The secret I found during my book rewrites to make sure people grasp the gold you’re about to give them. On this episode Russell talks about finishing up the rewrite for his Expert Secrets book, and what kind of changes he has been making to it, and the Dotcom Secrets book. Here are some of the amazing things to look forward to in today’s episode:

-- Why Russell decided to rewrite his previous two books in time for the launch of the upcoming Traffic Secrets book.

-- Why the new versions of the book are different, and what the difference is.

-- And how you can use your story about learning or earning to make people buy in to what you are trying to sell.

So listen here to find out what it means to learn or earn it, and how you can use it in your own business.

So they look at it like, ‘alright thanks.” And you’re like, “No you don’t understand. This is so important for you to understand.” But they miss it. So we come back and we start with a story, a story about how we either learn the thing or we earn the thing. When you tell that story, it creates value in the thing you’re about to share. It shows like, “Oh my gosh, Russell went through a lot to understand this. I need to listen with different ears.” Then when they listen with different ears they are more likely to accept it, and to hear it, and to take action on it. And that’s why those stories are so important.

-- 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, hey, good morning everybody. This is Russell Brunson and welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I’m going to give you an update about the rewrite of all the Secrets books, what’s happening and one of the big things that I learned this time writing the books.

Alright everybody, I hope you are all doing amazing, first off. I am heading in, it is the Wednesday before Christmas, and tonight is my due date. I have to turn in the rewrite of the Expert Secrets book today. So some context for those who haven’t been paying attention or whatever, is basically I wrote the Traffic Secrets book this year, it went live, and we got a new publisher and they said I could, basically I bought the rights back for the first two books, moved them to a new publisher and then we thought we should do these all hardbound, because that would be really cool. And then I was like, “We should do a box set, that’d be even cooler.” And I kept freaking out. And then I’m like, “Well, if I’m going to make a whole box set under a new publisher, are you guys okay if I add some stuff to the book?” They’re like, “Sure, go for it.”

And then insane perfectionist Russell came in and I took the Dotcom Secrets book, which started at 58,000 words. I deleted 30,000 of those words, and then I wrote an extra…I don’t know, it ended up being over 94,000 words. And then I’ve done the same thing with the Expert Secrets. It was 60,000 words, and I deleted, I think I deleted 70 full pages, Microsoft word style pages, and now I’m back to 84,000 words . And I have to have it finished by tonight.

So it’s been, most people write a book once in their life, and I’ve written 3 basically, in the last 6 months. It’s just stupid. Don’t be like, “Russell, that’s so awesome.” No, no, it was really, really dumb. That is not a good thing, that is a really bad thing. It has wrecked my emotions, it has wrecked my sleep, it has wrecked my adrenal glands. But it all ends tonight. So excited. I’m going to take a nap, it’s going to be really awesome. I’m really looking forward to it.

So some of you guys are like, “Russell, what are you rewriting? The first two books were really good.” A couple things, number one is throughout time your processes, your frameworks, your things evolve, there’s that. I wrote the Dotcom Secrets book and I spent the next 3 years teaching it to a million people. And when you’re teaching it over and over and over again all around the world, you get different insights. Like, this makes more sense, or this is a better way to do it. So it’s like updating all those things.

The second thing is things evolve, the market evolves, the things you learn along the way, adding those things in. But the biggest thing that I’ve found is I’ve changed how I, not that I changed but my ability to tell stories has gone up. After Expert Secrets we talked about story, and then I went and for the next two years since that book came out, I’ve been telling stories with a lot more intention. Because in the book I talked about the hero’s two journeys, and I mapped out the processes and I became better at that. So I became better at telling stories, and I tell more stories now because of that. And in the process I’ve learned how to tell better stories.

And I also, it’s funny because I went back and just for example, with Expert Secrets I was reading the chapter about the stack, for those who read the book, you know the stack.  And I read in the intro paragraph I was like, “This is a technique called the stack. I learned it from this guy named Armand Morin who I saw one time at an event with a thousand people, close half the room, it was really cool. This is what he taught me.” It was two seconds and it was like, a boring story.

So for example, I came back and said, “I need to make this engaging, entertaining, exciting so that when I deliver you this gem, you know how valuable it is.” I think a lot of times, I’ve been going back over these last two books I’m realizing this was my mistake. I’m like, ‘Here’s some gold.” And you’re like, “Um, thanks?” and you missed the point of it. So I took that little two sentence introduction about how Armand taught me the stack, and it turned into 3 pages in I guess Google Docs, 3 Google Doc pages would probably be 5 pages in an actual book. And told that story the way it should be told. You know, the back story, the journey, the epiphany, the framework, the achievement, the whole thing. I tell the whole story in it’s depth and detail and excitement. And then you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” And then when I’m like, “Here’s the gold.” Your mind is more open to it, you’re more prepared because you believe that that thing is true.

So one of my big aha’s that I’ve been having since I’ve been doing this process over the last 6 months, and especially now that I’m down to the wire, is just reaffirming the importance of story. So often we just tell somebody the gold nugget. It’s almost like casting your pearls before swine. They don’t believe in it, they don’t have faith in it, whatever that thing is.

So they look at it like, ‘alright thanks.” And you’re like, “No you don’t understand. This is so important for you to understand.” But they miss it. So we come back and we start with a story, a story about how we either learn the thing or we earn the thing. When you tell that story, it creates value in the thing you’re about to share. It shows like, “Oh my gosh, Russell went through a lot to understand this. I need to listen with different ears.” Then when they listen with different ears they are more likely to accept it, and to hear it, and to take action on it. And that’s why those stories are so important.

So when you read the new version of the book, you’ll notice there’s a lot more story throughout every single chapter. I lead every chapter with a story about how I learned or I earned the topic and idea, and then I give you the thing.

So I think that’s my big takeaway for you guys today. Next time you’re going to teach somebody something, before you do just stop and say, “How did I either learn this thing, or how did I earn it, through trial and error? I learned it or I earned it. How did I do that?” And then stop and tell people that story before you tell them the gold nugget. And if you do that, when you deliver the goods, they will be much more impressed, they’ll be more prepared for it, they’ll be ready for it, they’ll be more likely to actually implement it.

I wrote a section in the book yesterday, just about the difference between strategy and tactics. I’m doing a webinar on teaching the strategy on how to do something, but I never into the tactics. And people are like, ‘Why don’t you teach the tactics?” The reason why is because if I can get you to believe that the strategy is true, the tactics don’t matter. Like if I’m going to go to war with you, I’m like, “Alright, this is what we’re going to do.” And I walk through the tactic, “You’re going to march through the grass over here and you’re going to go shoot the guy over here.” And then you’re like, “what?” If they don’t believe the overarching strategy, they’re not bought in on the strategy, they’re never going to do the tactics.

So if I’m an army general, I come to you like, “This is the strategy we’re going to do. We’re going to try and flank them on this side. We’re going to do this, we’re going to do this, and then everyone’s going to attack from this side, and that’s what’s going to happen.” You’re like, ‘Oh, that’s amazing. I see the strategy behind it.” Now I can give you all the tactics and you will bust your butts to go do the tactics and to execute them perfectly because you understand the strategy right.

The same thing is true in a webinar. When I’m on stage selling I’m not trying to teach you the tactics. I’m trying to get you to believe in the strategy. If you believe in the strategy, then when I give you the tactics you will go crazy for it and you will move mountains if it needs to be, because you understand the strategy. So what I’m selling, I’m teaching strategy and getting you to believe the strategy. Here’s the strategy of the perfect webinar, here’s the strategy of funnel hacking, here’s the strategy of how to get traffic. And you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I get it.” And if I can get you to believe that, we knock down any false beliefs around the strategy, then I can hand you the tactics and you’ll be able to run with them.

So anyway, I’m not sure that makes sense out of context. You’re going to read the book and be like, “Oh my gosh Russell is amazing.” But those are the things I’ve been geeking out on and thinking about a lot recently. So what’s the story about how you learned and how you earned it, and when you share…And again, that’s the same thing, the way I get people to gain belief in the strategy is I tell them, “Here’s the framework, here’s the strategy of what we’re going to do.” And I sell you on that. I get you to believe by telling you the story. How I learned it, how I earned it, how I figured it out. And then people are like, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing. He put a lot of time and effort and thought into this. I would have had to go through all of these things to understand the strategy, but he’s just going to give it to me. I bought it, I’m going to do that strategy.”

Boom, now they’re bought in on the strategy, now I can deliver the tactics, now I can give them the gold nuggets, now I can do all those kind of things. But it’s all about getting them to believe the framework you’re going to deliver them first, and that comes back to telling the story about how you learned or how you earned it.

So anyway, it’s so much. I love this game. I cannot wait for you guys to get the new books, they all go live May 5^th. We have a secret surprise coming along with it, that I can’t even tell you about. If you think the books are cool, this new surprise gift is even cooler. But I gotta wait before I can share it with you. So that’s all I got you guys. Appreciate you all. I’m in the office today, it’s my last day, wish me luck. By the time you hear this, I will be done writing. But I still need the wishes because there’s still a lot of work to do. So wish me luck, and we’ll talk to you guys soon. Bye everybody.