Recently, I sat down with Kathryn Jones Lish, an expert in joint ventures and partnerships, for an insightful episode of the Marketing Secrets podcast. Kathryn and I dived deep into a tactic that played a pivotal role in building ClickFunnels to $10 million in revenue without a single ad purchase during its first two years: joint ventures. We unpacked how these partnerships can provide a powerful alternative to paid advertising, offering a scalable and sustainable way to drive traffic and sales.

Kathryn shared her incredible journey, starting from her dorm room with limited resources to mastering the art of joint ventures. We discussed the framework she developed for creating successful collaborations, including how to identify complementary partners, position your offer effectively, and use step-by-step systems to ensure both parties achieve their goals. Her approach has delivered transformative results, and she offers actionable insights that anyone—from beginners to seasoned entrepreneurs—can implement.

Key Takeaways:

Whether you're looking to break free from ad reliance or scale your business to new heights, this episode is packed with strategies that can redefine your approach to growth. Tune in and learn how to make partnerships your secret weapon!

And the thing that's most amazing is if you can get what I call on somebody's collaboration ladder. If you can do a collaboration with them, even if it's them on your show, you're not even on their show, then all of a sudden you have a relationship with them and what have you done? You've gotten their attention. And because you've gotten their attention, what can you then do? You can present to them other opportunities. So you can just slowly climb the value ladder.

Russell Brunson:
What's up everybody, it's Russell. Welcome back to The Selling Online or the Marketing Secrets Podcast, depending on when you are listening to this. We just finished recording a really cool episode about one of my favorite things to talk about, yet one of the things that, or probably the, I'd say one of the least used marketing tactics of today, and it's the marketing tactic we use to grow ClickFunnels. A lot of people know we didn't buy any ads in ClickFunnels for the first two years, we grew the business from zero to over $10 million a year completely through joint ventures and partnerships. And I'm lucky enough that this week we've got Kathryn Jones Lish. No Kathryn.

Kathryn Jones Lish:
You nailed it.

Russell:
I almost just messed it up. Here in the office, it's been a long week going live every single day. But she's here and she's someone who is one of my favorite people to talk about joint ventures with.

And so we just finished a really cool conversation about that. So if you want more traffic, you want more sales, you don't want to pay Mark Zuckerberg or dance on TikTok or anything, but you want to get a lot of traffic into your office selling your products and services, you are going to love this conversation about how to do joint ventures. So with that, so let's jump right into the podcast.

In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars in my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. All right, so I'm back right now with the second of our interviews today with Kathryn Jones Lish. I almost keep forgetting to say the last name. I'm so sorry.

Kathryn:
I worked really hard for that last name. I searched high and low, the amount of dating apps. Let me have it. Okay, come on.

Russell:
You should scrap Jones then, just Kathryn Lish. That seems easier to say.

Kathryn:
I know, but here's the thing, I was Kathryn Jones for too long, but I have to have it.

Russell:
It's true. And I used to always think Catherine Zeta Jones, that's how I never forget it.

Kathryn:
My nickname in middle school was Zeta. So I'm telling you what, I'm open to it again.

Russell:
I'm here today with Zeta and we're going to go deep into a new topic. No, we did a podcast interview a little bit ago. For those of you listening to the podcast, it was our last episode probably.

But this one we're going to go on a different angle. We talked about selling sales funds last time, which is one of the genius things you are genius at. But the second thing I want to talk about is actually joint ventures and partnerships and things like that. And I wanted to talk about this for a couple reasons, and I'll caveat this right now just so you have some context to why this is fascinating in my head right now. But when I got started in this business way back in the day, we did not have Facebook, we did not have Instagram, we didn't have TikTok. We didn't have any of the social platforms. In fact, I remember when I was in college, the very first social platform I was aware of was called Friendster. Do you remember Friendster?

Kathryn:
I don't even know. I don't know what that is.

Russell:
It's called Friendster. And I remember people freaking out, you can go and you can find friends, you can connect. And that was a big thing. And then everyone was blowing up, it was this huge viral sensation. And then from there, this new company came and disrupted it called MySpace and everyone's like, "We're leaving Friendster to go to MySpace." And everyone's on MySpace. This is where I got in the internet. And you couldn't buy ads on MySpace or Friendster. You could buy Google ads, that was the one thing, we were buying Google ads. There was this guy named Chris Carpenter, wrote a book called 'Google Cash' and it was insane. This, insert my potato gun story here because you read 'Google Cash' and it was basically, you go to Google and you buy an ad and you pay five cents a click and then you make a dollar over here and you could do an affiliate offers or anything. So everybody who read that book got rich. It was 100% success stories if you read that book, because it was so simple.

Kathryn:
It was just like the perfect time, the perfect demand.

Russell:
Yeah, the prices were cheap, the algorithm worked. And so you'd go to ClickBank, you'd find any offer, you pick it out, you go to Google, you buy an ad, and it was just free money. And so everyone made, it was just crazy. I'm going to do it with potato guns, I'm going to do it with everything. We're all doing that. And it was insane. I was like, "I'm the smartest person on the planet." I thought I was genius. And then it came, the horrible Google slap and it shifted and all of a sudden all the prices changed. And at that point forward advertising online just got hard. And most people I knew who were making a ton of money disappeared. I never saw them again. And there's been these waves have happened throughout, man, the 25 years I've been playing this game. Where, "Oh, we should all just make a bunch of money," and then something changes and they all disappear. And so I've been on this cycle for a long time.

Anyway, so for me, because the Google slap, I got so scared, I started trying to figure out how else can I get traffic, and we didn't have other places to buy ads from. So 100% of my traffic for the next decade and half-ish came from joint ventures from partnerships. And we used to go to internet marketing events. And when you go to these events, all the speakers, all we talked about were how to join ventures and partnerships. And that's what all the conversations were. There were no conversations on funnel building, no conversations on traffic, or SEO, or Facebook or anything. All we talked about were joint ventures and partnerships and that's how we all got traffic back then. And then what happened is this thing called Facebook came out.

And it got easier to get Zuckerberg to send you traffic than to talk to somebody else and have to build an actual physical relationship and talk to people. And so everyone switched to Facebook ads and that became the thing. And then I saw all the Facebook slaps that happened over the decades and same kind of thing. But what's fascinating is last year, so I have my inner circle and we have a 50,000 a year level, 150,000 a year level, 250,000 a year level. Everyone was in this room and I got up and I did a presentation on joint ventures. And of all the things, in my mind this is a simple thing, and people's eyes were popping, they were going nuts. People were like, "Wait a minute, you're saying we can get traffic and not have to pay Zuckerberg money?" You're saying...?" And I was like, this is so fascinating for me. For the first decade of my business, this is all we ever talked about. And no one talks about it now.

And so I wanted to have this conversation because I don't remember which funnel hack, two funnel hacking lives ago, I had you come and speak on joint ventures. And of the 20 some odd years that I've been doing joint ventures and teaching and talking about it, that was the best presentation I've ever seen. So I'm not just saying that because you're sitting here. I said that at the back of the room, after watching I'm like, "This is insane." And it was amazing. So I want to talk about that. It's the longest intro of a podcast ever.

Kathryn:
I'll take it, it's making me feel good about myself. So keep going. What else do you have to say about me?

Russell:
Please stop, please.

Kathryn:
That's the best speech you've ever heard. What else?

Russell:
Again, my first meeting you, I was watching you do your design hacking, that was the world. And all of a sudden you started this campaign. And I remember it was such a good campaign, I was literally messaging and being like, "What are you doing?" And you were talking about this sunroom and this house you bought and these things. You're changing everything. And I was like, I was so in engaged in this launch that you were doing, I didn't know what it was. And so I know that it became a lot of this joint venture thing. So I'd love for you to lead with telling your sunroom story and the transition, and then let's dive into the actual mechanics of these joint ventures, how we get traffic and things like that from it.

Kathryn:
Yes. Okay, well, maybe I could say this, because I don't know who's coming to this podcast. Well, just knowing you attract very, very beginnings and you attract the $250,000 a year people. And even the $250,000 a year, people, like you said, their eyes are going big because they don't even know what a joint venture is. Because sometimes you hear about it and it's like, "Oh, are you getting VC money? Are you acquiring the whole thing?" And the answer is no. What a joint venture is, is you have one party that has a product and one party that has an audience, and you both agree to launch that together. So ultimately the person with the product pitches into that person's audience. And so one person supplies product, one person supplies audience, and then you split a 50/50.

So how I got started with this was like you said, I had built this course, all that how to design funnels, but I didn't have a way to get traffic to it. When I first started, I'd only made 20 sales. I was living in my dorm room, literally in a shared room. I had an Ikea bunk bed where you had the bed on top and the desk underneath, and I would try to face my camera so you couldn't see the top of the bed. That's where I was at. I'd made 20 sales and I was just trying to figure it out. And anyway, so I could sell funnels, but I didn't know, I was trying to learn how to sell a product still, for my own and the nuances of all. Anyway. And I knew that my funnel works. When I got people to it, people were buying because I was good at funnels. But I was like, "I don't have money for ads."

Anyway, so long story short, I was like, "I got to figure out how to give traffic to this dang thing, because if people get there, they're buying." But I was tired of, I was just DMing people, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, "I don't want to dance on social media." Didn't know how to do that.

Russell:
TikTok dance.

Kathryn:
And honestly, nobody needs to see that. And the next thing is I was like, "SEO is really cool, but it takes too long. Facebook ads are risky, because it costs too much." And so though I had money for my funnel building business, I was just too afraid to spend it on ads. I was too scared. And so I was like, "I got to figure out how to get traffic to this thing." I had heard about this concept called joint ventures, and on paper it's the sexiest thing in the world. Just find somebody with an audience and then just convince them to let you pitch your product to their group and then they don't have to do any fulfillment. It's great for them. And then you just split it 50.50.

Russell:
And you don't have to pay, it's not like Facebook where you're gambling ahead of time like, "I'm going to give the money and hopefully make sales." That person makes the sales, and then you pay them a cut.

Kathryn:
It's so awesome.

Russell:
The best.

Kathryn:
So $0 up front.

Russell:
No risk upfront for you.

Kathryn:
And then you only pay on the back end. It is so sexy. And then it's like, "Yeah, let's do it." And then you're like, dot, dot, dot. "How? What do you mean?" And so you go look at all the advice and it's, "Go to networking groups, develop relationships with people," blah, blah. Very comparable to my other story, I'm just too impatient. I'm like... And I'm like, "What do you mean make friends? Make friends and then what?" That doesn't seem very friendly to me. I'm going to make friends with you so that, dot, dot, dot, you'll sell my product. It felt a little bit like blegh to me. And I was just like, "I don't like that," but I could see the math in it where I'm like, "Oh, I could... If I can just find rather..."
The goal is always a million dollars, make a million, make a million, make a million. So I sold 20 units of my $1,000 course, I was at $20,000. So I was like, "Okay, I could either sell a thousand people into this course and just pick them off one by one." I was like, "Or if I just find 10 people that let me pitch their group and I make a hundred sales per that," it just was numbers to me. I was like, "I got to figure this out."

Anyway, and so again, we'll go into the mechanics later, but long story short, I figured it out, how to get people to say yes to me. And it was just the most amazing thing ever because I would go, I'd pitch into a group and it was a warm group. People who trusted me because their group leader trust me. So they'd be like, it's like this Selling Online event, because a lot of people don't know me from Adam, but they're like, "Because Russell says she's cool, she's cool." Then all of a sudden people are like, "She's the expert," but they don't even know who I am. And they're like, "Russell said."

It was the same thing, you go to any group, "Kathryn's the best at this," blah, blah. And they're like, "I don't know her, but he said, so sure." So you go in and I would literally just do my webinar to them and we'd pitch it and then we'd get people into our program, and we would just track the people that came and we'd sell on the back end. And it worked so well that I was like, "Why would I spend money on ads?"

And the beautiful thing about joint ventures is if they work once, they're going to work again. If that audience liked it one time, they'd work again. And if you set it up the right way, then what we would do is we'd just set up a joint venture so that every six months to a year we're just going back to the same groups. Which is even more awesome because you convert typically higher and higher on the following ones, because the success stories that you show in your pitch are just success stories from that group. So, "Hey, you don't believe me?" "No, I came here six months ago." And, "Every single example I'm about to show you is from people in your group, every single example," blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, so I loved it. It was awesome. But the reality is I was never intending to turn it into a product, which is seriously the same with funnel design. It's so funny. I just run into a problem and I'm annoyed that everybody's answers take too long. So I just figure out a way to do it better.

Anyway, so I'm just doing this and I started having people ask me, because when you look at the advice online, which is you need to schmooze people. A long time the advice was, send people gifts in the mail and then maybe you'll get their attention and maybe they'll talk to.

And you know, you're someone that gets a lot of gifts in the mail. I don't get as many as you, but I literally got one two weeks ago or a week and a half ago, and it was actually this really nice picture of Jesus and all this stuff which was sweet, because I love Jesus. And I also am like, "I don't know who you are, and I don't even know what you want to talk about. Why?" It's like this, he looks like a middle-aged dude. And I'm like, "I'm not going to just start a relationship with a middle-aged dude.

Yeah, I don't know you." But if he would've sent me a... Hopefully we'll talk about today, "Hey, this is my intention in contacting you. This is why I think it'd be awesome. I think we should partner together." And I'm like, "I understand exactly why you're talking to, the nature of the relationship. Why is this going to be so cool. Dude, yeah let's do it."

Anyway, but there was just so much false advice or just I thought ineffective advice on how to go about it. And so anyway, people are like, "How are you getting other people to do that?" And that was, I think a lot of the reason and why how I got your attention is because a lot of people in your inner circle were promoting my thing. So that we didn't know each other when I did make my initial pitch to be like, "Hey, notice me." It wasn't like, "Who's this rando chick?" I don't know, maybe you could tell your side of the story, but I don't think it was. And anyway, and so long story short, people were like, "How do you do this?" So I'm just telling them, telling them, telling them. And my systems, OCD brain is very methodical. And so they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing." So one friend would call another and then another, and all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, I think I have a product here."

And the thing that's so cool is I fell in love with it because I love my initial, first big product took off with CG Design school, you know. And I love that because it can allow anybody genuinely to make money online. It's so fun and you make money online by helping other people make money. It's just this beautiful gift that keeps giving. But I loved partnerships because there's just this beautiful truth that you could do more together than you could do apart. And it was just so meaningful for me to be like, "Oh my gosh, because we decided to work together, there's a result that neither of us could do separately." And it just came alive to me.

And so I loved that concept on how to work with people, but I also didn't know. I don't know, I didn't if it was just like, "Oh, I just had a good offer." Or, "Oh, maybe I was just charismatic," I don't know. And so I started teaching other people, but I for real wanted to see if my framework would work for other people. So enter this video you saw. So my husband and I, we bought this house and it's a 1955 house and we loved it, because the whole back a thousand square feet of it... That makes it sound like it's a huge house, it's only a 2000 square foot house, but half of it is glass. And we were like, "Ah." We just fell in love with this random house. We literally, it is in this old cutie neighborhood. We are obsessed with our neighbors. But when God's just like, "Mind and heart"? He was like, "You were supposed to live here," and we loved it. So we took it and we were like, "It'll be so romantic. We'll redo the house."

It was romantic and it was in insane. It was insanity. My husband's like, "Let's do this again." I was like, "Should we? I don't know. Maybe we can, but we can't live in it at the same time." It was too crazy. So we have this house, but we finally finished the house and we were living in shambles. We stripped everything down to the floorboards, everything. So by the time we finally had a house, it was the most amazing. You're like, "Is this the most beautiful house that has ever lived?" I'm sorry, I'll put up any mansion. And you know when you put something in, it'd be so funny, we'd drive by a huge house, be like, "Our house is better." It's so funny.

But anyway, so we had the sunroom, but again, because we ripped it to shambles, we had no furniture. And we're both coming from apartments, so we didn't have furniture anyway, so we had to buy furniture to furnish the house. So I was like, "I need to prove that this joint venture concept is true, so why don't we just leave our house open?" Because it's basically 2000 basically open square feet, because we just knocked down every wall. And so it's like an event center, almost. I was like, "Why don't we just have people pay to come here and I'll teach these concepts?" And I decided to do it, because I really wanted to see if it worked. So rather than people buying like, "Hey, come to my house one time," they would buy three sessions. So they'd come month one, month three, and month five. And then I had a second group that came month 2, 4, 6.

And so in month one I'd be like, "Okay, this is what you need to do. Go do it." And then month three, "How did it go?" And then, "Okay, go do this and that." And the whole purpose was to build an offer and then can you actually go sell it via joint ventures? Anyway, and so we called them Sunroom Sessions. And so this campaign that I did was like, "I'm burning everything to the ground." And so essentially it was just, "I used to be the funnel girl, now we're starting on this venture." And I still love funnels, but it was just rolling, it was what it was. And you know when your soul just calls to other things. So it was running. We actually did have ads, we're doing joint ventures too, but it was living its life and it was fine. It was like, it's ready to build the next step of the value ladder.

Anyway, I remember you messaged me, you were like, "Don't burn your business." He's like, "You could sell this, you could sell, don't..." And I was like, "Don't worry, I'm not selling, I'm not doing that." I just remember you saying, "Don't burn it down."

Russell:
You got a good hook, good story.

Kathryn:
Oh yeah. I was like, "It's good. I got him." I messaged you, that's awesome. Anyway, so we did, we had people come. And I was telling the background, we intentionally invited any and everyone. I wanted to have really established entrepreneurs and brand new entrepreneurs, because I wanted to see where the framework broke. Because I just wanted to make sure if I was selling it, it worked. For me, I feel like I want to be really, really, really, really sure. Because if I'm really, really sure, then I can go on and I can pitch my face for days. But if I don't, then I feel like I'm lying. It gets a little slimy.

So I had people come and it was awesome. It was so fun. First of all, I love doing events at my house because I just wake up and I didn't have any furniture. So it was like, "Guys, come on in." It was fun, our kitchen wasn't even done yet. It was crazy. It was so fun, and we just catered food. It was so great. But we just had people come and I was like, "Okay, step one, great. Step two, great." And it was really fun because of the people that came, we had a hundred percent success rate for the people that did everything I said. And if you didn't or you tried to improvise or you tried to get crazy, they did not succeed. And so it was like, "Okay, great. Works. Love it."

Anyway, but I think the reason it works is a lot of why all my other principles work. My brain just loves to find the patterns that work over and over and over and over and over and over again. And because when I can find it, then I'm like, "Oh, I can repeat it." And something about that makes myself feel calm. I literally, I don't have one right now, but when I was in college, I had a personal assistant and she'd do everything for me. It was the best. Her name was Maddie. And I would just make, I'd make a standard operating procedure for everything. I'd be like, "Okay, every new season I need six new outfits, just freshen up the wardrobe." And I'd be like, "This is exactly what I want to look like. Here's how I want you to model. Do this, good. This is my size. Great, go." And it was done. And then at the beginning of the week, every week, "Here's exactly what I want done. Great. Every six months, this is what I want done on my car. Great. Done."

And so it was just so nice. It's just, I know it's done, I know it's documented, it's taken care of. For those of you being like, "This girl's insane." Yes, I know. And? Sorry, it's just how my brain works. But anyway, and it's really interesting because I don't care if anybody else lives that way. I shared a room all in college, and I'm like, "Girl, your side of the room is messy, could care less. And mine will be pristine."

But anyway, but for me in business, if I can't understand the process, it gets really overwhelming to me. So for things like building funnels or joint ventures, anything I want to sell, I really want to make sure that I know the process. And so we had people come to the sunroom, we tested it out.

Anything that didn't work, we ironed it out. And oftentimes, you know, when you start pitching things, you're like, "Oh, I said the right thing, but you interpreted it the wrong way, so I need to say it a different way." And so it was so fun. So over those six sessions, we ironed out how to teach it and how to say it. And then started teaching it to other people and having clients for other people. And anyway, it's been really, really fun to learn what's the best way to sell this and how does it work. But I love partnerships. It's amazing.

Russell:
That's cool. Before we get into some of the frameworks and how the process works. Two questions prior. I'm going to step back, so you said you did $20,000 in sales of your own course and then you started in joint ventures. Do you remember the first one, or one that was a very impactful one that you did and what the numbers looked like?

Kathryn:
Well, I'll tell you my very first one and then I'll tell you my next one. Number one and number two were the best, the best because they taught me the most. The first one I did was with a girl named Lauren Golden, you know her. And I actually did a masterclass in her group, and I didn't even pitch, but after people liked the masterclass so much that I had 10 to 15 people come and buy my program. And again, some of those first 20 sales. And so she messages me, she's like, "Hey, I want credit for this." She's like, "Why don't we just do it again, but actually pitch?" And I was like, "Girl, love it." I had never done it before, I was trying to do it. I was like, "I'll do a masterclass, do this." I had a 10 step plan and all of a sudden I went from steps two to 10 already because she was like, "Let's just skip the steps and go."

So I didn't really know what I was doing, so I was like, "Okay, but I'll give you 90%. Is that insane?" I was like, "I'll give you 90% and I'll keep 10," because I was just so afraid I was going to whiff it. And I was like, that way if I fail, she can't be mad at me. Just baby Kathryn, I was so scared. So she was like, "90?" And I was like, "Yeah." And she was like, "You want me to be a good case study for you?" And I was like, "For sure. That's what I..." And she was like, "I mean, I don't care if you give me 90%." We have since we renegotiated our contract, I will say that. But anyway, so we pitch and we ended up doing, it was 34, 35, 36 sales. And again, I kept mostly nothing of that because I gave it all the way to her. But it was amazing where I was like, "Holy crap."

I had just spent six weeks really trying to get those first 20 sales. And then because she said yes to me and I just pitched 90 minutes in an afternoon and she had a warm group, then I just made 36 sales. I was like, "Crap, this is awesome." So then I went to the next one and maybe it wasn't the next, but it was a few in. But the next one was with somebody also in your group named Doug Bouton. And so we do it with him. And this time, because I'm always trying to learn and apply. I was like, "Okay, great." I knew he had a group, and I was like, I wonder if, this is when I introduced something called tiered bonuses. Where I was almost like, "I wonder if I can get the group to sell for each other."

So I go in, do the pitch, but then at the end I was like, "Okay, great. If 20 people buy, I'll unlock this bonus. If 50 people buy, I'll unlock this bonus. If a hundred people buy, then I'll unlock this bonus." And it was just a test, because I was like, "I'm not pitching to a cold audience. I'm pitching to a tribe. And so I wonder if I can leverage that to get them." Dude, it was, I got to show you screenshots. It was crazy. They'd be like, "What number are we at?" And they'd be like, "So-and-So get your butt in this program. You've been talking about this for days. What's our number? Oh, we're at 36. Come on you guys, let's go." And the countdown happened and Doug and I are like, "This is awesome." And so I literally was like, "Man, if I make 50 sales..."

Again, I'm just starting at this, I'm like, "A $50,000 launch in an afternoon, that's like what most people make in a year." I'm feeling good about that. And I paid $0 and I would almost always do 50/50 split, it just felt like it's just a no brainer, it just felt easy. So I was like, because then if I hit 50, it's 25/25, just again free money. And then it was amazing. And all of a sudden people are just going and going, and I just put the hundred out there just to see. I don't know, but I'm like, "They're not going to get, whatever." Dude, they did it. We passed a hundred, so we made 120 grand on that pitch. And I was just like, "What just happened?"

And it was just this idea of, I recognize the nature of this pitch is I'm pitching to a tribe, which is one of the beautiful things also about a joint venture. You're pitching to people that like each other, commonly united, and they just kept tagging each other and they'd be like, "We need seven more sales. We need six." And literally people are on, tagging people, "Figure, I'll give you a loan." I was like, "This is awesome. This is amazing." So then that was the joint venture. I was like, "This is the coolest thing."

And then the next, I got to tell you the third one too. Because then the next one, I did one with a guy named Spencer Mecham, you know him too. And it was actually Spencer's idea, I wish I was smart enough to come up with this. Where we pitched and it went so great. We did 26 sales, and it went so great that he was like, "Hey, how fast did you say people get results?" And I was like, "15 to 20 hours before they make their first sale." He is like, "You want to just come back in a few weeks and just show people that did it? And I don't know, maybe we make a few more sales." I was like, "Crap, dude, that's amazing." So I was like, "Yes." So I just go, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm just screenshotting people's results. We go back in-

Russell:
That had bought from his-

Kathryn:
That had bought from his group, yeah. When I pitched in his group, those 26 people, we followed them. I took screenshots of all the results. I went back two weeks later into his group and I was like, "I'm just going to try this re-pitch thing." And it's so fun. I'm telling you what, re-pitches are the most fun thing because you just get to brag. You just get to brag about, like, "Everybody put in the chat how awesome is Suzanne," blah, blah. And the way that I structured my course, which 10 out of 10 recommend everybody do it this way, is I broke it up into mini challenges that people could do. So when they did challenge one, they earned badge one. When they do challenge two, they earn badge two, which is awesome because my course had nine badges. And because I had nine badges, if you think of a typical course, it's like, "Okay, great. You start at the beginning and then at the end you get a testimonial if they get the result."

But because I had nine badges, there were nine different places where they were taking screenshots that they were making progress to the result. So I basically got nine testimonials per each person, if that makes sense. So even if somebody hadn't made a sale or hadn't reached the end result in those 10 to 15 hours. Let's say the only thing they did was badge number one, which was they signed a contract that said, "I'm in." I would still use it. I'd be like, "Oh my gosh, Jerry, he signed a contract, you guys, he started. How many of you guys have wanted to start something? You just don't. And you don't and you don't. But look at Jerry, the man signed a contract, he's in the program, he's working hard."

And from a, Jerry means the world to me, this hypothetical Jerry, but Jerry, without the badge system, he'd be nothing to me. He'd done nothing. But because you set these many milestones, then all of a sudden this bragging session, you can brag about the people that made money. You can brag about the people that are three quarters of the way through the program, halfway through the program, because they are earning different badges. So I would just go through and I would just be like, "If we had those 26 people buy, I just showed the progress of each of those 26 people." Some of them had made money, some of them were on badge six, some were on badge four, some badge one, some badge seven. And I went through, and then at the end, the transition into the re-pitch is basically just, the only reason I could figure out why you wouldn't buy is because you thought it was too good to be true. So here are literally 26 people that purchased two weeks ago that are already getting results.


Russell:
What are you waiting for?

Kathryn:
Yeah, so do you want to come? And so I'd be like, "So I was talking with Spencer and he had the crazy idea we should open this thing back up. So we decided to open it back up for three more days," or whatever. And then I would just go through the entire stack over again. And the lowest we ever did was an additional 25% of sales. And with Spencer we did a hundred. So we made an additional 26 sales because it's, if it's not broke, don't fix it. So I was just like, "Ah." So it's like, "Yes, this concept, you have a product, you have an audience, and finding the right one is magic." And then these other principles of leveraging the fact that you're pitching to a tribe, through tiered bonuses, through re-pitches made this concept of joint ventures just lethal for us. Anyway, so fun.

Loved it.

Russell:
So cool. All right. How many guys listening right now are excited about joint ventures? I wish I could see it on your faces, but it gets me fired up. And I'll tell one story and then I want to jump into process. But when we launched ClickFunnels, a lot of people don't know this. I didn't actually buy, I think it was almost two years in before we bought our first ad for ClickFunnels.

Kathryn:
2 years?

Russell:
100% of the first years was all driven off the joint ventures. And so what our strategy was, is I would do a webinar with somebody and we'd pay them 40% commission, but we had a two-tier affiliate program. So I would do the webinar with them, and then I try to pay the person as fast as possible. So we do a webinar on Thursday, we close down Sunday at midnight. So Monday morning I'm sending them a check for 40 grand or 50, whatever they just got. Som "Here's the check, thanks so much for promoting. By the way, we have a two-tier affiliate program and we pay 10% on the second tier. So if you have any friends who would also a big check like you just got, we'll give you 10% of all of them." They're like, "Are you serious?"

And so all of a sudden they'd get 8, 10, 12 people, they'd email out, "Hey, Russell's Brunson's webinars, it crushed. I got 40 grand off it." Most people, they all contact us back, boom, we go. And then had run the webinar to all five of their lists, and then that person got 10% from all their friends list and they get the 40%. I wire them the money, wire, wire, wire, ask them the same question, and boom. And I did, I think, I can't remember number, it was between 70 and 80 webinars live the first year of ClickFunnels off that. It started with me doing one webinar that turned into 80 webinars that took us from zero to over 10 figures in sales.

And then year number two, we did the same thing except for we evergreen them and we would have the joint venture partner record an intro. And I took a recording of me that I'd already done the webinar a million times, I knew it word for word, and we would just edit the video, put their bumper on it, make an evergreen funnel for it, and they'd drive traffic. And then they had evergreen funnel that now would sell the same thing. And we just kept doing it and doing it. And that's how we grew ClickFunnels. And two years in, we're like, "We should probably buy some ads now. We've done a webinar with everybody who's got a list at this point."

So yeah, it was all joint venture. So I 100% agree that's the best way to do it. But it's scary because how do you ask them, "Hey, I want to be your friend. Will you promote my stuff"? So I want to talk about your process. I think it's brilliant. And I'm not sure exactly where you want to go with it, but I'd love if you break down what people should be looking at if they're like, "Okay, I want joint ventures, I want to grow and scale a company this way." What's the path?

Kathryn:
Yeah. Well, and here's what I learned, as we go through this, again, my systems brain. Because I was like, "Dang, how do...? Because it feels like, "Hey, why don't you let me come to your audience that you spend a lot of time and money to build, to pitch my product. But they'll give me money, and now they're in my eco..." It sounds like such a slimy, terrible thing. So I was like, "Gosh, how do you do this?" And so what I realized is that at the end of the day, what my potential collaboration partner wants, my potential venture partner wants is the same thing as me. They want sales, they want status.

Let's say I partner with you, we are partnering right now with this cell funnel thing. So what do I get? I get sales, I actually get money. The next thing I get a status because my name's now attached to yours. So thank you for that. Great vibes. The next thing I get is impact. And impact is just helping people change their lives. And then the next thing is time. I'm able to do more because we're partnering together, so more with less. And so I was like, "That's what I want." And I was like, "They probably all want the same thing too." So it's, so rather than me coming in and being needy and being like, "Wait, can I use your group?" I was like, "Can I present this opportunity, this offer to in a way where it's like, "Oh, if I say yes to Kathryn, I'm also going to get sales. I'm also going to get status. I'm also going to get impact. And I'm also going to get my time back""?

And so I started to think through, well, what could that look like, and wasn't Russell Brunson. I'm still working my way to become Russell Brunson numbers wise-

Russell:
You could be Russell Brunson.

Kathryn:
I know. You've been in the game for 25 years and I'm at number eight. So I'm like, "I still got time." I still got time, so watch out. But that being said, I was just a nobody, nobody knew who I was. I just had 1,012 followers on Instagram, I don't even that much more right now, but I was like, "How can I do it?" So I was like, "Okay, let me walk through again. I want sales, I want status, I want impact, and I want time."

Russell:
We'll write those down, those are the four to write down, right?

Kathryn:
Yes, sales, status, impact, and time. That's what they want, or that's what I want and that's what they want too. That's what every business owner wants. So I was like, "Okay, let's start with sales.

How can I provide them sales?" And what I thought is I was like, if I can come in and provide a complementary product, not a competing product, because if I come in and I pitch something that's a competitor of theirs, I'm not giving them sales, I'm taking away customers. But can I find an audience where if I came in and pitch my product, I could actually extract more buyers from their lists? So one example that I can give, because people know your audience. You teach funnels, but you don't dive deep into like, "Oh, here's a product on how to do ads." You have 'Traffic Secrets', but you teach, here are the true principles, but you don't have a course on ads. You just don't.
And so when I came to Funnel Hacking LIVE, I went through and taught, "Here's the nuances of joint ventures." And so because of that, more people might've come to this funnel event that maybe wouldn't have come because they were interested in traffic that they're like, "Russell's not going to teach that. But he has a friend who's teaching that. So I'm going to come now to Russell's event." So I might go into a group. Again, like yours, they teach funnels, I'm not really going to buy Russell's funnel stuff. I'm here. I don't know how I got here, I bought a freebie, but I am interested in traffic. And so somebody that you weren't monetizing before is now monetized because I'm offering the next step, a complimentary product.

And so that gave a big clue to, oh, these are the types of audiences that I want to try and partner with. People where they're typically step one and I'm step two. So the product that I did the best with joint ventures was the first one that I did was just this funnel product, funnel design. So I was like, "Okay, well, who's step one if I'm step two?" Who's a group of people that need a funnel? So I was like, "Oh, anybody that does any kind of ads." If they do Facebook ads, the ads need to go somewhere, they need to go to traffic. So I had a ton of success partnering with people that had gathered Facebook groups, email lists around this concept of Facebook ads. And I was like, "Oh, well then what about YouTube ads? Oh, and then what about Google Ads?"

All of a sudden, because it makes total sense, they don't teach funnels, but I am the next step. And so I wasn't competitive, I was complimentary. And so they were able to actually provide an amazing service to their audience. All the while they're making from something they would never make sales from because they're never going to make a product on funnels. And so all of a sudden I was like, "Dang, if I can go be complimentary and just find audiences where I'm not competing with them, but they come first in the customer journey and I come next in the customer journey. Then I will be able to bring sales because I can extract buyers that they wouldn't typically extract." And that made a ton of sense to people. They were like, "Oh, no, that makes sense." Or, "People have been asking for that. Yeah, sure, let's do it." Or, "That makes sense that it's the next step."

And so then we come to the next tier of, that's how I can get them sales. Even though I'm a nobody because I offer complimentary product, I can extract buyers. And then it's like, "Okay, great. How can I give them status?" There's two ways. Number one, it's so crazy if you do bring in a complimentary product, all of a sudden they're like the good guy, "Thank you, Russell. Gosh, I've been needing help for this. Thank you for having cool friends." But then the other thing is I like to call having a breaking news method.

The reality is, like with the CF Design School program that I had, there are a bajillion product courses out there teaching funnel design. There just are. And that actually is a good thing, it means that the market wants it. But it's, how do I stand out? And so what I call it is a breaking news method. So how can I be so strikingly different from everybody else that I'm breaking news? That it's, I'm not getting on the news because I'm a big name. I'm getting on the news because, how are you so different? And so what I would do, and when I developed my product, I was just like, "Okay, can I help people get this result of funnel design in a way that just basically rejects all the things that everybody else says that they have to do?"

So other people were like, "Oh, you need coding, you need Photoshop. You need graphic design skills." And what I said is, "Oh, you can get that same result without coding, without Photoshop, without graphic design skills." And so what happened is not only did I become breaking news, but I was able to get picked over other people because instantaneously they became irrelevant, my competitors. Because they're like, "Oh, you need these things." And I'm like, "Oh, no, there's not and here's proof." And so even though my competitor maybe had 10 years experience with me and made way more money than me, and it made more big following than me, they were old news.

Because they aren't breaking news. And so all of a sudden it was of value for this no-name, Kathryn to come into their group to teach this new thing because it was this breaking news method.

So for a lot of people too, they even ask, "How do you keep speaking on these big stages? You don't even have that big of a follow..." I'm like, "Breaking news method." Because the reality is, let's say Oprah also taught how to sell funnels or even do joint ventures or whatever. If Oprah taught that, and I taught that and my method was like, "Oh, I'm like Oprah just a little different." I mean, I would pick Oprah over me, Oprah's Oprah. But if Oprah's like, "I help people sell funnels, but you have to go through graphic design college." Or, Kathryn teaches funnels, but you don't have to do it, and you don't have to do coding and Photoshop too. I will get picked over Oprah for that particular skill set, right?

Russell:
You call it breaking news method, but I know in our world, I don't feel like people do this, but when I got started, I was trying to figure out how to get on TV. I wanted to get on Oprah, I wanted to get on Shark Tank all different shows or whatever back in the day. And so I hired a publicist and stuff like that. And you look like what a publicist does, and obviously you know this, but the publicist's job is to take the boring thing you do and figure out a cool spin on it, the news is going to care. Because the news stations, they all get 500 pitches a day. So it's like, "What's the breaking news? What's the thing that's going to be like, oh, that would pop off on a headline at news tonight at five o'clock?"

And that's how, I had a really good publicist and got me a ton of shows because they just took the ordinary thing I did, but figured out a way to spin it where it's like it was breaking news. And all of a sudden, literally I was trying to get a whole bunch of news clips so i could start pitching a bigger news thing. So she lined it up. Every weekend I was on a local news station somewhere around the country, and I was just flying thing to thing. And she's had different hooks that she was practicing or trying out there. But that's the same thing here. I look at me at this point, I mean, we get hundreds a month of people trying to join ventures with me. And I get everything from boxes to packages to people showing up randomly our office, to emails, to DMs, all that kind of stuff. It's tough, because same with the publicists, they're getting 500 things and they got to build a show.

They need attention. How is what you're doing bringing that attention? What's the hook? What's the story that's unique?

So I think looking after that lens of, yeah, you're pitching to a joint venture partner but pretend like you're pitching the the producer at the new station that's got to find out something tonight that's going to get people to flip the TV on, click on the link, whatever it is. What's that thing? So anyway.

Kathryn:
Yeah, no, I love it. So when we're trying to give them sales, the thing that you really want to nail down with your product is your tangible result. What's the result I provide people? Because if you can get really clear on that, then you can very clearly show them, no, you're here in the customer storyline and I'm here on the customer storyline. We're not competitors, I'm actually such a gift to your people. I'm the next step. And then the next thing is, get very clear on your, you call it a vehicle, what's your breaking news method? How am I different from everybody else? Because they might see, the first thing they're like, "Oh, you're right. You are the next step." But then what you don't want them to do is be like, "I should get a funnel design person, but I'm not picking you." That's what you don't want.

Russell:
Thanks for introducing the idea, but I'm going to pick that person.

Kathryn:
And so what you do is you also need to make sure you have a breaking news method to say, "Hey, not only do you need this, I'm exactly the girl you should pick." Which then leads us to impact. So at this point, they might be consider... And I'll tell you too, how you can actually tell them all these things. I almost consider them like coins. You need to pay them a sales coin. You have to pay them the proper compensation for getting access to their audience. So you pay them the sales coin by showing them where they fit in the storyline, you pay them the status coin by having a breaking news method. But then they also want to have impact. They want to make sure that they don't bring someone into their group, and it's a major dud. That's not going to help.

So what do you need to have impact, is you need to help people actually take action. So I like to make sure that my breaking news method actually is very step-by-step. Like, "This is what you need to do." Because if it's step-by-step, people will take the steps. And then also have case studies, this works for more than just me. Because people need to have faith that they actually can do it, it's not just this one thing.

And so then the final thing is time. And this I think is really important. Because I'll have a lot of service providers or coaches want to be like, "Oh, I want to do joint ventures." And there's a million recipes of joint ventures that you can concoct up. But the reality is, is that the most profitable joint ventures are when you do it with a mass distributable product. If you have a course that you can sell infinite amount of, because that's very alluring to the partner. If you come in and you're like, "Oh, I sell Facebook ads, but I have three openings for clients." They're like, "Well, then I cap it at three. I don't want to do that." But if you're like, "Oh, I sell a Facebook ads course, and if we sell 4,000 units today or 26,000 units, all the better. Nothing breaks." That's really alluring. And that's where we can pay them this time coin where you're doing now, more with your time with me than you could before, and they don't have to fulfill.

So having those things in place, you're very clear in your result. That can pay them with sales because they understand how they fit in the storyline and the customer storyline. You very clear in your breaking news method, that's how you should pick me instead of somebody else. Making sure you have a step-by-step method so that people actually get results and they're praised for bringing you in rather than like, "Oh, you like pitch me on this product and Kathryn was a dud." And then you make sure you have some sort of mass distributable product. And I might add on there too, making sure your sales pitch works. It's really awkward if you come in and you pitch, I've never had but I can imagine. Because you sucked and that's your fault. You should do the work necessary.
So whenever I tell people like, "Oh, can I start joint ventures?" I'm like, "Can you get people results? And do you have a pitch that works?" And usually if you get to 20 sales, you got there. That's really all you need. And I say 20 sales because that's when I started. Your pitch is good enough that you got 20 people to say yes, and you can go from there anyway.

So when you have those things, then all of a sudden it's not like, "Oh, can I..." What's it called, mooch. "Can I mooch off your audience to pitch my product?" It's like, "No, you'd actually be crazy to say no to me because I have a product that your people need. Your step one, I'm step two and I'm better than everyone else at it, or different," as you would say, breaking news method. "I can help your people get results faster. I have a step-by-step method, which guarantees, whatever, as much as I can their success. And your earning value is infinite because it's mass distributable.

Would you want to partner together on this?" That's like a pretty alluring offer. Rather than like, "Hey, you want to be friends and maybe I can use your list," and blah, blah, blah. Or, "I'm going to send you a million gifts. "

That's the other thing I don't like about gifts either. I love gifts. If anyone wants to send me a gift and I'm not mad about it.

Russell:
Please send me gifts, but.

Kathryn:
But if you send someone gifts for the intention of partnering with them, it feels really transactional.

All of a sudden you're like, it almost feels like you owe them something. Or like, "Oh, when are they going to come on with their big ask?" Here it comes and you're like, "Oh, that's not how a friend relationship works." But again, like that guy that sent me that Jesus stuff, if he would've been like, "Kathryn, you do this, I do this. I can extract more buyers from your audience." Sales, done. "And here's why I'm different from everybody else," breaking news method. "I think we should partner together." Plus case studies, "Here's all the people I've helped before do it, because I have a step-by-step method and I sell a course so we can sell infinite amount of things. Would you want to move forward on this?" All of sudden I'm like, "Hey, let's chat. That actually makes a lot of sense. It's a very sexy offer."

Russell:
And then someone can at least say yes or no too, right?

Kathryn:
Because they know what you're doing. I still haven't even said thank you, which is rude of me, but I haven't even, because I'm like, "Oh, I don't know what the conversation's going to be."

Russell:
Yeah, what's the intentions here? I feel weird…

Kathryn:
I don't know. I don't know. And again, I'm very grateful and if he's listening to this, I'm very grateful for the gift, but the reason I'm not responding is I don't know the intention of the gift, I just don't know. But that's what I love about this step-by-step. So often with joint ventures, people just don't know how to approach it, which is why there's all this really fluffy, I think fake advice. Because people don't actually know what to do, which is, go to networking groups, make friends, do this, blah, blah. And the reality is-

Russell:
Pounce on them and ask them to do something for you.

Kathryn:
You're always going to have better conversions with a warm audience. Always. Whether you're trying to sell a joint venture or sell a $17 ebook. You're always going to have better because they already trust you and like you. But the reality is that, okay, well then great, how do we make that connection quickly so that then we can present an offer to them? I think that so often it's like, "Oh, well you need to be in a networking group and you need to be friends with them for a year before you ask anything." For me, warming them up is just like, "Oh, you want to be on my podcast?" And then literally immediately after the podcast, if it makes sense for me to do a joint venture with them, I will pitch them on the idea right there. Why? Because what's a sale? Somebody's in pain and I have a remedy.

So hey, you have an audience that is in this pain. You just told me on your podcast you do this, I'm the next step. Did you know that I do that? Would you want to partner together on that? Let me tell you why I'm the best. I have the breaking news method, I have step-by-step, we've helped clients do this, this, and this, and it's actually in a product. We do a 50/50 split on the backend. Is that something you'd like to move forward on? Let them say yes or no to you.

But I think we just build this whole thing up, partnerships, all this thing, and we're like, "Oh, we got to fly these people out. We got to schmooze them. We got to wine them and dine them." And there's so much status and ego, the higher and higher up people get and I get it. It's just what it is. And people do create barriers and all these different things. But what I love about partnerships and what I think God was good to help me discover, is they are so accessible to the beginner. They're so profitable for the advance because they have huge lists.

But man, people are sleeping on, some of my best joint ventures were with people that had a Facebook group of 500 people. Because if somebody has a Facebook group of 500 people, those 500 people are loyalists. Because why are you following this no name? Is because they love, they're one of the OGs, you know the foundation. I would dare call them a hot audience rather than a warm. And so my conversions would be crazy. So people are like, "Oh, well I don't want to pitch them, they have a tiny group." I'm like, "Go to the tiny groups." Because I would just make 10, 30, $50,000 just like that. It's a 90-minute pitch.

So awesome. And so that's what I love about this concept is yes, the concepts still apply at very, very high levels. Which again, we have had clients in the eight figures, nine figures. But the reality is that the framework works at the beginning, but you need to make sure that you can prove you have a tangible result. You're a breaking news method. You actually have case studies. You can prove that you've helped people step by step and it's an mass distributable. And if you have those things, then I call it joint venture ready.

So anyway, but I think it's really cool, and I think where people can go wrong sometimes is they try to approach a joint venture without being joint venture ready. They're just like, "Oh, well no, you should just do it." It's like-

Russell:
Promote my stuff. Why? Because I want you to.

Kathryn:
Or even a lot of established entrepreneurs like you or whoever, they're like, "No, I'm good. I'm good. So I'm just going to pitch." And so they try to do a joint venture with a brand new product, but they've never pitched it before. And I'm like, "Just prove it once."

Russell:
Don't waste that opportunity.

Kathryn:
Yes. Because that's like-

Russell:
You may have one shot.

Kathryn:
Exactly. And because they're like, "Oh, the first time I'm pitching this is to a joint venture audience and I whiffed it." Then all of a sudden, like you said, if you can nail it for the first one, then you can get them to refer and you can get them to refer. So I always say, even if you're the best marketer in the world, you, practice it one time so you know and then you can make sure that you nailed all the other ones.

Russell:
Yeah. So I'm curious for you just thinking about the tangible side of, I understand the principles, how do you actually message those people? What are you doing? Because I start to feel like, am I sending an email? Am I showing up at their house? How do you have that conversation? What are some of the easy ways to do that?

Kathryn:
Yeah, it's actually very simple. It's a two-step formula. You want to hear it? Number one, get their attention. Number two, present your coins. I call them coins. Your sales coin, status coin, impact coin, and time coin. So what I like to do to get their attention, I did this to you.

Russell:
What'd you do to my attention, you want to tell everybody?

Kathryn:
Oh, I seriously did. Okay, well, and here's the thing that I have to point out. When I tell you what I did to get Russell's attention, people are going to be like, "That's so simple. He must be getting hundreds of those a day." Let me ask you this, how many people have sent you a funnel that looks like that, or a request that looks like that?

Russell:
All the pieces, yours is multifaceted too, right?

Kathryn:
Yeah. Here's the thing. I think people think that they're sending stuff like that all the time. And it's actually not that common. People will send you gifts or all this stuff, but a direct pitch like that, not as much. So anyway, so what I did for Russell is I was like, "Okay, how do I get his attention?" I'm like, "What does this man love? Funnels, done. And what am I good at? Funnel design." So I just built a funnel that said, "Hey Russell, I made this video for you." And then in the video, what did I do? I was like, "Hey, here's the storyline. You're here. I'm here. Your funnel-"

Russell:
And do you remember you, your like, "Your funnel hackers are great, but they're missing out on one thing. They need funnel design, I remember specific that line.

Kathryn:
I was like, "Your funnel hackers are in desperate need of funnel design." I was even kind of bold. I was like, "Is that being rude? I don't know, but I meant it." So sorry, but here we are. So it worked out great. Okay. Anyway, so you're funnel and I teach funnel design. So tangible result. You are here, I'm here, I can extract these new buyers. And then the next thing I literally said in the video is, and on the page was, "And I do it via no coding, no Photoshop, no graphic design skills. Here's my breaking news concept. So yes, they need funnel design. Here's why you should pick me." Then I said, "I do it in a six step science, step by step." I showed case studies, "Here's all the people I've helped before. I settled in a program called CF Design School." And then I just direct asked, I would love to present this to your audience. We'll do a profit share from the sales that come from this.

Great. Do you want a partner? And so that's what I did to you.

And here's what I want to point out is that the reality is that you just have to get their attention and then present the coins. So some people are like, "Oh, I'm not good at funnels." That's okay. Do it in a video. You could do it in a slide deck, you can do it in a PDF.

Russell:
You came, I mean you joined, was it 2CCX and you were at an event and you brought a box that got me hooked to actually go watch the funnel.

Kathryn:
Yes, because he likes saw the funnel, he was like, "Really cool, but I am writing my 'Traffic Secrets' book. I'm a little busy." He's like, "I'll follow up." So I'm trying not to be creepy, and I don't even know the rules of joint ventures yet. I'm just trying. I don't even know. And so one week passes, two week, four weeks, five weeks, six weeks. I'm like, "This dude's going to forget about me." And I had sent a few follow-up messages, if you're just leaving me on read, it hurt, I want you to know. But it was the reality of the situation.

So I was in one of your coaching programs, but again, you didn't know me. So what I did, again, what's the framework? Get their attention, pay them the coins. So it was like, how can I get this dude's attention without being annoying? So what I did is I just made a box, I put your face on it and I put my face on it. It was just so loud, it was so colorful or whatever, I made sure I sat in the first row and just put the box up so when you're on stage you could see it. And then when you had a break, I just walked the box up and I was like, "Hey man, this is for you." And you were like, "What the crap is this thing?"

But when you opened it up, it wasn't some random gift. What was it? I literally had a QR code to a video that said, "Russell, you are here in the story. You haven't followed up." And I literally just called it out too. I was like, "Hey, it's been six weeks. You left me on read. I don't know how long is long, but you said you were going to follow up, but I mean, come on man."" So I was like, "If this is too soon, sorry, but I'm talking to you." And I was just normal about it. So anyway, and I said, "You're here the storyline, I'm here. Your funnel hackers need this. I need this. This is my breaking news method. There are the results I've gotten and here's my product. I'd love to do a profit split from you."

And anyway, so it was just like get their attention, show them the coins, get their attention, show the coins. And it's really interesting. You try to go after someone like you. I call you a tier A person. I'm going to need to go to a little bit more length to maybe get your attention. Whereas these joint venture groups or these Facebook groups have 500 people in them or a thousand or even 10,000.

Oh my gosh, depending on where you're at in business, it's all subjective. Are you ahead of me or behind me? Who cares? But a lot of people will see you and be like, "Oh my gosh, Kathryn's ahead of me in business." And so they're just happy to receive a Facebook message. Or if I just go live like, "Hey, so-and-so, I just saw your group would be amazing. I have this crazy idea, I think between what you do and I do, there's amazing room to collaborate. I have an idea for something really cool, can I walk you through it?" That's my get their attention.

And then they're like, "Yeah, sure, let's chat." I'm on a Zoom. What do I talk to them on Zoom? Storyline. You're here, I'm here. Here's my breaking news method. Here's this, here's this. So, so often it's like, "Oh, I have to do this whole shebang. I have to do this whole funnel. I have to make this whole video." And again, for people like you, I had to get creative on how to get your attention. But again, we just sleep so often on these smaller groups or these mid-sized groups when their customers' gathered ready to buy that just want them there.

Russell:
I remember when I got started too, because I first started learning about joint ventures, man, 20 whatever years ago. And I remember seeing the big names like Joe Vitale, Tony Robbins, I had the names. I made my list of these people. I remember I sent them all messages and no one responded and I was devastated. I kept sending messages and then I started getting angry. I'm like, "These people think they're too good for me. What's wrong? And don't they remember what it was like when they were..." I had all the attitude stuff that I had and stuff. And then I remember about the time, there's this new guy that popped up, his name was Mike Filsaime, and he had just did a little launch.

It wasn't huge, but I saw him, obviously he just sold something, someone promoted it. So he's a new guy. So I messaged him and he responded right back. I'm like, "This guy, he wrote me back like, oh my gosh." And then I was like, "Hey Mike, I saw your product. I bought a copy. It's so cool. And then I was like, I have this product over here." He looked at mine, he's like, "That product's awesome." He's like, "I just got a new list. Can I email it for you?" I'm like, "I didn't even ask him." I'm like, "Yes." And so he promoted it. And then when he promoted it, then we got on the phone, we're talking, he's like, "Oh, have you met Gary Ambrose?" And he named three or four people, I'm like, "No." And so he introduced me and it was like we all were at this little level right here. And back then, all of us, my list at the time was 217 people. So it was tiny.

Kathryn:
217?

Russell:
Yeah, I still remember very specifically that number.

Kathryn:
That's so sweet. I love.

Russell:
And that's how big mine was. But there were four or five of us, we were all at this level. And I remember we were talking like, "Yeah, I tried to get so-and-so, no one responded back." But we were all this level so then we all started doing these little promos back and forth. And what happens is all of us started getting more successful, and then there's this next tier people that all of a sudden one of us broke in that tier, and then we introduced, and all of a sudden we're all this tier and then the next tier. And eventually Tony Robbins called me, I didn't call him. Eventually Joe Vitale, because they saw our group coming up and they're like, "Oh, these are the up and comers." And they started reaching back down to leverage our status. But it was understanding that, and I think for a lot of people, it's like, don't freak out if you can't get ahold of Russell Brunson, that's nothing. I have people all the time, "I made a dream a hundred Russell, but it's a dream one, and you're the only one." I'm like, "You failed then."

Kathryn:
Yeah, you don't get it.

Russell:
Don't try to get me. Get the people down here that are one step above you and start doing there. And then your list will go and your success and your influence, your status will grow. And then it compounds really quickly.

Kathryn:
And I think too, that you bring up a really good point. I think with your story of growing and growing. People are like, "Oh, I made a list. And it's you." It's like, you missed the point because I think how they're trying to use you is not the way we talked about it. They're trying to use you as a silver bullet. If Russell promotes my stuff, everything's free. And it's like, well, you don't have the currency, the sales coin, the status coin, the impact coin, the time coin required to leverage Russell. So at that point it becomes that transactional, "Oh, I'm just going to mooch off of Russell." But be where you're at, it's so amazing. Be where you're and dude grow.

And some people are like, "Well, I don't even know anybody with a Facebook group." Here's what's the most amazing thing. Some also, my best pitches have been because I went live on somebody's personal profile page. They didn't even have a group. But they have an audience, and you just go. So if you're just trying to figure it out and start, these principles apply. The name of the game is you have a product and can you leverage somebody else's audience? And if they are complimentary, then it's a gift to that audience.

But I think it was a gift for me, I love too, that you start with 217 people. Nobody knew who I was, so I couldn't leverage status the way people leverage status. I couldn't leverage sales the way that people. I had to really get smart about the marketing of it to be like, why would somebody want to partner with little old me? And it's because the product I have and the way I deliver it is lethal. And that's what I think makes this game really accessible, because if you really are an expert in your craft. The way that we teach joint ventures and partnerships, what we'd like to say is that it allows the people that deserve the microphone to be on the stage. Because if you actually have a product that works, then you're going to be able to book these things and you're going to be able to skip the line. But if you don't, I mean, I'm telling you what, you pitch a bad product, I mean it dies fast because it's all in reputation. Anyway, so I love that.

Russell:
I want to add one more thing too, that's interesting that I want people to also know is sometimes. Not sometimes, most times you pitch someone and they'll say no, or it's not going to work the way you want it. And you're actually a great example. Because you pitched me on promoting the webinar and I've never approached your webinar. And now we've known each other, did we say six years, eight years?

Kathryn:
Which is rude Russell? No.

Russell:
I don't remember. Sorry. Yeah, but think about it-

Kathryn:
A long time.

Russell:
And so you made that pitch to me and it didn't make sense for me to promote it, but I had a gap where I was like, but I know your skillset now. And I was like, I feel like you'd actually be, you could serve my audience here, plug you in, and you were there. And that gave you status and stuff like that. I'm sure you made sales from that, but it wasn't directly, I didn't promote you. I gave you a platform. I think it's been four times now, right?

Kathryn:
Yeah.

Russell:
And then now six years later, we're working on certification program. Those who watched the sales pitch before, we were on the phone back and forth and all of a sudden it's, "What if we partnered together and we take your program and my program, we mush it together?" And now we're doing whole promotion, which is technically promoting that-

Kathryn:
A joint venture.

Russell:
But it's plugged... Yeah, sometimes it takes a little while, but there's always other value that comes from it. It's not like they said no or didn't work right now, the whole thing falls apart and you ditch him. It's, stay connected. Like Tony Robbins, I was working with him for a decade before he did the first thing that promoted. But he gave me, I got value throughout the relationship because I kept showing up. He had me speak at a business match in Fiji, he had me do these things. And it wasn't what I asked for, but it was these other things then eventually it was, then it made more sense because we had trust and rapport. It's also, there's a short-term game, it's also a long game. Just understanding if you treat the relationships as relationships, more stuff can blossom and grow from it as well.

Kathryn:
Well, and I think there truly is a strategy behind that too. When I spoke up, funnily, I revealed, I call it the collaboration ladder. So it models your value ladder, but ultimately the more audience exposure that you want from somebody, the more value you need to provide. But there's other collaborations that you can do. You can speak on each other's stages, you can do a virtual event, you can do a masterclass. You can be on their podcast, they can be on your podcast. And what's so crazy is that oftentimes people are like, "Well, if I can't do a joint venture, then I don't want a relationship with them at all." When in reality you can leverage, you can get sales and you can get status, and you can get impact and time even if you don't directly pitch. I did that mastermind with Lauren Golden in the very first thing, and I made 10 sales. I didn't even pitch, but I was able to provide value. And so people were able to come back.

And the thing that's most amazing is if you can get what I call on somebody's collaboration ladder. If you can do a collaboration with them, even if it's them on your show, you're not even on their show, then all of a sudden you have a relationship with them and what have you done? You've gotten their attention. And because you've gotten their attention, what can you then do? You can present to them other opportunities. So you can just slowly climb the value ladder. But the one thing that is amazing is you ended up, I asked for a joint venture and you didn't say joint venture but you said, "Hey, why don't you come speak at Funnel Hacking LIVE?" I said, "Great." And since then, we've done a ton of masterclasses together. I've been in your virtual events, I've spoken at your in-person event multiple times. You've been on my show. We're now doing this together.

And again, I think that oftentimes we also only see this game of dream 100 or joint ventures as, it's a hundred percent or zero. When in reality, what we're trying to do again is leverage somebody's audience. And you can leverage somebody's audience to make sales even without a direct pitch. Like this for example, people are going to listen to this and some people might go check on my Instagram, which might-

Russell:
What would that Instagram be?

Kathryn:
Oh, @KathrynJonesLish. But I am being serious. People are going to, and so people are like, "Oh, well, what I'm not going to do is..." This hasn't been a webinar, but I'm leveraging your audience.

And if you come to mine, you're leveraging my audience. And anyway, so I do think that that is seriously though why I love this game. It's so amazing that what I've built can help you, even though your business is way bigger than mine. What I'm offering you right now is actually helping your business and your business is helping my business. It is just so amazing that when you figure out how to pair the right people together, it's like no respecter of persons, if you actually have a good product, for real have a good product, then you can infiltrate and it just becomes really, really fun.

Russell:
Yeah. I'm so glad to talk about this.

Kathryn:
I'm not mad that you said no. I was actually, I cried, I was so excited when you asked me to speak at the event. So me giving you sass, there actually is no sass whatsoever. I was only excited.

Russell:
Oh man. Well thanks for, first off being on the podcast, second of being in Boise this whole week, hanging out, doing the sales funnel challenge. But also sharing the stuff on joint venture, think for my audience specifically, it's everyone gets so tied into Facebook ads or one of the traffic sources.

It's, when I wrote 'Traffic Secrets' book, the introduction was like, "There's a storm coming," and it happens all the time. Platforms are deplatforming, accounts get shut down. It's, if I lost everything tomorrow, if everything disappear, if I got all my social profiles shut down, everything, joint ventures, I'd be fine. I would just like, "Okay, well, I've got a lot of people I've worked with over the last decade, two decades. Who am I going to call?" I make a couple phone calls, I'll be back on top.

Kathryn:
And if you don't have people that you've worked with over the past decade, what do you do?

Russell:
Start.

Kathryn:
And how do you do it? It's seriously so easy. You don't have to start a full-blown podcast, just start a show. Literally just name a show and go live on your personal profile page on Facebook. And then also you have a show.

Russell:
Welcome to the Russell Show.

Kathryn:
Yeah, exactly. And then all of a sudden you have a relationship with people, you've gotten their attention. So then what do you do next? Hey, that was so awesome. I think between what you and I do, we have a great time, we'd be able to collaborate. Could I tell you what I'm thinking about? And all of a sudden you're opening the doors to all these different things and what it cost you was a 30-minute podcast episode. And now even if you don't have a Rolodex from decades, like I didn't, you can just start to play the game.

Russell:
Jump right in.

Kathryn:
Yeah, it's awesome. I love it.

Russell:
So cool. All right everybody, if you're listening at home, wherever you are, it's time to do some joint ventures.

Kathryn:
Yes.

Russell:
Add that in. Because if you're only relying on Mark Zuckerberg means you've got one joint venture partner and he's not the nicest guy, he will shut you down without even thinking twice. So diversify your traffic, do joint ventures, have some fun, get to know cool people, and it'll make this whole business so much more fun as you can to hang out with really cool people.

Kathryn:
Awesome. Love it.

Russell:
Thank you Kathryn. Amazing.

Kathryn:
Thank you.

Russell:
Appreciate you.

Kathryn:
Bye.

Russell:
Bye.