Secret #23: Two Marketing Tricks From Some Old School Marketers

What's up, everybody? This is Russell. And welcome to today's episode of Marketing Secrets. That is in the rain here in Kauai. So the big question is, how are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, were 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, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome. Welcome to Marketing Secrets. All right, everybody. So I want to welcome you guys to today's episode of Marketing Secrets. It is raining on me right now, and I don't know if you can see that over here if you're watching the video version, but it's beautiful here. And I wanted to do an episode. Oh, man, this is raining really good. I might come and hide under the bush or something. Ah. Anyway, I'm just gonna stay here. We'll get wet. It'll be more fun this way. All right, so we've been in Hawaii for almost a week now on my 15 year anniversary, which is amazing, being married to my beautiful wife Colette for this long. And I'm trying to get her to do an episode with you guys, hopefully on the flight home or something about what it's like living with being married to an entrepreneur. At our. We're trying to pick our keynote speaker for this year's fun Hiking Live. And it's funny because we got tons and tons of people voting for everybody. And someone posted Oprah and someone put Russell's wife. And my wife got more votes than Oprah, which is pretty exciting. So trying to get her at least to jump on the podcast. So that's the. That's the goal and the game plan. But what I'll share with you guys today has I've been, oh, we're in Hawaii. The rain's gone that fast. Oh, but there's. There's a birds right behind me. Anyway, so my phone off real quick. All right, so what I wanted to share with you guys, I've been listening to a whole bunch of cool marketing stuff between, like, the long drives around the island, all kind of the cool stuff we're doing. And the course I was listening to was TJ Rowletter. Tj. If you don't know tj, he's like one of the legends in our business. He is one of the direct mail kings, and he's in the biz op world. And TJ's become a friend. He had him speak one of our events a little while ago, which was amazing. And what's interesting is the course I was listening to is like how to become super rich in the opportunity market. And he teaches people how to make money in the like teaching people how to get rich market. But what's interesting is I was listening to it. If you read the Expert secrets book, you know, I talk about there's three core things you got to do to build a mass movement, right? Number one. Number one, you gotta have the attractive character, the charismatic leader. Number two, you have to have future based cause. Number three, you have to have new opportunity. What's interesting is as I was listening to this, he's talking about like how to sell opportunities. Basically if you're doing a mass movement, we're talking about it's always a new opportunity. Everything he's talking about, the opportunities, the way he kind of positions them are like how to get rich, how to make money. Here's the opportunity market as he calls it. But in my mind, every market's the opportunity market. So I'm going to see if I can interview TJ and dig deep in that because his stuff was brilliant. It was all trying targeted towards selling people stuff like how to make money, how to make money. But if you look at through the lens of the expert secrets book, then it kind of works for all of them, right? Because every single opportunity, everything you're selling should be a new opportunity. And it was anyway, so I'm going to try to see if I can do that plus tj. So like this is he launched his company, he lives out in Kansas and he actually bought a hospital and renovated the whole thing. And that's where he. That's where he runs his whole company. I have an old hospital which is kind of cool. And I kind of want to go down there, see his whole operation. So it may come to an episode of Funnel Hacker TV soon where I go down there and tour his hospital and see his, his whole organization in the last 10 years, they sent out nine, like 9,500 different direct mail campaigns, which is crazy. He said some people will get on his list and they make it between 2 and 300 letters in the mail per year, depending on what sequence they take, what offers they say yes to and no to and all sorts of stuff. So anyway, super inspiring. But what I want to talk about is a couple of the core things that I learned from him that I think are really good for all you guys. In fact, the first one's Actually not from tj. It was from Bill Glaser thing I was listening to. So Bill was partners with Dan Kennedy at Glazer Kennedy, and he was like my marketing dad for man, five or six years. I was in his inner circle. And one of the things that was cool I was studying from Bill this week, Bill was talking about how they have, like the very beginning of the year. They know their big things, right? So they did two events a year. They did Info Summit and Super Conference. For me, I do funnel hacking live. So, like, that's my big thing. And they said that they categorized all their promotions based on the importance. So number one were their two events, Number two was this. Number three. And then they had it all mapped out. And then they mapped out the entire month, or, excuse me, the entire year, the promotional schedule, beginning of the year to make sure they fill the events and all those other things kind of fit in there. And I was thinking about that. Like, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not super good at mapping out my promotional calendar and schedule and things like that. I kind of just like go week by week, month by month and do stuff. And what Bill does in this course, again, this is an old course, but he maps it out and then they do everything. And so I started thinking about this at one of our inner circle meetings Justin Williams was talking about with his stuff. Now, as you guys know, if you've been listening to our podcast for any length of time, the two magic things that marketers have are urgency and scarcity. So he started doing his is he relaunched different courses throughout the year and they'd open them and close them, right? So they can have the urgency and scarcity closed. That's where most of the sales always come in, is during the closing of the thing. Also, if you listen to when Stu launched Tribe, he's talking about Michael Hyatt. When they launched his membership site, the big secret they had was like opening and closing. So that twice a year they opened up membership site and it was closed. I started thinking about that. I'm like, man, right now most of our programs are open all the time, which is good, but the urgency and scarcity is not there. So I was like, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to start calendaring it out where twice a year our things are available. So twice a year people can buy cfc, buy our certification program twice a year people can join Funnel University twice a year, then fill your funnel twice a year. So all of our core Offers are only open twice during the year and they're closed down other than that, which is kind of fun. It gives urgency and scarcity and build up the hype and the buzz. And it gives me each month something to focus on. This month is funnel you month, okay? And we're gonna open it and then close it. The next month is this. We're gonna open it and close it. And all content, all things can be related back to that one thing. So that was the first thing I kind of started rethinking through when I was listening to Bill Glaser talk about how they structured the promotion around their event. So that's the first cool thing now with tj, a couple cool things that he does that I think, man, it was just good for me to hear again. I think it's good for all you guys to hear again. So tj, again, he's in the business opportunity market mostly through direct mail. And so he has 50,000 letters he mails every single week, week in and week out, just consistently. They know 50,000 letters go out every single week. All for new customer acquisition. That's it. New customer acquisition, 50,000 letters every single week. And that's just, that's the schedule. And I think for a lot of us, we get in this thing where like we have our front end funnels, our break even funnels, we bring people in, then we have our monetization funnels. I think a lot of us, we create one really good webinar funnel, let's say. And then that becomes our focus and that's it. And we're driving traffic. But that's like the business, right? And tj, if you look at this again, he's got his front end lead gen offers and he's selling 50,000 pieces a week. And he said that at his peak, he was selling the $50 course from his front end lead gen stuff. He said that he would spend up to $500 to sell a $50 course and then from there then go into all the back end funnels and the back end things that he was selling. But he had this consistency of 50,000 pieces every single week. I started thinking about that, like, man, he's mailing 50,000 new names every single week. What's the equivalent of that for my business? I need to make sure that I have something consistently doing that every single week to one front end offer. And he talked about one of the big things also is like he's not mailing two different things or three things that 50,000. They have one offer the hottest con one. And that's what drive all their energy, all their money, all everything. And so for us, I think all of us, we have our hot offer. We need to be spending as much as we can to get people into that thing consistently every single week. Just knowing I spend 50 grand a week or 10 grand a week, or a thousand bucks a week, whatever it is for you, into that front end thing, right? If you break, if you think about this, if you break it down, there's kind of two sides of this. There's. Or three sides if you. Depending how deep you want to get with. Be talking about this at this upcoming funnel hacking live. But there's a process. There's basically kind of three types of funnels. There's acquisition funnels, so getting people in. There's ascension funnels, sending them up within your membership, and there's monetization funnels. But for this argument for today, I'm just gonna talk about the two. So there's acquisition funnels, right? So what is your one acquisition funnel that you can consistently do X with? So for me, it might be I need to make sure I sell at least a thousand books a week or I need to spend ten grand a week or whatever that thing is for you, right? And like you just know that and you have to do it consistently. We have to sell a thousand books a week. And we should build a whole team, people. That entire goal is sell thousand books a week or 5,000 books or whatever that number is for you. Back when I had my call center, that's how it was. We had free plus shipping leads and we had to get, I think it was 8,000 leads a month to get enough leads for our sales floor. And that became the focus of the business. Okay. And so for you, it's like, think about tj, right? Like, what is the front end offer? It's consistently bringing people in. Okay? And then from tj, like so crazy. I'm hoping I can go down there and film his operation for you guys, because I want to see it too. But like I said, someone gets the front end. Then he's got all these direct mail campaigns that go out offering two step things. So he'll send out a letter for free CD about whatever to these existing customers. Okay? So he's only sending people that already bought his $50 thing. Then he'll put him onto a sequence that says he gets free cd. If they respond to the free cd, then he puts them in a sequence to sell the thing that free CD upsells to. Then he sends out the next offer and the next offer and he's putting out all these front end lead gen, I guess like their acquisition or monetization letters to the buyers of his $50,000 a week thing, right, it's $50,000 a week. Every time he's bringing new people in and after they come in, they bought the $50 thing, then he starts sending them these letters, trying to get them to raise their hand about specific opportunities that he's going to sell them. If they respond to one of those, then they go into a whole other sequence. They might get 10, 15, 20 letters to sell like a 2 or 3 or $5,000 course on the back end. And that's kind of this process that he does over and over and over and over again. And so for me, what I'm looking at is what I want my focus to be is somebody comes in to my world and again I'm focusing way more effort consistently on this, on this. You know, I'm going to call it the 50,000 letters a week. But you know, for us we're not doing direct mail right now. So it's not that. But you know, that's the concept, the front end acquisition. And then if they come in, then we're taking our core courses and we're opening them and closing them, opening and closing them, opening and closing them throughout the year. So those are our monetization funnels after people come in. And so that's kind of, it's kind of the game and I'm really excited for it. So that's the game I'm going to be playing and I hope you guys model that. The other cool thing I'm going to be doing, I'm thinking a lot about this for the last probably two weeks started at Scout campus and just some. My mind even here as we've been in this beach house is having like one really good follow up funnel sequence that takes people through my offers in a very strategic way. So we have ignite, igniteyourfunnel.com which is right now we're using something completely different but I'm going to be changing that to where this is an opt in form that we get people to opt into. And then it's going to take them through a sequence where and I haven't quite mapped the whole thing out, but the first thing I want someone to buy is what for my business, first thing I want someone to buy is expert secrets. I'm going to have a video of me explaining why they need expert secrets and why this is step number one. Actually, let me step back. Step number one is not going to be the book. Step number one is going to be the podcast. You guys heard a little while ago, the two episodes on youn One Funnel Away. I'm going to show that video to build connection with people immediately after they opt in. And then from there then I'll tell them get the Expert secrets book. And then from there it's like what do they need next? And I'll logically build out a really long sequence that's going to be this, this ascension funnel that takes them up through our core offers in the middle. And then the big thing that our team's gonna be focusing on is our KPI is how many opt ins a day are we getting inside of the Ignite youe Funnel. Funnel. The Ignite youe Funnel, Ascension funnel. So sending them through all of our offers. Right. Anyway, I'm trying to think how this whole thing all works together. It might be when someone opts in the very first time they go through this ascension funnel that all those offers will be open to them, open and close like an evergreen format. And then after that and they'll bump over to monetization funnels or our longer term email sequences which then they'll be on when we open them, close them each month. I'm not positive yet on that. I'm still figuring out all the details but it's fun to think through it. Right. Anyway, so that's kind of game plan. So those are some fun things I learned and thinking about while I've been here having some fun in Kauai on my 15 year anniversary. So I hope that gives you guys some ideas and some things to think about. So kind of to recap the important things, number one is focusing on consistent, consistently bringing new blood into your business. Okay. 50,000 letters a week rule. What'd you call that? 50,000 letters a week rule. Consistently bringing new blood in. Okay. I remember Garrett White, last funnel Hacking Live talked about people that can make it rain. The rainmakers are the ones who dominate this world and this business. So you gotta be focusing on making it rain if you want to learn how to make it rain. Right now the program is closed, but depending on when you're listening, this might be open is our affiliate funnel course. Affiliate Funnel is all about how to make it rain, how to get new customers into your funnels. Right. So that's number one. Then number two is in after they come in. Then what's the monetization? So maybe number two is the Ascension Funnel, which is for me, ignite your funnel takes them through our offers in a chronological order of where I want them to see things opening and closing on like an evergreen format. And they end that. Then put them into our monetization team monetization funnels, which will then be taking our course. Six offers and opening and closing them twice a year. And that's going to be the business that gets me really excited. Really, really excited. So anyway, that's the game plan, guys. I'm glad I had a chance to talk this out to you guys. It's making it clearer, clear in my mind. So I hope you guys got something from Value. That too. But. But like I said, I don't practice or I don't just talk about this kind of stuff. I practice what I preach. So you will see me implementing these things in the very near future and hopefully you guys will see them and you'll enjoy them and you will model them and funnel hack them for what you guys are doing. Because I know this stuff's gonna be amazing. So that's what I got you guys. Anyway, here's one last view. This is the beach house we've been staying in. It was an Airbnb. We're gonna get a hotel. And we looked at Airbnb and we found this. Airbnb or VRBO, I can't remember which one. This thing's like 5,000 square feet. My wife and I are up here. Brent, Amber are over here. And there's all this open space and there's even like huge guest house over here that we got massages in the other day. It's crazy. And then we're literally. This is like, this is our beach. It's just ours. And it's crazy. I was flying the quadcopter today. I learned how to finally fly a quadcopter. Took it out over everything. So if you're watching Funnel Hacker tv, which hopefully you are, you'll have a chance to. To see above this place and beyond. But it's. It's insane. It's probably a little expensive, but for the 15 year anniversary, you all out, right? Look at that. That's our beach. And we rented these paddle boards too. I guess if you're listening on the podcast, you can't see this, but a couple cool things also, just so you guys know. So this obviously is on the audio podcast, which right now, as of today, we're number five in the business category, which is awesome. We're still killing it there. We just also released this as a video Podcast. So if you go into itunes and the very top there's audio podcast, you can switch them to video podcast. We also have Marketing Secrets as a video podcast now too. So if you want to watch the videos or if you watch the videos, you can go to marketingsecrets.com and they're all listed there along with the transcripts. So if you want to listen to what I'm saying and read along the transcripts@marketingsecrets.com as well. With that said, I would love it if you guys could give me a review and rating over itunes. I said number five in the business category, but the guy's above me. Still have more ratings. It's not fair. I'm killing myself giving you guys the best stuff I got. I need some more ratings. So if you can take five seconds out of your busy day, stop everything, go over there, leave a rating and review, tell me what you think about Marketing Secrets, let the world know. It'd be awesome. And then the other thing is, please subscribe to the video podcast as well and feel free to watch the videos there if you want. That way you can see some of the beautiful scenery behind me. Yeah, that's all I got you guys. So thanks again for listening, an amazing day and we'll see you guys soon. We're back in Boise next week, back to normal schedule. I got some cool stuff I want to publish and share with you guys, but I gotta finish my anniversary and then get back to you guys soon. So appreciate y' all and we'll see you guys soon. Bye. 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 Dotcom 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.