You’re Only One Funnel Away: The Backstory Behind ClickFunnels - #Success - Ep. 137

You’re Only One Funnel Away: The Backstory Behind ClickFunnels - #Success - Ep. 137

When I was a kid, I mailed 38 hand-stapled sales letters to names I picked at random out of the phone book, absolutely certain I was about to get rich. Zero people responded. That was my very first funnel — and it flopped like almost every one that came after it. I’ve failed at more funnels than anyone I know. And that’s exactly why I eventually found the one that changed everything. This is one of the final episodes of The Russell Brunson Show — I’m sunsetting it (along with most of my other channels) to launch something brand new called Bootstrap Secrets. So to close this chapter, I’m taking you all the way back to the beginning with my original “One Funnel Away” presentation: the full origin story, from late-night infomercials to the funnel that literally saved Christmas, to the one that became ClickFunnels. These are the stories that built ClickFunnels into a billion-dollar empire — the ups and the downs — and this is just the beginning of the story. I actually shared part two recently, but before revealing it I figured a good recap was in order, especially as you get aligned for everything Funnel Hacking Live has in store for you this year. Key Highlights: ◼️The 38-stamp disaster and the infomercial that ruined me for a normal life — how Don Lapre’s “$30 turned into $30,000” classified-ad pitch lit the fuse when I was a kid ◼️The funnel that saved Christmas — broke and one payroll from bankruptcy, hanging Christmas lights in the freezing cold, I blended two ideas into a free-CD offer that pulled 800 buyers and $55K in two weeks ◼️The lesson that turned it into a real business — “until you have continuity, you don’t have a business” — and how ~800 people at $37 a month finally gave me one ◼️Why you’re always “one funnel away” — the up-and-down wave every entrepreneur rides, and why the only way to find the winner is to launch again and again (one funnel-hacker ran a new funnel every week until one became the biggest-selling funnel in history) ◼️The webinar I gave 70+ times — the single funnel that took ClickFunnels from zero to 10,000 and then 30,000 members Here’s what I hope you feel, especially if you’re in the crash part of the wave right now: every overnight success you’ve ever seen is sitting on a pile of funnels that flopped first. I didn’t win because I was smarter — I won because I was willing to try one more time than made sense. So as I close out this chapter of the show, let me leave you with the question the whole journey comes down to: are you really out of options… or are you just one funnel away? ◼️FUNNEL HACKING LIVE AI: The last Funnel Hacking Live ever is happening this September in Las Vegas — one final, smaller, AI-everything encore before it’s gone for good. If you’ve never been, this is your last shot to be in the room. → https://www.FunnelHackingLive.com [https://www.funnelhackinglive.com] ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast [https://sellingonline.com/podcast] ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast [https://clickfunnels.com/podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Come Hang Out Backstage! My New Platform (and the First-Ever Q&A) | #Marketing - Ep. 136

I have millions of followers across every platform… and when I go live, maybe 150 people actually see it. Back in the Periscope days, I’d hit “go live” and five or six thousand people would show up instantly, and we’d just hang out — that’s how I really built this community. Then the algorithms changed and quietly took that away. So I built my own way around it. I’m recording this from Bear Lake on our family reunion, and I want to pull back the curtain on something new I built called Backstage Pass — a platform where you follow me, and the second I go live you get pinged and we hang out, no algorithm in the middle. To show you what it’s like, I’m sharing the very first Backstage Pass Q&A, where I answered real questions from real people about offers, pricing, high-ticket, and AI. Think of it as coming backstage after the show to just ask me anything. Key Highlights: ◼️How to pick an offer when you’re scared to commit — why your offer isn’t “till death do us part,” and how to test one that won’t handcuff you (plus Eileen Wilder’s brilliant two-day-event model) ◼️Why you should put out offers even when they might bomb — I’ve had several flop this year and you’d never know, because nobody is watching as closely as you think ◼️The real difference between low, mid, and high ticket — it’s not new frameworks, it’s the experience (the airplane-seat analogy), with Brooke Castillo’s “Model” as the case study: one idea sold as a free podcast, a $300-a-month membership, and an $18K certification ◼️The introvert’s secret to “introducing yourself” online — stop walking up to people; do such cool work that they come to you ◼️Straight answers on what’s next — Overskill, AI Secrets, the Offer Secrets book, and why Funnel Hacking Live AI is the last time we’ll ever do anything like it Here’s the bigger idea underneath all of this: the platforms you rent attention on can change the rules any time they want — and most creators just accept it. The move is to build a direct line to your own people, the thousand true fans who actually want to hear from you. That’s exactly why I built Backstage Pass. And it’s the same question I’d put to you about your own business: if the algorithm shut you off tomorrow, could you still reach the people who matter most… or are you building on land you don’t own? ◼️BACKSTAGE PASS: Russell built his own live platform so he can hang out with his audience without fighting the algorithm — follow him, keep notifications on, and the moment he goes live for a Q&A, you’re in the room. Come backstage. → https://www.BackstagePass.com/RussellBrunson [https://www.backstagepass.com/RussellBrunson] ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast [https://sellingonline.com/podcast] ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast [https://clickfunnels.com/podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

One Funnel to Rule Them All: How to Find the One That Actually Matters | #Marketing - Ep. 135

For years people have asked me the same question: Russell, if you could only build one funnel, what’s the best one? And my answer always frustrates them — it depends. But here’s what almost nobody realizes: inside every business, there’s only ONE funnel that actually matters. You might look at the two hundred funnels I’ve built and think it’s chaos… it’s not. All the rest are just appendages to the one funnel that rules them all. I’m calling in from Lake Powell over the Fourth of July — fireworks, family, the whole thing — and with Funnel Hacking Live AI now about two and a half months out and more than half sold out, I wanted to give you a taste of what that room actually feels like. So I’m sharing one of my all-time favorite presentations from the last FHL: “One Funnel to Rule Them All.” I’ll walk you inside my actual brain — the exact thought process I’d charge you for in a consult — to find the single funnel your whole business should be built around. Key Highlights: ◼️Why the best funnel is always “it depends” — and the mindset shift that every business has just one funnel that rules them all, with everything else as an appendage built to feed it ◼️Gary Halbert’s line that reframes everything — how one idea, “properly exploited,” is worth more than ten lifetimes of hard work… and why most people execute the right idea the wrong way ◼️The night ClickFunnels almost didn’t make it — how I failed to sell it four or five times, then closed half the room at Mike Filsaime’s event with a single Perfect Webinar, and realized the offer was never the problem — the presentation was ◼️The “little hinges, big doors” tweak — the one change Todd made to a thank-you page that turned 2,500 buyers into 7,500 people on $97-a-month recurring ◼️How the “Linchpin” model was really born — webinar to free trial to continuity — and why it’s still the business model I’d build on today Here’s what I hope you take from this: you probably don’t have a traffic problem or a product problem. You have a “too many funnels” problem — energy scattered across a dozen things when your whole business should be pouring into one. Find the funnel that rules them all, get it converting, and every other funnel becomes a feeder that makes it stronger. So let me ask you the same thing I’d ask if you hired me: out of everything you’re building right now, which one funnel actually matters… and what would happen if that were the only one you fixed this quarter? ◼️FUNNEL HACKING LIVE AI: Russell is bringing FHL back for one night only this September — and this time you don’t just leave inspired, you leave with working, sellable funnels and AI systems actually running. Half the usual tickets, double the customer base, and the floor is already gone. → https://www.FunnelHackingLive.com [https://www.funnelhackinglive.com] ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast [https://sellingonline.com/podcast] ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast [https://clickfunnels.com/podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

We Killed Funnel Hacking Live… But Something Big Is Rising From The Ashes! | #Success - Ep. 134

A year and a half ago, I walked off the Funnel Hacking Live stage, took my shoes off, and left them there — the wrestler’s way of saying a career is over. FHL 10 was “The Last Dance,” and I meant it. We shut it down, and I honestly didn’t know if it’d be a year, five years, or forever before we ever did anything like it again. Well, I’ve got news: it’s coming back — once. This September we’re doing a one-time-only encore called Funnel Hacking Live AI! In this episode I take you all the way down memory lane — every FHL from that terrifying first room in Vegas back in 2015 to the last dance — tell you the real reasons we ended it, and explain why AI is the one thing that pulled me back to do this one final time. Key Highlights: ◼️Why I ended Funnel Hacking Live — not because it failed, but because it succeeded… plus the parts nobody talks about (an eleven-presentation marathon, a budget that ballooned past $6 million, and needing space to build what’s next) ◼️The full ten-year timeline — from 600 people and a Ferrari giveaway in Vegas (2015) to the first Two Comma Club award in Dallas, the week-before-Covid Orlando event, and Tony Robbins going seven hours straight ◼️Why AI changed the math — when one person can do the work of ten (or fifty), the old playbook just celebrates the past while the new one gets written somewhere else… so we decided to write it ourselves ◼️What “FHL AI” actually is — a smaller, more intimate one-time encore in a ~2,200-seat Vegas theater (the floor’s already sold out), built around funnels that run themselves and AI systems that scale while you sleep ◼️A first look at “the next phase” — the bigger, different thing I’ve been quietly building behind the scenes, and why I’m choosing this stage to reveal it Here’s the truth: we took our shoes off to figure out what was coming, not to quit. The world that created Funnel Hacking Live doesn’t really exist anymore — AI rewrote it in eighteen months — and the question every entrepreneur has to answer now is whether they’re going to keep celebrating the old playbook or help write the new one. This is the room where that gets written, one time only. So here’s the real question: a decade from now, when you look back on this season, do you want to say you watched it happen… or that you were in the room? ◼️FUNNEL HACKING LIVE AI: After ending FHL for good, Russell is bringing it back for one night only this September — a smaller, more intimate encore in a Las Vegas theater, built entirely around using AI to create funnels that run themselves and scale while you sleep. The floor is already sold out. → https://www.FunnelHackingLive.com [https://www.funnelhackinglive.com] ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast [https://sellingonline.com/podcast] ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast [https://clickfunnels.com/podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

The $1,500 Dan Kennedy Course That Quietly Changed My Business | #Success - Ep. 133

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, he didn’t say “now you can fit fifty songs on a CD instead of ten.” He said CDs are dead — and pulled a thousand songs out of his pocket. That’s not a better product. That’s a new category. And it’s the single idea that changed my business more than almost anything else I’ve ever learned. Welcome back to the vault. Today I’m opening up an actual course from my mentor Dan Kennedy — the one course, out of the forty or fifty I got when I bought his company, that radically changed my life. It’s called Opportunity Concepts, and it taught me the difference between three kinds of offers… and why the one almost nobody leads with is the one that out-converts everything else. I’ll show you exactly how I used it to launch ClickFunnels, and how to weave it into your own value ladder. Key Highlights: ◼️The three offer types — “Repair, Improvement, and New Opportunity” — and why 95% of businesses stay stuck competing on the weakest two ◼️The “-er” test — if you can only describe your offer with a word ending in -er (“faster,” “better,” “cheaper”), you’re selling an improvement… and improvements always lose to new opportunities ◼️How I positioned ClickFunnels as a “new opportunity” — not a better MailChimp or Infusionsoft, but a brand-new thing called a sales funnel — to become a “category of one” ◼️The Steve Jobs move — why “CDs are dead, here’s an iPod” beats “fit more songs on a CD” every single time, and how to run the same play on what you already sell ◼️The value-ladder twist — where new opportunity, improvement, and repair each belong in your funnel (lead with the new opportunity, sell the other two higher up) Here’s what I want you to sit with: most people spend their whole careers trying to be a slightly better version of everyone else — faster, cheaper, smarter — and then wonder why it’s so hard to stand out. The shift isn’t building a better mousetrap. It’s deciding you’re not in the mousetrap business at all. Dan Kennedy charged $1,500 for this one idea, and I bought his entire company to own it, because it’s worth every penny. So before your next launch, ask yourself the only question that really moves the needle: what’s the new opportunity only you can offer — and what would it take to become the category of one? ◼️SELLING OPPORTUNITY: This whole episode comes from a $1,500 Dan Kennedy course Russell bought an entire company to own — now rebuilt as a multimedia book you can read, scan, and watch Dan teach. If you want to position your offer as a new opportunity instead of a “better” version of everyone else, this is the playbook. → https://www.SellingOpportunity.com [https://www.sellingopportunity.com] ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast [https://sellingonline.com/podcast] ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast [https://clickfunnels.com/podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]