Key Takeaways - EXPERT SECRETS by Russell Brunson

"You are no longer going to look at your business as a product or service, or even an offer, but instead you'll look at it as a movement of people that you've been called to serve."

The first section of the book talked about creating a movement and how people have done that in the past. There were three main things in common that Brunson noticed through his research: 1) each had a charismatic leader, 2) each offered their audience a new opportunity, and 3) each created a future-based cause. To wrap it up into one sentence: "The expert offers someone a new opportunity and then guides them to a result with a future-based cause."

I like the framework. It's simple and executable. The questions I left the book thinking about this morning were, what is the opportunity that I'm offering to my customers? What is our future-based cause? Am I being the charismatic leader worth following? Am I making it easy for those who want to be led to opt in?

Secret #1 of the book is "Finding Your Voice." Finding your voice involves the process of becoming an expert which I have shared the model for in the attached photo.

I have realized that becoming an expert is the steps of building a model that you operate by, testing it in your life, and then teaching it to others.

It starts with the "Dreamer" role. The dreamer's job is to develop a passion for a topic. Brunson defines passion as "Fascination + Mastery." Reading and practicing becomes your mantra.

The next phase is to become a "Reporter." In this phase you find ways to interview from experts and share the content you've learned with the world. You are looking for as many viewpoints as possible from as many different people as possible. This phase is still all about your growth.

The third phase is to become a "Framework Builder," aka model builder. This is the phase where you go from a personal growth focus to a contributor of someone else's growth. The idea is to picture what your operating model is that you are achieving success with and capture that in a framework so others can learn and implement it. This is your "___-step model for achieving ___."

None of this content is earth-shattering, but it is so nice to simplify the process of building models and giving a framework for how to use them. We all operate by models, but do we test them? Do we look for ways to make them better? Do we know them well enough to teach others so their lives can be better? Seek to become an expert.

"People are silently begging to be led." - Jay Abraham

#4 Servant and #5 Expert. Servant is where you take your success framework that you've tested on yourself and test it on others for free. You teach and help them achieve results in their business to ensure what you are teaching actually produces results. After you have proved that it works for yourself and others, then you move into the Expert phase and actually charge for your services. That doesn't mean that you stop serving. It means that you have a framework that should be sold.

I loved Brunson's response to the objection, "who am I to call myself an expert or teacher of anything?" He shared a lesson he learned in the past that you don't have to be the best in the world at anything. All you have to be is one step ahead of those you are teaching. The point is that don't let the fact that someone is better than you stop you from helping others. If you are one step ahead of someone, then lead them. In this life we are here to help. Look around and pull those people up who are one step behind you.

The screenshot of the book section shares the marketing message really well. There's not a lot of movement when you do what everyone else is doing. True progress or growth happens when you are prolific in some way. You want to take a stand for something, but do so without acting crazy.

Here's the leadership lesson hidden in the marketing message. The best way to not act crazy is to stand for what you believe in with love. Love is patient, love is kind, love does not hold grudges, love does not boast, love forgives... When you stand for something with love you can put yourself in another's shoes and appreciate their stance. It doesn't mean that you give up on your position, but it does mean that you don't act crazy. Leaders can't act crazy. We must be steady.

I closed out "Secret #2" this morning and the content focused on teaching our "framework" for executing what we are best at. In our company, we use the word, model, instead of framework, but they are the same thing. When you operate by known models it makes teaching others a lot easier.

Brunson's framework for how to teach frameworks is:

1. Share how you learned or earned the framework

2. Share the strategy (what you do)

3. Teach the tactics (how you do it)

4. Show how it works for others

Operating by models makes teaching easier.

Positioning is one of the most important decisions you can make when building a successful business. The idea is to go build something that you can sell in its own category and be the "king" of that category. When you secure yourself as a category king, you leave the rest of the future competitors to fight over the scraps of the category.

There are three core markets or desires that we all fit into according to Brunson: 1) Health, 2) Wealth, and 3) Relationships. Every product or service advertising campaign fits into one of these. Most people will try to attack two categories at once and that actually causes more damage than good. The real goal is to get deep in a market. To get deep, you'd choose a "Submarket" within a category. You know it's a true submarket when there is a celebrity in that submarket - think Dave Ramsey for debt relief. The next step would be to create a "Niche" within the submarket that you can be the king. Brunson referenced the book "Blue Ocean Strategy." You want to find blue ocean where there are few competition "sharks" or competitors.

The goal is to dominate an area of the marketplace and then grow from there. The more broad with get with our advertising, the harder it will be to be influential. What core market are we in? What submarket? What niche could we create that we'd be the top product or service in immediately? Where are those potential customers shopping for a product? What's your message to that group?

Most products and services are attempting to win business in submarkets that already have a lot of existing competition. Brunson shares that all submarkets are made up of three types of prospects: 1) the diehards, 2) the satisfied, and 3) the frustrated. The group we should focus on are the frustrated. Brunson defines them as, people who once were excited, but are so frustrated now that they are eager for the next purchase. The other two groups won’t make the change because they are either happy or the switching costs are more painful than the current issues they have.

Winning the frustrated will come down to how effective your positioning is against the competition. The offer you make to those folks will compete with the current product or complement it. You can win business either way, but your messaging should be focused on an approach.

What are the products or services in your submarket that are winning most of the business? What can you offer that is better or different? How should you communicate that value? Find the frustrated and help them find happiness with your value.

People want a new opportunity, and most of the world will offer improved opportunities. The main reason why people won't go with an improved offer is because it has a higher risk of decreasing their status then increasing it. It's hard to create an improvement of a product or service that provides a true increase in status.

It's hard to swallow we can be so influenced by status, but almost all of our decisions are made based on our ability to increase our status. This balancing act is going on in our heads at all times. We hope for an increase in status while balancing the fear of decreased status. Focusing on status isn't always a bad thing. We could be focused on elevating our status a good person which will prevent us from doing certain things perceived as evil.

When you launch a new opportunity for the world, you create the best chance to influence people by an increase in status. Elevated status will mean something different for every person, but some factors are universal: 1) Appearance of intelligence, 2) Appearance of wealth, power, or happiness, 3) Physical appearance, and 4) Style. How can you position your product or service as a new opportunity? How will it increase someone's status? How can you minimize the perceived risk of someone losing status?

Building from our focus on "Status" last post, the safest way to offer more to your dream customer is to give them the option of a new opportunity. The new opportunity is a new way of doing something to achieve more success (higher status) than they have today. The offer being new makes it much less risky. Brunson recommends 4 steps for offering a new opportunity:

Step 1 - What is the result that your dream customers are trying to achieve?

Step 2 - What is the "vehicle" they are currently using to try to get that result?

Step 3 - The opportunity switch

Step 4 - The opportunity stack

The "Opportunity Stack" isn't building several new opportunities for your dream customer to take advantage of. The opportunity stack is offering the new vehicle to your dream customer a number of different ways. It's packaging, and re-packaging, the new opportunity multiple ways so that your dream customer gets deep into the new opportunity. Think #1 buying the software, #2 watching the webinar trainings, #3 attending a live event, #4 getting a certification, #5 reading a book on it... and so on.

Don't get yourself tied up with offering an improvement to another service that's not working or confusing your customer because you are offering something new continuously. Offer something new and then ways to get deep into that offering.

All businesses should use information products to grow, and your framework is what you'll use.

There are two approaches to leverage information products to grow identified by Brunson: 1) Those companies that sell information products and 2) Those companies that leverage information products to fuel their product or service sales.

Information products all start with you capturing the framework of how you are successful with your product or service. Next, you increase the value of that framework by changing the experience of how someone consumes it. Think going from written word to audio. You can also change how you fulfill the framework. For example, you can go from an YouTube video to a live event. In both of these steps, you'll be increasing the value of your offer so you'll be able to charge more.

The next natural step for your company is to build tools that support the use of the information that you are providing. Tools have a lot more perceived value than information and rightfully so because of the cost to create and deliver. When created correctly the production of those using your framework will increase.

The last step for successfully executing on offering your information products is value stacking - Brunson's offer template is called a "Stack Slide." The goal here is to show so much perceived value that it's easy to see what you'll receive is a minimum of 10x the value of what you'll pay. It's combining everything above in an easy "slide" to close on a sale.

All businesses have their core products, but how many businesses are working as hard as Brunson to package and deliver it? Not many is the answer. I recommend we all follow this model.

"Where there is no vision, the people will perish." -Proverbs 29:18

Solving problems, providing opportunity, making a new offer, etcetera all help people move forward with decisions, but the most persuasive offer you can make is to help them create a future-based cause. People want someone to guide them on a journey of both achievement and transformation. A perfect example is President Trump's slogan, "Make America Great Again." He didn't focus his vision on today's issues. He made his mantra about the future and it won him the most powerful position on the planet.

The art in creating your mantra (vision for transformation) is to be specific enough so that it's clear your product is what will get people to their desired future, but not so specific that it alienates many because they don't want the future you specified. You need an emotional connection from your following. The calling must be simple and give them the belief that they can get what they desire. Continue to ask throughout your creative process, am I reaching who I want to with this message?

The skill of communicating a vision is so important for leaders. Brunson reminds us that it's not just for internal organization purposes, but also for those who follow outside your organization.

"When you give your customers a new identity, they will become your true fans."

Achievement and transformation. The biggest takeaway that I had from this section is to make the identity shift super simple for your customer. Give them an "I'm a..." or an "I [do something]" statement that's easy to remember and they can identify with. Brunson's statements are: "I'm a Funnel Hacker" and "I build funnels." These statements make it easy for his "tribe" to identify themselves and share what they do.

The next step would be building your tribe's "manifesto." Brunson built his by asking himself: "Who are my Funnel Hackers?" "What do we stand for?" "Who are we trying to become?" The idea would be to answer these questions on a one-pager that the tribe could all carry with them, put on a T-shirt, make into a poster, or anything else that could be a reminder.

When your team takes on their new identity you know they have bought into the vision. Give them a rallying cry that can be used to motivate themselves and others toward the goal.

I just read this morning the last section of Brunson's model for being an expert guide for your customers along the path to your future-based cause.

The last two steps were to take your customers on: 1) a journey of achievement and 2) a journey of transformation.

The Journey of Achievement is natural and it's all about creating an incentive to reach higher levels of achievement. In Brunson's business he has awards for $1M in production, $10M in production, and now one of $100M. Most people want growth, but they don't create a clear definition for themselves. If they don't do that, then you should do it for them. There needs to be a feeling of being successful at some point. It's important for the way they view your product or service.

The Journey of Transformation is not something your customers know they are after, but it's the unrecognized needs that they want you to fulfill. Even if you achieve results for them, your customers (and employees) will eventually go somewhere else for more out of life - even if they can't define it. Our job is to teach them how to do good. We need to teach them to be givers. We can show them by our example, but the best way is to make it easy for them. Bring your customers on your giving mission and make them feel like they are a big reason for why it's successful. The goal is for us all to transform into something more.

What is your real mission on this planet? Is it to make more money? How can you change someone's life? How can you change dozens, hundreds, or thousands of lives? We need to do more and take others with us.?

This morning I moved into a new section of the book titled, "Creating Belief."

The first secret explained in this section is The Epiphany Bridge. The first concept to understand is that we aren't trying to sell anyone anything. What your approach should be is to help guide them to their own decision. When you do this effectively you'll have buy-in from your customer because they will have sold themselves.

To create your Epiphany Bridge and be the guide for your customers, you first need to go back to your big epiphany. What caused you to have that major Aha when you emotionally bought into the concept that you are now selling? Epiphanies usually include a guide, but there are always stories for how you first emotionally connected with the idea. The story is what you must capture and get really good at telling. People buy based on emotions and the story is what creates those emotions.

The biggest mistake you can make when guiding someone to a decision is to throw too many logical data points at them too quickly in the process. That's why we have the Epiphany Bridge concept. You must help them form an emotional connect first, then provide them logical data so they can justify their emotions. If you provide the data first, you'll just annoy them. Remember, there's a status component in all buying decisions which is largely emotional. Emotions are number one. This sentence says it all, "I'm emotionally attached to the status that the new Ferrari will give me, but I need to justify it logically to my friends and family so I don't lose status with them."

You have no choice. To be a good salesperson, you must be a good storyteller.

Brunson simplifies how to be a great storyteller into three key areas of focus: 1) Oversimplification, 2) "Kinda like" bridge, and 3) Making them feel. Oversimplification is exactly what you think it is. You must tell your story as if you were speaking to a third grader. Research shows that a third grade level is where most people feel comfortable digesting information. When you get any higher than third grade, a portion of your audience will start to zone out. The "kinda like" bridge goes really well with oversimplification. There will be words or concepts that you have to use in the story that will be beyond the third grade level. When that occurs, you should leverage a tactic similar to the "kinda like" bridge. It's a means of explaining a complex topic by relating it to a concept that your customer surely knows. "A" [complex topic] is kinda like "B" [easy example]. People will stay engaged with your story because they can relate to the example you shared. Making them feel is where you create most of your value in the story. When you are telling a story, think of yourself as a nonfiction writer or a movie producer. Don't simplify the setup so much that people can't visualize what's going on. Go into detail on the situation, explain the surrounds, and describe intimately the feelings that took place during your experience. You want the people engaged in your story to feel the exact same feelings you did in the moment. Only detail can make that happen.

Stories create emotions, and emotions drive behavior. One of the best ways to drive home lessons learned with your team is to tell them a story from your experience. When you tell the story effectively, they'll have the same result you did when you learned the lesson without actually having to go through the same experience. Leaders speed up the team's growth when this is done well.

"Every good story is about a captivating character who is pursuing some compelling desire and who faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles to achieving it." Russell Brunson, Expert Secrets

To sell effectively, we need to be great storytellers. Brunson's quote above is the longer version of a simple storytelling model. The simplified version is every good story has 1) a Character, 2) a Conflict, and 3) a Desire. Little Red Riding Hood: 1) Character = Little Red Riding Hood, 2) Desire = Take a basket of cookies to her grandma, and 3) Conflict = Big Bad Wolf.

There are levels of detail that you must expand on within each part of the story, but these are the core elements. You miss, or not stress, any of these three parts and your story will be forgotten. Are you being structured enough with your stories? Do you give each part enough thought? Are you putting enough detail into each part?

Salespeople (and Leaders) are storytellers. Make yourself great at telling them.

There are 5 Phases to telling a great story:

1. The Backstory

2. The Journey

3. New Opportunity

4. The Framework

5. Achievement and Transformation

Whether you have 30 seconds or 2 hours to tell a story, I think this is a great model to leverage. Be intentional with your storytelling plan. It matters.

“Every day we tell ourselves stories. We create stories to give meaning to our lives, to justify what we want to experience or feel, and to give ourselves a framework upon which to build future stories.” –Tony Robbins

The chapter this morning was a format for building out an inventory of stories to use when teaching and training. I have depended on memory up to this point to keep up with all of my stories and intend to write them all out. The goal is to have a list of stories, what obstacles they are meant to challenge, and the outcomes or lessens they are intended to produce.

Do you have a list of stories to leverage when leading and selling? Could you create a structure for capturing stories so you could easily draw on them in the future? It would be smart to do this.

What is the biggest thing to understand when presenting the "Perfect Webinar?"

Brunson stresses the importance of understanding that the entire presentation should be designed to get your audience to believe one thing: that your opportunity is the key to them getting the result they desire the most. He calls this concept, "The Big Domino." He goes on to say that great teachers usually aren't great at performing the best sales webinars because they either give too much away or they try to get the audience to believe a lot of things. There are three parts to the perfect webinar: 1) the Big Domino, 2) the Three Secrets, and 3) the Stack and Closes. The key to it all is to have a "single point of belief that your message is built around and is emphasized over and over again from a variety of different angels." It's maintaining a singular focus that will make the webinar successful.

The message for me was to not let my desire to be a great teacher of many things get in the way of accomplishing my overall objective. I must stay focused on the singular outcome and create a plan that will accomplish that without distraction.

"My whole goal is to slow down and look around. Instead of looking for all of the tasks that I could do, I try to identify the one Big Domino - the One Thing that, if I could knock that down, all other dominos would either fall down or become irrelevant." -Tim Ferris

I've heard this general message numerous times from multiple productivity leaders and it's one to internalize. The Big Domino point is the reason why people tell you to slow down so you can speed up. You must be clear about the priority, the Big Domino, and that requires a thoughtful approach. To be thoughtful, you must spend time thinking.

Are you spending time thinking about your activities? Are you attacking the number 1 priority in your business? How about in your life? Get clear on the Big Domino and you'll reach your desires faster.

In "Expert Secrets" this morning, I continued to dig deeper into the most influential way to sell your product and/or service online. The biggest point made today is at some point you'll have to address and overcome false beliefs the buyer has that are preventing them from buying. Brunson identifies three beliefs that he targets in every presentation, but you should make a full list of potential false beliefs for every opportunity. Brunson's big three are: 1) not believing in your product or service, 2) not believing that they (the buyer) have the skills to use it, and 3) not believing they could overcome outside forces that will prevent them from being successful.

People won't overcome these beliefs themselves. They need help thinking through it and success stories that they can identify with. As the guide, you'll need to share with them what they'll need to do to be successful, but you sell the how. The how is all of the details for executing the what. If you were to go into that, then you'd lose the interest of most that you are presenting to and have nothing to sell in the end.

We all must be ahead of our prospects and leading them to success. Brunson presented some data that was motivating for sales people. When you get people to actually buy, they commit. When people truly commit they have their best chance of improving their lives. Be structured in how you deliver your sales opportunity so when you know you can actually help someone have more success you'll be successful.

"... the only thing prospects remember when you sell is the last thing you show them." -Armand Morin

The chapter was over 30 pages and had a lot of content so I'll do my best to summarize. The main takeaway is to be sure that your prospect understands ALL of the value that they are receiving, how your solution will address their issues, how the price is a fraction of the retail value, and that you guarantee success. Depending on the amount of time that you have to present, you could do all of this in a script from one slide or you'd create a slide to address all of the many pieces of this. Brunson spends about 20% of his presentation time going over this content. He has learned to not rush this part. Your offering must be crystal clear and non-threatening.

I'm about 75% complete with this book and am motivated to spend more time planning all of my communication. This book, which is 340 pages long, is one part of his three-part book series on planning communication for sales. Most of our problems in business, because we deal with people, are a result of poor communication. Want growth in all areas of your business? Focus on effective communication.?

Don't let the first time you ask for someone's business be the first time they are saying yes.

Brunson shared his concept of "Mini Closes" in this morning's chapter. The main takeaway is that you want your prospect saying yes throughout your presentation so that there is momentum at the end for the final close. The questions you ask to get a yes don't have to be anything too creative. Think "yes" momentum for direction. If you want to be super intentional about the yes/no questions you ask, then build questions around possible prospect objections and fears. The answers need to be obvious yes's though so be thoughtful in your wording.

Yes momentum should be used when leading too. You want buy in for all that you ask your team to do for the company. When you have to make a hard ask of them, make sure the first yes isn't the final ask. We need to warm them up and get them moving in our direction before we surprise them.

Use Mini Closes to increase your success in the Big close.

Refine what you have for a year before you try something new.

That's the guidance from Brunson on your sales webinar. When he builds a sales funnel and presentation to go with it, he'll continue to work on that funnel until one of two things happen: 1) 12 months go by or 2) revenue hits the "2 comma club." Either way, Brunson will say that the presentation is ready to be recorded at this time and he can move on to creating the next funnel and presentation.

Many of us are quick to try something new when sales are going our way. Let's not be too quick to throw out our good idea. Get curious with the "failure." What were the questions asked? Where were we losing prospects along the way? Are we selling our product/service or are we truly putting ourselves in the prospect's shoes? Refine what you have until you know it's the best it can be.

Today was all about running the perfect sales webinar. This screenshot shows what Brunson does, but the most surprising thing for me was his frequency. He executes a webinar every Thursday throughout the whole year. His point is that once you have a lead generation method that attracts and a registration page that converts, then it makes sense to run them consistently. It doesn't mean that you stop trying to improve you processes. Brunson A/B tests everything. It means that you execute a call to action weekly.?

Today, I learned Brunson's hack on creating a "Perfect Webinar" in 15 minutes. The chapter reminded me of an experience I had in Ranger School.

Every "Ranger" must plan, deliver, and lead a mission in every phase. During the Mountain phase, I was tagged the leader and the instructors gave me 15 minutes to prepare before stepping off. In the military we practice what we call the 1/3, 2/3 rule. This rule states that a leader should take only 1/3 of the available time to prepare and deliver his plan allowing 2/3 of the available time as preparing time for the team. This meant that I had 5 minutes to plan a whole mission.

What's the point of this story? When you have a model to execute something with you need very little time. I had a model that I had rehearsed repeatedly for planning an operation and understood what parts of it were absolutely critical. I wasted none of my 5 minutes preparing a format, prioritizing, or organizing. All 5 minutes were used preparing the actual content needed to execute a successful mission.

What is your planning model? What is your webinar model? We all should keep our models front of mind so we never waste time.?

Finished up "Expert Secrets" today. I recommend it. Brunson has a gift for breaking things down into an executable model. The book leaves little out for guessing and is great for people with all levels of experience of advertising.

Here are a few high level takeaways: 1) Video is SO important for all levels of a sales funnel (lumping webinars in here), 2) Do something to advertise every day on the platform of your choice, and 3) Tweak your sales funnel approach for a year before moving on to something else.?

Every day I spend time in the early morning reading books to grow my knowledge in business, wealth, religion and more. I share the key takeaways from my week of reading with in?Exclusive Weekly Leader Note?to a group of motivated business professionals – if you would like to join the group, you can sign up here.

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