Russell Brunson - The Publishing Playbook: How to Win Before You Launch
Russell emphasizes the need to gather an audience before launching a product or funnel. He shares personal stories of competition and resilience, highlighting the importance of building relationships and leveraging existing platforms to gather an audience. He advises entrepreneurs to start building their audience as soon as they decide to become entrepreneurs, rather than waiting until their product is ready. Russell suggests using both paid and organic methods to gather an audience, but emphasizes the importance of organic methods for those with limited budgets. He also stresses the importance of publishing content consistently to find one's voice and attract an audience over time. Russell shares examples of how building relationships with influencers and consistently publishing content helped him succeed in his business ventures.
Key Points:
- Start building your audience as soon as you decide to become an entrepreneur.
- Use both paid and organic methods to gather an audience, but focus on organic if on a budget.
- Consistently publish content to find your voice and attract an audience.
- Build relationships with influencers in your industry to leverage their platforms.
- Gathering an audience is crucial before launching a product or funnel.
Details:
1. 🎙️ Introduction and Traffic Challenges
- The community often neglects traffic generation planning when building funnels and offers, leading to significant challenges.
- Effective traffic planning should precede funnel launch to ensure success.
- This segment introduces a fun and straightforward method to generate leads and traffic before the funnel goes live, emphasizing the importance of pre-launch traffic strategies.
2. 🏆 Competition and Personal Stories
- Thrive in competition: The speaker describes competition as their number one strength, emphasizing how it drives them and makes business fun.
- ClickFunnels vs. LeadPages: Initially, ClickFunnels was an underdog against LeadPages, which had significant funding ($5 million initially, eventually $40 million). ClickFunnels, with no funding, eventually surpassed LeadPages through strategic positioning and innovation.
- Infusionsoft Challenge: After surpassing LeadPages, ClickFunnels targeted Infusionsoft, which had $150 million in funding. This illustrates ClickFunnels' strategy of challenging well-funded competitors by leveraging unique selling propositions and customer-centric improvements.
- New ClickFunnels Branding: ClickFunnels recently launched new branding, generating excitement and positive feedback from users like Joe McCall, who praised its improvements over competitors. This rebranding is part of their strategy to maintain a competitive edge.
- Adverse Experience in Team Sports: The speaker shares a personal story about being replaced on a football team due to politics, which fueled a shift to wrestling. This change led to significant personal success, including becoming a state champion and receiving a D1 scholarship, emphasizing personal resilience and strategic redirection.
- Revenge in Wrestling: The speaker recounts a story of personal revenge during a wrestling practice against a former schoolmate, reflecting a mindset of overcoming competition and personal obstacles.
- Momentum and Strategy: Following initial setbacks, a new strategy was developed, leading to a year of momentum and renewed focus on winning rather than merely surviving. This highlights the importance of strategic pivots and resilience in both personal and business contexts.
3. 🔍 The Importance of Gathering an Audience Before Launch
3.1. Strategies for Gathering an Audience Before Launch
3.2. Examples and Case Studies
4. 🚀 Traffic Strategies: Work Your Way In vs Buy Your Way In
4.1. Buying Your Way In
4.2. Working Your Way In
5. 🌐 Building Relationships and the Dream 100 Strategy
5.1. Identifying and Building Relationships with Influencers
5.2. Creating and Leveraging Platforms for Influence
6. 📣 The Power of Publishing and Finding Your Voice
- Publishing consistently can transform your business and life; daily publishing for a year can eliminate financial worries, as evidenced by Nathan Barry's experience.
- Nathan Barry's challenge of writing a blog post daily for a year improved his writing skills and significantly grew his business, demonstrating the impact of consistent content creation.
- Endurance in publishing allows for content discovery and recognition over time, emphasizing the importance of long-term commitment.
- Publishing helps in finding your unique voice and provides the audience time to discover you, highlighting personal growth.
- Documenting your journey, rather than solely creating content, offers therapeutic benefits and real-time sharing of experiences, promoting authenticity.
- Initial lack of audience should not deter creators; it provides an opportunity to improve without pressure, serving as a learning phase.
- Choosing the right platform that aligns with strengths, whether it's blogging, podcasting, or video, is crucial for maintaining consistency.
- The case study of securing 100% of high-end coaching clients through podcast listeners underscores the value of long-form content, demonstrating business impact.
- Consistent publishing is more about personal growth and voice discovery than immediate audience size or engagement, emphasizing the long-term benefits over short-term metrics.
7. 🔑 Strategies for Networking and Building Influence
- Begin networking by reaching out to people who are at a similar level or slightly above you in your field, rather than aiming for top industry leaders immediately.
- Example: The speaker initially reached out to peers and slightly more advanced individuals, like Mike Philson, who was six months ahead in product development.
- Leverage relationships with peers to exchange promotions and grow your audience collectively.
- Example: A collaboration with Mike resulted in 217 new email list sign-ups from a single promotion.
- Use your growing network to meet additional contacts at a similar level, fostering a mutual support system for promotion and growth.
- Example: Through networking, the speaker's email list grew from 217 to 5,000, facilitating connections with peers at the same level.
- Sustained networking and collaboration over several years can eventually lead to recognition from top industry figures, reversing the dynamic where they reach out to you.
- Example: After three years, Joe Vitale, a previously unresponsive influencer, reached out to the speaker for collaboration.
- Continued growth and influence can attract attention from major industry leaders, such as Tony Robbins, who initiated contact rather than the speaker pursuing him.
8. 💪 Longevity in Business Through Consistent Audience Building
- Start publishing immediately to begin building an audience.
- Identify influencers with a similar follower count (e.g., 1,000 to 3,000) and form partnerships.
- Engage with influencers by commenting, direct messaging, and collaborating on joint promotions.
- Use Instagram Lives and other collaborative tools to grow email lists and audiences together.
- Focus on consistently gathering a large audience rather than just sales funnels and offers.
- Successful longevity comes from consistently gathering and engaging with an audience over time.
- Example: Russell spent $950,000 to gather attendees for an event, emphasizing the importance of building a community.
- Continual content creation (e.g., podcasts) is crucial for finding and refining one's voice.
- Personal growth and content evolution can be tracked over time, similar to Russell's progress from early awkward videos to more polished content.
9. 🕒 Daily Practices for Networking and Publishing
- Allocate one hour daily to networking and publishing activities to support business growth.
- Spend 20 minutes networking, using platforms like Instagram and Facebook to connect with others, build relationships, and engage in direct messaging.
- Dedicate 20 minutes to creating content, such as recording videos or podcast episodes, to publish and share with your audience.
- Recognize the importance of consistent networking and publishing as foundational steps in business development.
- Reference the book 'Traffic Secrets' for strategic insights on generating traffic and building an audience.
- Emphasize that 'Traffic Secrets' contains evergreen strategies that remain effective regardless of changes in social media landscapes.
- Understand that engaging in these practices will help build an audience and drive business success.
- Acknowledge the initial discomfort of networking and publishing but stress the long-term benefits of reaching and impacting your audience.