DotCom Secrets
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DOTCOM SECRETS
“A simple process that ANY company can use to geometrically improve their traffic, conversion, and sales online.”
—Tony Robbins
DOTCOM
SECRETS
THE UNDERGROUND PLAYBOOK FOR GROWING YOUR COMPANY ONLINE
RUSSELL BRUNSON
DOTCOM SECRETS
THE UNDERGROUND PLAYBOOK FOR GROWING YOUR COMPANY ONLINE
© 2015 RUSSELL BRUNSON.
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Library of Congress Control Number:
2014919068
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DEDICATION
To my dad, who helped inspire me to become an entrepreneur.
To my mom, who always knew my true worth.
And to my wife, Collette, for supporting me through all of my crazy ideas, and running our home in a way that has allowed me to chase my dreams.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword What The ‘Online Marketing Wizard Fraternity’ Doesn’t Want You To Know (and: is THIS book a ‘fraud’?)
What This Book Is About (and What It’s NOT About)
Introduction
Section One: Ladders and Funnels
Secret #1: The Secret Formula
Secret #2: The Value Ladder
Secret #3: From a Ladder to a Funnel
Secret #4: How to Find Your Dream Customers
Secret #5: The Three Types of Traffic
Section Two: Your Communication Funnel
Secret #6: The Attractive Character
Secret #7: The Soap Opera Sequence
Secret #8: Daily Seinfeld Sequence
Section Three: Funnelology Leading Your Customers 99 to the Sale (Over and Over Again)
Secret #9: Reverse Engineering a Successful Funnel
Secret #10: Seven Phases of a Funnel
Secret #11: The Twenty-Three Building Blocks of a Funnel
Secret #12: Frontend vs. Backend Funnels
Secret #13: The Best Bait
Section Four: Funnels and Scripts
Frontend Funnels
Funnel #1: Two-Step, Free-Plus-Shipping
Funnel #2: Self-Liquidating Offer
Funnel #3: Continuity
Funnels for the Middle of the Value Ladder
Funnel #4: The Perfect Webinar
Funnel #5: Invisible Funnel Webinar
Funnel #6: Product Launch
Backend Funnel
Funnel #7: High-Ticket, Three-Step Application
Section Five: ClickFunnels
Conclusion: Ignite
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are so many people I want to thank for being willing to share their ideas with me. Ideas that ultimately became the strategies behind everything inside of this book. I also want to thank my team—all the people who helped me to implement these ideas, find out which ones work, and share them with the world.
While there are hundreds of marketers I have learned from, there are many people who gave me very specific ideas that built the framework for my company, and also for this book. I’ve tried to give credit to the original sources when possible, but some of these people may be left out. So I want to mention a few of the brilliant marketers who have inspired me in no particular order.
Mark Joyner, Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer, Daegan Smith, Tony Robbins, Don Lapre, John Alanis, Andre Chaperon, Ben Settle, Steve Gray, Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher, Armand Morin, Jason Fladlien, Ted Thomas, Mike Filsaime, David Frey, Chet Holmes, Jeff Walker, John Reese, Robbie Summers and everyone else who has taken the risk to be an online entrepreneur and provide value online!
Lastly, I want to thank my team. These people have given me the ability to try all of these crazy ideas, and share in the successes and the losses. There have been hundreds of employees who have come through our doors, and it would be impossible to mention all of them. But I want to make special thanks to my partners who have supported me and put in so much more than time.
Brent Coppieters and John Parkes for running my companies. Todd Dickerson and Dylan Jones for creating ClickFunnels and giving us the ability to make this process simple for everyone. Dorel Nechifor for taking the risk on me when I first got started and making it possible to build my company. And Julie Eason for braving this book with me. Your countless hours have made this book possible.
FOREWORD
WHAT THE ‘ONLINE MARKETING WIZARD FRATERNITY’ DOESN’TWANT YOU TO KNOW (AND: IS THIS BOOK A FRAUD’?)
by Dan S. Kennedy
Yes, there IS an ‘online marketing wizard fraternity’. Many of them hang out together, scheme together, and work together. And yes, there ARE a few things they’d rather you didn’t think about, while they perform their wizardly shows. This book is the first of its kind to actually reveal what is really happening behind-the-scenes in their fast-growing companies.
Don’t misunderstand. Few of these wizards are actually evil. Most bring valid ‘magic tricks’ to the show. Many do guide business people to treasure. But often there is a discernible pattern behind everything they say, teach, promise, and promote: a deliberately-engineered and exacerbated lack of solid ground. This book doesn’t just focus on magic tricks, but the core strategies you have to have in place to scale a company with online media.
It is in the wizard’s best interest for you to believe everything in the online media, marketing and business world is shiny and new, constantly changing, and un-tethered from the old rules, principles, facts, and math of successful advertising and marketing.
This book by Russell Brunson is different. While teaching you about the “shiny” secrets of the Internet, he shows you how to build these tactics and strategies into your business on solid ground—tactics and strategies founded in true direct-response marketing. It is your responsibility to resist the seduction of short-lived, bright and shiny lures, popularity and peer pressure, and the siren-songs of superficially knowledgeable promoters of ‘new’ tactics with no knowledge of its original direct response genealogy. You must exercise discernment.
I’m for challenging norms and breaking rules. But I also like solid ground, not ever-shifting sand. I like being confident and in control of things—particularly my money and the making of it—not in constant high-anxiety and at the mercy of wizards.
I taught myself direct marketing as a science. I’m a reliability guy. I’m far more interested in a car that starts and runs well and predictably every time you turn the key than one that looks sexy and is popular with some in-crowd, but might stall at 80 MPH or not start at all. I like evergreen, not frequently obsolete. In my roles as a strategic consultant and a direct-response copywriter, I am all ab
out creating advertising, marketing, and sales assets of lasting value for my clients—not moneymaking devices written in disappearing ink.
That’s why I agreed to write the foreword for this online marketing wizard’s book. I admire the truth Russell has put between these pages.
Unlike many of these wiz kids, Russell Brunson is grounded in direct marketing disciplines.
Discipline is good. General Norm Schwarzkopf (of Operation Desert Storm fame) once said:
“Shined shoes save lives.”
Norm went on to explain that in the heat of battle, the fog of war, under pressure, the undisciplined die. So it is in business. I sit now, as infrequently as possible, in meetings with young online marketing people demonstrably devoid of any disciplined thinking. They are full of opinion and youthful hubris but very short on facts. I would not want to share a foxhole with them or depend on them. I would risk it with Russell.
This book offers solid ground in the very ethereal world of online marketing and commerce. It properly treats Internet media as media— not as a business. It utilizes the science of split-testing. It builds on long-proven marketing funnel and sales architecture. It takes a very disciplined approach.
It is, in one way only, a fraudulent book. The title is deceptive. It really is not about “dot com secrets” nor is it a playbook for “growing your company online.” It is that, but such a narrowed and limiting characterization is deceptive.
In truth, this is a solid book about reliable marketing ‘secrets’ that can be applied to ‘dot com’ business activities—and that are ‘secrets’ to many who’ve come of age only paying attention to what they see occurring online. In truth, this is a proven playbook for growing your company with effective lead generation and sales/conversion methods, which can be used online and offline.
‘Solid’ and ‘reliable’ and ‘proven’ aren’t the sexiest positioning terms, so Russell can be forgiven for holding them back, waiting to reveal them inside the book, carefully. ‘Growing Your Company ONLINE’ sounds cooler and less work than ‘Growing Your Company’, so he can also be forgiven for playing to peoples’ fascination of the moment. He is a wizard, and as such must be permitted some legerdemain. But let’s you and I be very clear about reality. Let me serve a useful purpose for you here.
My advice: Don’t settle for or be distracted by mere tricks. Be a responsible adult. Invest your time ‘n treasure in information, skill and properties that can yield harvest after harvest after harvest—not fleeting fads, not sexy ideas that age very poorly. And don’t fall for the idea that any new media gets to defy gravity and live un-tethered to reality, math, or history.
Don’t go into this book in lust for a new, cool, quick, easy “fix” or nifty “toy” or clever gimmick that might make you money today but require you to find another and another and another, at frantic pace.
Go into this book in search of deep understanding and profound clarity about the structure and science of effective marketing to be applied in the online media universe.
—Dan S. Kennedy
Dan S. Kennedy is a trusted strategic advisor to hundreds of 7-figure income professionals, direct marketing pros, and CEOs. He is also the author of over 20 books, including No B.S. Guide to Ruthless Management of People and Profits (2nd Edition). Information about Dan at: www.NoBSBooks.com and www.GKIC.com.
WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT (AND WHAT IT’SNOT ABOUT)
Hey, my name is Russell Brunson . . .
Before we get started, I want to introduce myself and let you know what this book is about (and more importantly, what it’s not about).
This book is NOT about getting more traffic to your website—yet the “DotComSecrets” I’m going to share with you will help you to get exponentially MORE traffic than ever before.
This book is NOT about increasing your conversions—yet these DotComSecrets will increase your conversions MORE than any headline tweak or split test you could ever hope to make.
If you are currently struggling with getting traffic to your website, or converting that traffic when it shows up, you may think you’ve got a traffic or conversion problem. In my experience, after working with thousands of businesses, I’ve found that’s rarely the case. Low traffic and weak conversion numbers are just symptoms of a much greater problem, a problem that’s a little harder to see (that’s the bad news), but a lot easier to fix (that’s the good news).
Recently, I had a chance to fly to San Diego to work with Drew Canole from FitLife.tv. He had built a following of 1.2 million followers on Facebook, but because of some changes at Facebook, his traffic had dropped by 90%. He was now spending $116 to sell a $97 product. He was no longer profitable.
Drew’s team called me because they wanted help with two things: traffic and conversions.
I smiled because that’s why most people call me. They usually assume that I’m going to help them tweak a headline or change their ad targeting, and solve their problems. But I knew that, like most companies I work with, FitLife.tv’s problem wasn’t a traffic or conversion problem.
It rarely is.
More often than not, it’s a FUNNEL problem.
After listening to Drew and his team share with me all of their numbers, their pains and frustrations, and their ups and downs, I sat back in my chair and told them they were in luck.
“You don’t have a traffic or conversion problem,” I said.
“What are you talking about? Our traffic is down 90%, and we can’t break even converting our customers!” Drew said.
“The problem is you can’t spend enough to acquire a customer, and the way to fix that problem is to fix your sales funnel,” I replied calmly.
One of my mentors, Dan Kennedy, says, “Ultimately, the business that can spend the most to acquire a customer wins.”
The reason Drew’s business wasn’t making money was because he wasn’t able to spend enough to acquire a customer. If we fix his sales funnel so that instead of making $97 for every $116 he spends, he can start making two to three times as much money for each sale—and then the whole game changes. Suddenly, he can afford to buy more traffic from more places; he can outbid his competitors, and he can spend two to three times more than he is now, all while becoming exponentially more profitable.
So, what changes did we make to Drew’s business? How did we take a sales funnel that was losing money and transform it into a tool that allowed FitLife.tv to spend MORE money than its competitors, while gaining more traffic, more customers, and more sales?
THAT is what this book is about.
This book will take you on a journey similar to the one I took Drew and his team on. It will help you understand how to structure your company’s products and services in a way that will allow you to make two to three times as much money from the same traffic that you’re getting now. And when you follow the steps, you’ll open the floodgates, allowing you to spend a lot more money to get a lot more new customers.
This book will also show you how to communicate with your customers in a way that makes them naturally want to ascend up your ladder of offerings and give you more money as you provide them more value.
Once you know the foundational concepts behind DotComSecrets, we’ll dive into the phases of a sales funnel and explore the building blocks you will need to use in each phase.
Finally, I will give you the seven core sales funnels I use in all my companies, plus all of the sales scripts we use to convert people at each stage in those funnels. You can choose to copy my proven funnels and scripts as is, or you may tweak them to better fit your particular business.
When you implement each of these secrets, you will transform your business and your website from a flat, two-dimensional company into a three-dimensional sales and marketing machine that allows you to outspend your competitors, acquire an almost unlimited number of new customers, make (and keep) more money, and most importantly, serve more people.
That is what this book is about.
INTRODUCTION
When the news ended, I was waiting for him to send me to bed, but he didn’t, so I started watching what came on next. It was one of those late night infomercials. This particular infomercial featured a guy named Don Lapre who was explaining how to make money with “tiny little classified ads.” I’m not sure why he grabbed my attention. Maybe, because I was so young, I didn’t understand that making money fast “wasn’t possible.” Maybe my fascination grew because he was so charismatic. Whatever the reason, as soon as he started talking, I was hooked.
During this infomercial, he told stories about how he started his first business. He explained how he came up with an idea for a product and then placed a classified ad in his local newspaper to sell this new product. The first week after his ad ran, he made enough money to pay for the ad and was left with about thirty dollars in profit. While most people wouldn’t consider that a big win, Don knew that he could take that same winning ad, run it in other newspapers, and make a thirty-dollar profit from each paper.
He ended up running that ad in thousands of newspapers and made tens-of-thousands of dollars a month doing it!