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

by Russell Brunson

  If I can get someone to TRULY believe that the new opportunity is the key to what they want the most, and they can ONLY get it through my vehicle, then they have no other options but to buy. This is the key to launching your movement. Belief.

  Here is what I used for ClickFunnels:

  If I can make people believe that funnels are the key to online business success and are only attainable through ClickFunnels, then all other objections and concerns become irrelevant and they have to give me money.

  When someone believes they have to have a funnel (and they do), and that I’m the only way they can get one, then they have to buy ClickFunnels. There is no other option.

  I’ve helped my Inner Circle members create these statements for their businesses. We discovered that if we’re struggling to make a valid argument that works, it’s typically because we didn’t create a new opportunity, but instead have an improvement offer. If we haven’t created a blue ocean, then the argument won’t be valid.

  For example, I’ve seen statements that say something like:

  If I can make people believe that (cutting calories and exercising) is the key to (losing weight) and is only attainable through (my new weight loss course), then all other objections and concerns become irrelevant and they have to give me money.

  That statement is NOT true.

  If the belief you are trying to give them is that they need to cut calories and exercise, there are a few problems.

  1. You are NOT in the Prolific Zone—you are in the mainstream.

  2. This is NOT a new opportunity. There are thousands of identical programs crowding the niche of “cutting calories and exercising”.

  3. This is NOT a blue ocean. They could literally buy one of a hundred different products to satisfy the belief you created.

  I would need to change my niche and my opportunity to be something like this:

  If I can make them believe that (getting their bodies into a state of ketosis) is key to (losing weight) and is only attainable through (drinking Pruvit’s ketones, which put the body into ketosis within 10 minutes), then all other objections and concerns become irrelevant and they have to give me money.

  The first step is creating your Big Domino statement. Once you have a statement that works and is true, the next step is to create real belief in your One Thing.

  SECRET #6

  THE EPIPHANY BRIDGE

  Afew years ago, I helped a friend who was launching a new company. One of the guys working on the project wrote a script for a front-end sales video. The goal was to sell people into their new opportunity. After reading the script, I knew he’d made a huge mistake. He was trying to sell people on why they should join this new opportunity. Here’s the email I sent him:

  What I’ve found is that if you just sell something, it’s not as strong, and doesn’t create the emotion you need to really cause action. If you want people to adopt a new concept and want to get their buy-in, you have to lead them to the answer, but you can’t GIVE it to them. They have to come up with the idea themselves. You plant the idea in their minds with a story, and if THEY come up with the answer, they will have sold themselves. The buying decision becomes theirs, not yours. When that happens, you don’t have to sell them anything.

  He wrote back, a little confused, and told me that my idea sounded like it came from the movie Inception, and asked me to take a shot at writing the sales script. I spent the next few hours writing an Epiphany Bridge script, which later helped that company acquire 1.5 million users in just three short months. That is the power of a story when you use it the right way.

  So what is an Epiphany Bridge? It’s simply a story that takes people through the emotional experience that got YOU excited about the new opportunity you’re presenting to them. There’s a reason you got excited about your new opportunity, right? Something happened to you at some point in your life. You had an amazing experience that caused an epiphany. You thought, Wow, this is so cool! The first time I learned how to sell things online, I had an epiphany. The first time I learned about funnels, I had an epiphany. We’re having these little “aha” moments all the time.

  The first time you discovered your expert topic, SOMETHING happened that excited you. You had an emotional response that sold you on this new opportunity. Do you remember what the experience was? Do you remember how you felt?

  That first “aha” moment created so much excitement for you that you started on a journey where you studied everything you could find about the topic. You started geeking out and going deep into the subject, learning all the terminology and understanding the science and technical aspects behind why it worked, and then you became logically sold on the new opportunity.

  Now at this point you’ve had an emotional connection with the new opportunity as well as a logical connection. Then, because you believe so much in what you’re learning, you have a desire to share it with other people. But unfortunately for you, the first thing you try to do is logically convince everyone you know about this new idea. You probably expected them to be as excited as you were, but quickly found out that they were resistant to the new ideas. Has this ever happened to you?

  The problem is that you started to speak a language we call “technobabble”. One of my friends, Kim Klaver, wrote a book called If My Product’s So Great, How Come I Can’t Sell It? In it, she identifies technobabble as the #1 sales killer.

  We all love our ideas so much. We want people to understand why they should follow us and use our products and services. But for some reason, as soon as we try to explain our beliefs to someone, we automatically start to spew the technobabble we’ve learned, in order to logically convince people to buy. We talk about why this concept is the best and potentially mention all the science behind what we do. We talk about how we’re “leading the industry” with “ground-breaking” products. We share industry numbers and jargon.

  But all the logical stuff that strengthened our own beliefs in the new opportunity will not help people buy unless they’ve ALREADY HAD THE SAME INITIAL EMOTIONAL EPIPHANY that you had. All the logic, features, and benefits you give people before the epiphany will just annoy them. It’s frustrating and often completely offensive. There’s a time and a place for logic, but you have to convince them emotionally first, before they’ll be excited by your logic.

  Think about it. YOU didn’t buy into the new opportunity because of all the logical technobabble. You bought in because of some emotional experience that happened BEFORE you geeked out. You had an epiphany FIRST, and that caused you to move forward. People don’t buy logically, they buy based on emotion. Then they use logic to justify the purchase decision they’ve already made.

  For example, let’s say I purchased a Ferrari. I am emotionally invested in the feeling I want to have when I’m driving it. That’s why I bought the Ferrari (or a big house, expensive clothes, watches, etc.) But then I have to logically justify to myself, my friends, or my spouse why it was worth spending all that money. I have to explain how it gets better gas mileage, it was on sale, it came with a great warranty. Logic is justification for the emotional attachment I’ve already made.

  If you think about it, there’s a status consideration on BOTH sides of this equation. I’m emotionally attached to the status that the new Ferrari will give me, but then I need to justify it logically to my friends and family so I don’t lose status in their minds. But good luck selling me logically if I don’t already have the emotional connection with that car—it’s pretty much impossible.

  Logic doesn’t sell.

  Emotions sell.

  So to create those emotions, you have to go back and remember what it was that gave YOU the epiphany that caused you to believe in the new opportunity. That story—your Epiphany Bridge story—provides the emotional connection, and bridges the gap from the emotional to the logical side.

  If you can tell a story about how you got your big “aha”, and if you structure the story right, they will have the same epiphany and will sell themselve
s on your product or service. Then they’ll look for ways to logically justify the purchase and learn all the technobabble on their own. Your job is to learn how to tell these stories in a way that will lead people to the epiphany, and they will do the rest.

  So my first question for you is “What was your core Epiphany Bridge story that convinced you of the One Thing you are sharing with others?” We’ll worry about how to structure that story over the next two secrets, but for now, I want you to think back to the original experience that gave you your first epiphany, that brought you on this journey.

  Do you remember what happened? What was happening around you? How did you feel? It’s important to remember those details, because they are the key to telling a good story.

  EFFECTIVE STORYTELLING

  Have you ever noticed that two people can tell the same story with completely different outcomes? In one, you’re emotionally captivated and engaged. Then someone else tells you a story about the exact same experience and you fall asleep. What’s the difference? What makes some people better storytellers than others?

  There are lots of reasons, but you don’t have to know them all to tell a great story that gets prospects to buy. It only takes a couple of things to really make a captivating and interesting story.

  The first key to telling captivating stories is oversimplification. When you’re telling stories, you need to speak at about a third-grade level. Many of you will struggle with this because you like to use big words and show off your vocabulary and try to sound sophisticated and smart. There may be a time and a place for that, but it’s not when you’re telling stories. People are used to digesting information at about a third-grade level. When you go above that, you start losing people quickly. There is a reason the news stations speak to their audiences at this level.

  During the 2016 primary elections, a study looked at the speeches of the Republican candidates and ran them through the Flesch-Kincaid test that shows the grade level of their speech. Trump averaged a third-to fourth-grade level on each of his speeches, where other candidates like Ted Cruz had a ninth-grade level and both Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee were at an eighth-grade level. Using big words may make you feel smarter, but it will not influence others.

  But sometimes you have to talk about complex ideas. So how do you take a complicated idea and simplify it quickly? You do this using a tool I created called a “kinda like” bridge. Every time I run into a word or a concept that is past a third-grade level, I stop and think about how I can relate that concept to something they already know and understand. The same way I would try to explain complex ideas to my kids.

  For example, in one of my sales scripts, I was trying to teach a process called ketosis, which is a way to lose weight. (That sentence right there was a mini “kinda like” bridge! Did you notice that?) In the sales script, I mentioned the word “ketones” and I watched as the audience zoned out. I discovered that if they don’t know what a word means, they stop paying attention to everything you say afterward. So I started using a “kinda like” bridge like this:

  The goal is to get ketones into your body. Now what are ketones? Well, they are kinda like millions of little motivational speakers running through your body that give you energy and make you feel awesome.

  I take this new concept or word that people may not understand and add the phrase “it’s kinda like…” to the sentence. I’m connecting the new word or concept to something they already understand. Something that makes total sense to them, so they get it. My audience knows what a motivational speaker is. And they can imagine what it might feel like to have millions of little ones running around in their bodies.

  In that same script, I was trying to explain what it feels like to be in ketosis, and that’s a hard thing to understand. It feels good. It feels awesome! So I had to take this concept and say:

  When you’re in ketosis, it’s kinda like the old video game Pac-Man. Remember? You spent the whole game running away from the ghosts. But every once in a while, you get a power pellet and suddenly you get tons of energy, and then you’re actually chasing the ghosts, and you feel ON. That’s what it feels like to be in ketosis.

  Again, I’m taking this concept that’s vague and hard to understand and bridging it with something they do understand, using the phrase “kinda like”.

  Any time you’re speaking (or writing) and you hit a friction point where some people may not understand what you’re trying to convey, just say “it’s kinda like…” and relate it to something easy to understand. This keeps your stories simple, entertaining, and effective. Oversimplification is the key.

  HOW DOES IT FEEL?

  The next way to improve your storytelling is to add in feelings and emotions. In film, it’s often a lot easier to get people to feel something. One of my favorite examples of this is from the movie X-Men: First Class. In this movie, we are taken back into the X-Men’s past and given a glimpse of what it was like for them growing up and discovering their powers.

  There was a scene where young Magneto was taken to a Nazi concentration camp, and as they pulled him and his family into the gates, they noticed the metal fences around their compound started to move as he started to resist them. They wanted to see what his powers were, so they brought him into a very small room with a Nazi leader who wanted a demonstration of his powers. They also brought Magneto’s mother into the room, so they could use her as leverage to get him to do what they wanted.

  The leader points a gun at Magneto’s mother and has him try to move a metal coin on the desk. He nervously tries to move the coin, but isn’t able, so the leader pulls the trigger and kills his mother. And then you see a scene so powerful that, without a single word being said, you actually feel the pain that Magneto is going through.

  You watch as his eyes shift from sadness to anger. He then uses his powers to crush a bell on the Nazi leader’s desk. From there, he starts yelling and moving everything metal inside the room. He crushes the guards’ helmets, instantly killing them, and then completely destroys everything in the room. And that’s when he found his power.

  When you’re watching the film, you are able to see all of this happen without any words, because we can see his face, we can experience the room, we hear the music, and we actually feel, in some way, Magneto’s pain and suffering. That is the power of films.

  Now most of us aren’t producing films to sell our stuff, but we have to learn how to tell stories in a way that help others feel the same.

  Imagine if Magneto just came in and said something like, “Yeah, so when I was a kid, I was in a Nazi concentration camp and they wanted me to move a metal coin, but I wasn’t able to do it, so they killed my mom. I was really mad, so I blew the whole place up.”

  Did you feel anything there? No, you wouldn’t have had the same emotional experience that you need to connect with that character. Yet that’s how most people tell their stories. If you look at a good fiction author, they’ll have the character come into a room, then spend several pages describing the room. They talk about the lights, how things looked and felt, and everything they need to set up the scene. Then they go deep into how the character is feeling. And that is the key. You have to explain how you feel, and when you do that, people will start to feel what you were feeling.

  For example, what if I tell a story like this:

  I was sitting at home, and I could hear my wife and kids in the other room playing. They had no idea what had just happened. I was sitting there freaked out because I knew the bills were due, but had no idea how I was going to pay them. I started to get a shooting pain in my stomach. It felt like a heart attack, but it was lower in my gut. I felt this pressure coming down and I literally felt like someone was sitting on my neck. It got so heavy that I couldn’t lift my head. The only thing I could see were the palms of my hands, and they were sweating, yet I was freezing cold. My whole body was shaking and shivering because I was in so much pain and frustration, yet I was frozen with fear.

  As you read th
at story, you probably started to actually feel the things I explained. How many of you felt a pain in your gut, or a weight on your neck, or sweaty palms? By explaining how I felt, you almost instantly will feel something similar. When I tell a story this way, I am controlling the state of the person listening.

  It’s essential that I control their state, and I do this by telling the story in a way that gets you to feel what I felt, so when I explain how I had my epiphany, you can experience the same epiphany. If I want you to have the same epiphany I had, you need to be in the same state that I was in when I had that epiphany.

  Have you ever had the experience where you told someone a story about a situation that was really funny or exciting, and after you told it to them, they didn’t quite get it? They understood, but they didn’t “get” what you were trying to share with them. So you try to tell the story again another way, and then again another way, and after a few attempts, you throw up your hands in defeat and say something like, “Well, I guess you had to be there.”

  Now that you understand the basics of an Epiphany Bridge, how to simplify your stories, and how to get people to feel things when you tell your stories, I want to transition into story structure. When you learn the right structure for telling your stories and you apply the concepts you learned here, you will become a master at storytelling and story selling.