People are getting the Traffic Secrets book in the mail today, and if you’re not careful, you may miss the greatest marketing lesson of all. On today’s episode Russell explains the difference between hard-selling and soft-selling. Here are some of the informative things to look for in this episode:

-- Find out how Russell is almost constantly soft-selling his products and services and why you may not have noticed.

-- See why when you buy from Russell you should buy slowly and pay attention to everything that happens from going through the funnel to receiving things in the mail.

-- And find out what kind of ad Russell has that is converting best right now.

So listen here to find out the difference between a hard and soft-sell and how you can use them in your own business.

I always tell people, especially you, my people, I always tell my people, my funnel hackers, that every time you buy anything from me, to buy slowly and watch the process and look what happens, and what are the sequences that come out? What are the things you get in the mail? What is the packaging? I remember when I was starting this game back 15-20 years ago, I’d go to Dan Kennedy events and I literally, and I still have it to this day, every single person who spoke, I went and ran to the back and grabbed their order form. I didn’t buy everyone’s product, but I wanted to see the sales material, how they structured it, how they laid it out, what they did and how they did it.

-- 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.

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I want to talk about the marketing that’s invisible inside of the fulfillment of the thing that you are actually selling.

Alright, so a couple of things, I had someone on Instagram write me and they asked the question, “What’s the difference Russell, between hard-selling and soft-selling?” which got the wheels in my head spinning. And then today, actually this whole week, everybody is starting to get the books in the mails.

So the Traffic Secrets are showing up, the box set’s showing up, it’s so exciting to see everybody getting their boxes and their packages. And a couple of people in my inner circle made videos of them opening the boxes and it was like, “Did you guys all capture the marketing lesson that Russell just gave us here inside of this box?” And it’s fun because I don’t think most people got it, but a few people did. So I’m going to let you in on the secrets, just in case.

Because a lot of times we focus so much on the hard-selling, “I’m going to go and I’m going to create my offer and my funnel. And I’m going to make, hook, story, offer. I’m going to hook them, tell them a story, make them an offer.” That’s hard-selling right. Soft-selling is like all the subtleties that you’re doing around everything. Like for example, in my podcast, in my Facebook Lives, in my interviews, in my everything, I’m always talking about stuff. I always talk about Clickfunnels.

When I had my inner circle, when it was still open, if you ever noticed that the first probably 300 episodes of this podcast, I was always talking about my inner circle members, “My inner circle member did this. My inner circle member did this.” I was talking about these people and this tier and this group.

And as I did that more people were like, “I want to be in the inner circle. What’s the inner circle?” and started looking for it. And that’s what a soft-sell is. It’s just like casually talking about things. Talking about Clickfunnels, talking about order form bumps, talking about all these things that lead back to whatever it is that you actually sell. So I think a lot of times people think like, “I mean there’s my product. Either I’m selling my product, or I’m teaching.” It’s like, no, they all go together.

Don’t you understand that? They all tie together. So soft-selling is all the things you’re doing all the time. Like for example right now, what have I already done? I’ve already talked about Clickfunnels today, I talked about the Traffic Secrets book, I talked about the box set, and I talked about my inner circle. So four things just in the first 2 minutes of this podcast, which is soft-selling.

And it’s like planting seeds and talking about it, and talking about it more. And as you do more and more of it, it just gets people to wonder more and to look more and to be more excited when the opportunity for them to purchase arises. So that’s kind of the difference between a hard-sell and a soft-sell. Now to go deeper on that, this is what’s fun. So everybody bought the book, and you went through the book funnel. If you haven’t bought the book yet, come on now, why are you even listening to me?

By this point if you don’t trust me enough to go buy the book, that’s ridiculous. But I digress; you go to TrafficSecrets.com to get the book. So you get the book, you go through the upsell, downsell flow, you see the whole thing. From there I invite you to come watch a webinar, hopefully you go to the webinar, and the whole funnel happens. So that’s the hard-sell. Now the soft-sell are the things happening now.

So in the mail everybody got a box, and on the outside of the box it’s like, “Wait before you open the box, scan this QR code.” And I know a lot of people don’t know how to use QR codes yet, I’m still just learning how to use them. But if you go to your photo app and you hold the QR code it will pop open a website where there’s a video from me.

And the video I just basically tell people, “thank you so much for buying this book.” I reaffirm their decision, “you’re going to love it, I can’t wait for you to dive into it.” And I asked them for a favor, “Look, just so you know, an author like me, the biggest thing that we want is we want to be able to have people actually get the thing we create. We spend 18 months of our lives locked down writing this thing for you. I want to hear your feedback.

So the thing that would mean the most to me right now is before you open this box is you actually record yourself opening the box. And as you open it, go and share it on Facebook, and on Instagram, social media, and tag me on it. I want to see those things.” Now again, this is the art of soft-selling right now. So I’m asking them for a favor. “You just bought this book. I killed myself to give it to you, now you have it. If you could do me a favor, just make a video of you unboxing it and post it.”

And obviously not everyone does, not even the majority of people do, but a good percentage of people do. And what’s cool is they’re posting them everywhere. They’re posting them in the Clickfunnels group, they’re posting them on their own page, they’re posting them on Instagram, they’re doing their stories. I’m getting tagged in unboxing videos everywhere.

Now obviously we sold I think, 60 or 70 thousand copies of the book so far, and I’m not getting 60 or 70 thousand. But I’m getting literally hundreds, literally multiple hundreds of people posting these videos, and when they’re doing it, guess what’s happening. Their friends, their family members, their other people that are like, “What’s that book? What’s it about?” and it’s starting to make sells, it’s the second wave of sells, that I didn’t do anything for, other than ask people if they’d be willing to unbox their thing, and post the unboxing and tag me in it, which has been really, really cool.

All the coolest ones that, and I don’t see all of them, because land in my other folder, or junk folder. But the cool ones I see, I share them again, it’s helping those people as well. So there’s a lot of other cool benefits. Then inside of the book, if you are in the box, you open it up and there’s like a quick start guide. And the quick start guide walks you through how to use the book.

Think about when you buy a computer you get a quick start guide, when you bough software you get a quick start guide. But for a book we don’t. So I, we included a quick start guide. So you get the quick start guide and it’s like, “Okay, the first thing you need to do is you need to read this book. The second thing you need to do is, this is part one of three, go get the other two books and make sure you get the whole trilogy and get them all.

If you want the workbook for free, here’s how to get the whole box set.” So I’m telling them about the best way to consume the book, and how it fits with the other books and for them to go get it. So again, it’s not a hard-sell, but it’s just saying, “Hey, as you’re reading this, this is the best way to consume it.” Just like if I was selling crackers, I’d be like, “The best way to eat these crackers is with some…” I don’t even know what to eat crackers with, with some cashew milk or something. I don’t even know, is that even a thing? But you know what I mean?

If I was to, let’s say I had a food company, or a shampoo company. The best way to use shampoo is to also use conditioner, all the sudden, boom you just doubled your sales. It’s these little things like that. So there’s a quick start guide, there’s also little tickets to other things. Like tickets to webinars, tickets to all the other offers we have. So it’s like, ‘Oh by the way, here’s a bookmark you could use.” But it also serves as a pretty good ad. So now these bookmarks that come in the boxes, people use them as bookmarks in the books, but it’s pushing you to the webinar funnel, and this thing, and other places, there’s a Clickfunnels trial.

Things like that, you know. So it’s just these little things you kind of include in the sales process, the fulfillment process that increase a whole bunch of things. It gets your book or your product to spread more viral. It gets people talking about it, it gets people sharing it. It gets people knowing what’s the next step, where do I go from here in the value ladder? What’s the next piece? So all those things that you kind of look at them, and that’s the magic.

Anyway, I hope you guys start thinking about that. I always tell people, especially you, my people, I always tell my people, my funnel hackers, that every time you buy anything from me, to buy slowly and watch the process and look what happens, and what are the sequences that come out? What are the things you get in the mail? What is the packaging? I remember when I was starting this game back 15-20 years ago, I’d go to Dan Kennedy events and I literally, and I still have it to this day, every single person who spoke, I went and ran to the back and grabbed their order form. I didn’t buy everyone’s product, but I wanted to see the sales material, how they structured it, how they laid it out, what they did and how they did it.

I listened to every single sales pitch. I had all these buddies that were like, “Oh, I’m too good to sit in the room. I’m going to sit out in the lobby and network with people, because I already know all this stuff.” I’m like, “You guys are so dumb. I’m not in here to learn all this stuff. I’m in here to watch that guy sell something, because he’s good at it and he’s got something I don’t know.” Watching the sales process, grabbing the order forms, and looking at those things.

I remember at one of my first T&C events I went to, when Ryan Dyson and Perry Belcher and those guys, they were selling. It was before we launched, it was like we were working on Clickfunnels, but they were selling their funnel package thing where they would help you design a funnel and build it and all this stuff, pre-Clickfunnels by the way, so it was really hard to do back then. I remember watching them pitch it and taking notes on how they pitched it.

And then I bought the videos of the event specifically so I could have a recording of how they pitched their funnel thing. And then getting the order forms and getting the, I did everything because I wanted to see, I want to understand, I want to study. I’m a funnel hacker, I’m watching the process. So I think a lot of times you guys are going through these things and you’re missing the process. And it’s like, man, if you’re paying me to learn marketing advice, you may learn as much, if not more, from watching the process as you do from the actual thing you paid for. Anyway, that’s how I look at things. There are so many products and services that I’ve bought that I’ve never opened and consumed.

People are like, “Well, don’t you feel bad. You spent money, you didn’t consume.” I’m like, “No, no, no. You don’t understand. That was like getting a box of cereal and there’s a little prize you pull out.” The product is the prize. “Oh, cool. I got a little prize woo-hoo.” What I was paying for was the privilege to buy the person’s product and see the experience and see how it all works, and watching the process and the flow.

I think that a lot of times we forget that. It’s not true for all markets, but for you guys, if you’re following me, you’re trying to figure out how to sell your products and your services. It always blows my mind when people get upset, “Aw, you sent me too many emails this week.” Okay, that’s something to be annoyed by, unless you came to me to learn marketing, then you’re going to look at that and be like, hmmm.

There’s an ad we’re running right now that’s killing it, just so you know. I was with my daughter and I was like, “I want to film some ads with you.” So I’m paying her a dollar per ad to help film these ads. So we did this one in my office where she has the ipad and clicked record, and I’m like, “Come here, come here.” And I run them into the hall and like get all excited, showing them all the Two Comma Clubs and like, “Now come here.”

And I run around the room and run through the whole office, it’s really fun right. And we posted the ad and it’s killing it, it’s blowing up. I was reading the comments today and there was some people, people are annoying, but like, “Is this guy on drugs?’ and someone was like, “What kind of caffeine, what kind of cocaine you taking to be all excited?” and like, “You’re speaking too fast.” And some guy, I remember this one, I should have screen shot it, but it was like, “Just so you know Russell, if you really want to get leads you need to talk slower.

This is doing nothing except hurt your brand, blah, blah.” all this stuff. And I sat there for a second and then I looked at our stats and it’s the number one ad right now, it’s converting the most leads at the least amount of money. And people coming in, like you have someone who’s done this game for a while, you may even pay him to come to his events or buy his books or courses or whatever, and you’re critiquing his ads. “This ad doesn’t work.”

Okay, or maybe it’s killing it and you just missed the whole process. Man, I never would critique someone’s product, or someone’s ad, just step back and look, “How did this make me feel? How did it work.” But I would never, anyway, people are funny. Alright, I hope that helps. I appreciate you guys. Thank you for listening. Have fun with your marketing, it’s such a fun game. Man, the more I can get you guys excited about geeking out about it and studying it and looking at it, and trying to find the patterns to see what’s working, the better you’re going to be at this game.

Anyway, I appreciate you guys, thanks for hanging out today. If you got anything of value from this, please take a screen shot on your phone and post it on social media, and tag me, I’d love to see it. It does make my day, I scroll through my feeds everyday personally and I see all the stuff you guys are posting and it means a lot to me.

So if you got anything, please post it and let me know your biggest takeaway you got from today, and with that said, start studying the process. Watch it you guys, because you’re going to learn, it’s your own marketing education. Alright thanks everybody, I’ll talk to you soon.