Russell Brunson: Over the past 19 years, Russell has built a following of over a million entrepreneurs, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books (making him a New York Times Bestselling Author), popularized the concept of sales funnels, and co-founded the software company called ClickFunnels that helps tens of thousands of entrepreneurs quickly get their message out to the marketplace.
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Oh, C R. We are live. Welcome everybody. The crowd goes wild. We have sir Russell Brunson here with us, um, from zero to a hundred mil for years. And then some, you have done so much for so many entrepreneurs all around the world that you are such a bright light. A million, a million entrepreneurs follow you multiple New York times bestselling books there without arms reach, or I would grab it.
It’s right here. Um, and today we’re going to cover something called dream 100, which is something that we have in common. Um, before we get there, though, I am curious. So 0.04% of companies get to nine figures. Did you start thinking that you’d get. Yes. Funny is no, that was never [00:01:00] even a thought or a possibility for sure.
I remember one of the very percent I heard your dad speak. He went through the numbers of where every company was at about a million dollars in sales. And I was like, yeah, like, And, um, and I remember as I, one time I started growing my company, as I got bigger, bigger, like I got more and more stress and anxiety.
I was like, I don’t ever want to grow a big company. I’m good. Just having a small one. And then, um, when ClickFunnels came out, as you know, it, it blew up and out of necessity. We’re here now. And I never dreamt that initially. Now that we’re here, it’s been so much fun. It’s been the ride of a lifetime and learn so many cool things, met so many amazing people along the way.
I’m just super, super grateful for, you know, where it’s kind of gone. Wow. You know, I just recently interviewed Clate mask too. And he said the same thing either. He had not planned for nine figure business. That’s just amazing. So you were just sharing with me. So can you share for everybody where you originally heard the dream 100 and your, your story about Fiji?
That’s great. Yes, definitely. Um, Ah, I can’t remember [00:02:00] exactly who some course. So this is those who don’t know me. I’m like a marketing nerd. So I like buy every course known to man. And I bought some somebodies course as listening to it. I think like CD or DVD, like number four was this guy I’d never heard it before.
His name was Chad Holmes and I started listening to him. What in the world, this guy’s amazing. I was like freaking out. So then I went and I bought like every chat home thing I could buy. I start going through all the courses, all the, everything, and then, um, uh, messaged him and kind of got to know him a little bit, kind of personally, not super well.
It’s kind of, you know, through phone and through calls. And then, um, this was man was probably 11 years ago, but little over a decade ago, I had a chance to go, uh, speak at Tony’s event and Fiji, Tony Robinson and Fiji. And I got there and walking around tamale, uh, the very first day. And all of a sudden I see Chet walking, by the way, I was like, I’m like that, like what’s going on?
Do like it’s we kind of said hi. And I remember the event was in this little tiny, uh, who, if it was there Ben to, to Namaly there’s this little event space that holds maybe maybe 50 to a hundred people kind of small. And it was crazy. We were in there and Tony was sitting in there and Chad was in there and I was, I remember [00:03:00] sitting there, I was on the front row as Chet was teaching and he was teaching the stuff I’ve been listening on his books and his courses and everything.
And I remember he taught the concept of dream 100. I’ve seen there at his feet, just like my eyes were like this big, just going through it again. And it’s funny because afterwards we’re at dinner or something, Yeah. And he’s like of all the people in this room, you definitely seem like you were paying the most attention.
I was like, I’m sitting at the feet of you listening to you, teach the stuff that I read about in books and listened to the CDs. This is like the most amazing experience ever. And so that was a little over 10 years ago now. Oh my gosh. And I’m sure he would be proud at everything that you’ve done to carry that on and be honoring of his legacy.
So I really, I thank you for that Russell. It’s, it’s really beautiful. What you’ve been able to bloom and take to a whole new life, which is what we’re going to talk about right now is this whole concept of, you know, originally it was lumpy mail. It was follow-up via phone. It was, you know, send a fax. So I know, uh, Does dream 100 look like for you to do.[00:04:00]
Yeah, it’s interesting. Um, you know, when I, when I first read the book and first started trying the concepts of it, it was, for me, it was like, okay, Chet said some sense of being a male and then two weeks later, call him on the phone. So I’d send everybody something in the mail and I call him on the phone and send him the mail and call him on the phone.
And, um, I followed it pretty religiously. Um, but you know, over the last decade that I’ve been doing it, it definitely, for me is morphed. I was kind of before we started recording, I was talking about. Um, for me, you know, most dream 100 nowadays happens in DMS, on Instagram and Facebook and Tik TOK and things like that.
Where now I’m in there and it’s like, you know, lots of, I still send things in the mail. So like I don’t not do that piece of it. Um, I think a lot of people think that that dream 100 means send him something now. And I just wait and hopefully they’ll call you back and they’ll notice you. And it’s like, no, it’s, it’s the core essence of it is like building relationships with the, with the people who have your, your, your customers on it.
Right. And so for me, it’s like, who do I want to, who don’t want to get to know like a good example of this is, um, uh, Ryan holiday. He’s one of my favorite authors. I got one of his little coins right here, like. [00:05:00] And so him as well as everyone, else’s my dream, a hundred. I follow them on Instagram and Facebook.
And every day I get my phone out and I just swipe through and I see what people are doing. And this is when Ryan was finishing one of his most recent books and he posted a picture of the manuscript. And so I was like, Ooh, like he’s coming out the new book. I didn’t even know. So I’m in the comments like, dude, I can’t wait for your book to come out.
I’m freaking out excited. And then he messaged me. Hey, aren’t you? The ClickFunnels guy, like, yeah. He’s like, he’s like, oh, I just saw you comment on my thing. I was like, dude, I’m like your biggest fan. He’s like, are you serious? Like, this is so cool. I’m like, whoa. And we, and like, it started a relationship.
And since then he’s come and spoken my events. I sent him gifts, like actually I found one of the Marcus, Raley’s his original, uh, books from the 14 hundreds on eBay. And I bought it and I shipped it to him as a gift. And like, but it, it’s not just randomly sending people stuff all the time. It’s how do you actually build a real connection and real relationship?
And, um, and so like, but a lot of it’s happening. Through social, social media nowadays, because it’s such an easy way to actually pay attention to people and actually show them that you care more than just like, oh, I’m gonna send them something and cross my fingers and hope that something good [00:06:00] happens back.
Yes. Yes. I love that. And can you share with us a little bit, because it is, it’s a combo, right? So if you send out a mailing, like you said, you wait for it and you don’t reply or, or are asked for that. I just had this happen to me in my DMS on Instagram this morning, this woman sent out this wonderful, really funny picture.
Um, like you had me at O Y O. You know, so it’s just, it was just a funny gift. And so I was asking, oh, well, you know, did you get any of them as clients? And she’s like, what do you mean? And I’m like, oh boy. Okay. Well, the next step is to get them as a client. So, um, can you share, and that’s the gym step two is to follow up until you build a connection.
That’s step three, you have to ask them something. That’s actually. Uh, people like always try one piece of the process, right? Like, um, I remember one of our friends, Dana derricks, he came out with the course teachings, constantly dream a hundred as well. I remember after that I started getting Bo piles and [00:07:00] boxes in my office.
Everyone was like 70 bucks. It was like, so bucks, I think open them all. Like, I don’t know what to do. And it’s like, and then nothing. Like, I didn’t hear people ever again. It’s like, they just step one, but they didn’t follow up. They, you know, if you read the ultimate sales machine, Uh, chat with, send some lumpy mail in the mail and chimps, they call him on the phone and then since something won’t be in the mail and call me, and he’s like, you talked about pig, headed discipline.
I was like pig, headed, discipline and tell the connection is made. And most of the, like, just in step one and the second step is like, again, following up until you can start that connection. And then the third step people forget, or they freak out about it’s like, now you have to ask people for something like, what’s like, what are you like, why are you contacting me?
You know, sometimes we get all these gifts in the mail. It’s like really cool. Like, is there, like, what’s the reason, like, let me know, like why I I’m aware that you’re trying to do something like, it’s not scary. Like it shouldn’t be scary just to ask them, that’s kind of last step now. Now you can, something amazing can happen from that.
But if you don’t do those, all the steps that you’re just saying some of the gift, or you’re just falling up in here and asking you kind of. Biggest takeaway the dream 100 is to [00:08:00] create a relationship to work with them. And so capacity, I love that w we miss the steps along the way. So can you share with me a bit of like some ideas that you’ve done with lumpy mail?
Um, because today, right? There’s so much online, but if you create, if you can cut through the clutter by doing something physical, by doing something that catches their attention, and we can go into a couple more ideas of how you think. Gotten the attention of some really wonderful people to grow your company, but what’s some good lumpy mails that you’ve done that you might be, uh, proud of or even gotten from someone else.
Yeah. Um, yeah. And this is way fun ones. I got actually a mailbox the other day, and then I just want to see it ready. I can grab it. I’ll draw a screen. It’s a legit full mailbox. Let me one second. Cool.
Somebody literally send this mailbox to me, there was a letter at the time and I had, it’s like, I know I’m sending you a letter in the mail. I’m [00:09:00] sending you the actual mailbox as well. So that was kind cool. Um, and now it sounds outside of my door and I’m waiting for somebody to put actual mail and it hasn’t happened yet, but, um, but that was a really good, like when a box that holds this thing in your shows up at your, at your office, like everybody stops what they’re doing.
Like what in the world, this thing, right. We stopped, we opened it, figure out what it is. Um, and so that was a really fun. Um, for me, you know, a lot of times when I’m doing dream one hundreds because, um, I write books. And so like, that’s one of the things I do. And so, um, a lot of times I’ll send out my book sometimes though.
Um, like when I did, when I did my expert secrets book launch, my book wasn’t finished yet. I wanted my dream 100 to be aware of it. So we actually took a copy of the book and printed it, but it was completely blank, had the cover on it, but then all the pages were blank just because it wasn’t done yet. And I want them to be aware, like there’s a book coming.
And so I sent this book out this complete blank to. About 450 people, or so, um, as a way to like to start the process, I’ve also done ones where I sent like the manuscript. Cause some people like geek out on that and like here’s the main industry plate and send out the manuscript to [00:10:00] people. When the dotcom secrets book came out, um, the affiliate prize we were giving away was a Ferrari that I wanted some other contests.
And so we actually went to eBay and started buying these for our key chains, as many as we could find. And it was funny, cause there’s not a place you can buy like 500 free teachings. It was like about 20 from this school. 30 from this guy on eBay, someone had to over here, like it was this huge process of his buying, these Ferrari key chains.
We start sending out Friday key chains, everybody like, Hey, here’s the key chain to your new car. You’re going to win. As soon as you help us promote this new book. And, uh, I love that story because that was the first dream 100 I ever got was your Ferrari key chain. Yeah, I kept it for years. I’m like this guy’s really funny.
Wow. I can’t believe it. He dreamed 100 and me, this is great. That’s so funny. I also loved your, uh, you did a superhero comic once I got that one from you. Yep. We want a whole comic, uh, kind of like telling the story of the launch and all that kind of stuff. And, uh, that was really fun with too, because [00:11:00] if someone’s different, someone shows up.
What is this and you start reading it, you get sucked into the actual story of what we’re trying to do and create. And it’s a, it’s pretty cool. I love that. So what would be, um, let’s say a really big dream, 100 for you that you were able to secure as a client or an affiliate that just change the world?
Um, yeah, there’s so many good ones. I would say. Um, Probably the one that’s the biggest, this is like everybody’s big fish. They’re all trying to catch. The biggest was definitely Tony Robbins. And, um, and I made it, we made a video kind of showing the process, but it was a decade long process for me to get into Tony’s role.
And I think it’s interesting. Cause I, I watched when people tried to approach me or they try to approach, you know, and a lot of times they get so nervous that they’re trying to they’re they’re going into relationships trying to be like, what do I get out of this? And with Tony, I was like, if I do that, he’s got a million people all doing that.
Right. Everyone’s trying to like, get something from Tony. And I was like, I’m going to go the opposite way and just like, see what I can do to help Tony. How can I serve him? Like what, what do I have [00:12:00] that can help them with? And so if you look at the first, like eight and a half years of that relationship, I was just like, anytime like him or seen to anything, I was like helping and serving and trying to do all sorts of stuff.
And it, it eventually built a relationship. He knew who I was and he invited me to do some things and I’m like, and it started that relationship. And then it was when the expert secrets book came out. I was like eight and a half years into this relationship with the first time I was like, okay. Uh, okay. If the answer is don’t totally say, no, I don’t really care.
I just, like, I have to ask you, this is what came out and like, would you any way to interviewed me about this book? And he was like, yeah. And anyway, for me, like I was melting down and he had to do an interview on his fan page. They got seen, I think by three, a million people have seen that interview on his campaigns have him interview me on my book.
We sold thousands of copies of the book. Um, and so I was, that was a big one that was special needs because, um, it took a lot longer. And I think that the, the really good relationships typically do, um, you know, even when I met your dad initially, I wasn’t like, okay, how do I get Chet pro? I think it was like, let’s, let’s build a relationship.
Like how can I help them and what can I do? And, um, you know, I don’t know [00:13:00] how much of the story, you know, but we helped them with some of the call centers that they were doing. We helped to drive traffic. Like, I was like, I’m not going to come in, like ask shit, check, can you help me with this? I was like, I’m going to sell some copies of his book cause that’s helpful.
Right. And like, try to take my assets, my things and help people. Um, and so I think that’s for me that usually the first step is I’m looking at these relationships. How can I, what can I do to help him? What can you do to serve them? And I just try to serve people like crazy in any way I can. And then, then when I have something happening, like, oh, I have a book coming out or, oh, I have a something then, then I don’t feel awkward asking for something because I’ve tried to, I tried to put in the, um, you know, probably put in Goodwill ahead of time.
Um, there’s a, there’s a book. I remember who wrote it. I don’t even, I haven’t actually read the book, but the title of the book was dig your well before you’re thirsty. And you’re gonna think about that. Like that’s what most people miss and dream 100 as well as like their way. Okay. I’m writing a book and my product’s coming out and my company is launching.
So they’re waiting until it launches. And then they reach out to people. Then you reach out with like, looking for them to help you. And it’s like, that’s a dream, a hundred should start like [00:14:00] yesterday. Right. It just start like today for some of you guys like start right now because you’re building relationships or something that’s coming down the, you know, in the future as you’re digging your well before you’re thirsty.
You’re, you’re, you’re planting those seeds now. So someday, you know, maybe it’s somebody who might be a month from now, somebody six months a year from now, when you have the next thing you’re doing, then it makes sense for somebody to help, help you promote it or do whatever it is at that point. So I think it’s a lot of people are short-sighted on that.
It’s like, looks like. You know, don’t come into my world, trying to get me to promote something. Initially they come in and like, how can I serve? What can I give, what can I, what can I do? And that’s where that’s where it all should begin. That’s what that’s, what any, any good relationships that’s where it begins with.
Right? If you want to date with some of the very first time and you were asking. No question about what’s in it for you. They’re not going to be a second date. And same thing is true in dream 100. Right? Right. So when you first started, was, was it a dream 100? This is something that people ask all the time.
You know, it doesn’t have to be a hundred. Was it 20? Was it 10? What, what was your number back in the day? Yeah. Um, so for me, when I got started doing it, this was back [00:15:00] 10 years ago. This was before Instagram or click for you. Any of those kinds of things. The only the June 100 back then was different than how I do it now, back then, it was just, okay, who do I know that has an email list.
And so, um, I just tried to get as many people as I could. Um, I think man, back then it was probably. I don’t know, probably 70 or 80 people, I was able to find, I wasn’t able to find a hundred back then. So that’s about what we did. Um, and then when social media started coming in, um, and all of a sudden, like a podcast came out, right.
And I was able to go to the podcast app on iTunes and click on my category and say, here’s the top 200 podcasts in your market and make boom, there’s 200 dream, 100 right there. I choose gave to me for free. Right. And that’s like, Now here’s my 200 people, the top 200 podcasts in iTunes. Let me go to Instagram.
I started searching. Okay. How many, how many people kind of find on, on Instagram and have my dream customers? Right. And I might find 30 or 40 50 in Instagram. They go to Facebook and they go to Tik TOK. And so I go through each channel now and I try to build a dream 100 each channel, and some channels are easy.
Like podcasting is easy because it [00:16:00] ranks the top 200 podcasts in the category. So I got 200 people, right. Other ones are harder in, might be harder for me to find or Facebook or these other ones I’d be harder. And so for me, I usually end up between all the platforms somewhere like our last, my last book launch, I think I had about 600 people on my dream, 100 list.
Um, but back when I first started, it was, you know, 50 or 60. Cause that’s all I could, it’s all I could find. Right. Right. And, uh, this last week, In Dunlap, who’s somebody that did the dream 100 to be undreamed 100 podcasts. He just hit number one this last week on iTunes. I’m going to interview him later, later this week.
So now that you have so many different mediums for the dream, 100, how are you dictating that? Have you systematize that amongst your staff? How does that look as, as you’ve evolved? Yes. Great question. So we. It’s something that so dream 100 for us is always evolving too. I mean, people take a snapshot and then this is our dream a hundred.
It’s like, no, it’s first. It’s always evolving. So for example, on me, when I’m on social media, I’m on [00:17:00] Instagram or whatever I’m doing stuff. Um, people will just pop in your feed. You’ve never met before. Oh, who’s this person I’ll follow them. Like, oh, this person’s awesome. I’ll contact him. And I’ll send to my team like, Hey, add so-and-so to the dream, a hundred list.
This person’s great. And then we just keep it. So it’s always evolving and growing. Um, also, um, it’s, that’s kind of what was happening and then we randomly send out probably one. A quarter or so, send something to, to most of the people on our dream, 100 just with no, no, you know, nothing, no promotion thing, looking forward, just like, Hey, here’s a cool thing.
Or, Hey, here’s a gift. Or here’s that, we’re assuming something that way when the first time they hear from me, it’s not just like, oh, Hey, my new book’s coming out or, Hey, the new thing, you know, it’s like, there’s, there’s other things happening. And we probably see that more often, like the perfect world I’d be doing, like once at least once a month and a.
I’m going to coach myself. Russell, you should do at least once a month. Yeah. You gave me one year for Christmas. You sent out one and I got a wooden toothbrush and I use those wooden toothbrushes. Now I loved [00:18:00] them. That’s amazing. Yeah. I should buy stock of that company now. That’s funny. Cool. So, so you do have them doing things as well and sending out mailers and that they do have specific like sales people that are doing this as well, or is it more from a marketing?
Um, so we have three people on our team that are, are, uh, Philly managers or David managing 100 managers, whatever you want to call them. Uh, and so their job is to, to keep touch with these people more often. So there are, they follow people on social to look what’s happening, but I mean a kid, or if they’re, you know, something’s ha you know, there’s to things they’re trying to talk to them also.
And it also figured out, cause it’s not. You know, Jim hunter is not always like, okay, I have a book launch promote this one day. A lot of times, it’s just like, how can we work together? What are you doing here? What’s your number one? I remember, um, Sean Stephenson, who’s one of my friends passed away a while ago.
I remember that he was so brilliant. He called me one day out of the blue. And he was like, uh, he said, Hey, you know, what’s going on? And we start talking. He’s like, what is it you’re working right now that you’re [00:19:00] most passionate about? And for me, it’s how I was like, well, I have this, you know, we were doing this reality TV show thing.
We were filming everything happening and building funnels. And, and he was like, who, like, how can I support you in that? I don’t even know. He’s like, well, do you want to fight here and film one with me? And we can build a funnel together. We can launch it. And like you tell him how story. Yeah, that’d be amazing.
And so we flew out there and did the whole thing with him, but the question you asked was so cool. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, Hey Russell, can you help promote my blah, blah, blah. He was like, what are you working on? And how can I work with you to help support what you’re doing? And it turned this amazing thing where we, we both got value from it.
And so that’s a lot of what our dream 100 managers are doing is just like, like figure filling out. Like, what are you guys working on? What can we do to support like, oh, you have an event. Can we send some ClickFunnels people to help? You know, like, uh, you have a mastermind happening. We send some of our books as gifts to all your attendance.
You’re just trying to figure out ways that we can, again, we can build a relationship with people beyond just like a promotion. Um, and from that we had some amazing deals that have, that have gone through that weren’t tied to any big promotion that was happening on the ClickFunnels side. We’ve had people in different countries.
Hey, I’m actually the person that [00:20:00] runs ClickFunnels in Italy, you know, we’re doing an event, we’ve got 500 people showing up and so we’ll send someone down there. We send them all gifts or what, you know, all these things that just, that just happened. That now opens up the S you know, now all we have this huge falling happening in Italy, because there was one person there that we had kind of met.
And now we build relationships. You know, teaching ClickFunnels and selling ClickFunnels to all these people here in the other part of the part of the world without us even there. And so it’s just looking for all that kind of stuff. You know what I also take away from what you’re saying is that you’re coming from this place of service, which I really feel that you live that life.
And, you know, I believe in that as well. It’s just, how can I be of service and. And there’s this belief in our world today that it’s all about, you know, whatever I can get is best, what can I get? What can I get? But the true gift is in giving, right? And what can I give? And then what you receive is just so much more bountiful because you weren’t expecting it and you were just there to give.
So something that you’re saying, I really feel that I feel that energy, not only with you, [00:21:00] but also within your organization, that’s such a great way to live life. Yeah, I had, um, I remember listening to a coaching call probably almost a decade ago with a mentor. His name is Matt fury and he said something to just like stuck in my head.
Um, cause he’s talking about making money and stuff and he says something that it was just, I wasn’t expecting it. And that’s why it hit me so hard. But he was talking about how, like, when he goes out to dinner, he always tips people at least a hundred bucks and he does the a hundred percent tip and all these things.
And he said this quote, he said, he said, the size of the hole that you give from will be the size of the hole you received. And everything that I was like, huh, well, I want to, I want to give more than because I want to receive more. Right. Like it’s just, and so I start thinking of that. So like, and so for me, it started with the same thing, like tipping.
Okay. Next time I tip and said tipping 15% or 20%. Like for me, it’s up a hundred bucks is going to change somebody’s life. That doesn’t affect me at all. Right. So let me start there. And then it’s like, okay, I’m in a relationship with somebody like we’re, we’re, we’re working together. Like, instead of looking at like how, what can I get?
It’s like, let me serve this person. Let me figure out how can I help them? Like what can I do? [00:22:00] You’re trying to help there. And then something good will happen. Like it may not be. From this conversation or something else, but they might open up a door where, you know, something else happens and who knows what happens, but it seems like the more, the more good stuff you do that more, the more opportunities open up, the more things are happening on other side of it.
So just trying to think of those things and doing it in a way that, that isn’t. I do in a way that there’s nothing for you right before first call got on, you asked you asked me a question and I was like, oh, I can do this thing real quick. And like, there’s nothing like, I don’t like, I’m not gonna get anything out of it.
You know, I’m going to message this person. There’s nothing for me. Hopefully it serves you. And then somehow something magical come from, I don’t even know what it is. And I may never know what it is, but something great will happen because, um, because, because of that, you know what I mean? So I think the more we start looking at that and being willing to do it.
Try to do something without looking at the, what the ROI is going to be. Um, that’s when that’s when amazing stuff happens. So it’s interesting. So not just for your dream 100, although that’s a critical point with your dream 100, but it’s also a way of life and living, you know, when you were talking [00:23:00] about the tips I had thought about my father did this once, where he went up to a, um, a house.
So many Christmas lights on it that we walk up and I’m like, dad, what are we doing? He’s like, come here, come here, come here. He brings me up to the front door knocks on the front door. I’m like, dad, what are we doing? And he goes, hi, we’re from the chamber of commerce. We have, we’re here to celebrate you that you have the most decorated home in the CA in the county.
And here is your a reward. And he handed him $200 and the guy went, oh, wow. And I’m like, oh my God, what are we doing? And then we walked away and we laughed so hard, you know, but he’s like for now and forever, he’s always going to put up Christmas lights. So isn’t that wonderful. It was just like one of those you’re like, there’s no reason for it, but the giving was just so hilariously.
Wonderful. Anyway. So looking back over the years of running dream, one hundreds, is there something that you learned that’s like, wow, I wish I had known that earlier, so I could have stopped that from happening.[00:24:00]
Um, I think I was, short-sighted getting a, just trying to ask people, promote stuff. Um, one of my friends, I believe it was, uh, I think it was Rachel Pedersen. I believe that’s her. Um, but she showed me what she does. And it’s not just like, here’s something I’m going to send out to every single person on the list.
At one time, what she does is she actually goes to finds the person and goes to their Amazon profile and sees like, someone’s got like a wishlist, like here’s things that I want. And then she sends them things directly from the wishlist, which now is like a very personal thing. Right? Like Ryan holiday, when, when we started hanging out and talking to.
You know, half his books are on stoicism and Marcus Aurelius and stuff. I was like, okay, what can I give him this? Not that no one else is going to give him. Right. And so that’s when I went to eBay and I was searching, I found this old book and I was like, I love old books. And so like, I sent him that with Tony Robbins, like when, uh, at the very first time we met, I was like, what do I send somebody who literally has like, anything you could possibly want?
Well, like the very first thing I ever created myself was like a [00:25:00] potato gun. And my first product was a DVT pig. And so I actually sent Tony the potato gun that I made on the DVD. I was like, this is a weird gift, but like, he’ll remember this. I sent him to buy potato gun. I remember he sent me back a message.
He’s like, he’s like, this is the coolest thing. I’ve never shot at him. Cause they, how does it work? Teach me how it works. It’s like we’re going back and forth. And him and Sage are shooting in their backyard, like all this craziness. And it’s like, but now there’s a connection point, right? Like any time that you know, and again, I have no idea.
What will happen with ride holiday or anywhere else? Like they have that thing. They, they remember you, right? They remember that connection. And so I think it’s just, it’s like I would have been, and I’m trying moving forward in my life to be more personal, like, and it’s tough for me because I’m not my, uh, my love language is not gift-giving.
So like, by default, I don’t look, I don’t that doesn’t like cross my mind. So I’m trying to be more aware of, as I see something I paid, like, what would that person actually want? Like, what’s something that, that would build a connection point that I couldn’t get any other way, you know? And so, um, anyway, so that’s the thing I think would be more personal as opposed to like, here’s this mass market thing you send out to everybody, you know, even when we launched ClickFunnels.
[00:26:00] Um, the very first thing we did and now these people do all the time. I think we were one of the first, first we had these video cards, we imported from China. We opened them. There’s a video playing. Right. And so we did that, but. If I just make one video said to everybody is going to seem kind of weird. So I sat in my car with a video camera and I recorded a personal video for every single person on my dream.
100 took me eight hours. I had the biggest headache. It was like, Hey, what’s up Joe Miller at one time we were blah, blah, blah, blah. That was so cool. Hey, I got a quick question for you, you know, and then I went through and made a personal video for every single person and we had to go unload each one on a V and it was just, it took way more time, but it’s so much more personal and that when some guy they opened up.
Me personally talking to them, it started this conversation. And I think looking at less of like, uh, this is gonna be some big mass spam technique. It’s gonna make me millions of dollars. And like, no, this is a mass connection technique. Right. I’m I gotta connect with people. Like what, how do I do that at a, you know, at a, at a different level?
I think that’s how, I’d probably the biggest takeaway that I wish I would have done better from very beginning. So I love that. And so, because you scaled so [00:27:00] quickly, With your dream 100. Are there any like, uh, growing pains that you had as you started to realize, oh my God, I have so much here. What do I do now?
Like what were some of those gaps? Oh man, there’s been so many growing pains. In fact, Sunday I bought, I bought, um, the domain bootstrap.com and Sunday, my, one of my books on rights can be bootstrapped telling the ClickFunnels story someday. Cause there’s so many of those things, but that was a big, I mean, you know, there’s this whole supply and demand.
You have no customers. And so you don’t need customer support. Then you get a whole bunch of customers. You need to get more customer support. And then like, it’s just like this ying gang of how do you grow and scale. And then we grew too fast and then like the servers couldn’t handle what we’re doing and just a lot of those kinds of things.
But, um, I think one of the best things we did with ClickFunnels is we tried to do like a big, get all boardroom, a hundred promote single ones, and it caused chaos. Frustration, the system, all those things. Right. And so when we stepped back, we shifted fight. Okay. This is a long-term business. It’s not just like a one.
Promotion. This is a long-term thing. And so we started [00:28:00] looking at it differently as opposed to like, let’s get a a hundred dream, a hundred all promote on the same day to like, Hey, can we get one dream a hundred this week? And then one next week and one the next week and just kind of roll this thing forward.
And so that became the thing we shifted to, which was nice because it gave us time, um, to, to build relationship with each individual person and then figuring out how to customize this, this presentation for their audience. And a lot of people don’t know this, like we did the initial click funnels launch and it kind of bombed.
And then, um, Um, partially the sales message wasn’t right. Partially. We tried to get rid of promote a free trial and didn’t convert well. And so then they ever stopped promoting and just like, oh, we lost, you know, and I remember on a couple of weeks later, I did, uh, I spoke at an event. I did a webinar and I created a webinar presentation.
I spoke at the event and it converted really well. So I came back and we started calling people who I knew who were dream 100. And I was like, Hey, I used this webinar presentation. It worked really good. And one, do what’s your list? They said, yes. And then I called the next person next person. And, um, the first year of ClickFunnels, um, I did a live webinar.
[00:29:00] Um, I can’t, I think it was like 60 some, some odd times and ride a, up to 60 one-off live presentations, you know, and each one’s two to three hours long and it was just like, it was brutal as a screw shit at first year. Like, I wanna, I’m not gonna lie. There were days. I was just like, this is the worst thing ever.
You know, where somebody is. I do two webinars in a day, but it was. But I was, you know, we were exciting where it was like, it was the launch phase of it all, but that gave us the ability to scale and to grow, um, over a long period time. And that they work with each dream, 100 individuals, everyone had different things.
They wanted like some people’s audience wanted this. And so someone did this and we were able to build custom funnels for people to, to match what they were teaching their audience. And, you know, there are a lot of things we could do when it was a slower, like rolling launch, as opposed to just a. Dump all the fuel on the fire, the very beginning, you know, and for us that, that changed everything.
It gave us the ability to grow and scale into what we were doing, um, to really work with these stream on a hundred and, and maximize the relationship for them. So they made the most amount of money. They were able to be successful with it as well. And in longterm, their customers were successful with us as well.[00:30:00]
Hmm. Okay. Fire round. Last question. What, what is fueling your passion today? Like you you’ve been running, you’ve been going, you’ve been growing. What, what still feels the fire? What, what keeps you running? Oh man. It’s um, it’s such a good question. I get people asking them. Why, why, why specifically? Why do you keep doing this?
Like, we could just be like, I wish. Um, for me, it’s, um, it’s been really fun, you know, I think when, when I got into business, I got into, because I think I would love to be like, I want to make money. And so you start doing that and you have success and then you get the significance and like, and that’s like the initial, the initial high you get from business.
But eventually those who’ve been doing this for a while. You know, like that initial high kind of goes away and also like money does not become as useful. You’re like, oh, this is just the thing that. I didn’t get a bank account like it, like that was this energy as well. Um, but the thing that, um, has been so rewarding to me through ClickFunnels is I think we’re at a hundred and 120, 130,000 active members [00:31:00] right now.
And each exciting. Each of those people, um, are entrepreneurs. And I believe entrepreneurs are the only people in this world that are going to actually change the world. It’s not government, it’s not scoring it’s it’s people like me and you. Who, who care about our. And I look at those 120,000, some odd people.
And I know so many other stories, um, where I had a chance to sit here and talk to him like one example, uh, you know, I talked about laws, brand new came and Poland, like they were, when they came into our world, they were broke. They built the first funnel. They launched it and now they employ over a hundred people and you have one point something million women that they’ve helped lose weight in this journey and like ripple effect.
That, that little, that business has had on how many millions of people’s lives. Right. It’s not just the people who lost the weight. Right? It’s the person lost the weight now it’s that person’s family and people they serve. And like, and like the ripple effect is huge. And like, that’s just one of our 120,000 people.
Right. And there’s [email protected]. Like we’re the most amazing dudes ever. And like he’s gone and built this thing and he’s helped save thousands of people from, from cancer and help them as like, that’s the number two, two person then three, [00:32:00] like you look at those 10 people, 20, 50, a hundred. If you look at times 120,000 people, like it’s, it’s billions of people’s lives are being changed by the mission that we do.
We have here. So for me, like that’s, at this point, that’s what fires us up. Like, uh, every day we have meetings here and whenever we have a meeting, we always start with like, uh, this con um, the first part of our meetings, um, is we call what we do matters when we started what we do matters. There’s another story from some of our community and they tell a story and everyday there’s a new story.
And every day it’s like, And for me and for our entire team, it’s like, what we do actually does matter. It’s not just like I’m coming into the business and clocking in and out. It’s like, no, this affects people’s lives. Not person’s life affects their families and then their employees and then their customers they’re like that ripple effect just it’s it’s magical when you look at it.
So for me, that’s it. We’re just trying to. Help more people the best we can. And we make a lot of mistakes along the way, but we’re trying, and we’re having fun doing it. And this has been super fulfilling. So I don’t know. That’s kinda, that’s kinda what, yeah, that’s, that’s amazing. And it’s just a full circle.
You know, you learn dream 100 from my father [00:33:00] and then even last year, Chi double dare. We, we doubled our sales last year because I built out six new micro funnels within ClickFunnels. Right. I wouldn’t have been able to go at that speed with my team if it weren’t for your tool. So it just keeps giving the gift that keeps giving.
And there’s a bunch of people that are going crazy online and I Kevin and VJ and Joey, and all of these people saying, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, this has been so lovely, Russell. Thank you so much for doing this. I could talk to you for hours about it. So I, I, I will respect the fact that on a Friday, Thursday, I said, please, please, please.
Can I interview on a Monday? Here we are. It was so perfect. Um, I’m so glad and you know, I’m grateful for you for your father. Like he, he changed my life in so many ways and I’m just grateful that you’re carrying his mission on and helping more people, you know, my. I think for all of us, like we’re in this life and, and we’re trying to do what we can, we’re here while we’re living.
And, you know, [00:34:00] we always hope that what we do lives beyond, uh, us and that’s what also the impact side of it. And I think, um, it’s, it’s magical watching what you’re doing now, and then I’m sure your dad is so proud seeing that like, oh my gosh, this thing that I created initially, I was living on beyond him and now all the cool, amazing things you’re doing to it now.
And like, it’s just, it’s, it’s really cool. So I’m grateful to be here with you. And so many people have benefited from dream 100 because of that succession, right. From what you’ve taught from what my father taught from what I’m doing. So it’s just, it’s just wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for the impact that you make.
I appreciate that.
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