Listen to part 3 of 4 of my keynote presentation from FHL. During this part of the presentation, I start diving deeper into how to tell stories and how those stories relate to the perfect webinar. On today’s episode you will hear part 3 of 4 of Russell’s first presentation at Funnel Hacking Live 2019. Here are some of the super awesome things you will hear in this part:

-- Find out why the story you tell is so important in order to break down false belief patterns.

-- Hear why the more complex the product, the more stories you have to have to sell it.

-- And find out what kinds of stories break specific kinds of false beliefs, and how they are different.

So listen here to hear the third part of Russell’s keynote presentation at this year’s Funnel Hacking Live.

Something happened to each of you emotionally that got you in. So for us to be able to convince other people, we have to get rid of all the techno babble and you have to remember what was the thing, what was the story, what was the reason that got me started on this journey? And as you tell that story, you give people the same epiphany that you had, that’s when you’re able to change their destiny. That’s when you’re able to help them.

-- ClickFunnels: Everything you need to start market, sell, and deliver your products and services online (without having to hire or rely on a tech team!)

-- DotComSecrets: Get a free copy of the "Underground Playbook For Growing Your Company Online With Sales Funnels."

​-- Expert Secrets: Get a free copy of the "Underground Playbook For Converting Your Online Visitors Into Lifelong Customers."

-- ​Traffic Secrets: Get a free copy of the "Underground Playbook For Filling Your Websites And Funnels With Your Dream Customers.

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the 3^rd part of my keynote presentation at Funnel Hacking Live. This part of the episode is one that’s probably my favorite. I start diving deeper into story and why stories are so essential and how they work and a whole bunch of other things.

And I’m going to walk you guys through the epiphany bridge, breaking false belief patterns, and then what stories to actually tell. Because if you’re selling a simple product, you just need to tell them the origin story, but if you’re selling a more complex, there are four stories you have to tell in a presentation to knock down somebody’s false beliefs in a big domino. And it should be a lot of fun.

And during this presentation you’ll actually have a chance to hear me, unfortunately you can’t see me, but just imagine a nerdy kid with a shaved head and glasses and a tie on, with his shirt all poofy. You’re going to hear me do my very first story, my first offer, and it’s pretty bad. But we’ll have a lot of fun together. The crowd laughed at it, in fact, well you’ll see. Basically one of my trial closes became the trial close joke of the entire week. Almost every presenter afterwards used it in their presentation. I’ll give you a hint, it goes something like this: “Who wants a piece of that.

So I hope you guys enjoy this section on story, we’ll queue up the theme song, we come back we’ll dive into that part of the presentation.

Now we’re going to move backwards to the story. So the question then is why are stories so essential to this? Stories also increase the value. Now, a couple of things I want you to understand. Number one, for someone to change their destiny, they have to make a decision. This is true first off, for all of you, and second off, for all the people you’re serving. For someone to change their destiny they have to make a decision.

Number two, for them to make a decision you have to change their state. And then the best way to change their state is through story. So if we take that backwards, I gotta figure out how to tell stories so I can change people’s states. If  I can change their state, then I can help them make a decision that’s going to empower them, and if I can help them make a decision that’s going to empower them, then I can change their life, I can change their destiny. That’s why stories are so important.

An offer without a state change is completely useless. If I was like, “Hey, who wants to go to the movie Captain Marvel this week?” ugh, like 3 of you. But then I tell the story and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I will mortgage my house to fly there for that experience.” The story is what makes it valuable.

So the big secret is story telling. We’ve talked a lot about this in our community. This is not unique. I want to kind of go through this because the story is being weaved into every single thing we’re doing. You have to become better and better and better at story. For all of you guys who read Expert Secrets, you know the next part of this, but I want to share it for those who may not or are new. This is a concept we call the epiphany bridge story.

So the epiphany bridge is the thing you’re thinking about as you’re trying to figure out how to tell your stories. So the epiphany bridge, this is you back before you were whoever you are now. This is back when you were in your normal life before you figured out whatever it is you’re so passionate about today. So for me, before I learned about this whole funnel thing, I was just at my house, hanging out, doing nothing, that was me. Then something happened where all the sudden you have this aha moment where you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is the thing. This is the thing I was meant to do. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

And then what happens is you get so excited by that thing, you have that moment. So for me, it’s happened tons of times in my life. I think about when I was wrestling. You can ask my parents who are here in the front row. I used to come home from school every day and I would eat Rice Krispies and Cheerios and watch TV, right. And then in 8th grade my dad made me sign up for wrestling and I was like ,”I don’t want to be a wrestler, that’s too much work. I just want to watch TV.”

And he made me go and made me go and I had a good time at wrestling, I was doing okay. And the next year I remember my very first, it was 9^th grade I had a chance to, I made it to the JV team and I remember I went to weigh ins, and I was so scared, so nervous. And I go to weigh in, and the guy I’m wrestling has a mustache. I still to this day cannot grow a mustache. I don’t know why, anyway, I can’t.

I remember looking at this kid and I’m like, “He’s got a mustache, he is going to destroy me.” And I got scared and went to the match, I remember getting in the stadium and it’s the JV match, so the only two people in the audience were my mom and my dad. I’m like, ah, and I get out there and I shake his hand. I’m like, “how does he grow facial hair in 8^th grade.” So we start wrestling and somehow, I don’t know what happens, but at the end of the match I win. And I stand up and my hand gets raised, and I look over at the guy with the mustache and his head’s down. I look over at my mom and my dad and my dad’s freaking out and I was like, “This day is the day I became a wrestler.”

That was my aha moment right. And then the only thing I thought about for the next decade and a half of my life was wrestling. The same thing happened in business. I remember I was trying things and trying things and all the sudden I remember when it hit me and I was like, “This is my thing. This is what I’m going to do for the next decade of my life.”

And my guess is most of you guys have had that moment and that’s why you’re here, trying to figure out the rest of the story right. So that happens and then we go on this amazing journey, where we’re like, “This is amazing.” And we start studying everything, we start learning, start geeking out. And then the worst thing in the world happens to us, we start understanding why this thing’s amazing. And then we have a chance to try and sell somebody on this thing we love, that we care so much about and we’re so excited. And the first thing we do is we take all this techno babble, all this technical stuff we’ve learned and we spew it out upon them.

They’re like, “Ah.” They get buried in this thing and they freak out and they run away. We logically try to sell them because we’re so logically invested in this thing right now. But the reality is people don’t buy logically. You didn’t buy logically. My dad didn’t convince me, “you’re going to love wrestling because it’s going to be good health for you, you’re going to get stronger muscles, it’s going to help you become more resilient in life.” All these things, that was the logic. What sold me on wrestling? “Oh my gosh, that felt amazing. I’m in.”

Something happened to each of you emotionally that got you in. So for us to be able to convince other people, we have to get rid of all the techno babble and you have to remember what was the thing, what was the story, what was the reason that got me started on this journey? And as you tell that story, you give people the same epiphany that you had, that’s when you’re able to change their destiny. That’s when you’re able to help them.

So that’s the epiphany bridge stuff. If you want to go deeper into that, I talk a lot about it in Expert Secrets. But that’s the core of story. So for you it’s not coming back and trying to logically convince anybody of anything. It’s remembering what was the reason why I got so excited about this, and sharing that story is what is getting people to connect with you and then they’re going to have the same epiphany that you had, if you do it right. And now you can change them, now you can affect them, now you can move them.

Alright so there’s the story framework. Now the next part of story is you have to understand that when we are telling people a story, everyone already has a story about whatever it is. So if their story is positive it’s a really good thing for them, but if the story is negative it’s holding them back. So our job as marketers, as funnel hackers is to look at that and say, “Okay, this story they have is it holding them back from what I know they need to be doing?” if so, that story is the chain of false belief, it’s holding them back. They have this chain of false belief.

Now there’s some experience, something happened to them that made them have these false beliefs. So there’s an experience and because of that experience they’ve been telling themselves the story over and over and over again. So for you, this is the people you’re coming in contact with. They’re seeing your facebook ads, they’re coming on your webinars, they’re landing in your landing pages, they’re reading your emails and they have these things and if you don’t break these false chains of beliefs, no matter how hard you try, you will never convince them to follow you, it’s impossible, because they have this story.

So the only way for you to break them from these false chains of belief is to tell them your story, and if you do this right, then your story trumps their story, and your story becomes theirs.

o I’m going to give you an example. This is my friend Devon. You guys met him earlier today. By the way, did you love his socks? That was amazing. So Devon last year comes up to me like, “Russell, this is amazing. I got an opportunity for you. It’s going to be ground floor opportunity, it’s going to be amazing, it’s going to change the world, it’s going to be awesome.” And I’m like, “Sweet man, I’m in.” So Devon signs me up and he’s like, “Alright, the first thing you need to do, see Jim and Pam over there, you gotta get them signed up.”

I’m like, “Okay, let’s do this.” So now I’m looking in through this lens. So I’m going to sign Jim and Pam up. I look at Jim and I’m like, okay. Jim has got some false chains of belief, there’s some reason I’m not going to be able to get him to believe that he should join my network marketing opportunity. What is that? He’s got these false chains of beliefs. So I gotta think, what did he experience that probably kept him from doing that? Did he have a friend or a family member who came and annoyed him, or did someone, did he already join a program and he just felt uncomfortable? What was the experience he had?

So Jim’s experience, what happened is he had a friend named Michael Scott who just tackled him and forced him to be in this program. And he’s like, “Ugh, that was a horrible experience. I did not feel comfortable, I did not like it.” So because of that he created a story inside of his mind, and the story he created inside of his mind is that all network marketing programs are pyramid schemes. So that’s the story he created.

So I could come in here and I could tell him anything I want about ground floor opportunity, the best product, the best technology, the best everything, no matter what I do, logically sell him, he will never break that story. It’s not worth doing.

Now I’m sharing this story for network marketing but it’s true for every single one of you guys. I don’t care if you’re selling fitness, finance, product services, whatever it is this is what’s happening. Your customers have a story already.

So the only way for you to break their story is you have to come in and tell a better story that trumps theirs. So if I was going to Jim I’d be like, “Hey man, so why don’t you join?” He’s like, ‘I had this annoying friend who bugged me and it was horrible. If I join I gotta bug people and I just want to do it.” And I’m like, ‘No, that makes sense Jim. I was the same way. But what’s interesting is I found out about this really cool thing called a funnel and I used the funnel, there was a network marketing program I believe, it was pretty cool. AND they’re giving away a Ferrari and I was like, ‘what if I won a Ferrari without ever talking to anybody ever.’ That’d be amazing. So I set up a funnel, I launched it and in 60 days I became the number one money earner in the company and I won this Ferrari and the best thing is I didn’t talk to a single person ever. Isn’t that amazing?”

Now, if I tell Jim that, if my story trumps his story, he’s going to be like, “Oh my gosh, did you say I could actually have the benefit of this thing without talking to people? Sign me up.”

So that’s what you have to understand, that’s all this whole story thing is all about. It’s about trumping someone else’s false beliefs. If I can trump their false belief, their story shifts and now your story becomes theirs and now they’re free. The chains of false belief are gone, now they’re free to go pursue whatever it is you’re trying to help them pursue.

Alright so the question is then, what stories do I tell? Now this is going to change, we talked about hook, story, offer, depending on the complexity of the product depends on how many stories you tell and what stories you tell. If it’s a very simple product you tell a story and that’s all you need. For more complex things you have to tell them multiple stories. So I’m going to kind of walk through that.

So the first thing you have to understand is that in every sale of argument there is what we call the big domino. Again, if you read Expert Secrets we talk about this. There’s one thing that if I can get them to believe that one thing all the other concerns just disappear instantly. So when you guys came into my world, the whole funnel world, everyone had false beliefs and things, things you believed about everything. But if I could somehow convince you that the only way for you to get to your goals was a funnel, you’d have to just kind of like, “I’m in. I gotta do it.” Everything else just falls away.

So for me it’s like, I can convince people that a funnel is the only way for them to actually get the results they want, then it knocks down all the other dominoes. All the other dominoes fall away or they become irrelevant.

Every sales argument has the same thing. When you’re selling something it’s not about trying to answer every single concern possible, it’s figuring out what’s the one big domino that if I can address this in my ad, in my video, in my webinar, if I can address it, if I can prove to them that this is true, then all the other dominoes fall down and they have to believe me.

So for all you guys who have that, I’m excited Jamie’s going to talk about hers tomorrow. In hers she figured out what was the thing she had to get people to believe? And boom, it all fell down. So you gotta figure that out.

Now after you know the big domino  for your product or your service, then it comes down to there’s four stories we typically tell. Now I’m going to show you gusy this in the framework of like a webinar. So I’m going to show 15 minutes, I’m going to show kind of how we do it in a 90 minute webinar. But the same thing happens on a 5 minute webinar. It’s the same process, just shorter times.

So the first story we tell is what we call the origin story. The origin story is basically your epiphany bridge story. How did you find out about this thing? Why do you care so much about it. So you tell your stories. If I’m doing a webinar, the first 15 minutes of the webinar is me just telling my origin story. My epiphany bridge story about how I fell in love with this thing.

So if you watch any of the webinars, these are the slides from the funnel hacks webinar that most of you guys have probably seen. The first 15 minutes I’m going through this, I’m telling my epiphany bridge story about, “Oh my gosh, funnels are the greatest thing in the world. Let me explain to you why they are.” And I tell you my whole story, and that’s the first goal.

Now what happens, is after I tell that story, for some people that was it. Domino falls over and they’re like, ‘I’m in. Here’s my money.” In fact, I’m curious, how many of you guys when you first heard me talk about potato guns and funnels when I told the first story you’re like, “I’m 100% in” My hyper active’s are like in. Now Clickfunnels is a more complex sale. On a simpler sale it’s easy.

How many of you guys, if I just told you my origin story with viagon here, and I told you, and I’ve never had a cold sore, so this isn’t actually true, but if I told you, “Look, I’ve had cold sores in the past, I’ve used Abreatha, I’ve used things and nothing ever works. They always last for 2 or 3 weeks at a time. It’s horrible, it’s painful, the worst thing in the world. When I found out about this the first time, I tried it, I clicked on the thing, I pulled it out, and I felt it tingling the first day, but it never came out, never became a cold sore. It was just gone, that was it. And ever since then I keep this in my pocket, I take it everywhere I go, and as soon as a cold sore comes out I hit it, and I haven’t had a cold sore actually hit the surface since then.”

How many of you guys, that story alone would have been like, “Sweet, I’m in.”? As someone who suffers from cold sores, our sales video for this is literally that. That’s it. This is a $150 machine. It’s a video, two minutes long, telling an origin story of the person who actually invented it, and that’s it. That’s all it takes. So for simple products, one story, the origin story is all you need, and people are in.

But as you get more complex offers you need more. So what happens is on a more complex offer, they push the domino over and they’re all excited, but then all the sudden they push it and it’s like, “Oh these things blocked it.” It’s like, “Wait, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I’m in but…” and all the sudden these three things block it.

So these are the three things. The first thing, these are what we call the three core false beliefs. The first thing is their beliefs about the vehicle. The vehicle is the thing you’re trying to put them into. So for me, the vehicle is funnels. This is the world I’m trying to take you guys into. For some of you guys it’s a ketogenic diet, some of you guys its products to help you with your cold sores. There’s some belief about the vehicle they have that they struggle with.

The second belief is their own internal beliefs. “That may be cool but I don’t think I could do it.” How many of you guys have heard that voice in your head before? “That’s cool for them, but I don’t know if I could do it.”

And then the third false belief is like, “Well that’s cool. I think I could do it, but I know that if I start this diet I could do it but my wife’s going to buy cookies anyway and it’s going to be in the house…” They always blame some external source beside themselves.

So these are the three things that keep people from buying from you. So for me now, now I move into where I tell a story to try and trump all three of those. If I can trump all three of those beliefs, their beliefs become my beliefs and they have to buy, they have to follow you, they have to do the thing you need them to do.

So story number two then, which in a webinar is the next 15 minutes, is the story about my vehicle. So same thing, I come back here and say, “What’s the chain of false belief they currently have about the vehicle that I’m putting them into? Then what’s the experience, why do they believe that? Then what’s the story they’re currently telling themselves? And what’s my story?” Okay so…oh, you guys will see this tomorrow. So I gotta show them that websites are dead. So for me, if I go back to this for myself right, the false belief is like, ‘I already have a website, so I’m good.’ Or ‘I sell stuff on Amazon, I’m good.’

“Why do you believe that?” Well, I tried to build a funnel, it was really complicated and it didn’t work. I did it myself on Amazon and I make some sells. It’s pretty cool.” So the story is like, ‘I don’t need any complicated stuff. I can just use Amazon.’ So I have to come back and the story I have to tell you is, “No, websites are dead.” I tell the story and if I did a good job, boom, it falls down.

So in my funnel hacks webinar that most of you guys have seen, these sslides right here are all me telling the story about why this vehicle is the greatest thing in the world. My epiphany bridge story about why I believe that. I tell that story and at the end of it my goal is for them to be like, “Oh my gosh, I do need a funnel.” If I can get them to say that in their head, ‘I do need a funnel.’ Boom, the internal belief, or the vehicle belief is gone. “Oh my gosh, I could have success here.” “Oh my gosh, I could do that thing.” So if my story trumps theirs, once again the domino falls.

Now the next thing, the first one is the origin story, the second one is the story about the vehicle, the next one now moves down to internal beliefs. So they say, ‘oh my gosh, you’re right. A funnel is amazing. But I can’t do it.’ It becomes internal. “I can’t do it. I don’t have any technical skills. I don’t know how to build something, I don’t even know what a funnel is for crying out loud.” So that’s the third story.

So now I come back and say, “What’s the false belief, why do they believe that?” They believe that for me, again I’m talking about my product but plug in your product for this, but for me it’s like, “Well, I’ve tried technical stuff in the past, I can’t even use Microsoft word, I’m not going to be able to build a funnel.” That’s what they believe. “What’s the experience?” “Well, I tried to do this thing, it didn’t work, it was confusing. I wasted time and energy.” So the story is, “I’m not technical, I can’t build a funnel.”

So I gotta come back and be like, “No, it’s actually really easy. Here’s Grant Cardone, this guy is the least technical guy on earth. He built the entire funnel at 40,000 ft in the air. It was super simple, super easy, and they see that and they’re like, “Oh, that actually is really easy. I guess I could do that.” So now boom, two things have happened, here’s my slide where I tell that part of the story. So now what’s happened, hopefully a domino fell.

If not, the last leg, so at first they say, “Cool, the vehicle funnels is amazing. And I think I can actually do it but I don’t…” They find the external thing, “I don’t know how to drive traffic. I actually don’t, I probably can’t figure it out.” They have some kind of external belief.

So for me the external belief is, “Even if I had a funnel what would I do with it? I don’t know how to do it. I can’t get people to come to the funnel.” “What’s your experience?” “I had a website before, I spent a ton of money on it, bought some google ads, nobody showed up. And I’m broke.” Or “I paid the agency $5000 and got like 3 visitors, I never made any money.” They had some experience, so the story is, ‘this doesn’t work.’

So I gotta tell them my story. So for me, I tell a story about how to drive traffic, and boom. I go through my slides, tell that part of the story, and if it works, boom the domino falls, and then they follow me.

And for all of you guys who are here, obviously the domino fell. That’s why we’ve got 4500 amazing people here. Because I was able to break the false beliefs that were holding you guys back. Does that make sense?

So after you’ve told the stories, then the last thing is you move over to the offer. I tell the stories, I break all the false beliefs and I move to the offer, I go to the stack and the close, make the special offer and boom, we’ve got them.

So the framework is simple. There’s one big domino. I gotta convince of this one thing. For me, I gotta convince them that funnels are the greatest thing in the world. For you, whatever your thing is. You’ve got to convince them that this type of diet, this type of lifestyle, this type of product is the greatest thing in the world. What’s the big domino? If you can get them to believe this, then they have to follow you. Figure that out.

Then it’s coming back, “Okay, why do I believe that? What’s my origin story? Why do I actually believe that?” and if you don’t believe it, you’re in the wrong business. You have to believe it to your depth of your soul if you’re going to get people to move with you. So then you tell your story and then you’re like, ‘Okay, what’s the vehicle I’m putting, what’s their false beliefs on that? What’s the false beliefs around themselves being able to implement this? What’s the false beliefs about the external?” You tell those three stories and then you make them the offer. That’s kind of how it works.

Alright, now I wanted to do something for some of you guys who are watching this, it’s like, ‘Russell, that’s awesome for you because you click on a facebook live and you just go and you have all this energy and you’re amazing and you’d sell everybody every single time.” How many of you guys have ever felt that way about me before? You’re like, ‘I hate that Russell Brunson.’

I have a special message for all you guys, we’re all going to laugh at me together. So I shared this on Instagram and this is kind of embarrassing. But how many of you guys want to see the very first time I spoke onstage? Look at that good looking dude and his bald head and his puffy shirt and his tie.

Alright so this is the very first time I ever spoke onstage, it’s like a 30 second clip, and I’m going through this humiliation to hopefully have some of you guys look at this and be like, “Oh my gosh, that guy can do this, guarantee I can do it.” So here we go.

“But what I wanted to talk about tonight is kind of a broad overview hopefully to help you better, to get better information out of the whole internet marketing business. This is a lot bigger group than I had planned on.”

Ugh, so embarrassing. Alright, so that was the first time I ever spoke. The next day was the first time somebody let me step on their stage, except it was like carpet, there wasn’t an actual stage. They’re like, ‘You can sell something.’ I’m like, “Sweet.”  And so the next day I had a chance to make my very first offer on stage. And I’m not going to show you guys the whole thing because it’s really, the very beginning as I transition to me trying to sell, I was like, ‘how much do you guys think I’m going to sell this for?” and some guy was like, “A thousand bucks.” And I’m like, “Oh crap, I’m actually selling it for a thousand bucks.’ I was like, “Well, uh…” it was so bad.

Anyway, you guys are going to see my closing abilities round one, here we go.

“okay, I’ve got, am I getting close on time? If you do join the affiliate boot camp it will give you lifelong training. It’s a $47 a month value, you’ll get it for free. Who’d like a piece of that? Here’s my irresistible offer. Hopefully you guys learned a lot from this presentation.” “Give him a standing ovation, he did a great job.”

Look at this, nobody stands up, not one person. “Who wants a piece of that?” the greatest close of all time. Ugh. Alright, so I share that frame you guys who are just like, “Agh, I don’t know if this is going to work. I’m shy, I’m awkward, I’m nervous.” I promise you, I was shy, I was awkward, nervous. I still am, I still struggle. But when you believe in what it is you have to sell, you believe in what you’re doing, you just keep doing it and keep doing it, and you get a little bit better and a little bit better.

And it didn’t take 15 years, every single time it got better and a couple more people started listening, a couple more people started listening and it started growing and started growing, and started growing. The biggest thing, you have to start. You have to start telling the stories. You can’t wait. “I’m going to start stories next month, next week, next year.” It’s like, no, start today.

How many of you guys have a phone again? No one’s raising their hand. How many of you guys have a phone in your pocket right now? Okay. You have no excuse. If you want to do a podcast, there’s a podcast button, you click on it, you talk and then you click a button and it’s on iTunes. It’s that fast.

You go do a video, you click a button and then you’re on facebook live in five seconds or instagram. You have no excuses. “But Russell, no one’s following.” Exactly, that’s the best thing about it in the beginning. Who was there for that event where I spoke? None of you guys were there. Other than all of you guys now saw it, but none of you were there. Do you guys understand?

Just start, your people will find you. As you find your voice, your people will find you. But you cannot find your voice until you start, until you begin, until you start moving forward. And if I wouldn’t have started that journey 15 years ago, none of you guys would be here today. If I could go back to that awkward, nerdy Russell with the shaved head and a tie who was scared to death of getting onstage, sitting behind scared to death, then I would go back to him and grab him and say, “Look dude, I know this uncomfortable and it’s horrible and it’s miserable and you are scared, and you are going to fail, and you’re gonna fail, and you’re gonna fail, and not one year or two years, it’s going to be like a decade of this. But in a decade from now, you’re going to have a chance to come onstage in front of 4500 people, and you’re going to have an opportunity and a voice to be able to change their lives, if you don’t stop.”

I would hope I would’ve listened. The biggest thing is I can’t have you guys stopping. I was telling Brandon Poulin this yesterday, I saw him at the inner circle dinner. Four Funnel Hacking Live’s ago, the second Funnel Hacking Live he was sitting there on the side, I’d never met him before and during one of the round tables I was at the round table and he came over and he’s like, ‘Hey man, really quick, I need to interrupt.” I’m like, ‘What’s going on?” he’s like, “Just so you know you’ve changed my life and you changed my wife’s life.” I was like, ‘Oh, cool. Thank you.” He’s like, ‘No, no, you don’t understand. We’re helping people, we’re making money, everything’s changed for us.” And I was like, “That’s amazing.’

And Brandon was one person in the audience. He and his wife were sitting there. Fast forward four years now later. Kaelin is unfortunately not here, she had her first baby, which congratulations to the Poulin family, it’s amazing. Fast forward four years later, because Kaelin kept talking and sharing her message over and over and over again, 1.5 million people have come into their funnel. Over 130 thousand women’s lives have been changed because of them. They’re making insane amounts of money, but the impact they’re having on the world is huge because they were sitting in an audience, they heard us talk about this and then they just did it.

So for me and for my team, I had this talk with them yesterday before we got started, I said, ‘look, there’s a sea of people out here. Every single one of them has a voice and the ability to change somebody’s lives. And if we can’t affect them, then everything we’re doing here is a waste.” This event’s not about me, it’s not about us, not about my team, it’s about each and every one of you guys. We’re trying to give you the tools you need, but you have to listen and you have to be willing to try it. It’s going to be scary at first, I promise you that. It’s still scary to me. I was back stage freaking out a few minutes ago. I feel a little more comfortable now, luckily.

But you have to understand it’s going to be scary, but if you don’t do it, if you don’t take that step, you’re not going to be here next year. And I don’t want you just here next year, I want you up here next year. I want you telling your story, getting your awards, that’s why we do this every single day.

Alright, a couple more things. Just so you guys understand again, if you’re selling a product you don’t have to do this huge thing. The simpler the product the easier it is. For example, do you guys see that picture right there? Do you see that market in my hand? How many of you guys would give me, I don’t know, $5 for this marker right now? A couple of you guys. Okay, I’m going to tell you guys a story about this marker. I’m going to tell you a story and the story will increase the value of this marker.

So a couple of, when we were first starting to do events I remember I would show up and they’d always have those little narrow whiteboards, they’re like vertical. And when you draw funnels, funnels aren’t vertical right. So you’re like, “page number one, page number…ugh, I’m out of space.” And you flip it, and it’s like horrible to diagram a funnel. I would be doing that, flipping the thing over, flipping it over and I had these little tiny markers, and they’re little tiny and you couldn’t see very far, and it just felt weak.

Then I went to a Tony Robbins event and Tony had a board like this, and then he pulls out this marker, and Tony’s hands are like this big anyway, and he pulls out this marker and he unsheathes it and walks over to the whiteboard and starts doing this thing, and he’s like, just doing x’s and circles and was making no sense whatsoever, but it looked so cool.  And I remember I was like, “Oh my gosh this is amazing.”

So when we started doing Funnel Hacking Live’s, first off I wanted a big, Tony had a board this wide, we need a board like that. And I tried for years to try and find one and I remember one day I was complaining to Melanie, who is my assistant, I was like, “Melanie, they don’t, how did he, he must have custom built this thing.” And then she’s like in google or doing some magic and like 5 minutes later she’s like, “Found it.” I’m like, “What?” and next thing we know, we had this board here.

And then I did the board the very first time, I had these little tiny markers and I was like, “Ugh, I feel so weak. I want to feel like Tony. I need a man marker.” So she starts googling, she finds the marker, they ship them. I’m like, “No , these are good. But I need Tony/man markers.” So finally she finds these things. And look at this thing. This thing is amazing.

So these are now my man markers and I only, I will not speak at events, when I travel to events I bring my man markers because I don’t want to be onstage like with the little dainty ones. So I have these huge man markers. So I’ve got red man markers, blue man markers, black man markers, and I only have 3 of them here right now, how many of you guys want a man marker? I can’t sell these. We have to have them for the rest of the event.

But you can see how a story increased the value? That’s what I’m talking about. You tell a good story, it increases the value of whatever it is you’re selling. So you have to become better at telling stories. You have be better at making offers, better at telling stories because both those things intrinsically increase the value of what it is you’re trying to sell.

Now when you’re selling more complex offers, that’s when you need to have a bigger thing. When you’re having internal beliefs, the vehicle, internal and external ones, the more complex the product is, the longer the sales process is.

So for you guys, your homework as well, in your paper here, is start writing down, you need to start building a story inventory. What are all the false beliefs that my customers have? And start writing those things down. And why do they believe that? What’s the story they’re telling themselves and then what story do I have that would trump their belief?

I’ve been telling this ever since Expert Secrets came out almost two years ago, I’ve been talking about this over and over and over again. Very few people do it. But guess what, I know the people who are doing it. I’m watching them. I’m watching their story telling, I’m watching what they’re doing, I’m watching the process. I do this all the time.

When I got started Dan Kennedy told me this, “You need to build an inventory of stories.” And I heard that, and instead of doing what most people did, I said, “That’s a good idea.’ I said, “Dan said it, I must do it.” I got a pad of paper and I said,  “What stories do I have?” And I had nothing. I had a potato gun story that was it. I started with my potato gun story. I’m like, ‘Uh, that’s all I got.”

But now I had my notebook with my potato gun story and I started thinking, as I start talking and doing my thing, something amazing would happen in my life, I’m like, “ That could be a story.” Write it down. Go to the next thing, something else happened and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, that could be a story.” Write it down. “That could be a story.” Write it down. “That could be a story.” And next thing I know I can stand onstage for 90 minutes and tell 400 stories, without even knowing about it.

It comes down to just telling story after story after story. But you have to start that now. So if you have your phone, open up a note section and say, “My story inventory” and as you are living life, every time something is happening and you’re like, ‘Oh, that was cool.” Be like, “Oh that was cool, how would that relate to my customers? Oh my gosh, if I told this, that’s how it relates.” Boom.

How many of you guys thought I could tell a story about a marker and make it relevant to you somehow? Yet, I did right. It’s all about that.