Behind The Scenes Of Funnel Hacking Live 2017 (Part 1)

What happened at this year’s event.

On this special 2 part episode Russell recaps and summarizes what happened at Funnel Hacking Live. He also reflects on how he felt about different aspects and speakers at the event.

Here are some of the cool things you will hear in this 2 part episode:

• An overview of the schedule during the 3 day event, who spoke, and what they spoke about.
• How Russell felt about certain speakers and what he thinks went right with his own presentations, and what mistakes he feels he made.
• What the best part of the event was for Russell (hint – It involves his lovely wife).
•  And what Russell plans on doing differently at next year’s Funnel Hacking Live.

So listen below for the first half of Russell’s thoughts and feelings about Funnel Hacking Live 2017, and don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for the conclusion.

---Transcript---

Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you to Marketing In Your Car. But today’s actually a special episode because first off, I’m not in my car, I’m in the conference room and second off, I got this brand new little microphone that plugs into the bottom of my phone. People have been asking me ever since I started this podcast, “What microphone do you use on your phone?” I always just tell them that Iuse the microphone on my phone, which is true until today. There’s this really cool thing, I don’t know what brand or style, I have no idea but I’m testing it out. So if it seems to be good, I’ll let you guys know.

It’s so cool, it plugs into the bottom of your iPhone and it’s got this big huge thing on it. I’m excited, I’m trying it out. Hopefully this episode goes well enough and I’ll let you guys know more about this thing, because it’s pretty awesome.

So what I wanted to do, I wanted to give a recap of Funnel Hacking Live. I know 1500 of you guys were already there and experienced it and went crazy with us, and for everyone else who wasn’t, I wanted to catch you up on what’s happening and why it was amazing and why you should be at next year’s event. If you missed this one for some insane reason, because there’s no logical reason to have missed it, only insane ones. So if you had an insane reason, I want to give you guys some cool behind the scenes of what was happening.

So this year’s event, this is the third year we’ve done it. The first year was in Vegas, we had about 600 people come. The second year, last year was in San Diego and we had 1300 people come and it’s funny because you have to sign a contract for next year’s event before the event, because you have to, because if you’re going to sell tickets for the event you have to know,  here’s the venue and dates, blah, blah, blah. So last year we’re like, let’s make it a little bit bigger, let’s do 1500 people. And then we ended up selling out three months early.

We probably should have done bigger. So next year’s event we’ve got a little bit bigger place. Hoping that we’re able to fill it. Just so you guys are fully aware, nothing on Earth stresses me out more than events. Filling events is the hardest sell. You’re not just selling, “Hey, you should come to an event.” Because that’s an easy sell. The hard sells are all the other sells someone has to make in their mind. “I gotta ask for work off, I gotta talk to my spouse, I gotta fly, pay for flights, pay for hotels.” All these other things, so it’s not just a simple sell, I want to….usually when you sell something you create desire and people want it and you sell it.

This is harder, even if I create desire for it, you still have to go and close yourself on all the other logistics that are a pain. Event’s are scary. In fact, the last time I did an event before Funnel Hacking Live, which I swore I would never do another event after. I think we sold 3 or 400 tickets, and when we got there only…and it was $100 tickets, so I assumed that $100 commitment was enough to get people to show up. I was wrong. We ended up only having 100 that showed up.

It was so embarrassing for me. I remember having all these empty seats. I was like, “I will never do another event again.” Then fast forward a couple of years, about the time this podcast was starting, I probably talked about it. There was this new company we were working on called Rippln, and they did their initial kickoff and there was 1200 people, and we ended up getting 1.5 million people to sign up over the 60 days or so. And then there was an event on the backside of it.

So I thought there was going to be 30,000 people at this event, I was all excited for it. But at the time, the company hadn’t launched the actual thing that we’d built the hype for. There was a huge loss of momentum, at the event we had 1000 tickets sold. I showed up and we were getting ready to open the doors and went in the hallway and there was only about 200 people out there. We were like, “oh crap.”

The guy, Brian, who ran the company was like, “Oh crap. Let’s pull chairs out.” So we sat there, right before the event and pulled 800 chairs out of the room and then we had this huge empty room and then 200 seats in the front and brought people in and did this event over three days. And it was, for me, I was emotionally scarred. I was like, “I don’t know what’s happening, but this is not a good sign.” And sure enough the company crashed afterwards. A lot of wasted energy, time and money on my side that never materialized, but learned a lot of good lessons.

That’s the point, right? So because of those experiences, I had this fear of events. I never wanted to do one. So when the first Funnel Hacking Live, after we launched Clickfunnels, people were saying, people started doing meet ups. I was like, “We should facilitate this.” So we decided to do the first one. We were going to sell 600 seats, and I was so scared, panicking about what if we only sell 100 and we have this room for 600? S

o finally we did it. We launched it, and we sold out, I think we sold out 2 weeks early, so it wasn’t huge, but we did. We did the event and I remember even the day of the show I had so much fear and anxiety. What if people don’t show up? And I remember even before the event started hiding in the back and peaking through and I was like, “Oh good, the seats are full. Thank heavens.” And then I was able to, we did the event and it turned out amazing.

And then last year, same thing. We had 1300 seats sold and I remember the night before we have pre-registration, we only had 200 people pre-register.  I was like, “Oh my gosh, nobody’s coming. This is it. This is my greatest fear recognized once again.” And I’m freaking out and went out there and the next morning tons of people registered and we ended up having the entire thing filled, all 1300 seats and then we did the event, it was awesome.

So this time, I had the same thing. I wasn’t quite as, I had two successful events now, I wasn’t quite as scared, but I still get nervous. So the event happened and this time we, usually the event’s on a weekend, but to get the hotel space we had to do it on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, so we all flew in Sunday night, which was nice. We all flew in there and had time to just relax. Then Monday, my wife and I got up and went shopping to go buy clothes, and my team was doing everything, my team is amazing. They’re stuffing binders and getting things ready and all that kind of stuff. So it was kind of nice, they were taking care of that.

I was able to go and spend time with Collette, and just get ready for the event and shop. Just kind of mentally get prepared for this thing. And then that night, we had a big VIP dinner for our Inner Circle Members, as well as our certified partners who have actually finished certification. We had a big dinner with them and it was really, really cool.

Now a couple things, this will be one of my themes of this podcast. It’s interesting, and I’m going to be vulnerable and let you guys know all my fears and my things in hopes, not that you judge me, “Man, Russell’s a wuss.” I want you to be like, “Wow, if Russell can do it, I can do it.” That’s more of the goal with this. I love being on stage. I feel comfortable in front of 1500 people talking, and I feel really good there. I get really, really scared one on one or even in groups.

So even at our Inner Circle dinner, there’s 150 or so people, maybe 200 people, I can’t remember, it was kind of a smaller thing, but tons of anxiety being in that room talking to people. Throughout the event people come talk to you one on one, I really struggle. I feel bad. I had my coaching call with Tara Williams this morning and we were kind of talking about this. I was just like, “Man, it’s funny how comfortable I feel up in front of the stage and how scared and nervous and awkward I feel one on one.” And I feel bad about it.

I think a lot of times, for anyone who did have one on one interactions with me. I apologize if I’m super awkward. I don’t know why, I feel nervous. I get really nervous there and I struggle. Which is why I try to hide as much as I can. I try to be out there to take pictures with everyone as well, but it’s really, I struggle with that part of it.

Anyway, we did the dinner that night, it was really fun. Bart Miller, who is one of our Inner Circle members who’s transitioning into becoming a fashion coordinator, he designed all my clothes for the week. And he did the same for Alex Harmosian and a bunch of the Inner Circle members.  So he was there and had me dressing up all nice. So I was nervous because I wasn’t comfortable in my clothes, completely. And then in this room with these people that I admire. I wanted to make sure they had such a good experience, it gets you nervous. At least for me.

But what’s cool, at the end I had a chance to give a quick speech, it was amazing looking out at that room. And I knew most of the people in that room. All the Inner Circle members I know really intimately. I know their businesses, and often times I know their fears, hopes, desires, dreams, passion, all those things. I’m aware of those things, so it’s kind of cool to look out there and realize and look at those guys like, “Man, the ripple effect” That’s funny, because of Rippln, that was our pitch there, but the ripple effect of these people is amazing.

And I kind of talked about that like, how cool it is for me and for us as a company that we get to be a little piece in that journey. For me, it’s such an honor. I get a lot of credit for those things and it’s like, no it’s not me, it’s you guys. We provided a tool, some training, but it’s you guys taking that leap of faith to go and do it. Because the tools and training is out there for everybody, but most people don’t do it, and the reason why is there’s so much fear and anxiety and things that happen. Just seeing this room of people who are taking those leaps, it was awesome.

That was the first night. We went to bed that night and I could not sleep. I really needed to because I hadn’t slept much earlier, and I ended up being up until 2 or 2:30 before I passed out. The next day started and it was insane. We got there and people were packed. Devon Brown, who is the best MC on earth was MC-ing it, getting people’s energy, he had everyone dancing and it was so exciting. And then we brought the certified partners on stage so everyone could see, “Here are the people who are certified. Here are the people you could hire if you need help with funnels. And if you want to become certified, you want this to be your career, go ask someone from our team because you could be certified. This could be your new career, just like these guys.”

We had most of our Clickfunnels team come on stage, so people could see who was actually behind the event. Then after that, I had a chance to get up and it was cool because these events are always fun for because I get to share what I’m thinking about, I’m geeking out about at the time. And it’s usually stuff I’ve shared in the Inner Circle, I’ve shared some of on the podcast, but it’s never been formally presented. So this is the first time I had a chance to formally present the first section of the new Expert Secrets book, which is creating a mass movement. And it was so much fun to share that and walk through the models and show people that.

And I think a lot of, I don’t know, I felt like it was for a lot of people, just such a new, exciting thing to see and realize that we’re not just selling things. You are creating a movement. What’s interesting, one thing that kind of made me sad about the event, I know it frustrated some people, in the initial sales letter we had a little section saying I was going to talk about supplement funnels, and I didn’t because of just how things shift as you start growing the event and speakers and some things have to get cut and some things don’t. And that was one that got cut.

Someone came up to me afterwards and was like, “I came all the way from Australia because I wanted to learn about supplement funnels.” I was like, “Well I’m not specifically talking about supplement funnels, but this stuff is the same. It doesn’t matter. We are building the supplement line right now and the difference between the first supplement funnel was all a media based thing where we had a really good funnel and drove traffic. But we didn’t build a culture, we didn’t build a following and that’s why it grew and then it went away. It was kind of over.

I was like, “With the new supplement stuff we’re doing, this building a mass movement, is the same. All these principals we’re talking about are the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling supplements.” I was trying to explain to her and I don’t think she believed me and she was frustrated and walked away.

This is the key to all business. This is the key to everything you’re doing. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, this is still the foundation of how you position an offer and how you treat your customers and how you get them to buy over and over and over again. So I was excited to finally share that and it was just so cool.

Then we had a break and after that Todd Brown came up. And Todd is, I always say if you look who are the two guys out there in the market teaching funnels the most it’s me and Todd. Todd’s a lot smarter than me. A lot more analytical I think at stuff and he has a chance to hang out with some amazing marketers. So I love his perspective, he came in and we were talking about the big idea. How do you create the idea behind the marketing campaign’s to get people to buy your thing? And it was fun just to see how he breaks things down and how he looks at things.

He’s definitely different than how I look at things, but I appreciate it so much. The way that he views things, I respect him a lot. And it was awesome having him up there sharing his perspective on that. Because I think a lot of people are getting good at building funnels, but they’re missing my first presentation which is creating a mass movement, and the positioning of things, and that kind of stuff. And then Todd is figuring out the big idea. So that was the next cool thing and people loved that.

From there we broke to lunch, which I feel like eating is such a waste at these event. We’ve got two hours we gotta block out for lunch so people can go and eat. But nobody needs that. We need to be sitting in a room talking. We let people eat, because I think people need that. Humans have to eat every once in a while. But yeah, we went to lunch. For most of these meals, we bought lunches and dinners and stuff like that for most of the stuff. Because I didn’t want people to have to leave, it’s just kind of a nice touch I think, to help provide those for people.

So we fed a lot of people. I can’t remember if we fed people that lunch or not, but whatever. But then after I came back, this is where I had a chance to go into story, which is the next thing. The epiphany bridge, I shared a lot of pieces of that with you. But another cool thing for me, Daegan Smith, who is one of my favorite people in the world, one of my mentors, peers, friends, whatever you want to say. I actually had him come to the event because I wanted him to see a lot of this stuff that I was talking about, a lot of stuff I initially learned from him and then stuff that we talked about what inspired ideas that made me test things and try things.

So I had him there, and it was cool because I had to give this cool presentation on story and I got to give him credit for being there. In fact, the Expert Secrets book, most of it is dedicated to him, because it was the foundation for so much of this cool thing that became. It was fun having him in the room to hear that. I was a little nervous, honestly, I was like, “Daegan, I learned tons of this stuff from you and this is where I’ve kind of taken it.” And it was fun to share that.

So I shared the story and epiphany bridges and how all those things work together. We talked about the hero’s two journeys, all the stuff that’s from the Expert Secrets book, which you guys are going to love. Then I got done and I was able to bring up Brandon and Kaylin Polland, who last year, they were at last year’s Funnel Hacking event and I met them in person there. Then they joined the Inner Circle and I’ve had a chance to be around them and experience them and their business over the last year. And I wanted them to be at the event, so they spoke. They talked about social webinars and telling their story, which is super cool. Their whole thing is #dowhateverrussellsays, and I think their end thing was give Russell all your money and he’ll turn it into more money, or something, which I appreciate.

But it was cool to hear their whole story. What I think what Brandon and Kaylin, outside of they’re crazy talented as a whole anyway, but showing when they got in a year ago or two years ago when they first got started, they didn’t have a ton of money, and they invested in the Funnel Hacks course, a thousand dollar course a lot of you guys already have. They said, “We went through and pushed play and watched thirty seconds and we paused it and implemented that. And pushed play again….and for three weeks we went through the entire course in thirty second chunks.” They heard it, stopped an implemented it.

And what’s funny is he told me afterwards, that a bunch of people came up and were like, “What was the course you went through with Russell. I want to go through the same thing the same way.” And he told them and they were like, “Oh. I’ve owned that for a year and a half.” And he’s like, “Yeah.” The difference is that they implemented. That’s the key, they’re the most amazing implementers in the world. They’re presentation was amazing.

Then we had a break and after that, Jim Edwards came up, my co-host with Funnelfridays.com. And he gave a presentation on Copy Blocks, which was amazing. I think that hopefully for most people it was liberating. Showing wow, this is, I don’t have to be a creative writer. I just have to understand how blocks work and copy and how Funnel Scripts works and all that kind of stuff. And Jim made it really fun. He did a great job. He made the whole session really fun and exciting and people loved it.

Then when Jim got done, then Stu McLarin came up. Stu is one of the greatest human beings, literally, to be birthed on this earth. I don’t know if I can say it strongly enough. Just an amazing human being. He came and talked about membership funnels, which was awesome. And showing the pre-launch process and how he launched his programs, and it was cool seeing his pre-launch stuff. How he launches, 90% is pre-launch stuff that most people, like me, don’t even think about. It was like, “Here’s a video we launched ahead of time on Facebook and Youtube that got viewed. From here we moved to here…” it showed the whole process which was cool. And From here we launched this funnel and it made 3.3 million dollars and it was cool to show that.

Then afterwards I had a chance to come up with Todd and Dylan and we did a special presentation about World Teacher Aide and we talked about coming to Kenya and we showed a video of me in Kenya from last year. And then this time we said, “Look, if you guys want, we’re going, if you guys will pay for a classroom you can actually come to Kenya with us and do a special Mastermind.” We had 11 spots that were open and that night we sold all 11 of those spots and I think we had 7 or 8 people on the waiting list, which is crazy. When all is said and done, by the last day we had raised between the money, it was almost, just shy of a quarter of a million dollars, that we had raised for World Teacher Aide from the event, which was insane.

What a quarter of a million dollars will do in Kenya, is the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars here in America. There’s so many people and kids and communities, lives will be effected because of that. I just, everyone was gracious and giving, which is awesome.

After that, we ran down and did our round tables. Which had a bunch of people at round tables and anyone could come and ask questions and it went really, really well. We had a big buffet down there and everyone was eating and partying, asking questions. It was good. I think next year we’re going to tweak that a little though. There were pros and cons. The pros were everyone who got at a round table it was really, really powerful. Those who didn’t though, they were kind of like, it was hard. And I don’t know if we need to get microphones or something. Have people rotate from table to table. Some people purchase a table and sit there for the entire two or three hours and other people can get it.

We’re going to figure out how to make the round tables a little better. But it was really cool for everyone come out and have a chance to talk directly to the speakers and the Inner Circle members and things like that. It was awesome. That was day number one. I slept really good that night, which was awesome.