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TRANSCRIPT:

*this transcript was mostly generated by AI, please excuse any mistakes

Amanda: Russell Brunson has been such a wonderful advocate for what we do. He’s one of our other ultimate sales machine Hall of Famers. He went from zero to a hundred million in four years with no backing as a startup SaaS. Amazing. And he’s going to share with us now. 

Intro: Here is your daily dose of the Ultimate Sales machine coming to you from the new edition. Visit ultimate sales machine.com to get your copy or multiple copies. I am your host, Amanda Holmes, CEO of Chet Homes International. What you’re about to learn has assisted a quarter of a million businesses to generate billions of dollars working faster, better, smarter.

Amanda: So here we go. I’m so thrilled and honored to have Russell Brunson here, and I have to just do a quick shout out because he has been an MVP of this book launch. From every step of the way, from actually taking what my father taught and running with Dream 100 and giving it a whole new life.

And then also with this book launch, they bought a thousand copies [00:01:00] on Friday. I had a Hail Mary. We were like 600 below what we needed to be able to break bestseller. And I in a whim. I said, Russells are any way that we could send to specifically your clients. And he said, I think so. Let me get it. I have to get on stage with Damon John, but I can figure it out.

And literally they went four people were working on this to make sure that we could make this happen. So Russell, from the bottom of my heart, it’s not just what you portray to everyone, it’s who you are behind the scenes. That really means a lot to me. So thank you. 

Russell: Oh, no worries. I’m glad I was able to do it.

And as this book has actually been a huge part of my life. In fact, I remember when your dad was originally launching it. I remember where I was at. I, first time I ever met him, I was in the room, he was talking about the book launch. It was about to come up and I remember the book launch happening and I remember reading the book and I had so many big insights.

Specifically the Dream 100 was probably the thing that had the biggest impact on me. And so the fact that, the next ver the updated versions here, I had a chance to read your your special chapter by the way, which was so cool. So I think your dad would be proud of. [00:02:00] But also something as myself reading, I’m like, Oh, this is like what I needed right now in my life too.

So I’m pumped for the book. And that’s why we sent all of my highest one highest end clients and I’m excited to be here. 

Amanda: Yes. And so the way that I’ve been able to learn my father’s business was actually reading his emails. That was the only way, cuz I never got to talk to him face to face. And I actually found an email where he said, this is what I wanted to change about the old edition.

And he gave me everything that he wanted to change. And one thing was he wanted to put case studies at the beginning of the book that just talked about some of our best successes. And I called it the Ultimate Sales Machine Hall of Fame. And you are one of the three companies that made our ultimate sales machine Hall of Fame.

So thank you so much for that. 

Russell: That is so cool. I love it. . 

Amanda: Awesome. Okay, so diving deep, cause I know everybody’s on the edge of their seats. We wanna hear. You are such a great example of the bleeding edge of what’s going on in the industry. You’re popping out millionaires, like it’s such an easy thing, which I know from the data it’s not.

So it’s been very impressive what you’ve been able to create [00:03:00] with your two Comma Club. What would you give as advice to so many of these businesses that aren’t savvy online today? What would you give as Okay, the future, We’re changing so rapidly, what could they do to help grow their businesses?

Russell: Yeah. It’s something that I think is counterintuitive. A lot of people like fight against it initially, but we are moving into a day and age where the big brands are no longer the big brands. The big brands are people. It’s really fascinating. You look at the companies that grow big, like you look at YouTube like who’s the biggest YouTube channel in the world?

You think it should be something like ESPN or Fox or cnn. But no, it’s Mr. Beast. It’s a human. It’s a person who’s got a personality that people connect with, right? And it’s true on every single platform. I think what’s such a key for people understand, especially people who are off have offline businesses who are trying to move online, is that nowadays what people wanna do is they wanna work with, they wanna hire, they wanna pay people, they have connection with people that they get to know who they actually are.

And so I had a friend really good example this, he’s a chiropractor and he was like, every other chiropractor I look at, him versus the 200 other chiropractors that are on the street here in Boise, Idaho, where I [00:04:00] live, and they’re. Selling off of just an offer. Oh, we do adjustments. Oh, we do this.

They all have the same business basically. And and he asked me one day like, how should I grow my business? And I think he was waiting for me to give him like, like the super offer or something, I don’t know, something magical or whatever. And I asked him, I said what was the reason why you became a chiropractor?

And he was like, Oh, it pays good, and we get Fridays off. And I was like, Dude, that’s not tell me the real reason. Like why are you passionate about this? I wanna know it. It took me a minute to think back in time. And then he said, Oh it’s the reason why I became a chiropractor is I was actually gonna be a dentist.

I was in dental school and I met my wife, we got engaged or married, I can’t remember. And he said that she got in a car wreck and he is for four or five months, I watched my wife, who she couldn’t get bed. She was struggled. She was in so much. We tried everything from medical doctors to, all these different things.

And it’s eventually I took him to a chiropractor. I always like chiropractors were I didn’t believe it. I thought it was a crazy thing. And I remember watching this chiropractor take my wife’s in her hand and adjusted her. And instantly she was outta pain for the first time, like five or six months.

It’s like I witnessed and I experienced that. I was like, that’s when I realized I wanted to become a chiropractor. And I was like, I told him like, Stop. I’m like, That’s it. That’s that’s the, that story is the reason why people will [00:05:00] come to you and it’ll cut through the 800 other chiropractic offers invoice.

The Idaho is like the connection, right? And you’ve read my books, like I talk about throw out a hook and a story, and I get throw a hook out there, get someone’s attention. Then you tell them a story and you make ’em an offer. When most people are doing is they’re throwing out a hook and they’re making an offer like, Hey, your back hurt.

You can get adjustments for, blah, blah, blah, whatever, two for one or whatever. It’s no, like the story is the thing that gets people to connect with you. It’s the reason why they’ll drive past 10 chiropractic offices to come to yours because they, you told him this story. And so my buddy, I had him go out there and he literally made ads that said Hey, is your back hurting?

Let me tell you why I think I would love to be your chiropractor. And he tells this story about his wife and the whole thing. And he got, he told it in a beautiful way and the end of it. And he made an offer and the offer wasn’t. The most irresistible offer is just Hey, come in and and get an adjustment.

And that ad crushed everything else they were doing and people kept coming back. People started referring more people, like all these things started happening. It’s because the business owner connected with the end audience. I think that’s so people are missing so much nowadays is they’re trying to just to do what business was like 30 years ago where it’s like, Oh, it’s a, you throw the thing out there [00:06:00] with an offer and that’s it.

And it’s like, no, like personalities is what is so important nowadays. It’s what makes, you know when you’re driving traffic from Instagram or Facebook or YouTube, like they’re connecting with you. And that’s the biggest thing I think most people are missing nowadays is understanding that and being willing to put yourself out there.

Cause sometimes it can be scary, especially if you’ve never done it, but coming back and like really understand like what was the reason why you do what you do, and then being willing to share that story, like that’s the people that are winning today, or those who be being vulnerable and telling the actual, like the story their real story behind what they, why they do what they do.

Amanda: I’ve been feeling that so intensely with the dear dad video. You watched my dear dad video. Yeah. And you would 

Russell: think that, Yeah. I Tears, It was amazing. , 

Amanda: you would think for a sales book. I have all of these great things for doubling sales, but the letter to my father just hooked people. Yeah. So I also I love your story about what happened.

So every business owner, 78% of them wanna sell their business, and yet 91% never do. It’s an insane amount. Can you share your opportunity where ClickFunnels got an irresistible [00:07:00] offer? , and what happened? 

Russell: Yeah. This was probably about two years ago, and those who know my journey, we’ve, I’ve been in business for 20 years before ClickFunnels had a chance to work with your dad, which was such a huge honor.

And then ClickFunnels launched and we spent the next, six or seven years growing that company. And everyone does you at a certain point and you’re like, Ah, should we sell? Should we not sell? So we just we put it out there just to see what we’re worth and what we’re interested.

And it was interesting because we went through the whole process and there’s, it’s an emotional roller coaster. You get a big offer and then they try to undercut you back and forth and negotiations and all the companies and went through the whole process and finally got down to the day where it’s like we knew that it was a Sunday night, like next, like Monday morning, they’re submitting an offer to you.

And I was like, Oh, man. And I remember sitting there thinking I think I what it’s gonna be, but I’m like, even with I don’t really, I don’t really want to, I don’t really want to do that. I don’t wanna sell, like I, I legitimately love what I do. The question was like, if you were to sell today, what would you do tomorrow?

And I was like, probably the same thing I’m doing today. I would go and build another funnel. I would try to do another thing, like if I’m gonna build a funnel, might as well build it for ClickFunnels. I love ClickFunnel. This is the greatest thing in the world. And so I remember, I actually, my wife earlier that day, I was like, I need to, I’m like, Todd’s gonna wanna take this deal and I have to like, [00:08:00] talk him out of it.

And but Todd’s my business partner. I live in Boise, Idaho. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, so there like opposite sides of the country. And so rented a plane and we, and I flew all the way out there by myself, like four or five hour flight. Got there I ended up in Atlanta like two or three in the morning for him.

I came to his house and then I was like hey, before we get the offer tomorrow, I don’t think I really wanna do this. And he was like, Wait, what? I’m like, ah. It was just one of those things. And the next day the offer came in and we sat down and went back and forth and eventually we decided to to tell them no.

Despite the fact that yeah, like you said, it’s the dream everyone wants. That’s what you’re building something to be able to someday sell it and pass it on. And I think for me, we realize we just weren’t ready yet. We love what we do, we wanna keep doing it. And I think we had a vision for what we wanted.

Like we were leaving it where Cook Funds was a really good place, but we wanted to create something that was great and we’re like to really go from good to great, it was gonna require us to literally take a take, take a pay cut for a year. We thought, turns out it was more like two years to go back and rebuild the platform from the ground up.

But yeah, for us that’s the story that happened is we had this amazing opportunity and we decided not to because we were so passionate about just the business and what we were [00:09:00] doing. And we didn’t wanna, we didn’t wanna stop. It was so much fun. Oh 

Amanda: my God. And then the birth of ClickFunnels 2.0.

Can you share what came out of that? 

Russell: Yeah, it was literally the backstop. It was at that, it was in Atlanta at Todd’s place. And after the first day or so after. Decided to not take the offer. Then Todd has like a little lake house. We drove out there for three or four days. Dave Woodward is, he flew out cause he’s like, There’s a party happening I can’t miss.

So he flew out and we sat in this in Todd’s lake house for four days trying to decide what do we do? And this was happening just for context. It was in the middle of the election, like the elections happened while we were at Todd’s place. Oh. And I remember as a joke, we got a big, huge whiteboard out.

We were make click Funnels great again. What would it take for us to do that? And then we sat there and if we did, we’d have to do this. We’d have to do this. And Todd’s Oh, we could do this in the old platform. We have to build it new. And I’m like, Not take too much money and too much time.

Could, went back and forth and back and forth. And and it was interesting because we realized like if we would’ve tried to build a new company inside of a ClickFunnels, it probably wouldn’t have worked. And so we started looking what does Steve Jobs do? Like Steve Jobs, when he started building his new stuff, he didn’t plug it into Apple.

If it would’ve, it probably wouldn’t have happened. It would’ve got drowned out or stopped. So he built like the skunks work division [00:10:00] where he started as himself and pulled a couple developers off and eventually built, it became the future of Apple. And so we did the same thing and said, Okay, if we’re gonna do.

Todd, we can’t tell anybody. In fact, we didn’t tell anybody, even on our own team for almost a year, Todd went out there and he would like hand pick like somebody, he’d be like, Okay, I need this person. And so he’d like, he’d have a meeting with him, swear him in. You’re not allowed to tell anybody.

Sign a contract. You’re not gonna tell anybody. And then we’d pull him off the project and then like slowly kept doing that. Cause he started of rebuilding the team from there. And and we spent, I think it was like eight or nine months before we did the announcement just internally to our internal staff.

Hey guys, we’ve been working on something for the last nine months. This is what it is. And then a few months later we announced it Funnel Hacking Live for the first time for our community. But it still took an entire, another year after that, before the platform was done to a spot where we could launch into the world.

But that was what it was. And it was just so much fun. It was like we launched click phones the first time was a similar experience. We were hearing a little office and Boise the item in front of a whiteboard, like dreaming, like what we could build anything, what would it be? I’m like, Oh, we would do this and we would do this.

And it was just fun to sit back and reimagine what’s possible and then go and actually start [00:11:00] chasing it, trying to create it from scratch. It’s the startup phase for me is my favorite part of any business is so much. 

Amanda: Got it. That also good segue into this whole concept that I keep bringing back of how to live a rich and full life.

And, you’ve, from zero to a hundred million in four years is what 0.004% of businesses do . So you are the very small fraction of that. Yes. Victory. Now time to buy lots of books. I’m shocked at your books collection. It’s amazing. . So what would you say now, so you’ve just on the precipice of launching 2.0 what makes a rich and full life for you versus what it was maybe six a year, six years ago when you started ClickFunnels?

Russell: Yeah, that’s a good question. I look at, for me nowadays the, it’s more busy now than it’s ever been. And so it’s like there’s more things vying for your attention, things pulling you. And I love business. I’m always, I’m involved in it. But for me it’s it’s really blocking out times for certain things.

Like today at three o’clock I am packing up and leaving whether I’m done with my projects or not. Cuz I’m get my son Aiden, we’re going to wrestling [00:12:00] practice and after wrestling practice to my other son who’s in high school, he’s coming back and we’re gonna be wrestling practice tonight, right? And then my wife and I have got two or three hours time and then I’m gonna go play with Nora.

And then but I have all those times like blocked out, right? And so I’m able to, as much as I want in the time I have, but that’s, all the time. I have. Does that make sense? So I’m here at the office from nine till today till three. And so during that window of time, I can jam as many projects or ideas or businesses or what, like whatever I want to do.

But when three o’clock comes, I’m done. Like I have to check out and I have to leave, and then I have to go be present. The next thing. I think one of the things I’ve learned, I’m not perfect at, You can ask my wife, I’m not perfect. But what I’ve tried to do consciously is is wherever I’m at in the moment is being very present in the moment, right?

Like when I’m here in the office, I’m present. I’m not doing a million different things. I can hear, I’m working on the projects. When I leave here, I’m very present at wrestling practice. I’m at wrestling practice. I’m with the kids. I’m doing the thing, I’m with my wife at home, Like I’m present with her and I try to like, I’m again, she’ll, she would tease me, I, Oh, you still have your phone?

But I always try to put my phone down and see how long go without like looking at it or touching it or, but I try to take it outta my pocket, leave it somewhere. Otherwise if it’s in my pocket every 30 seconds I’m looking at it. But the big key is [00:13:00] just is chunking time out and then being present in the thing that you’re doing when you’re doing it.

I think too many people, they bleed where they’re doing two things at once, right? And so then both of ’em suffer. I’m a wrestling practice. I’m checking my emails, then my kids know I’m not paying attention. Then, you’d miss that. It’s not, you didn’t get the benefit of either of them, right?

And so I think that’s the biggest thing. And then honestly, it’s scheduling out the most important things first. I think a lot of times we schedule like, here’s our workday, boom. And then we try to plug in the things that actually matter the most around it. Whereas I’m trying to get better and better of okay, here’s the time my family, my kids, da.

And it’s like, where does the mean I work? Means I gotta wake up earlier for gonna work today because I’ve got this block that’s gone. I gotta, and I work around the things that are most important, not the things that are, they’re temporary. So those are the things I try to do. Again, I’m not perfect at it.

It’s amazing. Like I look at what we are accomplishing, what we have accomplished, and I be able to do that while keeping a strong relationship with my wife and being there for my kids. I’ve never missed one of my kids wrestling or soccer or I’m there every single thing’s I’m at every wrestling practice.

And I think a big part of it’s just making those things the priority. And then yeah, when you’re, when you are working, and that’s another thing I think I see a lot of people come to work and in an eight hour day it’ll get an hours worth [00:14:00] work done. But if you watch like an eight hour day, I get like 22 hours worth of work done.

I like maximize every second of the day when I’m there. Cause as soon as it’s gone, like I gotta leave and I I can’t finish it later. So it’s it’s now or never. So that’s the way I try to structure my life. . 

Amanda: I love that. And it’s definitely, it shows with your time with your children and your time with your family.

And I love how you tie that all in with your message when you reach out to others so that more know that it’s okay to spend that time with your family and you should. So thank you for being that example Russell. Yeah. And where do people go? I’m so sorry. I probably should have asked somebody in your team, where do people go to find ClickFunnels 2.0.

Russell: Oh yeah. I think the new official page goes live today or anyway really soon. So by, by by time was watching this, I’m hoping it’ll be there. So if you go to clickfunnels.com, the new page will be there. It’s the new ClickFunnels 2.0 cuz there’s a really funny video on the landing page with a goth grandma a writer music.

Anyway it’s a funny video. So if you’re at clickfunnels.com and you see the new video, it means 2.0 is officially live and you have a chance to to go check it out and try it out. . 

Amanda: Oh, I [00:15:00] can’t wait. I can’t wait to watch it. Your videos are hysterical 99% of the time, so I can’t wait. Thank you so much, Russell, it’s been such an honor.

Russell: Yeah, thank you Amanda. I appreciate you and thank you for taking your dad’s message and bringing it out to the world and continuing his legacy as someone who had a chance to work with him and be friends with him. I know he’s proud of you and I’m proud of you. And like I said, this book is one of the books that had the biggest impact on my career.

And so I’m just proud of you for taking it and and running with it, taking it to the next level. Cool. Thank 

Amanda: you.

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