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

by Russell Brunson

  People can go to school and learn about all this stuff. It’s common sense. It’s not exciting. There’s no money in the mainstream.

  Now on both ends of this spectrum are what I call the “crazy zones”. There are plenty of experts who live in the crazy zone. And while you can always recruit a few people into the crazy zone, it’s difficult to get the masses to take action all the way to the left or the right.

  One of my favorite examples of the crazy zone in the weight loss world was a documentary I watched called Eat the Sun. In this movie, they talked about how people can stop eating and just gaze at the sun. Yes, stop eating completely and just look at the sun. Kinda crazy? Well, the documentary did get me to spend a few minutes gazing at the sun, but I’m not crazy enough to give up food 100%. And I don’t think anyone is going to make millions teaching that concept. (As a side note, I did actually love that movie.)

  The sweet spot, the place where you will impact the most lives and make the most money, is right in the middle. Somewhere between the mainstream advice and the crazy zone is where you want to set yourself up. I call this place the Prolific Zone. When you’re there, you’re relaying ideas that are so unique, people will notice.

  One of my favorite teachers in the weight loss niche is Dave Asprey from Bulletproof.com. His origin story falls perfectly in the Prolific Zone. One day he was climbing Mt. Kailash in Tibet and stopped at a guesthouse to shelter from -10-degree weather. He was given a creamy cup of yak butter tea that made him feel amazing. He tried to figure out why he felt so good. He soon discovered it was from the high fats in this tea, so he started adding butter and other fats to his coffee and teas. This experience eventually helped him create a national phenomenon called Bulletproof Coffee. People put butter and coconut oil in their coffee to lose weight and feel amazing.

  For those of you who are just hearing this for the first time, it may seem a little crazy—but not so crazy that you completely dismiss it. And it’s definitely not something the government is going to recommend. Bulletproof Coffee falls directly in the Prolific Zone, and its message has made Dave a multi-millionaire.

  Did you notice how this message causes some polarity? The mainstream will probably hate it, yet there is something interesting there. When Dave tells the rest of his story and can back it up with science, it becomes a message that spreads quickly.

  When your messages cause polarity, it attracts attention and people will pay for it. Neutrality is boring, and rarely is money made or change created when you stay neutral. Being polar is what will attract raving fans and people who will follow you and pay for your advice.

  As you become more polar in your message, you will also notice that people on the other side of your message won’t be happy about it. By creating true fans, you will always upset those on the other side. I wanted to warn you about this early, because often people (including me) really struggle when others get upset or disagree with their ideas.

  For every 100 true fans who follow you, you’ll likely get one person who doesn’t like you. And for some reason, they always seem to be the loudest. If you search my name (or anyone’s name who has tried to create change in others), you’ll find tons of fans, as well as people who don’t like us. It’s just the nature of being a true leader. You’ve got to become okay with that, because without the polarity of your message, you can’t get to your true fans and help create the change they need.

  One tip I learned from Dan Kennedy that helped me cope with the small percentage of haters who will disagree with your message was this: “If you haven’t offended someone by noon each day, then you’re not marketing hard enough.”

  And Jay Abraham said, “If you truly believe that what you have is useful and valuable to your clients, then you have a moral obligation to try to serve them in every way possible.” And that is why I am so aggressive in my marketing. I honestly feel like I have a moral obligation to share my message, because it’s changed my life and I know it can do the same for others as well.

  I want you to start thinking about your niche. What do you teach, and where is it on the Prolific Index? Many times, people are either playing it safe with the mainstream, or they are way out in crazy land where there is no money. You need to find your sweet spot between the middle and crazy land.

  Rule #4: Understand how to use persuasion. Throughout this book, you will learn how to persuade people. In fact, everything you learn in both Sections Two and Three of this book are all about persuasion. But before we get too deep into that, I want you to understand the core foundation of persuasion.

  One of my favorite books on this topic is The One Sentence Persuasion Course by Blair Warren. Blair is a persuasion expert who spent over a decade studying and using persuasion. During that journey, he broke down exactly how to persuade people in one simple sentence:

  People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, and help them throw rocks at their enemies.

  When I first read that, it made such a big impact, I wanted to remember it forever. So I made this graphic as a reminder.

  Here is a quick recap of why each of these is so important. I included Blair’s explanations as well because he explains these concepts so masterfully.

  Encourage their dreams. As the leader, it’s vital that you first understand your audience’s dreams, then encourage them inside the new opportunity you are creating for them.

  Parents often discourage their children’s dreams “for their own good” and attempt to steer them toward more “reasonable” goals. And children often accept this as normal until others come along who believe in them and encourage their dreams. When this happens, who do you think has more power? Parents or strangers?

  Justify their failures. Most people who become followers and then fans will have tried to make a change before. You will not be the first person they have tried to learn from. For some reason, they didn’t get their needs met from any prior encounters. It’s important that you take the blame for past failures off their shoulders and place it back onto the old opportunities they attempted in the past. This way, they will be more open to trying your new opportunity.

  While millions cheer Dr. Phil as he tells people to accept responsibility for their mistakes, millions more are looking for someone to take the responsibility OFF their shoulders. To tell them that they are not responsible for their lot in life. And while accepting responsibility is essential for gaining control of one’s own life, assuring others they are NOT RESPONSIBLE is essential for gaining influence over theirs. One need look no further than politics to see this powerful game played at its best.

  Allay their fears. To allay is to diminish or put to rest. If you can put their fears to rest and give them hope, they will follow you to the ends of the Earth and back again.

  When we are afraid, it is almost impossible to concentrate on anything else. And while everyone knows this, what do we do when someone else is afraid and we need to get their attention? That’s right. We tell them not to be afraid and expect that to do the trick. Does it work? Hardly. And yet we don’t seem to notice. We go on as if we’d solved the problem and the person before us fades further away. But there are those who do realize this and pay special attention to our fears. They do not tell us not to be afraid. They work with us until our fear subsides. They present evidence. They offer support. They tell us stories. But they do not tell us how to feel and expect us to feel that way. When you are afraid, which type of person do you prefer to be with?

  Confirm their suspicions. Your audience is already suspicious of you and others in your market. They want to believe change is possible. But they’re skeptical about making the leap forward. When you can confirm in story format that you had similar suspicions and describe how you overcame them, it will bond people to you.

  One of our favorite things to say is “I knew it.” There is just nothing quite like having our suspicions confirmed. When another person confirms something that
we suspect, we not only feel a surge of superiority, we feel attracted to the one who helped make that surge come about. Hitler “confirmed” the suspicions of many Germans about the cause of their troubles and drew them further into his power by doing so. Cults often confirm the suspicions of prospective members by telling them that their families are out to sabotage them. It is a simple thing to confirm the suspicions of those who are desperate to believe them.

  Throw rocks at their enemies. One big key to growing your following is creating “Us vs. Them” within your community. Take a stand for what you believe, why you’re different, and who you’re collectively fighting against. Why is your movement better than the alternatives?

  Nothing bonds like having a common enemy. I realize how ugly this sounds and yet it is true just the same. Those who understand this can utilize this. Those who don’t understand it, or worse, understand but refuse to address it, are throwing away one of the most effective ways of connecting with others. No matter what you may think of this, rest assured that people have enemies. All people. It has been said that everyone you meet is engaged in a great struggle. The thing they are struggling with is their enemy. Whether it is another individual, a group, an illness, a setback, a rival philosophy or religion, or what have you, when one is engaged in a struggle, one is looking for others to join him. Those who do become more than friends. They become partners.

  Rule #5: Care…a LOT. The next part of being a charismatic leader is showing people that you actually care about them. There’s an old saying that goes, “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” If your audience thinks you are just in this to make money, your vehicle for change will not last long. Your following will not grow. In fact, it will shrink very quickly. If you choose your ideal clients correctly, you’ll have people you’d be willing to serve and teach and train for free because that’s how much you care about them.

  One struggle most of us have as we try to serve our audience is the guilt sometimes associated with getting them to pay you. There are two reasons it’s essential to THEIR success that they pay you.

  First, those who pay, pay attention. Over the last decade, I’ve invited my friends or family members to sit in on events that others have paid $25,000 to attend. Not once in those 10 years has a single one of those people who sat in for free launched a successful company. Yet in the SAME room sat people who invested in themselves. They heard the exact same information and, because they had invested money to be there, turned that same information into multi-million-dollar-a-year companies.

  Yes, those who pay, pay attention—and the more they pay, the closer attention they pay. You are actually doing your audience a huge disservice if you undervalue what you are selling.

  Second, the more success you have, the less time you will have. I remember when I first started, how proud I was that I answered all my customer support emails and talked (often for hours) to everyone who asked me a question. I thought I was serving my audience, but because of how accessible I was to everyone, I wasn’t able to serve many people at all. You will need to put up barriers to protect your time, so you can serve more people. By charging for what you do, you are showing those who do invest how much you really care about their success.

  Rule #6: Offer them value from their perceived relationship with you. They’ve subscribed to your list, they read your blog and listen to your podcast—they’re hearing from you all the time. They want to see some sort of value in return for the time they are spending with you. And they want to get value as THEY define it.

  One big mistake we experts often make is trying to apply what WE value most as OTHERS’ standard for success. We are quick to define the value as some result we assume they are seeking, like “Make a million dollars” or “Lose 50 pounds”. But that’s not always how they define the value they want to get. Sometimes they just want to be part of a community. Sometimes they just want to get to know you. Some people love to consume and learn, and that’s how they feel they get value. We can’t push our definition of value on them. We have to allow them to feel that in the way THEY define.

  I remember back when I joined my first mastermind group. We were at lunch, and my mentor, Bill Glazer, and I were discussing this topic. He said:

  You have to realize that people join mastermind groups for different reasons. Some people come because they want an immediate return on their investment, while others are there just to learn. Others come because they want to show off. Some people want community. And some just don’t have anything better to do. If you try to force “success” as you see it on them when they really just want to be part of your community or they just love learning, it’s easy to alienate people from your tribe. They have to get value as they define it.

  Those are a few of the keys to becoming a more interesting and charismatic leader. Understand, though, that you don’t become that leader overnight. Start sharing your message and become consistent with it so you can find your voice. Figure out where your message can polarize people into true fans. Share your backstory and flaws. Be transparent. And over time, you will naturally become the leader your tribe needs.

  SECRET #2

  THE CAUSE

  The second piece you need in order to create a mass movement is a future-based cause. For every political, social, or religious movement throughout history, the charismatic leader paints a picture of the future they are trying to create and what life will be like when they get there.

  As I mentioned before, my Inner Circle mastermind group spends a lot of time talking about building out your own CULT-ure. I hyphenated the word because I don’t want you to look at this like a traditional business trying to build a customer culture. They’re very different.

  When I got serious about growing my company and taking my messages to the masses, I studied how cults (both positive and negative) were built. I discovered several common threads running through all their stories. Elements that are so much more powerful than anything you’ll ever read about building customer culture in a traditional sense. We’re going to look at these elements and how to include them in your business to create your own positive movement—your own cult-ure.

  Our job as expert and leader is to help bring people to higher ground. To move them from where they are to where they want to be. In his book The True Believer, Eric Hoffer says, “Fear of the future causes us to lean against and cling to the present, while faith in the future renders us perceptive to change.” In circumstances where people fear the future, they typically stop moving forward. For you to have success in this business, you have to give your followers hope of something better so they will be perceptive to the change you are going to offer them. You do that by painting a vision of the future that they want.

  Most people want to cast all their faith and personal responsibility into something bigger than themselves. It happens in religion, it happens in political movements, it happens in the workplace, and it will be true for your movement as well. People want to plug in to something bigger than themselves, so it’s your job to create that vision. Here are a few key principles that will help you create your future-based cause.

  1. Where can they place their hope and faith? Earlier today, I watched the Star Wars movie Rogue One with my kids. Early in the movie, Cassian Andor is walking with Jyn Erso on the way to try to get a meeting with Saw Gerrera, who they thought would be the key to their rebellion. Cassian says to Jyn, “We’ll give your name and hope that gets us a meeting with Saw.”

  “Hope?” Jyn asks.

  “Yeah,” Cassian replies. “Rebellions are built on hope.”

  Then later in the movie, when Jyn is speaking to the rebellion council trying to get them to fight before it’s too late, she says, “We need to capture the Death Star plans if there is any hope of destroying it.”

  “You’re asking us to invade an imperial installation based on nothing but hope?” they ask.

  Then she responds, “Rebellions are built on hope.”


  Both those scenes were very moving to me, but as I thought more about that phrase, “rebellions are built on hope”, I realized that not only rebellions but all mass movements are built on hope, and it’s essential that we create that hope in the future, because without hope, they can’t have the faith necessary to move forward and change. As they say in Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

  If you have watched the elections over the past few decades, you’ll notice that the candidates who win do so because of their ability to create a vision of the future that people want the most.

  In 1992, George Bush had “A Proud Tradition” while Bill Clinton’s was “It’s Time to Change America.” In 2008, John McCain was “Country First” while Barack Obama’s motto was “Change We Need.” In 2016, Hillary Clinton used “I’m With Her” and “Stronger Together” while Donald Trump said he would “Make America Great Again”. Notice how the winners cast a compelling vision of the future, where the losers focused more on the present. (Interestingly enough, as you will see in Secret #3, both these winners presented a new opportunity where the losers were offering improvement.)

  As we started to build our cult-ure within ClickFunnels, I wanted to create something that would unite all our members and give them faith and hope in their future with us. If I’m honest, I didn’t know I needed this at first, and actually stumbled upon it one day. But the minute we discovered it, it instantly cast a compelling vision of the future and united our members.

  We were about to launch our third annual “Funnel Hacking LIVE” event, and I was trying to think of a headline for the sales page. I remember reading a story about the late Gary Halbert when I first started my business where he said, “You are only one sales letter away from striking it rich.” I know that for me, that statement created a vision that got me excited. I didn’t know which sales letter or product it would be for me, but I had a perfect hope that if I would just keep trying, something would work. It created faith in my mind that what I was working toward was real, and even though I failed over and over and over again, that thought kept me moving forward through the ups and downs I experienced early in my career.