I’ve done over 50 interviews to promote the book, but this one was one of my favorites, I hope you love it! On this episode Russell is interviewed by fellow entrepreneur, Pete Vargas about how to get traffic. Here are some of the awesome things to listen for in this special episode:

-- Find out the difference between buying traffic, and working for traffic.

-- See how getting people to your product or service works the same way Hollywood gets you to watch movies.

-- See why figuring out your dream 100 is the key to getting lots of traffic.

-- And find out why having a platform is the best thing you can do.

So listen here to hear Pete Vargas interview Russell about some of biggest secrets to getting traffic.

how many of you guys know that you’ve got the best product or service or idea, or something in the world, and you see your competitors, and your competitors are worse than you. They’re not serving the customers the way that you would serve them? You know that your solution, your idea, your product, whatever it is you’re passionate about, you know can help more people than the competitors, but all the competitors, people are buying their products, right. And it’s driving you crazy because you’re like, “Man, I feel like I got this calling, I’ve been called to serve this group of people, I can do it in a way that’s unique to me, that nobody else can do, but for some reason I can’t get my message out in front of people.”

-- 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 what’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Man, I don’t know about you but I am in publishing mode. I’ve been doing more interviews than anyone ever in the history of the…just kidding, at least for me.

Tons of interviews, tons of Facebook Lives, tons of videos, tons of stuff. I guess when you can’t meet and do other things, all you can do is publish stuff. And it’s been a lot of fun and I’m sure you haven’t been on all 50 or 60+ interviews that I have been doing. But today I did the one that I think was the best.

It was Pete Vargas, and it was about Traffic Secrets and he kind of steered me in a direction and let me go, and I really enjoyed it. It was probably so far, of all the ones I’ve done, the one where I think I did the best. So there you go, I don’t know if that’s cocky or arrogant or just I’ve done it 50 times and I’m figuring out how to tell my stories the best way.

But I wanted to share this one with you guys, so it’s kind of a recap of what I’ve been talking about on so many interview, but I think the one that I told the stories the best and the most interesting. So if you had a chance to read the Dotcom, or excuse me, not the Dotcom Secrets, the new Traffic Secrets book, you’ve probably heard some of these stories.

But if you haven’t yet, this will leave you hopefully excited about learning what it is and how it works and why this is so vital and so important today out of all days. So with that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song for the Marketing Secrets show, and when we come back you’re going to have a chance to listen into an interview I did with Pete Vargas talking about Traffic Secrets book and a bunch of other really cool things. I hope that it gives you some ideas, and if nothing else, it gets you excited to go buy a copy of the Traffic Secrets book.

I’ve already sold over 50,000 copies, which is so cool. Especially considering that the average New York Times Bestseller book only sells 10,000 copies during its initial week. So thank you all so much for your support, and if for some reason you haven’t got your book yet, now is the time to go to trafficsecrets.com. Alright thanks again, and with that said I’m going to queue up the theme song and then when we come back you’ll have a chance to listen in on an interview with me with Pete Vargas.

PETE: Ladies and gentlemen, the founder of Clickfunnels built a company from zero to nine figures, I’m so stoked to have my good friend and one of my mentors, Russell Brunson. Russell, are you there my friend?

RUSSELL: I’m here Pete, how are you doing man?

PETE: Dude, I’m excited to have you bro. It’s lighting up, people are sharing it, and they’re excited to hear from you today, man.

RUSSELL: I’m excited to be here and excited to be hanging out with everybody, this is insane.

PETE: Russell has built a business from zero to nine figures, and he is a brilliant guy. Russell, in the midst of what’s going on in our world crisis, before we start jamming on traffic and funnels and what’s working in Traffic Secrets, which I’m stoked to give out a ton of those books today, you’ve been through crisis, you’ve faced it, you’ve been kind of rock bottom even in your business journey before. And I don’t ask everybody this, but I feel like I’m supposed to ask you that today, because you’ve been there.

Can you kind of take people through that time? I know the story but a lot of these folks don’t know it. Take us through that time when you faced crisis and kind of what you did to get out of that, man.

RUSSELL: Yeah, for sure. It’s funny because I’ve been doing this now, this is my 17th year in this business. So people think I look like I’m 11 years old, but I’ve been doing it for a little while, so I’ve had a chance twice where because of my stupid business decisions almost went bankrupt, and then once because of when the whole last recession hit.

We did really well during the first month or two of the recession, or year or so of the recession, and then we got hit hard. I remember having to walk in one day and laying off 80 people in one day, and a lot of them were friends and family members, and you know their kids, and you know all the people and it is like the scariest, scariest thing in the world. So I’ve definitely been on that side of it, praying and working my butt off to make sure that we don’t have that happen, you know for our team members during this crisis, and hopefully as many people that we have a chance to work with, at the same time.

But it’s definitely a scary thing. And I remember in the moment, because we were in these things during the moment, and everything feels like it’s right here and it’s stressful and pain and all the things that are happening. And man, it’s just like, almost every trial in life we get from God, we look back on it later, and it’s like, “Oh, that was so essential for me to go through because it shifted something in me, where I had to become someone different, I had to become someone better. I had to do something that was uncomfortable, but I was forced to do it because of the thing that happened.

And because of that, everything great happened because of it, afterwards.” I look at just right now, between my wife, our family, and our company, if it wasn’t for that, for me the darkest, most painful time in my life, when we lost everything, I had to fire everything, I had friends and family members walking out on me, I thought everything was crashing to the ashes. If it wasn’t for that experience and that moment where I lost everything, we wouldn’t have had what we needed to create what has become Clickfunnels.

And it’s had a chance to effect and touch so many people’s lives. So I think it’s important while we’re in the middle of it, while we’re in the middle of the pain and the stress, or whatever we’re all going through is to realize that this moment is a refining process for all of us, and the thing that you’re called to do that’s going to happen on the other side of this, this is preparing you for it now. Just understand that and kind of ride the wave as we go through this.

And yeah, some people are going lose jobs, lose houses, lose loved ones, and there’s pain and there’s those things, but you know, if we know anything from history and from time and from, just the way that God works with all of us, if we endure through it, and we try to become better through this process, something amazing will happen on the other side. So anyway, that’s why I keep looking forward, the hope and the light on that side of it, because some people get caught up in the fear and it freezes them, and it’s like, no, don’t get frozen. Get unfrozen, go through this refining process, and something amazing is going to be happening on the other side.

PETE: And it’s pretty cool Russell because you on the other side of it created Clickfunnels, which is now a tool that we use and so many of our students use. It’s one of the only tools that we recommend, which is Clickfunnels. And a lot of people have questions about sales funnels and a lot of that, and we’re going to continue to tackle that through this challenge, and I’m just going to be honest guys, Clickfunnels is the place that allows it to make it simple for an entrepreneur to take their stuff online.

Russell, I obviously want to jam on this because listen, I created a lot of stuff, and until I started getting traffic it didn’t matter. And the reason why this challenge has been so amazing, we’re going to have 100,000 people most likely by midweek, to end of week, that’s called traffic. That’s traffic. And there was nobody from the outside world that’s promoted this.

And my, what I’ve learned from you and I say this all the time, Russell and Ryan Deiss are the two people that I’ve learned everything from, which is why it was a no brainer for them both to be here. I know we could jam on all of this, but I want to go the route you want to go, but we have so many people that are trying to figure out what to do in the midst, and I’m like, dude, this guy’s a wealth of knowledge, I want to jam wherever you want to go. So I want to shut up, and just learn and take notes bro.

RUSSELL: I think what I was going to start with, it’s interesting right now, I launched the book, the book launch day was the same day that President Trump told everybody to go home, which was kind of this weird thing. And then I saw, I mean all of us have seen in real time, what happens to a business when traffic dries up. Literally, there are mom and pop shops all down the street here, and people, traffic is driving down the street and they see, “Oh it’s a restaurant.”

And they stop and they pull in and they walk in. And that’s how they live their business, traffic was their life blood. Looking at traffic as a literal, like traffic driving past the store front, that’s the life blood of a business. As soon as the quarantines happened and traffic stopped, what happened to these businesses? They’re dying, they’re disappearing, it’s the scariest thing. And if you look at any business, traffic is the life blood.

And I’m curious of people who are listening right now in the comments, how many of you guys know that you’ve got the best product or service or idea, or something in the world, and you see your competitors, and your competitors are worse than you. They’re not serving the customers the way that you would serve them? You know that your solution, your idea, your product, whatever it is you’re passionate about, you know can help more people than the competitors, but all the competitors, people are buying their products, right.

And it’s driving you crazy because you’re like, “Man, I feel like I got this calling, I’ve been called to serve this group of people, I can do it in a way that’s unique to me, that nobody else can do, but for some reason I can’t get my message out in front of people.” And that’s when so many people come to me, just like, ‘I know that I have something, I just don’t know how to get it out there.”

So you know, the work we do with Clickfunnels is all about building funnels to get your message out and learning how to tell your story in the right way, and this last chapter that we’ve been focusing on really heavily right now is traffic, it’s the missing piece. And I think that most people when they hear about traffic, they think about, “Oh I need to run Facebook ads, or I need to run Google ads.”

The problem with that is, that’s a tactic, it’s a strategy that works right now for a little while, but it changes, and for those of you guys who you’ve only been in business for 6 months, or a year, or 5, even like 10 years. The last 10 years, it’s been pretty good. Ever since Mark Zuckerberg came in, man, I love Mark. He’s made our lives so easy. But I tell you what, I remember what happened when Google started, and it was really easy for me, and then the first Google slap happened. And then we had to shift our whole business around and half the people I knew who had businesses lost them when the first Google slap happened.

And the ones that lasted, the next Google slap happened, the next wave got cut, and the next wave got cut. And I started looking at, right now we’re in this window where Facebook and Instagram have been really easy, but I know what’s going to be happening. And it may be Mark Zuckerberg comes in and changes the rules, but right now I can’t tell you how many people are losing their ads accounts, getting things shut down and they’re freaking out. Also, we have no idea with government regulations.

What happens if the government decides that Mark Zuckerberg is running a monopoly, which I mean, you know we’re going to get in trouble the next day for a violation? Whatever the thing, they could disappear tomorrow for any of us. And for most people listening, if you do have a business, you probably built it on that one foundation, and if you don’t have a business yet, it’s scary to build them in one spot. Because if that disappears, just like I saw happening in Google over and over and over again, half of entrepreneurs or more businesses will dry up and disappear overnight.

So my whole goal with this book was, I’m not going to teach people the tactic of how to run a Facebook ad or a Google ad, I’m helping people understand strategically how traffic works, because when you understand that it supersedes any of those things. So the way that I, the way that when you have a chance to go through the book, I kind of walk through the very first chapter, it’s all about really understanding your dream customer.

And Pete, you kind of led with the fact that we both have faith in God, and I think we both have a very similar belief, and I talk about this in the book, I believe that all of us entrepreneurs and business owners, if you’ve ever felt that tug, “I need to be doing something, I need to be helping someone.” Alex Charfen calls it the call of contribution, you’ve heard that call of contribution, “I’m supposed to be doing something.”

That pull, that is a literal calling from God, it is a blessing. And I feel like businesses always, business is a blessing, is a calling from God. You say, alright this is a group of people you are called to serve, you need to figure out how to help them, to serve them, whatever, whatever capacity you can. So for me, whatever reason, as I was growing up in life I got obsessed with sales funnels and marketing and direct response. Who knows, why was I interested in that?

I have no idea, but now fast forward 15 years later, it’s like, oh because that’s your calling. Like Pete, how in the world, you’re the guy that gets people on stages. Why did I, how did I get put in your lap, and why did all these chain of events happen that made you the best in the world at that thing? It doesn’t make sense why it happens until later, you’re like, “Oh, because that’s my calling. I’m supposed to be helping people.”

So for everyone listening to this, there’s been a chain of events, things that have happened in your life, that have prepared you to be able to serve a group of people. So the first part of traffic is not how do I target people between the ages of 22 and 13 through Instagram, the first question is “Who is your dream customer? Who is that person you’ve been called to serve?

Who are you supposed to change their life?” And that’s where I want to start, because most people don’t start there, and that’s the most important part about traffic. Because traffic is humans, it’s just people like that, like us. The first question is that, and for all you guys, you need to understand that at a deep level. Deeper than just like, “Oh yeah, I’m helping women. I’m helping men.” No, who? Who does that person look like? I got so obsessed with this that I remember I went into Google and I went to Google images, and I typed in all the phrases of my dream customer, what they did, what they looked like, all the stuff I could think of.

And it popped up all these Google images of faces, and I was like, “That’s my person. That’s the person I want to serve.” And I took the picture and printed it out and put it on my wall. I did one for a man and for a woman, and I had them on my wall forever. I was like, “That’s who I’m trying to serve.” That’s the level you need to get into so you can start thinking what they think, what they’re excited by, what they’re passionate about.

Because if you’re going to serve them, you need to know them even more intimately than they know themselves, that’s number one. Then number two, the coolest thing about the internet is that people, the internet gives all of us the ability to group together based on similar beliefs and values and things that we’re excited by. So for all you guys listening, start thinking about this in your own life. Where are the places on the internet that you congregate right now?

Start thinking about what things are important to me. I’m very passionate about business, I hang out in different business blogs and forums and groups and podcasts. Right? I’m also interested in biohacking, so I listen to all the biohacking podcasts. I’m listening to, I’m plugged into all the biohacking blogs. I have these communities of people that are excited about the same things I am.

So I congregate in different spots. I guarantee for all of you guys, you get the same thing. You’re congregating in different groups based on the stuff you’re excited by. So if the first question is “Who is your dream customer?” The second question is, “Where do they congregate?” It’s a simple question. When you start thinking about that it opens up this whole new world of traffic to you.

It’s not just like, I’m going to target them on Instagram or whatever, it’s “Oh my gosh, here’s the 30 top blogs that all of them are reading. This blog’s got 300,000 readers a month, this one’s got 100,000, this one’s got a million readers.” These are the blogs they’re reading. And the second phase is then, “What podcasts do they listen to?” You can literally, it’s so funny people are like, “What’s your biggest traffic strategy?” and I’m like, “Get your phone out, open up the podcasting app.” so if you’re using Apple there’s a free podcasting app, everyone’s got it. And Apple will actually categorize the top podcast in the world.”

So what’s cool, you go to browse and you scroll down where it says top shows, and then right here next to top shows it says, “See all” you click see all, and you click on the very top it says, “All Categories” and it shows you all the different categories that there’s podcasts in. I scroll through here and it’s like, “Oh, there’s health and fitness, kids, leisure, music, business, education, religion and spirituality,” here’s all these congregations of people.

So let’s say I have a product that helps kids and family, so I click on it, and what’s crazy is this is going to show me the top 200 kids and family podcasts in the world. I get people all the time like, “If I could just get on the Ellen show, I’d be rich.” “If I could get on Good Morning America with my product, I’d be rich.” You don’t understand, people aren’t watching TV anymore, they’re plugging into these things right here.

So right now, Brain On Science, podcast for kids, I don’t know what that is, it’s the number one podcast. I bet you it gets more downloads per month than any TV show right now, which means if you can get your product and service on that podcast, because you figure out where are my people congregating. They’re congregating on this podcast, and that one and that one. All these different podcast, there’s 200 places your dream customers are congregating, plugging into their ears and listening to their most intimate moments.

There’s 200 places I can get traffic that aren’t Facebook, that if Zuckerberg shuts down my account, I can still go here and I can get traffic from podcasts. And the same thing is true in blogging and in YouTube. There’s so many places that your dream customers are congregating, and if you really understand who they are, it’s not hard to figure out where they’re actually at. So that’s kind of how we shift traffic, the mindset, the shift is just, instead of like, “How do I target somebody?” It’s a bigger thing of like, “Who is my customer? Where are they congregating?” and then start making lists.

I literally have lists in my office of like, here’s all the YouTube channels my dream customers are watching. Here’s all of the Instagram influencers I’m following. Here’s all the YouTubes, and I go through all these huge lists of people, and we then figure out where they’re at.

PETE: Dude, that’s so good. Guys, he just gave you one traffic strategy right now that literally will help all of you win if you’re serious about getting your stuff out to the market. And this is what I think when I’m hearing this Russell, two things. Number one, I think of this idea, a lot of people say, “Pete, you’re the stage guy, so you must be terribly hip right now.” No, because I talk about 11 digital stages, and 11 physical stages. We have 22 stages that we go after, so I’m having to lean more into the digital stage bucket.

What Russell is teaching you right now is like a portfolio of traffic. Everybody thinks Google or Facebook, and they’re good right now, trust me, this is the cheapest we’ve ever gotten leads on Facebook in the history of me running ads Russell. But that’s not the only sources where we have traffic. Russell’s teaching you a whole portfolio, and obviously he’s dialing into a few, but you’ve got to have a portfolio of traffic

. I believe this book right now for Russell, for people, is a lifeline for what’s going on in this world right now. Bro, that’s just bomb. Keep going man, they’re loving it dude. They’re blowing the comments up over here.

RUSSELL: Very cool. Okay, I want to, I’ll tell a story that kind of illustrates this as well so you can see it in the real world. Because sometimes you’re like, “That doesn’t make sense Russell. There’s podcasts, so now what do I do?” And so right now, obviously, I don’t know if everybody, I think most everybody in the world is in quarantine right now, right? Or some version of it? Some people it’s like, “You can’t leave your house.”

Some it’s like, “Please stay at your house.” So for us, with my kids, I’ve got 5 kids, so that’s a lot of kids for anyone who doesn’t know. And I love them but it’s a lot. So every night we’re like, “We’re going to do something fun together as a family.” So we started watching all of the Marvel movies from the very beginning, in chronological order. So Captain America, Captain Marvel, and so on and so forth, we’re watching them all in order.

And I’m really excited because by the time we get to the end of it, we’re about halfway through right now, when we get to the end of it, the next Marvel movie coming out, does anyone know what it is, by the way? What is the next Marvel coming out? Pete, you don’t know? I am hurt, Pete. Don’t know if I can be on this interview anymore…

PETE: Dude, I’ve watched them all.

RUSSELL: So the new one coming out is Black Widow, so that’s the next one coming out. It was supposed to come out in May, but it got bumped until November, which makes me sad, but I can still use this story to illustrate my point. So think about this, we see this all the time happening in Hollywood. Yet, for some reason with our internet business we think it’s different. So think about when Black Widow starts coming out, what is Hollywood going to do?

They’re going to go and do the same thing I just talked about. Who are the dream customers, where are they congregating? And the first thing Hollywood is going to do, is they’re going to go and they’ll be like, they’re going to buy ads at these places. So they’re going to run ads on TV, so you’ll see they’re paying for ads on TV. They’re going to go to actual movie theaters where people are sitting in the theater and say, and people who go to movie theaters like to go to movie theaters.

They’re going to buy all the trailers before the movie, pitching when Black Widow is coming out. So they’re going to be paying, they’re going to find all the congregations, they’re going to buy their way in. And then about a week before the opening premier what they’re going to do is say, “Okay, the people that are going to come to the event, where are their eyeballs at? Where are they hanging out?” and they’ll look, okay, they’ll be watching the Today Show and The Tonight Show and Good Morning America, and Jimmy Fallon and the other Jimmy, I don’t even know, I don’t watch enough TV to know.

But all the talk shows, right. And you’ll start seeing a week before the movie comes out, Scarlet Johansen is going to come out, we all love Scarlet Johansen in our family, she’s going to come out and she’ll be on every single show. She’s going to tell them that she’s going to be on the show and then she’s going to show them a little clip from the video and be like, “This weekend is opening night. Make sure you get in yourself into the theaters.” And she’s going to push, and she’s going to be working her way in.

So all the Marvel, or Disney or whatever, they’re buying their way in, they’re busying ads to all these places, and then the second act is they’re working their way in. They’re having Scarlet Johansen, or whoever the actress is, or the actor, go and be in all these different shows, telling their story, getting people excited, and getting them to come to this show. So they’re buying their way in and they’re working their way in. You see it with every movie, with every album that comes out, this is what Hollywood does over and over and over again.

So right now, I’m in the middle of my book launch, and the same thing I did. I launched my book and now I’m buying ads everywhere. My guess is that if you’ve ever seen my face once in your entire life, or you’ve heard my name, now my ads are popping up everywhere and you’re probably sick and tired of me, because I’m buying my way in everywhere. But at the same time, I’m doing the same thing I’m talking about. I went to every single podcast in the business directory and I’m working my way in. I’ve done, I think 50+ podcast interviews in the last week and a half or two weeks.

I’ve done a Facebook live, every single that’s got a Facebook channel, I’ve been doing interviews there. I’m working my way in. I’m going to every blogger, and working with them on blog articles. I’m working my way into all these channels. So I’m buying my way in and I’m working my way in. Right now we’re sitting here live with thousands of people watching, I’m working my way, and I’m here, Pete didn’t pay me to be here, I did not pay him to be here.

I’m coming and working and serving and giving and hoping, and hopefully at the end of it you guys are like, “I need to get that book, that sounds amazing.” Right. Just like at the end of the movies, Scarlet Johansen is like, “I hope they come and watch the movie this weekend.’ So for any of you guys who have a product or service, start looking at it through this lens of like, it’s not just a target on Facebook, go do that, but it’s like, “Okay, where are all t he places my dream customers are at? I need to figure out how can I buy my way in and how can I work my way in?” And sometimes you can do both as well.

Sometimes you can’t. For example, one of the podcasts, Jenna Kutcher’s got the Goal Digger podcast, which is a huge podcast. I was like, “I want to be on that podcast.” But guess what, she only interviews women on that podcast. So I’m like, I can’t, unless I…..I don’t know, it’s not going to be easy to get on her podcast. So I can’t work my way in, but guess what I can do? I can buy ads on it. So we pay her to run ads selling my book on her podcast.

So I’m working my way, I’m buying my way in. So I’m looking at all these different congregations everywhere, how can I work my way in, and how can I buy my way in. I find someone with a big blog with 500,000 readers, here’s this huge blog, “Can I buy ads on it? Can I buy a banner ad? Can I work my way? Can I do a guest post? How can I gain access to this huge source and this huge stream of traffic?” and when you do that, it unlocks thousands of customers for you often times and it’s so much fun.

PETE: I think we’ve gotta get your lovely wife on Jenna’s podcast. That’s what I think.

RUSSELL: Collette tell her this. Feed my wife lines.

PETE: I started my women’s brand here, and this is how I’m getting traffic. Dude, this is so good. People are lighting it up. Keep going man, I mean, keep dropping this.

RUSSELL: Get your ads everywhere, everywhere.

PETE: And you should see, Facebook is lighting it up over here too.

RUSSELL: Oh, very cool. So much fun, I love this game if you guys can’t tell. It’s so much fun. Okay, I’ll get into the next step in the strategy. I don’t know, I have no idea how long we’re supposed to be going for, but would it be cool if I give the next step? Because the next step is like….

PETE: Dude, we’ve got 15 minutes here. We’ve got literally, technically 30 minutes left, but we could go….

RUSSELL: We’re good. There’s no wedding happening after this, that we should be kicked out of the ballroom.

PETE: No wedding.

RUSSELL: Okay, so we come back. Who’s your dream customer? Where are they congregating? How do I work my way in, buy my way in? The next thing to think about, this is the next strategic level, is let’s say I find this blog and it’s got 500,000 readers, so I figure out how do I get access to all of the people in there? The one step above that is a concept that I talk about in chapter two here, it’s called the dream 100.

And I learned it initially my friend, his name is Chet Holmes, he passed away a few years ago. But he had this concept called the dream 100. The way that he used the Dream 100 is a little bit different than how I use it. But what he would do is he had a bunch of fortune 500 companies he wanted to get. So he made the list of the top hundred companies and he would build a strategic marketing campaign where every single week he was marketing directly to these 100 customers.

And he told me that I was like, “That’s cool, but I don’t know how to use that because I sell books, and I sell software. I can’t spend a bunch of money. I can’t spend $500 or $1000 to get someone to buy a book because I’ll go broke really fast.” So I started looking at it from a different lens and I said, “Wait a minute, what if I look at the 200 podcasters that have these podcasts, and let’s say the 100 blogs I know in my market and the 100 YouTube Channels and the 100 Instagram influencers in my market. What if I took that and those became my dream 100.

And instead of just spending all my time marketing to the followings of those people, which I will, I’m still going to buy ads and stuff, but what if I spent more money marketing to the person who controls that blog or that podcast or whatever that is?” So I was like, “I’m going to try it.” So I went and I made a, I called it a dream 100 list. For those of you guys who get a copy of the book, on page I think it’s 41, yeah, page 41 I have a little graph of how I do it.

So if you’re watching the video you can kind of see it. This is the graphic right here. But basically it says Facebook, and the top of the cross is Facebook, Instagram, podcasts, YouTube, email, so you have the list of different platforms. And down below is a list. Who’s all the people on Facebook who already have my dream customers?

And I make a whole list of those people. And who are all the Instagram people? I make a list of them. And who are all the podcasters? So by the time it’s done I have a list of like 50 or 100 or 500 or however many you want. We call it the dream 100. So now I say, “What if I spend some time or money marketing to those 100 people what could possibly happen?” So I did my very first book about 6 years ago, this first one is called Dotcom Secrets, when I was launching that, I didn’t have a big list of customers at the time.

I was like, “Okay, I need to figure this out.” So I did exactly what I’m telling you. I built a dream 100 list, I had I don’t know, 100 podcasters, I had my list of all the people and I sent out a free copy of the book to all these people. I think it ended up going out to like 3 or 400 different people. I said, “Here’s a copy of my book. If you like it, I’d love to be on your podcast or on your show.” Or whatever and just sent it to people. And I sent it out there and then nothing happened for a little bit.

And then probably a week or two later, I got my first call back, it was from a guy named John Lee Dumas, from Entrepreneur on Fire. And JLD was like, and I had never met him before, this is how I met JLD, I sent him a copy of my book in the mail because he had a podcast in the top 200 podcast in the podcast directory.

And he messaged me back, he’s like, “Russell, I read your book. This is really, really good.” I was like, “Cool dude.” And he’s like, “Do you want to be on my podcast and we can, I can interview you about the book?” I was like, “Heck yeah dude, let’s do it.” So I jumped on a podcast, he reads about the book, a little while later the podcast goes live, and from that one interview alone we ended up selling over 500 copies of the book. And that was from one person.

Now JLD wasn’t the only person who said yes. From that I got 30 or 40 people who messaged me back and we started doing this thing all over the place and that’s how we ended up selling 100,000 copies of the book, by doing this dream 100 strategy. It wasn’t me targeting the audience, I mean we did, we targeted the audience, sold ads, but it was when the gate keeper, the person who owned the traffic said yes, that one yes, it turns into 500 customers, or 1000 customers or more.

And that’s the magic. People all the time who tell me, I ask what their traffic strategy is, they’re like, “Facebook.” I’m like, “Okay, so Mark Zuckerberg is one person on your dream 100. You’ve got one, now you 99 more. Because if Mark decides he doesn’t like you one day, your business is done. It’s game over.” So look at Facebook as one of your dream 100. Mark Zuckerberg is one person, you need 99 more.

That’s when I started looking at traffic and started figuring out how to work my way in, how to buy my way, how to get to know these people, how do I build relationships. As you get to know people, it opens up these huge doors where now, again, one person like a JLD does a podcast interview that sells 500 books.

One person gets you on their podcast, talking about your new kids course, or the kid product you have coming out, and you’re on the kid podcast, boom, you sell thousands of them overnight. That’s the magic or really understanding how this online traffic stuff works.

PETE: Hey guys, the one nugget I’ve got from Russell today, a ton, but the one that, I always look for the one I can implement, Russell. That’s when I’m like, “God, which one can implement right away?” I’m doing dream 100 wrong. I gotta do it like this. If I can do dream 100 like this, now dude, if Facebook shuts down I’m cool. I might see a little bit of drop off, but if this shuts down it’s kind of like multi-units.

Like if you lose one renter you’re okay because you still got 99 other renters that are still paying. That’s how Russell is making it. It’s like a paradigm shift in my mind. It’s one of the biggest misconceptions is they won’t let me on their channel of traffic. Russell will you tackle that for a quick second? Because you weren’t, like JLD didn’t know you, but will you tackle that for all of them like, ‘I’m not a big name. I’m not known.” I would love for you to tackle that.

RUSSELL: Yeah, I think it’s important to understand that people care less about, I mean yeah, they want a big name on a show, but for the most part, people that got their own podcast or shows or blog, they’re looking for content, they’re craving content, and what’s more interesting to them, more so than a name is a hook. What’s the hook, what’s the story going to be about?

So if you say, ‘I’m going to come on your show and you can interview me about how great I am.” That’s tough. Unless you’re like the greatest person in the world, they’re like, “That’s not going to be a big thing.” Even me, to this day, I don’t pitch, “Do you want to interview Russell Brunson?” Whatever that means, I’m just like an 11 year old kid sitting in my house right now. It’s not that important or that cool. What’s cool is I come into it with a hook like, “Okay, I’ve got a really cool message I can share. This is what it is, this is why it’d be awesome for your audience.”

And I pitch it to them just like I was going to pick TV. If I was trying to get on the Ellen show, I’m pitch them a show concept. So I’m coming with something like that, that’s what hooks them. They care more about the hook because that’s what’s going to get listeners and viewers and eyeballs for them. We always make fun of all of the clickbait sites that show up in clickbait-y stuff, those companies make insane amounts of money.

And they don’t even care if the story is true or false, they couldn’t care less, they’re just looking for the story that’s going to hook people’s attention to get them to come to read, so people will click on ads, which is unethical and immoral and you shouldn’t do that. But I’m saying is, that’s the power of what media cares about, they care about a story. That’s the most important thing. So you’re coming to them saying, “What’s your story?” What’s something you can share with their audience that’s unique?

They care more about the story than about the name, the brand. Most people, even if they know who I am, their audience doesn’t know or care who I am. They do care if I can come say, “Look, during times of economic downturn if your Facebook account got shut down, things like that, I’ve got a different way to look at traffic that will actually make it easier to get traffic right now than ever possible.” They’re like, “Oh my gosh, my people are struggling right now with traffic.”

It opens up that gate. So just looking at the story you have that ties back to your product or your service. Just like if you were trying to pitch it to get on, again, traditional media like the Today Show. You always gotta go pitch them a show. They don’t care who you are, they just care about a story that they can promote. That’s what gets people to listen to their podcast or read their blog or whatever the thing is, that’s what they really want. So that’s what you’re offering them.

PETE: Yeah, I love that. So I’m stoked about this. Russell, kind of, I don’t know if there’s another step or two or if you want to bring it full circle, I’m ears now.

RUSSELL: Yes, okay I’ll throw in one more thing. And this is, it kind of goes back to your question you asked, how do I get in with my dream 100? How do I get to know them? So the question is always like, “What do I have to offer my dream 100? I’m a nobody, what do I have that’s going to get them? How do I serve them? How do I get them to even want to know who I am?”

So I want to tell you guys, the most powerful thing that you have that you can offer your dream 100 is a platform. Look at just for example, everybody who Pete has had on this live series, which is insane. He’s had billionaires, he’s had people, it’s crazy. What does Pete have to offer everybody that’s unique? Why did they return his call? Why did they show up?

That’s because Pete has a platform. Pete can say, “I’m going to do this thing. And you might have 3500 people live watching.” That’s a platform that anybody is crazy to not jump to try to get access to right. ‘ So I’ll tell you guys a story that will illustrate this. How many of you guys remember back in the early, maybe late 80s, early 90s there was a TV show, late night TV show with Arsenio Hall, how many of you guys remember Arsenio Hall?

If you do, everyone do this right now while you’re sitting at home, because we all…yes, and for everyone who doesn’t know who Arsenio Hall is, what is Russell doing? So this late night talk show, he was the man, he had a talk show. In fact, it was so big that when President Clinton was running for President, Arsenio Hall called him up and was like, “Hey man, you want to perform on the show?” and he’s like, “Yes.” And he came on the show, he played Heartbreak Hotel on his saxophone, and many people credit that, the fact that he was on Arsenio Hall show playing the saxophone, to the reason why he won the presidential candidate, the presidential…became president.

It’s because he was on that show, and it said it swayed so many of the minorities and the younger voters that he wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Now fast forward to 2 years later, the Arsenio Hall show gets canceled, off the air, gone. And nobody hears form Arsenio Hall again for decades. The guy is off the radar. For all we know he died. Then one day, I think it was 2002 I believe, during Celebrity Apprentice, they have all these celebrities, washed up celebrities that come back on the show, typically. So Celebrity Apprentice is there, and one of the contestants is Arsenio Hall. And I’m watching and I’m like, ‘That’s Arsenio Hall, he was the man. What happened to that guy?” I had no idea.

And then fast forward, I think it was like 3 or 4 episodes in, they were doing this fundraising gig, where they go out and they have to go raise funds. So all the celebrities are calling their rich buddies and trying to get money. And some guys raised like a couple million dollars for charity, other people $500,000. Every single one of the celebrities raised money for charity except for one person, Arsenio Hall. He raised exactly zero dollars the entire day.

And you see him on the phone calling his phonebook, he’s calling every single person. And right before he goes in the boardroom, there’s this little window of time where they interview him and he says this quote that like, I’m sure most people didn’t hear, but when he said it just hit me. He said, “Man, when I had my own show, everybody returned my calls.” And I was like, “Oh.” Do you guys see the power in that? When he had his own show, even the future most powerful man on the earth, the president of the United States came on his show because he had a platform. The platform disappears, no one will return his calls.

So that’s for you all to understand, do you have a platform yet? If not, that is the key, that is how you infiltrate your dream 100. That’s how I got Tony Robbins to return my call. That’s how I’ve been able to get other people to return my call. Not because I’m this cool, Russell is so awesome. No, they don’t care about that. I have a platform I can offer them. That’s the thing you have of value. So if you don’t have a platform yet, now is the time to start building one.

And I don’t care if it’s on YouTube or Instagram or podcasts, if you’re a blogger, it doesn’t matter where. Figure out which modality you like the most. If you like writing go start a blog. If you like video, start a YouTube channel, if you like podcasting, start a podcast…pick up whichever one you want and double down and start building your show, because if you don’t have a platform it gets really hard to get people to return your call. But when you do have one, everyone will return your call. And that’s really the power of how you infiltrate the dream 100. You’re giving them access to your platform.

So all you guys, you need to start working on that, start building it. Even if you’re like, I don’t want to, in fact someone the other day who got a copy of the book is like, “If I get this book do I have to become like Gary Vaynerchuk and do 5000 videos a day?” No you don’t, but you need to be publishing something. It’s not the only thing you have to have traffic, but man, it makes so many things easier when you have a platform.

So that’s kind of the last thing I want to share, just man, every one of you guys should start thinking, “Man, how can I have my own platform? Because I want to make sure that when I pick up the phone to call the influencer in my industry, or the podcast I want to be on or whatever, now I’ve got some value I can offer them” and the thing of value you have for people, is access to your own platform.

PETE: Dude, I love that Russell. A lot of you are like, “What’s a funnel?” Russell, maybe you can just tackle that for 2 minutes. Help, like I know 70% might know what it is, 30% don’t understand funnel. It’s been said a lot this week. Can the guru, the master of funnels, can you give us the elementary funnel explanation of what a funnel is so people know what to build in their business? I know that’s a big topic, but I’m sure you can give a two minute answer.

Russell: It’s tough because there are so many different types of funnels. There’s funnels to generate leads, there’s funnels to sell products, there’s funnels to do live events, there’s different funnels for different things. But basically a funnel is a step by step sales process. So you can tell it’s a funnel because usually each step in the process only asks you to do one thing. Unlike a shopify store is like, 8000 things you can order, a funnel always is like, each page has one specific call to action, like “Give me your email address.”

Then you do that. The next page is like, “Watch this video and then I want you to buy this thing.” And the next page is like, “Here’s an upsell.” So it’s taking you through a step by step simple sales process, and by doing that two things happen. Number one, you increase how much money you get for every single person that comes in. Like every, all the traffic, each person that comes into your funnel, you’ll make more money from them.

And second off, it actually gives them a better experience as well. They go through a funnel, they’re not being bombarded with all these options and opportunities. It’s just step by step, here’s the first thing you need, second thing, the third thing. And you take them down a path of success.

So it makes more money for the person who owns the funnel, and makes a better experience for the person who is going through the funnel as well. So that’s a basic…

PETE: Dude, that’s perfect.

RUSSELL: I can go deep for years on this.

PETE: I know. Russell, thank you so much, bro. I appreciate it, man.

RUSSELL: Thank you man, that was fun.