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What lessons do you learn from funnels that don't work out?

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What lessons do you learn from funnels that don't work? What can we take away from that experience?

I thought it would be great to hear a story from you about a funnel that you just thought was going to kill. I mean you guys nailed it, you put a lot of time in it, you thought this thing’s really gonna knock it out of the park, and then when you launched it, it didn’t work out. Maybe you don’t have any stories like that, but I think you do. What did you guys learn from that? What can we, as newbies to the process, what can we take away from that experience? What lessons did you learn?

Question Featured On: Episode 2 - #AskRussellAnything

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Answer:

This is a good question, that I’m kind of embarrassed about because it happens way more than you would ever believe. So Dennis’ question was what do you do when you’re all excited about a funnel, super pumped up and you launch it and then it dies?

Number one, most people that get an idea for a funnel or business, first thing they do, step number one, is they tell everybody they know. I think that’s the stupidest thing in the world, to be completely honest. When you have an idea for a business, as an entrepreneur, you should just shut up. Unfortunately, it’s true, people who are around your life, are not necessarily going to be all in on your new idea. You’re going to be so excited and fired up and tell them and what’s going to happen? They’re going to talk trash and be like, “Oh good job. Good luck with that.” And that’s what’s going to happen over and over again.

So then when you go out there and start trying to create this thing, you have os much stress and buildup and anticipation, and if it fails everyone else is like, “Ha! I told you so.” It’s horrible. So the other way, I never told anybody, in fact, our team, I came out the other day and I was like, “We’re almost ready to launch the app.” And they’re like, “What app?” I’m like, “Oh I didn’t tell you guys about it. We have an app coming out I’ve been killing myself on.”

I don’t tell people a lot of times ahead because I don’t want that stress and pressure, that’s number one. Number two, I’m a wrestler and I was talking earlier, we’ve got a guy here doing YouTube training and he’s like, “It’s weird, I’ve seen a lot of success from wrestlers, why do you think that is?” I said I think the reason why is with wrestling, I go out there and step on the mat in my singlet all nervous and awkward. I would go out there and I would wrestle someone and a lot of times they’d beat me. They’d beat the crap out of me and my dad would film everything.

So that night we’d come home and I’d be all sad and depressed and we’d watch the film. And my dad would watch me, he’s like, “Ah, he got you here. He’s reaching an arm here. Look your elbow went up. You stepped too fast. You’re out of position.” And we’d take notes of all the things I did wrong and we’d go to practice the next week and we’d practice that. We’d practice keeping my arms and my head and keep practicing and adjust and get better and better. I would go back to the next match against the same person and I would win. In fact, my junior year, the first match of my junior year, I was going to be state champ, that was my goal. I went out against Nick Fresquez from Hunter High School. He took second place in state the year before. I was like, I’m going to show everyone. I went out there and he beat me, really good actually, it was embarrassing.

I was so depressed because, crap my whole identity was I was going to be a state champ. I told everyone. It’s probably where I learned to stop telling everyone, but all summer long, “I’m going to be a state champ.” I told everybody. Then the first match I lost and everyone’s like, “I thought you were going to be a state champ.” Angry.

But my dad captured my match with Nick Fresquez and we watched it every single day for 4 months, that’s the wrestling season. Every day for 4 months, we watched it and drilled it, watched it, drilled it. And then the state finals we actually met, me and Nick Fresquez in the state finals. What’s interesting, he beat me 8 to 4 in the first match of the season. I ended beating him 8 to 4 and the final move in the match that I beat him with was the same move he had done to me. I had never seen the move prior, but because I practiced every day for 4 months, I hit his move on himself and beat him. It was awesome, so take that Nick Fresquez.

The moral of the story is, now I don’t freak out on the funnel flops. And it flops often. They flop and you’re like, that sucks. But I didn’t tell anyone, so there’s not pressure. Cool, guess who knows it flopped? Only I did. Because nobody else even knows. Everyone else saw and they’re like, “cool, that looks awesome.” And they don’t know. But what’s cool, is I do just like I did in wrestling. You can ask Steven. Steven’s here every single day. We launch a funnel and then what happens?

Steven: Honestly, most of the time the first round, it barely even breaks even. And then we make all these adjustments, it’s almost like adult legos, that’s how I think of it. You take out this one piece, oh that’s the weakest link. We go and fix that, and replay it. Then fix that piece and replay it. It’s kind of cool. But that’s how they work honestly, every time.

Russell: I always tell people, “What’s the price point thing you’re selling?” Let’s say it a thousand dollar thing you’re selling on a webinar, so go and take a thousand dollars and you’re going to just gamble on it. You’re going to put it out there and see. Let’s say you have a $200 product. You’re going to gamble $200. You’re spending $200 to try to make one sale and if you don’t, let’s say I put a thousand dollars. I put a thousand dollars in, drive ads for a week, a thousand dollars disappears, I look at all the metrics, did I make a sale? If I made a sell I’m like, sweet we broke even. If I don’t make a sale, it doesn’t matter either way because I have the data now.

Then I look at every single page. How much did I spend per click? How much did it cost per opt in? What percentage my opt in rate was? I look at all the numbers in the funnel and then based on that, we make the tweaks and changes. Then I go back and spend another thousand bucks, try again, see if I can break even. If I didn’t, do it again. Do that until we break even, or are profitable, and keep doing that over and over again.

So those are some of the things, but don’t stress out about it, it happens all the time. But guess what, every time you figure one out, it all compounds because you get more customers to come in. You learn more, you understand, it gets better and better. You guys want to see something cool?

You know the Two Comma Club award we have for everybody else? This is, here I’ll open the door really quick. I don’t want to lose reception. This is everybody in Clickfunnels that’s won a Two Comma Club award so far, there’s over a hundred of them, which is pretty awesome right. In fact, here are 5 more that we just got today. We’re making millionaires every single day. But this is not Russell being cocky, maybe a little bit. But who wants to see my Two Comma Club awards? One, two, these are all mine. Three, four, five. Those are all mine.

So what’s cool about it is, after you get it the first time, you learn a lesson and the next time is better and it gets better and better. And it’s like pushing a rock up a hill the very first time, it’s really hard, really stressful, then it gets to the top and all the sudden boom, it gets going and there’s this momentum and it gets easier and easier and easier. After you get your first Two Comma Club award, the next 17 are really easy.

But don’t worry about flopping. It’s going to flop. In fact, inner circle members always tell me when they’re about to launch their webinar and they’re all stressed out. They’re like, “What if it doesn’t work?” and I’m like, “It’s not going to work. Just bank on that, spend a thousand bucks and call me next week and we’ll look at the numbers and start over again.” And they’re like, “Really?” I’m like, “Yeah, it’s going to fail, don’t even worry about it. Tell your mom that, tell your sister that, tell everyone you’re going to fail. Then they’re not going to get that added stress and pressure, and you’re not going to message me crying afterwards because you’re planning on it failing.”

The market is going to tell you, don’t get all emotional based on the market. It’ll tell you whether you’re right or wrong. And if you’re wrong, then it’s not something personal, you don’t understand the market, you make the tweaks and adjustments and then you go again. So that’s how it works.

Alright, oh I need to drop it. Should we drop this thing?

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