- Hey my name is Russell Brunson.
I want to welcome you to my channel.
I'm so excited to have you here.
If you can a moment really quick
and click on the subscribe button,
that way I can send you really cool videos
like this in the future.
But today I'm gonna be talking about
a five-part video series I'm doing right now.
It was actually an interview I did with this man right here.
Grrr, his head got really big.
Tai Lopez and I was actually in California.
This was a couple of months ago.
I was out in California and I actually messaged Tai
and he said hey come on over to the Tai mansion,
hanging out and we'll do an interview.
So I got there super late it was like 11:30 at night
and I was like there's no way we're doing this interview.
And sure enough we showed up.
He fed me and then about one o'clock in the morning.
If you've every been to Tai's house or seen it
he broke out like 400 cameras.
He had cell phones galore for Snapchat, Instagram,
Facebook, YouTube, networks I've never even heard of
and we did this interview and it turned out
really, really cool and I wanted to share it with you.
So the very first part of this interview
Tai's asking about how we built ClickFunnels
from zero to 100 million dollars
and the first thing we talked about
is how you actually build a movement.
I talked about the movements that ClickFunnels has built.
We talked about some of our success stories.
Like LadyBoss and the movement they've created
and a whole bunch of other stuff.
With that said let's jump into part one
of this interview series with me and Tai Lopez.
(stormy thunder)
- Russell, take me back three years ago
you decide to launch this company,
called ClickFunnels.
Are you now number one competitor with Shopify?
- I think so, I don't know anyone else that's come close,
so I'm pretty sure.
- And you did this, you have five kids,
you live in Idaho, for all of you to live
in smaller markets.
- It still works.
- So what was the feeling to go from zero
and three years later doing one hundred million bucks here.
- That was never the goal.
I mean the goal is like try to do whatever.
But it's funny because about four years ago
when we had the idea and we were like can we do this.
Like a lot of people have tried it before.
I even tried it before.
Luckily I had a co-founder in Todd Dickerson
who was technically able to build it.
And he spent about a year building it
and then it came back and it was just amazing.
And so I'm like all right let's sell this.
That's my job to be the guy selling it and talking about it
and trying to build the excitement behind it.
It's crazy cause it took off.
At first it was kind of slow it took a while
to figure out how to sell and how to get people
excited about it.
And then when it started working
and then triggering success stories,
people having success with it and more it started
growing and growing and the last three years has been nuts.
- So, let's go through this.
Marketing, cause a lot of people are listening in
are people who have an idea and they want to grow it.
One of your secrets is not just selling a product
but creating a movement.
- [Russell] Yeah.
- Tell me about that.
Cause that's really your number one.
I asked you the number one thing you think
is responsible for growth
and those of you listening should emulate.
You've written this book called Expert Secrets.
You've got Robert Kiyosaki on the front cover
recommending it and the Underground Playbook
Defines your Message, Build A Tribe, and Change the World.
So why do people need to build a tribe?
How do you do it?
- [Russell] The market we're going into
there's a lot of competitors, right?
And all of them are like, there brands
but there kind of nameless faces.
There's brands trying to do this thing right.
And I remember about that time I went to
a network marketing thing cause I had some friends
and I wanted to see how these guys do their stuff.
I show up in this room and there's like
four or five thousand people in this room
and everyone's going on stage
and they're crying and I was so confused.
I'm like this is a software company,
why are people crying.
- (laughs)
- And person after person for two or three days
and I'm so confused and finally I look over to
one of my buddies and he said to me
he said you know what they're doing here?
I was like I've got no idea but everyone's crying,
I'm confused.
And he said they didn't build a software company
they created a movement.
That's why people are here.
That's why they're coming.
- So he's saying they built a movement
before they even branded this concept.
- Yeah as they were doing it.
We were launching ClickFunnels
and I was like if we're just a software company
like everybody else then we're a commodity, right?
If you're a commodity then it's like everyone
is fighting for the lowest price
and eventually you price yourself out
and that's how a lot of businesses happen.
I was like we need to build something bigger
where people are a part of this movement
and they're part of our tribe
and they belong to this thing.
And so about that time we were launching ClickFunnels
and again at first it didn't take off like I thought it was.
I remember about two or three months into it
I did a presentation about a concept we call Funnel Hacking
which is like could we find somebody else as a funnel,
you look at it and then you model it inside of ClickFunnels.
Our people started calling themselves funnelhackers.
I was like okay hey we're funnelhackers.
We started making T-shirts and everyone who signed up
for our software make them watch a 10-minute video
showing them how to use ClickFunnels
and we mail them a T-shirt that says funnelhacker.
Almost every week since we've launched ClickFunnels
there's been some the next ClickFunnels
killer is coming out.
I got emails from everyone forwarded
and they're like the competitor's coming out.
And so far I think there's about thirty something
that have come out and all of them have
kind of fallen by the wayside
and didn't do much.
- You think that's cause they weren't movements like yours?
- Yeah, well I asked some of my members
how come you guys don't try their software?
Why aren't you switching over?
And they said because we're part of
this is like, this is not your company Russell.
This is us, we're funnelhackers, ClickFunnels
are our tool, this is who we are.
One guy, I remember he told me, he's like
I look at the ad long enough on my Facebook feed
just long enough to laugh and then I scroll on.
Because I know that I'm a funnelhacker
and I'm part of this movement.
And so it's like everyone is gonna try to beat us on pricing
and things like that and it's like no we built a community.
We built a tribe of people who have a belief
they're going somewhere, there's a vision
what they're all trying to do
and that has been so huge in propelling us.
they also share it
We get organically about a thousand people a day
that are signing up for ClickFunnels.
- And these are paid customers by the way.
55,000 paid customers.
- Not free ones like most software.
- Your free email list, how big is it?
- Over a million.
- We've probably had about five hundred thousand or so
that have actually created an account
but yeah, 55,000 that are actively paying.
- Paying you and it cost between what?
- Between $100 and $300 a month.
- 100 and 300 and then you've got some upgrades
people can do.
So, it is interesting we're talking about this
cause I was just reading this, I like to read textbooks
even though I didn't go to college.
This is how I do my version of college.
So I was reading this book on, it's just a psychology,
Dr. David Russ, it's a psychology book.
He's actually coming here tomorrow.
He's one of the most interesting guys in the world.
And he's talking about the rise of gang membership
around the world.
And he said it completely tracked the breakdown
of the old family unit tribe.
Gangs started to get big let's say,
I mean there's always been some form of gang,
but people want to belong to something.
So now if you can build a business,
you see that with Lady Gaga.
She called her fans wasn't it like Little Monsters
or something like that?
And Justin Bieber what do they call, beliebers.
- (chuckle)
So one our top success stories we're talking about
in the book a lot.
She's in the weight loss space and her maiden name was Tool.
She was always like Tool Time trainer.
It was tough because people didn't self identify with that.
- Right.
- And so she heard this for the first time,
she was at an event we did and on the flight home
she was like I need to change this
to something that my people
will associate with.
It was tough for her because her business
at that point had been her name.
And she's like that's not big enough for everybody else.
And so on the flight home she was thinking about
ideas and all of a sudden she had this idea.
She's like I'm gonna rebrand it as LadyBoss Weight Loss.
And my winners are gonna be LadyBosses.
And they went home and deleted their whole business
which was doing well, rebranded it,
launched this thing called LadyBosses
and if you look at here movement right now
they have over a hundred thousand women
who have purchased their program
so they're in this thing.
They do these swag drops.
- Swag drops.
- She's like I've got my LadyBoss swag
and she'll come in and she'll reveal it
and they'll have, so for a short period of time,
and I'm not allowed to share their numbers,
but they will sell so much clothing
in a finite period of time to all the LadyBosses.
Cause they have these shirts that say I'm a LadyBoss
and they have all these quotes
that people self identify with.
- Yeah.
- And when they took it from a brand like from their name
to this thing that's bigger like people can identify with.
- I just want to reiterate, I've seen this over and over.
Even what I do.
Knowledge Society is one of the names
of one of my companies.
And it's not even something I tried to brand.
And I see my employees latching on to that
because you can't latch on to being Tai Lopez,
that's just one person.
But being attached to Knowledge Society
is like this higher purpose and if you look
at Maslow's hierarchy of needs
there's five levels of needs.
Physiological is at the base foundation.
And you have number two you have safety.
And then number three you have love
and number four you have status and respect.
But number five is self actualization or
actualization to a higher purpose.
And that's where people find god
and they find, like Mahatma Gandhi
and his movement to gain independence for his country.
Martin Luther King Junior, Abraham Lincoln.
And so what you're doing is you're applying
those same principles to a brand.
And it took you from zero
to a hundred million dollars a year.
- The thing about the big brands,
the ones that have done a really good job
in the last generation have done that.
Look at Apple.
- [Tai] Biggest company in the world, Apple.
- [Russell] Apple self-identify with that.
Like there's Apple users and there's everybody else.
There's that thing, you look at shoes,
you look at clothing lines, the best brands have done that.
For some reason most businesses, we don't think
think about that, it's like well I sell this
or I'm a financial planner or I'm in real estate.
Those who start looking at a pattern.
I'm a big pattern guy.
You see a pattern it's like okay,
now that I know the pattern, how can I amplify that.
So when we realize this is the pattern.
In the book we'll say how to create those movements.
But you understand the pattern it's like okay
how can I do this for my business
and when I became aware of it then it's like
okay now that I know what it is I can amplify it.
I know that these are the pieces of how
to make this movement happen
and like what are all the elements of a good movement
and how to be the leader of that movement.
And one of the things, when you understand it
you can amplify it.
- Yeah.
- And most of them never know,
they're like I sell this thing.
This is my business.
- Tell us a little more.
What did you build, was it just this hacker funnel
kind of idea or funnel hacks or what did you identify with?
- You know I think the majority of our members
they're small entrepreneurs, they're people
who are still involved in their business.
They've been marketing their business
and they're passionate about that.
I was our customers like five or six years ago.
I had ideas, things I wanted to get out
but I didn't know how to do that.
I'm not a website designer or developer or anything.
So I had to hire people and it was so slow
and just frustrating.
So for me it was like when we made ClickFunnel
I was able to as someone who is passionate about
my product or my service I could just go
and put it out there really, really fast.
I was talking to your partner earlier about MentorBox
and he was like back in the days I had a hundred
developers here to build all of our software, our things.
He's like guess how many work for our company now?
Two and they log into ClickFunnels and they edit stuff.
Like that's all we do.
So it gives people like us who are passionate
about a product, or an idea, or whatever it gives us.
I was hoping it makes entrepreneurs free
to share their message, not get bogged down
in all the tech stuff that keeps people from doing it.
And so our people, our phone hackers.
Like that's their thing.
I don't get stuck down with all the tech.
I can just go and share my message.
I can sell products.
I can do whatever it is I want to do.
- So people have got an idea,
they are no longer constrained by technology.
- Thanks so much for watching part one.
I hope you enjoyed the interview so far.
Make sur you subscribe right now.
That way you'll get notifications when episode number two
comes out to see the next part of this amazing interview.