Dotcom Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company Online with Sales Funnels

by Russell Brunson

Whatever they were selling, the process was the same. They would place a small ad asking people to contact their company for a free report. After you contacted them, they would send you a sales letter disguised as a free report, selling a low-ticket information product. When I purchased the product, they would send me their “system”—along with another sales letter selling me a high-ticket product.

during the gold rush, the people who made the most money were the ones selling the shovels.

I had a flash of inspiration. I thought, Has anyone else besides me searched for information on how to make potato gun plans? Online, you can find websites that tell you how many searches in Google are happening each month.

We burned a bunch of copies of our new DVD, got my website set up, added an Add to Cart button, connected it to a shopping cart, and then went to Google to start buying some ads.

Ultimately, the business that can spend the most to acquire a customer wins. A business beats its competition by making the same prospect worth more to his business than to that of his competition.”

WHAT IS A SALES FUNNEL?

One of the fundamental rules of marketing is that “a confused mind always says no.”

A funnel, on the other hand, is created to be simple. From the outside, it may look like a website, but you’ll notice that each page and each step only has one call to action.

When a salesperson takes someone through a funnel like this, two things happen: The customer has a better user experience. They aren’t confused, and they can find exactly what they’re looking for. You as the store owner actually make more money. Because you don’t confuse your customers, you upsell them on the right things that will help them on their journey.

THE SECRET FORMULA

Question #1: Who is your dream customer? If you could pick your dream customer, the type of person who would make you wake up every morning on fire because you’re so excited to work with them, what would they look like? The better you can identify this person, the easier it will be for you to find them. Question #2: Where are they congregating? After we know who we are looking for, the next step is to find out where they are hiding. Where are they spending their time online? When I can identify exactly where they are online, getting them into my funnels becomes easy. Question #3: What is the bait that you can use to attract them to you? Now that I know where they are, my job is to throw out hooks to try to grab their attention. After I have their attention, I tell them a story to build a relationship and increase the perceived value of what I have to offer, and then I need to make them an actual offer to get them into my world. Question #4: What is the unique result that you can create for them? After they have come into my world, what other things can I do to help give them the results they are looking for? People don’t come to you because they want your product, they come to you because they want a specific result. So what is the process you will take them through to give them more value so you can serve them at a higher level and give them a result that will truly change their life?

SECRET #1 THE SECRET FORMULA

“Who is the person I really want to serve?”

Question #1: Who is your dream customer?

Who do I actually want to work with?

Who are my dream clients? What do they look like? What are they passionate about? What are their goals, dreams, and desires? What are the offers I could create that would attract them and repel everyone else?

When I was trying to figure out what I wanted Entrepreneur on Fire to be, I was overwhelmed because it was hard for me to find the path that I wanted to take my listeners on. When I really sat down and said, okay, my listener (or my avatar) is Jimmy. He’s 37 years old, and he has a wife and two kids, ages three to five. He drives by himself to work every single day. It’s a 25-minute commute to work. He gets to a cubicle at a job he hates for nine hours. He gets done with his job, drives home, and it’s a 35-minute commute home. He gets stuck in a little bit of traffic. He gets home and hangs out with his kids, has dinner with his family, puts his kids to bed, hangs out with his wife, and then he has a little Jimmy pity party at the end of every single night because he’s sitting on the couch asking himself, Why do I spend 90 percent of my waking hours doing things that I don’t enjoy doing? Commuting to a job I don’t like, being at a job I don’t like, commuting home, and only 10 percent of my waking hours doing things that I love, like spending time with my kids and my family.

Jimmy is my avatar. He’s the person that, as he’s driving to work, should be listening to Entrepreneur on Fire so that when my guest is sharing their worst entrepreneurial moments, he can understand that it’s okay to fail, that you can learn lessons from failure. And that when he’s driving home and my guest talks about their aha moment, he can talk about how you take an aha moment and turn it into success. And then instead of having that pity party at night by himself on a couch, he can listen to the lightning round where my guest is sharing their best advice they’ve ever had, their favorite book, or their favorite resource, so he can start to put together the pieces of the puzzle.

So for me, whenever I come up to any question I have about the direction of my podcast, I go to my avatar and s...

Question #2: Where are your dream customers congregating?

What are the top websites that my dream customers already go to? What forums or message boards do they participate in? What are the Facebook groups they participate in? Who are the influencers they follow on Facebook and Instagram? What podcasts do they listen to? What are the email newsletters they are subscribed to? What blogs do they read? What channels are they following on YouTube? What keywords are they searching for in Google to find information?

Question #3: What is the bait (hook, story, and offer) you’ll use to attract your dream customers?

The hooks are the ads that will grab the attention of your dream customers just long enough for you to tell them a story. The goal of the story is to build rapport with them as well as break the false beliefs they have that would keep them from taking you up on your offer. The offer is the thing you’ve created for your dream customer so you can give them the results they desire.

Question #4: What is the unique result or value that you can create for your dream customers?

business is not about products and services. A business is about what result you can get for your clients. Once you (and they) understand that concept, the price is no longer a barrier.

understanding where you ultimately want to take the dream client is the key to this step.

Imagine that your clients could pay you anything to get a desired result. What, then, would you do to help guarantee their success? Where would you lead them? What does that place look like? Keep that place in your mind; it’s the pinnacle of success for your clients. It’s where you want to take them.

SECRET #2 HOOK, STORY, OFFER

$100,000 for this phone.”

Apple’s Books app:

My contacts list:

Voxer:

private Voxer channel.

Other apps:

Google Drive app and how it had all the standard operating procedures (SOPs)

spreadsheets that listed all my investments, their rate of return, and the projections from the top financial analysts in t...

I looked back at the audience and said, “You have to understand there are two ways to have the lowest price product in your market. The first is to decrease the price of what you sell (and cut out your margins and profit). The second is to increase the value so much that when you sell it for what it’s worth, it seems inexpensive.”

HOOK, STORY, OFFER

Each piece of bait you put out (such as ads, emails, landing pages, upsells, webinars, and phone calls) should include a hook, a story, and an offer.

If something isn’t working in your funnel, it’s always either the hook, the story, or the offer.

YOUR IRRESISTIBLE OFFER

You’re selling a physical product: This

You’re selling an information product:

You’re selling a service:

you are likely selling what I call a “commodity.”

Increase the perceived value of what is being sold. Make the thing being sold unique to you and only available within this special offer.

To overcome price resistance, increase the value of your offer so it’s worth 10 times more than what you’re selling it for.

Write down all the products and services that you can add to increase the value of your core offer.

“Okay, what are our nonnegotiables? What are we not willing to do for this offer?”

By adding more products and services to your core offer, you can make it irresistible by seeming less expensive than what your competition is offering.