Expert Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Finding Your Message, Building a Tribe, and Changing the World

by Russell Brunson

  When we got there and started filming, someone asked us what we were doing. We told them we were recording a video about making potato guns. Apparently, Home Depot didn’t want that type of liability, and they threw us out. So we drove to the next Home Depot in town, and this time we went into stealth mode. I hid the camera under my jacket, then pulled it out and started recording what we were buying as we bought the pipes, barbecue igniters, and propellants.

  We returned home and filmed ourselves assembling the guns. We described each step as we did it, shared the secret barrel-to-chamber volume ratios we’d discovered, told them about our favorite propellants, and instructed them how to keep safe. Eventually, we had a video explaining the whole process. Then we turned our homemade video into a DVD to sell online.

  While I never became a millionaire as a potato gun expert, we did make sales. In fact, we averaged anywhere from $20 to $30 a day selling that product, which was huge for a couple of college kids. It completely transformed my life and helped me understand the power of an expert business.

  Now as inspiring as selling potato gun DVDs can be, I believe the true value of an expert business isn’t the money you make, but the people’s lives you’re able to change through your message. And while the people who bought my DVDs were able to have a great time making potato guns, I felt like what I had learned from the process of selling my first information product was just a stepping-stone for something bigger. Something I was meant to do. Little did I know at that time that this was where my real journey would begin. A journey that has lasted over a decade now.

  I started to find other experts in areas of life that fascinated me. We took their messages and promoted them through this Expert Secrets system I was developing. Many of the early projects we worked on failed. But with each failure came a lesson on what worked and, more importantly, what didn’t work. I became obsessed with why people buy and what you can do to influence their purchasing decisions.

  Even more rewarding was the impact that the right message can have on someone at the right time in their life. Like when someone is trying to lose weight, and they find an expert who resonates with them, inspires them, and gives them the right opportunity to finally make that change. Or the person who is trying to do better in school, or a couple trying to strengthen their marriage, or an entrepreneur who wants to grow a company—we all need help to grow. And we seek out experts for that help.

  One of our companies helps people overcome pornography addiction. We partnered with an expert, created an information product, and started selling it online. Our message landed in the hands of men who were struggling with this addiction. Wives and mothers found our courses and used them to better understand the people they love who struggled with this addiction. We started to make money but, more importantly, we watched as marriages were saved, families were repaired, and people’s lives were changed forever. That’s real impact. That’s powerful.

  THAT is what this book is about.

  Yes—if you follow the system, then you will make money. But that is not the point, that is merely the by-product of helping others. Zig Ziglar once said: “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.”

  THE TWO TYPES OF EXPERT BUSINESSES

  Before we get too deep, I want to point out that there are two types of expert businesses. The tactics behind both are the same, but the strategies are a little different. Let me explain each of them so you can see which one best fits what you are trying to create.

  EXPERT BUSINESS #1: SELLING INFORMATION PRODUCTS

  The first type of expert business is the one that most of you will probably be creating. It involves you taking the life lessons that you’ve learned, and packaging them into information products, coaching, and consulting. Being an expert and selling information products is (in my opinion) the greatest start-up in the world. You don’t need venture or start-up capital, just a passion for what you’re teaching, as well as learning how to tell stories in a way that will get others excited about it as well.

  I have hundreds of fun stories I could tell you about people who have taken their talents, ideas, and unique abilities to grow expertbased companies. One of my favorite stories is from one of my friends, Jacob Hiller.

  Growing up, Jacob always wanted to be able to dunk a basketball but, for whatever reasons, he wasn’t able to. It bothered him so much that he made it a mission to figure out how to increase his vertical jump. He researched all sorts of different regimens and became a human guinea pig, testing these ideas out one by one. As he started having success, he would record videos showing the techniques that worked and post them on a YouTube channel he created.

  At first, nobody really cared. But he was focusing on himself and improving his own vertical jump, so it didn’t matter. He recorded the videos for free and put them online because he loved it. Over time, people started noticing. They started to share his message with their friends, and soon he built this nice little following of people just like him who were interested in learning how to jump higher.

  He went from having 0 followers to 100…then 1,000…and 10,000…and beyond, just by sharing what he was passionate about. This is how many expert businesses start. You find something you’re passionate about, and your obsession with learning and applying helps you become an expert who can lead others. His viewers kept asking for more, and that’s when he realized he’d built something incredibly unique. He then started creating products to teach others what he had learned and turned it into a company that now makes millions of dollars teaching people how to jump.

  As cool as Jacob’s story is, it’s not unique. Another one of my friends, Jermaine Griggs, struggled with reading sheet music and became great at playing piano by ear. He now makes millions a year from helping others learn how to play piano by ear. My student Liz Benny was an amazing social media manager for herself and others, but when she became an expert and started teaching others how to do it, she made millions.

  Robert G. Allen, the great real estate investor and coach, once said that he made millions DOING real estate, but he made hundreds of millions TEACHING it.

  That’s how it typically starts. We get excited about a topic and we start geeking out on it. We learn, we read books, we study examples, we listen to podcasts, and we consume a lot of information. Then we start using it for ourselves. At some point, we realize the only way to keep growing isn’t to learn more, but instead to shift our focus from personal growth to contribution. It’s only by shifting our focus to helping others that we continue to grow. We coach others, we create information products, and we start contributing to other people’s growth. When you do that, you learn more about yourself and the process as you do it.

  Contribution is the key to continued growth.

  The first time I truly understood that, I was in high school. I was a state champion and an all-American wrestler. I read and watched everything I could about wrestling. My dad and I would study videos and practice moves every day.

  Then the summer before my senior year, one of my coaches asked me if I’d help coach at the wrestling camp. I’d never coached wrestling before, but thought it would be fun. When I started, I was coaching the younger wrestlers on moves I was intuitively good at, but that others couldn’t figure out. At first it was really difficult to break down and explain why the move worked and how they were supposed to do it. But as I taught the kids, I started to notice why the move wasn’t working for them. And I’d say, “It’s not working because your arm is bent the wrong way.” Or “You’re at the wrong angle.” By teaching, I had to dissect what I was doing and learn WHY it worked.

  As I became aware of those details, I was able to better teach them to the kids. And the awareness I gained from coaching also made me a much better athlete. Contributing to other people’s success helped me grow more than focusing on my own success.

  The process with most expert businesses is the same. First, we become passionate about a particular topic. We study
, we learn, we implement, but eventually we can’t grow anymore from study alone. We then shift our focus to helping others with what we have learned, and that contribution helps them, which in turn also helps us continue to grow.

  EXPERT BUSINESS #2: LEVERAGING INFORMATION PRODUCTS TO GROW AN EXISTING COMPANY

  If you already have a company, you can use this Expert Secrets system to quickly grow your company and get customers for free. I was hesitant to title this book “Expert Secrets”, because I didn’t want people to dismiss it simply because they sell other types of products or services besides information.

  Many people ask me how we turned ClickFunnels into the fastest growing SAAS (software as a service) company in the history of the internet without venture capital or any kind of start-up backing. The answer is that I first focused on selling information products as an expert that indoctrinated our customers, and made them desire the real service we were trying to sell them.

  Our competitors and venture capitalists who have tried to invest with us couldn’t understand how our cost to acquire a customer was better than free. As you’ll soon see, each of our customers purchases an information product from us to start, and we actually make money on that first transaction. Later, we introduce those customers to ClickFunnels, making our cost to acquire a customer less than $0—because we already got paid when they purchased our information products!

  We’re actually getting paid to acquire customers, which gives us the ability to acquire tens of thousands of customers, almost overnight without spending any money out of our pockets.

  When you start using the Expert Secrets process for your company, you’ll find that a few amazing things will happen.

  1. Complicated sales will become easy because the information products will indoctrinate potential customers about WHY they need your product or service.

  2. You will be positioned as an expert instead of a commodity, and people will pay you MORE for the same thing they could get somewhere else. All other options will become irrelevant, price resistance will disappear, and future sales will become easier.

  3. You will be able to acquire unlimited customers for free, so every backend sale you make will result in 100% profit.

  4. You’ll be able to grow MUCH faster.

  This book has taken me over a decade to “earn” through trial and error, making thousands of offers to millions of people. I am only sharing strategies and tactics with you that are proven to work.

  I hope you enjoy this book and that it will help amplify your message to the world.

  SECTION ONE

  CREATING YOUR MASS MOVEMENT

  Before we get started, I need to share something that might seem a little backward at first, but it is one of the keys to sharing and monetizing your message. As you know, the world is filled with experts who are broke, people with advice and opinions and no one listening to them.

  When I first started on this journey, I realized that if I was going to have success, I needed to focus first on building an audience of people I could share my message with. I wasn’t sure where to go or how to do that. So I started studying historical figures who had built huge audiences and caused big changes. The more examples I found, the more patterns I noticed.

  It didn’t matter if I was studying Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party or Jesus Christ and Christianity; all the examples I found had three things in common that helped them build a mass movement.

  1. They each had a charismatic leader or an attractive character.

  2. Each of them focused on a future-based cause that was bigger than themselves.

  3. They each offered their audience a new opportunity.

  After noticing this pattern, I dug deeper into each of those three things to reverse engineer what was happening, and figure out why it worked. What I discovered was fascinating, and once I felt like I understood what worked, my team and I applied those principles to my audience. And I watched as people quickly transformed from mere followers into true fans.

  In 2008, Kevin Kelly wrote an article called “1,000 True Fans”. In that article, he said:

  A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author—in other words, anyone producing works of art—needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

  A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

  This section is all about HOW to create those true fans, how to build your following. We have a joke inside my highest-level mastermind group (called the Inner Circle) that each of them must focus on building their own CULT-ures. While we’re not actually building a cult, we are consciously creating a culture of true fans. And this section will show you how to do the same so you can create a vehicle for change in your fans’ lives.

  SECRET #1

  THE CHARISMATIC LEADER / ATTRACTIVE CHARACTER

  Every great mass movement has a leader. It’s easy to assume that some people are just born leaders and others are not. It’s possible that your biggest fear when you first read the title Expert Secrets was that you aren’t a born leader or an expert. I know that was true for me, and still is some of the time.

  In my personal life, I am pretty shy and reserved. But when I’m in my element, speaking about the topics that I’ve mastered, I am able to lead. You see, people become leaders when they first try to master something for themselves. Then after they’ve discovered a path for themselves, they share their knowledge with others. It starts with your own personal growth, but then transitions to contribution.

  So if you’re nervous about having what it takes to be a charismatic leader, I want to spend a few minutes talking to you. My guess is that you are amazing. And I bet that the more amazing you are, the harder it is for you to believe it. Am I right?

  I’ve had a really rare opportunity to coach thousands of experts around the world in almost every market you can dream of. What’s interesting is when I look at all these amazing people changing the lives of tens of thousands (and in some cases millions) of people, almost all of them have felt an internal pull to want to serve and help people. It’s almost like a voice inside them telling them they are destined for greatness.

  Yet at the same time, they have this other voice that consistently tells them they’re inadequate, that they’re not enough. Not smart enough, not focused enough, not thin enough, not experienced enough, not good enough…

  The strange thing is that often the more they do and the more people they help, the louder the voice of inadequacy becomes. Whether you’re just starting this journey or you’ve been at it for a while, just know that the biggest hurdle you’re likely to face is being okay with positioning yourself as an expert.

  What’s equally important to understand is you’re not alone. I really feel for people struggling with that negative inner voice because, in all honesty, that’s the way I often feel. I feel like I have been blessed beyond what any human being should ever be blessed with on this Earth. And I feel that this gift I’ve been given from God is something I must share. In fact, if I don’t share it, that would be an injustice to Him and the people I could serve.

  Yet as I am out there in the trenches every single day building companies, working with entrepreneurs, trying to change the world in my own little way, I still wrestle with these feelings of inadequacy. As I talk to people, I realize that these same feelings keep most people from ever taking on the mantle of an expert. The voice keeps them from stepping up and stepping into that role.

  And it’s a tragedy for a couple of reasons. First, it deprives them
of the experience and the opportunities they should have. And more importantly, it deprives the people whose lives they could change. Those people you could serve by sharing your God-given talents and expert abilities—they might never be reached.

  So I want to pause here and take a moment, not so much to convince you that you’re an expert, but to give you whatever permission you might need to be able to move forward. You have the ability—and, I believe, the responsibility—to serve others with your gifts, whatever they are.

  You’ve been blessed with talents, ideas, and unique abilities that have gotten you to where you are in life, and those gifts were given to you so you could share them with others. There are people today who need what you have. And they are just waiting for you to find your voice, so you can help them change their lives. What a tragedy for them if you don’t develop your voice now.

  The problem for most of us is that our unique abilities are things that come second nature to us. So they don’t seem that amazing, and we dismiss them.

  For example, I would say that one of my superpowers is being able to look at a business or a product line and within seconds know exactly how the owner should be selling those products. I know what the scripts need to say. I know what the sales process needs to be. All these things just come so clearly to me. As soon as I see a product, I just know. For whatever reason, that’s my unique superpower.