Russell Brunson: Funnels, Profit Margins, A-Players, and Getting to 100M

You're listening to Freedom Fast lane presented by capitalism.com this is the show about building businesses and investing the profits so that you can live life on your terms. And now, your host, the future owner of the Cleveland Indians, Ryan Daniel Moran.

Hey fastlaners, welcome to the show. This is Ryan Daniel Moran and today I'm excited to invite you into the fast lane because we're going to be hanging out with Russell Brunson. And Russell has had a profound impact on me through his books. And also we use his software click Funnels to manage a lot of our checkouts@capitalism.com and in some of our physical products brands. Russell kind of built a name for himself being one of the experts behind building profitable funnels, sales funnels. And I didn't know a lot of people talking about creating sales funnels for physical products. So I asked Russell to come on to talk a little bit about what he does and how it might apply for physical product owners. Does it still make sense to build a funnel if you're selling physical products or if you're on Amazon? What if you don't have a face of your brand? Does it still make sense to be doing a lot of the stuff that he talks about? I also ask Russell to talk about getting to 10 million and beyond getting to a hundred million dollars because in the last few years Russell made a big jump of being a one to million kind of guy to having 140 or $150 million a year company. And it was a complete left turn. It was a business that he did not see coming out of what he was doing. So he talks about the ups and the downs and he talks about how he attracts the A players that really grow you from that one or ten point up to $100 million. Gary Vaynerchuk echoed his sentiments that once you're doing a million dollars, that's really all about the idea, right? One of the we've been able to create so many millionaires here@capitalism.com and Freedom Fastlane is because we help people get their idea and take it to market. And Russell says on this podcast, if you take an idea to market, it's fairly predictable what it takes to get to a million dollars. So we're able to create million dollar businesses really quickly. When you go from 1 to 10, it's a little bit about scale, it's about duplicating what has been working and to really dial in your systems. And then it's a matter of attracting people who are better than you. Gary Vaynerchuk echoed that very loudly on our stage at the Capitalism Conference. I am trying to persuade Russell Brunson to say it again at the capitalism conference in 2017. So that has been a recurring theme that we have seen. So we do have confirmed some breakout sessions that are all about building your empire and attracting a player talent. I've invited some of my mentors and my confidants to lead some sessions at the Capitol Conference to talk specifically about attracting a players and getting to 10 or 100 million. In this podcast, you're going to find out if you should have a funnel in your business. We're going to talk about how to build an audience whether you are building a movement or you're selling physical products. We're going to talk about attracting a level talent and we talk about what it takes to break out to the next level of success. I know you're going to enjoy this chat with Russell Brunson. Hey, one real quick note before we go in. I neglected to tell you Russell's mic, for whatever reason, was coming in a little bit weird. So I did what I could in order to clean it up, but there still might be some places where he wasn't in. Coming in super clear. And he talks a thousand miles an hour. So you're gonna probably wanna listen to this at normal speed and please forgive any audio issues. All right, let's jump into the chat with R.

Russell the Man Brunson. Welcome to Freedom Fast Lane. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Yeah, man, thanks for having me. I'm excited.

Yeah, I'm the most excited dude.

I gotta tell you.

Like, I've said this publicly, I have said it, I've told you privately. Your most recent book was probably the best thing I've read in five years. It has become my bible. I read it on a weekly basis as like a refresh. So I can't thank you enough. I can't. I hope no one reads it because it's that good. And I just wanted to publicly acknowledge you for what you put together in that book.

Oh, thanks, man. I really appreciate that.

Yeah, you bet.

It's always scary writing a book because you have a dream, what you want to be and you're not sure if it's going to come out right or wrong or whatever. And it's just cool seeing how the impacts happen on people's lives. It makes all the long nights of writing well worth it. So it's pretty cool.

So what I wanted to ask you about was a little bit about how some of that might apply for businesses that weren't necessarily personal brands. I mean, you wrote Dot Com Secrets before you wrote Expert Secrets. And you've said that Expert Secrets almost is like the prequel to Dot Com Secrets. So I'm curious, in your experience, you built click funnels. You see more data and businesses than probably anybody else in our industry. How does all of that apply for someone that doesn't want to be a face on the Internet? Or does it?

It's funny because I don't know if you're friends with John Reese, but he was one of my first student made. Did a million dollars online in our. In our industry.

And I just met him like a week ago. Yeah.

Oh, cool. John's amazing. And he did a podcast today. At the end of it, he talked about, like, I don't think you need to be an expert. And it was kind of funny. And then so on my podcast, I kind of referenced that and I talked about. He came back in the next one, and it's just been kind of a funny thing. But he said that. I think he's right. Like, you don't have to have a brand and a face to run a business. I don't think that's essential to be successful. But I think. I think any successful business, I can attach a personality on the front of it. I think I can 10x any business with that. And that'd be like, my argument, you don't have to have it. But, man, it makes it so much easier, so much faster. Like, people online, like, they're craving connection with something. And if there's not a connection point with your business, then you're a commodity, and they're gonna jump, you know, whatever the lowest prices or whatever those things are, but they connect with you. Then they're gonna stick around for the long haul. You know, we've had in three years, ClickFunnels has been live. I think almost every other week there's been a clickfunnels killer that's been launched. And at first we were really scared. Now it's kind of a joke in the office. But it's just like, they all come out, they got fancy features. And we do this better in clickfunnels. We do this better, we do whatever, but there's no connection. There's nobody leading the charge, and they fade away by the wayside. And it's like, I think it's such a. It's like the shot of adrenaline. I think you can plug in any business. And some people, it's like, you don't have to always Be like the owner, because sometimes the owner is really boring or they don't fit, right? You know, but there's got to be someone. There's got to be someone that there's that connection with, because that's what I think fuels businesses nowadays.

Let's war game this a little bit. Because a lot of people who listen to Freedom Fast Lane sell physical products. A large percentage of Those are on Amazon.com and they're used to playing the commodity game. And I tell people, don't play that game. Get away from that game as quickly as possible. But there is no personality behind those brands. How would you coach somebody to start moving out of that position and infuse some personality into their brand?

So I would look at the best example. This probably I could show. It's maybe not direct correlation, but there's a lot of pieces, is if you look at Dave Ashby with Bulletproof Executive, right? And Dave, nowadays, he's an E commerce company, right? He's got supplements, he's got butters, he's got oils, he's got coffee. He's got all sorts of stuff. They kill it on Amazon. They kill it on their own web store. But the reason why his company is this huge thing is because Dave came out and I'm not sure how familiar you are with him or his story, but, yeah, the first time, because I'm a Mormon, so we don't drink coffee, right? So I kept hearing people talk about bulletproof coffee. I saw it on, like, Jimmy Kimmel. I'm like, what is this thing? And I was like, I can't do it because I'm a Mormon. But finally I was like, okay, I got to figure out if there's a Mormon version I can make up. So I started going through his stuff and trying to figure out. Because I wanted to try it, right? And I heard a whole story about him, and he was in the Himalayan mountains or something, and he. I'm gonna screw up his story really bad. But he was hiking with some Sherpas or something, and he's getting really hungry and tired and cold. And they meet these dudes and they give him yak butter tea. And he drink this yak butter and he's like. Has all this energy, and he feels amazing. And he gets home and he realizes it was the butter and the tea that made him energy. So he starts putting butter in his coffee and like. And like, boom. This thing is born called bulletproof coffee, right? And this is this thing. And then that thing becomes so shareable, and it's Viral, all sorts of stuff. And now this huge message is built on the back of this thing, this movement. And now you can plug in all these products, all these services. I always laugh because, like, Dave's copy is so bad on his pages, yet I buy every single thing he puts out ever. It's like, here's a picture of a bottle, and the headline was like, this is something I'm probably gonna take at least three times a week. I was like, sweet, I'm in. And I just buy it because the connection with him, right? And if he was to come back and actually, like, have good coffee and, like, do all the stuff that, you know, the good Amazon sellers know how to do, or good econ people could do, it would be even more amplified. But it's so big, and it transcends, like, just the one off transactional. Everyone's racing to the cheapest thing.

He had the audience first, and I think some people might say, easy for him to say. He spent five years blogging before he released a physical products line. For somebody that's already selling product, do you think it's possible to go back and start from the beginning of developing some sort of personality behind a brand that is just selling products, or do you think that it needs to be the order of build the audience first?

It might be easier, but Dave didn't make any money for five years either. So that's, like, kind of painful. Where E. Comm guys, if you're making money right now, then it's like, they always say, like, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second best time is today. I would be, okay, well, we've got this cool brand. We got this cool thing. You know, how can we build a personality or something around it? And I would figure out, every entrepreneur, every business owner is different, right? Like, some people are really good writers. So if that's. You start a blog. If it's not, I would. If it's something else, I would. You're gonna video do Facebook lives or a podcast or whatever. But I would pick a channel, and I would go really, really deep in that channel and start building an audience of people that geek out on that sand, right? If I had a camping shop and I was selling a bunch of camping gear, and that'd be the first thing I would do is I would find a personality. I'm not a big camper, but if I was, I'd be the personality if I love camping. But I would have my camping show and I'd be talking about it. Showing cool things. And I'd be telling that story because now it's like, I'm gonna buy camping stuff from Russell because he's obsessed with camping and this is what he bought. So I'm gonna buy his Instead of the 13 others that are cheaper on Amazon. Cause I would rather buy his because that's a guy I trust.

I completely, 100% agree. Russell, would you talk a little bit about funnels for things that are not information products or not personal brands? I come from the info product world. You come from the info product world. I don't know a whole lot of people outside of the supplement sellers who have really good funnels for physical products or non information products for you. Does the model change at all if you're selling a physical product? When it comes to actually driving traffic to a funnel that converts customers, there are little changes.

But the psychology behind it's not different. It's just how you position the offers. In fact, inside clickfunnels right now, as of today, we're almost. We're over 47,000 active members, almost 48,000 members. And so we got all side and people in every genre you can think of. But it's interesting. Like, I always thought the highest grossing percentage, probably info publishers, but it's not. It's actually E comm people. In fact, our number one top seller in clickfunnels right now. You know Trey Luell. I'm not sure if Trey's been on your show or.

Yeah, I know who he is. We've never met.

Okay. But he's our number one guy in clickfunnels right now. And his funnel was a flashlight. It's kind of funny. When I first met him, he just won click funnels and he joined one of my coaching programs. And he was still kind of. He was selling T shirts prior to that. And he was like, trying to figure out what he was going to do. And he told me he's like, I'm going to build a funnel every single week till one of these things takes off. I was like, all right, cool, man. Go and do that. So he started doing funnels and like, first one was a single double and kept doing different ones, but. And he was moving houses and he had this big closet full of flashlights. And he told his guys, like, just throw up on a page and let's just like, try to like, liquidate these flashlights. And so the guy put it up and they just structured the offer different than they had done the time before. And for some reason, it just.

It worked.

And it took off, and that funnel went from zero to within, like, couple months. Like, 20 to 30 million dollars in sales. And I watched it as it's like. And it just blew up. It was figuring out the right way to position this. And since then, he's been knocked off by, like, 500,000 times. There's a ton of flashlight funnels out there now that you can look at. But the concept behind it was really cool. If you come into the funnel, it was like, hey, get this survival tactical flashlight, which was this kind of flagship product, right? At a good discount. So I think it was like 60 bucks, as opposed to whatever it normally was. They buy the flashlight and then in the funnel, I always think of, like, strategically, okay, like, let's say I was at a store and I'm buying a flashlight. Like, what would be the other things on the aisle next to it that, like, I would want to need? So he. Trey's like, hey, for an extra. You want an extra battery for 12 bucks, do you want the carrying case for this? Would you like to get two flashlights instead of one so you can have one for you and your spouse, or would you like to. And just the same things that if you were a really good salesperson at, you know, REI or something, sitting there next to the flashlight aisle, you'd be pitching that person on. It's the same thing. You're just taking them through the logical progression through a funnel. And that's kind of what he did. And I said, that's. That's what blew up. We did a little while ago, Marcus Lemonis from the TV show the Profit, he let me come on a show, but he made me build a whole bunch of funnels for him first. And, like, one of them was. He was like, I want a funnel for Camping World. I was like, what? You guys sell huge RVs? He's like, yeah, but he's like, you said, funnels work for anything. Like, what can we do? So I was like, oh, my gosh, I don't even know. So we went to, like, we went to actually Camping World. There's one here in Boise, luckily. And we're wandering around trying to find how to build a funnel out of all this random, weird stuff. And we started asking all the tellers, what's your number one best selling product? And they said, every single person in there said, the best selling product we have is toilet paper that biodegrades in your RV so it doesn't get clogged or whatever. And that was by far the first thing. So I was like, okay, let's make a toilet paper funnel. So we made a funnel for them giving away free RV toilet paper. And someone would come in and from there we upsold the different accessories and then on the back end we had lead gen for reps to be able from the salesman to be able to call and actually sell RVs for people. And so we turned just toilet paper into a lead gen funnel for these guys. That did great. And so it just takes a little bit of thinking, like what's the structure in the order? But it's no different than traditional sales. How would a traditional really good salesperson sell your product line? They're not going to walk them over to a desk and here's all the products, which is a typical e commerce store. They're going to pick the best thing, lead with that and then try to add on and bolt on and do the other thing.

Russell, I mean you, I think you said you have 45,000 ClickFunnels members. You have more data in this world than probably anyone else walking around the planet. What have you seen the things that make people really stand out between the people who try their hand at writing a video sales letter or whatever it is and it being another thing that they did versus somebody that's doing millions of dollars selling whatever it is. Apparently biodegradable toilet paper is relevant, so everything is relevant. So what have you seen be the difference makers between those people that really break out?

I would say there's probably two things if you look at one is the people that really understand like funnel structure. And it's like such a geeky thing but like people like me nerd out on it. We went and pulled all the data in the last 90 days to see like how much different things affected, like the overall cash collected in the funnel. And there's one thing that we have in clickfunnels called an order form bump, which is basically this little block you need to put on order forms. After some puts in the credit card information, there's a little block that says, hey, would you like to add this to your order? Just like if you were at Walmart and you're walking out the thing and the lady's like, do you want some gum? Do you want a candy bar? Like the last ditch thing, right? And that order form. But people have an order form bump on their order form. The exact numbers here I can't find real quick, but it's like 158% more money on a funnel that has that versus that doesn't have that it's like that one thing. And like for most people, like the order form bump alone covers all ad costs that they're spending to drive someone into the funnel. And so like just knowing that like if you have a funnel without an order form bump, like you are literally just burning money on like you're giving. Yeah, it's just crazy. That bump will pay for Zuckerberg, it'll pay for Google, it'll pay for whoever. And that's just one piece. And then we're looking at like number two was like those with at least one upsell how much it increased and those who had at least one downsell and just between order form bump, an upsell and down sell. The stat was crazy. Basically if you had a funnel that didn't have a bump, an upsell and a downsell you made for every dollar you'd make in a typical funnel you make $6 if you had those three things. So it's like insane how much increased revenue by just having those three little things are. And so that's the first thing people understand. Just those little pieces like the funnel structure, like make sure you have this, make sure you have this, make sure you have this and you have those things. That's a huge part of it. And the second part of it is the people that are most successful honestly are people who, I don't want to say understand. Some of them don't understand good copy. They respect it like they pay for copywriters, they have good headlines, they have like the traditional sales stuff that I think the info product world understands really well. But a lot of times other businesses don't. The ones that do well are the ones that have those things, have good copy, have good. There's good sales stuff throughout every single page of the funnel.

Hey everybody, Ryan Daniel Moran here, founder of capitalism.com and I'll be your host at the Capitalism Conference this December in Austin, Texas. I'm inviting you to join Ezra Firestone, myself, Kimbal Musk, Brian Lee of the Honest Company and all the other serial millionaires and billionaires this December. Not only will you meet these tycoons of business, but you'll also break into workshops and have hands on help growing your business, making more sales, hiring smarter and even paying fewer taxes while you invest for passive income and long term wealth. As a result of attending this conference, you'll walk away with the roadmap of what it looks like to grow a more profitable business. Stay ahead of the curve and also invest wisely so that your cash flow and your Net worth increase over time and your tax burdens decrease over time. I look forward to seeing you this December in Austin, Texas at the Capitalism Conference.

Are you finding that any models right now work particularly better than others? Or is it still like video sales letter to traditional upsell flow with either affiliate traffic or solo ad traffic? Or is it more of. Are you seeing tripwires take off? Is there any particular model that you're seeing be more of a pattern near the top of the people who are doing really well?

Yeah, I would say probably twofold. I would say webinars still are such a huge thing even for like non info product businesses. We see people now doing webinars selling bundles of like, you know, backpacks with stuff in them, survival, you know, things like that. And then also yeah, like low ticket stuff. And I think the low ticket stuff works so good. The higher ticket stuff does well. And I think the reason why is because so much money is made that more people can spend more money on advertising and still be profitable. Which is why there's so many of those that are at the top of our list of profitable funnels. And the second thing is the low ticket stuff because those are the easiest to advertise like on, you know, Tripwire or whatever you want to call it. Like lower ticket stuff that have really good front end stuff. Like those are the two. I've seen it. We've seen a huge shift away from like a traditional video sales letter. Way less of that than, you know, four or five years ago. Like there wasn't a way to buy something without a video sales letter for the most part Nowadays I see that way less. It's usually really good, like products you can explain fast. Like a Billy Mays type product, you know, like fast is going to grab like a flashlight or a knife or a book or something like that, which is very fasting. Then send you up to something. Or it's like an event based thing where they're selling a higher ticket thing so they can spend more to drive people into it.

So basically the two extremes, you have a lead acquisition into a high ticket funnel or really low in order to get them into an upsell chain. Is that correct? Yep.

Interesting look at that way. That's interesting.

Yeah, yeah, that is really interesting. So Russell, where I want to go next is you seem to be all over the place. Meaning like you have click funnels, you have your personal brand, you put on events, you do podcasts. How the heck is it that you are able to run a tech company, an education company? I See your Facebook ads everywhere. It seems like you come out with a new funnel all of the time. How the heck are you able to get so much done while writing books as well?

That's a good question.

And not drinking coffee.

I think. Oh, I know. It's. It's. Honestly, it's because we have built such an amazing team of people. And I've heard you talk about this in your podcast too. Like, it's the people. It's that, like, I think going from zero to million bucks is, like, the idea. Going from a million to 100 is like the people and the organization and the structure. Right? Because if you look at this like, you know, I had businesses that did, you know, one to $3 million a year multiple times prior to this, and I always get stuck about that level. And it was because, like, I was doing the selling and this and that, and I was telling the programmers what to create, and I was, like, monitoring and I was testing and, like, I just got stuck in these things. ClickFunnels is kind of structured from an internal company standpoint. I got one of my co founders, Todd, who. And then we have another partner we brought in named Ryan. They were on the tech side. And, like, Todd is a good enough. He's an amazing marketer like us, so he understands, like, what the market wants, and he understands what's good, what's not good. And so he just. He drives that whole thing. I don't have to stress about that at all. Ryan technically understands things. And so between Ryan and Todd and program team, like, things just happen. And I'll throw over things like, hey, I want someone who does this, and they can do it. But half time, like, Todd's like, oh, I saw Agora did this, and it's really cool. So we built him to clickfunnels. I saw this happen over here, and I would really like this. And, like, he's just pushing the development of that, and so I don't have to think about that at all. And so the tech side just. Just works. And then there's, like, the operations, which, for me, stresses me out. I've had business in the past where I was interviewing all the people every month and, like, all these things, and, like, I struggled with that. Now I've got Branco Peters on my team who handles the operation, he hires, fires, interviews, all that stuff. So it just happens. And I just, like, I need someone who does this for me, and he'll find, like, the rock star and, like, here you go. And then I can start running. And so there's other pieces as well, but it's just been really good at like protecting me from the things that I really stress out about. And it's like, hey Russell, these are your things. Like it's about connection with the audience. Right. So like, and for us now it's like as we're hitting more and more critical masses, like we gotta find different places to penetrate to get into people. Right. So it's like Facebook, like it's hard if you're in our world to not see us on Facebook. And we saturate that really, really well. We do really good on our podcast and then like YouTube is our next big one. Like there's a huge world that we're not penetrating at all. So we spent the last four or five months trying to, trying to figure out YouTube and I get to focus on cool front end things to bring customers in and I love it.

Do you think that you're lucky in that regard because you found really good people or is there something strategic in how you built it because you were not always running 140 some million dollar company?

Yeah, you know, definitely luck has a lot to do with it also. Just I've been doing this now, I think it's my 14th or 15th year and there's been so many. And you've gone through this before. So many cycles of like people and teams, you build and they crash, build and crash. Like every, like up and down in this journey. Like the diamonds in the rough have stuck with me. And so it's like as a team we've gotten better and better and better and better and better. For me to be able to find the team we built. Ten years, I couldn't have done it. But like Brent I met 10 years ago, he joined my team way back then. He's been with me ever since. You know, John came in, runs all our ad department. Like he came, this was like all the, all the ups and downs and the crashing and burning and you know, the successes and the failures of business. But through that, that process is where all these people started immerse, you know, emerging and then we just gotten better and better as a team. And that's kind of how it evolved. So I think you definitely luck's tied in there. But also it's just, what do they say, like kissing a lot of frogs to find your prince. Like that whole thing, you know, like it's going through people till you find the rock stars and keeping them close. Yeah.

I mean you're one of those few people out there that seems to have been okay learning through the bumps and the bruises and the right hooks and the left hooks, you know, without taking on venture capital and just being okay, getting better, and now exponentially better over time. I know that I experience a whole lot of frustration when I feel like I'm not moving as fast as I feel like I should be after, you know, more than a decade in this game, or not attracting enough of a player talent, or not getting to that level where I've broken past 10 million. I know how to take a company to 10 million. I don't know how to take it beyond 10 million or I have never done it at all least. So I'm selfishly curious if you've had those moments of frustration or if you were just okay trudging through it and knowing that you would break out at one point.

Yeah, that's a good question.

Have you had a bad day as an entrepreneur? Russell Brunson?

Yeah, I've crashed and burned my company at least twice. That were really, really big ones. We do a big event each year. In our last one, I did a whole 90 minute session going through all my failures and the crashes because most people, as entrepreneurs, you hear the highlight reel all the time, but you never get to hear like the other side of it. And so like, you know, we built up a company to 100 employees and doing well from a revenue standpoint and horrible from a profit standpoint. We had a little hiccup and then the whole thing imploded and like, oh, like, and it was painful. I had friends, I had family members walk out on me. Like, definitely not all sunshine and roses, but I think for me it was like, and you know, it's just like it evolves. Like what I was doing 10 years ago, it was going this direction, but it wasn't, it wasn't this, right? And it keeps evolving and kind of course correcting and back and forth. But the big thing is like, I think I believed in what we were doing so much that like, that's what drove me, you know, like probably, you know, eight to 10 years ago was the first time I started doing some marketing coaching stuff. And I was doing that. And it was funny because like, we'd bring people to our office and we sit in front of a whiteboard and we map out funnels, we design structure funnels, people, and they send them home. And then they didn't know what to do because they couldn't hire people to do those things, right? And then after our company collapsed, the coaching business collapsed. We went back and, like, did the business again. So we launched supplement funnel. We launched weight loss E Com. We did or not E Comm Day couponing a whole bunch of, like, different funnels and just got back into the business. And, like, we loved it. And it was like. But for me, like, I just wanted to talk about the structure and show people. Like, that got me so excited. So we came back and started coaching it again. But that's about time. Clickfunnels. We started building that and it was just like. It's just natural progression of, like, the thing that we believe in. Like, I. And 10 years ago, I was so excited about the marketing stuff, like, I was talking about to everyone then. That's why I got into the coaching initially. It's just like, I have so much belief and passion in that thing that that's what, like, kept driving me, I guess, despite, like, bankrupting a company twice.

Yeah, I didn't know that piece of the story. So I appreciate you sharing at this point now that you have come out on the other end of it. And I think a lot of people would say, he came out of nowhere. And you're like, yeah, 15 years later. Do you have something that is driving you? What is the future that's bigger than your past that keeps you moving in that direction? Because plenty of people would have exited at this point or they would have. They would have said, I'm done. Or they would have collapsed it for a third time. So what has carried you through that?

First off, I'm hoping not collapse the third time. So try to learn from our last lessons. No, it's funny. When we launched ClickFunnels three years ago, we had this. We talked about, like, what we sell this thing for, and we had like, this number in our head and we got an offer last week that was like almost 20x what that number was. And we said no. And we're like, I can't believe we said no to this. Three years ago, we'd be kicking our butts at the person who said no. But it was like, I think we have this feeling. I have this feeling. I know Todd has this feeling. I feel like we're, I don't know, 45, maybe 50% of the way complete on our vision of what we're trying to create. And I think that when we get the point where we're done, it'll make sense to exit or whatever that thing is. But there's something that we don't feel like is complete yet. And I don't know why or what exactly. Just Feels incomplete. And it's interesting for me from a mission standpoint or whatever you want to call it. I remember when we were selling. We had our supplement company, right? We were selling supplements, and it was a diabetic neuropathy supplement. So people would take this that were going through pain, and they'd take the pill and they'd feel better. And I was like, I love that. Cause I was like, man, we're helping all these people. It was so cool. That's what entrepreneurship is, right? Like, you create something, you give it to someone, and it makes their life better, and then you get paid for that. And it's like, it's, like, so addicting, as you know, right? And so I love that. But then it was cool. As we transitioned over to click funnels, what we're doing here, it was like, if I help an entrepreneur to get their message out and help more people, like, it doesn't. It's not like one person whose feet don't hurt anymore. It's like that entrepreneur could touch hundred or thousand or a hundred thousand people's lives. One of our huge success stories in ClickFunnels is Brandon and Kaitlyn Poland. They're in the weight loss market. She helps women to lose weight, and their funnel just blew up. Women a day signing up for the weight loss program. These women are, like, losing tons of weight, and it's changing their life. And it's like, I see in my Facebook story behind every one of the entrepreneurs who are doing. They're going out there and changing it. And if I can, if I do another video, maybe there's someone I'll connect with. It'll bring in that person, affect 100 people's lives. There's thousand and, like. So for me, that's the passion that keeps us just running forward, because it's just like we're seeing the result of what these things we're doing are having on the world and on people. And it's just. It's exciting. I think if and when, like, that gets boring or, you know, whatever, like, that's when we probably look at that. But right now, it's just, like, so much fun. If we were to sell, we talked about, you know, before the podcast, like, we were to sell, like, the next. I don't know what I do the next day, I'd be like, huh, this is my dream business. I don't want to just build another one. I don't know. It'd be hard.

I hear you. So let me ask you this. The typical person who listens to freedom. Fast Lane runs about a million dollar business and is still a Fairly small team. One to three people. And I know that that pivot from one to 10 or one to even five can be really difficult. A lot of people get stuck there. What advice from your experience, from your 15 years of experience would you give to someone to get from that one to that next level, that breakout leather, whether it's five or 10, and being a business that's bigger than one or.

Two people, my first probably eight years, this business, like I was very, I think by default entrepreneurs kind of have big egos just because it's like the DNA we have, right? Like we feel smarter or whatever. So that's why we're doing these things. And so I was very like, when I was hiring people, I was always hiring, like I was always hiring people and I was always trying to like find the discounts with the good people who are gonna work for a little and all these kind of things. And like that was my motivation or my, I don't know, my motivation. That was like the way I did it. And I think that's a huge part of what like kept us from growing. If I was to start a company from scratch today, in fact I read so I wish I could find the article again. It talked about how like an A player is worth like 3200 times more than a B player. And I've seen that. Like, I've seen Todd, my partner, ClickFunnels, who built ClickFunnels, I've seen him do in a weekend. We used to take our tech team of six people here in the States six to eight months to do. It's insane when you get the right people. And I would step back and I would say, I wouldn't look for like a discount or good, you know, whatever. I'd be like, okay, I need three or four or five people that are like not expensive but like the best. Like, I want A players who I probably can't afford right now. I want an A player and then I'm gonna, I try to find those people and instead of like trying to employ them and like all those kind of things, I would try to find people who have a belief or they like, oh, eat what you kill mentality. Like one of my first mentors, his name's Chet Holmes, he's passed away. But his entire organization, they had about 150 employees in his organization. Everybody was paid based on a percentage of sales from the support person to everything else. So he's like, it was cool because we all were in this together. It wasn't like the entrepreneur making a bunch of money. Everyone else was, you know, like, working for them. It was like, he's like, we're all together. So when we had small months, we all got small chips. When we had big months, we all got big chips. And so they kept everybody, like, anxiously engaged in this thing. And I think if I was to start over, I would pick a team like that and try to find, okay, who, like, I need a tech person, like, who's the best I can find, who believes in this vision, who'd be willing to take a pay cut in exchange for a possibility of more like. And build a super entrepreneurial team like that of rock stars. And that's. That's how I would probably do it.

And would you just put together the vision of your next thing and share it with those a players and find the one that was the fit and then kind of build that culture again 100%?

I would. I would. The same way that I would go and craft a presentation to sell my customers my thing, I would craft a presentation to try to sell my dreams, my dream partners on whatever the thing is I wanted to do.

Well. I want to share with you, Russell, how you have impacted my life just publicly, because what you just said kind of comes full circle here, because one of the things that I have struggled with was really finding my voice and message that resonated and was clearly articulated. Like, as an entrepreneur, I have it in my head. I get so excited about it, and then somebody asked me to share it, and it takes me more than a minute to describe it, which is a problem. If I don't have a rallying cry that gets people to say, heck yeah, within 10 seconds. Like, entrepreneurs solve problem that problems that government causes. And that's what I believe, and that's what I stand for. And if I can't clearly articulate that in less than 10 seconds, we have a problem. And what you gave me inside of Expert Secrets was the ability to share that. And in dotcom Secrets, you've given me the ability to monetize that message. And what you shared with me today is that when you do those things, you're able to attract the people that resonate with that that are the a players that can take you from 10 to 100. So it's the message and the idea that'll take you from 0 to 1. It's the monetization and the scale that'll take you from 1 to 10. And I think it's the people who resonate with where you're going as a result of doing those things that'll take you from 10 to 100 and beyond. So I think you just gave us the playbook to go from 0 to 100 million in 30 minutes.

That's awesome. Yeah, we talk, it's funny with my entrepreneurs here. We talk about like going zero to millions, all about the what and the how. Like what are you selling? How are you selling? Figuring out that like the messaging and the product and like the right thing the market actually wants. And I always say, you know, you hit that because as soon as you get the right what, like the right thing people want and then you figure out like how to sell it the right way, you go from zero to a million dollars like that, like it's super, super fast. That's when you're like, boom, we got the what and the how. And then it's like boom. Now it's transition and it's the next pieces of scaling. Which it's funny because it's a different skill set. Which I didn't believe that I heard people say that when I was a growing company. I didn't believe that. And I look back now and you know, it was eight years stuck between 1 and $3 million and it's like, huh, they were right.

Well, Russell, I so appreciate what you're doing in the world. I obviously will support anyone who's creating other entrepreneurs or self sufficient who are making a difference in the world. And you are doing that. Where should people follow you or find you besides everywhere besides the Internet?

Well, I say the probably the best place is I would go grab one of the books first. Like go to expertsecrets.com and grab the book. It's free plus shipping or get on Amazon or whatever. But I think that's the best starting point for people because I think it's the most important. I think finding the message and figuring out that is like the most important critical piece. And it's funny because sometimes people tell me like the name Expert Secrets was the wrong name for the book or whatever. But it's. I titled it on purpose for a reason that whatever, but it's all about finding how to position whatever is you're selling and understanding yourself as an entrepreneur and being okay to step into that role. Because I wasn't a born leader. I didn't know. I struggled in school. I wasn't charismatic. None of those things came to me. It was like I had to give myself permission to go and figure those things out. And the book will as kind of walk you through those things and help you figure it out. And it's the journey that I've been on for 15 years and hopefully it helps your audience shortcut that success and get in there a lot faster.

Well, I appreciate it, man. Thank you for what you're doing in the world. Keep on changing the world, and we are proud to support you here at Freedom Fast Lane.

Awesome. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

So let's recap what we learned. We learned that even if you're selling a boring physical product, that it really helps with profit margins. It really helps with attracting the ideal customer to have some sort of a face, a mission and a message behind your brand. We work with our students inside of the tribe on this. So if you're selling physical products successfully, but you need to grow bigger, head over to freedomfastlane.com tribe and apply to get inside of our accelerator. We also learned that you can build a funnel that you drive traffic to to give you a second place to get customers. And it doesn't need to be super complicated. And Russell went into the three areas where you can 6x your return on your ad spend, which is an order bump, an upsell, and a downsell. Pretty awesome stuff. And he talked about how the real companies that grow big have a mission, a message, and as a result, they attract a level talent. I had a really great time interviewing Kevin and Jeremy from Nested Naturals on the podcast that talked all about how they were able to attract really high quality people, specifically by leading with that mission behind their brand. They have exploded over the last year as a result of being inside of our back room. They joined us when they were just at a million dollars or so and they had at least 5x, I think a lot more than that. And now they're building towards $100 million. If you've crossed that million dollar threshold, apply into our backroom. Over@freedomfastlane.com backroom. It's all about getting you to $10 million and above and being prepared to sell because we have connections to private equity groups, we have connections to investors who want to buy these really good companies. Now all of these people, the entire back room, Kevin and Jeremy, are leading a session on culture. We have some of my mentors and confidants talking about attracting a level talent, about building a mission and a message behind your brand is all going to be available to you at the Capitalism Conference this December in Austin, Texas. Not only you're going to be cozying up to people who have built billion dollar companies, but you're going to break into small breakout rooms and you're going to get tactical help on actually implementing this stuff that we're talking about. I'm working with Russell's team to put together a click funnels workshop or at least a funnels workshop so that those of you who sell physical products can actually start building your funnel while you're in Austin, Texas. This will be the most profitable three days that you spend on your business this year. Some people are gonna coast into the end of the year and some people are gonna double down and kill it as a result. So get your butt on a plane. Actually take your thumb over to TheCapitalismConference.com, reserve a VIP or an elite access pass so that you meet all of the speakers and then get on a plane this December. I hope to see you and everybody else there. I can't wait to have you. I'm really proud about what we do here. I always appreciate your support here on the show. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with another physical products owner who, you know, wants to go bigger, diversify their sales channels, have higher profit margins and attract a level people they will benefit from. Hearing this episode with Russell. Thanks for listening to Freedom Fast Lane. I'll see you guys on the next show.

Sam.