Funnel Hacker Onboarding #1 - Why Funnels?

What's up everybody?

This is Russell Brunson.

I want to welcome you to the Marketing Secrets podcast.

I've got a really special episode actually.

Next four episodes are kind of some.

Special episodes I want to share with you guys I think you're going to love. So let's get into it.

So the big question is this, how are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital? We're spending money from our own pockets. How do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question in this podcast. Give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets.

Alright, so on this first episode I want to give you some backstory on what's happening and why I made these four special episodes for you. So right now, inside ClickFunnels we are working towards our big viral video launch on the 15th. And with that we're trying to change a whole bunch of things, fix the onboarding process, make things simpler and simpler for people because if we get a huge influx of customers, especially people who don't really know our marketing, understand what funnels are, how they're doing it, like we have to really simplify the process. So that's what we're doing is simplification of this whole thing. I don't know if you've noticed, our click funnel support's gotten so much better. We shifted from it was taking on average like a little less than an hour to get to get live response. Now we're like a three minute medium. And so it's like so many cool things we've been doing, trying to prepare for this thing which is now like two weeks away for some kind of stressful, not gonna lie. And one of the cool things we're having is this really cool gaming badging system. So when somebody comes in to clickfunnels, there's like this gamified onboarding process for doing things. You're moving throughout it and it's gonna be really, really cool. So by the time some of you guys are listening to this, it'll actually be live so you can go and see it. But in there a couple things with clickfunnels like clickfunnels, we're teaching how to use the software. But also people have to understand the marketing behind it or else they don't, they're not going to be successful with the software, which is kind of interesting. And so I tried to like how Do I teach all this funnel psychology and stuff in a very short, compressed period of time. And so we did that with one of the little badges that people will win here inside of the onboarding process. So that's kind of what's. What's going down. Right? And so with that, I basically created four different videos that are the core foundational things to get people onboarded, to understand the marketing behind funnels very quickly, very rapidly. And so that's what these episodes are about is I'm actually going to just play those four video clips now. In the video clips, I'll say click down the button down below and you're going to get this thing over here. And this is your homework assignment. So just know that those are from the onboarding process. If you actually want to get the homework assignments. If you want to see the things I talk about, you do have to actually log into clickfunnels and go through the onboarding to get those. But I want you understand because I think homework, hopefully it made sense. We'll find out. Maybe it makes no sense, but I tried to really simplify the process of four core things that are the four things really understand. Number one is like, why do we have funnels? Like, why is that important? Number two is the value ladder. And a lot of times we think about value ladder from like a high level. Like first I'm gonna have a book and then I'm gonna have an event and then we're gonna do one on one coaching. But I wanna talk about value ladder from a micro standpoint instead of the macro. So it's like landing page. How do you get value on that? And then what's the value on the.

The sales page and then the upsell page.

Like, how do you do that? So we go into the value ladders video number two. Number three, that's how to create an offer, which is something.

It's funny.

Like in my mind, I think this is common sense to me or intuitive or I've done so long, I don't think about this. But it seems like as we've been doing the two comma club coaching, one of the biggest problems and questions people have that Steven deals with every day is like, how do we create an offer? And so I've never really talked about it. I guess I assume, I think I assumed it.

People understood it.

I found out now that they don't. So I go deep into like how to create an actual offer, which I think was cool. Hopefully it was good. Maybe it's lame, but hopefully it turned Out Good. To help you understand, like, oh, that's.

What I need to be doing.

And creating lots and lots of offers. Like, that's the key to this whole thing.

And then the fourth step was understanding.

Copywriting, because copywriting is like, the last layer is how you actually present the offer. So we have, why do you need a funnel? And then inside the funnel, like, what is the value you're providing each step inside the funnel? And then from there, what's the offer that you've created each step inside the funnel to actually provide that value? And then the last one is the. The copywriting, which is how you actually sell the offer, which provides the value, which is how you get someone through your funnel. Oh, that's kind of cool.

So anyway, that's what I'm sure.

Yes. So over the next four episodes, we'll go with that. So this first one we're talking about, why do we need a funnel? Now, some of you guys obviously have.

Been funnel hackers forever, and you know this stuff.

Some of you guys may be like, what the dump is Russell talking about? And so that's what we're talking about now, is why funnels. I'm going to show you guys that clip, and that'll be what's happening here on this episode of the Marketing Secrets podcast.

Hey, this is Russell again. And today I'm excited because today we're not just talking about click funnels, which is one of the coolest things in the world, but for you to really utilize click Funnels and really have success from it, I think it's vitally important that you not only get good at using the software and using the tool, but you actually become a marketer. ClickFunnels was built by marketers like me for marketers to be able to market their products and their services. And sometimes people come in and they have a product, they have a service, and they want to sell, and they throw it in clickfunnels and they build a funnel, and then they're like, nobody's buying it. Nobody's coming to my thing. No one's giving their email address. Like, why not? It's because it's not just something you put out there and hope that the best happens. It's something where you have to understand the marketing behind it. What I want to do during this walkthrough is to help you understand some of the core fundamental concepts of marketing that are essential for your success inside of funnels. Because if you understand these things, when you're building funnels, your funnels will become Profitable, they'll actually make money. And you have success with click funnels. And that's our number one goal for you. So that's kind of the game plan, so to kind of step back. Cause I know that a lot of people, when they first get into clickfunnels, they don't even know what a funnel is. So depending on where you're at, either you may know exactly what it is, you have kind of a hazy idea, or you have no idea at all. Most people obviously have heard of a website, right? When I got started in this business 15 years ago, websites were the thing. And it's funny because I remember back then, everybody would come and they would say, oh, do you think I need a website? Everyone's talking about websites. Should I get one? And now we kind of laugh about that because today there's no business, I don't think, that doesn't have a website. You have to have a website to exist. And so we just kind of assume it now. And that's kind of what funnels are today. Funnels are the future. They are the evolution of websites. It's where everything is going. And people always ask me like, well, do I need a funnel for my business? And I always kind of chuckle because they don't understand the strategy. When they do, it's like, oh, wow, there's no point to a website. The only thing I need is a funnel. It's where everything's going. And so that's what I want to really help you guys to understand. And so I think the best way for you guys to really understand this, I'm going to tell you guys a story about how I kind of got it. And when you understand this, it should hopefully make more sense inside of your business. So the first core concept you have to understand, I learned this initially from one of my very first marketing mentors. His name is Dan Kennedy. And he said this. Whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. Now, when I first heard that it didn't make perfect sense to me. I was like, that doesn't make any sense. Why would I want to spend a.

Whole bunch of money?

And I remember hearing that and just didn't really resonate with me. But bear with me as I share this story with you. It's going to make. You're going to find out like this is the key, most important thing to understand in business, in marketing, in funnels, whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. So let me tell you my story. So when I got started in this business back 15 years ago, I was in high school, and I built my very first website selling potato guns. Now, I had created an information product. I set up a website. I'd done my best. And back then, the way that everybody got traffic to the websites was by using a website called Google. So I went to Google. I started buying my very first Google Ads. Now, as a college student, I didn't have a ton of money, so I was able to invest about $10 a day into Google Ads. And the good thing for me is I was selling this DVD for $37. And what happened is, on average, every $10 I would spend, I'd sell about one DVD. So you do the math on that. I was spending $10 making $37. I had $27 profit that I was putting inside of my pocket. Now, what happened is a little while later, Google shifted their algorithm and kind of changed how things work. And the price for every single click started going up, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger. Now, what happened is one day I woke up and the ads that I was running were exactly the same. I was getting the same amount of clicks, same amount of people on my website. But now instead of spending $10 a day to get the same amount of traffic, I was spending 50 dol. Now, if you do the math on that, you spend $50 a day, you make $37 a day. I was losing $13 every single day because of my website. Now, I don't know about you, but I really quickly, my wife and I realized we couldn't keep doing that and stay in business. So after four or five days, I had to turn off my website and it was over for me. And unfortunately for me and for so many entrepreneurs, that's where most entrepreneurial dreams die is in. You're spending money and you can't be profitable, and it just falls apart. And I started learning this lesson. Whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. I couldn't spend more than $37 a day because that's all I was making. I was capped at that. And that's if I just wanted to break even. And so a few months later, I had a friend who was in a similar business to me, and he called me up and he said, hey, Russell, I think I figured out the secret. He said, I started adding upsells to all of my products. And I was like, what do you mean upselling? He said, well, it's kind of like McDonald's. You've been to McDonald's? I'm like, yeah. He said, you Know when they offer you a hamburger? And I said, yeah. He said, do you know that for them to sell that hamburger, they actually lose money? The money for the ads and the promotion, the marketing, they actually lose money. So they sell you a hamburger for like two or three bucks, and it costs them four or five dollars to get you there. In the drive in, they said. Then they added this little sentence on there and said, hey, would you like fries and a Coke with that? And the majority of people say, oh, yeah, sure, throw that in there. And they did that. The fries and the Coke is where they make their money. So they spend three or four dollars to get someone there. They sell a hamburger for two dollars, they lose the dollar, they add fries and a Coke, and all of a sudden, boom, they're profitable. And when he said that, the light bulb went off my head. And I said, okay, well, how do I do this? And so he showed me his website to me, selling little information products. And he said, look, what I did is I started having upsells, trying to sell the next thing that someone would need if they bought my first product. And I said, well, how would that work for my potato guns? I don't know. He said, well, when somebody buys a potato gun dvd, what's the next thing that they need? And I was like, well, the next thing they have to buy the pipes and the glue and the barbecue igniter and all those pieces that you have to go to the store to get. He said, you should make a kit and just upsell the kit. And so I was lucky. I found someone up in Northern Idaho who actually sold potato gun kits. And we did a partnership, and I started adding those as upsells. And so I transitioned my little website into my very first funnel. I didn't know that's what it was called at the time, but it was a funnel. So somebody would buy my dvd, and then the next page, we'd upsell them a potato gun kit. Now, if you look at the math on how this all worked, I was still spending $50 a day on Google. That didn't change. They didn't lower their prices for me. They were still charging the same amount, and I was still averaging about one sale a day of my DVDs. So I was only making $37. So I was actually losing money. But then what was cool is that one out of every three people who bought my DVD ended up buying my upsell and buying my kit. You look at the math on that. My kit was one 97 DOL. That means one out of three means I made an extra $65 for every DVD I sold. That means I spent $50 a day, and I was making $102 a day. So you do the math behind that. I was actually making $52 every single day. Now, that is when the whole light bulb went off my head. I was like, that's the secret. If I can spend more money to acquire a customer, then I win. And that's when I realized that websites made me broke, but funnels actually made me money. Now, as I started my career, after I did that, I started getting excited. I started realizing, like, wow, there's so many ways to do funnels. And I can put funnels into any business. And I started doing that, started going into really competitive markets where there's tons of competition. And I would look and I would see these people. All they had was a website selling a product. And I would take that concept and I would go start adding upsells and downsells and adding different things in there. And I start competing against these people. And what's crazy is they could spend however many dollars a day they could spend in advertising. I could spend two or three times as much money and still make more money. And very quickly, I started beating out all my competitors in every market we went into. And that's when I realized, just like Dan Kennedy told me, that whoever can spend the most money to acquire a customer wins. And that's why funnels are important, especially if you're struggling in your business right now. If you have a business and you're break even or you're losing some money, a funnel is the secret. That's what gets you from breaking even to becoming profitable. If you're doing well but you want to grow. A funnel is the secret. It's how you start taking your business and scaling it. You make more money for every single person who comes into your funnel. Okay? The funnels are the secret to growing businesses and getting your message, your products, your services out into the world. And so that's why we're so excited about funnels. So I want you guys to understand the concepts behind those things. Now, obviously, there are lots of different types of funnels. As you learned in the earlier walkthrough inside the cookbook, we had 22 different types. And so some of the funnels are specifically for selling a product. Like my potato gun dvd where I sold the dvd, then I up sold the potato gun kit. Some funnels aren't for that. Some funnels are for generating a lead. Then you can Send emails to them and sell them things in the future. Some are to generate applications so you can call them on the phone. Some are funnels to get people into your actual location. It doesn't really matter. There's different funnels for different situations. But all a funnel is something where you're taking somebody and you're taking them through this process to get the end result. What's interesting is that I think a lot of people think that funnels are this mysterious thing, yet it's happening every single day right now. In fact, if you run an offline business, I promise you, you already have a funnel. It may be a really, really bad one, but you have one. Think about this. Let's say you're a chiropractor or a dentist or something. Somebody sees an ad, they drive by, they see your billboard, they see your place, they get a referral, something, right? And they come to your location, they walk up to your door. What's the first thing they do? They open the door, right?

And they walk in.

Now something's happening to them. They're coming into this funnel. Now. They're greeted by somebody, could be your front desk receptionist or whoever, right? And they're saying something. They're trying to get them to schedule an appointment or set up a call or whatever the thing might be. And then after that happens, and they take them to the next step and the next step. And every business has it. There's some kind of funnel, some kind of process you're taking people through all the time. And the online funnels are the same thing. People think it's something different, but it's not. It's. If I'm driving an ad from Facebook, they're gonna come somewhere to a page, and maybe that page I try to ask for their email address, or maybe I'm selling them a product or I'm taking them down this path just like I would if I was selling somebody face to face. The cool thing about funnels is it's not something new or different that you're not used to. It's the same thing you're used to. It's just in an online format. And when you start realizing that, you start realizing, like, funnels are happening everywhere around you. And for me, I start noticing them over and over. And it gets me so excited to see it. And now it's coming back like, okay, how do I do this for my business online? And so that's kind of the game now. I'm walking through a lot more of these things through the, through the Next training videos down below. But I want you to understand that's what a funnel is. I want you to understand the one core concept is that whoever can spend the most money to acquire a customer wins. That's how you grow a company. That's how you beat your competitors, that's how you sell more products, that's how you get your ads more out there. That's how all the things that you want in business all come off of that concept. Whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. And the way you're able to spend more money profitably is by having a funnel. So I hope at this point I've sold you on funnels. They are the key to everything in life, at least related to business. And so I hope you understand that. So with that said, your assignment right now is just to kind of think through that and understand that and understand the power and importance of funnels and think about your existing business. Think about the business you're in right now. Let's say you do have a regular website. How do you take this thing with all these things, how do you restructure them into an actual funnel or where are you seeing funnels right now if you have a regular business? Are you seeing the funnel right now? What does that look like? What's the process? Somebody's coming through. And then what can you do to fix those things? And just start thinking about those things because it'll get you excited about funnels. So with that said, thanks so much and I'll see you guys on the next training. Want more marketing secrets? If so, then go get your copies of my two best selling books. Book number one is called Expert Secrets and you can get a free copy@expertsecrets.com and book number two is called. Com Secrets and you can get your free copy@dotcomsecrets.com Inside these two books you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest growing non VC backed SaaS startup company in the world.