SFR 76: WHY Russell Brunson Can Launch A "Viral Video"

Too many times I see people learning to solve a problem that is UNRELATED to where they actually are...

Woohoo. What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen. You're listening to Sales Funnel Radio.

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels, and now he's your host Steve Larsen.

Hey, guys. I hope you're doing great. It is a very rainy day outside right now. It's been freezing. Holy crap. Hey, we just barely had our viral video launched at ClickFunnels which has been a ton of fun. I really, really enjoyed that. As marketers, you always try to make events out of everything, right? You sit back and you're like, "Hey, we got this cool video coming out. How can we make an event out of that? Well, we could just put it on YouTube and publish it. That's not very exciting. What if we had this cool event where we had people show up and we all have a big launch party together? Cool. You know what? What if we had Gary V. show up?

Oh, my gosh. Gary Vaynerchuk. Let's have him show up and he'll talk to us a little bit more about social media and virality. Cool. Awesome. Let's do that. You know what would be awesome? What if we had the actual people, Harmon Brothers, who made the launch, the actual video itself? Let's have them come teach more about the formula they used to make videos go viral? Cool. Awesome."

Guys, ideas evolve like this over and over and over again...

It's so fun. They're so fluid and they're all over the place. There's no idea that's ... Well, no. There's definitely such a thing as a stupid idea. But, then you continue to evolve and grow and, oh, my gosh, what if we had the top YouTubers out there since they got huge reach on video and obviously it's a video? What if we had them? Oh, my gosh. Let's have them come to the party and we'll literally teach them how to share our video with their audience of millions of millions of millions and go like, "Well, it's Idaho. It's Boise."

I don't know. We're like, "Well, we got to have some cool thing. What can we do? How can we make them look like rock stars for coming to Boise, Idaho?"

Dave Woodward, he's the man, was like, "Hey. Oh, my gosh. What if we broke a world record? We're there. Let's rent out the Boise state stadium. We'll hold an event in the top box, suite area." I don't know what to call that area. "Then we'll go down on the football field afterwards and we'll play bubble soccer." Then he's like, "Oh, my gosh. I'll be right back." He came back in. It was so cool. Dave is amazing. I've watched him work his magic. He's like, "Oh, my gosh. What if we broke a world record on the stadium?" He's like, "I'll be right back."

That's one of the most exciting days I ever had ever. He ran back in and he goes, "I just talked to Guinness Book of World Records. They can totally come out. We just got the stadium. We just got approval for this." We're like, "Crap. We can actually pull this off." Dave is the man. Then, all of a sudden, he's like, "How are we going to get all these people there?" Then the game became how do we get all the these massive, massive influencers to come out?

Guys, I remember when I was riding my bike home one day and I've mentioned this story before. I was riding a bike home one day. This was years ago and I had almost no money. We're living on loans and I was trying to make this whole thing work. What happened is I was riding home and I was like, "Oh, my gosh. I can't. Why is this not working? How come I'm not making money?" I have the stark slap in the face realization. It's because you're not even asking anybody for their credit card anywhere. There's no place for people to give you money.

Crap. I was like, "Dang it. That's totally the reason why."

A lot of people who listen to this show are very successful and a lot of people who listen to the show have yet to launch something but you're learning this problem set of information. You're learning this information to solve a problem set that you're not on yet. Russell can go out and he can spend lots of money or he can spend lots of time getting people out to promote his thing because he has a thing. Does that make sense?

That was my big realization when I was riding home that day. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. I don't even have a thing."

I'm learning...

Yeah, I know exactly what I would do to 2X this company. Crap. I don't have one myself yet. You know what I mean? That was my realization years ago when I was riding back home. It was freezing. We didn't have money for a second car even. You understand what I'm saying? I didn't have a thing. There was no business for me to be applying to these marketing principles to.

It's fun to watch when you do have a thing. Right now, obviously, I have several things. I keep it on the low count as far as how many things I have going up. Russell, obviously, he's got quite the amazing thing, ClickFunnels, right? A total market disruptor. Amazing software.

Once you have your actual core business created, it's super fun because the problem set changes. You're able to turn around and you're able to say, "Okay. Now that I have a business, now that I actually have a product, what are all these fun marketing games I can apply things to to actually become successful with this?" Does that make sense?

We're at the viral video launch and it goes amazing. We show up there and I got asked to stand at the front and greet people and help them get their tags and all that kind of stuff. I had a ton of fun doing it. We had about 400 people show up. They're showing up and they're showing up. It was so fun, so fun. These massive influencers are there. I got to meet and talk with and chat with Billy Gene, Billy Gene Is Marketing, JP Sears and a ton of people who are a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the entire experience.

This tells you how much I know politics which is a little bit embarrassing. Maybe I should not even start saying this. But, the guy running for governor showed up. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We had a lot of big people there and we gave them a reason to show up, bubble soccer, viral video launch. We needed to answer the question: how can we improve their status by showing up? Does that make sense?

It's not in a negative light like, oh, look at the status and look at how high and mighty you are. That's not at all what I'm talking about.

But when you're doing these Dream 100 strategies, when you actually finally have a thing, when you have a business, when you have an idea, when you got cash flow, the name of the game, especially when you're doing JV stuff whether it's for your customers or for it's people you're doing joint venture things with, the question near there to answer is how do I make those guys look like rock stars?

How do I make them look like rock stars? How do I increase their status through my brand? When you can answer that question, it becomes a lot easier to say, "Hey, let's do something together." Then it's not just about money and availability and like, "Hey, we'll split 50/50." Yeah, that's cool. That works.

When you can really answer the question: what can I do to make you look like a complete genius to your own audience? What can I do to make you look like a rockstar to your own audience, increase your status in their eyes? Not that it's all about status or being high and mighty but subconsciously that's what's happening. We had to answer that question. When we did, that's when all this came together. That make sense?

We brought that up specifically. How can we give these guys a story so that when they show up to little Boise, Idaho, potatoes are all over the place which I've actually never seen a potato on the side of the road, but how can we make them look like a rockstar, or increase their status, or give them things that can protect their status at the same time? Totally asymmetric gain on their side. No status lost. Total status gain. How do we make that happen? That was the question we had to answer.

Anyways, we had the event and Russell spoke for a while and showed how we got this amazing ... If you guys haven't watched it, I think almost all of it is on YouTube. Gary V. got up and he spoke and it was awesome, too. It was really, really cool actually.

Personally, I'll just tell you I've never really listened to Gary V. that much but I'll probably start after hearing him. He definitely had some great stuff. Half of you guys are probably like, "Well, duh. It's Gary V." There's so much content out there. Sometimes it's more about content choosing than taking in everything.

Then we went and we played bubble soccer down on the field. It's a ton of fun, lots and lots of fun. I was in one in this little bubble things and we were just messing around before game started. I didn't get a chance to actually do the actual world record part of it. There wasn't enough spots so they asked the employees to pull out. I was in one though before the game started and I went hit a guy. We're wearing these name tags that had this sharp metal edges on it. It totally popped up and cut my forehead.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun...

Anyways, there's really two different problem sets that the individual has to solve. If you don't even have a business yet, it's obviously going to be hard for you to pull off stuff like that. If you don't have an actual business, if there's no product or service that you put out to the market, if you're not actively asking for people's credit cards or money, it's going to be really challenging for you to go create or do a Dream 100 strategy. It's always shocking to myself, to Russell, to anyone in the actual ClickFunnels staff, it's shocking how few people actually do Dream 100 stuff, actually make a list of the top 100 people they wish they would be working with.

I've got one. I actually send packages to them all the time personally on my own, non-ClickFunnels related stuff. I'm getting the relationships. I'm sending out the packages, letters. I'm doing this and it's fun, how awesome those things work. That Dream 100 strategy, that was insane.

I think one of the reasons why we see so few people do it is, number one, there's some confusion on how to do it. Then, number two, some of the people who either listen to this podcast or who are still trying to figure things out, they're still trying to figure out the core of their business so they've not actually started the Dream 100 strategy.

Number one, I get that. Number two, don't wait to start the Dream 100 strategy. It's all about relationships. It's all about creating relationships. You can't dig the well when you're thirsty. You got to do it before you're thirsty. You know what I'm saying? Whoever those people are, the top giants inside your industry, the people who are there who've been crushing it and start creating relationships with those guys. I can always tell when I'm someone's Dream 100 strategy because they usually buy a product of mine just to say hi. They don't want to look like they're freeloading or they'll send a package. Whatever it is. They'll start by leading with value. That's what we had to lead with.

Half of the people we invited to this viral video launch, they'd never really been on our list before but they're on our list now and we had to lead with value. Hey, come on out to this viral video launch. Come out to this bubble soccer thing. Come out to this and we'll give you awesome content to shoot and film. We'll do this and this, this and that for you. By the way, if you want to take 15 seconds, we'll show you real quick how to share our video with your audience.

You know what I mean? That's after the fact. We didn't lead with that. That was second.

Anyway, there's always two different problem sets that pop up and they alternate back and forth. It's fun to watch both of these problem sets. They appear in every single launch that we do. It's always two different things. Number one, there's always a problem set that always has to do with personal development or personal flaw. You know what I mean? There's always something that pops up. Oh, my gosh. I can't do this. I have a hard time doing X, Y, and Z.

The second one that always pops up is a business development or business flaw meaning your system or whatever it is you've built is not set up to handle where you're trying to go or you're, as an individual, not set up for where you're trying to go. You know what I mean? If you can't get up at a decent hour, you're going to suck at business. You know what I mean?

Depending on what it is you choose to do...

Whatever vehicle, whatever business you've chosen to go be successful at, just know that those two things back and forth will alternate back and forth. They pop up all the time. They pop up in the viral video launch. They pop up. They're not uncommon. But it seems like some people get shocked and they're like, "Wait a second. I have to address my personal flaws in order to be successful in business? This is business, not a personal development conference."

Guys, I've had more personal development through business than any other personal development course because I had to.

I literally was unable to progress. My cash was actually unable to increase without me addressing personal character flaws. Hey, Steven. You're a little bit shy. That's true. I had the nicest kid award growing up. You're a little bit shy. You're having a hard time with talking to people. Internally, I wasn't shy though. I was a ticked off kid who was mad at everybody.

I just wasn't confident enough to say stuff. You know what I mean? I had to get over that. I had to overcome that quickly. I remember how I did. One of the ways I overcame that is, you guys are going to laugh about this, but I needed to train myself and I knew that that was a ... I was too nice. My resting state was nice guy and there's nothing wrong with that. But, when it came to business, I was piss-poor at making decisions. Does that make sense? I have no problem admitting it. That's how it was.

I would stand in front of the mirror knowing that one day I wanted to be on stages, knowing that one day I wanted to go and I wanted to be able to speak. I wanted to be able to add value that way. For whatever reason, I've always wanted to speak on stages which is so cool because it happens all the time now. It's a lot of fun. I'm speaking on stages at keynote and I'm super pumped. In January, it's going to be awesome. I'll tell you more about that later.

How I got over it, that fear, was I will go stand in front of the bathroom mirror. I would take videos of guys like Russell Brunson. I would mute the video and I would stand in front of the mirror watching guys like Russell or Russell himself and I would mirror everything that they would do physically.

I'd move my hands the way they would...

I would move my body the way they would and I'd get exciting and my facial expressions the way they would. It gave me ammo, so to speak, on how to deal with people on a one-on-one basis. This is going to shock a lot of you guys and be like, "What the heck? There's no way this is actually true." This is totally true. I got voted the nicest kid in my graduating class in high school, 600 people. It was not because I was the nicest kid. It's because I was freaking shy. You know what I'm saying?

Anyway, number one, again, super fun to see all these problem sets. They happen to every single thing we launch. We're no different. We just expect them to happen. Does that make sense? Number one, like I said, there's always a personal development or a characteristic flaw episode that happens. Hey, you're not good enough at this or your weaknesses are this. In order for you to progress, we need to either address that or solve it somehow. Then money can be made.

Number two, there's always a business development/business character flaw meaning your system may not be good enough to handle what it is you're trying to go do. The other day, actually it was a few weeks ago, we crashed another company's server because we sent too much traffic to them even though they said they could handle it. That's a freaking business flaw. You know what I mean?

That's an actual business systems flaw...

That's the reason why funnels are so freaking cool. A lot of times when I go out, there's been many times where I build a funnel for somebody whose business cannot handle that funnel, that strong of a marketing arm. I have been close to bankrupting them on how fast they've sold without being able to get more inventory as quick. You know what I mean? You guys understand what I'm saying?

I get asked all the time to build funnels for people. One of the biggest things I have to ask people is, number one, what traffic are you getting and what traffic are you already getting right now? Number two, what's the backend of your company like because you may not be able to handle, which is a funny problem set that most people never have to deal with but that's the power of these funnels. Does that make sense?

We had to go out and we had to beef up ClickFunnels. There's a new onboarding system. We have this cookbook now. There's a system that vets out the different funnel types for you so that you can go get a prebuilt funnel every time you build a new one in ClickFunnels now.

There's now this gamified thing that pulls you through and trains how to use all of ClickFunnels, get everything set up for you. Does that make sense? We knew that we had a flaw that way so we went and we created a new system. We went and we created a brand new business development of a different style, not relationship-wise, although that might be the problem, but it had more to do with us. It had more to do with our systems and how we put things together. Does that make sense what I'm trying to convey?

What was fun, just this whole viral video launch, it's fun to watch it from where I sit and the fact that I sit where I do and fun to watch all the problems being addressed. There's always character flaws that pop up in every single one of us when the stress gets high and myself included, everybody. It's interesting to watch. There's different breaking points. That just happens. It's okay. It can be a stressful thing.

Number two, there's always business flaws that pop up. Maybe your system, the actual business model isn't strong enough to handle what you're trying to do or maybe it's too strong and you're selling to the wrong people. You know what I mean? Whatever it might be.

Anyway, hopefully that's helpful. As you start thinking about what it is you're trying to put out there and launch or maybe it already is launched, what character flaw or personal development thing do you need to go through actually to get to the next level? Maybe you're not disciplined enough in a certain area. Maybe you're too disciplined in some area and you're actually leaving people out.

Then, number two, what is wrong with the business that you're in right now? Where is the flaw? You got to look at this thing like it's an infant all the time and that it's always broken and that there's something that's messed up with. You can't marry it. It's all about these iterations. How fast can you get feedback from the market, fix it and go back? How fast can you get feedback from the market, fix it and go back over and over and over?

Money loves speed and your ability to make those iterations is highly dependent on you understanding what the flaw is and the money follows pretty quickly after that when you figure out where your business really doesn't have a sell stuff and where those flaws are.

It's always funny. I watch it every time now. I've been here for a year and a half. I've built almost 300 sales funnels now in pretty much every single industry. I don't know an industry I haven't built in now or a funnel that wouldn't work in every one of them. Every time these are always the thing that happens. It doesn't matter if a person is a celebrity we're working with and they're already successful. There's always a personal development flaw whether it's an understanding flaw meaning they don't understand as an individual what the heck we're doing and a business flaw.

If you're trying to get to the next level, which I hate that phrase ... I'm trying to get to the next level. What the heck does that mean? That's fluffy and fictitious. I have no idea. Let's say you're trying to make more money, that's more concrete, just know that those are two things that are going to pop up: business flaw, personal flaw. Just watch for them. Don't be ashamed when they pop up because they're going to.

Every single time they always do...

That happens to us every time. Just know that it's going to and expect them. When they pop up, you got to think of it like you're in the ring with this thing. You're an octagon. As soon as it pops up, boom. I'm going to hit it. I'm going to solve it. As fast as I can get it done, that's as fast as I'll be able to be successful with this.

Anyway, I hope that's helpful. Viral video launch was a huge success, totally amazing. Rockstar of the entire event was definitely Dave Woodward. The guy just freaking killed it. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe everything he did for that.

Anyway, if you don't have your own cookbook, I'd go get it, too. It tells you like, "Hey, are you trying to get leads or money? Cool. Oh, you're trying to get that. Cool. Don't worry about these funnels. Oh, what industry are you in? This, this or this? Okay. Well, then I won't worry about these funnels." It narrows down which funnels are best for your scenario that we've proven. Anyway, I think you'd like it. All right, guys. I will talk to you all later and have a good one, guys.

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