If you are looking for a book to read that will take your online marketing skills to the next level, then you are in luck. Selling online is quite different from face-to-face or brick and mortar sales. If you have not done it before, you’ll face a steep learning curve.
Why not learn the art of selling products online through an expert? Tony Robbins said “If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.”
There is someone who is an expert on the topic and has created successful online businesses. I am talking about Russell Brunson. He can definitely explain what works and what does not in selling products online. Russell is the author of a book called DotCom Secrets: The Underground Playbook For Growing Your Company Online. This review will tell you why it is a must have for your collection.
Table of Contents
Who is Russell Brunson?
Russell Brunson is a highly successful online entrepreneur. His first online success was back in college where he sold DVDs teaching people how to make potato guns. From there, he started selling everything from t-shirts to supplements.
He co-founded Etison LLC in 2014, where they launched the hugely successful ClickFunnels software.
Part of the reason why the software is so successful is because Russell created an entire ecosystem around ClickFunnels. This includes books like DotCom Secrets, as well as information products and live events. According to an article from Forbes, Etison LLC is now a 360 million dollar business. That article was way back in 2017, since then ClickFunnels have grown substantially. More impressively, the company was entirely self-funded.
Personally, I’ve listened to lots of different marketing and sales guru’s, but Russell is probably one of, if not the best. He has copious amounts of knowledge that he shares, but it is how he shares it, that makes him special. Russell focuses on making his knowledge something that an average person can understand. It’s not just about technobabble and attempting to show that he is the smartest person around. By building a plan with simple, actionable steps, he helps his clients and students actually achieve their goals.
As a fan, I can say that Russell believes in results. He actually walks the talk and you can see this by spending just five minutes in one of webinars or read a chapter in any of his books.
Who Should Read DotCom Secrets?
This book is for anyone who is interested in learning what is necessary to make a business successful online. The book was initially published in 2015 but the advice and strategies it provides holds as true today as it did then. If you are planning on starting an online business, or you’re currently running one, this is a must have book on your shelf. DotCom Secrets is what I would call a complete blueprint for running your online business.
At just over 250 pages, DotCom Secrets is an easy read and Russell’s writing is very enjoyable. He provides excellent and useful examples that help make his points clear. Real world stories from his own trials and tribulations help explain the “secrets” in a clear way. You will get a ton of actionable advice from reading this book.
Here is a quick video of Russell talking about the book when he was launching it for the first time back in 2015.
What’s In The Book?
The book is split into five clearly defined sections, which walk you through the process step-by-step.
Section One; Ladders and Funnels
Ladders– unlike snakes and ladders, the funnels here are useful to your business. Value ladders is a means of describing your pricing catalog, but in visual terms. Basically, a value ladder is a visual map of all the products and services you have available. Each step of the ladder is a higher price point with additional products and services.
Think about your ideal client. You’d want them to purchase your most expensive product, right? The chances of them doing that from day one are somewhat slim since they don’t know much about you or your company yet. This is where a value ladder comes into play. You can start selling them your least expensive products, the whole point here is to get them pulling out their wallets. As they understand the value that you bring, you will attempt to move your customers up the ladder to purchase your more expensive, but also more value-packed products.
Funnels are somewhat different. Here, people start out at the wide end (opening) of the funnel and gradually move down as they progress through the sales process. The goal is to move them through the funnel quickly and as they convert, get them back to the top for more!
Funnels do not work without an understanding of your customer base though. Without knowing what your customers want, you are simply not going to succeed with a sales funnel.
In addition to ladders and funnels, Russell also talks about traffic. He explains the differences between traffic you control and do not control and gets into further details about traffic you own. This is really important and quite possibly worth the cost of the book by itself.
Section Two; Your Communication Funnel
While the previous chapter discussed funnels, this one goes into more detail about your communication funnel. Russell talks about the important of an “attractive character” and how it is a crucial part of your funnels.
The attractive character is someone who had the same issues as your target consumer. By demonstrating how the strategies proposed are successful for them, it helps the consumers relate to their own problems that they are trying to solve with your products or services.
Russell also shows you how to draft proper emails to send to your customers after they have signed up for your email list. He even gives you scripts! At the end of the chapter, he gives you his “daily Seinfeld sequence” for emails.
Section Three; Funnelology
Just when you think you’ve learned everything you need to about funnels, Russell gives you even more. The third section of the book is all about funnels. Russell talks about how to create them, how to manage them, how to use them in the best possible way so you can see the best results.
Perhaps the coolest is how Russell goes into details about the building blocks of a funnel, including how best they should be used and where they should be placed for maximum impact.
My feeling at the end of this chapter was probably something akin to awe to be honest. I mean, the amount of information he’s providing is simply astounding.
Section Four; Funnels and Scripts
While you might have thought you’d learned everything you needed to about sales funnels, email funnels, communication funnels and just funnels in general, Russell goes further yet again. This time though, it is about how to make those funnels work for you through the use of scripts.
In the subsection on webinars for example, Russell walks you through the different email scripts you should use to make your webinars successful. He also talks about the different types of funnels like frontend funnel, middle and value ladder funnel, and backend funnels.
Section Five; ClickFunnels
In the last section, Russell shows you the power of ClickFunnels. As mentioned earlier, it’s the software for creating the types of sales funnels that Russell has been teaching you in the book.
Where to Get Dotcom Secrets?
If the information I have provided to you makes you at all excited, you are going to love the next part. This book and all of the knowledge that it provides to you, is free! All you need to do is pay for shipping and handling.
Even better, when you purchase directly from Russell’s website, you actually get an opportunity to see his 2-step free plus shipping funnel in action. This is a great introduction to how simple funnels work and you can take this understanding into the creation of your own funnel.
“You’ve Gotta Be Crazy” Guarantee
Here is what Russell stated on his website: “I 100% guarantee that you’ll love this book, or I’ll return your shipping fee and let you keep the book anyway. That’s right. You don’t even have to send anything back. Just email me or call the number on your receipt and I’ll give you back your money with no question asked.”
All I am going to say is… you’ve gotta be crazy not to take this deal.
Conclusion
I’m a bit of a fan of learning in general and this book was right up my alley. It offers really simple ideas presented in a logical manner that made me think, which was perfect. Real world examples often put these ideas into context for me and let me envision how I could best utilize the ideas in my online businesses.
I realized quickly in reading the book that it is not something you can read only once. This is a marketing playbook and it is best read and re-read over time as the steps are gradually implemented. If you are selling online already, or plan to do so in the future, this is definitely a book I recommend you have on your shelf. In addition, I would also recommend you to take a look at Russell’s new book, Expert Secrets. It is a step back from DotCom Secrets and gives you a blueprint for actually creating a business if you don’t already have one.
Claim your FREE copy of DotCom Secrets now!
I need this
It’s a great book for online marketer 🙂
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