I will be the first to admit that I am still a student of marketing and in this video, I share one of the most expensive lessons I have learnt after spending millions of dollars to acquire a software doodle company.
At first, I thought to myself; ”Bad news, you just bought a failing business…what next? Then I went to work.
Here is what I did to turn this failing business into one of the greatest ClickFunnels affiliates of all time.
Sponsors
Toonly →
Doodly →
Voomly →
Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
00:43 – In Today’s Episode
01:35 – Backstory
05:15 – The Acquisition
06:58 – The Problem
09:55 – Bridging The Gap
12:41 – The Future
13:35 – Recap
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We made a big mistake we shouldn’t have Bought this it’s losing money every Single day we wired tens of millions of Dollars for this company it went from Being really really profitable to not Profitable almost overnight where now we Were like losing money we’re like every Single day losing tens about hundreds of Thousands of dollars this is not the Highlight Reel of like we bought this Company it’s super successful this is Like all the rest of the stuff we Learned along the way that I wish I Would have known it would have saved me So much time energy and effort it was it Was crazy Hey this is Russell Brunson and you are Listening to the marketing Seekers Podcast I’m so excited to have you here Today I could have paid cash to buy a Private plane but instead I took that Money and invested in a hand doodle Whiteboard software company that turned Out to be one of the biggest mistakes in My life almost until we fixed it there’s Some big Ops some downs and a whole Bunch of stuff I want to show you guys Behind this is what we did I’m gonna Talk about what the company was what are The fronted offers were why we were so Excited by this specific company what Happened when we bought it and how Everything crashed to the ground the Things we learned to get people to
Actually migrate from their platform to Click funnels a bunch of things in the Future and uh and a whole bunch more I Want to put this intention for you guys As you’re listening this episode today As you’re listening to it I’m gonna Again I’m walking his behind the scenes Of this acquisition we did and you may Or may not be looking to acquire a Company it doesn’t matter the lessons I Learned along the way will be good for You no matter where you are This episode is actually brought to you By a really cool software company called Dudley.com if you go to Doodle you’ll Find about hand noodle software we’ll Talk more about that but they are Definitely sponsoring this episode but With that said you guys let’s jump in The podcast and have some fun you’re Listening to marketing secrets with your Host Russell Brunson backstory goes back To when I was in college and I was just First learning this whole internet Marketing game and one of the guys I met Also dabbling in internet marketing and His name was Brad Collins this has been Like man early 2000s 2001 2002. he was a Big SEO guy back in the day eventually He created a product called fat loss Factor which was a weight loss offer Which literally was like my favorite Funnel back in the day he had hand Doodle software that doodled out the
Sales video hey Brad Cowan here I own an Online video software development Company and I’ve been selling products And services online since 2002 so about And it converted great and he made tons Of money with it and eventually he sold That that business or that product and I Remember at the time he actually joined Me in a circle and he showed up and it Was funny because in their Circle Everyone would get up and talk about Their business and Brad got up he’s like I don’t have a business I sold my Business and like oh we don’t talk about He’s like I don’t know yet we’re trying To figure out what to do shortly after That I remember meeting messages back And forth and he said he wanted to Create uh doodle softwares like I had a Ton of success with it I want to create Doodle software and I was like there’s a Lot of people who have created doodle Software like that doesn’t seem that big Of a market like why would you even do That but he really wanted to and he Created the product and he launched it And I didn’t hear much about it and Again I have two or three friends that Actually sell hand doodle software so I Just like oh yeah it’s hand-doodle Software it’s like a year or two later I Was messaging Brad just asking him how It was going and he told me he said that We’re selling like 500 500 copies of
This doodle software a day and I was Like wait a day like 500 new buyers a Day he’s like yeah this is amazing and Then he’s like I took the model we Figured out and I I created a new Software called toonly so Dudley was Like the hand duel software toonly was Like a cartoon version we have cartoons And stuff and uh he said I have 500 Buyers a day he’s like we’re making tons Of money but it’s like but I don’t have What you have with clicks on and say I Don’t have a back-end like I wish I had A continuity program all these 500 People a day I could put him into I was Getting paid monthly but I didn’t have Something like that so the next two or Three years kept going back and forth With them and I remember he showed me He’s like I figured out this model and It’s the reason why I’m able to sell 500 Copies a day So what I did is like I created the Dooley.com home page if you go to that Homepage you notice that there’s the Sales page for the sales letter software And inside of it it’s like 67 a month For the software it’s like but I don’t Drive any traffic that page he’s like I Have a special page it’s like dooley.com Whatever Facebook or YouTube or whatever Wherever you’re driving traffic from is Like you go to that page instead of Selling it monthly uh we have a one-time
Fee where you pay 67 for Lifetime access To the software and the page it Literally says it’s like special offer Just for Facebook visitors normally 67 a Month if you go to the homepage because You’re here at 67 lifetime access right Now so that was the first thing like This irresistible offer where you go From 67 a month to 67 lifetime that was The offer they got 500 buyers a day to Come in so he’s making 67 for everyone That came in within his first upsell was A whole bunch of templates for people Who are using the software and he sold That for 97 one time for like three or Four thousand templates and his take Rate on on Oto one which is 97 offers Like 60 which is crazy they ended up Sell 2 two and three and like but the Funnel was just killing it right all These buyers are coming in but the Biggest thing he says he’s like I don’t Have continuity I’m a click funnels I Need to build something so he spent the Next couple years building out this Video like a video hosting platform Called Voom lady who’s gonna let he was Going to host all these videos on hi I’m Brad Cowan and today I’m extremely Excited to introduce you to boomley the First and only And then host your online videos and After you create it it’s actually really Really good and so what he was going to
Do is make it work when someone creates A video then they can host it on his Video platform that would be the Continuity he was gonna he was gonna Make from it and then for some reason he Created the continuity like the platform And then it never really took off I Don’t know exactly why if I’m completely Honest I know he tried to launch it one Way and then he tweaked it to be like This course creation platform and then He just never really figured it out and Brad decided he wanted to sell the Company And he actually reached out to me Because about the time is when we were Looking you know we were talking to People about potentially buying click Funnels he said hey do you have somebody That you could introduce me to so I was Like yeah I have this really good Business broker so I introduced Brad to The business broker and hadn’t even Crossed our mind that we would be Potentially you know we were potentially Going to buy it and by the time we Decided we weren’t going to sell click Funnels and instead we’re going to build Clickfunnels 2.0 and then one of the big Things that I kept thinking through is Like I want to figure out ways to have More non-russell bass front ends right Like my face is on the front end of all Of our front-end products and our
Courses and our things that bring people In The Click funnels which is cool but You know if we ever want to sell someday Or go public or whatever the next step Would be it’s weird if I’m the only Person if I get hit by a bus like what Happens to the company right so the Question was like how do we build more Non-russell based front ends that was Kind of the thought and then all of a Sudden Brad messaged me one day he’s Like hey we got three or four people Looking to buy the the platform and just Want your opinion on something we were Talking it also had this idea that Popped my head I was like he’s getting 500 buyers a day just on dooley.com it’s Like counting toonly.com and the other Ones like what if we bought that company And we put these 500 buyers a day got Them into click funnels like what would That look like that would that would be The huge like these are non-russell Based front ends they’re software front Ends like there’s there’s this thing He’s figured out the model he’s figured Out this thing he’s crushing it like we Should just we should buy that and also Now we have all these different front Ends that that aren’t you know aren’t my Face on them the opportunities seemed Really really good for us uh we took all The customer lists from for Brad’s Company and from ours and just to see if
Like you know if they’re the same Customers there’s only like a five Percent crossovers like 95 customers Were not click funnels members which in Our minds like this is this huge thing And so uh we all excited we decided to Buy it it was extremely expensive as you Can probably tell his company was Killing it this was our first big Acquisition we had to get a bank loan And like it was stressful and all those Kind of things First problem I ran into is right we’re About to close this whole deal at the Same time that Dave Woodward who is our CEO at the time who’s running the Company got his brain tumor so that was The first thing of just like we lost the Person who’s running the entire deal Which was you know a year later still Like just this been a really really hard Thing the second thing is we never Bought a company before so we didn’t Know how like how it works so we’re Buying this company with Brad and all These products and there’s like 100 Employees and so we buy this company and Then the date you would close on the day We closed then Brad’s like hey here’s The company like good luck you guys and And we I never even thought through like I think most companies have that are Buying companies have like a mergers and Acquisitions Department they’re like
Onboards people like we didn’t have Eight we didn’t think through any of That stuff so we bought the company Wired in the money and like oh this Company and this all of a sudden like we Have to hire 100 people we have to like Figure out contracts we have to figure Out and it was a nightmare we didn’t Have any migration planned and again I Lost Dave’s and I was like Russell like What are you gonna do with these 100 new Employees and I was like I have no idea So that was really really stressful and Painful we also found questions we Should have asked the company was Basically Brad and Brad’s insanely Talented so there’s Brad and then there Was like a hundred people working under Brad there was no organization there Were no managers there were no like all That kind of stuff that you have in a Typical company bread and having that He’s just super talented and managed all These people it’s when Brad’s little Company was gone all of a sudden like I Had 100 direct reports reporting back up To me and everyone asked me a thousand Questions and I was like I don’t even Know what to do right now like it was It Was kind of crazy the operations was not In place for that company Brad was Running his own ads he was you know he Would be checking ads hour by hour Minute by minute making tweaks and
Changes and like so when we had our ads To take it over you know they’re not Checking every single ad set multiple Times an hour like he was able to do so He was optimizing constantly tweaking The funnel tweaking stuff and like it Was his sole Focus for you know four or Five years he was building it up and so When we took it over and we’re plugging Into like a machine with a media buyers And people and all sorts of stuff and There’s different divisions from funnel Team and from ads team and like it went From being really really profitable to Not profitable almost overnight where Now we were like losing money where like Every single day losing tens if not Hundreds of thousands of dollars but Right it’s okay because we have this Huge customer list people are coming in Step number one let’s get all these People into click funnels maybe we’ll Add 10 or 20 000 people in Click funnels We promoted this big webinar to the Dooley and the toonly and all the Customer lists we had three or four Thousand people registered we’re like This is gonna be amazing hey my name is Russell Brunson and first off I want to Thank you so much for registering for The special web class we are doing for Dudley and toonly customers and about Halfway through the presentation I look Over to the comments they were not they
Were not going well people were upset They were complaining this is a sales Pitch what I quickly realized is that The customers who are buying Dooley and Tumi were not who I thought they were I Thought they were marketers using videos To Market their business when I found Out really quickly these people are Buying were people who were course Creators not business owners and Marketers these people had never done a Webinar I’ve never been sold to it was Bad we sold a few on the webinar but it Was not slam dunk by any stretch yeah That night we were all like stressed out And we’re like we made a big mistake we Shouldn’t have bought this it’s losing Money every single day the buyer’s not Buying click funnels and we’ve got 100 People messaging us for support we don’t Know what to do If I sat down and I wrote an entire Script that we’re gonna hand animate we Found one of the animators who did a lot Of work with Brad to do doodle videos It’s like here’s the script doodle this Video out and then um we found someone Who did the toon League videos and said Here’s the same script I tweaked some Things fortunately I need you to to make A toonly version of it and so now Someone went and a month or two going And making a doodly hand doodle video And a cartoon video the whole goal was
To take people from who are buying Doodly or buying to me and and bridge The gap so they would want to become Funnel Builders okay and so much of Marketing is just bridging apps so you Guys understand that like if you think About it Um whenever you’re trying to sell Whatever your product is like you’re Selling a book you know someone may not Like why do I need traffic Secrets Doesn’t make no sense well I need to Bridge a gap like would you have a Business a business needs customers Right customers are traffic that’s why It’s like to bridge this Gap with like Oh I actually need that thing right so All of business is about that figuring Like what is the result that you offer People what is the thing people are Looking for like how do you bridge the Gap between those two things and so Dudleyfunnels.com and two Leaf Funnels.com were a sales video to bridge The gap between where they were today And where I need them to go to actually Buy click funnels and from that it was Cool because we started seeing people Actually start signing up for click Funnels through these different funnels Right oh I think Kevin’s like not always Lost like we can we can bridge the gap We can convince these people why Funnels is what they need to really get
To the next level so we made those Bridges by me just taking my existing Webinar that converted for internet Marketers for the last 10 years and Trying to put it on these course Creators it wasn’t a bridge that they Were able to follow right I had to Create something very specific for them And after we had those things and they Were working then we went back and said Okay let’s go and let’s actually add the Dudeley funnels offer uh as upsell Number three in the funnel so went back Through and added upsell number three so Now when you go if you buy doodly you’ll See you know dude leave for 67 then There’s 97 lifetime pack and then There’s another offer and then it’s uh Click funnels trial which is basically Do the funnels video and then we push People to trial we have it on the Dooley Funnel and the toonly funnel built into The funnel now dudeley.com like that Funnel is one of the top 10 clickfunnels Affiliates that’s how much new trials They consistently bring in it’s one of The top 10 lead sources we have right Now which is amazing so it’s finally Starting to work I need to give credit Where credit is due when all this stuff Was happening and Kevin Richards who’s Been one of the man one of the greatest Gifts of my life over the last year and He came in and has become like our CMO
NCO of click funnels Kevin’s the one who Like took the Dooley funnels to the Funnels and after I built the sales Video on the initial sales layers weave Them into the click funnels funnels so Like he’s been just insanely good at Helpful for us to get these things in Place and so like how do you juggle all These things when you’re struggling like It’s finding more help it’s finding the Right people it’s um getting the right People who can whose skill set is to to Do these things and so I was lucky I was Able to find someone to help with that It took us a year to get the structure The people the offers the the bridge Points like all those things in place to Where now uh this becomes a really good Front-end engine to bring people into Click funnels and things like that Where we’re going so that you guys can Watch over the next couple of weeks Months and years I told you guys before That Brad had built a video hosting Platform called boomley video hosting is Like the big thing right like we can do Video hosting with boomley just as well If not better than them plus Brad had Built this really cool engine into it Like a video funnel engine where you can Build super complex video funnels Through the boomley player which is Insanely cool and so you’ll see the new Version it hasn’t launched yet but
Basically by Dudley or to me they all Kind of cross-sell inside of the Software on top of that we’re also going To be taking this video video funnels Technology and plugging into click Funnels so click funnels members will Hopefully stop using Vimeo and wistia And YouTube to host their videos or Start using boomley instead because First off it’s a better platform second Off you’re able to do video funnels Things like that and third off it’s just Gonna be super easy integration and so Over time I think loomly just the video Hosting platform could be a 20 30 40 Million dollar year business just by Itself Foreign There are a lot of things we learned on The way we learned that like you need to Have somebody in place of like migrating People over we learned that you got to Make sure when you’re buying companies You’re not just looking at like oh the Marketing like the ads are converting The funnels are good at us like who’s Looking at the operational side of Things like who’s going to manage these People like What’s it gonna look like Like is there a process for running ads Is there one Super Genius who is like Doing all the stuff and if he leaves and He’s leaving he sold the company like What happens like do the ads just crash
Like we’ve known now to ask the right Questions so hopefully that helps some Of you guys if you haven’t uh used Dudley or two Lia you should go check it Out but I would go to the home page You’ll see it’s 67 a month and then just Wait and we’ll retarget you and you’ll Get an ad somewhere that’ll give you the Lifetime deal so there’s your guys Homework is go let us stock you some ads And go find it out but then look behind The scenes like buy slowly watch the Funnel look at the process like for you To go and funnel Hack That and look at The process is worth at least the price Of buying the software so go buy a Software funnel hack it watch it and Then figure out how can I reverse Engineer a funnel like this for my Specific business thank you so much for Listening this episode if you enjoyed it Please share share with somebody you Know who could benefit from it let them Listen to it hopefully you guys enjoyed It and again if you have any questions For me about this episode or any Episodes go to marketing secrets.com on The homepage you can submit a question That’s come directly to me and I’ll ask Them on the next podcast episodes on top Of that when you go to marketing Secrets.com you can see the video a Version of this podcast you can see the Show notes a whole bunch of other stuff
Plus all the other past episodes you can Go and binge watch them there thank you Guys again for listening to the Marketing Secrets podcast
