Russell Brunson: I am prepared and excited!

John: Yes! For over 10 years now Russell's been starting and scaling companies online. He owns a software company, a supplement company, a coaching company, and is one of the top super-affiliates in the world.

Recently, he launched a new software company called ClickFunnels.com that lets you create sales funnels with a few clicks of the mouse, and he just launched his new book DotCom Secrets, that Tony Robbins said "is a simple process that any company can use to geometrically improve their traffic, conversion, and sales online." And I made sure you, Fire Nation, can get a free company of this amazing book that I have on my desk right here, at EOFire.com/Russell.

Russell, say what's up to the Fire Nation and share what's going on in your world right now.

Russell Brunson: Hey, File Nation! I'm excited to be here and just a lot of fun stuff happening in our world.

Like you kind of mentioned we launched our new software company ClickFunnels, and the book has just come out and it's exciting because it's kind of teaching all the sales strategies, the sales funnels, and gives people all the scripts we use in our company. And it's just a, it's an exciting time right now we're having a ton of fun and helping a lot of people out.

John: Well, I'm not gonna lie it wasn't easy, Fire Nation, getting Russell on the podcast. This guy is in demand right now; this book is rocking and rolling. Everywhere I turn I feel like I hear ClickFunnels, so that's something that I'm pretty excited about, too.

So what we're gonna do here while we do have him is do our one-minute mindset. And Russell, this is where I ask you five questions. This is five insights into your mind, brother; so really open it up for us here.

And the question No. 1 is, ideally what do the first 80 minutes of your day look like?

Russell Brunson: Awesome question. So my first 80 minutes of the day when I first wake up I've got, my wife just had our fifth baby, so for me the first 80 minutes of my morning are waking up with my kids, I help make them breakfast, we hang out and have some fun, get them out the door to school, and then I kind of start the day after that.

John: So Russell, one thing I wanna say is you are obligated to spread your genes as much as possible, so keep pumping those babies out, brother. We need more entrepreneurs with your genes running around, so good stuff.

Now you have some strengths, we're gonna talk about those, but I wanna dive into what you consider Russell Brunson's biggest weakness and as an entrepreneur.

Russell Brunson: Yeah, my weakness, it's funny, like if you came to my office now you would see it like I, I have so many things happening that I'm super like cluttered and organized and everything's like chaos around me at any given time. But that chaos, for whatever reason for me, gives me absolute clarity on things. And so when people see me they're always, how in the world do you get anything done there's so much stuff happening. But for me, it's how I, well, I think a lot of entrepreneurs are that way. But I definitely think that kind of, that disorganization from the outside is definitely my biggest weakness.

John: Well, I am fortunate to say that you and I do share a lot of similar qualities, but I'm also fortunate to say that that is not one of them. Like for instance, Kaye came over like 20 minutes ago and was talking to me about something and then she started to walk away. I'm like, "Um, honey," she's like "Yeah." And I'm, I just like look at her glasses she left on my desk and I'm like, "You know you can't leave anything on my desk," because there's one bin, one piece of paper, and a mouse nothing else.

Russell Brunson: Oh, I wish I could do that, it'd be awesome.

John: Russell, what's your biggest strength as an entrepreneur?

Russell Brunson: I think my biggest strength is in kind of like having a vision of something but then I'm bringing in a team of people who are amazing and help me execute on it. I always tell people I'm personally not that talented at any one individual thing. I'm really good at selling people on here's the idea, here's what we gotta do, and getting a team motivated and get everyone excited to move forward and work together. And I think that's what we've done in all of our companies, is that piece of it.

So I think I'm really good at organizing people and getting them moving towards a vision.

John: Now having read your book now and seeing that part of you, that's one thing I really wanna pass on to Fire Nation here, is you have to get dialed-in, Fire Nation, to building the right team.

And what Russell's been able to do so powerfully that I'm emulating as we speak and look forward to doing even more so in the future, is really clogging the hole that he has in his ship with the right people. And we all have holes in our ship some more than others, but we all have those holes. So you've gotta find the right people that are gonna clog that up so you can keep that ship afloat and thrive.

So Russell, there's a lot of things that you have going on right now; we talked about ClickFunnels, we talked about DotCom Secrets. I usually limit my guests to share the one thing that has them most fired up, but let's be honest these are two huge things. So take a second and expound upon these two things for Fire Nation, really let us know why you're so fired up about these two things right now.

Russell Brunson: Definitely. I appreciate you let me do two things, too.

John: You're welcome.

Russell Brunson: I'm so excited. So first let's talk about the book because the book is kind of the fuel and the framework for people. Two 12 years now I've been teaching entrepreneurs how to build and scale companies, and it's just it's one of my favorite thing in the world.

And so the book is like the framework where I show exactly what I take my $25,000 clients through; here's what we do and here's the process, and it's laid out. I didn't hold anything back this is what we do and so it's really cool so that's what the book is. And you've given your readers free copies of the book so, yes, get that and learn it.

But then the second piece is now after you've got it here's the framework of what we need to build and create to get our message out to the world, how do you actually do that. That's where everyone gets stuck, is now there's all this technical piece of it.

So ClickFunnels is the software company we built with the entire goal of that after you've gone through the book and kind of structured out here's what my sales funnel needs to look like, or here's what the architecture needs to be. ClickFunnels gives you the ability to create that with just clicking the mouse.

I mean, literally, it's funny. We used to, for the last 10 years we've built sales funnels. So I had a team of about 12 guys who would help us do it; designers and programmers. And I no longer have any of those guys working for me, I do 100 percent of it now by myself with zero tech skills on ClickFunnels and it's faster and easier. It's exciting.

So those are my two things and they go hand-in-hand that's why I appreciate you let me sharing because one helps you understand the principles behind it, and the second one is the tool that helps you to execute on it. And it's really kind of fun.

John: Absolutely! I wish I had a great gardening analogy for that right now. I don't, I'm sorry Fire Nation. But if I come up with one I'll put in the [Inaudible] [00:06:26] page.

Basically, what I want you to really walk away from this part is, 1) this book is waiting for you, it's free. I believe all you pay is shipping Russell, is that right?

Russell Brunson: Yeah, shipping's all you gotta pay.

John: So EOFire.com/Russell. Get there, grab this book, pay whatever the shipping is. I mean, this is what he tells his $25,000 clients, you're getting for shipping and handling. I mean it's an absolute no-brainer, it's really exciting.

And then ClickFunnels, man, the amount of money that we spent in Infusionsoft that we love to call "Confusionsoft" for a reason, Fire Nation, trying to figure out how do I make these stupid funnels? ClickFunnels.com, go check it out. If it was 2012 right now and I was just starting out EOFire again, this is something that I wish existed because it would've been so amazing from day one.

So awesome stuff on both ends Russell, and we're gonna circle back here again.

But what I wanna talk about right now is habits. You have some great habits, Russell. But if you had to really pull out a habit that you wish you had what would it be?

Russell Brunson: One thing I'm really bad is like consistency in meetings and things like that. And I wish, I look at companies who do that consistently; they bring their team together, they have a meeting, and they keep them moving forward like that.

I've never been that good at that. In fact, my team, always – it's funny my team tells me that the way that they know what's on my mind and where we're going to is they listen to podcast. They hear more there than within sometimes.

And so I wish I was better at having the habit of like every day or two times a week our team gets together and we keep pushing people forward. And that's one habit that I wish I could master. I just get so deep and so excited in what I'm doing I forget sometimes about you know involving everyone all the time.

John: Now I don't wanna get sidetracked here, but I remember when your podcast first came out you would just kind of flip on a recorder while you were driving to work and talk.

Russell Brunson: I still do that.

John: Is that what you do?

Russell Brunson: Yeah, I have a six-minute commute from my house to my office, and I just record and I just brain-dump whatever's in my head each day. And people, yeah, it's been fun people love it.

John: Ah. I love it, I'm gonna have to get back into that. It's funny. I'm glad you're still doing it.

So Russell, let's get into your journey now as an entrepreneur and my friend. Take us to what you consider your worst entrepreneurial moment, like really bring us to that moment in time and tell us that story.

Russell Brunson: Okay. So this is one of the things I'm too embarrassed to admit to the entire world let alone your world, which is huge. But we're just gonna do it, who cares!

John: Yay!

Russell Brunson: So when I got started I was like an entrepreneur who's excited and didn't always think everything through.

And so I started growing this company and it was fun, I started hiring friends and other people. And one day I woke up and I realized that I had a hundred employees working for me. And I was a 23-, 24-year-old kid and I don't know how to manage people.

I remember about that time the economy shifted and things happened, and literally like in one day – I can tell you the exact date that it happened. This day happened and everything shifted and I, literally, had to go and in one day fire over 50 people, and then over the next 12 months let go another 30 or so.

And it was like one of those things where, you know, I think entrepreneurs sometimes we have some success and because then our head gets kind of big and we think we're invincible and I think that's why I share this with people. And most entrepreneurs have said, in fact, one guy told me, he said, you know most entrepreneurs they cycle at least once or twice, and he told me he's like I'll never work with an entrepreneur who hasn't cycled at least once. I thought that was a nice way to say, you know instead of saying I failed but I cycled.

Because I think the biggest problem for me was I drank my own Kool-Aid or I believed that I was this amazing thing and when everything collapsed around me I realized that you know it's not it's not so much me, there's so much more involved; there's people and there's teams, and it gave me the chance to really kind of humble myself.

And we went from, again, 100 employees and we shrunk down to about 10 and we from there had to kind of rebuild and refigure things out, and figure out how to do things smaller and try to be more diverse, and respect other people a lot more and those kinds of things. I don't know if that makes sense, but that was definitely for me the worst thing is going from being on top of the world to having let go all these people and let down them and their families, and all these things, and then have to rebuild the second time.

Looking back now though, it's for me something I'm so grateful for I had the chance to go that because now we make different decisions the second time and you're careful and you care more about people, and you're more considerate along the way.

John: It makes a lot of sense to me, Russell, and I'm really glad you brought up the point about cycling.

This is exactly why I have our guests, these all-star entrepreneurs like Russell Brunson, like Seth Godin, and Tim Ferriss [inaudible] [00:11:07]. This is why I have them share their worst entrepreneurial moment because, Russell, so many entrepreneurs are scared of ever taking that first leap. Because you're like, well, what if I fail, and you know my response to that is, well, who doesn't. That is part of the game, that's part of the cycle. And I love that phrase, so we all cycle, Fire Nation. It's just a matter of what learn from that and apply to our next cycle that's so critical.

And Russell, in just one sentence, I'm gonna really challenge you to be brief here. Sum up for Fire Nation the one takeaway you want us to get from that entrepreneurial worst moment.

Russell Brunson: What you're building is not just you. It's people and it's customers, and really focusing more on the serving of them as opposed to yourself. And if you do that you'll get the things you want and need out of your company.

John: Boom! Russell, I challenged you to share that worst entrepreneurial moment.

Now I'm gonna challenge you to share an aha moment because this is the tough part of this. There's not just one, you've hand hundreds my friend, you have one every single day you drive to work you're sharing your podcast. So which aha moment are you gonna share with Fire Nation that you think is gonna impact our listeners, Fire Nation. Really take us there again, Russell, I wanna be there when this idea strikes you, and walk us through the steps you took to turn it into success.

Russell Brunson: Yeah. So when I got started in this business I was like this nerdy little internet guy sitting at my computer during class trying to figure out how to make money and –

John: Well, that was actually still my perception of you. Yeah.

Russell Brunson: You saw a little bit that right now, you're right, I'm [inaudible] [00:12: computer!

John: Kidding!

Russell Brunson: But I went to, someone invited me to this marketing seminar, I'd never been to one before. So I went to this event, and I didn't know what to expect. I remember that the first speaker's on the stage and he started going and teaching his stuff. And then at the end he sold something, and people ran to the back of the room and they bought. And I remember doing the math as people were sprinting to the back of the room – he was selling like a $2,000 course – I remember doing the math –

John: Yeah, like 2, 4, 6, 8.

Russell Brunson: – 2, 4, 6, and I was like that dude just made like $80,000 in 90 minutes! And then the next speaker got up and the same thing happened, and the next one.

And I was just doing the math and I was just like you know what I thought this whole business was about being a nerd and driving traffic and stuff like that. And I realized at that moment that the real money comes when you learn how to sell things. And I remember vividly thinking I've got to learn how to sell, and it started me on this journey of learning how to sell things.

There's a book that I think it's one of my favorite books right now it's called Ready, Fire, Aim. And in the book he talks about how companies go from zero to a million, and a million to 10, 10 to 50, and 50 to 100. And the cool thing is his whole focus is going from zero to a million dollars is all about sales, sales, sales and his entrepreneur drive drilling that into your head. And for me that was my biggest thing is just realizing that it's not technology, it's not key words, it's not things like that it's learning how to sell either through print or through video or audio.

There's a lot of ways to sell but you've gotta learn how to sell your ideas and things like that. And when I got that and I embraced it, and stopped thinking something in sales was this bad thing and annoying thing, but it was a cool thing it changed everything. You know I'm a big believer in learning how to sell and whatever. You know what, no matter what kind of company you're in, it's learning the sales process; how it relates to your product, to your service.

John: I guess this is a perfect cue for me to bring up EOFire.com/Russell. I mean it's not even a sale. I mean it's just shipping and handling, right?

That's something that I do want you, Fire Nation, to really absorb here is that listen whether we like it or not, whether we're gonna admit it to ourselves or not, we're all in sales, period. You're a doctor, you're a lawyer, whoever you are whatever profession you're in, and especially if you're an entrepreneur it's something that you need to embrace sooner than later and be comfortable with it.

And how do you do that? Well, you create something of amazing value, just like ClickFunnels, like DotCom Secrets you know, like Podcasters' Paradise and WebinarOnFire that you're proud of selling, selling, selling. And then you're just gonna be able to say, I am obligated, I have an obligation to let as many people know about this as possible because it's flipping awesome. And Russell, that's my take-away from your aha moment.

But again, I'm challenging you just in one sentence what's your big takeaway that you want Fire Nation to walk away with?

Russell Brunson: The big takeaway is look at yourself as an entrepreneur, obviously, but as an entrepreneur who's selling something, and learn how to sell stuff, be comfortable with it, embrace it, and if you do that everything else will change.

John: So I want as much Russell Brunson time as possible. So I'm not letting you go anywhere quite yet. But we are about to enter the Lightning Round, and before we do we're gonna to take a minute to thank our sponsors.

Russell, welcome to the Lightning Round where you get to share incredible resources in mind-blowing answers. Does that sound like a plan?

Russell Brunson: I'm excited!

John: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Russell Brunson: For me it was fear. I got started when I was college and I was wrestling, I didn't have time and I didn’t have money to gamble and lose. I just had to go figure it out, and that's what kept me back the longest. Initially, it was just that fear of the unknown and fear of if I fail and all those kinds of things that we get in our mind that keep us from making that first step forward.

John: What is the best advice you've ever received?

Russell Brunson: The best advice I've ever received that is related to my business was definitely from my first mentor, Mark Joiner. He said, "The only thing you've gotta focus on in your business is building a list," and he told me to focus on that, and I have, and it's meant the entire world to me.

John: Hum. What's a personal habit that you do have that you believe contributes to your success?

Russell Brunson: When I talk to somebody afterwards I don't just tell them thanks, I always end it with "I appreciate you," and it's amazing how that shifts relationships. It's just like this dumb little thing that I started doing and it's totally changed the level and the commitment and the relationships I have with my friends and family, employees, and people I meet.

John: Yeah. I kind of wanna add something to that, too. Because something that I did recently was invest heavily on a mentor in the fitness area, a guy that I respect a ton. And something that I always heard him say to me, like when I would compliment him or say something, he would always come back and say, "John, I receive that." And I was like, wow!

I love that because you know a lot of people get, you give compliments and you mean them, but a lot of times you know we as humans we kind of brush them off because we're kind of embarrassed by getting complimented and we're just like, oh, yeah-yeah thanks, and kind of go to the next thing.

And I was, wait a second. I want you to appreciate the fact that I just complimented you. So he says, "I receive that, John." And I was like wow! That's cool. I started doing that, and I'm gonna be honest it's freaked a couple of people out but I'm not gonna stop! So Fire Nation, if you come up to me at a conference and you say, "John, I enjoyed that podcast you did with Russell," I'm gonna look you in the eye and I'm gonna say, "I receive that." And don't run away just know that I received that.

So Russell, do you have an internet resource like in Evernote that you can share with our listeners?

Russell Brunson: Yeah. My favorite one is the most simple program in the world. If you go to Tomorrow.do, it's this little day-planner that I run my entire life by.

Basically, you put in your to-do list and then if you want you can push things until tomorrow. That's all it does. And then as you get things done then you check them off, and then the next day everything with Tomorrow comes on Today, and you look at that, you add things, push things until tomorrow, and you just do whatever you need to on Today. I don't go to bed at night until my to-do list from there is cleared out or pushed until tomorrow.

It's been, it's like the dumbest little free tool, it is amazing to me.

John: Now you can say now, but if you had the opportunity to and you have the availability can you pull up Tomorrow.do right now and read a couple of things from it?

Russell Brunson: Yeah, definitely.

We've got a live event coming up. Today I've gotta add someone's picture to the Live Event page. I've got our call right now which is on here. And then, that's about my last thing for Today.

For Tomorrow I'm sending over my proposal to Tony Robbins for a book deal thing we're doing with him. I have got a SEO guy I've gotta get back to. I've got a script I'm sending out to somebody.

Anyway, it's kind of all –

John: Yeah!

Russell Brunson: – but this is –

John: Cool! That's exactly what I was hoping for, I mean, just a little insight into your Tomorrow.do.

Russell Brunson: What's happening tomorrow in Russell's life? Yeah.

John: I can't wait to stalk you.

So anyway, if you could recommend one book for our listeners – because they're already getting your book, DotCom Secrets for free at EOFire.com/Russell – what would that book be and why?

Russell Brunson: Yeah. The book that, I mentioned earlier actually, but the book that's had the biggest impact on me over the last probably 18 months is the book called Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson. I don't think you can even buy it anymore but it's on Audible.

And it's amazing. I mentioned it earlier, but he teaches, he shows you how to take a company from zero to a million dollars a year, from a million to 10, 10 to 50, and 50 to 100, and shows you all the skill sets, the problems, the opportunities at each level.

And when I read that and had it laid out like that – because I build companies up to different levels and sometimes they crash, sometimes you do well – I had very perfect clarity on what I needed to do at each step. And then, each step where me as an entrepreneur becomes the bottleneck, and what type of people I need to bring in at this level and this level, it's amazing. I've read it like four or five times in the last six months, and it's amazing.

John: Well, Fire Nation, you're probably checking your watches right now because you're thinking its April Fool's Day because I got so much awesomeness for you. But no, it's April 6th, it's Monday if you're listening today, and not only are we getting you DotCom Secrets for free, but I'm gonna be able to get you this audio book Ready, Fire, Aim for free. So I've teamed up with Audible, so if you haven't already you can get this audio book for free by just going to EOFireBook.com. It's a great one.

Russell, this next question is the last of the Lightning Round, but it is a doozy. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world identical to earth, but you knew no one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have, your food and shelter taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500.00. What would you do in the next seven days?

Russell Brunson: I'd sign up for the trial version of GoToWebinar, probably. And then I would go and I'd write a webinar pitch for some product or some service that I love, and I'd spend $500.00 on Facebook ads to fill up that webinar.

And then I would get on and I would pitch as hard as I could to those people that we can get to register, and sell whatever the product or the services that I'm able to find. Sometimes I was able to create in seven days, or I'd find a product that I really believed in and sell that for somebody else and get a commission on all the sales.

John: And money is coming in, the dough, Fire Nation. And Russell, what I wanna do right now is end today how we started on fire! With you sharing one parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you, then we'll say goodbye.

Russell Brunson: Focus more, again, less on yourself and more on the people you're trying to service.

We shifted our company from how can I grow a big company and make a lot of money, to how can I serve people, who can I serve, how can I make their lives better. We went from a company that was doing all right to doing really, really well. And just figuring out you can serve people, then the more ways you can figure out to serve people in a deeper level that's where you'll get all the things you're searching for as an entrepreneur; the money and whatever it is that lights you up. The more you serve people the more you'll get those things.

And then as far as how to get a hold of us or to see me, first off I'd get the book. The book's gonna give you a huge introduction to everything that's in my brain, everything I've been doing and teaching for 10 years. And then if you want more about me, our main website is DotComSecrets.com and you can learn more about everything we're doing there and get to know us better.

John: Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. And you have been hanging out with the Russell B. and JLD today, so keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com, just type Russell in the search bar, his [Inaudible] [00:23:25] page will pop right up.

Check it out, DotComSecrets.com if you want that great book that I have read and highly recommend, EOFire.com/Russell will get you right there.

And Russell, I wanna thank you, brother, for sharing this journey with Fire Nation. Thank you for that. We salute you and we'll –