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RUSSELL BRUNSON: FUNNEL MASTERCLASS
6 lessons on building a 1 million-dollar marketing funnel from Russell Brunson...
Niall Ratcliffe
September 29, 2024
In partnership with
Morning!
Another blank page. Another airport. Another day of travel. I’m writing this in Detroit, Michigan airport waiting for my connecting flight back home.
For a man who isn’t a massive fan of travelling, I somehow always find myself in the airport.
But what better time to throw down a 1500-word marketing essay?
For the last 3 weeks I’ve been obsessing over marketing funnels, so I’m about to brain vomit everything I’ve learned.
Here’s what you’ll learn today:
What makes a great marketing funnel
All the key parts you need to include
Why I’m building one to make $ 1M in 2025.
Listen to the audio version HERE
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION
BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY
If you’re reading this, you probably know what a marketing funnel. If you don’t it’s essentially the process of taking a prospect from not knowing about you to buying your product/service.
Now, if you asked me 3 weeks ago if I knew all there was to know about marketing funnels - I probably would have said yes… Then I bought the audiobook of Dotcom Secrets by Russell Brunson.
When I’d seen him online, Russell seemed like this grandiose Grant Cardone-type character, so I’d never bought the book.
But it’s safe to say, I now wish I read this book years earlier. Because about two chapters in he said something that made me rethink our entire marketing strategy.
When talking about a conversation with a past client of his, Russell said:
You need to drive at least $1 million through a single funnel before creating any new funnels or products.
In that moment, I realised I was making a schoolboy error with all of our marketing.
I was constantly on the hunt.
Looking for a new way to drive leads.
Thinking of a clever way to get attention.
Building out new funnels with different propositions.
When what I need to be doing is doubling and tripling down on one funnel.
Finding one way to drive new business, then constantly finding ways to improve it. So much so, that we drove $1 million directly through it.
Russell had made me aware of a blaring error and I was desperate to fix it.
So I binge-listened through the book in the space of 2 weeks. Then spent and another 20+ hours researching how to create the perfect marketing funnel.
Here are the 7 biggest lessons I wrote down (steal them for your own marketing):
Lesson 1: Funnel Hacking
The irony of marketing is that someone is probably already killing it in your space.
While you’re trying to build a $ 1 million funnel.
They have a funnel that works.
They’ve optimised it for years.
It’s working on your target audience.
So why start from scratch when you have a clear example that works?
Russell says:
As #FunnelHackers, we don't create from scratch… we build from what already works!!! Every time I go to build a new funnel, I'm looking at all these different ideas as inspiration to model, but then I go and create something new, something better…
Funnel hacking is not about stealing, copying, or duplicating, but rather about studying what works and applying it to your business.
At its core, it’s a pretty basic idea.
Find a funnel that works → Model it → Base your own off it.
Yet I feel like most marketers completely overlook this method.
We often take pride in the fact we start with a blank page, but Russell reminded me of how stupid that is when building a funnel.
Great funnels take years of split testing & optimisation.
So find a funnel that works and model it for your service/product.
This is what Russell refers to as “Funnel Hacking”.
Lesson 2: Why 99% Of Websites Fail
We spent something like £3000 getting our website developed, then maybe another £2500 over the years getting it updated.
Yet there hasn’t been one client in the 3 years of it going live that has signed directly from coming across our website or through the contact form.
But we’re not the only company to have a “failing” website. In fact, Russell estimates that 99% of company websites fail just like ours - all because of one simple reason:
→ “A confused mind always says no.”
Russell explains that most websites give a lot of information, yet tell visitors to everything and nothing at the same time.
How Russell sees traditional websites
You have:
A “What we do” page.
A “Meet the team” page.
A “Case studies” page.
And every single one has:
Too many buttons.
No outcome for visitors.
Completely different headlines.
In other words, it does a whole lot of nothing.
This is why Russell loves to create funnels with simple landing pages where every page has 1 clear call to action.
Page 1: Sign up for the webinar.
Page 2: Grab this free PDF to prep for the webinar.
Page 3: Skip waiting and book a call with the team.
Each page has 1 simple objective, 1 simple outcome, and everything on the page is tailored to make that visitor to take that 1 action.
Lesson 3: Your Headline Has To Match Your Traffic Temperature
I was frying eggs when I first heard this lesson. I instantly paused the book, opened my notes app, hit play, then vigorously wrote this lesson down while my eggs burned beside me.
It was genius, yet so simple - how all the best lessons are.
In this chapter, Russell explained that there are 3 temperatures of traffic:
Hot traffic → Aware of you and your solution.
Warm traffic → Not aware of you, but are aware of the solutions to their problem.
Cold traffic → Not aware of you or your product, but have a problem.
You can also group these into:
Problem aware
Solution aware
Product aware
But this wasn’t the part that I burned my eggs for, the part I burned my eggs for was when Russell said…
You need to create separate landing pages to match the temperature of your traffic
He went on to explain how that looks for each category:
1/ Hot Traffic
Your headline should start with the product.
You also want to include heavy personality throughout the landing page. These people think they know you, so talk like you’re their friend.
2/ Warm Traffic
Your headline should start with the desire.
They already know about your competitors, so you have to use the page to convince them you can get them to their desired destination.
3/ Cold Traffic
Your headline should start with the problem.
They don’t know who you are or what you do, but they have a problem - you need to convince them you can solve it. Focus on showing them you’ve been where they are.
Lesson 4: Change Your Bait, Change Your Customer
I don’t think I’ve ever met a business owner who doesn’t complain about the quality of leads he’s currently getting.
No matter how successful, no matter how great their leads are - everyone wants to work with “Bigger” or “Better” customers.
Russell has a very simple saying to solve this problem, “Change your bait, change your customer.”
He says,
If you don't like your customers, that's your fault, not theirs.
You attract customers based on the content and offers you put in the marketplace. They are your bait.
If you change your bait, you'll change your customer
If you want bigger clients, talk about things that bigger clients care about.
You can’t use the same “bait” and expect different fish to bite on it.
Lesson 5: The Diamond Is In The Backstory
Some people laugh at me on LinkedIn for talking so much about Morgan and my transformation story.
Those people forget that it’s stories like those that have built our company.
And Russell happens to agree with me on this, he says:
"You will get tired of hearing your backstory way before your market gets tired of it, so you need to start sharing it a lot.”
But I think the reason most people roll their eyes when they see these backstories online is that they don’t understand why they are so powerful.
Russell says:
"People won’t care about any of the success you’ve had, and they won’t follow you or your advice until they know that you’ve been where they are now.”
I couldn’t agree with him more.
People think you can just throw results and case studies in prospects’ faces and expect them to be on their knees for you. Spoiler alert → That won’t work.
The most valuable thing you can do as a marketer is show you where in the prospect’s shoes once and show them you can get them out of it.
This is such a key step think to include on your funnel landing page.
Lesson 6: Hook → Story → Offer
Talking about stories, in the book, Russell breaks down his funnel landing page formula and stories are right at the core of it.
Russell says he structures all of his pages into 3 steps: Hook → Story → Offer
1/ The Hook
The hook is essentially just the bait we talked about earlier. It’s the initial element that grabs your audience's attention. It needs to be focused on what they want from the landing page, as well as what will interest them most.
2/ The Story
Once you've captured attention, the story builds an emotional connection and trust. The whole aim of these stories is to show you were in their shoes and can solve their problem.
3/ The Offer
The offer is where you present your solution—the product or service that can help your audience achieve the results they clicked on the page to get.
I like this formula a lot.
On the story part of this, Russell says,
"The best teachers in the world teach in parables. So start building out a Rolodex of parables that you can use again and again.”
And if that ain’t great marketing advice, I don’t know what is.
🌱 THE GREENHOUSE
Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:
TL;DR
1/ Hack Other Funnels
2/ Landers Need 1 CTA
3/ Match Headline To Temperature
4/ Change Bait, Change Customer
5/ The Diamond Is In The Backstory
6/ The Formula: Hook → Story → Offer
2 weeks of studying, wrapped up in 2000 words.
I have been obsessing over these funnels for hours every day and I highly recommend you go and watch that Russell Brunson podcast I linked above to get a taste of what Russell talks about.
We’re actually releasing our first ClickFunnels marketing funnel next week, very excited to get it out there and update you with how it converts.
Anyway, I hope you found this useful.
If you did, why not forward this to a friend?
Until next Sunday.
— Niall
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