A conversation I had today explains the reason why most businesses end up suffocating and dying.
On today’s episode Russell talks about something awesome he witnessed with his kids school. He goes on to talk about discussing marketing with another parent at school and why he considers it the lifeblood of a business. Here are some of the insightful things in this episode:
So listen here to find out why you need to become obsessed with the marketing of your product, rather than the product itself.
---Transcript---
What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you guys are doing amazing today.
Alright everybody, it is the day before Thanksgiving. We have 20 bubble soccer balls being delivered to my house; we’re going to be playing a huge bubble soccer game on the smurf turf, which is really exciting. Or the Astroturf, we call it smurf turf because of the blue here in Boise. Looking forward to that.
But everything’s getting ready. We had wrestling practice this morning with the kiddos, and I had some cool experiences that happened there. One that was just a special moment that I want to share with you guys and one that was the reason why most people aren’t successful in business. So I’ll give you both and hopefully you’ll learn a lesson from the two.
So number one, it’s really cool. At the kids school, there’s a kid, it’s kind of a crazy story. Apparently his mom and him both found out they had cancer about the same time, together. It’s a cute little family, a little kid named Nico. So at the Junior high, or middle school, whatever you call it, it’s gotten around this story, and trying to help them out. It was just cute, all the kids wear Huskies for Nico t-shirts. Dallin had a shirt on today that said Huskies for Nico. They do fundraisers for Nico and all these things, it’s just such a cool thing how they’ve gotten the school behind this one person, this one cause or movement.
And its cool, I always talk about building mass movements and things like that, but I think a lot of times these little private, intimate movements that mean so much to people and really help people to become something more. And it’s just cool watching this and watching my kids participate in this movement for a little kid in their school named Nico.
So today at wrestling practice we got all these, probably 60 or 70 wrestlers out there training to be warriors, trying to be tough and everything. In the middle of practice Nico and his dad came in, and when he walked in the whole room went silent out of respect for him. It was just one of the neatest experiences that I’ve witnessed in a long time. I got chills sitting there watching and all the kids sitting there looking at him and talking to him. They came in and they presented him, because Nico was a wrestler as well before all these problems happened. So they gave him wrestling t-shirts and sweatshirts and stuff like that. And then they had Nico lead a cheer. So they brought everyone in and did their cheer. And it was such a special, such a cool thing. So anyway that was a fun thing that happened today.
And then afterwards I was talking to one of the dads, and the dad’s a successful real estate dude here in Boise, and it’s kind of funny because he’s like, “Hey I recognize you. I see you in my newsfeed every single day.” I’m like, “Sorry about that. Wish I was better looking.” But it was kind of funny because he was in there and we were talking for a while afterwards and it was interesting because there’s a big reason why more people aren’t successful. It’s a mindset little tweak and it’s something he had, definitely. So I want to share with you because if you’re stuck in this mindset tweak, it’s what’s keeping you back.
I did a podcast episode, I don’t know a hundred podcasts ago talking about not outsourcing your lovemaking, and in there I talked about if you look at a business, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling. If you’re selling houses, cars, supplements, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling, you’re selling. That part doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, the marketing is the only thing that matters. It’s the only thing that’s actually the lifeblood of a business. It’s what drives leads and customers and sales. It’s the only thing that actually matters.
I could take my marketing systems and plug them into any business and it will work. Because business psychology’s insane, how we can get leads and it’s the same, how we convert those leads is the same. So we’re talking to him and he’s like, “Yeah, I saw Clickfunnels. I just haven’t done it yet.” I’m like, “Oh, whatever.” It doesn’t affect me at all. And he’s like, “Can I ask a question? Do you guys do stuff for real estate agents? I watched the viral video with the squirrel and the prospector, sounds like it’s only for selling products.” I’m like, “No, it’s for, it generates leads, sells products, whatever you need it to be.” And he’s like, “Oh, do you have anyone in real estate doing it?” I’m like, “Yeah, we have tons of people.” Off the top of my head we have like a half a dozen people or so that are killing it, real estate agents using it.
In fact I even told him, “There’s a guy that’s got one of the biggest brokerages here in Boise, he’s using it.” He’s like, “I hired some marketing company to do that for me and they’re trying to get us leads.” And I’m like, “So is it working good?” and he’s like, “No, not really. I wish we could just get rid of all the leads, but all the other agents underneath us, they want the internet leads so we have to do that and I don’t like it. I just think it’s done. Right now we’re selling about a hundred houses a year, if we got to the point where we had 200 houses a year, then we could afford to hire a full time marketing person to generate leads and stuff.”
As a marketing guy here, I wanted to grab the guy and be like, “What are you…how do you not understand this?” it’s like saying, let’s say you’re struggling in your marriage and you’re like, “My wife and I when we start having, when marriage gets good and we’re happy and everything is perfect, then we’ll go to counseling.” No, counseling or whatever it is, is what gets you there. It’s just funny, when we’ve grown high enough that we can afford someone to generate leads, then we’ll generate leads. No, you can’t afford not to. You should stop everything you’re doing and the only thing you should do is generate leads.
It’s funny because he’s like, “The biggest person in town, they sell a thousand houses a month, but they’re doing all of it online and generating all these leads online, but they’re able to do it because they’re selling so many houses.” I’m like, “No, you don’t understand. It’s because they’re doing that they’re able to sell so many houses. It’s not because they have so many houses they can do it. It’s like the chicken and the egg. It’s like you’re trying to cut off the oxygen to your brain, your brain will stop. So don’t, it is the lifeblood….”
And he’s like, “Can we hire you guys to do that stuff for me?” I’m like, “No, we certify people that can do it, but if you really want to be successful, you have to become the head of the marketing. You cannot outsource your lovemaking. You can’t do that in business and expect it to be awesome. In your marriage if you’re like, okay this is my wife, I’m going to outsource the lovemaking to somebody else, your marriage is going to fail. It’s the same thing in your business. It is the lifeblood, it is the thing that gets customers into your world and gets them to like you and believe you and trust you and give you money. It’s the most important part of business.”
I think the biggest problem, it’s funny, if you listen to the Emyth by Michael Gerber, he talks about this. People are technicians and they have an entrepreneurial seizure and they think they want to start a business because they work at a cake factory and they see the dude who runs the cake shop and they’re like, “This guys a moron, I could do a better job than that.” So they start their own business and they’re not entrepreneurs, they’re dudes that build cakes. It’s like, the dude that builds the cake, anyone can build a cake. You can hire a lot of people to do that. It’s the person who is going to actually sell the crap out of the cakes that runs the business. If you don’t have that, your business dies.
It’s funny, in 2008 when the economy crashed and all these companies were crashing, I see all these people in the companies that their first instinct was not, let’s lower costs on stupid stuff. They all cut their marketing and their sales budget. I’m like, okay we’re struggling, let’s cut off the lifeblood to our head.
Like in wrestling, when I’m wrestling somebody, there’s a little, for those watching the video, right here on both sides of your neck there is a thing called a carotid artery. And if I’m wrestling someone and I get them in a front headlock, if I put a little bit of pressure right there, against the carotid artery, that fast the blood flow stops to your head.
It’s not like someone chokes and eventually you die. But with the carotid artery, if I touch it right, that fast you will black out. It’s really fun when you’re wrestling somebody, when you’re getting it, you get it and boom, and his whole body goes limp and you flip him over and you pin him. Because it’s the blood that goes to your brain. If you cut off the blood, it’s like a second and you’re out cold. And I take it back off and the blood keeps coming and you’re back alive.
So companies go and cut off the lifeblood and then the company dies that fast. That is what’s keeping you alive. In times of bad economy, triple down on the advertizing, triple down on the marketing. You guys all know that. I’m preaching to the choir here. But for everyone else, I just wanted to kind of talk about that because I thought it was so funny.
I told him that and he’s like, “Oh, lead generation for me is nurturing the clients we have and things like that, and we can’t outsource that. That’s my lovemaking.” Or something. Anyway, so that’s all I gotta say. I don’t even know what to say. If you want to grow a company, focus on the marketing and sales of the thing. I know most of you guys are in business because you love the thing you do. That’s awesome. But if you want to have a lot of people use that thing, you’ve got to become obsessed with the marketing of the thing. That is the key, the marketing of the thing is the business. The business is not the thing.
The thing is the fulfillment of whatever you want to do, but the business is the marketing of the thing. And that’s the only thing that actually matters because without that, your company dies. With that, the lifeblood goes off to your brain and instantly you’re out cold. That’s why I look at us versus other SAAS companies, other SAAS companies are focusing on hiring these huge teams of people to do whatever, I don’t know what they even do. We focus on marketing, marketing drives it.
So there you go guys. I hope that helps some of you guys who are thinking and wondering, “I’m going to hire a marketing team.” It’s hard to do. You can do it, but if you really want to grow, you’ve got to become obsessed with the marketing of your thing. You’ve got to not try to outsource your lovemaking and realize that that is the business. And if you want to be in business, you want to be an entrepreneur, like the entrepreneurial seizure you had trying to start this cake company or your whatever thing is that you sell. If you want that baby to survive and to live, being obsessed with the thing is not going to do it. It’s being obsessed with the marketing of the thing.
So I hope that helps, I appreciate you all. I’m going to go, I got a couple of hours to work, get my to-do list killed, crushed so I can have a Thanksgiving that’s not stressful. For those who know, us entrepreneurs, my buddy Alex Charfen always says, we’re all about momentum. So it’s like, Thanksgiving scares me because there’s no momentum. I gotta get so much momentum over the next four hours; before I gotta go back home that it will knock down any dominoes tomorrow that are standing up when I’m trying to relax with the family. So that’s it you guys. I appreciate you all, have an amazing day. Bye.