Secret #48: What Really Happened Behind The Scenes Of Our Biggest Webinar Ever

What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. 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 answer. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. All right, everybody, hope you guys are awesome today. I am actually in the car and don't worry, I'm safe. Don't yell at me. Oh, Russell, you're gonna die. I got my, my phone mounted so we're safe. I'm just gonna be talking. I'm not even gonna look at the camera unless I'm. I can stop, then I'll look at the camera. But excited for today, Hex heading to a doctor's appointment so hopefully I can find that. I'm a little late, but that's kind of typical for me. So anyway, a lot of fun stuff happening now and just wanted to share some stuff because hopefully it'll help some of you guys because I'm sure you guys are all going through some stuff right now as well. So a couple things yesterday I saw, it's funny, somebody posted in one of our groups a message about they're critiquing the webinar I did last week. So some context on the webinar. So this is a webinar that we had the idea on Tuesday. I had to write brand new slides from scratch from Tuesday. So I basically had like all day Wednesday and half a day Thursday. So I had a day and a half to do all the slides. Like end of being like 160 slides, I had to make a registration page. We had to promote it, all this stuff in under a 48 hour period of time. So a lot of stuff happened. Right. I can't remember I told you as much about it, but when all of a sudden done we launched it and we had like an 81.5% opt in rate after over 10,000 opt ins which is insane. Highest converting one I've ever had. Right. Number two is we were selling a similar offer but we were kind of changing it some to our old funnel hacks. We were changing it, we increased the price, we changed the training a little bit. So it's a similar offer but it's, but it's different. So a lot of stuff going against me most of the people on our list have heard me do the webinar. Selling the main thing probably, I don't know, a hundred different times. So I needed and wanted to make a new version. So basically for this whole new thing that showed a bunch of stats and analytics, which is just a really cool thing, right? So we do the whole thing. I put it together. I literally, as I'm, you know, getting over 10,000 people registered, and I'm cranking out slides all the way to the point where the webinar starts at, I think it's three eastern or three mountain time. It started, and I probably had 75% of my slides done at that point. So I didn't have time to finish. I probably need another, I don't know, three or four hours to actually get it done. But I ran out of time. So literally, as the clock hit three, I'm like copying and pasting all my slides. My old presentation, my new one. Cause I have no time to actually finish it, which is crazy, right? So then we start the webinar and we start going. And you know, I never used. We never had a webinar that had that many people register. So we used Zoom instead of go to webinar, which I was nervous about. Cause I've always used to go to webinar. It's like good Old faithful. We decided to try Zoom because Zoom has the capacity to do, I think, three or five thousand people live. Plus you can stream into Facebook. So you can do Facebook Live or YouTube Live, things like that. So I was like, let's try it. I know it's scary. Try something huge, especially on something where you have this many people register for. But I was like, you know what? Let's just. We keep talking about trying it and. But we're scared it's not gonna work at scale. But only way to find out if it works at scales, if you just do it. So. Right. All right, let's just do it. Worst case scenario, we lose millions of dollars, right? So we do it. And so I start Zoom. And at first, like, it's all frozen up. Like it's not processing very well at all. And I'm like. And finally I'm able to get on. People can hear me, but I can't see questions. And like, every time I try to hover over the thing, there's a little spinning circle and. But people could hear me. So I was like, all right. And we'd already click record, and it's already streamed to Facebook. So I'm like, I just gotta go So I start in the presentation. I'm. And like there's like 30 people in my office, not 30. I'm exaggerating. Probably eight people in the office like, who are trying to get things set up, trying to get things working, the talking. I'm trying to like, don't talk. I'm doing the webinar now and I'm stressing out and you know, the slides aren't done in my head. I'm like all mad about that and I haven't had a chance to even go through the slides yet. I have no idea if the transitions are working. Like all the stress of the moment, like just insane. So I started kind of going and man, I totally like, I'm fumbling as I start because I'm kind of overwhelmed because of the slides not working. I'm overwhelmed because of just the stress of it all. And so the first probably 15 minutes I'm just like fumbling. I can't get my rhythm. You know how it feels? You get the rhythm. You're like. It took me probably 15, 20 minutes before I finally started getting the rhythm. But then even with that, because it was the new webinar, I didn't know super well where it was going. I kind of remember because I just created it, but I hadn't never done it before. So I don't really know where I'm going. I'm trying to do it all right. And so anyway, do my best in the confines that some reason I have this weird thing where I just set these crazy confines for myself. So we had probably a day and a half total time to. No, actually, excuse me. It was the. What was. It was the night before. I started on slides at 4pm and the webinars next day three. So I had like 11, I had 20. Was it 24 hours total. I sleep in the middle there. So I think we were up all that night till like two working on slides the next morning came anyway. So it was like less than 24 hour period time to do all 160 whatever slides for a new presentation I'd never done before and then give it live in front of all these people. We end up having about 3,500 people on live and I think we had 11,000 that watched on Facebook. But that kind of ebbs and flows. I think we had. On average there's like 4 to 500 people on Facebook. So yeah, it was crazy. So I do the webinar, do the presentation, do the pitch and get the first time in the pitch. There's all Sorts of confusion and questions and things coming up that I didn't have time to plan for because I was gonna pitch it this way. But I was using slides from my old presentation. It didn't even make any sense. But then the powerful thing I did is the night before when I was planning to do this, I messaged, I don't know, like, 20 different people in my inner circle that were just people that are kill click funnels in different markets, different industries. I was like, hey, can you guys jump on tomorrow for like an hour and just tell your click funnel story? And they're like, oh, sure. And like, amazingly, they all show up. So I done the webinar and then I'm trying to, like, do the interviews, but, like, my computer's frozen up. The zoom on my computer's frozen up, so I can't, like, actually interview anyone. I'm like, we have all these amazing people who took an hour out of their life to, like, be here, and I can't even communicate with them. So it took us probably 10 minutes to figure out my computer couldn't do it. So we had to switch the presenter to Mark's computer on our team. So then we're on his computer. And so then we're like, so crazy. So then we're. I got to work. So I'm doing the Q and A through his, but then people can't see the screen, so I'm like. And so I'm trying to, like, do call to actions throughout. And, like, no one can see the countdown clock. And it was just. It was just kind of like. I don't know, it was all sorts of messed up, right? So many problems, so many issues. We're doing the go live Q and A. And that part, it went for an hour, but it was really, really good. People's Q&As were so good. And I'm praying. I'm like, please let the zoom recording stuff work because I. We want. I need to use these recordings somewhere else, please. Like, I want to use them. And luckily the recordings came out. So we do the webinar. It finally ends. It's like three and a half hours from start time. Till this point, I haven't slept literally more than a few hours in the last 24 hours. I'm tired. I'm worn out. It was like a thousand degrees in my office because everyone was in there. And, like, it's just done. I'm soaking wet from sweating, and I was like, ugh. And like, we finally end the whole thing, and we couldn't figure out how to actually end it. So, like, I'm like, don't talk, guys. Cause like, zoom's frozen on my computer. We can't even end the event. And it was just crazy. Finally we figured how to kick it off and ended the event. It was done. It wasn't streaming on Facebook anymore. And then everyone starts cheering and clapping and I was like, did we sell any? Because I have no idea. Who knows? And so finally we get done and we look at the sales and it was crazy. The highest grossing webinar I've ever done to date. I've done a couple of webinars in my decade and a half in this game now, right? So it was really good. And obviously there were things that I need to fix and want to fix and change and all that kind of stuff. So I sent emails basically telling everyone, hey, the webinar replay crashed. Which is kind of true. I do have a backup. But I was like, I don't want to show it to everyone. Like, I want to go actually finish the slides and all kind of stuff. So this week, actually in two days, I'm gonna redo it again live for all these people. Hopefully I'll have my act together and who knows, it'll probably like not convert as well because I'm all polished now, but I want to clean it up and just get all the things in the right order in the right place and do the presentation. Right? So we're doing it again Thursday, but it was again, highest octane I've ever had. Highest grossing webinar I've ever had. Like, so many amazing things. We're super proud of ourselves, all sorts of stuff. And then yesterday, I'm about to leave the office, I logged into Facebook just to check out what people are posting on the Book of Faces. And some dude in one of our coaching programs, he. He posted this long post about how my webinar was fugly and how he watched how sick his stomach he got and how I broke all my own rules and how it wasn't truly a blue ocean, it was an improvement offer. And then he had a 30 minute video critiquing everything. And in the video he's like, you know, to quote Russell, he said this. Yeah, he. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, clickfunnels. We know it's good, but it's not great. Anyway, just for 30 minutes again, give me a second. Somebody who paid me to coach them, to teach them how to do webinars, I want to put the context. Like, he's in a coaching group specifically dedicated to teaching people how to do a webinar, Right? In his comment, he also said, I tried to join inner circle, but I couldn't afford the 25,000. So he's someone who's trying to. He's paying me good money to learn new webinars, does not have enough money in his bank account to pay for my coaching program. So instead, what he decides to do is spend how many hours of his life critiquing my webinar and telling me why it was the ugliest webinar he's ever seen and all the things I did wrong, how I broke my own rules and on and on and on, all these kind of things. And I read this. I didn't watch the whole video because I was, like, so, like, just annoyed. I was just, like, dumbfounded. And I'm just staring. I'm like, I don't even know how to respond. Like, I don't even know, should I be angry? Should I be happy? Should I be grateful? Should I be, like. Like, all these emotions, right? So I go through the whole, like, range of emotions from, like, piss to, like, I'm gonna fly and kill him, to, like, thank you, maybe, or, like, no, like, you know, and all these things in between. And. And all I kept bringing through my head was the quote from Theodore Roosevelt. And I'm driving right now, or else I would read it for you. But like this. He says, it's not the critic who counts. It's not the man in the arena who points out how the doer of good deeds has messed up. It's the man who's in the arena whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood and tears, who, maybe he fails, but at least he fails while daring greatly so that his position will never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. And that's my paraphrase of it. Roosevelt said it way cooler than me, but you get the gist. And so my response, I just carbon. I just copied that and I pasted it. I said, hey, man, here you go. And I posted it. And then I left one other comment. And I'm sure that it was missed by him and probably most people. But what I said was, if I just watched somebody do a million dollars in an hour, the last thing I would do is critique them on what they could do better. What I would do is I would zip my lips. I would take notes. I look back on the decade that I went through trying to learn this craft, and this Business and this, you know, And I was. I was speaking at events every single weekend. And I was. I was doing my presentation. I was watching other speakers, and I watched some speakers who were horrible, but I'd watch their presentation, how they do it. I'm like, wow, notice how they did that cool thing. Like, that was awesome. And I would take that piece and I would add it back to my thing, and I like, wow, that was cool. And I would just. I would. I never once looked at somebody's presentation in a critical route to try to figure out, like, the things they did wrong so I could. So I could coach them through how to do it better. Like, that was never. That thought never crossed my mind in a billion infinity years. The only thought that crossed my mind is, like, what is this person doing that I can use? And like, oh, like, the way they did that, the way they made that transition, the way they closed even people who sucked, who did not do any good. I still was watching and paying attention and trying to figure out what were the nuggets for me. And I think what I. I can't really comment exactly. But it's something to the point of just like, next time someone does a million dollars, I said, no, I said, message me next time you do a million dollars in an hour and let me know. Cause I wanna watch that webinar. And then I'm gonna take notes and not give you feedback. Cause that's the thing. So I just wanna kinda put that out there. Cause I think a lot of times we get too smart for our own goods and we're trying to critique people and it's like, that's not your job. In all honesty, if I wanted your opinion, I would have paid you for it. But I haven't. Therefore, don't give me your opinion. Listen, you paid me. And maybe I didn't do it perfect. Maybe I did an entire webinar in less than 24 hours. Maybe there was a billion things happening at the time. And yet, in spite of all those things, it was the highest grossing webinar of all time for us. And so it's like, yeah, I know there were things wrong. I'm fully aware. That's why I'm redoing it this week. Cause I didn't even have a chance to finish my slides. The last 40 slides I copied and pasted from a different presentation because I ran out of time. Like, yes, I can critique myself too, but until someone's paying you for your advice, don't give them your advice. Sit back and listen I've done a couple podcasts on this recently. Like, you as a student should be like, you pick your mentor. So pick your mentor. Then stop, listen, and then do what they say. Don't be like, hey, well, you actually said this like, dude, that's not your role. Like, stop, listen. I say that same time that I want to always be coachable, and I feel like I'm a very coachable person. I have multiple coaches working with me in different aspects of my life. But the difference is that I paid those people for their advice because they are at a level beyond me in that thing that I want to learn how to do. And so I would never sign up for who knows John Carlton's copywriting course, and when I was in there, critique his sales letters and tell them how to do it better in a billion years. I would say, dude, I'm paying you. Maybe there's things I might do different or things that might be better, but I am listening because I paid you. I'm paying attention. I'm trying to find the pieces of gold that I can then apply back to my thing. And, yeah, so I hope for everybody else who is watching that, you know, it was imperfect thing. And hopefully, first off, that was inspiration to you to see, wow, Russell screwed up a lot and it still made a bunch of money. Maybe there's something here. And second off, I hope that you learned that you're watching. I did an episode probably a year ago about, like, watching the magician's hands. Like, I'm trying to in my books, in my podcasts, in these places, I try to show I don't hold things back. I hope you see that. I just like, here's everything. I try to give it to you so you see it all. But then when I'm doing the thing, like, watch and pay attention and listen. Watch the magician's hands at work and see what they're trying to do and try to understand it. Don't try to critique and be like, oh, like, no, that's not gonna help you or them. Watch and learn. And that's my message for today. So, anyway, hope that helps. Hope you guys enjoyed this story. It was a lot of fun. I'm excited to do the webinar again on Thursday. Hopefully I'm not screwed up by fixing it. So, anyway, with that said, I'm letting you guys go. Appreciate you all. Hope you have an amazing day. Go out there and change the world. And like I said, if I can do a webinar in 24 hours, I'll give you guys at least 48 because I've done it a few times. You have 48 hours to get your webinar done and launch. We have a bunch of people gone through our junior 2 comma club coaching, which is all about getting their webinar up and launched live. And some people have gone through the training. We've done three cycles of it now. They've gone through three cycles and still haven't launched the webinar. It's like, just do it, Russell. What if the webinar software crashes? Yeah, I could have crashed too. I just did it. But what happens if it doesn't close? Right? Yeah, just do it. Who cares? Then you just do it again. If it doesn't close, like just do it. Just go out there and just. Just do it. Alright, I'm gonna go, guys. Appreciate you all for listening and I'll talk to you soon. Would you like to see behind the scenes of what we're actually doing each day to grow our company? If so, then go subscribe to our free behind the scenes reality TV show at www.funnelhacker.tv.