Summary4 min read

The Russell Brunson Show – Episode Summary

Episode Title: How To Use "Kinda Like" Bridges With Your Hook

Host: Russell Brunson
Date: October 17, 2018

Episode Overview

In this episode, Russell Brunson dives deep into the mechanics of crafting a compelling presentation hook by utilizing what he calls "'kinda like' bridges." Russell shares the behind-the-scenes process of preparing for two upcoming speaking gigs—including a real estate investor event and the massive 10x event. He passionately explains how analogies ("it's kinda like...") can bridge complex marketing or entrepreneurial concepts for any audience, making them relatable and memorable.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of a Presentation Hook

Russell reveals the struggle behind nailing the right presentation title and hook:
- Spent eight hours refining just the title.
- Emphasizes that even seasoned pros wrestle with this process.
  
  “I spent eight hours just trying to figure out the title... I can’t even start building slides without it.” (02:44)

2. Introducing the “Unfair Advantage”

‘Unfair Advantage’ becomes his anchor concept for the new presentation, especially tailored to real estate investors.
Justin and Terry Williams (hosts of the real estate event) describe their audience as “in the stone age,” leading Russell to position sales funnels as a major leap forward.
Russell draws on real-world analogies and pop culture for impact.

3. The “Kinda Like” Bridge Technique

How it works:
- Take the core idea or big promise and find stories or analogies that make it easier to grasp or more exciting.
- It’s a mental shortcut for your audience, connecting new, possibly complex concepts to things they already understand.
Primary Example:
- Back to the Future, Part II:
  
  “Remember Back to the Future, Part 2, where Biff went back in time, got the almanac, came back, bet on all the sports scores, being the richest man on earth? That’s what this is kinda like." (05:26)
  - Biff’s unfair advantage = Audience’s unfair advantage with sales funnels.
Another Analogy:
- Google’s Algorithm:
  
  “It’s kinda like if Larry and Sergey, the founders of Google, just gave you the algorithm.” (05:08)
  - Implies receiving insider information that guarantees results.

4. Crafting the Hook

The process:
- Pick a strong, curiosity-piquing title/hook.
- Find the ‘kinda like’ stories that bridge the audience from unfamiliar to excited.
- Use these bridges to simplify, excite, and create a sense of urgency or opportunity.

5. Practical Examples from Russell’s Experience

Funnel Builder Secrets Webinar:
- Didn’t start with just the technical details; started with analogies and the “hook."
Roger Bannister Example:
- Uses the story of the first person to break the four-minute mile:
  
  “I didn’t start out by: Let me show you how to build a funnel—I talked about my hook, then went into Roger Bannister…” (06:16)
- Establishes, "This is like breaking the four-minute mile for your industry.”

6. Why ‘Kinda Like’ Bridges Work

Teaching complex topics:
- Makes abstract or novel concepts concrete and memorable.
Creating future vision:
- Helps the audience visualize the transformation or benefits they can achieve.
  
  “Boom. ‘It’s kinda like this.’ And then people are like, ‘Oh my gosh, I see the future, I see why this is so exciting.’” (07:29)
Building anticipation and excitement for what’s to come.

7. Personal Touches & Humor

Russell records from his closet, riffing on his “nude squirrel” T-shirt and family life.
Shares personal stories about fatherhood and preparing for his son’s award ceremony.

“Aiden, he won an award for being a courteous student. I love him.” (08:13)

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

On the grind of creating a great hook:

"Even for me, I’ll spend eight hours just trying to figure out the title." (02:44)
On unfair advantage, via Back to the Future:

“That’s what this is kinda like… I’m giving you guys this unfair advantage.” (05:26)
On simplifying with analogous bridges:

“I use kinda like bridges every time I try to teach a complicated concept.” (07:04)
On the audience’s experience:

“People are like, ‘Oh my gosh. I see, I see the future…’” (07:37)

Important Timestamps

00:00 – 02:44: Russell’s intro, podcast setting (from his closet), and upcoming speaking events.
02:45 – 05:08: The painstaking process of defining a presentation’s hook and the emergence of “Unfair Advantage.”
05:09 – 07:04: Using pop culture and tech analogies as ‘kinda like’ bridges (Biff from Back to the Future, Google algorithm).
07:05 – 08:13: Leveraging these analogies throughout, with examples from past presentations (Roger Bannister, four-minute mile).
08:14 – End: Personal anecdotes and sign-off.

Episode Takeaways

Spend real time and mental effort finding the RIGHT hook for your message.
Use “kinda like” bridges to simplify and energize your idea.
Choose analogies that help people instantly understand and get excited.
You can always refine your speaking, teaching, or selling by anchoring ideas to familiar stories.

This episode provides actionable, behind-the-scenes wisdom for anyone looking to up their game as a communicator, marketer, or entrepreneur—delivered in Russell’s story-driven, relatable style.

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Transcript3 lines

[00:00]
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Good morning, everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today we are streaming from my closet. So the big question is, how are entrepreneurs like us, who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, who are spending money from our own pockets? How do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to Marketing Sales. Hey, everyone. All right. I'm literally in my closet right now trying to pick out clothes for the day, and I totally want to wear my nude squirrel shirt. Some of you guys don't know what that shirt is, but when we did the bubble soccer event and we launched the viral video, there's the whole joke from the gold prospector about, like, he's like, I paint nudes. Squirrels. That is. And so we have, like, painted nude squirrels in our office everywhere. It's like this paint. Big funny joke. And so we have these nude squirrel T shirts, which are like, my favorite shirt, but my wife hates it. We're watching a video last night from our trip to San Francisco. I had a nude squirrel shirt on the whole time. She's like, why do you wear that shirt? I hate it. Like, oh, it's my favorite. Anyway, so I can't really wear it because I'm gonna be hanging up her a lot today, so I'll default something not as cool. But anyway, I'm in the closet today because I'm getting ready and I want to kill two birds and one stone and share with you something that I'm working on. So a lot of you guys know, last year I spoke at the 10x event, and we sold $3 million in 90 minutes. What? Which is crazy. And next time speaking and sorry, this last year, there were 9,000 people at the event. This year, moving forward, there's supposed to be 35,000 this year's event, which is completely nuts, yet it is what it is. So we've got. It's going to be insane. I'm so exc. So we've got 35,000 people, and I'm doing a presentation. Actually, I get to speak twice. I'm doing two presentations, but I gotta kind of craft it for the audience to make a difference. I don't want to do the same presentation every year. So I'm gonna try to think, like, what's it gonna be? And next week, I'm speaking at one of my Buddies events. I don't speak at many events anymore, but they're super awesome people. Inner circle members, it's Justin and Terry Williams, some of my favorite people. And so I agree to speak at their event. And so I'm doing is I'm kind of rebuilding a presentation because their people are all like real estate investors. So it's a little different market. It's very similar though to like grants to Grant's people at 10x events. So I'm going to be. Basically, I'm creating this presentation and I'm going to be testing it out here. Testing my material. If you've been paying attention, you know what I'm talking about. I'll be testing my material. I did a whole podcast episode about that. That's why I said that. Anyway, I test my material here for what I'm gonna be giving at the 10x event, if it works well. And so that's kind of what I'm doing. And so yesterday we were trying to figure out the title for this presentation and literally it was like, I think I spent eight hours just figuring out the title. So for the day, like, I can't figure out how to do my presentation. Russell's is really hard. Just know that even for me, like I'll spend eight hours just trying to figure out the title because that's like I can't even start building slides. So I have a title. And so anyway, yesterday we finally figured out the title. It was after going through a bunch of voxers with Justin and he was talking about how he's like, real estate investors are kind of in the stone age. He's like, he's like, this thing you're gonna be showing them is gonna give them all an unfair advantage where they can like literally like come into the future before everybody else. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, that's. That's the title. It's unfair advantage. Like, this is the unfair advantage. Sales funnels are the unfair advantage. And so I started thinking through it that way. Sorry, I just echo in the bathroom. I'm walking back and forth, getting things ready. Anyways, I started thinking about from unfair advantage. I'm like, okay, that's the direction. That's the hook, that's the angle. What this presentation is gonna be is like unfair advantage. And I started going deep like, okay, what are other things that are unfair advantage? Like, what does that look like? What would it be? Because I'm trying to find a lot of analogies and kind of like bridges. It's kind of like this. It's kind of like this. And so this is how my brain works. I'm sharing this with you guys out loud because I'm hoping this will be helpful for you guys who are trying to create your own presentations. Like, what's the process Russell goes through? So now I know, like, unfair advantage, that's the big thing, right? Like, I'm gonna be giving you guys unfair advantage. Sales funnels are the unfair advantage. I start thinking, like, what are stories, other stories that we know about unfair advantages? And the first one that popped my head was Back to the Future, right? Do you remember Back to the Future, where. Or maybe it was Back to Future, Part two? Yeah, it was part two. So part two, Biff gets the time machine, right? And he sees it. And so what he does, he goes to the store and he buys an almanac of all the sports scores of all the things in the future. So he gets that, and then he goes back in time and gives younger Biff. The almanac says, basically, here's all. Here's the sports course, the next 50 years, you can go and bid all these teams and become the richest man in the world, right? By doing, like, gambling on him. So Biff does becomes, you know, hugely famous because he always. He has unfair advantage. He knows who's going to win every single game. You know who's going to win. Like, from a betting standpoint, like, you're. Like, you're. You're just going to win everything, right? And so that's kind of how it was for Biff. And so, like, there's a story I'm going to be able to share. Like, hey, I'm giving you guys an unfair advantage. Like, think about this, and I'm going to tell the whole story about Biff and about that. And, like, that's kind of like what this is. You get unfair advantage, right? It's funny, when we were doing the. The presentation for, we did one called Funnel Builder Secrets, and it was. It was. We went through the whole database and click funnels and found all of the different. We found all of the, like, what funnels working the best, how they worked. Like, and I did a whole presentation, like, breaking out, like, here's the ones that the funnels are doing the best. Like, if you're trying to figure out what funnel to build, like, here they are. This is where almost all the. All the money in client sideclic funnels being made at these funnels. So I shared that, and I was like, okay, what's that like? And I was kind of Thinking like, what's it kind of like, what's it kind of like? And I was like, oh, it's kind of like if, if, if, if Larry and Sergey, the founders of Google, were to like open up. Hey guys, just so you know, this is the actual algorithm, like just giving you the algorithm. And like that's what this is like, it's me giving you the algorithm. That's what this presentation is all about, right? Which gets people excited and kind of hooks them. So for you, it's like when you're doing that, like first off, spend eight hours or however long it takes to figure out a really cool hook. And the first thing is thinking like, kind of likes, like, what is this? Kind of like, okay, this is kind of like Larry and Sergey giving you the source code so you know exactly how to get on page one, Google, every single time. That's what I'm doing today with these funnels. Right? Or this unfair advantage is kind of like, remember Back to Future Part 2, where Biff went back to time, got the almanac, came back, been in all the sports, scored being the richest man on earth. That's what this is kind of like, like I'm giving you guys this unfair advantage where you're able to go where your competitors will be there soon, like eventually, like maybe the next year, five years, 10 years, like all your competitors will be doing this. But you're here today and you're getting this unfair advantage before everybody else. And because that I think how much you can capitalize on that, right? And so like that's what this is all about. Like first step, figure out the presentation, like the title, the hook, the angle, like what's the hook? Then it's like what's the kind of like bridges that make it like, oh my gosh, this is what's, this is what I've been, this is what I'm getting, right? I look at the 10x event last year, right? In my funnel builder secrets webinar. I started, I didn't start out by like, let me show you how to build a funnel. I talked about, I had my hook and then I went meet into Roger Bannister in a four minute mile and how the four minute mile was broken by him. Like it's kind of like this, like I'm gonna break the four minute mile for you yesterday so you see what's possible and you'll be able to go out there and do it inside your market. Right? And I shared the whole Roger Bannister story up front. Okay, so like that Kind of like bridge that bridges this thing at the very, very beginning. Like that's the key. So for me, this next presentation is the unfair advantage. And I'm pumped about it. I'm gonna be thinking about a million different kind of likes. It's kind of like this. It's kind of like this. It's kind of like this. I can weave throughout this entire presentation. So that is what kind of like bridges, you guys. I use kind of like bridges every time I try to teach a complicated concept where I share the concept people like, what is he talking about? Oh well, it's kind of like this and you make it simple, you kind of like it back to something they already know. But I also use kind of like bridges to encourage excitement of the thing they're about to learn about, right? So like here's the overarching hook. Like boom. It's kind of like this. And then people like, oh my gosh. Like I see, I see the future, right? I see what's happening. I see how this is why this is exciting. Because man, that would be cool if Biff came and gave me the almanac of all the, all the sports scores. That'd be amazing, right? So if this is kind of like that, I'm pumped, I'm excited. I'm ready to read to see the future. So. All right, that's all I got you guys. I'm gonna go finish getting ready for school. My little man Aiden, he won an award today or this week. So we're gonna go assembly and see him get an award for being a courteous student. So yay for little man. He's being very courteous. I love him. But Clement made him wear pants today instead of like his normal like sweatpants or whatever. He wear real pants when he's super upset. So hopefully he will calm down and be happy because he's gonna be so cute getting his little award on stage. I love him. Alright, thanks everybody and I'll talk to you soon. Want more marketing secrets? If so, then go get your copies of my two best selling books. Book number one is called Expert Secrets and you can get a free copy of@expertsecrets.com and book number two is called dotcom Secrets and you can get your free copy@dotcomsecrets.com Inside these two books you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest growing non VC backed SaaS startup company in the world.
[09:26]
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[09:54]
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Experian.