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The Russell Brunson Show
Offers Will Change Your Life: The Stories Behind My Biggest Turning Points | #Success - Ep. 90
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You're about to make a trade which you do you listen to is it get optioning those options or let's do a little research. Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart do you have a funnel? But it's not converting. The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good but you suck at selling. If you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next selling online event by going to sellingonline.com podcast. That's sellingonline.com podcast. Yes. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the show. I hope you're all doing amazing. This is probably dropping during Thanksgiving week, so hopefully if you're in the States, you're having a great Thanksgiving. If you're anywhere else, hope you're having a great week. And we appreciate you guys always paying attention and listening. Today I wanted to give you guys a bonus episode. This is from. I had a chance a little while ago to speak at Myon Golden's event. Cuz Myon is the man and basically when he asked me do something, I say yes. So that's kind of the relationship we have. He's amazing and he asked me if I come speak this event for him and with him. And it was so much fun. The whole event was at offers and so he wanted me to put my spin on offers and what I've learned and how they work. And I had a couple presentations that I did at that event, but this one was one that I thought was really cool that I want to share with you guys because hopefully help you start thinking about offer creation and the different offers you can create and the fact that the people in each market that make the most offers, the ones that have the most success and it goes through a lot of different offers and things that we've created over time. Anyway, it was a really fun presentation to prepare and to give and I hope that you guys get a ton of value out of it during these holidays and then after that get back just making some offers. Black Friday offers, Cyber Monday offers, Christmas offers, New Year's offers. Like put all those offers because that's. They say an offer day keeps the, keeps the tax man away. I don't know, something like that. All right, that said, I hope you guys enjoy this episode and we'll talk to you. This is the Russell Brunson show. A lot of you guys are gonna be really, really nervous. Like I don't know how to put offers out there. Like is it like, ah, there's gonna be anxiety and stress, and what if my offer sucks? What if nobody buys it? But the second side you have to understand is that the person in any market who's willing to put most offers is the person who wins. So it's not just like, I'm gonna put one offer out there and hope it does well. Like, it's putting out offer after offer after offer. Just in the last 30 days alone, I've probably put out 12 different offers to my market. Like, I'm putting out offers all the time, trying to see what works, what doesn't work. Sometimes put out offers and they completely bomb. Even today, I put out an offer and I think I'm pretty good at this. At this point, I still put out offers. Sometimes they don't work. Other times I put out offers and they blow up. And you never really know. So when I was preparing this presentation day, I was thinking about, man, I've been in this business now for 20, 21, 22 years, something like that. Which is crazy because I look like I'm 14, but I've been doing this for a long time. I'm 43 years old right now. And I started my business when I was in my early 20s. And so, yeah, it's been over 20 something years I've been doing this. And I was thinking about the offers I put out there that actually changed my life, because there were definitely like four or five that were like huge shifts that changed everything for me. And so if you guys don't mind, I'm gonna tell a couple of stories about that, and hopefully it'll give you some inspiration about just the reason why this is so important, why it's something that's essential for you guys to do. Because one good offer you put out there can and will change your life forever. So when I got started again 20 some odd years ago, I just married my beautiful wife. Anyone ever seen my wife online, socially? She hates being on social stuff, but she's on there every once in a while. I met her, fell in love. I was like, I want to marry this girl. My wife's six years older than me, and so I was like, how do I impress her? Like, I'm broke. She's like, beautiful, like all these things, right? And I don't know, somehow I tricked her. She was. She was the very first, like, sell. The very first time I closed somebody, I was like, I can't believe I closed her on me. This is ridiculous. So she married me, and it was amazing. And I was wrestling at the Time. So I didn't have a job. So she also had to marry me and she had to support me, which is like, I'm a good closer, right? If I can do that. And so she marries me, then she's supporting me and everything's happening. And at the time, I'm like, I got to figure out how to. How to help her. Because long term, when I get done wrestling, like, I gotta support her. Like, what am I gonna do? And so while I was in school, I started trying to figure out, how do I make money? How do I. How do I create something that will make us money? And I tried a whole bunch of different things. Some of you guys have heard my story. My first one, my first products was teaching people how to make potato guns. I made a little product called Zip Brander. It was a little software product. I created a whole bunch of different products and put them out there. And I had mild success with a lot of them. Like, nothing. Like, you know, I didn't become a millionaire selling DVDs on how to make potato guns, but I made a little bit of money here and there, right? That's how I got started. And I remember the very first time that I actually made an offer. I didn't even know that it was called an offer at the time, but it was our second Christmas together. My wife and I had been married for two years. It was our second Christmas together. And my wife's super low maintenance. Like, she thinks all this stuff is, like, when she comes events like this, she's like, why are people here to hear you talk? This makes no sense, right? It's like, oh, she's amazing. One of my friends told me, like, if you didn't marry Colette, your head would be so big. But she doesn't care about any of this. Like, it's so funny. And so anyway, but I remember we got married and I was trying to figure this business thing. I had a couple. I was selling some potato gun DVDs, I was selling a couple other things like that. And I had a little email list at the time. It wasn't huge, but I don't know, probably a thousand people or so who joined my email list. And I remember, like, we had these couches, and there were couches again, she was six years older than me. So when she. When she moved out of home, she bought some couches. And then those are only couches she had for, you know, prior to us getting married. Then we got married and I had nothing. So I was like, not only, like, you're gonna marry me and you're gonna support me. Like, do you have any couches? So she had the couches, and, like, they were these old couches, you know, and like, anyway, and I was just like, man, I would like to hear something nice. And. And she had mentioned, like, someday, like, if you ever get a job, we should get some new couches, right? And so anyway, that Christmas, I want to buy her some couches. But couches are expensive. They're like, I don't know, three or four thousand dollars, which I did not have. So I was like, put together an offer again. I don't know if that was the name for it, but I'm putting together something and see if I can make enough money to buy my beautiful wife some couches. And so it was Christmas time, and so I remember I called it the Grinch sale. And so I had a picture of the Grinch on it. I was like, the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day, and he wanted to get this cool thing for his wife. I just told the story. I was like, I want to get my wife a couch. I can't afford it, but I want to get a couch. And so I'm going to create a really cool offer. So I create an offer. I was like, if you sign up for this thing, it's $37. You're going to get this, and you're going to get this. And I put together five or six really, really cool things that were worth way more than $37. But I was like, if you pay for it, if you pay the $37, I'll give you like three or four hundred dollars worth of stuff, right? I put together this thing again. I didn't know it was called an offer at the time, but I put it together. I sent an email out to my list, and I went to bed, and this will come back in a little bit. I'm going to talk about hook, story, offer. But I told the story. I didn't try to hide it. I wasn't like, hey, buy this really cool thing over there. I literally, the headline is like, I'm trying to buy my wife a couch for Christmas. If you guys buy this thing, I will buy her the couch. And then I will put your name on the Christmas card as one of the people who helped support me in buying my wife this beautiful couch. And so I sent the email out, the picture of the Grinch on it, had the law off, had the story about it, had a couple pictures of the things that were going to be Included in this offer sent the email out. I went to bed, woke up the next morning, and I sold like a dozen of them or something. I was like, this is amazing. Like $37 times a dozen is, you know, three, $400 in sales. It's amazing. What I didn't know is one of the people that bought it was this guy named Carl Goletti. And at the time, Carl Galletti had a huge email list. And on the thank you page, I had an affiliate link where I said, if you sign up as an affiliate, you can promote this as well and we'll split the money 50, 50. So he bought it. He's like, this is a really good offer. And so he took the link, signed up for his affiliate, and then he sent an email out to his list. So that day, I'm going to school, my wife's going to work. I have no idea what's going to happen. I go to wrestling practice, I get done with wrestling practice, I come back home and I open my little PayPal account. $20,000 in sales in my PayPal account. And I was like, what the crap? I could buy two or three couches for this much. But part of me is like, something went wrong because I don't. I was like, I only have a thousand people on my list. And like, this doesn't make any logical sense. And then what else happened is some of those people who bought saw on thank you page, like, they joined as an affiliate, they sent it out. And so next day, more sales come, more sales came coming in, and it was a little three day sale. At the end of three days, we sold $37,000 worth of this thing. And I was just like, are they going to take the money back? Like, am I going to go to jail? Like, $37,000. To put in perspective, my parents made like $37,000 a year. I made that in three days. Selling this thing that a picture of the Grinch on it. The story about, I want to buy my wife a couch with a little offer. I had no idea that was possible. I'm a college kid, right? And so then I'm like, do I tell my wife? Do I not like? And so I didn't even tell her. So then, like, I was like, hey, Colette, I'm gonna buy you a couch. She's like, we don't have money for a couch. I'm like, no, we kind of do right now. Let me explain. So I tried to explain to her what's happened. And she's like, wait, people, what she could not fathom. I couldn't fathom. It was this crazy thing. But then all of a sudden, the email started coming in, and people were like, hey, did you buy your wife the couch yet? Did you buy your wife the couch? I bought that thing. I bought three of them. Because I want to make sure you get all these people bought something. And so my wife and I went down to RC Willie, which is where we bought the couch. Bought the couch, got it back, took a picture of me and her, sent an email out to all the people who bought, like, thank you so much. This is what you were able to get for my wife and I for Christmas. And it was the first time that I'd ever seen the power of an offer. I was like, this is crazy. Like, I'd made $37,000 in my entire life up that point, three days, because we made a really good offer. Okay, Some of you guys are the same way. Some of you guys have been doing this business for a while and you've been struggling. Maybe you put a product or an offer out there and you tried something or something and it didn't work yet, Right? You have to understand that you're literally just one offer away. Like, what? You put one really good offer out there and boom, somebody takes it and it goes viral. Whatever happens, it can change everything for you. And so that was the very first time an offer really had a big impact on me. And I started looking through this morning. I was right now, like, what are the other times? There were five core times I put an offer that shifted everything. The next time was fast forward a couple years later. I'd started to grow my business. I had a couple employees time. And the weirdest thing that you're going to find out, how many of us have employees right now? How many guys are just solo right now? Okay, for the solo people, this is something I didn't know about employees till I hired them. So as an entrepreneur, you only make money when you sell something, right? You kill something, you get to eat it. That's how we, like, we kill it. We get to eat it, right? But when you start hiring employees, it blew my mind. I'd never had a job before, so because I was a student athlete, I'd never had a job before. This is the first only thing I ever did. But employees expect to get paid every two weeks whether you make money or not. Did you know that? Yeah. I had no idea. So, like, I hire up my friends, they're working for me, and they're like, hey, it's like, it's payday. When do we get paid? I was like, what are you talking about? We have to kill something before we eat? And they're like, no, no, we get paid every two weeks. It's like, oh, crap. Like, I had no idea. And so I'd hired these people and they wanted to get paid. And so I was like, ah. So I started, like, getting better at making offers because, like, I gotta pay these guys. So I'm like, I create an offer, send a list, make a bunch of money, pay them. And I'm like, okay, and start working on the next project. All of a sudden they're like, knocking on the door, hey, it's been two weeks. When we get paid again, oh, crap. Okay. So I go on and make a quick offer, send it out to the list, make a bunch of money, pay them again. And like, this was the cycle and it was just, like, overwhelming. And I was doing that for five or six months leading up to about Christmas time. And it was just. It was hard. Like, I was hustling to make money to pay these people back and forth. And the point where I remember it was December, and I was like, I don't have money to keep paying my employees. Like, I'm out of money. Like, I don't have anything to do. I'm out of ideas for offers. I don't even know what to do. And I remember it was. I said it was Christmas time. I was outside hanging up Christmas lights. And I just remember it was freezing cold outside. I didn't have gloves on, so I had this, like, stapler. Anybody ever hung Christmas lights before? One nice thing about, like, making offers, you make enough money, you can hire someone to do it. But I didn't have money at the time to hire someone. So I'm out there, like, on a ladder, like, stapling in Christmas lights around my house. Horrible things. Freezing cold in Boise, Idaho. Snow outside. I'm like, shivering and I'm thinking, sitting there. I didn't want to go inside because I was, like, so stressed about how do I pay payroll in the next two days. I have no money. I know what to do. I have no ideas for offers. So I sat out there just like, stapling these lights, sick to my stomach about how am I going to go and fire all my friends and family members in December right before Christmas. Like, I had no ideas. And so at the same time, I'm also listening to some audio. This is pre podcast. So I downloaded some. Some seminars. I was that I'm listening to some Some things. And I remember that at the time, somebody had taught they had a high ticket coaching program. And I had never heard about high ticket before. This was a new thing. I didn't understand it. I'm listening to this audio. They talked about how they had these things and they sold for $5,000. They had people come to their office and they would teach them how to do a thing. And I was like, okay, maybe, like, maybe I could do a high ticket offer. I started thinking through this and, like, that was the first time I'd ever thought about, like, a high ticket offer, right? And I'm like, what would I do for high ticket? Like, I have no idea. And then, anyway, as I was hanging up Christmas lights, I started getting more excited. Like, what I could create. Like, but would people actually pay me for pay me money? Like, I couldn't figure that whole thing out. How many of you guys ever feel like people actually pay me 5 or 10 or $20,000? Like, I'm a kid who's hanging up Christmas lights outside. Why would somebody pay me $5,000 for something? But I had this little spark of belief, right? Some of you guys, like, I'm hoping that this event, if nothing else, it gives you that spark of belief. But for some reason, I'm hanging at Christmas, I had this spark of belief. Like, I think I could create something that people would pay me $5,000 for. And so I remember that morning, the next morning I woke up and I emailed my little staff. I said, hey, everyone. I think it was a Saturday morning or something. I'm like, hey, I haven't told you guys this yet, but I'm out of money. I got no money for payroll. But I think I have an idea how we could save Christmas. If you guys don't want to come to the office, I'm going to brainstorm. And so I sent that out to everybody, texted a couple of them. The next, you know, an hour or two later, we're at the office. There's five or six of us. I was like, okay, so if we want to pay. If you guys want salary to pay for Christmas, stuff like that. I got no money. I listened to this audio. This guy selling high ticket stuff. We got to create something high ticket we could sell. And they're like, well, what are we gonna sell? I'm like, I don't know. What could we. Like, let's make up an idea. So we sat in front of a whiteboard like this, and I was like, what could we sell? And they're like, what if people like flew out here and they did this, we made the first thing and we set out the second thing. We started just listing out all the crazy things. I was like, right now everything's on the table. The crazier the better. Like, what if they flew and they stayed at your house? I'm like, let's put it on the board. What if they came and like your wife cooked him breakfast, lunch, and dinner for dinner? I'm like, put it on the board, right? And we started like putting all this stuff up there and we could do this for people. We could do this. And we started just mapping out. And so we had this whole whiteboard full of all the crazy things we could possibly do. And then we started looking at it. I was like, my wife will kill me if she's like, you know, we can't do that one. So we crossed out that one and that would be really hard and that's gonna be too expensive. And started taking off the things that we weren't willing to do. One of the problems some of you guys make with offers is that you will be so excited. Initially you'll want to promise everything in the world, and then later you'll be miserable because you over promise. And so initially, during the brainstorming, we put everything out there, but then we start taking things away. What are our non negotiables? What are we not willing to do? I had a friend who, she's amazing. And she did this little event in Boise, Idaho, and she sold a $5,000 package. And I remember I saw her right afterwards. I came and spoke with the event, she was in Boise, she did the whole thing and she signed up like 10 people at $5,000. And she was like, on top of the world. Like, this is amazing. I made $50,000. She was so excited, right? And then I saw her like eight months later and she was like, miserable. I'm like, what happened? And she's like, well, when I sold the $5,000 thing, what they got is they got to come to my house. And three different times throughout the year, times 10 people means 33 day events, one on one with people. And she's like, she was just broke. She was. It was so miserable. And she's like, I promised everything I wanted people to buy. And then like, the fulfillment of it crushed me. And so when she finally finished it, we sat back like, hey, this time let's structure an offer in a way that's not going to kill you. And so just a word of warning for you guys, after you make brainstorm the greatest offer of all time. Take away the things that will destroy your happiness. And so we start taking those things away. We create a new offer. I remember I had a little email list at the time. And we sent out this email to Les. I said, hey, this is what we're doing. It was a $5,500 offer. This is how it's going to work. And we walked through and we made just a really, really good offer. You're going to fly to Boise, you're going to be here for three days. We're going to do this for you. We're going to do this for you. We mapped out it was just a really, really irresistible offer. Sent the email out to our little list at the time. And this is the very first time we'd ever done phone sales. I said, if you're interested, fill out a form, we'll call you on the phone. And for the next week or so, me and some of my buddies, we're calling people on the phone and trying to explain the offer to them. And in the first 10 days after we made that offer, we had 11 people who signed up for the $5,500 offer, which is like what, almost $60,000 saved. Christmas, I paid different Christmas fees. People started coming in and all of a sudden I was like, I had an offer, I had a really good offer. And that same offer, we ended up using that offer. We tweaked little variables of it, but that offer is basically my offer for the next five years. From that, we ended up building a sales team of over 60 full time salespeople. We had people coming in now to Boise every single month, coming in for events and live with coaching and stuff like that, all based off this one little offer. I think 15, $20 million in sales came off that one little offer that we'd created. So for you guys, again, like one little offer. And usually, I don't know if it's always the pattern for me, but usually the greatest offers come at a time when I'm about to lose everything, right? It's like I gotta come up with something. And that's when I started getting ideas for really good offers. Okay, so that was the second offer we made that changed everything for me. The third one was after we had built up the call center. We had 60 full time salespeople. It was growing. We had 20 full time coaches, we were doing events and it was like I had built up huge overhead, which that's an event for another day. If you cannot have overhead, the less Overhead the better. But we had this huge overhead. And I remember this was back, man, probably 14, 15 years ago. Everybody in our industry was all using the same merchant provider. And there were some people who were using that merchant provider who were doing some really shady stuff. And so they got pushed back by Visa and MasterCard. And so overnight they shut down like, I don't know, three or four thousand people's merchant accounts just overnight, just turned them off. Anyone here remember that? Some of the old OGs in the room will remember this whole thing. Anyway, So I had 14 merchant accounts and one day all of them disappeared. They shut down. And when you have, you know, 60 salespeople, 2100 full time employees and you're processing a lot of money to keep everything overnight, it all just froze and we lost all of our merch cats. The ability to process money disappeared. So one note for all of you guys, one is the scariest number in business. Always make sure you have backups. We had no backups. And then because that everyone got merch count shut down. Everyone was trying to get merchant account. It was really difficult. It was hard. It was just, it was a different day back then. But it was really hard to get merchant accounts. So much so that I had to start laying people off. I was literally hiring or like firing 20, 30 people a day. Like all you guys, you have to leave, I can't afford you. I have to leave. And like it was painful. I started firing friends, I was firing family members, I was firing all sorts of people just to keep our business afloat. And I remember we went from this huge 20,000 square foot building to the point where we'd fired everybody. We had no room for it. I couldn't pay the lease on it anymore. And I was just like, I'm in trouble. And I remember I told the landlord like, I can't keep our lease. He said, okay, well you need to leave and we're probably going to sue you. I'm like, cool, well I got nothing left, so come sue me. Like I don't even care. So we were packing up our office and getting everything out. And I remember we were throwing everything away, just trying to like to downsize. And we eventually were moving into this little 2,000 square foot building with the five or six of us that was left. But I remember the last night I was in this building. This was like, you know, you have a dream. Like this was my dream. We built this up. We had, there was an event center. People were coming to events and they're like, it was Like, I was like, my identity was so tied to this building. This location was like the most beautiful thing in the world. I remember the last night we were there, everything was gone. All the desks were gone, Everything was done. And I remember I was trying to think, like, how am I going to pay for the building, for the 2,000 square foot building? I have no money even to pay for that. I was like, I need to create an offer. I gotta create something so that we can be in this building. And so I sent a couple emails out to my list. At the time, I hadn't got on a webinar. And I remember, it's crazy. I was sitting in this little room. It's my old office, there's no desk left. I remember I had my shoes off, so I was in my socks. I was sitting on the floor because there was no desk. And I promoted this webinar. And actually that's not true. It was the teleseminar. Me and Myron talked about this last night. Pre webinars. We did everything on the phone. There was these things called teleseminars. And so I'm sitting on the floor with my laptop, pick up the phone. A whole bunch of people had registered for this call. And I started talking and I was telling them a story and I made them an offer. And I was like, in my head, I was like, if nobody buys this, I'm in big trouble. I don't know what to do. And so I had to make this offer as good as possible. And I remember putting together this offer for $1,000. Something I put together offer, made a really good offer stack and did the webinar or did the teleseminar, made the offer. And at the end of that offer, I remember, like I made, I pushed the sales and then I was done, hung up the phone. And then I remember like putting my laptop, walking out the door, shutting the door, doors locked behind me. And I was just like, that was an era of my life. It's over. I remember walking home, getting my car, driving home and just kind of like, I don't know, just that feeling of just that kind of sadness and depression and like, man, like I let down all these people, all these staff, all these employees, all these people I cared about, just kind of let them down and being upset and frustrated and all those things and scared. Getting home, walking in, seeing my wife, see my beautiful kids, putting them to bed at night and then getting on my laptop just to check to see if I made any sales and opening it up and still Things like, look at my account. And we sold over 30 people. A thousand dollar offer, $30,000 in the account. I was like, oh, my gosh. And next day, sales kept coming in. We sent out a replay of the audio and over the next week, period of time, over six figures in sales on this offer, which gave me the ability to pay for. To pay for the new office, gave me the ability to pay for the employees. We had to make sure we could fulfill on everything and just. It wasn't an offer that we blew up in scale, but it was an offer that saved me at a time that I needed it. Dan Kennedy, who's my original mentor, he's the guy that I learned all this stuff from initially. He used to have a saying. He would say, he's like, if you have, if you need money, he's like, you gotta create an offer. And then you send the bill to the herd. So he's like, if I wanna buy a brand new house, what do you do? So you create an offer and you send the bill to the herd. The herd will pay for your house. You've probably heard the story about John Lennon and Paul McCartney back in the day when they were top of the game. They were sitting there one day and they're like, we need to like, I want a swimming pool. I think it was John. I think it was John Lennon said, well, then we should just write ourselves a swimming pool. And they sat down and they wrote the words to the song Love, Love Me do. Sold that, boom, made enough money to pay for the swimming pool. So they wrote themselves a swimming pool. Like, that's what you guys have the ability to do when you start creating offers, right? You write yourself a swimming pool. Like, what do you want? You want a new house? You want a new car? You want a new couch? You need money to save yourself. You need like, whatever. Like you just, you write, you create an offer and you send the bill out to your people. And people come in. When Dan Kennedy, When Dan Kennedy got divorced the second or third time or something, he told me, he's like, I got divorced. He's like, the next. He's like, I was going through a divorce. He's like, the next day, one of my longtime members sent me a fax. Because you only communicate with Dan Kennedy through fax machine, even to this day, which is weird, but whatever. But he's like, he's like, so and so faxed me and he asked me, he's like, when are you going to be sending out the offer? He's like, what do you mean? He's like. He's like, well, you're going through a diverse divorce. I'm assuming you're gonna make an irresistible offer to us to be able to pay for it. And the audience was like, Trey, like, he's like, you are correct. And they create an offer, sent it out, and paid for the door. But that's, like, the thing you guys will start. Like, if you master this skill. Yes. If you master the skill that we're talking about over the next couple days, it'll give you guys the ability to do that. It'll change your life forever. Okay, so there's three times. I think I have two more I was gonna share, and then I got some cool teaching points I wanna share with. Oh, yeah. The next one was. So after we shut the office down, everything went away. We made that offer, gave us a breathing room. Then over the next, like, three or four years, I was creating all sorts of offers. I put out offers every week. Every two weeks, we put another offer, another offer. And, like, I was trying this and trying that, trying to figure out what did the audience respond to, what did they want? What did they not want? And I kept putting offer after offer. And while we were doing that, every time we would create. We would put it into, like, what I call a sales funnel. Some of you guys are familiar with that is. But we create sales funnels. And so we create a sales funnel, launch that offer. It would work or didn't work. Create another one. Work or didn't work. And during this window of time, we put out over 100 different funnels, 100 different offers. And what I. What I found is, like, as I kept creating these different offers and putting them into a funnel, I was. We were building a funnel and another funnel, another funnel. My team was like, we are so tired of building these funnels for you, Russell. It's taking so much time. And one of my buddies, one of my business. He's my business partner now, one of the guys that worked for me at the time, his name's Todd Dickerson. And Todd was like, I could build software that just made this really, really easy. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, we could build software. And then instead of me custom building a funnel for you every single time, we could just make it really simple where even you could do it, Russell. And in fact, it was the joke while they were building clickfunnels, like, we can build something so simple that Russell can use it that anybody can. I was like, what does that Mean, like, that's not very nice. I'm definitely the non technical co founder. Like I had no tech skills and so that was the goal. Make it so simple. Roscoe, do it. So Todd built what became clickfunnels, right? And so when clickfunnels was done, I was like, this is gonna be the greatest thing in the world. We're gonna change everyone's life. We're gonna sell this thing like crazy. And so we created the very first clickfunnels offer. How many of you guys have ever created an offer and you launched it and it didn't work and you're like, oh, I suck at this, right? So it makes you feel any better? I've been doing this for a decade and a half of this period. We created click funnels, like arguably I think the greatest offer of all time. I created an offer and we launched it to our list and it was crickets. Hardly anybody bought it. I was like, oh, like, this is not good. We spent so much time and energy and effort and money, like everything we had to make to build this thing. We launched it. It didn't work. I was, okay, the offer is wrong, let me redo it. So we re changed the offer. We tried it again, we launched the second time, Nothing like, oh crap, came back, refigured out the offer, launched it again. Griefly offer launch again. Six times. Six times I had to rebuild the ClickFunnels offer. The sixth time, it was literally the point where I was about to give up. We were like, we spent all of our, like all of our life savings, all of our work, all of our effort building this thing we thought was gonna change the world. And nobody was buying it. Like, what's wrong? Why is it not working? And one of my friends called me, he's like, hey, Russell, I need you to speak in an event. And it had probably this about 300 people, so half the room the size of the event. So I need you to come speak to this event and I want you to sell click funnels. I was like, I got bad news for you. Nobody's buying click funnels. He's like, he's like, I want you to come in. I want you to sell it for. I can make a thousand dollar package and sell the event. We'll split the money 50, 50. I was like, you don't understand. Right now clickfunnels is free. It's a free 14 day trial and nobody's buying this thing. I've tried everything. I've tried five different ways. Selling. Nobody's buying It. He's like. He's like, well, I have your face on the sales letter. You have to come and sell clickfunnels to my audience. I was like, you didn't ask me and you put my face on the sales letter. He's like, people buying tickets based in fact, you're gonna be there. Like, ah, so the event's happening. And I remember I was. He was streaming. It was right at the very beginning. People weren't streaming events back then, but for some reason, he was streaming this. So I was in my office and I was watching the event happen. Watch. Day number one, I was speaking day number three. So I'm watching the event happen. I'm flying out. Day number two, I'm stressed out. Like, how am I going to create an offer to sell clickfunnels for a thousand dollars? Like, okay. I was like, how am I gonna do this? And so I started putting together a webinar presentation. How am I gonna position this? And I was like, I need to create a really good offer. So I was like, okay, we create an offer. We're going to give them click funnels. We'll click funnels for a year. And then like, what else can I put in there? Like, oh, we could put in, like, a course that teaches them how to use funnels. A lot of people don't know what funnels are. And what if we put in this? I started creating an offer, put together the offer. The next day, I fly to San Diego, where this event's at. I show up in a room with this many people, and I'm like. In my head, I'm like, nobody's buying clickfunnels. I gotta convince these people. And so I created this presentation, started going through the slides, and the end of an hour, we transitioned to the offer put together. Offer went through. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Started doing the offer stack, showed people what the offer was, and when it was done, it was crazy. I'd seen people have table rushes in the past. You'd seen table rush before. People started jumping over. And, like, I'd seen it before, but I'd never had it happen before. So I make this offer, I go out there, put my tone for a thousand bucks. You click forms for a year, plus you get this. Plus you get. I made this offer, and people started, like, jumping over the seats. People are knocking each other over. People are throwing credit cards. People are like. And I'm watching this, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, this feels great. This is amazing. And I'm not even Half. I'm like, not even finished with my pitch. People running. I'm like. And so I. At first, I caught me soft guard. I'm like, whoa. I was like. I like, look at this, you guys. Like, these guys get it. And everyone looked over to everyone else that's like sprinting through. And then they're all like, freaking out. They're jumping over, like. And it was crazy. I couldn't even finish my pitch because the offer was so good and people were going crazy. We ended up selling like 50, 60% of the room. Bought the thing at that moment. It was crazy. We get done, and the promoter hands me this big stack of order forms and I'm like, this is like, this is crazy. Everyone's order forms worth a thousand dollars, right? Which is blowing my mind. And that night, I went to dinner with Todd Dickerson and his wife. Who. My business partner. His wife. And then Dylan Jones, who allowed our business partner. We're sitting at dinner, we're just laughing, having a good time. And I was like, do you guys realize what just happened? They're like, yeah, that was amazing. I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. I was like, I have never had that happen before. That is the greatest offer I've ever put together and see people react like that. I was like, we're going to be rich. And they're like, ah. You understand, like, not like, like million dollar rich or $10 million rich. Like, we're going to make hundreds of millions of dollars with this. Like, you serious? I'm like, this is the greatest offer I've ever had. Okay, within. So that was nine, nine years ago. As that event this year, I will cross a billion dollars in sales from that one offered. That crazy. I didn't think that's possible. That's the power of a really good offer. Okay, I got one more story. And then I got some teaching points. I have no idea how long I gotta go for, so someone will just pull me off stage and we're done. Is that cool? Because. Anyway, so last one is. About two years ago, I had a vision for something really weird. And I was like, I want to build a library museum in Boise, Idaho. I want to have big old statues in it of Atlas holding the way the world on his shoulder. I want to buy the most rare, expensive books on the planet. And people are like, why? I'm like, I have no idea. It just seems like the right thing to do at this time in my life. And so I started pursuing this vision, right? And so, like, I Start buying these old rare books. And so I was telling the group yesterday, in the last two years, I've bought over 15,000 first edition books in all my favorite genres. Personal development, religion, business, marketing. I spent about $12 million in just books. Like old, old, old books and manuscripts. And it's the coolest, weirdest, nerdiest thing in the world. And I think my staff thought I was insane because every day I'd be on ebay and I'd buy 40, 50, 60 books and then eBay would deliver 40, 50, 60 books. In fact, during about a 12 or about a 12 month period of time, everybody at the post office knew who I was in Boise. It was ridiculous because I was getting so many packages coming every single day. Cause you're buying one book at a time. 50 books. 15,000, 15,000 packages delivered to my office in a year. So that's. You can do the math on how many a day. People thought I was crazy. My entire staff's like, should we lock him up? Do we need to delete the app from his phone? Like, get rid of ebay? Like, something is wrong with Russell. I'm like, no, no, I promise. I see a vision. It's going to be amazing. I don't know how to explain it yet, but there's something big happening. So I was working towards that vision, working towards it, and then two months ago I was like, this is getting really expensive. Like, I wonder if I can somehow send the bill to my herd. How can I get other people to help me finance this thing? Because this is a lot of money in books. And I gotta build a building. It's a $20 million building. Between the building and the statues, the event center, all the kind of stuff we're trying to build. And I go to the bank and I was like, hey, bank, will you give me $20 million to build this building? And they're like, why? I'm like, because I'm buying these old books. It's gonna be really cool. People will come to Boise to see the old books and then it'll be awesome. And the bank's like, what? They're like, you want to build a building with statues in it? I'm like, yeah, there's like, if some of you guys have seen, like, there's three statues. One of Atlas holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. One with Atlas standing and shrugging, and one with him walking away. It's a nine foot statue holding a six foot globe. And they're like, you don't understand. Like, if we Give you the money for this building, and you default on loan. There's no other human on this planet who will give us money to buy a building with three statues in it and a stadium in Boise, Idaho. This is the weirdest thing ever. And so I went to, like, 20 different banks. All of them, like, we're not going to give you any money for that. We're not giving you money. I'm like, you understand that the vision is huge. We're going to make so much. We're going to change the world with it. They're like, you're an idiot. I'm like, I swear I've got a good track record, and I can't explain it well, but this is going to change the world. No banks give me any money. So two months ago, I'm in Mexico and with my mastermind group, and I'm about to. The week before we go, we had the idea, like, what if we created an offer where the seats that are actually in the event center, what if we sold the rights to those seats where someone could pay a million dollars and they would have access and they could come whenever they want and they have a seat. So anytime we do events and seminars that they own that seat, It'd be their seat. Like, how much will we charge? Like, let's charge a million dollars for that offer. Like, no one's going to pay a million dollars to rent a seat in your library, Russell. Like, no, no, I think they will. It's going to be amazing. And they're like, and then we got to make this offer irresistible. How do we make it where it's, like, literally free? They spend a million dollars for the seat, but then they can run an event at the event center, which they'll make at least a million dollars from that. Plus, like, what if we give them virtual tickets? We started creating this offer, like, virtual tickets where they could, like, sell those tickets to their audience. They make money from that. And what if we did this? And we sat down, we started brainstorming, how do we make an irresistible offer? So we created this offer. And I was like, this is really, really good. So before we left Mexico, I sat down, I recorded a video, me telling the story. Okay, I'm getting this hook story offer. But I told the story. This is the story. Like, why I'm creating this, what is and why you can be part of it. And we made this offer. So I go to Mexico. We've got about a little less than this, people in the room. I'm nervous. Like, I still get Nervous every time I have a new offer. Like, what if everyone makes fun of me? What if they reject me? What if they think I'm a hoarder because I have so many books and, like, all the different things. Right. Some of my staff said the only difference between hoarding and collecting is the size of the space that you're putting it in. I was like, I need to get this library before people start. Yeah, put me on the show. Anyway, so I'm in Mexico, and I almost chicken out. Like, I'm like, ah, do I do this? Like, they're all gonna make fun of me. What if it doesn't work? All this stuff. I'm sure you guys feel every time you put an offer out there, I'm freaking out, planning, like, 10 minutes before I'm going on stage. I decided I'm not gonna. I'm showing the video, but I'm not gonna make the offer. I'm just gonna do it. I'm sitting backstage or back behind the audience, and then Eileen Wilder walks up. And you guys are gonna hang out with Eileen. I think today or tomorrow. She's one of the most coolest people in the world. She comes up to me. She's like, hey, you gonna make the offer? I was like, ah, no. Like, I'm gonna show the video. I'm not gonna make the offer. Like. Like, anyway. She's like, you have to make the offer. These people want it. Russell, like, you're gonna change your life again. You have to make the offer. I was like, but, like, what if. What if they laugh at me? What if they make fun of me? I make freaky. She say, you have to make the offer. And, like, he said, she's like, this little, skinny nice person, but she's, like, yelling at me, you have to make the offer. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna make the offer. And she sat down with me. Like, how do I make this better? She's tweaking it, and she's shifting things with me. I'm like, oh. And so then I'm texting my team. I'm like, we're making the offer. Like, what are you talking about? We haven't planned this yet. I'm like, I know. Like, create an order form. Like, right now that you're on stage, like, 30 seconds. I'm like, oh, I'll make an order form and make it. I can't. I gave him a link. They make this link right here. I make an order form there. Because we're doing the same. And so they're backstage behind the scenes, like trying to set up an order form. The Internet access in Mexico is horrible. So they're like trying to connect, they're trying to get things out, putting in an order form. I'm on stage, I show this video, I come off, I'm making the stack, I'm making this offer on the thing and in my head I'm like, nobody, like no sane human being on this planet is going to pay a million dollars to get a seat at my library. But I have to put this out there because Eileen just yelled at me and I trust her and she's amazing. But what other thing? So I put the million dollar offer out and guess who's the first person to bought Myron Golden. He's the first person. Not only is Myron Pratt, I talk about this, he does this every single day. He's the very first person to sign up and then somebody else signs up and somebody else signs up. By the time we leave Mexico, over $14 million raised towards my $20 million building. That crazy. All for making offers. An offer will change your life, you guys, in a lot of ways. And it's going to change at different points. When I was, you know, 22 year old Russell, newlywed trying to get a couch for my wife, an offer changed my life. Right when I'm 43 year old Russell who's trying to change the world, this vision for this insane thing, an offer made it possible. Like learning how to create and structure offers will change your life.