The Law Of Deterioration In Business

Hey, hey, this is Russell Brunson. It is a Saturday, I don't even know. I've been camping and now we're flying to Kenya and we're all over the place and I'm driving my car and I was just voxing some people in the Inner Circle catching up on stuff before I headed out and had a conversation with somebody that was probably not what they were hoping for but it was I think what they need and I just want to share it here because I am positive that they're not the only person in need of this advice, 'cause it's hard advice, and so I just want to share with you guys, 'cause a lot of you it won't be applicable, but some of you it will be very, very, very applicable. So here we go. Oh, and by the way, this is 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, so like I said in the preview, or the intro, or whatever we call this thing nowadays, I got some probably backwards advice that's backwards from what you're hoping. I'm walking in the office right now and the alarm's about to go off, unless someone forgot to set the alarm. Check it out, someone's gonna be fired. Alarm is not set. Alright, well we're good to go then, no beeping. So, alright, so, the person's advice. They've been going through a bunch of stuff and they have been almost a year in the program and just not having the success that they wanted or desired. In fact, having almost no success and there's a couple reasons and I'll kind of leave it, you know, I won't give you an opinion on all the reasons. I do want to talk about what my feedback was. The first thing was that if the business you are in cannot consistently and profitably— and those are the two key words, consistently and profitably— generate customers, it's not a good business to be in. I don't care how many— well, I made money in the past, I've got a bunch of clients that love me, or whatever. If you can't consistently and profitably generate new clients into the business, it's not a good business. And if you're not careful, you're going to get caught where this person's caught now, where They have a business now that doesn't, that they can't profit from. They've got customers and clients paying them some stuff, but it's just kind of, it's stagnant. And there's always this, I don't even know what it's called, there's the law, it's one of like Einstein's laws of deterioration where everything just deteriorates, right? So like, like ClickFunnels, like we're pushing and pushing, it's growing, growing, growing. If I stopped, it would start deteriorating. It's just the law of how the universe works, right? You get an apple and you set it out in the sun, what happens? It doesn't bloom up and become bigger, it deteriorates and starts going down into this mush thing. And so like businesses are the same way, like everything deteriorates. Creates. And so if you have a business that's there and you've got some customers, it's going to start, start deteriorating, getting smaller no matter what you do, unless you can consistently and profitably can bring new customers in. So my first question for you is, are you in a business where you can consistently and profitably generate customers? If not, you're in a bad business. Okay, that's number one. Number two is you've got to learn how to sell people stuff. Like, that is the most important thing. I don't care what business you are in, the only thing that really matters is selling stuff. Like, that's it. And it's interesting how people will try everything else to avoid selling, right? They'll try focusing on Facebook ads and this and that and all sorts of stuff so they don't have to actually sell. Like selling is the only thing that matters. If you've read the book Ready, Fire, Aim, and if you haven't, like seriously, like I've recommended this probably 100 times on this podcast, like it's amazing. The book by Michael Masterson, it's all about how to take a business to go from 0 to 1 million, 1 million to 10, 10 to 50, and 50 and above, right? And the skills, challenges, opportunities that happen at each level. But the first, the first part, if you only read the first section about going from $0 to $1 million, like, it'll— like, that's the most valuable part of the whole book for most, most of the people listening on to this, right? And the whole thing talks about is that the entire goal of going from $0 to $1 million in sales, the only thing you're trying to do is figure out how to profitably sell the thing you're selling. That's it. That's the most important thing you can be focusing on your business. It's not how to scale, my customer support, all these things that we get involved with, or getting my I need a sweet office and my business cards, I need a sweet website and all this crap that us as entrepreneurs think is important, 'cause it's not. The only thing that matters is how can I profitably sell my product? And what do my customers actually want, right? That's the whole section one of that book is about, is how to do that. Okay, 'cause as soon as you figure that out, like that's the role of the entrepreneur, 'cause that's not something you can outsource or hire away or you can set up a team around, all that crap. Like that is your role as the entrepreneur. You have to figure out, you have to cut your teeth and go out there and sell something. Because until you sell something, nothing ever happens, right? Like, that's your job is to go out there and sell and figure out how in the world, first off, do I, you know, like, how do I pitch this thing that I've created to get people excited enough to give me money for it? Like, that's what you gotta figure out. Like, that's the most important thing that you're doing here in that business where you're going from zero to a million dollars. Okay, and after you've mastered that and figure out, okay, boom, like for ClickFunnels, we figured out the way to sell ClickFunnels is through webinars with this pitch. Boom. So we figured that out, went from zero to a million and then beyond almost overnight, right? And now as soon as you get from a million to 10, all these new headaches are coming in, right? Which happened with ClickFunnels. I mean, we went from zero to a million, as soon as the webinar pitch worked, it was like 2 weeks we were at a million bucks. So it, boom, blew up fast, right? And then all of a sudden all the new nightmares came. That's when you go, you know, management and people and support and all this other crap that happens. But that's like phase 2, that's like after you've figured out the selling system that will profitably sell your thing for forever. Right, so we figured that out, boom, all of a sudden, new strengths, problems, opportunities came out from zero to $10 million. Now we've passed that, we're going from $10 to $50, so now we're looking at the next phase of that thing, and that's kinda where we're treading water right now here in our company. And so, but for most of you guys, that's the key. And so for this person who was struggling, that's where they're stuck at. They're stuck from that zero to million, and they have not figured out how to sell the product yet. Okay, so go connect the two things. First off, I'll talk about first. You've gotta be in a business where you can profitably, or consistently profitably generate customers. Number two, you've got to figure out how in the world to sell your thing, okay? And that means maybe you gotta try a webinar, maybe that doesn't work, and maybe you try a membership site, maybe that doesn't work, maybe you try— you got to try 5, 6, 10, 15 things, whatever that takes, because one of them will work. You just got to figure out which one that is. And soon you figure out, boom, this is the method of how I will sell people into this world. It's through a webinar, or it's through phone sales, or it's through Facebook ads to a video, like whatever that is. So you figure out how to profitably sell that thing, boom, now you've got the key, and now you can start scaling your business, right? So those are the two things, guys. Step 1: profitably, consistently generate customers. Step 2: you got to figure out the selling system to sell your product to those people, also profitably, by the way. And that's it. Okay, now for this person, the advice I gave, I promise, was not the advice they wanted to hear. And I'm probably gonna hear back from them later today or tomorrow telling me that I'm wrong or they're upset or whatever. And I understand that because What I told him, I said, if you cannot figure out how to profitably and consistently generate customers, you are not in a business. And so one thing you can do is you can keep trying and trying, spend another year or 2 years or 3 years in this thing, or you gotta shut down shop. You need to stop. You need to— what does Mr. Wonderful say on Shark Tank? Like, you're, uh, you, you hate money, or, uh, oh, I can't remember what he says. This is where money goes to die, right? Like, you've got to stop. There's got to be— you know, and we're taught our whole life, like, don't become quitters, don't become quitters. But there's a point in your life and things in your life you have to quit. Okay, all the signs are telling you this is not working, and so you need to stop and say, look, this doesn't work, and shut down shop. And that might mean turning off your business, might mean declaring bankruptcy, it might mean— I don't know what that means for you. It's gonna be scary, there's gonna be fear associated with it, a whole bunch of really bad things you don't want to do, but it'll be worth it. Okay, I've had, what, 3 or 4 times in my business life where I have had to shut things down and start over, and every single time I've had to go through so much pain And it's so intense, I even think I can feel it like inside of my chest, like my hands right now are sweating just thinking about the pain I've had to go through during those, those times where my business didn't keep working, right? It was deteriorating and I was freaking out and I couldn't figure out how to profitably generate new customers and I had to stop. And sometimes I stopped early, which I was grateful for because it caused a lot less pain, caused a little bit of like sharp pain, but it went away fast. Other times I freaking hung on to the ship while it was sinking to the point where I almost got drug under 2 or 3 times. You think I'd learn by now, right? And so my job is to kind of help warn you guys, say look, bad things could be happening if these things aren't happening in your business. If you have not figured out a way to profitably sell your product yet, you better try a whole bunch of other ways quick, 'cause you gotta figure out what that is. And if you're not consistent, and not able to profitably, excuse me, consistently profitably generate customers, another big warning flag, okay? So those things are all figureoutable, is that the right word? You can figure those things out, but you got to try it. And if you're in a business like, I cannot generate a customer for under, you know, $30, $40, then it's the wrong business to be in. It's time to start over. It's time to figure it out. The nicest thing about us as entrepreneurs is we can create and do whatever we want. If your business isn't profitable right now, then guess what? It doesn't hurt to start and start something new that could be profitable like a week from now, right? The hardest thing is, is our willingness to do that. I had a friend Um, man, I feel bad for this guy. I got into the business, and, um, this is again over a decade ago, and I met him at a time he'd been in the business for 2 years. He'd written this ebook, he was super proud of it. And, and I was— I mean, I first met him, I was like, man, this book is good. Like, is it working? Are you selling it? He's like, no. I'm like, why not? He's like, I can't figure it out. I'm trying all sorts of things. And he kept trying and trying and trying. And then like year 1 went to year 2, then 3, then 4. I was about 5 years into my business. I remember having this conversation with him again, and he was still trying to sell his book. I'm like, man, You should— like, in the time that you have been trying to sell this book, I've sold probably 30 or 40 different products. Some of them work, some of them bombed, some of them like in between, but I'm moving forward on things, right? And, uh, I said, dude, you gotta stop. And like, this book is— no one wants this book. Like, I know that you love it, you put so much time, everyone that's read it told you it was good, but people don't want it, man. Like, you've got to stop and change it. You're never gonna progress. And somebody told me, he said, Russell, I can't. He said, I've spent so much time and energy on this project, I can't walk away from it now. And that was the last conversation I had with him. That's probably been 7 or 8 years now. And I don't know, I know he's not in the business 'cause I would know. So anyway, that's what I just wanna kind of give you the feedback. I know it's not pretty and it's not nice, but it's what some of you guys need to hear. And if you are, if you have figured that out, if you do have a business that's profitably generating customers consistently. You've figured out your selling system, now it's time to start scaling it, you guys. As soon as you figure those pieces out, you should be able to grow fast. Like I said, ClickFunnels, as soon as we figured out, boom, this is the webinar, boom, this is the pitch, like we went to $1 million quick and then to $10 million quick and then, you know, as soon as you figure those pieces out, it should be scalable, it should be really, really quick and fast and easy. Well, easy from the sales standpoint, then all of a sudden it transitions to the new headaches that show up when you pass $1 million in sales. But that's what that book's for. So go read Ready, Fire, Aim and read chapter 2 when you're there, but don't read ahead. You don't need that. Just figure out, just focus on going from zero to a million. That should be where most of our minds are at right now. When you cross that barrier, then reopen the book, read chapter 2, and then you'll figure out that next step. So that's what I got for you guys today. Anyway, I'm at the office, I gotta do some work. I will talk to you guys all again soon. Bye everybody. Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson again. I want to thank you for listening to Mark in your car. Marketing Your Car, and I want to make sure that you're plugging into everything that we're doing on a daily basis. 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. 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