Russell Answers 3 New Questions LIVE...

Summary

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The Russell Brunson Show

Episode: Russell Answers 3 New Questions LIVE...
Date: July 21, 2017
Host: Russell Brunson
Special Guests: Family members Dallin, Nora, Dexter (for the "Drop the Mic" fun)

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Episode Overview

In this family-infused Q&A episode, Russell Brunson answers three listener business questions live while on vacation at Bear Lake. He dives into essential entrepreneurial topics—customer acquisition costs, motivation through hard times, and the strategic order of building sales funnels—sharing advice that's both practical and immediately actionable. The show has a light, casual tone, with playful "drop the mic" moments courtesy of Russell’s kids.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Calculating Customer Acquisition Cost Without Lifetime Value (Steve’s Question)

Timestamp: 03:08–05:52

• Steve asks:
  How do you determine how much you can spend to acquire a customer (CPA) if you don't yet know your customer's lifetime value (LTV), especially when using paid ads?
• Russell’s insight:
  • He emphasizes that while everyone talks about LTV as a key business metric, it's not the best basis for ad spend decisions—especially for new businesses where LTV data is unclear or very long-term.
  • Instead, Russell advises focusing on Average Cart Value (ACV):

    “I am not a big fan of lifetime value of customer... What I do, I'm not looking for lifetime value initially when I'm doing my paid ads. I'm looking for what's my ACV, my average cart value.” (04:00)

  • The aim should be to break even immediately at the point of sale (not months later as LTV evolves), otherwise your funnel isn’t effective enough:

    “If my funnel doesn't break even immediately, I stop all ads to it and I try to get my funnel better.” (05:24)

  • Example: For his own “Expert Secrets” book funnel, he can spend up to $32 per customer since that's the immediate cart value on average—making ad spend math simple and actionable.

Memorable Moment: Nora excitedly “drops the mic” after Russell’s answer, adding family charm to the segment.

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2. Finding Motivation During Tough Times (Lion Talk Motivation’s Question)

Timestamp: 06:35–08:55

• Lion Talk Motivation asks:
  During the ClickFunnels journey, what was Russell’s main source of inspiration when facing crossroads or uncertainty?
• Russell’s insight:
  • Motivation is layered. For him, the act of creating is inherently motivating:

    “Part of my motivation is I'm a creator. I love creating stuff. And so, like, just knowing what we were creating got me motivated…” (07:37)

  • Vision is critical—he quotes the proverb:

    “They always say that without a vision, the people perish.” (07:52)

  • He brings it to the personal level:

    “This little guy right here is my inspiration. Down to my little entrepreneur, huh?” (08:01)

  • Russell encourages entrepreneurs to visualize the end impact on users—how the product will change lives—as an ongoing driver.
  • Financial prospects do play a part, but vision and impact are core.
  • Takeaway: “Having a vision of where you want to go, what you want to create and do… and then going from there.” (08:35)

Notable moment: Interactions with his kids keep things spontaneous and lighthearted—even as he shares deep business truths.

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3. Should You Build the Back End or Front End Offer First? (The Bike Whisperer’s Question)

Timestamp: 09:32–12:26

• The Bike Whisperer asks:
  In “Expert Secrets” Russell suggests building your top-value (back end) offer first, but isn’t there a case for building the front end (self-liquidating) offer before the back end to quickly bring in customers and get feedback?
• Russell’s insight:
  • He stands by his advice to start with the back end:

    “The reason why most entrepreneurs don't succeed is not because they don't have the vision. It's because... they run out of time or they run out of money before they ever get to the answer.” (10:44)

  • Building a low-priced front end may bring in leads, but if it only breaks even, there’s no profit to fuel growth or impact.
  • High-value back end offers:
    • Deliver cash flow faster, working with fewer customers but more depth.
    • Create the foundation for your business; front-end offers can then feed into the back once established.

    “...it's harder to make front end products and front end stuff than it is to build back end, high ticket stuff.” (10:54)

  • Key advice:

    “Start with the back. Blow people's minds, get results first, and then from that, you can build out the front end program.” (12:09)

  • He underscores entrepreneurial resilience:

    “I don't want people running out of time, running out of money before they have the ability to actually change people's lives.” (12:03)

Memorable moment: Playful family interruptions (slime attack, four-wheelers) underscore the laid-back, “real life” vibe of the show.

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Notable Quotes & Highlights

• On making funnel profitability measurable:

  “That's the metric I'm looking at because now I know I can spend up to $32 and still break even in the cart.” (04:36)

• On personal motivation and vision:

  “For me, it's like, okay, like, when people are using this, what's it gonna mean? How's it gonna affect them? How's it gonna change them and their lives and the people they can serve. And I think that's what drove a lot of us.” (08:13)

• On the order of funnel building:

  “It can be disheartening on an entrepreneur to make a million dollars and to be broke... Start with the back. Blow people's minds, get results first, and then from that, you can build out the front end program.” (11:36 & 12:09)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:08 – Question 1: How to calculate CPA without LTV
• 04:00–05:52 – Russell’s answer: Focus on Average Cart Value, not LTV
• 06:35–07:26 – Question 2: Staying motivated during the journey
• 07:37–08:35 – Russell’s answer: Vision, creating, and making it real
• 09:32–10:26 – Question 3: Funnel building sequence (back end or front end first)
• 10:44–12:26 – Russell’s answer: Why back end first is (still) best, practical reasoning

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Tone and Style

Russell keeps the tone energetic, personable, and a bit “behind-the-scenes”—letting listeners glimpse both his marketing mind and his family moments. The wisdom is practical (and at times contrarian), reflecting the “break out of the box” ethos of the podcast.

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Closing & Call to Action

Russell wraps with gratitude, family fun, and a reminder about engaging with future shows:

“If you want me to answer your questions, it’s really easy. Just go to Instagram… ask me a question, tag me Russell Brunson and then do #askrussellanything…” (14:01)

Steve (Question 1) wins this week’s “drop mic” prize.

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Summary Table

| Segment | Key Topic | Russell’s Core Advice | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------|------------| | 1. Calculating CPA Without LTV | Paid traffic & immediate value | Focus on ACV, break even ASAP | 03:08–05:52| | 2. Staying Motivated in Business | Source of entrepreneurial inspiration | Vision, creation, thinking of impact | 06:35–08:35| | 3. Building Funnel: Back End or Front End| Funnel offer sequencing | Build back end first, get wins, then front end | 09:32–12:26|

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For actionable marketing wisdom that’s light on jargon and big on real results, this episode is a quick, motivating listen—especially for entrepreneurs at any stage of the journey.

Transcript

[Orly]

Hey, everyone, Orly is listening on another.

[Russell Brunson]

Q and A show. This is a quick one. Did there's just three questions, but I.

[Orly]

Thought, especially question one I really liked a lot and thought it was helpful for you guys. I did this when I was in Bear Lake on my family vacation. Had my cute little daughter Nora there dropping the mic, and it was a lot of fun. If you watch the video version on dropthemicshow.com you can see that. But regardless, there's some good questions, good answers here. I hope you guys enjoy it. And if you can again take a few minutes out of your busy day and go give us a rating and review, that'd be huge for us. Try and boost up our reviews because as you know, a couple months back, we switched our iTunes URL and we lost all of our reviews. So we need to get back, let people know how much you love it. I know you're listening because we're in the top five right now of all business podcasts. I think we're talking about 40 of all podcasts as a whole. So thank you for that listening, but we need more reviews and if you can take a few minutes out of your busy day and do that, that would be amazing. Thanks so much and I hope you enjoy this Q and A show.

[Russell Brunson]

My name is Russell Brunson, and I'm on a journey to help entrepreneurs get unstuck so that they can give back to changing the world. In the past 10 years, I built a following a million entrepreneurs like you, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of my books, popularized the concept of sales funnels, and co founded a software company called Click Funnels that helps tens of thousands of entrepreneurs to quickly get their message out to the marketplace. If you've got questions, I've got answers. Here's how it works. Step number one, go to Instagram and create a video asking me your number one question. Step number two, tag me at usselbrunson so that I can see your question. Step number three, use askrussellanything so my team is notified. And then each week I'll pick the top 10 questions and answer them on Instagram Live. After each question, I'll drop the mic. But for the best question each week, we'll ship you out your own drop mic. Now make sure you follow me on Instagram to see if I answer your questions live. Ask me your questions so that you can get unstuck and get back to changing the world. What's up, everybody? I am here with Dallin and Nora. We're about to start A vacation edition of the Drop the Mic show. Do you want to show me you can drop the mic?

[Nora]

Yeah, do you want to drop the mic?

[Russell Brunson]

Drop it. Oh, she's been practicing, so she is the drop the Mic queen Down. You can drop the mic today too. You think? Drop the mic. Oh. All right. So we are gonna be doing it. It's gonna. It's gonna be so much fun. Excited to have you guys here. And we've got three questions today. Normally we do. Normally we do 10, but because we are streaming off a really bad Internet access and we're hoping and praying that this actually is gonna work and I could actually ask the questions, it's gonna be kind of fun. So, Dex, you wanna drop the mic? Huh? Dex is gonna drop the mic. Oh, Nora, you wanna drop it again while everyone's coming on? Norah's gonna drop it while we're preparing. Do you want to practice?

[Orly]

Okay.

[Russell Brunson]

Drop the mic. Drop it. Drop it. Yeah.

[Nora]

You did it.

[Russell Brunson]

So I've got three questions from you guys we're gonna go through and we're. Noah's gonna drop the mic for us. Hopefully that's how it works. So hopefully this will work. So I got three questions here on Instagram. I'm gonna try to load them up on this phone here. I've not pre listened or pre read these questions, so I hope that nobody yells at me or says something awkward. Alright, here we go. Question number one.

[Steve]

My name's Steve. Happy confusionsoft Friday. Thanks for taking my question. My question is about customer CPA and ltv. I've got a relatively new business, so I don't have enough data to accurately calculate what my lifetime value of my customer is. And so I'm having a hard time knowing how much I should pay for each customer, what my customer cost per acquisition is. How would you go about doing that? Calculating how much to pay for a customer if you don't know your lifetime value. Using paid traffic right now, Google AdWords and Facebook ads.

[Russell Brunson]

Thanks.

[Steve]

Have a great day.

[Nora]

Nora, look at me.

[Russell Brunson]

Alright, first off, I am also jealous of that beard. I cannot grow a beard, otherwise I would. So this is from Steve Kellen. We're live on tv. You guys, all the kids. We got all the kids here. So. Alright, so Nora, you want to answer this question? Okay, so Steve, that's a great question. So his question was, how do you calculate lifetime value if your company's doing? You don't know the lifetime value. So lifetime value is one of those, like dream metrics people want to know and they always want to talk about. I am not a big fan of lifetime value of customer. Obviously, I want to make that number bigger, but I don't want to base my advertising decisions on lifetime value because that might be six months now, a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now. And if I make my decisions based on that, it's hard to be profitable. Lifetime value is a good metric if you are working with venture capitalists who want to give you a whole bunch of money and whole bunch of debt and hopefully you'll pay them off and that, you know, five years from now. But that's not what we're about, Dallin. Right. We're about making money today. So what I do, I'm not looking for lifetime value initially when I'm doing my paid ads. I'm looking for what's my acv, my average cart value. So how much money do I make on average for every single person who buys one of my front end products? Okay, so for example, if someone buys the Expert Secrets book, I know that my cost to acquire customer right now is about, I think it's like 11 or $12 to get somebody to buy the book. But then in the funnel, in that point of sale, the break even funnel, it's more. Break even is profitable. But we're making about $32 for every single book we sell. So that's the metric I'm looking at because now I know I can spend up to $32 and still break even in the cart. So ACV, average cart value. That's the metric you need to focus on and think about while you are doing, while you are building your company and your advertising around that. I want to break even immediately at point of self, my advertising. If not, it means my funnel is not very good. Okay. Or some people like to go, you know, maybe seven days or 14 days or six, you know, 30 days, 60 days before they break even. That stresses me out. If my funnel doesn't break even immediately, I stop all ads to it and I try to get my funnel better. So that is kind of my recommendation to you, Steve. Does that sound good? All right. Nor you want to drop the microphone? Okay. Nor hold the mic.

[Orly]

Oh, nice one.

[Russell Brunson]

Okay, Dallin's gonna drop it. Drop the mic. Oh, question number one has been answered. Okay, so your question number two now. Great question, Steve. All right, question number two now let's see. Oops. All right, sorry. This is a little. A little harder to do this way. I'm bad Internet. All right, this next question is coming from the lion Talk motivation. He's got to say. Oh, come on. Loading. Loading. While we're waiting for his video to load, Nora and I are gonna sing a song. Just kidding. We're not really. Do I sing a song ABC Dallin's gonna sing? No, I'm not. Oh, come on, Internet.

[Lion Talk Motivation]

Oh, hey.

[Russell Brunson]

Oh, here comes. It's loading. Alright, let me flip this around. Okay, here comes the question.

[Lion Talk Motivation]

Hey, how's it going? Just want to do the Lizbenny kapow. Shout out to Lizbenny down there in Christchurch, New Zealand. Russell, I know I'm probably late for the mic drop because I just woke up down here in New Zealand, but anyways, I want to share it anyway. My question to you is, during your clickfunnel journey, I'm sure you, you came to a lot of crossroads and you were lost and you just trying to find direction. What was your main source of inspiration that directed you? That's my question to you, my brother. I want to thank you so much for the opportunity I have to be on the mic drop and to be a part of the Click Funnel movement. It's amazing. And thanks, man. Blessings. Shout out to everyone out there in Boise, Idaho, and have a great day.

[Russell Brunson]

All right, so great question. Nora grabbed it in the middle. I think we got the gist. His question first. I said kapow from Lizbenny's. Thank you for kapowing us for this question. His question is, we were building click phones. How do we get the motivation to move forward and to do it? So I don't know. I think there's different levels of motivation. They come from different things. For me, you know, part of my motivation is I'm a creator. I love creating stuff. And so, like, just knowing what we were creating got me motivated. I think, like, we're going to create this thing and we this vision of what we want it to be. They always say that without a vision, the people perish.

[Nora]

A book.

[Russell Brunson]

What's that?

[Nora]

Your book, your first book. Is that one of your inspirations?

[Russell Brunson]

Yeah, the book's inspiration. This little guy right here is my inspiration. Down to my little entrepreneur, huh? But they always say, without a vision, the people perish. The first thing is, do you have a vision of what it is you want to create and what you want to do? And then I see that and I like, God, I see the vision. I know where we're going. And then with that, I'll try to make it as real as possible. For me, it's like, okay, like, when people are Using this, like, what's it gonna mean? How's it gonna affect them? How's it gonna change them and their lives and the people they can serve. And I think that's what drove a lot of us. Obviously, you know, some of the other things that drive, you know, as entrepreneurs, as capitalists, we like money. And the thought of what could happen, like, that drove me, like, man, this could be something that sets us apart for life. I also thought about, like, potential as you start building a team, like employees and jobs and just all the other cool stuff that comes with building. And so I think it's just finding whatever gets you passion fired up. I know, but you're just too close. You're too close to her. She's bug dinner, huh? Who's got a baby live. You never know how they're gonna react anyway, let's figure those things out and. But having a vision of where you want to go, what you want to create and do, and then. And then going from there. So I hope that helps. Does that count? Can we drop the mic? All right. Nor. You want to drop it, don't drop it. She's dropping them all day today. Now she won't drop it. Okay, dad, you want to drop it? She dropped the mic. Oh. All right, we dropped number two. Okay, we got one last question for everybody. Question number three here. Hopefully we can get this to stream for us. All right, so question number three looks like it's coming from. Oh, I know this guy. All right, let me see how it loads up. The bike Whisperer. He's one of our circle members. All right, let me flip.

[The Bike Whisperer]

Russell, I have a question for you. So in Expert Secrets, it talks about how you want to start building at the back end. So build your highest value offer first and then kind of move forward to your self liquidating offer at the front end. My question is, is that always the best case? Seems to me, as I've been working, like, maybe it would be easier to start at the front end, get an offer that could be self liquidating or close to self liquidating so that you could then just have a bunch of people to work with. And then even if it's just you're breaking even at first, you get a lot of feedback and you know that that critical mass could help you develop what you need to do later on or to get people through the funnel. So my question is, is it better? Is it always better to start at the back end of your funnel, or is it sometimes better to start at the front end and get a Bunch of people to work with that way.

[Russell Brunson]

All right, so great question. So this question, there are people on four wheelers going around like crazy rounds too. So the question is, is it better to start in the back end, the funnel, or the front end? And expert secrets for those who've read it. If you haven't, go to expertsecrets.com and read the book we talk about. A lot of times it's better to start in the back end. And I'm still a believer in starting the back end. And the reason why is because the reason why most entrepreneurs don't succeed is not because they don't have the vision. It's because they have the vision. They start running, and then one of two things usually happens. Either they run out of time or they run out of money before they ever get to the answer. And so they don't have the chance and ability to change people's lives and do all the things that they wanted to and they need to do. And so it's hard. A lot of times when you spend all this time and energy and effort, it takes just, ouch. Hit in the face with some slime from Dexie. It takes just as much time, if not more to create a front. Actually, I think it's harder to make front end products and front end stuff than it is to build back end, high ticket stuff. And so the problem is, like, you spend all this time and energy and effort building this front end thing with the goal of it just breaking even, which is good, it's a good goal. But the problem is then, like, where do you put them to next? I would say, like, first funnel you build, you should build it and then keep tweaking it and working out until it's made you at least a million bucks. But the problem is, if the first one's just a friend and funnel and you make a million bucks, if you broke even, you didn't make anything. It can be disheartening on an entrepreneur to make a million dollars and to be broke. So a lot of times I think it's better to start with the back end because you can maybe don't work with as many people, but you can work more intimately and you can get cash flow coming in faster. And then now that back thinking is in place, and then you can create front ends to bring people into the back end. So that's kind of my personal feeling. I just know as an entrepreneur, I don't want people running out of time, running out of money before they have.

[Orly]

The ability to actually change. People's lives.

[Russell Brunson]

So that's kind of my feelings, and.

[Orly]

I think it works.

[Russell Brunson]

What's the book again? ExpertSecrets.com is the book. So that's my answer. Start with the back. Blow people's minds, get results first, and then from that, you can build out the front end program. So I hope that helps. That's kind of what I got. What do you think? That was a good question.

[Nora]

This is what I think we think.

[Russell Brunson]

Here comes. Oh, Dallin officially dropped the mic. It's been dropped.

[Nora]

It been dropped.

[Russell Brunson]

Okay, so we want to tell everybody.

[Nora]

Dallin, Curtis, Brunson out.

[Russell Brunson]

Dallin's out. Oh, Russell Brunson's out, too. Anyway, you guys, I hope that was fun for you guys. We had a good time to do the show, which is pretty fun. Oh, Nora says hi. See? Guys, welcome. Drop the mic, Nora. Normal mic one more time. Nora, you want to drop it? Dexter, scared or anything with that? No. Okay. Nora doesn't want to drop the mic, but I'm going to drop it and we're going to check it out. We're actually packing up today and heading back home. So the mic, my mom does not want to be on, so I'm dropping the mic, you guys. With that said, thanks so much for hanging out today. Appreciate you guys, amazing time. If you're bored this weekend, watch Instagram up above. I got actually a couple shows and things that went live that I'm going to be showing you guys on my swipe ups, a bunch of other fun things. Appreciate you guys all. And if you want to stay in the back archives of these question Q and A shows, go to dropthemicshow.com where you can watch us drop the mic. And your question may have already been answered. Oh, and by the way, whoever's got the best question each week, we actually give out one of these drop mics to. And so who should win this week? Who do you think? Dallas, first, second, or third? All right. Dallin says the first. First. All right. Which I think his name is. Steve.

[Orly]

First.

[Nora]

Steve, congratulations. You win a drop yam own mic.

[Russell Brunson]

Boom. So we're shining out a drop mic. Just message me or my team and let us know your shipping address. We'll ship you out. Or drop the mic and be fun. So that's all we got. Nora, you want to drop the mic one time? Everyone's saying they want Nora to drop the mic. We drop the mic, please. Nora, will you drop the mic here.

[Nora]

I'll give you the fish spinner.

[Russell Brunson]

Okay. We dropped the mic. Oh, she's tired. You want to drop it? Okay. She's not going to drop it. Sorry, guys. That's awesome. So I'll be doing this Queen Air show. I'll be back in town next week, so it'll be happening Thursday at Two Mountain, I believe. If you want me to answer your questions, it's really easy. Just go to Instagram down below, click the little plus, ask me a question, tag me Russell Brunson and then do askrussellanything just in the little description there and then my team will know. So if you want me to ask your question, you gotta submit it. So do it now before you forget and I will see you guys all again soon. Thanks everybody and we'll see you guys soon. Bye. Say bye. Bye boy.

[Orly]

Bye.

[Russell Brunson]

Dallin, Curtis Brunson officially out. Boom. Bye. 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 [e-mail] and book number two is called Dotcom Secrets and you can get your free [e-mail] 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.