Book SummaryExpert Secrets, by Russell Brunson

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Expert Secrets

Imagine you have a product or service that can change people’s lives—one that can help them reach their most ambitious goals financially or personally. If you don’t know how to effectively market it, your idea won’t make a difference in anyone’s life. Russell Brunson aims to solve this problem with Expert Secrets, a how-to guide for creating excitement for your idea that turns potential customers into lifelong buyers.

Brunson made his name selling online marketing...

Expert Secrets Summary Find Your Market

Brunson writes that to successfully launch a business, you must start by solidly identifying your market. Until you know who you’re aiming for, you can’t effectively come up with details for your offer.

(Shortform note: Brunson aims his advice mostly at companies targeting individuals as end-users and customers, so his recommendations on how to examine that market may not be as relevant to business-to-business companies. Instead, companies aiming to provide goods or services to other companies might be better off examining other factors—in Competitive Strategy, Michael Porter writes that the primary factor a business should consider is whether a market is controlled by a limited number of suppliers (such as chip-manufacturing industries that rely on just a few rare-earth miners). For businesses like this, the end-user isn’t as much of a concern.)

Determine Your Core Market

First, identify your core market by figuring out which of three basic human desires your product appeals to: wealth, health, or...

Expert Secrets Summary Start a Movement

Brunson writes that to launch a business that changes people’s lives—and also makes you lots of money—you’ll need to launch a movement, not just a product. The movement is what will inspire people to adopt your ideas and become lifelong customers. Your product is merely the tool to support the movement.

He writes that every successful movement has three elements:

• A charismatic leader
• An inspiring vision
• A new opportunity

We’ll examine each of these three aspects, and how you can bring them into your movement, in the following sections.

Why Are Movements Compelling?

Movements motivate people because they combine our instinct to be part of a group and our desire to be [part of a greater...

Expert Secrets Summary Become a Charismatic Leader

Brunson writes that people may check out your business because they’re curious about your product, but it’s your personality and their relationship with you that will convince them to stay.

Therefore, he advises that you create an attractive public personality and then build a relationship with your customers—specifically, one in which you act as an expert who can guide them to achieve their goals.

(Shortform note: Marketers often refer to this type of leader as an influencer—someone whose opinion (usually publicized on social media) is highly valued and who can convince others to make purchases because of that. Many businesses now conduct influencer marketing by hiring these influential people to recommend their products. Some have called this the contemporary version of celebrity marketing. Brunson’s advice to publicly develop your personality might be seen as advice to become your company’s personal influencer.)

Inspire Your...

Expert Secrets Summary Offer a Vision of a New Identity

Brunson writes that to create a movement that attracts people, you have to offer a vision of an idealistic future in which your customers are better versions of themselves. This vision should be one of both achievement and transformation, and Brunson emphasizes that it should be more than a mere improvement plan—it should prompt your audience to envision a completely new identity for themselves. For example, instead of selling an exercise plan that merely shows people how to do better sit-ups, help your customers envision themselves as masters of their health and bodies. This will engage them emotionally and turn them into lifelong customers.

To encourage your customers to envision this new identity, Brunson recommends that you create a manifesto stating your company’s vision in an inspiring way and helping your audience see...

Expert Secrets Summary Offer a New Opportunity

The third element of a movement is a new opportunity, which is the product or service you’ll offer to solve your customers’ problems. Brunson writes that you must ensure this idea isn’t merely an improvement on an existing product, but instead is something entirely new and original—this is how you’ll create and dominate an original category, as discussed earlier.

Brunson argues that unless your product creates a new category, you won’t create a movement that engages people and creates fans. He notes that Steve Jobs didn’t just offer a faster or bigger CD player, but instead created a new category—a way to carry your entire music collection in your pocket (with an iPod). If he’d merely developed an improved music player, he wouldn’t have inspired the following he attracted.

Possible Limits of New Markets and New Identities

In many aspects of Brunson’s advice, he emphasizes the need to set your company apart from competitors in any way possible, and as such, his advice to create a completely new category with your opportunity aligns with his advice to help your customers create a completely new identity. It’s worth noting that Steve Jobs’s product creations...

Expert Secrets Summary Use Stories to Sell Your Product

So far, we’ve examined Bruson’s advice on how to create your product and your company. We’ll now turn to Brunson’s thoughts on how to present your product and company in a way that will excite customers and turn them into lifelong users.

Brunson writes that to effectively engage your customers, you need to tell them not only about your product but also about the story behind it—the problems you faced and how you came up with your idea to solve them. By sharing this story, you’ll help your audience understand the “aha” moment that hooked you into your idea emotionally, and it will likewise hook them emotionally.

Brunson emphasizes that this is the only way to spur them to become customers, because people make purchasing decisions when they’re emotionally invested in an idea, not when they logically understand it. Thus, even if they mentally understand and agree with your concepts, they won’t adopt them if they’re not emotionally involved, and your company won’t change their lives.

Why We Buy Emotionally

In Pitch Anything, Oren Klaff also writes that to convince people to buy...

Expert Secrets Summary How to Sell to a Large Audience

Brunson notes that if you’re able to present your frameworks to a large audience—for example, at a live event or through a webinar—you can supercharge your business by selling a high volume at once. He cautions that you must use different strategies when addressing a large crowd. Since you can’t ask questions of your audience as you would when speaking to one person or a small group, you can’t respond to their individual answers, concerns, objections, and so forth.

(Shortform note: While it can be harder to present to a large audience because you can’t respond to individual questions, some experts note that large audiences can have advantages, too. People in large groups feel more anonymous, and so are more likely to sit back and let you present without interrupting—unlike in a smaller group where you might have more trouble staying on course. Large audiences can also [have more...

Shortform Exercise: Choose a Market

Brunson advises that when choosing a market, you narrow your focus to find a niche category that doesn't have a strong established leader. In this exercise, think through how you might do that.

Start with your overall core market: Are you looking to answer a need for wealth, health, or relationships?