Ryan Deiss just posted, I think Digital Marketer's done a little, he says they've been live 5 years now and I was reading this post and it was really, really cool. I really enjoyed it. But he was talking about how every year their business model changed. First they were this and they were this and they were this and one year they were funnels and next year they were consultants and then the next year they were whatever and this year they're doing certifications and it's kind of like, their business keeps kind of changing. I know they're doing well, but my guess is that if they would pick a track and stick with it, and they're trying to, obviously, like one of them's gonna become the thing for them. But I mean, if you would ask people 3 years ago, like, who does funnels in the industry? Like, everyone would've said Ryan Deiss, but they shifted away from that. They shifted their focus to the next thing. You know, it was The Machine and email marketing, and then it was, you know, and now certifications. And so I'm hoping that they find their spot. I think what they're doing with certifications is unique and cool, and no one else is doing that. We're definitely not going that direction. I think that there's like this area that they're gonna carve out and just kinda own and I hope that's the plan. I want to, I hope, I'd love to see what they can do if they execute hard on that for 3 or 4 years and just focus there. You know, I look at us like we're focusing there on this one thing and I start looking at, you know, a whole bunch of things are going through my mind right now that like how to build a community, you know, it's around a topic, right? Like our community, we're funnel hackers, we funnel hack, we can have live events that are hackathons and we have the funnel hacking live event so it's like, It's funnels and hacks. It's suddenly like all these things. If you want to build a cult or a culture, it comes down to I think becoming the best in the world at one thing and then tying everything you're doing around that concept. Kind of a fun idea behind that, one of my close buddies, Chad Wolner, he's a chiropractor and he's been kind of trying to figure out his spot in the world outside of just his practice. What does he want to do and how does he want to serve people outside of that? And a little while ago he decided he wanted to help serve chiropractors, help other ones get to the point where he's gotten and really free themselves from the startup of a practice and those kind of things. And so he started a podcast and he's doing all these things and they're all good and he's teaching everything, you know, from like how he did this and all these things which are broad and good. And we were at a camping trip the other day together and I was sitting there and I was like, would I go and pay Chad to learn how to grow my chiropractic business? I was like, I don't know if I would. Not that he doesn't know his things, 'cause he does, but I'm just like, I don't think he's the best in the world at all those things. He's teaching all those things. Like, what could Chad be the best in the world at? And I was thinking, I was like, dude, like, and it's just, this isn't like the answer for everyone, but for him I was just like, dude, you're probably the only chiropractor on earth that knows anything about funnels. You've built tons of funnels, you've built your own funnels, online funnels and offline funnels, and like, I would venture to assume that you are the best in the world at chiropractic funnels right now. I was like, that should be your thing, man. Like, you should shift all your branding and everything around that one thing and make that your focus. I was like, if that was your focus, I would come to you in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even, again, come to learn how to build a chiropractic business, 'cause you don't have the biggest chiropractic business. I wouldn't come to you for that. I'd go to whoever did. But you're the best in the world at chiropractic funnels. I would come to you for that. If you were to go to an event, say there's a big event in your industry, and say, hey, I'm the chiropractic funnel dude, they would allow you to speak, 'cause you are that person, right? I was looking at the other chiro gurus. There's a social media one, and there's different ones, right? And each of them have their little spot in the ecosystem. System. And I've always, again, like I said, I always kind of was resistant to that and fought that, but now I really think that's the key. So anyway, I just wanted to leave that while I'm driving back to the office for you guys to kind of think on is like, what is your thing? Like, I know you're good at everything because you're amazing. So of all those things, like, where— like when someone says like, oh, so-and-so, they're the funnel dude, they're the the social media dude. They're the eat fat in your butter dude, or you know, or put butter in your coffee dude, or whatever your market is. Like, what, what makes you unique? What makes you different, right? And, and don't— and it was kind of fun, like I was looking at like our old products, right? We had like microcontinuity, which was cool. There's just like another random thing where now I can be like, hey, microcontinuity funnels, and suddenly again it takes the same concept but it wraps it in a way that's unique to me. And now it gives context. Now people care. Anyway, so just, just some thoughts. So hopefully that helps some of you guys, and I hope you take some time to kind of carve out where in the world you fit into your ecosystem. And, and don't fight it because you, you feel like you're better than it. Own it. And I think that's how you go deep with, with people and your audience, and that's where you're gonna see the biggest transformations. So there you go, you guys. I hope you enjoy that. That's all I got. So I appreciate you all. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being part of this crazy community that we're trying to build. And I'll talk to you guys soon. Bye. Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson again. I wanna thank you for listening to Marketing Your Car. And I wanna make sure you're plugging into everything that we're doing on a daily basis. And so make sure that every morning you're plugging into the Marketing Your Car training. If you go to marketingyourcar.com, you can join the email list and make sure you get email notifications when new episodes come out. You can also get links to all the transcripts of every single show we've done in the past. But then every night, well not every night, but most every night, I also do a Periscope show called the Marketing Quickie Show. It's really fun. You can go to Periscope and search my name, Russell Brunson, and subscribe. Every single night you'll get a notification. It'll kind of chirp on your phone and you'll have me jump on there and give you kind of the end of the day thoughts and ideas and marketing strategies we've been playing with during the day. 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