The Secret to Building a Business That Thrives in the AI Era | #Success - Ep. 84

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Do you have a funnel but it's not converting? The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good, but you suck at selling. If you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next selling online event by going to sellingonline.com/podcast. That's sellingonline.com/podcast. This is the Russell Brunson Show. Hey, what's up everybody? Good morning. This is Russell. Hope you guys are all doing Great. Today I'm in the car heading to an appointment. It's early in the morning. I already got up early this morning, lifted and got ready. I'm driving to a doctor's appointment, and then I get back, I've got all sorts of fun stuff happening today. But yeah, I just got done with— I just got out of 6 days of Inner Circle meetings, which is awesome. Inner Circle is my mastermind group, and we have usually about 100 businesses in it, and we meet together multiple times throughout the year. One time we meet together as a whole group of all 100 businesses come together, and it's like our big yearly convention with all the Inner Circle members, and it's like a little mini Fuddle Hacking Live. It is really cool. But then we also break people into groups and they get to do really cool masterminding individually. So it's one of the coolest things we do. And then in the middle of the year, we do something called Decade in a Day where everyone has a chance to fly out here and do one-on-one consults with me. We line them all up and we go back to back. Each person gets a 15-minute, what I call a Decade in a Day experience. And that's really fun. And then this time of year we do one where everyone gets together and we spend 2 days where I facilitate these small mastermind groups and it's fun. It's fun for me because I sit there and like learn from all these amazing members. Like to be inside the inner circle, there's a standard like you have to make at least $1 million in your business to be there. So everyone showed up is like figured out the basics, right? They know how to create an offer. They know how to drive some traffic and do some stuff. And so we get to get past all the, you know, some of the beginner conversations and dive right into like, all right, how to go from 1 million to 10, 10 to 100. Like, how do we scale? How do we get more traffic? How do we cut costs? How do we build a team? Like all the, all the fun stuff I don't get to talk about in most places, right? Most places, especially, you know, organic Instagram, YouTube, social podcasts. It's like we're talking, you know, not so much beginner stuff, but it's, it's more of those kind of foundational things. And it's in these rooms and we get to talk about the, the, those kind of things. And I would love to talk about those things more places, but those things don't go viral on TikTok. They don't— people don't share those videos on YouTube, whatever. Um, and so those things happen usually behind closed doors in, in, uh, like an inner circle room. So it was cool. So for 6 days, I was able to sit there and just listen to each person in our group present what they're doing and how they're doing it. And just, um, it was fascinating just watching it. And I've been doing this now for And I was— I joined Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer's mastermind. I don't know how long ago. A decade ago. And that's crazy. No, two decades. Two decades ago. Almost 20 years. That's insane. 20 years ago. All right. 20 years ago, I joined Dan Kennedy's. That's crazy. So I've been sitting in rooms like that for the last 20 years. And then, you know, Inner Circle, I've been running now for over a decade. And so it gives me the really unique ability where I get to see behind the scenes of hundreds and hundreds of businesses, you know, like just You know, owning ClickFunnels has given me an unfair advantage because I have the same thing. I can see what funnels are working, what's converting, what people, you know, people are making the most of the platform, what they're doing, how they're doing it, all kind of stuff. But then this is a really unique spot where everyone gets up and actually shows us what they're doing. A lot of times it's not just the funnel, it's, you know, it's the sales process, it's the people, it's the teams, it's the scaling, it's how they drive traffic. And so I just get such a unique glimpse every single year at just all these different people's businesses. So it's fun. And I wish I could sit here and just tell you everything we talked about for the last 6 days, but that would be the longest podcast ever. But there are some trends that are really interesting and some things that got me thinking a lot more. Obviously, AI is a big topic right now and it's crazy how people are using AI. We got people using AI obviously to create offers and products that people, you know, most people now have got some version of themselves cloned on AI where it's part of their upsell or their offer. You know, people can come ask their AI questions. And so like there's a lot of that happening. A lot of people doing it to write copy faster via sales and webinars, people using it for just about everything. There's, you know, AI weaved its way into almost every conversation. But the one that was most interesting to me and kind of what I want to talk about today was just how AI is replacing all the jobs, right? We saw this week Amazon laid off 30,000 people. I think it's their biggest layoff they've ever had. Salesforce, which is like the biggest, you know, one of the biggest tech businesses of all time. They, like a year ago, Marc Benioff announced like, we're never hiring engineers again. Then they laid off like 3 or 4 1,000 engineers because AI can do what engineers can do. You know, like we have guys on my team now who aren't coders who are coding software through these AI tools. Like it's, it's, it's really fascinating. So, but it also for me, so this is, I'm gonna talk about the fear and the opportunities. Hopefully you guys don't get too scared by the fear, but you see the opportunity, right? Like my big fear is most jobs are going to become irrelevant, right? Like if you are not an entrepreneur in the next 2 years, you're in trouble. You know what I mean? Like if you're going to school now to learn accounting or programming or almost anything, you're in trouble. The only thing that you really should be learning how to do is how to run AI prompt. That's the only thing of value, right? In, in the next 2 years, like that's it. And if you're not good at that, then you're in trouble. Now, the problem is, you know, entrepreneurs, most of you all who are listening to me, because of AI, you'll be able to make more money with less people. Like if you had a team of 400 people, there'd be a time where you can do the same amount of volume with 20 people or maybe 3 people, right? And so for the entrepreneurs, AI becomes this tool where you can cut costs, increase revenue. But the bigger fear is that's happening across— in the past, like that happens to a couple segments or sectors and it's fine. But what happens when it happens to every segment, when everybody no longer is relevant? Like we don't need any of the jobs. Like, yes, I do think there'll be new new jobs created. But I think if, man, I think if people are not becoming entrepreneurs or aligning themselves with a unique skill set, how they can use AI so that they're very, very valuable to an entrepreneur, man, they're going to be, they're going to be in a lot of trouble. I'm scared for that. And I'm mostly scared because, you know, what's the solution? Like, is it the government giving people handouts? Because if there's no jobs, like it becomes really scary really fast, right? And if there's no jobs, then even if you are the entrepreneur who, you know, has no cost and no team and you're able to do everything through AI, how do you get customers if nobody has money, right? So then the government, how do they come in? They come in, you know, during COVID never lost their jobs. They came and dropped money in and stimulated money. So like that was the thing they did. So is that what happens? Like, yeah. Anyway, you know, I was reading something talking about how like plumbers will be getting paid $1 million a year because no one wants to do those kind of jobs, but those kind of jobs will be the only You know, the only jobs left over AI is not doing. But then Elon's talking about robots now. There'll be 2— was it 2 robots for every human on the planet soon? And it's like the robots can build your house, they can fix your yard, they can do all— like, there's no need for all the things because the robots can do it at much less cost. And, um, yeah, so it's like when all things happen and there's no jobs, then what does society look like? Like, it's kind of scary. Um, anyway, so there's the— there's the fear side. Um, I'm scared because I like— like, if a society— if nobody's working and everyone's home and getting handouts from the government or no money. Either of those things I think is really, really bad. Idle hands are the devil's workshop, and it's where I think it causes wars and internal wars and civil wars and all sorts of chaos. There's the scary side of this whole thing for me. That's what I'm counting, like if AI just takes us over and just decides to squash us as humanity because they don't need us anymore. But that's not my— I don't think about those things because I'm a very, you know, I'm very Christian Mormon. I believe in God and Christ. I believe in what has been revealed, what's going to happen. So like, I do believe that this story has a happy ending. So I'm not too nervous about annihilation like a lot of people are. But, you know, when you do read scripture, like things that happen before Christ comes again are not beautiful. They're not exciting. I mean, it's great and terrible, right? Great for those who are prepared and terrible for those who are not. So I do think there's going to be a lot of chaos happening as it leads up to that. Right. So there's the, there's the scary side. So then the positive side, let's talk about that. So then in that gap, we're entrepreneurs, we're always looking for when things shift, there's an opportunity, something opens up. Right. And I think the opportunity I will be capitalizing on heavily, you will see January, I'm launching a campaign that will be heavily focused on this, like exposing the gap, exploiting the fear, agitating the problem. And then for me, and hopefully for you, the, the real magic is in learning how to sell opportunity. Okay, in the past we've made money by exploiting opportunities. In the future, most of the money will be made through selling opportunities, creating opportunities for people to have a job, to be entrepreneurial, even if they're not entrepreneurs, because the people who will survive in the upcoming climate change will be entrepreneurs. And so you creating opportunities and you selling opportunities is going to be the gold rush. It is going to be the thing that stabilizes you, right? Dan Kennedy had a course back in the day called Opportunity Concepts, which is all about this. We rebranded it, call it Selling Opportunity. In fact, if you go to sellingopportunity.com, there's a book, a multimedia book of Dan teaching this stuff. And but I do think it's the future. It's like, how do I explain this? Like, like the opportunity, like it's you creating and you can't say this phrase. This is like literally FTC hates this phrase. So, Mark, so I'm saying this as hyperbole. Verbally, but never say this when you're selling it this way, but creating businesses in a box for people where it's like, here's an opportunity where you can make some money. And it's not going to be like, here's how to make $1 million or $10 million or anything. It's going to be like, all right, you're laid off, there's no jobs. Here's how you can make an extra $1,000 a month. Like, they're these smaller opportunities. In fact, Evan Pagan wrote a book called Opportunity, and I unfortunately, I own it. I have not read it yet, but Joshua Latimer, who's one of my Inner Circle members, he was telling me in that, that he talked about opportunities back in the day. They're like, there were, you know, these huge opportunities came up where you could create a business and make, you know, $100 million or whatever it is. He's like, in the future there'll be more opportunities, but they'll be smaller, tons of small, small, small opportunities. Right. And so I do think that the future for entrepreneurs who want to make a lot of money is less about you creating a thing and more about you creating opportunity for other people to exploit the thing, right? So how do I explain this? Like, in the past, maybe it was— oh man, I'm in traffic trying to get to my doctor's appointment. I'm going to be late. Well, that's not good. Well, it is what it is. Anyway, so yeah, I think the opportunity is— so I'm trying to explain this the best, right? So Like, for a long time, what I sold in ClickFunnels was like, here is a tool you can use to sell your thing, right? I think the future of me selling ClickFunnels is me creating little opportunities for people. Like, like, for example, we worked with Anthony Morrison. We built a free store builder, right? So we built an opportunity where someone can have their own e-commerce store and they could plug into some of our third-party vendors where they could build a store and they could literally overnight put in 1,000 products or 500 products or however many they want. Right. And so we created an opportunity. So it was not me like, here's this tool you can use to grow whatever business you want. It's here's a business I created for you that's pre-built, that has these things, and this is an opportunity for you. So I'm creating an opportunity and I'm selling that. Like, the opportunity market is the thing that's going to be the biggest because a lot of people aren't going to buy your coaching program because they have no money. Right. But they will invest in an opportunity that can make them money. It's like, how do you turn whatever it is you're selling into an opportunity? And that's kind of the premise of, of, of Dan Kennedy's Selling Opportunity course, which is like one example he talks about there is I think it was Chris Tomczyk, who's a chiropractor. He's a chiropractor, right? And like that was his business. But then he started, he turned it into an opportunity. It's like you can buy into our franchise where we're going to give you the systems, the tools and everything. Now you can launch your chiropractic business or grow your chiropractic or whatever the thing might be. But it's like it's— he's turning it into an opportunity. Um, uh, you know, if you— even the local markets, if you figure out how to do something like, let's say you're, um, um, oh, uh, there's a lot of Inner Circle members doing this. There's ones, um, they created a really cool, uh, workout routine, right? Kind of like a Zumba or something like that, but it's different, right? So they created— they started to launch it, they started making money themselves with it, but then they transitioned their business to selling opportunities. They took that and they created a bolt-on business where anybody with the gym can bolt on their systems, their frameworks, their thing. It becomes this opportunity that they create. So they, they figured out first, figure out the opportunity, made money with it, and then they— but now their money's been made in like selling that opportunity to these other people, right? Um, and that's really like the— where the money will be made in the future, I think, is, is the creation and selling of opportunities. Um, so anyway, I just wanted to plant that into your head because I do think the AI stuff is exciting. I think it's scary. Um, But if I'm trying to forecast the next 2 years, I'm like, I think, I think a huge majority of the working population is going to be, it's going to be out of business. Like, they're not going to have jobs, they're going to be jobless. And I think that if you can create opportunities for people where they can take your ideas, your system, your whatever, and turn it into a business for themselves, and again, this is probably not going to be the the multimillion-dollar businesses, but a business they can run from home. They can do their thing. They can plug in your business in a box. They don't call it that, but someone is. But they plug in your business in a box. That's the real reality. Josh Latimer is doing something he calls decentralized coaching. It's really interesting where he's basically built a coaching platform, but he's decentralized it. So it's no longer him teaching it. So he's taking his frameworks, his teaching, his core, everything, and then he like licenses it to people. To go and teach his systems on their platform. So he's decentralized the coaching so anybody else can do it. So for example, it'd be like me taking all my marketing secret stuff and I sell a license to you. You can now— you can go teach all this stuff and now you're in business. You can go coach on it, you can teach it, you can collect the money, you keep the money. But I just create an opportunity for you with my frameworks, my ideas, my stuff. Right? And so that's kind of what this whole decentralized Yeah, but this concept, like selling opportunity. So anyway, I just wanted to begin this podcast episode. I didn't think through an outline or make a whole thing. It was more so just like I wanted to place that seed in your mind because you're going to start watching as, as, you know, lack of jobs across the country is rising exponentially and AI is replacing those jobs. And the next gold rush, I believe, for you and for me and for all of us is like being in the business of creating opportunities for people and helping them to, to be successful in whatever it is that you're currently doing. So anyway, I'd like to, I like to encourage, especially guys who are not selling opportunities right now, like, how do you turn what you do into an opportunity? Is there a way to do that? Is there a way where you can train people, you can certify people, you can all sorts of stuff? You know, I look at some of the most successful businesses who have come through my programs. You know, our programs that are certification. Like certification is, is one of the best businesses because you're certifying somebody to be able to do your thing, right? It's like, so, so we certify people in ClickFunnels, like how to be a certified funnel builder. Like that's a huge opportunity for people, right? It's like I'm selling opportunity. With Understand.me, we have a certification program. We're certifying people to become experts in all of the personality profiles and Understand.me, and then you can go and you can sell that to your clients, right? It's creating opportunities. So just look at like, how can you take the thing you currently do? How can you turn it into an opportunity? And like, therein lies, I think, the lion's share of the money to be made over the next 48 months. So there you go. There's Russell, Russell Thomas, trying to tell you what I think is going to be happening. And you'll see it more and more in all the cool stuff I'm doing. I'll be creating the most insanely cool opportunities for you guys, and hopefully you take advantage of those things. So All right. That said, I appreciate you all. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for being part of this. I hope that you got some value from it. And, and I hope that you don't miss out on this trend in this wave. Think more about it, study it, research it, look how other people are using it, and then, and then capitalize on it. All right, guys, appreciate you all, and I'll talk to you soon.