Marketing Secrets (2013-2014)

How we made $30,000 in four hours, training people on stuff we love to share, and how you can too.

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Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you to the Marketing in Your Car podcast.

We are officially on episode 51 which is exciting for a lot of reasons that I'm going to talk about in a minute. It's about noon. I'm heading to the office right now. I'm going in a little bit late. That's because I went in earlier today as well. I had a workout early because we're relaunching the new version of our supplement this morning.

We had some ads hitting someone in real quick to fix some things up, headed back home to shower and play with the kids, and now I'm heading back to the office, about noon but I want to share with you guys a really cool story about the black box. Some of you probably saw the promotion we ran recently. It's doing really well. I want to walk you guys through it.

The black box training, if you didn't have a chance to watch it, which you should go watch it. You can see it at MillionaireIncubator.com. It's basically I was walking everyone through the process I've been using lately that's just crushing it where basically, we're leading with a free plus shipping something, a newsletter, a magazine, a CD, a DVD, an mp3 player, a knife, a something, some weird gadget or info, giving away a free thing.

After they purchase that free thing, then you take them to a page that walks them through a really cool case study of something you've done or are doing. Then you have them sign up for an invisible funnel webinar which is a webinar where basically they pay zero dollars to attend. Then you do the training live. At the end of it, if they like it, then you bill them.

They put their credit card in for zero dollars and you re-bill them at the end. At the end of the three or four hour long training that you teach whatever concept it is you're teaching, then you offer them an opportunity to work with you where you have them apply. We ran that last Friday. One of the tweaks we did this time with our invisible funnel which was kind of cool is we actually, up front, they can sign up for zero dollars and then pay $97 when the training is over. Or if they know it's going to be good and they can save $20 by just paying $77 now. We did that.

What's interesting is 39% of the people paid the $77 now which was exciting. We made almost $10,000, just shy of $10,000 from people paying the $77 up front, and then today, probably here in about an hour, we're going to be re-billing everyone who didn't cancel. Based on that, we'll be making another probably $20,000 to $25,000 depending on how many people's cards go through.

We made about $30,000 just doing the actual training which was exciting. It's always good to get paid to teach someone cool up front. Then now we got a hold of people that applied to work with us. We'll be signing them up as well for our high end thing which hopefully we'll make another six figures or more from that. It's exciting and cool.

This whole black box concept is something that I hope all you guys have a chance to look at. That's basically the process. You create a really cool, take out your best tip, secret, or strategy or whatever, make a free plus shipping thing, and then sell that. They pay for shipping and then on the next page, you show them a case study of how that thing that they just bought, how it's worked for somebody else.

Say a case study of how someone lost 30 pounds or someone made this much money, or someone saved this much money on their taxes, whatever your system is that you teach. Then tell them that you'll teach them that over premium training that is anywhere from $47 to $97 but they don't have to pay until after the webinar is over. They just put in their credit card now.

If they hate it, they let you know. If they love it, do nothing and you'll bill them at the end. At the end of that, let them apply to get your more personalized one-on-one coaching program. That's what we did and taught. It's been exciting so far. People have been going crazy with this. I'm excited.

The other reason I wanted to tell you this is the whole free plus shipping thing, we used to do it back in the day where we'd do free plus shipping and put someone on a forced continuity program but we stopped doing that because FTC and Visa and Mastercard did not like that, so we stopped doing forced continuity, but we kind of stopped doing free plus shipping stuff as well.

Over the last three or four months, we brought it back, didn't do any continuity but we do upsells. Right now, that model is crushing it for us. I actually took the first 50 episodes of Marketing in your Car. We put it on a CD. You will see here in the next week or two an offer I put out where you get the first 50 episodes of Marketing in your Car for free, just cover six or eight bucks for shipping and handling and we'll ship it out to you.

I hope a lot of you guys take it up because you'll have a chance to listen to the entire first 50 episodes on one CD. We cut out the cheesy audio songs so you don't have to hear it a thousand times. I think it would be really good. Afterwards, we'll upsell people into our funnel. I recommend you guys getting it for two reasons.

One, you'll get all of the podcasts so far on a nice convenient CD, and number two, you'll have a chance to see this black box process in action. I'm at the office now. I'm going to go rock and roll, make some more black boxes for myself, for my businesses, and check to see how our supplements are doing this morning with our new funnel and the new ad that went out.

Hope you guys are doing awesome and we will talk to you soon.

Lessons learned from the dumb entrepreneurs on the new show "The Profit".

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Good morning, everyone, this is Russell Brunson. It's an early morning, and welcome to Marketing In Your Car. Hey guys and gals, so I hope you guys are doing awesome today. I'm actually, it's 6:30 in the morning and I'm driving to go work out. And this is a testament of the power of hiring a coach. It's freezing cold right now, and I would be sound asleep right now, if it wasn't for the fact that I have a coach waiting for me at the gym.

It's little things like, you know, obviously, I sell coaching so I believe in it a lot. We talked about why you need a good coach. But this is kind of just, you know, for me it's such a big thing. I know how to work out, I know how to lift weights, I know how to do all these kinds of stuff, but just the fact there's someone there waiting for me is what gets me out of bed and gets me to go and do the thing that I need to do.

So, if you don't have a coach yet, in whatever area of your life you're struggling with, go get a coach. I've got life coaches to help me in my personal life. I've got business coaches. I've got weightlifting coaches. Go find a coach as quick as you can. And if you need a coach in the marketing business, go to 30DayShortcut.com, we can help you out there.

Anyway, so today what I want to talk about is the other reason why I'm really tired today, is I found out about a new show, and I've been up all night watching episodes of it. So I think I got like four or five hours of sleep last night. So the show is called The Prophet. It's on CSNBC. And I first, I remember seeing commercials for it and I was like, I didn't really think too much about it.

And then Daegan Smith told me, he said, "Hey, that show is awesome, you should watch it." And so I went to my TV and we have, like, it's not TiVo, but it's like the generic brand of TiVo, right? So we TiVo'ed it on our TV, and I never watched it. And then two nights ago, I was bored and my wife had already passed out. I was sitting in bed and I didn't want to fall asleep yet, so I went to our recorded shows list and I saw that.

I saw The Prophet in there, I'm like, I might as well watch an episode. So I pushed Play, I started watching it, and I have not been the same ever since. The show is amazing. It's all about this dude who takes struggling businesses and turns them around. It shows him going to these businesses and what he does, he basically comes in and gives them money, just to get in their business, to get things fixed up.

He has his team come in and they turn it around. He takes complete control for a week, and then he re-launches it. And if the people, if the entrepreneurs aren't morons, and do his job, he turns them around into some amazing things. The first one I watched was, he went into this, I think 100carcash.com, or something like that.

Anyway, and he took this business that had been struggling and turned it around. And then by the time the show had aired, maybe a little afterwards, he had already, he had turned them all to a franchise and franchised it. I mean, almost 100 locations around the world. Which is amazing. So, that's kind of the power of what he does.

And then last night I watched two other episodes, and it was crazy. So, the first thing that's interesting is I feel bad for him, and for anyone who's coming in to entrepreneurs' business. Because entrepreneurs are like the most stubborn, hard-headed people in the world. Like, this lady last night, on the popcorn episode, she's like, "My business is $2.5 million a year. I don't need anybody, blah, blah, blah."

You know, like, this total attitude. But her business is broke, it's on the brink of bankruptcy. She's borrowed money from everyone she knows, and you know, she made $2.5 million, but she didn't make anything. Like, the business is negative. There were like almost $400,000 in cash that was gone, they couldn't find it. There's no record of it.

Anyway, and every single episode she's like, he's butting heads with these entrepreneurs who are so stubborn, because they're so in love with their baby. And so it's one thing that kind of made me realize as an entrepreneur, I'm probably the same way. We're oftentimes not as humble or teachable as we should be, because we think we know everything because it's our business.

And it was interesting, recently I was selling something to a group of people who were kind of more of my peers. And we were selling something that's not cheap, it was $25,000 or $100,000. And I had a lot of my friends who were on the webinar where I sold it. And they, afterwards, messaged me, like, "Hey man, can you hook me up for free, can I have some of the thing?"

I was just like, man, you guys are not willing to invest in your business. You're so hard-headed, you think you know everything, you're not willing to invest. And it just blew my mind, and entrepreneurs, I think, a lot of times are that way. So that was the first thing I wanted to kind of just put out there, is that all of us, as entrepreneurs, we need to not be so hard-headed.

I was listening to a course from Kevin Trudeau, who is not doing too well in the news right now. But in there he talked about a concept called the Teachability Index. He talked about how people are more teachable during — like when you're a kid and you go to school, etc, you're super teachable. You're soaking up everything that's coming in.

But somewhere along the line, usually about time you graduate college, you think you know everything and your teachability index drops to almost nothing because you know, you're just kind of set in your ways. You know everything there is. And I think entrepreneurs are the same way. When we begin, we're like sponges and we're soaking up everything.

But somewhere along the line we think we know everything and our teachability index goes to almost nothing, and we are stuck in our ways. I think all of us, as entrepreneurs, could really benefit a lot from stepping back. And try to become more teachable and kind of forgetting, you know, forgetting you know everything. And trying to start over and find good coaches, good mentors, good books, good courses. Whatever you can to help increase your business and becoming teachable again.

So, anyway, I had a lot of other cool stuff I wanted to talk about today, but I am at the gym and my session starts in two minutes, so I am going to jump in there. Just kind of one last thing I want to mention about The Prophet before I go. First off, go watch it, guys. Go find it, I don't know if it's on Hulu or whatever, but go and find it and watch it.

It's probably one of the best entrepreneur shows I've ever seen. And second off, two of the three episodes I've seen so far, the entrepreneurs screwed him in the end. Just totally unethical and just didn't hold up their bargain, their word. And it's just sad to me to see how quick they're willing to just, how low people's integrity is.

I mean, it's especially interesting just the fact that they were live on TV. They were live on TV and still doing this, makes me always wonder. So, make sure you have integrity in your business. People will know if you have it or don't have it, and people — I mean, just be a good person, that's all I can say. Have integrity, do what you say you're going to do.

And if you screw up, then tell people you're sorry and kind of go from there. So, that's it for today, you guys. Hope you have an awesome day. Go work out, if you haven't yet. It's good for your body, it's good for your mind. And go get a coach to help keep you accountable and help you doing what you need to do. Thanks, everyone, and I will talk to you all soon.

Russell is driving home a 2 AM in the morning and sharing some of the insights they got building out their new SAAS products. Russell also shares with you what it's like being a super hot girl!

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Hey everyone! This is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you to an exciting edition of the Marketing In Your Car podcast.

It is actually 2:00 in the morning. I just dropped off Todd at the hotel. Todd is our developer. You guys heard about him in the last episode, and I'm in the Ferrari driving home at 2:00 in the morning. It is freezing cold! And the top's down, and I just passed a cop.

But the top will remain down because we're driving a Ferrari. You don't put a top up. I don't care if it's two in the morning, if it's freezing cold, that's how we roll and run the Ferrari.

So in the last episode, I was talking about developing software is a service type product, and what's been fun is basically the last two weeks Todd has been here in town.

We've been developing a brand new product, and I'm super fired up about it because I think it's going to change the way that people do marketing. I know it's going to change the way I do things.

It's going to make it where, basically, I can do all the marketing by myself without any webmasters, developers or anything, which is exciting. So anyway, I'm excited for it. But I'm more excited just to talk more about you guys, about software as a service.

And we talked about it last time, just some of the benefits of it. But the reality is like it's been interesting is we've developed this product.

You know, in the past when we developed products, we tried to give it so many features and so many things that it's just overwhelming to customers and to us to support it, and to create.

And we've really been following this model just like making a strip-down, bare bones, as simple and as easy as possible, and as we've done that it's just making a tool that I think people will use and stick with long-term.

One of the cool concepts we talked a lot about tonight, that I think I want to kind of focus this on with you guys is, when you're creating, if you decide to create your own software — if and when you're creating your own software.

One of the biggest keys in the long-term success of your program, whatever you're creating, is if you can create something that has pain and disconnect.

And it makes me laugh… I've been doing membership sites now for, man, seven or eight years. We've made millions of dollars off membership sites. But one of the constant dilemmas we have is there's always this constant churn and burn. We're always just adding people into the funnel.

I just passed another cop, so I might go onto the side street here. Anyway, it's a constant burn and churn when you have a typical membership site because content is good, but it's not essential.

Like when somebody — you know, their credit card comes up, and they're looking at their bills — like when they look at like "Oh, it's a membership site. I enjoy it. But, hey, you know, it's… I don't have to have it."

So it's creating something that if somebody wanted to cancel, there's huge pain and disconnect. And that's really what — you know, not that we're trying to develop things that cause pain, that would hurt our client's business.

But is something that is so valuable and so useful that if they ever canceled it, would be very painful. So, you know, if for some reason their credit card failed, they're just going to think, "Oh my credit card failed, no big deal."

If their credit card failed, within two minutes they would call you because they're using your service so much that they have to have it to function. And that's the kind of product that you've really got to create, and I think that's really the big secret.

I really think that next year, with this product rolling out, I think we could do $10-million pretty easily next year. And it's just because we've created something that's so powerful and so useful that the pain and disconnect is just so much, and so I really want you guys thinking about that.

Like if you do decide to develop a software program, like what kind of product or service can we create that ties our customers in so deeply that they just love it so much that they can't cancel?

It's kind of like our supplement. Our supplement has been interesting because I think it's kind of the case with any supplement you have. There is a percentage of people who it doesn't work for, and there's a percentage of people who it works great for.

And that's how it is right now. If we have people, we have clients who are literally calling us saying:

"My bottle is empty, and my new next shipment hasn't come in! I will pay you whatever it costs to overnight this thing. And make sure that I have that bottle here tomorrow because I don't want to go through a single day without this in my system."

We get those kinds of calls all the time, which is awesome and exciting. And so, again, it's pain and disconnect. If those clients stop having our supplement, they're in so much pain that they can't function, and so they don't want to go without it.

And I think that, you know, in the past in the Internet marketing world, what people have taught and talked about it is just, you know, "create something that's good and people will stick on it."

But I think you've really got to create something that has such a big pain and disconnect that they can't leave you. They won't leave you because it's so important.

And that's the kind of businesses we're really trying to focus on, and I think you actually should be focusing on as well, and so, I just want to kind of throw that out there because that's what we're talking about right now, and it's been a lot of fun.

The other thing that we are kind of playing with that I think is interesting that I want to throw out just an idea for you guys is:

If you do have a membership site or something that doesn't have that big, huge pain and disconnect, you know, one thing that we've been looking at a lot recently is like, what's our average customer value?

You know, and we did this before on our membership sites. You know, the average customer stays for one month or three months or six months or whatever it is.

When you find that number out, it's very important to kind of just start focusing on that. Say, "okay, our average customer is staying for just three months at a time, you know, or six months at a time, whatever that is, if you know what that dollar amount is.

We're going to be instituting one of our membership sites coming up next month, and I'm really excited for is… We're going to give people the ability to buy out their membership site.

So if we know the average person stays for three months, that means that month number two or two and a half, we're going to start a campaign basically saying:

"Hey, you've been a member for two months. So far, I hope you're really enjoying the site. What we want to do is, we want to offer you the ability to buy out your contract.

"So basically, for an extra $100 or $200 or whatever it is, you can get a lifetime access to the site. So longer do you have to pay us $97 a month, just pay $200 and boom! You get lifetime access."

And suddenly for anyone who takes that, we just basically increased, you know, we took that person from the average two to three months, to six or eight or twelve months of revenue.

Anyway, it's a cool concept I'm really excited for, and I can share stats and results, as we get deeper into it and kind of see what happens.

But just think that. Think about what's your average stick rate, and right before that average stick rate, give people the ability to buy out a membership at a discount.

Or people who cancel give them the ability to buy out the membership at a discount. Same kind of thing that, you know, they're probably just tired of seeing the monthly payments. They probably still like what you have, so you said:

"Hey, you know, you may not like paying $97 a month. But for how about $200, we'll give you lifetime access. You never have to pay again."

And just some fun things to start looking at, just different ways to look at your numbers when you're doing reoccurring revenue, continuity, and things like that. So anyway, I hope these are just a couple fun ideas.

Again, you know, I am so tired right now. We've been going like, literally the last two weeks that Todd has been here, we been going late nights like this almost every single night.

I'm pretty sure my wife is ready to kill me, but sometimes that's what you do as an entrepreneur. You burn the midnight oil to create something really cool that will pay you for the rest of your life.

And so that's what we've been doing and just having that kind of fun, so my brain is kind of all over the place. I just wanted to share with you guys some interesting ideas while I'm driving home, so it's been a lot of fun.

I've also had a lot of people email me, asking what it's like driving the Ferrari, now that I've been in Boise driving it for the last week or so. It's been interesting.

Like the first day we had it and parked at the office, we probably had four or five different sets of people who came to the office, parked, came to the door and asked like, "Who's Ferrari is that? Who's Ferrari is that?"

Like it wasn't just someone driving by, like they actually came into our office, and asked to see and ask me questions about it. This one kid that drove by, and the guy got so excited he called all his friends.

We had this group of like all these teenaged boys outside our office just checking out the car, and they literally sat outside for over an hour, taking pictures and just looking at it. I thought it was the funniest thing!

And then, the other thing that's been interesting is I kind of know what it feels like now to be a really super hot girl. Like, literally, when I'm driving down the street, I have guys driving — be honking their horns, waving, yelling catcalls at me.

I had people like, pulling into parking lots and asking me questions, like I've never felt that. I've never had the opportunity to be a super, smoking hot girl, but I could imagine that's probably what it's like for them.

Like they get approached, they have people yelling at them; here people are just like staring. Literally, I can watch as I drive down the road and almost every guy has this like really weird like whiplash, you know, where they're following the car.

And so, I can kind of empathize now with super hot girls, and I feel bad for them sometimes because that would be really, really hard and annoying. At first it's kind of cool and flattering, but after a while it would be annoying.

So anyway, I'm still in the stage where I like being the super hot girl, and I'm enjoying everyone yelling at me in my car. But I'm sure it will go away, and we keep talking about, you know, what are we going to do with it?

Obviously, I don't think I want to drive a Ferrari the rest of my life. I would like to, but… You know, winning a Ferrari is cool, but I think we told you guys in one of the other episodes, it's just the tax liability is like…

Basically, Joel, he won. You know, he gave me the car so he wrote it off on his taxes as a $130,000 loss. We basically incurred a $130,000 gift, and so I had to pay taxes on $130-grand. Which in my tax bracket is like $60-grand or something crazy like that, so by winning the car I've got to pay $60-grand, plus I've got to pay sales tax. I've got pay like another eight or nine grand as soon as I register it, which I'm doing tomorrow.

It's kind of just an expensive machine, so I think after like the thrill of driving, it wears off. We're going to do a contest and give it away. We talked about selling it, but selling it…

Let's say I sold it for $130- $150-grand, you know, after paying taxes I still would make $70- $80-grand. Whereas, if I did a contest, and if I execute it correctly, we could make a lot more than that.

So we're actually going to, using the Ferrari in a contest, to give away our new software we're launching. So who knows! We'll see. Time will tell. It'll be a lot of fun.

Anyway I just got home, you guys. I'm ready to crash and go to bed. I hope you guys are having a great day, having a fun time being an entrepreneur.

Think about some of these cool things I'm sharing with you. Hopefully, you guys implement it in whatever your business you're in, and I will talk to y'all again soon.

Thanks so much, you guys!